Another friend dead! I’m starting to feel this race against time, hot against the back of my neck. In fact, it’s getting personal! Thusly, I’m crankin’ the tunes, drinking wodka, looking over my shoulder.

One of my dear LA friends, Brendan Mullen, with whom I exchanged FB messages only a few days ago has expired after suffering a massive stroke. I didn’t think of him as *old.* Brendan was working on a new book, had asked me to nail down the year of a Zellots poster from a show at the John Anson Ford Theatre we played with Faith No More and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I said, sure Brendan, I’ll get back to you, no problem. We always assume there is time, a next time.

To say that Brendan was a vital part of the west coast punk rock scene-a catalyst-as founder of the Masque in Los Angeles is an understatement. He was an alchemist, who despite the ephemeral nature of the performing arts routinely employed his intuition, power and skills to conjure up radical, earth shaking events, and thus history.

He continued propelling all that was raw and edgewise. In the beginning he provided a vital venue to bands like X, the Germs, the Go-Gos etc, etc, but post-punk he mixed it up royally as a consummate DJ and programmer with astute and eclectic musical tastes at Club Lingerie, where he afforded me and many others a venue and as well as enthusiasm, support and opportunities. As the Swindle Magazine article says, Brendan provided one simple thing, perhaps the most crucial thing, a stage to stand on.

I loved his thick brogue, he was a fellow expatriate and I miss him already. Brendan was also a brilliant raconteur and we always spurred each other on in lively conversation.

I’ve been rifling through old photos for the last hour trying to find the ones of Brendan taken at several Ethical Pool parties many moons ago. I saw them recently but now that I want to post them, cannot track them down! Ah, it’s all a big mess; my old papers, memorabilia, photographs, myriad years mucked up together. Oy. Ugh. Urf. I really do want to archive all this crap before I die, and perhaps, just because I can. That mountain is my mountain, and I have every opportunity to catapult it into eternity, unlike past generations. It’s on my list along with the rest of life, my life. One life. One life is not enough! I like to imagine that offspring might like to investigate, at some point in their life, my life. I can see this becoming the norm in the future, a record online of one’s life. It appeals to me, the poet, the writer, the researcher. I have nothing to hide. I know I would relish the opportunity to *know* my ancestors through their own words, as tainted a record as they might cling to and hurl forth.

Alas, the grim reaper is creeping up on my door, ready to knock. In fact, that is probably the most brutal fact of life, that we are simultaneously living and dying. Ah, to be human, to face one’s mortality each and every day.

My friend Lyle Neff advised I quit worrying about “the final silence” and sent along this lovely W.S Merwin poem, for which I am grateful.

Carpe Diem!

For the Anniversary of My Death

Every year without knowing it I have passed the day
When the last fires will wave to me
And the silence will set out
Tireless traveler
Like the beam of a lightless star

Then I will no longer
Find myself in life as in a strange garment
Surprised at the earth
And the love of one woman
And the shamelessness of men
As today writing after three days of rain
Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease
And bowing not knowing to what