Bio-Parties

The point of this blog has always been to leave behind an account of my life for my kids. I want them to get it straight from the horse’s mouth. My own father lived a fascinating life and I always wished he had recorded his memories. Most of what I know about his life are the recollections of his friends.

Maybe the recollections of friends are more accurate. Valerie and I have been to a lot of parties in the last month. My son Dylan has been to most of them with us. I thought he’d get bored watching a lot of oldsters reliving their youth. He loved it.

A month ago we went to a birthday party for my buddy Mike Lambert. Mike was my 4-way skydiving team, Muffy and the Divers', principal videographer. In my opinion he’s one of the best, definitely the most fun. He followed us everywhere.

I posted about Mike earlier. He was on one of my first night jumps. As we were climbing to altitude he told about his dog's tail getting chopped off. The dog had to learn to smile like a human. Night jumps require incredible mental focus and all I could focus on was that damn dog's smiling face.

The band at the party were old friends of his made up of 2 acoustic guitars, bass and a drummer playing electric drums. They were long haired 40 somethings that reminded me of Tenacious D. Mike used to be in a band too. Mike’s Overland, classic rock teenage hood couldn’t have been more different than mine. Dylan loved the stories.

Two weeks ago we finally had the memorial party for our dear friend Sue at the Byrnes palace in the West End. There were people there I hadn’t seen in 30 years. Dylan learned more about my life that day than I could ever write about. He really loved it.

He finally got to meet Monica Reed. He had always been fascinated with her life. She sang with the Allman Brtothers and Sting among others. His favorite story was a time she went down in a disabled airplane in the Alps with Deep Purple.

Monica was walking around with a cane. A few years ago she was attacked by a gang in L.A.. They shattered her knee. A year after they put in a new one she was dancing and showing photos of her great legs. Something happened to it though and they had to replace it.

She emailed my mom to invite her to a get together at Balaban’s the day before the party. She told my mom about her knee. My mom said, “You know I’m in a wheelchair now?” Monica offered to come and get her. I thought that was incredibly sweet. She had only met my mother once.

I confronted one of my personal demons at the party. Monica and I went dancing at Faces (East Side) one night in the 80s. Suzy Gorman, the photographer, asked why she only went out with wimpy white boys and I was very hurt. I finally confronted Suzy about it at the party. She told me the great love of her life was a boxing trainer. She only liked hard asses. It turned out he died just a few months ago and Suzy was still mourning. After the confrontation Monica asked if I felt better. I did!

Valerie and me in Mike's pool. Mike took the picture.Suzy took the photo at the party of Monica with 2 of her wimpy white boyfriends. The other one is Sam Poston. The other pic is Monica showing off her legs one year after the attack (also by Suzy).