“Remoted” – Day 439 (Saturday)

In 2010 on this date, my friend Barry, who was then living in Santa Monica, visited me in Tennessee. Facebook memories reminded me of this today. 

B at the beach in
Santa Monica.

A couple years earlier, I had visited him and we attended the Abbot Kinney music festival in Venice Beach, where I fainted and we spent several hours in the Emergency Room while the medical team insisted on finding a cause beyond the low blood pressure I kept telling them about. No cause was found, and if you’re wondering, it cost $3,000 to faint in Venice Beach, California in 2008. The ambulance ride alone was $900 to go a couple miles, and the police and EMTs on site at the festival wouldn't take “no thanks, I don’t need to go to the hospital, I have low blood pressure” as an acceptable answer. My fainting tour of ERs has also included New York City and the MetroWest area of Massachusetts. Once, I fainted at Burbank Hospital in Fitchburg while in the lab having blood drawn for a routine test. Barry suggested I write an Emergency Room travel guide.

In California, Barry and I went to a nightclub, the Getty Museum, the music festival, saw a movie (Hank and Mike, which has a great soundtrack), had dinner at a terrific Greek restaurant, and played Scrabble. We went to the beach, cruised by the camera store he managed, and listened to Canadian music in his car. He was a chef and cooked some great meals. He was super witty and a lot of the time I felt dumb when I couldn't keep up my end of the banter. 

My visit to California was really fun, and I worried about matching the hospitality level for our visit in Tennessee.

While leaving the Nashville airport, B mentioned that a musician he knew was playing nearby later in the day and asked if we could go. This was amazing – he was in town five minutes and had more and better entertainment hookups. We did our mini version of Nashville – Great Escape Comics, Noshville Deli, then over to Edgehill Studios Café where his friend Joe was playing with a band called “The Young Republic.” Introductions were made, CDs were purchased, and B had a fun reunion with his friend while I basked in the glory and minor celebrity of one of us knowing the drummer. 

During the weekend, we did all the Clarksville hits – Silke’s Old World Bakery and Café, driving around the outskirts of Fort Campbell, kim-bap from Mo Mo Korean BBQ for our picnic at Beachaven Winery’s Jazz on the Lawn event. There was a trip to Blackhorse Pub and Brewery for beer cheese dip and pizza, and a Memorial Day pool party at the home of my adopted Clarksville family.

We took walks with Moose around my neighborhood. On one of those walks, Moose crawled under a car and wouldn’t come out. It was a hot Tennessee day, and it seemed Moose had enough and found some shade. It took a while to coax Moose out from under the car, and B, a self-professed “not a dog person,” carried him back to the house, which was crazy sweet for the cat guy to do. 

Life was so different then. There was Tennessee (which I miss more than I ever suspected possible considering my love-hate relationship with the place while there), I had a social scene, and B was around. 

After we had each moved back to Massachusetts, we would see each other at the annual Canada Day Celebration he organized in Worcester and once or twice we met up for dinner.

Barry. A dear friend
sent me this one.

In 2019, B came for a visit in Lowell. We shopped for vinyl and walked around downtown as snowflakes fluttered in the cold air. Despite he and his wife having recently split up, B seemed okay, but I know from having lived through my own personal versions of hell that what people see on the outside is not always what a person is feeling on the inside. Some people are really good at acting fine when fine is the last thing they are feeling. 

Less than two weeks later, B took his own life. I don’t know what Barry was really feeling that last time we saw each other and the several times we texted over the following couple weeks. I just know I feel sad thinking about him and that he felt the need to punch the clock and check out of life. It’s better to focus on the happier memories of our visits in California, Tennessee, Worcester, and Lowell. Miss you, B.