Goodnight brother...

"Ok, now that I got my anger part out of the way I want to say Brad, Rest In Peace bro.... I'm glad I met you. In my late teens and early twenties Josh, Cassie, Wendy, Passion, Judy and Eric Pope and even Tony Giuliani were my partners in crime but you were the glue that brought us all together. You were there in the middle of everything, and you never knew what was gonna happen with you in the mix of things..... That was part of the excitement of being around you when you still had your head straight. I wonder if you ever knew how much fucking charisma you had......... It's funny I haven't seen you in years yet I'm more bummed out now than I've been in a long time. You lived hard and you played hard...... I want to say so much more but I'm shocked and angry right now. You leave behind a great group of friends (whom i would have never met without you) and a little girl and son who I hope inherit all of your charm and none of your vices............. BK, Shine On you Crazy Diamond...." -Robert Castaneda 4/24/12

"well said Robert it is crazy! Brad is one friend who touched every part of my life, he hung with me all through Fillmore, Haight Street, Broadway and everywhere since, (maybe cause every girl we made friends with had to sleep with him that was a prerequisite!) so many times he was the only guy with just us girls and it was never weird but always real, it was never strange that everone dated him at one time or another or that he was gone ten months of every year and that we somtimes had to bust him out of Juvie or a group home (thanks Tom) just to get him back with us how the fuckin' Christmas Store brought a whole bunch of life long friends into the circle How everyone knew if me and him went to a party together one of us was going ot get in a fight and the other was going to be fighting along side even when it was the whole damn party against us He was a lil salty cause I wrote a poem about the girls and he wasn't in it so I'm going to be writing him some shit tonight"- Cassandra Dallet 4/24/12

I wish the three of us weren't so far from one another tonight. I'm a fuckin wreck. Flashing between crying and getting so fucking pissed off. This blows. From the first day he came to Alamo to see you girls and I met him we were fuckin inseparable... he was my truest friend at a time that my head was so completely fucked. He new how nuts I was. LOL (maybe I'd a been less fucked in the head if I coulda kept away from the gagger for a minute...) Beatin our way down the I Beam stairway, fuckin up the doorman at Zeitgeist (for the grave offense of kicking me out upon hearing I was 18! LOL), terrorizing a blacked out city after the earthquake... Squatting Cass' apt after her aND deidre moved out! heh heh... Taking over and sharing vocals with Serpent ID when their singer flaked. Travelling to Santa Cruz on our 'Viking Raid'... having to disappear to Petaluma after Redd Kross on his 18th Birthday. We had a lot of good fun times. Homeless Fries! CCM! Even when dope took up most of his preoccupation, he was on the 3rd floor and I was on the 1st of 750 Offarrel. I remember when the dope thing really had me bummed out, I had said seein him was depressing (meaning, he was strung out and always on the nod and it made me sad), and word got back to him what I'd said I felt so shitty about it- even though it was fuckin true... who wants to hang with a junky if yer not one, ya know? But In the long run? None of it mattered. I woulda fought and killed and died for that boy, and he woulda me, too. Right up until today's news. .. n I have the CCM on my left middle finger that to me, says it all- even if I never got the chance to say it in the last few years until recently. Brad was and is my PIC and always will be, even if he was locked up most of the time and I was on the east coast. There's something about the friendships we ALL made back then that stand true now, and I hope yuou all feel the same about me- where it doesnt matter how long it's been you can pick right the fuck up where we were before. Because we're friends... real fucking friends, and very real motherfuckers. Love you. ps- Gotta say, Cass, I was a bit salted myself, not being mentioned. LOL Except for puking in your bathroom and falling down the stairs and you weren't even sure if that had been me! LOL Truth be told, I'm honestly surprised I remember as much as I do. You all, and especially Brad, pulled me out of my own head and allowed me to relax and be comfotable in my skin, which although I hid it well- I think- until you all, I'd always been just a little alienated and weirded out around people. Never fit in. None a yall gave a fuck and none of yasll fit in anywhere totally either, and that friendship felt like home. When i tell stories about runnin with everyone and runnin with Brad, people who weren't there think I'm exaggerating... I'm not. Aliens in a strange land that had passed us up and forgotten us before we ever even had a chance. Souls raging not as a byproduct of conditions so much as simply born to rage. Rage against, rage for, just rage. We blazed and we burned and fried and occasionally snapped. We had our own tribe. All of us more or less pretty much thrown to the wolves to fend for ourselves, be it due to designs of our own making, victims of our own various personality's nuances and quirks, or whatever, but city kids without parental guidlines or boundries; wouldnt have- COULDN'T have- respected them if we'd had em anyway. Each of us different and strange and beautifully crazy in our own ways. I can't even begin to touch on the debauchery, indulgence, violence, and pure fun we participated in together- and I'm only speaking about me and Brad- it would take eons to tell the tales of glory that we ALL have with eachother, and Brad was usually involved with ALL our stories- at least when he wasn't 'away'. Neither can I begin to express the deep, sadness, and sense of loss I am feeling with his death. The impact is profound. Robert is 100% accurate in saying that in many ways, Brad was the glue that somehow connected all of us in those wreckless wonderful daze of misery and madness. Brad had a sort of 'soul pain' he never could really touch, I think. Kind of a restless sort of madness he could never get a grip on. One I know all too well. How we dealt with it manifested itself in very different ways, though. In many ways, I almost think he wasn't an addict in the usual sense, or if he was, it was worse in that he used it to quell that unpinpointable fire that always seemed right there under the surface. But enough with the sad shit; he was a fun, funny motherfucker to be around, man there wasn't a moment we ever shared that didn't include laughter... often at someone else's expense! HAHAHAHA But not always. There is a HUGE fucking gap of emptiness in the world where that relatively small mancub once occupied. To 'Mad' Brattly B-Radly Jay Kosek, my friend, my brother, my homie, my comrade... Cheers brother. I hope your soul finds the peace in death it could not find in life. And if Valhalla's what you wanted when you left this painful, struggle in the Play-Dough meat-puppet plane we're on, than I hope you get it. But if it's as I suspect over there on the other side of this thin veil between us- I'll see you in the stars as we rip like roaring blazing cannonballs ripping through the fabric of time and space itself. I love you, man. - Me 4/25/12 1:10AM PST

The Return of The King (or) The King's only Man disarms the MDR

So I used to work in this tennis supply warehouse packing and picking, shipping and recieving, etc... in the back was a table of retarded folks, one of whom I befriended- Thomas, who wore Elvis shades, sang Hound Dog and did the Elvis swivel n everything, who they called The King, but who introduced himself to me as 'Rambo'. We became good work friends, and always talked when they'd be walking through the aisles on their way to breaks and lunch (which wasn't the same time as ours). Now there was a dude in his department that the guys in my department called WMDR (world's most dangerous retard), or just MDR for short(bus). MDR used to hate me and this kid who I worked with, and used to glower at me all the time when I'd walk by. My boy Kevin said MDR made the whole universal pantomime for 'you're dead'- you know- the whole index finger across one's own throat while leering at the intended intimidatee- when no one else was looking. My boss went to speak to one of their supervisors one day, and picked up one of MDR's wrestling mags and flipped through it while talking to their boss. MDR snatched it in one angry rubber begloved hand (he was also freaked out about germs) yelling "I'm not reading it now thaT YOU'VE touched it!!!" My theory is that someone in MDR's life had made him very angry and bitter about his retardation, and convinced him all 'normal' people were insincere when showing kindness, etc... There was a lockable cage there with shelves of FILA shoes, and Bole sunglasses, etc... this is important later... Now- Thomas/Rambo/The King had been gone awhile after his mom passed, and I always looked up from what I was doing when they'd be coming back from 1st break, in case he came back. One day I looked up from my order, and it was MDR, so I returned to what I was doing and as he passed, he muttered in a low growl "What're YOU lookin at, Tattoo?" to which I just laughed and shook my head and said "OK then, dude..." He actually cracked me up. Kevin was so scared of him, too. One day, Kevin and I were pulling a case of balls off the top shelf, about twenty feet in the air; Kevin on the forklift, operating, me twenty feet in the air, a foot on each fork. I looked down and there was Thomas! I sat down on one fork and called down to him "Hey Alright Rambo's back! How you doin Thomas?!?" He yelled up "My mom died, I was gone awhile. Took it pretty hard, yeah." I said "Fuck I'm sorry to hear that Thomas, but you're a toughie. You'll be alright! Glad you're back though, i missed ya man!" at which he smiled, and sang hound dog while shakin it Kingstyle, and walked back to the packaging table. Right then, MDR came around the corner and yelled "No one likes you Thomas, because you're a fucking RETARD!" I'd had it with him... Standing, one foot on each fork, twenty feet in the air I bellowed "THAT'S FUCKIN IT, WMDR! IT'S YOU AND ME- 4PM- THE FILA CAGE! TWO MEN ENTER, ONE MAN LEAVES! NO ONE FUCKS WITH THE KING! I'LL EAT YOUR GODDAMNED HEART! NO RULES, NO HOLDS BARRED! I FEAR NOT YOUR MONGO SUPER-STRENGTH! YOU'RE A DEAD MAN!!!!" The whole warehouse went nuts laughing, and the string packaging dept jumped up whistling and clapping, as I stood defiantly, fists on each hip staring down MDR. Thomas began shakin it and the most inspired rendering of Hound Dog I ever heard issued forth from the returning King as his peers clapped and egged him on. MDR was LIVID! He was a noshow at 4pm (thank the gods of space and time, because I could never back down after that challenge!), and I was given a strong "what the fuck is wrong with you???" talking to, and a written warning, but it was all very worth it, and MDR never fucked with Thomas or ever even LOOKED at me again.

Bloodbrother

Friday night. Last night's full moon still shoots bounced sunlight into the brains of those who crunch the pine needles and loose asphalt under padded feet and rubber soled tennis shoes, sneaking away after mom's asleep to the redeszvous in the safe dark of the park sitting on a table under the grey shade of the trees away from the view of predatory police cruisers. telling innocent lies and tall tales of glory over the opening of stolen alluminum can of Bud. Red glows and grows to bright orange and ebbs back to red in a coughing, giggling blue cloud containing the dream of amassing the bravery to kiss that girl who's smile, and eyes seem to glow with some sort of magic innocent lust in this place and time. Right now. Somewhere close, racoons emerge from the depths of the gutter drain like navy Seals or brigand bands under the stars in search of a loose trashcan lid. The Trickster in it's coyote suit crawls out of the dry hills lookin' for some lone cat not paying attention, but cats have their own agendas and are only partially in this world to begin with... they remain crafty and Cheshire. Comfortable cigarette dangles loosely under the buzz of the streetlamp swarming with gnats and mosquitos silent sound of Dictators and Stooges and the words of Lester Bangs banging behind my red eyes and between my buzzing ears. If Dick Clark is the world's oldest living teenager, then I'm the world's oldest living juvenile delinquent. I'll bop til I drop, like I just made it to Coney Island from the Bronx, and The Grammercy Riff's KNOW it was the Moonruners, baby! Til there ain't nothin' left. YEPPA!