Skip to main content

Happy Birthday, my dear friend...

Today would have been Matt's 37th birthday. Funny how I could always remember his birthday. I think it had something to do with the fact that it was so close to my dad's. We never really "celebrated" our birthdays. We would usually get each other a book and sign some corny inscription inside it. One year, Matt bought me Stephen King's "IT" and wrote a simple inscription, something like "To my best friend Scott. Someday you're going to be as good a writer as this guy. Your friend, Matt".

Several years ago I was cleaning out the bookshelves and I donated that book to Goodwill. I had never gotten past that inscription. I wasn't really into King anymore, but I held on to that massive tome for a long time. I am sure it was during the last years when the two of us weren't speaking that I gave away the book. I wish I had it now.

Back when we were freshmen in college, Matt wrote me this letter.

Sept. 14, 1988

Dear Scott,

Hey, Dude! How's it going? God,
this college life is great! I just got done
studying for about five hours tonight, and I
thought I'd write you.

My classes are pretty cool, and my poetry
class is awesome! The prof's not quite
as cool as J.D., though. I joined a "Free
Nelson Mandela" activist group, and am
really getting involved in a lot of stuff.
It's really cool. I haven't been to any parties
yet, but everybody here seems really fun.

How are things with you? Cool, I hope.
I hope things with Lisa are still semi-
cool (no fights by mail, right?), and I'm
sure band is going good.

I got a job working ten hours a week
at the campus library, so I'll get some
spending money that way, I hope.

Our room is pretty cool- a bit sparse,
but livable. We got our refrigerator, and
I guess everything's going all right.
There's some cool record stores down here
and the town is great.

In case you were wondering, my
address is 220 Read Hall, Ohio University,
Athens, Ohio 45701, and my phone number
is (614) 597-9747- I hope to hear
from you soon.

I really miss you, and Lindsay
(although her parents might let her come
here next year- that would be awesome!),
and a very few things about N.O., but
I'm gettin' by.

Well, I'm really pooped, so I think I'll
cruise, but you fuckin' better write me
soon, Guido! Take care and stay Scott,
you hear? And keep writin' those
screenplays!!!

Love,
Matt

P.S. It's a town full of losers and
I'm pullin' out of here to win,
because tramps like us- baby, we
were born to run!

Two things struck me after reading this letter: How much Matt loved commas; and how much I still miss him.


Happy Birthday, Matt. R.I.P.


Aloha

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

MARATHON FOOTNOTES (for those who didn't think I would really footnote a stream of consciousness thought): Footnote #1 Academy Award Winning Best Picture Films from 1969 to the Present: Midnight Cowboy, Patton, The French Connection, The Godfather, The Sting, The Godfather II, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Rocky, Annie Hall, The Deer Hunter, Kramer Vs. Kramer, Ordinary People, Chariots of Fire, Gandhi, Terms of Endearment, Amadeus, Out of Africa, Platoon, The Last Emperor, Rain Man, Driving Miss Daisy, Dances With Wolves, The Silence of the Lambs, Unforgiven, Schindler’s List, Forrest Gump, Braveheart, The English Patient, Titanic, Shakespeare in Love, American Beauty, Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, Chicago, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Footnote #2 Members of the band YES, from 1969 to the present: In 1969, Yes is formed with Jon Anderson on vocals Peter Banks on guitar, Bill Bruford on drums, Tony Kaye on keyboards and Chris Squire playing bass. This group records...
41 comments
Read more

Basement Songs: "Golden Gates" by John Cougar Mellencamp

I’m not sure when my brother, Budd, bought his copy of John (then) Cougar Mellencamp’s “Uh Huh”. The cassette just showed up in the basement on summer, years after its release. Like most of America, I was a big fan of “Pink Houses”, and I was thrilled that now had copies of his other big hits from that album, “Crumblin’ Down” and “The Authority Song.” At this point in his career, Mellencamp was ready to establish himself as a legitimate artist, hence the use of his real name (the record label wouldn’t allow him to ditch the “Cougar” until years later for fear record buyers may get confused….huh?) In addition, there was the radio staple (at least in Cleveland), “Play Guitar”, on side 2, which borrowed heavily from Them’s “Gloria” (Mellencamp often slipped the “G-L-O-R-I-A”’s into his concerts during that number). The rest of “Uh Huh” is filled with more of the same 60’s garage band type of rock that Mellencamp champions, as well as one of Budd’s favorite tunes, the John Prine co-pe...
1 comment
Read more

In Praise of Kanopy

When I was 17, I worked at American Video, a small business housed in the Great Northern shopping strip. My time there was short, as was American Video’s lifespan. The days of the mom-and-pop video stores were cycling out. Blockbuster had just opened in my hometown and within a couple years, American Video, as well as the store where I first fell in love with movies, First Run Video, would shutter their doors. What I loved about these indie video stores was the variety of choices and the limited number of copies of movies each store had. Come in looking for Back to the Future and it’s already rented? You strolled the aisles until you found something similar like Innerspace , or something completely different, like And Now for Something Completely Different, Monty Python’s first movie. Blockbuster, and its cousin Hollywood Video, may have offered more copies of movies, but they didn’t always have the quality. Maybe your Blockbuster was different.   When Netflix and the stre...
2 comments
Read more