Happy Birthday To Max

Max loved butter. It started with toast, which turned into Toast Parties, meaning a a large quantity of buttered toast eaten in one sitting.

Bread was merely a vehicle for butter, he told us. Then what’s the butter knife? his little brother wanted to know. The knife was the concierge.

Max loved pesto, chocolate, burgers, pasta, ice cream, ribs, and cheese. He loved  condiments. He loved dogs and babies. He loved cashmere and velvet. He was very tactile. He loved reading and his writing impressed all his professors.

He loved Henry Miller, Derrick Jensen, Don DeLillo, Shakespeare, Matt Taibbi, Martin Amis and Poe. He loved philosophy. He was an atheist who read books about religion. He loved art. He loved nature. He loved honeysuckle and often stuck a little flower behind his ear when he was out taking a walk.

Most of all, he loved music. Loved isn’t a strong enough word. He loved the Stones, Pixies, Velvet Underground, Beatles, Surf guitar, Gogol Bordello, Dresden Dolls, Hank Williams, The Ronettes, Beach Boys, David Bowie, Dengue Fever, Os Mutantes, The Kinks, a million ancient blues singers and the Ramones. He loved his first guitar, a Strat, and he finally acquired his holy grail, a Hummingbird.

He taught his friends how to play guitar. Some of them wrote to me with memories of this. They wanted me to know he’d been an important figure in their lives.

Max loved prank calls and was an inventive practitioner of the art. He loved pranks in general, the more subversive or absurd the better. He liked to annoy people but he couldn’t hold a grudge. He liked to sing in funny voices, unable to believe he could actually sing. He loved Mac the Knife when he was a kid, and patiently transcribed the lyrics, stopping the record over and over to do it. He wrote down every Huh! Huh! I’m pretty sure I have it somewhere.

We liked to compare top ten lists of books, movies, and desert island records. We shared a hatred of cheesy rock bands. In a perverse response to a thing I wrote about stuff I love, he made an exhaustive list of every band he hated:

Getting back to hatred for a minute, i coincidentally just compiled my own list of classic rock bands I hate. Before making this list, I thought of myself as a classic rock lover (Beatles, Stones, Dylan, Love, Doors, Velvets, Beach Boys, David Bowie, Neil Young, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, etc.) But now I am not so sure. I wouldn’t mind if the work of these “artists” was erased from existence:

grateful dead
the who
the eagles / don henley
steeley dan
santana
jethro tull
king crimson
billy joel
sting
U2
Rush
Chicago
America
Kansas
Journey
Aerosmith
bob segar
steve miller
tom petty
alice cooper
frank zappa
supertramp
styx
eric clapton
ELO
earth wind and fire
blood sweat and tears
bad company
iron butterfly
robert palmer
deep purple
doobie brothers
crosby stills & nash
grand funk railroad
the guess who
mountain
thin lizzy (except “whiskey in the jar”)
allman brothers
lynard skynard
peter frampton
the cult
steppenwolf
heart
Emerson Lake & Palmer
zz top
ted nugent
bon jovi
humble pie
hot tuna
ten years after
j geils band
little feat
robin trower
badfinger
genesis / phil collins / peter gabriel
yes
tower of power
nrbq
three dog night
john cougar mellencamp
spirit
brian adams
acdc
sweet
carole king
leon russell
carly simon
sugarloaf
meatloaf
jimmy buffett
wings

I love how thorough he was! And I love the Maxness of “getting back to hatred for a minute.”

Max was funny. It took a lot to make him laugh aloud, but he was hysterically funny.

I forgot to say that he loved Andy Kaufman.

After eight years, it terrifies me to think what I may have forgotten. The part that doesn’t change is the love and the grief. Every fucking night, it’s goodnight sweet prince. Tomorrow I will light another candle and speak to the little flame until it goes out.