R.I.P. Spanky
Been away from home since Thursday, as right after work I went over to Mom's for XMAS and only got back to my computer Saturday night. I'm the type that under normal circumstances I rarely go online when I'm not home, I don't internet by phone as I don't wanna see online stuff on a screen smaller than my head.
So I only saw that David Katz had died last night.
Once upon a time, his nickname was Spanky... which always stuck with me.
I was sad to see he was dead but I wasn't surprised. From what I know of his life over the years, which minus one quirk was on the road to improvement, the guy walked a risky road. More car accidents than you'd see at a NASCAR event, frequent drug use and arrests for such. This didn't make him any less a great guy but it was worrisome.
The last 2 times we crossed paths, which is a real world thing (can't cross someone's path online):
1) Several years ago I worked Gyro's 3-D Fear Factory near Fisherman's Wharf. One day, early on, he was there going into a nearby warehouse looking for some drugs he'd hidden. Story he told was he'd stored up a bunch, not soley for personal use, but he had to ditch them because he was about to be arrested. I wasn't entirely sure he was being serious, but I didn't question it. I didn't get to see him much anymore so I pushed past that and just chatted him up for about a ½ hour until I had to get going.
2) I wanna say this year but it might've been closer to the end of 2014, another random path crossed. Nothing about it really stuck out in the memory as significant but it was a nice little chat.
That's about it.
Another worrisome in recent times is he'd gotten into suspension. To those not familiar, suspension work involves having metal hooks inserted into the skin at key points and then being raised up on cables and just hanging that way. I've seen it done for years, though Spanky was the first time I ever had known someone who did it. He described it as very peaceful... minus that one time his skin tore through and he plunged to the floor. Fortunately he wasn't that high up at the time.
I first met him at The Rocky Horror Picture Show, under the cast of "Erotic Nightmares". Can't remember if it was ever at the Palo Alto location, most of my earliest memories of him stem from the Belmont location. Gary was the spokesman, that loud and powerful voice, and Spanky imitated him like a lil' Gary; there were a few cloning jokes on that. Started seeing him more at conventions over the next few years...
...I used to drive him nuts. He was bi and I liked to sneak up behind him, pull up his chin and drag my claws down, hard but slow, the front of his throat. Sometimes biting him lightly, which made him a more than lil' bit crazy... which is when I'd stop, as I'm hetero. It drove him nuts, he'd complain and ask me to stop, and occasionally ask me to do it again.
I gave that guy a lot of scalp massages too!
The reason I wasn't surprised he died was there were a few of us that were amazed he was still alive. More due to the car crashes than the drugs, actually.
They setup a facebook page for remembrance of him but I didn't know what to post to that, I'm likely not going to connect this.
Maybe.
Popped over to his own facebook page, where I learned from Derek that Spanky's mother knew about this much longer but had tried to squelch the info getting out (maybe due to XMAS or something) but Justin went public with it.
In any event, I'll miss him.