It got sadder, Bill. I'd known this friend since high school. Good friends. We shared a loft in Soho NYC in the 1960s, and a house in LA in the '90s. He was rich, all inherited, not a penny earned. He actually kept a list of ageing aunts and uncles, calculated when they would probably die, and how much money they'd leave him in their wills. He planned his life according to that list. Having no job, no calling, no purpose, his life was pretty empty. He was depressed, and took meds for it. He was still depressed, and took different meds. He ended up on so many meds they filled two medicine cabinets. He started losing his mind. The Martin Logans I loaned him? He claimed they were his and wouldn't give them back. Being rich he had a huge place in a ritzy part of LA. He let me store stuff in his garage, including some great and rare vintage speakers — Altecs, JBLs, Quads, etc — and about 1,000 rare, collectible LPs. That was really nice of him. One day he called a thrift shop, and gave all my stuff away. He never told me, I found out when I went to his garage to get something and it was totally empty. Value, maybe $30K. I'm not rich and it pissed me off, not just the money but all the beauty he simply discarded. Eventually all his relatives were dead and there were no more inheritances. But he had investments and his cousin was managing them for him. Or so he thought. His cousin stole all the money. Finally broke, he hanged himself. He didn't jump off a ladder or anything to snap his neck and die fast — he just dangled there strangulating. That was last year. Nobody found him for over a week. He anticipated this, because he had few friends, and he was thoughtful — he sealed all the windows and turned up the AC to full blast, so his body wouldn't rot in the icy air and stink up the neighborhood.
Yes, very sad indeed. Sometimes I think back to those days in the '60s, when we were in our 20s. He played at having a career like normal people — he was a fashion photographer, and had the best gear money could buy — Nikons, Hasselblads, Linhofs. We not only shared the Soho loft, we shared fashion models. I remember him a decade later when he had a villa in Marrakech, and I visited him. All the locals loved him, because he wasn't a rich arrogant foreigner, he showed them respect by learning their customs. He did Ramadan when they did. Brian Eno landed in Marrakech after Roxy Music broke up, he was kind of lost and wanted nothing to do with music anymore. He thought my friend was a "spiritual master", and he helped Eno get his head together, and start composing again. He was a good man, and a cool guy, but it slowly disintegrated. I knew a lot of "trust fund kids" and very few made meaningful lives for themselves. Some were like Jared and Ivanka, all flash with nothing inside. Having money handed to you can be a curse.
All this has nothing to do with Audio... but a lot to do with Karma, so it's half on-topic. I just needed to get it off my chest. Thanks for your patience.
Man, what a story bimasta, and you`re right it did get sadder, but interesting !!
I guess I`m very lucky in some respects of your story.
Being on an lifetime annuity from a medical malpractice law suit that came about from a supposedly top flight neurosurgeon delaying the removable abscess from between my brain and skull that was paralyzing my left side over a period of two weeks before under threat of my father I was finally operated on..
But, by that time that portion of my brain had be deprived of oxygen from the swelling of the abscess that it was now dead !!
Anyway back to my point..
After I initiated a law suit against the hospital and the University of Miami Fl. I really wasn`t sure I would win.
So since I had taught myself how to repair electronic equipment and had lost my electronic repair business while I was in the hospital for nearly six months(11/19/81~4/1/82).
I was forced to move in with my parents as I was without any income @ 27 years old.
I thought my love of repairing electronics life/carreer was over and started to sell off my test equipment, but my wise engineer father saw something in me that I didn`t, and bought a 12`X12` shed, that I was to slowly repay him back when I started to make some money.
He setup my old original big ass oak desk that I used at my apartment to work on my gear in that shed, and told me to quit selling my test equipment and start trying to figure how to get around my limitations of no functional use of my left arm/hand and become productive again..
He saw something in me that I couldn`t see, as I was super depressed about the whole situation and on anti seizure medication called Dilantin, which was screwing with my mind, as a side effect, but he figured if I could teach myself how to repair electronics, then I could figure out how do it with the use of one hand..
Well that what I started doing after I slowly weaned myself of the Dilantin over the summer of 82 and my head became clearer.
Back to my point--
I started becoming effectively proficient again in repairing while waiting the 2 years for the law suit to come to it`s conclusion.
And not knowing if I`d win, and not wanting to be a financial burden on my parents for the rest of their lives, if I didn`t win..
Anyway, the bottom line point here, is I made a pack with myself, that if I won big bucks(aka "blood money") from the law suit, that I wouldn`t let the money change me/go to my head, other than help make my cripple life more comfortable, plus resume my original earning capability, as they(the defendant`s) determined during the law suit`s discovery process. and provide the means to be able to pay people to do the things that I just couldn`t physically do any more, if needed.
After I won the suit, I continued to repair(outside of the Ladies, my real true love !!) and I eventually gained a reputation as a go to guy if someone wanted their electronic equipment repaired properly and be reliable and after a few years of repairing my friends musical equipment, the word got out and the Jacksonville music stores started calling me up for using my repair services, in which I ended up with all but one, as they had their own in house tech.
My close friends started telling me : "You won big dough, and you don`t have to work your ass off anymore, why don`t you travel around the country, or the world for that matter" !! I replied, I love repairing audio equipment and the sense of accomplishment/purpose that it gives me, and of making my customer`s happy and building people`s trust again in honest electronic service, as it was pretty tainted around here from the horror stories that I was told,,
Even when my father passed on in 10/12/07 and I was asked at the reading of the will ,and with my 1/3rd portion from his estate added to my own assets, by my older sister, in a tongue in cheek style, asked me : how does it feel to be a millionaire ? In which I mildly sarcastically replied : "I don`t know, what does it mean, and how should I act" ? Nothing had really changed with me, but numbers in a bank !!
Like I said, I won`t let money control me, and I only get paid once a year(hence "the annuity" !!)
Yeah, the money is nice, and I could easily go nuts with it, but as an example, I chose to live in a 1985 built, modest ~$ 79,000.00 in 1989 house, when I assumed the 30 year mortgage of the original owners, and still own and drive my first brand new vehicle that I could finally afford, a ~$12,000.00 1987 Chevy Astro cargo style van ..
That`s a shame, and very sad and tragic tale about your friend, bimasta
Sorry about the, yet again, long winded diatribe Sir./folks !!
Take care, and enjoy the music, as best you can, after all, isn`t what this is all about.
Most kind regards, OKB
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