Don’t think I ever knew what the R. was for.
We went to high school together, but I don’t remember any interaction
with him until college. I saw him in the orchestra-playing clarinet. A tall
lanky lad somewhat awkward but we all were at that age.
In college (which was an institution until it became a university) I
became familiar with him through another high school classmate and drugs.
During that time period what brought all of use together was
mind-alternation. Some of us dabbled and some got intense.
One memory for me was the ‘Yule Log’ ceremony. After swallowing substance
we were requested to perform the ritual of walking in a line into a colonial
building and throwing a holly leaf into an open pit blazing fire to make our
Christmas wishes come true. On the way of leaving the dorm I pulled silver
tinsel from a Christmas tree and handed it to David. It had a profound effect
that I didn’t know until later when he wrote about the experience.
We worked together at the public library, but I was in the basement and
had little contact with him. We had tried to find a apartment together, but
that didn’t work out.
After he left town we started to communicate through letters.
Then we started to send cassette tapes back and forth.
Before he left town, he’d come to a coffee house I was to manage
confronting patrons with radical thoughts and ideas in a ruffled army jacket
silk-screened ‘Frog Hollow Day Camp’. At the same time he heard Frank Zappa.
As time past, a letter writing conversation was continued. Before his
website, his manuscripts were sent. Musical variations were discussed but he
knew more of the structure than I did.
Still there was a lilt in the communications that continued turning into
friendship.
He and his wife crashed at my pad on cots during a pass over and he slept
on some cushion during test of the new bike path to Williamsburg. We did get a
chance to bike around his old neighborhood and share some stories.
The last time I saw him was the 50th high school reunion. He
and his wife were very comfortable in the situation but his hearing loss
limited the conversations in a crowded room and his wife was among strangers.
There was no cake.
After a fall, he gave up his cycling that we shared.
He showed me his process of coding his music that was way too complex for
me to understand. Still we stared some tunes and he posted several from
snippets I’d sent him over the years. Compositions I could not imagine.
He was focused beyond the mere minded. Total detail definitions like his
Triaxial weave that my wife quickly understood as she was basket weaving were
beyond my tactile understanding.
As his health started failing I tried to send positive mojo to him and
his wife discussing black and white television cowboys, kangaroos, Captain
Beefheart, dancing on crutches, bucket-head jousting, Raymond Burr and Zappa.
We hinted at politics, unions, protest but kept away to keep the conversation
friendly.
His wife called me and told me the final had come.
He will be missed.
What the R stood for Rollins?
Here is his website:
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