Category Archives: rick

rick

rick is a guy that i’ve known since college… 40-some years ago. approximately five years ago, rick almost died because his body quit working. but then, for some reason, it started working again, just as they were giving up and pulling the plug. it was somewhat miraculous that he recovered, but he did.

i met rick at fairhaven, in 1979 or 1980. he was tolerably obnoxious — he was convinced that he was god’s gift to women, and was always trying really hard to put the moves on just about any person of the female persuasion with whom he came in contact, but, not being female, i only heard about it, second-hand, from other people who were female — and he smoked cigarettes, which meant that i didn’t hang around with him an awful lot, but i knew who he was, and he knew who i was. we had a lot of friends in common.

i moved to seattle, and rick moved to eugene, oregon, along with another person i knew from college, josh hirschstein. sasha frequented eugene for a while, as well, and rick, josh and sasha maintained the college friendship, while i went back and forth from seattle to bellingham, had a kid, went to the tech school, and a bunch of other stuff.

sasha, who is the drummer for the fremont philharmonic, said that i might be interested in reconnecting with rick in 2011 or thereabouts, and i helped him move the last of his parents’ stuff out of their storage unit when they died, and drove him to the hospital the first time he tried dying.

rick has never lost the opinion that he is god’s gift to women, despite the fact that he is now a greasy, fat, lecherous old man who last had sex with someone(s?) he met at “The Wet Spot”, a sex-positive “swingers” club in seattle, where he was the librarian. his constant, insistent babbling about all of the sex he was (or wasn’t) having, plus his VERY STRONG opinions about politics, not all of which i agree with, were the reasons i put a limit on how long i can hang around with him, but, never the less, i was rick’s transportation when he had medical appointments in seattle, or had to go shopping or that sort of thing.

rick is back in hospice care again, this time at evergreen, in kirkland. people who know more about this kind of stuff than me, have decided that rick is experiencing the final stages of kidney failure, and, pretty much the only thing that is keeping him alive is an intravenous drip. he is badgering his “staff” to disconnect the drip, so the probability is reasonably high that rick is going to die sometime fairly soon.

average

rick has been transferred to the university of washington medical center, because he is not losing fluid fast enough to suit his cardiologist. they’re planning on keeping him for at least a week, and then who knows what will happen. he’s already collected a pile of boxes at the facility that he’s staying at in puyallup, and that’s not to mention the stacks of boxes that fill his actual home. he may go back to the facility in puyallup, or he may go home, but that’s all dependent on whether he gets the fluid out of his legs. i don’t know much, and it’s hard for me to find out about his condition, because, despite the fact that i have been providing a lot of rick’s transportation the past month or so, i’m not related to him, so the doctors won’t tell me anything… and what i do know makes me wish i didn’t even know that much. 😐

between the fremont philharmonic, and snake suspenderz, i actually have a total of 15 performances at the moisture festival… i remember when the fremont philharmonic alone had 20 performances (and it wasn’t too many years ago, either), but things have changed, and i’m really lucky to have as many as 15 this year. we’ve had one fremont phil rehearsal, and the fremont phil shows start in 3 weeks. the snake suspenderz shows start in 5 weeks and we haven’t had any rehearsals at all… which i think is probably a mistake, but who listens to me anyway? 😐

i plan on trying to make contact (again) with the two smoke shops in the tacoma area that have said they’re interested in buying bongs from me. at one – Kronik – the owners (a husband and wife) just had a baby a couple weeks ago, and they said that they were going to be open the day after, but i went down there a week later and encountered the guy, who was looking rather dishevelled and disorganised, and he said to contact him again in another week. the other one – Sinful Glass – the manager said that she had to talk about it with the owner, who had just changed the schedules, so there was some internal confusion, and she hadn’t talked to him the last time i called. both places have had a couple weeks to “settle into the new routine”, and i definitely think it’s time to harrass them again. πŸ˜‰

also, i’ve managed to reconnect with barbara, who is someone i know from bellingham. she is still living in northport, and now i have a current email address and phone number for her. 8)