my buddy marvin
Time will never cease bringing on even more somber occasions for memorializing loved ones. When I last wrote about the loss of someone, I had never considered I would have to retread that ground so soon. That was naive. It's been a really weird place to sit with emotions, having recently wanted to firmly bar myself from living too closely with nostalgia, but then being met with devastating news about someone who made those good old days so good. My buddy Marvin has left the world too soon.
He was going through something terrible, that much is obvious. I wish so much that I had stayed better in touch, stupidly thinking that I could have helped in some way. But knowing how amazing his best friend is, I know that's a selfish thought. I would not have been able to change a single thing. Still, his memory is one to be cherished.
Growing up, Marvin was super abrasive and rough around the
edges. He was the "dark humor" type when we were kids, but we loved
him for it. Those edges must have softened, even if a bit, because I learned
that he literally took on the nickname "Buddy" in the years since I
saw him often.
He was the friend that got me into Dungeons and Dragons, and
ska (for better or worse). Not a day goes by that I don't think about our
campaigns or the adventures that occurred during those long winter or summer
nights with friends. He also introduced me to one of my favorite bands, Pixies.
But even after those immature and free times, we had stayed
in one another's world. I recall in the deepest of my dark days, running into
him at the bookstore, or catching him when he was delivering pizza. I had
ordered some when I was working overnight at the hospital, and we caught up
outside, near midnight in an empty parking lot. It was a friendship that had a lot
of meaningful random intersections of important meaninglessness.
I feel for his family and his best friend, Sam, who I still
see often. I call Sam "my drummer" even though our band existed for only one month in high school, but that was how important those friends were to me.
Marvin was our lead guitar. I'll link our "EP" if that's what you can
call it. He takes the electric part in our cover of the Pixies.
Somewhere out there in the void, there exists a cover of the
White Stripes' "Fell In Love With A Girl" where he angrily shouts at
me at the end of the recording because I didn't immediately mute the note to
end the song. We're all in hysterics laughing, but I sadly cannot find it. That
is my digital white whale. "You fucked up! You let it ring. You can't let
it ring!" I still hear his animated shouting and chuckle to myself.
The name of our “album” was Bundletuck. It came about in
high school because somehow, on one of those fabled winter breaks, we all spent days on end with one another. There were about a dozen of
us cramped into the Romano’s basement. His poor parents. One afternoon, we
watched the entirety of The Mighty Boosh, and then Tim and Eric, both
of which have left profound and lasting damage on my sense of humor. The term “Bundletuck”
came from our need to name this majestic experience. We made it a ritual,
bought frozen waffles at midnight, and at dawn, marched to the nearby woods. We
ate the frozen waffles, in stride, and when we finally reached the forest, we
held a funeral for a garden gnome that had recently shattered. Rupert the Lawn
Gnome is forever at peace, buried next to some figurine of a dog we found, and
a frozen waffle. That was the legacy of the Bundletuck. That was the kind of
ridiculous bullshit that Marvin loved and inspired.
I miss you dude and will always love you.
Remember him the
next time you play dnd or listen to ska. I always will.