Brad Barrish

There’s a plane flying right next to us. It’s far enough to not freak me out (for now). I’m just finishing the feature on R.D., Jr. and I have gas. I’m all hopped up on caffeine too. I took some exedrine for the pounding I woke up with this morning. The caffeine makes me want to shit. My skin feels like it’s stretched extra tight over the muscles and bone. My skin in cacking and flaking on my hands. I keepa pplying lotion and it just keeps getting absorbed. Where’s the hydration going? It makes no sense to me. A hang nail on my pointer is throbbing and as - try to grab the hanging skin between the nail of my thumb and pointer on the opposite hand, the skin tears further back. I suck in the recycled airplane air between the gaps in my teeth and my ass tinglkes from the pain. What I wouldn’t do for some little scissors right now.

I’m on my way home for the first time since dad passed away. I’m feeling a little emotional, but solid. It’ll be good to wrap my arms around mom and tell her that I love her.

Old people are dumb.

The Kansas City Star ran a feature on dad in Saturday’s paper. You can read it online.

There was talk about playing music at the funeral. He was really into Snoop Dogg, which cracked me up. He always said he was a black man trapped inside a white Jewish guy. For as long as I can remember, dad listened to funk, soul, r&b, hip-hop and jazz. He liked some rock n’ roll I think, but that’s not what I remember about him. Like so many other things, I have memories bookmarked by songs. I can remember being a kid, sitting in the passenger seat of his green Toyota Celica listening to Kool & The Gang’s “Celebration.” He loved that song. I remember looking up at him as he danced in his seat, clapping, snapping and biting his lower lip. I stared up at him and smiled. He was so cool. Other people might have thought he was weird as he rolled down the street, but I was rarely embarrassed by his enthusiastic displays. Well, not until i got a little older. You could really tell he was into a song when he bit his lower lip. He did it while he danced too, but only if he really liked the song.

There were many others I remember listening to with him. “Superstition” by Stevie Wonder, “Off The Wall” by Michael Jackson (he loved early Michael Jackson), “I Feel For You” by Chaka Khan, “Smooth Operator” by Sade, the USA for Africa album, Quincy Jones and so many others. From a really young age, I immersed myself in music because of dad. If it weren’t for his own love of music, I probably never would have ended up in the music business. His love of music had a tremendous impact on me and I love him for that. I remember him telling me the story of Motown Records, lots of stories about Quincy Jones and especially watching the Grammy Awards on TV. I was really hoping I could take him to the Grammys at some point. I know how much it would have meant to him. And i don’t mean it would have meant a lot to him to be around all of the celebrities, though I’m sure he would have had a good time walking up to them and telling them how much he enjoyed their music. I just think he would have appreciated the gesture and enjoyed a cool moment with me. I’m really sad that we never got to do that.

There was talk about playing music at the funeral. He was really into Snoop Dogg, which cracked me up. He always said he was a black man trapped inside a white Jewish guy. For as long as I can remember, dad listened to funk, soul, r&b, hip-hop and jazz. He liked some rock n’ roll I think, but that’s not what I remember about him. Like so many other things, I have memories bookmarked by songs. I can remember being a kid, sitting in the passenger seat of his green Toyota Celica listening to Kool & The Gang’s “Celebration.” He loved that song. I remember looking up at him as he danced in his seat, clapping, snapping and biting his lower lip. I stared up at him and smiled. He was so cool. Other people might have thought he was weird as he rolled down the street, but I was rarely embarrassed by his enthusiastic displays. Well, not until i got a little older. You could really tell he was into a song when he bit his lower lip. He did it while he danced too, but only if he really liked the song.

There were many others I remember listening to with him. “Superstition” by Stevie Wonder, “Off The Wall” by Michael Jackson (he loved early Michael Jackson), “I Feel For You” by Chaka Khan, “Smooth Operator” by Sade, the USA for Africa album, Quincy Jones and so many others. From a really young age, I immersed myself in music because of dad. If it weren’t for his own love of music, I probably never would have ended up in the music business. His love of music had a tremendous impact on me and I love him for that. I remember him telling me the story of Motown Records, lots of stories about Quincy Jones and especially watching the Grammy Awards on TV. I was really hoping I could take him to the Grammys at some point. I know how much it would have meant to him. And i don’t mean it would have meant a lot to him to be around all of the celebrities, though I’m sure he would have had a good time walking up to them and telling them how much he enjoyed their music. I just think he would have appreciated the gesture and enjoyed a cool moment with me. I’m really sad that we never got to do that.

A while back my 23" Apple Cinema Display started acting funny and I thought I was going to have to get a new monitor, which I couldn’t really afford. I looked around online and saw several things about people replacing the inverter to fix the behavior. Someone recommended lcdpart.com, so I found out which one I needed and placed the order. I got the new inverter today and when I got home from work, I took the monitor apart, followed Krishna’s awesome instructions. When I got to the part where you plug the connectors into the new board, I noticed that there were a couple of obvious defects in the board. I took some photos and wrote the company an email. Hopefully they’ll get back to me tomorrow and overnight a replacement. It’s always such a bummer when you get excited about a fun project and you have to wait to finish it up.

I cannot wait for Bandwagon to launch. 500+GB of music all online. It’s gonna cost me to upload though, that’s for sure.

While I typing the last post, I kept thinking about the conversation that Brother and I had with dad. No one else was home. Dad had woken up from a nap and called us over to his bedside. His teeth had brown on them and his lips were very chapped. He asked us to help him die and then apologized for asking us. I kept seeing dad’s mouth, smelling his breath and hearing him say those words. I leaned my head back and started gasping for air like I was going to cry. I wanted to so badly. My eyes welled up a little and then whatever sadness I had went back down and I lost the opportunity. What is going on?! Why can’t I just cry?!!

While I typing the last post, I kept thinking about the conversation that Brother and I had with dad. No one else was home. Dad had woken up from a nap and called us over to his bedside. His teeth had brown on them and his lips were very chapped. He asked us to help him die and then apologized for asking us. I kept seeing dad’s mouth, smelling his breath and hearing him say those words. I leaned my head back and started gasping for air like I was going to cry. I wanted to so badly. My eyes welled up a little and then whatever sadness I had went back down and I lost the opportunity. What is going on?! Why can’t I just cry?!!

Mom called and said that she, Brother and Sister had all talked to the reporter already. Apparently they were doing a feature on dad and she wanted to make sure I was given the opportunity to talk to the reporter. I didn’t have a pen with me. I was standing in the middle of one of those huge stores focused on organizing everything in your life. I told her to have Brother or Sister text me the number and I would give the reporter a call. Moments later, a text came in. I love technology.

I finally made it out of the store and called mom back to see if I needed to call this reporter now. She said he was trying to wrap it up tonight, as far as she knew and it would probably be good if I spoke to him soon. I called him and got an answering machine. As I was leaving a message, he picked up.

“Hello?” I said.

“Hi, sorry about that. I sometimes screen my calls.”

“That’s ok. I’m the other son. My mom said I should call you about the article you’re writing.”

“Yeah. Thank you for calling. I just wanted to ask you a few questions. Do you have some time?”

“Yeah, now’s a good time.”

I hadn’t talked about dad much except to tell a few people that he had passed away. I spoke proudly about him and his life. At one point the reporter said something like “It sounds like you’re dad was a real entertainer,” which I found very weird, and somewhat disheartening. Where would he have gotten such and idea? I corrected him politely.

“I wouldn’t say entertainer as much as I would say he was very social. Not a socialite or anything like that. He just really enjoyed people. He was accepting of everyone and he made time for you.”

The reporter brought up something about how dad was more afraid of what would happen to us after he was gone than what was going to happen to him. And that was true. I don’t think my dad was ever really afraid of dying. We talked for a few minutes more and I could feel my voice cracking. I was telling him about what I said in the eulogy. It was the part about how we can honor him by living our lives a little differently. Talking about it made me feel like I was going to cry, but I didn’t. It could have been that I was in a public place, but I should have just let it out. It’s building up in me and I’m feeling emotionally constipated.