Yesterday I went to a memorial gathering in Milwaukee for the husband of an old friend. His name is Tom Laskin, but usually called TL.
TL Vox
He was in a punk band and he was a writer and an all round pretty incredible guy.
I went for the wife, KT, though. She & I met through restaurant work. She was a cook at a Moosewood-style vegetarian restaurant called the Main Course, where, when I first arrived in Madison in the late 1970s, I used to buy plates of brown rice and veggies for something like a buck and a half, $1.75 with cheese. A little while later, she got hired to be the kitchen manager at a feminist restaurant where I was already working, so we were co-workers for a year or two.
I told a story: When I first met KT, she was with this perfectly nice guy named Dave. She was irresistibly drawn to TL, though. I remember going to her apartment, and she talked about how guilty she felt, but Dave was just not the right guy for her. Years later, when I was separating from my also perfectly nice husband, I also was wracked with guilt, and went to see a therapist. The therapist said, “People are going to look at you funny for leaving a man who doesn’t beat you, but you’re allowed to want a happy life.” I’m so glad that she was smart enough, and fearless enough, and knew herself well enough, back then, when we were only in our 20s, to leave a perfectly nice guy to find the guy who was perfectly right for her. They were married for 35 years.
Instead of telling a story, Andy Ewen brought out a guitar and sang Iggy Pop’s the Passenger. It was just right for the event.
I drove with one of the Appliances, Bill Feeny, who is my neighbor now – lives barely two blocks away. It was really nice to have someone to drive with, since that drive to Milwaukee has got to be about the most boring, soul sucking, miserable, drive anywhere. Why we’re so pissed that the Governor took away the train. I always say that memorials are for us, the living, the ones left behind, so we can remember our departed loved one, but also see each other and think about all the connections between us. In this case, the Madison music scene in the ’80s.
On the way back, Bill and I were talking about his old car, and I asked if he ever took it out to Monona Motors, because John Disch, the owner, who I know from back when he was the mechanic at Union Cab, is so good at helping people keep their old cars running. Bill didn’t know John very well, but knew one of his girlfriends, Ellen. I recalled that John said Ellen had left him for a “rich A-rab”. We were less politically correct in the early ’80s.Without missing a beat, Bill said, “he was actually Persian”. Oh the good old days.