Otherside

 

 

The last time I saw my friend Robert Wisdom was at a Mission of Burma show in the basement of the First Unitarian Church in Philly. It was an odd spot for Burma to play at that point, but it fit Robert's musical ethos. The more DIY something was -- and shows at the FU Church are pretty damn DIY -- the more he liked it. And, as always, the louder and faster that Burma played that night, the more Robert dug them.

He wasn't really a music nerd. He was never going to get into debates about whether the US or UK version of the Clash's self-titled album is better. (It's the US one, if you're wondering). But all I had to do to get him to go see a band is to make sure the show would be loud, fast, or, preferably, both. "I'm a tempo junkie, Steve. You seem to understand that, and it's why you almost never steer me wrong on bands," he once said.

Strangely, in light of that declaration, he drank decaf.

I knew Robert a long time. He was best buds with the lead singer of the first "real" band I was ever in, in the 1980s. Yes, he liked all our fast songs. (There were a lot of fast songs). But we really started hanging out more in the 1990s and that continued into the 2000s. There's a point around age 30 or so where your concertgoing pals start to drop out of the game. Families, kids, creeping conservatism -- it all plays into the fact that those really fun motherfuckers from age 20 or so are (musically speaking, and sometimes more) as dull as dishwater by age 30 to 35. So at that point, I started hitting up Robert to go to shows. I misfired a couple of times. Americana was not his thing. But punk rock and Motorhead sure as hell were. I hit the mark almost all the time.

There was also volleyball. He'd come to our house for games, piss off half the people with his off-color jokes, drink more Coca Cola than I thought possible, and leave me and the people who liked him laughing in his wake. He'd also host "game night" at his place pretty often, and that was where his nerd light really shone.

But there was also his weird decision to stop working anywhere and live off savings for a while that turned into an unintended longer while, and somewhere along the line there was also a diabetes diagnosis that he didn't quite get around to telling most of us about until he nearly lost his leg as a result.

I still don't know what ultimately happened. I could venture a guess, but I might be wrong, and it pretty much doesn't matter. All I know is that around August 15, 2008, I called him to tell him there was going to be a volleyball game at our place the next weekend. The call went to voicemail. I left a message but got no return call -- from a guy who lived to play volleyball. I tried again the next day. This time the voicemail was full and couldn't take any more messages. By the next day, when I tried again and the voicemail was still full, I called a mutual friend who lived nearby Robert. He said he'd stop by and see what was up. A short time later, I got a call back from that friend: "Steve, they're carrying his body out; it's awful. He's been dead for a few days." He was 45 years old. They guessed at his date of death: August 15, 2008.

I'm not much for thoughts of an afterlife, but that Rancid song (in the above video, and also here) -- about meeting your dead buddy Robert on the "otherside" -- gets me every time. Plus, he would have loved its high-speed melodic attack. And, no, he wouldn't have believed a goddamn word of its cheery, optimistic take on a life after this one. Me either, man. 

Here's to the wonder of occasionally possibly being wrong....