ONE MOURNING LATER IN THE EXTRAORDINARY AFTERLIFE OF HARRY PERZIGIAN

A few short words for the dearly departed.

April 29th of last year was the day that the immortal portal opened and my best friend just happened to peek his head right through and said ‘fuck it’ – the mortgage is probably cheaper here anyway” – leaving me to hold the bag wondering how did the last two episodes of the fourth season of Game of Thrones ended before the HBO got clipped off at his house. I’m still on the waiting list for the damn fifth disc from the latest DVD collection at my local library.

We’ll never get together to listen to the 5.1 surround sound version of my favorite Yes album, Relayer on his unbelievable living room sound system. Ditto for the just newly released Jethro Tull’s Minstrel in the Gallery (both remixed by Porcupine Tree’s Steven Wilson)  – because it’s been dismantled now that the roommate and his girlfriend who now occupy his Brentwood condominium (on Harry’s dime of course – the place is still in his name) didn’t lift a finger on calling an ambulance when he kept blacking out and smacking his noggin on the cold hard linoleum floor thereby reaping in all the benefits of his estimated million dollar abode. During the time when I was a former roommate at that condo, Harry had the unconditional knack of knocking out a faithful rendition of “One White Duck = Nothing at All” with just him and his acoustic guitar at three o’clock in the morning. Would’ve loved to hear that one in super surround sound – but knowing Harry, he probably would’ve ruined it for me by whipping out his Martin acoustic guitar and TRY to play over it. Because Harry was just that way – always trying to be the center of attention.

All these so-called friends he had in the show biz world two decades back, John Fahey, Todd Bridges, Ryan O’Neal, Minka Kelly (well, technically Harry used to babysit and take her to hockey games back when he was dating her mother), Linda Hamilton, Dean Cain, Bobby Kimball, along with whoever else is surviving these days – all gone, all unaccounted for in never finding out the tragic end of the saga of their so-called party buddy.

Even as I tried to gossipmonger my way through or dropping along e-mail hints to the press at the LA Times or the LA Weekly – there was not one single feint response. Not one single callback concerning an interest story based on perhaps one of the most notorious Hollywood scandals that occurred nationally concurrently with the Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman murders: the suicide death of actor and drug abuser Hugh O’Connor, adoptive son of All in the Family Emmy winning actor Carroll O’Connor that had my friend Harry Perzigian taking the majority of the blame for it and EVEN being unlawfully incarcerated for it – because O’Connor was deep down,  a selfish piece of shit excuse for a human being, allowing his actor credibility to shift blaming someone else for his own ‘son’s’ demise when he couldn’t admit to the responsibility of taking care of his own ‘ALL in the family’ matters.

The only word to a celebrity I’ve been nearly successful in getting the word out concerning Harry’s unfortunate twist of fate was to John Wetton, who co-wrote three demos with Harry back in the mid 1990s’ after a ASIA gig got let out in the Miracle Mile area of Los Angeles. Outside the venue, I was introduced to their new guitar player Sam Coulson through a facebook friend of mine, female singer Naomi Nektare and I gave him a message to pass on. Don’t really know if Mr. Wetton had received it or not.

Nope. NOT one single reporter contacted me to verify the tragic turn of events or even wanted to hear about my attempt, along with the help of some other loyals friends and family (not his roommate – I assure you) he had left in the world in trying to save his life.

Not. One. Single. Douchebag. Member. Of. The. Press. Called.

The LA Weekly – a Los Angeles area alternative newspaper and having a usual solid reputation of doing edgy cover stories  – SHOULD AT LEAST MADE IT A FEATURE STORY. People were just as captivated back then following it on the news as much as they were waiting to hear the OJ Simpson verdict being read.

So fuck you Dennis Romero. Fuck you for ignoring a very important piece of West Los Angeles history.

I could’ve been the new Kato Kaelin, goddamn it. The fucking police grilled me long enough to at least earn that title when they initially suspected that there was foul play involved with me and his roommate.

I mean, who falls off his bed in the middle of the night trying to grab his guitar and winds up smashing his head into a pane glass mirror closet door after consuming just seven bottles of Canadian Mist and a entire bottle of prescribed methadone and tries to get up later to do tap dance?

Not very many people- but sometimes, Harry could have been capable of achieving the impossible. Only this time the inconceivable impossible finally caught up to him. The end. Finito. The punchline of the joke with the slight philosophical slant that my stepfather used to tell me when I was young dastardly came true (even though I felt there were equally as dumb as Harry’s were at times): It went something like this:  “Cary, you know, everyone dies from the same natural causes – in the exact same way: LACK OF BREATH.

Harry’s favorite joke – just in time for the festive Armenian genocide celebration and the one that got him the big laughs in 2013 when he trying to stave off his disease at St. John’s Hospital psych ward in Santa Monica, California:- ” You know, doc – there are THREE things that are capable of surviving a nuclear holocaust; cockroaches, rats, and ARMENIANS”

And look at where you are now buddy, a one way ticket to the null and void – never to return.

With that said, a few weeks ago on April 11th, a select few of us people WHO still cared for Harry held a private get-together at the house of one of his ex-girlfriends up in the San Fernando Valley. Many were invited, but only a handful of us bothered to show up consisting of two ex-girlfriends, another friend named John, me, and Harry’s daughter flying in from Australia along with his two grandsons all shared together a two to three hour late afternoon dinner and discussion about the happy times and the bad times – climaxing with the ritual of releasing some blood butterflies from tiny little boxes in the shape of folded up paper classroom  footballs or Easy Wide rolling papers. I initially scoffed at the idea, believing no way can insects survive in little boxes shipped across the continent, but then I was remembering one time when I had ordered the deluxe version of Marillion’s 2005 Marbles album to be shipped from the UK and upon opening the package at my office at Warner Bros – a moth flew out and thinking in my mind ‘oh great, I probably released some new type of contagion, who knows what disease that moth’s carrying.’

We also celebrated with music – Harry’s music. A first volume of music was assembled and cobbled together from hundreds of demos featuring many collaborations with musicians and writers as diverse as Bobby Kimball, Vixen, Pretty Boy Floyd, John Wetton and Kevin Dubrow. Unfortunately, even though we printed enough CDs for fifty or so guests – I can’t sell any copies of this collection, because you know, I sure as shit didn’t get anyone’s permission to duplicate these demos. I can give them away in underground circles. BUT I’m sure if any readers wanting to get a hand of a COPY can certainly find out a way to get their hands on one. IF you know what I mean, nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

Coming soon: Blogs about Engineers, North Atlantic Oscillation, Steven Wilson, The May Sweeps, and the new upcoming Deposit Man issue.

I fucking promise.