Cal quit his job as a blog commentator at CNN in Washington, DC when he became so disillusioned by the hypocrisy of media that he couldn't stand being part of it anymore. He came back to New York and back to making large sculptures for the Madagascar Institute for Burning Man--tremendous dragons curling up out of the sand, or a huge chandelier that had, as the story goes, fallen from the heavens when the Gods were quarreling. On April 29th, eight days after his 41st birthday, the New York Times photographed a piece he had worked on where two oil tankers welded one on top of the other (www.bigrigjig.com) -- he was ecstatic.
A lopsided grin broken by a scar from a bad car accident, Cal had a devilish cackle most often heard when things were absurd or ironic. He was born in the Seattle projects; he ran away from home, eventually heading to New York with the goal of meeting Billy Idol and Debbie Harry. He met one and bedded the latter: the song "Bike Boy" was an a lyrical ode to him he told me. We'd been friends - sometimes close, sometimes not - for 20 years. I had just spoken to him last week. I had introduced Cal to a literary agent who found his charisma and "rock and roll" story of growing up a punk rock kid interesting. It was. He's been inspired by a friend's memoir, Girl Bomb by Janice Erlbaum (Janice writes about him in her blog this week www.girlbomb.typepad.com). I pitched him for a reality cooking show; his ease in the kitchen was something he downplayed but excelled in. And, since working with Pseudo television, an Internet company way ahead of its time in the 1990s, he was far more comfortable in front of the camera than interacting with people.
Probably 90 percent of the movies I've seen are those he forced me to watch, sometimes more than once - Fight Club, Monty Python, Lord of The Rings. He loved classic punk rock, trance, Japanese pop music and classical music, the latter because it reminded him of riding around in the car with his grandmother, the only family member he's ever spoken of and genuinely missed. When I moved to New York in 1988, we walked around the city at all hours of the night: arcades in Times Square, diners in the East Village...When I was home sick with pneumonia, Cal brought me food after his shift bartending gig was over. Once, when he couldn't locate an ashtray, Cal nonchalantly flicked his cigarette ashes into his boot. Cal wanted desperately to find love and have a baby, even though he generally found the world an angry, hypocritical place. When his pessimism would plummet to depression, I'd just and watch the epic Lord of the Rings trilogy with him, again.
A detective from the Manhattan South precinct left a vague message on my phone and I knew even before calling back. I have to believe that, regardless of what the reason that up being on his death certificate, it was Cal's choice in some way or another. He hated summers. I can't help being angry, maybe not directly at him, but at the world for not making it easier for someone who was an independent thinker, someone who was sensitive and talented and ethical in a way that made day-to-day living hard. I fought hard against the urge to go down to the morgue and chew him out - it was only the next day that I found out that his body was so decomposed that they identified him by his tattoos anyway. He didn't leave a note or send an email to his friends. I'm guessing that this time, unlike the times before when he said he didn't have the courage, it was enough to take him over the edge. I hope wherever Cal is now, he's found the sweetness that his soul deserves.
For more information about his memorial, please email more-judgecal@googlegroups.com.
