Harrowing Weekend: Part Deux

[zrath]

When we last left our Hero, he had gone to bed on Friday night.
It's now Saturday.
This post is gonna need a cut tag because it's got pictures in it.
And it's loooooooooong.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends!



Saturday April 5th
Oh Fanged God, this was it!
I got everything packed and ready, called a few people, then Roy and I went to pick up Marie.
We arrived at Sebastian's house at 1:30pm and got situated. selenesue was already there and ready
to help with food preparation. I hugged her warmly. Then I walked into the backyard, wondering
where to place everything. T-Mac had said that he had painted a memorial for Pascal. He had told
me it was 8 feet by 10 feet and I had boggled at that. I looked toward the garage and there it was:



Holy crap.
Notice the t-shirts on either side, providing a sense of scale.
I had brought some of Pascal's iconic clothing, so I set it up to the sides of the painting.



On the left is his custom Raven paintball jersey. You're looking at the back, it says "DJ PASCAL B".
In the middle is a tribal design t-shirt he wore at various gigs. And on the right is a very special
shirt. It originally belonged to Domino Harvey, and she gave it to Pascal when they were going out.
Pascal has worn this shirt regularly since, including on his first trip to Burning Man.
And here are a couple more:



A fake fur he cherished and wore at all three Burning Men, and his long-sleeved Dogtown t-shirt.
Pascal was heavily into skateboarding in the mid-to-late '70s and he had every single issues of
Skateboarder magazine. I was along for the ride, also doing some skateboarding.
It was huge in France in '77 and '78!! Pascal was the French Dogtown Z-Boy skater. :)
A table was set up next to the painting, so I placed the memorial CDs, the urn, and the "Anvil" there:



I chose a very simple urn, as the Sibling's ashes will be scattered at sea soon. The Anvil (in French:
L'Enclume) was Pascal's main record case. It's both heavy and heavily decorated with stickers,
including ones from Burning Man. He took that thing with him to nearly every gig.
And to the left of the table, I set up the foamcore boards I mentionned at the beginning of this post:



I tried to fix the above image in Photoshop but I failed completely. The weather was just too bright.
It's a sample of photos from the past 15 years, a few of which are on the memorial CD set cover.
Pascal used to have long hair but he succumbed to the short hair fashion in the late '90s.
I, myself, stopped wearing my hair long around 2003. I prefer it shorter.
Pascal lost all his hair during the first round of chemotherapy, even his eyebrows. It all started
growing back in late 2006 and he looked much better by mid-2007.
Not pictured is the table of food stocked with Pascal favorites like brie, sliced baguette bread,
goat cheese, and some other tasty things like irish cheddar and Selenesue's homemade ratatouille!
There was beer and wine aplenty, none of which I touched. I drank orange juice and a delicious
chai vanilla concoction of some kind. It was very tasty and very healthy.
There was a sound system set up inside the house with one speaker outside, and I put some of
Pascal's mix CDs on. At least 3 people wanted the CD I was playing by the end of the memorial.
People had been trickling in since 2pm and by 4pm, we had what looked like about 45 people.
It was a mix of family friends, friends of Pascal, members of PPC Tribe, and friends of mine.
coyoteseven had shown up by then, and informed me that his parents couldn't make it.
I kept hoping dcotelessa would turn up, but he never did.
Sebastian and I decided to start the eulogizing at 4:30pm.

At the appointed time, we turned off the music. Sebastian, Jean-Louis, T-Mac and I stood on the lawn
while people gathered in front of us, and Sebastian gave a beautiful and poignant eulogy.
He talked about Pascal's questionable grasp of the English language (many people snickered at that)
and a caring and considerate personality hidden under a layer of gruffness and apparent misanthropy.
He talked about Pascal living in his house for 4 months and how cool it was to have his own personal
professional DJ. And how Pascal had been constantly playing and mixing music, all the time.
He had to be told to stop and go to bed. And when he went to Burning Man with the PPC Tribe,
the group of Burners that Sebastian is the leader of, he also played for hours and hours and hours.
He didn't talk, he just played. He talked with his hands, "spinnin' and waxin'" as T-Mac wrote.
T-Mac went next, eulogizing in his trademark Aussie accent. I don't remember what he said but it was
very moving and I had the beginning of tears in my eyes. And then it was my turn. Oh boy...

I figured a good place to start was the t-shirt I was wearing. Indeed, I had chosen the Eazy-E
t-shirt showing the gangster rap icon pointing two handguns at the viewer. And the reason I had
chosen this shirt was very simple: it was Pascal's favorite shirt that I owned.
And if the shop on Melrose I had seen the shirt on display in had failed to turn up a size XXXL,
Pascal would have bought one in XL for himself. But they had the shirt in XXXL, so he graciously
allowed me to buy it and wear it, and he bought a different NWA t-shirt out of respect.
And I segued into this being very considerate of him, and that he was a considerate and kind man.
It took me a long time to realize this because I viewed my brother as my enemy in my early life.
This was because he did bad stuff to me. And it wasn't until later in life that I understood that he
partly did bad things to me because the parents did bad things to him. They didn't punish me much for
the bad things I did and they punished him instead. So he took it out on me.
Our parents were not right in the head. I realized this later as well.
Music was the one thing that the Sibling and I really connected on.
And it was the language he had used to communicate with all the people.
I read a couple of eulogies sent in by people who couldn't make it.
Muriel, an old friend of Pascal in France, sent a eulogy in French, of course.
And Mitch Beiro, the furry cartoonist and master of foamcore, had sent a rather nice eulogy.
He talked about visiting my brother and I and enjoying our French chatter. And being amused and
honored at getting nicknamed "The Bear" by Pascal because of his rather impressive snoring skills.

Then a woman named Leilani stepped up and talked about meeting Pascal at Burning Man and communicating
with him in a peculiar way. He played music and she danced and danced and danced. Then on the last day,
Pascal grabbed her arm, gave her a CD and said "I want you to have this". She took the CD.
She's played it many times and it helped her through tough times. She was grateful for having it.
Sebastian and I tried to get Jean-Louis to say something, but instead, he had everyone form a circle
and hold hands, and say a silent prayer for Pascal.
By that time, gizmoelf had arrived and joined the circle.
Then a few people took their turn, stepping in the middle of the circle and sharing a memory of Pascal.
And a friend named Joel sang a song acapella. He sang "Nature Boy" by Nat King Cole...

There was a boy
A very strange enchanted boy
They say he wandered very far, very far
Over land and sea
A little shy
And sad of eye
But very wise
Was he

And then one day
A magic day he passed my way
And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings
This he said to me
"The greatest thing
You'll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved
In return"

And that's when I started crying.
I was wearing sunglasses, so hopefully not too many people saw it.
Here are a few shots of the circle, clockwise from left to right:



At the bottom of the photo is T-Mac, the Aussie painter with the very firm grip.
Next to him is Jean-Louis, a tall thin man who looks like Pascal after SlimFast.



More people in the circle, and an odd fellow who had Pascal as a neighbor when the Sibling lived
in a wild area of Malibu known as the Rodeo Grounds.



The house itself and more people in the circle. The gentleman on the extreme right with the short hair
and wearing the light blue shirt is Sebastian, the owner of the house and leader of the PPC Tribe.
The gentleman on the extreme left who is crouching and has long black hair is Jeremy, a musician
who worked with Pascal on the "Presidents Dub", along with other Pascal tunes.
gizmoelf is in this photo somewhere. :)



The tall woman who is standing is Marie from New York. The black gentleman on the right, in back,
sitting under the lemon tree is Joel Virgel, a musician and singer. He sang the song earlier.
He had a starring role in "10,000 BC", the latest epic from Roland Emmerich. :)
selenesue is in this photo somewhere. :)

Eventually, the eulogizing ended and people started mingling again. Some left. I made sure to check
that they had left a few words and signed the back of the huge painting, and that they had their
Memorial 4-CD Sets, if they had wanted to pick 'em up here.
I had been too nervous to eat until now, so I sampled the various tasty things laid out on the table.
Most people had left by 5:30pm and T-Mac was shutting things down because he had to go to his son's
birthday. He was caretaker of the house while Sebastian was moving to his new house in Bel Air.
If you've made it this far, I will reward your tenacity with an interesting bit of information.
Sebastian's last name is Copeland, and he is a photographer.
This is his book.
This is the kind of people my brother was friends with...



So anyway, things had wound down and everyone had gone. I had hugged Selenesue goodbye and thanked
her for the help and the tasty ratatouille. Roy and I tried to get Gizmo and Coyote 7 to stick around
and go grab dinner somewhere. Gizmo had to go home, but Coyote was interested. So I racked my brains
trying to think of some place cool in West Hollywood or Hollywood.
And all I could come up with was In-N-Out on Sunset, near Hollywood High School. Blargh.
But the kids were okay with it.
So we rendez-voused (thank you Wil Wheaton!) at said In-N-Out and managed to score a booth.
I called Spino on a whim and he actually answered his phone! Shit! Goddamn! Get off your ass and jam!
We made plans to have lunch with him on Sunday before Roy flew back to Phoenix.
Then the food was ready, so we ate and we gabbed for a good long while. Later, we walked out and
gabbed some more. Eventually, we had to go home. It must have been midnight by then. Geeze.
Coyote 7 went home, and Roy and I went back to the Kzinti Freehold.


To be concluded...

Comments

[mutleyjames.livejournal.com]

Dude.

[theresamather.livejournal.com]

Hugs, my friend. What a great tribute. Wish we could have been there, hope to see you in the not too distant future.


T

[carol-kitty.livejournal.com]

Sorry to have not been there but well NM is a bit far. My thoughts are with you. Big Hugs.

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

I was happy to be there. What else could I do? I can't cure cancer but I can cook and arrange sammiches on trays. That and make nice with people from different planets. Nice planets though.

T-Mac's big painting was impressive, a true labour of love. Apparently, the tribe intends to remove it from the frame and take it to Burning Man this year, for more signatures on the back and then to burn it, sending it to the next world as a greeting card for Himself. Sweetness.

[firedrake-mor.livejournal.com]

You always -did- get along well with aliens . . . Kzinti, Andorians, and the like, not to mention the occasional Kryptonian.

It sounds like a wonderful event. Makes me wish I'd had the chance to know the honoree before he departed for sunnier climes.

May his journey thrive.

[zrath.livejournal.com]

"People from different planets", yes, well put. :)
I was a little concerned about that, about the difference of circles.
But, in the end, everyone was there for the same reason.

T-Mac's painting will go to Burning Man but it won't be burnt.
It should come back to me.

[duntov-475hp.livejournal.com]

Man, he left a big impact, didn't he?
I bet this day was one of the harder ones. Yet it showed a lot of the good things to always remember and cherish. He did a lot to be proud of and that pride is also yours to have. Y'dig?

[araquan.livejournal.com]

I wish I could have been there. But my thoughts are with you, even if I wasn't able to be.