Meditations on Death

In honor of my friend, Eric Pollard, whose birthday is today, I dug out an old cassette tape he sent to me at college in 1982. The title of the tape was "Meditations on Death." He spends the 45 minutes of Side One acting out a conceit of Tim Curry as Frank N. Furter from The Rocky Horror Picture Show meeting God in Heaven. He, in a thinly veiled characterization, discusses the meaning of death and his views of the after-life. In this very strange context, he weaves many references to his then-recent involuntary deprogramming, and his general angst at being 18, being in high school and feeling very isolated and alienated.

Side Two is 45 minutes of him rambling from the rehearsal room at his high school, playing the piano intermittantly, and then reading a very long letter from our mutal friend, Alec, who was then a freshman at Yale. The letter captures all of our friend's misplaced arrogance, and innocence - and richocets from tales of decorating his "flat" (last time I checked Yale was not Oxford... I believe those are still apartments here on this side of the pond), with his "flat-mates" and his first encounters with pot. It ends with a pro and con discussion of the Montessori school system.

This cassette is a wonderful little time capsule of my friend Eric, who passed away on my birthday in 2002. It was bittersweet to be taken back in time, but wonderful to be reminded of what a character he was.