Nelson

One Halloween in the early ‘70s Nelson had a poker party (of course), but before the first ante everyone participated in a backyard haunted maze for the neighborhood kids. Bob had enlisted the help of his friends to dig and build and fill the yard with special effects, ghoulish obstacles and macabre scenes. There were strobe lights, dry-ice fog, eerie music and gory contributions from the meat market while costumed pranksters entertained and frightened scores of unsuspecting trick-or-treaters on one magical night. It was theater.

No matter how long someone lives it usually seems too short a time. Fate gave Bob a lot of obstacles to overcome, and then he threw in a few of his own. He is among the last of a generation to have a long leash; but there wasn’t a lead long enough for Bob. He continually sought independence, looked for different ways to make money and alternatives to needing money altogether. He was filled with dreams and schemes and ideas for a better life. He pursued these as best he could and in the process did extraordinary things. Like a lot of us from this town, at that time, Nelson had support from home; Delia was always his advocate. Whether taking on the schools or the cops, she stood by his side - as long he was in the right. Bob earned the respect of his friends for his unending struggle for liberation. He earned our friendship because he was funny, exciting and had a heart of gold.

I’d like to read from Jack Kerouac, the book On the Road, chapter one, paragraph eleven: “...the only ones for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn like fabulous yellow roman candles …” It’s hard to talk about Nelson in terms of regular folks. He has always been out there, always pushing buttons or stretching the limits of convention. One night we were on his bus somewhere. It was late and we were toast. We got to talking about stuff that sometimes comes up when everything is worn out and it was then that Bob shared a philosophic bent to his behavior. He was on a mission, he was testing bounds, pushing limits, his and ours, all the time. He didn’t have time for complacency. No time to relax, there were frontiers to investigate, social and personal experiments to pursue. He might get obnoxious, he could tick you off, he could be a brat, but this was a method to his madness. After that night on the bus, he was fascinating to watch. He knew what he was doing and he would make huge sacrifices get what he, or you, needed. He was excited by life and it’s possibilities and wanted to experience it all, all at once.

From Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, first book, chapter 7/12: “I would only believe in a god who could dance. And when I saw my devil I found him serious, thorough, profound and solemn: it was the spirit of gravity- through him all things fall. Not by wrath does one kill, but by laughter. Come let us kill the spirit of gravity (with laughter)!” Here’s where Bob seemed to excel. No matter how grave, how serious the situation seemed to be, he would laugh it off. When things were dire, whether it be diabetes, hepatitis, bed sores or paralysis, he laughed his cackling laugh and continued on, managing or overcoming almost any problem, laughter being his best medicine.

Bob Malgeri may have best summed up Nelson’s character with this poker reference; "I love it when Nelson goes all in with shit for a hand". Nelson had been dealt a lot of bad hands and yet he went all in with whatever he had. He thought he was the master of bluff and always believed he'd get away with it. Maybe he was just trying to bluff himself. He wasn't supposed to walk again and dealt that horrible hand he got up and fell flat on his face a thousand times, bluffing, making believe he could walk; and eventually he did. He's no fool, so he may be the eternal optimist. Or alchemist. An alchemist does the impossible; the popular notion is that they can turn lead into gold and that's pretty much Nelson. He turned his lead legs into walking tools again. He has also taken a lot of the lead in our lives and turned them to solid-gold memories. The last ten years or so Bob mellowed quite a bit. His pace in Mexico was certainly slow and maybe he brought that back with him. Maybe he had taught us all he could about agitation and was sitting back to see how we would use his example. Maybe he just got tired.

In the Marriage of Heaven and Hell William Blake suggests, “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.” If this is true we may be surrounded with some of the wisest people outside of Tibet. Sometimes when we’d talk about excessive behavior Bob would get kinda quiet and just rock and grin, saying “One thing for sure, nobody gypped us out of anything.”

Picture Nelson riding his Honda chopper down Brea Blvd, dressed in a Santa suit, Janie Uneik on the back throwing treats out to friends they’d pass, cackling all the way… All the world's a stage (from As You Like It 2/7), And all the men and women merely players … Shakespeare didn’t comment on the directors. Nelson could command a room just by entering it. There was no avoiding his presence and you generally went with the direction he provided. The king of good spirits, there isn't a soul out there who hasn't completely cracked up with Nelson and will continue laughing while reliving the millions of stories and experiences that he gave us, none of them with a yawn or a commonplace thing in them. Life with Nelson was theater.

from Nelson's funeral April 2012

Mark

I like talking about Mark. He had a major positive effect on me and I think everyone had the same feeling after hanging with Mark. When I think of words to describe him I find many of them, trustworthy, modest, agile, loyal, appreciative, honest, are words that apply to all the Rileys. I have been lucky to spend a lot of time with John and Dale and Mark and they, like David and Peggy, all share the quiet principles of hard work and honesty.

Mark always called a spade a spade. If you’d screw up, he might be reluctant to call you on it, but he would, and he‘d pad the blow in a way that made you laugh at yourself; and you could always benefit from his perspective.

He also was one of the funniest people ever. He could make Jeanne Gladden giggle like a schoolgirl; even strangers would get swept into his distinctive kind of humor. Once we were in the van and passed a boy on a bike when Mark hollers, “Get out of the street!” The kid about fell off his bike and looked up at Mark and just started cracking up. Part of the humor came from the fact that Mark looked like a hard guy, you expected his gruff grunts to be intimidating, but he was just funny. He once said people thought he was tough because he always squinted, then explained he always squinted because he needed glasses.

Although most of our time together was playing, I can’t talk about Mark without including work. He was always willing to work. I don’t think I did anything without him volunteering to help. We’d wax the floors at the VFW almost every week just because he had the time and tools to do it, and because he’d do anything for Rojo. We had a lot of opportunities to work together and he always made it fun, or least more tolerable, with his laborer lingo and biting comments about your skills while keeping his head down and working his tail off.

He had this great talent for imitating people. Within a few minutes he would recognize the speech or posture or gesture that made someone unique and he’d capture it perfectly. He could mimic anyone, even from movies or TV.

Once Mark, Dale and I were out watching Monday night football and afterward a crew came in to set up for a roving dance contest. Several “ringers” appeared and the organizers were taking entries from the locals. Now, I don’t know if it took courage or if it was a long-time burning desire to enter a dance contest, but Mark signs up. Dale and I were blown away. I’d seen Mark in a lot of different situations, but never on a dance floor. Soon enough he and this partner, someone we’d never seen, were announced; the music starts and he takes the Travolta pose (the one with a hand by his hip and finger pointed in the air).

Dale and I were cracking up on the inside, just staring on the outside. And then he danced. He mimicked every move from Saturday Night Fever with timing and dignity. It was one of the most amazing performances of anything I have ever seen. You’d swear he’d been practicing for years. Incredibly enough, they went to the second round, the semis, then, exhausted, to the finals where one of the ringer couples won. The crowd booed “fix!” as it was clear to everyone that Mark and the stranger were clearly the top performers. Afterwards he was drained and thirsty and insisted that news of this night not leave the room (later he said I could tell the story).

Carleen helped him learn to enjoy travel, often with some sort of gambling as bait, and they found new people to laugh with wherever they went. He was usually quiet and not a big grinner, but always the guy people wanted to hang around with.

Once I was going to L.A. with Kusudo to see this poetry professor who was going to read his one-man play about Ludwig, the mad King of Bavaria and Mark came along. So it’s this little storefront theater with little bleachers filled with college students and poetry buffs. The professor, playing the king, comes out in this long purple cape and a gold crown. He starts his reading and everyone is silently riveted to every word.

And then Mark starts to crack up. A bit later he starts laughing again. All evening he has these bursts of laughter that came and went quickly, but it was only him laughing. Everyone else was hushed the whole time, hanging on every word of the reader; a few seemed annoyed at the laughter, like somebody talking too loud at the movies. Afterwards we went out with the professor for a couple drinks. People came up and told him what a great piece of work it was, praised him and left, and soon it was just us sitting there when the professor says, “I heard one person laughing”. Before anyone could think of a response the guy says “Don’t you think anybody else got it?”

Mark was always exactly who he was, never pretentious, always well-grounded and made good decisions. One of those was to marry Carleen who has been a loving and caring wife and mother to Joe. There’ some old video of Mark feeding his six-day old son. On the tape it says “You look like you know what your doing” he looked down at Joe, puts a bottle to his mouth and says “I’m a good actor”.

He was a model on how to be a friend. He always cared, even if he didn’t like to say it, and always stood by your side, offering to help any way he could. It was hard to rattle him because he had this uncanny ability to know why people did things the strange things they do. He knew more about people than anyone I know.

For the first time I know what people mean when they say “a part of me went with him”. There are parts of my life that only Mark recognized and he never betrayed the trust. On the other hand, part of Mark will never die. Carleen, Joe, his brothers and sister; all of us continue to carry of big part of him with us. The world is a better place and all of our lives improved because we had the good luck to know Mark. When I die, and if I go to heaven and the old bastard asks me what I did while on the earth I'll tell him, "I hung out with Mark Riley."

from Mark's funeral March 2012