Pat,
I'll never again be able to hear Lennon's "Imagine" without thinking of you and Barb. You two have brought so many people together.
Love,
Howard |
Thank you for sharing this with the Audiogon community, Paul. Patrick, we wish you a successful recovery, and a safe holiday. All I want for Christmas is for you to feel better, and clearly that is the general consensus here.
All the best,
Howard |
C'mon Patrick, don't shun hero status when it's bestowed upon you. 'Alexander' and 'The Alamo' failed miserably at the box office, so we're turning to you to lead the charge.
By the way, what type of dog are you? We have a Jack Russell and an English Mastiff, and I want to let them know about their new relative.
All the best to you,
Howard |
Pat,
It's inspiring to read your words, and being so honest is all the talent anyone ever needs to write as powerfully as you do. Your tribute to Barb is just as touching as anything you write, because it's clear that she has treated your relationship as though she would be allowed a mere minute of life to share with you. And she's managed to string together thousands of those minutes to the point of filling your heart with a towering compassion.
Keep it coming, Pat.
Howard |
Glad you liked the photo, Pat.
Feel well, buddy.
Howard |
Pat,
When you write in these threads, I feel like I can hear your voice. And it's always so uplifting.
Howard |
Rest up, Pat. We've got activities planned, buddy. |
I just had neck surgery on Monday, and I'm using my limited allotment of computer time to peruse the threads. I happened upon your post, Pat, and now I can lie back down with a smile on my face. You just have that effect on people.
And J.D., I have no doubt that you will be skiing again. I just see that happening for you.
Enjoy your day, everyone.
Howard |
Pat,
If you have concern that your post is difficult to track, don't. You're coming in loud and clear, in fact more so than ever.
Lots of love to you and your family, friend.
Howard |
Pat,
Just to hear your 'voice' here is always good.
We're always thinking of you, in case that isn't obvious.
Howard |
Pat,
How is it possible that the Tour de France starts tomorrow, and while all eyes will be on Lance (going for his 7th straight victory), I won't be able to stop thinking about you climbing up those mountains? You've had that much of an impact on me.
Enjoy your weekend, and please do consider the invitation.
All the best,
Howard |
Lance says that he wants to be remembered first as a cancer survivor, because that has shaped his life more than anything else. He certainly would never have won the Tour de France had he not gotten cancer. He didn't have the body, and he certainly didn't have the mind, not for a three-week stage race. Thank you for sharing all of your powerful perspectives, Pat. It's amazing how an experience like yours, when expressed so eloquently, can bring such a richness to all of us who have only these threads as our history with you.
We will have to make sure that Dean and Tvad (Grant) make the trip up if you come for a visit. Now that would be a real treat. Have you been to San Francisco? Nothing like a sunny day on the beach at the Marina, with the Golden Gate overpowering the view just to our left. |
Pat,
That is one hilarious story. Maybe you were unwittingly the protagonist in the SF version of "The Truman (Capote) Show"
Don't worry. When we go to SF, I'll make sure we're scoping in on the REAL women. I've got a trained eye for that sort of thing. I guess you know what it's like pass by a construction site, all that hootin' & hollerin'. I'm still laughing... |
Oh, and you're in for a treat if you do come. Amoeba Records in SF (and Berkeley) is phenomenal. And I promise, as much as my wife cries in longing each time we pass by the massive IKEA furniture store, I won't make you go. For my own selfish reasons, of course.
SF & Berkeley, some of the best eats anywhere...I guarantee that! |
"Women always want to know what we're thinking. They always want to know what's going on up there in our heads while we're just sitting there, being quiet. Uh...nothing."
--Jerry Seinfeld
"Man's best friend is his dog because he always wants his friends to be dummer than he is. Women want the same thing, too. But that's why they have men."
--Bill Engvall
Go Lance!
Go Pat! |
Pat,
Thank you, as always, for your honesty. In spite of the physical death you see, your words carry more life in them than ever before. Truly, I don't even know you, but I can feel you all around. You bring out the best in everyone here.
Love,
Howard |
You seem to be in great spirits, Pat. Very glad to see that. Nothing like The Waterboys "This is the Sea" to give you some wings. |
Happy Birthday, Pat. Glad to hear you're feeling better. And the invitation still stands to come for a visit. Our home is your home.
All the best to you and your family, my friend.
Howard |
If you really enjoy the game of rugby, I highly recommend that you see the documentary currently in the theaters, "Murderball". It follows the most recent years of the United States Olympic Quadraplegic Rugby Team. Very funny, inspiring film, one that speaks to the analogy made by Bluebull.
Enjoy your Sunday, Patrick.
Howard |
Zaikesman,
A startling post, one that at 4:30am just woke me up with a zest more potent than the coffee I was longing for only a moment ago.
You spoke thoughtfully of the human condition. Perhaps you were even referring parenthetically to the themes described in the book of the same name (in French), "La Condition Humaine," authored by a man who lived three lives in the space of one, Andre Malraux. The book suggests, as I think you might be doing so here, that inherent in our human condition is the incessant drive to be more than human, to give exaggerated meaning to our actions such that we might one day be able to consider ourselves as having overcome the limitations of our own humanity. In other words, to live as though the story we leave in our wake might actually be larger than the life it is meant to encapsulate. This, in my view, is how we so often make heroes out of people whose lives were anything but. Perhaps it gives us hope that we too will be remembered for being more than the person we believe ourselves to be. We celebrate the actions of others out of our own need to see them as heroic. For whatever reason, it makes us feel good to use that word. We share anecdotes of brave firefighters, daring journalists, actors who have overcome the odds, volunteer soldiers, wealthy real estate magnates, and even the occasional life-saving Rottweiler, just to remind ourselves that anyone has the ability to triumph over his own nature. To be more than human, as it were.
Pat, you are no more human than any of us. And at the same time, you are inarguably a hero. No, not in the sense that you have managed to become a character that supercedes the reality of your life. Rather, you are a hero to so many here because you have allowed us the privilege of watching you embrace the very reality that IS your life. And in doing so, you have sparked the rather unnatural and uncommon desire for us to become intimate with ourselves at a level that most of us never even knew existed. Zaikesman speaks of it so lovingly. And as much love as you have spread here, it is only just that you take some back, in whatever form of namecalling that represents. So there. You are the third hero in my life, the first being my father. The second, Muhammad Ali. And now you. Accept it. Heroism is for the living, and I've never seen anyone more alive than you are now. |
Good news, all. Pat and Barb will be coming to San Francisco this weekend. We've begun to plan a few activities, and are thinking about going to listen to some blues music on Friday or Saturday night. Also, a trip to the massive Amoeba Music store in the Haight is in order for Saturday. If anyone else is interested in coming along, please let me know, and as our itinerary develops, I'll pass it along. Also, if anyone knows of a particularly good place to listen to blues on Friday or Saturday, please shout out.
Howard |
Dean, you'd better be there, stuffin' twenties. |
Pat,
I'm afraid that like all things highly cultured, I have a tendency to sour quickly. It's people with a spirit like yours that bring me back to humanity. Can't wait to see you and Barb.
Howard |
By the way, Pat. At the airport, I'll be the guy who looks like somebody's cellmate at the state penitentiary. |
Pat,
From the moment I picked you and Barb up at the airport on Friday, it felt like I was with family. Sure, as we've discussed previously in this thread, it would be only appropriate to chronicle this weekend as something even greater than it was, as though answering to that human inclination to make heroes of one another. But dammit, it's all true! Pat and Barb just go straight to your heart, and it's as simple as that. Spending the weekend with them was the highlight of my year.
Despite having talked a lot this weekend, I did not get the chance to tell you (Pat and Barb) that I nearly missed the opportunity to be with my wife, Gina. When I met her, I found her to be enjoyable. But she had not traveled, she wasn't my physical type, she had not finished college, and we shared no common hobby interests, except for motorcycles. However, by the grace of whatever force you care to call it, it dawned on me over dinner one evening that I was looking in the wrong place if I wanted to have a life-long relationship with someone. And in that instant, I realized that life blossoms in Gina's presence. People feel at their best when they are with her. Now, that is certainly a quality that could sustain a relationship forever, and it is exactly what I immediately felt from you and Barb. You give life to those around you. I saw it over and over, all weekend long. In my view, this is the very pinnacle of humanity, sparking life in a way that makes you inseparable from those around you.
Thank you both again for being who you are. That in itself is truly overwhelming.
Love,
Howard |
The French doors were installed in the music room while we were gone Pat, I do believe that the administration has officially re-named those Freedom Doors. So as long as you leave "Rockin' in the Free World" on the turntable, you will have perfect audio synergy. Alternatively, "Nebraska" will work as well. :-)) |
Pat,
I sure wish I could be there in Denver with you and Barb. I miss you two!
Good to hear how well you are doing. You're on my mind every day.
Howard |
I'm thankful he's coming and hope to influence him to pick up on an analog front end. Pick up an analog front end? Heck, I'm gonna wait 'til you're napping and take yours! |
With a broken thumb in an elbow-length cast, I cannot type much. So in the interest of being concise, as well as to honor Pat's request for a concert review, here goes nuthin':
First, Pat did not feel up to going to the concert. He was (and is) simply too weak and tired. Therefore, Barb and I went to the concert with the neighbor. The concert was of the Boise Symphony Orchestra, playing at Northwest Nazarine University, which sits in a park-like setting of native trees approximately five minutes drive from Pat & Barb's home. Let me back up a minute.
Yesterday, despite Pat's lack of energy, he sat and listened to music with us for several hours. His first comment as he placed the first LP on the platter was, "Sorry I don't have a system that will wow you." He was right. It didn't wow me. But what it did do was pull me into the music completely, and ever deeper by the hour. Not only was this remarkable because of the low cost/high performance ratio of the system, but even more so because it is a solid state system. Please take no offense, it's just that by and large I happen to prefer an all-tube system. And yet, following several hours of listening to Pat & Barb's system, I found myself asking, "Now how much are those Linn amps?" Not a hint of fatigue, and nothing to wow you to the point of hearing only your internal commentary ABOUT the system, while forgetting about the tunes themselves. Nope, this system just plain gets you. In fact, not unlike the live music did this evening.
The middle piece, penned by a 33 year-old composer named Puts, was the highlight of the evening, particularly because of the soloist on the marimba. A diminuitive, Japanese beauty in a rose, crepe dress, sparkling jewelry adorning her wrists, neck, and ankles, she pranced back and forth, up and down the wood-slatted marimba in her high heels, playing rhythms with the dexterity of Robert Fripp, and passaggios with the sensitivity of Horowitz. In a word, she rocked! The other pieces were pleasant, played beautifully by an excellent symphony in a top-flight hall. But that gazelle on the marimba...man 'o man!
Now hours after the concert, as I tap away on the keys of Pat & Barb's computer, a lot of thoughts flood my mind. Pat hurts in the other room. I can hear it. I know he doesn't want me to see him this way. I don't know what to say. I can't keep my thoughts straight right now. I'm wondering if they'll ever come back in a predictable flow?
I've been reading this thread since day one, and now the end is near. I know Pat won't mind me coming out and saying that, because he has already accepted this for what it is, without the need for softening the experience via euphemism, metaphor, or cliche. It's death, folks, and Pat has made us witness to his in the most generous and selfless way imaginable.
Pat and I had a hearty conversation about God today. I won't even say that it was profound, because Pat's company itself is profound. Words somehow seem terribly insignificant, like tacking a sail on a boat whose direction is being driven by a force much more powerful than the wind. Pat might refer to this force as God. That I'm not sure. He spoke of being a believer for a long, long time. He suggested that he might wish for me to believe in God, yet he was unwilling to risk driving me away with the hard sell. I clarified that like other arenas in life over which I lack provenance, I don't believe in a God for me, not in my life. But whether he believes that he hears the most beautiful music coming from his chosen brand of interconnects, or the majestic voice of God in the presence of his life, then so do I.
When I was nine, I remember hearing our rabbi reading about the chosen people from our prayer book. I kept hearing that expression over and over in my mind...chosen people...chosen people...chosen people...and I could not help wondering that if we were the chosen people, then where did that leave everyone else? Shit outta luck? Were they really born with a sort of birth defect for having not come to earth as one of the chosen? I just couldn't stomach the thought, and in my young heart, it rang false. So, I suppose that was the day I became a bleeding heart. No, not in the cliched, socio-political sense of the word. More in the sense that if others hurt, I hurt. And Pat is hurting.
Pat said today that he hopes there is an afterlife. He has some favorite historical figures he'd like to meet there, and old friends that he'd like to see again. I'm guessing that if these folks are wandering around in some version of an afterlife, they're pining for
Pat's company even more than he is for their's. Because he's just that kind of a guy. Pat is a person who brings others together. He is a person who cherishes his wife on a parallel with air. Pat is a person who listens for the music in others. And for this reason alone, I love Pat. Pat is so much about giving love in the now that the prospect of meeting him in an afterlife almost seems like a letdown. Because all you have to do is read this thread, or spend five minutes with Pat, to know a slice of heaven right here on earth.
You people are humanity's finest. That's all I know for certain. As I have been with Pat over the past couple of days, it has become crystal clear to me that you all have helped Pat to extend his life. And you did so by moving beyond the wow factor that initiated this thread. You moved beyond it by embracing the music of humanity, represented by an open-hearted, vulnerable messenger, a beautiful man by the name of Patrick Malone. What else can I say? If you say there is a God, then I say it must be you.
Love to all,
Howard |
I feel fortunate to be here now with Pat and Barb. It's a strange feeling to be in someone else's house for a few days, and yet to feel entirely at home. I've seen others come and go here during that time, and not one is made to feel like a visitor. Because Pat and Barb invite them in as part of their lives, truly as part of them.
Barb and I discussed a future visit to California. She and my wife Gina have not met, and they will. Barb is that rare person who would not know how NOT to love you. She is Pat's best friend, as well as his champion. Pat said yesterday that she has always brought out the best in him, and this is evident.
Thank you all for being so generous with yourselves. I can see the gratitude on Pat's face.
Enjoy your weekend,
Howard |
Barb, Neil Young's dog in the song is named King. Gina knew the answer to that one.
Cinnamon Girl is a great name, and definitely a fitting one for that sweet face. |
...or our English Mastiff, Evita the Kitty Cat. She usually comes to "Here, Kitty."
Thank you for the poem, Tobias. So beautiful, and fitting. |
Ray, will you stop namin' nuts! (See the film "Best in Show" if the reference is lost)
This morning, when I went to hug Pat goodbye, it took a lot for me hold it together. I had such a rock in my throat, I felt like dropping to the floor and sobbing. Then, Pat broke my thoughts with a plan of his own. "I'll see you in the afterlife," he said. "I'm saving some choice spots for friends." I asked him if it would be waterfront property. "Nope," he said, "it'll be just like here, as it is on earth." I felt so happy for him. |
I hope your dad is OK, Nate. |
Pat,
You're absolutely right. And good of you to protest, too. That Supratek is one nice preamp!
Howard |
Alex, you've done more than you'll ever know to affect Pat's life. He couldn't stop talking about the CD player you sent to them, and how it ignited his interest in digital. We listened to it for a couple of hours on the day I arrived. You are such a caring person, and it really comes through here.
Nate, I don't know what to say. You are a bright light in my world.
With this incredibly powerful conversation, Pat and Barb have given us all the powerful gift of community and friendship. Out of the blue, I received an e-mail last night from an Audiogon member who has been very close to Pat through this ordeal. He just wanted to be sure that I was not too pained by what is happening. I was stunned by his concern. I believe that this gracious honoring of humanity is exactly what Pat had hoped to bring to this community. Clearly, he has succeeded. |
...spoken like poetry, Alex. |
Barb,
Gina sure loved speaking with you on the phone the other night. And she can't wait to meet you.
You and Pat seem to make your way into many of our conversations. I miss you both already!
Howard |
My lucky day as well, as I spoke with Barb & Pat this morning. What a gift! Thank you both, and please give our best to your daughter, Amanda.
Howard & Gina |
Thank you for the update, Paul. Pat, Barb & Amanda are in our thoughts all hours of the day, and night.
Love,
Gina & Howard |
Barb, excuse me for saying so, but a little bird told me the name of your new puppy. When are you going to spill it publicly? :-)
Pat, Gina was in the kitchen preparing some fresh cooked squash for our dogs, when suddenly she ran upstairs, very upset. She said she had felt your presence in the room, and asked me to call to make sure that you were OK. Your sister Mary said you were resting comfortably, more so than last night. Sleep well, my friend, and dream freely. |
When I was visiting Pat & Barb a couple of weeks ago, Pat said that he'd spoken with God shortly after being diagnosed, saying, "Please use me up. Use my life to give life to others." And he did just that. Ironically, not only did Pat take us to an appreciation of our own, individual lives, but he courageously elevated this experience to a whole other level. Sitting here, grateful as ever for having met the man, I'm clear that what Pat gave us through this experience--and will CONTINUE to give us through this experience--is a much larger, more loving and vulnerable perspective on life itself, of which humanity is just one component, and into which each one of us has been so delicately placed. He openly embraced his life, so that we all could come to know life itself.
Thank you, Pat & Barb, for being who you are. And thank you all, for being so loving. |
Pat & Barb,
Tonight, we're having a glass of wine and toasting to your lives, and how you've touched ours.
Love,
Gina & Howard |
Thank you so much, Barb. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Reading this thread, being with you--all of you--is a daily gift for us.
Give a kiss to Gracie, and we want to see you soon.
Love,
Gina & Howard |
Kirsten,
Welcome to this thread. Thank you for your comments. You've certainly made my day.
All the best to you,
Howard |
Sad to say we won't be able to make it to CES. Happy to say it's because Barb is coming that weekend for a visit! |
Will do, John. We're very excited that Barb is coming for a visit. She and my wife have spoken a number of times on the phone but have not met in person. They'll be friends for life, I'm sure. Two of the kindest people I've ever met. |
We wish you all a wonderful holiday. Barb, thank you for the card & the photos. Can't wait for your visit. Kirsten, we're so fortunate that you have joined this conversation. And Pat, I'm wearing your t-shirt, buddy.
Howard |
Yesterday, we had to put our 6 year old English Mastiff to sleep, as she was experiencing liver failure. It was probably the saddest day of my life. Today, a bouquet of flowers appeared at our front door, with a card from Barb & Gracie. What a gift love is. Thank you, Barb. |
Ben,
Tonight, you've brought a joyful tear to my and my wife's eye. Congratulations. It's a lovely thing you've done. |
