It’s been a while since I have posted a blog. I’ve been a bit depressed and thoroughly uninspired. My father passed away two months ago and it was a bit of a blow. Not unexpected but painful and more difficult than expected. There was no big realization that my dad was gone, no long list of regrets, or things left unsaid. Just a certain ennui and a sense of loss. I’ve been trying not to fight it, trying to experience the loss and honor the memories I have of my dad.

This past Sunday was father’s day and I spent a good part of it thinking about dad.

I left the country shortly after it happened so there was not a lot of time to connect with anyone. Being in Germany I've been very isolated, the language is a big barrier and being far from friends and family has made this very much a solitary mourning process. It has given me a chance to focus on his memory and the mourning process.

Losing a close friend you often deal with the loss that the people around you are experiencing. You are supportive because you know they are in pain. Focusing on the relationships we have with the living sort of takes the edge off our own pain.

This always meant that I never had to face a loss alone and undistracted. I don’t want to sound like I am in trouble here. I’m not. My father passed as well as anyone could want. We had plenty of time to say goodbye. In many ways it was as good a death as one could hope for. It’s just that with no distractions it has been in sharp relief for the past few months.

My relationship with my father was a simple one. He was my dad. A lot of people become friends with their parents when they grow up. That was not the case for us. We were never friends.Don’t get me wrong, I love my dad. I think he was about the coolest guy I know, but we just never had a relationship that I think of as being either equal or like buddies. He was my father, I was his son.

I loved my father. He was a quiet example of what a father should be. Loving and supportive, it was obvious that he loved being a dad. We had a big family. Five kids in six years. It could not have been easy for my parents. We were not rich but our family never wanted.

My brothers and sister were my best friends growing up.

My mother and father were both born in San Francisco as was I and the rest of my family. When I was 9 we moved to Reno, Nevada then two years later to a small farm town called Sycamore, Illinois. We moved because the schools were good and my parents wanted us to live in a place where we could run around without fear of being abducted, or beaten up by gangs, or exposed to drugs (most of which ended up happening anyway). My parents gave up their life in San Francisco, their friends, and family all to give us kids a better life.

My father only complained once. It was in the winter of 79. For six months it never got above freezing, for half a year there was snow on the ground. We moved back to California the following year.

My father never said an unkind word to anyone, lost his temper in front of me, yelled at us, or cursed in our presence though certainly the five of us kids gave him plenty of reasons to. He always told all of us we could do anything and encouraged us to follow our dreams and be happy. He was not perfect by any means but he was about as close to it as I could have wanted.

I’ve known that my dad was going to die soon. In many ways I have been expecting this and dreading it for years. I can not count the times that I heard my phone ring late at night and expected it to be my mother telling me my father had passed. Each time the caller ID rang with a number from their area code I expected the worst. It’s dominated my psyche for years now so in some ways it’s a relief knowing it’s over, in other ways it is painful and I miss being able to share my life with him.

For the past ten years he had been battling diabetes. He’d been on dialysis three days a week. It was a long slow decline that was painful for him and painful to watch. Yet I never once heard him complain. Knowing that he was dying and being able to do nothing about it was hard for him and for my family, but it is part of life and his good attitude carried us all through with dignity. My mother is a hero for taking care of him every day and every night but then she always did have his back.

I’ve told this story a couple of times but it’s one of my favorite experiences with my father. I was about fifteen. I was with my friend, Ben Murphy. We had told my parents that we’d meet them at a pizza parlor. We arrived just before them. A couple of wanna be biker jerks were standing in line behind us when my parents walked in. One of these guys started hassling Ben and I. My father tapped him on the shoulder and calmly asked him if he wanted to step outside. I freaked. I have never seen my dad raise his voice let alone get into a fight. My dad was a big man six six, two hundred eighty pounds. He was strong, but he was no fighter.

This guy looks at my dad and says “lets go.” I watched as my mom sidled over to one of the tables and casually picked up a big metal napkin holder with sharp corners. Who are these people? No one else noticed my mom do this. She seemed like a nice quiet lady. But there were three of these punks and my mom has an Irish temper. Most of all, she had my dads back.

I was locked in place. My whole reality was undone by this behavior, so antithetic to the people I knew. My dad strolls to the door opens it up for the biker. The punk steps through. My father calmly shuts the door behind him, then turns and says laughingly “I’ve always wanted to do that.” The whole restaurant is in tears laughing. The biker comes back in but now everyone is laughing and he is so embarrassed that he and his friends skulk out.

I said goodbye to my father a week before he passed. I flew out to see him, held his hand, told him I loved him, and told him a joke. It’s so hard to say goodbye like that. I didn’t know he was going to die. I really thought he would live. The doctors had just put a new heart into him and he had survived the surgery. He was weak but I thought he would get better. I thought we would have more time. In a situation like that you don’t say goodbye to someone with finality. A deep, heartfelt goodbye does not convey the kind of optimism that someone who is recovering from open heart surgery needs.

I flew to Guam two days later to be with my girlfriend. I promised her I would turn off my computer and spend a week with her in paradise with no interruptions. It was hard. My mother called in the middle of the trip to let me know that things had taken a turn for the worse. My mom is not prone to dramatics so when she called I took it seriously.

I flew home from Guam and made arrangements to fly out to see my family. At the end I couldn’t speak to my father. They had intubated him and he was unconscious. My mother called me and told me they would take my father off of life support in the morning. I told her I loved her and asked if she wanted to talk about it. She told me that she and my father had agreed long ago that we children would not be involved in any decision like this. They didn’t want us to have to live with that kind of a burden.

My father passed that Thursday morning. He was surrounded by his wife of fifty years, two of his sons, and his daughter in law. When they took the tube out of his throat he said “thank god”. My mother asked him if he wanted to say anything. He said “Celebrate” then he went to sleep.

I was all good with his passing. I was fine with everything until I got here to Germany. My father had been stationed here when he was in the service. He told me stories about going to Berlin, and exploring the country on his time off so my travels here are something I have enjoyed sharing with him. When I got here to do my show this year the director set us up for our finale number. The song is Celebrate. So every night as I close my show I walk on stage and hear my father’s last words, I hear the song that we played at his memorial service.

Some nights I am inspired and think that I should spend the rest of my life celebrating, life, and love, and the wonders of this world. Some nights I call my mother and tell her I love her. Some nights I just miss my father. Like now.

This coming week I will spread some of my father’s ashes at the Jewish Cemetery in Berlin. I think he would have liked that.

Last week my girlfriend flew me out to the tiny island of Guam. It was the best present ever.

I love presents. To be more precise I love good presents. I hate bad presents. I would rather not receive a thoughtless gift. The problem is that I cherish gifts. So if someone gives me something silly or thoughtless I end up stuck with it because it came from someone I love.

I once broke up with a girl because she gave me popcorn as a Christmas present. That's true. I don't really expect nice presents but if you are my girlfriend and you are going to give me something for Christmas - Popcorn - really. She is gone but I still have the popcorn. I think of her every time I see it.

Presents matter. A present is a physical manifestation of our consideration for one another. A great present does not have to be expensive, it doesn't have to cost anything, it just has to be thoughtful. Some token that says... I know who you are and I am thinking of you. Ok. For some of us that means expensive, not for me.

A girlfriend of mine once gave me a sterling silver, jewel encrusted magic wand. That was a great gift, not because it was valuable but because it was thoughtful. A friend of mine couldn't find a magic book she wanted to give me so she borrowed a copy from a private collection and photocopied the entire book, then hand colored all the pictures. Gross copyright infringement but a great present. Brittany knows I love to travel and that I love to dive. So this was the perfect gift. Travel, scuba, sex and cuddles.

A friend of mine just lost his house in a fire. All he escaped with was his lap top. It got us thinking... What would you grab in a fire. What would you take? What would you miss? What matters to you? People have asked me that before but I never really considered it. Not really.

I could live without or replace everything I own. The things that matter most to me are just reminders of people or places. In the end what matters to me are the stories, the adventures and the people I share them with. Presents are just reminders of these things.

Last week my Girlfriend gave me one of the most thoughtful presents I have ever received. A vacation. Some new stories that we shared together. She is working in Guam right now. We spend our nights together via skype but we miss sleeping next to each other. So she flew me out to provide stud service and cuddles.

She took care of everything. For a week I didn't have to make a decision or think about work. All I had to do was service her and relax. My little mow was the most wonderful GF. She took me scuba diving during the day and dancing at night. We went to the falls and on a tour of every club on the island.

My favorite was Club Texas, a filthy cesspool of sleaze and depravity. The dancer on stage was well into her fifties but if you kept your eyes below the C-Section scars she she didn't look a day over forty. Sitting with Brittany at the tip rail watching the show I looked to my left and there was a creepy man with the most bizarre drinking habit I have ever witnessed. On the bar in front of him was a shot of Jack, a glass of beer, a bottle of water, and a carton of milk. He would hit the Jack, chase it with a sip of beer and then slurp milk up through the straw. Three feet to our right an aging buy me drinky girl was putting the finishing touch on a happy ending massage. I swear this was all happening right at the tip rail on the main stage. Not in some dark corner booth.

As we left the club Shemale sing song girls (they don't actually sing) plied their trade in the parking lot out back. Club Texas is my favorite. I actually like the club way better than the state, though I do need a shower after leaving either.

We visited Tanfofo Falls which was beautiful. There is a frightening gondola that takes you to the falls. Near the falls is a cave where a Japanese soldier lived for 28 years after the war. He knew that Guam had been captured by the Americans but did not know the war had ended. He is hailed as a hero in Japan. Imagine living alone in the jungle for 28 years.

Brittany knows that I love Scuba Diving so she overcame her fear of water and got Certified last year. She spent the week before I came out taking refresher courses and finding out about local dive spots then she took me to some of her favorite spots. We went snorkeling at Gab Gab and Diving around the island.

We even went for a night dive. Diving at night is the most beautiful and surreal experience. It's magical. When you turn your flash light off you are in total darkness. Then you wave your hand and the whole world lights up from the phosphorescence. It's like a million tiny fire flies dancing in the water.

We got separated from the rest of the divers. Then we got lost trying to find them. I knew we were in trouble when the ocean floor dropped out from under us. We had been in shallow water. The boat was anchored at seventeen feet. We wanted to go a bit deeper so we found a valley and followed that until we hit about twenty five feet but the current kept pushing us further out. We didn't realize it. The current was very subtle and sneaky. Before we knew it we were sixty feet of water and the floor was falling off fast. Worse the current was pushing us farther and farther out into deeper water. As the water got deeper the current got stronger. I realized we were in trouble so I signaled to Brittany for us to go up to the surface. I had hoped to get my bearings and then drop back down and make a nice leisurely swim back to the boat.

When we surfaced the boat was no where in sight. It was one of the most frightening moments of my life. The current was pushing us hard out to sea and there was just no sign of anyone around us. I was trying to decide what to do when I finally saw a light off in the distance that I thought might be the boat. It had to have been three hundred yards from us. Even when I pointed it out to Brittany she didn't see it. We started to swim towards the light but we were pushing against the current and against the wind. At first it seemed like we were losing against the tide then we pushed harder and after about ten minutes of hard kicking the light was a little bit closer. Ten more minutes and we could make out the shape of the boat in the darkness.

We found out later that they had radioed in to search and rescue warning them that we might be lost and letting them know that if we didn't show up soon they would need to come looking for us.

It took forever but we finally made it to the boat. The current lessened as we got into shallow water and the swimming got easier. My legs were numb by the time I got into the boat. My head was swimming and I think I passed out for a moment. I think the only thing that kept me conscious was thinking about Britt. I knew she would flip if I keeled over so I just took slow deep breaths and tried to keep the gray from closing in on me.

I have had some close calls in my life. But Scuba is by far the most dangerous thing that I do. It is so peaceful so simple but everything goes from lovely to deadly in just a moment and doing what seems most natural is the thing that will kill you quickest. Very treacherous.

The day before our dive a Japanese girl had passed out at sixty feet. She drifted down to a hundred and seventy feet. Her buddy swam down after her. At that depth you can't see more than a few feet. It's all dark but he found her and inflated her vest. She popped up to the surface but that ride up nearly killed her. She spent the next week in a decompression chamber. It's so simple, so peaceful, that it's easy to forget how dangerous it is and that is when things go horribly wrong.

Our time together was magical. I wouldn't trade that for anything. We spent the next two days and nights together in relative calm, just cuddling, and remembering each other. It will be months before I hold her again.