A Special Season

Today, I performed the sad ritual of taking down the red Ohio State banner hanging in my porch as the last Buckeye basketball team made its exit from the NCAA tournament. I was hoping this year I would be waiting for the men’s team to finish their season but, once again, the Lady Bucks outlasted them, albeit, by less than a day. Its been a special season. The men’s team had an incredible year up to their premature ejection in the Sweet 16 round. It has been so much fun to be able to watch the team of my allegiance and alma mater establish themselves over the entire season as the best team in college basketball that just happened not to do so great in the tournament. This year, thanks to friends, I had a chance to see them play at the Schot five times, allowing me to do my yelling and screaming with thousands of fellow fans. But for the rest of the games, instead of watching it at a friend’s place or being comfortably ensconced on the couch at home with the cats...until they scurry off in fear of my sudden outbursts...I took the opportunity to travel out to my parent’s home in Whitehall to watch the games with Dad.

Actually, I began watching OSU football with Dad when he was hospitalized last fall. After he came home, I continued to watch all the games with him as the sports season changed to basketball. His illness made me realize that I didn’t have much time left to spend with him and the games were the perfect passive activity for us to share. Dad can’t do much more than sit and watch TV these days. Fortunately, he loves the Buckeyes almost as much as I do so we had plenty to talk about. There aren’t many other subjects of conversation to get into with Dad so I’m very thankful we have OSU sports to share. I could tell he enjoyed my company and attention. I felt like his little boy again when he would ask me to sit close to him on the couch while we watched. I chattered a lot and he listened, acknowledging me with his wry smile, a funny face or an occasional whispered comment. He would sit or lie there in his pajamas and I would lightly poke a frail arm, grab a skinny leg or slap a hesitantly offered hand to celebrate a good play. He would ask “Who did that?” and I’d tell him. I never felt more comfortable with him. never more like his friend.

I’ll rehang the OSU banner the week of the next OSU football game. I don’t know whether we will have another one to share but I’ll always have this special season with Dad to remember.

Remembering Ronald Koal & the Trillionaires

I was proud to call myself a hard-core groupie of Ronald Koal and the Trillionaires. My love was not for Ronald personally but for the art and performance of Ronald and his collaborators. They wrote great songs, songs that should have been shared with the World, songs that could have become staples of classic rock radio formats and part of our cultural consciousness. They were as good as anything anyone anywhere was writing and performing in the early 80s. There were strong, memorable melodies and lyrics and the music was fresh and innovative with rhythms that were extremely danceable.The musicians backing Ronald and helping him write were very talented and they just kept getting better as they worked with each other. Even today, echoes of the Trillionaires reverberate in Columbus. My favorite local band, The Randys, features the incomparable guitarist, Matt Newman, and drummer Jimmy Castoe has been omnipresent in the Columbus jazz and rock scene for 30 years. I even remember being pleasantly surprised when Ronald came back after the Trillionaires with some really excellent bands that included Todd Novack and Ed Shuttlesworth playing some great new material.

Ronald’s appearance on the music scene happily coincided with a turning point in my life. I got divorced and graduated from law school in 1980. I had been hanging out with the same Eastside crowd of musicians and friends since high school and I was ready to move on to a new life. I don’t remember how I found Ronald Koal and the Trillionaires but once I did, I was hooked. I discovered a whole new world in Columbus’ music underground. My current family tree of social relationships begins with the people I began meeting around the music of Ronald Koal and the Trillionaires. The dozens of performances that I was lucky enough to witness were the graduate level of my continuing education in rock and roll that began with my garage bands and involvement with the Dave Workman Blues Band.

Those years of going out to hear the Trillionaires were, for me, joyous, golden days of a great girlfriend, great sex, great drugs (714 sopors) and great rock and roll. There was a small group of us who danced to every song, all night long. We knew most of the lyrics which we would sing at the top of our lungs and interpret, as if for the hearing impaired, with practiced hand and arm movements and facial expressions. I experienced so much happiness listening to Ronald Koal and the Trillionaires and I am so thankful to them. I will certainly never forget them and I’m glad to see that others are trying to perpetuate the memory of this high point in the history of the Columbus music scene.

I knew that Ronald was the stereotypical tragic genius bent on self-destruction. My best friend from my old crowd had the same problem. I never got close to Ronald but he knew how much I appreciated him and I knew that down deep underneath the cool rock star image he was a warm and gentle human being. Towards the end when he experienced some legal difficulties, he called on my expertise to help him out. It was pretty simple, I didn’t do much but he appreciated it enough to make me a laminated card that I have carried in my wallet ever since. Yes, it is sad that Ronald ended his life and who knows what he might have accomplished if he had survived the difficult turns of fate that came his way. Who knows what happiness he may have been able to find for himself. He may not have known what he was he was doing when he pulled that trigger under the influence of those little yellow pills but I suspect that maybe he knew that he had created something truly wonderful and beautiful during his life but that maybe he believed he never would again. I’m going to respect his decision to not live in a world where he might finally be arriving at Destination Zero. Hopefully, the rest of us can keep alive the memory that he once was Living For Something.