A tragic double whammy for rock and roll fans this past weekend as we lost both Eddie Money and Ric Ocasek (The Cars). Money succumbed to esophageal cancer on Friday at the age of 70 and Ocasek was found dead in his apartment Sunday at age 75, cause of death unknown at this time.
Both artists occupy significant sections of my mind. When I was in high school , I had a Study Hall hour for one quarter of my senior year and the teacher who was the monitor, Mr. Kuzma, liked me so he allowed me to spend the hour “Doing homework and studying” in his own classroom while he was in another room tending to the Study Hall ne’er do wells who needed constant supervision. I didn’t study, of course, I just played my records on the stereo he had in his regular classroom. One day he assigned another Study Hall student to do some assignment corrections in his room during that same hour, too. It was one of our school’s hockey cheerleaders, Rhonda. So in she comes as I’m blaring the new wave records I was into at the time in 1978 and ’79, including Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson, The Police, Graham Parker and the Rumour, The Clash and, of course, The Cars’ first album. Rhonda hadn’t been exposed to that kind of rock music (she was all top 40 pop radio, baby) but she was digging the stuff I was playing, especially The Cars.
Now, it is probably not a surprise to any of you that I wasn’t much of a Casanova in high school. I dated a bit and was popular enough in several social circles but I wasn’t hanging around with cheerleaders, if you know what I mean. But Rhonda kept coming back to Mr. Kuzma’s room for study hall even after it wasn’t an assigned task and we kind of bonded as I expanded her musical horizons. In due course, Rhonda introduced me to other hockey cheerleaders and their friends and it opened an entire new social avenue for me in those heady days of awkwardness, fear and hormones. I have Ric Okasek to thank for it.
As for Eddie? I had the opportunity to meet him a few times. My favorite was when he and his band were on an “acoustic” tour and were booked for Kaukauna River Jam. I put quote marks around the word acoustic because the band may have had a couple of acoustic guitars onstage but it was straight up rock and roll all night. But the best part was that Eddie and his family came to Appleton a couple of days early and just hung around enjoying parks, shopping downtown and dining at restaurants. I remember Eddie telling me how much they loved having breakfast at the old Damrow’s Restaurant, especially because of the gigantic portions of hash browns and American Fries they served.
It was backstage at the concert that I had quite a bit of time to talk with the Money Man and his beautiful, smart and engaging wife. She was extremely friendly and also extremely fond of breast augmentation surgery. She wasn’t afraid to admit nor to show them off, either (with clothes on, of course). But what I recall most was how much the couple gushed about Appleton and how much they had fallen in love with the city. In fact, they told me that they had a completely serious discussion about moving here to raise their two young kids before the realization hit that Appleton was too far from the major music industry hubs and Eddie’s career depended on some proximity to the West Coast. It was before the ubiquitousness of the internet made it possible to do most business from just about anywhere. I often imagine that they had moved here to live and that Eddie and me (and our wives) would have become close and life long friends, watching ball games and sipping a few beers together, grabbing dinner at restaurants and hosting each other for backyard Bar-B-Ques.
Like with many rock stars and bands, Ocasek and Money’s music weaves itself through our lives, providing subject matter, background and color to those moments and experiences which shaped us. Sadly, as the stars we grew up with age into their 60s and 70s, we have more frequent occasion to be reminded of them. Rik Ocasek and Eddie Money were each musical hit machines, to be sure, But through both their music and acquaintance, each was more than just a rock star to me.
