August 14, 2020 - MountainView Cemetery

This past Friday August 14th I attended a memorial for gentle bassist and longhshoreman Randy Rampage (Archibald) at the Mountain View Cemetery in Vancouver. It was organized by his good friend and ultimate partner Susanne Tabata.

At my advanced age of 78 going to a memorial is like going to a shopping mall to see what I can buy. The sale will end soon. In my place of birth, Buenos Aires, brand new cars are called “cero kilómetro”. This translates to my losing my warranty quite a long time ago.

Memorials are good for remembering these important and unique features about being human.

And there were many humans at this event. What may be a yearly event is taking that group photograph. Last year I wasn’t in it. This time around I took a tripod so I could use my self-timer. But, alas!, in the backlight I could not discern the choice for a 2 second or a 10 second long interval. I tried to run to my place in the photograph a couple of times to no avail. All was solved when one of the humans (obviously wanted by the police and who did not want to be in the shot) pressed the shutter.

I had a pleasant chat with a woman called Melanie. She is an archivist. In this city with a poor memory her job is a valuable one but certainly an uphill battle.

Will anybody remember, in a near future, those present at the memorial of whom many contributed to our city a fine tradition of first rate music that escaped the present banality of so much of the music we now listen with earbuds?

Earbuds will never wow us with watching Randy Rampage jump into the air with his bass. That is a memory for the ages.

Curiously Argentine author Jorge Luís Borges wrote (is it not obvious?) To remember one must first forget.