Enjoy Them Old Man. They Will Be Your Last

Ron Wax (Last NYC Show), Don Pedro's, 8/3/09

Two weeks after The Handful left us, Ron Wax bolted for Nebraska. Ain't got no money to pay the bills, you see. As a performer, Ron was one of the strangest, most charismatic acts I have ever seen and he wasn't seen often enough or by enough people. Before he left, we agreed to trade an envelope full of my prints for a silkscreen he had done and a poster he made for his show with The Hydes at Don Pedro's.

Ron had no phone at home and no cellular so he called me from a pay phone* and told me he had nothing to do and asked if we could make the handoff. He came to my house to deliver the things and he commented on a few of my vanity prints I have hanging on my wall -- He had been to Santa Barbara with Mercy Rule and cut a rattle off a dead rattlesnake he found in Mission Canyon. He told me about the time Mercy Rule supported Sleater-Kinney when they passed through Nebraska in the 90's. We shook hands and he rode off on his bike into the night.

He told me he would be back. I have no reason to doubt this. Ron is a gentleman hobo. He might also be a spirit, or something more complex -- the fifth-state of matter. Say his name three times and he appears.

*Make sure you read that last sentence closely. How many times in the last 20 years have you had a call from a pay phone? Seriously. Ron Wax is advanced.