Category Archives: steve

OK, I Think I am Back (and Steve Would Like This)

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Ugh!

I have had so many thoughts about what to write and who to write about here over the months since our friend Steve passed away, and nothing seems worthy.

My new band, Jackknifed Big Rig played The Clash’s Safe European Home our last set, and I dedicated it to Steve, and Diane even filmed it. But, the sound was funky and it was not worthy of a You Tube, although we have a fancy schmantzy gig coming up July 14, at the storied Hotel Utah in San Francisco, opening for Patrice Pike. And, the plan is to play it again then and try to film again and then post.

But, this Family Guy—The Griffin That Stole Christmas–has become a favorite cos of one-liners and cut-aways like this, and I know Steve would have busted up.

So, I return with this. And, since the ice is broken, well, more to come.

 

On Death and (Somebody Else) Dying

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NOTE: Steve Moyer’s friends in the fantasy and baseball industries have begun a GoFundMe to help support his daughters, Harmony and Mary, who face college and adulthood without their pop. Please feel free to donate in honor of our friend. The link is GoFundMe Steve Moyer kid fund.

I have been trying to get my head around our friend and colleague Steve Moyer’s untimely passing last Thursday.

If you have followed my ramblings over the years, you know I have had a number of brushes with death myself, and that my own wife, child, and dog all left this plane within a year of one another between July of 2005 and April of 2006.

What these rather intense experiences seem to have made me, however, created a sort of paradox. On one hand, I accept the inevitability of our own human experience, understanding our time here is indeed finite and that there is no fairness within the amount of time we are granted here on earth.

Similarly, I can put it in a sort of detached-automatic mode, for lack of better verbiage, making certain the trash is taken out, that dinner is made, and that the appropriate persons are advised appropriately of the departure. 

Certainly, Steve was core to a lot of the fantasy industry, and having been colleagues for a quarter century I seem to be one of those who knew him the longest, and perhaps as well as anyone within our circle.

Still, it never occurred to me that Steve — hell, that any of us — would leave untimely, so soon. Further, I have had enough head butts with Steve that I was surprised to find myself at the center of coordinating updates about him, being the source for articles and news as well as disseminating funeral information.

I know I am not alone in banging egos with Steve, for as his fiance, Samantha Drennan — with whom I have unfortunately become friends under the worst of circumstances — acknowledged that Steve “argued with everyone about everything.” So I was happy Steve and I had a good clearing of the air last First Pitch, Arizona.

Furthermore, I was glad to help out during the couple of days subsequent to learning of Steve’s passing by sharing information and emailing so many who knew and cared about him. I helped my mate, Roto Expert’s Scott Engel gather information both for an article about Steve, and together we plotted a Hall of Fame Hour — one of the shows Scott hosts on FNTSY— on  Steve this coming Monday (listen from 7-8 PM, ET). I posted and commented on the Rock Remnants site that was Steve’s imagination, where Peter Kreutzer, Gene McCaffrey, and I made a musical home for our writing outside of fantasy sports.

The bulk of these activities occurred while I was still at spring training, usually one of my favorite trips of the year. For, in March, baseball is still fresh and optimistic, players are happy and mostly healthy, and drafts are gearing up.

Instead, within the throes of my “busy-ness” handling Steve things, I felt distracted. I was  disinterested in going to games and drafting and interviewing players. And, the truth was, I just wanted to go home and be with my family.

I did keep wondering, however: Why I was so ambivalent with respect to something I really enjoy?

Then it occurred to me that I was subconsciously being so busy detaching that I did not have to acknowledge how bummed I am. In discussions with several of the groups and leagues in which Steve and I both participate, I realized what an integral part of my life Steve was, and I guess vice versa.

And, that meant the bummed disinterested feelings I was trying to ignore were actually grief.

Life is such a silly ephemeral thing. So difficult to understand, let alone make reasonable. And yet it is wondrous and beautiful, for though in the end it takes us from one another, certainly prior to that life gives us the gift of one another.

It certainly is a shame, however, that we have forget to embrace this gift until that appreciation is no longer corporeal.

One of the bands that Steve and I shared a love for was the Small Faces, and perhaps their best-known song was “Itchycoo Park.” As a dog owner, and husband of an animal lover, I like to imagine The Rainbow Bridge in a sort of “Itchycoo Park” sense.

I hope I am right. I hope Steve is rocking out there, maybe with my son Joey and late wife Cathy, and our dogs Macaroni, Onyx, Jazzmine, and Mahina looking on. Miss ya Steve.

RIP: Steve Moyer (1960-2018)

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It is with extreme sadness that I must report the departure of one of the core Remnants, Steve Moyer.

Steve, with whom I have worked and been friends for over 25-years, was indeed one-of-a-kind: brash, opinionated, fierce, funny, direct, loyal with a mischievous mind and mouth like no one else I know.

Of course like the core Remnants I met Steve via our other common love: baseball. So for those of us driven by the forces of the diamond and the guitar, endless hours of talk just flew from our mouths when assembled.

And, that “assembly” happened a couple of times each year. In the fall we all gathered for the Arizona Fall League, and over the first three weeks of March. For, the coming of March means the annual Fantasy Baseball industry tour together among various First Pitch conferences, Spring Training, The League of Alternative Baseball Reality (LABR), the XFL, all culminating with Tout Wars in New York City.

Last night, as we gathered after the American League LABR auction, we got the news that Steve, who was to be drafting in the National League LABR auction tonight, had passed away in his sleep at his hotel after handling some business before joining us in baseball nirvana.

I will leave it with that.

But, since Steve was such a music junkie, as I got into the car to drive back to my hotel last night, I plugged in my shuffle and wondered just what song Spotify would deliver as the tune to contemplate the passing of Steve Moyer, and amazingly–and somewhat eerily–Elton John’s Funeral for a Friend/Loves Lies Bleeding came on.

Now, I know Steve well enough to know that he would hate being remembered by Elton John of all people, but sorry, the universe gave me what it gave me. Although below, I also added the vid to his favorite song, Search and Destroy by Iggy and the Stooges.

RIP Steve. Your friends. Your family. Your colleagues. Your industry will all miss you to the max.

 

 

Something For Everybody

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Ran into this during my current outlaw country bender. (It’s a Billy Joe Shaver song, by the way.)

1) Willie Nelson singing two beats behind the vocal melody, like only Willie can.

2) Bro country cameo by Toby Keith.

3) Joe Walsh spewing more rock ‘n’ roll in 20 seconds than The Eagles could muster in 50 years.

I’ll give you that the atmosphere is the polar opposite of outlaw country.

Clapton/Gibson/Fender

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I’m not much of a Clapton fan. As a matter of fact, anything he did in the past 25 years I likely don’t know.

But there’s a new Showtime doc on Clapton that you guys are bound to run into pretty soon. I stumbled into it and was interested enough to stick with it from about Cream through the middle of Clapton horndogging after George Harrison’s wife. Switched to the local news then, but I recorded it to watch the rest of what I want to later.

Anyway, Clapton went to see the Allmans. which led to the recording of Layla, of course. What struck me was a quote from Duane Allman saying something like, “I played the Gibson all the way through and he played the Fender all the way through.”

The movie then plays the Allman Layla guitar track naked and I never realized how much that gritty Gibson undertune contributes to the greatness of the song.

Forgive me if this is common knowledge to the Dave Marshers. I point it out because the Dave Marshers usually point out stuff like lyrics and jazz.

I’ve always been a Gibson man.

Wish I had the naked Allman track, but the best I can do is the whole song. Hopefully you can pick out the Gibson base guitar part (not bass guitar part). Watch the movie.

Jean Fleety

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Is there a hotter true rock band these days than Greta and her young (Van) Fleet? These guys are gonna be BIG if they’re not already. Almost saw them months ago in some little club in Lancaster for like $15 but by the time I found someone to go, tix were like $150.

Heard this recently and like it pretty good. A little like if prime Zep covered the Genie.