Tuesday, September 13, 2016

noel

A number of years ago, I wrote a rather maudlin post on this blog about the transient nature of life, growing old, friends who've died, and how much I miss them. In that post, I mentioned my friend Noel. I met Noel when I was a kid, about 16, and, for better or worse, he was a regularly scheduled cast member in my life for many, many years. I had such fun with him - such crazy, unspeakable fun, and so many stories.

Someone, who had apparently also been friendly with him, read that post and contacted me through the blog wanting to reminisce about him. We emailed back and forth for a while, eventually talked on the phone, and yesterday, he emailed me a bunch of pictures of my old friend. I immediately got on the phone with my friend, Ed, who I've known just about as long, and gratefully reconnected with a few years back after having lost touch many years ago, and the two of us waxed nostalgic for a while. 

Noel was an actor, and for a brief period, back in the day, he was quite the talk of the town. Here's a photo of him with Maximilian Schell in A Patriot for Me (1969), and a headshot from a few years later, which, I believe was featured in After Dark magazine.




When he was a young man, as you can clearly see from these photos, Noel was very beautiful. As he aged, however, while still handsome, he became, well... crazy. But he was my friend and I loved him just the same. 


Noel, that beautiful crazy fucker, took his own life right before I relocated back to New York from California in 2002.


Disturbed, troubled, crazy, whatever - he was someone special to me and now he's gone. 


You know, I've learned a lot from experiencing loss and from crazy people - about patience, perspective, acceptance, myself...


Life is funny. Oh, it's hard too, but it's funny.