Frank Daniel, 53, died at home unexpectedly in March 2004. I met him in 1992 and hung out with him for about nine months, and then we never saw each other again. Around 1997, the Internet was coming into its own and we exchanged a few e-mails until there was nothing more to say that wasn't awkward. I was in a new relationship and had finally moved on.
Early in 2004, he popped up again, placing an ad in this paper for a female vocalist. He was in the process of working up standards and jazz numbers for a new quartet, Satin Doll. Mutual friends said it was going to be terrific. It was his dream band and he was excited about it.
Frank was from Clarksville and moved to Richmond to attend Virginia Commonwealth University the same year I did, 1969. But his mother died soon after he arrived and he had issues with his art teachers, so he quit. He worked on the construction crew that built the Richmond Coliseum and he got involved with the art and music scene that was particularly vibrant and exciting here in the ‘70s and ‘80s.I loved Frank from the moment I heard his deep, resonating voice on the phone. He was editing a small newspaper called Livewire in 1992 and I called in with suggestions. He listened graciously and soon I was writing for him. I’ll never forget the day I went to his apartment for the first time to hand in an article and put a face to that fabulous voice. We watched a praying mantis in his backyard and he launched into a long and thorough history of the species. A few weeks later, I kiddingly called him “Bugboy” and the name stuck. He used it as his screen name years later on AOL, only spelled Bugboi. I guess Bugboy was taken.
He lived on Stuart Avenue when we first met, a few doors down from Buddy’s. His roommate was another musician and Buddy’s bartender, Mic Muller, who was part owner of a new bar called Moondance which would anchor the local music scene’s last great era in Shockoe Bottom. Both Frank and Mic had been in the almost nationally famous band Single Bullet Theory. Frank was in the band when it recorded “Rock Around the Apocalypse” and “Keep It Tight” in 1977 and 1980. They opened for Patti Smith in New York. They recorded in Los Angeles, opened for The Pretenders on a Canadian tour, and toured cross-country with The Ramones and Simple Minds.
He seldom talked about it with me, and when he did, it was with rancor since almost making it in the conniving music industry can be an embittering experience. He had his freelance art and numerous small pick-up bands to keep him busy. As far as I know, he managed to live his life without ever getting a 9 to 5 normal job until just a few years ago when his self-taught graphic skills on the Mac computer landed him a full-time position at GE Financial Assistance (Genworth), which he turned into a part-time job as soon as he could. He was not a work-a- day grind type of guy and knew how to live on a small amount of money.
I once found him a job repairing fine china and figurines and suggested he use his tooth as his resume. He had made his own false tooth, painting it to exactly match the others. He got the job. It didn’t pay much, but he enjoyed the work. Whether he really made his own tooth or it was just a wild story he told me, I don’t know. When he heard I was telling people about it, he was angry, but I didn’t retell it to be cruel, then or now, but to illustrate his remarkable resourcefulness. He made even the most pathetic little apartments in Oregon Hill seem cozy and warm with his music, books and art. He loved movies, British Invasion bands, Stephen King and cooking.
He hated clowns, but painted a lot of them. His meals were works of art. When he moved, he drew floor plans of his next place and placed his belongings. He was so organized, it thrilled me. He was the most engaging conversationalist and best listener I’ve ever met. He was observant and curious, the only person who ever noticed I always sit on my foot when I type. For a decade after meeting him, in my mind, I was always talking things over with him.
The first movie we saw was “Patriot Games.” The last was “Sleepless in Seattle.” Knowing I had sold my Beatle albums not once but twice in my life when I needed money, he made cassettes for me of every Beatle recording, with perfect little covers and each song title hand-lettered. That short time together glows in my memory even though, as he often insistently reminded me, we were not dating.
He had many platonic women friends because he found us amusing, but he fell in futile romantic love with the more insane ones, the Courtney Love types he felt he could save if only they’d give him a chance. They never did, something he bitterly complained about. After his second marriage ended, he had a good job and a nice house in the neighborhood south of the Huguenot Bridge. It was so unlikely a final scenario for him, I thought it must be Bizarro World Frank. I heard he even had a decent car. He had a new girlfriend and now he was getting the band of his dreams off the ground. His life was on the upswing. Is that the best or worst time to die?
Frank, as some people know, is the father of the Richmond Music Journal. I didn’t see him anymore after he met his last wife, and I didn’t like it. I missed him terribly. Livewire had collapsed, so I thought I’d start another paper and he could write for me, like I had for him. I didn’t know a single thing about music, but he was a musician, so the topic was set. He did a couple of articles, but his new relationship and new band, My Uncle’s Old Army Buddys (that’s how it was spelled), were more important. My sad little tributes to him in the paper pissed him off. But the paper thrived even without him, and eventually, I did, too.
Not all my memories are fond ones. Frank was an atheist when I knew him and delighted in turning the cold light of logic on my childlike religious beliefs. Our debates were damaging and debilitating, and now, whenever I desperately need something to believe in, I’m mad at him for tempting me to take a bite of the apple from that damned tree of knowledge. The scientific world is cold and cruel and no comfort when you’re facing your own mortality. I miss Frank, but I also miss my spiritual innocence.
Frank could also rage about my Disneyesque view of life, how I felt inanimate objects and animals had feelings and personalities. Yet I know he loved his cats. Still, he could be chillingly realistic. When his pet reptiles and bugs devoured each other, he shrugged. “That’s what animals do,” while I cringed in horror.
Horror was his thing. We disagreed on the literary value of Stephen King, a man he physically resembled. I was never an “apt pupil” when it came to King. Much of Frank’s art was dark and macabre. He built professional monster model kits. His business was named “Grave New World.”
He had juvenile diabetes, although he didn’t talk about it much. It saved him from the draft, but he also knew he wouldn’t be an old man. He chain smoked Camel Lights. I don’t smoke, but for three years after he left, I smoked Camel Lights, too. The familiar haze was my oasis of despair.
A mutual acquaintance of ours recently told me Frank made him a better musician because he tried harder for him. He wanted Frank’s approval, and just an appreciative glance when he nailed a song made his spirits soar. I knew exactly what he meant. I created my newspaper because I wanted to impress Frank. I wanted it to be better and last longer than Livewire. I wanted him to be proud of me. He inspired me to accomplish things I didn’t think were possible, and in the process, I found my true self. You’d think that would be enough and I wouldn’t care about the other stuff, the stuff that went wrong, the stuff that didn’t happen, but foolishly, I still do, even after all this time. Two days before he died, we were e-mailing about his new band, which I knew I could never let myself go see. I’m sorry every day that I fell in love with him because that kept us from being friends and he was truly the best friend I never had.
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