David Hazelton Tribute

http://david-hazelton.gonetoosoon.org/memorial/

David has been one of my closest friends for 19 of my 35 years. I can't tell you how many awesome memories I have of him. He was there for me when no one else was. I love him more than he probably ever realized.

He was an amazing guy.

Taundewei, David, and I were pretty much together 24/7 for years & years. Taundewei is awesome & I love her the same.

David's early departure has broken us.

We'll never stop missing him. We'll never get over him.

On top of being the best friend anyone could ever ask for, David was a talented musician.

His mother, Janice taught him to play piano at a very young age. At around age 6, David & his mom wrote a piece called "The Snow Queen" complete with intricate drawings and music. Jan wrote the music, David played the music & drew the detailed pictures. Janice, his mother, compared it to the likes of the Nutcracker.

As David got a little older, he also took up the keyboard and clarinet.

As an adult, he worked with bands Amenti Suncrown (World Serpent Distribution) & Hop-Frog (URCK Records).

I first met David when I was 17 through Joel Marsden (Deep Eynde) who was in a band called 19 Nun Massacre with him.

There are so many memories which makes it all the more difficult right now.

He just passed away yesterday (October 22, 2008). David's organs shut down due to cirrhosis of the liver caused by alcoholism.

I can't begin to say how much that breaks my heart.

I told David I loved him during our visits and I'll never forget reading his lips, "I love you."

I miss David so much.

36 is way too young to die. He was a trooper right up until the end, though. He managed to smile, talk s hit (by mouthing it because he had a trach and could not talk-I learned to read his lips), but he'd mouth that the nurses were morons~lol.

He made his David face which made me want to melt. Adorable.

As weak as he was at the end, he even managed to make me laugh with his cute & silly David ways. "Well....." Anyone who knows David will know the voice & face to go with that. :D

I felt like I could have stood by his bed forever.
When he'd take his lil cat naps, I'd just stare at him. He'd wake up, look at me, and smile.

I spent several hours by his bedside Sunday.

I knew that would be the last time I'd see him.

I told him I was going to have to leave soon to go pick up my daughter.

He drifted off to sleep and I left.

I just couldn't say "Goodbye" knowing that would be our final goodbye.

The nurses would have had to pry me away from him and he would have been covered in my tears. No way I could have done that. That would have probably weirded him out, too. I didn't want to do that.

David died on Wednesday October 22 at around 4:15PM PST. Taundewei & I told David last Friday (exactly a week ago today :( that his dad was coming to town to see him this week.

His dad went directly from LAX to the facility he was in and David was fairly unresponsive due to his condition, but I heard he did open his eyes to see his father. His dad told him he was going to check into his hotel, but would be back.

Sometime between the time he left to the time he arrived at the hotel, David passed away.
Taundewei & I honestly think he waited to see his dad before he allowed himself to die.
He loved his father very much and his father loved him the same.

David will be sorely missed by father, Dean; mother, Janice; step-mother, Pat; and twin brother, Daniel.

Taundewei & I will miss him more than words could ever express.

I'm sure the same would be said about Jay.

David will be missed immensely by anyone that was lucky enough to have met him. He was and always will be "the best." Truly one-of-a-kind. Genuine. Irreplaceable.

Everyone who met David loved him. We clicked the moment we met. Thank you Joel (Fate Fatale :D for introducing me to David).

I'll never forget him.

David has ALWAYS had & will ALWAYS have a special place in my heart.

I feel like a part of me has died and gone with him.

David loved Jay for the last 7-8 yrs. David told me he loved him in his final days. This has to be hell for Jay & I hope to join forces with him soon, so we can continue David's legacy.

RIP David

 
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Mem-or-eeeees::::::: Hedwig Myrtle O'Duffy, Mimsy, Globy Salmugundie, Jean Michele all miss you. ;) OJ's favorite holiday meal, a 'symbol of evil'-lol, high voltage, all wheat, fork-split, Spanish brown buns with Miracle Whip, lookin' more like a 2" than a 6", trying to go to the club when there was a curfew for all of LA due to the LA riots, Peaches, I mean "Patches";), "Skat cat & don't come back!"; Valor comin' through the bathroom window with the Christian Death cross heagear flashlight on-LOL, Mike De Grasse- :P , Jeff Smith "The Frugal Gormet" 'Come on pantaloons!'; "Time to go skooo'!", your extended buckle boots, da Boops!, nappy, nappy, twisted locks of hair, a "Heavy Burden", DG Folford's dumbass horoscopes that were all the same, Puku Bear, Sabrina trying to come through the dog door at your dad's, Value Center, "That's stupid! Say it again, that's rad!", Pongo we almost lost hope, we have "sheltah fo you in the dairy barn", "Blanket M", Mischa gunna go Hollywood", the roll of tape we used to emphasize the taping eyeballs FOD for my answering machine ;), "MMMMmmm dat good watermelon!", Ain't dat sumptin!", "Welllll", the David & Shannon Peel Sessions, "Now why you be talkin' like dat?'; ahhhh I can't do this right now. Happy memories make me cry right now.

I love you "imfimity". (Ev used to pronounce "infinity" that

way).
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I received this eulogy from David's childhood friend, Elliott Marx. It gives us a glimpse of what little David was like growing up. David is looking down and smiling, I'm sure. Thank you so much for sharing this Elliott. I feel like I've known him all my life now. Your eulogy is brilliant Elliott.

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I would like to submit my memories of David. Several posts here have commemorated his adult life, but I knew and loved a very different David Hazelton. I would not like to see his boyhood forgotten or rewritten. David and I were best friends for nearly a decade and we had some wonderful experiences that I would like to share.

David, Daniel and I met in the 3rd grade. Our families had homes in Granada Hills. We had trees to climb, quiet streets to bicycle through and a safe neighborhood to explore. We were not hooligans in the slightest; instead we were polite and gentle little boys. I think this may have been David’s second run through 3rd grade, apparently his mom felt he was too small to move on up. Because of this one-year age difference, I often looked up to David as though he were a big brother.

 At Granada Hills Elementary School we were inseparable, we had the same teacher and were side by side from the start of the day until the end. Recess and lunch were wonderful times for us. We would always rush to the handball courts and line up to beat all of the girls. By this time, the other boys were playing kick ball, which just seemed too simple (and team oriented) for us. We loved the Byzantine rules of handball, the litany of violations still rings in my head: no softies, no babies, no waterfalls, no poppies. There were also times when we would stay after school to play competitive checkers. I remember that the two of us were so good that we got to travel to another elementary school to play their team. I now wonder if this was true. I can’t even imagine how this played out. Did one of our parents drive us? Were we transported by a big yellow bus? Because I can’t bring up the answers to these questions, I doubt that we did travel to another school to play a 3-minute checkers match – but still some of that concept seems real. I wish I could ask David.  So far, all of these memories sound like a hackneyed Leave it to Beaver episode, but wait there’s more.

What made David so unique, and intriguing to me, was his boy-nerd knowledge of darker and more mysterious ways. Well it seemed that way back then.  At first, he was mad for films like Dragonslayer, The Clash of the Titans and Excalibur. These were pre-VHS days, when you went to a theater and really consumed the moving images, you saw a film once, but played it out in your imagination a million times.  He loved medieval and mythological creatures and lore. He shared his enthusiasm, through drawings and detailed descriptions of what he had seen. He was well known for his excellent drawings. He was the first person I knew who could really draw well in a true representational manner. I remember just standing over him, staring at his frail, disfigured hands, watching lines take shape while detailed images came forth. It was an awe-inspiring collection of swords, dragons, and shield carrying heroes, amulets and gnomes.  Exposure to this semiotics was so thrilling for me. I felt I could live in this fantasy world forever. Logically, it wasn’t long before we attempted to conduct séances in my basement or fool with the belief that we could become invisible during recess simply by flipping off some teacher on yard duty. We were not once caught, leading me to believe that for a few moments we actually did become invisible.

 It was during this time that I felt compelled to collect the Monster Manuals. This was a series of expensive, hardbound books that were needed to play Dungeons and Dragons. David and Daniel played D&D regularly, but I did not. I have never been too keen on games and this seemed like a doozy of a game. I did love pouring through the Monster Manuals, the rich illustrations and descriptions of the creatures were all I needed, I did not care in the slightest about Hit Points or even what Hit Points were. We babbled on the telephone for hours each night, each with his own set of books, creating stories about the fierce and/or timid creatures.

I don’t remember which of us left that neighborhood first. My family would move regularly, so it may have been us. Distance however, did not interrupt our friendship. We remained phone mates for years to come. As we drifted into middle school, our tastes in movies drifted from the historic and moral tales of the great fantasy epics to the decidedly more mature slasher films of the 1980’s. Now our phone calls were primarily about Jason, Michael, and Freddy. We compared the most gruesome on-screen deaths and created even more horrifying (and often comical) demises for our imaginary film victims. By now the VCR was common and whenever David and Daniel would come spend the night, I would load up on all of the newest “killer” flicks that the local store had to offer.

Better than watching the films, David, Daniel, Taeo (my brother) and I scripted (and largely improvised) a ridiculously complicated tag game. The building I moved to in Chatsworth had long communal hallways, plenty of outdoor spaces, a poorly lit underground parking area and, best of all, an elevator. One of us would be the killer, while the other three would be the intended victims. Keeping with perfect little kid logic, no one knew who was who. Essentially everyone thought that everyone else was the killer. The killer, by the way, was something very scary. I honestly remember being very scared that I would run into any of the guys. Waiting for the elevator, in particular, was torture. If David popped out of the elevator while I was waiting to pop in, we both would have shrieked and run away. We all made spooky groaning sounds and raced through the building like kids who have forgotten their Ritalin. This game was a mad combination of hide-and-go-seek, campfire tales and freeze tag, and it was the most fun I have ever had running around playing like a kid. I can’t imagine that the neighbors were too thrilled when they say David and Daniel with their sleeping bags. The twins were both Boy Scouts and had all sorts of out of doors gear. After a round of The Murderer’s Game we would likely order a pizza. Either David or Daniel (I can no longer remember which) only liked the crust, while the other only liked the toppings – very convenient.

Then we would sit in front of the TV and watch two rented turkeys. As I write this, I remember another essential part of being 9 or 10 in 1980’s Los Angeles: Elvira. Every Sunday afternoon on channel 9, Elvira, Mistress of the Dark would host an absolutely awful vintage drive-in horror movie. Her show was Movie Macabre, and while I don’t think I ever actually watched an episode with David, we would frequently be on the phone while the show was on. We blabbed while the movie was showing, but hushed reverently when Elvira came on before the commercials – her cheesy jokes and attitude was manna for us both. While the gratuitous T & A of the films I rented was an interesting diversion, David and I really only loved the gore effects. We tried at every single sleep over to create some sort of gross visual effect with common kitchen and bathroom ingredients.

I remember one afternoon where we caked our faces in a mixture of baby powder and baking soda to which we then would drip apple cider vinegar. The result? A not too bad, toxic slime style, melty-face effect; which was pretty darn satisfying.

By now David was surely living in Sylmar. The twins came to my house more often then I went to theirs, frankly because it was more fun. I do remember sleeping at David’s house a few times. It was during this period that I realized that he could make music from that big old 88-keyed piano in his living room. I was amazed that he could play the opening from The Muppet Show, odds and ends from simplified classical pieces and, best of all, the Theme from Halloween, with the ominous left-handed bass part! To say that David Hazelton was influential in my development as a horror movie fan is obvious, what may be less clear is that watching him play piano shaped and informed the rest of my life.

Independent of the twins, I was becoming quite interested in rock and roll music; listening to Abbey Road or The White Album on cassette was beginning to become a spiritually nourishing habit. But, the act of making music seemed so remote, so magical and complicated, it never crossed my mind that it was something regular people could do. It was now essential for me to figure out how to make music with David. This process was fundamentally flawed - by the sheer fact that we were little kids who had no idea what to do, but what an amazing time. I saved up whatever money I could to buy cheap pieces of equipment, Radio Shack keyboards and electronics and, fatefully an electric guitar from Toy’s R Us. It was black, with a built-in speaker, the second fret on the A string would not play in tune. B flat was in tune, C was in tune, but the note in between (B natural) could not play in tune. But what did I care? I didn’t tune the guitar anyway. Now our afternoons together were about making noise, posing for our rock-star pictures and designing logos and album covers. We decided to call ourselves (because naming your band is the most fun part) Dto60 (or was it D260?) In either case it meant that we were dedicated to the 1960s, though we were born in the early 70s. When I look at the pictures now, I see that my brother Taeo is holding a pair of twigs in the air; he was meant to be our drummer. Ironically, years later Taeo did become a very talented drummer, but at that time it was all posturing, we all probably watched too much MTV.

Incredibly, before too long, we ended up in a recording studio. Somehow, we must have put some money together to do this. What an unbelievable thrill. I remember checking the studio out with my father in advance (what could we have been looking for? What did we know about recording, or equipment or the going rates, or any of it?) I was 11 or 12 and in a recording studio. The studio, Acres of Sky was in the back bedroom of a small house, behind a park in Chatsworth. It was only me and David and the engineer/producer Chip. In the few hours we were there we hammered out two songs. David’s contribution was a haunting number called “Black and Green.” I have not heard this song in more than two decades, but can still remember the melodic chorus to this day. Whereas my song, well hmmm, I think it had the word “Pop” in it. David’s composition, musicality and panache were so sophisticated and subtle compared to mine. Had he really pursued it, he would have been a fine film composer.

Those few hours in the studio were life changing. Hearing our songs playing back with professional reverb and delay, with a big strong 80’s drum machine pounding away, tying it together, making it seem so real, was such a heady, transformative experience.

David opened the door to another musical hobby of mine: making a mixtape. By now, I was an absolute musical junkie both obsessed and passionate. Each and every week, I would crank out a mixtape for David. Beatles, Kinks, Stones, Bowie and all of the other usual suspects would be dubbed from one lo-fi audiotape to the next, with special attention paid to timing and theme. I loved doing this at age 12 and love it still. I would then take my tape (with whatever photocopies of sketches I had made that week for D260 logos) to the post office and send it off to Sylmar. Meanwhile we would speak each night on the phone and place the receiver next to the speakers in order to rock out together.

We continued like this even during the first few years of high school. David went to a magnet for the performing arts and I went to a humanities magnet. We played one show together, some teenage house party. I don’t remember any of it. I can’t recall rehearsing, arriving or even leaving. I was completely sober, but the experience was either under whelming or so horrifyingly awful that I have blocked it from my mind. What I do remember is that my father bought me my first “real” guitar for the show, an ’87 Fender Stratocaster. I still play that guitar almost every night.

 It was very shortly after this performance that David and I began to drift apart. The distance between our homes increased, while our common interests decreased. I do remember going to The Roxy in Hollywood one night to see The Three O’ Clock. They were our favorite contemporary band. This was our first club show and more importantly the first show I had been to without an adult. David bootlegged the show on a small cassette Dictaphone tape player. I have the cassette with the set list written in his hand still in my closet. Oddly enough, it was around this time that David, Daniel, Taeo and I saw a very different type of concert together – Tina Turner at The Fabulous Forum!

It was during high school that David became much more flamboyant, theatrical and, well the best word to describe it is: velvety.  His room was completely covered with black paint with gold trim and deep red velvet drapes. It was menacing in a Disney sort of way, really not menacing at all. He dyed his hair jet-black and wore little lace gloves that were cut at the fingertips. He had capes and caps and little elfin shoes, but no eyelashes. He lacquered his hair with any number of chemicals and stiffening agents. I remember seeing the Rolling Stones with David and Daniel toward the end of 1989, it was raining and all of the moisture turned his head into a virtual cat ‘o nine tails. As he danced to the music, the sharpened tips of his hair would whip those standing next to him. It’s hard to think of David as a Classic Rock fan, but he was quite excited about that show. He was even there to wait in line to get the tickets. We stayed at a friend’s house that was close to Music Plus, so it wouldn’t be too difficult to walk there in the morning. There must have been 5 or 6 of us. We had a blast all night watching music videos and having (on hindsight, very innocent fun.) Around 4:30 A.M. or so, I remember getting up off of the floor and heading out on the mile hike to the record store. The Stones hadn’t toured in 8 years and this was a big deal. The queue at the record store was a record breaker. We dutifully waited for our wristbands, but the show was so enormous that the tickets actually went on sale the next day. So we all left with our wristbands and had a BBQ at another friend’s house and wiled away the night, heading back to Music Plus, once again, the next morning. Even so, we had seats in the nosebleeds, but it was very, very exciting. It seems like none of us had a care in the world, these are truly very happy memories.  When I reflect on that first Rolling Stones show, I remember three things: the tremendous ordeal of getting the tickets, David’s razor sharp hair, and being picked up from the LA Coliseum by David’s father. After cramming all of us into his car, David, Taeo and I got a horrible case of the giggles. By the time we hit the freeway we were nearly hysterical. I can only imagine which drugs Dean Hazelton must have thought we were on.

A few years later, when we were 17 or so, David and I were very different people. My memory from this time is of David, now involved with his band 19th Nun Massacre coming over to record his song “Wages of Sin” on my little 4-track cassette recorder. The session was quite fun and I even played a little electric guitar on the track. Afterward, David submitted a copy to the host of a public access television show. Unexpectedly, the 19th Nun Massacre was asked to perform on the low budget show. David, his partner in the band and I practiced miming to the recording of the song, the performance was to be lip-synced. I was more excited by the fact that we were going to be interviewed, like real talk show guests. David and I quickly wrote (I know it is quite hard to believe) an acoustic, country-blues song about slavery. We alternated singing the verses, while I played the standard 12 bar blues changes on guitar. It was basic but completely unexpected, particularly from a guy dressed like David.

Finally the day came to tape the television show. We all loaded into the cab of a pickup truck and drove to the studios in Eagle Rock. I remember David grooming for hours and acting very nervous throughout. He gingerly placed velvet cloth on all of the amps and lit a dozen candles to create the right ambiance. I was in my standard jeans and headband, looking quite out of place, David did not seem to mind. The interview and our acoustic song went well, but as I recall, the performance of “Wages of Sin” was pretty badly mimed. Sadly, I only ever saw the show once. I lent the copy of the tape I made to one of David’s friends, never to see it again. If anyone knows if a copy exists I would love to get my hands on it.

The eulogies that I have read on this website take up David’s story from here. I would guess that after the taping of the TV show, I saw him less than two dozen times. Some of those occasions were very memorable; A Cure concert, a confessional night at a Hollywood bar, a late night get together at his apartment (with a horrifying description of his Prince Albert), a Christmas party (he was the one with candy canes in place of ear rings.)

He was a strong and thoughtful individual. His positive outlook and never waning energy left me seeming like a grouchy, old timer. He had a beautiful manner and was able to lift the mood of the room with his presence. As a child and later as an adult, David inspired and motivated me. Without his guidance and talent, I would have never developed in the way that I did. I owe my love of horror movies and things that go bump in the night to David. He was not just my most cherished childhood friend; he was a big brother to impress, a role I most relished. Most of all, David introduced me to the world of music, which is the world I live in. His piano and clarinet playing, his composition, and his transfixing stage persona (even when off stage) were impressive feats and examples of a true talent. He had vision and focus and led a life that was strictly of his own design. As we drifted apart, I often missed David. I did not know how to include him in my life. What a mistake I made. I have always thought of him. I will continue to do so.

“Black and green, where are you tonight…”
By, Elliott Marx