Matt Taylor
Laurie said Greg was “effortlessly ahead of his time”… Well, that must have started from birth! Greg was listening to music and reciting lyrics from at least 8 years old. He suffered no fools and wasn’t into impressing anyone, just into his music, his poetry, his life and the way it should be lived. When we were 8 or 9, we were on the same baseball team… Greg was center field and I was left field… Our manly 1970’s coach would often yell out to Greg to “stand up and stop pick’n pansies!” –Wouldn’t faze Greg at all… he’d look right through the coach and keep singing songs and plucking “love me, love me not” peddles while think of a girl he likes… When Elvis died, Greg was shocked… he’d listen to Elvis songs while singing along and dancing to the King… How did he know all this stuff??? –I often wondered. He was way ahead of “cool”… He was in another zone. While the rest of the kids had regular bikes, or some BMX bikes, Greg…… Greg had a “beach cruiser”. Greg wore VANS before anyone else… he talked about surfing as if he’d been doing it all his life. –I didn’t even know which way the ocean was. He made a home-made skimboard and skimboarded in the flooded streets… floating effortlessly (fearlessly) above the asphalt. And as the cold rains would flood the streets in the neighborhood, Greg would be the first to put on a rubber old-man mask and crawl in the flooded streets begging for HELP from cars passing by… While I would watch laughing in disbelief from the sidewalk… Freaking people out, of course. Then he discovered Supertramp… It was way too weird for me, but Greg understood the music deeply. Again, I would just watch, and try to be as cool as I could hanging out with my friend… Greg had a synthesizer when I was still pretending to know what one even was… He would make weird electronic rhythmic sounds out of it while proclaiming that “THIS was the future of music”. He danced around the house and was bigger than life. When Michael Jackson came out with “Off The Wall”, Greg was the first to have the album… and he LOVED IT, and wasn’t afraid to say it. –It was a bit of a racist, homophobic time in our community, yet Greg had a clear sense of social justice and wasn’t afraid to show it. He had a sense of “fashion” since elementary school and by 7th grade he’d sit poolside in his shades getting that perfect tan. Only to get up occasionally to spray himself and try new flips off the diving board, that I could only imagine doing. –How did he know so much about the world….???? Well, Greg had cool parents. Greg’s beautiful (Smoke’n HOT) mom would come home to check on things and it was always clear that he was her special son… She was sophisticated and the prettiest lady in the neighborhood and would always make us feel a little older and important than we were. She once came home and I was cutting Laurie’s hair… because I wanted to become a “hairstylist”…. (Sorry Laurie –Lol) She didn’t get mad, in fact she said it was cool… She never spoke down to us… She had a way of bringing the best out of Greg and everyone around him. He had the coolest brothers too. .. Steve and I would talk about religion, the end of the world and amateur magic tricks while fixing up his yellow Vega… As Greg would just continue to evolve to a higher level. He was unique… uniquely genius and kind. I’m not surprised to read about how he was later in life… caring for others and staying selflessly close to his causes, friends and family. Greg and I reconnected once while he was going to school in SF… He had just pressed his first album, : “Chapel Bell Chimes” –vinyl of course. –I still have it. Over the years I had tried from time to time to reconnect with Greg, unsuccessfully. Around the time of his passing, I was once again trying to look for him so I could give him back his album… I thought he’d like to have it. Ironically, the church in his obituary has a similar name as the title of his first album. I thought it would be a great gift from an old friend. I could never find him on facebook but heard