You’ll have to bear with me. I haven’t slept much.
Last night I arrived in Hamburg, Germany around midnight. I checked my messages and found out that my friend Logan Lestat (née Pat Cleckner) died yesterday from esophageal cancer. He was diagnosed sometime around December of 2013, when the cancer was already well advanced.
I first met Logan when he was plain old Pat, a kind of chubby kid three years behind me in high school who liked my band. At that point he looked like a shy, nerdy guy with glasses who wore funny striped sweaters.
Sometime toward the end of high school, Pat changed his name to Logan and started looking like the dashing Velvet Underground type dude you can see in this picture. He joined a band and started getting more cute new wave chicks than he could possibly handle. I was insanely jealous.
He sang in a number of bands. He had this cool, deep baritone voice and a great stage presence. My favorite of the bands he fronted was The Zen Luv Assassins. They seemed like the perfect fit for his moody sexiness.
In the late 80s, Logan worked it out so I could move into The Clubhouse, a rundown punkrock house where the rent for a room was just $60 a month. At that point Logey, as we called him, worked for the DMV while I did temp work for a variety of places. Both the Zen Luv Assassins and my band Dimentia 13 practiced in the basement of The Clubhouse.
I spent lots of time just hanging out with Logan and his girlfriend Laura watching crappy horror movies on VHS. I remember one night there was a magnificent lightning storm, so we all sat on the porch amazed and wondering if we’d get fried ourselves, the strikes were coming so close and fast.
I went up to visit Logan in August this year. He’d just made it through one of a number of bouts of pneumonia and I wasn’t sure how much longer he’d be with us. Logan had worked for Netflix until he got too sick to continue. So we were sitting on his couch watching a documentary on the life of Bob Guccione, founder of Penthouse magazine.
Towards the end of the movie the narrator said that Bob Guccione had died of cancer at age 79. Logan said, “That’s not dying of cancer, when you die at 79!”
That’s the kind of person Logan was.
Logan was known among his friends for lots of things but one of the best was the cool mix tapes he’d make you if he found some music he thought you needed to hear. I’ve still got a few of them somewhere. The photo here is of the collection he made for Jim Millar, the Zen Luv’s guitarist. I note with pride that he included some Dimentia 13 stuff on a tape of Syd Barrett, the Velvets and The Fuzztones. It’s the one on the far right of the photo.
I really liked Logan a lot. He was a great friend and an inspiration.
When I get back from Europe I’m going to go up to Portland and lead a memorial service for him.
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You can help me buy plane tickets to Logan’s memorial service by donating here.
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UPCOMING EVENTS
Oct 20 Lecture in Hamburg, Germany
Oct 24: Lecture/Movie screening in Groningen, Netherlands
Oct 25: Day-long zazen in Groningen, Netherlands
Oct 26: Movie screening in Eindhoven, Netherlands at Natlab
Oct 27: Evening zazen in Eindhoven, Netherlands
Oct 28: Evening zazen in Nijmegen, Netherlands
Oct 29: Lecture in Amsterdam, Netherlands at “De Roos” bookstore from 19.00-21.00 (P Cornelisz Hooftstr 183)
Oct 30: Lecture in Utrecht, Netherlands at “De wijze kater” bookstore from 19.00-21.00 ( Mariaplaats 1, Utrecht)
Nov 1-2: Retreat in Utrecht, Netherlands
Nov. 2: Movie screening in Utrecht, Netherlands at ACU
Nov 6-8: Retreat in Hebden Bridge, UK
Nov 9: Noon — 5pm Manchester, UK
Dec. 5-7 Three-Day Zazen and Yoga Retreat at Mt. Baldy (near Los Angeles, CA)
EVENTS YOU ALREADY MISSED
Oct. 1 Turku Panimoravintola Koulu, Finland– Movie screening
Oct. 2 Helsinki, Finland — Lecture Event
Oct. 3-5 Helsinki, Finland Zen retreat at Helsinki Zen Center
Oct. 6 Movie Screening in Espoo, Finland
Oct. 8 Lecture in Munich, Germany
Oct. 10-11 Retreat in Munich, Germany
Oct. 12-17 Retreat at Benediktushof near Würzburg, Germany
Oct 18 8:00am — 6:00pm Retreat in Bonn, Germany
Oct. 19 4:00pm 3 Schätze Shop Bonn, Germany
I’m sorry for your loss, Brad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZFPiG8dEBk
I’m glad that you got to spend some time with Logan before he died. Best of luck dealing with the strain of traveling and getting such bad news.
Cheers.
Ji Jang Bosal.
We come out from our Mother.
We live in her living skin, for awhile.
She lovingly takes us back at our ending.
Namo Ti Tsang Wang Pusa.
(I think it significant that Jizo Bosa began his bodhisattva career as a human named Sacred Girl.)
Sorry Brad. Looks like he had great musical taste!
sorry to hear… 🙁 i know you’ve mentioned him on here before and i was pulling for him and his family. Cancer sucks.
odd, i just finished Sit down Shut Up…i knew it was an awesome book but reading it again after all these years i couldn’t believe how much i’d forgotten and how it’s even better than i remembered. It got me in a Brad Warner nerd kick so i got HCZ to read tonight and i remember reading about your friend’s band in HCZ…i think it was him, he had Zen in the name but it was random. I’m just about to read that but i read this post before cracking it open. And Dimentia 13 always reminds me of HCZ…
I also debated on your 3rd book because i, like everyone else in the world it seems, am dealing with cancer in my immediate family. That book talks about dealing with rough shit and not giving up. Very, very anxious for your next book on Dogen to be released hopefully asap. Somewhere in my house sits There is no God…which i keep meaning to read again as well but couldn’t find it.
hang in there
Fred, i’m Canadian so sweet link but i can’t figure out what you mean with that song.
eh, Freddy meant:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gn8kb9BMtho
what’s in a song, what’s in that bottle, remember the hippies that threw all their acid into the jug of red mountain? My friend Ted, they found him on a lawn in the next county thrashing around naked; he was a good man, a holy man at times, I went to visit him before he left. Lucky Ted landed in a hospice in Santa Barbara before he had to go.
meant to say, hey Brad– peace, love, take care. My sympathy on the passage of your friend.
Brad, sorry to hear of Logan’s passing.. Did he change his name from Lestat to Firestone at some point?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx-WWY_s9dw
He was never officially “Firestone.” He regretted the Lestat thing after the Anne Rice novels got made into a movie with Tom Cruise. He did legally change his name from Pat Cleckner to Logan Patrick Lestat.
I’m sorry to read about losing your friend, Brad. I hope you’re able to have peace and great memories more than sadness and pain. I know how it can hurt pretty bad when we lose someone we care about.
Brad, I will tell you the secret to Logan’s success with women…
He had a very sweet disposition and always treated people well. He was a very loyal and devoted husband and always made me laugh. He took very good care of me, always. He even tried to help me make my cot in the hospital while he was dying and connected to several IV’s.
He was the cleanest , tidiest punk rocker on the planet. He still wore his t-shirts from 1984 and took very good care of his things. Women like men who don’t stink and who wear clean clothes. Unfortunately, this is a very hard quality to find in a heterosexual man, especially in someone who likes punk rock.
When I met Logan, I had been practically single for 6 years. I had come out of an abusive relationship and was pretty afraid of men in general. I was damaged and never thought I would fall in love. We quickly became best friends, but it still took us a long while to start dating (1-2 years maybe). I knew Logan was safe, because he always treated me and everyone around him with kindness and respect. He made me laugh, brought me out of a dark place and made me a whole person again. I would not be the person I am today, if I had not met and married Logan.
I created an account on Hardcore Zen with the user name dangergirl56. That’s a name Logan gave me. We met at work, and fell in love in a porn shop, surrounded by dildos and dirty grandpas lurking and drooling over Logan. We 86’d a lot of perverts together, including our cat Church. Our change bag numbers were 56 (mine) and 38 (his). He would always say, “I love you dangergirl”. Or, “I love you 56”. And I would say “I love you 38” or “boo boo kitty fuck”. That’s a Jay and Silent Bob reference by the way. We are (were) big Kevin Smith fans. People would compare us to Jay and Silent Bob a lot. I will let you guess who is who in that scenario.
Now, go watch Mallrats or something and cry it out. And be sure to always wash your t-shirts and jeans inside out. Jeans must be dried inside out for about 25 minutes, then right side out for 15-20 minutes, then inside out for another 15-20 minutes, then in the end turned right side out again. And never fold them. They get hung up in the closet immediately after drying. T-shirts are always steamed in the shower before wearing. These techniques will prevent any wrinkles in your clothing, and attract women to you “like a moth to a flame”.
Love,
-Amy Lestat
Amy,
That was a very lovely post. Thank you.
Cheers.
Brad and Amy, I remember you talking about thi and thinking good zen thought (broken keyboard). I hope you kno that you are not alone,