Before I got into cycling, I was your typical working 20 something partying fool. At my first career position, I hooked up with anther party animal who also happened to front a band called Striders Wrath in the '80s. Through him, I met another musician, and abject slacker, The Amazing Colossal Burke.
Slackers unite. Burke and I had alot in common. Classically trained musicians, honor role students, and complete abhorrer's of authority figures. Ironically, he lived in the same town I did. Burke was one of the few local freaks I could have an intelligent conversation with, and were were both devotees of Nova on PBS.
But Burke was big. 6'4", probably 300#, maybe would have been 275 in shape, but he never was.
Burke had another problem - clumsiness. He used to fall over things, and break them. Coffee tables never lasted in his apartments. We went to a party in Lowell one night, and he tripped over a fiero in the driveway. Yes, the car. It was that night he earned the moniker The Amazing Colossal Burke.
His first wife was a 'housekeeper' at the old marriot in lexington. One year, she got a room for free on new years eve, so we had about ten people running around the hotel, stoned, drunk, crashing parties and eating the food. We had run of the place, as the security guard used to get his stash from burkes wife. I have dozens of such memories with The Amazing Colossal One - good, good times.
His most disturbing problem was alcoholism, which only exacerbated his clumsiness. His drinking contributed to the breakup of his first marriage, and was the root cause in the break-up of his second marriage. After his split-up from wife 2, he needed a place to stay. I had a spare room in my apt. and reluctantly agreed to let him sublet. Now, Burke is a nice, friendly, smart guy. I like him alot. It's just that between the clumsiness and the drinking.....well...it's different when he's in _your_ apartment.
I had split from my wife several months earlier, and when she left, she left most of the feminine faux object d'art in the apartment. Classic and typical burke, he was putting on his coat to go out one night, and in three-stooges fashion, thrust his hand through his coat sleeve, punched the side of the shelf unit with little glass decanters and figurines, and knocked most of them on the floor.
The last I saw him, he was living in framingham with wife number 3. He had bought a behemoth dilapidated colonial, and was fixing it up - and doing quite a nice job at it. I still like Burke, though I haven't seem him in 7 or 8 years. Maybe I'll call him.....but then again, maybe I wont.
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