Bam Bam was a man who did what he wanted.  He loved a lot, was loved a 
lot and was much beloved. There were more than several people who 
didn't care for his drumming or his leadership in drumcircles.  For 
certain Bam Bam could be a disagreeable rascal.  He was a legend for 
well-earned reasons. But he was also an arrogant snot.  For instance, 
Bam Bam acted like a know-it-all high holy from time to time, as well 
as being downright cruel to young neophyte drummers.  But let me say 
it's damn difficult not to seem like a high holy given circumstances 
that all too easily line up when especially leos bring pressure to 
bear.  Likewise, it's damn difficult to teach and not be cruel because 
teaching denotes learning and there are always those who will not or 
cannot learn despite their own expectations and evaluations. 

While there's nothing here I wouldn't or didn't say to him, I'm sure 
that this post seems negative in the balance so far especially to 
those who hold with maxims about not speaking ill of the dead.  But I 
only want to emphasize one more negative before I go on to praise this 
guy I loved:  Alcohol.  Goddamned godblessed alcohol.  If you tell me 
what a hell of a good drinking buddy he was I puke on your shoes. 
Alcohol informed everything.  Rather: alcoholism.  Bam Bam's life, 
death, mania, depression, talent, bad acts, good acts, sweetness, 
meanness-- all of it was affected by alcoholism.   Please don't get me 
wrong.  Just don't act as if being good at drinking is a commendable 
attribute. 

I love Bam Bam dearly.  I cannot think of Bam Bam and not get happy. 
I saw him do a lot of things but two stand out.   1993.  May?  Dead 
Show.  Sacto.  It's just the way he would lead that tide of one 
hundred drummers against that sea of leos and block the squadcars from 
encroaching on the village in the parking lot, just as he would at 
various gatherings. It was a joyful thing. 

That day was very very hot.  115.  Early in the year.  Still early in 
the day, say three pm, under the press of an orange fiery sky on that 
black coal asphalt,  Bam raises one arm, says, "There we were on the 
Serengeti--"  Well, I fell instantly in love and we were paramours for 
that day, making that scorched africa motif our script for the day and 
night.  There were only half a dozen drummers at that hour.  By the 
time the crowd swelled to a hundred or more then went down to just 
several of us again, somehow Bam Bam's brand new very fine jimbe (sp) 
had been ripped off.   It was such an outrage.  Outrageous!  He was 
dejected and whispering after an initial burst of hilarity and 
invective that seemed so short lived considering the magnitude of the 
loss.  THEN!  It also turned out someone has knicked his backpack, 
rendering him a man with the clothes on his back (plus thousands of 
friends).   He really was like a little boy and even cried a bit and I 
with him.  I gave him five bucks which was half what I had.  It was 
tender and moving to see a big man of such art and ideal who with such 
extravagant  primitivist  showbiz acumen "led" a big exuberant motley 
orchestra brought to little boy tears and knees by some greedy maya- 
deluded people.  I was struck by the gentility in one who might have 
been expected to be macho and blustery. 

Flash forward a few weeks.  July 1994.   Wyoming.  Vision council. 
I've been knocked flat by altitude sickness and stuck in my rig in the 
parking lot from the third on sundown until this time on the seventh. 
Up through the middle of the circle of some hundred people come Bam 
Bam and a few other brothers carrying the peace pole which they then 
plant in the ground.  Now that's the entire story.  No more plot than 
that.  The story was that the story goes on. 

The reason I write of it is that this is Bam Bam and this is life! 
That's the first I'd seen him since the dead parking lot.  I mean 
there he was!  In full throes!  Free!  Yet in harness!  A gallop! 
Nearly naked and magnificent.  Muscles.  Veins.  Sweat.  Teeth.  Hair 
tangled like roots or flying clouds or lover's limbs or real life's 
real soap opera plots.  Big bony feet.  Pounding a rhythm on the Teton 
dirt.  Smiles, grimaces.  All worthy of the late masters' oils. All 
browns and tans and blacks and reds and golds. God I love the 
rainbow!  God I love Bam Bam!  The story is the beat goes on!