I've been hesitant to say anything because I'm weird and I don't want to be intrusive - but what happened is heartbreaking and I'm so sorry and I wish there was a way to bring him back.

I admire what I perceived as a yin and yang partnership between Mike and Ed, and when Ed would yell to Mike from the kitchen on the 6th floor (rather than walking to Mike's office to say whatever he was going to) it made me laugh (and sometimes roll my eyes). 

One beautiful thing that Ed did for me, was he gifted me a blue, plastic, S-shaped gizmo that helps work knots out of neck and shoulder muscles (that I still use). He noticed me craning my neck at my desk nearly every work day and asked why. I explained that I have nerve damage (and a condition called trigeminal neuralgia), and he gasped and had me follow him down to his office to see if the gizmo would offer relief. When it did, he told me to keep it. I tried to give it back and said I could get one, but thank you. He insisted I keep it, saying he had another at home. It was really kind of him to do that, and over time, I noticed variations of that kind of caretaking from him towards others around the office in big and small ways.

He was loud and sassy and funny, yes, he was also observant and kind. I will remember him fondly forever. 

To my beautiful Ed Wood - I thought the longer I waited to post this maybe it wouldn’t really be true.

I miss you soooo much it physically hurts. I pretend for a few seconds- a minute - that it’s not true but then reality crashes through and reminds me like a kick in the gut of the truth that you are not physically with us anymore. It’s shocking…it’s unbelievable. I can’t even believe I am writing this.

How can this be true - I don’t have the answer- I just know that it really hurts.

We chose each other as family way back in 1994 and we knew we were meant to be close…just like siblings. It felt so right. It filled so many voids in our lives. It lasted all these years. Best friends. Just like brother and sister….what a family…how lucky am I?? I had been searching for you for so long. I know I will never know someone like you again. It’s so gut wrenchingly sad but I feel grateful we got to experience this wonderful relationship in this lifetime and I am so lucky. I will love and honor you always and forever my Bro and until we meet again. I miss our long and in depth about everything conversations. I miss everything with you. Thank you for always being there for me…being the best Uncle and Godfather- you were meant for this. I will always love you Dwino.

Love your Dux xoxoxoxoxo

Everyone has been sharing these amazing stories about Ed. The truth is, I don’t have a lot of stories to share. I selfishly want to keep them as mine; contrary to everything Ed stood for, I don’t want to share. I want to hold them close as treasures that only he and I were rich enough to capture.

We had so many of our fun times…not to distract from the tales reiterated joyfully here. But we also had terrible times. Terrible, pivotal times.

I fell in love the first time I met ed.

I had been preparing for stoic skepticism.

Instead I found a kindred spirit and a soul mate.

We loved and fought in the panoramic view that was our “original” wilshire call center. Ed walked in, replacing Arthur, who’d already been gone for 6 months. Tom had been running the center and Mike D was vying for the fishbowl…

I remember his ridiculous tie dyed pants. I remember how pissed he was when I dressed him as FAT elvis for halloween…. I remember egg mcMondays and spinning wheels and offices upon offices of water features and souvenirs of a life well lived. I remember panicked calls of newly adopted puppies with kennel cough. I remember the 7 stuffed dwarves with their own room when Ed and Mike first moved to Santa Clarita. I remember him picking me up in 2018 waaaay too early for him on my first day back in LA.

We’ve pretty much always had the same taste in men…for the most part.

My most prolific memories of Ed aren’t sharable. They aren’t the punchlines of jokes or the throughlines of stories. They were ours.

Ed was easy to reveal his missteps and human errors if there was any potential for positive impact to you. Ed shared himself with every single human that “needed”. He reached the misfits and broken toys when no other messenger could possibly dial in.

He loved you whether you loved him or hated him or whether you vacillated between the two at irregular intervals.

He was embarrassing and braggart. But mostly because of you. He was loud because he was proud.

He was proud of his Mikey - for for his analytical brain, his impeccable work ethic and for his dedication to his sobriety.

He was proud of his sister and his beautiful nieces and nephews.

He was proud of his teams.

I can’t get over the thought of never monkee walking hip to hip on Santa Monica Blvd, or Downtown or through the casinos of vegas.

I can’t get over not seeing his handwriting. I’d give an arm for a spiff sheet…or a sticky note… Or a voicemail….but somehow the only one I have saved is a butt dial of a commute from downtown to santa clarita with nothing but background noise and the sounds of him determining his next dial.

I still refuse to delete it.

Dear Eddie,

So many people called you their best friend.

You were the mentor to even more.

There wasn’t one person that you met that you didn’t make feel like they mattered.

And somehow, you struggled to understand that you mattered.

That’s on us.

I’d give everything for us to have the chance for all of us to tell you how much.

Xo

Butterfly

Me again. I learned of Ed’s passing while I was in the hospital for prostrate surgery. I’m home now and doing better, but I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that he’s gone. How does this happen? 

Ed was a year or so younger than me, too young to pass on. As I wrote initially, Ed and I were friends and much more in high school. Even though our time together was a brief period of my life, the memories I have of him are profound. It’s impossible to count the number of people I’ve come into contact with in life, but Ed holds a key place, given the part he played during those adolescent years.  

It’s funny that I learned of his death while I was in the hospital. At 18, I had surgery for a hernia operation. After, I was at Ed’s parents home—where he lived at the time—and we were smoking pot, listening to the Pointer Sisters. At high volume. His father would often complain, saying, “Ed, get those buzzards out of there.” His relationship with his father was conflicted, but he was loyal to his mother.

There is so, so much more I want to write about that day, alone, but it might betray his memory. His bedroom was a haven, a nest, a sound system. He felt safe there. Yet, I remember the night he called me, needing company, and he ventured away from the den, late at night.

During that time period, we’d cruise up and down Sunset and Santa Monica Blvds in his Camero. He loved that car so much, but once, he let me drive it while he was at work. 

We would drive around, listening to Cheryl Lyn, Donna Summer, and a variety of other late 70’s tunes at high volume. We’d dance at the disco at night, engage in mischief at school by day, and park at the beach by night. We’d go see the movie, ‘Grease.’ 

One night, he sheepishly introduced himself to the then-Disco diva, Alisha Bridges (who sang, ‘I love the nightlife’). Once at a stoplight, he told a woman in the car next to him how beautiful she was. She thanked him and let him know she was Goldie Hahn. He briefly dated a friend of mine, who lived next door to the lead singer from Earth, Wind and Fire. 

We had intense, mutual friendships. He was loyal to his friends. He was respectful to my family. We explored our innocence together and he would always smile. I never took up smoking, but with Ed, we explored it. 

Somewhere, I have a photo album of that time, with pictures of Ed with me, with my sister, and in school. If I can find them, I’ll find a way of posting some of them here. 

After I left LA for college, he would come to visit. Oh, the stories. But again, I would need his blessing to share all that. After, we lost contact until reconnecting on FB years later. I never saw him, but I was kept apprised of his life through his postings. It’s obvious he touched the lives of many. What a thing to cherish, leaving this world knowing you had done that. May we all be so fortunate. 

— Christopher Alexander, New Mexico 

It’s taken me a few weeks to process Ed’s passing. For most of that time, I have wanted to mourn the loss privately as that is my way. But, Mike asked if I might help keep Ed’s memory present and while it’s been very present in my mind and heart, if my thoughts might remind us all of Ed’s uniqueness, then let me try to do my part.

I can’t say that I have any particularly funny stories to tell about Ed.  As some of you reading this know, for years Ed and I were just mostly thorns in each other’s sides.  Damn he could be annoying.  But something strange happened along the way and over all the years I knew him, especially over the last few.  The fucker managed to endear me to him. His unwavering loyalty to Mike, to DSG and to me just kept breaking down my resistance.  His sometimes odd sense of humor and the occasionally torturous conversations we had seemed to only increase my fondness for him a little bit more each year until all I could really see was a truly loving guy, genuine in his feelings, authentic in his emotions and passionate and loyal to all he cared about.  Long after DSG was gone, it was Ed who I most often spoke to from DSG.  It was Ed who checked in every so often just to see how I was doing.  And it was Ed who I texted the day before learning of his death.  

There is no doubt that Ed was unique in almost every way.  There is no doubt that by the end he had my enduring respect.  And there is no doubt that he completely won me over and that I genuinely loved the guy.  I’ll certainly miss him as it was his uniqueness that made him special even if it took me a while to see and appreciate it.