(I've already posted this on Facebook, so I'm sure some of you have seen it, but thought it would be appropriate to include here.)

I've known Scott since we were in Junior High together back in Orlando, Florida. While by no means the only one, I can safely say that he has been, to date, the most influential person in my life. Not to say that he pushed me into anything, but rather he was always a bit ahead of me and opened important windows so that I could understand what was possible.

If not for him, I might never have really delved into writing. In junior high he used to write these silly tales of a bunch of misfits on madcap adventures and I was so taken with them, I started doing my own version of them (though, frankly, not quite as good). We called them "Idiot Stories". Later he wrote 13 novels (at last count).

He had writing stamina I could not match. I've managed to eke out 3 novels, but not sure it's safe to show any of them around. Our subject matter and styles were very different, but for me, he pointed the way.

If not for him, I might never have come to California (that was huge!). He left Orlando around 1980 and went to New York City to get a degree in Film at NYU. I visited him there two or three times, but, though I was originally from the suburbs of NYC, the city never really felt like a fit to me. When he went to California with his girlfriend (to transport a car there) he ended up staying. Subsequently, I came out to visit him and he took me to meet his some of his friends (he was at that time taking an Advanced English master's degree at UC Davis while living in Oakland) and I knew "this is the place!" It took me a year to save up the money to make the move...but I got it done.

If not for him, I might never have gotten involved in theater. He was doing his first community theater show (at the Masquers Playhouse, "The Uninvited"--January/February 1990) and I helped video tape the show and met a bunch of great people (many of whom I still know). A few months later I went with him to an audition for Onstage Theatre's production of "Wild Oats". He got a main character part and I got a minor character with 8 lines, but I was officially on the path--more great experiences and people. Considering I was a semi-reclusive computer programmer that left Orlando for the left coast, I turned into something I like a lot better!

If not for him, I might never have gotten involved in radio plays/audio drama/voice acting. He got involved with Pagliacci's Fools and I came to see their show at the KPFA performance studio in Berkeley (performing three short pieces Scott had written). I totally got what they were doing and said, "I HAVE to do this!" In hindsight, I realize, that this path was already being paved back when we were kids. We used to make comedy tapes together--very off the wall silly stuff not unlike the "idiot stories". In the early '70s there were a number of novelty records that came out that featured interviews in which the answers were snatches of popular songs of the day (e.g. "Moonflight" by Vic Venus and "On Campus" by Dickie Goodman). We loved the concept and made a number of longer-form things with more complex (moronic?) stories. They were done on cassette tapes. I don't know if any of them survive.

(Perhaps most significantly) If not for him, I might never have met Suzan Lorraine. She was the stage manager for the second show Scott was ever in ("Musical Comedy Murders of 1940" for Oakland Civic Theater--Spring 1990). She was also his (dead) body-double as he had the roll of the "faux" Helsa. He introduced us. He also went with us on New Year's Day 1991 when Suzan and I took her grandson (3 and a half at the time) to the Oakland Zoo. It was the day that Suzan and I decided we were a couple. 32.5 years and counting.

I've always felt like he was kind of the foundation of my life even when we were geographically remote and now that foundation has been taken away. He has always been there at the back of my mind if nowhere else, a source of support and encouragement. I'm heartbroken.

I'm sitting here at four in the morning crying and gutted.  I can't possibly fill this small space with all of my thoughts and feelings about Scott.  I met him in September, 1985, when we were both young writers in the UC-Davis graduate writing program.  He was an extremely important part of my life during years that I consider formative. 

Everything we went through in the 1980s could fill several books--and probably DID fill several books by both of us.  To write a single sentence about him would be untrue due to brevity--to write a thousand pages about him would be untrue for the same reason.  Others here have commented on his generosity, integrity, humor, and wonderful sense of freedom.  Scott had all of these qualities and more.  He was a person who made things happen, and in doing so, he changed other people's lives for the better. 

To get more specific, publicly, would feel like a violation of intimacy, because when we were young we were nearly like brothers--we and the other people we knew were like a kind of family.  We "grew up" and went out on our various paths in life and saw each other less and less over the years, but he was always a brother from my youth, and I always knew I could reach out to him, and now I'm very sorry that in these final years I failed to do so.  I have a photo of Scott in Davis from the late '80s that I was looking at only a year ago, and I'd love to post it here, but I'm ripping the house apart unable to find it at this moment.  In any case I am in a state of devastation. 

And so with all of my hopeless love, I offer my deepest condolences to Terisa and Larry and all of Scott's beloved friends and family.  No matter how or when we knew Scott, we have all lost a piece of ourselves that has been absolutely integral.  --Bob Young