it's my birthday. but this entry is going to be about someone from my music/dance circle who recently passed away, someone named mark tortorici, nicknamed, 'Torch', for the most part i've been in denial about his being gone, but today, i think it's time.
mark was known to many in the music and swing dance worlds. he had his own band as well as developed a following for booking bands for a bar/dance venue in burbank called joe's great american bar & grill. when mark started booking blues acts for sunday nights, i approached him about DJ-ing blues before. in between and after the live sets. he gave me a shot, and more significantly, he gave me the room to play more music by contemporary musicians and even cross over into jazz/blues even though he would have preferred more choices by some of the established old guard in the blues genre. ultimately, mark respected my musicianship and let me find my own voice and DJ for the music lovers in the house and not the dancers - and each week i DJ i typically get responses from members of that week's band complimenting my selections and in some cases, wanting to know who that was performing a particular selection. and i've expanded from blues to building a soul playlist, as well as a late night jazz playlist that has grown a few fans who now come in late just to hear that. it's something i love doing and i wouldn't be doing it if mark hadn't given me the chance to do so.
the bottom line was that mark was one of the few people who made me feel like he got me, liked what he saw, and as a consequence, he got to see aspects of me i generally take pains not to reveal when i'm in a group of people. he'd told me more than a few times that he wished that everyone else knew me the way he did. so i grieve the loss of someone who knew who to make me feel like he clearly knew me and understood me better than most.
(what you don't get to see is that i as reflect back on this, i now see more clearly that he did in fact understand me pretty well in how he interacted with me differently than with others based on what i've gotten to hear from others who knew mark, and the tears are *really* starting to come)
the thing is, mark was pretty much that way with everyone (unless he felt you'd betrayed him in some way - that was pretty much the only unforgivable sin for mark) which is why it was standing room only at his memorial held this past weekend. and people who knew him and missed him got together to share their grief. during one such gathering of which i happened to be a part last week, someone said something to the effect that one way of ensuring that mark remained a part of us was to be a bit more like mark in how we treated one another and built community.
and this is what i choose it to mean when i refer to the passing of the TORCH - that part of what it means to remember mark and to honor his memory is to be more like him in how he made others feel important and good about themselves, in how he looked out for other people's best interests, he always believed anyone else's success would never be at his own expense, etc. especially since mark didn't stop doing that even when he had problems of his own. indeed, he was usually willing to share whatever (little) he had with someone down on their luck.
for me, one tangible way to make progress is to choose to find *something* about someone else that you like - and to tell them. and to do that at least x number of times a day. and that's what i'm going to try to do. the thing is, i suppose one really can't be genuine about making others feel good about themselves until one genuinely feels that way about themselves. so i suppose part of the process is recognizing and acknowledging the good in one's self. (for you non-asians out there - you have no idea what kind of hurdle that is).
anyway. thanks mark, i'm going to miss you, but i'm not going to forget you and the best way i can think of to honor your memory is to try and be a bit more like you in how you made people to feel comfortable about being themselves. and i suppose it starts with learning to be more comfortable about myself.
