I can explain, I can explain! I had no idea the Sedarises were such a gigantic family! It is obvious that Amy is the prettiest, and most talented, partly because she is so brilliant, and also she has that killer hair, which I would just love to have.
Then there is her brother, David. Equally as well known, not nearly as pretty, and with hardly any hair, at all. I have a conscious memory of having read his books "Naked," and "Barrel Fever," but, retaining nothing, they did not make an overt impression. Not like Amy's 4AM tour of the Village, which recalled to me my youthful, night crawling days, and still, at that hour, there was that killer hair! Amy, what is your secret??????????????
It is only recently I learned about the tragic suicide of Tiffany Sedaris, youngest of the clan, and while I do not want to cause any more pain to Amy, David, or the rest, I want to share something. The more I read about Tiffany, the more I was reminded of my childhood friend, Doug, who passed on six months ago. Of what I am still not sure. Definitely a combination of alcoholism, depression and neglect. I suppose it could be technically considered a slow suicide. But some parallels between he and Tiffany stand out.
I read how, at 14, Tiffany's parents sent her to a reformatory in Maine, called Elan, which had a detrimental effect on her. Doug's parents did not go that far, but when a school psychologist suggested he seek psychotherapy, they acquiesced. He never talked to me about those sessions, which I get, because, back then, I certainly understood the doctor-patient confidentiality thing. One thing I am certain he was told was to break away from people and patterns, and this he began to do. It might surprise some who knew us, back then, that we were not joined at the hip. Sure, we walked home from school, went to movies, bitched about classmates and teachers. But I had some friends outside of Highland Park, whom I saw, and Doug would go on these journeys. Like the time he saw "They Shoot Horses, Don't They," every week it played, at New Brunswick's Albany Theater, because he identified so much with Jane Fonda's tragic character, Gloria. I saw it with him the first week, but that was enough for me. Later, I heard about his walking excursions into Princeton, where, I am certain now, he was assimilating himself into the hippie culture there, as well as drugs and drink.
Doug was raised in comfortable surroundings in a section of town known as the Wrong Side Of The Tracks. Maybe by adolescence, he knew it, too, and was ashamed. Which may have accounted for the distancing. While I, who came from the North Side, caused him to both envy and despise me, sometimes simultaneously. I always knew if the hippies had accepted Doug in high school, he would have sold me out for them. pursue them, and dropped me. I would have just gone on and pursued whatever activities I did, not only out of genuine interest, but because, as I was already aware, I wanted so much to be noticed. Doug did not have those interests, or my drive.
His father was not particularly bright, his mother a very selfish woman. I can still recall how she would tear into me, verbally, for no reason I could understand, during my final two years of high school. To the point where I no longer went over there; he came to my house. I would love to know what was going on, because while his mother went on to break up the marriage and shatter the family, I had absolutely nothing to do with that! How could I??????????
But that is what happened, and where the mystery begins. I went off to Seton Hall, to pursue journalism and theater. Doug went off to a state school many others went to. He went on scholarship--good for him, he needed it--but his major--sociology--I could not understand, as he barely made it through high school math, and I knew in this major one had to take Statistics. I could not see him doing it.
I must have been somewhat right, because after about eighteen months, he was out of college. Did he drop out, or was he thrown out? I never knew. I do know that this marked a period of eighteen months, where he fell off the grid. By the time I caught up with him, he was living in some sort of boarding house in East Orange, with this guy named Harold. I knew Doug was gay. He did not know I was making that same discovery, myself. But, at this point, I realized the vision I had created for us from childhood--with us living in Bergen County, next door to each other, raising our families as best friends, while we commuted to high powered jobs in New York--was not going to happen. Though, as it turned out, we both ended up in the outer boroughs of New York, often not that far from another.
But something was not right, and it began with Harold. How many couples have met a friend's spouse, and had the reaction, "He/She could do so much better?" That is how I always felt about Harold; I did not dislike him, I did not like him, I merely accepted him.
For decades, we would see each other, on and off--movies, shows, dining out. But the last genuinely good time, before the years of drink and the driftlessness of job loss caught up with him, was our going to see, for the first time in 40 years, "What's The Matter With Helen.?" at the Chelsea, as part of one of Hedda Lettuce's attractions.
Things went south from there. Tying in to Tiffany, I read how, at one point, she chose to live in squalor. So, too, did Doug. And Harold. The very first time I visited them--in Bay Ridge--before I first moved there--in 1983--I thought the place cluttered, but neat. But it was like they had tried to cram in there all the artifacts of their childhood and adolescence. By the time I moved back to Bay Ridge, 29 years later, in 2012, I could not recall my last visit to their apartment, but that it smelled, was not clean, and looked to be falling apart around them. And this is how they both chose to live? Why? Sure, in your twenties if you are obsessed with the documentary "Grey Gardens," it is understandable, but after a time, this stops being acceptable. Come on; even hippies might have lived in a utilitarian manner, but not in filth.
I can only chalk this up to mental illness, which ties in with Tiffany, too. Maybe the more I read about her, the more I will discover about Doug. I will have to see how David, the family's sage chronicler, covers the subject.
Personally, I would rather hear it from Amy, who I trust could see both the good and the truth about her baby sister.
Rest In Peace, Tiffany.......and Doug!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now, here is Amy at her best. This was a tour of the Village, as it was, back in 2004!!!!!!!!!! When I watched it, I was shocked at how things changed. Half of what is shown no longer exists! Sad!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But Amy makes it fun, and worth it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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