My Buddy Billy Died the Other Day
What remains when someone takes part of you with them
Yesterday we lost our lives
Tomorrow we were born
Fortune smiled upon us
Sacrificed The Argus
Oh that he might help us see.
That’s Ween. “The Argus.”
Billy introduced me to Ween, then unrelentingly forced me to see and understand every nuance of their comedic genius. I loved every bit of that ride with him.
He loved making and sharing playlists. And they were always good.
If you don’t know Ween, you’re missing something. They’re unclassifiable—absurdist, profound, disgusting, beautiful, often in the same song. Kind of like Billy.
Summer of ‘94
I think I met Billy in the summer of 1994, but it honestly feels like we’ve always been brothers.
I recall this tall, skinny dude with big hair and an animated face—the kind of guy who commanded attention just by walking into a room. Not because he demanded it. Because he couldn’t help it.
In my mind, Billy was a holy synthesis of John Belushi and Jeffrey Lebowski. All the wild energy and unpredictable chaos of Belushi, wrapped in the Dude’s unshakeable commitment to not following the standard playbook. Unkempt. Unconcerned about your judgement. With a deep underlying passion, fighting for expression in every moment.
Thirty years. That’s how long we had together.
Hey little boy, whatcha got there?
Kind sir it’s a mollusk i’ve found
Did you find it in the sandy ground?
Does it emulate the ocean’s sound?
Yes I found it on the ground
Emulating the ocean’s sound
Bring forth the mollusk cast unto me
Let’s be forever let forever be free
Loss
Billy died suddenly and unexpectedly.
Getting the call was strange. I cycled through what felt like every stage of grief in about thirty seconds. Then back through them again.
Numb. Then weirdly okay—we’re 50, after all, these things happen. Then not okay at all.
Guilt. Bargaining. Denial. Back to numb.
What was really true: I didn’t want this. At all.
On hearing the news, none of us knew what to do. So we made a playlist.
… Has someone taken your faith?
It’s real, the pain you feel
The life, the love you’d die to heal
The hope that starts the broken hearts
Your trust, you must confess… Is someone getting the best, the best, the best
The best of you?
Is someone getting the best, the best, the best
The best of you?
Gathering
His family wanted a viewing, and our group of friends—who have stayed close since college despite living all over the country—boarded planes immediately.
Our close group of lifelong friends represented Billy with dignity. I wasn’t there for the viewing. I was there for those friends and his family. Billy was already living in my heart, and my mourning process was following its own track.
We’ve aged... quite a bit. But I think I speak for all of us when I say we still see in each other that youthful optimism from the days when we first met.
After the ceremony, we got together at a shared Airbnb. We played the playlist and listened together over tacos and beers. A lot of songs from our youth. Songs that rock. Songs that make you think. Songs that make you laugh.
We watched old videos and skits from college. The cable access TV show we did together, often on his insistence. He was our star, and we’d basically just turn on the camera and ask him to entertain us.
And he delivered.
His style was a sort of sloppy improv. Never rehearsed. Often nonsensical. Always original.
We made it into canon. I find myself quoting from his skits to my wife and kids sometimes without thinking... to their blank confusion.
Here’s what kills me about that gathering: this is all Billy ever wanted.
All his friends and loved ones gathered together, feeling love, listening to music, laughing and sharing the mysterious experience of life together.
I’m sure he’s pissed at us that it took his death to make that finally happen again.
We let life get in the way. Jobs, kids, distance—the usual excuses. The friend group scattered. We’d text regularly. Never missing a birthday. Talking Sooner football and adult happenings. Billy was always instigating for the next get-together.
We’d mean to make it happen more often. We weren’t always good about that.
Then one of our own dies and suddenly everyone’s in the same room, wondering why we waited.
Wondering if we could have done something different.
And it’s strange
But not all that strange
That it’s strange
But what’s so strange
About that?Yeah it’s strange
But what isn’t strange
Yeah it’s strange
But oh well
— Built to Spill - Strange
What We Had
There was natural drift in the friend group over the years. People moved. People got married and had kids. But our mutual love and admiration for each other never wavered.
Billy knew us as we were at our best—having a blast, being absurd, breaking the social mold—and he held us to that standard. Those moments. And we let him.
My good times with Billy were some of the best times.
Sitting around in that Airbnb, surrounded by people I’d known and loved since I was barely an adult, I felt how special it was. What we had.
We shared something. A time. An experience. A way of being. A dear brother who connected all of us.
Death has a shocking way of reminding me about the finite, fleeting nature of my own life. I’m not able to turn away.
I don’t know where the sunbeams end
And the starlights begin
It’s all a mystery
And I don’t know how a man decides
What’s right for his own life
It’s all a mystery
What He Left Me
Billy wasn’t famous. Well, not to most people. He was a comedic god to us.
He changed me. He changed all of us who knew him.
He introduced me to music I never would have found on my own. He showed me that it was okay to be weird—that being weird was actually the point.
He helped me understand that I don’t need to care what anybody else thinks. What the hell do they know anyway.
He showed me how to see life through a special lens. A lens that made it make a little more sense, by highlighting some of the insanity that we call “normal.”
A lens that I try to remember to put on every now and then.
I wrote previously about how you can’t download resilience—how some things only compile through experience. Lifelong friendship is like that.
You can’t shortcut thirty years of knowing someone. You can’t summarize a relationship in a eulogy, no matter how hard you try(I’m tryin).
Experiencing the death of a brother is one of those things.
All you can do is show up. Again and again. Until you can’t anymore.
Rikki don’t lose that number
You don’t want to call nobody else
Send it off in a letter to yourself
Rikki don’t lose that number
It’s the only one you own
You might use it if you feel better
When you get home
— Steely Dan - Rikki Don’t Lose That Number
Thank You, Billy
Kierkegaard said life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.
Billy understood something simpler: life is happening now. Right now. Not after you finish the project. Not when the kids are older. Not when you finally have time.
Now.
I know this. I keep forgetting it.
I won’t forget Billy Trompeter.
You were right when you said all that glitters isn’t gold
You were right when you said all we are is dust in the wind
You were right when you said we’re all just bricks in the wall
And when you said manic depression’s a frustrated mess
— Built to Spill - You Were Right
I had that playlist on repeat for weeks. I still tear up about every third song.
Another year and then you’d be happy
Just one more year and then you’d be happy
But you’re cryin’, you’re cryin’ now
— Gerry Rafferty - Baker Street
I get it, Billy! I get it!
Thanks for all of it. The music. The riotous laughter. The chaos. It was a great ride.
~capshaw