It’s time for another true-life anecdote about Crazy Larry.
For those of you who don’t remember, or are perhaps reading about him for the first time, here’s what I wrote about him when he was first introduced in this blog space:

“Crazy Larry — Larry Rollen — was a terrific drummer and complete character (part Keith Moon, part Falstaff) who was omni-present in my musician days. I was in a band with him for a while — that was a mercifully short train wreck for many sinister reasons — but he was more frequently in our orbit as a roadie for other bands we were friends with. That CL was typically a better drummer than any of the actual drummers in those bands is a testament to his lunacy. Larry was an absolute blast to be around but was completely exasperating and drove people nuts even as they couldn't help but laugh at whatever he was doing or saying at the time.”

With that established, here we go.

I was at a wedding the other day — a lovely thing, to be certain, outdoors by the sea — and most of the folks were young and attractive and were effortlessly dressed in elegant fashion. There’s nothing quite like young folks at a wedding to exude the easy confidence that life goes on forever and they’ll always be young and strong.

Well, I’m not young and strong but I was invited and so I wore the one suit I own. It’s a perfectly acceptable suit, functional at a wedding or a funeral, and I don’t think I drag the per capita Hipness Factor down too appreciably when I show up wearing it.

For a long time, Crazy Larry did not own a suit.

In his typical day to day existence -- setting up drum kits and suspending lights, sleeping on couches and drinking free beer from the band’s private backstage stash -- there was little need for him to strut about in a suit.

And then, one day, a cunning idea struck him.

It was pure, magnificent brilliance, is what it was.

As perhaps intimated, Larry lived pretty much hand to mouth. Food was low on the priority chain, after liquor and nicotine — and whatever income he managed to earn was apportioned in strict accordance with those necessities.

Still, he DID like food.

One morning — or, more accurately, one early afternoon, which served as “morning” in our world — he was reading the newspaper on the couch, a cup of cheap coffee shaking in his hand.

Suddenly, he started laughing.

“Richard,” he said, “you have to take me to the Salvation Army.”

“Dude, it’s okay,” I soothed. “I told you. You can continue to sleep on the couch as long as you need.”

“No, not, it’s not that.”

Larry loved to be mysterious and I knew it. Nothing would do, then, but that I drive him to the Salvation Army and eventually the purpose of his mission would become clear. (Obviously, Larry did not own a car.)

Only after he emerged from the store with a cheap navy blue suit, a dress shirt, a tie and some shoes, and we’d returned to the band house, did he explain what he was doing.

Whilst perusing the obituaries in the paper, he’d come across a funeral notice for someone who’d tragically died very young. It occurred to Larry that, when a young person passes away, the funerals are always densely populated with other young persons, and there’s also an air of hysteria and disbelief perhaps not associated with a memorial service for someone of retirement age.

Also, since receptions after funerals are typically festooned with food, it occurred to Crazy Larry that he could dress in his new suit and maneuver anonymously and without raising any flags at a young person’s funeral and subsequent reception.

Which meant he could zone in on the food table and eat like a lunatic. No one would suspect that he didn’t belong or hadn’t known the deceased because the place would be overrun with young people. All he had to do — in the unlikely event anyone was rude enough to ask — was simply say that, yes, he’d been acquaintance of poor Sylvia or Jimmy from (FILL IN THE BLANK WITH DETAIL GLEANED FROM OBIT).

I’m proud to say that, yes, Crazy Larry did successfully employ this strategy with success. It’s also true that, since he didn’t have a car, the novelty of one of us driving him to a funeral grew old pretty quickly. It’s not like you’d sit outside the memorial service in the car, reading a paperback and listening to the radio, waiting for Sad Larry to get his feed on.

And, truth told, Larry admitted the whole thing was sorta weird.

Not long after he abandoned his idea, Crazy Larry actually got married.

Later, he himself got sick and, eventually, he passed away of cancer. It was my privilege to deliver the eulogy at his funeral, and Larry had requested I do so from his bed in the MD Anderson Hospital in Houston. It's a strange question to have to answer, but he put me at ease.

"Richard," he said, smiling his carved-pumpkin grin and reaching up from the bed to place his hand on my shoulder. "Just tell the truth about everything." He thought a moment. "Well, ALMOST everything."

We both laughed. Then he said, "Make sure there's food and beer at the memorial service. Turn about's fair play."