Dana Augustine:  

THIS LIFE - Part One Earlier tonight, I heard it on the radio, Dan Fogelberg has died. Prostrate Cancer. Damn -- he was only 56. Double damn. It was largely because of Dan's own true story into song, after running into the lost love of his life in a convenience store in Peoria, Illinois visiting family for Christmas, he would write the singular lullaby of all ironic love songs, SAME OLD LANG SYNE. And it would be because of that incident, that song -- that I would realize myself as a director, a screenwriter, an artist and ... the man I would become. If I jump around in the following, please bear with me ... FLASHBACK TO OCEANA -- Freshman year, age 14: So, there was this girl ... (sorry, no names) -- a marvelous, wonderful human being -- and she would become the template of all the girls, all the women from then on that I looked for. And rare is a person like her. AFTER OCEANA -- the big bad world, age 20: I would go to her wedding -- no, wait, I missed the wedding -- actually, I got there AFTER the ceremony. Typical me. The reception: She tosses the bouquet to the single women -- it somehow rockets way over their heads and lands in my hands. If that wasn't enough ... when her new groom / hubby flicks the garter a few moments later -- BINGO. I caught that too! Go figure. CUT TO: A year later, South SF, age 21 -- She calls me out of the blue one rainy night, 'Dana, I can't see you or talk to you anymore, **** is my life ...' and with that, she hung up. CUT TO: A few days after the 10 year reunion, age 28: She calls me out of the blue on yet another rainy day in my apartment in Hollywood to tell me her now former hubs, ****, jealously made her call to say bye-bye. BACK TO AGE 21: It was as I hung up the phone, on the radio, I heard Dan Fogelberg and his SAME OLD LANG SYNE on the radio. Talk about your timing! The moments revealed in the song instantly tattooed my heart -- it would become the anthem of my life to this day. Soon, I purchased the 45 of the song ... and played it hundreds of times over and over to the point of wearing the needle down. From the pain of that rejection at 21 -- I went full tilt artistic-boogie -- it was my awakening as a director & screenwriter. I finally have figured out that pain of the heart can be upgraded to one's art. Now this was in the late 70's, before MTV -- I wanted to make what now would be called a 'video' ... I just HAD to make it. And so, I created dozens of storyboards -- and even had an art director friend at Saul Zaentz's Fantasy Films do me up a cover. The title 'Same Old Lang Syne' -- mixed in with snow eroded away by rain. One little problem ... when I went to L.A. to pitch it to Dan's agent, Irving Azoff, he said, 'Sorry, no can do. It's too close to Danny's heart ...' CUT FORWARDS TO TONIGHT, December 17, 2007 -- Age 49: And so it goes and so it goes ... Dan Fogelberg's immortal being has crossed over -- and so, it's his music and the moments revealed within us all will be a part of his legacy, and for thousands of thousands of generations ahead will his music, his stories stay alive far beyond the forevers -- I have never written or spoken of this until now. I know now we all have a love story that never was -- or could be -- in fact, there is even more to share of the hits and misses with her through the years ... but that, like the Bard would say, 'Is another story ...' Onwards, Dan Fogelberg ... onwards all of us. D.A. Medford, Oregon 12/16/07 ````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` LIFE - Part Two There are Legends ... Like John Wayne, John Lennon, Albert Einstein and Daffy Duck have all had something to do with reinventing the wheel in any or all of which they were involved. For thems of us on the Oceana Swim Team & the Freshman Football Team -- past, present or future ... the name COACH JESS JONES is right up there with real deal legends. Infamous amongst students, swimmers and players alike for his bellowing howl, insistent whistle and that patented-Coach Jones-no-B.S.-demeanor ... Everyone has or knows a Coach Jones story. Ultimately though, Coach Jess Jones is respected and loved for so many reasons for the man he is. And as the days became years at Oceana for the father figure he was / is to many, for the un-spoken friendship he unknowingly fostered he was, for the exacting swim & football coach he was for hundreds, if not thousands of his swimmers & players through the years. I recall I made him proud once -- the day before time trials for the swim team, Freshman year. I surprisingly had lapped my teammate twice at Jefferson High (where we'd sometimes practice if not always Terra Nova) and that model of self-achievement has done me well many times in the decades since. The last time I saw him -- I was about 20 ... it was at the 'new' Oceana Pool (built the following year after the Class of 76) during a meet. I was too far away to be recognized or to have contact. He hadn't changed a tick. And thank the stars too. I found out a few months ago that Coach Jess Jones -- friend, teacher, coach, role-model and yes, LEGEND passed away March 20, 2007. He was 74. He was married to Lois Jones for 46 years -- arguably the best student counselor Oceana ever had. Wait -- '74' ..? That means for us of the Class of 76 (and plus or minus 4 years surrounding years) -- he was YOUNGER when we knew him than we are now! No -- it's not goodbye Coach Jones to you, your legend -- it is 'hello and thank you' each of the days we're swimming in this river of humanity forwards. Coach ... your mortal shell may be gone, and your soul to your great reward -- but your legend is immortal. D.A. Medford, Oregon 7/1/08 ---------------------------------------------------- LIFE - Part Three Tonight -- now -- this very hour and minutes I begin this message .... it is 7:47 PM. It is December 10, 2012. There is this rumor thanks to the Mayans of millennia gone by on a round stone tablet that we of the membership of Planet Earth are doomed to an apocalypse on 12/21/12. Period. THE END. Be-da-be-da-duh-beee-duh-be----Th-th-th-at's all folks! And I ask myself .... did I complete the promise of me? Did I love thems that loved me? Did I complete the circles of me? Did I soar with mighty wings like Icarus? Or did I not heed the Daedalus in me and went too close, too many times to the Sun of me?...Expand for more