Music and My Dad (Eulogy)

"If music be the food of love, play on" - Shakespeare

Dad had music running through his veins. It was his way of understanding and moving through the world. It was his passion, solace, philosophy, medicine, and avenue for expressing himself. When music was moving through him I saw the best of him. One of my favorite things was when he would bite his lip and play the air drums just at the best part of the song. I felt like I knew him in those moments but also like there was part of him I would never totally grasp, an ephemeral flash of his spirit. He always said he didn't have a musical bone in his body so he surrounded himself with musicians. We are here on earth to find those things that connect us to our soul. Music is what moved the spirit through my dad. 

“I am never going to retire,” he used to tell me and I believe he wouldn’t have until a few years ago when he was forced to due to dementia. He would have died in his old, tan, cracked leather chair that held the energy of so much of his life’s work. He was in his element when he was in his office typing up contracts and seemingly forever on the phone surrounded by his posters of John Lennon, Elvis, the Rat Pack listening to Fleetwood Mac (because that’s usually what I made him put on), or anything from the Buena Vista Social Club to Celtic hymns to the Chantels. I loved being in that space with him. I felt like I entered a magical world of musicians and negotiations and excitement, a place in which I would never live but that made me feel close to him. 

I love to think about him as a young co-founder of Far West Entertainment in 1971 on Capitol Hill with Paul Barbaras, who is here today, Seattle’s most successful and progressive music promotion company in the burgeoning music scene of the 70’s and 80’s that helped put the Seattle music scene on the map. Rock clubs with live bands on every corner in Pioneer square, the city buzzing and business booming, coveted invites to their famous annual holiday parties that dad helped meticulously plan. Now after his passing it feels like the end of an era. People I don’t even know are calling him a ‘legendary part of the greater Seattle music scene for over 40 years.' What a legacy. 

John Lennon famously said “Before Elvis there was nothing.” A product of the 50s and 60’s with Rock and Roll tattooed on his heart, dad lived, and made his living, in the counterculture movement. This was the era and music that shaped him. Music, as with all art, on its own or as part of a movement or ideology, is about exploring and learning and growing and eventually understanding ourselves, the world around us, and our place in it. Somewhere deep down Dad felt these truths about music and about life and he always supported me in being all the different versions of myself without judgment or criticism.

Having a dad in the music industry was pretty cool. As soon as I was into music, about 7, he used to let me blast  Madonna and Bobbi Brown in his silver Audi.  I felt so cool pulling up to school music blaring! "Made loud to be played loud," he'd say. The best was when our music tastes started to overlap and we could rock out together to Jimmy Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Nirvana or Heart (who dad used to book). I can see now what a gift that was. 

I will never forget when I was 16 I lost my retainer at a rave (that I wasn’t supposed to be at) and when I told him where it was, a warehouse in west Seattle called NAF Studios, my dad said “Oh yeah, Mark Naficy, I’ll give him a call and we’ll go down there.” Neither of us let on but we shared a father-daughter-music-venue moment that day. 

Dad was funny - witty and silly - and he loved to make people laugh even as a child. His sense of humor and enthusiasm were infectious. “Youth is wasted on the young,” was one of his favorite WC Fields quotes and I still say it today. From Dudley Moore to the Three Stooges to Homer Simpson Dad loved reciting his favorite lines or cueing up his favorite parts so that you could watch them together. Like my dad I will stop at nothing to be funny and it has served me well through hard times. Humor was a way of life for him and no doubt he is still making cracks as I write this. 

Dad lived for going home every year to the Nyberg family Christmas parties and Nyberg family lake house. At Christmas he was dressed to the nines, red silk pocket handkerchief just so, several gallons of cologne, a car full of gift baskets, See's Candies and excessive quantities of booze. The kids would play while adults reminisced. “You can never go home,” dad used to tell me but I know he came pretty close at those parties.  

In the summer we went to the family lake house at Twin Lakes. I still remember looking over to see my dad surrounded by family, familiarity and fresh air, tilting his face up to bake in the hot sun in a rare moment of bliss. 

Every single year when we went to Spokane he would kidnap me in the car and drive again by Manito Park, the idyllic park where we sit at this very moment, across the street from his childhood home. I can hear the stories about him and Uncle Bob and their gang of friends playing until their mothers called them home. I also know exactly where the Etters' house is.

I long for the holidays in the spectacular wonderland he and Susie created every year, Christmas lights lighting up the entire city of Bothell, in front of the fireplace and giant tree, watching Christmas with the Kranks, A Bishop's Wife or one of his 8 versions of A Christmas Carol. We loved going to the Seattle Nutcracker then having a late supper downtown at 13 Coins. 

Dad and Susie were movie buffs and before the digital age Dad had an entire wall, floor to ceiling, organized by genre and alphabetized, of VHS tapes he'd recorded. A couple of our favorites I can recite by heart are the Wizard of Oz and the Breakfast Club. Movie nights were always an experience. 

I miss our Sunday roasts. I miss the way Dad lined up his soda cans in the fridge labels facing perfectly forward. I miss him making me laugh. He loved the arts, the History Channel, gardening, gambling, the Mariners and Seahawks, his black Mercedes and catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror. "You fox," he used to say to himself as he walked by.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention dear Gracie and Sophie, Dad and Susie’s golden retrievers who most likely he loved more than any of us. 

My dad was not perfect and he had regrets. We can’t change the mistakes we make in life but we can try to make up for them and I give him credit for that. He made a relentless effort to impart his lessons learned on me, maybe partially as an act of redemption, but mostly because he wanted to protect me from repeating history. He spoke openly about his past and about his parents’ alcoholism and eventually about 12 years ago quit drinking completely. I am really proud of him for this. 

He told me all the time how proud he was of me, gave me an overpaid job at Far West typing contracts to help me through college, bought me the trendiest back-to-school clothes, took me to baseball and football games, drive-in movies, taught me to play catch and tennis and never said goodbye without saying "I love you." But mostly, like all parents, he just wanted me to have a better life than he did. 

One of the last memories I have is him showing me a documentary he’d saved for me, Martin Scorsese’s film about George Harrison which I wasn’t that interested in. I put it off as long as I could but eventually he forced me to watch it - dad was famous for this - he always wanted to share his experiences with you and would entrap you if needed. "Just for fun," he would say and you knew you screwed. 

In particular he wanted me to see the parts about George’s travels to India and spiritual journey. I had recently started on my own spiritual quest which included spending time in ashrams and buddhist monasteries as well as traveling to India and other places abroad. Though our lives became different the older I got, he had found a way for us to connect: the Beatles, who were his gods and sages, and my new spiritual awakening, heavily influenced by the same people and era that influenced him. I cherish that in those later years we were able to share certain interests and even life viewpoints. I see our mutual love for music and all that it encompasses as something that brought and kept us together. 

Dad's understanding of God laid mostly with the church but also with the more spiritual teachings of eastern religions. I don't know if he ever made peace with God. I don't know if you get to with dementia. But I do know he was a seeker of truth.

I would like to believe that on that day our spiritual paths crossed, souls holding hands for a moment, and he might have said “Here is what I know to be true. Now it’s time for you to keep going.” 

We should all be so lucky to spend our lives living our passion. You are greatly missed, Dad. May you be at peace. I love you. 

-N Reeky (Jetta)