Nurse the Hate: The Passing of Dusty Hill

When I heard Dusty Hill from ZZ Top died I was surprised to see he died of natural causes, or whatever ailment he was stricken with that was called "natural".  Is having some kind of tumor growing in your body "natural"?  I suppose so since it happens to so many people, and something has to finally get you.  All I know was I was happy to hear that Dusty hadn't been shot.  While reading this you might wonder why anyone would shoot Dusty Hill, and please understand I am with you in that sentiment.  The thing is I knew this guy years ago, Dave Petkovich, who used to always talk about how he wanted to shoot a member of ZZ Top.  He didn't even care which one, but when he went on about it he tended to focus on the guys with the beards, so I think the drummer would have been OK.  Dave, or as he was known, "Crazy Dave", just had this fixation with doing it as if he would become famous like John Hinkley, but as he said "Not so famous I couldn't go out to eat and stuff without being hassled for autographs."

Now I don't know why he thought that being "almost as famous as John Hinkley" was a good idea, and he sure never understood the definition of "infamous" either.  He just couldn't seem to let the idea go.  I knew that he was sort of pissed when ZZ Top did those monster records in the 1980s with all those synthesizers in them.  I think his older brothers loved the "Tres Hombres" record and when "Eliminator" came out he triumphantly put it on the record player at home and got mocked really badly for buying the "shitty ZZ Top record".  He really took it hard.  His brother's opinion meant everything to Dave.  He absolutely worshipped his brothers, probably because his Dad was such an asshole.  

His Dad was one of those guys that never parked the car in the garage and instead used it like a workshop for a bunch of bullshit projects like building birdhouses and making shutters.  If the weather was even close to being above freezing, his Dad would leave the garage door open and wait for unsuspecting neighbors to walk past so he could bend their ear on how he was getting fucked over in his taxes, or how the neighbor didn't rake his leaves the right way, or how his sons were "lazy pieces of shit".  He just never stopped talking once he got started, and all his content was a blanket of bad vibes.  That guy was a conversational spider and that garage was his web.  Everybody reflexively made the noise "Ughhhh" when they saw him walking towards them, so you could see why Crazy Dave was so focused on his brothers.  His Dad just fucking sucked.

I hadn't seen Crazy Dave in years, but one time he was sitting by himself at this crappy bar with a seaside theme.  You know those bars and restaurants that are on one of the Great Lakes but they pretend they are on the ocean and nail sailing stuff and ship's steering wheels to the wall?  There must be a big catalogue with "authentically distressed looking fishing nets and realistic looking old diving helmets" that all this stuff gets ordered from, as if people in Erie PA are going to forget that they live in Erie instead of Portland Maine where they are all employed as lobstermen.  So I walked into this place, and it was called like "The Buoy" or "Fisherman's Wharf" or something stupid like that.  I think I sat next to a wooden carving of a pelican.  There was a jukebox and this guy I was with said "Hey, I dare you to go over there and play one of those songs from ZZ Top's "Afterburner" record.".  

Now on a good day I am not going to spend a dollar to listen to ZZ Top's "Sleeping Bag", and I'm sure as shit not going to do it to "see what Crazy Dave does".  I mean, the guy's name is "Crazy Dave", so it seems like a good idea not to rile him up.  It's one of those things.  A 14 year old gets nicknamed "Crazy Dave", and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.  At 14 years old a kid is considered "crazy" because he makes funny noises and is a little spazzy.  By the time he's 17, he's jumping off railroad trestles into creeks, and shooting roman candles out of his ass.  It's really funny when you are in high school.  It's not so funny when you are 34 and the guy has a goatee, devil tattoos and a criminal record.  I said "yeah, I'm going to pass on that", and we all laughed.  

I wound up talking to Crazy Dave when I went to the john.  This was one of those joints where they put ice in the urinal to seem retro and charming, but they really should have invested in a fan instead because it stunk like urine and had these weird little gnats flying around your head.  I never saw him coming.  I was minding my own business and Crazy Dave comes in, starts pissing right next to me, and starts chatting it up.  "Hey man!  Good to see you!  You back in town?  I heard you're doing good man!".  Frankly, he was quite friendly, though a bit too enthusiastic given the circumstances.  "We should hang out!"  I thought of saying "Well, technically we already are" in reference to our dicks being out, then I had this other thought pop into my head where I would say "Yeah man, we should go to a concert in Cleveland.  I think ZZ Top is coming next month." but I thought better of that.  The last thing I wanted was Crazy Dave going all crazy while I was standing there compromised.  Instead I just said something like "Great to see you!  Yeah, we should hang out next time I come into town!".  I tried to say it in the way people say it when they don't really mean it, and the person hearing it knows they don't mean it, but it keeps the social contract so it is a graceful exit from a meeting that wouldn't have been fruitful anyway.  See, but Dave being "Crazy Dave" didn't really see it that way as per the eagerness in his face, and he's likely pissed I never got back in touch.

That was a pretty long time ago.  I almost feel like looking him up to see what his feelings on ZZ Top are now, but the last thing I want to do is potentially get him focused on one of the other two guys in the band.  They seem like decent guys, and all they ever wanted to do was make music.  It wasn't any of their fault that Crazy Dave's brothers didn't like the synthesizers on "Eliminator", or that Crazy Dave's Dad was an asshole.  A lot of other people liked "Eliminator" and "Afterburner".  I didn't though.  I did like it more than Crazy Dave however.