The day that you die is supposed to be the day that you are
remembered in infamy. Your friends, family/relatives and enemies remember you
fondly and only have good things to say about you---never bad.
The night I died according to Facebook was completely the
opposite. It was mid-Wednesday evening April 1, 2015, I was cabbing it over to
the Gallery Cabaret on Oakley, just off of Armitage in Chicago on my way to a
Henchmen gig.
I was late coming from school-doing something, like I always
did.
Doing something.
I talked to the cab driver about my art. Told him lots of stories. I remember
him taking a different way there because traffic was blocked and for some
reason he took the Eisenhower, got off at Western and took a straight shot
over.
I’ve had my run-ins with cab drivers in 2015; like the
cabbie in early March who nearly killed me in his cab driving over a median strip
and into the northbound lanes thinking there were the southbound lanes. It was
a wonder I was still alive. And then later, when we pulled up to the event I
was headed to and hitting the man on the bike and only caring about his cab.
That was wicked.
It must have been about 7:30 in the evening when the cab
pulled up to the club. I paid the driver and saw Dr. Nothing and Dennis The
Menace out on the sidewalk. Said something to them that I can’t remember and
headed inside with them. The Slurve was sitting at the bar.
The open mic was already in progress as I set my gear down
and went to unpack the bingo box, the instruments and my costume. I said hello
to the hostess who was donning a boring blond wig, because after all, it was
April Fool’s Day and the one of the biggest fool in the Chicagoland area was
moments away from disgracing the stage.
The rest of the Henchmen filed into the club. I greeted all
of them. The poets were already there. Some I recognized and some I didn’t. Even
saw the one I screwed one night and found out later she was married but was hot
for teacher.
Yeah, something like that.
On stage at that moment, was anarchist anti-Israeli
poet Joffre Stewart. Crowing about it being “Sid Yiddish Day” and oh, who just
happens to walk into the club and hears him saying it as if on cue? Moi. I just
glared at him, knowing that he would do an anti-Israeli poem in my honor. And
of course, that was the very next poem he recited, while I whispered to the
host’s husband on how to film the band & I, as we performed the bingo game.
I told him that I was going to “put him to work.”
After a long open mic, we were ready to perform. I sent the Henchmen
up, to take positions, while I readied my own space and passed out the bingo
cards, chips and set up the bingo cage and whispered more instructions to the
host, but I knew things were already going to go wrong, as I told the crowd we
were going to play “4 corner bingo” and someone else decided to play bingo the
regular way and as we played on and the crowd got slightly unruly because
someone else did it wrong and they all wanted to win and that’s how it goes
when you play bingo.
No one wants to lose and everyone wants a prize. To try
and please everyone, we played a 2nd game and who should win, but
Joffre Stewart. His prize? A genuine bar of Swiss chocolate marzipan from
Copenhagen.
We do one a couple of more compositions and I decide to end
it early because I wasn’t exactly sure on time. As I am packing up and
collecting the bounty from generous supporters of our work, Dr. Nothing comes
up to me and tells me “Sid, you’re dead.” I have no clue what he’s talking
about and go back to packing up my gear, changing out of my costume and talking
to the host and wiping the sweat off my face.
I get a ride home from the host’s sidekick, as he lives
pretty close to me. I am tired, I say to him as I get settled into the car. The
conversation is nothing special between him and I, in fact, it centers on my
brother Louie, just like always after I ride with him. I don’t care really to
talk about my brother Louie, because my brother Louie is a true asshole;
someone I wouldn’t trust with my life even if I were dying, because he’d be the
first one to ask for either my Saturn or my laptop or some other valuable
material possession I now own.
And with a brother like that, who needs him?
I was pretty tired that night as I turned in. It already had
been a difficult week in my life; bad critique at grad school, a canceled
spring trip to New York City on top of canceling an important performance gig,
which had stressed me out because the last time I canceled an important
performance gig I was called “unprofessional” and I would never work in Kansas
City again.
That’s somewhat true. I haven’t worked there since February
2014. Again, due to the unprofessionalism of my grad school department who
didn’t bother to tell its students that the building was going to close that
summer due to asbestos removal and only had a week to pack up all of their
belongings and have them put into storage.
The same week I was supposed to go to Kansas City. Life
isn’t fair but so it went.
I went to bed and thought nothing of it. It was spring
break after all and I could sleep in that week.
When I awoke the next morning, I arose to such a clatter; I
had 4 voicemails, several texts on my cell phone and a little over 200 notices
on Facebook that had declared me dead.
The following posted note on my Facebook page started off
the feeding frenzy, a little after 9pm central daylight savings time: “I am sorry and heart-crushed to announce
the passing of Sid Yiddish. He collapsed upon ushering his most famous hand
signal high E, whilst using audience participation in the game of bingo as a
chance parameter to direct his conducting for the first time. He was pronounced
dead when the paramedics arrived. Multi Kulti will host a gathering in his
memory, details to follow.”
This post appeared on my friend Dr Nothing’s Facebook page.
As I discovered later, his account was hacked into. Yes. Hacked. Even the
tightest of ITT men can have their accounts hacked into.
In the sickening irony that followed, 19 friends of mine
liked the post.
And that’s when the shit hit the fan.
Here are the actual posts that followed, minus the names.
Hoax?
The
world just lost some light.
I always figured I'd find out about his death on social media, and I'm His BROTHER!!!!!!
Sounds like the onion headlines
.
Gosh, will he be alright?
Whatttttttttt? Are u serious? Damn I just asked u
about him
.
Were his last words "And I would
be your leader!"
He is all right. He is gone to heaven to be with god.
This
better not be an April Fool’s joke
!
Just at the hospital to view the
remains. Though he appeared much as he did in life, family is still
recommending a closed casket. he will be sorely missed, at least through the
weekend, and depending upon the weather. Sid always considered me a very dear
friend. At times I considered him as well.
And
just earlier today he was alive and well debunking everyone's April Fool’s
jokes... and now he is gone. He will be missed except on April 1st when he was
a bit of a party pooper...
Wooowww. I can't believe this! So Sorry to Hear it
happened....
Oh man I am in
shock and deeply saddened by this news...
My brain cannot
be alive, it is dead with the memory, and cannot go on
.
Awwwwww I'm sorry
to hear this. He was definitely an original. & will greatly missed.
He left this world doing what he loved like a total
boss. this is the way he would have wanted it to be.
Please tell me
this is an April Fool's joke?
What???
I don't
believe this shit though.
I've texted
a couple of friends and have not gotten any confirmation that this isn't an
April Fool's joke. Being that neither
one of them have come to this thread to assure us that this is not a joke has
me suspicious
; alright, there’s a message here that is a give away that
this is a joke. everyone read his post.
There should be many people who could deny or confirm
it. And for whatever it's worth now posts memorializing him on April 2nd.
You had me until
the hand signals!!
Oh no. and I
never got a chance to meet him and always wanted to.
So very sorry for the loss.
Okay, it's April 2nd now. What's the real story?
And that was just the start. Like a long drawn out
drizzle, it continued.
What??
I thought at first this was a horrible April fools joke. If true.. RIP Sid Yiddish.I had
just thought it had to be an April Fool’s joke. How sad. Don't know what happened. Crazee.
Jesus, I can't believe it. We had such a good time hanging
out with him last summer. Check his page,
it's true. Well, there's no obituary or anything. Some fellow claims to
have witnessed the whole thing, onstage; it's all very weird, which is why no
one knows whether to actually believe it. Especially on April Fool's Day, but
it's April 2 now, and where's Sid? I know a lot of his friends are comedians,
and they seem to be congenitally incapable of serious discourse.
So sorry
Sid...RIP
.
And it continued. From bad to worse. A angry mob
looking for blood.
Well
fuck you very much for worrying people. Very fucking lousy and triggering
prank.
Sid Yiddish is NOT
dead. Very bad joke. NOT dead. Very bad joke.
And as the mopping up began and more remarks were made in
the process, a pattern began to form and it was an odd pattern at that. There
were the usual suspects in the mob; the reactionaries; the truth-seekers, the
actual believers and the angry. And then there were those who never actually
saw it and had no clue what had taken place.
In particular, there was one guy, whom I’ll deem as an
acquaintance, who was so insistent on “my death” that he pushed pretty hard on
reasons why, how and where only to discover through a mutual friend of ours,
that this guy had staged his own death four years prior to this. It left me
scratching my head and wondering, what
the fuck!
And there were the ones who privately messaged me; I thought, now if I am dead, how am I supposed
to answer their letters? It was enough that I had been off Facebook
publicly since late January, 22, 2015 and rarely posted, save for a photo or a
gig.
In the days that followed, after getting bullied and pushed
around by others who were convinced that I staged my own death online, I ran
into friends on campus who saw the post and there were those who didn’t see the
post and embraced me as if I had truly died.
An interesting side-note was that a Google search of my name two days after I supposedly died, turned up at least 54, 400 entries for me, 184,000 less than usual. It was quite evident that the my death put a quash on a lot of things and people.
An interesting side-note was that a Google search of my name two days after I supposedly died, turned up at least 54, 400 entries for me, 184,000 less than usual. It was quite evident that the my death put a quash on a lot of things and people.
In the months that followed, there were those who I had emailed
about things and situational stuff that I wanted to resolve but for some reason
or another, I couldn’t, most everyone said the same thing, “I thought you were
dead!”
And then I discovered, quite by sheer accident or perhaps it was sheer coincidence, online in a conspiracy forum, what the name, Sid Yiddish truly stands for and that is:
S=Sid
I=Is
D=Dead
Y=Yiddish
I=Is
D=Dead
D=Dead
I=Is
S=Sid
H=Hoax
Why is it, in life, no one truly gives a shit about one or
another’s well-being until it’s too late? Why is it that on Facebook that many people
take situations and people for granted until it’s too late? Not reach across
the aisle, the pond, the sea, the next city and make that concerted effort and
say hello until it’s too late?
I say, do it now, before you miss out.
Put your differences aside. Stop being so
sensitive. It’s not always about you. The world doesn’t revolve around you. Be
more forgiving. Tell someone you love him or her. And everyday. Life is like a
deck of cards, you never know when that Ace of Spades will be dealt. Do it now.
Don’t wait until the moment is gone.
