A tribute to a departed friend.

Sometimes- when you meet someone you get an immediate feeling that you care about them, and discover you have this special connection.

This story is about my friend Clem Cheathem.

I write this in memoriam, because he passed away from a heart attack a couple years ago.

He didn’t achieve his dreams in life and yet I feel his story at least from my perspective should be told.

I therefore write this in memory of someone I knew in my life as a simple testament to a friendship and a person who touched my life.

I realize that to write anything about anyone is such a huge task to express all that I knew about him.

It is like someone speaking at a funeral to friends and family and only represents a very brief synopsis. 

It is with complete humility that I even try such a difficult task and I do it with the true honor, befitting a friend- from a friend.

In the end all the people who play a part on my stage which is my life I pay tribute to knowing them and allowing my statement to be added to their record as a message of love.

He reminded me of a boxer and looked like a young George Foreman.

He had this wonderful gift for gab and loved to talk with everyone about anything and everything.

He was very involved in the music business, brilliant in many ways, yet for some reason maybe integrity issues or the whims of fate- he never seemed to make it!

On my travels away from my home he was one of those people I missed seeing.

We spent many a time sitting in restaurants’ talking and he always amazed me by his great mind.

He was always researching obscure things and spent hours in libraries building his information bases for his future dream plans.

He was like family too me and through him I met some very interesting people.

From a superficial impression he was extremely successful and he knew people all over and in important positions.

For instance- When he lived in Los Angeles - he would spend his days in places like Jerry’s Deli and using his great gift of Gab to talk with everyone- almost everyone who frequented this establishment knew him.

He once befriended a big producer and was offered a position as Vice President of entertainment programming for a Motion Picture producer who had an office in Beverly Hills.

I remember one time I came to visit at this office while I was in California.

The secretary went out for lunch and Clem asked if I would sit in and answer calls.

One call I remember was for Clems’ producer friend from Steven Spielberg.

I met some of Hollywood’s biggest directors and everyone seemed to be shopping their next project to everyone and everywhere.

On one such meeting we sat talking to an A- list director who told me a story about in Hollywood everyone is only as good as their next hit movie!

His resume astounded me and I learned everyone has to go out and keep fighting for their next big thing!

I found this quite bizarre, because Clem at the time was moving from home to home and the place he was presently staying at - he was sleeping on the floor. 

I loved the way he was able to communicate with everyone he met and he had the uncanny ability to make you feel like you were family.

So my autobiography is about people and places and thoughts and things.

I have begun already by creating these chapters and I can skip around and edit and add to or take things out depending on how I view my inabilities at trying to express myself correctly.

My significant other calls my writing atrocious by the way I seem to bastardize the English languages.

She feels it is just beyond correcting, yet she knows all these stories and how I tell her-

I write it-She knows its just my way.

I feel either it is done or it isn’t and I can always go back some day and correct or someone can edit it according to a more suitable expressive mode.

When trying to do anything as impossible as trying to record my own life the difficulties make it always a work in progress.  

Clem Cheathem is survived by his wife Agnes and his two young daughters.