And speaking of music ...

I hate it when stuff like this happens. Okay, so it's Friday morning early, and we're watching The Wiggles, (quote of the day; "Of course they're the biggest moneymakers in Australia, they don't spend anything on their shows." - TKT) and they're doing the "Fruit Salad" song again. Maybe for the second time this episode, it's hard to remember.

There's this guy in a chef's hat who isn't a Wiggle, and I say, "Hey, that looks like the drummer from Crowded House." Couldn't remember his name, but I did this free-association, sure CH is from New Zealand, and the drummer, as I recalled, was American, anyway, but why wouldn't he have worked with the Wiggles? Besides, it looked like him. And he was always such a clown.

My ex-wife and I were big CH fans. Saw them at least three times, loved to get down in front. Shame about Tim joining the band near the end but Neil Finn was just a genius, a really great songwriter and I love his voice. And the drummer was just your basic cut-up, like so many drummers are. But he was funny, and a great drummer.

So I look up his name, Paul Hester, of course it was.

And I Google him and find out a couple of things in succession, and very quickly, too.

That was him in the video. Paul played drums on the Wiggles album Toot Toot and appeared occasionally on the show as "Chef Paul".

Then I found out he died in March. He was 46.

Then I found out what happened was he set out one morning with his dogs and hung himself in the park. He is survived by two daughters, aged 8 and 10.

It's one of those facts I just can't pinpoint an emotion for. Others might get angry at him for abandoning two kids like that, all I can think of is how I cannot fathom the kind of torment someone must be going through to do that.

And then there's the music. This morning I was channel flipping and stopped at VH1 Classic.

Everyone in the house is ill, by the way. I haven't watched so much tube in five years.

Anyway, the video was Into Temptation from Temple of Low Men. One of my favorites - and I didn't even know there was a video for it. There he is, happy, rubbery face.

It's like when Spalding Gray died. Not the most important person in my life, to be sure, and yet, when that much desperation creeps into my life at the edges, I am truly at a loss.

We put our "Day of the Dead" altar together next week. There are too many people to remember on it this year.