My very good friend, Tim Switala, passed away on Friday of a heart attack. I had just talked to him the day before and still can’t believe it.

Most recently, Tim has been managing David Kane’s projects and was also the producer of the Shredd & Ragan show a short while back.

Tim was an extremely creative, smart and funny man and I always loved talking to him for hours on the phone as he told me stories about the music scene here in WNY from the 70′s and 80s. His overall knowledge of music always astounded me and he definitely was bent on the more obscure artists of the last 50 years…which always made talking to him like listening to Dennis Miller talk about politics.

I am going to miss him very much and it is with heavy heart that I pass along this information to you from his wife Rebecca…

———–
Tim Switala

Father of Dakota Switala, Husband of Rebecca Bernstein, passed away, Friday October, 10, 2002.

We will be having a New Orleans style funeral on Monday October 14th celebrating Tim�s life. Please join us.

Dakota and I want to be surrounded by all of our friends, all of our family and all the people whose lives Tim touched.

Monday October 14th
4:00 pm
Left Bank, Rhode Island, West side of Buffalo (off Richmond Avenue)
We will all meet at the Left Bank and have a New Orleans style funeral to send off Tim followed by music and memories at the Big Orbits Gallery (883-3209, 30 Essex street near Rhode Island and Richmond Avenue)

Join us!

Contributions are welcome in memory of Tim�s creativity and should be donated to:

The Switala Creativity Project
A scholarship through the University at Buffalo to promote creative activities and thinking that pushes the edge of Music, Art and Film-making.

Donations can be snail mailed to:
Switala Creativity Project
University at Buffalo
Box 900
Buffalo, NY 14226-0900

Or given over the web at http://www.buffalo.edu/givenow

We love you all.
———–

God speed my friend.

I kind of understand how my mother feels when one of us has a birthday nowadays; it means we’re all getting older.

But what makes me feel good today is the fact that the music that was out in July of 1971 was SOOOOO much better than the music out in October of 1973.

Well, try to have a nice birthday anyway little brother! From all of us.

Man, so many things to mention…let’s see if I can remember it all…

I’m hosting a really cool picture of Bobby and Jerry with the Allman Brothers from Gaelic Park in the Bronx, NY from ’72 for all heads to enjoy.

Jen’s finally back to school after a nice summer vacation. Too bad she spent a good chunk of it taking care of me while I was laid-up with back problems. Thank you honey…hope it wasn’t a total loss
;-)

Currently listening to: matt pond PA (as usual), Nick Drake, Belle & Sebastian, The Decemberists, Spoon, etc. There a few new records out that are really great including Bruce Springsteen, Coldplay, the Hives and Queens of the Stone Age – you can’t go wrong with any of these so get them all!

The company my brother works for are a bunch of f’n tools and I hope they rot in hell. Everyone that is except for Tim, Jay, Jay and Bob; they rest can all kiss my royal irish ass.

Hey, I’m back in school too! Taking 2 courses at UB again, finally. I have links over to the left to my course pages if you’d like to follow along.

Blake and Carrie got engaged. Congratulations to them and good luck!

See, I forgot the rest…maybe next time.

Jen and I couldn’t be happier for my brother Tim and his new wife Lorraine. The whole wedding couldn’t have gone more perfectly and I think everyone who was there had a great time. I’m still blown away by the beautiful watch they bought me as a bestman/birthday present – I love it!

I was only able to take a few pictures on Saturday since things were so crazy but you can see what I have here. Good luck you guys and we wish you many years of bliss for new Gerlands!!

UPDATE: Big Jim finally got his couple-hundred pictures up.

Well, it turns out I’m not going to need any surgery after all! It’s definitely a pinched Sciatic nerve or more specifically, a herniated disc which is sometimes referred to as a slipped, ruptured, bulging, protruding disc, or a pinched nerve. They have me on prednisone currently – which is a steroid that helps with swelling. So now, I can’t play football but the possibilities in the MLB are wide open.

I wish I could scan in the MRIs to show you – you can clearly see where I’m all f’d up at the base of my back.

The next step now is physical therapy – I still have to pick a therapist but it should only be a few weeks of that. I guess a typical recovery from sciatica is between 2 and 6 weeks. I already feel a million times better but I can only manage to sit in a chair for maybe 20 minutes at a time. This would also be a good time to get a decent desk chair that didn’t hurt my back every time I sat in it.

Hey, isn’t my birthday coming up this weekend?

Yeah, so I’m outta work for 3 weeks now because of back problems. Looks like I have a pinched Sciatic nerve (otherwise known as Sciatica). I go for an MRI later today and then meet with a couple of doctors on Monday. Hopefully this won’t turn out to be too serious. What really sucks is that I’m not a real lay-around kinda guy, I like doing things and now we’ve missed the Taste of Buffalo, The Brother Project reununion has been postponed, I can’t go to the Jayson party this weekend and our birtyhday/housewarming party on the 20th has been postponed – and that’s just the first week!

I appreciate the kind vibes everyone’s been sending my way and I’ll try to keep y’all updated on my situation as it progresses.