And what do we say to the God of Death…? Not Today.
Note: Most photos stolen from Dave Street’s Facebook and lack photo credits. My apologies. The rest are mine.
I am in shock that Dave Street is gone.
Especially considering everything that had recently happened, everything that he had just been through. For those of you who don’t know:
Almost a year ago, Dave had fought tooth and nail as he clawed his way back from the brink of death. I went to visit him at the hospital and was aghast at the sight that I saw. With everything that has been happening since 2020, It was certainly the last place anyone would want to be… But there was more to it than that.
You see, in Dave’s past, hospitals, doctors, and the American Health Care System were sort of a “Professor Moriarity” to his “Sherlock Holmes.” He and his mother, Adele, had gone through the wringer as they dealt with a lack of humanity, dignity, and general bedside manner that many encounter when navigating the adversity that can be found in the Medical Industry Complex. Dave even wrote a book about these experiences called, “What the Health, Mommie?”
And now, here he was surrounded by doctors and nurses trying to stabilize his condition, while Dave was fighting to get on Medicaid. The high sodium levels he was dealing with hadn’t just affected his body, but also his mind. Earlier that week, when we spoke on the phone, he was hardly coherent. It was heartbreaking and I assumed it must have been near the end. It had turned out Dave was inflicted by some form of cancer. I thought that this trip to the hospital might not have been to say hello but to say goodbye.
He had lost a lot of weight. His frazzled gray hair had taken on a new level of theatrical chaos that I am sure would have benefitted a comic like Dave if he was up on the stage and not in a gurney bed. His face was gaunt and peppered with a five o’clock shadow that was so alien to the clean-shaven Dave I have known for the last 12 years. The worst part of all was the hospital gown that clung to his skeletal frame. It was the kind that only cared about modesty from the front and not from behind, eschewing any kind of dignity for practicality.
I hated seeing him like that. Even more, I hated that I was thinking more about how this was probably the last time I was ever going to see Dave: Slightly more legible and coherent in speech than our previous phone conversation a few days earlier, he was now running from salty charm to sweet belligerence with any nurse or doctor who came through to give him a tray of banal hospital food or checked on his vital stats. That this is the end of the line, for someone so vocal to be silenced by a final stay in a hospital room.
After everything that he had experienced, everything he wrote about, Dave was going to die in a hospital bed.
I first met Dave because of my infatuation with The Misfits. Dave worked at Natasha’s, the home of the first Fiend Club, and was not just friends with the band, but also played manager for them to help secure some gigs with The Damned. For anyone to have witnessed that, it must have been a zany wonderful time to be a fly on the wall.
Natasha and Dave
Dave always claimed that he hardly remembered the late 70s through the 80s when he was a “Punk Comic,” swapping out Lichtenstein for the surname of Street. He would go on to open for bands like The Ramones, The Cramps, and The Misfits and even put out a 7 inch of his stand-up. I am glad I have a copy. I never got to see any of Dave do material from his old act, but it was easy to imagine the effect he could have on a crowd with the idiosyncratic, whimsical charm that still oozed from his pores decades later.
The first time I came over to his house, I met his mother Adele. It was the last years of her life and she was the type of warm, personable, and endearing person that made you feel like you knew her your whole life. Adele was an extra grandma stowed away in South Plainfield, New Jersey, just in case you ever needed one. I don’t know what their relationship was always like, but Dave was so loving and tender. A good son, the best son, at a time when Adele probably needed it the most. She was adored and cared for.
The interview we conducted in 2010 was not the last time I put Dave in front of the camera. A few months later he came up to Hartsdale, NY to star in an adaptation of Terry Bisson’s classic short story called, “They’re Made out of Meat.” Dave rightfully played an alien named “Saughul” who is disgusted by a report he receives that Earth people are in fact made out of meat. Whenever Dave would call me, he would always say, “Hey!! Jeff!!” with his signature inflection and I would always respond with, “Dave Street Meat!”
One of the greatest tragedies is that Dave was not in more movies as some sort of character actor. He would have owned that well.
When I began work on my first feature film, “Romeo’s Distress,” I knew Dave had to be involved. Not only did he bring the character of Uncle Elmo to life, but he put on a wig and “fake shemp” the body of Grandma played by my actual 87-year-old Grandma Renee Mandel. Dave was also gracious in allowing us to sleepover and shoot the scene in his house. He was also with us at the world premiere.
Dave took his roles in these films very seriously. He was always off-book (memorized his lines) and would craft hand gestures to accentuate his dialogue. The craft of these gestures was quite profound and always elevated the work he was doing. It came naturally to him.
Performing was in his blood, as is evident by all the amazing work he did in schools as a kid’s education performer. And though that was how he made his living, Dave was a radical who truly and deeply cared about social, political, and environmental issues across the spectrum that all held a common theme: The way they affected and marginalized various groups of people. He was like a lobbyist, but a good one who always desired a change to the system that holds people down. These issues and themes informed everything that Dave would write: Books, scripts, plays, comics, and poetry. He was also a lyricist for The Undead, Bobby Steel’s band after he left The Misfits.
I learned a lot from Dave.
He espoused chivalrous values and ideals that could sometimes be endearingly quixotic about how one should conduct themselves. Dave was also there for one of my personal artistic low points. The feature film we made was playing an event that wasn’t quite what it was supposed to be. Without getting into details, it was quite humiliating and as a result, there was barely anyone who showed up to the screening. And it would have somehow been even worse if I didn’t have Dave by my side.
We had the option to sort of leave “out the back door” and write off a bad situation, but Dave told me that we should stay no matter what. He said that I should stand by my work and be proud of it - even if this event was somewhat embarrassing, that I needed to see it through. He kept telling me, “you never know what could happen.” Beaming again with this warm, quixotic optimism that was hard to ignore, I listened to him.
Dave sat by my side as we watched the film. It was something I never want to do again, but I am also so glad that I stood by my work and saw it through to the end. I never forgot it. For years afterward, every time we spoke on the phone, I would remind him of how much his words meant to me at such a low point.
Those values and ideals came straight from Dave’s heart. He had so much heart. The biggest heart I know. He believed in the boundless power that a positive mental attitude can help someone through anything. Dave tried to live his life by that principle as best as he could. He would leave little post-it notes scribbled with mantras of encouragement around his computer desk. They always involved things that he wanted or needed to materialize. And even if they never did, he still invested in that power. He always believed. It kept him going.
The “Try”-Angle of Success
Dave also came up with the “Triangle of Success.” It was something that he conceived when writing a play called “The Problem,” in which Dave brilliantly characterized metaphors for many of life’s relatable problems through the personification of them. You recognize how a show like South Park would have been lucky to have Dave writing for them when you see “The Problem,” which my wife Einav and I were fortunate enough to attend when they were doing workshops of the material.
This is Dave Street’s “TRY”angle of Success:
At the base of the triangle is “clear communication.” This is the basis and foundation of the triangle. Always make sure you are communicating clearly and totally what your message is and what your agreement is. So many times we have problems in life because we assume we know what the other party has communicated to us and we are wrong. It is so important to always clearly communicate down to the last detail or any relationship, any agreement.
The right side of the triangle is “keeping our word.” Once we know what we have communicated, then it is up to us to keep our word. Aside from things like an “Act of God” clause, when things happen that are outside of our control, we should do everything we humanly can to make sure we keep our word.
The left side of the triangle is “controlling our emotions.” The reason people break agreements is because they get angry and upset. They know they have communicated clearly, they know what they have given their word on, but they don’t like what that person just did to them and decided to change what they agreed. We can’t let emotions provoke us into negative behavior. We can’t let our emotions break our word. We can’t let our emotions go against what we have clearly communicated.
I like to imagine that Dave partially decided to call it the “T-R-Y angle of Success” because these ideals may seem deceptively simple, but can be very difficult to put into practice. In the end, we are just people, afforded the opportunity to try our best.
And now, for all that wisdom, for all the positivity he put out into the world, here he was in the twilight years of his life, with serious health problems, unable to work, and mounting medical bills that were already weighing down on other previous debts - stuck in a hospital bed that he might never leave.
NOTE: This photo is from 2014, and NOT the hospital stay mentioned here in this writing.
I wasn’t the only one to visit Dave of course, and that genuine human connection must have been a tonic for his weakened yet enduring spirit. He was well-loved and taken care of in that regard, especially by his niece Morgan. Notwithstanding, it was still hard for me to imagine him escaping this fate that seemed before him.
It was now the early afternoon and Dave’s lunch came. He began worrying and fussing over something with the tray of hospital food. I told him that he needed to recover so that he could be in my next film as we had previously discussed, that he needed to keep going and keep writing and being creative.
And despite his haze, what he said floored me. Even now, as I write this: Dave’s eyes were closed and he told me… I’ve been writing this whole time. In my head, I’ve been writing, I never stopped.
Despite the betrayal from his own body, during what had to have been some of his darkest days and lowest points, he never let that creative spark die. He never lost that optimism that he could get out of that hospital, let alone function autonomously and domestically in his own house. He was already thinking about how he was going to turn these harrowing experiences into a new book.
Dave wanted to get better. He still wanted to do things. He still wanted to create. His body was ailing, but his mind was more passionate than ever. And that seemingly quixotic, misplaced optimism that told him he would come back from this ACTUALLY ALLOWED him to get out of that hospital Alive…
And that seemingly quixotic, misplaced optimism that told him he would come back from this ACTUALLY ALLOWED him to get out of that hospital Alive…
…And he did write that book. It’s called, “Waking Up Nowhere.”
It’s important to note that even though he had complicated feelings surrounding his experiences with the American Healthcare System and the Medical Industry Complex, he was so grateful for the Doctors and Nurses who saved his life.
The next time we spoke on the phone, he was back from the brink - convalescing, reciting monologues of things that he had written in his head. I am so glad I have them recorded. We made plans to come down to Jersey and shoot his scene for the new film. Considering we were back at the same house and the part I had in mind was so similar, we decided he should just reprise his role of Uncle Elmo. And he knocked it out of the park, bringing the same passion and energy that had previously.
It was an amazing thing to witness. Dave wasn’t just back from the brink of death, he was living at home, functioning autonomously, walking a mile every day, and regaining his strength as he lifted cans like weights. His mind was sharp again, he was back to his old self, writing that book as well as writing lyrics about punk rock thank yous to the Doctors and Nurses who took care of him.
It was the best possible way I could have seen him for the last time without exactly knowing I was seeing him for the last time.
Dave had previously requested that he sit in front of the camera and have me interview him about some of his experiences when we finished shooting his scene. As I write this, I do recall some weird, unspoken mutual feeling… Some intuition. You can see it in the video as I asked him impromptu questions off the top of my head, thinking that this video needed to capture his essence somehow. He had an idea that they could have been his final tapes. That, fortunately, ended up not being the case.
We said our goodbyes, until next time…
But that is the thing about getting out alive. It’s just an illusion. Nobody gets out alive.
This will sound cliche and lame, but it’s almost as if he really did tell Death, “Not today.” And Death listened. But Death always comes back.
Bob, Dave’s cousin, told me over the phone that he went in his sleep. And I was relieved - not because Dave was gone, but because he got to go in the most peaceful way possible.
He didn’t die in his darkest hour at a hospital, wrapped in a gown, showing his bare ass to all who might enter the room. He overcame all of it and died triumphantly, with the dignity he deserved, in his own bed, peacefully with a smile on his face after spending months and months with renewed vitality and creative outpouring in his writing.
A testament to his Try-angle of Success.
The last time Dave called me, I didn’t pick up. I made the conscious decision not to. I wasn’t able to talk at that moment. I never returned his call in time. And that is something I will regret forever. It’s not the first time it has happened either, those who ignore painful lessons are doomed to repeat them. But I take solace in the fact that when we first spoke after he had been hospitalized, delirious and incoherent, I began telling him that I loved him and ended every phone call with some variation of, “I love you Dave” or “I love you, man” or, “Love ya, man.”
And I know those were the last words between us.
I promise I will read that book, Dave. I can’t wait for everyone to see you in your final performance in the new film. You may have moved on to the great beyond, but your essence, your beliefs, and your ideals carry on in all of us who were blessed enough to be in your presence.
You have taught me that even when the body fails, the spirit can carry you forward and never give up.
Shine on, Dave Street.
November 14, 1949 - April 5, 2022
Love ya, Dave.