I can remember driving through Kansas in the pitch black with tornado sirens going off in the distance. The wind was blowing my Toyota 4-Runner back and forth across the road, and the 5×8 U-Haul I was towing felt like it was going to roll at any minute. I couldn’t see anything either, on account of the rain.

It was just me alone in the car. Screaming. AHHHHHH! AHHHHHH! AHHHHHH!

“I’m here, son,” my dad’s voice calmly said. It was about 1 a.m. when I called him.

I was terrified. Bad weather in the middle of nowhere with no one around. I don’t think I saw another car for an hour, and the view of the landscape only was visible when cracks of lightning illuminated the sky.

“There’s a tornado somewhere, and I can’t see it. I am going to die. I can’t see a thing. This trailer is about to flip. Fuck!”

That might seem a little dramatic, but inclement weather has been a fear of mine since I can remember. This was my nightmare. To be fair, I was going straight through Tornado Alley in May.

My dad didn’t get flustered or freak out. He remained calm and stayed on the phone. “I’m looking at the weather now. It looks like you should be through it in about 20 miles. And it’s moving west, so you’ll be in the clear after that,” he said with a hopeful tone in his voice.

He was right. About 45 minutes later, the sky was clear. I found a rest stop near Big Springs and pulled in to take a moment and calm down. It was about 2 a.m.

What was supposed to be an easy 10-hour first leg of my trek from Vail, Colorado, back to Fairhope had turned into 14 hours, with the last three being stressful as hell.

I dozed off.

“Son? You there? You OK?” I was startled a bit and looked at the clock on my dashboard. It was 3:30 a.m.

I had been asleep for a while. I looked at my phone and saw that the timestamp on the screen read 3:30 (give or take a few minutes). It was still counting. Dad never hung up.

We had been on the phone for almost four hours, and I’d been asleep for the last hour and a half. 

“I’m OK. I’m OK,” I said, wiping the sleep from my eyes and yawning. “I’m gonna stop in Kansas City and crash with a friend.” 

“Want me to stay on the phone?” Pops asked. “No. I think I’m good. It’s only about 45 minutes from here.”

“OK. Text me when you get there. I’m here if you need me, son. Love you,” he said. Then we hung up. 

That was something my dad said to us our whole lives. “I’ll be here if you need me.” As we got older and life got more complicated, he incorporated a second part to it: “I’ll be here even if you don’t.”

I know a lot of people say things like that. But he meant it. I would call my dad at 3 a.m. during grad school when I was writing a paper and needed a break. “What’s this one about?” he’d ask as soon as he answered.

“This is about the over saturation of sports coverage in the media and how that has impacted long-form narratives,” I replied. 

“Sounds like something too complicated for an old man like me,” he’d jokingly replied. 

I’d FaceTime him randomly when I caught a signal on a hike. “Check it out,” I said, panning the camera around so he could see the view of the Waipi’o Valley in Hawaii. I was hiking into the valley around 7 p.m. Island Time, which meant it was 12 a.m. back in Alabama.

“Too cool!” he said, his screen still black because he had answered in the middle of the night while asleep. 

“Doing some astrophotography,” I said. “I’m waiting until it gets dark to take some sick photos.” 

“That sounds cool, dude! Call me when you’re done so I know you’re safe,” he said. 

On days when I’d be slammed with work, or maybe sick and hadn’t talked to him in a few days, he would text me: Just checking in, dude. Here if you need me! Here if you don’t.

My pops was always there.

When I started my new job in July 2022 I was listening to a lot of Billy and the boys. I was really digging the 3-night set from Saint Augustine 2022 at the time, which I had the pleasure of attending. There’s also the show at Koka Booth Amphitheatre from 2022 that has a killer cover of “Willin’” that I couldn’t get enough of.

While I was working the jam portion of songs (i.e., no lyrics) would suck me in like a tractor beam. WOOOOHHHMMM. So I wasn’t paying attention to the lyrics like I normally do. I was in the zone analyzing data, mannnnnnnn! 

After my dad passed, I found this little playlist I had made on Nugs called Billy Beats. Not sure why I named it that, but I like it. Makes me think it’s some hip-hop crossover of Billy Strings.

Among the songs on the playlist are: “Willin’,” “Show Me the Door,” “Know it All,” “Watch it Fall,” and “Love Like Me.” Without fail, I listened to that playlist every night when I went to sleep…or I would turn on one of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies and listen to it like an audio book.

Anyway, while moving through all of the grief bullshit, I had one of those moments people sometimes talk about where they feel as if their loved one is speaking to them. An echo, if you will.

For me, that was finally ‘hearing’  the lyrics to “Show Me the Door.”

” I’ll be here if you need me. I’ll be here, even if you don’t.” Those are the first two lines of the chorus.

I would listen to the song OVER and OVER. I knew every part of it, all the way to the end where there’s stage banter among the band about looking for a guy named Joe (not your average Joe) in the crowd.

I’d cry listening to it because it was the mantra that my dad had recited to me my whole life. I have vivid memories of him saying this, like during that drive across Kansas or when I was writing a stupid paper for graduate school.

When I spoke at my his service I recited that mantra. Everyone in attendance felt it. Even if he never said it to them directly, they knew that was the energy he gave the people he loved. If someone there that day didn’t feel it, then didn’t know my dad for shit.

In December that same year, my wife and I took my mom to see Billy in New Orleans. It was night one of his two-night New Year’s Eve run. It was my mom’s first time seeing him, and she was SO excited. We stood in line and got her a poster from the show and other merch.

She proudly wears her merch and talks about that show. She always asks, “What’s the name of that last song he played? The one about the Cadillac?”

Of course, buried in his first set was “Show Me the Door.” I cried as soon as I heard the guitar start up and Billy sang the first few lyrics: “She ebbs and flows like water/And she feels just like wine…”

I cried. I’m crying thinking about it now.

I could feel my pops there with the three of us. I could hear him say:

“I’m glad to finally get to hear Billy Guitar. It seems like that’s all you listen to now. Maybe he’ll play that cool cowboy song! That fucker can play the guitar, Trippy! Look at him go.”

The song was written by Jarrod Walker and Christian Ward, and sung by Billy.

I’d like to thank you, Mr. Ward and Mr. Walker, for unknowingly creating a piece of music that brings my dad’s mantra to life in a new way. Thank you, Mr. Strings, for breathing life in to the lyrics with your voice and guitar pickin’. I always look forward to hearing it live.

I play it when I’m happy. I play it when I’m sad. No matter what I’m feeling, I can hear my dad:

I’ll be here if you need me, son. I’ll be here even if you don’t.

My dad had a steep learning curve. He hated to see me like this.

As I’ve learned from watching my brothers and sisters with their children, being helpless as a parent has to be one of the worst things ever. They just want to make things better. To shield them within reason from any pain or hardship. And that’s exactly what my dad wanted… and it broke his heart when he was powerless to help.

But he tried. So hard. I love him so much for that. I am so fucking lucky.

“What’s wrong, son?” my dad asked me very empathetically while I had my head buried between my legs in the car as a massive panic attack coursed through my body. When I didn’t respond, he asked me again, this time with panic in his voice. “What’s wrong?” 

“QUIT. FUCKING. ASKING. ME. THAT. You are only making things worse!” I screamed back at him.

Boy, that had to have made him feel like shit. Like I didn’t want his help. Like I was pushing him away. I still remember that exact moment like it was yesterday.

I always feel like a piece of shit.

Riding down Highway 98 in Fairhope in the passenger seat of his white Ford Expedition. The windows were down with the humid Alabama air rushing in, only making it harder to catch my breath as the moisture made the air feel heavier. And Pop’s hand resting on my back to let me know he was there.

We eventually arrived at the E.R. at Thomas Hospital. Pops parked in the parking lot (say that five times fast) and didn’t say anything. He didn’t rush out of the car to carry me inside, or go into the waiting room to tell them his son was freaking out. He just sat there.

I’m really choked up thinking about it right now.

I know how bad he wanted to get me into the hospital to make sure I was OK. I know how hard it was for him to sit there and do nothing. But he did. He just sat there with me in the car.

After a few moments, I looked up at him with bloodshot eyes and tears coming down my face and asked, “Can we go home, please?”

“Sure, son,” he said with a smile.

He put the car in drive and headed toward home. “Is it OK if I stop and go into the gas station real quick?” he asked. “Sure,” I replied, totally exhausted from the adrenaline that had just burnt through my body for no reason in particular.

My amygdala didn’t go into fight or flight because a tiger was chasing me, or some shit. I was literally sitting on the porch drinking a beer when my brain decided to go haywire.

Anxiety is so cool.

Dad pulled into the station right by Gulf City Cleaners, a dry cleaning spot, and got out of the car. A few minutes later, he came out with a bag full of snacks and two big fountain Cokes. There were Reese’s, PayDays, Almond Joys, Zapp’s chips – all sorts of shit. He made sure to cover his bases.

No snack left unturned!

“Let’s watch a movie when we get home. Or we can hit the hay. Either way, we have snacks,” he said with the biggest smile on his face. Onward we went.

That was it. He acted like the incident never happened. And that’s because that’s what I needed. I didn’t need to explore and talk about the past 45 minutes immediately after it happened. I needed someone to listen and treat me like I was “normal.”

When we got home, I gave him a big hug and said,

“Thank you and I’m sorry.” He didn’t let me go but squeezed me tighter. “I am always here for you, son. Just tell me what you need.”

I grabbed the Reese’s and PayDay from the bag, laid down on the couch, and turned on the TV. “You took the PayDay?!” he said. “You little fucker.” We both laughed.

“How about we watch that movie with all the cool music,” Pops suggested. “The one with that little raccoon.”

He was talking about Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1 (GoG); a film that neither of us had planned on watching when it was released. But we both arrived there with a little help from the Universe.

There is a large sequence of events that eventually led me to see GoG Vol. 1. It involved the premature birth of the first child for one of my best friends, graduate school, my love of fountain Cokes and movie theater popcorn, and an extreme amount of humidity suffocating the air outside.

“Dad! You and Mom HAVE to watch Guardians of the Galaxy,” I told him during one of my afternoon walks with Coltrane. My dad was a lot like me in that he would give anything a chance, especially if one of his kids recommended it. I sensed hesitancy in his voice, though.

“Isn’t that some superhero cartoon?” he asked. “I don’t know if I want to watch that shit. Seems chooky.”

“But it’s got great music! The songs we used to listen to while driving down the road in the Trooper,” I countered before singing the lines, “IF YOU LIKE PINA COLADAS… GETTING CAUGHT IN THE RAIN.”

“Does the movie have some old jukebox or boombox on the cover?” he asked. He was referring to the Awesome Mix Volume 1 mixtape that Peter Quill, AKA Star-Lord, keeps loaded in his Sony Walkman at ALL TIMES during the film.

“Yeah. How did you know that?” I responded.

It turns out that my oldest sister, LaLa, and her family had given Pops the soundtrack from GoG Vol. 1, and the cover art was in fact a view of the Awesome Mix Volume 1 mixtape inside of the Walkman!

I think she either gave it to him for his birthday or just because – since LaLa is one of the kindest humans on the planet.

“That music is fucking GREAT! LaLa gave me that CD, and I have been cruising in the car with the windows down. Your mother and I will watch it.”

“The little raccoon. Rocket. He is my favorite character. He’s like me!” I blurted into the conversation.

“A raccoon?” my pops asked. “He must be a cool raccoon, dude! Gotta go! Love you!” And he hung up.

So, let me tell you why I love Rocket and why my dad came to love Rocket.

There is a scene in the movie where Rocket, a cyber-genetically engineered raccoon, takes his shirt off. You can see he has experienced some type of physical trauma. His body has scars, metal nodes, apparent implants, and patches of fur missing.

The charming and witty Star-Lord, the eventual leader of the Guardians played by Chris Pratt, sees these marks, and his facial expression is one that I can best describe as shocked.

Of course, this had to have come from Rocket’s appearance and not from the fact that he had found himself in the midst of a talking raccoon, right?

Fast forward to later in the movie when Rocket is drunk and arguing with Drax, another Guardian embodied by the incredibly talented Dave Bautista. Drax calls Rocket vermin in the exchange, and Rocket responds by saying:

Keep calling me vermin, tough guy! You just wanna laugh at me like everyone else! He thinks I’m some stupid thing! Well, I didn’t ask to get made! I didn’t ask to be torn apart and put back together, over and over and turned into some…some little monster!

That scene hit me like a ton of bricks.

In 2005, I was diagnosed with a mental health disorder. I was 18 years old. It was tough to wrap my head around the diagnosis. I experienced a period where I tried to rationalize why this happened and what I did to cause it.

Maybe some of you reading this can relate.

I tried to hide my disorder, but it always managed to poke its head out. Whether I went into a full-blown panic attack that resulted in me asking the closest human if they could drive me to the emergency room, or a rush of intrusive thoughts that left me paralyzed and needing a ride home, I always had to explain why.

That sucked.

People often reacted with that look that Star-Lord gave Rocket when he saw his cobbled body. A look of confusion and shock.

“So, does that mean you are like, crazy?” a person once responded with a terrified look painted on their face.

I got a lot of different reactions and expressions. None felt great. They sent my brain into hyperdrive and questions just filled my mind.

“Am I broken? Am I crazy?” I mean fuck, you can really make yourself believe you are “some little monster” if you let your brain ride the roller coaster long enough. If you think of the way people often respond.

I talk about this diagnosis and its impact in the Shaynee Lee story.

You are probably wondering how Rocket intersects with my pops and why he gave a shit about the character. That’s a fair question.

My family has been there for me every step of the way since my diagnosis. I am very grateful that the Universe gave me these people. They are a large reason I am here to write about this. Them and Coltrane.

In those early days, I would have complete breakdowns. Paralyzed in fear in empty parking lots, texting my family to come find me. Waking Pops/Mom up at 2 a.m. to take me to the E.R. Losing my shit and moving further into anxiety when people asked, “What’s wrong.”

Like I said, my family members had a steep learning curve.

But overtime, through communicating what worked and what didn’t work, my family became so good at navigating those episodes that they should all have awards. 

When I’d ask my dad what was wrong with me, he’d say, “Not a fucking thing! You are Greenberry Taylor da turd (no spelling error). There is no one else like you.” My mom said the exact same thing, minus the profanity.

So, when I told pops that Rocket was like me – he got it. 

“Ain’t no thing like me, except me! That raccoon is too cool!,” my pops texted me. 

Yup. Ain’t no thing like Greenberry Taylor da turd except me. 

Editors Note: I was told by the robot that delivers my mail on the moon that James Gunn reads this blog religiously. So, a quick shoutout to Mr. Gunn for creating characters and a trilogy that is one of my favorites of all time. I know my dad would have loved Volume 3. 

I spent an entire month of the year with Wyatt for 4-years in the California desert. I have so many stories that I could fill up this whole blog and there would still be some left over. A lot like my pops, actually. 

For the other 11-months I didn’t get to see him, we’d talk on the phone or text. I was at graduate school at the University of Florida from 2013-2015.

When I first got there I asked him if he wanted to come visit for a football game. “Florida Football,” he said in a tone that suggested he was intrigued before finishing with, “I’d rather eat a bucket of fucking razors.” 

I laughed so hard.

I’d get texts from him asking if I was “taking my crazy pills.” Asshole. He walked me through the process of buying a used bike from the 1980s, fixing it up, and selling it to a “sucker.” When I told him I flipped it for $80, he responded, “I would have gotten $160..sucker.” Asshole. 

I got a job as a sports photographer. I hustled my way into the gig, which made my pops, brother, and Wyatt very proud. I would send the three of them photos from different events. 

My pops always fired up and would look for me on the sidelines, shooting me a text, “See you dude! Blue hat?!” I’d send him shots from the game and he would tell me how awesome the photos were and then send them to all his friends and my family. Wyatt would say, “Looks blurry.” Asshole. 

November 7, 2015. A shitty fucking day.

“Dave Wyatt just died please call me.” That’s the text I got from Shaynee on that day.

I was on the sidelines shooting the Florida vs Vanderbilt football game. There is no reception in the stadium, especially when it was at capacity with nearly 90,000 people.

I had felt my phone vibrate toward the end of the third quarter, but assumed it was sports updates that randomly pushed through in a moment of cell reception clarity. There was a timeout that occurred late in the fourth quarter after Florida’s Jordan Sherit laid a monster hit on the Vandy QB. 

I went to look at my camera, not my phone. I wanted to see the image I captured. “Did I get the shot!?” Oh yeah. I fucking nailed it. I knew my mentor would be so proud when I posted the gallery of the game later that night and he saw the hit that jarred the helmet loose and spit and mouth pieces flying as a result. 

I figured the phone wasn’t a big deal. I finished photographing the game and made my way back to the press room. I took apart all of my camera gear, ejecting the SD cards from the camera bodies before placing them and all of the glass back into my case. I hooked my laptop up, plugged in the SD card reader, and placed my phone next to it. 

There were 7 missed calls from Shaynee. She NEVER calls. Ever. I went to see if there was a voicemail, but checked my text first. I remember seeing the words “Dave Wyatt is dead.”

I didn’t freak out, or cry, or run to call Shaynee. Instead, I calmly placed my computer in my backpack, grabbed my camera case, and started walking toward Weimer Hall. My house was equal distance, but for some reason I made my way to this strange building on the university’s campus. 

It is three stories and has this crazy atrium in the center with a courtyard. There is weird art. Sounds are amplified and accompanied by echoes. I sat on a bench near some foliage. 

My chubby little fingers clicked Shaynee’s contact and the line started ringing. She was crying when she answered. She gave me the details – a heart attack at age 46. 

It didn’t compute. Not Wyatt. He rode a bike up the California coast. He didn’t drink soda. He didn’t smoke cigarettes. He was always moving around, never staying still. How could this happen?

We hung up and then I lost it. The sound of my disbelief mixed with ugly crying and screams were amplified by the atrium. It echoed for passersby. I reached for my phone and started going through all of our texts and the voicemails he had left. 

I missed a call from him earlier that week. I had planned to call him back on Sunday. Fuck.

The celebration of his life was going to be held in Los Angeles at the Fonda Theatre, an iconic music venue. I had no money, though. Literally, zero. I didn’t realize the significance of it at the moment. It didn’t feel real. 

I told Shaynee I couldn’t afford it. She said, “ You have to be here.” My lack of accepting Wyatt’s death was obvious to her. I think she saw me using my financial situation as a way to escape reality for a little longer.

She knew I would never be able to live with myself if I didn’t go. So she did the most Shaynee thing ever: Used her Southwest points to fly me from Florida to L.A. I told you, Shaynee is the best. 

I have been to funerals and “celebrations of life” but nothing compares to Wyatts. 

They were handing out Sharpies with his name on them, pins and stickers made out of his art were everywhere for the taking. The Fonda’s marquee said, “Godspeed ‘DMFW.’ So let it be written, so let it be done.” There were food trucks and beer. There were old friends and new friends. 

It was packed. Dave Mother Fucking Wyatt (DMFW) was a legend!

There was an open mic setup on stage. People got up and told stories. REAL STORIES. Not the bullshit you usually hear…”They were a person of high faith…blah blah blah.”

I got up and talked about how I thought he was an asshole at first, using those exact words. Then I talked about how I grew to idolize this guy. How I was mesmerized at how he squeezed so much out of life and loved so hard. 

All of the people that spoke told the best stories, and they all carried a similar theme. 

People plastered DMFW NASA inspired stickers on the Hollywood Stars in front of the theater. They wrote messages with sharpies all over LA. His friends sent out merch, which was a black t-shirt with DMFW written in white letters in the ACDC font, one of Wyatt’s favorite bands. 

He literally was OOZING out of that place. It was an actual celebration of his life, and really quite magical. You connected with everyone in that room. The people talking about him were engaged with one-another, trading stories and enraptured by each other’s wild tales of our friend. 

There was none of that bullshit small-talk you might have engaged in at other funerals. 

I remember at my pop’s service people didn’t know what to say, and I get that. Death is not a comfortable thing. But I got questions like, “How is New York?” I would have much rather heard a story about my pops. Some adventure or memory a person had with him. 

When Shaynee called me to come work the show that next year I told her I couldn’t do golf carts. It would be too weird. She said I needed to be there and got me a job moving ice and water.

Wyatt would have clowned the shit out of me for taking the manual labor job over the Cush golf cart gig. He would have said I was being soft, but I know he wouldn’t have been able to go back out there at night without me. Not so fresh after.

Going out to the desert was awesome, though. Shaynee was right (of course). I wore my DMFW shirt and it was like having an all-access pass to meet the coolest people. I got to hang out with Derek, Jimmy  Reno, Aissa, Jason, and so many more. These were Wyatt’s PEOPLE. 

He always talked about getting me to come to KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas and drink beers. “My friend Aissa will hook us up. Drink beers. My buddy Jimmy Reno will be there. Derek, of course.” I now know all of these people, and Wyatt is the link that binds us. 

They all have the fucking best stories of him, and I love that they tell them so freely and often. They give off the same kind of cool vibe as he did, but of course there is only ONE Wyatt.

Living in New York I see Yankee’s hats everywhere now. At this moment I am thinking about Wyatt telling me about taking his Harley across the country and stopping along the way to see MLB stadiums and catch games. His goal was to go to all the stadiums. He loved baseball. My dad loved baseball.

This might come as a shocker, but the only things I know about baseball are that the games are fun as hell and they are the only place where a beer and hotdog truly live in harmony and make each other better. *

Miss you so hard, buddy. I hope they enjoy this book of fiction.

* A note to all of The Bo-Hawg’s baseball sponsorship partners – because we have A LOT who read this blog – don’t pull out on us because of that comment that I could easily change if I really wanted to.*

I love a good direct question. 

“Hey new guy. Who the fuck are you?’

That was Dave Wyatt’s first question to me.

I met him in 2012 at a festival safety meeting the night before the show started. Shaynee had brought me on to work late night golf carts, and Wyatt was part of the four man crew along with Steve and Matt. 

I’ll never forget being the “new guy” and watching Wyatt walk into that meeting rocking a black hoodie with a punk-band logo painted on the front, a New York Yankees flat bill, camo cargo shorts, mid-length socks, and some sneakers. 

He was definitely the “cool kid.” Regina George, if you want a movie comparison — minus the wicked soul. Was she wicked, though? Tina Fey, can you weigh in? Tina Fey is a HUGE fan of the blog I heard, and reads it religiously. 

I never have been one to bend-the-knee to the cool kid. Hold on. That is a lie. I did do this from time-to-time up until the 5th grade. 

I remember some kids didn’t invite me to a party or some shit like that and I was tripping out that it was my clothes, personality, or appearance. My pop’s saw me start to bend that knee and conform so that I could be cool. He quickly impart wisdom appropriate for a 5th grader.

“If they don’t like you, fuck them. There is no one else like you. Remember that.” The eloquent phrasing of my pop’s cannot be understated.

So when Wyatt asked me his direct question, I responded with, “Greenberry.” Just my name and nothing else. 

I wasn’t angry or anything by his directness. His tone and body language wasn’t that of a person who was threatened or trying to embarrass. He was genuinely curious of whom this new person among his familiar circle of friends was. And that’s fair.

“Greenberry,” he repeated back to me with his dumb-Wyatt-faced expression I grew to love. “Bullshit.” 

I pulled out my license and handed it to him so that he could inspect it for himself. “Greenberry…BUSH,” he said looking at me, followed shortly by, “No fucking way. That’s rad.”

After that, I was “Little Greenberry” and he was Wyatt.

For show days, we’d start around 4:30 pm and close down shop about 5:00 a.m the next morning. During show hours we would drive artists, VIPs, and other folks to stages and various locations on site. At night, we were released into the madness of the mad exodus of show-goers. We were tasked with getting them to their personal vehicles, campsite, or ride-share. 

We were not allowed to charge people for rides, nor did we ever. Our job was to help people get from Point A to Point B. However, we could dictate who we picked up. And we most certainly had a hierarchical view on what patrons had priority to ride in our chariots.

It went like this: 1) disabled individuals, 2) sweet elderly people that had taken their son/daughter/grandson/granddaughter to the show, and 3) people that were visibly distraught because they had forgotten where they parked. 

The last mother fuckers to get a ride were the people yelling, “I’ll give you a $100 just to get me to XYZ.” It’s not hard to envision what this person looks like or sounds like. Wyatt and I despised them and would cruise past these individuals waiting for the follow-up comment, “Fuck you then!” they’d scream as we drove past.

Later when they still hadn’t found their way, we’d pull up to them and ask, “Didn’t you scream ‘fuck you’ to me earlier?” If they were cool and offered some sort of “my bad” we would give them a ride. If they were not, we would punch the gas and leave them hoofing it to wherever they couldn’t find.

If it was slow, meaning no stragglers or people in sight, the whole crew would meet up and talk. 

I honestly didn’t engage with Wyatt much the first year I worked the show. I was on the brink of an acute agoraphobic episode — mentioned in the Shaynee Lee story — that would set in about a month later, so I was suffering a lot of panic attacks and therefore withdrawing from people. 

When we’d get home at sunrise, Wyatt and Steve would always ask me to come have a beer — I never did. Wyatt didn’t give up, though. He never did. Not for the people he cared about.

I made it back to Alabama after the month in California. This is where I would spend the next year of my life wading through the agoraphobia and all of the awesome stuff that comes with that. 

Shaynee encouraged people to reach out to me. Wyatt was surprisingly one of those individuals that reached out. At least I thought it was surprising at the time. He sent me the following text:

“Hey buddy. Heard you went crazy.”

“Is this mother fucker serious? Maybe he really is an asshole,” I thought. So, that’s exactly what I texted him back. “Fuck you asshole,” I wrote. A few minutes later, my phone was ringing and the name WYATT was on the screen. I answered reluctantly.

Tripp: Hello?
Wyatt: Hey buddy. It’s Dave.
Tripp: Cool. What’s up?
Wyatt: Just checkin’ in on ya. Shaynee told me what was up. It sounds fucking rough.
Tripp: Yeah. It really sucks *starts to cry*
Wyatt: I know a lot of people that deal with mental health stuff. It will be OK, buddy. Are you seeing a therapist or anything?

Ok. Now I was confused. 

Was Wyatt being nice? Was it the same guy that tried so hard to get me to hang out and drink beer at the buttcrack of dawn after we just worked 12-hours straight? 

So much can get lost in translation, man. And that’s exactly what happened when I read his text. To be fair, I knew Wyatt, but I didn’t really know him. Like, I didn’t understand his humor, sometimes a little dark, and how effectively he used it to disarm serious situations and move into a deeper conversation. He was so awesome, ya’ll. 

I grew to love that sense of humor. I miss it a lot. I miss Wyatt. A lot.

Shaynee, Wyatt, and the rest of the crew were with me (even though very far away) throughout that whole year. Wyatt would always say, “When you get out to California to work this year…” And I would be like, “IF I get out to California.” He would just let out a LONG sigh and then say, “You mean WHEN, little Greenberry.”

Surprise. I got out to California. 

 Shaynee picked me up for the airport, even though she had a million things going on at the office. She dropped me off at the place I would be staying and I waited for cool friend Wyatt to get there.

He rolled up on his motorcycle — spoiler, that is not how he died — busted in the house and said, “Come here you little mother fucker!” and wrapped me in a big bear hug.

His essence was this mixture of “I-care-about-the-people-I-love-so-hard” and “fuck-all-the-people-who-are-dicks.” He knew EVERYTHING about music. He knew everything about baseball, which I don’t care about but I appreciated how much he loved it. 

“Did you go get your creds (credentials) yet,” he asked, letting me go and giving me a look over to make sure the crazy hadn’t eaten me alive. “Not yet. Shaynee dropped me off.” He looked at his watch and then back at me, “Still go time. Let’s go get them.”

It wasn’t until I was locking the door to our house that I realized there was no car, just the motorcycle. Wyatt reached into the saddle bag of his bike and pulled out what looked like one of those old-timey helmets that people wore in sidecars on black-and-white movies. He, of course, had some macked-out helmet on with a face shield and shit. 

“Dude. What do I hold on to? What if I fall? I would fuck my face up!” I said. He gave me an ambiguous two word response, “Don’t lean,” and the he shoved the helmet into my stomach. 

I shit you not that’s how I got around the California desert for an entire month. On the back of his motorcycle. He instructed me to hold on to these TINY rails, but I bear hugged that fool anytime we were on there. It was truly terrifying.

The part that really sucked is whenever he’d ask if I wanted to do something I would get so excited only to be met with raw fear that I had to hang onto him while riding this death trap!

“Want to go in a little early and check out Ghost with my buddy Derek?” A new band I’d never heard of? Hell yeah. Wait…fuck, I have to ride on the motorcycle.

“Want to go see #42? That new Jackie Robinson movie?” Oh hellll yeah. I love movies. Get me a coke (death water, as Wyatt called it) and popcorn. Wait…fuck. I have to ride on the motorcycle.

That was my response for an entire month. He was a pretty good driver, I guess. I’ve never ridden on another so I do not much to compare it to. When we would head in to work, he would zig-and-zag through gridlock traffic. That was cool. One time someone ALMOST HIT us by trying to change lanes in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Wyatt swerved and missed. 

He pulled up next to the car, which had “FESTIVAL NAME OR BUST” painted on the back and window. He pointed his hand down, tapping his pointer finger toward the earth, creating the universal sign to roll your window down. 

While that was happening, he turned around and said, “Give me your helmet real quick, little Greenberry.” His voice was calm and composed. The car next to us rolled their window down. It was some turd with his friends blasting shitty music.. 

Wyatt then twisted his hand in half circle motion, like he was turning an invisible nob. Now he was signaling them to turn the music down.

“What,” the kid said, pulling his douchey shades down the bridge of his nose and making eye contact with Wyatt’s shielded face. “You guys almost hit me and my buddy here. Could have really hurt us.” The kid shot back with an insincere apology, and shrugged his shoulders. 

Wyatt chuckled and shook his head. BAM! 

I could feel the air breeze on my face as he swung his right arm down with brute force. He was holding my helmet — the really safe one he was letting me borrow — and made direct contact with the driver’s sideview mirror, completely shattering it.

The people in the car didn’t say anything, but their faces said it all. “Holy shit this guy is going to kill us.”

After completely destroying their mirror Wyatt said, “Sorry isn’t going to put the next motorcyclist you hit back together.” At this point he had flipped his cool helmet shield up so they could see his face. “Sorry about your mirror, but you didn’t seem to be using it. You better get that shit fixed so you don’t almost kill someone again. Have a blessed day.”

He handed the helmet back to me and we zig-zagged through traffic until we made it to our destination. I released my death-grip from around his waist and got off the bike and handed him my helmet.

“Told you this fucker was tough,” he said while giving the helmet a thump and then grinning at me.

Read DMFW Part 2

She went straight back to work.

“Shaynee for Dragon,” she said into the walkie-talkie. “Go for Dragon,” the walkie-talked yelled back.

People named Dragon? Vans? Float? Walkie-talkies? What world had I just walked into? The only word that wasn’t new was Van.

Alex got me hooked up with a credential, a moment I will never forget because I felt SO FUCKING COOL. I am embarrassed to say that I did put it on like a necklace at first. What a dork! Alex was a good dude and wasn’t going to let me go out like that. 

“I’ve got an extra carabiner you can use if you’d rather have that,” he said, gesturing to how he wore his credential hooked to his belt loop.

Good looking out, Alex.

I was then introduced to my white, 15-passenger van. I would develop a love-hate relationship with this vehicle over the next decade. Optimal for traveling with multi-passengers and napping. Not optimal for anything else. But hey, I drove these suckers in major cites. I’m pretty much on the same level as Loyd Christmas. “

It’s OK. I’m a limo driver!”

Next, I got my walkie-talkie. It was marked with a piece of bright orange gaffer tape around the antenna that said, “Greenberry?” I loved the question mark. People never know if that is my first or last name. It drove my pops crazy.

One time I was with him at a doctor’s appointment. We were in the waiting room when the person at the front desk called out, “Mr. Greenberry? Mr. Greenberry, are you here?” He didn’t say anything.  “Mr. Greenberry?,” the voice now irritated and impatient called out one last time.

Pops let out a deep sigh, stood up, and walked over to the desk. “I don’t know who the hell Mr. Greenberry is, but Mr. Taylor is right here.” I guess after 65 years that shit gets old. I will let you know how I feel about it in 30 years.

Back to Shaynee

I had my creds and van, so the only thing left was float. To my disappointment, it was not an actual float, which I really did believe I would receive as some sort of decor for my van since this was a music festival on the beach! However, float is a word used to describe cash that a driver is “floated” to cover gas, and if you are lucky, an off-site meal. 

It was about 4 o’clock once I was all set up. Since my shift didn’t start until 6, I really wanted to go see Primus and The Roots. I walked back in to the trailer and politely asked Shaynee if I could watch some music before my shift. 

She looked down at her watch and then back up at me. There was skepticism in her eye. 

“Sure. Remember, you start at 6 p.m., so be back by then. Have a great time at the show. The Roots rule.”

I watched both shows — both absolutely incredible — and made sure I was back at my van by 6 p.m. I radioed what I will call headquarters from now on. This is the trailer I visited earlier. It’s where the coordinator on duty fields calls from drivers, creates a list for scheduled rides, and SO MUCH more. 

Seriously, I don’t know if they even stop to breathe.

“Greenberry for Shaynee,” I radioed. Silence. I tried back a few minutes later. “Greenberry for Shaynee.” This time, I was met with an unfamiliar voice. “Who is this?,” the voice asked. “Greenberry. I was hired today and met Shaynee….” but was cut off before I could finish. 

“Ok. Hang tight and I’ll radio back when we need you.” No name or anything, just instructions to “hang tight.”

Around 7:30 ish my walkie-talkie came alive. “Jason for Greenberry.” Ah. The voice did have a name! Jason was the overnight coordinator. He proceeded to send me on runs where I picked-up/dropped-off artists, crew, and sometimes celebs. 

I finished my first night of work around 6:00 a.m. It would have been a little earlier, but I spent an hour searching for Marlboro Lights, a brand of cigarettes that no longer existed.  

You see, in 2006 a federal court found the tobacco industry guilty of using deceptive wording such as “light” to promote them as healthier. So, the tobacco industry used colors to replace the term. 

The product did not change, but when you walked into a store you had to say, “Hey, let me get a back of Marlboro Blues. The light blues. All cigarettes aren’t bad for you. The color is light, so the cigarette is healthy. They smell really good, too.”

Had I known this information, and had the person asking for this brand JUST SAID NO as a teenager, I would have been sitting pretty at 5:30 a.m.

The D.A.R.E. Campaign failed another one of America’s youth, I guess. It was so effective, though. *Packs one-hitter. Resumes writing*

Anyway, I finished at 6 a.m. I had called a friend that was staying in Gulf Shores a few hours before my shift started and asked if I could crash. They were cool and said yes. I laid down on the paper thin carpet covering concrete and immediately knocked out until about 4 p.m.

When I woke up, I got in my van and made my way to the trailer, which factoring in traffic and parking took me about an hour to go less than a mile.

I walked in and Shaynee looked up from her computer. 

“I did not expect to see you again. Jason said you did a good job. Keep it up.” 

I was curious as to why she was so shocked that I showed up after I was literally just hired. Later I would learn that people are often onboarded, get their credentials (which get you access to pretty much anywhere), do one shift, and then ghost Artist Transpo.

A lot of these people are volunteers. So, Shaynee’s first question now made a lot of sense to me. 

I did the same routine starting at 6:00 p.m. the following night, which was the closing day for the show. I recruited my best friend, Ron, to come work with me. Shaynee loved Ron and his laugh. We got to work the graveyard shift together.

It was so cool. I got to drive some of my favorite artists, but I won’t put them on blast. I will say that they were all super nice and friendly. Down to earth, bro.

When my final shift ended, Ron and I caught some shuteye before returning our vans. Once we dropped off our sweet rides, we walked into headquarters. Shaynee got up and asked if she could talk to me outside. This is a phrase you come to fear if Shaynee ever utters it in your direction, but I was new and had no clue what “Can you come to the office and talk to me” usually meant.

“You did a really good job. Would you like to work at Bonnaroo in a few weeks,” she asked, taking a drag from her Parliament.

I could not believe she just asked me to work BONNAROO! I was/am a huge fan of the festival, having attended in 2005 as an attendee.

“Of course. That would be awesome. I’d love to. Thank you so much.”

Later that year I went on to work Bonnaroo and Austin City Limits. I think there might have been another, but I am unsure. The next year, I got the call to come work a well-known show out in California in late spring/early summer. I was super excited.

I had no idea I was on the brink of a mental breakdown, though.

You see, I have been diagnosed with some mental health stuff over my years, starting when I was 18 (2005). Talking about this with people wasn’t something I did openly like I do now. It was very taboo, and also hard for people to understand. They always looked at you differently. I didn’t want my new friends to look at me that way, so I grindded through a series of panic attacks, manic episodes, and intense fear for a month.

I was in California without a car, working graveyard shifts with people I didn’t really know, including Wyatt, and living with people I didn’t know in a large house. If you know about mental health,  then you know those are a lot of variables that cause uncertainty, which is pretty much fuel for the fire.

Somehow, I made it through California. Shaynee had invited me to work the festival in Alabama where we met the previous year in May. I thought it would be cool because that is my hometown and a lot of uncertainty would be removed. 

I was wrong.

It was the second day of the festival when the agoraphobia smashed me like a Mack Truck. I didn’t know that’s what it was at the time, but it was enough to shake me to my core. Paralyze me with fear.    

Ironically enough, one of my teeth was fucked up and I had an infection that needed a root canal. I used that as my excuse and got out of working the show.

Shaynee texted and checked in on me. My new friends like Dayne, Dragon, T-Germ, and Skeo did the same. They all asked if I was going to do Bonnaroo. I made up some dumb excuse to get out of that. I hid what was really going on.

Eventually, I wrote Shaynee a letter and mailed it to her home in L.A. I told her everything that was going on. That it was agoraphobia and how sorry I was for lying and dodging her after all she had done for me.

In true Shaynee fashion, she wrote me back. Her letter was packed with empathy and understanding. 

Shaynee put in a lot of effort from very far away to help me and be there for me. Part of that was rallying my new friends (Shaynee’s long-time friends) and having them reach out to me. T-Germ sent me Halloween cards…during August and September. Dragon and Dayne called. Skeo stopped by Alabama to visit me. That Wyatt guy sent me texts.

She was working a show in Orlando, Florida, and asked if I wanted to come. “You don’t have to work, you can just come hang with,” she said. “Can I bring my sister,” I asked. “Of course,” she responded. 

Mallory drove me to Orlando from Alabama. About a 7-hour drive. I freaked out MULTIPLE times on the way down there, but we made it. Shaynee greeted me with a great big hug and I introduced her to Mal. Then she pulled me aside and said, “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. If you feel uncomfortable, just let me know.”

I get emotional thinking about what Shaynee did for me. She didn’t invite me with any expectation or intention. She did it to help me!

I got out of the house! I rode in a car! I was around people! I went to Disney! 

Of course, it was very hard and I immediately relapsed when I got home. But that let me know Shaynee Lee was a mother fucking ride-or-die. A person who was genuine, compassionate, and awesome.

The rest is history. I spent the next decade of my life growing up with Shaynee and all my new friends. Going on adventures. Traveling. Introducing Coltrane to a whole new world.

Eventually, Shaynee accepted a full time gig out in L.A. Emily sort of inherited Shaynee’s shows (Em is the human not eating a sammy in the photo above). Em looked out for me. She still looks out for me. She is also the  best.  

And so is everyone else I met during that period of time. They are all my ride-or-dies.

I do not say this shit lightly, though. These are people I can count on. People I love deeply, and I know love me back. People I know that when my chips are down, I can bet on them to have my back. 

They are there when my life is fun. When life is shit. When close friends die, like Wyatt.

When dad died, the effort to support me was there, too.

You’d be surprised who shows up to support you. Some people cannot make it, and I get that; so there is no love loss there. But if you’re five hours away and it’s a weekend…yeah. You can get in the fucking car. You can make an effort.

Since festivals are happening all of the time, most of them were working. Seriously, Google “music festivals” and I guarantee you that you’ll see they are pretty much happening every month. 

A lot of them were right in the middle of a show when pops passed away. Literally impossible for them to leave. But my friend Annel Photoshopped a photo of pops we wanted to use for the main picture at his service. She was working a show in L.A., but she made time. She removed a seatbelt that was across his chest. The photo was at the front of the church. Thank you, Annel.  

Dragon came, though.

Dragon is on tour A LOT, but he flew down for pop’s service. He was there for the service and to say hello my family and I afterward, but then had to fly out a few hours later. He was in town for less than 24-hours, and was set to go out on the road in a few hours after his return.

Him being there let me know ALL of my festival family (that’s what we call each other) were there. Aside from the donations they made in my pop’s name, and the dozens of texts and calls, they all made sure to say, “We send our love with Dragon.” He was kind of like an ambassador for the group. 

I bring this up to reinforce just how much these people care about me. They are truly the best. And I would not know any of them if it were not for Shaynee Lee.

I will forever be grateful to for her friendship. Thank you, Shaynee Lee. Now, please come see me in my office in New York.

The year is 2011. I have a press-pass for a music festival in lower Alabama. The lineup is bananas. We’re talking Paul Simon, Foo Fighters, Primus, Flaming Lips, Widespread Panic, My Morning Jacket…and that’s just the surface.

It’s day one of the festival and I am feeling pretty good. I know there is a slim chance an artist might actually talk to me in the interview tent, even though I am not the music writer for the  Lagniappe, the newspaper I am working for. 

Sure, it feels like 1,000 degrees and I’m sweating my nuts off while manning the Lagniappe booth but I was there for the tunes, mannnnnnn.

Suddenly, a figure I barely recognize steps in front of the booth. They are wearing all black. A strange choice since it’s a million degrees in Alabama…in May…and we’re on the beach! I squint my eyes as the figure reaches out their fist for a dap. 

I never turn down a good dap. Never.

“Greenberry? Or Tripp,” the voice says. “Uh. Tripp,” I reply. “It’s me, Ryan. Chavez. From Spring Hill.” Ryan and I both went to Spring Hill College for undergrad, but he was a few years older. Our paths never really crossed, and the times when they did were, let’s just say “foggy.” 

“Oh shit. What’s up, man,” I asked. “Working sound over at the Breadboard Stage. You?

“Just working this booth. Hoping for some interviews later,” I replied.

Clearly he could see I had the sweetest gig. I was perched under my white pop-up tent that was situated on the blistering asphalt located in between the wooden boardwalk and beach. I was lucky enough every once in a while to get a swift wind that would blow sand right into my face. 

All of my meals were crunchy. Perfect.

“Do you want to make some money,” he asked. “Nah. I’m good,” I said, gesturing the the press-pass. I could see the envy in Chavez’s eyes as he looked over the white tent that was my domain for the next three days. “Ok. Just wanted to check. Pay is $100/hr,” he said as he turned to walk away.

The press-pass quickly lost its luster. The power of the tunes began to fade, mannn. The crunchy meals I had the privilege of eating were no longer appetizing. 

I love music. Love it a lot. But I was 22 with a low paying job, which I loved but low paying none the less. I was living above my sister’s garage (which was awesome, Shai). A gig paying $100/hr was insane. It could change my life. 

Ok. Maybe a little dramatic on the “change my life part.” By life changing I mean that I would be able to afford high quality “goods,” and fill my car up with gas on a regular basis instead of hitching rides with Shai in her green Honda minivan blasting Ice Cream and Cake.

Lowkey though, that song still slaps. And that green minivan went HARD.

There was only one problem: I was the only person scheduled to man the tent all weekend. 

I had volunteered, despite the uproar from others dying for the chance to fry like an egg on the blacktop while festival goers strolled by with cold beverages, funnel cakes, and smiles plastered on their faces.

I told Ryan I needed to make a quick phone call.

I’ll give you three guesses who I called, and the first two don’t count.

“Get your Lagniappe! Step right up and get your Lagniappe,” Pops was screaming as he slammed a paper copy of the newspaper against his palm. 

I called him to ask for his advice. He responded with, “Holy shit! $100/hr!? Your mother and I will be there in 3 hours. Cash money, dude!”

I can guarantee you that the two of theme gave out more copies of the Lagniappe than a 10-man army. He and my mom acted like they had a quota to hit. They sounded like two newsies from the 1920s out there. 

Get ya paper! Hot off the press! Get ya papers!

With pops and my moms holding it down, Chavez came to get me and we started walking. I still remember the stroll because we came to a backstage-looking area and got stopped by two huge security guards. Chavez flashed his credentials. We got a head nod followed by the two sweetest words you can hear in production (outside of a silent gesture): You’re good.

“So you’ll be working artist transportation,” he said. Did he just say artist transportation? My job was going to be driving the actual artists on the festival bill?

Me and Paul Simon cruising in a black SUV on the way to pickup Julio down at the school yard before the press could get to him flashed in my head. Les Claypool giving me a high five as he exited my imaginary luxury automobile, sayin, “Love the rumble of the diesel, good buddy. Thanks for the lift,” danced in my brain.  

We arrived at a white trailer. A dude named Alex walked outside, shook Chavez’s hand, and then greeted me. “Let’s go meet Shaynee and see if we can get you setup,” he said.

And then we walked into a totally different world.

The trailer was nice and cool inside, a welcome change from my previous circumstances. Those god awful fluorescent overhead lights had been shut off, replaced by random lamps that were radiating soft, warm light throughout the strucure. I think there were some Christmas lights too. It smelled like a mixture of sunscreen, lemongrass and lavender, and musty trailer. 

It was a vibe.

Suddenly, a deep, booming voice accompanied by static filled the room. “Dayne for Shaynee,” the voice echoed from a long distance, walkie-talkie situated next to a laptop decorated with stickers, most notably a Hello Kitty one. 

Someone behind the laptop grabbed the walkie-talkie, but I didn’t see who! It was like that scene from E.T. where Eliot sees the Reeses Pieces get grabbed! “Go for inaudible,” a nice, calm voice radioed back to whomever this Dayne/Dwayne guy was.

The two exchanged some nonsensical talk about gas, float, and Lamberts. When the conversation was over, the tiny human from behind the computer stood up and walked toward me. She did not introduce herself, but I figured this must be Shaynee. 

“Are you a volunteer?,” she asked. A fair question.

I was rocking my most righteous festival gear that day: a t-shirt I had scored from Voodoo Fest 2007 when I worked as a volunteer, white soccer shorts — never played, love the shorts — patterned Chaco sandals, and a backwards Kelly green Celtics hat. The t-shirt was navy blue and had a cool Voodoo logo from that year on the front, and LAGNIAPPE written across the back.

So, yeah…I looked like a volunteer.

“Nope. I am a journalist,” I proudly responded. No response from the small human. Not impressed. 

Next question. “Do you listen to  XXXXX,” she asked, sharpening her eyes on me.  * band name redacted for Shaynee’s safety*

“I do sometimes, but XXXX is more my style,” I said, asserting my knowledge of jam bands that I was sure would impress after the failed journalist response. * band name redacted because my response would trigger a natural connection, and the fan bases are often at war arguing over superiority *

“You’re hired. You’ll be doing the graveyard shift. 6 p.m. – 6 a.m. Alex will get you set up with a creds, a van, some float, and comms.”

“I’m Shaynee. Nice to meet you.”

Read Shaynee Lee Part 2

We did it! The Bo-Hawgs first departure from the O.G. color scheme. Moving forward with the evolution of the Pig Fish, something I know my pops would be psyched about.

And our first collection? That would be the Neon Vol. 1 Collection, good people!

Am I sure pops would be psyched that this was our first choice? That I cannot answer. I know he wouldn’t be upset, but I can hear him asking, “Why the hell did you pick neon first? What about bringing the Fishing Team back? Or seafood?”

Well,  I can shed some light (pun intended) on why this was our first choice, and how pops is embedded in the idea.

I have always been a big fan of neon. It started when I was a kid and would watch the Boston Celtics® with my dad and big brother. TV wasn’t really high def back then, so the TD Garden green looked neon to me. I was always confused why the green on my Dee Can Dunk shirt wasn’t neon, but I didn’t care. It was from my big bro.

Outside of the discolored TD Garden on my TV, the only neon outerwear that floated around my little town growing up was hunter safety orange. I am not knocking that color at all. Safety first, ya’ll!

But that was it. Hunter safety orange, and of course the classic neon green for crossing guards. Salute to those fine humans because that job seems INTENSE. We would always give our school crossing guard chocolate covered cherries for Christmas. I think those are gross, but apparently they were their favorite. 

Of course, hunter orange now has dope logos on it and the gear is rather fresh. But not in 1995! You can ask my brother-in-law, Jake. I wore it once or twice during my short-lived career as a hunter, but that’s it. Thanks for trying, bro.

Anyway, I finally got to rep some neon when my mom started findings these Nike® windbreakers at the outlets in Ocean Springs, Mississippi.*

I looked SO FRESH in that gear! Wait. Thought? Hell nah. I looked fresh as hellllll wearing those. 

If I was feeling real stylish, I would wear just the windbreak bottoms and a flannel long sleeve unbuttoned with a t-shirt underneath. I was like Kurt Cobain met Charles Barkley’s ’92 Olympics fit (minus the loafers, those were more pop’s style).

I was a true fashion icon for 5th graders at Fairhope Intermediate school. I bet I was bad at hide-and-seek, though. Could hear my ass coming from 100-yards away with that fabric rubbing against the legs.

SWISH. SWISH. SWISH. Never got the chance to hide, just seek. 

Seriously, I wore neon A LOT. I don’t know what it was about the colors, but I just liked how they popped. I am also a big UNC Chapel Hill fan, so Carolina Blue was a staple in my attire as well. Outside of windbreakers and UNC long sleeve shirts and khaki hats with the Tar-heel logo on them, my neon game was limited. * sigh *

Luckily, when I got to high school and could drive I discovered a local head shop, David’s Gallery.

I realized David’s carried a lot of bright colors because of how they reacted to black lights. Later, I learned why the combination of black lights and bright colors are cool. Hence my reference to “trippy lights” in some of the Neon Vol. 1 item descriptions. 

The year was 2002 and I was now rocking bright pink shirts with “Comfortably Numb” written across the chest, or an all-white shirt with the Widespread Panic “Dove and Snake” logo traced in black on the back. The black lights were good to me in those days, and my neon game was getting stronger.

When Nike® launched their sneaker customization feature though, it was game over. 

The first pair I created looked a lot like the Planetarium Slime color scheme, except the shade of purple was a shade of black. Purple wasn’t one of the options, and I don’t know if I had the vision to create color schemes that I hadn’t already seen before. * adds lacks vision to resume *

The soles and laces were bright neon green. I paid the extra $5 and got GBT monogrammed on the tongue of the sneaker in that same neon. I kept those kicks FOREVER. When I graduated from undergrad I wore them…without socks…and shorts.

My dad was fired up and proud while the rest of my family was shook. Mainly because I graduated, but also that I did not wear socks. My guy wore rented tuxedo shoes to my brothers wedding without socks. He hated socks.

Back to the shoes.

My pops would always say, “Those are some ugly ass shoes you got on. But they match your face, so that seems right.”

His attitude about neon changed when the University of Oregon exploded on to the college football scene in 2009. Not saying they weren’t on the scene before, but them folks in Bama only knew about the West Coast powerhouse, USC! Since I know this blog reaches 1 million people daily, I have this to say to the NCAA: GIVE REGGIE HIS HEISMAN BACK!

Never really knew much about Oregon, though.

“The Ducks have some tight ass uniforms, Trippy,” he told me. “Did you know they have 5,000 variations?,” he asked me. Not true, but he said it with such confidence that I was like, “Damn. They really have that many?” To which he replied, “Phil Knight doesn’t f****** play!”

Pops was hyper focused on the Ducks because it looked like they were the team that would play Auburn (his nemesis, not mine! Don’t crucify me for his hatred. War Damn!) in the National Championship that year. 

He was right. What a game. I’m not getting into all that nonsense here, but I will say that my Pops had on an Oregon shirt. 

Months after the game, he’d wear that shirt because he said the colors were “too damn cool!” He had become a fan of neon, but only for the Ducks. He was also really into Woot.com around that time and would buy my nephews and nieces tons of shit.

My siblings will tell you to this day that the sheer amount of items he bought from Woot made up 90%  of their kids’ wardrobes. He was always looking for those wild ass colors.

“I got the girls these hoodies on Woot that are the same color as Tripp’s wild ass shoes, Bub. Five bucks each. Cheap as snake balls,” he’d tell my brother. 

He grew to appreciate neon and the personality the colors had.

It is pretty serendipitous I would pick Neon as our first drop because if you ask someone who knew my dad to describe him I can guarantee they would say something to the affect of, “There was only one GB. Nobody else had a personality like him, and no one ever will.” 

Neon Vol. 1 is the first in a series of bold, bright, and colorful designs. It’s something I loved since I was a kid and something my dad grew to appreciate later in life. It has a lot of personality, just like the two of us!

He never wore it outside of his Oregon shirt, but you can bet your sweet ass if he saw the Pig Fish in these colors he would. 

My guess is the Planetarium Slime t-shirt in Indigo Blue. Actually, probably the pink-on-pink-on-pink Birdy Bird items because my niece created the color scheme. I can see him wearing that pink hoodie at an event and some wise ass that sort-of knows him saying, “Nice hoodie, G.B.,” in a sarcastic tone. 

“Yeah. My niece designed this. You wish you could pull it off, but you aren’t a big player like me. Go f*** yourself.”

* fact check that when you read the page mom and drop a note in the comments, please. I am not sure when you will read this, so when you do…love you!

Grease popping, no breeze, standing in direct sunlight, lifting coolers with 50 pounds of grouper, hands coated in cornmeal and batter, and a heat index of 107. Ah, those were the days.

That’s what it was like cooking seafood with my pops. My man LOVED this. A big reason is because he did this with his dad growing up. Later in life they began volunteering their services (and fish) as a way to help raise money for youth sports in our hometown. They would fry grouper, boil peanuts, boil shrimp — you name it, they did it.

So, it was only natural that my siblings and I grew up sharing this tradition with him. My brother and I even cooked the food for my wedding rehearsal. Pops had prepared the menu in August 2022, one month before he passed. It was: Indonesian grouper, boiled U12 shrimp, and West Indies salad. 

Swear to god we were both back there frying fish as guests were walking up..It was strange performing this ritual without him for such a momentous milestone in my life. Missed you pops.

Anytime someone was strategizing how to raise money for their non-profit or event, pops was first to volunteer. “I’d like to donate the seafood and my services,” he’d say. People knew his reputation for frying
up some of the best damn fish you’ve ever had in your life, so they were as happy to accept.

When he volunteered though, it meant we (his kids and whoever else he could wrangle) were also volunteering. My brother tells great stories of times my dad would casually say, “We’re cooking for so-
and-so this weekend. It’s about 200 people.” Usually, he told my brother mid-week. Classic.

He cooked for local sports events, churches, organizations,  and even  individuals, but I will always remember cooking for Children of the
World.

Children of the World is a non-profit that is an intercountry adoption service that places children in adoptive homes in Alabama. From my memory, I always remember this being in July. And to quote my man Stevie Wonder, it was hotter than July outside. Standing next to two, 30-gallon fryers with the butane fueled flames roaring so loud it sounded like a heavy breeze running through a tunnel just turned the temp dial up higher.

But my dad loved it. He loved the people that ran it. He loved what they did for kids and families. He always looked forward to this event, even though it was a lot of work.

What he did not like was the recognition. Pops never volunteered for the shine. Never to hear the words,  “We’d like to thank G.B. Taylor for cooking.” In fact, I remember one time when they surprised him with an  award in front of a ton of people. While he appreciated it, being recognized made him cringe. I’m pretty sure when they handed him the mic he said, “I don’t want this.”

I say all of this to let you know that giving back was something my dad was passionate about. I knew when I launched The Bo-Hawg that parts of him needed to be embedded in the fabric of who we are. And this is an important part.

That is how I found Evermore.

Looking at those scores and status awards, it was bananas how many shitty organizations there are “dedicated to grieving.”

I created a spreadsheet of nonprofits that focused on grief and/or bereavement. All-in-all I probably   looked at 50. Next to each were their 2-3 sentence elevator pitch/mission followed by a transparency score or status (e.g., silver, gold, platinum, etc.). Looking at those scores and status awards, it was bananas how many shitty organizations there are “dedicated to grieving.”

GRIEVING! Literally one of the most jarring life experiences a human can face, and people are taking advantage? Truly disheartening.

My obsession with transparency stems from my time as a journalist. I never approached a story thinking I would be lied to; however, I always was conscious of the potential and therefore would do deep dives.  Sometimes my notes really did look like that Charlie Day meme where there is red string spiderwebbed across a board and psychotic grin to match.

I also had just finished watching Telemarketers, a documentary that examines those bogus call centers that push charities. It is truly wild, and I recommend it if you are into those true crime type docs.

Apologies for the detour, back to finding Evermore.

I knew I wanted to team up with an organization that was “in the shit.” By that I mean people working, grinding, and making every effort to provide resources to those dealing with what I was (and still am) going through. Some non-profits are hands off, which is not a bad thing.

But my experience is standing next to fryers in July, so I wanted someone in that same headspace.

And honestly, Evermore was not who I was expecting we’d link up with. They are big picture thinkers who are grinding to make nationwide change on a policy level for bereaved people. They have been featured  in The New York Times, The Atlantic, on Good Morning America, and more!

“Surely these people will not have time for a small-time company like us,” I thought. “They’re just plug-and-play (meaning hands-off) at this point, and our small potatoes won’t mean anything.”

But the language on their site sounded so authentic, so personal. I could feel how they were talking about grief and loss and the indescribable f**king fallout that comes after losing someone. They even have this line on their mission page that says, “We need more than thoughts and prayers.” That’s exactly how I feel!

And to top it all off, they use data and science to help them push change. That is LITERALLY what I did for nearly 10 years of my life as a research scientist focused on patient-provider communication, and mental health and emerging adults

So, just like Travis Kelce…I shot my shot and sent an email to one of those generic addresses listed on a website. Two days later, I received a response from one of their team members, Jena, asking if we could set up a time to talk.

At this very moment, I am moved to tears thinking about that first call with Jena. I imagined the call would be very sterile. That is would be all business with with questions about what I could contribute financially, how things would work legally, a financial threshold for contribution, and contracts. Instead, she started the conversation out by saying this:

I read the story about the Pig Fish and your dad. It’s so wonderful you created this for him. Can you tell me about him?

Seriously, I am sobbing reliving that moment. I couldn’t believe a few things, the first being that she read  my website, the second that she wanted to hear about my pops. Man, I was taken back. I am pretty sure I got choked up because until then, sharing my pops with the world was just me blogging and posting on social media. I was never really asked about him by a stranger.

The conversation we had was so beautiful. I talked about my pops and what I was going through in the wake of his death. She shared her own story of loss, which I will refrain from telling since it is not mine to share. And then, we talked about music and storytelling.

Jena explained that they imagined using the donations from The Bo-Hawg to put toward storytelling. She told me about Evermore’s belief in sharing others stories and the power that it holds. Given that my dad  was a storyteller, and I am a storyteller, it could not have seemed more perfect.

“We don’t have a lot of sales right now, and I am really not sure when or if it will take off,” I admitted to Jena. “We aren’t worried about the money,” she said, “we just appreciate you thinking of us.”

Boom! Another moment I couldn’t believe was happening. She really didn’t care that we were small  potatoes. It didn’t matter that our contributions might be small or large. What was important was that we shared the same values about helping those with grief. Jena even mentioned how grief from the loss of a pet is important, which is something people blow off and don’t take seriously.

But, I do. Evermore, does. They rule.

The last 15 minutes we talked about the Grateful Dead and how Jena met her husband, how she got to see Billy Strings (a Pig Fish favorite) before he blasted into stardom, although she admitted he has always been a prodigy. I learned more about Joyal, Evermore’s founder. She is a badass, be sure to  check her out!

The conversation wrapped with me communicating that The Bo-Hawg was not interested in promoting our  relationship with Evermore on a large stage. That means no advertisements saying, “Part of all proceeds go to Evermore…” More and more on social media you see brands that advertise their contribution to a  cause to move weight.

“Buy a shirt, plant three trees.” Or, “Save the turtles, buy a bracelet.” I am not knocking brands that do this. Heck, I imagine a lot of good does come from them! But my DNA for giving is the same as my dad’s. We are not doing it for the flowers or to push our product. We are doing it because we care and want to help out an organization whose mission, we believe in.

This post will be the only place on the site where I acknowledge our relationship, or whatever you want to call it. Its existence will only be known to those who purchase a product, talk about it organically, read this post, or if Evermore decides to share. 

I am not an idiot. I know that at some point I might talk about our relationship if asked. Or we could collaborate on a design where all proceeds go to Evermore. If that does happen, please refer to this post. To quote Sean Carter, who will sometimes use verses from Christopher Wallace’s songs, “I say a B.I.G. verse, I’m only biggin’ up my brother.”

In other words, if The Bo-Hawg is talking about Evermore, we are doing so to raise visibility for them and their cause. Yes, a natural bi-product will be that our brand awareness might jump, but that’s just how it  is. It’s not our goal or motive.

The Pig Fish is a cool design. I love it. It reminds me of my pops every time I see it. I love that people are wearing it. But I want it to have a deeper meaning, something that pops would stop and say, “That’s really
cool. I’m glad it’s helping.”

I will close by saying that my mission will always be for the Pig Fish to evolve. Injecting Evermore into its DNA is just one way I believe we can accomplish this goal.

A portion of all Bo-Hawg sales are donated to Evermore. 

My dad was in utter disbelief. He had to practically pick his jaw up off of the floor.

How could this have happened? Perhaps there was an issue on the interstate, or maybe the entire internet had crashed and created this problem. There had to be some logical explanation for what was happening. I looked over and saw my dad pat his hand on his thigh, a sure sign he was either about to ask a question or detonate someone. In this case, it was the latter. 

“You’re telling me you have NO potatoes in this whole restaurant,” my pop asked stupefied.  “No sir,” the teenage waiter kindly responded. 

You might be asking, “Where were ya’ll that your dad thought potatoes should be on the menu AT ALL times?”

I’ll give 300-1 odds that you can’t guess what restaurant we were at where my old man was shocked to learn there were no potatoes. Are you ready? We were at a f****** pizza place!

You read the last line right. A pizza place! One of the last places on earth you’d expect there to be a  plethora of potatoes, especially in lower Alabama circa 2003 before cauliflower crust and health was a thing. But he loved to order this pizza that had roasted red potatoes, ranch dressing swirl, veggies, and other stuff. It was his go-to order. And on this day, there were no potatoes.

Now, my dad was not a Karen. He never belittles anyone for shitty food service, giving him a wrong order occasionally, or any of the absurd reasons these whackos conjure up today. Nope. He wasn’t angry at the server, he was angry at the restaurant. So, he launched into his favorite diatribe: marketing and advertising.

“I was in marketing and retail for over 25 years at Gayfers. Twenty-five years!,” he explained to the kid. First of all, Gayfers was a department store that opened in THE LATE 1800s (I am not making this up) and closed in 1998. So this kid was lost as last year’s easter egg already. He had to be thinking, “What a dumb name, and what the hell is this guy talking about?”

“Now, I was in charge of making sure we had everything that we advertised. So if we said he had pink shirts, there might only be one son-of-a-bitch that would want that color shirt, but by God we better have it in stock,” my dad said emphatically. At this point he was using the salt and pepper shakers like they were the customer and store representative having a conversation.

“If I didn’t have that one color, I got my ass chewed out. I’m telling you I was on the phone ordering 100 pink shirts the second that person walked out of the door. And if I didn’t sell them, I’d mark them down, ’50% off all pink shirts. Do you see what I am saying,” he asked the kid. It was clear the kid was even more lost than before.

“I’m the one guy looking for potatoes, and ya’ll don’t have any. Do you see what I am saying? ” my dad asked.

“Ok, so you want us to order some more potatoes and advertise that we have them in stock,” the kid said in the same tone you hear someone respond to a teacher that asked them to ‘repeat what I just said’ when they were daydreaming about something better.

That was when my pops McLost it.

“No, got damnit! I just don’t want you to advertise the f****** pizza if you don’t have the ingredients! That’s it.”

I was sitting at the table with my family and at this point we were starting to lose it.  “What the hell are ya’ll laughing about down there?” pops said, “Dude, you are probably the only person that orders that pizza. Potatoes are not a staple at a pizza joint, pops.”

He clapped back real quick. “First of all, don’t be calling me dude. Second, it doesn’t matter if I’m the only person, it’s on the menu, smart ass!”

By this point, the kid was catching the drift that my dad wasn’t angry at him or demanding that the store go out and buy a sack of potatoes to fix his pizza. Pops simply just got caught in a flashback of what I assume had something to do with an old boss bitching him out for advertising something they didn’t have in stock.

This is one of my favorite stories of my dad because my brother and I always say, “How the hell do you run out of potatoes at a pizza place,” anytime a store is out of something. We used to give my dad a hard time and ask him that all the time, to which he would respond, “Would you two just shut up!”

So, the reason we offer a different variety of colors, fabric weights, and designs is because we want customers to have options. 

We don’t want you to be the one person that loves potatoes and our store be out. Plus, we can always mark down pink shirts 50%.

Is that title a bummer?

I asked myself this after reading the “Our Story” section a thousand times. I kept coming to the conclusion that, yes, this version of The Bo-Hawg was conceived through grief.

I say conceived because I never thought of The Bo-Hawg as my own. It had always belonged to my pops. He brought it into existence in the mid-’80s and managed to keep it alive for over four decades.

That’s right, FOUR DECADES! He loved it!

“That logo and name are too damn tight,” pops would say. “What if we did The Bo-Hawg Seafood ? What if we made t-shirts? What if we created a little business that was Bo-Hawg Bagels?”

I kid you not, for 36 years of my life, I heard a “what if” related to The Bo-Hawg at least once a year—at a minimum. So when I say he loved this thing, I am not exaggerating.

When he died, I tried everything I could think of to hold on to him. I was so terrified that, since he was no longer on this plane, he would disappear. I scanned old family photos, converted family VHS tapes to digital, took screenshots of text messages, saved voicemails, and pulled t-shirts from his closet.

I wanted immediate access to anything tangible that was evidence of the life he had lived.

A year later, I still love all of those things and cherish them deeply. But I learned that his existence extends beyond the tangible. When I spoke at pop’s funeral, I said this:

“He was a person in our lives that you knew was always there. Nothing could alter his presence. My dad himself was a constant. When he transitioned to another plane last week, I thought my constant was gone. Then I remembered he would never leave me. He left pieces of himself in others and scattered throughout the universe.” — October, 2022

One night in October 2023, I was curled up with a t-shirt quilt that my friend Pat created for me. It’s a really beautiful piece of art made by a special person using t-shirts that have so much history embedded in them.

I was looking for a green Jimi Hendrix shirt that my sister gave me when I was 16, when I saw the red and blue “Pig Fish,” the logo for The Bo-Hawg! It was an original shirt from the ’80s! I don’t know why it jarred me so much, especially since I had the logo tattooed on me two months after dad passed away. Maybe it was the vibrance of the colors?

Right then, I sent my friend Chase, an incredibly talented designer, an email asking if she could digitally remaster the logo. Chase didn’t skip a beat—I had it within two days.

I immediately created a TON of stickers. The stickers had my pop’s name, the logo, and text that read either “Fishing Team” or “Hawg Wild Seafood.” Both existed and are pretty self-explanatory: one was his seafood catering company, and the other was for the failed charter boat endeavor (more on that later)

I sent stickers to my family first. They were met with surprise and would either call or text with a funny memory of pop’s love-hate relationship with The Bo-Hawg. Next, I started sending stickers to my friends—with zero context.

They were getting these stickers and would call me, saying, “Uhm. I got the sticker. It’s cool, but what does it mean? What is it?”

Rewind to earlier, when I said I never thought of The Bo-Hawg as my own. It wasn’t until I got that call from a friend asking about the sticker that I realized I was the one telling the story now. I was the one thinking, “That logo and name are too damn tight.”

When people opened those envelopes, they were either met with a wave of nostalgia or confusion and intrigue. Either way, they were holding a piece of my dad that I had shared with them.

On what would have been his 75th birthday, I launched The Bo-Hawg website. I cannot tell you how excited he is that people now have the chance to buy Bo-Hawg merchandise. I use the present tense because I can feel him when I talk about this. 

I have no clue if anyone will or won’t buy something, or if this thing will even catch on.

The best part of the whole thing is, even if we sell only three items for the entire year, he will be proud that I kept The Bo-Hawg alive. He’ll appreciate that it is another effort to keep him circulating throughout the cosmos.

I’m probably even more excited about the storytelling arm of the brand that we’re going to work hard to build out over the next few years. It is called The Pig Fish Tales— a section of the site with my dad’s stories, my stories, and hopefully in the future, stories about other people.

There was no greater storyteller than my dad— our family’s very own Big Fish.

In a way, grief served as a vehicle to help my dad accomplish something he was never able to do while he was here—share The Bo-Hawg on a massive stage. Like I said, he left pieces of himself scattered throughout the universe.

The Bo-Hawg is one of those pieces, and I’m molding and evolving it into something I want my dad to sit back and marvel at.

“This is on the internet where anyone can buy it? Now that is double-ball-busting-deluxe tight, Trippy!” I can hear him ask while his crystal blue eyes stare at the screen and a big shit-eating grin spreads across his face.

“Holy shit! You’re writing again? Maybe you can use some of those stories I told you back when I thought it was a good idea to write a book.”

I’m truly excited and proud of this.

I don’t want people to think of it as just another brand. When you see The Bo-Hawg, know that you’re buying into a community. My goal is for the Pig Fish to be bigger than merchandise. I want it to be something that people ascribe meaning to for themselves.

I’m so glad you’re here. So is pops. Stick around and get to know us.