More In Sorrow Than In Anger

Sad Samoan stuff: It would appear that P.J. Galligan, guitar player for the Angry Samoans when they first came to local infamy & cut some discs so many yrs. ago, died an ugly death of cancer (After the clichéd long battle therewith? Who knows?) over a yr. ago.

Samoans sans Saunders: P.J., Gregg, Todd, Jeff Dahl, Bill the Drummer.

This sad turn of events became actual & sad for me earlier today when, dithering over embedding, linking or merely mentioning "Staring at the Sun" I noted that a comment on the video said "R.I.P., P.J." & after more searching than one might expect to determine, Schrödinger's cat-style, if he really were dead, this seemed to confirm it.

PJ Galligan (guitarist on the first two records) died of cancer while I was working on the interviews.  He wanted to participate but couldn't speak because the cancer he was suffering from affected his ability to speak clearly.  He wrote out his answers and I got an actor friend here in Japan to record his responses.  They were long, too long for the podcast, and I had to edit them down.  In his choice of words, and in the depth, I could hear a man telling a selected audience about a special part of his life for the last time.  That may sound dramatic but while reading these, even before his death, this was the feeling I had.  He came off sounding proud, humble, as strange as the rest of the band members, but ultimately he ended up sounding just like a regular man living out his life.  He died in May, with the writing unfinished.  He went on a hiking trip with Alice, his SO, (her words) and when he came back she said he sat down to upload his photos from the trip and then died.

Metal Mike explains how P.J. saved the world in an unintentional obit:

without him, our band would have disappeared/there wasn't ONE SINGLE TOP NOTCH punk rock rhythm guitar pounder left in the entire LA/OC/SFV/I-Empire circuit. all the other killer guitarists were in bands (permanently). ok, save maybe Dez Cadena who was one year away from joining Red Cross (briefly, as guitarist before Black Flag as singer).

A more than tolerable, intelligent & amusing human being, & a few yrs. younger than I am.

Addenda from search efforts (L.A. Times, 13 August 1994):

With a baseball strike (under way), The Times is sure to be deluged with irate letters from brainwashed fans. They will probably blame the players for everything from high salaries to the price of eggs.

Thanks are due to Ross Newhan, who has consistently, clearly and accurately pointed out that it's the club owners who create and drive baseball's labor disputes.

If muddled correspondents looked beyond the box scores, or learned to read, similar conclusions would be unavoidable.

PATRICK JOAQUIN GALLIGAN
Ventura

All so very sad.