Dan's Remberence Speech - Debbie Dooley (Dan's Sister)

I can’t begin to express the awe and joy in my heart that comes from being here tonight in the presence of so many people who loved and respected Dan Mayo. On behalf of Dan’s birth family, I want to thank everyone who contributed to tonight’s tribute and I will endeavor to do that personally over the course of the next few months but right now I don’t know all of your names. I do know to thank Larry Hovick and all the crew at the Midland for allowing us to gather here tonight. This venue is especially appropriate because Dan has such a rich history with the building and he had such an appreciation for its beauty in addition to being a long time friend of Larry’s. I also know to thank Jeremy Dixon and all of the crew at Digital Sound Systems. I know Dan and Jeremy had a very special bond and I think that if Dan had ever been blessed with children of his own he would have wanted one son to be just like Jeremy. Jeremy has been the power behind getting this event together tonight but everyone at DSS has taken pride in doing what they do best, utilizing all of their talents to make tonight beautiful for us all, but mainly to honor Dan. I will thank each of you personally for your individual contributions soon but let me say to you collectively, “WELL DONE”, Danny would be so proud of all of you.

Now I’d like to take a minute to share my favorite Danny story. I know that Dan had indomitable spirit, but after that spirit left his body I was overwhelmed with feelings of loss, feeling sorry for myself and others that we could no longer look forward to being blessed with his physical presence. I threw myself into trying to take care of his affairs in the way that he would want me to do to protect all of the people he loved. We were leaving his house one evening after I had successfully found some papers I was looking for and my husband Jack had stumbled across the amazing rock star picture that none of us had seen before. As we were leaving though the kitchen I noticed an opened carton of Diet Dr Pepper, the preferred method of caffeine delivery that we shared. I was sure Danny would want me to have it so I picked it up and brought it home with us. I had been laughing with Candice at DSS when we took in pictures for her to use in the video presentation that we might expect some cosmic retribution for publishing Danny’s baby pictures. The morning after I found the Dr. Pepper I was taking it downstairs to put in the fridge and the retribution began. I got to the second step down and the handle just detached from the carton. I realized there was nothing I could do so I just stood there and watched things unfold. The carton hit the steps and busted in half like an egg, about 20 cans went flying into the air, they hit various steps and bounced back and forth and they looked like a cascade. About four steps from the bottom one can exploded and sprayed soda on the wall then hit bottom and sprayed an arc about 15 feet out in front and then came to a rest. My husband came running, thinking I had fallen down the stairs and found me standing on the second step, holding the little cardboard handle, and laughing hysterically. I was thinking, “Ok, you’re pissed off about the baby pictures, I get it.” And at that moment I knew Danny was there in spirit, providing support by sharing some humor and beauty just for me. So the message I am giving you tonight is to tell you that we can be sad about missing Danny’s physical presence but if we all open our hearts and listen to the universe he is still making his presence known and he is still frickin’ awesome.

JoAnn Mayo - Dan’s Mom

Mothers generally think their children are somewhere between perfect and extraordinary, so it has been a great comfort to know that so many of his friends think he was special too.

Dan visited his dad and me frequently, shared his music finds, and never left without a hug and “I love you” to each of us. We have been blessed to have him as our son.

It is also a comfort to me that he lived fully, and knew the joy of giving to others. Many people have had many more years and a lot less life than Dan. I am thankful that he was in control of what he did to the end, and did not have to endure some long debilitating illness.

Dan was a tissue donor, so someone will regain their sight as his last gift. I like to think of him living on in that way, and I hope whoever the recipient is will get more than clearer vision, maybe a little of that extra something he seemed to see.

Again, thank you to everyone who supported us during this sad time, and thank you for being his friend. We will be extending our thanks in other ways as well, but I wanted to be sure we reach everyone.

God bless you all.

Mike, “Dan’s Little Brother” Mayo

Danny

As I have been reading all the nice things that people have been saying about my dear brother, I have been trying to figure out a way to put something into words about how I feel about Dan. All of the talk about Dan being such a mentor really hits home with me. I guess I was Dan’s first attempt at mentoring someone. I don’t remember it, but my Mom and Dad tell me that when I was almost 2 years old, and hadn’t really started talking yet, they began to worry. Very soon, I started talking in complete sentences. It seems that the reason I hadn’t talked before was that Dan was doing all of my talking for me. We had that kind of relationship for a number of years. Dan lead, and I followed, except when I went way out on a limb that he didn’t think would hold me, which was very seldom. I recall having occasion to feel a bit jealous in high school, because I thought that my name might need to be legally changed to “Dan Mayo’s Little Brother”, but I got over that, and decided that that name was a pretty good fit, and as Sheriff Bart said in “Blazing Saddles”, “when I establish myself, ‘Deputy Spade’ might turn out to be a pretty groovy position.” There were lots and lots of fun, interesting situations that Dan and I got into. I remember shortly after we moved from Webster Groves to Fairway, Ks, and were attending Shawnee Mission North high school, that we had to wait in a room at school for the bus to pick us up in the afternoon. Dan got tired of standing and just sat down on the floor. I and a bunch of people followed suit, and before we knew it, the Vice Principle was standing there telling us the Police were on the way and that he was not going to permit any sit-ins at his school. Dan told him that the only thing that was going to break up the sit-in was the arrival of the busses, and that there was nothing to get so upset about. As some of you may remember, Dan’s battle of wits with the school administration took a number of turns, but I feel like he won it in the end. You might also notice his picture in the 1970 year book, with his note about what is important in high school. He is sitting on the grass by a tree. Looks just about how he looked at the “sit-in”. Never trust a prankster.

Looking back on it, I feel sure that Dan was born to be a pyro-technician. He taught me how to make smoke bombs out of kitchen matches and tar off the street, and how to do some other amazing things with lighter fluid and various other materials. Later in life, I noticed a gleam in his eye when he told me about using flame projectors, mortars and devices that could throw confetti (and cheese puffs, apparently) 4 or 5 stories into the air. Young Dan was also the first person in our family, to my knowledge, to find out first hand, why you don’t put old shaving cream cans in the trash fire.

When we were in junior high school, Dan moved downstairs into the finished basement of our house in Webster. He started painting murals on the walls. It was typical of life around our house. Dad and I painted the walls yellow, and Dan made giant art out of them. At the base of the stairs, he had a 6x6 foot picture of Frank Zappa’s face. Another larger wall had the caterpillar from “Alice in Wonderland”. Dan painted nearly every piece of furniture he had. I think he looked at just about every object that he saw as a potential piece of art. Later, he started a project with the unlikely name of “Aunt Rosie’s Garage” which did surreal lighting behind bands. I got to work with / for him in that endeavor for a while, and Dan just loved doing the lighting. He was in high school, and already had an entire car full of “lighting instruments” such as slide projectors, overhead projectors, filters, gels and all kinds of stuff that produced effects that nobody else was able to figure out. We had to do the first few shows for free, but pretty soon, word got around and we started making money doing art. Well, Dan did art. I just puttzed around and adjusted as I was told to. But I still enjoyed doing it.

Dan and I both went to KU, but he managed to stay for the full degree, while I bailed out after one semester. I went to computer school, got a job, and after Dan got done at school, we moved into an apartment together for a while with one of his buddies. Again Dan was very patient with me. He took care of me when I had a bit too much to drink, and even reacted relatively calmly when I accidentally shot off a few bottle rockets in the living room. As I recall, the only comment he made about that was that he now understood fully why they required a license to shoot those things off professionally. I think Dan was also the one who had to explain to our downstairs neighbors why they had water running out of their ceiling light when I was testing out my new SCUBA wet suit in the shower and got a little water outside the tub.

When I got married, Dan was Best Man in my wedding. That wasn’t just because he was my big brother. It was because he was my trusted friend and, well, the best man I could think of for the job. He did a couple of things for the rehearsal and wedding that really impressed the bridal party, such as showing up at the rehearsal dinner with yellow roses for each of the ladies. He took the job seriously, just like he did almost every job he ever agreed to do, and made sure that everything went smoothly.

Dan and I still have a lot in common, as well as a lot of differences. We both love humor, in just about any form, and sometimes we find the tasteless stuff the funniest. A lot of times when we got together with the folks, we had pun wars at the dinner table. We also all knew lots and lots of classic jokes, and all we had to do was mention a few words from the punch line Dan memorized most of “Blazing Saddles” and “Monty Python in Search of the Holy Grail”. I’m still not sure what we should put on his tombstone. He mentioned in a recent email that “It seemed like a good idea at the time…” would be appropriate. He has also mentioned other witty things that might work for him, such as “It’s just a flesh wound, I’ve had worse”. I really do think that Dan would want something that would make strangers that happened to see it laugh out loud, but we will have to see. I will surely miss Dan, but I probably got Danny-ized more than just about anybody else, so I have lots and lots of good memories of Dan to bring to mind to help make it all better. Besides, when I get to heaven, I won’t be at all surprised if I see Dan step up to me and say, “Okay Bub. Here’s how it works up here…”