05/20/2025
This morning, my phone rang—but it wasn’t my normal ringtone. It was “Amber” by 311, one of my favorite 311 songs.
As I tried to get enough oxygen to my brain to be coherent, I realized this wasn’t my stupid iPhone that has me on a ball and chain. It was my super awesome heaven phone that I bought back in 2002 when RadioShack had a going-out-of-business sale. It’s a great item, and I don’t think they make them anymore.
I answered like I usually do: “Who dis?”
It was Aldape.
We exchanged a few hellos, and I told him that this morning I had told a few Howard Stern Wack Packers (who loved Alex very much) that he had died—and how wild it was to do that, considering I kinda thought it would be the other way around.
Alex kind of laughed and then told me that now that he’s on the other side, he knows s**t we don’t. He said that relaying any of that information would jeopardize not only my life, but humanity as a whole. But he did say he’d give me one tidbit from the future.
He told me that I will never be funny, I’ll never be “famous,” and that in 2026 Steph will see an actual d**g on an internet website and realize she threw away the majority of her life on an odd-shaped acorn of a rod. She will leave me for one of my friends (I fckin* knew it), and I’ll sit in an empty apartment doing podcasts—but without the computer plugged in.
Now, you’d think this hurt my feelings, but goddamn if I didn’t laugh my ass off.
Norm told me comedy is derived from pain. And if that’s true, Alex Aldape was a walking pain in everyone’s ass.
You see, he’s always been super funny. And not the kind of funny everyone laughed at—just the people who were still getting enough oxygen to their brains to realize that life is just one tedious but brief joke, jam-packed with heartache, sadness, and so much love it could pop even the biggest of balloons.
I told him they had planned to bury him on the coming Saturday and that I own a big van. I told him I’d be leaving southwest Kansas to drive toward where his earthly body is waiting to be swallowed by the earth. I told him I have 7 empty seats in my van, and I’d probably let just about anyone ride with me—as long as they, too, were guilty of loving him. As long as they avoided bringing any kind of poison that took your earthly body.
The main reason I told Alex was: “F*cking duh.”
It was at this point I expected him to get choked up, to feel an overwhelming amount of support and love from the earthly bodies who can no longer text or call his iPhone.
But Alex wasn’t choked up or sad at all.
He told me to have a good time, try some of the local cuisine, hug the people he left behind, and just live until the reaper comes for me—which he for sure is. He even has a date picked out.
He said he’d love to attend his own funeral—mostly to see who shows, who cries... you know, petty stuff. But he said he’s actually busy Saturday. His folks scored tickets to see Darby Crash that day, and Julianna won’t stop talking about how excited she is to learn about punk rock.
He said he hated the idea of letting us down down here… but he has so many people he loves who are alive and well in his world, and he needs to spend time with them.
And that we shouldn’t be too sad.
And not to be too down.
Because one day, you’ll get to hang out with him again. In fact, it’s the only thing you’re for sure going to do.
As Alex put it: “None of us get out alive. But when you are alive, you should act alive.”
Then he hung up without saying goodbye—just like pretty much every live radio show we ever did together.
He’s a s**t like that.
