It has been an emotional week. Tyler Fabeck the principal videographer for “Vegan Cooking”, was hit by a car around 1am on Sunday the 20th. A close friend, co-worker, and collaborator of hair-brain schemes, I’m having a hard time explaining his loss to myself and others.
One thing that needs to be said. If I never met Tyler I would have probably never started the DVD. (Sorry Matt.) I met Tyler when I transfered to the North Michigan Apple Store, in Chicago. He looked like a dirty hippy or a crust-punk, my kinda guy. One day in the break room, i was telling him how a friend of mine wanted me to put together a vegan cooking show. Two days go by and Tyler comes in to work and tells me, ” I was talking to my roommate Mike, and we want to help you do this cooking DVD. So maybe we can start shooting in next week.”
“Tyler, this is a no budget thing, so i don’t have money to pay you.”
“Oh we don’t care, it sounds fun. So we’re down to help”
And thats basically how it happened. Tyler and Mike brought all the equipment, borrowed from our friend Andrew. I bought the food, prepped and made them all dinner while on camera. After what was usually a four-five hour shoot we would head to the roof and eat. The two of them would take home anything we didn’t eat, and Tyler would bring anything else left over to work the next day.
We rode bikes together on a few occasions. A few critical masses, and two weeks ago a ride to Veggie Bite after work where we talked about shooting the next DVD. He road a black steel frame road bike, free-wheel and then fixed. I always told him he made me nervous on the fixed gear, but he never ceased to amaze me with his control. I have tried to not focus on the irreversible details and speculation of his accident, the newspapers seem to be misleading or protecting the driver so the facts may never be known. I know that Tyler was not a reckless bicyclist at the same time I could never think of him as a victim. Shit happens sometimes to the best people you know and all the anger i feel can’t bring him back.
I can’t really think many positive thoughts on all of this. We watched his cremated remains buried on friday. Saturday night we celebrated his 23rd birthday as if he was still here. Tonight our store payed tribute with wristbands and an iphoto slide show. I know Tyler was happy with himself and where he was going in life. He had just cut off his dreads, trimmed his beard, and beat me to the quarterly bath/shower. I’d like to think that his last moments in that intersection he was jazzed on life and excited for tomorrow as the early morning breeze blew through his fresh cut hair.
