SPOTLIGHT ON: Roger Payne

SPOTLIGHT ON
The Men in BAC

The existence of a Manhattan Chapter of the Barbershop Harmony Society, its colorful approach to musical entertainment and the encouraging, high spirited atmosphere of fraternity and learning, felt by its members was indelibly minted in the friendship, respect and complementary wits of two of its founding members: Director Joe Hunter and his best friend, and artistic co-conspirator and quartet mate, Roger Payne.

With the untimely passing of Roger, Joe wrote the following to his fellow Judges in the BHS and the members of our Chorus, explaining the depth and genesis of their friendship, and their creative partnership. By doing so, he fames and gives insight into the unspoken charter and culture that informs and inspires our chapter and each of us:

In August Joe wrote:

"We buried Rog today - it was a beautiful ceremony celebrated by over 25 priests, a monsignor and acolytes, and attended by Rogs family and 300+ of his "close personal friends". Its been a rough few days for me as I struggle to make sense of it all. I cannot begin to tell you what a comfort and yet what a "sweet sorrow" all of your notes of support and reminiscences have been. If you will indulge me a little, I found some solace in writing down some thoughts about our friendship, and I figured there was no more appropriate forum to share these thoughts. Please forgive the long-windedness of the following - I just needed to get it out.

He was my friend.

We met at Fordham University in 1971. There was a fusbol table in the campus center, and there was always a line to play - you would put up a quarter and challenge the current "champs" - you stayed on the table by winning your match and playing all comers. This was just another way to while away the hours between classes (heaven forbid that we should spend the time studying)! Somehow Rog and I gravitated to becoming a team - I was all about power and reflexes - intuition (I played frontline offense) while Rog played defense and was about control, playing the angles and slowing the game down for that one little sly shot....we ended up winning the University championship playing together - we became friends.

It just so happened that the fusbol table was located directly in front of the room that housed the Fordham University Glee Club, and a number of its members also played - they asked us to join, and gave us a great reason - "hey we get 4 all-expenses paid weekend trips to do concerts with girls schools around the east coast each year" - sign us up! We sang in the Glee club and also in the triple quartet/specialty group known as the Ramblers of Rose Hill - we were friends.

As I got to know him I found out that Rog had had it rough as a kid - it seemed he was allergic to EVERYTHING - he nearly didn't survive to his 9th birthday - when he still only weighed 55 pounds (if you can believe that) and was very small for his age. The doctors finally found the correct medications and diet to help him thrive, but he would spend a lifetime on drugs to combat severe asthma and skin allergies. When I first met him, he always seemed to be dealing with a skin rash, and we would joke about his diet - a steady stream of pretzels, Drake's cherry pies and grape Nehi - I would often caution Rog that he should be careful when eating - he might be having something made from NATURAL ingredients! In all our years of friendship I never ONCE heard him complain or bemoan his fate - he was a tough guy, doncha know, and it was my job to bust his chops about it - after all, we were friends.

Rog was an interesting guy - at the time he always wore a hat - I asked him why and he said that he wanted to create an identity for himself - "I would like to be known as the 'Cat in the Hat' he said" - he thought it would be a way to attract girls. I think I performed one of my greater services for him (and womankind) when I talked (and laughed) him out of that one. But hey, we were friends and that's what real friends do.

As the years went by, Rog became the president of the Glee Club and I became Head Rambler - we took the group to places it hadn't been before - we did Gilbert and Sullivan plays, and looked for ANY opportunity to perform. One day we got an invite from the Westchester Golden Chordsmen to perform - great, another performance opportunity! We were knocked out by the sound of that 70 man chorus, and by the chapter quartets, and were hooked for life. We decided to join and also form a quartet (the first iteration of Four Under Par) - what a great way for friends to enjoy the hobby.

In quartets and chorii we have finished first and last and everywhere in between - and while winning is better, it was ALL fun. We loved it all - the rehearsing, the performing, but the BIGGEST thing was the sitting around until all hours of the morning, thinking up funny ideas and CREATING. The fact that Rog had the almost other-worldly talent to take these ideas and actually string them together into sensible music meant we didn't just have to talk about funny ideas - we could make it so. Our roles in the creative process became more defined thru the years - I provided punch lines and concepts, Rog glued it together with supreme wit and what we fondly called "wordsmithing". We ragged each other - I would look at work he attempted without me and say "pass out the pamphlets - this is gonna be way over everyone's head" - to me it would sometimes resemble the comedy and barbershop equivalent of the Duke's quote from Amadeus - "too many notes!" In response, Rog wouldsay that my work got "down in the gutter" - its all about cream pies, pants falling down and rubber chickens - he would accuse me of "common comedy". And yet, we both provided aspects that were not so easily pidgeon-holed, and we found that we could make people laugh, and even sometimes cry. Thats when I realized how really special our friendship was.

When I met my then future wife Diane, Rog was there to support and encourage us, and I for him when he was lucky enough to meet Nancy (he had lost the hat thing by that time - although his fashion sense was still a little, shall we say, eccentric). We each married exactly 6 months apart from one another - it made remembering anniversaries very easy.

When Kyle and Rory were born, we were there, as was Rog and Nancy when we got news of our successful adoption of our daughter Sara. Our friendship deepened with the family relationships that were created - God-son and God-daughter - and even more friends.

The stories go on and on: traveling war stories, one-upping other quartets on the show circuit, competitions, helping to establish a new chapter (the Big Apple Chorus), reviving existing chapters where we learned our directing chops, and dealing with judges (always a dicey affair with us). We would argue all the time, and yet we KNEW we agreed on so much - over the years we developed what other people called a "mental shorthand" - we only needed about 1 out of every 3 words to understand each other - conversations would whizz by. It was actually mentioned during the eulogy today about us - the term was "two bodies 1 brain". Isn't true friendship like that?

I have never thought it would end - somehow as we both got busier with "life in general", we seemed to always make the time to spend sharing our friendship. as Rog became a bigwig as a Music judge, category specialist and an arranger of substantial stature in the Harmony Society I always made sure to bust his chops about one issue or the other - and while I scored points, I rarely won those battles! But that mental jousting was some of my favorite times with him - I may not win the battle of wits, but at least I was in the game. And then I started to gain more success as a musical director and Presentation judge - success I could never have had without Rogs support, wise counsel and less than gentle ball-busting. As a coach and leader in the society Rog was much like he was in the rest of his life - he not only found ways to mentor and support others, he actually seemed to be able to find what was heroic in so many of those people and situations. He helped so many people - as evidenced from all the notes we have seen - he was truly a barber-hero doing serious work- and yet thru all of it he laughed all the time - and we often shared that laughter - friends are like that.

Rog was fond of saying of our quartets that we were "Jesuit-educated" - to him that explained a lot about us. The gift of lateral thinking - we saw stuff a little funny - when someone would say he thought we were funny, I would always say - "Funny how? Do we amuse you?" with mock indignation - but there was much truth to this - we were funny because our world-views were a little.....off, perhaps some would call it twisted - but yet we were both "off" together. What a rare and special friendship.

And when Rog became sick, his family and friends drew even closer to him. The disease was a terrible and ironic thing - brain cancer for a man who was such a mental giant? Was this God's joke back at us? I remember talking about this with Rog and Nancy and noting the irony by saying how terrible this disease was - after all, Rog had not succeeded in life because of his good looks! We had a good laugh at that. And even to the end, the thing I remember most is the laughter - even the day before he died - in his last waking moments, we joked about something or other and we laughed together.