The David Stay Story

 

This is a story about my friend David Stay, who played the evil "Mandarr" on the children's TV show "Photon", who was also the writer, director, producer, and star of "The Sphere Of The Lycanthrope", and who had been running a successful podcast called "The David Stay Show" when we met. David passed a little over a year ago, and this is a tale about the time I accidentally, through no fault of my own, appeared on his show:

I made a commercial for The David Stay Show for Facebook and I was wanting to speak to him about it. Since he was going to be getting ready for his Friday show (FriStay...), he told me to get on his Discord channel so we could talk.

One thing I should tell you before we go further with this is that David is every bit as much himself in real life as when he is doing a show- like a well dressed cheetah on crack, therefore, it was a bit of work keeping him focused on the discussion that I was trying to have...and I lost track of time.

All of a sudden, over my headphones, I hear him say: "HANG WITH ME, DUDE!"

I wasn't monitoring the show as it was going out, so I didn't know he had already run his intro, and by the time I began to realize what was happening and I was reaching for the button that would cut off my mic, he was already introducing me.

The show lasted three hours. I said probably twenty five words...mostly "Yes!" and "Uh-huh!" and "I think you should rant more about that, David!". 

But, I couldn't leave. Every time I would mute my mic and hope that he forgot me, which was possible that night because he was a straight up LUNATIC...ranting, laughing, singing, getting more distracted than a kitten in a Christmas tree ornament factory, he would then throw the whole mess to me: "Whaddaya think about THAT, Dude"?

Then, I would frantically reach for the mic button, turn it on, and say something like: "Well David, I think..."

"I KNOW man! It's CRAZY, isn't it?" he would holler before moving on to the next topic...

At one point, he dropped his one-hitter, went under the desk to find it, still ranting and spitting like a Visigoth, knocked his background down, decided everything looked better with the background down...and then we MOVED ON!

Finally, the show was brought to a crash and, as soon as the show signed off, he wanted to party with me and all the people in chat.

FINALLY, after the FOURTH HOUR, David had to go. He was off to who knows where to do who knows what.

I was out like a light within seven minutes of shutting off my computer. I was completely exhausted.

I happily was on the show two more times, enjoyed many email and telephone conversations, and spoke at length about life, the horrors of the entertainment business, theories about people and politics, and working together on possible future projects.

I really miss you, David. You were a whole fun park stuffed into a human being...