Today - January 27th, 2021 - would have been Mike Parks’ 70th birthday (see Mike Parks: The Retreads Era), if stomach cancer hadn’t gotten in the way.
So, presented for your approval at this time are surviving copies of The Intreader, the band newsletter of The Retreads, written & illustrated by Mike.
Be sure and scroll down below the Intreaders for a remembrance of Mike and his view of birthdays by Danya Linehan, the love of Mike’s life.
RETREADS FLYER, NUMBER ONE
INTREADER, ISSUE NUMBER ONE
INTREADER, ISSUE NUMBER TWO
RETREADS FLYER, NUMBER TWO
INTREADER, ISSUE NUMBER THREE (two-page issue)
INTREADER - ISSUE NUMBER FOUR
Thinking of Mike around his birthday, 2021- by Danya Linehan
Ric asked if I would say a few words regarding Mike’s prevailing opinion on birthdays. Mike Parks fucking hated birthdays. And he would have despised turning 70 years old. To clarify, he hated HIS birthdays. He dug celebrating others’, and always made a tremendous spectacle of my birthdays, including the last one we had together when he created an Acme total-hip-replacement cake to celebrate my new hip.
Fortunately, Mike loved birthday cakes more than he hated birthdays. One of the few steadfast commandments of our relationship became that he would make his own birthday cakes every year. And my birthday cakes. And any cakes or pies required for any occasion. It could be because Mike had an all-encompassing Midas touch. Everything he touched turned to gold, metaphorically: a sculpture, a garden, a sketch, a cake, a meal, a cat rescue, a redecorated room. He created cakes that were seven layers in seven different colors; multi-tiered martini themes; cakes for our movie nights that illustrated the feature film, like a giant sword for Kill Bill, and a giant cheeseburger cake for Pulp Fiction. He made peanut butter pies that went on for miles and quadruple dark chocolate cakes that could put you in a diabetic coma after four modest bites.
In the roughly 27 years Mike and I hung out together, I got to make him two cakes: a litter-box cake when he turned 50, and a cake depicting our new house the year I “bought him a house for his birthday.” Yeah, that one looked like a visually impaired 8-year old made it, but it was our new house and he loved it.
Today, 1/27/2021, on what would have been Mike’s 70th birthday, if you are so inclined: indulge in some fabulous cake, scoop the litter-box, drink a heavy-handed shot of whiskey (or all of the above) and toast to Mike. – Danya Linehan / January 25th, 2021
MIKE - IN HIS FAVORITE BIRTHDAY HAT EVER - EXPRESSING HIS OVERRIDING VIEW OF BIRTHDAYS.
Okay, to follow up Danya’s suggestion above of a “heavy-handed shot of whiskey” as a birthday tribute to Mike, I find myself inclined to (in the parlance of my reprobate-West-Side-misguided-upbringing) “fire up a hot one” and watch MC5 videos all night. Happy birthday, Mike. I miss you, my brother. Salut. - Ricki C.
(to finish up - since somebody didn’t present this video correctly and very rudely interrupted Brother Rob Tyner - ”I DONE KICKED ‘EM OUT…..”)