I met Gary in 1988 while we were working for Mediabase in Farmington Hills, Michigan and even when the road pointed elsewhere (I moved to Washington State in 1993, and he followed the company to LA in 1994), we remained close.
We had a mutual admiration for all things Bruce Springsteen; I discovered the depth of his fandom on July 4, 1988 when Bruce played Stockholm and it was on the radio. That was when Springsteen covered Dylan's "Chimes of Freedom," announcing he was joining the Amnesty International tour with Tracy Chapman, Sting, Peter Gabriel and Youssou N'Dour--it was an exciting time to connect with Gary.
I knew few people who thoroughly listened to something and told you in all honesty whether it touched them or not; indeed, my friend was inspired by music that guided him through difficult times. Gary brought me into the Mediabase record and CD room that first year and said, "ya gotta hear this!" It was Roy Orbison's solo piece, "Not Alone Anymore," on the first Traveling Wilburys album, which rang like a cartharsis.
This empathetic and positive man always emailed with me over the years and then there were our post-Christmas annual phone calls...two to three hours! We talked not only about music but life, family, kindness, politics and so much more. Gary loved his wife Rebecca and son Diego very much.
I got to hang out with that beautiful family in 2012, when I was training for a US Census job in Van Nuys. Gary would pick me up after my daily class and we'd all go out to the observatory, or sight seeing, or to a record store. It was a great relief to be with them after classes preparing me for Census work, something I wasn't sure I wanted to get into. (I lasted seven years at that often unpleasant, dangerous gig.) Also on that California journey: I was Gary's guest at his AA meeting, and even far removed from what AA members go through, I found the experience to be profoundly moving.
When Gary would chide me, he liked to push the envelope. Recently, he was critical of the way I sounded on the radio because I was wearing a facemask when I returned to the airwaves after the pandemic. We would sometimes email back and forth several times a day and it was more like texting than email (JJS: "Does Fallon have to gush when he has Springsteen on?" GS: "That's what Jimmy does"). I mentioned in November that I was having trouble with the radio station's digital player. "If you don't wear the mask the digital player works great," he quipped.
What a wonderful pal Gary was. I loved him.