Mitch Mullany, RIP

Last week a high school friend alerted me that Mitch Mullany died on May 25. According to the papers, he died of a diabetic-related stroke. He was 39.

I grew up with Mitch starting from 1st grade. He lived across the street from Goff. I lived six houses up. There was also a 4th kid, Orlando that lived on the next street. The four of us were inseparable.

Back in those days, there was no such thing as play dates. You just play with your friends everyday after school and all weekend. As neighborhood kids, we biked, skateboarded, played baseball, football, whatever... all in the middle of the street. When it's dinner time, our parents would just scream from the porch.

Mitch lived in the biggest house on our street. They had a huge rumpus room with a pool table. It was so big and spacious, we skateboarded inside. Their garage was huge also, complete with an indoor basketball court. And his bedroom was the size of our family room. It was an awesome house and I still remember it as vividly as yesterday.

Hard to believe, that as 10 year-old boys we used to take bus to the Coliseum (Malibu Grand Prix), walk to Montclair, and sneak into Grand Lake Theater late at night where Mitch's brother used to work. Now imagine your kids doing this today in your town. We did this in Oakland! Not only did we deliver papers, but also went through the neighborhood offering to wash cars for $5. We definitely experienced a lot during our unsupervised childhood.

As you can see in this photo taken in 1980, Mitch even attended Crusaders and YTF for about three years (Hmm, where was I or Goff?). I'm sure many of the long-time CIBCers remember him because, well, he wasn't Chinese!

Mitch was one-of-a-kind. He was very funny at an early age. We would insult one another and I could never match up to his wits. Whatever I said about his mother, he would come back harder about my mom, my daddy and my greasy granny! I was humbled in more occasions than I would admit.

In junior high, we walked to school together every day until the 9th grade when he moved away. But even before that, our choices in friends were already pulling us apart, not to mention he is a year younger so we didn't share any classes. By the time we attended high school, we still greeted one another in passing, but we weren't really friends anymore.

A decade later, I heard Mitch was making the comedy circuit and was on Jay Leno. He was on the Wayan Brother's show and then he starred in his own sitcom, Nick Freno. Chrissy and I watched the first season and thought it was pretty good. I really had high hopes for Mitch. But the show got canceled after the second season.

Funny (or creepy) thing is, about maybe a week before he died, I tried to Google him just to see what he was up to. I found his website and viewed some of his photos. I was curious to see what he was doing now. I had not heard about him since All American Girl in 2003. And then the news came...

It's always shocking and sad when your friends past. It makes you realize that you're probably closer to your grave than you'd like to think. Even though we haven't spoken since 1985, I still felt connected to him in a remote way. I was his fan. And I wanted him to succeed where so many others have failed. Remember, I worked in Hollywood for 5 years and knew many "aspiring" actors that never got past commercials or music videos. So for him to get his own show, that's quite an achievement.

Even if he were still alive today, I doubt if we would reconnect. But it's still sad knowing he's really gone. Fortunately for me, my best memories of him were during our adolescence, when it was just our little group of four friends. Those were the best times. No video games, no internet, no worldly influences, just in-your-face, genuine rude and crude fun.

That was Mitch at his purest. And that's how I'll remember him. Hopefully we'll meet again in heaven.

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