The Internet Rodger Penzabene

My website gets few hits, but the post that without a doubt does get the most hits is this one from January 14th, 2008:

“Rodger Penzabene Lost Romantic”

Now at that point, I was a published writer online and in print.

When I wrote it that day, I had little else to offer. Mostly what I did have was enough money to spend $8 dollars for a really, interesting English music magazine called Mojo, that trafficked mostly in reveling in older pop music and looking at the stories behind them.

So I read the very little know legend of Rodger Penzabene in Mojo and sort of saw a kindred spirit, pretty much from memory just retold their story and added a couple comments about what it potentially meant to me. The story probably well misinterpreted was that he was a true romantic, who was so blindly in love with his wife and with love itself that upon hearing of her infidelity he shot himself on New Year’s Eve of 1967 at 23.

I put very little thought or time into that post. I certainly never thought or wanted it to be the defining post of my website. I didn’t pin it to the front of the site so everyone who came to it saw it first. There are a lot of long posts here that are very meaningful and tell you about my life, my choices and evolving beliefs that I am desperate for people to read this was in no way one of them. 

It took less than 10 minutes to write and I perhaps had given it even less thought I when I wrote it.

There are many vapid posts on my sites about TV shows or other ephemera that aired for a second that I thought were absurd and wrote one line jokes talking about how silly they were and moved on. Later I would see them and realize no one remembers that show even existed, they won’t get my joke, and I just deleted them. Keeping them up would only celebrate that I had wasted so much time in my life mostly through insomnia that I had seen these idiotic shows, and somehow celebrate that fact, which isn’t really the intent of my site, isn’t going to bring traffic to my better work, so I did delete them.

The things that hit me when I read the Mojo article were:

1. 1.  Wow, here is this guy who wrote a lot of songs that are considered not only great Motown songs, but perhaps defining Motown songs, and I had never heard of him. And indeed if I, who am willing to read nearly everything about Motown and know so many amazing stories about what happened at that Detroit label where there seemed to be an endless amount of epically talented people all in the same place then almost no one else has heard of him either. That’s one of the fascinating things about Motown. If you have 1000 geniuses all mulling around and interacting some of them will be lost to history. Berry Gordy had all those talented people competing against each other for the ability to heard and that super competitive atmosphere led to great art. Mostly all the money went to Berry Gordy and there have been endless arguments since about who really deserved the real credit and/or money. So, while there are perhaps a thousand books about Motown, to write a definitive book about the company (and it was that, Gordy took music and borrowed Henry Ford’s nearby assembly line process, which doen’t appear to be very artistic) seems impossible given the time that has passed, the people who have died in its wake, and the sheer volume and differing remembered perspectives of that story. There were a lot of men and women there who did great things, weren’t given there due, and were forgotten, and that is why there will probably be 10,000 more books about Motown of varying quality with varying levels of integrity behind them. I probably did look around the internet for information about Rodger Penzabene, found nothing, but a very brief Wikipedia entry on him that echoed the Mojo story and little else and moved on. I never considered whether that story was true or not. I presumed it to be true, but didn’t research whether it was, perhaps I just thought no one has heard of this guy, what he did in his short time on earth, and now they have somewhere else to see it. The story was also sad in every possible way and seemed meaningful to me. I did identify erroneously with the “legend” of him.

1. I did grow up way over infatuated by the notion of life saving. idealized, perfect love saving my life. I watched way too many old romantic movies in the middle of the night when I could not sleep. In those movies, people fall in love in dramatic and inspiring fashion, the movie ends and every assumes they live happily ever after and don’t question that premise for a second.

Here is the first thing I found when I looked up “romantic movies”

Harper’s Bizarre: The 50 Most Romantic Movies Of All Time

Let’s look at that list, it tells you a lot about both the internet and those movies.

#2 Is “Gone with the Wind,” the most successful movie of all time. Due to its running length even as something of a completest, I have never seen it. It seems very complex and depressing and not at all romantic. Scarlett has this obsessional idealistic love for Ashley, who pines over him forever and she never winds up with him. she does wind up with Rhett, who likely does love her as a  compromise, never really has a chance to have a happy marriage with Rhett because she is still pining for Ashley. This destroys Rhett who winds up drunkenly raping her and impregnating her. She falls down some steps and has a miscarriage. Tons of people die in agonizing ways. Scarlett discovers her idealized love for Ashley was misplaced, and that she should have loved Rhett. Rhett by this time is so messed up he tells her that “he no longer gives a damn,” Scarlett vows to pine for Rhett forever. I have no idea why that is considered to be “romantic.” The whole things songs like it is showing how unproductive idealized romantic notions are, there are tons of ugly fallout from it where people are scarred forever, and the title character never learns anything. That is a tragedy, and a depressing not inspiring one.

#5 “Casablanca.” This is a complex love story. The two main characters Rick and Ilsa truly are in love. The get to enjoy that for about a day. Ilsa chooses to fight Nazis instead of love. Rick never knows the whole story and is so destroyed that he gives up on both love and fighting Nazis, sheds away all of his ideals, and suffers endlessly. When Ilsa tries to tell Rick that she does love him, he is drunk as he has always been since the day he lost his love, and viciously rips into her, which is an infinitely depressing indication of exactly how much he does love her. Ilsa decides she made a mistake choosing fighting Nazis over love and gives Rick the chance to cash in on that love. Rick decides that indeed fighting Nazis is more important, shows that his love for her is so great that he is going to sacrifice his selfish reasons for love, puts her on a plane to fight Nazis, regains his ideals and decides to fight Nazis. Now perhaps the hidden point is that nothing fucks up true love quite like Nazis, but its message is indeed that there may be some things more important than true love. Even further, Rick and Ilsa’s true love all sprouted from a very short intense encounter in Paris the most “romantic” city in the world even when it is besieged with Nazis. What I do know about love and long term relationships is that there is a “honeymoon period” where everything is perfect and probably a lot of great sex happens. This period does wear off and whether you are truly in love after that and will have a successful long term relationship is determined by what happens after the “honeymoon period” wears off. Not many people really understand this movie.

Few understand or properly remember the famous song “As Time Goes by” either.

You must remember this
A kiss is just a kiss
A sigh is just a sigh
The fundamental things apply
As time goes by

And when two lovers woo
They still say “I love you”
On that you can rely
No matter what the future brings

As time goes by
Moonlight and love songs
Never out of date
Hearts full of passion

Jealousy and hate
Woman needs man, and man must have his mate
That no one can deny
It’s still the same old story

A fight for love and glory
A case of do or die
The world will always welcome lovers
As time goes by

Moonlight and love songs
Never out of date
Hearts full of passion
Jealousy and hate

Woman needs man, and man must have his mate
That no one can deny
It’s still the same old story
A fight for love and glory
A case of do or die
The world will always welcome lovers
As time goes by

Those aren’t very romantic lyrics, in fact to me they are sort of jaded about the lunacy of the search for true romantic love. Still Rick and Ilsa do not get that and it becomes the very touchstone of their love. Ilsa chose practicality over love and the song reminds her of the fondness she still has for her short time being in love. When she crosses paths with Rick she wants to hear it, Rick has been so devastating by his lost love he has banned Dooley Wilson from every playing it again and never wants to hear it again.

Now hearing it again the first time ripped Rick apart.

Insisting to hear it a second time, was pure self destructive masochism. 

The point is that Rick moves beyond his selfish unrealistic genuine passion for love, realizes that nothing can ever really be perfect, sacrifices his chance at achieving it nobly and moves on. Still no one gets that point and they listen to “As Time Goes By” and think nothing a perfect love. They ignorantly continue to destroy their lives like Rick does and never learn.

Sam is also remembered incorrectly. He is the only black character in the film and he is remembered as Rick’s lackey who must use his musical talents whenever Rick so requests. That is not how Rick sees Sam. Sam is Rick’s most truly loyal friend. Sam puts up with Rick’s bad behavior, because he understands Rick’s pain and is indeed heroically noble. In truth, Rick values no one more in the world than Sam, and  Sam is only in a fucked up place like Casablanca because he is so loyal to Rick. Sam is the highest paid employee Rick has. When Rick sell’s his “joint” he makes sure Sam gets paid even more. Nothing about this has anything to do with Sam’s race or perhaps stereotypical musical abilities. In fact, the actor who plays Sam, Dooley Wilson, while he could sing and play drums, couldn’t play piano at all.

In high school I was a scrawny, bookish, cocky rebel, who seemingly didn’t care a bit about what anyone thought of him. That was true, but I was timid and unsure of myself with girls. I wanted nothing more than a girlfriend, but never once asked one out of our fear of rejection. The way most kids overcome that fear is through alcohol and I did not drink.

What happened was that I fell madly in love with an incredible girl who was a year older who had a lot of affection for me. Had she been a year younger than me and unattached, we might have had a chance. That wasn’t the case, she was madly in love with someone else who she was with and she blindly worshipped him to the extent that at times when separated from him would cry almost endlessly about his absence.

She was well worthy of my worship, but it was clear from day one that I no chance. They got married the second they got out of college, I was there, they are still married, and she still has no idea how I felt about her. The success of that marriage was two like minded people doing whatever they wanted together whenever they wanted. Her blind passion for him may have faded, it probably became more realistic, it may remain, still that is the most successful marriage I have ever seen. Most of it because neither cared about wealth and were always on the same page.

I did pine over her all through school, but I was ready and willing to date someone else. That didn’t happen so I never had any relationships, good ones or bad ones, to teach me anything about relationships.

When I did fall in love, I went in wary given my inexperience, but I appreciated finally having a chance at it, and the person I found it with was incredible, but was experienced, a couple years older and wary of her “body clock” wanted to get married and have children quickly. This all led to a stumbling romance where I treated her in her words “better than anyone else ever had.” Our different histories messed us up for a time, and I had other sleep and mental issues that also messed us up. At some point my whole life fell apart, and I decided that the only thing I wanted from it was her, and for a time she felt the same way.  She did at one point, while we were apart, tell me that she was pining for me. She also live and worked in place and field where there were many guys who were already or were to become very wealthy. I had money at the time but a job I hated and left. She often told me productively or not, that she could be with those guys, but wanted to be with me because I was special.

Other crucial people in her life failed to grab my specialness. The first time we met in 1993 I mentioned the movie “Say Anything”, which I adored and is #16 on that list. We talked about that movie and my love for it endlessly.

The quote at the top was something I thought fit that I thought I had cribbed from somewhere else perhaps around 2005 for a book that I mostly wrote at that time. She was very in love with me, but she also had insecurities. She wanted everyone to like her and then everyone who liked her to like me. Most of all she wanted me to love her parents and her parents to love me, and this essentially did happen right after she decided that she wanted to be with me.

I didn’t want to be a kick boxer I wanted to be a writer, my ability to do so and make money at it, was questionable at best, it still is. I would however have made money instead to keep her.

Her parents did not get me, or see any reason why they should try. They told her that on New Year’s Eve, the same day that Roger Penzabene may or may not have committed suicide. This left her crying, and me to try and pick up the pieces. I told her parents how much them liking me meant to her, which they did not get. Her mother said my parents didn’t like my choice, and his didn’t like me either, it doesn’t matter. I told them that it did matter to their daughter very much. They said the very concept was stupid. I responded that it may be stupid, but if they did not understand that, and I’d seen plenty of evidence of that, that they did not know there daughter very well. At no point in that discussion was I wrong, at all points in that discussion I was doomed. At first she did pick me over her parent, but the weight of that and whatever lobbying they may have done behind the scenes against me led to this. 

I pressed her endlessly for a reason about why she was breaking my hear, and that was the last thing she had ever wanted to do, and she never had one, perhaps she wasn’t ever able to do enough self reflection to find one if any existed.

At all times, she maintained that she loved me. At one point she said “You don’t understand how I can be in love and not want to be with you?” I did not understand that and she could not in any way begin to explain it to me.

Everything about it was soul crushing to me. She did eventually marry, one of the guys she worked with who was rich and got a lot richer, she may have been truly in love with him, it appears like she was or at least thinks she is, she moved on and is happy and I let it destroy me for years and perhaps haven’t healed until the last year.

I did listen to a lot of Motown songs right after that, and I was surprised to find out how many of them were very sad.

“My Girl” by the Temptations, who Rodger Penzabene is most famous for writing for if he is known at all, is seemingly one of the most joyful expressions of appreciation at finding true love, ever written.  It is a very simple song by Smoky Robinson, and needn’t be complex, but love and relationships are complex. 

Penzabene wrote this classic “You’re My Everything,” with his friend Cornelius Grant, and apparently it came out quick and pure and the song is the same.

“Kim Fowley on pop music: Music for lonely people, made be other lonely people.”

My “book” although pitched around a bit at around this same time, is really just many Microsoft Word files that I constantly update and edit from time to time.

If my very life depended on it, I would have had no idea in the world where I got that quote from. If I was forced to make a possible life saving stab at it an hour ago, I would have guessed I also got it from paying $8 for an issue of Mojo a few years before I published it.

I just googled that quote, and the only place I can find it, and it is there word for word is in a 2007 book by Mick Brown called “Tearing Down The Wall of Sound: The Rise And Fall of Phil Spector,” which I definitely bought and read right when it came out.

Mick Brown is an English journalist, who definitely wrote for Mojo before his book came out.

I just tried to find the 2007 or 2008 article I cribbed from Mojo for my Penzabene post, and it is nowhere. However if you Google it, you will find his Wikipedia entry first and then my post second.

Both Rodger Penzabene’s Wikipedia post and mine have been edited and updated a lot in the past decade.

Here is his current Wikipedia page:

Rodger Penebene – Wikipedia

The first paragraph is supported by a source with less credibility than my original post. It says he was also mistakenly called Roger. At no point in the source does it say that, although there is a 2015 comment by a cousin who never met him who does mistakenly call him Roger.

Someone who definitely mistakenly called him Roger was me in the title and body of my original 2008 post.

What was also definitely on his Wikipedia listing in 2008 was this,

“The mournful break-up song “I Wish It Would Rain” in particular drew from Penzabene’s real-life pain. The songwriter found out that his wife was cheating on him, but could not bring himself to leave her, and his emotions on the situation are present in both of his final compositions, “I Wish It Would Rain” and “I Could Never Love Another”. On New Year’s Eve 1967, a week after the release of “I Wish It Would Rain”, Penzabene committed suicide.”

None of that came from me. It’s not even grammatically correct. I have no idea what the source was at the time, but it was there.

For three years after my original post people comment some claiming to be relatives or friends and they all call him Roger.

Then on December 10th, 2011, someone named Carl Penzabene says he’s Rogers son and he has a lot of info to back it up. Most of all he wants me to know that his name was “Rodger.”

He says likely accurately that Rodger was “was Sicilian, and Irish, not African American.” He also claims that his father wrote the lyrics for “I Heard It Through The Grapevine,”which if accurate would have had major financial ramifications.

I’m not a dick so I edited my post and added the “d.” I can’t remember if I had helped promulgate the myth that he was an African-American.

On April 5th, 2012, Carl’s mother Helga, who Wikipedia is claiming he killed himself over checked in. She says he did not kill himself over her and she is not pleased with his Wikipedia listing, but not angry either. She in fact reduced the anger by telling everyone and her son that all of the people claiming to be relatives are in some way, even if they too have the first name spelled wrong.

“I am well and living in Mount Clemens, Mi.contrary to the info that has been going around for years, my husband did not kill himself over me-there were other circumstances, but that kind of thing makes Wikipedia interesting ( to some people).I do know Barbara–“hi Barbara, I’d like to see you!! Rodger did have a cousin named Cheyryl–Cheryl I tried contacting you at that email you gave me, but it was no good. I have tried to set the record straight about my husband for years, but no one wants the truth; that is sad because he was really a great person, and so am I. Carl is my son, and race does matter–does it not? Rodger was Sicilian, and he and I met at Mumford High School. Barbara, call me . Helga”

Hours later I responded under an odd name, which I will explain later, but it was clear that this name was also mine.

“wow what a fascinating story – sorry if i stirred up sad memories by aping the article i read in Mojo – hopefully you guys will all get together soon.”

That same day I respond with complete regret that I started all this nonsense in 2008, when I might have easily fallen asleep or done something perhaps less creative, yet more self demeaning on the internet.

She’s back on May 22nd, with more information and history that is pretty hard to prove, but she perhaps inspired by all these elusive grasps at the truth is determined to write a book detailing her version, which Malcolm X and Alex Haley suggested in the best “non-fiction” book I’ve ever read “The Autobiography of Malcolm X.”

She then emailed me that day and gave me her phone number!

I then and do now have zero journalistic skills or experience.

I was then and am now, just a relatively smart, guy with opinions that have become gentler as I’ve aged who spent all of his time reading, listening to records, and watching movies.

In 1994, I had a first hand access to a great true story that I wanted to write, but I also had my heart broken and never really started to do so. Eerily, the day my life was destined to come apart and hers definitely did were both New Year’s Eve.

I had tons of legal files and other great things at the time, but they were all hard copies that I no longer possess. I still have access to the people and its still a great story, but mounds of great stuff to back it up have disappeared forever. I still may tackle that someday.

In 2012, had I wanted to gain some journalistic skills, I definitely should have called her and helped her write her book. I did not for any multiple reasons including the sheer trepidation of even walking into so much gray area and pain. I sadly never called her even though she at all times wanted someone to talk to and seemed delightful.

One of many obvious life mistakes I’ve made and will readily bear full responsibility for.

I did though correctly tell her to get that Wikipedia entry changed and try to help her do that.

She corrected some of my errors and I changed what I had written, mostly through deletion, or by just admitting as I always had that I knew nothing of the truth. I just had $8 and a compulsive need to read all of the time.

Horrifically, she had been getting the runaround from Wikipedia for years, because they value whatever they value over a real person. Perhaps if I had called her, I could have changed that.

Forgivingly, she implied that God would help sort it out and that maybe it would be through me.

Of course, the number one thing that she wanted off that page was the notion that Rodger killed himself over her infidelity, and for obvious reasons.

She then sent me her wedding photo.

Hi Brad , here is a wedding picture of me and rodger;that is Cornelious Grant and his (then) wife Carrie standing behind Rodger.Cornelious
was the Temps music director.I am stll looking for the graduation picture of Rodger.

 

“Cornelius” Grant is happily still alive and has a website.

While missing a huge get for probably both her and me, I did give her what I’ve never given anyone else. Carte blanche to put anything she wanted on my website.

That didn’t happen because she was a singer, perhaps also a songwriter, but clearly not a writer in the traditional sense of that word, and likely had other financial responsibilities to deal with in her life, but she at all times seemed incredibly generous, kind, and forgiving, which regardless of what actually happened back on New Year’s Eve of 1967 was miraculous.

Miraculous is my opinion, but I think it is a well informed one because those songs mean so much to so many people, and so many talented people were all in the same place at the same time.

Alex Haley ended “Roots” with this quote, “So Dad has joined the others up there. I feel that they do watch and guide, and I also feel that they join me in the hope that this story of our people can help alleviate the legacies of the fact that preponderantly the histories have been written by the winners.” 

Here history is mostly being written by those that somehow made it out alive, mostly Otis Williams, who is now considered to be the founder of the Temptations. He was truly there, and his version of that story led to this miniseries that had three hours of content airing first on NBC in 1998, and then almost constantly on VH1 and other places for years. I watched parts of it numerous times and perhaps the whole thing a time or two in one sitting, but I was surprised to find out that it was only three hours long, because from memory it seemed like it was at least 10 hours long on cable.

 

The source for that miniseries was Williams’ book, which to the best of my knowledge didn’t come out until 2002.

 

By 1998, Otis Williams was the only original Temptation still alive, so the miniseries and the book for better or worse are mostly his “version.”

Now perhaps it bespeaks to Williams’ honesty that if you watch the miniseries, he’s by far the least interesting character in it.

At some point someone far angrier and less objective than I turned this image of Leon playing David Ruffin into this:

That actually doesn’t besmirch Otis’ version at all because it is indeed a direct quote from the miniseries.

David Ruffin: I’m the one sellin’ the records. They’re comin’ to see me.

Otis Williams: They’re comin’ to see the Temptations.

David Ruffin: Ain’t nobody comin’ to see you, Otis! You wish you could work it the way I do, but you can’t! Because there is only one David Ruffin. And without him, the Temps ain’t nothin’ but a group in SEARCH of a David Ruffin. Matter of fact, I been thinkin’. We should call the group David Ruffin And The Temptations. Yeah, that sound good to me. Y’all beggin’ me not to leave you.

David Ruffin: “And I refuse to let you go.” Yeah, David Ruffin And The Temptations. Whatcha think?

Otis Williams: That ain’t never gonna happen.

Best as I can tell that very likely did happen in some form.

Otis’ version did lead to at least a couple of lawsuits from people tangentially involved. Many others that were there at the time like James Jamerson are also dead.

The Temptations miniseries debuted to huge ratings on NBC, but wasn’t close to as watched as the very famous “Motown 25” concert where nearly everyone alive at the time will claim that they first saw Michael Jackson moonwalk on March 25th of 1983.

James Jamerson, the legendary bass player who pretty much by the consensus of everyone was the key to almost everything that was recorded at Motown during that era, actually saw Michael’s performance in person a little less than two months before it aired on NBC. He also saw Marvin Gaye perform “What’s Going On” solo on piano that night without the legendary bass line he purportedly recorded very drunkenly and on his back in June of 1970. Jamerson was in the audience and only because he had managed to buy a ticket from a scalper. He would be dead by the end of the year and Marvin Gaye also barely lasted a year after the show’s initial airing dying tragically on April Fools Day of 1984.

You can instantly see how important Jamerson was to that equally important song here at he point I’ve marked in 1972. He is right next to Marvin.

Jamerson’s legacy had a fighting chance though, because somehow a lot of people knew how important he was. Oddly enough a lot of them knew in the mid ’60s and were kids in England before there was a Mojo.

In 2002, the documentary “Standing in the Shadows of Motown” was released to much acclaim and told the stories of the musicians who played on just about every track. That story was mostly told by the people still alive, and the movie was filmed and marketed with current stars, but Jameson’s story is actually still in there. If you watch the trailer it was marketed with, you won’t think it’s there, but it is. The very first image of it portrays a child playing what looks like a bow, and that’s an intended call out to Jamerson, who had been dead close to 20 years. 

That’s how that was marketed and marketing had become even more important by 2013.

Hardly anyone knew very much about Rodger Penzabene at the time of my original 2008 post, but those who did know something or learned about it after became very fierce and angry about it. Pretty much the only source for that story was Otis Williams and he did not portray Helga Penzabene in a very kind light.

By 2013, there were many prominent winners to narrate that story, Barry Gordy, Smoky Robinson, Diana Ross, Suzanne DePasse, Stevie Wonder, and many more, but by then Motown had been sold and overtaken by Universal Music Group, which itself was just a small part of a huge French global conglomerate called Vivendi.

Pretty much every memoir or autobiography is written to put their presumptive author in the right light. For someone to objectively chronicle just the early history of the Temptations, much less Motown’s would take an epic amount of time and research. It took nearly 45 years after Bruce Lee’s death for something legitimate to come out about his life. Alex Haley tackled Malcolm X’s life in 1965, and that has been endlessly bickered about every since from almost every angle.

Otis Williams’ version even if it were 99% true had been pretty much officially endorsed by those global conglomerates.

Meanwhile Helga Penzabene, was somewhere in Mississippi dying to tell her story, and there was so much pure venom being aimed at her from all over the internet that even though every one of my variously reedited versions saw nothing but sadness in the entire story, even I was too meek to call her.

Her son Carl was vigorously trying to tell both her and her father’s story, but was perceived in places as angry and ill informed, which his mother did acknowledge when she wrote me late in 2012. 

“Thank you,so much.I am still writting the book, still waiting to hear from Cheryl. And yes,Carl is a bit angry and defensive sometimes,but he was only 10 months old when his father died,so he never knew him;he does have a very good relationship with Rodgers’ mother and stepfather;pray for us and those who have lost a loved one because the emotional pain and hurt never goes away–it eases up, but never goes away.”

In fact pretty much all she had going for her despite her faith and apparent gentility, was my goofy website, which if something had happened to me would have disappeared entirely within perhaps little more than three months.

Around this time period Chuck D was calling rap music “the black CNN,” and somehow my website was basically the only safe space for much of the Penzabene relations to figure things out. Meanwhile the horrible accusation against her was still on Wikipedia, and in the meantime she was still checking in with me telling me that she liked my website and thought I was handsome even without hair. On New Year’s Day of 2013, less than 24 hours after the 45th anniversary of the worst day of her life from anyone’s vantage point. She was checking in with me to thank me again.

“HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! I wish you many blessings and prosperity in this New Year;GOD is GOOD!”

She still had Carte blanch on my site, but not really the technological savvy to deal with it. She wrote me this on September 4th of 2014.

“Hi Brad, I will get some pictures together and send them to you. I got married August 14 on the beach in Ludington,Michigan, and I am still working part time. Rodger’s mother died in early August this year, and Carl found some pictures of Rodger when he was a baby, and as a young man. I will see what he has too.”

Then perhaps, and I’m not personally very religious, possibly God did intervene. Somehow Wikipedia picked up her and her son’s comments from my silly web site on August 18th of 2014, and that Wikipedia page didn’t get bigger it just got smaller for a while.

I can’t be certain, but from memory, I do believe that the allegation was absent for awhile.

I never did get any more pictures, but slowly the only reputable place on the internet for anything else than Otis Williams’ version was controlled by me, and anyone seeking to try and objectively try to portray it tenth hand had to cite me.

On April 20th, the one site that I most wanted to write for The A.V. Club (who do not take submissions) tried to tell Roger’s story and they somehow had to go through me to do so. 

When The Temptations wanted to cry, they wished it would rain

Everyone who wanted in on that story needed my site to do so, which hopefully gave her some peace, but it took some time.

On October 3 of 2014, someone with just a couple of records they perhaps loved and some internet lyric hubs (which I can prove to you have and will continue to be faulty) had viciously decided to judge on his own on her safe space.

“If it wasn’t infidelity, what were the “other circumstances”, generally speaking, that led to that young man committing suicide?

Reading those song lyrics, and the fact that he committed suicide a week after the song was released, I’m having a hard time believing anything else was on his mind.”

She answered within three hours, but for some reason and I don’t think I realized it at the time, she didn’t answer on my site she just answered to me.

“I wish it would Rain” was written a year or so before it was ever recorded and subsequently released by the Temptations, which was not unusual–that happens a lot at record companies; as for the other circumstances, there are some that I do not know all the details to, but Rodger was losing his vision (because of being hit in the head by a baseball when he was younger) and wore sunglasses just about all the time. No one knows why a person commits suicide really, but it is a given that a person is ill when they do that, and when they have strong religious beliefs (as Rodger did), it is even harder to understand. Helga Penzabene-Kukulski

That was the last time I would hear from her, and she never again commented on my site. I can only hope that this wasn’t an admission of defeat or resignation on her part, but sadly maybe it was. The safe space was definitely dead at that point.

Venomous accusations continued to fly, maybe I just should have deleted them or kept them off the comment section. I was still dealing with a ton of pain from decades ago, but nowhere near comparable pain of that magnitude. My pain only affected me, she had a lot of relatives and offspring to think about, and even sympathetic people who said those lyrics and records changed their lives not only wanted a book they demanded a book. They weren’t even demanding a version they were demanding a definitive answer. 

What was once generously offered to me for free perhaps as a cry of help, was now on my site being bid on, and there was no response.

“Helga ,or CARL, If you’re still here with us on this site …Where and when is this book(s) you talked about 2 years ago ? ? We all want to hear what you think really killed Roger if it wasnt the fact that he found out you were cheating on him as in his lyrics.. His love for you was so deep and most people dont appreciate the love he had for you early on as spoken in the earlier lyrics he wrote… I know them all well..I have followed this story for years. I would love to talk with you about Roger .
Would you do an interview with me about Roger ? I will pay you for your time.”

That is about as brutal as the internet gets. He had money and seemed to feel that because he had heard a couple of records and a couple of stories that he was entitled to an answer to something that was clearly pretty impossible to answer. My grammar and punctuation despite the finest schooling was never that bad. That person was nobody to tell that story to in any form or fashion. Maybe she felt I was the only one she had to tell it, but while I did love those records,  back in 1994 when I made a mixed tape of the saddest loneliest records I owned at the time, none of them were on it. I’m pretty sure that there weren’t any Motown records on it either.

I do remember a lot of songs that were on my cassette, and I know exactly the songs I used to try to fix my broken heart with and cry out for another chance to the one who had broken it. It was mid-summer of 1994 in Golden Gate Park and they came from a box set compiling Otis Redding’s entire career, which to ended tragically in a flash. Redding had died less than three weeks before Rodger did, and that was likely the worst day of his wife’s life.

On that San Francisco night in 1994, those Otis Redding songs bought me some tears of compassion and a regretful apology. I tried to push my luck with what seemed like an innocuous question. I asked her to say something nice about me, which she always had even in the worst moments. She had no idea how to answer it, and tried to do so blandly with no encouragement. She said that I knew a lot about my favorite television show. It’s still on the air and it was even made into a movie and I haven’t seen a second of it since. I didn’t give up but that was when it was apparent there was nothing left to bravely or shallowly try to reclaim.

In early 2016 when that worst comment appeared on my site, I still had that phone number (I still do). I still had that email address, but I was still lonely and in pain too. It’s not like it came in daily torrents, it was more like once a month. It is all still there. It never occurred to me to check in on her with a kind email like she had done with me. I remember incredible details of my own life with amazing precision, but I can’t remember at all what I thought every time someone posted a comment on my site over those two years or so. Maybe selfishly I only cared that something on my site drew some traffic. She had my sympathies she did even when I made the original clueless version of that post, but I did not intervene or censor anything.

Less than five months later her son returned and let everyone know that he had found a better place for her family to  loved ones to connect.

“Hello everyone. I’m sorry that it has been so long since I have visited the site to share updates with you. Thank you so much to Brad Laidman, and all of you who have shared your comments, and expressed kind words about my father. I was just about finished with the book when my grandmother Cindy, (my fathers mother), passed away in 2014. Things got put on hold for a while, but I am happy to say that I have a lot more to share with all who are interested in my fathers story, and his music. I have over 300 photos of my father from an infant, up until the year he passed away. My mother Helga and my brother Rodger Jr., have entrusted me to care for and preserve all the items relating to and about my father. I have uncovered so many new things about him over the last two years, things I never knew, that the book is now becoming a movie script. I have several writers and producers interested in helping us tell the story. Yes I have new music he never published, some finished, others not. I am working with his friends that he grew up with, and was a part of a singing group, by the way they have quite a few songs with him as well, to finish, record, and publish the never before heard music. I promise I will do my best, we will do our best to honor his creations. There is so much, his original artwork as a child, his first guitar, prom pictures, his cap and gown, diploma, army records, many items to tell the whole story of his life. I even have the suicide note. Again, thank all of you who have shown love, care, and respect for my fathers music, and his memory. I have started a facebook page for him, Rodger Penzabene, and as I process the photographs of him, and the rest of the family, as well as other items, I will share them with his friends on his page. It’s not a fan page, those who join will be considered friends and extended family. Thanks again Brad, I hope we can also link the two pages. Best wishes to all.”

I don’t really remember anything about that day either or what followed either. Maybe I was just numb. I actually didn’t even look on Facebook for either or their pages until just now 9 A.M, July 7th, 2018. 

At some point in time, I’m not sure exactly when, my brain which has always been so precise, at least about my own personal and probably selfish pain, totally disconnected from reality. If you had asked me yesterday, I would have honestly told you that Carl had posted that his mother Helga had died that day, when in fact he wrote that Rodger’s mother was the one that had died and it had been two years earlier. I hadn’t stewed over those comments I just dealt with them when they came in with varying degrees of sadness and personal regret too. I had no memory of Carl saying that he had a suicide note. I had no memory of exactly what that post had really said, at some point in my head I convinced myself that he had announced that Helga was dead that day.

Yet now as I look back, there was an even more venomous post from some fairly anonymous person. My site’s records may have an email address for it, if I look for it. It came on October 24th, 2016.

“The sad story of Rodger Penzabene has been relayed many times by people that knew him and people that worked with him. His story is also conveyed fairly clearly in his lyrics. First, unbridled love for someone that he thought was extraordinary. Then shock, to find that he was being cheated upon. Finally complete despair resulting in his suicide. No need to quote the lyrics. Anyone on this site already knows them

Just because the former Mrs. Penzabene says it ain’t so, doesn’t make it not true. It must be very difficult to have to explain to her children that her husband, their father, killed himself because of her infidelity. Because she cheated. But that’s exactly what happened.

The former Mrs. Penzabene has also suggested that there was some ‘other’ significant event that caused her husband to kill himself. Like what? What could possibly be worse than finding out that all your dreams are smashed, that the person you love, and expect to be with forever, is cheating on you?
Nothing.

Unfortunately, young people don’t really know each other very well; when they get married. Obviously he didn’t know her nearly as well as he thought and, it doesn’t appear that she knew him either.

I’m not remotely interested in ‘the book’ that has been alluded to and hope it doesn’t sell a copy. I don’t think the person responsible for Rodger Penezabene’s death should ultimately be able to profit from it.”

I had plenty of evidence in my possession to rebut that with, and I actually did respond immediately that day, no one likely realized that it was from me because I didn’t have the technical capability to answer in my own name. The answer came from a “punk name” I had created for myself to write under at least 20 or more years ago, before “rap names” became so prevalent that there wasn’t a single rapper without one, but it was the name that I had originally responded to Helga and only Helga with upon her first comment.

“I don’t get the impression that she wants to make money on a book. I think she wants the ability to tell her story. If it’s not true it’s as heartbreaking for her than it is for him if it is true.”

I never had any idea what was true. The whole thing always just made me sad. I never pressed Helga for reasons or excuses. Now looking back, I don’t think that she had been defeated in her last email to me. Now I realize that she had just gotten remarried, I don’t think for the first time, but it was the first time she had changed her last name. Perhaps she was trying to move on finally from her pain and guilt, and I’m sure even had she been 100% innocent, which for all I know she may have been, that there was guilt there.

I was about five years older than Rodger when my heart was broken and it had nothing to do with infidelity. I couldn’t write those lyrics, but I felt that way about what I considered to be my first and only true love. Actually, one of the things that saved me was other way too romantic people’s lyrics who had somehow survived and had written about it. Those lyrics are all over my site and in reality those lyrics and my site, along with a special pet, best helped me to survive.

The person who in no way ever wanted to be the one to break my too romantic heart, has sadly had to deal with the repercussions of doing it, and that is my biggest sin of my life and the single thing I feel the most guilt about.

Now for the first time I have just discovered that she briefly had a Facebook page, which became a legacy page, she was laid to rest on October 15th, 2016, and had been dead for at least a week. About 16 days before my semi-anonymous and only defense of her occurred. I had never judged once and had only previously responded once under that same day the first time she commented on my site, I just did my best to make sure that there was nothing false remaining in my original post, which I refined many times.

Carl did create a page for his father, but it doesn’t seem to have lasted for very long. Helga has a few brief comments on that page. I don’t know what name her page was created under, but it is now under the name Helga Penzebene. The man I believe she was last married to has a page, and a son who hold’s the weight of Roger’s name, who I never knew existed has a page. I just reached out to all of them asking what I should best do with my part of their mother or spouse’s story.

I went to London, Amsterdam and Barcelona in 2017, and while in London, I purchased not an actual Mojo edition but a special edition that I still have. I read it one the plane home and it had a worse statement from Otis Williams in it, and I again under my “punk name,” likely due to technical incompetence reported on it.