A Eulogy for Caramel Staxxx
by A.M. Castro
Contrary to what you may have heard about him there at the end, Carl Theodore Jorgenson III (aka Teddy; aka Teddy Bear; aka Caramel Staxxx with three x’s) was a dedicated husband to his wife Deana, a beloved father to his daughter Lisa, and a loyal friend to all of us. And while maybe not the most technically interesting guitarist, the man could lay a lick on a Fender the way he planted pipes in drywall.
Efficiently and unvarnished-ly.
It’s why we invited him to be part of our—well, my—cover band, Willy Schmitt’s and the Way Backs. Most of you Waukegan Way-Backeans have seen us, known us, loved us since Middle School. The Kowalski twins—John on vocals and James on bass. Me on drums, and Teddy, who played guitar.
Our repertoire features classic rock hits spanning the 60s, 70s, and 80s, ranging from CCR’s “Proud Mary” to Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” to Bryan Adam’s “Summer of 69” and whatever requests our audience can throw at us. It’s the reason we were hired for exclusive events like Deputy Sheriff Sam Luckoviz’s son’s Bar Mitzvah and Mundelein Height’s very own real estate queen Sarah Waxman’s third wedding. (Or was it her fourth?)
Anyway, the material requires a certain crowd-pleasing mechanical mastery of craft, which Teddy excelled at. He wasn’t fancy and, sure, he was a little melancholy, but he always showed up on time and hit the right notes, without flourishes or embellishment. Only fidelity.
Underscored by the fact that the man never drank more than half a Miller Lite per gig, as far as I could tell, as band manager and promoter, I was thrilled to work with that level reliability when he moved back to the neighborhood.
But that didn’t mean he wasn’t without ideas, both small and far-reaching. We weren’t too surprised when he said he wanted to switch things up and, maybe, cover Motley Crües “Girls, Girls, Girls”—well, not cover. In his words, authentically reauthor—even though we didn’t really understand at first.
“The full album?” James asked him, surprised.
“No, I think that would literally kill me,” Teddy snorted, “Only the one track.”
Looking back on it, we should have known something was up. It was an odd choice for Teddy, who extolled the virtues of King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp’s searing three-minute contribution to Brian Eno’s tensely sinister “Baby’s on Fire.” Who appreciated Stevie Ray Vaughn’s from-the-guts tube amp and crusty, Stratocaster approach to playing, even though he was more of a high-tech-rig-sort-of-guy. Who would watch—and rewatch—YouTube videos of Randy Rhodes and Eddie Van Halen moving their hands up and down the fretboard.
I never would’ve pegged him for a Crüeman. But one must have taste to indulge in trash, and indulge Teddy we did, the crazy bastard. “Rock on,” we said. “Hair metal! Why not?” we said. “Let’s do it,” we said.
So, we didn’t blink when Teddy sauntered into our bassist James’ den twenty-four hours later and banged a bottle of Jack Daniels on the pool table, ignoring James’s pleas that his husband Chad would kill him if there was so much as a scratch on the green felt.
Teddy wore a studded, red leather harness that day. He reeked of Aqua Net and hair-dye and looked like he’d been awake all night. Still, we thought that Teddy—who, out of nowhere, started to shotgun beer after beer—was just messing with us, and all of us wanted in on the joke.
To say that I blacked out that night would be an understatement; I don’t think any of us had been that drunk since Senior year. (I’ll once again apologize to my wife, Breanne, for puking in the baby’s crib that night.) I don’t think we ever really played “Girls, Girls, Girls,” and if we did, it must have been a mess.
We were still recovering when Teddy showed up brandishing a driver’s license with his new name printed on it. We quickly realized that what he meant wasn’t what we hoped.
“Caramel Staxxx,” he said, “I think I would’ve fit right in at the Whiskey.”
“Jesus Christ,” muttered John pressing a cold compress to his head, “He’s using The Dirt as a blueprint.”
Soon after that, Staxxx slammed John’s head into the table in the back of O’Donnells pub for dead-naming him during an argument. John had to get seven stitches and a bottle of prescription Vicodin, which disappeared almost as soon as it was filled.
We forgave Staxxx, even though we started to keep our distance. He still played well, just a little differently. Like someone was pressing glass into his fingertips. While we asked him not to snort a salt-shaker’s worth of cocaine at Millie and Tim’s pool house during their 50th wedding anniversary celebration gig, there wasn’t much we could do to stop him.
Some of you remember how we found Teddy: rolling around in the backyard in leopard-spotted tighties and not much else, while punching Tim. Teddy still wasn’t close to his goal of re-whatevering “Girls, Girls Girls” and, after losing a good client, we certainly weren’t helping him.
But things really went tits up (no pun intended) when he started going to that joint out on Route 137, the Empire Strips Back. We had a strict no spouses rule at James’ den when we were practicing. (Although, Chad, your pierogi platters that were absolutely lifesaving) In walks Teddy, with two big breasted babes hanging off each arm. Except for a Texas-shaped birthmark and a poorly chiseled tattoo that proclaimed “Made in Texer” on one of their necks, I couldn’t tell the two strippers apart. (Sorry, Deanna, wherever you might be sitting.)
By that point, the drinking and the drugs had started getting to Teddy, who looked more and more like Vince Neil (I mean late 2000’s Vince Neil, not early 80s Vince Neil).
The girls sat down on James’ teal Joybird sofa.
We launched into playing our first run through. At the end, the strippers laughed.
“Who listens to this shit? It’s so objectifying,” not Made in Texer nervously giggled.
Staxxx, I mean Teddy, looked frustrated as hell.
“It’s not enough,” he gritted his teeth, “It’s just not right.”
“What are you expecting, Staxxx?” I asked, rolling my eyes.
“I want it to feel like it sounds. But I’m not feeling fun. I’m not feeling shit,” he howled and threw his guitar across the room, breaking the LCD screen TV.
“Chad is going to kill me,” James whimpered.
Teddy walked over to Made in Texer who had started cutting up a line on the side of the pool table, much to James’ anxiety.
“Deanna left me,” Teddy announced flatly as he hoovered up the line. “She took Lisa.”
I asked if it was worth it. If any of this made sense.
“I was always the reliable one, man. Haven’t you ever wanted to see if you could fall into chaos and spin something out of it?” He looked at me with a touch of snow-blindness.
“You’re in your late 40s. What do you think you can do with something that’s been done?” I asked.
“No,” Teddy shook his head. “This is it. I’m moving to Los Angeles in two weeks. I closed the plumbing company up.”
I swear, the only thing you could hear in that den for about five minutes were Made in Texer’s sterling bangles clinking like dull wind chimes.
“What about the band? What about us, your actual Crüe?” John asked in disbelief.
“Fuck the band, what about your life? Why are you torching it all?” I asked angrily.
It wasn’t a question that Teddy ever answered. Then again, these weren’t questions any of us really dealt with.
We didn’t discuss how my students were basically illiterate chuckle-fucks who were dropping at the rate of flies to become online influencers. We didn’t talk about how John was hanging on by the skin of his teeth at his data analysis job, where one third of the office had gotten outsourced to India and the other third was being taken over by robots. We didn’t get into James depleted sex life with Chad, because other than our solidarity, we couldn’t really offer much other than a nod, a clap on the back, and a sigh. We didn’t help Teddy, who seemed frustrated and lost with each changing day over things that maybe we should have figured out together.
We were just there to play some goddamn music.
In the end, Teddy left for L.A. He sold the plumbing van, bought a Harley, and left a forwarding address for a weekly rental on the Sunset Strip near the Rainbow Bar.
We all know he wasn’t gone for long because what 47-year-old could survive partying like a 20-year-old in the mid-80s, even if he had some purpose in mind?
But in the week before his passing, Teddy called me. His voice sounded thin.
“How are you?” I asked.
He didn’t answer. He only said, “I did it.”
“Did what?” I replied, annoyed.
“It, and it’s perfect,” he breathed into the phone. “You’ll get it soon.”
That was the last time I ever heard from Teddy.
I got the tape with his recording of “Girls, Girls, Girls” a week after he was found dead of an overdose in his apartment. The coroner said they’d found him in his closet with his cell phone in hand playing a YouTube video of the same track.
While I’ll never fully get his obsession, I can say this: If hair metal was the musical hay of the 80s, Caramel Staxxx turned into its Rumpelstiltskin. He took cultural trash and turned it into remastered gold. But who am I to be the arbiter of good taste?
He turned Mötley Crüe’s hedonistic headbanger and tweaked it into what it was, a dirge for decadence, a riff-driven catharsis about over-consumption, a retrospective reauthoring that looks at the world dead in the eye, looking for a Friday night fight.
Ok. So, maybe, Teddy burned through his marriage and his friends. He may have also done a lot of drugs and may still owe Made in Texer, who is sitting with us today (and is an absolute gem), a lot of money. But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t committed. To magic. To chaos. To art. This tape is proof of that. I’ll let you decide whether it’s trash or treasure.
And as you tune in, raise your glasses to Teddy (aka Caramel Staxxx; aka my best friend and brother in the cover band struggle). Our Pierre Menard of Poor Taste. Wherever he is, with that heart of gold, he’s on his way home, sweet home.
BIO: A.M. Castro is a Salvadoran-American writer and human rights activist raised in Mexico City and San Salvador. For 15 years, she has worked across Latin America and the U.S., and published non-fiction and fiction in LatineLit, Latin@ Literatures at the University of Maryland, Last Girls Club, Dark Harbor Magazine, A Sufferer’s Digest, Oddessa Collective, The McNeese Review, and Trinity College’s New Square Literary Magazine. A.M. studied journalism, literature, and creative writing at Florida International University and received a Master’s in Latin American Studies at the University of Chicago, with a focus on Medical Anthropology. In line with her studies, professional trajectory, and interests, much of A.M.’s work explores how war, mass violence, memory, trauma, illness, and geography often shape and twist communities, families, and individuals. Currently, A.M. lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana with her husband and dog Lola.