Bedeck the ides of March: it is the birthday of my good friend and former-bandmate Wilder Schmaltz. He turns 27 today, unless he skipped or repeated a grade and never told me about it.

Being as how I am a terrible gift-giver, here’s my latest questionable effort: a blog-in-review recap of Wilder through the eyes of joshmillard.com (and a couple other sources).

Bloggery!
October 17th, 2005: It’s been a while since I’ve talked to Wilder. I should interview him!

October 20th, 2005: Interview postponed because I can’t keep track of things.

November 22nd, 2005: Still no interview. Man, I’m bad at this.

March 7th, 2006: Dreams of Wilder’s death are greatly exhaggerated.

Random blogger comments on (complains about?) Wilder’s quotation in none other than The New York Times. Look out Wilder, he’s got his eye on you! (Check out the NYT article itself—warning, registration required. Bloody Times.)

Pictures!
Wilder at 18! Dreeeamy.
Bassist in a bar! What a charmer!
Chilling pre-gig! And talking with his lovely lady Christina.
Recording in technicolor! God damn.

Not overwhelming? Well. Still: Happy Birthday, Wilder Schmaltz. Maybe you’ll see this. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but some day you’ll be idly ego-surfing and, bam: my best on your 27th, archived by Google or Yahoo or whomsoever you take your searching needs to.

Y’know, Wilder, maybe I should make you a mix-cd or something.