By Ken Sheetz
BuzzBroz.com & DreamShield.org
I was in Arizona on an assignment for SpiritQuest Retreats in Sedona,
on the road to my Antarctica documentary/meditation project, when I got the news that a dear pal and client Bradley Quick of The Cool Change Foundation, a charity for helping people overcome addiction through media, was sick with stage 4 cancer in LA.
Cancer? Bradley? It made no sense! This was a man who tirelessly gave to the addiction healing world with free appearances at AA events and doing healing work all over the world.
I met Mr. Quick in the depths of the Great Recession. It was January 2010 and I had been evicted from my luxury apartment just 4 months prior. This seemed horrible at the time. But it began series of barters for rooms for social media services, which led me to Bradley's apartment in Noho. I'd make over 150 YouTube videos for our 18 months barter and help build his LiveStream radio station, far more than we bartered for but such was Bradley's mission and charm.
Bradley's bachelor pad wasn't much of an apartment for looks or comforts, but Bradley was fascinating to watch for me, as a guy from the corporate real estate world turned filmmaker. Bradley was as loveable as the Dude in the BIG LEBOWSKI and we'd dream many times of adapting his book THE QUICK FIX into a screenplay. Jeff Bridges was the man to play Bradley.
I have more than enough material from the 18 months I spent as Bradley's roommate to make a screenplay or maybe even two, but I will share one story, it helps me grieve, of what kinda human angel this guy was.
It was late 2010, and the run down little apartment complex we lived in was locked in foreclosure battles. Something Bradley, as the master tenant on the lease, had no control over. Though he kept an eye on perhaps buying the building out of the mess with the help of his lifelong friend Edward Kim.
One day, as I went for a shower in the bathroom I shared with Bradley's cats... no water. I stormed over to Bradley's office in my bathrobe and said from the door, angrily thinking he had missed the bill, "Guess what?"
Bradley was in his workout clothes, which included a blue Chargers hat with blue hair, "No water. I know. Just dialing the water company. Take a seat."
The seat facing the pile of papers on Bradley's desk was torn to shreds by Bradely's two cats who used it as a scratching post and Brad has sloppily duct taped it back together. I navigated my butt to a spot on could sit on, without a spring poking me, as Bradley navigated his phone to find a live body at the water company.
"DWP Billing. How can we help you?" a stern man's voice finally answered after rounds of robotic runarounds.
"Hi, my name is Bradley Quick. I paid my water bill this month. So why has my water been shut off?"
"Let me check... Huh, I see you have paid your bill... Ah, but the property owners have stopped making payments for the apartment building. So it's all shut off. Nothing we can do," the DWP man said grimly.
"Come on. There's must be something. How do I get this water turned back on?" said Bradley, rolling his eyes at me.
"You'd have to get the landlord to make their payments, sir."
"That's not going to happen," said Bradley.
"Sorry," said the DWP man, not sounding sorry.
"Look, this is totally unfair. We have families in this apartment complex, women with babies. We need water. It's a basic human need, " said Bradley petting his black cat Dennis as if for luck. I sometimes suspected Bradley was a Warlock for all the magic he did helping people beat addiction.
"I'm sorry, sir. It's one of those unfortunate things about this economy where people fall through the cracks," said the DWP man, for the first time sounding human.
"How much does the landlord owe?" said Bradley, a fire coming into his blue laid-back Dude eyes I hadn't seen before.
"$2,236.76." said the DWP man, as though that was the end of the call.
"What if I paid that? Can we get the water back on for all of us here?" Bradley asked with some sweat showing up on his forehead that was not from his workout.
Stunned silence answered Bradley.
"Still there?" Bradley said.
"Yes, Mr. Quick. I'd have to check with my supervisor. But before I do that you must understand you may never get reimbursed. Is that clear?" the DWP man said, admiration and hope creeping into his voice.
"I understand. I just want to get the water back on for us all." Bradley said smiling at me.
"Ok. This is new ground. No tenant has ever volunteered to carry an entire delinquent apartment building themselves before. Not even sure that's legal," the DWP man said with an amazed chuckle.
"You can convince your boss to let me do it." said Bradley, sounding like the life coach I got in the bargain of our barter.
"You don't know my boss, Mr. Quick."
"It's no accident you got this call. Angels are at work here." Bradley said like a coach sending a quarterback into win the game.
"Hold the line and cross your fingers." said the DWP man putting us on hold.
As I sat there in Bradley's cat torn chair and we waited, my heart filled with deep respect for this selfless man. "You're a saint, Bradley. I'd never have even thought of doing something like this. Even back when I was a spoiled millionaire building Oprah's studios. Do you really have the money to absorb this if the bank foreclosing on this stiffs you?" I said in awe.
"The money will show up." Said Bradley, roughing up his cat, more like how you'd pet a dog.
A few minutes later the DWP man was back. "Congratulations, sir. You are officially a hero of the recession. I hope your neighbors appreciate what you've done to get their water back on." said the happy DWP man.
Yes, I am very, very glad I made a
U-turn on the road to Antarctica in Arizona and went back to LA and visited Bradley at Burbank's St. Joseph's
hospital. No surprise to you, I am sure after reading just this one story about the legend of Mr. Quick, but Bradley broke all attendance records for people visiting him
in the hospital.
As he lay withering in the hospital of painful stage 4 cancer and I told him I would dedicate the Pacific Time Zone meditation to him on
12.12.12 in Antarctica. Bradley said, "Thanks," as his eyes welled with tears. A master proud of his pupil.
I clowned for Bradley with a video of me bumping around in a cave doing meditation in his honor and got him to laugh. As I helped him get to bathroom when their were no nurses around Bradley asked me softly, so that no one else could hear, "Am I doing all this, Ken, or is some outside force taking me down?"
I checked with my spirit guides I met while his roommate, and that's another whole story, and smiled to Bradley,"It's you."
"I knew it was me," Bradley pondered. "But why?"
"You've decided you can do more to help the world from the other side." I said amazed I could deliver this news from the spirit world with such clarity.
Bradley nodded with a grin "Sounds like me."
Just three days after I visited Bradley in the hospital and returned to Sedona, and the road to Antarctica, a text from Dorothy Donahue, his best lady-friend in LA, announced "He is NOW home with God."
Bradley works to find cures for addiction and cancer and to make a better world from the other side in the Shift. He has visited me in spirit to comfort me
on the road to Antarctica. He's said my mission will succeed for a cool change. And I believe him.
Since I am on the road and can't make it back for the service, I hope someone will read part of this tribute at the Celebration of the Life of Bradley Quick being held at 101 Ocean Ave Unit D, Santa Monica, CA 90402 at &:30 November 6th.
They better have plenty of seats because they are gonna need them.
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| Ken Sheetz (left) Hero of the Recession Bradley Quick (right) |
