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from the Boston Globe
No one was more likely to sing a band's praises than Mikey Dee, the tireless and irrepressible music promoter, journalist, and radio-show host who in his goofily charming way was the unofficial king of the Boston rock scene. A devastating stroke last year made Dee, 37, a prisoner inside his own body, unable to walk or talk, let alone see live music, the activity that previously filled nearly every night of his busy week. In a bittersweet twist of circumstance, Boston's rock community is returning the rare generosity and unwavering support that Dee offered for 15 years before his injury, which occurred during routine surgery for a congenital heart defect. Beginning tonight, 140 artists will donate their time and music ''For The Benefit of Mr. Dee (Reprise).'' Over five days and in 17 venues in Boston, Somerville, and Cambridge, they will raise money for a benefit fund that will defray Dee's long-term medical care. For Dee - who is estranged from his biological family and nearly penniless - the support has been critical to his rehabilitation. Last year, the musicians' efforts raised $60,000 for Dee's long-term care. This year they expect to raise even more. Beyond that, though, Dee has benefited from an extraordinary network of emotional supporters, including a core group of devoted friends and colleagues. They do everything from making sure he has a fresh supply of videos to fighting for Medicaid coverage. Last week, 21 of the city's finest pop musicians gathered to perform the Beatles' ''Abbey Road'' in the eighth-floor conference room at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, where Dee has lived for more than a year. It was the latest in a series of monthly events for an audience of one. Frozen in a half-sitting, half-reclining position in a high-tech wheelchair decorated with stickers from local rock bands, Dee was decked out in his trademark shades and high-top sneakers. He greeted the chorus of ''Maxwell's Silver Hammer'' with a great, guttural whoop. His eyes, which circle and wander perpetually, stilled at the first gentle notes of ''Here Comes the Sun.'' Despite the onset of fatigue, Dee's face was lit up - tears welling, mouth open - by the magisterial strains of ''The End.'' Dee has locked-in syndrome, a rare neurological disorder in which victims are conscious and have significant cognitive function but cannot speak or move. Still, it surprised no one who knows him that Dee found a way to let the music speak through him. ''Mikey was always the guy in the front of the club playing air drums along with the band,'' says Adam Lewis, president of the music marketing and promotions firm the Planetary Group, where Dee was director of radio promotions. ''He was a fan before we hired him, and that he was getting paid was just gravy,'' Lewis says. ''In a business full of naysaysers and back stabbers, he reminded me every day where the magic in all of this is. That's what makes him a king in the local music scene.'' ''Songs connect him to a different time,'' says T. Max, editor of the Noise, a local fanzine where Dee worked, and where his name is still listed in the masthead as associate editor. ''Music has been his life, and the sing-alongs are a way of bringing that feeling of joy to him again.'' Among those performing ''Abbey Road'' were local luminaries Chris Mascara, Bleu, Corin Ashley from the Pills, and Gary Cherone, the former Extreme and Van Halen singer. They will all perform this week at various benefits, which have been organized by Dee's friends and employers - the Planetary Group, the Noise, WMFO-FM, and the Boston Rock Opera. The full ''Abbey Road'' performance will be repeated at Lilli's in Somerville tomorrow night. Although the Planetary Group initially kept him on the payroll, Dee's insurance company dropped him after paying out the maximum amount allowed under his policy. Since then, Dee's friends have taken over much of his speech and motor therapy, and are collectively designing customized communication tools, among them color-coded phrase cards. They call themselves Team Dee, or The Family. ''It's amazing, because most of us didn't know each other before,'' says Tina Bugara, Dee's former roommate. It was Bugara's mother who suggested Dee blow bubbles and lick lollipops to strengthen his mouth muscles, a homegrown exercise that has shown great promise. ''But we each have a special relationship with him. And now we really are his family.'' Along with Bugara, Team Dee includes T. Max, Adam Lewis, Boston Rock Opera director Eleanor Ramsay, Dee's ex-girlfriend Mary Ricciardi, singer Linda Viens, and Valerie Dorato, an old friend who commutes from San Francisco for regular weeklong stays. Bugara spends half of every other day with Dee, and the long hours at Spaulding cost her her job in October. ''This is my life now,'' she says. Indeed, Bugara is in the process of petitioning the state for legal guardianship of Dee. Since the middle of last summer, Dee has essentially been a ward of the hospital, which will be reimbursed the hundreds of thousands of dollars it is owed (the average cost of a Spaulding stay is $500 a day) when Medicaid coverage is finally arranged. ''My life has been turned upside down by this, but I'd do it again for Mikey,'' says Bugara. ''I miss his crazy Sunday morning brunches. I miss the cats climbing all over him. I just want my friend back.'' The beauty of Team Dee, says Lewis, is that everyone has his or her own role. Lewis organizes the benefits and runs, through the Planetary Group's lawyers, Dee's trust. Dorato's long, intensive visits often inspire strides forward: improved mobility in his left thumb, for example, or a new word. Dee now has about six in his slowly reemerging vocabulary. Ramsay maintains the Web site, www.mikeydee.com, which includes recovery updates, links to stroke information sites, and an e-mail message board. She's also immersed herself in the literature of locked-in syndrome, and for four hours each week puts Dee through intensive exercises to help him relearn the most essential elements of communication: breathing and articulation. ''He very much wants to get his voice back,'' says Ramsay, who has taken on the bulk of Dee's speech therapy. ''But yes, his motivation fluctuates. He can be very sad and very angry.'' To the million-dollar question there are, of course, no answers. There are occasional miracle cases, Ramsay has discovered in her research, where locked-in patients make dramatic recoveries. Megan Austin, Dee's speech pathologist at Spaulding, says her hope for Dee ''is that he'll be able to access a system that allows him to express himself fluently to all people,'' meaning an eye-gaze or movement-signaled computer. For that, however, Dee must regain signficantly more motor control than he has now. However long it takes, the Boston music community will be by his side. At the Sunday sing-along, T. Max, Ramsay, and Lewis presented Dee with the Hall of Fame prize he was given earlier in the week at the Boston Music Awards. Mikey cradled it in his arms, with a little help from his friends. For more information on upcoming benefit concerts, or how to help, go to www.mikeydee.com. This story ran on page A01 of the Boston Globe on 5/2/2001. © Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company. |
Sounds of devotion