by Dr. Susan Block.

We cremated my beloved Capt’n Max’s beautiful body last week. I was not ready for that. I wasn’t (and still am not) ready for anything – certainly not for life without my darling husband of 33 years, a friend of 40, my witness, my partner, my great love, my Prince Maximillian Rudolph Leblovic Lobkowicz di Filangieri. My Mickey. My better half.

But ready or not, something had to be done.  After all, the Huntington Hospital morgue couldn’t keep Max in the freezer forever, and even in my bottomless despair, I couldn’t bear the thought of him winding up in whatever passes for a pauper’s grave, potter’s field, remains remainder or human dumping ground these days of dystopian nightmares-come-true.

Therefore, after three weeks of self-imposed solitude, I forced my weeping, wailing self out of my cocoon of gloom and pillows, brushed my hair and charged my phones. Still weeping (but not wailing), I tried communicating – not just to continue compulsively texting my morbid fantasies of jumping out the window into my beloved Prince Max’s outstretched arms (good thing I’m on the ground floor) – but to take the next real-world steps that somebody had to take for Max.

Bonoboville Rallies for Max

I’ve heard that in some cultures or families, others handle these matters so the weeping widow can weep in peace – but that was not the case here.  No blame – that’s just how Max and I lived our lives – but it meant that somehow I had to rise above, crawl below or just push through this maelstrom of tears and despair, to organize my dearly departed husband’s physical, social and ritualistic transition from the bright world of Eros to the dark realm of Thanatos – life to death – with passion, dignity and community.

Once I let that be known, this loosely connected, much-besieged community of ours – from Bonoboville staff to friends to Chico our Spitz-Pomeranian to a global network of cherished supporters – sprang into action. Harry Sapien helmed the Institute and continued to help put me out the fires of extortion and censorship burning all around us. Luzer Twersky drove his RV from Brooklyn to Arcadia to lend a hand in steadying the Good Ship Bonoboville. Julio edited my grief-stricken first announcement, epic obituary and Counterpunch obit for Max. Mistress Tara Indiana and the Dominatrixes Against Donald Trump (D.A.D.) sent me gorgeous flowers (and so did many others, for which I am grateful, but D.A.D. was first), and let me know that she and LA’s core kink community was there for me. Mars FX and Gideon started finding and stitching together videos of Max in sickness and in health. Barry Fisher helped coordinate the Bonoboville legal team and sent me accordion music. Christina Caamano took a break from helping me to protect Bonoboville from the City of Arcadia’s unconstitutional attacks to research mortuaries.

Then, before it even occurred to my wretched self that someone would have to pay for all this, one of our all-time favorite DrSuzy-Tv guests and good friends, Rhiannon Aarons, set up a GoFundMe, and lo and behold, people we know and don’t know donated to help me honor Max properly (and improperly) and memorialize his antiwar, pro-bonobo, free speech legacy.

Keep Friends Close & Enemies Closer

Thus supported, I felt strong enough to contact more people I knew loved Max, people I trusted who gave me the strength to reach out to a few folks (who shall remain nameless, but you know who you are) that have proven themselves to be utterly untrustworthy – even dangerous, even harmful to Max’s (and my) well-being – but nonetheless have “relationships” with Max that cannot be denied, especially now that he’s gone.

As I write those last two words, I must confess I can’t believe them. Even as I suffer the consequences – vultures descending, legal issues pending – I’m still in denial, still waiting for my darling to pop up and give me a kiss or a wink! Joan Didion called this “magical thinking” – when her husband John Gregory Dunne died suddenly at dinner, she kept his shoes by the bed, in case he returned.

Maybe it’s because if I accept that Max is dead, I’ll have to accept that the “better half” of me died with him.

Certainly, the younger part. I’ve spent the greater part of my youth devoted to Eros – love, sex, life – and mostly avoided or escaped Thanatos – death. But now here we are, face-to-face, getting intimately acquainted. And I must say, this Angel of Death is proving to be a cold and cruel acquaintance indeed, having flatly denied me my only desire: to bring Max back to life.

 

“Visitation with Capt’n Max”
PHOTO GALLERY

Ashes to Ashes

Thus, I had to dispose of Max’s body, and there are only a few legal ways to do that in America. Max’s original choice was to be “stuffed” and then “mounted” on a pedestal in the front hallway so everyone would see him as they entered Bonoboville. Not one to stifle my hubby’s fantasies, I nevertheless seriously doubted his quirky concept of human taxidermy was legal – or sanitary.

Fortunately, Max tossed the stuffing idea when he battled (and defeated) cancer – over a decade before his stroke – and settled on cremation as the way to go. Rather than sinking down into the ground with the worms and maggots, he preferred to go up in heavenly smoke. Then later, he imagined, I might hold his ashes close to my heart in a locket next to his wedding ring around my neck. And with so much ash, we could scatter Max around, put a little of him in pendants and vials, release some of him into different seas around the world, even turn parts of him into art. It made me cry to even imagine, but everything was making me cry (and still is!), and it seemed a better path forward for me, Bonoboville and even Max… whatever “Max” was at this point – a beautiful memory, a frozen corpse, a great legacy, a ghost, a spirit of love?

At first, I considered Forest Lawn (don’t all bereaved Angelenos consider Forest Lawn?), where our friend John Clark is buried, but their promotions didn’t match their prices (who knew dying was so expensive?), and their representatives had the graveside manner of bots. Meadows Memorial and a couple other MacMortuaries were cheaper, but didn’t seem special enough for my beloved. After all, Capt’n Max was the consummate showman, and this was (allegedly) his final act on Earth.

 

Marilyn Calling

I fell asleep wondering what to do (at least, I wasn’t wondering how to end it all anymore), then woke up, caught between a dream and vivid memories of taking a stroll with Max, his big strong hand holding my little one, through a small but vibrant cemetery hidden behind tall buildings. It was filled with more colorful flowers and Hollywood names than a holiday gathering in Jackie Kennedy’s Rose Garden, and it was just down the street from the Century Wilshire Hotel where Max and I produced many great shows, including our groundbreaking HBO specials, “Radio Sex TV” and “Off the Dial.”  Max and I were not exactly grave enthusiasts, but we’d visited this hidden-away little cemetery several times. It was just so lovely, peaceful and many familiar names were there, including Marilyn Monroe.

Max loved Marilyn. She inspired him. Max had almost as many pictures of Marilyn as he had of me. And it just so happens that Marilyn is my middle name since my Dad also loved Marilyn and wanted to name me after her, but Mom insisted that my first name be “Susan,” so “Marilyn” was demoted to the middle. Still, she was always in me.

For Max, Marilyn embodied sexy, playful fun that makes you feel really alive – the Spirit of Eros. But Marilyn was also the epitome of tragedy, steeped in the shadows of Thanatos. At some point, the fun ends. Regardless of whether it fades slowly like with my Max or crashes suddenly, like with Marilyn, it always hurts. And the deeper the love, the sharper the pain. It’s strangely kinky in a way that is also darkly funny (though the joke’s on us) – and it would certainly make Max chuckle. Maybe even wink.

The biggest single item Max brought into our marriage was a giant oil painting of Marilyn topless, the work of a Westside artist named Mark Christian, an “alcoholic,” according to Max, who did nothing but drink and paint Marilyn all day. This Marilyn masterpiece blessed our lives for almost 35 years, and it continues to bless mine now.

But that Marilyn painting also cursed our lives. As tame as it is, it proved too provocative for a puritanical firewoman to handle, and became the City of Arcadia’s first excuse to harass us – relentlessly, over everything and nothing – for over 6 years, probably contributing to Max’s stroke, but that’s another story.

Back to that little cemetery which appeared in my dream – though I didn’t know its name. Max and I simply called it the “Marilyn Cemetery.” Apparently, a lot of people did, because when Christina looked that up, she immediately found Westwood Village Cemetery (WVC), owned by Pierce Brothers Mortuary, and sure enough, Marilyn’s crypt is there – always festooned with notes and flowers – just as I remember it from when I visited with Max.

There are some newcomers, like our old friend Hef, who bought the crypt right next to Marilyn’s (that eternal horndog), as well as Natalie Wood, Merv Griffin (who flirted with us about producing a “Couples Camp” show) and Frank Zappa, another great inspiration. Thanks to Rhiannon, we also found out that the one and only Bettie Page is buried a few graves away from Marilyn’s crypt.

At least as much as Marilyn, Max also loved “the Dark Marilyn,” the “Queen of Pin-Up,” as well as the Queen of Fetish, Bettie Page. In 1996, Max and I conducted the first live interview (and longest interview ever) with Bettie Page on The Dr. Susan Block Show, from our studio at the Century Wilshire Hotel right up the street from the WVC.

Thus, it all fell into place. Christina called and found the WVC was surprisingly affordable, more than Meadows but less than Forest Lawn, and our “funeral director,” Lexi Ferrari, was not a bot – or a luxury sports car. She was sweet, smart, accessible, suitably sympathetic and seemed to enjoy her work without being ghoulish about it.

I knew Max liked this small, colorful and powerful piece of Westwood real estate, final resting place to some of the most important figures in the history of LA, and after all, Max was a very important figure in the history of Underground LA. Losing Max hurts me to the core, but it brought a bit of comfort to send him off in good company, in a place I knew he liked enough to visit while alive.

“Hearse Procession for Capt’n Max”
PHOTO GALLERY

Valhalla 69

So, we signed on the dotted lines to have Pierce Brothers Mortuary cremate my beloved Max with a Visitation at WVC, a hearse procession past Marilyn’s crypt and Bettie’s grave, and then the cremation itself up Laurel Canyon at another Pierce Brothers place divinely named Valhalla. It all sounded very nice… and very horrible, but the truly “horrible” part was that Max was gone, so a “nice” send-off was the best we could hope for.

Max’s daughter and son were scheduled to fly into LA for the weekend of June 7, but WVC didn’t do the Visitation/Cremation combo on weekends, so it seemed fated by the Fates that we would do it on Monday, June 9, 2025.  I knew Max would like that date 6/9 – a “69 date” – yum! It also happened to be the last day I was 69.  The next day, 6/10, would be my birthday, and the only gift I wanted was Max.  As I realized that, I felt I finally understood why so many people believe so fervently in resurrection.

If I let myself go down Max’s ancestral rabbit hole, I can even convince myself he’s a descendant of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, which I’ll explain again on some other show (if I ever do another show), feeding my fantasies of the Resurrection of Max.

However, “the ideal is the enemy of the real.” That’s another one of Max’s mottos, and the reality was that this was farewell. And yes, there had already been other farewells and there would be more, but this was a big one because Max’s body would be with us – with me – for the last time. What would I do? What would I say? Did it matter? Not really. This wasn’t a wedding – though I felt like the Bride of Frankenstein.

 

Collage Therapy

The mortuary needed an obituary, and everyone wanted to see photos. So, I started writing up the Story of Max and combing through old and new photos of us, a bittersweet process, making me cry and laugh and then cry some more. Indeed, it has been a kind of therapy, helping me to process this immense, immeasurable loss, like sailing a small boat through stormy seas.

All the photos are intriguing (at least, I think they are), and some of the show pics by professional art photographers are downright dazzling. But I found myself lingering on the photos I took with my phone for those last post-stroke 11 ¾ months of our “Year of Living Precariously,” my 69^th year, and Max’s last on Earth. I never had time to really look at these photos as I was so busy caregiving, working with the experts to try to ease my darling husband’s often excruciating pain and worrying that he could expire at any time… and then he did.

And yet, along with the agony, there was such ecstasy this past year – the joys of hand-dancing, laughing together, Tantrically gazing into each other’s eyes, the pleasures of feeding Max, brushing his teeth, watching him smile at Chico in the window or Frankie popping out of Mark’s bag.

 

One of Max’s greatest pleasures, especially towards the end, was simply smelling the flowers. So, almost every day – except when he was in quarantine with no flowers allowed – I brought him fresh roses from our garden.  As I stare at the images of my sweetheart sticking his nose between their petals and inhaling their aroma as if it was medicine or a psychedelic drug… I sigh with love sublime. It’s just too bad AI hasn’t yet figured out how to make these photos scratch-and-sniff.

Nevertheless, creating these collages helps me process my loss as well as honor Max’s life in images. So did writing his obituary which is 20 pages long, but flows like the fairy-tale romance and swashbuckling, freedom-fighting, adventure story that Max actually lived. I feel grateful to have been a part of his life for almost half of it (40 years out of 81), not to mention his central focus for over a third (33 years of marriage). But what goes up must come down, and now I am way down in the dumps of desolation.

Well, back to collage therapy….

Unrest for the Unrested

Desolate or desperate, once I’d planned Max’s cremation, I had to go through with it. We were only permitted to invite 10 people, so that kept the guest list small, but also meant each guest was vital to the proceedings. Wondering if everyone would make it, I lay sleepless in the bed where Max used to hold me and calm my fears until I drifted off to dreamland in his warm, strong arms. Now all I could hold was his pillow.

My tossing and turning was interrupted by a ding: “Is everything still on despite the raging civil unrest downtown?” texted Rhiannon. “They just lit a CHP car on fire on the 101.”

So much for sleeping.  “I can’t just cancel Max’s cremation,” I replied. “I thought it was only my world coming to an end, but apparently Thanatos is everywhere. Here I am, trying to get ready for this strange ritual, and so scared of so much now without Max, and I guess I have to add to my list ‘raging civil unrest’.”

I was certainly “unrest(ed).”

Rhiannon was only trying to help, and I knew Max would have supported the protesters, as I did. After all, Max was an immigrant – a royal refugee of WWII. Should our procession join the demonstration? Should the hearse carry a sign of solidarity?

Rosy-fingered Dawn pried opened my teary eyes, I threw on some basic black and a pair of shade, and off we drove to WVC for Max’s visitation and cremation. No “raging civil unrest” blocked the freeways, just standard Monday morning traffic. Nothing terrible happened. Of course, nothing wonderful happened either. Max was not resurrected.

Seeing Max again like this, I felt a mixture of gloom, horror and a tiny spark of excitement, though it was weird. I mean, he was dead. The difference is striking – literally, like a karate chop to the chest. No matter how sick he’d been – and he’d been hanging onto life by a thread, losing 100 pounds in that last debilitating year after the stroke – this was different. This was Thanatos. Eros had flown away, leaving Max’s body to his cruel and very cold brother, the Angel of Death.

My darling Max – usually so warm – felt ice-cold. Though he was still my Handsome Prince, in his trimmed beard, bonobo T-shirt, pink shirt (Max loved pink), Homer Simpson pants, tropical floral print socks and of course, his Captain’s hat. First he wore the black military-style cap for the service, then the white yachting hat for his voyage through the smoky clouds of Valhalla.

 

Farewell Max https://t.co/hcNXv9D2Yf

— Dr. Susan Block 🌹 (@drsuzy) June 9, 2025

A Eulogy in Praise of Max’s Life & an Elegy of Grief for His Death

If “the goal is the journey,” as Max often said, then this was a very strange part of the trip. Lexi called it a “Visitation,” which sounded divine, like the Resurrection of Max was imminent.

Sadly, it was not. “Visitation” time was limited to half an hour, and the first five minutes were for set-up. Barry played soulfully on his accordion as we approached Max’s body lying “in state.” I leaned over and brushed my lips against my love’s, but his were too icy for a serious kiss or much touching at all. I guess I’m not a necrophiliac. However, my long black chiffon veil did give me that Bride of Frankenstein vibe. I’d worn hundreds of hats over the years, but I hadn’t worn a long veil like that since my wedding, and of course that one was white. This was black. It was also too dark to see my notes, so I flipped it over and fortunately, our brilliant stylist Mark Brown designed it to be easily flipped back and forth.

Somehow, I managed to deliver a eulogy in praise of Max’s life, mixed with an elegy of grief for Max’s death, only choking back tears a few times. Then we said some prayers. Max was not religious (and as the Lord and Lady are my witnesses, neither am I). However, he often said he believed in all the Gods and Goddesses… just in case.

So, since little baby Massimo was cared for by Franciscan nuns in those first two critical years of his life, I asked Christina to sing “Ave Maria.” An angel couldn’t have sounded lovelier.  Then, because Max liked Jewish girls (he married three of us), and since he converted to Judaism (guided by Rabbi Bill Kramer), I asked Luzer to say Kaddish. Luzer didn’t sing like an angel, but he did sound like an authentic Satmar Hasid which he was before he ran away and joined Bonoboville, and Max would have loved it. Especially when the “congregation” of non-believers chanted “Amen” and “Awomen.”

 

And since Max believed in all the Gods and Goddesses (because you never do know, do you?), I figured he’d like a pagan witch to cover those bases.  Rhiannon had given me a big brown candle in the shape of Satan to ward off the evil spirits that were – and still are – attacking Bonoboville, (though honestly I’m afraid to light it), so I asked her to perform a Pagan Prayer.

Then I invited people who wanted to come close to Max’s body for the Visitation; first, his daughter Daniele, and then his son Michael carrying a phone with his brother Charlie in Milan, Italy, followed by my sister-in-law Tiya and brother Steve. Then Ana and Miguel who loved “Mr. Max” went up to him, and my old friend and KIEV radio assistant, Janelle Hopkins and her son (with the aforementioned John Clark), Derek Wilder, whom I’d held in my arms as an infant many years ago. Derek adored Capt’n Max and the nights he spent at the Speakeasy in Bonoboville. It always impressed me that Max was such a “man’s man” for guys like Derek, a ladies’ man for the ladies, and my man for me. But now…

It was rather scary, this “visitation.” And very sad. Maybe what was scary was how sad it was… and still is.

So, it was an uncomfortable but vital chance to face that fear and connect life to unfathomable death – Eros to Thanatos – as they are irrevocably connected, an opportunity for a Visitation Revelation in a few seconds of silence, tears, awkwardness or slight vertigo, as we each performed this strangely moving, vaguely taboo ritual of the living communing with the mysteries of the dead.

Sitting Shiva with Shiva for Max

Post-Visitation, we exchanged the black for the white yachting cap, and tucked Max back into his container for the next, last leg of our journey. I must say Max’s black Captain’s hat on top of his coffin-like container gave the proceedings a formal, soldierly flourish that would have amused him.

We stopped at Marilyn’s crypt and Bettie’s grave to pay our loving respects.  Then I slipped into the hearse with Lexi at the wheel and Max in the back, and off we rolled to Valhalla for the cremation itself.

“Valhalla” is the Hall of Heaven for the greatest Norse warriors slain in battle, aka the Hall of Heroes. Max was a great Free Speech, Antiwar, Pro-Bonobo Hero, and he was certainly my hero, though I doubt he wanted to spend eternity with a bunch of drunken Vikings with horns on their hats. Nevertheless, I figured his “belief in all the gods and goddesses… because you never know!” applied. Besides, the place seemed more Burbank than Viking.

The 12 of us squeezed into a small room where we could all peer at Max in the crematorium through a glass partition.  As we waited for them to “fire up” cremation chamber – a specialized furnace that heats up to temperatures above 1800 degrees (Fahrenheit) – Luzer spoke about how Max gave us misfits a place we could fit in, more or less. That’s partly because Max was a bit of a royal misfit himself.

Continuing our quest for prayerful diversity, Tiya and Steve said a Thai Buddhist prayer, and I recited the Muslim “Inna Lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un” and Tibetan Buddhist “Om Mane Padme Hum.”  The Tibetan Book of the Dead calls death “liberation,” and though I hope Max is somehow “liberated,” at least from the terrible pain he was in towards the end, I can’t say I’m enlightened enough to be comforted by that notion.  On the other hand, I can always appreciate the Hindu Lord Shiva’s blessings, especially in my inconsolable grief.

“Boom Shiva Shambalai Boom!” seemed especially apropos for cremation, Shiva being the Smoke God. If I’ve been “devout” in any way during these days into weeks and months of mourning, it’s in the sense that I’ve been “Sitting Shiva” with Shiva…

“Capt’n Max Cremation”
PHOTO GALLERY

Inside, the crematorium felt and sounded like a boiler room. A cremator named Mike sat in the back patiently watching several of us say our farewells to Max, and I must admit, I took more than one turn. Finally, I pulled back my black veil and gave my beloved Capt’n Max one last kiss.

It wasn’t our best kiss, but it was our last kiss, so it was important – a moment of soaring romance, bottomless grief, enduring and life-shaking passion that I will never forget.

When the time came, Lexi and Mike covered Max back up, and the three of us gently pushed him into a high-heat cremation furnace that reduces the body to gases, ashes, bone and mineral fragments, aka “cremains.”

Mike smiled kindly at me and asked if I wanted to press the button. I hesitated, but who was I to say no?  Max was already dead – it wasn’t like I was killing him. Steve said it was, in a way, the opposite of how the Nazis killed living people in ovens or how bombs burn their victims alive, mass murder by fire. This was something else entirely in that 1) Max was already dead and 2) Cremation was Max’s choice, and I was carrying out his final wishes.

Still, it was unnerving, and really, what was I doing? To be honest, I felt like I was putting a giant pizza in the oven. Max loved pizza. Would he love this? My ongoing fantasy of throwing myself on Max’s funeral pyre – like widows of certain cultures used to do before it was criminalized – also flashed through my overwrought brain, but no, I did not try to crawl into the pizza oven with Max, and somehow I got through the whole process without collapsing on the crematorium floor.

After the cremation, Ana prepared a delicious picnic for everyone. We ate. We talked. We walked around the crypts and graves of Valhalla. It was a small and strange, somewhat estranged group – some family, a few in-laws and several friends, a couple with cameras.

I also made certain to give everybody a hug, even a couple of people who had hurt me and Max deeply – because in the end, they’re just people, and they showed up to pay their respects. Besides, forgiveness is a healing art.  I may never forget, but I do forgive – at least enough to be kind.

All in all, as the Person-in-Charge, as well as the Weeping Widow, I kept things moving along. I was the Admiral, steering my fallen Captain’s ship of state. But on the inside, I felt like the living dead. Not a zombie. Just half-alive, like Max was half-paralyzed. My better half was burned and gone.

But what was the alternative? For Max’s sake, “my heart will go on”  (though Max and I both loathed that song).  Actually, I was (and still am) engaged in what the experts call “disassociation,” which more and more of us find ourselves doing just to get through life after losing a cherished partner, a dream job or many other moorings we used to depend on. As Hollywood psychotherapist Dennis Palumbo put it, “If you’re not dispirited right now, you’re dissociative.”

So, more dissociative embraces and farewells ensued. And then, a small miracle: I had my biggest, unforced laugh of the day when my brother Steve leaned into the car to hug me good-bye, and Chico suddenly popped up from behind me and gave him a little doggie kiss – with his tongue! It was a *Max moment,* for sure.  I even felt a sense of what all the spiritual folks talk about, that the Spirit of Max had entered Chico and given poor, shocked Steve a little “spirited” brotherly lick.

Well, just as Max’s and my last year of agony had many moments of ecstasy, my current condition of constant grief has its laughs and good times.

That afternoon, Max’s urn arrived. I opened it to find an elegant Grecian-style vase of rich royal blue (Max’s other favorite color), and I was glad to see they got the inscription right. Nevertheless, the thought of my beloved being ground down to fit into what looked like a glossy flowerpot made me cry (again).

Of course, Max did love flowers…

Opening Max’s Urn https://t.co/qjEnB4SlV4

— Dr. Susan Block 🌹 (@drsuzy) June 11, 2025

Birthday LOVE

The next day, June 10^th, was my birthday. I didn’t expect or even want a “Happy Birthday,” but it seemed like a good time to hold another “Visitation” – though this one was a visitation (or just a visit) with me in mourning surrounded by images of Max. So, I spent the rest of 6/9 text-inviting all the friends I’d been putting off to come see me on 6/10.

Unlike the visitation and cremation the day before, I didn’t invite anyone to Bonoboville that I was even a little bit afraid of. Of course, most couldn’t make it to Arcadia on a Tuesday afternoon. Many who usually come to my birthdays, shows and other events didn’t even know Max was gone – and I didn’t particularly want to tell them and get into all the sticky threads that would entail. So, it was a small, subdued, but very warm and gratifying gathering.

“Birth/Death Commemoration”
PHOTO GALLERY

 

Handsome Hollywood Jake, our bartender in Inglewood, was the first to arrive, making sure all of Bonoboville’s straight gals and bi or gay guys were happy. Then in came sweet sex therapist and filmmaker Moushumi Ghose with flowers and pleasure poetry. Sara Sioux and Alex Saglimbeni managed to sneak in incognito, but everyone else arrived on the appointed day – or night. D.A.D. leader Mistress Tara Indiana came in right from DomCon, gave me flowers and a hug and, upon my introduction, dove into deep conversation with Luzer, both having Rabbi Dads.

Christina and Luzer reprised their Ave Maria and Kaddish respectively, and Moushumi offered up this beautiful pagan-ish pleasure prayer:

Today, we gather not just to mourn, but to celebrate — to honor the wild, unapologetic, radiant spirit of someone who knew that pleasure is not a luxury, but a birthright.

 Max didn’t just live — he embodied desire. Max walked through this world with hips that swayed like rebellion, a laugh that cracked shame open at its core, and a heart that held space for the full spectrum of human longing. Max’s life was a seduction — not of bodies alone, but of minds and souls, coaxing us all to shed our shame and step into our power.

Max fought for our right to feel. To touch. To moan, to ache, to yearn, to claim. Max knew that sexuality was not something to be hidden — it was holy, it was healing, it was ours.

Max kissed convention goodbye. Max made love to freedom. Max told the truth, even when he trembled. And in doing so, Max gave us permission — to be bolder, queerer, kinkier, more tender, more us.

Max may have left this earthly plane, but their legacy lingers — in every liberated body, in every whispered yes, in every act of radical, consensual pleasure. We carry Max now — in the way we touch with intention, speak with passion, and fuck with freedom.

So tonight, let us light candles, pour wine, and tell stories — the kind that would’ve made them blush… or beam. Let us wear lace and leather. Let us dance until the sun comes up. Let us celebrate the beautiful truth they gave their life to defend:

That pleasure is political. That freedom is erotic. That love — in all its messy, sacred, sensual forms — will always be worth fighting for.

Rest in power, beloved. You turned us on. You turned us loose. And we will never be the same.

Amen and Awomen and A-MAX to Moushumi.

Just when I thought I’d shed enough tears of joy, Jux Lii came in with gorgeous photo prints from a couple of those pleasurable times. Fawnia brought me festive earrings, though right now, I don’t feel like ever wearing anything festive again without Max (unless you call black miniskirts “festive”). Ikkor the Wolf and Janelle brought even more flowers of all kinds. Lisa brought wine – cheers for my tears. Mark made ribs – meat for the mourners! Ana made chicken salad croissants and picked up Max’s favorite fruit cake.

I didn’t want the cake to say, “Happy Birthday,” because it wasn’t for me, it was for Max, but “Happy Death Day” seemed a step too far. So, I asked Ana to just put “LOVE” on the cake. In the end, love is all there is, all that’s really worth celebrating.

Speaking of celebrating, some sadistic joker in our midst put a bunch of candles on my “LOVE” cake that wouldn’t blow out. I almost hyperventilated trying. I guess the joke was on me. Maybe they wanted to see me give a blowjob? More likely, they didn’t read the packaging.

At least, no one was twisted enough to say Max’s cremation was my birthday candle – though I guess I’m just twisted enough write it.  At least, I didn’t even think about it at the time, which just goes to show that writing is a path to perversion.

Other signs of doom loomed in my “mourner’s brain.” As I cut the cake, “LOVE” broke in half, another random metaphor for my heart that keeps breaking every minute I go on without Max.

Our old friend James Wohl, esq., who used to join us almost every Saturday night for shows at the Century Wilshire Hotel (around the corner from WVC), made an entrance with the vivacious Billie Feldman. James has a bit of dementia, so he speaks more slowly than he used to, and sometimes loses his train of thought. Though honestly, after a year of trying to understand Max’s aphasia, dementia sounds like post-graduate level discourse to me.

Looking into James’ big blue eyes like crystal balls, I can’t say I could see the future, but I could clearly see the past – all the good times and wild adventures we’d shared – that we were still sharing in some other dimension in time.

All my sweet guests pored over my therapeutic collages, and I appreciated their questions that led to stories. Stories kept Max alive, at least as we told them. Then we opened Capt’n Max’s Urn (again). We talked about his amazing life, as well as our own lives – and how fast they were disappearing.

That’s another thing I’m learning every day. The older you get, the more time flies, whether you’re having fun or not, so you might as well have some fun, if you can, even in the midst of grief.

It was no bacchanalian birthday ball – or even a “celebration.” But it did last two days, as half the guests slept over (I’m not sure if they slept with each other), lingering among the collages of Max and the flowers of Bonoboville.

Max’s Ashes

Ashes to Ashes,
Dust to Dust,
Stroke to Smoke.
Lust with Trust…
Now Just Dust.

The “civil unrest” as well as the fascistic militaristic responses to it, continued all around us, especially on the news. But it didn’t block traffic, so the next day, Christina and I went back to WVC with our new blue urn to pick up Max’s ashes.

Lexi brought Max to me in a big plastic bag. It was surreal. What is stranger, I wonder: touching your beloved’s icy cold dead body, pressing the button to cremate him or holding a bag of his ashes? Hard to say.  All of it is strange, but none of it is nearly as bad as losing him. Missing him.  Mourning him.

At least, we got the gorgeous, giant bouquet of pink flowers that the lovely and talented Onyx Muse sent for Max, but somehow had arrived too late for the Visitation. I plucked one perfect pink rose (Max loved pink!), inhaled its fragrance and placed it above his urn inside the WVC box. Lexi gave me the paperwork to sign and a few locks of my Beloved’s hair (ooh la la!) in a plastic bag. Then we brought Max’s urn to Christina’s car and drove past a huge gravestone that said “Mickey” (Mouse?) and then over to Marilyn’s crypt and Bettie’s grave for one last visit before returning home to Bonoboville.  Finally, Capt’n Max was back home.

“Max’s Ashes”
PHOTO GALLERY

Hammer of Love

It sounds so romantic, so filled with promise: “Finally, Capt’n Max was back home.” But it wasn’t Max that was home, at least not the Max I knew. It was a bag of ashes in an urn.

Still, they were Max’s ashes. And I wanted to honor his wishes to put his ashes in little receptacles, vials and a pendant inscribed with “Forever in My Heart” – for me and others who want to keep Max’s “remains” physically close. It’s another strange mourning ritual that challenges me to abandon my despair for the sake of positive action – and fashion.

It was a bit of a challenge to syphon the ashes – which are more ground up bone, like seashells, than the fine dark powder most of us think of as “ashes” – into the receptacles, but with Christina’s help, we got a little bit of Max in each.

My favorite ash receptacle is a silver pendant in the shape of a hammer. No relation to “Operation Midnight Hammer,” but it reminds me of one of Max’s funniest names: “Vivienne Hammer” (in accounting). Also, Max was cremated at Valhalla, the Norse Heaven ruled by Odin, whose son Thor is known for wielding a large, rather phallic hammer.

Beyond Viking fantasies and funny names, Max just loved hammers, nails and all kinds of tools. He was a natural carpenter. Max could just eyeball a space and then, without taking any measurements, cobble together a desk or bookshelf that fit perfectly within it. When I say, “Max built Bonoboville,” sometimes I mean that literally.

Not that he was able to build much without help in the past few years. Miguel called himself “Pinocchio” to Max’s “Geppetto.”

Still, whenever anything needs building or fixing – from a broken light to my broken heart – I miss Max!

Coming: Max to the MAX

Death is a little like sex. Eros and Thanatos are brothers, after all. Like sex, death is a fact of life.  Both affect us all – profoundly – but both are difficult and sometimes taboo to discuss openly.

That doesn’t mean we can’t have sex (we can, and we certainly do!) or lose loved ones (sadly, that happens to pretty much all of us too). But just like no one really teaches you how to have great sex, no one teaches you how to mourn your Great Love. I’ve always said we need more and better sex education. But now I see we are at least as ignorant – in a different way – about death as we are about sex.

And maybe that’s the way it has to be. The goal is the journey, and certainly, there is no achievable goal to this journey of grief. The “experts” say it is unpredictable, different for everyone. Most say it will get easier with time, but it could get worse.

There can be no set rule for grieving, as there can be no set rule for love. You just have to go where your journey takes you.

So, I’ll cry a few more tears, maybe a river. It’s cathartic. Or not. It isn’t like I have any desire to “get over” Max or “move on.” I do want to honor his legacy and take care of Bonoboville, best I can. I’ll do more “collage therapy.”  And smell the flowers and think of him… Oh no, I’m making myself cry again… Well, I’m also smiling. One of Max’s favorite words, especially towards the end of our Year of Living Precariously, was “smile.”

Next, we will have our “Max to the MAX Memorial,” probably in a month or so. Let us know if you want to participate – in person, on Zoom or social media. Hopefully, that will give us enough time to get our technical act together – because it is a mess right now! – as well as our legal act, as well as for me to meander through this naturally tearful “grieving process,” so that Max’s Memorial will be less about grieving and more about celebrating MAX to the max…

Because Max’s living legacy deserves the best, and YOU deserve the inspiration of discovering the world of Captain Max.

 

© June 30,  2025  Susan Block, Ph.D., a.k.a. “Dr. Suzy,” is a world renowned LA sexologist, author of The Bonobo Way: The Evolution of Peace through Pleasure, occasionally seen on HBO and other channels. For information, call 626-461-5950. Email her at [email protected].