The Light Man Lives! The continuing Saga of Phil The Fan.
By Mike who is Phil’s friend.

I remember seeing Phil Hamon like a hundred times hauling fifty pounds of lighting gear in a rickety luggage cart. He was like a pioneer heading West or a biblical prophet.

His face set his eyes focused on the goal. He knew his mission to do lights at the tavern six or seven nights a week come hell or high water. Was he paid for his efforts? Of course not! What purely spiritual seeker of the real truth is ever paid money? He became a fixture at the Fifteenth St. Tavern. No punker or alternative metal band had a complete act without Phil’s light show. To do the lights at the Tavern was an all-consuming passion for Phil. Anything else took second place, or lower. That and making real art work out of the posters from the bands he did were all that mattered to him.

If he had to sit in the corner of the bar, between the stage and the restrooms and secondhand smoke, so be it. Commuting to his unpaid job meant one way on the bus, again with the fifty pounds of light gear in a luggage cart and then be homebound at around 2 a.m. either by bus or a taxi cab.

So like the other facets of his life, Phil’s health took second place or lower to being the man in charge of doing the lights at the 15th Street Tavern.

Finally the fiddler had to be paid and Phil’s giant heart couldn’t stand the strain anymore. He showed up at my door one Saturday morning saying, “Mike, Mike, I’m all messed up! I don’t know where I am.” He was in limbo, disoriented and confused. The ambulance came and took him to Denver General Hospital.

The next few weeks were bad ones for Phil and his many fans. There was speculation about whether he would survive. For my own part I just couldn’t believe this was the end of the light man Saga. To die at the age of fifty-three in a hospital room after brain surgery, no! No Way! There was still a spark in Phil’s eyes and I knew there would be more chapters in the light man’s story.

Two brain surgeries, first a biopsy and a second surgery to remove a tumor mass. For some reason it took the doctor a full week to tell us that they had gotten the tumor out.

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