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| Neil Sheppard |
Sheppard, who was an affable and character and spellbinding raconteur, died in his sleep on the morning of 22 May 2021 in New York City where he had lived for many years.
Sheppard, who was in his 70s, was a professional musician who wrote songs recorded by artists including Gene Pitney and The Cowsills.
As a young man Sheppard survived heroin addiction, a habit that irritated his gangster father, who virulently opposed drugs.
Sheppard, as a young man in Montreal, also survived a knife attack from hotheaded Mafioso Tony Mucci, who was best known for entering the Le Devoir offices to take aim at a crime reporter in the 1970s. Sheppard said he didn't know why Mucci attacked him but reminisced about it with Coolopolis more recently.
That situation getting stabbed by that jerk was quite an ordeal and a scary one at that, although in the thick of it, I was kicking ass there for a minute! I only got scared when it was over, watching a trail of blood follow me around the room. I couldn't figure out how that was happening! I'm just thinking how nuts that guy was.
Gary Eisenkraft owned the New Penelope, he was the a friend from childhood, who as a joke, spiked my drink with LSD one night & before it kicked in, we decided to drive out to St Sauver, I think it was one night, to go to the wedding of someone he knew.
I drove him out in my 65 Porsche (which my little gem of a car, ) when the acid hit me, and that whole nightmare ensued.
Eisenkraft I was tripping that I couldn't reach our destination. I saw the bright lights in the sky of a town or city ahead as we drove. Yet as I headed straight for the lights, somehow they would inexplicably end up behind me in my rear view. All the while he was talking to me, making me more paranoid, and I was sure that he was intentionally fucking with me.
It continued, over and over again, he went on, as I felt that I was losing all my senses, including my sense of direction and recollection....as he kept denying that he was taunting me.
Then he taunted me again! Then once again he denied it. So I wasn't sure I knew what was happening.
I kept telling him to stop and I got more and more angry but he continued to deny he had said anything at all! Certainly nothing like what I accused him of.
I only wanted to get off of that road that I kept losing myself on and make him stop his nasty comments!
Until I finally told him I was going to throw him out of the car. Which eventually, I did, although it was after scaring the shit out of him, driving 130MPH, on this pitch black 2 way highway! I was so confused by then I actually considered throwing him out while driving at 130!
But then instinctively, I stopped the car and physically pushed him out the door, no longer able to tell for certain, whether his discourse continued, or it was all in my head!
If I was paranoid I was sure it was Gary's doing, and Gary had a great deal of LSD experience. The acid that had me firmly in its grip, was to him, a stroll in the park.
How to get out of there. The cold, the fog, the smell of tar permeated the air, and to put more in focus, a dog howled constantly in the distance, I recall how it couldn't have been a more perfect overall scene if it were a film!
Only now I was in the same state... still unable to get to the lights (civilization) and now without a car. And if I thought I had died before and was destined for eternity to keep heading toward the light but now I must "walk" to get there!
I was now in the drink swimming for my life, trying to reach the nearby shore, and as I did I imagine that the roots of trees I was gripping to pull myself up were actually snakes, and at that point I believed I had truly died or entered some in between realm, & once I was in the water frozen from head to toe I imagined I was now made of stone and still destined to forever keep searching for the lights in the sky.
Sheppard also shared many stories of his father with Coolopolis, which we shall publish within a few days.