Richmond Times Dispatch
FAMILY: A gift for son the Neon
Man never Knew
Tuesday April 12,2005
Bill Lohmann
After his best friend died, Slash
Coleman desperately wanted to do
something meaningful for the infant
son his buddy would never know. He
found a copy of an old letter from his
pal, Mark Jamison, one of his poems
and a few studio recordings Coleman
and Jamison made when they were
part of a jazz ensemble. He put
everything in a box.

And never mailed it. Reducing their friendship to a
cardboard box "just didn't seem right," Coleman
said.So, he did something else.

He began writing a children's book, which
evolved into a play, a one-man show filled with
humor, poetry and music, a joyous tribute based
on the facts of their lives leavened with a healthy
portion of grand embellishment. Instead of simply
telling Jamison's son about their friendship, he
intends to tell the world.
Slash Coleman has
written a heartfelt
one-man show in
tribute to his best
friend, who died last
year at 35.
Photo/ Bruce Parker
"The Neon Man and Me" is the name of the play, and Coleman -- writer, painter, musician,
surfer, furniture upholsterer -- is mighty proud. He read the opening narrative of the play in
public for the first time the other day to much laughter and applause in several English and
drama classes at the Maggie L. Walker Governor's School for Government and International
Studies.
Coleman is in the "rewrite" phase of the project, figuring out which lines get the laughs and which ones fall with a thud. He plans to
present the entire play for a series of small groups around Richmond in the coming weeks to hone it into a final form and take the show
on the road in the summer. "It's like breathing," Coleman told me the other day, in between speaking to classes. "It just feels like it's the
thing I should be doing."

Coleman and Jamison met as students at Radford University when Coleman, who plays piano, heard a tenor sax man in a jazz ensemble
needed a piano player. The tenor sax man was Jamison. Their first meeting came at a party, where Jamison -- who was raised
Pentecostal was entertaining guests by speaking in tongues. This seemed like something akin to divine intervention for the
unconventional Coleman, who as a teenager had cashed in money from his paper route and bar mitzvah to legally change his name to
Slashtipher Jeffrey Coleman because he believed a future writer needed an exotic name (the "tipher," he thought, added a certain
degree of sophistication). Different as their backgrounds were, they became fast friends, eccentric companions and nearly blood
brothers.

"My friendship with him was a lot of fun," said Coleman, who grew up in Chester.
They played music in restaurants and bars throughout Southwest Virginia. After college, Coleman decided to attend graduate school, to
further study writing, and headed out to the great unknown. Jamison went to school, too. Neon school. Jamison seemed to have an
innate business sense -- "He was always talking in business terms about marketing and target audiences and stuff I didn't know,"
recalled Coleman, "and he got us gigs all over the place" -- and he apparently saw a way to make a living.

Jamison went into the neon sign business in Roanoke. His handiwork is evident throughout the valley and he became known as "Neon
Man," which also was the name of his company. He built a successful business before he died in January 2004 when he brushed a
high-voltage power line while installing a sign at a restaurant. He was 35, the same age as Coleman.
"I'd never had a friend die before," Coleman said. "It really hit me. His life was just beginning."

In the years after college, Coleman and Jamison had remained close, even though they never lived in the same city. Coleman moved
around the country, chasing a career in writing, music and performing, while Jamison stayed put in Roanoke. Every once in a while,
Jamison told Coleman to come on home and go into the neon business with him. Coleman never did. It seemed like the opportunity would
be there forever.

They visited each other, exchanged letters and stayed on the phone with each other. Coleman was best man in Jamison's wedding;
Jamison was a reader at Coleman's. When neither marriage worked out, Coleman and Jamison nurtured each other through the pain of
the divorces. "We were like each other's therapist," Coleman said.

When Jamison got a new girlfriend, Coleman noticed a change in his buddy. He was really happy.
"He just blossomed," said Coleman. "The last three months he got to live this really great life."
Jamison had started dating Lisa Thomas shortly after Thanksgiving 2003. He died on Jan. 30.
A week after Jamison's death, Thomas discovered she was pregnant. Jamison never knew.
The baby, Mark Jamison Thomas, was born in the early hours of Oct. 9 at Thomas' mother's home with the help of a midwife. Those
gathered for the happy occasion noticed an old pendulum clock, which had belonged to Lisa Thomas' great-grandparents and hadn't
worked in 15 years. They noticed it because it started ticking about an hour before the baby was born and ceased an hour afterward.

"We figured Mark was there in spirit, letting us know that he was there," Barbara Thomas, Lisa's mom, told the Roanoke Times. Coleman
heard the clock story and knew it was Jamison, checking in. He also knew he had to do something. That day, he started writing the
play. Soon after, he moved home.

For the first time in a dozen years, he wanted to return to live in Virginia. As a young man, he'd always vowed he would never work in
his family's furniture restoration business. So, guess what he's doing now? And loving?

"A lot of things hit me when Mark died," Coleman said. "The biggest thing was missing family. It was the right time in my life to come
back."
And the play? "When somebody dies, a piece of you dies with them," Coleman said. "It's almost like I've got to keep those memories
alive."

He asked and received a blessing from Jamison's parents to proceed with a play about their son's life. He has shared his plans with
Lisa Thomas. Those plans include taking the show around Virginia he's willing to perform in church basements and school gyms, but he
wants to wind up in real, live playhouses and has his eye on renting the Landmark Theatre here in Richmond -- and across the country.
In two years, he envisions it in New York, either on Broadway or in the vicinity.
And while Coleman's dreaming big, he's promised to bank any and all profits for little Mark.
"I have an idea Mark Jr. is going to go to Juilliard," Coleman said with a smile. "That's way down the road, but I have this fantasy in
which I present him the money for him to go to Juilliard."

If that should come to pass, his old buddy Mark might just strike up the clock again.
© Slash Coleman 2008