To those of you haven’t heard, Eddie Money, who was recently diagnosed with cancer, died yesterday at age 70—RIP. Those of you who are hearing about Eddie Money for the first time right now, welcome to planet earth, where ya been?

Oh man, what an icon that dude is! Back home in Los Angeles right now, I can only imagine what’s being said across the airwaves for the guy, he was awesome, an icon and legend in the #music industry with a whole bunch of hit singles—I’ll be attaching some of those during this article, try not to miss any clicks. All weekend long; every pub, barber shop, gym, coffee house, hotel lobby, etc. you walk into right now in..

..is playing Eddie Money.

When Pura and I first met back in 2014, she lived in San Francisco, I Lived in Long Beach (seven hour separation). Within three or four months of meeting each other, she moved in with a girlfriend of hers in Westlake Village, California. It’s out by Thousand Oaks, about 30 miles west of Hollywood and a little over an hour away from me in Long Beach.

I went over there to help her unload her things and the three of us were hanging out in the back yard afterward when her roommate, Dani, after hanging out for awhile, casually asks “oh, do you guys know who Eddie Money is?” 🤔 “Do I know who Eddie Money is?”

Two Tickets To Paradise and Think I’m In Love, c’mon! Does a grizzly bear use a rabbit to... yeah, of course I know who Eddie Money is. She pointed next door and said “he lives there.” “Really?!” That’s pretty cool, Pura lives closer to me and she lives next door to Eddie Money.

Well, I never saw him in the 5-6 times I visited their condo, Pura would typically come to my place in Long Beach when we’d get together. I saw his daughter a few times and another woman, I’m sure his wife, I remember seeing the daughter drive a real nice Audi and there was a Range Rover that was always parked there but I never saw Eddie. The girls did a few times.

Remember earlier this year when I wrote that article from Costa Rica with the part about a tarantula in our bedroom and I told you about Pura’s fear of spiders? Well, that ties into this Eddie Money tribute.

Pura’s eyes kind of lit up when she learned who her neighbor is and proceeded to tell us about how big of a fan her dad was of his. I say was because her dad is no longer with us. She told us how he would air guitar around the house regularly when she was a young girl with the music blaring Eddie Money so loud she would be embarrassed because neighbors could hear it all the way down the street. He was such a fan of Eddie, he even had a nickname for him—Eddie Megabucks.

One morning I’m by myself in Long Beach and I have missed calls and messages on my phone from Pura—a lot. I didn’t know what she was talking about but the messages all read something to the extent of “oh my God, you’ll never believe what happened! .... I have to talk to you immediately! .... Why aren’t you answering your phone?!?” Something, something, something. What am I supposed to think when I wake up to a bunch of those? So, I immediately called her, she answered her phone and goes on with this #story....

She told me she and her girlfriend were hanging out on the back patio last night, I remember they had this aqua/blue, metal patio furniture. It was just the two of them, they were friends all through grade school and hadn’t seen each other since high school, hanging out together and catching up for the first time in over a decade.

Quick recap—Pura hates spiders! Hates as in hate-hate, hates spiders like I hate the IRS, hate. Ok, not that much but you get the picture. She’s terrified of spiders and it’s crazy because Pura wears glasses and can’t see things like street signs or closed caption television without them but she can spot a spider, the size of a lemon seed, from about 15 yards away on a moving vehicle passing by in the opposite direction... on the opposite side of the car... without her glasses—it’s fascinating! So yeah, as I was saying, she hates spiders.

Ok, so she tells me about their night. She said she and Dani were hanging out in the back yard just catching up and reminiscing. She said she didn’t even have any shoes on and her feet were kicked up on a wicker basket her friend was going to paint. At one point they started talking about what color to paint the basket so Pura stood up, stepped back a little bit to get a better look at it and, as she stepped back toward the fence, out of the corner of her eye, she said a great big, giant tarantula, the size of a baseball hat, crawled over the fence toward her, just a few inches from her shoulder, and jumped (“jumped”) across the yard toward her friend. It was a lunging/attacking tarantula, according to @puravidaville.

The first thing I said was something about “really, a tarantula?” In all of the years I’ve lived there, not one time have I ever heard about someone being attacked by a tarantula. Mountain lion attacks, although rare, I’ve heard about a few but tarantulas, never, not one time—until now. “Are you sure it was a tarantula?” I asked. “Oh for sure!” She said.

She told me they were freaking out, screaming and yelling and, most likely in shock, her friend had shoes on and her reaction was to jump on the crawly, jumpy, baseball hat sized thing. She did. Sorry if there’s any environmentalists tuned into this story right now who just got extremely pissed but it’s true—she killed it.

Well, during the commotion, one of their neighbors (not Eddie) came to the back fence to check on them—it’s a gated community of condominiums where everyones back yard has an adjoining fence. They explained what just happened to the concerned neighbor and how it really did happen, they’re not making it up, etc. etc. and that a huge tarantula really just attacked them and they even have a corpse to prove it.

Their neighbor probably thought the same thing I did when they told him their story. He, as I, I’m sure had never heard of anyone ever being attacked by a tarantula until that moment and the fact they had the dead corpse to prove their story was bizarre. Anyhow, once he learned the girls were ok, everyone called it a night, Pura texted and called me a bunch of times but I was sleeping so I called her in the morning and she told me the story I just relayed to you. Well, about an hour after we hung up the phone with each other is when this story takes a twist.

Pura said she was walking outside to go for a run and, while locking the front door, she heard a man’s voice behind her “so you’re my new neighbor, did you get all moved in? What do you think of the area?” He introduced himself, “I’m Eddie.” They shook hands, “I’m @puravidaville,” and proceeded to tell him how she just moved in but she’s not sure how long she’s going to stay there because she’s terrified of spiders and they just got attacked by a tarantula last night.

Eddie felt terrible and apologized all over himself, assuring her everything’s ok and they have nothing to worry about. He told her he has several tarantulas as pets that he keeps inside the condo. Believe it or not, a lot of people have tarantulas as pets. He told her one of his got out of the cage a few days ago and they never found it, “that must be it,” he told her.

Pura felt terrible, “are you kidding me?!” She asked, “seriously?” He said “yes, seriously,” and went on to apologize even more and assured her it won’t happen again and how they don’t have anything to worry about, tarantulas are harmless, yata yata yata yata. “Did you see where it went?” He asked. That’s when she broke the #news to Eddie Megabucks.

“My girlfriend killed your tarantula,” she told him. He was caught off guard at first but also accepted Dani’s reaction, “she killed it?” He asked. “Oh yeah,” Pura told him, “she jumped on it after it lunged across the back yard at us and squashed it—it’s dead now.”

“Ok,” Eddie said, seemingly unbothered by the loss of his pet spider, “I have more—we’ll stop looking for that one now, thank you!” He apologized again and assured Pura they don’t have anything to worry about, how it’ll never happen again and some other stuff that meant the same thing. They shook hands again, “nice meeting you, Pura!” “It was nice meeting you too, Eddie.” He went back home and she took off for a run.

She stayed there for a few more months before moving down the street from me in Long Beach. They’d wave at each other passing by, she never encountered another tarantula and the rest is #history. Eddie Money—a rock and roll icon whose lyrics are known by just about everyone across the US and, the majority of the world as well, with hit songs like Take Me Home Tonight (featured below) succumbed to esophageal cancer at age 70 on September 13, 2019, but until I got to know Pura, back when she moved to Westlake Village about five years ago and moved in to the condo next door to Eddie Money, I never would’ve known he collected tarantulas.