365 # 66: Ismael G.

It was my first semester back to school, my very first class on the long arduous road leading towards my master's degree, and you were to be the instructor. I had the date of the first day of class burned into my brain. As the day came close, I happened to look at a class scheduled and realized *GASP* the date I had in mind wasn't right at all. In fact, I had missed the first two class sessions already! Way to kick off your graduate career, smart guy!

I went through a brief moment of panic, but then quickly moved on to acceptance as it dawned on me that there was really nothing I could do other than suck it up and take the hit. Either that or drop the class, which I've never been fond of doing. I suspected I had an assload of reading to catch up on, and thought that perhaps I could email you to see about getting a copy of the syllabus, and maybe sneak in a weak little apology for missing class. Except when I pulled up my email, there was one in my inbox from the director of my program informing everyone that the first weekend of your class had been cancelled due to the sudden death of your mother. My emotions went something like "YEAH!!--ooooohh......shit." It wasn't in any way my fault, but I felt awful that I had somehow benefited from your loss.

Class resumed a couple of weeks later, and you led us masterfully through the finer points of ethics as it relates to the helping professions. Thanks for a good class.

365 # 65: The Happy Chappy

My life as a camp counselor was such that Sunday was the only day in which one could sleep late. Thus, I never made it to any of your morning services. Plus, you know, church has never been my strong suit. But I did get to hear you tell ghost stories on a number of occasions, and you were an amazingly gifted yarn-spinner, which of course is a great skill for any preacher to have. You had the cheerful chubby red-cheeked face of a garden gnome, but by the light of a campfire, you took on a much darker persona. I remember we asked you to tell a tale for some of the kids one night, and you did such a great job that several of them were left in tears. It was like we asked for Scooby-Doo and you delivered "The Exorcist."

And speaking of Rage...

Via the good people at Boing Boing, there's this little bit of drama from the protests at the Republican National Convention. In short:

"When the police shut down the PA on Rage Against the Machine at an anti-RNC concert, the band took to the turf with a megaphone and performed a capella, delivering inspiring commentary between songs."

Now Rage is, has been, and always will be one of my favorite bands of all time. But the fact of the matter is that they're a semi-broken-up band that hasn't put out an album in going on a decade. I'm not saying that they've nothing relevant to offer, but when a band is doing reunion shows, I think it's safe to say that the heyday is past.* And yet here you have this little side-story of censorship wherein whichever powers-that-be decided that this music was somehow too dangerous, too incendiary to allow it to take voice. Censorship is nothing new in our country, but it never ceases to amaze me. What is so fucking frightening about words, ideas, thoughts given expression, that they have to be shut down before they get out into the open? Any institution, be it a political party or a religion or an ideology or whatever, if it is so weak as to be damaged by an idea, then it needs to get damaged.

And yes, I know, there may well have been some violence at an RATM protest concert, but fuck it. We've had eight years of this Republican bullshit. I'm embarrassed we haven't had more riots.

*Which is not to say that I wouldn't totally go see them if they came to Austin. Hey guys, come to Austin! We'll fuck shit up! It'll be great!

365 # 64: Nick the French Exchange Student

NICK: You, eh, like zees band? Zees Rage Against the Machine?

HOLMES: Yeah man. You?

NICK: Oh yes, I like zees band very very much.

Or something like that. So it was that we became sort of like friends, and that my partner for my second dose of live RATM goodness was an aloof Frenchman who never stopped smoking. I remember running into you in the mosh pit, and all that relaxed cool had vanished. "Zees ees great!" Then you disappeared back into the roiling sea of humanity.

I hate to tell you this man, but you know that great big open field where we saw that show? Not so open anymore. It's now covered over with acres of shopping convenience. I keep thinking that the voices of all those concerts past will have some kind of Poltergeist affect on the place, but the power of consumerism must be keeping the voices at bay.

My apologies if I exaggerated your accent in the dialogue above. Your English was a billion times better than my French.

365 # 63: James of the J's

You were one of the oldest of about seven or eight siblings, all of whom had names that started with "J." This naming scheme was presumably some sort of bizarre homage to Jesus. You know, of Christ fame? I seem to recall that everybody thought you were kind of a freak, myself included, but I guess being a member of an alliteratively named brood will do that to a person. But really, some of your weirdness was actually kind of cool in retrospect. Like that time that you showed up to the church Halloween party wearing a skirt. You spent the whole night having to explain to everybody that you were dressed like the guys from Erasure. Sure, they were hardly my favorite band, but nobody else our age had the balls to wear a skirt. You didn't seem to care what anybody thought, a quality that many people don't develop until much later in life, if ever. I also recall that joke you told to the youth minister, whose wife happened to be a cute little blonde:

JAMES: Why do blonde women, er, wives, have big bellybuttons?

YM: (looking nervously at his wife) Uh, why?

JAMES: Because they have blonde boyf, er, husbands!

365 # 62: Ryan M.

Never have I met anyone who so relished his status as a fat guy with a tiny dick. These were two of your favorite things to point out about yourself, and somehow they never quite lost their humorous quality. Except you weren't particularly fat at all, which leads me to think that you may well have been packing an anaconda in those not-fat-guy pants. But it was a running joke, so run it did.

It was the first year of college for you and I and most everybody else that we ran with. But you had gotten a lot of your drinking and assorted other substance use out of the way in your younger years. Not that you didn't get hammered occasionally, but more often than not, you were the guy that came along to provide entertainment for we foolish freshman fucked-up types. Lucky for us, you were one entertaining fat guy.

As likable as you were, you managed to piss your friends off time and again by being the smartest fuck-up that any of us knew. We all knew you were carrying a brilliant mind up in that head of yours, but you couldn't quite seem to pull it out when it came to school. You must have finally fallen into your groove because last I heard you were headed off to grad school. Good for you, you fat fuck.

365 # 61: April B.

It's Labor Day, so what better person to remember than one of the fantastic women who helped my wife get through one of her own labors? The Ash and I were both struck by how young you seemed when we first met you, seeing as how you were the owner and head midwife of your own practice. Still, you inspired calm and confidence, and we really liked you and your staff, as well as the facilities, so we chose you for the birth of our second son. You had your own newborn baby with you at our first meeting. This might be considered unorthodox in some circles, but I thought it was cool, like we were getting a glimpse of your mom and midwife sides at once.

We arrived at the birth cottage on the morning of the birth day, labor several hours along. I remember feeling that sense, once again, of profound calm that you inspired. All would be well, all would happen exactly as intended, and all in its own time. For the next eight hours, you and your staff carried us through one of the gentlest and most beautiful birth experiences imaginable. Thank you.