Where Have You Gone, Magoo?

This is my friend, Richard White. Well, this is an example of Richard’s humor. The last time that I worked with him, he had found a large pair of clear safety glasses. Quickly after donning the ill-fashioned glasses, he turned around and exclaimed, "Look at my new Magoo glasses. I think I will keep them.". All of this was said with a Scottish accent, in the style of the old, poor-sighted cartoon character named Mr. Magoo, who is famous for the hi-jinks that he got into. He took a photo of himself with his camera phone, causing a slight distortion that made the glasses he wore look even bigger. I convinced him to beam the picture to my laptop, with an offer to do a little creative editing of the picture, making him appear older and adding the caption of "Mr. Magoo Goes To The Oil Field". I procrastinated until it was time to go home, keeping the photo on my work laptop, planning on getting around to it next time.

I just found out today that he has passed away at the untimely age of 30. As I sit here, writing this post, I am in Costa Rica... San Jose, Costa Rica to be exact. I came here for the fun to be had for young, single men who can afford it. Also, for the memories to be shared and swapped with Richard and other friends in our predicament Guys with too much time on our hands, and a zest for making and experiencing new memories.

I must confess that I have always been a little envious of Richard, or Junior as we referred to him at times. He has traveled to more countries than I have states. He has seen Flavor Flav steal the audience of a following band at a festival, inviting them to come watch him jump off of a platform for a bungee experience. And, he was Scottish. Which I have to admit, is kind of cool.

Richard and I were able to hang out a bit, back in September. We were both offshore in Saudi, he was performing one job that went pretty much hand in hand with my job. I was able to get some great music from his hard drive and have a whole lot of laughs. Laughs I well needed while my family went through a hospitalization and a mysterious illness back home. Home that definitely felt like a million miles away. The songs, albums, and artists that I got from Richard, ran the gauntlet of music that I had thought I would never hear again. Mostly gangsta rap, a little bit of techno, and some good ol’ fashioned American rock that has filled my laptop to it’s capacity, as far as gigabytes go.

Whitey was the guy who was definitely living out his own agenda, quick to call b.s. when he saw it, and just as quick to see the humor in almost any situation. With a musical wit, he was quick to snag a line or too from some song, popular or forgotten. My favorite was a line from the Kaiser Chiefs song, "Oh My God". It refers to a comment about a guy that works with us. A great guy, who is at times a little naive perhaps. I think this quote could go perfect for the passing of Richard....

It don’t matter to me
Cause all I want to be
Is a million miles from here
Somewhere more familiar.

Oh my God,
I can’t believe it.
I’ve never been this far away from home.

So, cheers to you Richard. And thanks for the memories.

For my homeboy, the wook...may your Mac rest in peace.

Actually, I think that might even be his leg....

Just something I have been writing...

This is extremely first draft, don't know if it will turn into anything. Just a section that I think has promise for a laugh...

Bob was the kind of guy that really made people feel weird. I mean weird like a Catholic priest in a Chucky Cheese’s ball pit, grinning and wringing his hands. The Church is under a microscope enough without those guys hanging around little kid smorgasbords. As long as Tom could remember, his younger cousin had always been a strange guy. Unfortunately Bob had grown up into an equally strange adult, often being openly stared at wherever he ventured into public. Most of his time was spent in the secrecy of his basement room, typing away under the blue glow of his computer monitor.

Tom had tried to show some interest in the guy, trying to be a good cousin and give the oddball a little bit of advice. However, when Bob just stared blankly into Tom’s eyes, slowly scratching the back of his head creating a mini-blizzard of flaky dandruff, it made Tom a little nervous.

One time, when the whole family had went on vacation together, they went to the beach. Bob came out of the cabin wearing his white Captain Caveman tank top with little green floaties around his arm. His brown corduroy shorts with little Izod lizards sewn all over them, made quite the spectacle. The pair of goggles that he wore were covered with scratches, almost as if he had worn them while attempting to rape a large house cat. Bob had also managed to find a snorkel that was painted like a candy cane, giving his entire ensemble a kind of festive cheer, kind of a Christmas comes to Miami in July type vibe.

Incredibly, all of this completely failed to take attention away from the stringers of meet attached to all of his limbs. Pieces of chicken, ham, and beef kicked up clouds of sand as he stoically marched to the edge of the water. The spectacle looked like the storming of Normandy beaches, only in reverse, and definitely in an alternate reality. People in the water, unaware of the approaching disaster known as Bob, splashed each others sinewy lean and South Beach sculpted bodies, frolicking about in the surf. As Bob got into knee-deep water, just enough to drown himself, he threw his body onto the surface of the water. This resulted in a dead man’s float thanks to his floaties and pale skin tone. The lines of meat were suspended in the saltwater around him, attracting small fish and an occasional sea gull. Tom stared at Bob’s floating chum line bonanza of fine meats, and could only stare in shocked silence. The car wreck syndrome that he was under, causing him to stare on in horror and peeked interest, kept him from being able to yell out to the unsuspecting victims.

The headlines of the local papers were pretty lame and hokey, but managed to get the readers attention. "Local Swimmers Almost Meat There End" is just one example. The few larger circulation papers that picked the story up off the Associated Press news wire had a little more class. Bob was released by the local PD to his parents custody amid a small media frenzy, flash bulbs flashing, camera men pushing each other for position, and a couple of the would-be shark attack victims threatening to feed the kid to the sharks one piece at a time. There was even one Haitian immigrant who had a little home-made likeness of Bob, some type of voodoo ritual that he was performing on the hood of his taxi.

After that, it was kind of hard for Tom to really show much interest in the poor kid. Although they were only separated by 4 years in age, and good hygiene practices, they were about as different as you could get. Tom’s family, at least on his dad’s side, had always been a little eccentric. His mother’s family lived on the west coast and there was not a whole lot of communication between them.

When he was growing up, Tom’s family had all kind of lived in the same neighborhood, sharing yards with aunts and uncles and grandparents, giving the whole block kind of a cult-like communal feel. The family was definitely strange enough to be compared to a cult. After Tom’s Uncle Marty had gotten rich off of selling correspondence classes to simple folk in the deep south, the Jamison clan had all immersed themselves into get rich quick schemes. Tom’s favorite was his Aunt Barbara’s electric fly swatter. It fared pretty well on the flea-market circuit until a kid was accidentally electrocuted trying to kill a frog. Aunt Barbara was still paying off the legal bills from that on, but had managed to do only six months in the county lock up. On the bright side, she did manage to come out of the slammer with a new outlook on Jesus. And Tom gained an Uncle Linda.

Other family members had some marginal success in there goals, no matter how deluded those goals were. There was Aunt "Stevie" who was a professional impersonator of Stevie Nix. She did not look much like Stevie, but she had the sound of a horse dying in an electric fence, the sound that Stevie was known for, down to an art. Tom like to call her sometimes, just to talk to her about the weather, so he could here her impersonation. It would send him, and occasionally some of his friends, into laughing fits that would usually end with tears and aching sides.

So, this is the start...

I have a lot of free time on my hands, and occasionally a good thought or two. I use to have a blog on blogspot with a friend, but neither of us could keep up with it and it fell to the wayside. But, I think I am gonna give it a shot with just me. Be prepared.