Recent Work, musings on Chase, etc.

Here is a new round of slides. I have to choose 4 pics to send to the museum show in May. Which ones do you think are winners, if any?

So we got our tickets and we'll be coming in to mpls. around 4 pm friday. Thanks mucho mucho mucho to Ben for helping us out with the plane deal.

Saturday is the memorial at the high school. I'm not looking forward to this experience, but at the same time I need it and we all need it and it's not going to be easy at all.

In elementary school, Chase and I didn't really hook up until 5th grade (so late!). That was when two heretofore unmeshed groups collided in the glory hole known as Ozabs. Chase, Dwyer, Grupa, myself, and a newcomer with a southern drawl who insisted we call him Pokey. Zack Taylor was definitely in the house. I should also mention Josh Lanto--he was in the mix. Others as well--I don't have the yearbook handy. Comment on people I left out in the 'comments' section.

It seems my most striking impression of chase at this point is his drawing. We were somehow all united by our drawings. Our sketches were both point of pride and socialization. I drew and put out some good sketches, but looking back I must have surely been a fledgeling. Zack Taylor easily took top honors with his inventiveness as well as his deft touch. Chase was close behind him, and what Chase lacked in touch he made up for in originality and characteristic style.

I don't know who figured it would be ok to let us all be in the same class. We were really rowdy, and there were a lot of laughs. Still, Chase and I were in different groups, one of us in 'A' and one of us in 'B,' so we weren't involved together in all late-elementary activities.

Junior High seemed to mark some kind of turning point in our friendship. While we each acquired new members of our social circles, chase and I grew closer during 7-8-9th grades.

god this is dry. This is too dry. I wanted to leave a trace of our lives together, to convey something of the excitement we generated together, and this account is doing neither. I feel like I'm hogging him by relaying things this way--highlighting what I remember of him, what we did him and I. What about all our other friends? What about the tensions, the fights, the push and pull of our actual relationship?

I remember once Chase, Dwyer and I were hanging out at my house in Ramsey. somehow chase and I got into it and started wrestling pretty violently. I don't know what we were fighting about, but Dwyer got kind of nervous and didn't know what to do. As Chase and I circled eachother, looking for weaknesses in the other's defense, Dwyer had quietly gone over to the stereo and put on "(That's why I say) Hey Man Nice Shot" by Filter! That was pretty tense, but it seems really fun now. I guess that's the kind of thing that really builds respect for someone--Dwyer and Chase in this case--sharing the tough times as well as the easy.

fuck

In junior high... maybe around 8th grade? commaford--I know this. Chase and I started kind of scratching our heads why we didn't have any classes together. Our other friends also noticed something odd about this. Eventually we decided it must have been an intentional conspiracy perpetrated by our teacher enemies. We all came up with the name TAJAC--teachers against joe and chase. We confronted commaford about TAJAC. I'm pretty sure she fessed up without missing a beat. apparently we were a handful.

of course they allowed certain outlets for our brand of... energy. We had a weekly? radio show that was performed on the morning announcements to the entire school. Chase wrote one particularly risqu-ay bit (of course in a british accented dialogue) where I was kind of off-color for the entire skit and he interjects about half way through:

"Nigel, you sound a bit under the weather this morning--"

"Yes, I'm hungover!" We both got kind of blasted for that one.

There was also the glorious peace rally--easily one of the funnest things I've ever done in my educational career. What can I say about this? Watch the video. I have to thank chase for that oppurtunity. Even back then I was a bit of a hermit, and Chase had to really cajole me into agreeing to co-write and co-produce that beast. i'm so glad I did agree.

Likewise with the talent show, which got a few kids suspended. Prosser was dressed up as the stay-puffed marshmallow man. You just had to ride Chase's wave sometimes, or you knew you would regret it so much if you missed it, even though to ride would probably induce a slight discomfort.

my memory is shit. there is so much I'm missing. it's hard to narrate something this big. for the sake of blog-clarity I'm wishing Chase wasn't such a good friend. i wish I could related 3 or 4 episodes and come off clean. In my mind it makes more sense--I see how we all related together, not just Chase and I but all of us--I see each of our unique energies contributing to something great.

elementary and junior high were fucking fun.

"now you're all gone, gotchyer make up on/ and you're not coming back (can't you come back?)"

*+*+*+*+*+*

Valentine's day was spent in a cheap mexican restaurant. As molly and I held hands with a mariachi speaker blowing directly behind my head, she said softly, "I don't need no fucking valentine's day." What a girl!

Good chats with many friends these last couple days. ben related the physical pain and exhaustion of this grief. I told him I feel sick, and it's not just the booze or the head cold. He said it comes in waves and sometimes it just hits you in the face like fresh. all true.

then there was a nice drunk dial from andy hurt and ari. Interesting twist thinking about relaying these stories to hurt's infant son: "Frank, you're not gonna believe what your dad told me last night. Something about 'hide the whitesnake.'"

note to self: no more listening to Van Morrison's "Astral Weeks" while at work. Keep it light at work dude!

tomorrow I'm going to take ben and molly's advice and tell my colleagues about chase. I've been holding back because I don't want to burden them and I can't make sense of it (see above). but I need to tell them what he meant to me.