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August 25, 2005
Grey feelings of poo and pee
Forgive the title - I borrowed the gist it from my friend Katy.
Weird word: gist.
n 1: the central meaning or theme of a speech or literary work [syn: effect, essence, burden, core] 2: the choicest or most essential or most vital part of some idea or experience; "the gist of the prosecutor's argument"; "the heart and soul of the Republican Party"; "the nub of the story" [syn: kernel, substance, core, center, essence, heart, heart and soul, inwardness, marrow, meat, nub, pith, sum, nitty-gritty]
Prolly not the best choice in this context, but hey. Who's reading this anyway?
Anyway - leaving tomorrow for Portland. Ryan's service is this weekend. Ryan Sumner, for those of you who didn't know him, is a kid I met when Deathray toured through Eugene and Portland on a regular basis. He came out to all of our shows, would be the first (sometimes only) one in the audience to encourage us with his "FUCK YEAH!"'s and "RIGHT ON!"'s, invited us to his house, drew us awesome comics, sent us demos of his bands, and was just a really cool individual who I got to know more as the last few years went by. He died a little over a week ago in his sleep. He apparently had a chronic blot-clotting condition, one he had struggled with since childhood. Not too many folks knew, I gather. I won't go into any details. It's just sad and unfair. Of course.
Goddamn it = The last time I saw him, he and the Man Of The Year family stayed on our floors - they were all on a short tour and Ryan came along to help out. The bunch of us had been listening to AC/DC and Van Halen records all night - an unabashedly puerile-rawk kinda night with lots of beer and chips to supplement the laughs. One of the highlights was Ryan, his 6'-(many)" skinny frame splayed out on the couch, claiming the psychedelic mushrooms he took were just now "kicking in". No one knew whether to take him seriously or not, but I kinda had the feeling that duder was putting us all on as a sort of Pabst Blue Ribbon variant of a Situationist prank. Just the slightest of smiles. He just had the razor-sharp-yet-gentle wit buried under a somewhat cultivated stoner/rocker guise. Not fooling me, Ryan. I can see you in there.
Dude was profoundly on. He will be missed greatly. Wish I could have spent more time with him.
posted by dana at August 25, 2005 09:56 PM
