monkeyplus1

I got some very late news that an old friend passed away a few years ago.  He was born on the same day/year I was. In the time I knew him, he was larger than life.

Shayne was mad brilliant, passionate, living in extremes, abounding in fiery hate and oceans of love. He could go from violent fervor to writing poetry in the space of an afternoon. He seemed like such an old soul. He may have even been a high-school drop out, but as literate an intellectual as you can find anywhere.

And then heroin started to dominate his life. It had started as a once-a-month treat. A reward for making the trek to the clinic to donate plasma. A little something out of the veins, a little something back in.

I left Austin after knowing him for only a couple years, though they were certainly among my wildest. He introduced me to Crash Worship, and how to revel like a true pagan. If he had a religion, it was hedonism.

The shadow of heroin fell over his life in the years that followed, and I visited him once during a trip back home to Austin. The last time I hung out with him, playing a Star Wars card game, he seemed a small, distant shadow of his former self, retreating.

In the end, it was the drugs that killed him. An overdose after a long day of multiple drugs from which he was briefly revived, but his body just shut down and quit. Given the history, it was sadly no surprise, but a loss just the same. I have the last few zines he made, “Veganism with Vengeance”, that are nearing 15 years old.

It’s strange, I can still smell this house he shared with Ryan, Mike and Becky, a dark and cool cave, an oasis from the oppressive summer heat of Austin. Smells of spices, vegan food, and lots of incense. The windows were all blacked-out. Daylight and non-vegans were equally forbidden entry.

Shayne in his room. Piles of books, CDs, and lots of cassettes, neatly organized and elaborately decorated. Walls covered in photocopies, zine pages, posters, crushed flowers. Whether it’s Deicide, Morbid Angel, Clock DVA or the Cocteau Twins, the music is one extreme or the other.

He’s bare-chested, wearing shorts, hair shaved short except for a little crest at the front making a faux-crown. He’s got some sewing pins, and for no particular reason, has decided to pierce himself with about fifty of them, so the pointed ends are sticking out in thick arrays from both brows, and from the inside of his mouth sticking out through his cheeks, like some silver-whiskered catfish. There’s another dozen or so pins stuck throughout his chest.

It’s some rite of passage, details known only to him. He goes a few days like that, but some pins remain in his brow, pointing outward in his field of vision, like he’s eye-stabbing everything he sees.

We walked to an antique shop on South Congress Avenue one sunny morning. He wore a button-up shirt he’d torn the sleeves off. We were eyed suspiciously by the clerk, for we were all as deviant-looking as you can get.

I kept my distance from Ryan, who had a habit of walking out of stores empty-handed, but trouser-full of goods. Shayne picked out a wooden-bead necklace, whose former owner was probably an old lady.

It was huge, gaudy, ridiculous looking, but when he put it on outside, it suddenly took on a new appearance. With his crowned hair-do, the necklace became a royal treasure. He plucked a daisy from a field of weeds, tucked it behind an ear, and walking in the sunlight with a glorious gait like he owned the world.

And that moment, suddenly awed by this strange and powerful majesty, is how I remember him now.

Shayne Robb
May 1973 - August 2004
R.I.P.

Using the SCOWL word lists, I’ve written some code that randomly generates three-word phrases, and hand-picked some interesting ones. Maybe I’ll get some interesting search-engine referrals:

Mortality Contrived Darkness
Baking Divorce Handler
Ethnic Cap Needle
Deed Audio Freeway
Grouping Pedantic Interference
Analyst Bubble Kings
Etymology Blast Castle
Journalist Enforced Symphony
Shout Pie Hatred
Deserting Shocks Degradation

Vulnerable Sentient Hearts
Mock Sabotage Pudding
Reinstate Stepping Rhythm
Smoked Suspension Electorate
Novice Literary Cult
Tragedy Scrapping Essence
Faculty Rigid Assessment
Puzzled Flagging Continuum
Tome Rainbow Carriage

the following are from some of the more rare words:

Romancemonger Impoisoner Seafolks
Waxchandlery Toumnah Supercatastrophe
Monociliated Anay Pappiferous
Adradial Extrapolar Butterlike
Hardbought Oversettled Osculatories
Protoxidize Thelyplasty Masculonucleus
Chenfish Chickenberry Chloramide
Lemogra Awelessnesses Decuplet
Cappiest Subconsular Unjuicy

Yes! Finally got back the WRX. In the first five minutes of driving it home, I already was backpedaling any thoughts I’d entertained about selling it.  Maybe… but not just yet.

The body work is immaculate, gold-flecked black paint to match the original.

I pulled up to my house, eyeballing my little Ford Ranger that is now never driven.  I pull a few things out of it, snap some pictures, and decide to post an ad on craigslist.

Three minutes later, the flood of phone calls starts. In less than 45 minutes later, I had cash in my pocket and the new owner was driving off. Unbelievable.

In retrospect, I should have taken some numbers, and then chosen who to sell it to.  I would not have sold it to the super annoying fuck that begged and begged me not to sell it to anyone else.  I was already selling it at a very good price, and he kept trying to ‘PLEASE DO ME A FAVOR, MAN, PLEASE DO ME A FAVOR. PLEASE DO ME A FAVOR, OK? TAKE $100 OFF THE PRICE’.

Everything this dude said was preceded by ‘PLEASE DO ME A FAVOR, OK?’ repeated three or four times.

But oh well, it’s a done deal. We are now back to just two vehicles.