Ode To Jick

One of my best friends, more like a brother, is Jick. His real name is not Jick. I call him that because he calls me Mick. You may think this sounds a little Dr. Seuss-ian. I assure you, the logic of this naming system was much more sound when I was in 3rd grade, which was when we met.

Anyway, Jick had a birthday yesterday, so it seems appropriate to give him a shout out. I've known him for pretty much 17 years now. It's really fun and kind of makes you pensive to look back on the times you've spent with someone you've known for that long. Hopefully it's equally as fun to read someone else's reminiscing about their childhood friends, cause that's what you all are about to do.

For those of you with severe short-term memory loss, I met Jick in 3rd grade. I don't really remember the first time we met, but we were in the same class with Mr. V and Mrs. C. Mr. V was one of the nicest and best teachers I can remember having, and he was goofy as hell. He looked just like Waldo, as in "Where's ___?" In fact, on Halloweens, he dressed up as Waldo. As a kid, it was freaky, like you thought that the book was based on a real guy who actually wore red and white striped turtlenecks and ski hats while he wandered through underground mideaval tunnels, casually observing and mingling with hundreds of warriors who were trying to climb up ladders while having hot oil poured on them.

Actually looking back, what in the name of sweet Gaia's teat was Waldo doing in those situations anyway? How did he actually get himself into the middle of so many full-blown yet comically disasterous, borderline preposterous battles? What was he doing there? Obviously, he had to have been some kind of time-traveler--I mean seriously, he was in what appears to be a modern day airport (Scene: The Airport, from Where's Waldo?), ancient Persia (Scene: The Carpet Riders from The Great Waldo Search), and Blaznork (the name I imagined for that one futuristic city in the scene: The Future, from Where's Waldo Now?). Ok, fair enough. He has horn-rimmed glasses, he wears turtlenecks in the desert, he is obviously a nerd, so maybe he could build himself a time machine.

But he actually has like a mad scientist vibe going on too. There is one scene in one of the books (tell me you remember this) where he is in a land filled with Waldos! Ok, he has a time machine AND he can clone himself over 100 times. Who the F is this guy? Why hasn't he sold the patent to these devices to the government for billions of dollars and retired to whatever place/time period he chooses with like 50 Waldo babes, getting drunk on champagne and cracking up while watching the Gobbling Gluttons (from the 3rd book) beat the crap out of each other?

I looked into this, and I think the reason why is because he is originally British. This actually explains a lot about Waldo, like the dorky get-up and the fact that he never shows his teeth. These are of course vicious stereotypes which I don't really mean--I know they are coincidences. However, I think we should all keep our eyes on Waldo--he may seem like a pleasant chap, but he has his own army of clones, and might be only 2 steps away from brutally colonizing the Ferocious Red Dwarves and forcing them to export tea and play cricket.

That was quite a digression, but Jick would appreciate it. Anyway, like I said before, I met Jick in Mr. V's class. We became friends quickly, I think because we were both spazzes and we had a ton in common. For example, we both liked writing waaay beyond what a normal 3rd grader likes. For no extra credit, teacher motivation, or really any reason at all besides that we were quirky, creative little dudes, we co-wrote an entire story series called The Insector Squad. It was about crime-fighting bees named Vice, Sting, and Buzz who battled a series of villians, which appear to have been various guido-like wasps who succeeded each other in leadership of a crime organization called the "Horn Dubbers." There were pretty intricate and racy plots for 3rd graders to come up with--jail breaks, shoot-outs in Casinos (where insects play for honey), and femme fatales. We were in 3rd grade.

I think part of what contributed to our hyperactivity was the fact that we each drank like 5 Cokes a day--that much sugar will jack a kid up. Jick was my partner in crime in what some of you might recall from my previous blogs--sneaking into the teachers lounge, buying Cokes, and hiding them around my room. We usually would do this on a Friday afternoon--most of the teachers had gone home to booze it up or whatever they did to try to forget the brats they had to take care of during the week. This "stash" of 5 cokes each would usually last us the weekend. Since Jick and I were basically brothers, we often spent the night at each other's houses.

At these sleep-overs, we created another grand tradition and discovered another thing in common that we shared--a passion for watching the same movies over and over again to the point of memorizing them while stuffing our faces with microwave popcorn covered in garlic salt. We usually rotated through one or all of these movies: Terminator 2, Terminator, Aliens, Billy Madison, Almost Heros, and Beverly Hills Ninja. Of course, there were others too, but these were the staples. If you read my blog yesterday where I refered to my ability to recite entire movies from memory--this is why and this is but a fraction of the movies I can do. I should point out that Jick can do the same thing, but arguably better.

Anyway, Jick and I pretty much hung out all day as kids. Some of our favorite pastimes included: ding-dong ditching our neighbors, playing Around the World basketball in my driveway, burning/blowing up action figures, playing with fake guns (the coolest was the Chick-Chock, a sawed off shotgun that was the shit and still would be if I had it), climbing out of my second story window with a fire-escape ladder, making long treks to the nearest Hollywood Video/independently-run Sub sandwich store which was over a mile away, and watching movies/playing video games (a staple video game--Kirby's Avalance for Super Nintendo--check it out sometime if you can--it's addicting). Unfortunately, there are too many stories to tell in one post, so I will pick out some great ones.

I used to have bunk-beds in my room, but they were set up perpendicularly. I usually took the bottom bunk for some reason--I later came to regret this and you will see why. Anyway, one night, it was "bed time"--the time when you are having a friend sleep over and you stay up talking/goofing off until like 3 am. Anyway, I don't remember what we were talking about, but at one point, Jick freaked out and sat straight up. This would have been fine under normal circumstances. But, I had recently gotten a cactus (I wanted a plant, but my mom, knowing better, realized that any normal plant would have died within a week under my negligent-ass 4th grade care, so she got me a cactus, which only had to be watered like 3 times a year. Plus, cacti are bad ass). I kept this cactus in a pot of rocks, rather than dirt, on a shelf above my top bunk--again I can't remember why. So when Jick sat straight up, he hit his head on the shelf, which catapulted all of the rocks and the goddamn cactus right onto my head on the bottom bunk. Needless to say, I was somewhat startled.

Another one of my favorite stories is when we used to ding-dong ditch my neighbor, and when she wasn't home, we would jump the shit out of her trampoline. This was great until one day she must have caught onto us. We ding-dong ditched her, and no one came to the door. We waited a good 5 minutes to be sure, then snuck to the back and got ready for some grade-A bouncing. All of a sudden we hear the deepest, manliest bellow, "I don't think so guys." It was her--she was divorcee with grown-up kids who lived alone, but it sounded like a cracked-out Darth Vader yelling in slow motion. This scared the poop out of us, so we ran back to my house. My parents were there working in the back yard--we didn't tell them, just tried to act casual, hoping that she hadn't recognized us.

But much to our dismay, 5 minutes later we looked out the gate and saw Mrs. Neighbor waddling up the cul-de-sac to my house. Basically, we were pwned. We had to write apology letters to her. I wrote mine really sarcastically at first, and got in more trouble and my mom made me re-write it. But it didn't stop us from carrying on the tradition of ding-dong-ditch and jump.

Jick was also the friend I talked about in my driving story--the guy who was in the car with me when I swerved my car. He helped plan my 16th birthday party where I got my car Sonja (the silver jeep grand cherokee), which was a surprise to me--and he was in charge of getting me to my house without me knowing what was going on. He did an awesome job. So it seemed totally appropriate that on the 3 month aniversary of my 16th b-day, Jick be there where I performed my first of many reckless acts on the road. The cop who pulled me over lectured us about how we were endangering both our lives. Jick and I laughed afterwards (even though I secretly was terrified inside). Jick helped ease the blow when I told my parents by making it sound better than it probably was.

This fall, I got the honor of being the best man at his wedding to his lovely chica, who me and Jick have also both known since we wer kids. I couldn't be happier for them.

I seriously have about 100 stories I could tell, and I know Jick does too, but I feel like I have to stop for now cause it's getting long. I will certainly tell many many more in entries to come. I hope this is a decent enough tribute to my best friend of 17 years on the day after his birthday. We had and continue to have some great stories. Happy Birthday Bleesty. Let's bust out the Coke, popcorn and garlic salt and pop in the VHS of Terminator 2.

That's it for now all. I will run into you the day after tomorrow's yesterday.

Mikee P

Here is some Random Stuff that Jick has introduced to me over the years:

Movie: Ravenous--I mentioned this yesterday, but i would have never seen it if it weren't for Jick. One of the movies we watched repeatedly as kids was the Mask of Zorro. Ravenous was one of the trailers on that VHS. We always used to joke about it cause it looked so weird. Well it turns out that as the years have passed, Jick's passion for movies possibly exceeds my own, and he buys literally almost every movie made--one of which being Ravenous, which he recently shared with me. It is bizzare, but great.

Music: Rise Against. I wouldn't say they are random, but not everyone might know about them. They are a great solid rock group that you should check out.

Quote: "Your last concert was as delectable as dipping my bottom over and over again into a bath of the silkiest oils and creams." --the Hedonism Bot, Futurama--best episode ever, "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings."