Endless Indonesia

 

 

Nicknames frequently come and they go, usually just as fast.  I knew a guy named Tick because he liked that comic in highschool so stuck with it he was for about ten years until he finally grew out of it.  And I knew a Floss, also some reference to highschool.  I knew a Stingy, so called because he would lend you his lighter but only allow you one flick to save his flint, I knew a Bird, I knew a Duck.  I even know a Saspirilla, which is actually more of a secret identity than a nickname.  I am now in Indonesia and am good friends with a younger English kid nobody calls John because he is our Johnboy, plus we don’t want to confuse him with John C, the C standing for California.  I think nicknames rarely come close to preforming any sort of service for the person, how can a word sum it all up in one go?

 

I used to wash my dirty clothes (usually when it got to the point where I had no other clear choice but to contend with the stinking pile) at the laundry mat next to video store.  This was nice because I could hang out and talk with my friends and basically kill the entire day, I fondly look back at those wonderful useless years.  I used to flatter myself in those days by trying to fit in with the nebula of strange, odd people who gravitated to the place in order to orbit around Shawn Murphy, maybe the most wonderfully strange of us all.  He used to profess that he had no idea why so many of us strange people would show up just to hang out.  Aparantly the same thing happened when he worked at paper chase too, as soon as he clocked on for a days work there they’d be, each a little wierder than the last.  Such an amazing assortment of weirdo’s too.   Lets see, there was Baseball Bob, who went without a job so long he became known as no-job-Bob.  When no-job-Bob’s wife made him finally break down and get a job he became known briefly as new-job-Bob, another nickname which would be tossed out with time and next thing you know he was just plain old Bob.  There was Chester who was really proud of his Atlanta memorbelia collection, an achievement he had been working on his whole life.  He used to drive around a truck with a huge sign advertising a strip club.  This meant that by parking in the video store parking lot (as good a spot as any for a strip club billboard to sit) he was the only one of Shawn’s excentics somehow being productive by hanging around all day at a video store.  The rest of us were honestly just losers with nothing better to do all day on a weekday than hang out with Shawn.

 

 

One day I had a flat tire outside video store and had emptied my trunk to get all the gear out to fix it.  I went for a drive and came back later.  Shawn told me some asshole had left a jar of pickles in the parking lot and it had been run over.  Shawn had had to clean it up, I should have played dumb but I had indeed found a jar of pickles in my trunk, I guess I am the sort of person who drives around with old jars of pickles in my trunk, only to forget setting them down in parking lots while changing tires.  An honest mistake.  Hearing this sent Shawn into a rage and he chased me around the store with murder in his eyes trying to strangle me.  I really think he would have done it too!  After that for a while he called me pickles, and off all the nicknames that have come and gone in my life that must be my favorite.

I remember the time at the drive innvasion Shawn and I wandered over to look at the hotrods just in time to catch a massive peel out contest. Something about the way it started right as we walked up made us feel like they had been waiting around all day for us two to show up so it could start, like we walked up and they all said ‘ok go’!

I remember being the wine council at the fetish convention, Shawn Murphy chasing a woman screaming “shinney pants!”  Chuck doing the big party high five and Nick hoods ass being beaten by a dominatrix until it looked like raw ground beef.  Shawn and Jimmy were like drunken naughty little boys that night running around causing trouble and laughing, hollering at strangers ‘hey man, where the white bitches at?’  That still makes me laugh now thinking about it.

I remember (or sort of hazy remember) the drinks I had with Shawn and Jimmy and at the star bar.  Jimmy, I want to send you a hug now, if you can hear me from all the way in Indonesia I want to send you a really big hug.  When I was a young guy and two guys as amazing as you two guys drank with me at the Star bar all them times, you will never know how fucking cool that made me feel.  My thoughts are so with you and Mary Eva right now.  Seriously, you guys, all the love I have coming to you from far away.

When I was like 20 or 22, all Blake and Chuck and I were yelling at each other about what comic was better, Dark Knight returns or the Watchmen.  Chuck said we call Shawn, he knows everything.  Turned out that not only did he know it was the Watchman, he just so happened to be having diner with Dave Gibbons at the time, the Watchmen’s artist.

Who the fuck else would have been?  Sitting there drinking with Dave Gibbons at the very moment we called him to ask this comic book fanboy nerd question.

I will remember him grilling hotdogs out of the back of that van he had at the drive in.  Or standing next to him at a Gargantua show, these are images that for me say everything about that period of my life. 

I remember the halloween costumes.  Always almost as good as Shane Mortons. 

I will remember driving past video drome just to see if he was around so I could go and pester him.

If I ever live in Atlanta again I will always be a little sad whenever I drive past there.

So many cool memories.

I will miss him from this day on.

So the one nickname I can think of off the top of my head that really worked, really helped know the guy was the Professor.  The name said it, ask the professor.  And it was a name that didn’t fade, it was a name that was proven over and over.  Eric, who could tell you what year any movie come out since the year 1965 with Rainman accuracy called him Professor.  I worked in a video store for years and have a film degree, and will never know as much about films as the Professor probably forgot.  Everyone I know who knows old movies and old horror movies, and lets face it folks there are a lot of people in the Atlanta scene who know their horror cinema Shawn was the guy they all called the Prof.

But he was more than that too.  He was always good for a conversation on any topic, always with insight.  And he was always halarious, and even though he has hundreds, shit maybe thousands of close friends in Atlanta, he alawys makes you feel like you are the one he knows best, not in a shifty way but from honest intense caring for people he loved.

Last summer I was in town from Asia where I live now and got to go drinking with him.  I tried to tell him he should move to Indonesia with me, which I annoy everyone with, but I really daydreamed how great it would be to have Shawn out here with me, even though there was never a rat shit chance he would have done it in the first plce.  We started that night at the Rightous room and wound up at the Clairmont.  Another time I was feeling all sick and he called as I was hanging with Stussy.  He wanted to go out and I totally wussed, which I can now look forward to regreting for a long time.   I guess I figured I would catch him next time, couldn’t imagine anything different.  I still can’t.

 

And so all these memories which we all have of a great man will stick with us, and we can hopefully feel a little better by trading these amazing Professor stories.  So maybe we can all laugh and cry, I hope.

 

And God damn it, GOD DAMN IT I am gonna miss that guy! 

 

And so, on the other end of the earth, tonight when it is moring there, I will join throngs of sad people, many with tatoos, many with video collections maybe deeper and stranger than even their music colletions, all the endless list of the us guys and girls lucky enough to have been touched by a great man, and I will drink some kind of strange mixed drink, although it is hard to find rum in Indonesia.  I will just have to do with vodka.