Vinny

Brilliant is the first word that comes to mind when I think of Vincent Verbryck, for he was both a great thinker and he had a certain light about him. I always felt attracted to his radiance.
I loved Vincent and will always treasure being his friend.
I liked making him smile, and as he was known for his silence, I loved making Vincent say a lot. It was a challenge, but I only did it because it was worth it.
He made me smile, too. He had a great sense of humor, always sarcastic, deadpan, direct delivery. Vincent made me laugh hard.

I don’t think he understood me, but he accepted me in a way that was unique. He called me by my favored name, and he knew what that meant to me.
He did something few people will ever do with me; he wandered with me. That was special, because together we explored Knott’s Berry Farm and Anaheim, California; the torn apart, barely built neighborhoods of El Mirage and the jungles and beaches of Jamaica. We talked about deep, meaningful things and he listened really well.
Often, on AIM he would leave a message and immediately logout, not giving me a chance to react. He once left me a link to Rick Astley’s famous video. Yeah, he was the first to rickroll me. Last year, he started sending my poems by Tennyson. And he did stuff like that fairly often.
When we did talk online, we had casual but serious discussions. Once we were arguing about socialism and famous authors and I mentioned how well he argued. He didn’t try to convince me of his viewpoint, he just stated his side and listened to my opinions and to me, that was more effective than being right. I started imitating that, and he taught me how to discuss ideas without belittling people. I often felt enlightened and humbled talking to Vinny.
I think that in a way, Vincent admired me, but I admired him just as much.
I wrote this about him in January 2007 but never published it because I didn’t want to embarrass him:
There are times when I wish I could be a little more stable, a little more calm. A little more dignified, a little more introverted.

I really admire Vincent for being such a quiet person. I often tease him about his apathy, but I know he cares much more than he shows. I'm in awe of him, that he can keep his opinions silent, and go through life without provoking anyone. How he does it, I'll never know. I can't stand being so inwardly focused.

His sister told me she doesn't understand Vincent. That he walks around on his roof at times, and is always in his room. I laugh at this, because I understand all too well.

I would be lying if I said I didn't see a little bit of myself in Vincent.

I guess that makes me seem like a fanboy, but I still believe that. I saw a lot of potential in Vincent. I once tried to hook him up with my kid sister, which I wouldn't do if I didn't trust and value him a lot. I joked about starting a band with him called the Sketal Heads, a mixture of his trumpeting talent and his favorite genre of music.

He once told me that he didn’t have any passions in life and that greatly pained me. I wanted him to find passion, somewhere, anywhere. And for weeks, I tried to help him.

I often saved him a seat in church or asked him to come with the group when he wanted to be alone. He never seemed to enjoy being dragged along, but at least he did it. At poker nights at the Edahl’s, it wasn’t a complete party without Vinny there. It wasn’t really a LAN without Teh Boy.

We created some great memories together, I believe.

On Wednesday, before I knew what happened, I had spent the entire day drifting in and out of memories of Vincent. It was very uncommon, but it was nice. I remembered Jamaica and drinking virgin strawberry daiquiris and snorkeling in the reefs and how he went out for longer and farther than almost anyone and his mother was so worried when she heard that story. I remembered a lot of things like that, for no particular reason. It was surreal but it made me happy.

Later that night, when I learned what happened to Vincent, it was just like they say; my world shattered. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think, or feel or hear and my vision locked up. It hurt unlike anything I’ve ever felt.
The next couple of days were like a film, which isn’t to trivialize it, but it was so perfect and it felt like I wasn’t living my own life. This couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t real.
Thursday morning, it snowed and the sky was lint grey and still beautiful. It was like even the weather wore black and mourned with me. It was perfect.
A woman handed me a tract, and I threw it away almost immediately. I was angry at her, I was angry at everyone.

Some people may say, well he’s in Heaven now or something and that may comfort you and that’s fine. But for me, one of the only comforts right now is that I had my time with Vinny and I used it well. He was here. He made my life better. He deeply changed the person I want to be and the person I am. He made my life what it is.
My entire life with Vinny, I felt like a better person around him. He often humbled me. I spoke less and thought more. And the reason we’re here today, that’s just another way my friend Vinny has humbled me. I cried a lot, I blamed myself a lot, I broke down a lot. So I gotta say thank you to every one of my friends and family that helped me out with this tragedy, especially the Verbrycks, my parents, Kyle and Gean.
I’m here to celebrate the light, the brilliance that Vinny brought to me and to many of you here. I’m here to say goodbye.

Pictures of the Weekend Pt. 1

Went to the artwalk with my buddy Squared. Flag's First Friday usually blows, so you have to create your own chaos. I brought my Canon AE-1 and Squared tugged along his Pentax K-1000.
These big ancient cameras attract attention; everyone wants their picture taken, or on the other hand, they want you to put it down. There's the strange guy who demanded we take a picture of his dog (Squared did; I took a snap of the owner) and there's the grumpy gallery curators who don't want us selling prints of their precious art on eBay (a creepy old woman kept watching us take a picture of a shop window).

We ran into some handicapped people who admired our cameras. We ran into a man dressed as Bigfoot (it was really a bad Chewbacca costume) who ran into traffic and scared a bunch of drivers. We ran into police and breakdancers and drunks and small town poets and terrible art.

We were walking with our equipment hanging out (I know how that sounds) and a drunken Navajo wrapped in a blanket asked us to take his picture:
"Actually," Squared beamed. "I would love to take your picture." He raised the lens to his eye.
"What if I die?" The Navajo asked.
"Uh . . . well, we all will . . . some day. . ."
The Navajo pursed up his fist. "I could use some change. . ."
"Well, okay, we'll give you a dollar if you let us take your picture."
"Deal." He said. Then he raised his arms like a hawk and shouted "FREE!"
"Dude, you're not a freak. Don't worry."
Drunk Navajo Guy raised his arms again and we snapped two pictures.
"What's your name, anyway?" Squared asked.
"David." He said. "And I'm not a giving you any last names either. Just David."
"...Right."
A young college girl walked by and patted Dave on the shoulder and said, "Night, David." How sweet, she knew him and was being friendly.
David growled and said, "Don't touch me."

Later, we walked by a beerpong tournament outside the Mad I. Squared wanted to take a picture of the players, he raised his camera but a bouncer talking on his cellphone told us no pictures. We argued with him, that the sidewalk was a public space and we had the right.
"I know it's legal, but it's not cool."
Frustrated, we left and Squared muttered something about how we shoulda taken it anyway.
So we went to the corner gas station, I pissed and we came back. The bouncer was inside, not paying attention and Squared got the shot, easy. But I wanted to provoke the bouncer, so I turned on my flash and pushed the test button. Flash.
We walked on, but the bouncer ran after us, cursing. He stopped us and told us to delete the picture.
"We're shooting film." And I didn't want him ripping out the entire roll, because of the other great shots we had gotten that night. Bigfoot, the poets, the guitar-hero wannabes, everyone.
"We have two options, because I told you not to take a picture and you did," The bouncer said. "You delete that picture, one way or another."
I was shaking for some reason. I always get nervous in these situations.
"Let's compromise," I said, biting my tongue. "Why don't we just apologize and promise we won't use the picture, because it's film and we can't delete it."
"I don't care."
We argued for a few minutes, trying to tell him what we did wasn't illegal and it wasn't hurting anyone, etc. He tried to tell us he was a business law major and that our First Amendment Rights suddenly didn't matter.
Finally, he agreed to an alternative; we go into the bar and apologize to the manager, playing beer pong. Well, seems like a good idea, but as he led us into the bar I couldn't help thinking this was a trap. He was going to lead us into some dark backroom, beat the shit out of us and destroy the film AND the cameras.
But he didn't. He brought us to some random guy who looked bored and didn't care, we apologized and promised we wouldn't use the photos in a newspaper. That distinction should be emphasized. Everyone was happy. In the end, my first solution became the final one and I really think the bouncer only dragged us inside to embarrass us.
Squared is going to use the photograph, on his flickr, but that's about it. Victory or not, it was fun. Here it is:

Later, we went to NAU's carnival night a little Friday night program to keep Freshmen dying from alcohol poisoning. Yeah, it's a way to control everyone on campus and they tempt you with a raffle that serves as a reminder you are poor and never win anything.

Squared and I waited in line for an hour to get cotton candy with friends Angie and Katie. After waiting, Squared and I decided to take pictures of worker's reactions to strange things. I popped a few balloons next to them and then screamed as loud as I could.

We waited in line for another two hours to get balloon animals because Gean wanted an owl. But by the time we got to the front of the line, the balloon lady quit. Balls. However, a girl wearing a cap and a red Robin Hood hat also had a peacock balloon hat. She gave it to us and then disappeared into the crowd. As if her sole purpose was to give us a balloon and disappear. But we ended up passing the peacock hat off to someone else.

I collected as many balloons as I could and then some asshat tried to hit them out of my hand. Later, I saw him get into an argument with a stranger, who socked him in the face and ran out the fire escape door (which set off an alarm). I tried to get the shot and whipped out my camera, but he was gone and I let go of my balloons. . .which got stuck. What a disappointment.

Whatever. After that I went home and watched lame VHS tapes.

Three of the photos are by Squared.
You can read Angie's account of the weekend here:
http://angieonie.wordpress.com/2009/03/09/this-past-weekend/

It's Time to get serious

I got about 30 rolls of film (or 650 pictures to take) and I want you in them.
I want people dressed up silly and posing and whatever.
If you've already posed for me, that's great, let's do it again.

I want to do people smoking in front of NO SMOKING signs, an idea I am practicing with Luke, eventually. I got a neat t-shirt to go along with it, if you can fit in a Large.

I want to get people jumping unhappy. I heard somewhere that pictures of people hopping about are always happy. Well, time to prove them wrong. I think Vincent would be good for this.

Those are two ideas that will work out for now. If you have time, I can find it.

The Giants Fall

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/

Denver based newspaper that survived the Civil War, a flood and lots more closes under this shitty economy. The New York Times shall be soon.

Ford, GM and Chrysler won't last much longer even with the bailouts.
Same goes for Fannie and Freddie and Washington Mutual.
What's next? Will we see Yahoo! go under? Wal-Mart?
Will Nike lose stockholders and file chapter 11?

Facebook? What would you do if Facebook no longer existed?

We live in an age where the corporate giants will tumble. Anything can happen and anything will. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.