Sorry bout that Bob...

I had a memory of a buddy of mine from back in highschool this morning. When I think about my friend Sam I have to remember some of the strange moments we encountered during our friendship.
I have always been pretty ecclectic with whom I choose to be friends with. I guess i always wanted to model myself after Ferris Bueller in a way- "Sportos, motorheads,
geeks, sluts, pinheads, dweebies, wonkers, richies, they all adore him. they think he's a righteous dude..."

I could give you more detail about Sam- like how on his 13th birthday he got hit by a semi truck and narrowly survived after being crushed between the wheels. he suffered an extended coma, and massive reconstructive surgery- but that wouldn't be telling you anything I really knew. I didn't know Sam when that happened, I didn't meet him until we were 16 years old, and he was already well on his way to living his perfectly normal, even if miraculous teeneaged life.

Sam is the guy who put me in a band- even though I didn't know how to play an instrument. He put a 4 string Bass in my hand and said- ok- figure it out. I plugged in, and we made noise. It was a good time. My friendship with him was good, and bad, and all the things one would expect teenaged friendships to be. We didn't always agree, or identify with one another, but from an overall perspective he difinitly colored my life in a way few others did. Sam was about living for the day- possibly as a result of his experience, but diffinitly as a result of his charecter. I have never read of anyone in fact or fiction that could match him.

So on to the memory- we were probably 17 or 18, and Sam, along with his brother Mike were hanging out with my mom and I at our little apartment in Beaver. It should be told that Sam and Mike and I were stoned to bejeezus for the duration of this event, but my Mother was none the wiser. We came accross what looked like a classic Burt Reynolds flick. When we came into the movie Burt was hooning around some backwoods mountains in an International Scout II. I figured Burt Reynolds + Scout II + driving hoonage would equal some sort of cinimatic classic of the Smokey and The Bandit / Cannonball sort. How wrong was I? VERY!

So we settle in and start watching the drama unfold as Burt and his buddies embark on a canoeing trip in the Ozarks. My Mother watches along with us- but with a secret knowledge she chose not to share. The movie is dragging on- but we are stoned, and unmotivated to change tha channel. Then it happens- the "Piggy" scene (if you have seen "Deliverence" then you know what I am talking about. Ned Beatty's charecter is sexually assaulted by two rednecks in extremely graphic fashion. This is probably the most disturbing scene in all of celluloid, and even in my stupor I am overwhelmed with feelings of disgust, and bewilderment that this movie could take such a turn- still it never occured to me to turn it off...

Once the scene is concluded, I look over and see Sam in a similar state of shock. Then from the floor in front of the couch Mike pipes up, and says the following-


"You know, everyone says they will be cool about something like that, but you KNOW that the minute that guy pisses one of them off they are going to be all like "yeah? Well at least I didn't get fucked in the ass on the camping trip Bob"

Fucking Brilliant...