2002-09-19 | BURNT SIENNA

When I was about ten years old, there was a big story about two kids in my town who were playing with a gun that they found in one of their fathers bedroom.

One of the children accidentally shot the other one fatally, and it was pretty tragic.

The one that died was an avid skateboarder, so they built a skateboard ramp for him at my old intermediate school, and named it after him.

I can't remember his last name for the life of me. I know his first name was Jason.

I met a great guy when I started working at Safeway back in 1992. Actually, I think he started in 1994, and I met him then.

He was great. He was so fun to hang out with. He had great musical taste, cool friends, he was just interesting. He was a little neurotic. There was definitely something going on in his head. I could never put my finger on it.

One day somebody mentioned the killing of Jason.....whatever his last name was, and somebody said that my friend--another Jason--was the one that pulled the trigger.

I was blown away. I knew he looked familiar, and that his name sounded familiar, but I could never think of why he was familiar to me.

Suddenly I was paranoid. I was hoping that I hadn't said anything stupid while I had known him. Something that would bring back that memory for him. How do you block something out like that anyway? It's a wonder he's as normal as he was. He did end up being a heavy drug user once he moved to Portland, but he still seemed pretty cool. Just a little weirder. He got progressively weirder.

One thing I remembered that I kicked myself for when I found out he was the "other jason", was this shirt I used to wear.

I mentioned a few entries ago that my first concert was Pearl Jam. I bought my first concert t-shirt at that show.

It was a picture of a little girl playing with crayons in her room with a gun on the floor looming right beneath the crayons.

The back of the shirt said:

NINE OUT OF TEN KIDS PREFER CRAYONS TO GUNS

I felt like such a horses patoot.

I don't know where Jason is know. I hope he's alive.

I mean that.

- premature ejaculation | tantra +