If this doesn't make you laugh...

Just to spite my father and myself, the two most long-winded people you’ve ever met, I’m going to make this as short as possible.

A year ago today I was in Salt Lake City, with my uncle, my father’s youngest brother, in the middle of a hitchhiking trip.
Two years ago today, I was sitting on a rooftop on an island in Northeastern Kenya, watching palms sway and storms gather.
Three years ago today, I was driving home with four friends without a worry or thought, the day after finishing my school year. On that drive we came upon a terrible scene. It involved a car accident between an automobile and a pedestrian. The pedestrian died. The pedestrian was my father.

Sporadic, that’s how my dad would like it. “It’s all poetry GUY,” that’s what he would say, full emphasis on the guy.

Today, I’m lying on my bed with no prospects of going out. My head’s too dizzy, and even though the temperature is gone, my cough is still pretty bad. It turned out to just be bronchitis. Bronchitis? I know, I thought the same thing—so unexotic. I was shooting for swine flu…kind of. I mean, what’s so bad about the swine flu? You become an instant star (it would have done wonders for my career), everyone’s surviving it, and if I got it now I’d definitely live through its return in the fall when it’s due to wipe out millions. Besides, if you’re going to be lied up for an entire week with a fever, chills, and a horrendous cough, shouldn’t it be cooler than bronchitis?

I guess it was, if not cooler, at least worse…in some ways. I mean, I also had traces of blood in my urine, which was the original reason I went to the doctor. (No VD people, no VD! Phew! Just kidding. Sergio don’t play dat!) Yep, a young man with a bladder infection. How masculine! Almost as masculine as not being able to go to the damn Lakers Parade you’d been talking about all season. That’s right, I watched it from my house as I drank soup and shivered on my couch, watching the room spin around the fan. That sucked, undoubtedly, but I think the moment that really just put it all in perspective for me was a couple hours after the parade when I stumbled out of my house to take my trash out and saw a piece of paper on my windshield parked across the street. A ticket? Too easy. A love note? I wish. Nope ladies and gentlemen, a note from the fine servants of my city, that’s right, the L.A.P.D. It read:

Call LAPD
Officer blank blank #blank blank
Officer blank blank2 #blank blank 2 [They are so unoriginal…seriously]
Happened at about 12:30 a.m.

What happened? Someone took a frickin’ baseball bat to my side view mirror and then proceeded to smash my windshield with said baseball bat...separate swing though, I’m pretty sure. You know what I did when I saw that, standing outside in my pajama pants sliding down my ass and my snot covered shirt? I laughed out loud (you know, LOLed, or LedOL—past tense). This might surprise you, but it shouldn’t, in fact, you should’ve laughed when you read it. If you didn’t, I’m going to think myself a poor writer, and that would not be very funny at all.

Yes, I laughed, because getting angry would have had absolutely no positive effect on anyone or anything; not on me, not on my windshield, not on my possible swine flu, not on my bloody urine, and definitely not on God or the devil. When I shuffled my way back into my room, I called a few friends, laughing. They all thought I was better. “You’ve gotta hear this,” I said, and then related the story. They all thought I was much worse. None of them laughed. “That’s terrible.” “That’s horrible.” “That’s fucked up.” True enough, true enough, but come on, just for a minute, how f-in hilarious is it all. When your friend falls on the ground, what do you do the moment you realize he’s alright? YOU LAUGH!!! You keel over and clutch your gut, because your friend is a klutz and he just gave you a Hollywood comedic moment without charging you $12. And why? BECAUSE HE’S ALRIGHT! Things over here are alright. Things over here always are. I just don’t always see it, I’m just not always willing to accept that I’m an actor in a larger ongoing comedy, and it was my turn to eat shit so that the audience could bust a gut. I’m just not always able to laugh.

“God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.” –Voltaire

On June 20th, 2006 I did not laugh. There was nothing funny about my father’s death. Maybe there will never be anything particularly funny about it; only irony and the cruel, simple, comically tragic truth that we all die. Maybe our existence is the long joke leading to the final serious moment, or maybe it’s all just a play, and when all is said and done and the curtains draw, we should just be glad that we got a chance to see that person perform, because they were damn good. And if it’s our turn, well hell, hopefully we put on a good show.

My dad was beautiful. He had so many qualities that made him magnetic, that made him a joy to be around. He was incredibly knowledgable, extremely gifted at story telling, and generally charming (depending on his blood sugar). He was a gracious man with an interesting life, and I count myself grateful for having been able to learn so much from him in the 24 years we got together. With that said, my father was angry for much of his life. At what? I don't know, problems, situations, all the things he couldn't control...himself? Perhaps. There were many beautiful things about my father, but his anger was not one of them.

I think when I was small I must have made myself a solemn oath that I would never be that angry, because for all my flaws I am not an angry man. Life is full of shit, and pain, and smashed windshields, and dad’s dying, but that is what life is, that's just how it goes. Do I worry? Yes, that I could not seem to avoid picking up from my father (genetics are clingy bastards aren't they?!). Worry as I may, however, I do not let my worries or my frustrations dictate my life; I cannot. If I were to allow all my past injuries and all my future worries run my life, where would I be? Alone in a white room with no windows, no doors, and padded walls--and people say I live a crazy life. Ha!

Things will be alright, scratch that, things are alright. You know who taught me that? My father, as he worried himself sick about everything. "Live free mijo, chase your dreams." I will...I am, and when I fail and things fall apart, I hope I'm able to step back and laugh at the humor of it all. Peace dad, I love you.

P.S. This is the longest entry I've written, SUCKERS!!! ha. In honor of my father, the man who could talk forever. He still whispers.