my best friend
I originally set out to keep this concise but it turns out I suck. Hopefully I didn't ramble too much and got at least a few type indicating bits in this. Sorry it's a bit long, but after 17 years of friendship it seems incredibly light to me. There is so much that seems important that I didn't get to because I doubt people would want to read a full book about my bestfriend. lol
Keith
I feel a little funny/bad about having to call somebody my "bestfriend" because it somehow seems to leave out the other friends who I'm closest to. But anyways, Keith would be that person. We met in Freshmen year of highschool, we both had a world history class together. We didn't really sit next to or even really talk to eachother but there was a little "that guy's allright" in the back of both of our heads. Eventually towards the middle of the year me and this other kinda dorky guy I hung out with alot decided we were going to get together a group to play D&D. He asked Keith and Keith was like "hell yeah!". Well that didn't ever materialize but a few of us decided to hang out at one of the football games after school (none of us cared about the team or were jocks, it was just a reason to hang out outside of school) Well everybody else flaked out except for Keith. His Mom drops him off in front of the school and he's wearing this trench coat. Turns out he had somehow managed to smuggle out a full bottle of vodka from his house, drive to the school with his mom (even stopping for a side trip to the grocery store so she could get some stuff) and somehow managed to keep this bottle hidden away under his coat the whole time. lol so me and him blew off the game of course and drank what we could manage of that bottle and stumbled around the neighborhood being stupid drunk. That was the first time I drank. It was great fun!
Anyways from there on me and Keith pretty much naturally fell into being good friends. Talking and hanging out in our growing little click of outcast stoner/artist/brainy people at school and getting together after for any school events that we could get our parents to drive us to so we could get fucked up. It was me and him together the first time either of us got legitimately stoned together... A year or whatever later he did his first line of coke at a party at my house (I remember him coming out the arcadia door all glowing going "ROB! I feel so fucking great!" and giving me a big hetro bear hug of appreciation)
Keith and relationships...
He's always been alot more able in the girl department than I. He's not a player at all, unlike me though Keith has always been able to get and manage girlfriends. Despite being a bit overweight (like a big teddy bear, that's what we used to call him ) he's always seemed to be able to find a hot girl and easily get it going with her into a year or three long relationship. A few people have remarked to me "I don't see how he does it...? A guy who looks like that. It's weird "
He doesn't seem to have an unconfident bone in his body and I think that's his deal/appeal. Anyways, yeah, he makes it seem like there's no effort at all to the whole thing, it just happens.
The warm fuzzy's of friendship...
Over 17 years of friendship keith and we have never had a fight or dramatic episode between us. Sure we can argue about stuff, sometimes both ending up like "WTF is wrong in your brain for you to think that? OMFG!" about eachother. But it's never like angry or whatever. It's kinda more funny than anything else Usually that sort of thing will end up becoming the basis of years long inside jokage between us.
For instance this one time when he was showing me the intro sequence to this PC game he had downloaded. It was an obvious (to me) mix of real actors put onto a computer generated background/scene (a spaceship bridge or something) using a bluescreen or something.
Keith "the game sucks pretty much but isn't that rendering cool? It looks like a real movie"
Me "Well yeah, that's because those are real actors"
Keith "No look at the controls and archetecture and stuff, that's totally computer rendered"
Me "But dude, look at that guy's face. He's a real actor"
Keith "Dumbass I know, that's obviously a real guys face skinned as a texure onto a model of him"
Me "No that's a real guy!"
Keith "WTF are you talking about! Look at the computer he's sitting in front of and the buttons and controls on his console"
Me "No shit, that's because the objects are rendered but the people are real!"
Keith "I know they're real! That's how they make the models of the people look so lifelike"
Me "DUDE! START IT AGAIN AND LOOK AT THE CLOSEUPS OF THE PEOPLE! THEY ARE REAL ACTORS!"
Keith "OK. But look at the walls and stuff behind him. Those are in the game... that's where you're character starts"
Me "I'm not talking about the walls I'm talking about the people"
Keith "I'm not argueing with you, they scanned real people for the models! I agree!"
Me "ARGH!!! They aren't models they're actors and the ship and background are models"
I'll cut it short here... Suffice it to say that we watched that 30 second intro to a shitty space shooter over and over for at least an hour argueing to the point thinking eachother brain damaged for not getting the point. Lol he even went so far as to hunt down the credits in the game book to find the people who "played" the characters, then did google searches to try to find pictures of the actors all so that he could prove to me that it was that actors face on the charcter models and going "See I'm right! That's guy's the dude they scanned for the intro movie. There's his real picture. this proves I'm right!" While I'm about to explode with frustation over him proving my point that THAT IS THE GUY THAT'S FUCKING ACTED IN FRONT OF THE BLUESCREEN IN THE INTRO SEQUENCE!
lol... eventually he freaked out and yanked the computers plug out of the wall and we both tried to never speak of it again in frustration. Hehe but whenever there's badly animated characters or what's obviously cartoons in a movie or game or something he's like "that actor doing the bluescreening is pretty good don't ya think?" of course I'll randomly throw in "they should up the polygon count of those lions models" while we're watching some Discovery nature show. Lol it's teasing but neither one of us can resist doing it from time to time and it always sets the other-one off as if the whole game intro arguement never ended.
It's fun though, that's the extent of our anger/frustration/arguing between eachother. Stuff like that... Just one more quick example for fun...
Many many years ago when we were hanging out in his room without thinking (I needed space on his desk or something) I moved this almost full glass of milk and put it on top of his TV. Nobody thought of it... Somehow later (I forgot how it happened) I bumped the TV (or maybe was changing the channels... lol I don't remember) anyways this glass of milk takes the spill and goes right into the vent slots in the back of his TV.
He's like "Thanks alot fdgsdfgsdfg (he always uses my last name when we're in "arguement mode ) That's just what I was missing in my room, a TV that smells like sour milk"
Hehe... I'm like "oh fuck... I'm totally sorry. Shit"
He's all... "no man, a TV that smells like sour milk... it's pure genius... Serriously man, grab that shirt or something and clean that shit up."
Like there was anything to be done at that point, I of course did all I could to wipe up the little bit that still hadn't leaked into the inside feeling like a total dick. Once I start making an effort to do something beyond apoligizing he's like "whatever... that's about the best it's gunna get, thanks... I guess" *rolls eyes*
The next day when I come over he's like "Dude, I think you've found your inner TV repairman superpowers! Check out my TV." It was an old TV where the screen had been getting dark and it would fuzz out... but now, with my spilt-milk mod it miraculously had started working fine again. LOL
Of course anytime I've got a drink or whatever in his room after that he loves to go "watch where you put that shit dfgdfgsfdg!" or "I see you going to set that glass on my TV! Don't even think about it!"
hehe... whenever anything electronic or whatever in his room is giving him problems I'll say "why don't you go get me a glass of milk and I'll fix that shit for you?"
So anyways... that's a bit of an incite into our jokingly fucking with eachother dynamic. We sometimes get eachother worked up just because it's like "it's been 10 years man, and you're still giving me grief over that?" yet it's all just too funny at this point for either of us to let it go. It's like a bonding thing lol.
For the most part we rip on people on TV, come up with rediculous shit that puts us in rolling on the floor laughter, and generally have a good time without noticing that half a day has passed without either of us leaving the chair we've been sitting on.
Talents...
Keith is an amazing cartoonist/painter/etc... very very talented. Like me he has the attitude that art is about personal enjoyment/satisfaction. By this I mean that it is the act of creating art in which the enjoyment lies, and one of the vital things to this enjoyment is the personal freedom of creation. Trying to commercialize artistic talent or seeking notoriety sucks the pleasure out of the whole deal. His room and parents house has pictures and paintings stacked in places against the wall that he has made, sitting there gathering dust. Sketchbooks of cartoons and comiclike sketches and such fill stacks of notepads lying in the corners. Sometimes people who haven't seen them before will be like, "hey can I check out your drawings?" and he's like "sure, whatever... go for it" like he had fogetten they exhisted years ago when he bought a fresh pad to start on. It's always the same, "Goddamn dude! these are fucking awsome!"
Keith with modesty "oh yeah you like that one? You can go ahead and have it if you want."
He accepts the compliments and such without shame yet doesn't seem at all to bask in it or seek it out.
We have of course talked many times about eachothers artistic talents and compared how we personally experience them, where they seem to come from, and such. Keith says that much of what he does is created in his minds eye first, the image he's going to draw or whatever is there in his imagination. Then he merely uses the skills he's trained his hands and the techniques he's learned to make them come out through his hands onto the paper.
For me the images in my minds eye are fleeting, I can't take a mental photograph of them like he says he does. Mine morph and fade... For me, I'll get a vague yet strong feeling or inspiration for something. Then use what's available around me (wood, paper, cardboard, lighting tricks and "special effects") to actualize those impressions.
I think maybe the best way to illustrate it is with this drawing of Jesus on the cross he a year or so ago. The drawing is done in pencil, pen and black marker on a shitty scrap of cardboard box he cut up, it's maybe 4 feet by 3 feet. It's a great picture, very detailed. Once it was finished the way he used the pen and marker immediatly conveyed to me the mood and intensity of the image. It perfectly captures a Jesus who is perhaps finally drained and about to nod his head the final time in the relese of death. However I could also "see" that the picture was unfinished... that Keith had stopped at that image in his mind once he had actualized it. I saw that there was also an intense spiritual power lurking here underneith his brooding dark shading and fleating strokes that conveyed both a subtle anger and final release. My immediate instinct was to inject the "power" of the crucifiction on the deeper level. I told him what I saw as best as I could and he somewhat understood, and was like "whatever I'm done with it, do whatever you want" So I grabbed a dull old exactoknife he had along with some sandpaper and other odd tools I could use and started cutting and "carving" out the reverse side of the cardboard it was drawn on. Making it go from cardboard thick to paper thin where the highlights and "radiance" that I felt should be. The picture now is wedged into his windowsill as a sun shade/blocker (we're both tin-foil up the windows kind of guys
Our shared view of the nature of creating art (and life in general) also comes across in that this quite cool(if I do say so myself) picture that our collaboration has produced is now bent and wedged into the window as a forgotten sunblocker to keep the sunlight from bugging the eyes of two stoned out dudes as they joke about how shitty the polygon count on the model of Judge Judy's courtroom is these days and how perhaps a glass of spilt milk might up the resolution a little
Keith and extroversion, social life...
I'm not going to say that Keith's an extrovert or a social type or anything. But he has always been the more outward one of the two us. He seems to be able to quite naturally be accepted by people in a way that I'm not really comfortable doing. Keith is the kind of guy who has tons of fun going to a bar with somebody and getting too smashed on beers and trying to buddy up with people he doesn't even know. He'll sometimes throw out a random "what's up sugarbush?" to a passing hottie in the store and just keep on walking as if it's nothing. He has no problems shooting the shit about sports or life or whatever with people I'd be totally shy around. Lol he actually keeps in touch with people who aren't in his inner circle of closest friends (usually them calling him) which is totally unlike me.
It's literally been said before by a mutual friend (somewhat tongue in cheek yet sincerely) that "Keith is totally a guys guy, always up for a game of NBA live." while I'm "pretty strange, but cool as hell anyways"
Yet it's also been said that "Keith always feels like he's gotta leave" meaning that when you go to somebody's house with him he's always the first to say "I gotta get going home man." while I'm perfectly comfortable hanging until I feel the times right to go. It's like he can only take so much of that interraction with his many secondary buddies while I'm perfectly happy chilling on a couch in someones house offering my occasion attention and smartass comments or jokes. I'm maybe quiet but usually totally comfortable in those situations.
Keith and conflic, violence...
Another one of our shared core ideals is a general passifist method to going about life. I've never seen or heard of Keith being violent on another person in the entire time we've been friends. He had no aversion to speaking his mind and telling somebody to go fuck themselves when they push over the line but like me he's just not the type of person to return violence with violence. Both of us can talk shit till the cows come home but it's just that, cow shit. Neither of us would hurt a fly (well he would, he's got bug issues that I'm frequently having to step in on the rescue and refugee the little beasties off to safer lands outside his sphere of influence) but when it comes to people... nah... it's just not either of our styles.
There was this girlfriend of his, it was around when we were both 23 or 24. Get ready to call "sick bastard" because this girl was 16 when they started dating. The first time I met her we picked her up from work after he had been telling me all about this girl who he said was alot like a female version of me. (Gay... lol) anyways... I didn't really see it. But the Keithster was obviously thinking with little Keith and who am I to get in the way of all that? That first night she jumps in the car with a big old thirst buster full of bloody marie's or some shit and doing a pretty entertaining act of teen age girl trying to seem like she plays with the big boys. (for what it's worth she spilled that crap all over the backseat of his truck. lol) Anyways... we're driving around, smoking and shit. And she's just as into me it seems as him. Deffinately showing interrest by being all friendly and treating the goat like he works at a petting zoo. Not possessing Keith's skills when it comes to just chilling out and enjoying the whims of the X chromosome without spinning up a storm of doubt and "what's up with the chick?" I'm thinking to myself... She's being pretty friendly for a girl that's supposed to be into my best friend. The night ends up finding us in Keith's room, smoking pot and whatnot. Chick is at this point being so scandalous in emitting the "fuck me" psychowaves that even I'm understanding. In a bit of a confused haze of dope, sexual repression, and weirdness at the thought of the double team with my best friend and this girl that's underage, obviously drunk, and more sexually forward than anybody I'd ever met before I leave the scene. Obviously the night went well for Keith and some weeks later she becomes the newest in his line of girlfriends.
Turns out girlfriend is more than kinda crazy. She's a freak. Keith being Keith though is quite enjoying what he later refered to "porno quality sex" as much as he could take it. Lol... the guy knows what he likes at least. Eventually though girlfriend takes up a nasty new habbit of sticking pointy things into her arm in order to get her chemical jollies. Something gives in the Keith, underage girl crazy into sex shooting up. The equation equalling bad news finally sets into his head when his mother finds her forgotten needle lying on the bathroom counter. Girlfriend becomes ex-girlfriend.
Girlfriend gets around for a bit and eventually meets another aquantence (me, him, and Keith all went to highschool together but were not in the slightest friends) well ex-girlfriend has some issues with Keith which manifest in some stupid jacket that of hers that he still has. She uses her charms to work up new boyfriend into a confrontation while we all happen to be at our local drug suppliers house. Keith tries to talk reason into puffed up chest and jutted jaw... a slap is thrown by the new boyfriend knocking Keith's glasses across the room. Keith looking somewhere between wanting to maybe do something and maybe fighting back some tears keeps his cool, swallows his pride and works out a meeting to return the jacket.
So that he won't have to see them he leaves the jacket in front of his house for them to pick up... bad luck makes it rain and ex-girlfriends leather jacket gets fucked. She keys a big "******" across the side of his truck as a thank you note.
Now this is the part where Keith justice is shown. A ketchup packet is used to fill in the big writting scratched into his truck as much as possible (the truck was red) and the alt.bin.nude.girlfriends newsgroup is flooded with two hours worth of homemade video of ex-girlfriend, dildoes, dick, and various holes shot from multiple angles and situations.
Keith, satisfied, happilly moves past the situation without seeming feeling an ounce of remorse. Karma is balanced as far as he is concerned.
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Since I've taken on the SEI thing I've really been thinking more and more that ENFp probably best fits him. Maybe ESFj or ISFp... but ENFp seems way more likely. For instance he's generally pretty accomidating and interrested in hearing me babble about my latest obsessive interrest in something (like say physics, or socionics, or some Aztec religious bible I found online, whatever... the scattered shit that I tend to go off on for a few days at a time and want to talk about) but it seems that alot of times he'll want me to give him thedetails or clearification. I'll try but since that's not the parts and stuff I was focused on it'll be hazy at best. hehe I suspect that he does this sometimes to shut me up (or to mess with me for fun) but he knows I'm like that and I'll kind of fill in the holes as best I can... not necessarily making stuff up but yeah, since to me those bits aren't at all important to what I'm talking about I'll just kind of try to give him some bullshit
There is another section that I wrote about his slow succumbing to M.S. over the last 7 or 8 years into basically being unable to walk and generally move more and more today. This turned out to be a pretty soul purging thing for me to write but it's alot more distant and historicle that the other parts. I'm not sure about how much typable material people would get out of something like that but if anyones interrested I'd totally be willing to post it.
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I hope people can wade their way through it (I didn't go over it to check my grammer and spelling at all so I bet it's pretty bad 
Originally Posted by discojoe
, LIE, ENTj logical subtype, 8w9 sx/sp
