On December 1st, my very best friend, Jason Heath Cook, passed away in his sleep. He was 31.
These were my remarks at his services.
Jason was my friend, advisor and bandmate. He was my confidant, my adversary, my brother, my inspiration, co-conspirator, salvation and reason for doing the right thing.
Whenever I was scared and wanted to take the easy way out, Jason shoved me forward and made me live. He was always less concerned with us being safe than us becoming better people. Jason saved me from being scared, alone, and emotionally crippled with his humor, passion, intellect, and his drive for all his family to push it farther and be better than anyone on the outside thought we could ever be.
That was kind of his style. He always worried more about us than he did himself.
As proud as he may have ever been of me, I'm a thousand times indebted to him for playing such a big part in who I am. You see, I wouldn't be here if we hadn't stumbled upon each other as a couple of teenage hoodlums.
I have a short list of things I'd like to mention. Some of this will make sense, and some will be just for me, Rob, and J:
the paintings and sculptures
Waffle House at 3am with Me and Rob
Chris' chicken dance in blindside
My god-daughter, the most beautiful little girl in the world. You and Cori did SO good
What we affectionately termed "the Lee St. Shithole"
Woodland Towns- we flooded before it was fashionable
Joe Fountain cleaning our entire carpet with a washcloth and a bottle of potpourri windex
Torturing Fred with fart noises
The Homeboy Alert System and Outpatient Rehab Service
Listening when I cried
Telling me to shut the fuck up when I bitched
Taco 10 packs at 2am when all we could scrape up between the two of us was $4.99
April Jimenez doing a backflip off our bar
Ye Olde Monte Carlo
Finding out that seeding your carpet with rock salt will kill neither fleas or the crabs (neither of us had the crabs)
Flossing with spearmint flavored ski rope
And more than half the music I ever had anything to do with
I'm going to miss you til i see you again little brother. Wait for me a little while, I'll meet you on the other side.
I wrote this a few days ago now and it seems like such a pitiful tribute to our brother. I don't have words for how profoundly fucked up I am inside without him here. Please don't think badly of me if I'm not very sociable for awhile.
I'm including this song because it was one of his favorites and he wanted it played at his services.