three months after the 3 year anniversary of vivek's death.

so yeah, it's been three years and this is still a topic of conversation. i guess its worth reflecting about how it allw ent down.

well, its 2009 now, vivek was found dead in his apartment in 2006, april, just days after he and i finished a stint in the studio, rephraze studios, in dayton ohio.

i ran into vivek, or rather, vivek ran into me, in 2005. i was sitting outside, playing guitar, and there the kid was, walking down the street. it was late, i guess most folks wouldn't be up. but that was kinda the first sign i guess that things'd be interesting between the two of us.

i was a freshman in college in the fall of 2003 til the summer of 2004. i was a sophomore at the ohio state university from the fall of 2004 to the summer of 2005. im guessing i ran into that kid during my sophomore year, although it may have been in the summer. ive written out diagrams which have the exact dates, but for our purposes here, i'll say it's early 2005.

so im playing my acoustic guitar, playing a song i'd written whilst i was in england, perhaps in the summer of 2003, between my senior year of highschool (fall of 2002 to summer of 2003), and my freshman year of college (fall of 2003 to summer of 2004). the year is now 2009, and i have played the song as late as 2009, in open mics in Dayton ohio and Columbus ohio. so this is a song that has been with me for awhile. and has alot of meaning to me. it some say may very well be my best song. although Anita has claimed that of some of my most recently made stuff, which im glad to hear. its always good to improve.

and then vivek stops by, asks me if i was who he though ti was, i confirmed, and then we talked a bit, he mentioned he lived down the road, and that i was welcome to visit. i took him up on it, perhaps not that day, perhaps later, perhaps it was that day. but over time i saw his basement, where he slept, and saw his recording machine. i listened to his demos, and he was telling me i should record with him. but i was of course already real used to recording, kinda comfortable with my own setup, and so i was more or less like, nah thanks but im good. but basically yeah thats how we met. and then he gives me a copy of cakewalk, which still is installed on my computer sitting in the basement today. it is what i used to record my music in the years following. so from the summer of 2005 until about... well i came to columbus for the second time in the fall of 2008. i brought laptops which i used to record with. i brought my cakewalk computer in the winter of 2008, and i used it to record my demo with anita for our band the welsh assembly. so its been something thats stayed with me awhile.

and besides that, i invite vivek over a few times. we drank alot back then, so that'd happen, plus the uh... well he'd smoke weed, vivek was a big weed smoker back then, with his own pipe and he'd get his weed from his dealers. some of 'em were also his friends, and so that'd work out for him since he'd get the "friend discount" which is basically having a hookup purely for free weed. they would come over, bring their weed, and then they'd all smoke it. i was asked to try it, and after a few times of turning it down i tried. basically i was surprised with how it affected me. i got the sense his friends were doing other harder drugs, such as ether, and the like, but i stayed away from all that. it was the weed that i did, and i never paid for it, i would just go to vivek's house and smoke for free, and i really wouldn't go there to smoke either, it just happened to be there, i was going to meet a friend from highschool, someone who i just hung out with, and at that time i really wasnt hanging out with anyone else, besides my roommates, as i'd moved out the dorms ( like most people do in their sophomore year ) and i'd stopped keeping in touch with those folks who i'd befriended in my freshman year ( fall of 2003 to summer of 2004 ).

so through kirby, well, the guy was on some hallucinagen experimentations, he'd look stuff up on the net, decide if he wanted to try it out, if he did, he'd go out, buy some, and give it a go. see kirby was alright with drug experimentation, and he'd pick up all sorts of crap. once or twice shrooms were around. mostly it was dex. and he talked me into doing it with him. i dont know why but thats kinda how it went. so i did it, dex was the street name of a pill you would take for basically allergies i believe. im not too sure. but the pills were red, gell pills, and i to this day refuse to touch them as they give me a queasy stomache just thinking about it. you see, you would have to down about 3 to 4 bottles to get the full effect. really 1 or 2 would do it, but there were levels of highs kirby would describe as plateu's, and basically the better high would give you more effects. and essentially the more the effects, the better the high was considered. at least by kirby. i didnt know anything, and i just did what i was told.

see for me, it was all exciting. i had no concept of the dangers i was putting myself in. i soon found out. weeks into our dex experiments, i was taken by an ambulence to the hospital. i was alright, but i was found unconcious on the ground. relatively so. according to kirby's later accounts, i was actually conscious, but delirious, and was easily talked into an ambulence. i have no memories of it. i do remember waking up to a doctor, who sternly lectured me for taking that which i had, mentioning how i could have killed myself. i slowly pulled myself together, made a phone call, and was out of there. kirby was waiting back at the apartment, the rat. he'd let me go off into an ambulence, knowing i'd be charged a few hundred dollars, knowing the drugs weren't fatal, yet he allowed it, letting me think i was going to die, letting me have the death scare and all that. its taken me years to even begin to conceptualize that i wasnt actually at deaths door, that the scare mongering physician had just pulled my leg to try and scare me straight, that it was more disapproval and conservative scolding than real life threat.

but later, i would find a circumstance where a drug could indeed take a life. i was sitting in a bar with a friend of mine from freshman year (fall of 2003 to summer of 2004) nick arnold and his girlfriend. i was sitting there likely soon after the recording sessions with vivek had completed (spring of 2006). i get a phone call and its jason, he lets me know vivek's body has been found. im surprised, shocked, as is nick, and i later found out he told his roommate jared baker, who i recently contacted ( june 2009 ) and had a word with. there were other friends whom i'd kept in touch with that year ( spring 2005 ) millie & nick, both whom i've contacted this year ( first half of 2009 ) and both whom i've got tidbits from regarding my own state after my friend died. according to millie, who i spoke to last month ( june 2009 ) i mentioned the death to her, and soon after i more or less stopped hanging out. she mentioned to me how she felt it was O.K. i was surprised she even had an opinion on it. it was new to me to think that Millie really was someone who'd cared about me. i guess i'd forgotten about my time with the Indian American Association at Ohio State University. I believe i was a student through some of it, but withdrew and later just went to visit the people i'd known.

But the funeral, it was tough, i saw faces of people i recognized from highschool, people who i played soccer with, shared halls with, but i got no resopnses. i feel like i was given the cold shoulder by alot of people. Blake Nolan surprised me the most really. Someone who'd been the captain, under which i'd been a freshman, yet i had not a single word from the guy when i walked up. I was in a sorry state, i hadn't seen these folks for years, hadn't yet broken the ice in my sociability, and had just endured the death of a friend who i hadn't really dealt with healthily. his death loomed in my mind, whilst my third culture kid stunted development had me at a loss for words in the presence of familiar faces. so i lost out on an oppertunity to connect with people. but they literally watched me walk up, didn't say a word, then watched me walk away. it was terrible. that is fucking rude ass shit. and these fuckers are stuck up bastards. it was a slow process for me to learn how many of these people didn't give a shit about me. for some reason i thought they did. i was sorely mistaken. i had just assumed it, and it really had never been there. had i opened myself up, shown myself off to folks, and gotten a true reaction and gague to what i was putting out there, i might have had some clue as to what really these people thought of me. but since i hadn't gotten that, and instead i had no litmus tests done, i had nothing to base my views on these people off of. so i mythologized them. and then those fantasies came crushing down in the face of a serious moment where real support was being extended, apparently i hadn't qualified for it. a shame.