I was out with an old friend recently to see Dean Ween at a tiny Lincoln Park bar, and you know when someone mentions something assuming you already knew this monumentally huge bit of information?  So your mind is blown, your heart sinks, and you have to interrupt the person and ask that they back up and repeat that part to be sure you heard it right.  I don't see this friend often, and I see the peripheral friends in that circle even less.  I guess he assumed that I knew that Pimp was dead. 

Pimp is our good friend Brad's little brother who was named Pimp because he wore green shoes one day.  It didn't take a lot to get a lasting nickname back then.  Apparently  a group of friends went out to Oregon to visit another guy Norm (another nickname) who lived out there.  Norm decided to take everyone hiking.  There was a little bridge that everyone crossed.  Everyone but Pimp.  Just as he was about to cross, an avalanche/mud slide or something crashed down, swept him up, took him down, and killed him. 

Those shoes may have looked like these.

I was crushed when I heard he was dead, and then I was even more devastated when I heard how.  What a freak accident and a violent end to one of the nicest guys I've ever known.  Norm feels horrible because he asked that they come out and visit him and took them on the ill-fated hiking excursion, but he in no way could have known this would happen.  It's hard to imagine everyone watching that avalanche come down and see their friend die, for Brad to watch his only brother die, and all of them rendered completely helpless to stop it. 

Pimp never drank a drop of liquor or beer.  We would all be hanging out in their basement drinking our faces off, shooting pool, playing cards, and listening to music.  All the while Pimp hung out with us drunk idiots and never had a bad word to say about anyone.  He was such a good dude.  He looked like C. Thomas Howell only slightly goofier looking in an endearing way.  One day he brought a girl out, she was really damn pretty, and we were all impressed.  He ended up marrying her.  They were both really quiet and nice folks.  I remember him going off to school to be an architect, and that was his line of work until his untimely end.  He was a really solid fucking dude.  

I decided not to go with a pic from "Soul Man."

Pimp, you will be missed, old friend.  My first drink tonight is for you, and if I had some green shoes, I would be putting them on right now.

Your Friend,


 Doctor Kenneth Noisewater