Twisted Thoughts And Thoughtful Truths On Thursday #005

Twisted Thoughts And Thoughtful Truths On Thursday #005 – An Open Apology To Jeff Jeffries

I’ll preface this by saying that Jeff won’t read this letter, because he doesn’t read the shit I write.

In a way, that gives me a lot more freedom to talk freely, and explain my side of the story.  I’ll also say this – there are very few people in my life that I wouldn’t feel like I owe an apology to in some way, shape or form.  Jeff was a very special friend in my life, and I doubt that he ever really understood that.

I was walking home from school in grade eight or nine when I met the guy…probably eight, because he was two years ahead of me and would eventually change schools from middle school to high school before I did.  He was one of those older kids that us younger ones tried to avoid, because you never really understood their intent.  Why would an older kid want to befriend a younger one?  I probably thought they’d want to take my lunch money, and good lord knows I didn’t have much of that to begin with…but yeah, there I was, talking with a random friend named Brad about the movie Pulp Fiction when Jeff came up from behind us outta nowhere to join the conversation.  I don’t remember what we said, and I don’t think that it matters now, beyond the fact that if not for him finding the will or the courage to walk just a little faster that day, I’d probably have never known this amazing man at all.  I don’t remember what any of us had to say about Pulp Fiction, but I do remember feeling like I actually ‘got’ the movie when I eventually came around to seeing it…I felt like I knew how the timeline worked.

Anyhow.  I don’t think it was a matter of having one walk home making us friends – it took more time than that.  If I recall correctly, it wasn’t until the next year, where he had already moved to a different school that we got to know each other for real.  A tall, lanky ginger with a badly grown goatee, I ended up meeting him in a chance encounter once again when I joined my first band, Oblivion Street.  I’m not going to give you the whole story on that, because this isn’t about that right now – it’s about Jeff.  What I will tell you, is that I had shown up for my audition with two strings on an acoustic guitar that my mom had given me, and somehow they allowed me to join the band.  That should have been a red flag.  We were beyond terrible.  I did eventually get an electric guitar and learn how to play, but we had a bad singer, a really good drummer, and Jeff, a left handed bassist who really only knew how to “Glister In The Sun” by the Violent Femmes, one of my least favorite bands in the entire history of music.  We’d practice in our drummer’s garage, in between moments where he’d be yelling at his mother on any given night, but we did get together quite a bit.  Which is extraordinary considering how much we never improved.  We practiced and practiced and never got any better, and admittedly, the material was bad.  We could have practiced it all damn day and night and it still couldn’t have made our songs any better.

I was a savage stoner at the time, but I didn’t let the band in on that information.  Hell, practically no one knew.  I had a steady girlfriend, and she didn’t know.  My parents didn’t know.  Nobody.  Jeff was one of the first people to find out, and eventually when he did, it broke down some major walls that I had put up for my security and safety.  I allowed him the opportunity to know me in ways that others didn’t, and I’ll never regret that.  He was a more than willing stoner that was perpetually broke, so having a friend like me that was willing to buy some weed with whatever money I had, was beneficial.

Again, it’s not the story here, but our first attempts at playing music live went terribly…I’ll go into those in detail one day.  Suffice it to say for now that we blew our first talent show together, and the next opportunity we had, to potentially open up for a Canadian band called Sloan (that I despise) – we blew that too.  So terribly bad that each moment was burned into our memories for the rest of time I’m sure.  But we bonded through Oblivion Street in ways that I thought would have tied us together for life.

Or so I had thought.

Eventually, for plenty of good reasons, I left that band.  Nothing to do with Jeff whatsoever, he was always a good friend.  Our singer was a fucking dickhead, and in trying to point out how bad our material was in an attempt to change it, we argued until we were blue in the face and I walked away entirely.  That could have been the end of my friendship with all of them, but the drummer, Jeff and I, all understood what an asshole this guy was.  Even though we’d all eventually become friends with the guy again at different points in our life, this chapter was irreparably closed, and for a while I think I likely thought that I might not even see any of them again.  Jeff was a kickass guy though – loyal to ALL of his friends, probably because he didn’t actually have that many…and so somehow, despite all the odds, our friendship endured.  Oblivion Street took place when we were in grade eleven I believe.  Jeff would tell me many stories about all the drugs he took to seem cool I guess, but as a solid drug user myself, none of his details ever added up.  They all seemed like stories from a second hand account.  The kind of stories that you’d make up in order to fit in.  Aside from smoking weed, I never, ever, saw the dude do anything else, and I’ve spent nights and nights with the guy at parties where the party never stopped.  He liked his weed though, so we bonded over that, and our friendship continued after the band ended.  He actually dated one of my best friends, named Nicole, briefly.  He wasn’t considered a catch at that point, and honestly, she was so nervous about every guy in school that none of it made sense.  Still, despite their age difference, it did happen, and I was fully supportive of that for as long as it had lasted.

Being older, he graduated before I did.  Jeff had, and presumably still has, an absolutely AMAZING sense of self-deprecating humor that can’t be beat.  The guy is so fucking funny to me, and I’ve always looked up to him in a variety of ways.  He was essentially the older brother I never had, even though I technically had an older step-brother…just happened that he never really wanted anything to do with me.  Most people don’t.  You get used to it.  Jeff was different somehow, and we continued to be friends throughout the years.  I considered myself lucky to know him in ways other people never did.  I could see that he was misunderstood.  I naturally had people gravitate towards me throughout my entire life – it wasn’t until I was older that I started to repel them – but in the early days of my childhood & teenage years, I was popular.  Not popular in the sense that I hung out with all the football jocks and shit like that, but popular in the sense that I really got along with EVERYONE – I could be a complete and total jackass (which I was), and I paid no social price for it.  I was the class clown, and it was welcomed by all.  Because Jeff and I were two years apart, any interactions we had were outside of school for the most part, especially after the Pulp Fiction and band days, but we kept in touch somehow despite the odds.

We would often hang out at “The Rock” – which is exactly what you think it was…a big fucking rock out in the middle of nowhere, in Port Coquitlam…or maybe it was just Coquitlam I guess.  Probably that.  Anyhow.  We would all sit there drinking, order pizza from our old drummer to 5440 Lanewood Drive or something like that, he’d show up with pies, and go back to his shop saying the customer never paid or took off with the food.  These were the best of times.  It was right beside a golf course and…what do you call it – driving range?  The field would be filled with balls, and we’d take big giant backpacks, fill them to the brim, then race to the top of the hill just to tip the bags over and watch all the balls race to the bottom of the street.  Good times.  We were total idiots, but man did we have a great time being that.

After I had graduated, I ended up in a group of friends that was big on playing poker.  In fact, we were among some of the first to hit it big playing online, and some of those very same people I know still continue to play the circuit to this very day.  How insane is that right?  I was probably about twenty at the time, and I am fucking OLD now…so that should tell you something.  Anyhow.  We were always looking for new players & easy marks, and when they eventually circled around to me to try and recruit someone new, I suggested Jeff as a player, because I thought he’d be interested and he was still a friend.  I was met with INTENSE resistance from the host of the poker parties, because he was the same age as Jeff, went to the same schools as he did, and he basically hated the guy.  I refused to let up on his inclusion, and threw my whole weight behind him…essentially, I vouched for Jeff when no one else would.  Most people in that group of friends knew him a little, but no one was going to advocate for him like I would, because I knew him differently than everyone else.  I knew Jeff as a completely kind and truly amazing human being with a sense of humor that could knock you out faster than a punch would.

So while it took a couple weeks of intense conversations to make it happen, I eventually got our host, a guy we called by his last name, Bush, to reconsider his reservations about him, and we invited him over to play on a night we got together around the table.  What a great decision!  Not because he came in and told a George Carlin style set of standup comedy, no – because he was the easiest player to play against that we’d ever had sit down with us, and we systematically all took the guy’s money.  There was no escaping it – he shook like a leaf every time he had a good hand, and the whole table would fold their hands every time we saw him move an inch.  It took him months before he thought he could use that against us, and even then when he did, we all adapted quickly and could easily spot a fake shaking from a real one.  He had no hope against the sharks at the table.  The thing was, he actually wasn’t the worst player you’d ever seen, but his biology would betray him so hard that he couldn’t possibly pull off a win.

Eventually, I’d move in with a friend from that same poker game, and Jeff became part of the furniture.  I don’t know that I’d go as far as to say that he was cool with everybody all of the time, but everybody at least understood that he was going to be wherever I was, and he was accepted by proxy.  For some, like my roommate Rob, which many of you would eventually know as Rob @ SBS, Jeff formed an incredible friendship that didn’t need my blessing or approval anymore – he’d earned that on his own.  Jeff was viewed as an Eeyore in the group to a degree, but man was the guy fucking funny.  Light up a joint, get the guy talking…he was able to stand confidently on his own two feet.  He might have owed every single one of us $200 or more for his ongoing gambling debts, but he became a regular in our group of friends and he didn’t need me to do that for him…he did all of that by himself, because he’s a genuinely good dude.  When I eventually fucked my roommates girlfriend (long story, another time) because I believed I was in love with her (and still do…like I said, long story) – Jeff actually cut ME off, and continued to hang out with the group of friends that I had set him up with.  I remember him giving me a chance to explain myself, which to be fair, no one else did.  He summoned me to a baseball diamond in New Westminister and we sat on the bleachers, talking it all out in the open air.  His disappointment stung so fucking hard.  I still looked up to him & my stupid decision (and dick) basically blew up our group of friends overnight.  As loyal as he was to us all, he could never understand how I could do such a thing to one of our friends.  For years, we didn’t really talk after that.  The rest of the friends and poker crew carried on without me.

Eventually, I made it right as best I could, and I reconciled with Rob, whose girlfriend I had defiled.  We found our way back to being the best of friends, kept our two-man band going, and the rest of our surrounding cast began to accept me again.  From my perspective, no one really wanted to stop talking to me, but I didn’t leave them much of a choice – I had put myself in a self-imposed exile, punishing myself for what was a perceived stupid decision.  The reality is, I loved both of my roommates at the time and would have easily been among the first polyamorous relationships…I just went about it in the wrong way, without permission.  I moved out on my own into a halfway house (again, long story, and no, I wasn’t a drunk…it was a completely innocent accident and subsequently wonderful experience), and eventually found my way back into the group of friends I had helped create long ago.  I was thankful – they were all family and the last thing I ever wanted to do was lose any of them, but especially Jeff.

When I eventually married my wife, of course he was there!  I don’t even know that it would have felt right to do it without him being there.  At that point, I was no longer friends with the original drummer of our first band together, and certainly not the old singer (fucking dickhead) – so we were kind of the last two left standing.  All the poker crowd was there, and we had long buried the hatchet at that point.  I don’t think anyone really forgave me for what I had done, but that was okay…we found a way to get around it and continue to be friends.  Ultimately, I meant no harm to anyone, I just made the wrong decision with a great girl years and years ago, and we found a way to move on from that.  By the time I got married to my wife Becky it was all water under the bridge as far as I could tell.  People understood what happened, and I’m confident everyone knows I would have made better choices if I could have had the opportunity to do everything all over again.  I was humbled beyond repair by that point in time, and thankful for my second chance with all of the friends that I had loved so much, again, especially Jeff.

One of my all-time favorite wedding memories was my wife and I opening presents back in our hotel room the night we made it all official.  We had one of those gift registries to a place that no longer exists called Sears, which in theory, made it real easy for people to get you the things you actually wanted or needed to start a life together.  We opened up this one gift, which was a slow-cooker, and we both looked at each other, wondering how it got there.  Cool gift without a doubt, but neither of us remembered asking for one.  As it turns out, Jeff and his girlfriend Jessica ended up going to Sears, printed out what they thought was our registry, but grabbed a copy of a couple that had left theirs in the printer – so we got that couple’s slow-cooker.  Years later, when Jeff & Jessica got married themselves, Becky and I returned the favor by getting them a slow-cooker of their own.  I still love that whole story.

While I’m not intentionally skimping on any details I can remember here, I know I don’t remember everything.  I know our relationship ran so much deeper than I’m telling you now, and in fact, I’d even come home to my place at my parent’s house before I was married, and Jeff would be there chilling out with them, smoking joints and watching hockey games.  He was extended family by every definition, and for what it’s worth, I still feel that way about him even though it’s been more than a decade since I last saw him, and probably at least five years since we last talked.  I put that on me – it’s not his fault.  Despite my every wish to have him around, I still pushed him away like I do with everyone eventually.

Side-note…I’m actually listening to one of Jeff’s live-streams right now on Twitch.  We’ll get to how he got there.  Right now, he’s talking about leaving a particular channel because it ended up showing some kind of racist symbol in the animation?  I’m not entirely sure what he’s referring to because I’m not a gamer and I have no real idea what he’s talking about, and I’ve admittedly had about four beers since I started writing this…but suffice it to say, I’m as proud of him as ever for standing up for what he believes in, because that’s the person I’ve always known him to be.  It’s heartbreaking to hear him struggle in the live chat, but equally inspiring at the same time…Jeff has always worn his heart on his sleeve and I have always admired and loved him for that.  It has made things awkward at times, but I love him for that.

Some of you out there might remember something at sleepingbagstudios that we called The Great Canadian Podcast – it was the first foray into podcasting that I had ever done, and it was pretty awful.  The only thing that was GREAT about it, was the fact that I got to do that with Jeff.  At that point in time he’d already been a radio DJ of sorts, or broadcasting the weather…whatever it was, he had professional experience and he taught me the ropes.  We’d sit across from each other in the old garage at sleepingbagstudios in Abbotsford with a couple of mics, and I’d smack my lips together or just talk like I normally did with a shit ton of clicks and pops, and he’d go to edit it and give me shit about how terrible I was at speaking in that capacity.  I was on…so many more drugs than I ever let people know about at the time…and so overly emotional every single day as I tried to piece this whole place together, that after about five episodes, the whole damn thing imploded as I descended into a fit of tears and rage and sadness and yelling…all things that Jeff had seen a million times before from me.  I suspect he wanted no part in any of that…he was a grown-ass man at that point, had kids and shit…and he was looking for a place to smoke weed and have a good time.  With the push/pull of Rob @ SBS and I as I tried to get SBS off the ground and make it a career that would last me a lifetime, I was burning the proverbial candle at both ends and practically killing myself with eighteen hour days to do it.  Seeing Jeff for The Great Canadian Podcast was a wonderful escape from the bullshit, but I had such a hard time separating all of what was going on from anything else that I did, especially when it was still relatively tied together.  In my defense, we didn’t have any idea of what we could actually do with the show, and it was all so new that I had all of like, six songs we thought we could play.  Years later when I’d reboot the SBS Podcast with Ryan, and eventually take it all on my own after we moved across Canada, we just played whatever the fuck we felt like…so admittedly, we made things way more difficult than they needed to be.  That being said, I was up against the wall – I needed to make sleepingbagstudios work or I was going to have to go back to a 9-5, so I was fucking DESPERATE as hell to make things happen.  Most nights, we’d do the podcast, laugh our balls off in the studio as we’d do it, and then I’d collapse into tears afterwards.  I was probably a nightmare to deal with…and honestly, I’ll never forgive myself for it because it cost me one of the best friends I’ve ever had.  After the fourth of fifth episode, Jeff left the studio and never came back.

From there, he went on to become Jeff Jeffries…maybe you’ve heard of him, maybe you haven’t.  He was a traffic reporter dude on the radio until radio kinda went tits up here in British Columbia.  I never understood how he could be happy with doing that, because I never really understand how anyone can be happy doing anything in the realm of adulthood while I’m still out here playing pretend with music and all the things I do.  As far as I know, he’s a success story…happy life, happy kids, happy wife – and what else does it need to be?  I think all of my friends came to understand who I am, and the genuinely good intentions behind what makes me, me.  I also think that most of the people I once knew learned that Rob @ SBS is a serious piece of shit, and most of us, including myself, learned that the hard way.  One day, completely out of the blue, Jeff messaged me on Twitter to say, “I regret our split.  I want you to know you’re the realest.”  To this very day, it’s one of the most meaningful messages I’ve ever received in any capacity.  I simply cannot express how much I needed to hear that from him, specifically.

I responded, “Ahhhh you’re still here my brother.  You ever needed to make that call, rest assured, I’d always answer.  You’re the shiznit in my world man…always have been, always will be.  And I really appreciate you sending that over, truly.”  I’m not making any of this up – I’m taking it all directly from our conversation at Twitter…or X…whatever the fuck you wanna call it.  That was more than five years ago.  When he left radio to become a full-time Twitch steamer playing Grand Theft Auto V every single day (which is like…mind blowing to me…but hey man, cool), we talked once more a year later about maybe making some kind of comeback and collaborating together again…and that was the last I heard from him.  It fucking STINGS like nothing else…because we really were two peas in a pod.  I could have pushed him…I could have tried harder to make that all happen…but I suppose I just felt like forcing it beyond what he felt like he genuinely WANTED to do, would have doomed our shit to fail all over again – and I don’t know that I could have withstood that twice, or three times, in one lifetime.  So I let go.

As I sit here and listen to him go on and on and on about a whole pile of shit I do not care about in his gaming realm on Twitch…fuck…I just miss the guy’s voice.  I don’t really care what he’d want to talk about, I just miss talking to him.  Reaching out seems pointless…maybe that’s just how adult life goes.  He’s got his interests, and I’ve got mine.  I’ve still got nothing but love for the guy, and I probably think about him every second day.  He’s got a real life and responsibilities and kids and all that…and I guess I figure I’ve got no place invading his world after so much time has passed with my relentless Peter Pan syndrome as I refuse to grow up.  I don’t have a clue what it’s like to have kids or real responsibilities – I just miss my friend.  Who the fuck has time for a sob story like that, right?  I’ve learned to live life without the vast majority of people I started this adventure with – okay…ALL of them…but that was never my intention.  Originally, I set out to create a place we could all thrive in…and I fucked that up by working too many days and nights on end…which in effect, cost me all of the friends I originally had.  I made new ones, but you know how it goes…they know the me that I am now.  I miss people like Jeff that I could talk all nights with…people that knew me way back when…that remember as I once was before all this madness I love so much here at sleepingbagstudios.  Everyone I once knew works a regular job, and that’s cool…no disrespect…but that was never going to be for me, so I did everything I had to in order to make life into something I wanted it to be, rather than just work a regular 9-5 like everyone else.  I wouldn’t change anything, despite the heartache it has caused.  I often wonder if it’s just something that I feel on this side of the screen, or if people like Jeff feel the same way that I do too.

The reality is, I am sorry for everyone I lost along the way, because they all truly meant so much to me.

Especially Jeff.  The guy’s so fucking funny, and it’s all natural.  He never once set out to be cool, to be liked, or to do anything other than just be who he is…and I can’t thank him enough for that example.  I will always wish he was still rocking here with me, but I totally understand why he chose not to – and I’ll always love and respect him for the decision he made to go his own way, and leave me behind forever.

Make sure to tell those special people in your life that you love them, because you never know how long they’re going to be around for, or how hard it will truly be to reach out when so much time passes by.

You’re the man Mr. Jeff Jeffries.  I miss you every damn day.

To think that you’re right over there where you’ve always been, and we just don’t talk, is soul crushing.  I am way more sorry about that than you’ll ever know, and I hope that in the next life, you’ll forgive me.

Thank you for reading y’all.

– Jer @ SBS