richard raze at the record store the other day there was a couple, maybe in their early sixties. they were asking nick if he had any albums by steven's brother. they were looking for something that had someone named richard playing piano on it. "richard champagne?" i said, connecting the dots. "yes," the woman said, looking surprised. "i went to high school with that guy." i told her about the time he stood up for me in grade twelve english class. the way he defended my work when he had no reason to, against a teacher who saw no value in writing that had any heart or personality and didn't exactly welcome discussion in her classroom. i felt like i was being represented in court by some brilliant lawyer i shouldn't have been able to afford. for every throwaway dismissal she came up with, he would break down why she was wrong. he kept going after her for what felt like ten minutes until she told him the conversation was over, my writing was shit, and that was the end of it. you could see it bothered him that he hadn't been able to get through to her. we never spent much time together outside of school, but he was one of those people. you could tell he was good just by looking in his eyes. i remember filming goofy riffs on shakespeare with him for some assignment, and cracking him up when i sang a bit of one of my dirty christmas songs one morning when nothing was happening in drama class. i remember having to give an oral presentation for french class and being terrified. i was good enough at the pronunciation when i was reading something that i could fool most people into thinking i knew what i was doing, but speaking freely and thinking on my feet in french ... that was way beyond the scope of my ability. i knew the words but not the music. he found a way to guide me in the form of a question, helping me through it without making it obvious what he was doing. i remember a different french teacher letting me bring a keyboard with me to class to provide a bit of entertainment the day before christmas break. i played "hit the road, jack" and the class sang it in french. then i did "paris 1919" by john cale and richard acted out a hilarious little pantomime. the woman i now knew was his mother told me he was teaching out east. i said i was sure he was a good teacher, given the kind of person he was when i knew him a little bit. she thanked me for what i said and we went about our business, me looking for tragically hip CDs while she and her husband tried to figure out what they could get their son that he might not already have on vinyl. i told her i knew richard was a big mingus fan, but i wasn't sure what his jazz collection looked like, so it was hard to recommend something. when i thought she'd left she walked back over to me with a small slip of paper. "he's going to be in town for two weeks for christmas," she said. "this is our home number. give us a call. i'm sure he'd love to catch up with you." she shook my hand, and i looked in her eyes and saw what i'd seen in his all those years ago. 171218 ... epitome of incomprehensibility I like this story, and it's cool (warm?) to see kind people. Like with like being likeable. Kindness isn't always a thing that gets passed on in families, but this one seems to be lucky. 171227 ... jane did you see him? 180125 ... raze unfortunately, no. i got sick and stayed sick the whole time he was in town (not the way i would have chosen to ring in the new year), and by the time i was finally able to say a few words over the phone without hacking up a lung, he was back out east. i guess sometimes these things just aren't meant to work out. 180125 ... j i'm sorry to hear that. i hope you're feeling better now. 180126 what's it to you? who go blather from