Greg Rail Is My Friend

I usually find it terribly sad and irritating when people go on and on about those that have passed away. It bothers me because it seems like the perpetual mourners haven’t moved on with their lives. But I have moved on. I don’t think about my friend Greg every day. I don’t even think of him once a week because I’m incredibly busy, and because I have to live right now. But I haven’t forgotten about him. You died in 1991 and you were probably just twenty years old. If you can read this, Greg, I’ve done some stuff since last we spoke. But this is not about me. I don’t even remember the last time I spoke to you because I didn’t know it would be the last time.

Some friends said they were going camping and rafting in the sticks, but you weren’t the one who called me. I couldn’t go because I was finally moving that weekend, and you know, even if I hadn’t been moving, I might not have gone because the world scares me.

It doesn’t matter how (you drowned in a river) and we’ll never know why (because our kind and loving Lord needed a new artist, right?), but you left the world on that trip and I haven’t forgotten.

I have this video we shot on one sunny spring day at SUNY Purchase, where we met and went to school together. We came to get you for lunch, but you were eating Lucky Charms and milk. You told the cameraman that the way to a man’s heart was through the stomach, through Lucky Charms. You ate with us anyway, which was cool.

Later on the tape we made a stupid short film called “Jadsen” that was about one of my suitemates named Jansen who used to borrow everyone’s stuff, often without asking, and never return it. It was never even that he had to have it for any specific reason, it was almost always a prop for some bullshit movie he was making.

It was Greg’s idea to make the film, but we weren’t sure how to cast it. We immediately chose Brian Miller to be Jadsen, because he had the best hair. Peter and I wanted to play ourselves because otherwise we’d have to write more dialogue and try to act, which we knew was a bad idea. Greg wanted to play this guy we all knew as Homeboy Ben. He was the ultimate moronic wigger who was eventually kicked out of college for—get this—repeatedly “tagging” all over the school with his grafitti name, “Hoist.” Whatta fucking retard. But Greg totally nailed Ben with his mannerisms, mangled English and rampant stupidity. In one scene, he was supposed to be sitting in our living room reading Outlaw Biker and when he went to take the cigarette out of his mouth, he slid his fingers down the length of it and burned himself on the the lit end. Greg flinched but kept on going. It was spontaneous and just perfect. When he says, “Yo, I know that Jadsen, he a sucker. I ice him,” and pulled out an orange water pistol shaped like a machine gun, the movie hits its manic high point.

There are some memorable fight sequences edited almost well enough that it seems logical. Even though it only took us a few hours and I don’t think we shot any of the scenes more than once, the resulting film was very entertaining. Since we made that tape, I’ve watched it at least a dozen times with other people—folks who didn’t know me then and never met Greg. That’s my friend Greg, I’d tell them. He’s a really cool guy.

I found an old VHS that Greg shot and appears in. I've e-mailed with his sister a few times and she's very sweet and was grateful that people remembered Greg.

As a special bonus, I got a copy of the tribute to Greg that the school newspaper did. His comics were always a highlight of the funny pages in the school paper. I actually wrote a comic called Treehouses & Slingshots that my friend Kevinn (his spelling) illustrated. It was basically a Calvin & Hobbes ripoff but with two Calvins and no tigers. It was fun while it lasted.