For those who didn't know him IRL, this was @Jester.
As one of HA's most prolific posters, I know he engaged with practically everyone who has more than 4 years of history on this forum. I know a few of us met him in person, in the US, Mexico or here in the Philippines. I probably hold the longest stick as I welcomed him as my flatmate in Davao for almost a year.
He had a flamboyant personality, to say the least, but also legions of demons inside of him...like all of us poor b**tards, really.
With him, every conceivable nuance of a man's personality was dialled up to the extreme. He could act as your best friend, sharing his bottle of gin and his treasure chest of memories and folk wisdom one moment and then cuss you to the high skies, as if you had just gunned down all of his kids, right the next. His family legacy, his youth, his maturity, his family, every country he had visited, every person he had met...everything was a blessing and a curse, etched in his memory, like a map of an impossible land, and worth recounting on those long, gin-powered nights at the Davao condo.
He certainly had a crazy diamond shining over him. I would sometimes catch flashes and glimpses of his thousand contradictions, sometimes seeing my own reflected on his. We both knew we were two complicated men who wound up in the Philippines to heal, to be at peace with ourselves. We both learned that, for all its tropical sun, friendly girls and cheap booze, there was very little the Philippines could have done to keep our demons at bay.
Perhaps more honesty could have helped, both of us. More friendship and less stubbornness could have helped. But hey, here's to a man who probably didn't have a boring moment in his entire existence and, like any man who has decided to kick the bucket, leaves us down here, cherishing whatever moments we spent with him.
He will be missed. Someone up there please tell him that he forgot his frigging Pandora Box of contradictions here, with me. With all of us poor b**tards, really.
