Chuck Swayze

When I was in college, me and a buddy came up with a plan to shoot a film. The film was going to be a short, 30 min. narrative about the life and times of a shady character whose name was to be "Chuck Swayze." Chuck Swayze was a character we came up with who was part basketball prodigy, part drug dealer, part cultural appropriator. He was white, 21, wormy looking, and had a gold tooth. He dressed in old school hip hop gear. Shelltoes and the like. His girlfriend was a smokingly hot Nubian goddess named Shawanda. I guess it's also worth mentioning that Chuck Swayze spoke with a lisp, probably due to the rushed dental work on his gold tooth. I guess you could say the whole idea was derivative through and through. Nonetheless, we thought it would make a hilarious-yet-poignant movie.

Quite often, my buddy and me would go out drinking. We'd take tablets and pens with us, though, and make notes about our movie. Generally, the entire evening would de-evolve into drunken Chuck Swayze imitations. Somewhere along the line, as the months progressed, we each bought gold fronts and a blond wig...so that our impressions could be that much more precise. We wrote a scene wherein Chuck Swayze, a liberal user of the "N word," eventually met Malcolm X's ghost. Problematic hilarity ensued.

Me and my buddy eventually had a falling out. It was all about a girl, of course. Because life is all in the details, I'll tell you that her name was Marlo. Ahhh...young Marlo. Anyway, he went his way and I went mine. Marlo disappeared into the undertow of life. I kept my Chuck Swayze wig, and it has come in handy over the years for one reason or another, inasmuch as a wig can actually come in handy. In this photo, my daughter is rocking the Chuck Swayze look. She's such a cool handed individual.

Me and this buddy of mine ended our friendship overnight. Maybe it was because of a girl. Maybe it was because of too much water under certain bridges. I don't know. I didn't really get it then, and I still don't now. It's been eleven years since our falling out. I've run into him a couple of times. Apparently he's doing well. I'm doing pretty well too. I am glad. No hard feelings, you know? I will say for the record, though, that it is sad when friendships end like that.