I met Matt Pastor in a class called Human Origins during my first quarter of college at Western Washington University. The class of approximately 160 fresh-faced freshmen gathered three times a week to learn about the beasts we came from and how big their brains were and whether or not they used fire. I randomly sat next to this man who would become an integral part of my life. He was scraggly looking, like you might imagine a hipster orphan to dress. Dirty trucker hat over greasy hair, thick framed glasses, a goofy ass smile plastered on his face, and a very interesting choice of sweatshirt for someone who might potentially be looking for new friends. It was a faded salmon color with a depiction of a super-model type tropical babe standing knee-deep in the ocean with a sultry positioning of her lips and one arm pulling her t-shirt up to reveal a perfect breast.
I was intrigued by this ridiculous presentation of a person. Who dresses like this? What is he trying to say? I wrote him a note during class on a hunch. It read, “Do you play music?” Turns out he did, a lot of music in fact. I would learn in the following years that Matt played more music than he did anything else, except for maybe sleeping, but it’s a close call. He practiced guitar religiously, produced and recorded himself, and was pretty damn good.
We became friends. Good friends. We had a band together for a minute, he helped out with the formation of my record label[1], and at two different points we lived together[2]. There are some things that you should know about Matt. He changed me and taught me an important lesson about self confidence and possessed a certain quality of enlightenment. He says, “If someone isn’t going to want to talk to you because of some aspect of your appearance, than this person is not worth wasting your time being friends with. You don’t want people so concerned with your image involved in your life because they will only hold you back.”
The following events are not chronological, but necessary elements in the attempt to understand the character of Mr. Pastor.
Matt convinces his youngest brother to eat the feces of his younger brother for five dollars and the allowance of being able to hang out with his oldest brother for the day. I can’t possibly imagine what Matt’s redeeming qualities could be to make this humiliation worth performing. Matt gets upset when he hears me telling this story to new people in his life, but then he shouldn’t have told me. Then again, he shouldn’t have done it because it is really, really fucked up.
Matt decides during his sophomore year at college that he is going to do some things differently. He swears off the use of mattresses and instead sleeps on a thin blue foam pad. I think that these pads are made for doing yoga on. He decides that he doesn’t need variation in his outfits and for over six months he wears a turquoise sweatshirt and grey sweat pants to class, to parties, everywhere. He doesn’t miss a day.
Matt gets bored of his inch plus hair and beard length and decides upon what I believe is an unprecedented hair style. He calls it “The Sunflower”. It involves leaving a band of hair (you must have long facial hair to do this) connecting in a vertical halo on your head. The only hair the remains on the top of the head is a band about an inch wide that begins parallel to the temple and jaw lines and connects on the top of his head. So, the first couple inches of his forehead were shaved bald, and the majority of the back of his head was shaved as well. I don’t think this hairstyle lasted much more than a week.
Matt decides to again embrace an alternative hairstyle. This one was less complex but additionally more puzzling to his motive behind it. It was less astounding than the Sunflower, but more convincing and weird. He upgraded his glasses to even thicker and more square than before and shaved a considerable bald spot on his forehead ritualistically. He appeared to have aged twenty years. He was ostracized at parties and I am sure did not care that it was preventing him from making friends or meeting women. “Women make you weak.” He tells me this often and with conviction.
Matt and I go out for drinks on the town. He likes to perform impromptu social experiments. When we walk from bar to bar, Matt pulls his scrotum through his fly and walks around nonchalantly. No one notices but me.
Matt is hitchhiking from Arizona to Los Angeles. A truck driver says that if he cleans up and takes a shower he will take him. He reminds Matt to “clean his ass real good” and Matt does not take this as a sign of danger. Driving through the desert, the truck driver begins talking about how almost all men will have homosexual experiences but most men don’t ever talk about it. He expresses that he would believe that Matt has “ a beautiful cock” and asks to see it. Matt is uncomfortable and does not wish to show this man his penis. The driver presents the ultimatum of showing his cock or being dropped off right here in the desert. Matt does not have many choices here, so he produces his penis and wiggles it around a bit, which seems to appease the driver. Nearing their arrival to Los Angeles, the driver offers Matt fifty dollars if he will masturbate in the back of the truck and lets him watch. He needs the money and agrees. While Matt is ruthlessly trying to stimulate his flaccid penis, it is no help that the truck driver is watching through the window and making comments along the lines of “Yeah…like that. Do that. Yes, that’s good, that’s beautiful.” Matt cannot maintain his erection and gives up. The truck driver is not pleased by the result but gives him twenty dollars for the effort and they part ways.
Matt spends a large portion of his day learning how to say, “Hello, you have reached Matt Pastor’s voicemail, please leave a message with your name and number and I’ll get back to you.” Backwards. He then reverses it and makes it his voicemail.
Matt asks me, “Have you ever gotten your salad tossed?” He is referred to the act of someone licking your asshole. I let him know that no, that shit grosses me out and I would not be down to doing that or having it done to me until I get completely bored of sex as I know it. “Well, I only asked because this weekend I got my salad tossed.” He seems proud of this. I want to know if I know this sad, sad, soul who licked such a vile person’s butthole. He tells me it was one of his little brothers friends and then asks, “Have you ever played Wizard’s Staff?” I have no idea what this is so he educates me. “You and your friends decide on a list of spells, and the more powerful spells require a longer wizard staff to cast. You can only cast each spell once. Your staff is made by drinking beer cans and by duct-taping them together when they are empty. Apparently, Matt got quite a decent staff going and cast the most powerful of spells. I wonder why, why does a group of straight males include spells on their list such as “8 beers = Put a glow-stick in someone’s ass, 20 beers = Have someone toss your salad, 10 beers = All Spells Cost Half as Many Beers.” This is the life that Matt lives, and he’s got pictures to prove it.
Matt is taking a Communications class and for one project has to bring in a bag with two items that represent him and talk about them to the class. I guess this was sort of an introduction to public speaking kind of thing. He procures a Bible and speaks at length about God, what religion has brought to his life, and how fulfilled and enriched his existence. This goes on for quite some time. For his second and final item, Matt produces a twelve inch black rubber dildo that he ordered online for this specific presentation. He says very little about it, but makes an analogy between it and a child’s security blanket.
We bonded through a common mentality. Scare the squares, be yourself, and question who yourself really was. He influenced the way I’d present myself, which was at times atrocious.[3] We stay in touch these days, but have been pulled in different directions. At any given time I am not surprised to hear he is homeless in Mexico, working Ski lifts in Aspen, touring with his band playing music in Alaska, or that he is passing through town and needs a place to crash for the night.
[3] I went through a phase of shaving off one side of my facial hair, waxed my single mustache strand and colored it all black with masquarae that I stole from my roommates. I would wear a pull-over hoodie that had previously belonged to a middle school soccer playing girl that I had cut the sleeves off of. I cut it down the middle and sewed a single button into it to barely hold it together. It looked terrible.
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