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I met Charlie Heath on December 14^th, 1998. Nine years ago today. It was my inaugural day at LAUNCH, a new media company that would eventually become Yahoo! Music. He’d been hired three weeks earlier. As members of LAUNCH’s Production Department, the company’s in-house Delta Tau Chi, we and our motley crew of video and audio professionals were well paid to travel around the States, hang out with rock stars, and get blitzingly smashed on the corporate AMEX.

I left that job 5 years later, when the fun ran out. Charlie followed 4 months later. During our time at the company, we found that we complemented one another well: I was good at coming up with bad ideas, and he was committed to their execution (see here, here, and here.) It was a partnership well-suited to our first Chinese adventure in 2006.

Charlie found the country so entertaining — and affordable — that he moved there in the spring of ‘07, and I returned late this September for a month-long visit with him in his new hometown. For this concluding chapter on China 2007, I’ve collected a few images from our two experiences in the East to remember him by.

(No, Charlie’s not dead yet, but we agree that with his fire all weapons of fun lifestyle, it can’t be much longer. When that sad day does arrive, I’ll just need to delete this paragraph and repost the rest as his eulogy. Charlie would’ve appreciated my efficiency.)

One idea that Charlie took to with glee when I first introduced it was the jumping shot. I’ve always appreciated his commitment, knowing that his fragile lower right leg, nearly amputated in a motorcycle accident a few years back, could splinter like diseased bamboo with each leap.

I value friends with the willingness to go to that gray borderland between stupid and insane. Perhaps to my future detriment, Charlie shows no shortage of this quality. Factoring in George Bourassa (also seen in the following images,) I can perhaps claim to be the meekest member of the gang. Thus there is never a lack of new experiences with traveling companions like these.

The variety of those experiences in China was extensive. From the edges of infinity pools into the depths of the earth, motorcycles in the south to camels in the north, archery in Beijing to wrestling in Ulaanbaatar, horse circuses to children’s acrobatics, KTVs to pink light parlours, absinthe to ecstasy — we checked off several items on our life experience lists.

But there are some experiences that even I don’t feel the need to mark as completed, so I’m grateful to have Charlie around to act in my place (and perform for my camera.)

Having a friend like Charlie is like always having a front row seat. Someday I may even be in attendance when that curtain falls like Charlie from a building (and of course I hope to capture it with my camera. Charlie would want it that way.)

Until then, I look forward to many more rowdy and rousing adventures with my little Charlie.

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