Tagged by Dante.

I am not going to post a long litany of memories of Ricky. But I am going to need your help. Describe one word--may it be a verb, an object, an adjective, a character or a limerick--that would make Ricky be the first person that pops in your mind. When you post, tag one person only as well. Believe me, when this snowballs--it will be like those Brit comedies that Ricky loved so much.

It's more of a phrase for me: The Spanish Inquisition.

An explanation: early on in our friendship, Ricky and I shared a love of Monty Python, although at the time I had only seen the movies and not the Flying Circus episodes, and he would always say, out of the blue, "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!" During those times (2003-04), all I used for downloading was Kazaa, so you'd have an idea of how slow things were. Finally, I found a copy of the 15th episode (and a few isolated clips of sketches).

One evening, I found myself at Yale with Ricky and Reitch--they had just gotten together, so it was probably in late 2004--and I remembered that I had the clip. It had been a while since Ricky had seen the sketch, I think, because the opening scene of "Jarrow, New Year's Eve, 1911" shifting to "Jarrow, 1912" didn't ring a bell with Ricky.

And then Michael Palin burst in with the patented "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!" and Ricky damn near fell off our old green couch. Until that point, I had never seen him laugh so hard. And that's one of the ways I remember Ricky and always will.

Tagging Joon. :D