The Lemon respectfully requests that our loyal readers join us in a moment of quiet reflection in memory of celebrated staff writer Jason Cook, who passed away earlier this week. Such a sudden and unexpected loss of such a valuable team member is made even more difficult to bear by the fact that Jason was here in our offices at the time of passing. And while the cause of his passing has yet to be confirmed, we at The Lemon are further burdened by the possibility that we may be at fault. How? Because we tasked him with writing a comparison piece on the 2020 Ford Escape vs 2020 Chevy Equinox, and that’s enough to drain the remaining life force of just about any man.
We remember Jason Cook as a skilled and thoughtful wordsmith, towering over all of us in terms of both talent and height. Granted, none of that’s true (he was an uneducated hack, and only broke the 5’8” marker because he gelled his hair upwards), but he once tricked us into signing a binding contract requiring us to speak of his great height and talent, if he were ever to die unexpectedly. Needless to say, our hands are tied.
Now, in all fairness, some of you might feel ‘put off’ by the levity with which we eulogize our fallen colleague, but, with all due respect, we’re confident that he would have wanted it this way. He is, after all, the man whose Living Will specifies that – upon his death – he is to be coated in gold and left in protected woodlands to be found by post-apocalyptic humans who will assume that he must have been worshipped as a god. And while we have yet to confirm if his family plans to honor that request, we share it to give you an idea of what type of person he was.
He was a man of impressive aspirations, setting goals that some people might consider unattainable. For example, he firmly believed that swimmers and surfers only lose their legs in a shark attack because they try to swim away. “The secret,” he would say, “is to swim right inside of the shark when it opens its mouth. Then, you cut your way out through its stomach. Walk out of the water and onto the shore, holding the gutted shark over your head. Once you’re fully on land and done being showered by the shark’s bloody innards, you throw the carcass down on the beach and yell out ‘Who’s Next?” We once asked what such a bizarre task would achieve. He just laughed and said, “For one thing, you’d still have your legs. Plus, it’s the only legal way to be named ‘King of America.’ I’m serious. Just check the Constitution.”
(Publisher’s Note: We did)
Of course, we imagine that Jason would inevitably be disappointed if he learned that he had died writing about SUVs. Based on his hatred of crossovers and SUVs, we can imagine that he wouldn’t have been surprised, but he definitely would have been disappointed. After all, it was his hope that he would die saving a fire from a household of orphans (yes, you read that right…we stopped asking questions a long time ago). And while it would have been more likely that he choked by aspirating on a Dorito after swallowing it whole, no-one deserves to die of boredom by writing a soul-crushing article.
So, please join us as we raise our glass to Jason. He may not have been a smart man or a tall man. He may never have been named ‘King of America’, and he may not be coated in gold. But at least we don’t have to put up with his crazy ass bullshit any more (although that ‘King of America thing was actually in early drafts of the Constitution).
