🎶 Creep: Stone Temple Pilots

Sat, 04 Jul 2026 12:27:47 -0400

When I was in college and got a dorm room through a scholarship, I had a friend who dealt more closely with the grunge of life. We were both part of the staff of the college’s newspaper, often working long nights that stretched into tired mornings of drip coffee and cheap Chinese food.

When it was time to head back to my room, KU would go to the parking garage, where he’d sleep in his car, or if it wasn’t too late (and by that I mean to early in the morning), in the office under one of the desks. Going back home was a long drive to South Jersey, and since he was ready to crash anyway at this point, he shrugged it off as a better option. At one point, I remember someone opened a drawer and saw his toothpaste and toothbrush and people got worried that he had nowhere to go. I guess he understood it was “weird,” but to him it was just a thing to do. No biggie.

In college, KU was tough but approachable. He quickly became one of my best friends, whom I always respected. He was a true-to-life example of “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”

He was so good at it that he didn’t stop to perceive the lemons as lemons; he always saw the lemonade he could make. An excellent writer with a sharp mind, he worked his way up to the head of his fraternity, landed an internship at NASA, and became an astrophysicist.

STP was one of his favorite bands, and I imagine Creep was one of his favorite songs. I didn’t know this until I researched the song today, but according to Scott Weiland, Creep is about “the idea of being a young person somewhere, caught between still being a kid and becoming a young man. It’s that youth apathy, that second-guessing yourself, not feeling like you fit in.” Wow. Nailed it. I don’t know whether KU knew that, but this song was written for him:

I’m half the man I used to be

(For as I feel as the dawn, it fades to gray)

Well, I’m half the man I used to be

(For as I feel as the dawn, it fades to gray)

I’m going to write him an email.

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music on The Art Of Not Asking Why

🎶 Creep: Stone Temple Pilots