This is probably the hardest thing I’ve sat down to try and write, but in the space of moments where you want to do something and don’t know what to do, this felt like something I could do.
Nicholas Quinonez, who most know as “Squid,” was one of the best people I’ve ever met in my life. The first word I’d ever associate with him is “loyal.” He was loyal to an absolute fault. One time, in June 2001, we had a keg party that was busted by campus police before the final keg was even started. He took that keg, ran upstairs, and locked himself in the bathroom with it. He wasn’t gonna let those campus cops have it. A stupid definition of loyalty? Perhaps. But everything in life is a series of micro-moments that people perceive as a whole. Squid’s micro-moments, however weird in pockets, were always rooted in loyalty.
I want you to try and understand the man if you never met him, then I want to explain what he meant to me and so many others, and then maybe we can find some lessons in all this. Here goes nothing.
The origin story
Squid and some other kids came through the dorms early freshman year asking if anyone wanted to be in a punk band. He didn’t seem super punk to me: Hispanic kid by way of Texas roots and Southern California upbringing. He did seem unique from the jump.
