King Gook 1948-2015

Death always comes at the wrong time or moment, mostly unprepared. I am by no means a psychologist nor am I overly faithful. King Gook aka Danny first crossed my Hashing path in Vienna in the later 1990s when I joined the still to be labelled World's Worst coming back from a foreign assignment in Paris.  There were these, well, strange figures running around the Hashtrails of Vienna such as No Mercy Master (left to the Middle East 14 years ago), Wankshaft (the most Viennese German I have ever met, sorry King Ralph), Smelly Cheese (still around somewhere) and the hard core folk like Munk (not yet Cardinal), Glo-Balls (not yet a Lord), Stormin' Norman (still awaited his sainthood back then), Richard Kopf (for a week I thought that this was his real name!, not yet XX for years) and of course this odd Philippino looking Austrian named Danny "King Gook".

During my first full Hashing year here in Vindobona in 1997 this Hash and its representants grew on me and then cameth that fateful weekend in late 1998 in Mönichkirchen (the Viagra Weekend, look for the old Rehash in the respective Section of the VH3 Website), duly being organised by No Mercy Master, Munk and King Gook, who wore prisoners clothes during the registration. (Munk was dressed as a Jester, mind you).

 A short excerpt from that writeup:

"Slowly but true all those participants started to arrive and there was a Highpoint of the weekend when JR, our Golden Great Hash Cash and Webmaster, was paying his fee to King Gook.  "A DREAM CAME TRUE! JR's PAYING ME!!" (Quote King Gook). "

At the following AGM King Gook actually candidated against LGB and wanted to take over Hash Cash, we all know the outcome.

King Gook was a great character and a real pleasure to be around with, for years and way before I started doing so he was a regular at all the Schweizerhaus openings and closings and he always amazed me on how quickly he could sneak away from table and company.

Once his illness made him too weak to turn up even occasionally I was still pleased and privileged to hear news about him through Cardinal Munk.

Dear King Gook, Rest in peace. Thank you for having been a friend.