yeah... not too late but late enough. an opening reception and then the after party at my place. drunk artists and drunk bulgarians make for a lethal combination. there is, in the eastern european soul, a thirst so heroic as to bring a man to his knees. i know this as fact and yet dance with the realities as often as possible. of course... of course.

so now, a beautiful meal in my belly, beleaguered not by life, but by, perhaps, it's omens-- my thoughts drift towards death. hitchens dead; havel dead; twombly dead; freud dead; the great hermann bachofner-- dead.

what is it that we leave behind? maybe some paintings, some scrawled words on bar napkins in east village dives so long ago it doesn't even seem like it could have been the early '90's...

yeah, the east village... this was my haunt before the glassy towers of $$$ and european architects, too many happy people and productivity.

this was the frontier-- still and, it seemed, forevermore... deli's were where you copped heroin. corners were where you looked out for the law. there was a steadfast democracy that held sway-- you made it or you didn't... fuck you.

maybe NYC life was harder all around in those days. it wasn't the '70's for sure, but there was the chance that for every beautiful story, there was a horror story. and i lived through that... my best friend-- maybe not...

i didn't mean to think about him just now... but sitting here, writing of east village times and great dead men- it happened...

i'm old enough now that i need reading glasses. an indignity of gnarly weight and gravity. my daughter sleeps with some ease in her closet of a room and i note that, indeed, i am happy. happy and sitting down to write a few words of art or meaning and in the end a lost companion of 18 or 19 years comes up. there are sad songs in life and i've lent my voice to many, far too often. now, as a father, i look for the clean, arid lyrics that could define a certain, odd, happiness...

he was younger and yet better, smarter-- a cultural soldier, strident and unyielding, as i staggered about insouciant...

his was an intelligence carved from self-reliance and weathered backbone.

a beacon in the fog of young men searching out futures and destinies.

a sublime warrior....

i didn't mean to write about him tonight.

but i did.

and the only relief i have from the pain of losing him is that i knew him for the time i did...