A friend sent me an emailed response:

"Hey there.

Oh man, that was something to read. Written well, but I feel really bad.

One thing you need to know though. You were always the guy who simply does it. You know, like that teacher or what it was, said. Totally one of your outstanding qualities, and I guess S**** has it too.

From when I look back and how we started and when all the energy was there, I can only think of one thing that changed and that, I believe, is not helping you much.

I remember that even V***** said it about you. You were always the most humble guy. And not in the sense of being a soft person, actually it has always been the opposite. Also not humble in the sense of submissive, again opposite.

That humbleness in the course of the years somehow left you. I actually don't believe that it's not there anymore. People don't change in such manners. I could only imagine that it is covered up. It used to be one of your major strengths or sources of power. You know, a very subtle thing that would show in your general attitude towards life.

It was that thing that made you deal with customers in such an amazing way, like on 23rd. And I'm not talking about the bad customers. Just everybody. I'm also not talking about being overly giving (like paying T**** 100 bucks a day for nothing). That was always just stupid and due to your not always that good feeling for what money is (it's energy stored in papers or numbers in my opinion, and sometimes you tend to waste energy, because you have too much yourself and don't want to deal with it).

Anyway, if I could make myself understandable, it might be worth a try digging that humbleness back out. I'm not sure where it came from or what motivated it, so I really don't know, why it got burried. Might also be, that with R***, it's real easy to just have it back. I don't think it has anything to do with having made bad experiences. To me it seems you just forgot, and actually it's right there."

That's terrible about Ray! D. from C-Squat has been telling me about it. The people in Ocean Beach are dead broke. This ain't L.A. baby. I visited Mission Beach last night, which is one beach town north of here, and they see to have a more thriving economy, and they got Banana Bungalo! Yeah, baby!! I'll be back in two weeks.

My pleasure. Thank you for taking the time to leave a comment!

Let's go to Paris. When can you go?

It hurts me a lot to even write this down because I know that I'm leaving out a ton of details and I feel the sense of loss, but it's better than waiting even longer and losing the rest of whats left of my memory. I'm also trying to balance the telling of old tales with descriptions of my current adventures because I think that a lot of the value and interest lies in the "pop" aspect of it. I really can't stand a bunch of whiners and wankers drinking beer and telling war stories about how things used to be.

Are you fucking with me? For a minute there I thought this was an article from The Onion

I understand now. When?

Thanks Barthes, I appreciate that.

Paris? Tell me more!

Ah, curious and curiouser