…who fought with me non-stop, who challenged me, and argued with me (often times just to get a rise). He knew my buttons and he pushed them regularly not because he disagreed, he just wanted to play devil’s advocate. He would argue with himself and I truly think he did often. Many times his then girlfriend would wonder how it was I managed to stay his friend for so many years. He was exhausting!! Yet you knew that each time he challenged you or fought with you, you grew ever so slightly and learned that arming yourself not in his defense but in defense of the world and what was only made you a stronger more capable person.
But then he’d smile that charming Cheshire cat grin and his laughter would begin. He’d tell you a joke or that he loved you and somehow, each time, everything would be okay. Until it wasn’t again. But it mostly never mattered because regardless how many buttons he pushed or how tiring his rants would become, his glitter was far more exhilarating.
He was a brilliant musician who could write songs that spoke to places in your soul that would fire automatically without warning. He’d write a lyric or a chord and suddenly you were right in the middle of the music your heart beating to it’s rhythm. He would wax poetic about the life he saw or the experiences he encountered and you felt not for him but because of him. Each time he pulled out a camera, still or motion, something slightly brilliant would be captured and edited into pictures possibly coherent yet deeply meaningful.
And his voice!! He could hit the low notes that you felt deep in your blood and the high falsetto that made the hair on the back of your neck stand on ends. His voice was the voice of someone who felt more in the end of his middle finger than most allow in their deepest of hearts. And it added to the already driving words and notes to create an orchestra of love and hurt and hatred and nothing at the same time. He knew that regardless of how subterranean his music was the world itself was fleeting and we were all merely passersby often on a trip to nowhere. And everywhere at the same time.
He introduced me to new music, new lands, new ideals. He taught me about heartbreak, wandering/wondering, artistic maintenance, literature and bits of Farsi I’ve long forgotten. He was and is, somewhere, a sage. Although he’d argue with me for saying “somewhere” and simply have me admit that he is no where. This is exactly the circle of madness you’d find yourself in with him. Until he just picks up his guitar and starts strumming away.
He also was in a constant state of evolution, always another .0 version of himself it was often hard to gauge which creature you were encountering. His music changed, his words changed, his art changed, his friends changed, his drugs changed, his lyrics changed and his place changed. But the love he felt, and perhaps the constant restlessness, was unflappable and it came out in extraordinary, spell-bounding ways. This evolution only empowered his artistic being to higher highs. And sometimes lower lows.
I’ve honestly never been more broken-hearted by anyone than I felt with him. And why or how he left me emotionally long before he left me physically is something I’ve stopped trying to work out because those answers I’ll never unravel. However, much like Ali himself and his Cheshire cat grin, I received my “I love you” days before some fucking asshole climbed down his fire escape and shot him in the head. I hate to be so blunt but I feel sugar-coating the circumstances of what exactly happened is something Ali himself never shied away from. He faced reality like a bulldozer. So after a two-year “challenge” of isolation, and incidentally 15 days before his murder, I received a letter with a beautiful apology and the words, “please know that I’ve always thought the world of you and have much love for you.” His peaceful words and peaceful heart made those two years of wandering somehow all… okay.
And on that note, the season of death (and heartbreak) has ended for me and mine. We can all go back to dating assholes, decorating for Christmas and what exactly Taylor Swift is up to in New York City.
Love! Death! GLITTER!!! 