Finally a chance to use Anthony's drawing for a very appropriate occasion. Janis Joplin will get a posthumous star on the Walk of Fame Monday. I wish you could have lived to see this, Anthony. I don't dwell on sentimentality all that much anymore, but in this case I'll make an exception.
Some people enter and leave your life much too quickly. But a piece of them stays with you forever. Janis was like that, and so was the man who introduced me to her music when I was in Jr. High school. Anthony, like Janis, was a misfit. He simply did not fit in here, nor did he try. He was an artist, a singer, a painter, and someone who could make you laugh at the absurdity of life.
His search for like minded souls took him out west to California, just like Janis. He sent me a post card from Noe Street...saying that was a place where she had lived. His letters were artwork....written on the back of movie advertisement placards..... in magenta marker. Or a collage of sorts, cobbled together with scraps of his life. He often added his own stickers....and pictures of himself from those old fashioned photograph booths, and embellished them with glitter. One time he sent me nothing but an envelope with a shredded Chinese newspaper and his new address. When he did write, his words were always cheerful, hopeful....and full of unabashed affection for the people around him. He liked tofill me in on his search to find a way to live life on his own terms, and pursue his dreams.
Ironically, I saw his obituary purely by chance, on an April Fool's day, twenty-six years ago. My first thought was, how did he accomplish this stunt? This is something, even for him! Then it set in, that Anth was really dead. Wow. No more letters. He's just gone for good this time. . . slipped away up near Salinas....
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