miki, felecia & darlene circa 1978, hampton institute

next stop heaven

i've been having trouble sleeping lately. i'm blaming it on residual jet lag, hormonal changes and general anxiety about the things in which i have no control over. so, when i can, i love to sleep late. the problem with doing so, however, is that sometimes you wake up to hours-old e-mail messages that needed immediate replies; or bad news that will ultimately ruin the few remaining hours of the day.

today was one of those days.

while i'm cognizant that i, more often than not, use this space to memorialize friends and loved ones, it has become increasingly obvious that these tributes will become a standing feature on this page . i'm at that age where the unpleasantries of life--such as death--are happening far more frequently. today's news: my friend, former roommate and consummate life adviser felecia (fu) kurtz gillis, died last saturday. a mutual friend of ours from college informed me via e-mail this morning. the subject line read: "guest book for felecia k. gillis."

i wasn't sure what to expect when i opened the message. i know what "guest books" are and have even signed a few. but, i was pretty sure it wasn't time to sign fu's. i thought maybe someone was honoring her.

sadly, i was mistaken. even though i was still in a post-tylenol pm daze, the text was very clear. fu, my friend with the gap-toothed smile and tilted eyes, was gone.

when i say that fu taught me more about love, compassion, forgiveness and men than any other human being on the planet, i'm not at all exaggerating. when we met as coeds sharing the same house at hampton institute back in the '70s, i was young impressionable and very suburban. fu, who was a year ahead of me, was a true southerner who would give you $2 if you asked for one. and, to me, was wise beyond her years. she always had all the answers to my endless stream of questions. we'd spend hours in her room just chatting about everything.

i often referred to her as my "first" girlfriend because i experienced so many firsts with her.

bored with the small selection of available and good men on a campus in which women outnumbered the fellas 8-to-1, fu and another friend escorted me on my first trip ever to a military base. they taught me how to pick up sailors on hampton boulevard in norfolk who were on their way back to the base. in exchange for a ride back to the ship we'd make them buy us dinner at denny's or sambo's. when we'd drop them off, i was often kicked to the curb because i was always far more interested in exploring the massive aircraft carriers than engaging in a one-night stand.

i also shared my first apartment with fu. she had recently graduated and was working in hampton and i decided to hang out there for the summer. we were doing the "three's company" thing with a guy named steve. it was a great summer. we hit the beach, her hometown of raleigh, n.c. and, yes, the naval base!

fu's job didn't last long and she eventually returned home. i was all caught up in the bittersweet splendor of being a college senior and we didn't stay in touch as often. In 1982, however, when i was in grad school in boston, fu was living in new york and we communicated more frequently. in 1984, at my wit's end as to what to do with the rest of my young life, i rang her and asked: "can i come stay with you in new york for two weeks so i can look for a job?" her response was an enthusiastic "why are you even asking me that? sure you can!"

then came another first.

fu already had a roommate, edith, a friend from church who had gotten evicted from her flat. i had just come from a situation with a really bad roommate, but living with the two of them was really fun. after finding a job my first week in new york, i ended up staying in fu's one-room, one-bath flat for the next six months rent-free. the only stipulation was that i had to go to church.

having been reared in the southern baptist church, that's what i knew and that's what i liked. but at that time i hadn't been a "regular" for years and certainly wasn't into this sort of new wave, born-again restrictive religion that they'd latched on to. plus, i'd never ever attended church in anything other than a church and they attended services in a brooklyn high school auditorium.

i hated everything about it. but even though it would be years before my spiritual transformation from fulltime to parttime sinner--i managed to learn a thing or two.

after six months of dodging each other in the loo and taking two-minute showers so that the next person could have some hot water to wash away the night's scum, edith and i left the nest. she moved back to brooklyn, but i moved into the next building. that's when it all changed. fu had started dating a recovering drug addict and despite my often less-than-best efforts, he and i couldn't get along. it got to the point where she had to choose and she rightfully chose the person she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.

although fu and i stopped speaking to each other i never really felt that our friendship was over for life. our divorce was not really steeped in animosity. rather, it was all about the inability and/or unwillingness of immature people to work out viable solutions to their immature issues. once i left new york, i never attempted to reach out to fu and vice-versa. i heard through the vine that she and roy had married and that she'd moved back to raleigh. i also heard that roy had died and that she had given birth to two daughters.

in 2007, i was sent to raleigh to interview cullen jones for a show i was working on. prior to my trip i had contacted our mutual friend from college who very graciously organized a small dinner party that included other hampton alums including fu. it had been more than 20 years since i'd last seen or spoken to fu and i was understandably anxious. but when she walked into the restaurant we enjoyed a long embrace.

like me, she had locs and hadn't really aged a bit. we did the speed-date catch-up, exchanged numbers and e-mails. she told me that roy had seen me on tv one night and called her into the room. "and then he died," she said while bursting out in giggles.

i wasn't quite sure of what to make of that.

that night i e-mailed her, saying how good it was to see her. she replied the next day with a similar note. enough time had passed to eliminate the pain of what had gone down in new york, but we were also different people who had essentially grown apart. i think we both knew that we'd never become best friends again but it was comforting knowing that we were at least reconnected.

that would be the last time i'd ever see her.

about a month ago, however, i was surprised to get an e-mail from her. it was actually a form letter announcing her sister's new book. i wrote back offering my congratulations to her sister and added that i hoped things were well. she responded by asking how things were in my world. about a week later instead of writing i rang her up. it was way too much drama to record in an e-mail. you could tell it had been a long time since she'd heard my voice because when i said "hey," she asked me if i had gotten married over the weekend.

nope, that was some other friend.

for the next 20 minutes we talked at length about life. i was saddened to learn that both of her parents, whom i had been very fond of, had passed away. and we laughed about her kids and all their young adult drama. her oldest daughter had just told her she had planned on living with her boyfriend and fu was trying to wrap her head around why her baby thought it was OK to tell her that!

hysterical.

that was the last time i heard her voice.

in the next few days i will try to fully comprehend the enormity of a loss that has yet to really hit me. i won't think about all the wasted years because they really don't matter. looking back, i'm not sure there would have been many more phone calls, visits or e-mail updates regardless of what went down in new york 25 years ago. all i know now is that fu always brought out the best in me, and that we will somehow always be connected.

my true comfort, however, comes in knowing that she's in a place where she always wanted to be.

someone's watch-ing over me

my dad, in his younger years, loved to roll. and it is through his love of adventure that i developed my passion for travel.

every summer, the turner clan would stuff 75 percent of our respective closets into these red-and-black plaid canvas suitcases and hit the road in the family station wagon. each year we'd take off for a different spot. i'd be so excited i wouldn't sleep for a full two weeks before our trip. traveling meant new underwear, tennis shoes and pajamas.

if we hadn't spent so much money on new clothes we probably could have used that bank to purchase plane tickets. i'm glad, however, my parents elected to waste their hard-earned cash on stuff none of us really needed.

had i been sitting in 25a i would have never fallen in love with that fry cook in needles, calif., nor had the opportunity to get that souvenir paper placemat in gallup, n.m. had i been 30,000 feet up i wouldn't have been able to spend that glorious night with my cousins in littleton, colo. or develop my deep, abiding and lingering hate for the pennsylvania turnpike.

those and so many other moments would have been missed.

but now that i'm all grown up and traveling on my own to far more exotic locales, i find myself thinking of all those great times with dad, who is now confined to a room with one window and a nightstand with no car keys. i'm having trouble dealing with that reality so i recently took him with me to south africa.

well, a part of him. i wore his watch--a class movado that i gave him for christmas years ago.

i wore the watch when i toured robben island,
as i happily played with the children of soweto


and interviewed musicians at the cape town jazz festival.


i had it on as i took a cable car to the top of table mountain and as i strolled along boulders beach with the penguins.

and i even wore it on all those nights when i couldn't sleep because of jet lag, fatigue or because i was consumed with thoughts about how much i wish he could see what i was seeing.

on my last day in south africa, i was treated to a 75-minute full body massage at the five-star hotel i was staying in. i had dad's watch on as i entered the room where this woman, whose name i couldn't pronounce, truly made me feel relaxed and rested for the first time in eight days. i was in such a blissful state that as i rushed to the atm to fetch her tip money (i was fresh out of rand), i forgot the watch. when i returned to the spa 15 minutes later, all of the employees were pleading the 5th.

i could literally feel my heart sinking into the bowels of my stomach. it wasn't so much that it was a movado. nor was i really annoyed at the staff, even though i knew someone had stolen it. i was devastated because it was the one thing of dad's that i had with me. i couldn't leave him there.

who would watch over me?

enter judy, our rep from south african tourism. when we bumped into each other at the elevator just minutes after i had left the spa, judy asked about my massage. "you look like you have no worries," she said while pointing to my forehead. i told her it had gone well but that i was having some issues with the staff over my lost watch. in less time than it takes oprah to make another dollar, judy was on the phone to the hotel manager demanding that the watch be found.

fifteen minutes later i got a call in my room. they had "found" it.

i hadn't felt that much relief since my last "fuzzy" mammogram came up negative on the second fry.

i won't be so careless on our next trip. i'll be taking dad to grenada in three weeks. i really don't think lush resorts are actually his thing, but hopefully he'll enjoy the company.

i know he likes watching over me.

in the still of the night

last night before i closed my eyes i made a ttdl (things to do today list). it's not something i usually do, but since i've been preoccupied with so many other things that i have no control over, i needed to make sure that i did do what i had to do.

those things kept me busy all day but now as i sit alone in my living room with the television on mute, reality has stopped by to say hello. i'd really like to write about what's going on right now but i'm afaid that if i do it will become even more real and keep me up all night--again.

so, i'm going to leave it alone for now and pray that god's will be done. better yet, that i will be strong enough to accept that which is inevitable.

everything must change.

in five days i leave for my second trip to south africa in less than a year. i'm excited because i love traveling--even to places i've already seen. i'm inspired because if i can accomplish my goals over there, hopefully my words and pictures will inspire others around the globe. but i'm nervous about the things that might go down while i'm gone.

stay with me dude.

hoo-ray for hollyhood

it's been another one of those weeks.

something i fully expected to come through, didn't. dad was rushed to the hospital with pneumonia. my bff's dad was also rushed to the hospital with symptoms of pneumonia. and as if all that weren't enough to make me hypertensive, being force-fed a steady diet of the chris brown-rihanna beatdown truly made me wanna walk on rusty nails.

but some cool things happened last week, too. on wednesday, my new nikon d200 body arrived in a beautiful gold box. trust me when i tell you i was so awed by it that i didn't even remove it from the box for two days! it's a pretty thing. the night it arrived i officially launched mikiphoto. the next day i had my first two clients.

this new venture is really the culmination of a dream. i've been passionate about capturing images since i was 5 and got my first camera, a kodak brownie. since then i've moved on to a variety of polaroids, followed by more kodaks. i didn't actually get my first slr until my sophomore year in college when i enrolled in a photography class. i replaced it a few years later when i studied with one of the original life magazine photographers at boston university.

i still have my first body--a minolta srt 201--and it ranks among my favorite cameras ever. but i now use nikons exclusively. i've lost count of how many i have but they've all served me well for the past 27 years. the new one, however, is a little intimidating so i asked my friend leroy hamilton, a brilliant shutterbug, to help me get to know this new beast. he was tremendously helpful.

leroy's 2-hour tutorial helped me prepare for mikiphoto's first clients--two young women who were celebrating their 27th year on the planet by throwing a party on the top floor of a hollyhood club with no name. i was happy for the business, but as the night wore on i was even more elated actually to have the experiences--in and out of the club.

it's been a while since i've been on that scene and i found myself wondering if i had ever been that girl?

had i been the kind of girl who would willingly stand in line to get into a club? did i ever spend half my check on club gear, club admission and overpriced club drinks? and did i ever travel in a pack, thereby lessening my chances of meeting mr. right or his buddy mr. wrong?

well, last night i was the smart girl who left her flat about three hours before the games began because parking in hollyhood is always a nightmare--particularly on a weekend night. it took me about 20 minutes of driving up and down sunset to find a free spot that was about five blocks away from the club. to kill some time i bopped into amoeba--an oasis for music and film junkies. but as i was perusing the dvd bins upstairs, i became a hungry girl.

i needed a slice.

there are at least 20 pizza places in l.a. that purportedly make new york-style pizza. most, with the exception of mulberry street in beverly hills, don't even come close. but this greco joint on the corner of hollyhood and cahuenga was undeniably authentic and very, very tasty.

this girl was satisfied.

eating pizza at a joint on the corner with eclectic crazies all around me reminded me of times square before it turned into disneyland. that slice not only hit the spot but it inspired me to do something i've never ever done in the 16 years i've lived here.

i was going to explore hollyhood by foot. it's an amazing place.

first, i had to go back to the car and pick up my camera bag. i still had at least 2 hours to kill before the party. with my old nikon around my neck--i wasn't quite ready to break in the new one yet--i headed back to hollyhood blvd. there i saw a lot of teens traveling in packs, some "hollyhood" types hanging outside hot spot kress, a small assortment of homeless men (no women) and some cops. for some reason i wanted to know all of their back stories.

but since it would have been rather impolite to ask them, i made them up as i walked past them.

i wish i could be that girl.

those street scenes, however, in no way prepared me for what was about to happen outside the club with no name. i was standing in line behind one man and his three female friends. i was immediately annoyed by the manchild. perhaps, needing to hear the sound of his own broken english, he began berating his companions--referring to them as "drunk asses."

he wasn't just jawing. the scantily dressed trio of divas with weavas were lit but one of them appeared to be a little more so than the others. when it became apparent that what ever she had been drinking was not going to remain in her stomach for too much longer, her two girlfriends tried in vain to convince the bouncers to let them in so they could take her to the loo.

too late. one, two, three--oh god, thar she blows!

i know i was never that girl.

thankfully, she and her crew were bounced from the line. five minutes later someone came and poured bleach and sanitizer on her accident.

since the party wasn't supposed to start until 11, i grabbed a seat adjacent to the dance floor and watched the parade. there were a plethora of fools who thought that they were too cool for the room and scores of women in spandex--many of whom shouldn't have been.

i wasn't that girl either. spandex makes me itch.

once i started shooting the guests memories of my own club days flooded my brain. i recalled the days when me and my crew couldn't wait to hit the club. we even had our own theme song.

"the men all pause when i walk into the room."

yeah, we thought we were all that back in the day. and you know what? we were. we really were. we drank, but never had to have anyone hold our real hair up in the bathroom. we danced and flirted and talk s--t. and we always went home with at least five phone numbers unless we had found "the one" for that night.

since the women outnumbered the men, i seriously doubt if any of them found "the one" last night. but i suspect that's not why some of them are here. sometimes it's just cool to tell folks you went to the club last night.

i might have been that girl.

by 1 a.m. the party was winding down and the guests were making their ways to the exits. it had been a very nice affair. there was dancing, a little drinking, chatting, birthday cake, celebrating and networking. the difference between these people and the ones i had met downstairs was that they apparently knew when to leave the party.

i could identify with that. i am that girl.

feets don't fail me now--puhlees!

ok. you know how some people are always a little apprehensive when they have to go to the doctor?

i've never been that person.

usually, the main reason i hate going is because i'd rather stay in bed or wherever else i might be. this morning was no exception. after being prematurely awakened by a pesky east coast editor who can't tell time, the last thing i wanted to do was get dressed and make the 2-mile trek down to cedars on my bike. my bed was begging me not to go.

besides, this was to be my third doctor's visit in less than a month. just eight days ago i'd gone in for my annual physical and was slightly distressed when dr. peters discovered some unsettling things pertaining to my health--or lack thereof.

• one, i was vitamin d deficient and would have to start taking supplements--again (that kind of thing comes and goes in waves because i hate taking pills).
• two, since my mother, her mother and maternal aunt had all had some form of cancer, i might be genetically predisposed to that unwelcome occurrence, too, someday and needed to convince my mother to take some costly genetic screening test to see if i would be adversely affected by the outcome.
• and three, i was told that i might develop arthritis in my flat feet unless i started wearing orthotics. worse yet, my feet could very well be responsible for the perpetual lower back pain i've been experiencing since my last birthday.

joy.

i eventually decided not to cancel or postpone tuesday's appointment but what i thought was going to be a pretty routine office visit soon turned into me being the guinea pig du jour at cedars for a world renown podiatrist. trust, after hearing the price of the orthotics (steep even with insurance), i was actually on my way out to "think about it" when dr. oswell, a lovely woman who has cradled my feet on at least three previous occasions, introduced me to dr. dude (sorry, can't remember his name) just as i was lacing up my sneakers.

her: "would you mind having dr. dude look at you? he's written the books we all study."
me: "uh..."
her: "if you stay you'll get a huge discount on your orthotics."
me: "otay."
her: "you're very lucky he's here. this is a good, good thing."

he was good. there was something very sensual about the way he caressed my feet so i trusted him immediately--even when he started using terms i didn't understand and those i did such as "abnormal." all the other doctors were taking notes and asking questions.

mental note: shouldn't i be a little concerned about my doctor asking dr. dude questions? shouldn't she know this stuff by now? it's been at least 20 years since med school!

i spent the next 40 minutes walking up and down the hallway so that the doctors could examine my gait. it was distressing to hear things like: "can't walk straight," "one hip is higher than the other," "oooh, that bone is in the wrong place," "if we had caught this when she was 10...," and "uh-oh, does that mean?"

me: "what, what?!"

after the x-rays, which revealed even more abnormalities, i'd grown way weary of playing porky. it's one thing to be examined by a purported expert but quite another to take all of this mental abuse just because you wanted to toss your corrective shoes after the third grade and wear penny loafers like all of your friends.

sorry, yet another repressed childhood memory resurfacing in the midnight hour.

so, what does all this mean for lil' miki? i'm not quite sure yet. i have to go back in two weeks to see drs. oswell and dude. although dr. dude is retired and lives in the mountains outside of l.a., he's purportedly making a special trip back to cedars just to share his findings with me and the rest of the class.

i have officially joined the ranks of the apprehensive.

but since i still need my feets i guess i'll have to get over it. i've got a few more pick-up games in me, a lot more tennis, a lifetime of golf and i still love kicking it in my manolos--the most comfortable heels i've ever worn.

hopefully manolo makes a corrective slingback.

to be loved by duke

at this moment in time i'm supposed to be saluting some friends and acquaintances at essence magazine's 2nd annual black women in hollywood luncheon at the beverly hills hotel. but, when i opened my eyes at 10 a.m. today, i immediately realized how difficult it was going to be to attend yet another masturbatory hollywood award season opus.

it so doesn't matter.

it became even harder to motivate myself after receiving some news on my facebook page that rocked my world.

"Melissa invited you to 'Melissa Duke-Mooney Memorial Service' on Sunday,
February 22 at 2:30pm."

because of the way it was worded i honestly thought it was some kind of joke. i had just read duke's last irreverent status update a few days ago. she was fine.

but then i read the rest.

Event: Melissa Duke-Mooney Memorial Service
What: Ceremony
Host: Neil Mooney
Start Time: Sunday, February 22 at 2:30pm
End Time: Sunday, February 22 at 3:30pm
Where: Eastwood Christian Church

naturally, i was like wtf? i quickly pulled up duke's facebook page and after sifting through dozens of sympathy messages i realized that this was no joke. my girl, melissa duke, was no longer breathing and i had no idea why.

i immediately contacted two mutual friends--lisa and claire. claire was the first to respond. she wrote that duke had been in intense pain monday night, slipped into a coma on tuesday and was gone early wednesday. bacterial meningitis. then i had the unenviable task of informing lisa, who was at the hospital with her young son and hadn't heard the news.

like many of duke's friends i am stunned and shocked beyond words. duke provided a significant amount of our daily light. she was equal parts sun and moon. and at 41, still very young.

naturally, at times like these your mind is awash with memories. duke and i first met at a press junket. at the time she was a publicist for fox and i was the pop culture columnist for the fort worth star-telegram. i fell in love with her instantly because she was so outside the norm for a studio flak. duke exuded warmth, seemed genuinely interested in who you were as a person and didn't really involve herself in the journo class wars--"the my paper is bigger than yours, etc. bs." she treated everyone the same regardless of circulation figures or tax bracket.

our time together in l.a. was brief because she and her husband packed up their bags and moved southeast to nashville. i was truly saddened but understood perfectly when she said, "it's about quality of life issues."

throughout the ensuing years duke and i kept in touch. i remember getting the first pictures her oldest daughter and then chastising her for not sending photos of the second baby in a timely manner. we also used to bump into each other from time-to-time at various junkets. she would always take care of me. and, one of my great pleasures was jumpstarting the friendship between duke and lisa, when lisa and her family moved to nashville.

last year when i started this journal--because that's what it really is as opposed to being a blog--duke was one of the first to send her love. she wrote:

"I just wanted to let you know that I've been reading your blog....and I LOVE your voice. It is clear, true and feels like a friend. You have a gift with words but it seems the way you see the world....the way you prioritize (for lack of a better word) is your true gift. Your words inspire and have got me thinking more about my own priorities.

I know we only pass each other in junket life....barely knowing one another really but I am enjoying reading you - getting to know the real you. Thanks for sharing.

Continue to find the beauty.
xo Melissa

P.S. I have some tomatoes for you - get to Nashville!!"

i'm so glad i saved that note. i always will. yet, i'm saddened that she perhaps didn't realize that she was more than just a junket pal.

i'm sorry duke.

i'm sorry that it took your death to hammer home an age-old cliche. you really do have to tell folks how much you love them while they're still here.

c u later girlfriend. xox

say wot?!!

this is a happy day.

three thousand years ago when i was a grad student at BU/harvard, my friend denis peycher introduced me to a song that would eventually come to define that most enjoyable time. i had it on tape but god only knows at what point my parents threw away that era of my life that was once stored in the family garage.

For years all i could remember of that song was the beat line, "say captain, say wot" and not the artist. today i typed in that phrase in on my itunes account and bingo!

denis, who was from paris, was fond of european hip hop. he was always listening to songs in languages none of us could understand. i was initially introduced to him by my friend elisa gaffney from london. we called her spoon because of her family's wealth. all of us were part of a group of students who had formed a club called SPC (School of Public Communications) International. Among the members were people from egypt (anwar sadat's daughter), the uk, south africa, spain, italy, france, greece, malaysia, canada, germany, mexico, brooklyn, ireland, india, switzerland and sweden.

i'd like to say that our motley crew spent a considerable amount of time at cafes poring over pertinent world events but we really didn't do very much of that. our days (in between classes) were spent at rumple's, a precursor to starbucks just across the street from SPC. but we spent most of our time perusing that wine store on harvard ave. (two bottles for $5), stocking up on refreshments for our nightly chat fests.

with a group so complex and diverse the only things we generally didn't talk about were religion and politics. our gatherings were really all about the cultural exchange. we were all fascinated by our respective life stories and i am a wiser and more enlightened person now because of those meetings.

denis, however, was somewhat of an instigator--always making fun of the trust fund babies, of which there were many. he would also make cracks about the brits and our one indian friend who was having difficulty adjusting to life without "servants." denis also introduced me to gay life 101 and convinced all of us to accompany him to buddy's one night, a famous gay bar in the copley square area. it was the first and only time that i've ever danced all night long without once sitting down.

one night i suggested we have a surprise birthday party for spoon even though it wasn't her birthday. spoon was in on the ruse but felt guilty once everyone started bringing her presents and spilled the beans. i was in charge of the music and as a former dee-jay, it was a welcome assignment. it was the early '80s and disco had pretty much run its course. at that time i was listening to a lot of duran duran, journey, hall & oates, rick james, michael jackson, police, spandau ballet, culture club, marvin gaye, prince, thomas dolby, lionel richie, after the fire, kajagoogoo, earth, wind & fire, men at work and clash.

i made a mix tape (god, remember cassettes?) and took it over to spoon's back bay studio where the jam was being held. we were all rocking (with spoon's weak-ass speakers) when denis shows up with this vinyl. "you've got to play this," he said.

i was a little leery. i'd never heard of the artist or the cut and didn't want to damper the flow. but he kept insisting and to this day, i'm glad he did. the "captain" song became our party staple along with "she blinded me with science," "dancing on the ceiling" and "rock the cashbah."

so, today i've been ushered back to a time when i was happily unfocused, absolutely immature and totally enjoying the experiences of a lifetime. although denis and i both moved to new york at the same time after school and kept in touch for many years afterward, i suppose i should have suspected something was amiss when the christmas cards stopped coming. it wasn't until i had reconnected with gilles, another SPCI friend, about four years ago. he informed me that denis had been dead for just over a decade. AIDS. denis had contracted the disease from tom, another SPCI member from sweden. tom died while denis and i were still in touch but it never occured to me...

i had also lost touch with spoon. she returned to london and eventually married and had three kids. two years ago i was able to track her husband down through a random press release and we were happily reunited in london in '07. it was the first time we'd seen each other in 22 years.


mitch, the only other american member of the group, has moved from brooklyn to manhattan and is a vp at one of the largest pr firms on the planet. gilles runs an AIDS center in manhattan, russ has gone back to canada and i suspect the others are all doing well wherever they are.

today, i'm really missing all of them--even francine, the skinny and arrogant winch from paris whom none of us really ever liked.

tonight i'll lift a glass in their honor while i'm listening to da captain. take a listen.