Woke up this morning and read a plethora of posts on my friend Boadwee's site - one of which is a tribute to me. Terribly charming it is too. Which made me realise that I've not waxed lyrical about Keith myself too much yet. Keith and I met in 1994 - specifically, on the day Kurt Cobain shot himself. I saw him at a bar in New York called Tom & Jerry's, which was a bit of an artworld hang out in thise days. (One distracting side thought before I continue is that T&J's cute Irish barman had previously worked at the Rock Garden bar in Glasgow, where I spent most of my student days - it truly is a small world.)
I digress. Keith was - how can I put it - performing with the juke box, something between dancing with it and humping it. I thought he looked like a freak. Our mutual friend Bill introduced us. Turned out Keith was an artist, who made paintings via the distinctly unique process of enema. As I say, a freak. But over the next few days, and more appropriately a series of drunken evenings, I totally fell for his charms. Even then there was something about him that was a bit like looking at a version of myself, so similar were we in tastes about almost everything. (Specifically, large ginger bearded men and the then phenomenon of Britpop.) Keith and I caught up with each other as often as possible, usually in L.A. where he was living. And then we lost touch - largely because I'd had a hard time with family problems, and subsequently the letters I sent him never reached him.
And that was because he'd moved to San Francisco. Two years after our lack of contact I went to SF for a week's holiday - my first time in the city in fact. And on the Friday night, on my way to the Lone Star we walked into each other on the street. Just like that. And only a matter of oceans, distance and the cost of long haul travel has kept us apart ever since.
Keith has not really changed that much in that ten year span. He's a little calmer, his art is now largely photographic, and above all that he is happily patrnered to the adorable Kenny (above) but he's still madly enthusiastic and a bit perpetually teenage. We are so similar that sometimes it shocks me. But sometimes you meet someone and just know that you'll know each other forever, and that's the way I feel about Keith. I don't know if I believe in fate, but how uncanny was it for us to just pass eack other on the street like that, without knowing we were even in the same city at the same time? This is a bit of a lame tribute to him, due to time pressures, but he will feature regularly on this site, that's for sure. There's always a little bit of every day when I imagine what it would be like to be with him in California, usually the times when I could do with a laugh and a bit of cheering up. This posting is today's such moment.