I took off a day earlier than usual for my trip north this week. I wanted to spend a little more quality time with some of the great old friends I have up in the Central Coast and bay area.
My first stop was Vlad Smythe's pad in Monterey. Vlad and his lovely wife, Natasha have been my friends for many decades. He has put together the finest music library I have ever had the pleasure of encountering. We stayed up late listening to tunes and reciting some of the favorite television commercials of our youth in New York. From Red Buttons to the Polovtsian Dances by Borodin, we had them all committed to our young memories.
Got up early to drive to the city and see BigD. As I have mentioned before, my old pal is facing a serious showdown with his large B cell lymphoma. Wanted to spend a day hanging out.
My friend BigD has been undergoing chemo but the doctors feel that they need to go to a much more rigorous chemo regimen, a 96 hour picline and whatever that entails. My pal is not looking forward to it and I don't blame him one bit.
Big D had a kidney transplant a few years ago. One of the results in transplant patients taking anti rejection drugs is a much higher increase in cancer's and lymphoma like my friend has had to endure.
We hopped into his spiffy M5 and bopped over to Japantown for udon and an after lunch crepe, than drove over to the Palace of Fine Arts to simply chill. The weather has been picture perfect, that is until this evening. D, an expert and very fast driver, whipsawed me over the bridge and up to the Marin Headlands. We walked over the large cistern which held the large gun placement at the top of the hill which once protected our shore.
I drove over to Berkeley to see my pal, the great chef Melissa and her beau Gary. We drove over to my friend Denis's home, who has just paid off a painting he bought from me, one of the most beautiful canvases I have ever sold. Melissa made a great pork shoulder dinner and they gave me a room to spend the night.
The rest of the week has been standard setup work for the show and a couple of great visits with an old friend from painting classes in college, KerryB. Show starts tomorrow, big cold front and rain forecast on the horizon. Ciao.
