I’m not really the “thought for the day” type.  I mean, “I couldn’t care less than the more that I do” probably wouldn’t help too many people. Or, “I can’t wait to not get what I want” isn’t really going to go along way with inspiring too many folks

But my brother’s post was pretty cool, no? I told him that I’d post a response, but now I’ll have to do it tomorrow. (Sorry Todd!)

Since I didn’t have a very eventful day, I thought I might reminisce—–you know, drudge shit up from the past when I led a more colorful life. Colorful and debilitating combined. For those of you who haven’t read my book, I had a good friend name Greg Stevens who had the bad manners to die in my house. And, as if that wasn’t enough, he died in my BED, with me beside him, sleeping til Bruce Cohen and his boyfriend, (now husband) woke me into a world it would take me a long, bummer amount of time to blunder through. But before Greg died he was alot of fun. (he might be alot of fun AFTER his death, but as to that I have no way of knowing) He was especially fun when you consider he was a Republican, but also aside from that. All on his own, politically conservative party aside, I loved spending time with Greg.

Greg R Stevens

That’s not to say that he was always EASY to be with. Greg was extremely fond of drugs—-an affection I could relate to. But Greg could actually make me look like an amateur in comparison—–that is, when we weren’t neck and neck in bad behavior. If you were to say that Greg and I were a bad influence on eachother…………well, you wouldn’t be far from the truth. Inches away, in fact. The truth would be breathing  it’s hot scented breath down your well behaved neck.

One of my favorite evenings we spent together was in New York. We’d been in upstate New York at my friend Griffin Dunne’s wedding, and afterwards we drove back to the city and checked into Greg’s suite at the Four Seasons Hotel in midtown. Greg had had quite a bit to drink at the wedding. Enough to cause him to  continuously slide from the seat onto the floor of the town car he’d hired for the occasion.

Greg spent most of his life in hotels. The fancier the better. He liked to live what some call, “The high life”……..(and the word, “high” could obviously  be interpreted in a variety of ways)  He loved spas, where he could get massages and facials and manicures and pedicures—-and he LOVED shopping—a pass time  which——-along with the altered state—-we both enthusiastically shared.

Greg had always told me that he came from a very wealthy family —- consequently making him very wealthy as well.  He told me that he’d inherited a HUGE amount of money from a trust fund that his mother had  set up for he and his two brothers in the late sixties when they were quite young.  And the money in this trust fund  had originally come from a law suit his mother had won against some doctors that  had gotten her husband addicted to speed. (if I’d known you could win law suits against people that get  father’s addicted to speed, my siblings and I would be set for life, as my father had shot speed for 15 years courtesy of the original Dr. Feelgood aka Dr. Max Jacobsen).

Anyway, for whatever  idiotic reason I never questioned Greg’s story ——- I mean, it never occurred to me that someone  might lie about a thing like that… My only experience with lying was someone (like myself)  denying being stoned, or perhaps when someone assured someone else (say me maybe) that they didn’t look fat  and that that assurance happened not to be so.

One of the reasons that might explain why Greg had made up the story of his  alleged wealth was that he thought that people would like him more if they thought he were rich. A sad explanation, but nonetheless possible.

So, Greg told everyone that  his mother had won this alleged law suit for something like two million dollars. (not that there are very many things like two million dollars—– other than two million dollars) And she’d subsequently invested the money wisely, so that when Greg and his brothers came of age they would receive trust funds worth well over 50 million dollars apiece.  BUT, Greg informed me,  because of his drug use, his mother had decided NOT to give him his inheritance when he came of age (35, and he was now in his early 40’s)—– and that he would only receive it when  and only when he sobered up.

The gag was (according to Greg)—–that  because he had NOT received his inheritance, it  had increased ten fold because, unlike his brother’s, Greg’s money  had remained  invested,  so on that fateful day when his mother would finally  give  his inheritance to him , he would be richer than either one of his very, VERY rich brothers combined!

Incredible tale, no? The only thing wrong with it was that it was entirely fabricated. A fact  I didn’t find out until his wake, when his one of his brothers told me.  The idea that Greg had concocted this fantasy of immense and imminent wealth was hilarious to them. (As hilarious as it could be given that Greg had to die for all of us to get the joke)

Anyway, back to Greg getting  really drunk at Griffin’s wedding reception. So drunk that he ended up calling his dealer in the city from his cell phone en route from upstate New York.  It turned out, probably not so amazingly enough, I’d met this woman before, once with Greg in another suite in another hotel the year before,  and another time, some years

Marianne Faithful

back, in Ireland  when she was supplying (among other clients) the now sober, then not ,Marianne Faithful.

At the time this dealer had a fairly lucrative business in London—so lucrative that she was able to afford a very nice house in Chelsea. But  in the ensuing years she’d moved her business back to Manhatten,  and as luck would have it (dumb luck, of course), Greg wound up being one of her clients.

I forget her name, but I’ll never forget how she looked. In her mid sixties, she was  quite a large person, weighing in at maybe 200–250 pounds. And if that wasn’t enough, she had a face  that was a little like a basset hound.  When she arrived with her delivery that night, I was in the bedroom searching for an in house movie to watch, when I hear the front door to the suite opening. I peered discretely around the corner to see who was coming down the hall and into the livingroom, which is when I recognize her from the United (drug) Kingdom.

As I watched, she dragged  herself,  every ounce her, to a couch at the farside of the living room, huffing and puffing, with a woebegone expression on her droopy, familiar  face….I listen as Greg enthusiastically greets her and I find myself thinking, well,  given that I’d met her before,  I should probably go say hello, right? I mean, after all,  manners are manners, no?  I don’t care HOW much dope is involved.

So I enter the living room to pay  the top dollar of my respects, and as I watch, she eases her entire self down with considerable effort and sighs a defeated sigh.   “I’m so depressed” she says wearily. And now,  as Greg and I gaze at this hefty, uber human self,  we’re forced to say,  “Why?

How could someone like YOU be depressed??? You—–who have SO much to live for!  A 60 something immensely overweight drug dealer with a face dripping with paste colored flesh——if happiness has eluded someone as deserving as you, what hope to the rest of us have????

And then, in response to our question as to the source of her unimaginable despondence, she replies, “I lost a client today……”

“NO! You must be JOKING! Imagine losing a client in a business like yours!!!!! That is just …….well, BIZARRE!” Of course this is a sampling of something we’re thinking, as we avoid catching one another eyes and dissolving into peals of laughter. What we SAY is, “I’m SO sorry. Are you OKAY?”

I realize it might seem a little callous  to some of you, the vision of Greg and myself  laughing, (in part)  at the misfortune of others and I apologize if I’ve offended someone whose lost a loved one to drug addiction. Come to think of it, she probably said something very similar when Greg passed away due to a combination of sleep apnia and drug use. (Only in his case she probably was a bit annoyed on top of her distress, as Greg had a habit of not paying her.) But all I can say is, you had to be there to see her mournfully recount to us  the details of the client she’d lost (a famous political writer in his late 70’s) In fact, it would have been really good if you’d been there, because if you’d been present, maybe I wouldn’t have had to be. (wouldn’t HAVE to be, but probably would be anyway.