a special friend
7:59 a.m. - 03.21.03
this is a letter i have written to my friend, sano.
he's a graffitti artist who moved to LA last year to "make his first million or take his first million." he's the best.>check out SANO's work
i knew him since i came home from college in '94, but became better friends with him when my dad died. i had moved to the east side and he lived on the next street. it was great to have a neighbor. he was a full time artist and a part time instructor at the high school for the arts, so we had some summer afternoons to kill.
he was my closest and first connection to graffitti and the hip-hop world. it was fun to learn the genre in his basement apartnment. i became intrigued by japenese animation as well.
i miss our occasional dinner parties with a host of good people, sauteed spinach and white beans, the chess games going on in the parlor, reMyx on the turntable, and sano making fruit smoothies after another victory at chess.
he has a past with a vet father he doesn't have anymore either. no mom either. that's all i will say with respect to his privacy, but if you knew what i knew about him you would agree he is one of the most beautiful people in the world.
here is part of the letter:
hey, what is your assesment of this shit so far? how come the 'enemy' isn't fighting back? i don't know what to make of it. and the tv doesn't help - dan rather hires an actor to fake an arab accent, and now they are saying the most recent pic they have of him might not be real - when for the past two years -- news stations that advertise 'news right now' keep showing pics with saddam in militart gear shooting a gun -- we are only finding out now that those pics are 2-10 years old?!!?
my favorite pic was the one they showed right at our climax of fear and hatred when the towers came down: a clip of kids (not soldiers) cheering and reportedly eating candy. my 53 year old (lebonese decent) friend who was evacuated from his apt was sobbing on the phone to me the next day. "did you see thsoe fuckers dancing in the street? i wont them all dead."
well, wee see the clip accomplished it's goal.
at that time during 911 they said that all the lines were cut to the east - but somehow we got a clip within an hour of the attack, and the talking heads read off of their approved papers and said the clip was from iraq -- their first attempt to tie iraq with the terrorists.
later, there are rumors flying that that clip of tape was years old, and they were from jordan, or yemen, and the incident was not related. of course, cnn left no comment, and the acctusation wasn't approved by the government. last week i see the clip again the cnn guy says that those kids are palestinian.
the first goal of a terrorist is to confuse and instil fear. our spin doctors seem to be doing a fine job of that.
a special friend - 03.21.03
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