You May Tire Of Me As Our December Sun Is Setting 'Cos I'm Not Who I Used To Be

I sit here in front of this computer a shell of myself typing like I don't think anyone is reading or, for that matter, anyone cares. So this will serve as my only LiveJournal-esque post of the year: filled with self-deprecation and stories that I should save for a book that may or may not get written.

I exchanged messages with some old friends in Seattle the last couple of days, had a visit from one last weekend, and I've been listening to a new CD by my sworn enemies puzzling as to how their work has become so glorious.

I thought of that first week when I lived at the YMCA and I met Michael Parker and Chris Monlux. They took care of me when I didn't know anyone else. I would have never come to life in Seattle if not for these two people, and I owe them so much, particularly Chris.

I was reminded of an Endfest almost ten years ago where I was so drunk, I peed on Gavin Rossdale's shoes. The following Endfest year, I had a party in my hotel room attended by half the known musical universe of the time. It was so insane, the hotel manager came upstairs and knocked on the door threatening to pitch us out. Marco Collins walked into the hallway with him, came back a few minutes later and said, "That guy is the coolest guy on earth. I explained to him that once a year, we pay an extraordinary sum of money to stay in his hotel and that I hope he appreciates that we choose to do so here instead of elsewhere." The manager opened up the gameroom and the swimming pool downstairs and my party grew even larger in the basement of the hotel.

I was reminded of watching the leaves as they changed colors over Capitol Hill and the long walk up Broadway to Vivace or over to Pike Street to get a coffee at Cafe Paradiso.

I was drawn into the nights spent listening to DJ Riz spin music at Re-Bar, bumping into the same 300 people at the Crocodile Cafe every night or at Moe's. One night in particular, I went to Moe's to meet up with Jerry or Donnell and have a beer, I ran into Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl having a bite to eat with Michael Azerrad and we talked for a while about Artists for a Hate-Free America (which I was cursorily involved in at the time). Dave was talking about his new project, something called Food Fighters (so I thought). A few days later, I ran into him and he gave me a C-60 Cassette to listen to.

I thought of washing my clothes at Sit 'n Spin while eating a mock chicken salad sandwich and playing Trivial Pursuit. The dozen or more Metro stops between my home and my destination filled with people whom I grew to love dearly and left in a hurry.

I remembered the sense of confusion I experienced when Gus Van Sant and I were at a party during the Seattle International Film Festival and in front of me stood Todd Haynes, Gregg Araki, and some hotshot new kid named Bryan Singer. When Gus wanted to go home early, I got whisked into a limousine with Bryan Singer and Bryant Mulligan and proceeded into a weekend that only Hollywood itself could have designed. They took me to a brunch at the Space Needle where I met John Schlesinger. I watched with pride as Bryan's film The Usual Suspects won best picture at the festival.

I remembered having Coca-Cola's at Linda's Tavern waiting for some song to come on the jukebox, then walking down the street to get a burrito from Bimbo's Bitchin Burrito Kitchen from Sam Jayne.

I thought fondly of plugging into that amp out in Maple Valley with Joe, Jamie, Eric, and whoever else happened to be hanging around, then cruising up to Gulliver's Hamburgers in Issaquah to drop them off for work, and when I met Isaac how he wouldn't talk to anyone.

I remembered seeing The Gacy Brothers (which later became Mad Season) perform their first show at The Crocodile, standing next to Claudia and Mike Johnson, cracking jokes about whether Stone Gossard was a faygeleh. I shot whiskey with Mike McCready that night until I passed out at the back bar and had to be carried into a cab. Running into Mike McCready years later in Los Angeles, we laughed at what we had ultimately become -- grown ups.

Seeing Mike then, I had a similar experience of melancholy come over me as I did just now to write this. I was reminded that I lived in Seattle during a magical time.

Unlike a lot of the people that I mention here, I am not wealthy, I am not well-known, I have not sold millions of records. Most people have no idea who I am or what I'm about other than what I write. They have only my words to go on, and sometimes I worry that the perception they get of who I am becomes manifested in only a small part of the wonderful life I've had. I'm afraid to tell anyone because then I think people will only like me for that part of me, the part I keep locked inside myself.

I never get to share it with anyone. I feel as if nobody will ever understand or care, someone may just think I'm namedropping or schmoozing. Sometimes, I am. Most of the time, I'm just scared.

So I'm past it right now.

There are times where I dream of being able to float on the weight of the wonderful memories I have of Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver, the wonderful friends I made, the people whom I've grown apart from, and the people for whom our growing apart was intended before we ever met. I worry that I've become a footnote in the lives of people who were never a footnote in my own, that through time and circumstances we've each grown hard and frightened of the outside world.

If any of you are reading this, I'm still here and I'm not going anywhere. I never left you, and you never left me. No matter what I was to you then, my memory of each of you stays dear to me. I think of you from time to time and wish we could hang out like we once did, back when we were simple. Thank you for the good times and the bad.

In my heart, you have never left me.