A guy I used to know named Taylor died of a heroin overdose on Sunday. Taylor once went all around Phoenix with a picture of Hitler, getting kicked out of barbershop after barbershop, until he found someone willing to give him the haircut in the photo. I got the impression back then that Taylor wanted to treat his entire life like a performance art project, and I could never decide if that made me love him or hate him. The last time I saw him, he was working the ticket counter at the MoCA. He let my then-girlfriend and me in for free. “The show isn’t very good,” he said. “I’m not gonna make you pay for that shit.”
I hadn’t seen Taylor in years, but I will miss knowing he was somewhere on this earth, which is different from missing him, but not by much.