Passing

photo by Jeff Feuerzeig

This morning, in my hotel room in Tokyo, I awoke to a message from my writer friend Warren Ellis on my personal email. As opposed to my work email, I mean. That's how I knew to sit up and read it.

He was passing on news. Daniel Johnston, an outsider artist and musician, and more importantly, a friend of mine since 1986, had died.

This was confirmed by the next email I received from Daniel's former manager.

I didn't have time to process this. Daniel died on September 11th, but I was a day ahead in Tokyo and I had to get to the airport on the morning of September 12th.

I finished packing my bag and headed over to Tokyo Station, to get on the Narita Express. My next stop was Bangkok. I sat on the train and thought about all the things I wanted to write, but this wasn't the time.

"Don't write something personal while rushing to the airport," I thought. There would be plenty of time on the plane.

At Narita Airport, I found the post office and sent home my work clothes. I was surprised the post office only accepted cash. And that is how I ended up sending my package surface mail instead of airmail. That's fine. How often do I need to wear professional clothes? Maybe three times in my life so far?

I was now in full-time tourist mode. I headed to the plane, and realized after I sat down that I didn't need to write anything today.

Instead, here's an excerpt from something I posted here on this blog in November, 2015.

"Want to come back to my room with me and my brother and get a pizza and talk about comics?" Daniel asked.

I tried to change the subject, but I'm getting worse at it. I used to be able to turn it to Captain America on a dime. Maybe he's just wise to me.

"I need to go home and go to sleep, Daniel," I said. "We're not getting any younger."

"We're both still young," he said, firmly.

I looked at him for a minute, this man who shakes as he sings and plays, who goes into moments of spacing-out, which he has for years now. Every time I see him, I worry it's the last time. That's why I left my tea and ran to the metro after spotting a listing for his performance.

But this wasn't the time to talk about that. Instead, I said "You're right, Daniel. We're both still young."