Cograts Allan!

I got an email from my friend Allan H. yesterday with some great news. It seems my buddy has gone and gotten him self a job with California Attorney General Jerry Brown! Starting after Labor Day my pal Al will be the new junior librarian on Brown's staff! How cool is that? My buddy Allan is multi talented. I first met him when we both auditioned for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest at Theatre Central in Knoxville, TN. He got cast as Billy and I got cast as one of the other mental patients. We struck up a friendship and we ended up doing many more plays together, as well as hanging out, bowling, and making art.


Here is my favorite Allan painting. It's called Vegetarian Chick With Fish. When he moved from Knoxville to Chicago he graciously gave it to me.

Because I liked this painting so much he made a calender one time that had a different sketch of a faceless woman holding a fish every month. I still have it and one day I'm going to frame some of those sketches.


In addition to being an artist and actor, Allan is also a musician. He plays the guitar and writes songs. He made us a tape years ago with some of his songs on it and the girlfriend and I both treasure it. My favorite song on it is Veggie BBQ, it has the immortal opening lyric, "Well there's cous cous and tabouli, enough for me and you. There's chick's who smell like patchouli at the veggie bbq." He's also responsible for turning me on to They Might Be Giants.


My buddy Allan is also a super nice guy. Once when I got laid off when I lived in Knoxville he drove by my apartment, picked me up, and he took me out to see Twelve Monkeys because he knew how much I love Terry Gilliam movies. I think his niceness must come from his parents and from being born in the UP, that's that Upper Peninsula (of Michigan), for those of you not in the know. Since I was born in Detroit we called ourselves The Sons Of The Wolverine.

Time marches on and Allan moved away from Knoxville before I did. He moved first to Chicago, then to Boston, then to Kansas (to be with his lovely soon to be wife Mardi), and then on to Davis California. He finished his degree in library science along the way and it's been a short hop skip and a jump from toiling in the public libraries of California to the halls of power.

Allan, you know who and I are so proud of you that we can hardly stand it. Way to go buddy.