Binderama60for60

Today is Thomas Morrison’s birthday. I don’t know which one but I’m guessing in the high 50s. This post was originally all about him back when I mapped out this 60|60 thing; he deserves it for being my friend for a long time. As I started to script this post, I realized that over the many years I’ve known Thomas, a vital clique has forged that includes Brian Johnson and David Mauroff. Those guys have a tight bond between them. I actually think they share a common language that is unintelligible to the rest of us.. A few other names will be dropped in here as well.

As this post continued to percolate into pixels, I came around to appreciate how much a single decision affects a life; then times that by a million. Back in the early 80s we all made the decision to attend a certain university and join a fraternity. As I write this, I realize how un-frat we all are, and yet, here we are 40 years on.

Thomas

The first time I actually spoke to Thomas Morrison was when he showed up at my door at Kappa Sigma with his pledge book and two packs of Marlboro Reds. I’d never met him before; he was an odd bird IMO. He had the stature and sparkle of the Indian in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” Hell Night was around the corner and he needed my signature in his book before then. As for the smokes: “I’m the only pledge you never sent for cigarettes.” That was almost 40 years ago, and he still surprises with his slow-burning grace, compassion and a cultured aesthetic.

In music and audio, Thomas is a savant. Back in college, he spent a few years running the fraternity DJ’ing business called Flashback. He made tons of mix tape cassettes which were the lifeblood of the enterprise and protected like the holy grail, if the holy grail could have been destroyed by a single spilled Meister Brau.

A prized memory from college is me returning to the Kappa Sig house after a holiday break. The place was empty but beats were bouncing from downstairs in the party room. I went to explore and was hit with a wall of fog; Thomas had hosed down the floor with hot water and opened the doors to the frigid air outside. There might have been some strobes. He was playing the soundtrack from “Apocalypse Now” at full volume, in particular the sounds of heart-thumping helicopter blades–woomp woomp woomp. Somewhere in the middle of the room I found Brian Johnson sitting on a chair, nod-nodding his head to the sound. No words were spoken.

When I decided to move to New York City back in 1994, sight unseen, Thomas and our friend Mark Kimsey were the first ones I called. They’d moved there together right out of college, a ballsy decision. They were most generous and supportive, offering me the couch in their place and condemning their two other current crashers to the floor (Davids Mauroff and Aldridge). This was August, mind you, and the fourth-floor walk-up apartment had no air conditioning, one lousy bathroom and century-old wiring that was the very portrait of a mass-casualty fire in the making.

515 E. 87th Street, Apt 4W. It was a railroad apartment in an old tenement in an area called Yorkville. It was a block from the East River and Carl Shurz Park, and right next to Gracie Mansion where the mayor lived. The subway was five long blocks uphill at Lexington Avenue.

New York City can be a little intimidating and Thomas helped me to acclimate to the city. He toted me along to clubs and parties and shows, until my modest curfew sent me home. After-hours he ran in exotic circles. Still does, but not as late. We adopted as our neighborhood haunt a place called the Sandbar on First Avenue. A nice dive with barkeeps who were like family.

Within a few months, Mark bought a place in midtown and moved out. The Davids found other accommodations. So it was just me and Thomas for a few years or so. After that, he was one of the first people I knew who moved to Brooklyn. Ten years before that was cool. Decisions.

Fun note: Thomas was late for everything. That was his thing. I could analyze it here but what would that possibly achieve. He was late. Always. Full stop. He was late to join me and Mark at Brother Jimmy’s, a BBQ place down around 71st and 1st. We were there watching the Knicks in the playoffs when Tom Brokaw broke in with news of a white Bronco. I called Thomas to ask where he was, and I remember hearing in his voice a sense of dread for O.J. The unfolding crime was affecting him deeply; Thomas had a conscience, even as the rest of us were screaming at the TV to go back to the game. He got there eventually, on Thomas time.

When his friend Craig opened The Room on Sullivan Street just south of Houston, Thomas started his career as a bartender. It was lively, douchey crowd of hipsters, actors, writers and the like. I became a habitue, visiting several times a week, usually on the early side when Thomas was getting the place opened (see above, curfew). It served only high-end beer and wine, things he became an aficionado of. More important, he managed the tunes, unleashing his passion onto the pretty people of the night.

Thomas is a legend in bar scene of NYC and has witnessed three lifetimes-worth of humanity, urban chaos and reinvention. I gotta think he’s already been immortalized in music or books by some of his patrons. If not, he deserves to be. And to speak out of school, he was known to date some cuties, which is a miracle if you know Thomas.

He still sends me a photo of the season’s first snowfall in NYC, remembering how much I enjoyed getting out and walking in it. Day or night.

David

We called him the Idiot in the fraternity. He wore the moniker proudly and credibly, sometimes shockingly. There was really no line I can remember that he wouldn’t cross in order to carry on the mantle, the burden of being the Idiot. But you could tell he was smart, aware and empathic, somewhere deep down under the Idiot’s armor.

Seems that he let those traits emerge after I graduated. David became president of the fraternity and a bit of a force on campus. After he graduated he became a community activist and leader, going out to San Francisco to immerse himself in waning days of the AIDS epidemic and more. He had dreads. Blond dreadlocks. He had blond dreads. Another decision. Blond dreads.

I can’t be sure exactly what Dave was up to for the intervening decades, but I know he moved on to other pressing issues in the Bay Area (take your pick) like addiction, homelessness, bail reform and myriad other matters. He’s sat on boards and panels and committees. The guy can talk to anybody, any level, any color, any ideology. He also played on a gay softball team. I hear he was good; never saw him play. He rides his bike everywhere in the Crazytown and he’s still alive.

Brian

Brian is this kind of person: Everyone has a story to tell about him, and I doubt any two are the same. He’s enigmatic, extremely chill, a chameleon, a guy who is up for anything even if he doesn’t know what it is and especially if it sounds like a really bad idea. He’s got a grin that begs for misadventure. I know he and David have visited the emergency room together. They sounded like fun nights but glad I wasn’t there. Decisions. Or not.

I’m going to be indiscreet for another sec: Brian dated the hottest girls in college. I don’t know how he did it and I’m not sure he knows how he did it. To his credit, he won’t divulge details, even after much “cajoling.” To be honest, I’m not sure he remembers.

True to his compassionate spirit he went to work for a cause, like David did. Brian’s been working for NOAA for many years now. I can’t imagine how he’s navigating the general insanity coursing through society, government, oceans and air these days.

Brian was sporting mutton chops a few years back (a decision, like David’s dreads). I don’t think I’ve ever known someone with mutton chops, but it was kinda working for him. I’ve seen him since and I think he gave up on emotive facial hair altogether.

The Boys got together in December. It’s an annual thing at an almost-nice-enough-to-be-a-shitty-dive-bar in the Haight nabe of San Francisco. This was Thomas’s first time in attendance, I believe. The place has dozens of tap beers of various seasonal pedigree and notoriety, none of which I am familiar with. The table then fills up with three or four glasses at once, all shapes and sizes, until there’s no more room. There are usually 8 or ten other guys in attendance, friends of David and Brian, as well as some familiar old faces like Mike Ross and Barry Peters. A lot of the revelers share glasses, as if it’s a tasting event. That’s probs not a good idea. On reflection just now, I’m going with: it’s a really bad idea. Bad decisions, especially post-COVID. Cough.

I used to take the train up from Sunnyvale but now I fly in from Arizona and spend the night. Trust me, it’s not for the beer. Or the restroom. Or the surly cash-only service, the fetid ambience, the crusty clientele, the sandwich place next door, the location or the shoddy adherence to fire code. I’m there to be with friends.

This latest event we snuck away from the dive several times to visit a nicer full bar down the street. We did shots. A few. Or more. I ask you: at my age, why am I doing shots? Doing shots was never that much fun, so it must be about something else, like celebrating all the bad decisions we’ve made by making even more.

I think that’s what draws us together. Decisions. Good and bad. Decisions that have directed our lives in wildly disparate trajectories, with all the ups and downs, the this way and that, and a few oh shits and oh boys. I don’t know what it is but I’m thrilled that we are still in touch and in tune, even if I only see them once a year or never again.

When the music/arts festival poster catapulted to trite pop-prominence a few years back, I invited Thomas to curate the imaginary festival of his dreams, and I would create the poster. David and Brian chimed in; they know music (or what they call music), but Thomas was the ultimate decider. The result:

The more I write in this 60|60 exercise, the more I return to loyalty as being central to a good, fulfilling life. It’s actually something I feel I’ve fallen short on my whole life. This blog series might be my attempt at atonement. No matter, I appreciate those who’ve been loyal to me, who’ve stayed in my life, added to it, even tangentially.

If you’d told me on that day when Thomas knocked on my door that I’d be his roommate in NYC, a good friend 40 years later and posting a blog about him, I would have said you were crazy. First off, I won’t be alive in 2025, at the rate I was going and the decisions I was making. And secondly, WTF is a “blog?” Serious, you never know who is going to stay in your life until it’s already happened. Friendship isn’t about the future; it’s all about the past that you’ve shared and the moments you’re enjoying in the present.

I don’t think you can make people stay; that wouldn’t be a healthy or successful pursuit. It’s a choice and a decision. Life and experience and some emotional alchemy are what makes them stay. After four decades of wildly inconsistent contact, I’m glad Thomas, David and Brian are still in my life.

Boys, let’s run out the clock. But can we go to a different bar next year?

No need to decide right now.