Golden Johnny

Props to my brother Johnny for the epic meal and entertainments for Super Bowl Sunday. I'm talking about dry aged rib eye steaks, home made mashed potaotes, green beans, salad, pecan pie and ice cream. We settled in his upper east side apartment with a bottle of red, so rich and so spicy it was a dream to drink. Brother was the consummate host throughout the day and into the evening--- it's all good when Johnny is in the kitchen and when Johnny's at home. I listened to a new track of Estate Sale, an original song he's been working on with friend and partner Joe Nieves. They got themselves into a real recording studio and the harmonies are like straight out of CSNY, no shit.

This is my baby brother we're talking about and he's done alright with his life. It's good to know that in a city of like 90 million people, I got somebody to cook me a steak dinner and ply me with good wine. He's rescued my ass more times that I can count and for that I am publicly grateful. There was the time he took me to the doctor on Easter Sunday b/c I had been up all night running a high fever. I called him the next morning and off we went to Borough Park, the center of all thing Hasidim--- obviously we weren't going to find any Christian doctors. Then there was the famous I fell down on an escalator at the Jay Street stop and sliced my friggin knee open. Half hour later, there he was, ready to escort me home.

When he was a baby I thought of him as Golden Johnny because he had about the biggest heart you could find plus the fact that he liked to fly through the air on his skateboard and climb trees as well. All of my brothers are cool (I got like five of them), but I am glad that the baby of the family is here in NYC with me. I guess it paid to dress him up like David Bowie when he was five years old; put on make-up, rhinestone necklaces and take him to the Art Institute in Chicago and explain to him the wonder of Pointillism via Georges Seurat's The Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte. Then when he grows up and is successful he cooks your middle aged ass an incredible Sunday dinner.