Remember those photos I posted a while back, a naked young man clinging to various New York City settings?

Here he is, on the right, clothed, with our friend Tommy A.

(Photo credit: Barbara McKenzie, once our friend, then landlord, then neither; lesson learned.)

The very rarest boy, Tommy was one of the go-go dancers at the first public performance by The B52s, Valentine’s Day 1977.  He wore a hand muff, like the one pictured here, on his head, teased and hairsprayed into a bouffant.  It was inspired.

In the day, Tommy drove an enormous vintage road-yacht of a convertible.  I once detailed to him the automobile of one of my mother’s neighbors, a turquoise 1962 Chrysler Imperial convertible.  This was a cruel mistake, as I fear that a microscopic longing for that car may still be tucked away somewhere in his psyche even today.

I’m reminded of another automobile from my youth, not ‘voluptuous’ like this one, but glaringly ‘wrong’ in the landscape of my hometown.  It was a Rolls Royce driven by my optometrist, Randolph Gilbert.

Doctor Gilbert had a handlebar mustache, a fairly sober one as those go, and wore hand tailored suits; I think optometry just gave him something to fill his time.  I recall that the first note of his laugh was conventional enough, but almost instantly became a kind of giggle.

His son John was a friend of my best friend for a couple of years in high school, Tony.  Tony told me that John once asked him why he (Tony) was friends with me (David) as he (John) found me to be the most ‘insipid’ person he’d ever met.  Well, there you have it.

Do you think I’m insipid?  I’d go for ‘canny’ in your reply…