I'll miss... Paul and Louis

I'll miss Paul and Louis. Paul, the Visualist that always puts form over function and I can comfortably say the best artist in Lowertown. Louis, El Senor, that shared with me the Hispanic role in the neighborhood. Everyone thought that when we spoke to each other, we spoke in Spanish but we never did. His Mexican accent freaked me out. They were the strongest proponents of me moving out of Paducah. Yes, you can blame them. They have been telling me to move for years now. Not because they wanted to get rid of me (well maybe they did) but because they thought that I would do so much better somewhere else. We'll see if you were right.

Paul is the best abstract painter I know.


Louis is the best architect I know.

Once in a while at 5 pm a phone would ring. It was either Paul or me. "Do you know what time it is?" "It is cocktail time!" So I would get on my bike and rush over to their house and we would have cocktails, maybe some dinner and we finished the night with some TV. The cocktails always included some vodka. A favorite of mine was Squirtka a combination of Squirt and vodka that only Louis would know the correct ratio. Sometimes I would bring food to cook in their house because they have a better kitchen than I have and Louis is allergic to cats. Sometimes they would cook dinner. Sometimes we just snacked on chips. Then we headed over to the beautiful but uncomfortable living room (remember, form over function) and watch some TV. Paul is in the committee that selects the movies for the Rivers Edge Film Festival so sometimes we would watch one of the movies that were submitted to the festival. Watching TV we are like the three guys in Mystery Science Theater. We could be watching the worst show on TV but its is the commentary that makes it fun. Case in point. We watched a whole Mexican soap opera. There is nothing worst than a Mexican soap opera. Ok, an American soap opera is worst. But the Mexican ones are bad too. We had the greatest time watching it.

They have a nickname for a lot of people in the neighborhood and it usually involves cartoons. Don't ask me why but the picture below shows some of them. I'm not mentioning names.

Louis is like my dad always taking care of me (I have a lot of dads here) and Paul is a glimpse at what a real artist is. I 'll miss them a lot and they know it but it will only be for a short time because we are moving together to a villa in Italy in the near future.