Original image by There Stands the Glass.
My favorite cousin died this week. My aunt and uncles raised lots of wonderful kids, but I shared a birthday and an excessive predilection for the proverbial wine, women and song with the deceased. Our age disparity- he was five years my elder- wasn’t our most significant difference. He was a giant. I’m a relative shrimp. Although his taste in music ran to Blue Öyster Cult and the Steve Miller Band, he was nice enough to escort me to Ian Hunter and Mick Ronson’s area nightclub show in 1979. I was underage, but my gargantuan cousin intimidated the doormen on my behalf. I’ve since treasured that night. In a painful form of familial affection, he regularly subjected me to abusive roughhousing. With his unexpected death, he knocked the breath out of me one last time.