SomeOne Just Happened To Post THIS the OTHER DAY...

BRILLIANT SUN

So, some explanation may be necessary.  This is a pic of my boy Corey!!!  Morehouse Man, Artist, Thinker, Savant, Brilliant, Friend, and LOVING SPIRIT!!!

This person who posted this actually asked if he and I knew one another.  I then explained that we had been introduced at the apartment Corey and I shared @ Riverside Drive...626 Riverside to be exact.  It is here I was able to seemingly excavate, evaluate, contextualize, curate and create the Man I now know to be ME!!!

Corey and I were able to sit as young, educated, energized, informed, stylish, on-the-pulse Gay Black Men of the Post-Cosby Show, Post Morehouse, Post Atlanta; in media [he at VIACOM /MTV and I at ESSENCE];  in Harlem and consider our new lives with LEARNED eyes.  We engaged each other, challenged, enraged and grew together.  

He was the last example of me consciously gravitating to something/one who is like me.  Corey made me know BROTHER-LOVE...in a way that my friends, my boy's had not...up to that point in my life.

Greater still, he began the conversation of Spirituality with me.  We talked about it all the time.

Everything with Corey was about 

exploring, 

exposing 

and highlighting 

the LIGHT!  

 There was the natural drama that lived within him and shone through with every step.  You either LOVE 'IM or YOU LEAVE 'im ALONE!!!  This BRILLIANT BROTHER - Handsome and Hilarious - was gone, never again to share a quip, a meal, a giggle, a read, a romp, or a hug!  He lived this lovingly, open life.  He engaged his passions and challenged all those around him to do the same.  I know that he wanted LOVE and LIGHT and HAPPINESS for all of us...however, couldn't figure out how to make that happen...without seeming to negatively effect those that LOVED HIM...for HIM! 

By the time it was time for us to move on...we were barely talking.  I was preparing to leave NYC after 9/11 and being laid-off.  He was deep in a FUNK about being stateside and not being prepared financially to FLESH out his dreams.  This energy colored our last embrace and would be one of my greater regrets to this day.

You see, that Christmas [2001] - still reeling after the 9/11 and trying to make sense of the world that was greeting me that morning, I received a call from Corey's godmother...telling me that Corey had just died is his mother's arms in DC...on the way to the hospital.  The wicked complications of Malaria and AIDS combined to snuff this light. 

  

I miss HIM.  

As I have grown...in the past 12 years since his passing...I have traveled all of those roads we once considered...with varying degrees of fulfillment and success...often invoking his spirit in the hopes of it bringing some clarity to an otherwise GREY situation.

This Spirit Friend...I greet every time I find myself on a Harlem sidewalk, but also a la Rue a Paris!!!  He was an original.  

I only hope I do his memory justice...as I explore every aspect of ART, LOVE, and LIFE!!!

You see Corey was the first person to challenge me to be a man and I couldn't escape...we were roommates.  Greater still, we were actively re-writing what BEING A MAN meant for us.  Faced with Over-Macho Heterosexual BROWN Christian mores, Capitalism, HIV/AIDS epidemic, Let's Get Physical still the theme song of the Age and hyper-competitiveness...we were 2 steps forward to progressiveness...but threatening that 1 step back.  

I learned from him - Know and TRUST your instincts! 

Look FOR, AT, and LEARN FROM People's Energy!

It is not the talented 10, 

it is the Talented 10th

...a part of a whole.

 You Got Folks waiting...
Get to it!!!!

Merci Beaucoup, Mon Frere!!!!

 

BonSoiR Mon FRERE!!!