Since it was Christmas Eve, I thought it might be the appropriate time to go see a movie about a writer who endeavors to drink himself to death.
Most poets do.
I phoned my friend Windrow who makes furniture in the lower Haight and invited him along. He had a couple of books with Barry Gifford's old Black Lizard series but it's in France he has his following. The plan was to walk across the town to the Lumiere and see what the streets were like. We had a couple of pops of holiday cheer at his apartment above the shop to get in the mood and were chatting about matters noir. He shares the same French publisher with the late English writer Derek Raymond, a favorite.