i miss U jennylee

Dear Jennylee,

I don't know where you are right now but I miss you.

Wherever you are, I hope you're happy, and inspired, wild and still dreaming. But New York needs you.

I am floating around in a bizarre, whitewashed, zombie-fied New York City that has become the exclusive domain of boring rich people with no imagination or style. This place was once the natural habitat for creatures like you and me. But now? It belongs to the poachers.

I remember the days and nights when we would wander Manhattan together, looking like a glorious, technicolor eyesore. Everybody on the street loved you, from children to old folks -- because you were authentic and unfiltered, and you acted no differently toward them than you did toward me, your club-kid friends, or anyone else. You were unpredictable, colorful and real -- you were everything that was great about New York, personified.

Do you remember the nights at Coney Island High, Speeed and Mother, dancing together in a cloud of glitter, buzzing on cheap alcohol? Or the night we first met, at Squeezebox? Those parties are long gone now, and so, it seems, are the brilliant characters that made them crackle with creative life.

We collided ten years ago in a city of kindred spirits that was still our playground. That whole summer was one adventure after another; we were Sid and Nancy, or Bonnie and Clyde. And trouble followed us everywhere.

I was just walking through the intersection of 9th avenue and 14th street tonight. Back in the days when you and I held court in that neighborhood, the only people we'd see on a Saturday night were Click and Drag freaks and trannie hookers working that traffic island.

Now that place is a claustrophobic, swarming sea of cookie-cutter human automatons in shiny shirts, queueing up to buy rounds of $12 drinks at velvet rope lounges. The meatpacking district used to reek of meat; now it reeks of cologne, Ketel One and crisp benjamins shooting out of ATMs. Walking through there tonight, I felt like an animal that had escaped from the zoo.

Now it seems impossible that that neighborhood -- or the L.E.S. or Alphabet City -- was once a place where a human as brilliant and crazy as you might be found. But luckily for me it was, and I'm glad to have been there at the same time.

I miss u, Jennylee! You inspired me and made me use my imagination. Thank you for that. It makes me smile to know that you're still out there somewhere, beautiful and crazy, chewing up the scenery. But I wish you were here -- this place desperately needs some color, some character and some chaos.