A Late Holiday Greeting For You.

Dear Friends,

If you know me you've known that I've sent out a Christmas letter to my friends and lovers every year since I left home for college. This year was slow in coming, mostly because I was down in the dumps for most of December and didn't feel terribly inspired. Here, after the Japanther show was shut down by security, is the Annual Richard Gin Holiday Letter. Away we go…

So I've always had an unhealthy awareness of my own mortality. It could come from having a glib upbringing, it could just be me and my self-diagnosed low-level autism, but it's true. I spent the better part of my youth absorbing information, going to museums, drawing, painting and generally living in my head. It's fun up there, but it's no way to live life. Recently, at least in the past few years, I've been going out more, meeting new and amazing people, having life-changing experiences, and trying to make up for lost time. This in spite of my nature of caution, preparedness, and awareness. This nature has kept me out of trouble (look at that sparking record!), and kept me safe out in the big bad, but it also has kept me from living without looking over my shoulder.

When my dad came out with his Parkinson's he wrote a letter to his friends explaining his condition, what they could do to help and closed with (paraphrased), 'When I die I want my body to be used up, broken and worthless. It's the only way to know you've lived.' So now I am 31, living alone, and using up my body. I can feel it. It's a funny time. My friend Ezra said when I was 27 or 28, 'Wait 'till you turn 30. Everything just hurts all of a sudden.' He was right, unfortunately. My right knee will probably need to be scoped in the next few years, I think my left shoulder is becoming arthritic, and I have to limit alcohol as the next day is harder to shake off, plus that asian flush thing REALLY isn't good.

Back to the beginning. The Japanther show at Lincoln Center was shut down by uppity (no racial code intended) security guards who wouldn't listen to the people who hired. them. Real GED cases, if that. A black belt or a month of crossfit does not teach you the ability to observe, or reason, or adapt (You know what they say about the wisdom of crowds? Well I've never seen anyone seriously injured at a concert in Brooklyn. A bloody nose is not an injury. You pussies). One of them even said, "Yo, I'm gonna crack that little fucker later…." He (the security guard) was probably 20, if that. The people he wanted to crack were also 20, if that.

As Ian and Matt started packing up, cursing, pleading with and then screaming at the knuckleheads to get out of the way* so their crew could help load out, I remembered that they are going to go play another show. It will be better. It might not be for a few days, or it might be later tonite in some back alley in the Bronx but they will go out again not to give it the old college try, but because there's nothing else to do. It's really all they know how to do at this point and this is how they're winning the war.

What does this mean for me and how do I reconcile the cautious me with the new, improved (if sore) reckless me? Well I guess I have to just spend every dime I have, every free second I'm awake making things. I have to use the last 31 years of learning, heartbreaks, triumph and setbacks to do what I do best -- make things. I made it into college because I could make things and I went to art school because the idea of sitting at a desk working for someone suffering from the Peter Principle would make me want to blow my brains out. Somewhere, though, I got too comfortable. I feel like I'm just learning how to make things again.

So my wish for this year, if you're still reading, is that you'll make things with me. Let's make great things. Let's make terrible things that we are ashamed of. This will be my year of moving the things I've done half-assedly for the last 4 years out into the world and I hope you let out all the things that you've made too. Let's be restless again. Let's go see the ponies backstage. Let's see how long we can push bogus authority until it falls. Let's stay up late and doodle and cuss and drink and tell fish stories and run as long as we can until our bodies are used up and we drop. Let's be enablers. Let's exploit each others gifts. Let's bring out the best of the worst and the best of the best in each other.

The holiday season is a time of singing together and talking and huddling through the dark winters with the ones we love. I hope to see you all before spring comes and we all shotgun out for the fresh air. I guess that's a backhanded, overly flowery way of explaining that we all have something to say, but sometimes it's best to say it together. And let's start by saying,

"1-2-3-4 fuck the cops."



Lets move on by telling each other how much we love each other. I'll start.

I love you all,
--RG