the world lost an angel this week.
photo by ari marcoupoulos
a new friend of mine who’s also recently relocated to the caribbean, lost a friend last week. we drank wine on my porch and talked about how hard it is to cope & grieve when you’re displaced from the friends and familiarity of places you know. i spoke of the day when i found out harold hunter died. and how devastated i was to give my best friend nikki the news since she had relocated to LA. how i was even more devastated to be locked into a business trip the week of the funerals & memorials and that i had to miss them. all this digging up of memories, and subconsciously saying to myself please, for the love of god don’t let me lose someone while i’m 3,000 miles away.
three days later, nikki texts me that dash was gone.
i met dash when i was working at liquid sky on lafayette street, back in ’98-’99. he must’ve been about 17. he & nico GLACE had come into the then rave store just to take neoprint photobooth pictures. they posed in the dollar bill frame holding up graff mops & the plastic weed boxes that only hydro came in back in the day. i small talked with them, asking them what they wrote, and they gave me one of their photos for a little collage i had in my phonebook going. there was a hunter green “dash” tag on the grey wall between La Cucina (the rice & beans spot) & the chinese laundromat across the street from my store & i can’t recall if this was indeed his tag or not, i knew he wrote sace but everytime i looked at it i thought of him. years later growing up in the LES & East Village, running into dash was always a welcome surprise. such a sincere, sweetheart of a young boy. you could see the light shine from his eyes when he’d see you & give you a hug. i have another memory of him, years later, maybe around 2004, drinking beers on someone’s roof on ludlow, and how he put “honky tonk women” on repeat and told me of his love for the rolling stones.
in the final weeks before i moved out of my apartment in the LES, i was leaving the Box & heading home to Allen crossing through “Houston Park” in front of 205. i saw this long haired sinewy looking guy pushing a baby carriage with a sweet looking girl walking next to him. it was about 4am and i thought to myself, wow now this family looks like old new york. as i walked closer, i saw it was dash. and he smiled & waved as he rolled his child by me. and it made me smile to see him look so good, so healthy, so happy.
few days later i was packing up my rather large collection of photos and books and magazines, and came across the new york magazine cover story on dash, ryan mcginley, and dan colen. in midst of tossing what wasn’t really important to keep, i put this issue in the keep pile & packed it along all my other mementos. ‘cos i said to myself some day this kid is really going to be something big. he’s going to do big things. i know it. he’s too special not to.
and now he’s gone. and i couldn’t be sadder to be so far away from so many amazing people in ny going through the exact same emotions i’m going through. i just want to wrap my arms around you new york & hug you extra tight for the loss that is being felt right now.
rest in peace dash snow. you will be missed. xo
tiny vices retrospective of dash
ryan mcginley’s memories of dash
