I know it's a new year when...

My friend in Berlin, Falko, sends out his annual New Year Post Card. I am lucky to be the recipient and holder of maybe a nine or ten of these precious things. Always the same couch, usually, at least three of the models are present, against a backdrop of his most fascinating library. The last four are displayed on my fridge to the fascination of all who visit. I wonder how many of these he sends out each year?

I met Falko Hennig in the latter years of the Vinegar Hill Bookstore. By that time, the store had become a destination of Bukowski fans, largly due to a book published by another German fellow, Gundolf S. Freyermuth, who spent several months with the late poet before his death. That time, which included a Bukowski Birthday Bash at Vinegar Hill, was later documented in a book written by Freyermuth and generously illustrated with photographs by Bukowski's great friend (now, sadly also departed) Michael Montfort. Das War's (last words with Charles Bukowski), was published in German in 1996, with a chapter translated and published in a soon subsequent LA Magazine (I think), affording your rambling blogger with her 15 minutes meted out in second-long intervals. It didn't save the retail folly that was at the time VHBooks, but because of it and Michael I met Falko. In addition to the honor of his mailing list, he also treated me to a wonderful tour of Berlin in his military-issue topless Trabant when I got to visit in 1997. That was a treat I hope to revisit later.

Speaking of dead and wonderful people that I am so happy to have know, today also marks what would have been the 59th birthday of my dear friend, John Bisazza, who passed away much too soon a year and a half ago. John was one of my first customers and became one of my dearest friends over the years. A native of San Pedro, he was a professor of neuro-linguistics at a Meiji Gaikun University in Tokyo, a wine expert, photographer, writer, and avid reader and collector of books. His taste in the book department ran from southern Slavic viticulture of the 18th century to early English linguistic works to the American Civil War, Croatian Nazis and Jules Verne. I still have a file cabinet drawer full of his purchase receipts and unfulfilled want lists. I still have a part of memory filled with many detailed conversations and debates. Portraits he shot of my pets, and of me in the thick woolen Taliban hat that he used to protect his favorite camera.

When I told him my tale of a Berlin tour in an early East German military Trabant, he sent me on a wild mission to try and acquire one for him. For years he drove me nuts with that search, as with the search for an authentic Nazi fez, neither of which I was able to locate for him. In spite of all his peculiarities, he was the menschliest person I've ever known. I miss him terribly still and suspect that I am not alone with that sentiment.

John eschewed the internet and refused to communicate with email. He visited several times a year, and in between we communicated frequently by phone and fax at odd hours due to the time difference. He did publish articles on travel and wine frequently. I found online this obituary for his friend, Joe Rosenthal, the guy who shot the now-iconic photograph of American soldiers planting the Stars and Stripes on Iwo Jima.

I just realized as I ramble on here, that the circle spirals outward to include three of the deceased mentioned here in the same cemetary. Right here in San Pedro, Green Hills.

Vinegar Hill has delivered me into the company of a lot of interesting and accomplished people. Wow, I think I'll stay.