To me Julian was a posterboy for Denton weirdness and I have had the idea for some time he should be a character in a film or something. He'd jump on his skateboard and cruise down the block with his banjo. Always had a wet cigarette for you to drag on... the last time I saw him he gave me a sip of his wine and I gave him a dollar.
In his passing I discovered his album on Bandcamp, a collection of sappy love songs so infectious they've been buzzing in me head all week. It's called Lovers Telepathy and is the kind of music that could easily be the soundtrack for an entire summer: that summer when you graduated high school, met a girl at the beach, considered moving with her to California or just saving the cash and going to Europe for a year or lifetime. The music now seems tragically optimistic and hopeful about the nature of existence but I am OK with that as long as there is a place where summer nights truly are forever.
I have been wondering why I think about Julian so much: I didn't know him well. He was a crazy kid in front of an appliance store old enough to be my son if I had any of my own. In his youthful exuberance I recognized something lost in myself or something I simply had to cultivate from nothing. There was a time when I enjoyed life so much the molecules of bliss just bubbled out of my skull.
That he died so young is a reminder we're all heading out one day sooner or later. Until then we've got the lastlove songs of Julian, Lovers Telepathy for our endless summer nights.
Here's a link to Julian's music here.
Read more here about his life.