I have been sitting on this one for over a month, just contemplating whether or not to post it…So let’s do it. A quick Happy New Years 2025 mid afternoon phone call with my old buddy, Sean. A minute or so of catch up and then: I guess there’s no other way to say this, so I’ll just hit ya with the news, he said. Uh, ok, I said. Adam is dead, he said. Suicide? I said. Nah, he said, but you’re not the first to ask that. Yeesh. Great way to start the new year.

I hadn’t spoken to Adam for over a decade and then, out of the blue, in mid 2024, he started calling me a bunch and we ended up reconnecting. Some laughs for sure, some more reminiscences about those grand old times, like the time at his brother’s wedding when he said nothing except “May all your ups and downs be between the sheets!” Like two old guys we also spoke about those no longer around, but I didn’t feel old enough to be talking about those things quite yet. The best part about the conversations was that through those old mists of time we had both grown up a bit, or so I thought, and it was like two older guys joking around and just listening to one another and talking about life, mistakes, triumphs, the grey in between, the universal truths we learned along the way. I did this for ours at a time, mostly while I drove, which is usually when I call to talk to people because I live in L.A. and well, to echo Ryan Gosling in the verb titled 2011 movie by director Nicholas Winding Refn, “I drive.”

I had known Adam since he was a kid. The annoying chubby youngster who always hung out with my friend Sean’s little sister. Fast forward a few years after he moved to a different town about 30 miles south and he grew up, he was a skater, he had a shit load of tattoos and then blink and all of a sudden Sean, Adam, and I all lived together in a small place on Loomis Street at the end of a cul de sac with Adam and Sean both sharing a bedroom. Sean worked the third shift at Burton, so it kind of worked out.

Adam was the charismatic idiot we all loved. The hero of this post. The guy who you loved to hate and vice versa. He went into the army to try and figure his life out and then one day about eight months later I was walking down South Winooski Avenue and I see Adam in some crazy jalopy getting gas. He had been awake driving for almost three days he told me. The passenger side of the car was teeming with empty Budweiser beer cans. Get in, he said, I’ve got cold beer in a cooler in the back seat. For some reason I got in and he drove around a bit and told me the whole story about being court martialed in the army. Breaking his seargent’s jaw with one punch. He had gone A.W.O.L. for a time. They found him and he was released. And this is basically how his life went on.

Somewhere along the way he started doing carpentry and it was his thing. From basic drywall and repair, to building furniture, to taking down old barns and refurbishing. So many stories. I mean, I could tell you about the time he came over with this weird guy with dreadlocks and how I met and got dosed by one of the Merry Pranksters. Or I could tell you about all the times Adam and Sean got into knockdown, drag out fights. Or just his nature. Always a smile. Always a new tattoo. Coming into our favorite bar and shouting “Cocktails! Cocktails! Cocktails!”

Flash forward to when I moved to New York and Adam showed up on my doorstep with a strange German girl. This was his white cowboy hat and white cowboy boot phase.

After that, I never saw him again. I heard through the grapevine of his exploits, of course. He had a couple of kids, he went sober for a time, he went back to the booze for a time. And then just like that, almost twenty years later I start getting calls from him, we reconnect.

These phone calls, although few and far between, are beginning to be less so as the years tick by and as I climb toward the big 5-0 there is now a running list of the guys I used to drink and have the big laughs with who are no longer with us. Late nights. After hours parties. Sometimes a guitar, sometimes not. I guess it only gets worse as you age, this sort of news.

If there was anyone deserving the moniker, Freebird, it was Adam. My post, May All Your Ups and Downs Be Between the Sheets, will give you an idea of the sort of character we’re dealing with here.

Adam…Fucking A.

Adam, my troubled friend, you have finally found peace. May you fly free, finally, you crazy, silly, idiotic, talented, wonderful man.

Freebird

1 oz. Mezcal

1 oz. Fresh Lime Juice

.5 oz. Guava Syrup

.5 oz. Guava Liqueur

.5 oz. Fresh Grapefruit Juice

.25 oz. Koji Macadamia Orgeat

2 Dashes Juniper Bitters

1 Dash Shio Koji

Shake, strain into rocks glass with BFR.