Mendelson Joe loved the Sisters of Euclid, led by Kevin Breit. If Mendelson Joe loved your work you would be inundated with regular colourful handwritten letters and in some cases blank cheques asking you to send him anything you made. He was larger than life if he liked you or despised you. Remember his series of politician portraits and each face was an anus, oddly still recognizable. He was confounded when my last record only came out only on vinyl. My explanation was unconvincing about CDs being dead and the world moved on to streaming. One day he asked if he could manufacture CDs himself. Who would do that? Sure, I said, you might as well make your artwork too, and he did. He made 200 copies because there were about that many he wanted to send it to. What a friend. I saw Kevin Breit playing the Tranzac last week and later asked him after if he had a chance to see Joe before he died. He replied about regretting he never sat for Joe even though he invited him to. Joe especially painted people that inspired him. I asked if he had any of Joe’s artwork and he said he just has all the colourful correspondence. So, I gave him a painting I have had for 20 years. It is called Brother Fall and it is a beautiful landscape about 3X4. Twenty years is a good long time to have lived with a painting. Delivering that felt like a cosmic correction. Joe would have wanted him to have more than letters. When I watched him playing the other night could not notice his powerful guitar work. Another dimension. You can see his brain considering 17 different ways he could effortlessly voice this or that.