April 5th was Dave Futernick’s birthday, one of my nearest and dearest friends. Although I like to give him a ton of shit for his theory that “women love to get sent a good dick pic,” I also wanted to make sure that throwing a bunch of dicks on a cake wasn’t the only thing I was responsible for.
The first time I hung out with Dave, we were at a screening of Graduates at Cinespace and found ourselves on the dance floor after getting introduced earlier by mutual friends. We immediately started the most insane dance-off I’ve ever been involved in. It happened so naturally, you’d have thought we planned it. I remember at one point the only move I could think to do was to run backwards, throw myself into the wall, and then melt down the wall, as if his energy was killing me. Of course then I had to regenerate and come back with even harder moves to win the battle. I haven’t been that metaphorical in my dancing before or since. In retrospect, it all makes sense that our friendship was founded on one thing: one-ups-manship.
What really bonded Dave and I early on was a party at 450 Shelton where we realized we were the last people awake at 4am. We kept talking about wanting to go on a road trip, and I don’t actually remember who’s idea it was to jump in the car at that exact second, but I knew once it was said out loud, it was going to happen no matter what. Even if one of us hadn’t wanted to drive up to San Francisco with no sleep on a whim, who was going to back down from the challenge?
Over the years, I’ve been so thankful to have met him and to have shared in so many great adventures. He’s one of the funniest people I’ve known and he’s the easiest to get along with. I know people will laugh at that statement since we are almost constantly bickering with each other but that’s really just how we show our love. In all honesty, he’s one of the best friends I’ve ever had. He’s the kinda guy who will pick your dog up and bring her to your job in the middle of the night when you have to be at the office for 24 hours straight. He’s the kinda guy who will be there in the ups and downs, making the ups the best they can be and throwing in wisdom and perspective that make the downs bearable.
And, this wall all fated because we were born in the same hospital in New York. I love you, you big idiot Jewy brother of mine. I hope you have the best year yet.
