I was aware of Mark Johnson at a college we both attended, but he was on his way out the door and I was hardly there to begin with. If I saw his paintings then it would have been because I had a fixation on prowling in the art building at night. I’d steal away from some party, very high, to lurk around the senior studios, contemplating what a college art major did, trying to fit myself to that prospect. I couldn’t.
We became friends in San Francisco and Oakland, a year or two later. Mark knew things I didn’t. He seemed both worldly and born out of his right time. He was shocked that I claimed to like screwball comedy but didn’t know who Preston Sturges was, and hustled me immediately to The Castro, to see The Lady Eve. That night it became one of my favorite films.