Welcome everyone.
I come to celebrate the complete life of Aaron. My name is Ian Grow and I met the Train on a summer day in 1999. It was a day that typified our experiences over the next six years. This too-brief partnership started on the back deck in Mill Valley accompanied by Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline (on vinyl) and a nice bottle of red.
Like many of you, we grew to be friends, roommates and adventurers. From Miami to London to St. Petersburg and Red Square, we were appreciators of art and music, aficionados of nonsense and dreamers of dreams. Aaron was interesting; interested. We were bros. And like brothers we fought with each other; and for each other – but loved more than words can wield the matter.
I’d like to share a simple, significant slice of Aaron that most here are familiar with. AB often sent e-mail updates of his global escapades and . . . and multiple invitations to gather, share wine and celebrate the poetry of our lives.
As his experiences and vision grew, so did his e-mail signature. From the early “AB” to “AARON” then to the more emblematic “Tha Mutha Funkin A-Train” – symbolic of late nights spinning vinyl; or the Train breakin’ it down on the dance floor – or the coffee table. It grew continuously to include the “Minister” of several things, “The Purveyor of Flavor,” even “The White Moses.” Yes, he parted with is red wine and freed us from the shackles of seriousness and the mundane.
Brief notes, in time, were dwarfed by the ever-growing signature line.
These were not boasts, however, but an invitation from Aaron, a call to join him on the A-Train in a world of flavor. A world Sabrosa.
In addition, no matter the content, Aaron completed each correspondence with “Peace.” Not a throw-in or dogmatic hip-hop sign-off, but a sincere, elegant “Peace.”
I believe:
This inexplicable departure, this tragic, early parting, is a gift to us all and to those who await him.
Because we will meet again and be joined in a festival of poetry, wine and virtue.
Aaron is an ambassador of goodness, mirth and flavor. There is no one better to precede us, to represent us.
Peace A-Train. We will miss you.
Peace