The following is a message I posted six months ago on a forum. I just came across it and dont recall writing it at all. its me though. Its really me. More than I can tell ya. Please be my guest. I welcome you to join me for five minutes in my mind.

The Summer Solstice is long gone now and I alone here at a Macintosh dedicated to the images of my life speak to myself in front of you.

Slowly a few of you inch closer to your screen to hear these words with no direction. And I along with you and directed only by my subconcious think slow and deep.

Standing along my tearsheets and images of 500 fashion shows, ten thousand models, a hundred magazines, and a television rattled from 24 hours of metrochannel...

Its two nights before the VH-1 Fashion Awards, and one night before a party with more cool folk than I can count on 6 hands...

I am thinking about Fred Durst screaming and Tommy Lee laughing and Maybe George Clinton swinging his hair around like dreadlocks grown in a jungle.

I'm thinkin' I want to party with you tonight on a train rolling slow through some tunnel, and laughing along West 4th street.

I'm thinking back two weeks or so to the runways. 48 shows in a week or so. 2 cameras and bags and bags of processed chromes lugged over my back like a Santa Claus delivery on a hot Christmas night in South Beach.

I'm thinking about Pam and her new boyfriend and what her kids are going to say when they get older. Is that really daddy in the video?

And I am rolling out this Sharpie magic marker back and forth listening to Steven Tylers record..

And his daughter Chelsea Tyler is kind of looking more like him than he is. Kind of like some super slick rock chick at 8 years old in Betsey Johnson Yellows and Pinks.

Chelsea rocks like her dad. She's like a little starlet with a bright light lookin straight at her down at the end of the tunnel she don't even know she's travelling through.

But thats not why I came here tonight. It's a fashion story and I wanted to talk about fashion here. I do a lot more fashion work than I show. You see the celebrity shots I bring out now and then. But can you really see me and who I am?

I dont like to do too much talkin about the real things because I know a lot of people. And some of them know me... A lot of them. And most of them dont like people talkin about them, and showing images we did together. They feel like its private or something. So I don't show it. I hide it away mostly.

I got a thousand stories about dead people, and people who were never really alive.

Tomorrow I am going to this party and Claudia and her boyfriend will be there. And a lot of people who I want to see. So I can get some of that stardust to rub off on my shirt sleeve. I cant tell you where it is or I would. Really I would just post it right here.

I will tell you a story about Heidi.

When she smiles the whole room comes running to kiss her cheek. She saw me and we both said hello. Heidi's ex husband was standing there also. And Heidi was in a long fur coat. I was in a suit.Everyone was way cool here. Very A list. Triple A.

And Randolph Duke was there, and she looked at him and smiled and said hey Randolph in a very American girl voice.

Randolph was with a guy and he was the shit here let me tell you. Randolph said hey Andrew. Then he shook my hand. I have pictures. You dont believe me right.

I looked at him and told him he's the new Halston only better and just as good as Oscar.

And then Heidi looked at me and thought I was cool because Randolph talked to me. He actually thanked me for a piece I did on him in a magazine. And I have seen him again since once or twice buit not so much.

He is the shit. His handstitched work uses beads so small he had a custom needle made like the kind they use in surgery. You cant even see them. They shimmer like magic.

I just wanted to tell people who are looking for fashion here. And all of you are lets face it.

You can't find fashion.
It will find you. And when it does it will consume you.
It will burn like fire under your skin.
And its cold as ice in your face.
And its hot like a tramp on West 4th street in the summer.

Andrew Richard