Today would have been Elliott Smith’s 41st birthday. I’ve written about him extensively before — here and here are a good place to start — so I won’t go much further than that. But I just moved into a new apartment and I have yet to find a place to hang this portrait, which I love, so I figured I’d write something about the day it was taken.

Joshua Kessler took this photo at Elliott’s apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn, right off Fifth Avenue, as part of a feature story I was writing for Alternative Press. I showed up at his place right when they began to shoot, and I remember being greeted as if I were an old friend — which was bizarre because Elliott and I had only met once before, in a dark nightclub, two years prior to that.

When we finally sat down to do the interview, it was almost effortless. He asked as much about me as I did about him, and I felt like it was only fair that I answer him. I wish I still had that tape.

Later that night, we both went to see Pulp — separately. But after running into each other at the show, Elliott insisted that I take his phone number and call him so we could hang out. I always think about this night because I never actually used that scrap of paper. On some level, I respected Elliott too much to be his “friend”; the scale was tipped, and I didn’t mind not being much more than an occasionally friendly face.

But I’ve questioned that so-called wisdom since he died. We got to know each other a little bit over the next couple of years, and I really can’t stress enough how much fun he was to be around. Elliott Smith wasn’t this maudlin character with sad violins following his every move. He was brilliant and funny and kind and ridiculously smart, and I still regret never having called him — the night he tried to be my friend, on the day he sat for this portrait.