Acrostic Portrait of David “Croz” Crosby

He was Stardust. And Golden. And he has returned to the Golden Stardust whence he came. But in between his pre-assembled Stardust and his current celestial state, he took himself on a wild ride, acquiring and losing bandmates, habits, dignity and freedom. One story of his extremism, recounted Graham Nash in his memoir, was so beyond the pale that Nash heard from the Legal department of his publisher. They demanded confirmation of the story that Crosby had sold his Porsche for crack, and upon his crack dealer’s death by overdose, Crosby sneaked back to the dealer’s abode and stole back the pink slip. So Nash called Crosby, and Croz told him that not only was it true, but in a scenario reminiscent of the CSN classic “Deja Vu,” Crosby later again sold the Porsche–for crack.

But he also pushed the limits of music, elevating millions with his jazz influence and harmonic entwinings in CSN and CSNY. And he cleaned up, and he got a new liver, and he outlived his old liver by decades, and he showed us oldsters that the best way to go out is in a blaze of creative glory.

As often happens, I choked a little on my portraiture with this image, wanting to convey his careening, pyrotechnic soul, remaining undecided about how old to make him and what expression to put on his face. I’ve overworked it to the point I had to say “to hell with it” and quit before I made it worse. But the words paint a fuller picture.

David CROZ Crosby

Dude was SCRAGGLY, PsychedeliC
And his HARMONIES pure WondeR
As a liquor–like F r a n g e l i c O
Velvet SMOOTH as distant thunderS
Irascibly zappish, a son of a B
Despite aural daZzle and all honestY