Boulder Beat: Paul Danish – Fall 2016
The Michelangelo of The Sink
It was a hot, ethereal summer night,July 4, 1989.
I was heading home from the Folsomfireworks show. I crossed Broadway atPennsylvania and there he was: Michelangelo.Standing in front of the SistineChapel smoking a cigarette.
OK, it wasn’t the Sistine Chapel. It wasThe Sink. And it wasn’t Michelangelo. Itwas Llloyd Kavich, the beatnik artist whoin 1952 painted the murals on the walls.The Sink was his Sistine Chapel.
He was in town to restore hismasterpieces.
In 1974, Sink proprietor Herb Kauvardecided to rebrand The Sink as a delicatessen— Herbie’s Deli — as awayof breaking with 1960s bad karma thatstill hung over The Hill like a miasma.So Llloyd’s murals were covered overwith rough pine paneling.
Fifteen years went by. Herb’s kids,now in the family business, convincedhim that the time had come to“de-model” the deli back into The Sink.
So Llloyd (he spelled it with threeLs “just for the l of it”) wa s summonedback to Boulder by his patrons in theHouse of Kauvar.
And there he stood before me takinga cigarette break.
So I introduced myself and we startedto talk. When he was ready to resumepainting I followed him back inside. Iwatched the Master throw himself intohis work, gleefully laughing at the oldjokes — “the floggings will continue untilmorale improves” — as he refreshedthe great works and added new ones.
Naturally we talked until sunup. Bythen he had painted a picture of me ona wall in the back; it’s still there. We’dbeen talking about guns — I was workingfor Soldier of Fortune back then — soI invited him to go shooting the nextweekend. We had a great time, and withina few days he had painted caricaturesof everyone in the shooting party.
A couple of weeks later, I ran intohim in Doozy Duds.
“What’s up?” I said.
“I’m gonna get a dog,” he said.
A week later he turned up withStreamline, the world’s smallest, smartestadult dog (a Russian toy terrier, I think).
She was so small Llloyd could hideher under his shirt and smuggle heronto airplanes.
They were inseparable.
A couple years after the Kauvarssold The Sink to the Brothers Heinritz(Mark, Chris and James), Llloyd wasbrought back for one last gig.
Llloyd Kavich died in October 2013 inSanta Barbara. He was thought to be in his80s. He was preceded in death by Streamline.Hardly a trace of his life remains.Except for the glorious murals in The Sink.
Photo by Peter Burke