Month: October 2008

I was walking back from Aly’s memorial, when Tom Waits came up on my ipod singing Waltzing Matilda. Not only is this a particularly mournful version of an already sad song, for me Waltzing Matilda will forever be tied to the movie On The Beach, and the end, when you see, shot by shot, the end of everything, all our loves, all our joys, everything we know, over.  It’s hard to watch without sobbing. Hard the first time, at least.  

So I was on 8th Avenue and 14th Street and all of a sudden shot after shot of Aly went through my head, the end of Aly laughing, the end of Aly playing with Sophie, the end of Aly being Kim’s and so many other people’s best friend, no more Elephant & Castle, no more music, I could see the look in his face, a thousand looks really, I could hear him saying my name, his manic energy, and then all the people I saw at the memorial just flashed in my head, and the things they told me about their experiences with Aly. Story after story.  I could see them easily even if I hadn’t been there.  Aly was so present it’s easy to see him in your head.  All of that is over now.  Aly is over now. Done. All of this with Tom Waits sing Waltzing Matilda in my head.  

So that’s it.  Aly’s light has gone out, his special, wonderful, insane light.  And we’ll all be right behind him.  Everything ends.  I’m sorry he is dead.  I will miss him.  Who else is there like Aly?? I’ll try to live better before I die. I don’t know what else to do with it.  Try to be as good with a few people as Aly was with many?  For some reason I found the story of Aly checking a friend’s new baby out of the hospital especially poignant.  I was actually distracted from asking questions to get the whole story, but sometimes he just knew the absolute right thing to do, and he was so good with kids.

I took the picture above at around 7am in Vermont this morning.  I’ll post about that tomorrow. It will be a happier post.

I had a set of all my concert photographs made for Laney and Sophie, and I had them re-do the very first one that I posted, because I made that print almost 30 years ago and I was just learning how to make color prints at the time.  The new version is so much better.  Plus I was able to use my software to sharpen it a little. I’m tempted to put the old one up so you can see how much better the new one is.  In fact, I will.

I had this sad thought this morning.  My software tells me what search terms brought people to my blog.  I wish Aly was alive so I could tell him how many people come to my blog every day, looking for information about him.

The Russians wave back.  (Except are they really from Russia?  I checked their profile, but they could say they’re from anywhere.  Well, it’s funny even if they are Americans playing Russians.)

[Video removed because the link no longer works.]

These are the paintings I saw walking up 8th Avenue yesterday. I wanted to have them, but couldn’t figure out a way to steal them. Not that I actually would have.   I’m still kicking myself about not stealing the Keith Haring subway drawings and that was what?  Almost 30 years ago. Except it was the right thing.  My argument to myself then was “they’re for everybody,” and I was right. But still.

The “Is it over yet” question refers to the election, of course.  

I know I’m about to repeat myself but I need to. There was a point when, even though I supported Obama, (who I honestly think might accomplish something on the level of greatness) I didn’t think it would be the end of the world of McCain won.  I thought he had integrity, even if I disagreed with him on everything. However his integrity is long gone, and as I already said, certain things have come out that seem to indicate that he never really was who I thought he was.  But his choice of Sarah Palin does put electing him into the category of the end of the world.

She is just so supremely unqualified, but I guess I’m preaching to the choir here. The thing is its driving me crazy, that anyone would still vote for McCain at this point.  Anything less than an Obama landslide will once again make me despair that I am living in a country full of crazy people.

The ones who voted for Bush TWICE.  (I’ll never get over that.)  So I keep obsessively checking: www.talkingpointsmemo.com, dailykos.com and www.huffingtonpost.com. It’s probably not good for my peace of mind, but I do get some solace when independents and Republicans decide to go with Obama and explain why.

Saw this guy walking up 8th Avenue.  I know this is a familiar refrain, but why are details like this a thing of the past?  Except the poor guy looks so agonized.

I also took pictures of some paintings someone did up and down the side of a door, which I will post later.  But I’m leaving for choir practice in a few minutes.

So, Bloomberg is going to be our mayor forever, it seems.  My friends are quite upset, but I like the guy. Probably because Giuliani is still relatively fresh in my memory. Shudder.