Archive for the tag "rip"

I’m speechless.  The Man In Black is gone.  :-(

Wesley Willis, one of my favorite people in Chicago, died yesterday.  The news is spreading fast; I just found out five minutes ago from a post on Metafilter.  I’m so sad about this.  I haven’t seen him in several years now. I met him almost as soon as I moved to Chicago and for awhile there I saw him and talked to him on a near-daily basis.  He would always ask me to tell his demons to shut up, which I did, and it was no joke; his demons were very real.  I bought his CDs, I admired his artwork and I really respected him as an artist.  Poor Wesley!!  I had no idea about all the health trouble he’s had recently.  Didn’t he have enough troubles already without this?  It doesn’t seem fair, but then… much of his life was not fair either, but look at everything he did!  I just hope he’s at peace and finally did get rid of all his demons.  I really believe he was a great person, a real hero.  He accomplished a hell of a lot more than most of us ever will, despite mental, physical and social barriers that I wouldn’t even wish on my worst enemy.  Rock on Wesley!!  I will never ever forget you!!

You probably already heard that June Carter Cash passed away yesterday, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t pay my respects.  The most famous daughter of the original Carter Family is gone.  What a terrible loss, especially for the Man In Black!  :-(

They’ve closed down the Rainbo Roller Rink!  What a shame, I had lots of good times there.  They had a good wood floor and it was the only skating rink I’d ever been to that allowed skating while drinking.  It was also the only one I’d ever seen that had two levels of skating; the main floor downstairs and another little floor upstairs by the bar.  Did I mention it had a bar?  Only in Chicago, the same place where you can buy hard liquor at the grocery store, right in the aisle next to the potato chips.

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Napster is officially dead and buried, courtesy of the RIAA and other heavyweights of the entertainment racket industry.  Check out their front page and the one link to the dead-kitty picture.  This makes me very sad.  Sure wish they could’ve made it work somehow… it was a brilliant idea that really did change the whole landscape of music.  For me, it was the introduction to a whole new way of finding old tunes and new friends.  It rejuvenated my love for music and got me into all kinds of bands I’d never heard of before.  And it led me to Audiogalaxy, which of course has also been severely hampered, if not killed, by the same evil forces that drove Napster to its grave.

Long live Napster!!!!!  Long live Audiogalaxy!!!!!  P2P for the masses!!!!

I took Juney to the vet today, and… we ended up putting her to sleep.  :-( Her chest was full of fluid and her lungs were almost collapsed because of that.  Hence the breathing problems.  The doctor wasn’t sure which of the 4 or 5 scenarios might have caused the fluid to build up, but no matter what the reason was, the prognosis wasn’t good at all.  X-rays showed a big lump near her stomach, which could have been a tumor, or maybe something else.  It wasn’t good whatever it was.  So, there were things we could have tried, but every option seemed kind of ridiculous to even consider, in light of her very very advanced age, current poor health etc.  Her life has been deteriorating steadily for the past year.  So I decided on the best thing to do, and that was to stop her suffering… she really was, too.  It was… the best thing I could do.  It was gentle and she died peacefully and without pain, so… there ya go.  Junebug is dead.  Long live Junebug!!!!  The best, most loving, smartest, most patient and sweetest cat on earth.  A real movie star.  I’m going to miss her very very much.  :-(

Looks like Audiogalaxy is done for.  My queue suddenly disappeared; every song on the whole site is now blocked!  Except for the few things that are being specially hosted on AG’s own servers, which is nothing I really want.  They’ve fixed it so musicians are going to have to "opt in" to get their songs shared on AG… which means my little group is kaput.

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Boo Boo Kitty died today… she was getting sicker and sicker. I thought she was going to die on me here at home — she’d been deteriorating steadily since she first got sick, and was getting more dehydrated even though I was giving her the liquids. She’d seen the vet several times and we tried all these different things but nothing really helped. Anyway, she’d been very weak and vomiting a lot the past few days, and today she was shaking and having a lot of trouble breathing, and trying to drag herself behind the furniture… it was really bad. I took her to the vet and he looked at her, and we talked about it and decided to put her to sleep right there. It was very very quick. He just gave her a shot of anaesthetics — she put her head down and that was it.

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Note: This is a journal entry — it was written on paper or on my computer, then transferred to my website, maybe years later.

So anyway, at the end of February all this shit went down.  On the same day, Black Friday 2/26/93, the World Trade Center got bombed and Nora and John Gallagher’s baby died.  She had the baby on Wednesday and his name was Sean Michael.  He was a big baby, 9 lbs. 6 oz., but he was born with a terrible problem, had surgery and couldn’t pull out of it I guess.  Something was wrong with his insides.  Everybody was praying for that baby… it’s such a tragedy for John and Nora.

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