shocking to see my dear friend the gentle giant's pic on social media today. it has been one year since he left this mortal plane. i still think of him all the time, as i know so many, many others do. he was beautiful through & through, funny & sweet & irreverent & kind, could sing soaringly, like an angel, or suggestively, so mischievously, so rockin', & he played guitar like chuck berry meets mount olympus. i hope manuel's family is doing better one year later, though that place where loved ones were is never, never the same... :(
yesterday, r.i.p to felix. he always was nice to me, a tall lean gray soul wearing thick glasses & a wise, tight-lipped smile, looking bemused, relaxed, tough & resigned to this ridiculous life. he and james had A Shared Past, being real irish tough guys, knowing each other that way as well as through music for many decades. "f**k! listen to felix play the sh*t out of that harmonica!" james would exclaim. "f*ck!!"
felix had been very, very ill but continued to post angrily & righteously about cop abuse, his voice as vital as ever, so it was shocking yesterday to learn of his death: he passed during surgery. we flashed back to 2015, when james had his near-death time, the day he finally went into surgery bc w/o it, he definitely wasn't going to make it. the doc sat me down & told me, "i'm gonna be straight with you. he might not survive this surgery. it's real risky." my head reeling, i levitated to the chapel, dumb w/shock, knelt down, shaking, stunned, & started rambling to whomever or whatever is Good in the ether. what else could i do? after a few minutes, in one of the most comforting yet creepy moments of my life, a kindly male voice in my head suddenly said, "don't worry. he's going to be ok. dry your eyes & go back upstairs." that's only happened one other time, when the voice told me "go to aa" when i was in a big bag of sh*t on the night of my last drink back in 1995...
felix lived to near-70, a long life for a working musician. i hope his long life was pleasing to him, that busting heads, blowing harp, kicking against the jams, & all that he did brought him a good life. requiescat in pace, tommy felix flanagan.
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