Renee was shot.
Bob left.
I was thinking about Mark’s departure the week before.
Then back to Renee:
“Dude, I’m not mad at you” she said at ICE watch.
“Fucking bitch” the ICE agent replied.
Then he shot her, the Pres coming to his aid.
“2 plus 2 equals 5.”
And here we are.
The story of our time.
The better angels nowhere to be seen,
Maybe a few howling down 5th Avenue.
Street demos all week for Renee.
A poem.
Amanda Gorman wrote about what happened to
Renee Nicole
Goode:
She drafted a poem, paraphrasing Lincoln:
“They say she is no more,
That there her absence roars,
Blood-blown like a rose.
Iced wheels flinched & froze.
Now, bare riot of candles,
Dark fury of flowers,
Pure howling of hymns.”
Thinking of that “dark fury,”
I looked back at the feelings.
Despair, fury, despair, terror.
More departures.
An old song goes through my mind. Cassidy, that old song
Bobby told me about Freshman year in college:
" I have seen where the wolf has slept by the silver stream
I can tell by the mark he left, you were in his dream
Ah, child of countless trees
Ah, child of boundless seas
What you are, what you're meant to be
Speaks his name, though you were born to me
Born to me, Cassidy
Lost now on the country miles in his Cadillac
I can tell by the way you smile when he's rolling back
Come wash the nighttime clean
Come grow this scorched ground green
Blow the horn, tap the tambourine
Close the gap of the dark years in between
You and me, Cassidy
Quick beats in an icy heart
A catch colt draws a coffin cart
There he goes, now here she starts
Hear her cry
Flight of the seabirds
Scattered like lost words
Wheel to the storm and fly
Faring thee well now
Let your life proceed by its own design
Nothing to tell now
Let the words be yours, I'm done with mine
Faring thee well now
Let your life proceed by its own design
Nothing to tell now
Let the words be yours, I'm done with mine…”
I find myself remembering that moment in the dorm,
trying to figure it out, recalling Bobby, who'd been at a
Dead
Show all weekend, just back from Santa Cruz,
where he slept in the woods, telling me about Bobby
Weir's daughter, born
the
day that Neil Cassady died in
San Miguel Allende, in Mexico.
"They found him on some train tracks, passed out, too
many
barbiturates. He named his kid after Neil Cassady.
The song is
about her." He paused and we started talking about
On the Road,
its hero Dean based on Neil."
"I love those lyrics," I said.
I listen to it throughout the day.
“Let the words be yours….”
“Feels like its about my dad and his heroes,” I continue,
to my friend, thinking about Cassidy, our future kids, and our
journey
through this life together,
“Let your life proceed by its own design…"
We all find ourselves lost from time to time, when the sun
isn’t bursting.
It's good to have a friend to remind us,
to help point it out to us as Neil did,
to remind us, to a part of things, to look at the stars.
Jack wrote some of his best lines about Cassady, as Dean:
“when the sun goes down and I sit on the
old broken-down river pier
watching the long, long skies….
nobody knows what's going to happen
to anybody besides the forlorn rags
of growing old, I think of Dean Moriarty…”
So do I.
So did many.
So did Bobby.
Cassidy about Neil, recalled by Bobby,
who read Jack’s account.
He knew him as Dean, Bobby performing with Jerry,
on my mind mind with Renee and Mark.
Jerry left us when I was in San Francisco, three decades ago.
Bob rejoined him on Saturday,
Both of them,
Playing in the band, Grateful Dead.
Serious Mexicali Blues.
My mind exploding in countless directions,
Jerry’s death, the vigil in San Francisco that August
before
I left, the conversation
with Bobby years prior in Sanborn Dorm,
all those songs, the Dead shows, Dead Heads twirling,
the moments with Eric in San Francisco, “Bob’s wearing
shorts,”Eric laughed at the show.
Our days in Dallas, playing hookie on the
road to Holy Telluride to catch a show, arriving, taking in the
stunning
beauty, the festival vibe, the intense,
"king of the world" feeling and
the valley between here and there, bodies twirling, filling
“the gap
between you and me, there he goes, here she starts…”
The gap between Dad and me, between my kids and their
journeys,
between Cambridge and Booklyn, Los Angeles and Berlin,
show after show, in a collective daydream of being alive.
“ain’t no time to hate….”
RIP Bobby.
RIP Renee.
Thank you.
And so January began, feelings exploding in countless
directions.
A few notes along the way:
January 6th/7th
Scolling through old pics of a lost warrior.
Thinking of you Mark Milano, i wrote, posting
a note.
Mark showing up to zap drug company greed and price
gauging,
Jan 7th
Minneapolis solidarity rally nyc. 'We want justice..we want peace.
We want ICE
Do not forget her.
Off to a demo, then a party for JK, meeting friends a the Magician.
I’m a JK fan!!!!
Jan8th
RIP Judge Kaye
David Bowie
Gone too long.
Old ghosts and new.
Off to the Principles of GI.
Poems by Renee, posted on the window at our
favorite coffee
house. Thanks @bowerybird ... RiP Renee Nicole Good
Protests all day long, across NYC, across the country, in solidarity
in the streets after ICE agents shot Renee Good in Minneapolis.
Jan 9th
It's still a lot. I found myself thinking about losing
PEPFAR,
the program Mark, Eric and the others fought for,
the murder of
Renee Nicole Good. We're living through quite a
moment.
Since Mark's passing, a lot of the old losses are
coming
back.
I think about the funerals of my act up comrades,
Nanette, Andy, Elizabeth,Tim, Mel, Mark, on and on.
Scroll through these pics
of the act up 29 demo a decade ago, half the people
are gone.
All the deaths open up the old graves.
RIP Mark Milano.
Penny Arcade wrote:
“I think any SANE person will look at that Video of Renee
Good
being killed in cold blood and SEE CLEARLY that the monster
who shot her is not trained in anything- why would you SHOOT a
person who you believe is driving TOWARDS YOU ???How does that STOP a vehicle??...
I have consulted the best political minds i know
This is a Police State
Its not a rehersal..”
Becca Good, the widow of Renee Nicole Macklin Good, gave this powerful and sustaining statement to Minnesota Public Radio...
"Renee was made of sunshine.
"Renee lived by an overarching belief: there
is kindness
in the world and we need to do everything we can to find
it where it resides and nurture it where it needs to grow.
We honor her memory by living her values: rejecting
hate and choosing compassion, turning away from fear
and pursuing peace, refusing division and knowing we must
come together to build a world where we all come home safe to the
people we love."
Jan 8th
Lee Merritt wrote
“Keith Porter Jr., a 43-year-old Black man, was shot
and
killed by an off-duty ICE agent on
December 31, 2025, outside
the Village Pointe apartments in Northridge,
Los Angeles..
Justice delayed is justice denied.”
Jan 10th
Mom and I talked about Aunt Margaret,
her Dad's sister.
While her parents and grandparents departed in rapid
succession some seven decades ago, Aunt Margaret stayed,
offering solace, a smile, a joke, baby sitting for her kids,
my brothers and I, getting to know all of us. Mom still smiles
remembering her. 'She was my everything' Mom told me, looking
at this portrait of her, as a Flapper Girl.
Anatole and I met for lunch. He brought a friend.
We talked about the old anarchists of the neighborhood.
And we chatted about his revisions to his book.
Excerpt from 'Left of the left: my memories of Sam Dolgoff':
Jan 10th
RIP Bob
Jan 11th
NO Kings,
No War
No Ice March.
A lot is going right now. No one knows what to do.
But seeing friends, big marches, pushing back, connecting, being smart, showing solidarity, and speaking out helps.
Message from the @psc:
“NO WARS, NO KINGS, NO ICE” rally and march.
Our union will gather at 12:45 PM at the
Northeast corner of 58th Street and 5th Avenue...
Why We Are Marching
The Trump administration has invaded Venezuela,
violating international law in a transparent
bid to seize
control of the nation’s oil. They have sent armed
and masked
ICE agents to invade our neighborhoods, tear families
apart,
and inflict violence on innocent civilians.
Renee Nicole Good was shot and killed
by an ICE agent in Minneapolis Wednesday. MAGA
propagandists are denying the truth of her murder, even as the video evidence reveals the crime.
From the immigration courts here in our city,
to Minneapolis, Caracas and beyond, Trump
is trampling our freedoms. Our leaders in Congress
must do their duty to stop this regime’s criminal
attacks on our families, our democracy,
and international order.”
A great day for democracy in the streets with 10,000 or so of my friends!!!
