“Dark fury of flowers,” “the mark he left, you were in his dream” On Cassidy, Bob Weir and Renee, Hellos and Goodbyes

 

 

 

Images of Bobby, Renee, my friends and I at a protest, Mark through time. 

Brandon Cucci wrote: "Still processing the passing of my friend and mentor Mark Milano, one of the most dedicated activists I met when I joined ACT UP in 2012. At that time, he was fighting a cancer diagnosis and going through chemotherapy, and through it all, he gave so much to the fight against AIDS and continued to after beating that diagnosis and receiving another cancer diagnosis years later. We attended countless meetings and probably organized a dozen protests together. Amazingly, he performed civil disobedience over 30 times in what was an unparalleled 35+ year career in activism. Rest in Power, Mark."

Jackie Rudin said as much. 

Mark Milano, an intrepid AIDS activist and fierce warrior who fought endlessly for gay rights and all humans’ rights, died of complications from cancer on Jan. 3, 2026. He was 69 Mark was a warrior for social justice in all its forms and always walked the walk. In recent years he was a founding member and driving force in Gays Against Guns, Rise and Resist and The Reclaim Pride Coalition that created the Queer Liberation March. I was honored to work with him in all three, He was integral to their success. He was way smarter than the average bear and he was creative, tenacious and though stubborn at times, quite generous and kind. And he was also a singer, a collector and a musical theater queen! Mark became one of the longest known survivors of AIDS, contracting HIV in 1981. All of us in the activist/resistance/ LGBTQ+ community are in shock at his passing because even with his never ending health issues (which he beat, one after another) it felt like Mark would live forever. In our hearts he always will.

I believe this obituary says it all quite beautifully: https://everloved.com/life-of/mark-milano/obituary/..."

 

 

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!!!