love thy neighbor

my neighbor, rico, passed away on halloween. perfectly healthy until july 4th when an appendectomy resulted in the discovery of a giant intestinal tumor. he suffered greatly between then and october 31st. he fought and fought and had much chemo, but lymphoma got the better of him in the end. rico lived directly under my booty buckle studio. if you're a frequenter of this blog, you might remember him. he was always so good to me. he was a dear, dear soul and a very special friend. i miss him very much. i was fortunate enough to get to know more of rico's enormous family while hanging out at the mortuary for rico's... i don't know exactly what it would be called.. a viewing service session something? catholic... this past weekend. i learned a great deal of interesting family history. come to find out rico's family has inhabited our street in almost every building for the past 30 years. they spread out a bit throughout south of market and some bought houses in neighboring towns. i met lots of folks who used to live right here in my apartment! rico's parents will be staying in his place now. i requested for nostalgic purposes that they play random music really loudly every now and again and at really random times. oh, and if possible, could they might turn the tv up obnoxiously loud during a football game and scream at the tops of their lungs at it. they said they would. we made rico a little alter outside his door soon after we heard the news. his family was very touched to know his neighbors adored him so. RIP, dearest rico.

the same morning of the service, i photographed my new neighbors, paul and anabella, having a jam session on the back porch.. they replaced lovely christopher a little while back. he moved back to hawaii where he's happy as a lark, i hear. christopher was very fond and quite the aficionado of the ukulele. above is little anabella testing out my new ukulele right where christopher and i used to hang out. ah, the circle of life. and paul is a great musician, too. i ofttimes hear great things coming from the other side of the wall. one morning i awoke to the most beautiful live version of pink floyd's wish you were here coming from the other side of the wall.

i wish YOU were here, rico. now's a good time to revisit the tibetan book of the dead (in 5 parts on youtube).