She's Not There

Large Tony has passed. 

Allegedly. 

I might be speaking ill of the dead. But perhaps not. Maybe he's dead. Maybe his persona is. If either ever existed. 

Yes. I'm going to be THAT guy. 

GregM alerted me to the fact that this was posted on Twitter, a medium to which I no longer am involved - because they kind of banned me. Throughout the day other bloggers and former bloggers also gave me a notice as well. 

I used to follow Tony and link to him. His writings were decent - almost too much so for a self-subscribed hick from eastern Tennessee. I'm not casting dispersions on folks from there, but he wrote more eloquently than his background would suggest. 

The man would shut down blogs and start them up again under another name / title. I eventually gave up even attempting to follow him. I think he was trying to throw people off the trail, but maybe I'm projecting. 

I am not all about the blogger meet-up, but you've seen I've had my fair share. I never attempted to meet Tony because, well, I was never planning on being in or near Knoxville. But I know others who have attempted and at the last second he'd always beg off or cancel. Not one person I know actually met him. 

His pictures, while very nice and sometimes provocative, were nothing short of professional photographs. Never a single candid picture of him anywhere ever. Very little that was not perfectly lit and shadowed. And Dorian Gray had nothing on this man. He barely aged a day in 20 years. Not one of us who has blogged that long can say anything remotely the same. 

I am also cynical enough as to why a Twitter post like this would show up 3-4 months after the fact, or that someone would have his username and password to that account to post it int the first place. Sure, maybe "the lawyer" did it, but going by his blog and this post, no one in Tony's immediate family is still alive. 

Even if someone being Tony was a persona, maybe it was just better and easier to kill "him" off with a tweet. 

Not a trace of a grave or a marker of existence.  Faking the perfect death. 

Or he fell off a ladder while painting a house and died. Either Or. 

Song by: the Zombies