Three Maniacs

Natalie Merchant, Michael Stipe, and Lori Ellison, last night, backstage at the Beacon Theater.
Lori was an early fan of 10,000 Maniacs and wrote about them back in the day, before they became stars. Natalie became an early fan of Lori Ellison, when she was doing poetic figurative work. Natalie gave us tickets for her show at Beacon Theater and backstage passes. I didn't even realize that was Michael Stipe standing there until Lori mentioned him later, which is why I was unconcerned about getting him in the picture with Natalie's daughter Lucia. I knew Rob Buck, the Maniacs' late lead guitarist when we were kids, but never contacted him when he became famous, to my regret. My family was from Jamestown, NY, the Maniacs' hometown and knew Rob's family very well, so we talked about that last night, but that Stipe guy was in the way.
Lori had also been an early fan and supporter of REM and had met Stipe, back in the day, but he never bought her art or sent us tickets, so screw him. Just kidding, MS. Love you, mean it, bye.

I plagiarized my own Facebook update for this blog post.