I think I’m finally at a place where I can speak about Tony, but I’m not at a place where I can re-read our conversations yet.
I’ve lost a brother when Tony passed on
He was (I’m a spiritual man, highly sensitive) sending me messages when he passed. I wasn’t able to contact him…he wasn’t responding to my texts and yet the films I was watching and feelings I had were acute
They all made sense when I learned what had happened and what his family and friends had been going through the month prior to me learning
I felt the immediate drive to reach out to his family and pass on all the loving memories he had spoken to me about over all the years. emotions and feelings, he hadn't shared with his family feelings I was positive. He was asking me to please share with them.
We could go to a movie and annoy everybody in the theater because we were laughing out loud at the same things.
When we would text each other, we would text movie dialogue. To the others, they would have a difficult time translating what we were talking about.
When we worked with each other, the most tedious nights were hysterical for us… Because we were together.
Walking the streets of Manhattan until 4 a.m., running between PRADA stores making sure installations were going well
Stopping every few hours saying…
"... I love this. You're here, we've got a job to do, and we're in the city."
Installations for Prada would start at 7 PM, when the stores closed. All renovations in the showcase windows would need to be completed within the 12 hours between store closing and opening at 7am.
🕖 There was a clock ticking, teams of people working at each store, we had prepared by going over the plans relentlessly for the previous month… all to make sure this night worked flawlessly.
Five stores, one night, sometimes it was broken up between two nights.
There was a terror before the installation would start, we would watch the windows get dismantled… And slowly we would watch the new Windows get built.
The crews were phenomenal at what they did (Marchin) and we would take cabs from 57th St. and Fifth Avenue downtown to Broadway and Prince St., New York City checking in on all the installations.
We would do this together.
And we would stop in the middle of it, and smile laugh, and enjoy the friendship we had built since 1993.
This was our life between 2009 and 2016.
We never argued until the jobs started. And once that phase of our life ended, we never argued again.
Looking back, it was a glorious time with my brother, and my friend Tony.
When my daughter was born in 2018, Tony showed up at my house unannounced one morning.
He came down from Harrison, New York to Long Island Huntington… Got off the train and walked straight to my house
The pictures are on this beautiful website.
He met my daughter, cooked dinner for my wife, me, and him. It was delicious.
This was the last time I saw Tony.
He would send me packages every few months.
"Did you get it?"
"Get what? Did you send me something?"
It would be a T-shirt, a poster, a little car… a reference to a film about brotherhood we both loved.
I would take a video of me opening the package and send it to him.
"Andy & Red's Boats" (The Shawshank Redemption, 1994)
"Maverick & Goose for president, 2024" (Top Gun, 1986)
"Riggs and Murtaugh" (Lethal Weapon, 1987)
"dr. gonzo and Raul Duke" (fear and loathing in Las Vegas, 1998)
"LET THE BOY TRY!" (Excalibur, 1980)
His kindness knew no bounds.
My love for him knew no bounds and in the darkest of nights, we had each other always.
I send my love to his family and his friends,
To his pop, Dr. Lioacono, to whom he dedicated his life and was taught the importance of work and having an unbreakable work ethic.
I will never recover from this, and I am OK with that…
Because many people go their entire lives without having a friendship as rich and wonderful as ours is.
I love you, Tony, I miss you, brother.
Every day every moment I think of you, every time I talk to you… And I can feel you listening to me.
This is to Anthony Lioacono Junior
Celebrate his life as I do, celebrate his spirit, which is eternal and free from pain.
And to the Lioacono family, nothing mattered more to him than you.
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