The Who Concert Tragedy made the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine in its January 24, 1980 issue. (Rolling Stone Magazine/January 24, 1980)

But I wasn’t part of the stampede, and I watched the entire concert not knowing anything had happened. So this is really a story, not about my witnessing first-hand rock music’s greatest tragedy, but about how there can be evidence of something unimaginable right in front of your eyes, without you being able to grasp until later what had taken place.

There’s something about the Plaxico Burress saga that’s not being told, or maybe can’t be told. I’m not just talking about the beyond-bizarre incident last weekend when the troubled Giants’ receiver had a gun accidentally go off in his pants at a crowded midtown nightclub. That’s just the latest chapter in what has been a slow-developing implosion of this extremely talented young athlete. As we said on PIX News last night, the gun incident came a mere ten months after Burress had caught the touchdown pass that won the Super Bowl for the Giants, an accomplishment that, by all rights, should gained him a measure of immortality in the minds of New York sports fans for generations to come. And, you’d figure, in his own mind.

Well, all that didn’t actually happen on one day, but I sort of telescoped things for dramatic purposes. Not that Governor David Paterson needs any more drama on this succession question. If you’ve been following the news, you know it’s up to him and him alone to name Hillary Clinton’s replacement after she moves to the State Department next month. Naming a U.S. Senator: that’s quite a responsibility, considering it’s a call made with no oversight by either voters or other elected officials. But what oversight there is, in a manner of speaking, comes from the complex web of political considerations that will go into Paterson’s choice. Who does he want to please with his selection? Who does he NEED to please? What are the considerations for his own political future? What pressures is he feeling from the national democratic party and the U.S. Senate leadership?

So my speech will be my post tonight. I hope you get something out of it, whether you’re in the “autism community” or not. In the middle of the speech, I show a clip from the documentary directed by my wife, Lauren, called “Autism Every Day.” Then I come back and talk some more, because let’s face it, that’s what I do. I’d love to hear your thoughts and responses in the comments section. Speech can be viewed after the jump.

Of course, we’ve been reporting on this collapse for over two months now, so maybe I’m a little late to the pity party. But I suspect this week, with the plummeting dow and the existential threat to the nation’s auto industry and the predictions of doom for retailers, has brought a lot of people to the realization that we are in very, very serious trouble, and heading into deeper trouble..

I don’t mind her liking the funny ones better. It’s okay to ask about my interest in politics. But “do they have to be so long?” kind of stings a little. Whatever. Here’s a shorter, funny one, of recent random thoughts...

Rereading my blog post of last week about Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman’s future in the Democratic party, I’m now struck by how my assumptions in the piece were based on a Washington political paradigm that may no longer exist. Lieberman’s fate in the wake of his fervent support for defeated presidential candidate John McCain, as well as his negative attacks on Barack Obama, his own party’s candidate, has been much in discussion this week. I’m sure I wasn’t alone in thinking—assuming, I should say again—that Lieberman would be treated as a traitor by his fellow democrats; that he would be stripped of his committee chairmanships, sent to the furthest reaches of the back bench (if he was allowed to caucus with Democrats at all), denied support for any of his legislative efforts, made to wear a big red clown nose, and perhaps even be given a wedgie.

He made it through 19-months of a grueling campaign without ever really seeming tired. But after three days of being President-elect… and three days of finding out more about the scope and depth of the financial crisis.. I thought Barack Obama looked a little weary today at his first news conference since the election. Who could blame him? What a whiplash that has to be: the ecstasy of winning a historic presidential race, followed immediately by a fuller understanding of just how hard the job is going to be. One politico joked to me on Tuesday that the winner of the race was going to demand a recount.

We’re reporting on the news tonight about your meeting earlier with majority leader Sen. Harry Reid about your future as part of the Senate’s Democratic caucus. You emerged from the meeting to say only that you would be thinking over what Reid had to say and what your options are.

Joe, I’m just guessing here. But it seems likely that the “option” Senator Reid suggested to you isn’t, as they say, anatomically possible. And, really, were you expecting it go any other way?

So let me focus here on just one cultural element of what it means to America and the world to have Barack Obama as our next president:

Cool is back.

The second—make that the nanosecond—it was out of my mouth, I knew I was in for it. A few garbled syllables on Friday night’s newscast, and I was on my way to a little more internet fame that I would have preferred.

Here’s a link to it, but first, as they say on the late night talk shows, let me set up the clip. It was just before a commercial, and Kaity and I were reading the “coming up” tease. One of the items involved a non-fatal shooting on Long Island, in which the victim was working as a babysitter. Shooting. Babysitter. Roll the clip:

May I call you Mike? It’s so much less formal. First of all, congrats on the term limits thing. Actually, that’s sort of what I wanted to write you about. I have some thoughts about your political future, and it doesn’t include you running for mayor again.