Journal of Post-Ralphaelite Thought

I've known I was going to be writing this post for about 6 months now, and not looking forward to it. I learned yesterday evening that my old friend, debating partner, guitar playing buddy Allen Patterson - AKA, the Whited Sepulchre - has gone to that place where we all eventually go. Allen was diagnosed with a brain tumor about 6 months ago. After the initial shock, he dealt with it with his usual blend of wit and mockery. We should all face death with such an attitude. One of the things that as I get older I find I dislike about Facebook is that you learn all sorts of life-changing news there scattered among the cat videos and Candy Crush ads. So it was that I first that Allen had passed - on Facebook. He might have been delighted -  he regularly delighted in turning around people's perceptions of  the "proper" way of doing things. I knew the diagnosis was terminal, but I wasn't ready for him to leave us, dammit. I last saw him at a celebration of h...

The other day I awoke to the news that pianist Dave Brubeck had passed away at age 91, one day short of his birthday, December 6. To say he was a jazz giant is only to illustrate the weakness of the written word, compared to his chosen language, music. I first got turned onto him as a twenty-something who had grown bored with his dorm roon collection of rock and roll. KERA (local public radio station) at the time played classical during the day, and jazz at night. My first purchase was a double LP called The Dave Brubeck Quartet at Carnegie Hall . To say it knocked my socks off is to further illustrate the weakness of the written word. He was born in the San Francisco Bay area. After graduating from the College of the Pacific (where his inability to read music created a bit of a scandal), he was drafted and served in George Patton's Third Army. While in the army he formed one of the army's first multi-racial bands. It was then that he first met his long-time collaborato...

By now you've surely read that Andy Griffith died yesterday at the age of 86. As a sure sign we are turning into a nation of ill-informed, culturally bankrupt morons, Salon Magazine ran a story the other day entitled " Dumb Tweets of the Day ," about people tweeting "who the heck is Andy Griffith?" when news of his death broke. Who the heck is Andy Griffith indeed? Maybe it's an age thing. While certainly best known for playing Sheriff Andy Taylor in the fictitious hamlet of Mayberry, in the Andy Griffith Show , (1960 to 1968) , my introduction to him came a little earlier. Griffith had first achieved fame in the 1950's as a monologist, and my father had a copy of his recording, What It Was, Was Football . I listened to that thing endlessly as a child. I think it must be a Southern thing. He also starred in the service comedy (this was only a decade past the end of WW II) named " No Time For Sergeants, " in which he was first teamed w...

I've been on the road (more on that later) and haven't had a chance to note the passing of a couple of giants. Author Ray Bradbury passed away on June 5 at the age of 91, and Doc Watson, guitar legend, died on May 29 at age 89. The first book by Ray Bradbury I read was a second hand copy of The October Country I bought at a thrift store. It was a collection of short stories more gothic horror than sci fi, and deliciously creepy. I tended to prefer the short stories over the novels - they were little polished jewels of language and poetic imagery. The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man both followed the same format, in that they were a collection of short stories bound thematically into a pseudo-novel. His actual novels were not so much to my taste - the artfully constructed language of the shorter pieces (to me) seemed to bog down the narrative energy of the longer works. I re-read one of his most praised novels,   Something Wicked This Way Comes , a few years...

Just saw that Apple founder Steve Jobs passed away today. Sad but no shock, given his medical situation these last few years. I was never much of an Apple fanboy, but there's no denying his impact on the world of computing. Facebook is currently awash with comments about his passing. I'll let others argue about his "genius," as well as his failings. Though the Apple II and MacIntosh were groundbreaking devices, we may find that the iPhone (and its various offspring, including the iPod touch and iPad), ends up having a bigger impact on modern life, since it popularized the truly portable, hand-held personal computing device - something that could end up making desktops and laptops niche products. A fascinating life, well-lived. The world will be a less interesting place without him.

Long before Mr Rogers made the scene, Mr. Peppermint entertained (and educated) the small fry of North Texas. I note with sadness that Jerry Haynes, who created and played that character, passed away yesterday at age 84 of complications from Parkinson's disease. He started the role in 1961 on WFAA (the ABC affiliate for the area), wearing a red and white striped jacket and straw hat, and carrying a candy-striped cane. I was in first grade at the time. As was the fashion at the time, he had a collection of stock characters, mostly puppets; the one I remember best was Mr. Wiggly Worm - performed by Haynes by sticking his finger up through the hole in the bottom of the box in which Mr. Wiggly Worm lived. Simple but amusing to us, his audience. Wikipedia notes that through a quirk of fate and timing, Jerry Haynes was the first person to report the assassination of John F Kennedy on local news. Haynes was born and raised in Dallas, graduating from Woodrow Wilson High School and train...

When the city told me the sycamore in front of the house needed to be cut down I had mixed feelings. In my mind, sycamores are sort of junk trees -- about one step above hackberrys. They're prone to disease and messy, and will occasionally decide to drop limbs, and not just small ones. The one in question had been planted overly close to the driveway -- which was the issue: a street project meant new curbs and driveways. Not a good thing. Honestly, I'd mused on the possibility of getting rid of it myself. Still, the sight of the big spray-painted X's on the trunk was a little dismaying. Friday morning I got a message from the spouse that a tree service was truck parked in front of the house. Duh duh duuuhhh. By the time I got home... The front yard, formerly shady, was now open and sunny. Very open. Very sunny. It was a little jarring. The tree men reported the tree was about 60 years old. At one point there were lots of sycamores on our block but they had all ...

It's funny how we can be responsible for something much large than ourselves. Case in point: the late H. Edward Roberts . He's well-known in a somewhat narrow context and yet I'd be willing to bet the next 10 people you see have no idea who he is. That being said, he's directly had an impact on you if you are reading this. Ed Roberts developed and sold what was arguably the first commercially successful personal computer, the Altair 8800 , way back in 1975. Just as significantly, he hired a couple of bright, ambitious college dropouts to write a version of BASIC for the Altair 8800: Bill Gates and Paul Allen . Gates and Allen went on found a little software startup called Microsoft. Perhaps you've heard of it? Roberts came out of the hobbyist electronics world. MITS, the company he started, initially designed and sold telemetry devices for model rocketeers, the moved to selling kits for programmable calculators (back when these were enormously expensive). The Janu...

Briefly noted: Ted Pillsbury, director of the Kimbell Art Museum from 1980 to 1998, passed away at age 66 on Thursday, March 25 of an apparent heart attack. During his tenure he was responsible for numerous important acquisitions and major exhibitions, turning the Kimbell into a world-class museum along the way. The Dallas Morning News and Fort Worth Star-Telegram both have good overviews of his life and career. There's also a 1998 interview with him on the KERA TV site. Late update: Family members are now reporting Pillsbury's death was a suicide. The Dallas Morning News has more information .

Saw in the news that Art Clokey passed from this veil of tears on Friday, Jan 8, 2010. You may be more familiar with his creation Gumby, the green clay character with the lop-sided head ( modeled on his father's distinctive hairstyle ). In addition to Gumby, Clokey created the claymation series "Davey and Goliath," which was underwritten by the Lutheran Church. I remember many a Sunday morning watching while preparing to go to church with my family. For more on Clokey (as well as some interesting clips) see articles on the Boston Globe and New York Times .

This will shock some of my friends, but there was a time when I had little use for Edward Kennedy. His flaws were many and it seemed readily apparent that initially he rode on the coattails of his older brothers. Mike Royko, the Chicago columnist (known generally as a liberal), regularly heaped abuse on Teddy, and (like some others) sneeringly suggested if his name had been Edward Slabotnik instead of Kennedy, he'd never been elected. There's no doubt the Chappaquiddick incident guaranteed that he'd never be president. His abortive run against the floundering Jimmy Carter in 1980 was the proof of that. Perhaps the knowledge eventually lifted a burden from him, because he ultimately became the third-longest-serving senator in U.S. History. His career had its ups and downs (some of these fueled by Kennedy's drinking habits). His marriage to his second wife is credited by many with turning his messy personal life around. He was not the smartest of the Kennedy brot...

I don't have time for a long post (trying to get out of town -- to Washington, ironically) when I learned that Edward Kennedy, a true lion of the Senate, passed away at the age of 77. Yahoo's Reuter feed has more , but I dare say you'll find tons of stories all over the 'net. I'll try to write more later.

A follow up to the previous post about the passing of Les Paul (June 9, 1915 – August 13, 2009), American guitar legend and recording innovator. Here's a clip of him playing one of his signature pieces, "How High the Moon." At about the 1:30 point he jams it into overdrive. My god, this brings tears to my eyes. And here's an archival clip of him and his then wife Mary Ford on Alistar Cook's Omnibus, telling how it's all done.

CNN is reporting that guitar legend Les Paul has died at age 94 . Screw the current crop of wannabees -- Les Paul was the real goods. In addition to being a phenomenal musician (he was playing into his 90's), he revolutionized recording studio technology with multi-track recording, tape-delay and other ground breaking tools. Perhaps the most visible monument to Paul's innovations was the guitar that bore his name. He developed the solid body (another Paul innovation) in 1939 to combat the problem of acoustic feedback that often occurred with amplified hollow body guitars. The "Log" as it was called, was little more than a chunk of 4 x 4 lumber with bridge, pickup, and guitar neck. The distinctive single cutaway Les Paul became one of the iconic symbols (along with the Fender Stratocaster) of the Rock generation. Paul's career as a performer spanned the 30's up to the present. He began playing with such names as Fred Waring, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra ...

Just saw a Reuters report that journalist Walter Cronkite , often called "the most trusted man in America," has died at the age of 92. Born in Missouri on November 4, 1916, he moved to Houston, Texas when he was ten. His broadcast career began when he was 20 and became a radio announcer in Oklahoma. During WWII he covered North Africa and Europe, and was selected to fly on bombing raids over Germany. After the war he covered the Nuremberg Trials. Edward R Murrow recruited him for the new CBS television division in 1950. He became the anchorman of the CBS Evening News on April 16, 1962. Hearing his voice crack when announcing the official confirmation of John Kennedy's death was a defining moment for a generation. My generation. He was a passionate supporter of the U.S. space program and covered most of the launches for CBS. After a Cronkite editorial that called the Viet Nam war unwinnable, Lyndon Johnson reportedly said, "If I've lost Walter Cronkite, I'...

It's been a rough week for celebrity deaths: first Ed McMahon, then Farah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. Now comes the most shocking of them all: William D. Mays, Jr., better known as Billy Mays the infomercial king, has gone to that great toll-free number in the sky, dead at the age of 50 . If you watch any cable or satellite TV you've seen him hawking all manner of amazing products, including OxiClean, Orange Glo and god knows how many other household goods. Best known for his in-your-face braying delivery (" Billy Mays here! ") and take-no-prisoners style, Mays has in recent years become America's most successful product hawker. In April 2009 he was featured in Discovery Channels documentary Pitchmen . Despite the slight air of sleeziness that exudes from "as seen on television" commercials, the products we've bought (they're in stores, too) have (mostly) lived up to the pitch. If Billy promoted it, you knew it would be worth the price (" ...

Indulge me for a few paragraphs...I've put off writing this for 6 months. He's been gone that long. He arrived on the scene about a year after the last of my two old cats went to whatever passes for cat heaven (slow mice, flightless birds). I went out in my bathrobe to get the paper one morning and a little gray tabby-striped kitten, no bigger than my hand, popped up and said "Pet me! Pet me!" Well, he didn't actually talk, but he did rub up against my bare leg and purr louder than I've ever heard a cat purr. I obliged and he followed me up on the porch and into the house, still purring like a fiend. I picked him up and tossed him on the bed where my spouse lay sleeping. She was not the cat person in the household ("how long do cats live, anyway," she once asked). She pulled the covers down from her face and frowned. "Get that cat out of here. You don't know where it's been." Within a month she was letting him sleep on her hea...

Noted in passing: Jack Cover, the inventor of the Taser , died of pneumonia on February 7, 2009. He was 88. Most of his career was spent working in the aerospace and defense industries. He began developing the Taser in 1969 as a non-lethal alternative to conventional firearms and in 1970, formed Taser Systems, Inc. The word "Taser" was an acronym for T homas A . S wift's E lectric R ifle . Boy genius Tom Swift was the hero of a series of juvenile adventure novels first published in the early 20th century. The middle initial "A" used in Taser was added by Cover so the acronym would be pronounceable.

Let's take a break from the mind-numbing election cycle to note the passing of a giant. Louis "Studs" Terkel was classic progressive-liberal whose career stretched from the New Deal to the eve of one of the most historic elections in our nation's life. He passed away peacefully at home on Halloween, after taking a fall earlier in the month. Born in New York to Jewish immigrant parents, his family moved to Chicago when he was 8. After getting a law degree from the University of Chicago, he worked for the WPA writing and performing on radio. Though best known now for his oral histories (a format he pioneered) of ordinary people in such books as " Division Street: America ," " Working ," " The Good War " (for which he won a Pulitzer prize), and " Coming of Age ," during the 1940's and 50's he starred in "Stud's Place," an unscripted TV show produced in Chicago. His politics made him a target by the House Un-Am...