| why I read the obits |
w.a. stewart
thesiger
the medici cake
shecky
Paul Runyan
(little poison)
(little poison)
the king and his
court
court
the ant farm
cary--in a jack taylor suit
| I live in Los Angeles. I have a morning routine that begins with breakfast at the Farmers Market and here I read the paper—the Times. That’s the routine. The paper doesnt take long. I no longer concern myself with world or national affairs—or the business page either because all my stocks are in the toilet. That leaves sports and the entertainment page I saw my last movie 7 years ago. The movie was Heat with deNiro and Al pacino. I sat watching the film and one scene followed another and one character spoke to another and one exploding car followed another exploding car and there was something about it all that left me in a state of zero suspense. I had seen this movie before. I had seen it 50 times. I left the theater and said to myself: no more movies—-for $7.50. I declared a moratorium. Now its seven years later, the tickets are $10.50 and the moratorium remains in place. Thank god for sports-—and stories about people like Julio Ortiz, pitcher for the Cubs, who went 8- 11 last year with an ERA of 5.34 and has rejected the clubs latest offer, a 3 year contract for 1.9 mil per. Ortiz wants a 5 year contract for 3.2 mil per. He has filed for arbitration. I finish the paper and that is the cue for an old woman who sits nearby to shuffle over and ask to borrow the Metro section. She says: “I like to read the obituaries”. She says this every day and every day I say, shoving the paper over: “take the whole thing”. Its part of the routine. I am 66. You hit a certain age and somehow stories about babies in Africa dying of starvation with flies crawling around inside their eye sockets and psychotics who chop off the arms of young girls and CEOs who have wangled a $9,000,000 severance agreement from a company they have just finished running into the ground, etc, ect, have lost their appeal. One day I turned to the obits. You may recall a story, circa 1996, the city was Oakland Ca, and the subject involved the teaching of English to black kids. It was the Oakland Unified School District—OUSD--that after many meetings and much informed debate decided to induct into the curricula a subject called Ebonics--black English. Black kids had a problem, their English was horrendous, spoken and written both and there was a reason: they learned from the parents, who learned from their parents, etc, and it all went back to the old days, on the plantation, where very little time was spent conjugating verbs. Instead a natural lingo featuring such quaint grammatical howlers as “somebody bin lef him head up de tree an de crows done gobble ebery bit of de meat off”, etc had evolved and continued to evolve, it evolves to this day and now we have all these kids attending school who view the many dos and donts of standard English as hopelessly unlearnable. Enter: Ebonics The argument as presented by OUSD went something like: Lets make Ebonics a legitimate subject taught in the classroom to give these kids a little confidence and self-esteem and in this way a smoother transition into proper English will begin to occur—-maybe. It was something like that. The story broke and the reaction was unfavorable. Maybe that isnt the word. Maybe savage ridicule and devastating scorn--from white and black alike-—was the word. The media went nuts. It was a bloodbath. There was feedback from another direction: the standup comic. You know when your project quickly finds its way into the repertoire of every standup comic in the country that you are finished. The preferred routine, a George Carlin routine, featured a high school English teacher taking a class in Ebonics, now required for certification, and taught by a 13 year old black kid who was patiently clearing up any confusion in the mind of the teacher between the perfect tense—“I gone done it”--and the pluperfect—“I bin gone done it”. A month passed, and OUSD retreated from view to lick their wounds and reconsider this move and they reconsidered it right out of the curricula. that was the great Ebonics debate/debacle Now it turns out, according to the obit page, that Ebonics goes back a few years, to 1960, when a guy named WA Stewart, a white guy, a professor of linguistics, became interested in something called Gullah, an obscure southern dialect that derived from Creole. Stewart was a Scot, born in Hawaii who grew up speaking English, Spanish, Portuguese and Hawaiian. He traveled, teaching here and there and picking up more languages along the way: German, French, Dutch and a handful of exotic off-beat lingos such as Wolof, Sranan, Papiamento—-and Gullah. In 1960 he found himself in Washington working at the Center for Applied Linguistics where he did some tutoring of inner city kids with reading problems. He taped some conversations of these children and assembled simple readers that utilized some of their nonstandard expressions. Using these primers the children quickly learned to read. That was the beginning of Ebonics—black English. The idea was to use Ebonics as a device—not to replace English but as a bridge to facilitate transition to the standard The mistake made by OUSD was to insist, as Stewart himself had insisted, and lived to regret, that Gullah is a legitimate tongue that applies itself to specific rules of grammar in a judicious way that is as rigid and formally sound grammar-wise as standard English. etc, etc. That was the story. RIP dude Another obit: Did you know that in 1994 a publication, Entertainment Weekly, assembled a list of the 100 greatest moments in TV history, including classic episodes from shows such as I Love Lucy, the Honeymooners, All in the Family, etc and among these glittering creations was a TV commercial, a Volkswagen commercial, the funeral commercial that begins with a procession of gorgeous cars—-Rolls Royces, Lincolns and Cads, ect, with a battered VW Bug bringing up the rear. Cut to the will, involving a fortune of 100 million and its all left to Harold, a distant nephew and owner of the Volkswagen. Why? Because the deceased, the old man, knew the value of a buck, thats how he got his bucks and now in the writing of the will he decides to teach a memorable lesson in thrift to the immediate heirs--a bunch of worthless profligate wastrel types. The spot was created by Roy Grace, art director at Doyle, Dane, Bernbach advertising, dead at 66. Heres another: Wilfred Thesiger, dead at 91. Who was Wilfred Thesiger? He was an Englishman, born in Ethiopia where his father was a member of the British legation. Here the son spent a marvelous childhood, along with his mates, the privileged and non-privileged alike. The main activity was to tag along on native lion hunts. In those days it was considered more sporting to dispense with guns and to rely instead on the spear. At age 13 he was returned to England to attend boarding school. It was a difficult time for him. He was an obvious misfit and brutally hazed and to end the hazing learned to box. He went to Eton and Oxford and emerged a well educated English gentleman type. But this was a pose--a mask. He wasnt the English gentleman type. He was the native African lion- hunting-with-a-spear type. He itched to return to the bush and he did return.. He embarked on a series of expeditions, in Africa and Iraq and his reputation began to grow. During the war he served in the Sudan and Ethiopia as a commando for the British army. The stage was set for his most spectacular feat—the crossing of the empty quarter in Saudi Arabia. This is the desert that occurs in the movie Lawrence of Arabia and is described as “the suns anvil”. The English travel writer Eric Newby mentions an encounter with Thesiger. Newby was in Pakistan, traveling with a friend, scrambling up, down and around in the Hindu Kush range and one night, bedding down in their tent, the tent flaps part and standing there is Thesiger. Newby and his mate are stretched out on an air mattress, that they preferred to sleeping on rocks, and now receive from Thesiger a withering look and he says: youre a couple of pansies! He also said: all this jabber about sterilizing water with tablets is nonsense. Ive never sterilized water in my life. I drink it straight from the ditch! And he also said: the worst misfortune to befall the human race is the invention of the automobile. It was all set down in a handful of books-- Arabian Sands, The Marsh Arabs, The Life of My Choice—and well worth reading not only for the flavor of the subject but the clarity and precision of the style—a natural writer. What is the function of journalism? There are two functions—of equal import-and they are: 1) to piss you off; and 2) to create fear. To inform, enlighten, entertain, to give pleasure—such as the reading of a gifted journalist—all these things occur from time to time but priority-wise, they are way down the list. The list follows: Genocide Super virus Screwing the poor Sexual perversion such as: pedophilia, necrophilia, zoophila (sex with animals) The surgical boner Food recall Hookers for politicians Etc, etc But the obits are different. The obits depart from the average journalistic coverage in a significant and much more satisfying way. There is no need to pump things up—-to unleash the hype or belabor an angle because the people are dead. Death is the angle. The writer is merely obliged to present the facts which are allowed to speak for themselves. And speak they do, eloquently, of people, the ordinary and extraordinary both, but with one thing in common: they found something to do and they did it-—full speed ahead. The obits can also be broken down into categories: Humanitarians Sports War heroes Business Exploration Inventors/entrepreneurs The arts Miscellaneous Lets go first to miscellaneous where we find Janet Malcom-—the cake lady. Janet was the Babe Ruth of cake decorating.McCalls Magazine called her “the goddess of sugar”. She won the coveted New York Confectionary Association Cake Decorating Contest 14 times—a record. You name it Janet designed a cake to celebrate it. She did public works (Hoover dam) historical events (the Lindbergh New York to Paris flight), movies (Jaws- that featured a shark of white chocolate devouring the Robert Shaw character, heavily bleeding strawberry juice). She did cartoon characters, athletes, architecture (the Guggenheim museum in NY). Dead at 74 Show biz: Shecky Green My father loved a good comedian and of them all his favorite was Shecky green. Shecky had a joke about Frank Sinatra. He said: Frank saved my life. It happened in this way. I was doing a show at the Sands in Vegas and Frank was in the audience and I made a joke—a Sinatra joke, very funny but I noticed Frank wasnt laughing. Later, when I was leaving the casino two guys grabbed me and started beating me up. They were quite violent. I said to myself: this is it--Im a dead man. Now Frank comes walking by. He stops and says: thats enough. Shecky, dead at 76 Sports: what is the greatest nickname in sports? is it the “Sultan of Swat” (Babe Ruth), the “Galloping Ghost” (Red Grange), the “Manassa Mauler” (Jack Dempsey)? No--it is “Little Poison”--Paul Runyan. Paul was a golfer and the nickname derived from his size--5’9 140 lbs--and the devastating effects of his short game in a match play situation. Its nice to hammer one off the tee but you are better advised to tune up the short game— pitching, chipping, putting--where the strokes are. Arnold Palmer said: a pitching wedge in the hands of Paul Runyan is like giving a grenade to a terrorist For example: the 1938 PGA finals. Pauls opponent was Sam Snead—Slammin Sammy. It was a 36 hole match that Runyan closed out at the 29th hole—8 up with 7 to play--the golfing equivalent of a rout. Snead was routinely 30-40 yards past Runyan off the tee and just as routinely lost the hole. He stood by watching Runyan plunk down one perfect pitch shot, chip shot, explosion shot from the bunker after another and drill a series of long, short and medium range putts that prompted Sam to say: this isnt golf; its some sort of mystical occult type thing. Runyan won 29 tournaments as a player and followed it up with a second career as teacher. He died at 93. In the hospital a friend came to visit and as they spoke the question that always formed on Runyans lips formed one last time. He said: how are you playing? The friend launched into a dismal tale of putting woes. Runyan said: move the thumb of your left hand more over to the side of the shaft. Then he died. Sports #2: Eddie Feigner—softball pitcher. Eddie was one of the phenomenal athletes of his time—or any time. He threw a softball 104 miles an hour. He threw 10,000 games to record 141,000 strikeouts that included 930 no hitters and 238 perfect games. Eddie barnstormed the country with his team—“The King and His Court”—4 players— Eddie, the catcher and 2 outfielders. You dont need 9 men when you throw a softball 104 mph. He also pitched from second base, behind his back, between his knees and blindfolded. In 1964 during an exhibition game at Dodger Stadium he struck out Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Maury Wills, Harmon Killebrew, Roberto Clemente and Brooks Robinson—in order. Dead at 81 Sports #3: Lou Thez—-wrestler. Lou learned to wrestle from his father, an amateur champ in Hungary. It was real wrestling—-Greco-Roman style. Lou wasnt an entertainer. His father said to him: you must hurt them—then they will remember you. Lou wrestled for 55 years. His last match occurred in 1990 age 71. His opponent was 27. The opponent weighed 270. Lou weighed 215, the same weight he wrestled at as a youth. But as a youth he didnt have an artificial hip. He lost the match when he got slammed to the floor and the hip caved in—painful. He said: something told me not to take that match. But I did it anyway. Lou—-down for the count at 84. Isaac Asimov, author. Maybe author isnt the word. Thats like calling Hitler chatty. Asimov wrote—this is not a typo-—300 books. This was the era of the typewriter, before word processing, so you can add another 30% labor to the rewriting process. He owned two typewriters because one was always in the shop. And these are real books—not to be confused with some cutesy novelty type production that clocks in at 60 pages set in 14 point type. Asimov wrote novels and sci-fi and biographies and essay and story collections and books on science---physics, chemistry, astronomy, and educational texts requiring, in addition to the actual writing, vast amounts of research. Do the math. 300 books over a 30 year career equates to 10 books a year or one book every 36.5 days. Gino Merli—war hero, the Congressional Medal of Honor. Merli was defending a roadblock against a German patrol. The rest of the squad was dead. He fought the Germans off 3 times and the fourth time the Germans found him dead at the bottom of his foxhole. They knew he was dead because when they poked him in the hind parts with a bayonet there was no response. Its easy enough to play dead, less so when a German soldier is poking with his bayonet into your hind parts. The Germans moved on. Now Merli returned to life and machine-gunned them from behind. Time passed—a couple hours. He stayed put in the foxhole, tending his bleeding tush and imploring God to provide salvation. God sent more Germans. The scenario was repeated; he plays dead, the Germans move on, he machine guns them from behind. In the morning the Americans regained the roadblock and Merli was retrieved from the foxhole. Scattered about here and there were 19 dead Germans. Plant biology: A tomato is a tomato is a tomato—but not for Charles Rick, 60 years a professor of plant biology at UC Davis. Rick was a pioneer in the study of tomato genetics, served as curator for the Tomato Genetics Resource Center at Davis and as such was responsible for the archiving of many unique mutant tomato stocks developed by researchers world wide that might otherwise not have survived. Inducted into the Horitculural Science Hall of Fame in 1997 andknown thereafter as “Mr Tomato”. Dead at 87 Loren James, movie stuntman. Loren as a youth starred as a gymnast and high platform diver, briefly considered a career singing opera and was teaching high school math when he got a call to fill in for a stuntman who backed out of a cliff diving stunt. Thus began a 40 year career as a stuntman—the stuntman of stuntmen. When was the last time you hurled yourself from the roof of a train into the waiting arms of a giant saguaro cactus.How about inviting a monstrous snake, a python 26 feet long, to wrap itself around you and squeeze you to death, and to nearly succeed until—count ‘em— 19 men were obliged to jump in and pry the beast from your body. Or to: offer your throat to an enraged rottweiler, pitch yourself from a horse over the edge of a cliff, leap from one truck doing 70 to another truck doing 70 in the opposite direction. Etc, etc. Loren—dead at 83, of natural causes. Dentistry: Charles Goldstein. Goldstein attended dental school at UC San Francisco and earned a masters in public health at UCLA. In 1970 he took charge of a mobile dental program operated by USC—suffering from neglect. The dentists were students who worked out of a trailer and the patients—migrant farm labor types—sat in cardboard dental chairs. These were patients who hadnt seen a dentist in 20 years and were ashamed to laugh because of the condition of their teeth. Goldstein was a can do type—the type that does whatever it is that needs to be done. He swept the floor, emptied the garbage, cleaned the toilets and gradually under his direction and tireless labors the program began to thrive and receive decent funding. The cardboard dental chairs were replaced with a mobile type Goldstein designed himself, along with other equipment including a trailer to transport it all to whatever site where the poor were in need of dental care. The program continued to expand and satellite versions began to appear throughout the state. Goldstein established free dental clinics for Synanon, one for native Americans and another at Union Rescue Mission on skid row in Los Angeles. Goldsteins son said: “My father thought a persons highest calling was to serve others. He did that as a dentist”. And Goldstein said: “Self-esteem begins with a decent mouthful of teeth”. EJ Cossman—salesman. EJ started out selling encyclopedias door to door and then it was on to hustling reproductions of famous art works at trade shows. One weekend at a trade show he looks over to his neighbor in the next booth- -peddling shrunken heads for $2.98. EJ chuckled to himself at this sorry enterprise but then he noticed, during the 3 days of the show, that while he had sold 27 copies of D’Vinci, van Gogh and Ruebens paintings the shrunken head guy sold 3000 shrunken heads. He thought it over and did the sensible thing: to go into partnership with the seller of shrunken heads. The following year he sold 2 million shrunken heads. Next--the potato gun a huge seller, conceived during a potato surplus, a toy for children to fire these little spud pellets into the heads of playmates. And then it was on to the ant farm, selling like blazes to this day, and there was this novelty and that novelty and the other novelty, all in the same vein,the useless but irresistible vein and everything sold via mail order to keep the overhead down and when you add it up equates to a palace on your own island in the Bahamas. Jack Taylor. Taylor was a tailor--a celebrity tailor. He dressed Cary Grant, jack Lemmon, Sinatra, Babe Ruth, Harry Truman, the Duke of Windsor, etc, A Jack Taylor suit started at $2950 or you could buy the pants only for $750. It was all done by hand, the sewing, the stitching, the lapping and basting of the seams, and for the pants a special touch—a cotton insert that attached to the crotch to be cleaned separately thus sparing the garment from excessive wear and tear over at the cleaners. Jack said: That was a different time. Men knew how to dress. They appreciated quality and were willing to pay for it. Cary Grant was his favorite. He said: Cary Grant was born to wear a suit—a Jack Taylor suit. His problem was paying for the suit. Cary was cheap. He saved used string. And there was Richard Buffum, columnist for the orange country edition of the times who started out editing a small weekly paper and made the horoscopes up himself when the regular staffer was sick or hungover; and there was Ellwood Perry, inventor of the spoonplug fishing lure –the “bass assassin”; and Tung-yen Lin, Chinese civil engineer, a pioneer of pre- stressed concrete that revolutionized the building of bridges, dams, skyscrapers, the freeway overpass, of whom it was said by a colleague that Lins studies and researches into the design of this material “changed the history of building”; and John Weitz, fashion designer who doubled as a spy for the OSS during world war 2; or ____, actress in the films of Mike Leigh, dead at 41; and Cuesta Benberry, quilt scholar; and Robert Aplanap, philanthropist who patented the valve controlling operation of the aerosol spray can; and Momofuku Ando who perfected the drying, packaging and rehydrating of the noodle, Ramen, noodles in a cup, 4 or sometimes 6, for $1, and currently registering annual sales of 92 billion units. I could go on but you get the idea. My point is this: if you suffer from newspaper burnout and have overdosed on the follies, stupidities and appallingly squalid behavior of your brethren, if you prefer to laugh, not throw up, or at least have your thirst for information satisfied in a more edifying way-—check out the obits. Remember: no news is good news, life is short, and ignorance is bliss. |
