Haunting the Web Since 1999
“‘I picture my epitaph,’ he once said. ‘Here lies Paul Newman, who died a failure because his eyes turned brown.” Racer, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and out-and-out movie star (blue eyes or brown) Paul Newman, 1925-2008.
“DFW was a favorite of mine, and often I turned to his brilliant work to recalibrate my sense of challenging writing: the intelligent, the unexpected, the hilarious, the exasperating. Wallace’s stuff didn’t always work, but it was the real stuff.” To what base uses we may return, Horatio: As broke during my SC sojourn, Infinite Jest author David Foster Wallace chose, for whatever reason, to take arms against his sea of troubles this past week, and by opposing end them. (1962-2008.) I can’t say his voice ever really spoke to me — in fact, much like the output of Paul Thomas Anderson in the film world, I often found his essays wrongheaded and his sprawling, self-referential style actively irritating — but that doesn’t mean his loss isn’t tragic and depressing, and all the more so for being avoidable.
Ed Champion, much more of a DFW fan than I, has compiled a worthy list of authors’ remembrances of the man and his work.
“I don’t think there will ever be another career quite like mine. It can’t be duplicated. I came into the field of movie promos just as it was being born. I had the opportunity to work in virtually every style, mostly reading copy that I had written or co-written. Many of the younger narrators of today grew up hearing me. And right or wrong, it became a sort of template for how trailers should be read.” Don LaFontaine, 1940-2008.
“‘He was a hard man and he made no apologies for that,’ Childress said. ‘When it came to me and my mother and my daughter he was the softest.’” Bernie Mac, 1957-2008.
And, if that surprising bit of news wasn’t sad enough, Isaac Hayes, 1942-2008. “They’re standing on our shoulders. Some of them don’t realize [it] because they sample me so much.“
“Not everything assumes a name. Some things lead beyond words. Art inflames even a frozen, darkened soul to a high spiritual experience. Through art we are sometimes visited – dimly, briefly – by revelations such as cannot be produced by rational thinking.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn, 1918-2008.
Um, yeah. As with Strom’s passing in 2003, it’s worth rereading Hunter S. Thompson’s Nixon obit right about now. “I beat him like a mad dog with mange every time I got a chance, and I am proud of it. He was scum. Let there be no mistake in the history books about that. Richard Nixon was an evil man…Some people will say that words like scum and rotten are wrong for Objective Journalism — which is true, but they miss the point. It was the built-in blind spots of the Objective rules and dogma that allowed Nixon to slither into the White House in the first place.“
Same goes for Helms and the Senate. If, God forbid, the media roll over as they did at Helms’ retirement and try to “Russert-ize” Helms now that the racist, homophobic bastard is finally gone, remember this: He was the worst kind of racebaiting scum and the worst kind of hypocrite. He camouflaged his divisive hatred by slathering it in fake, aw-shucks populism. And he spent his career serving the dictates of the wealthiest and screwing over the good people of North Carolina, white and black. Our nation is a brighter place with his passing. [Helms photo via here.]
“‘He ran at full throttle, in both work and play, and was a man of kindness, wisdom and great humor,’ Cameron said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. ‘He was a kid that never grew up, whose dreams were writ large on the screens of the world. I am proud to have been his friend, and I will miss him very deeply.‘” Stan Winston, 1946-2008.
“‘Lawrence Spivak, who founded ‘Meet the Press,’ told me before he died that the job of the host is to learn as much as you can about your guest’s positions and take the other side,’ he said in a 2007 interview with Time magazine. ‘And to do that in a persistent and civil way. And that’s what I try to do every Sunday.’” Moynihan man turned pundit-king Tim Russert, 1950-2008. Now, that‘s a surprise. Russert was a guy I actually met a few times during my Carville days (in fact, I once inadvertently hit him with a whiffleball bat…long story), and he always seemed a genuine, amiable sort, particularly by DC talking-head standards. Obviously, his unique brand of political interrogation left something to be desired. Still, he was taken relatively young (and before his father), which is always tragic. Rest in peace, Russ.
