Wonkette
SO LONG, STUDS TERKEL: The great collector of oral histories has died at the age of 96. “I’ve met hundreds, no, I’ve met thousands of interesting people, and I’ve been so caught up with them and fascinated by them and intrigued with them, it’s almost like there’s no room inside me to be interested in my own feelings and thoughts,” he once told an interviewer. [New York Times]
So long, Studs!
Edward Lifson at Huffington Post interviewed Terkel just the other day. It’s great
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/edward-lifson/studs-for-obama_b_137278.html
only sks pics can cheer me up
Adieu Studs!
Best last words ever. Thanks Stud; And move over, Joe the Plumber.
“That Sarah Palin - you know, she’s Joe McCarthy in drag!”
I wonder if he early voted for Obama before he passed away? I hope so. Though, since it’s Chicago, someone can clearly vote on his behalf still. It’s pretty much legal there, I hear. If not legal per se, just a standard practice. Tacit acceptance…Now I’m driveling like Peggy Noonan. Regardless - long live the black list!
In one of his many talks on NPR, he and his host were talking about Christmas, and the subject turned to fruitcake. Studs said he thought there was only one fruitcake in the world, and everybody just kept mailing it to each other. He went on to talk about an autopsy he’d heard about where the coroner said the deceased “had eaten a ham sandwich and a beer in the hours before his death, and had had a slice of fruitcake sometime in the last ten years.”
A few weeks later he said he’d gotten more angry mail about that episode than anything else he’d ever said. He was still laughing about it though.
I can only be so sad on hearing of his death though. Hell, he lived a wonderful, storied (in many ways) life and probably died very contented. We should all be so fortunate.
It is such a shame that Studs couldn’t have made it a few more days in order to see the hard working , middle class person who he trumpeted as the foundation of all that is great in this country, betrayed by the election of an uncircumcised black Muslim who only wants to do two things, sleep with out women and raise taxes.
Damn, I knew I shouldn’t have watched that McCain rally.
Reading his books, you always got the feeling that he really liked the people he wrote about. I know 96 years is a long time but it still makes me sad that he’s not around.
And never did a name better fit a man.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_iGkT2Gi1s
I’ll miss this guy.
Studs Terkel was so good that he has collectively made the group of snarky commenters on Wonkette sentimental and sincere. What a powerful figure.
MrsNateSilver: Don’t worry, we’ll more than make up for it when Cheney has his last short-circuit.
Even in his 90’s, Terkel could down two or three martinis at lunch, walk back several blocks back to his office and work later than us whipper snappers. And with no spelling errors. He seemed indestructable.
His hour long radio interview with a very young Bob Dylan is one of my most cherished recordings.
The loss of a great journalist, an American icon. He knew how to listen.
My dad was a notorious ‘underworld figure’ back in the day. At one time he had to go into hiding and spent that time living near the stockyards in Chicago, where he became lifelong friends with Nelson Algren (Pulitzer for ‘Man with the Golden Arm’) and Studs, who was my hero, right up there with dad.
Nelson understood and wrote about the part gov’t plays in creating an underdog class, so of course he was called a Marxist. His personally autographed copy of ‘Somebody in Boots’ is one of my most prized possessions, meaning it will never see ebay. Simone de Beauvoir (’The Second Sex’) used to meet her lover Nelson at my dad’s house in the late 40′, early 50’s. He had some great stories about it. I asked dad what she was like and he said even dragging around the kitchen in the morning in a bathrobe, cigarette hanging out of her mouth, she was ‘one classy broad.’ Nelson died in 1981 and there hasn’t been a day since that dad didn’t miss him. http://books.google.com/books?id=rK9iQPD5Q0YC&pg=PA16&lpg=PA16&dq=nelson+algren+obituary&source=web&ots=-OJTxaz3wr&sig=-6C4IkOxncuaUL7Xse8b53eMK2c&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result
Nelson wrote about the underdog, and Studs once said we all knew that Prince Philip wept when the Armada sank…but were his the only tears? Studs was interested in the tears of the others…the ones you didn’t hear about. That’s why Studs was my hero…besides being one classy dude.
In spite of Nelson and Studs’ influence, at some point in his life dad became a ….hold on….Republican. Last year at this time he was solidly for McCain. Dad is incredibly independent and stubborn, so I had to use every passive/aggressive trick in the book to get him for Obama. I’ve even posted about the experience on here. Dad has lived and breathed politics for 60 years, and said he’d never in his life seen anything like this election…we both joked a few weeks ago that this whole thing has been so damned crazy we didn’t think we’d survive until Nov. 4th.
Dad died unexpectedly last Sunday, he was buried Thursday, and Studs died the next day. I. have. been. gutted. Somehow, I’ll pull out of it long enough to cast the most meaningful vote of my life on Tuesday in honor of Nelson, Studs, and my dad.
accidental_tourist: Wow, thanks for that nice memoir.
Okay, back blog speak: McCain is so old that ____________.
accidental_tourist: Thanks.
accidental_tourist: Here’s to Studs and your dad. And my condolences.
accidental_tourist: I just lit a candle for your dad back here in CT. You hang in there. Thanks for a great thought.
More than a few of us won’t be alone in the voting booth this Tuesday. My late sister is the one who turned me on to Obama back in 2004, and I’ll be pulling the lever for her sake as well as my own.
accidental_tourist: I can honestly say that I have never been moved to tears on Wonkette before. Until just now. Thanks. I’ll be thinking of your dad and Studs today.
SayItWithWookies: Last week I watched ‘Eight Men Out’ on AMC. John Sayles had the brilliant idea of casting Turkel as the Chicago sportswriter who exposes the fix and makes him the most hated man in Chicago. His performance is letter perfect. Watch it again sometime.
Oh, and I want the Lamborghini Police Car.
http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/27/lambocop-stalks-italian-speeders/?ex=1240804800&en=dced38ed2084eb84&ei=5087&WT.mc_id=AU-D-I-NYT-MOD-MOD-M067-ROS-1008-PH&WT.mc_ev=click
today we are all Studs
accidental_tourist: Wow. I’ve been thinking all day about the genius of Chicago and the people it shapes–those guys you so eloquently eulogize and some others like Louis Sullivan, Wright, Saul Bellow and Barack. Awesome city. I was there last Spring, and it was magnificent. NYC without the shittiness…
Lionel Hutz Esq.: How times change. Richard M. Daley is possibly Obie’s biggest booster. Richard Daley the Elder would not have sold a house to the man.
He made me like people more every time I read his books or heard him interviewed.
accidental_tourist: I can only echo the thoughts of other Wonketteers-
Thanks for the great post. May your father and Mr Terkel Rest in Peace.
accidental_tourist:
Thanks so much for that post. Hang on to that copy of Somebody In Boots: it’s a good book…
In honor of your friend, Algren’s three rules for living:
“Never eat at a place called Mom’s. Never play poker with a man named `Doc’. And never sleep with anyone whose problems are worse than your own.”
Oh darn, I will miss his great work and wisdom. I wanted Studs to live forever, but 96 is close. Used to use his Working when I taught, it is a classic.
@accidential_tourist: very sorry for your loss. Your elegy shows that you have the gift also.
Let’s hope that integrity and the art of listening to people didn’t die with him. Wonkette, try to keep his legacy alive.
Everyone, thank you so much. I think I smiled for the first time in days.
I’m printing off your comments to put in dad’s memory book, they’re that good.