Kevin was one of the early bloggers and a welcome resource during the Bush years. He did some fine, in-depth pieces, as covered in the tributes above. He also started "Friday cat blogging," a nice tradition of more relaxed posting that inspired similar efforts from other political bloggers. Notably, at Mother Jones, he also asked that instead of him getting raises each year that those funds be used to support younger writers.
I didn't know Kevin that well, but I met him once when he hosted a book party for Rick Perlstein, who was promoting Nixonland at the time (a event also mentioned by Digby). Kevin and his wife Marian were gracious hosts, and that night they welcomed many Southern California liberal bloggers into their home, many of whom I met in person for the first time. It was nice talking to everyone, and I enjoyed seeing all the film posters and books on classic films, with several prominent ones related to the great Danish director Carl Dreyer. (Kevin's father had been a professor of speech and film history, and as some of the pieces above cover, Kevin's father started writing a book on Dreyer but died before he could finish it; Kevin's mother completed it.)
I'm sorry Kevin didn't have more time, and condolences to his family and close friends. His best work was very good indeed, and he'll be remembered for his thoroughness and kindness.
I was very sad to hear about the death of my friend and blogging colleague, Mike Finnigan, due to kidney cancer at the age of 76. Mike was a superb musician and a fantastic, generous guy. Celebrity Access has a brief obituary that lists some of his impressive musical credits. He was sought after for his notable chops as a keyboardist (especially on the Hammond B-3 organ) and as a singer. John Amato wrote a nice piece remembering Mike and how his influence spurred John to create his popular liberal political website Crooks and Liars, where Mike was a regular contributor for many years. Mike's memorial service was 8/27/21, and the Facebook page In Memory of Mike Finnigan has videos of the eulogies, many of them funny as well as moving, as well as photos and music clips. (Jill at Brilliant at Breakfast Rebooted also wrote a brief remembrance.)
I got to know Mike from his eponymous feature at Crooks and Liars, Mike's Blog Round Up. Every day, Mike would link a handful of good blogs he found, almost always smaller than Crooks and Liars. Mike introduced me and many other readers to fine writers and blogs, and he actively solicited submissions. I often commented in the threads, and started submitting some of my own pieces (or other good posts I found). Mike was kind enough to link them, occasionally without me submitting them. A C&L link could sometimes give a small blog more traffic in a day than it'd get all year otherwise. In that era, some other popular bloggers like Digby and Shakespeare's Sister were also quite kind about linking other, smaller blogs. But Mike and Crooks and Liars was unusual in that the round up was a regular, daily feature.
Mike and I got to chatting more often in threads and email, and I learned he was a working musician, which is by itself impressive, but he was extremely humble and it took a while to learn how many people he had played with, including a fair amount of the Woodstock lineup: Jimi Hendrix; Big Brother and the Holding Company; Crosby, Stills, and Nash. Because Mike was often touring, he sometimes needed someone to cover Mike's Blog Round Up, and I was honored that he asked me to be one of those people. (He was touring with Joe Cocker at the time.) When Mike starting touring more often with Taj Mahal and Bonnie Raitt to make daily blogging just not viable anymore, he passed the baton to the indefatigable Frances Langum (Blue Gal), who assembled a team of people to take turns handling Mike's Blog Round Up one week at a time. I'm likewise honored to be part of that crew, and when it's been a long day or busy week and getting a post done can be challenging, it's remarkable to think that Mike did it all by himself, every day, for years, sometimes despite grueling hours on the road. The round up has often been informative, but it's also spread the luv and built community. I indirectly owe at least a few friendships to it.
We mostly talked online, but Mike reached out when he realized I was local and a "neighbor." I met him a few times in person, and he was extremely warm and kind. He urged me to come see him play at The Greek Theatre in Los Angeles when he was playing with Taj Mahal and Bonnie Raitt, and arranged for backstage passes. (I just stopped briefly to say hello. Like many an L.A. venue, the Greek is a pain for parking, but the acoustics are fantastic and it was a great show.) My favorite gig, though, was at a small venue in the (San Fernando) Valley. Mike was playing with the Phantom Blues Band, which originally formed to back up Taj Mahal. It was an astounding treat to listen to veteran bluesmen having a blast in an extended set in such an intimate setting.
Mike has an acerbic, biting side, although even that tended to be funny and good-natured, and his political targets were invariably deserving. A key part of being a good musician – or any type of performer working with others – is an openness and generosity, building on what you've been handed and giving energy back. Mike's memorial service made clear that he was cherished by many people for exactly those qualities in many fields: as a musician, as a blogger and political activist, as a friend, as a sobriety sponsor, as a family man. As his wife of 52 years, Candy Finnigan, said in her eulogy, "The success of a man is the way he's loved." I'll miss him and will never forget his generosity.
Much of Mike's music is on YouTube and other sites, which is nice, because the four Phantom Blues Band albums can be bought but some of the older stuff just isn't easily available. I could post clips endlessly, but here's a tour.
Here's Mike with the Phantom Blues Band in 2008 and one of his signature songs, "Part-Time Love," which shows off his B-3 Hammond organ playing, but also his chops as a blues vocalist:
Here's Mike performing "I Got News for You" with Bonnie Raitt in Long Beach CA in 2013:
Going waaay back, Mike's first band (or one of them) was The Serfs. Here's a fine version of "I'm A Man" from 1969:
Here's a sequence on Finnigan playing with Jimi Hendrix. (You can hear a bit more in this series of short clips, parts one, two and three.)
Here's Finnegan and (Jerry) Wood's 1972 album, Crazed Hipsters:
Here's the rousing "Everything Will Work Out Right" from 1976:
Mike often performed with Etta James. "You Gonna Make Me Cry" is a 2000 cover of a 1965 song and has a classic sound:
John Amato posted this clip of Mike performing "Let Me See the Light" from 1991. His high register is really impressive here, especially after you've heard his blues growl. That's some range.
Lastly, here's the Phantom Blues Band playing Knuckleheads Garage in Kansas City in 2017, which gives some sense of the personality and fun of listening to Mike and his buddies live.
I was sad to see that one of my favorite bloggers, Lance Mannion (the nom du blog for David Reilly), died in late April. If you've read his work, you know that his hallmark was thoughtfulness. He covered politics, but also wrote often about books, movies, culture in general, history, and his own life. He observations were insightful and grounded in humanity.
I didn't know him terribly well and we never met in person, although if you read his blog regularly I think you got some sense of the person he was. We corresponded a bit in e-mail and chatted some on his blog. I linked his work fairly often. I made a small donation to his site every year and have a magnet from him on my fridge.
Tom Watson, who knew Lance/David in real life, wrote a nice remembrance that covers Lance/David as a writer, early blogger, and friend. It also touches on the health issues Lance/David and his beloved wife Adrianne faced in the past decade or so, which he sometimes wrote about on his blog.
Blogger Susie Madrak organized a fundraiser for Lance/David's family, which has met its goal but is still open for donations.
His memorial service was live-streamed on Facebook and can be viewed here. The lovely post his son shares is "Robin's last arrow," which Lance posted in 2006.
Here are his Twitter account, and most importantly, his website. It's well worth reading.
I was saddened to learn that long-time blogger skippy passed away recently. His alter ego Gil Christner was an actor and stand-up comedian, and chances are you saw him in a commercial at some point.
Gil's website is here and Joe Gandelman at The Moderate Voice has written a nice obituary.
skippy/Gil lived in Los Angeles, and was a friendly guy in person and online. I didn't know him terribly well, but we corresponded a bit, and he was admirably dedicated to linking other blogs. Most of his posts were written without capital letters, and he had the honor of having his blog mocked on The Daily Show by Jon Stewart. skippy and the late Jon Swift cofounded Blogroll Amnesty Day, in which participants linked and promoted small-ish blogs. That's always good karma. He also pressed corporate media outlets for accuracy and good judgment in their coverage. (He was one of the good guys in a 2008 post of mine about an Obama nonscandal that seemingly would not die, "Skippy and the Mystery of the Missing Journalism," which is a bit long but perhaps a helpful reminder of how vapid most political coverage is.)
If you'd like to honor skippy, check out his blog, read the obituary above and make sure to visit and/or link a few small blogs.
Sadly, blogger Doghouse Riley (Douglas Case) of Bats Left/Throws Right has died at the age of 59. He combined keen, worldly insight with a smooth, conversational writing style. I linked his stuff a number of times during my Mike's Blog Roundup stints at Crooks and Liars, and Anne Laurie at Balloon Juice linked him often, but I wish more people had discovered him (and, as many people have pointed out, that he had a sweet gig as a regular newspaper columnist instead of some of the vapid twits we do have). His pieces on Indiana politics and the layers of Mitch Daniels's hackery were especially incisive. A number of fine tributes (with some great Doghouse passages) have been posted:
Roy Edroso.
World O' Crap.
Balloon Juice.
Lance Mannion.
Indiana blogger Doug Masson.
Scott Supak.
Charles Pierce.
Thrilling Days of Yesteryear.
The local obituary.
As Scott at World O' Crap passes on, "in lieu of flowers, the family suggests that memorial contributions be made to the American Heart Association."
I was shocked and saddened to learn that a former co-blogger, Buck, had died. (He was relatively young; it was due to natural causes; I'm omitting other details for privacy's sake.)
Buck was very good with computers, and that's how he earned his living. He also did all the web design over at Blue Herald, which he revamped several times (the site's mostly dormant now, and has one of his simpler designs up currently, but you can see his old posts). He came up with some really cool custom coding behind the scenes to make all the bloggers' lives easier. I'd occasionally ask him questions about how to do some coding trick. (He showed me how to do the custom blockquotes here at VS, and how to design this post. He was also a big help for managing Right-Wing Cartoon Watch over at BH.) Sometimes he'd pass on a few links for me to read, sometimes he'd just code it himself and pass it on. Buck was generous to a fault, and you quickly learned that if you asked him for assistance, you had to preface it with something like, Hey Buck, this is really minor and please don't kill yourself, but I was wondering about… because he was liable to drop everything to help. Buck was always helping his fellow bloggers, or neighbors, or members of his large, extended family. He was wired that way.
He had an interesting perspective, being a liberal in the Bible Belt, owning guns but for reasonable gun laws, live-and-let-live at heart, but irked by the political insanity of the day, and intolerance especially. Most of all, he was a nice guy. I'll miss his presence in comment threads and e-mail exchanges, his silly, goofy and sometimes raunchy sense of humor, teasing him about his affection for 80s hair bands, his passionate and principled outbursts, and most of all his essential, irrepressible decency. He was just a really good guy. He deserved a longer life. Condolences to all his family and friends who knew him in real life. Those of us fortunate to get to know him online are grateful we did. He will be missed.
I'm very saddened to learn that blogger Jon Swift (Al Weisel) has died. His mother wrote:
I don't know how else to tell you all who love this blog. I am Jon Swift's Mom and I guess I'm going to OUT him. He was Al Weisel, my beloved son. Al was on his way to his father's funeral in VA when he suffered 2 aortic aneurysms, a leaky aortic valve and an aortic artery dissection from his heart to his pelvis. He had 3 major surgeries within 24 hours and sometime during those surgeries also suffered a severe stroke. We, his 2 sisters, his brother, his partner and his best friend since he was 9 years old were with him as he took his last breath. We have all lost a shining start who warmed our hearts, tormented us and made us laugh as he giggled at our pulling something over on us. He passed away on February 27, 2010. My beloved child will live on in so many hearts. I miss him more than I can say. If you are on Facebook, go to organizations and join "Friends of Al Weisel, Unite!" It will give you just a taste of how special he was. Farewell, Jon (Al)
He was only 46. Condolences and best wishes to his family and friends.
There's a Facebook group for him. Here's the Al Weisel homepage for his journalism. Tom Watson has much more, from people who knew him, including his friend Jason Chervokas. skippy has a memorial post rounding up tributes to him.
I didn't know Al Weisel personally. I traded a few links and maybe a dozen e-mails with Jon Swift over the years, talking about art house flicks, books, blog posts and the challenges of staying in character (he played coy). He'd taken breaks from blogging before, and valued his privacy highly, so I had hoped when he stopped blogging last March he had just retired and was living a happy life. He wrote some of the best satire on the intertubes. He also co-founded Blogroll Amnesty Day with skippy, which celebrates smaller blogs, a kindness Jon/Al showed consistently. Finally, he had a great annual series of the Best Posts of the Year (Chosen by the Bloggers Themselves). If you're not familiar with his work, here's a sampler:
Like Stephen Colbert, he adopted a conservative persona to satirize conservatives. It's not the easiest thing to do. If you stumbled upon a Jon Swift post for the first time and made the mistake of reading it too quickly, you might be suckered into thinking he was actually serious. (Conservatives readers would wind up agreeing with any number of preposterous assertions.) He didn't post often, but his posts would quickly make the rounds because they were so good. His best posts featured several sentences or paragraphs that were gems of satire on their own. He often used links as parenthetical asides and further jokes. Creating that sort of multilayered piece requires a wry sensibility, but also a fair amount of research and craftsmanship. Good comedy is hard, satire is harder, and dry wit like that takes both talent and skill to pull off.
The tributes are pouring in, and they're well deserved. Blogroll Amnesty Day continues, and perhaps the "Best Posts" tradition can be revived. Losing a loved one is brutal, and it must be especially hard for his family to lose two people so close together. Al Weisel's mother passed on the news in the comment thread of the last Jon Swift post from last March. As it happens, it was a condolences thread for Chuck Butcher over the loss of his son. Chuck's comment in the thread to Al's mother here is especially moving. At times, we are connected with others in ways we cannot see or imagine, and a little humor and kindness can go a very long way. Rest in peace.
