RIP Tom Robbins and others
As noted in the introduction to 2005’s Wild Ducks Flying Backward, Tom Robbins “began writing his first novel in 1968 and he’s made it clear that if he’s remembered, he wants it to be for his fiction.” But that collection also made clear that Robbins was likewise a powerhouse of social commentary and comedic gonzo counter-culture journalism.
Robbins, whose most-famous novels include Even Cowgirls Get the Blues and Jitterbug Perfume, has passed away at age 92.
Many people over the years have claimed that the author’s wackiness can make it tough to read an entire novel. That’s why the afore-mentioned Wild Ducks Flying Backward might be a better place to start. The large collection of stories, tributes, critiques, and “responses” to questions such as “how do you feel about America?” and “why do you live where you live?” displays his power of observation.
For example, in “Canyon of the Vaginas,” Robbins offered the kind of travel writing that I find the most helpful. Reporting from west-central Nevada, he didn’t bother with the dry facts of a Fodor’s or Frommer’s, but rather the color of place and pop-culture stories that make (or could make) any and all places relatable to the human experience. Robbins told the tale of taking the Loneliest Road in America to find some canyons, and that asking for directions from the likes of the folks he’s encountering is not an option.
“One simply does not approach a miner, a wrangler, a prospector, a gambler, a Stealth pilot, a construction sweat hog, or sandblasted freebooter and interrupt his thoughts about big, fast bucks and those forces—environmental legislation, social change, loaded dice, et cetera—that could stand between him and big, fast bucks; one simply does not march up to such a man, a man who lifts his crusty lid to no one, and ask: ‘Sir, might you possibly direct me to the Canyon of the Vaginas?’”
Unlike standard travel books, the pleasure of this piece by Robbins is in the anticipation along the journey’s path. Yes, he does eventually get to the Canyon of the Vaginas, only to tell us that the common and perhaps more well-known name of the place is North Canyon. But why would I have wanted to read about that had I known that was the final destination in his trek from Seattle to nowheresville Nevada?
Speaking of Seattle, Robbins’ take on that fine city:
“Downtown Seattle has long been my ‘stomping grounds,’ as they say, although in the past couple of years it’s lost its homey air. A side effect of Reaganomics was skyscraper fever. Developers, taking advantage of lucrative tax breaks, voodoo-pinned our city centers with largely unneeded office towers. In downtown Seattle, for some reason, most of the excess buildings are beige. Seattleites complain of beige à vu: the sensation that they’ve seen that color before.”
A few other interesting things about Robbins:
He was born in one of my favorite places: Blowing Rock, North Carolina.
His nickname as a kid was Tommy Rotten.
He attended Washington and Lee University in Virginia and worked at the college newspaper with its sports editor Tom Wolfe.
He took LSD one day in 1963 and it inspired him to quit his job at the Seattle Times.
He began to find his goofy and descriptive voice as a writer around 1967 when he wrote a concert review of The Doors.
His kids book B Is for Beer was adapted by Robbins and indie-pop master Ben Lee into a stage musical.
Others I wish to rest in peace:
Bob Uecker, age 90 from lung cancer. He was a far-from-spectacular baseball player, including a stint with the St. Louis Cardinals, who would go on to much greater fame as a funnyman on TV shows, Miller Lite commercials, and in the baseball broadcast booth.
William E. Leuchtenburg, age 102, who my favorite documentary filmmaker Ken Burns called “one of the great historians, if not the dean of American historians in the United States, for his work on the presidency.” He appeared in Burns’ series on Civil War and baseball and said in 2017 about President Donald Trump, “We really have no precedent for a chief executive with this sort of temperament—so careless about his statements, so quick to take offense.”
Marianne Faithfull, age 78. I only know her from being Mick Jagger’s girlfriend and muse in the 1960s, but she also had a career in music and film. She was the inspiration behind the Rolling Stones’ lyrics “wild horses couldn’t drag me away” in the song “Wild Horses.”
Fay Vincent, age 86 from bladder cancer. He was commissioner of Major League Baseball from 1989 to 1992—a short while but one with impact. He had just started when an earthquake hit San Francisco as the Giants and Oakland A’s were about to begin Game 3 of the World Series. The next season was delayed by a contract dispute. The first sneaking suspicions of the approaching steroid era began as he was removed in favor of Bud Selig.
Tony Roberts, age 85 of lung cancer. Roberts was Woody Allen’s sidekid city buddy in films such as Annie Hall and Play It Again, Sam, in which he was always too busy taking calls on his phone to notice anything around him, including that Allen and his wife, played by Diane Keaton, were falling for each other. He was also in Allen’s films Stardust Memories, A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy, Hannah and Her Sisters, and Radio Days.
Virginia Halas McCaskey, age 102. She was owner of the Chicago Bears, the daughter of George Halas Sr., and I always thought she was quite adorable seated high atop her stadium perch. Having a little elderly woman running one of the country’s storied hard-nosed football teams was one of the most likable things remaining in a league that gets a little harder and harder to watch each season, with yesterday’s Exhibit A being a snoozefest Super Bowl 59 victory by the unlikeably bullying Philadelphia Eagles 40-22 over the Kansas City Chiefs.