Thursday, December 28, 2006

Chney to CBS: Let's Hang Saddam at Super Bowl Halftime

This email was sent to me by accident today. It was intended for Leslie Moonves, the CEO of CBS.

12/28/06
From: Dick Cheney
To: Les Moonves
Re: Super Bowl Halftime

Hey Les. We're all sitting around up here talking about how to look better on the Iraq issue and we have an interesting proposition for you. I know this is the first Super Bowl for CBS since Janet Jackson. We worked together so well on that one. Karl's idea of the nipple reveal was a brilliant stroke. It took the heat off of us on the war, and sent your ratings through the roof. It also galvanized our base.

So how about this? I know it's coming to you late but….We're offering to hang Saddam on the 50 yard line at halftime at this year's Super Bowl. We figure if you start the promos two days before, the lefties will do the work of getting the word out. I can't wait to hear fucking Olbermann on this one lololol.

We'll pick up the construction of the gallows. KBR can get that built fast, if I tell them to.

If there's any trouble with the entertainment you've already scheduled, Condi had a great idea, have Prince and Beyonce sing "Where Doves Cry" in duet as the trap door opens. W suggested 50 Cent pay tribute to Saddam's crimes with some funky fresh thug rhymes (those are W's words) as Saddam is driven into the stadium in that spare Popemobile they keep in Miami.

I can understand if you want to keep Jim Nance and Phil Simms out of it. We can provide Bill O'Reilly for play-by-play. If you have a problem with Fox talent, I can get you Michael Buffer, everybody loves him.

We can arrange to have several thousand Iraqis in full native costume to weep and wail and cheer as he dies.

I know you understand the entertainment and ratings value of this. We figure it'll help get our momentum back. Get back to me asap.

Can't wait for us to go hunting again!

Monday, December 25, 2006

James Brown In the Witness Chair c.1980

In the early 1980s, James Brown's empire was in tatters. He had sold his James Brown Motor Inn in Baltimore and had to sell WEBB, which before he bought it had been the first all-Black radio station in Baltimore, Maryland. He was selling off properties all over the country.

I was a story producer for Westinghouse's Evening/PM Magazine at the time and I heard that he was going to be in town for a court appearance. Apparently he owed millions. I wanted to see if he would do an interview for the show, so I showed up at the courtroom.

This was around the same time that the federal government had just bailed out Chrysler to the tune of $1.2 billion.

When I walked in, there he was, James Brown himself, on the witness stand. Lawyers interrogated him. The judge asked him questions. It was obvious he was in deep shit.

After a half-hour of questioning, James Brown turned to the judge and in that unmistakable rasp of a voice, and in one moment of pure insight said, "Judge, if I was Chrysler, you wouldn't be doing this to me."

Of course, he was right, but the proceedings went ahead anyway.

BTW….I got the interview.

One day his various behaviors will be forgotten and only the music will remain. Then we'll fully understand his singular genius.

This can also be found at huffingtonpost

Thursday, December 21, 2006

Throwing Rocks at Republicans -- Real Rocks

Kenneth Dwayne Thomas is in jail today in Columbus, Ohio for doing what many of us would like to do if we didn't mind sitting in a similar lock-up. Columbus TV station WCMH said he "was caught on camera throwing rocks at the Republican Headquarters building in Columbus. Officials said windows at the headquarters on South 5th Street have been broken nearly a dozen times… They also said staff members have nearly been pelted with thrown objects. Republicans said they thought the vandalism would die down after the recent elections, but that wasn’t the case."

Is anybody else laughing besides me?

Kenny reportedly told police that Republicans were a cancer and should be exterminated.

He may have gone a little far there. A hefty dose of chemo, yes, but extermination is probably not a good word to use, Kenny. I understand though. Ohio Republicans stole the 2004 Presidential Election and therefore take on responsibility for the actions of the Bush administration since then.

Hey, sometimes you just wanna throw rocks, you know? A pie is more my speed, if I must throw something, but I'm better at throwing invective.

Although Ken is 58, what can a poor boy do? That sleepy college town is no place for a street-fighting man.

I'm surprised the Republicans haven't called it a terrorist act, YET. Give Fox news time though. But even though I'm not advocating the use of violence (did you read that Alberto?), Jim Webb DID want to punch Bush in the chops the other day. It isn't unreasonable to want to punish the Republicans for the damage they've done to America.

Still, a little "yessssssssssss" was heard all over America when folks like me who would like to form an organization called "People for American Payback" heard about Kenny's activities.

Thursday, December 14, 2006

W's Smirk is back

The arrogance and condescension is back in his voice and the smirk is back on his face…the straining to convince us that what he believes is right because he believes it; and exactly what's wrong with us for not believing him? He's leaning forward with that "Don't you KNOW? Don't you understand what I'm SAYING? Is it too COMPLICATED for you? What I'm saying is so OVBIOUS. Why don't you GET it?"

And the look that says, "How many times do I have to TELL you this before you GET it?"

In other words, after a short period of looking "thumped," he is back with all the aspects about him that Americans have rejected, those things that have made him the laughing stock of the world. The only ones not laughing are those who have suffered and continue to suffer and die under his regime.

Did you see him yesterday at his "news" conference with the military? Did you hear him talk about how brilliant they were? And did you notice the two guys flanking him? The one on the right who looked like his head had been used as a bowling ball and the one on the left who had apparently added an extra couple of stories to his forehead. They looked about as brilliant as the slow class at The United States Military College at Mortville.

Am I disrespecting the troops? I think I am. Think about it, what kind of idiot do you have to be to join the military this month? To fight for what? Has anybody told the troops over there that they're getting killed so some fat guys in Washington and Texas can buy mansions, stuff their faces and purchase whores?

You know what I call someone who puts on a uniform and flies to the other side of the world to risk his life for the Republican Party? I call him a terminal fool.

But then, that's what I've been calling W since the moment I first saw him. As part of the media pack when he visited Portland, Oregon in the spring of 2000, before the Republican Convention, I got to be close to him. The first thing I noticed was that his neck was bright red. A sure sign of a drunk.

The second thing I noticed was that, like James Webb, I wanted to slap his monkey face. He was just like all of the fratboy assholes I had ever known. I have never wanted to have a beer, a line of coke with him, or spend another single moment in his presence.

So when he walked out with those stuffed uniforms yesterday, and his mouth formed that ugly smirk, and he said, once again that his way was the only way and fuck Baker and fuck Hamilton and the stretch limos they rode in on, I didn't feel quite a bad as usual. Why? Because he's a pitiful isolated lonely lunatic, clinging to power and ridiculed behind his back by everyone in the world. America's friends, its enemies, its trading partners, even countries who could give a rat's ass what happens in America are laughing at him.

We're all laughing at you George. Don't you get it? Even old Gerald Ford who did absolutely nothing as President, and got fired before he could fall down another time, even HE was voted a better president than W….and by a huge margin.

Wipe it off, W, the Dems haven't even started the hearings yet.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

The Sincere Senator Smith

About this Gordon Smith guy.

As a ten-year Oregon resident, my first lesson in Oregon politics didn't come from any one here. It came on my radio talk show (at the time) shortly after I moved here, and it didn't come from an Oregonian. It came from Washington (DC) writer Bill Thomas. I asked him about the Oregon Congressional delegation. You know, the dirt. He said, "Oh, well there isn't much. Oregon is one of those 'good government' states."

We have our right wing crazies here, of course, but they always lose. They've done their damage over the years; spending limits and mandatory sentencing, both of which have proven failures. This year's election saw the rejection of a conservative Republican and the re-election of the current governor who is best known for his bowling. Hardly anyone can think of a single thing he's ever done. In Oregon, that's not necessarily a bad thing, after all, the legislature meets every TWO years.

We tend to use government here in the way it was intended, to improve things. Although Portland has been living off its gloriously innovative recent past, it's still way ahead of much of the country in the way it decides how things get done. There is less of that now, as the condo class takes over the city, but still people flock here because it's just a better place to live.

There are lots of things on Gordon Smith's minus side. Oregon is the least churched state in the country, but we're tolerant and most of us tolerate Smith's belief in Mormon mythology. We didn't like his recent support of racist Trent Lott's quest to return to House leadership.

Smith isn't easy to pigeon-hole. He's literally from the Udall family. Mo is listed as a "double cousin" (whatever that is). If there is such a thing as the Republican center, he's in it.

He's generally pro gay rights but voted against gay marriage. He's generally with the administration but not on stem cell research. He was against the Oregon physician-assisted suicide law, but sponsored the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act, authorizing $82 million for suicide-prevention and awareness programs at colleges. The act is named after his son who killed himself. It was around that time that he and Oregon's other Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat, became close friends. Remember the striking video of Wyden consoling Smith on the floor of the Senate?

I sat I his office in 2000 when I was working on a magazine piece on the Oregon Death With Dignity law. The other Republicans were trying all manner of fakes and dodges to pander to their base and thwart the law, making things up right and left about the law and its administration. Smith was the only politician I interveiwed who looked me square in the eye and said it was a religious issue for him. I may disagree with him and I'm definitely in the Sam Harris camp when it comes to finding religious views absurd, but at least Smith was telling the truth.
So it was surprising but not terribly so to hear him speak out against the war the other day. He's from one of those "good government" states.

One insight into his personality comes from the Smith Frozen Foods website www.smithfrozenfoods.com. He bought his grandaddy's business in Western Oregon in the 1980s and is known among us snickering Progressives as "the peapacker." But he apparently takes it seriously. And why not? Here's what they say about him, " One of Gordon Smith's earliest memories is stepping into the freezer of a pea processing plant his family owned and feeling the cold air on his face. He saw rows and rows of boxed vegetables, ready for shipment. He saw his grandfather and father at work that day, long ago in the plant. For him, it produced an image frozen in time."
As inadvertent a joke as the phrase "frozen in time" may be, it gives you an idea that this guy may be on the wrong side of many if not most issues, but he's got sincerity coming out his ass.

Nevertheless, he's too late to the Iraq war party. Whether his sincerity overrides his bad choices in supporting the Administration on the war all these years sets up a fun show when he runs for re-election in 2008. He could be beaten by ex-governor John Kitzhaber, should he run. Kitzhaber is a physician who favors cowboy boots and is getting national buzz for his push for better health care. www.wecandobetter.org

this also appears on huffington.com

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Baker Boys -- A Total Waste of Time

With everyone running in circles, leaping for joy and clapping their hands over the fact that Jim Baker's boys have concluded what many of us knew before the war started, that you can't win in Iraq, it might be good to consider:

Any reading of history will tell you that this was the obvious outcome.

And if you had asked any Iraqi at the time (as many did), you would have discovered that yes, they wanted Saddam out, but they wanted us out just as fast.

The overwhelming sentiment in Iraq in the days before the U.S. invasion was that things would be fine if the U.S. would leave things to the Iraqis and go home quickly. Under ordinary circumstances you would expect the U.S. government to know things like that. It is the ultimate irony that the group led by James Baker, which represents the worst in American foreign policy in the 1980s (see: Iran-Contra, etc) would be the ones to bring a sliver of reality to the attention of the Bush White House.

All of those months of study, the thousands of hours of testimony and deliberations will be for nothing. That's because nothing but the total withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq will solve the problems Bush unleashed when he made all the wrong decisions.

He broke it. He can't fix it. America can't fix it. We've proven that. The Iraqis don't want the U.S. to fix it. And if we don't like the manner in which they will fix it themselves, that's our problem, not theirs. They have enough problems. Our leaving will solve one of them. How they solve the other problems is their sovereign choice, not ours. The U.S. doesn't care how the Sudanese are fixing their problems. Or how the Rwandans did.

Blog on folks. Let the hours of punditry reign for a couple of news cycles. It won't matter. Nothing will change until there isn't a single American, military or mercenary, left in Iraq.

this also appears on huffingtonpost.com

Saturday, December 02, 2006

CounterPunch December Playlist

While waiting for Rick Rubin to offer O.J. Simpson an album deal:

1. Zoe Keating "one cello x 16: natoma" CD

You can't cross the street without engaging a cello these days. At least that's the way it seems. Keating, a tall woman with stalks of wild red hair and an international following has cooched up her cello with electronics, loops herself, plays percussion on it, and sounds like a one-woman string quartet with self-percussion.

Matter of fact, she even calls it "layered cello." And even though if you say that aloud, it sounds like some kind of dessert, it is the cello equivalent of "prepared piano." Of course, given today's technology, prepared piano is a quaint concept. This isn't quaint.

If I were writing for a MSM publication I might have to tip-toe around and mew shit like, "this is very modern but it's totally accessible." Well I don't give a rat's ass if it's accessible or not. It's accessible to me, and this is the stuff I'M listening to. On the other hand, this album made it to #2 on iTunes classical chart at one point, so she's certainly well-known.

This is gorgeous, it's exciting and irresistible. She is getting a new cello in a few months. He current cello has been with her since she was twelve. She is all excited about it. She'll continue to travel with the old one, but if you see a new studio album in the future, it will be with the new one. She is all excited about it. She is recording live in Portland, Oregon at Mississippi Studios in December with the old one.
www.zoekeating.com
www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUDI256PY4E


2. John Callahan "Purple Winos In the Rain" CD

He's the quadriplegic nationally syndicated cartoonist with a dark sense of humor that twenty-somethings only dream of having. There is something to be said for a bad attitude coming from a person who actually earned it.

A few years ago videographer/editor Greg Bond and I made a music video of one of Callahan's songs for a TV show we were working on. It was "Portland Girl." Few knew that Callahan was a song writer or a singer at the time. The song was oddly sentimental. Sentiment is not something John is known for.

Guitarist Terry Robb produced this album and John did the illustrations for its brilliant packaging.

The songs are not happy ones, sentiment aside. They come from the depths but are not the whining of someone just out of puberty who never grew out of teen-angst. These are adult, sarcastic; sometimes funny, sometimes pathetic.

It includes a recording taken from Callahan's voice mail of Tom Waits singing one of Callahan's songs to him.

Callahan's voice is soft and fragile, sometimes reaching for notes. Every time he reaches you want him to make it.

Although "Purple Winos In the Rain" is the title tune, and the most promotable for the title if nothing else, the key song is "Touch Me Someplace I Can Feel." You'll have to make that journey on your own, dear reader.

You're going to be hearing about this soon. Remember you heard it here first.
www.callahanonline.com


3. Bob Dylan "Theme Time Radio—Food"

Dylan's radio show on Sirius has evolved from his playing recordings of other people and either cracking wise or obviously reading (stiffly) copy it sounded like someone else had written about the subject of that show.

These days, he sounds much more relaxed, is quipping and making those bad jokes he has become known for in his later songs, and has added audio clips from other songs, radio commercials and other ephemera. His show has gone from a curiosity to a treasure of great old tunes that Dylan finally sounds like he's having fun with.

There have been thrity-one of them at this writing. You can find them online at
http://www.whitemanstew.com/2006/05/12/bob-dylans-theme-time-radio-hour/
It will lead you to the shows.

4. "Let the Good Times Roll: A NW Tribute to Ray Charles

The Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival in Portland, Oregon is one of the best in the country, and perhaps the only one booked by a working musician. Two years ago saxophonist Patrick Lamb, best known for his "smooth jazz" recordings, wanted to get back to his R&B roots and put together an all-star Portland band to pay tribute to Ray Charles.

The result is this album, and it's a powerhouse. New star vocalist Liv Warfield does a duet with harmonica virtuoso and singer Paul DeLay, soul/blues diva Linda Hornbuckle sings on two cuts, veteran vocalist Sweet Baby James Bentonswings, and Wildman Lee Garrett takes the band to outer space.

Solos by ex-New Orleans great Reggie Houston, by Lamb himself, pianists D.K. Stewart and Janice Scroggins, and out of the blue, Eddie Martinez comes out of nowhere on guitar.

A couple of solos on this are poignant to jazz fans in the Northwest from fiery trumpeter Thara Memory, a force of nature for a long time here. He is currently in a wheelchair, a victim of diabetes and is in bad shape. It is lovely to remember him as he was here.
www.nwraycharlestribute.com


5. Bunker Hill "Hide and Go Seek (Part 1)" on Ace CD "The Golden Age of American Rock 'n' Roll: Volume 6"

I bought the single new. I was partial to jungle drums and wild R&B. Little did I know that "Bunker Hill" was actually Dave Walker who had just come from singing with the Mighty Clouds of Joy, and after a brief solo career would rejoin them.

Nor did I know that the musicians behind this song and all of his recordings as Bunker Hill, was none other than Link Wray. Matter of fact the line up on this out-of-control gospel-party-out-of-church is as follows: Bunker Hill - vocals, Link Wray - guitar, Vernon Wray - piano, Doug Wray - drums, Shorty Horton – bass…not that I can hear any guitar. You can listen for yourself on the MySpace page.

Hill (Walker) had been a professional boxer in D.C. Legend has it that he was 18-5-5, with many of his fights on TV. Billboard Magazine even said the he had been Archie Moore's sparring partner, but who knows what the truth is?

The real truth is that I keep playing this over and over. I did when I bought the single, and I continued after I discovered it on this great CD collection (which includes the Sparkletones' "Black Slacks," and Noble "Thin Man" Watts' "Hard Times (The Slop)." I even put "Hide and Go Seek" on my own MySpace page: www.myspace.com/tvdpdx. I have never gotten tired of it.

Walker (Hill) had written "You'll Never Know," one of the songs on the Mighty Clouds of Joy's first album and sang lead on it. His career as Bunker Hill was something he kept separate and concealed, as much as possible.

You can hear the gospel influence as Bunker Hill, and the devil's too. He hooked up with Link Wray in D.C. He wanted to remain anonymous. Link and his brother wanted to call him "Four H. Stamp," but settled on Bunker Hill.

When "Hide and Go Seek" was released in 1962 (in two parts—both sides of the single) it made Billboard's Hot 100, stayed there for thirteen weeks and got up to #33. At a time when Rock n Roll had turned into pop drivel people like Bunker Hill and Gary U.S. Bonds kept the flame alive.

After his next few records stiffed, Walker (Hill) went back to the Clouds. He is said to have died in Houston in the 1980s. But even the most fanatical website can't confirm this. Most of the facts above were taken from such sites. You think I KNEW this shit?

What is this song about? Who the fuck knows? I just can't stop playing it. I'm STILL not ready!!!! (Listen and you'll understand.)
www.myspace.com/bunkerhill


6. Gil Evans "The Individualism of Gil Evans" LP

From 1964, on Verve, I group this with his two Impulse! albums "Out of the Cool" and "Into the Hot." He was a total individual then, and his work remains equally unique.

The personnel on here are astounding. On two of the cuts he uses THREE bassists, Paul Chambers, Richard Davis and Ben Tucker on one and Milt Hinton, Paul Chambers and Richard Davis on another. Ron Carter and Paul Chambers are on yet another tune.

Horn players? Only Eric Dolphy, Steve Lacy, Jerome Robinson, Wayne Shorter and Johnny Coles among others. Elvin Jones is the principal drummer.

Many familiar Evans classics were recorded here first, "The Barbara Song" and "Las Vegas Tango" for two.

There is beauty here that was unparalleled at the time it was released, and which has lost none of its adventurous luster. And it sounds so good on vinyl.

I come back to Gil Evans over and over and over.

7. Flat Mountain Girls "Honey Take Your Whiskers Off" CD

You want to have some fun? Get this album. These girls (and one guy) play old-timey music with great speed, passion, humor and virtuosity. The three women are unique, strikingly unique personalities. In performance you don't know who to watch. In recording, these personalities blend and balance and compliment each other.

Nann Alleman, who fronts her own group, Spigot, has one of the most unforgettable voices in the history of voices. Lisa Marsicek, the fiddler and leader keeps everything from spinning off into outer space. Rachel Gold banjos up a storm.

Most of all, it's great fun.
www.flatmountaingirls.com

This also appears on counterpunch.org

Robert and Me

June 2001 to September 2005, Portland, Oregon

By Tom D’Antoni

On the day I was to meet the subject of a documentary I wanted to do on Physician-Assisted Suicide (legal only in Oregon) I wasn’t ready to meet the patient.

I pulled up outside the beige, white-trimmed nondescript one-story post-World War II bungalow in gritty North Portland at 3:30 p.m. on June 8, 2001. It was the home of Robert Schwartz. I didn’t want to go in. My stomach turned. Inside there was a dying man whom I had never met. What would I find? A picture of best friend Garey Lambert formed in my mind. I was in the hospital room as he died from AIDS five years before. In my mind’s eye I saw him take his last breaths again. I heard them.

I looked at the grey wooden ramp lined with red roses leading up to the front porch. For some reason it didn’t occur to me that it was for a wheelchair.
There were beat-up cars parked on the street. There were blacks and working class whites on the block.

Portland, Oregon is considered by most to be one of the most enlightened, most beautiful, most livable cities in the United States. It is politically progressive, has little crime, a great public transportation system, logical land-use laws and a rich cultural life, all wrapped up in a slightly provincial, exceptionally polite and friendly atmosphere. People don’t even cross the street against the light here.

But the travel guides don’t send you to North Portland. It isn’t pretty and it isn’t sophisticated, even though over the past few years there has been a lot of migration by folks looking for low rents as wealthy Californians have moved North to Portland, pushing writers, artists, musicians and such out of the more desirable areas.

What would Robert Schwartz be like?

I asked George Eighmey of Compassion In Dying if he could find a patient for me for a TV documentary. On the afternoon of Thursday, May 30, 2001, an email showed up from Eighmey titled “Patient for interview.” It read:
Dear Tom:
I contacted the person who is willing to be interviewed for you new project. His name is Robert Schwartz. He is 50 years old. His illness is late stage AIDS. He does not yet have his pills. He told me he plans to pick them up this Friday. He lost his partner, Oliver, to AIDS 2 years ago. Robert was active in the Death With Dignity campaigns in 1994 and 1997. His family is supportive of his decision. His mother and brother plan to be present when he takes the meds. His father and stepmother can’t be present but are supportive.
I told him you would be calling him soon. Let me know how it goes.

I held it for a few days before calling Robert. I dreaded putting myself through the emotional turmoil I suspected it would cause. I printed it and kept it on my desk. I called on June 5th and was relieved that he wasn’t home. I called again on the 6th, same result. I sensed this experience might change my life, but I did not sense the extent.

If I had wanted to write what the next two years would bring as a piece of fiction, nobody would have believed it.
I finally spoke with Robert for the first time on Thursday, June 7, but he told me he wasn’t feeling well enough to see me. I wasn’t sure what to make of that. Was he close to death? Just weak? He agreed to meet me the next day, in the afternoon.

I took the long way to his house. I drove through the neighborhood. I drove around the block several times. I didn’t want to do this. I sat in front of his house. I didn’t want to go in. Finally I walked up the ramp and rang Robert’s bell. Nothing would be the same after that.

He didn’t look 50, and he didn’t look like he was dying. He didn’t look well, either. He was thin, but with a protruding stomach. He was rugged. His face was lined around the eyes, which were soft blue, and kind with a twinkle. His eyes were very alive. His voice was also soft, but strong. There was a small black earring in his left ear. His hair was brown and cut short. He had a red beard. There were bags under his eyes and creases on his forehead. Still, if you guessed his age, you wouldn’t have been an idiot for saying mid-40s.

He looked like a normal guy, and was not obviously gay.

We sat in his living room and talked about the documentary project, Robert in his old cushioned rocking chair which was covered by a patterned quilt. That same chair was the one from which he got up to walk into the bedroom and take his own life 23 months later.

We did not talk very much about his condition. I told him almost immediately that I would not be asking him at this meeting the questions I would ask when the camera was present, that it was my belief that it spoiled the spontaneity of the interview.

He seemed sharp and very aware even though he was in pain.

I told him I had been at the bedside of my best friend Garey as he died from AIDS, and how wonderful it was for him to have his friends and family with him at the end. I mentioned that I was not gay, myself.

He was concerned about exploitation. He may have even mentioned the words, “snuff film.” I explained to him that I had objected to what 60 Minutes had done with Dr. Jack Kevorkian and Thomas Youk. In that segment Kevorkian administered a lethal dose to the terminally ill Youk. I told Robert that although I thought Kevorkian was a pioneer in end-of-life issues, that there was no real context for Youk’s death. That you never got to know Youk and what went into his decision to allow Kevorkian to administer a lethal injection.

Robert agreed.

I told him that the one thing I could promise was that there would be a complete context for him, however this documentary progressed.
He agreed to begin shooting the following Monday, June 11, 2001, on the day he was to receive the pills that would end his life. He wasn’t going to take them that day. He had no firm plans for taking them, no specific date. He was also ambivalent about allowing us to videotape him as he took the pills and died. He wasn’t ruling it out, but he was unsure. I had not yet gained his trust.

For the next 23 months we made the documentary. The story wasn’t all pretty. Over that time, Robert fell in love, was betrayed by that man but later reconciled. He chose two dates to end his life and changed his mind. He had his spleen removed. Finally, when he received a diagnosis of a lung condition that would make him suffocate to death, he ended his life by drinking liquid Nembutal, prescribed legally under the Oregon Death With Dignity law, on camera wearing our mic. That law came under challenge by the Bush administration during the course of shooting. It was upheld by the US Supreme Court last year.

I promised Robert many times that I would tell his story and do right by him, the last time just moments before he ended his life.

Turns out it wasn’t so easy for me. It took two years of legal wrangling for me to get final cut and copyright control of the material. It cost me everything but the love of my wife. What else could I do? I had promised Robert I would tell his story, and nothing was going to get in the way of that.

I didn’t cry when he died. I was working.

I didn’t cry at his memorial, where I eulogized him.

I got emotional now and then during the editing, but that was such an intense tornado of work, I didn’t have time to dwell.

I was sitting in the post production house, after it was edited, after it was posted, looking at the final version. Greg was out of town and couldn’t be there, so it was just me and an editor whom I didn’t know.

I sat through the whole thing. When it came to the bedroom scene I was overcome. Suddenly I didn’t want Robert to die; I desperately wanted him to live.

That’s when I cried.

this originally appeared on commonties.com