Here is the next installment of Frank Kresen’s biography of John Stewart. John Stewart 4th Installment Ch 1 and previous installments if you missed them: Prelude: Flashback and Foreshadow Introduction: “On Becoming a Household Name” — or, “One Amp Short” Johnny They Hardly Knew Ye by Frank Kresen
Heroes
Johnny They Hardly Knew Ye: Remembering John Stewart by Frank Kresen
Frank Kresen and I share a deep, lifetime affection for unique songwriter John Stewart, who died six years ago on January 19, 2006. I have written about John Stewart here, and I’m pasting in a link below to a post I wrote two years ago. But the real treat in this post is the PDF…
Remembering Bob Reichenbach, The Friend of a Lifetime (1948-2013)
Yesterday the news came from Nicole Reichenbach that her father and my great and true friend Bob Reichenbach died on December 10th from complications from the stomach cancer he’d been fighting with incredible grace and courage for the last year. I knew this was coming — but it has come too soon, and too unfairly.…
Jim Flower: A True Friend and Extraordinary Human Being
A dear lifetime friend and extraordinary human being died yesterday. Jim Flower was the best friend you could ever want — he was the best man at my wedding and a stalwart and true human being who was a rock in my existence for the 45 years that I knew him. Last night I had…
Malala Yousafzai on Jon Stewart — Truly Inspirational (and We Need It)
A little bit of pure inspiration at a time when I, at least, could sure use some. By the way, she just won the EC Sakharov Award. And here is her book — I Am Malala
Vaclav Havel, the Czech playwright who inspired the world much as Cory Aquino did, is gone
One by one they are leaving us. First it was Corazon Aquino, whose People Power Revolution of 1986 fired imaginations around the world and ignited the possibility of People Power. Half a world away, in grey, central European streets of Prague, another unlikely pro-democracy leader was emerging — a playwright, not a politician, who would…
A warrior-poet who honored his enemy, fallen and forgotten in Mindanao in 1913, remembered a century after his death
Those fallen in battle on either side of a conflict always have a story, and most of those stories are quickly lost and soon forgotten. One story worth remembering of a hero who understood and honored his enemy is that of Lt. Ernest H. Johnson, a Nebraska volunteer who, like many American adventurers at the turn…
What Steve Jobs had to say about death…..
From Steve Jobs 2005 Commencement Address at Stanford: My third story is about death. When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33…
Manny Pacquiao: Do Mexicans Hate Him, Love Him, or something else?
The just concluded promotional tour that saw Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez travel from Manila, to the US, then Mexico City, has prompted a flurry of articles (most, but not all, by Filipino writers) to the effect that Manny was welcomed with an open embrace by Mexicans, who showed him as much love as…
Remembering My Songwriting Hero John Stewart on what would have been his 72nd birthday
Today is the fourth anniversary of the death of John Stewart, the legendary songwriter who inspired me on more levels that I can begin to explain. He left us in 2008 but he’s not gone: his voice, his spirit and his ideas continue. I originally wrote this tribute on what would have been his 72nd…
My Grandma's "Brag Book" Photo Album — Memories Restored in HD
A few years back during a Christmas visit home, I rooted around in the attic and found boxes of pictures going back multiple generations in our family. I took the pictures with me back to California, and they stayed in a box for several more years until tonight, when got out the box, and a…
11th Grader Shree Bose Inspires Hope for the Future by Actually Advancing the War on Cancer
At a time when watching the news is just painful because of 24/7 coverage of the debt ceiling fiasco, Shree Bose popped up on a CNN report and totally inspired me with the story of how the 11th grader won the Grand Prize at the first ever Google Science fair with a Science Project that…
USA-Brazil Epic World Cup Soccer Clash Creates A Transcendent Sporting Moment
If you missed the USA-Brazil World Cup quarterfinal soccer match in Dresden Germany today, go find someone who DVR’d it and watch an instant, transcendant classic that had everything — heroes, villains, plot twists and reversals, and a final transcendent moment where patience and incredible effort were rewarded with a magical goal (the latest ever…
Death of Gentle Slugger Harmon Killebrew Brings a Flood of Memories and a Whiff of Mortality
Reprinted from MichaelDSellers.com It’s a rainy Tuesday afternoon in Los Angeles and I am beset by a mountain of problems, deadlines, tasks unfinished, things to worry about — you name it. But all day, ever since I heard the news that my boyhood idol Harmon Killebrew died yesterday at the age of 74 of esophogeal…
Life is Cruel; Seve Ballesteros is Dead at 54
Celebrity deaths happen – we read about them every day. So why is it that some truly hurt, while others don’t? One that truly hurts me just happened — Seve Ballesteros, the Spanish golfer, has died at 54 from a brain tumor that he had been battling for more than two years. Seve was an…
Beauty and Inspiration From the Ukraine: Kseniya Simonova's Sand Painting
If your spirit is in need of a lift — this is it. Kseniya Simonova is a Ukrainian artist who uses a giant light box, dramatic music, imagination and “sand painting” skills to interpret the peaceful pre-WWII state of her country — then the tragedy and heroism of the invasion, resistance, and eventual liberation in…
Freedom and Jeff: A Story That Truly Inspires
I just came across the story of Freedom, a bald eagle, and Jeff, a cancer survivor. I checked it out on Snopes because it’s the kind of thing that is so fantastic it might be the stuff of urban legend — but it’s not myth, it’s true — the story of an extraordinary friendship between…
Poet Aydah Al Aarawi Al Jahani's Extraordinary and Courageous Voice
Saudi poetess Ayda Al-Jahani has defied the political and religious leaders of her country by competing on Abu Dhabi TV’s Millions Poet and and performing poems which strike out against Islamic extremism. She’s made the top 5.
Comedian Adam Carolla Bashes Pacquiao, Philippines — and Pinoys Are Mellow About it?
Naturally I have various google alerts about Manny Pacquiao and the Philippines and so I woke this Easter morning to a headline from ABS-CBN News that read: “US Comedian Calls Pacquiao ‘illiterate’, bashes Pinoys”. As I read the article in question I did have a bit of anger rising up inside me, but mostly I…
John Wooden On Success
Today’s is Final Four weekend, so perhaps it’s not entirely random that I came across a terrific interview by John Wooden, the Wizard of Westwood who led UCLA to unequaled success back during my formative years. I have always been intrigued by Wooden — such genius yet such balance, and humanity. The talk I found…
Unforgettable: Death of Princess Diana
I was living and working in the Philipppines when Princess Diana died. I was in my apartment at the Hotel Danarra, watching on BBC, when the news broke: