The man deserves a better obit
I write this half for love of obituaries and half for love of orangutans.
We need a rule. When the AP uses the word "some" in the lede, you deserve a better obit. Like: "John Quade, who played the heavy in some Clint Eastwood movies and was the sheriff in the television mini-series Roots, died on Aug. 9 at his home in the Southern California desert town of Rosamond," AP writes. NYT runs the obit at six grafs.
A.V. Club, meanwhile, gives two more reasons for a better obit. This line: "His most famous roles, naturally, were as 'heavies' in westerns like High Plains Drifter and The Outlaw Josey Wales, and he squared off against Clint Eastwood again as motorcycle gang leader 'Cholla' in the famed trucker-orangutan love stories Every Which Way But Loose and Any Which Way You Can." And this line: "As he more or less retired from his acting career in the 1990s, Quade became an increasingly outspoken opponent of the U.S. government and a figurehead of the anti-New World Order movement, giving frequent lectures on the Constitution and, common law, and what he saw as the dangers of being forced to register for drivers' licenses and Social Security cards."
Is everyone going to get behind that cause? Including his call for the repeal of the 14th Amendment? Heck no. But should his politics plus orangutan movies make for a complex life and interesting obituary? Yes. The LAT, the country's best obit paper, lets me down this time.
September 3rd, 2009 at 8:29 AM
[...] My declaration of this a week or two ago greatly amused friend Dave. Now, as the NYT boasts of the 1,200 obits staffers keep in the can, I must make my point for the LAT. What the LAT seems to care about all the time — and what the NYT seems to only care about sometimes — is the relatable human element. In LAT obituaries, a detail may not be a crowning achievement or milestone on the road to a noteworthy life. A detail may just show how that noteworthy life modestly included a life. [...]