off the leash

Whatever Happened To? Mitch Ryder

Posted on January 18, 2026 by Ken Dowell

In between the days of Chuck Berry and the era of The Rolling Stones, there was Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels. Turn on rock radio in the mid-60’s, whether the popular AM stations or the new FM alternatives and you’d hear “Devil with a Blue Dress On” or “Jenny Take a Ride” or “Sock it to Me, Baby.” One writer (Scott Benares of the Fort Lauderdale News, Sept.. 23, 1983) described a band “fronted by a nervous, brassy kid named Bill Levise Jr. who had an aggressive, gravelly voice that leaped off vinyl and nearly mugged listeners.”

William Levise Jr., was Mitch Ryder’s real name. Born in 1945 in a Detroit suburb, the story is that he found his performance name in a Manhattan phone book.

By 1968, poof! Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels were no more. Things spiraled downward from there. William Schmidt of the Detroit Free Press (March 5, 1972) offered this summary: “It’s difficult to say just where things went wrong. Maybe in late 1966, when he broke up with the Detroit Wheels and was set on a new and disastrous course by his manager. Or maybe in 1968, when he was billed briefly as a cabaret star and his agents released this bomb recording, Mitch Ryder’s funkless rendition of ‘What Now, My Love?’ But by 1970, there wasn’t much left. That’s the year Mitch’s wife sued him for divorce, and the judge gave her custody of Mitch’s little boy and girl. And then, in 1971, there was the bankruptcy, $176,000 unpaid bills. About $15,000 in unpaid income tax. Another $24,000 owed to a booking agency. $9,000 to the musician’s union. And dozens of little bills – $5 here, $30 there, $12 someplace else – all of it owed to motels and restaurants and gas stations that Mitch Ryder had passed through during the last two years, moving around and running out of luck. Playing out his time and losing all his money.”

Ryder would later tell Robert Palmer of the New York Times (June 29, 1983): ”The people who were running my career thought I should go to Vegas and become the new Tom Jones. And I couldn’t handle it; the schmaltz just wasn’t me. Unfortunately, I’d been real young when I signed with (producer Bob) Crew, and essentially I said, ‘I don’t care what you do to me, just make me feel good.’ I did, for a while. But in the end, people made millions off of me and I didn’t come out with much of anything. Ever since, I’ve been kind of gun shy.”

For a while, he left music behind. “Unhappy with the route his management was forcing him to go musically, Ryder chose to walk away from the industry from 1973-77. ‘I did menial labor – worked around dangerous chemicals,’ is all the always outspoken, but fiercely private Ryder would say. ‘I had to. … I did what I had to do.’” (Federico Martinez, Muskegon Journal, July 16, 2009)

For the next five decades, he has been on the comeback trail. A trail with its ups and downs. He got a boost in 1983 when he connected with John Couger Mellencamp. The latter produced a Mitch Ryder album titled “Never Kick a Sleeping Dog.” While nowhere near the success of the Detroit Wheels era, it was well received. But another setback would follow.

“…serious problems with alcohol and drugs took their toll. A negative review of one of his shows in a Calgary newspaper helped convince Ryder it was time to enter a rehabilitation program. ‘There was a Calgary headline that said, ‘Ryder Bottoms Out’,’ explained William Levise Jr. ‘And I guess I agreed with him.’

“‘Two years ago I entered the hospital, and I’ve been clean ever since – not a drop. The importance for me is just being out there. I need to work.’” (Nick Krewen, Hamilton Spectator, Jan. 25, 1990)

One year after that was written, Ryder is back on the road and Jeff Spevak of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle (Dec. 23, 1991) had this review of one of his shows: “The band filters onto the stage in darkness, watched by the glowing red bat eyes of the amps and a comfortably full house at the Horizontal Boogie Bar. These people want to see a genuine rock ‘n’ roll legend of the ’60s.

“But which one of these coffee-house beatniks is Mitch Ryder? The Wheels, serious-looking musicians – bang on their instruments to make sure they’re plugged in as roadies with handcuffs on their belts (what kind of trouble are they expecting?) do some last-minute tinkering. Then one of the men in black speaks – he’s opening the show by introducing the members of the band. So, that’s Mitch Ryder. He’s wearing dark glasses, his hair swept back over his head. The rock ‘n’ roll legend looks like Jack Nicholson. Ryder shifts through the fragments of the ’60s like a man kicking around the pile of rubble that was once his house before the tornado came through town.”

Ryder has been a nostalgia act going on 50 some years now. But not in Europe.

“‘I literally have two parallel careers,’ Ryder said via phone recently. ‘My European career started in 1978, and I record fresh material almost every year. The European stuff keeps my creativity elevated.

‘I love giving the people what they want, but I get more gratification performing the new stuff. In this country, people aren’t interested in the art; all they’re interested in is a time period.’ (Timothy Flynn, Flint Journal, Aug. 6, 2009)

One other issue hampered Ryder in the U.S.

“’I have a contemporary life. I play gigs with people that are currently happening over there. It’s better for me in Europe than it is in the U.S.’ In fact, Ryder reports that he regularly releases albums in Europe. ‘My last album was called Rite of Passage, and was cut with East German jazz musicians,’ he says. ‘It’s one of the best albums I’ve ever done.’

“Ryder says Rite of Passage will never see the light of day in North America for controversial reasons- – namely a song supporting an infamous U.S. doctor renowned for physician assisted suicides. ‘I’ve had to suppress it here because I wrote a song to Dr. Jack Kevorkian, who’s a personal friend,’ explains Ryder.

“’It got a lot of negative press here, especially around Detroit last summer. They prohibited me from doing the song at a state fair, so I refused to play the fair. That’s what I like about doing music over in Europe. You can do things without fear of consequences or reprisal.’” (Nick Krewen, Waterloo Region Record, April 11, 1995)

In 2012, Ryder released an autobiography titled “Devils & Blue Dresses: My Wild Ride as a Rock and Roll Legend,” a title he professed to hate. Brian McCollum of the Detroit Free Press offered this summary (Jan. 12, 2012): “It’s an exhaustive — and sometimes emotionally exhausting — account of his tumultuous life and career, a trip that began with ’60s hits such as Jenny Take a Ride! and Devil with a Blue Dress. For Ryder, the book was a tough but cathartic journey that found him revisiting his early whirl of fame, the start of a personal roller coaster that included showbiz foul play, busted marriages, periods of drug abuse and squalor, betrayals both dished out and received. Salted with dark humor, peppered with political and cultural asides, the book includes glimpses at local rock personalities — from Bob Seger to Creem magazine staffers — and Ryder’s celebrity anecdotes, including partying with the Beatles and watching Bob Dylan record Highway 61 Revisited.”

Now 80, Ryder is still making music and playing gigs. In 2024 he released a double live album on a German label called “The Roof is on Fire.” Last year saw a new studio album called “With Love” that he recorded in Detroit. In August he was the headliner at the Waukesha (Mich.) Rotary Blues Fest.

Then, in November, he showed up for a gig that was booked more than 50 years ago.

“The year was 1968. Rock and roll group Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels were scoring hit after hit across America, with singles like “

‘Sock It To Me’ and ‘Devil With A Blue Dress On’ dominating radio airwaves.

“So it’s easy to understand why students at Wooster (Ohio) High School were ecstatic to learn that Mitch Ryder himself was coming to town to perform a concert — just for them.

“Until he didn’t.

“At the last minute, for reasons still unknown, Mitch Ryder finked out.

“Our student newspaper had the headline ‘Mitch Ryder Finks Out Quick,’” recalled Carolyn Robinson, Wooster Class of 1971.

“The concert had been a prize from a WKYC radio contest, challenging area schools to raise money for the American Heart Association.

“Then, nearly six decades later, Robinson found herself fundraising to restore Wooster’s historic Lyric Theater. That’s when inspiration struck.

“‘I thought, I’ll reach out to Mitch Ryder and see if he’ll come to Wooster to fulfill his promise from 57 years ago,’ she said.

“To her surprise, he said yes.

“This week, the now 80-year-old musician, still touring globally and riding high on a Billboard top-five album, returned to Wooster to make amends.

“His first stop was a meet-and-greet at the Lyric Theater, followed by a visit to the Wayne County Historical Society. Then, at long last, he headed to Wooster High School — the scene of the long-ago cancellation — to finally deliver the performance that never was.

“‘I’m here now to bring joy and happiness to everybody,’ Ryder said. ‘Most of the people out there are my age — we’ll have to check their pulses every once in a while!’ (Author: Mike Polk Jr. and Zachariah Durr, WKYC [Cleveland], Nov. 7, 2025).

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(Newspaper stories cited above were accessed on newspapers.com.)

The Art of Books

Posted on January 11, 2026 by Ken Dowell

Contemporary Volumes

The Morris Museum, Morristown Museum

The pieces in this exhibit are not just about books, many are made out of books. In the words of the curators, “the book is reimagined not only as an object of content, but as a site of transformation—where material, meaning, and message converge.”

New Wonderland, Brian Dettmer. Made from the 12-volume Wonderland of Knowledge, a 1947 children’s encyclopedia.

The World at Home, Brian Dettmer. Made from nine of the ten volumes of the New Standard Encyclopedia, 1943.

Georgia HB 888 was created in opposition to Critical Race Theory.

Posted in Art | Tagged art, books, Morris Museum, museums | 2 Comments

It’s cold out…let’s stream a movie.

Posted on January 4, 2026 by Ken Dowell

Some recent films added to popular streaming services. Some worth a watch. Some not so much.

Bugonia ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Ever encounter a CEO who you suspected of being an alien. That’s what Teddy Gatz (played by Jesse Plemons) thinks of pharmaceutical CEO Michele Fuller (played by Emma Stone). Fuller’s company had provided Gatz’ mom with a treatment that put her in a coma. Couldn’t help but think of Luigi Mangione. Or the guy who stormed the Washington PizzaGate restaurant.

This is a dystopian tale of the human race self destructing. Nobody’s calling climate change a hoax in Bugonia.

Of the people I know who saw this movie, it got mixed reviews. Not from me. I enjoyed it. It’s engaging, keeps you guessing and is funny but with an underlying depth. Stone is great. So is Plemons (though I kept thinking he looked like Clayton Kershaw). I don’t think it’s a spoiler to note the movie ends with the song “Where Have All the Flowers Gone.” A fitting conclusion.

(Available on Peacock and Amazon Prime)

It Was Just an Accident ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

First comes the accident. A man driving home with his wife and daughter hits a dog on a dark road. His car fails. A Good Samaritan fixes it but his co-worker identifies the driver as Peg Leg, a member of an authoritarian regime that violently repressed striking workers.

The co-worker, Vahid, seizes the man, locks him in a trunk in his van and prepares to bury him alive. But he has some doubt. So he tracks down others of the formerly imprisoned in quest of a clear identification. Along the way there are scenes that seem more fitting for a madcap comedy rather than a political thriller, like watching a bride and groom who were posing for photos pushing the van down a highway after it broke down.

But also along the way there are stories of the imprisonment, torture and rape that they experienced. Sometimes they remind each other to show “we’re better than they were.”

The movie captures the pain of a nation. But also its humanity. A brilliant movie.

(Can be purchased or rented on YouTube and Apple)

The Left Handed Girl ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Shu-Fen is a single mother living in a shabby apartment in Taipei and trying to support her family as a street vendor. One daughter is a surly, mad-at-the-world sort of teenager. The other is a delightful, left-handed, five or six year old.

This family has a lot to overcome: financial hardship, abuse and unwanted pregnancy, not to mention an unsupportive family. Before it’s over we find out why that teenager is mad at the world. And yet, despite everything, their humanity shines through to the point you could almost call this a feel-good movie.

Much of the film takes place at a night market in Taipei amidst a bevy of stalls. It feels like an accurate portrayal of that environment and of the community it engenders. The cast is pretty magnificent. Sometimes it feels you can learn more of the story reading their faces rather than the subtitles.

(Available on Netflix)

Nouvelle Vague ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A movie for cinephiles, and especially French ones. If you know of and appreciate the likes of Truffaut, Chabrol and Rossellini, you’ll likely enjoy it. If not, maybe not so much.

Nouvelle Vague is the story of how Jean Luc Goddard made his classic work “Breathless.” The aforementioned directors, and several others, are characters in the movie. They are collaborators, mentors and detractors. Godard is portrayed as something of a mad genius who defies all conventional norms. With little money, time or seemingly much planning or forethought, he produced his masterpiece.

This is a work of cinematic historical fiction. It is the era of the New Wave in France (that’s what Nouvelle Vague means in French). The highlight for me was the performances of Zoey Deutch and Aubrey Dullin, cast as Breathless co-stars Jean Seburg and Jean Paul Belmondo, respectively. Apparently someone had told Belmondo that if he took on the role in Breathless he’d never work again. He went on to have a career that lasted 50 years. Wonder if anybody said that to Dullin.

(Available on Netflix)

Train Dreams ⭐️⭐️⭐️

This movie is magnificently filmed. Set in Idaho, there is stunning scenery and some breathtaking shots of everything from sunsets to forest fires. It really should be seen on a big screen. Only problem is you would also have to see this story. It is somber and dour.

Train Dreams is about the life of Robert Granier. It takes place in the first half of the 20th century. Granier is a logger. He works on traveling crews cutting through forests. He also becomes a self-described “hermit in the woods.”

The name Train Dreams comes from the fact that Granier slumbers off into dreams, sometimes on trains, but at home as well. He dreams of his past (not flashbacks but scenes we’ve already seen). This is not a man who can go forward.

Death is all around this story. Some from catastrophe, some from carelessness and some outright murder. If you’re feeling like you want to spend the night depressed, slog your way through this one.

(Available on Netflix)

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Bugonia, It Was Just an Accident, movies, Nouvelle Vague, reviews, streaming, The Left-Handed Girl, Train Dreams | 2 Comments

The Best Books I Read in 2025

Posted on December 28, 2025 by Ken Dowell

The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store is what you hoped America would become. It’s set in Pottstown, Pa., a city that was industrialized, a city where immigrants came to find jobs, a city where Blacks migrated from the south with the mistaken hope of freeing themselves from racism. The story is set in the mid-1930’s.

The general store, located in a poorer part of town called Chicken Hill, is run by a partly disabled young Jewish woman. Chona treats everyone with a smile with no regard for race, religion or ethnicity. A pretty fair percentage of Chicken Hill can remember getting food from Chona when they couldn’t afford it. The store loses money every year but her husband runs a successful theater business.

The humanity of the Heaven and Hill Grocery Store stands in stark contrast to injustice and discrimination that is rampant, much coming from the long-term residents who can’t accept the newcomers. For while the store is what you hope America is, the racism, antisemitism and vilification of immigrants is unfortunately part of what this country is now.

McBride is a brilliant storyteller. He exposes the soul of the ordinary man, the under-valued, the unnoticed. He adds a little mystery and suspense as well. In a story that’s otherwise full of love there’s also gangsters, crooks and sexual predators. This is the most human of novels.

Doc Hata is what you might call a model citizen. A retired Japanese-American small businessman who ran a medical supply store in a well-heeled New York suburb, he is respected and liked by all the townsfolk. Many remember a favor he did for them at a time of need.

But that is only part of the story. Casual relationships are his stock in trade. Serious ones have proven to be a string of failures. That includes his first love, a young Korean woman forced to become a “comfort girl” at a Japanese army encampment during World War II. He failed with the widowed neighbor who he had a short relationship with. And, most importantly, he failed with the daughter he adopted from Korea.

It is in the words of that daughter that the author explains the title of this tale. “You make a whole life out of gestures and politeness.” She didn’t mean it as a compliment. His response “And why not? Firstly, I am Japanese.”

But even his Japanese heritage is called into question as Doc Hata’s personal story unfolds and becomes more and more separated from his public persona. After one uncomfortable episode, he comments “routine triumphs over everything, as it always does with men like me.” One of the things it triumphs over is passion.

This book is meticulously written. An exceptional depth of character emerges as the tale progresses, going both forward and backward in time. The pace with which the details of Doc Hata’s life is unveiled creates a slowly building, but suspenseful read.

Joseph Madison Beck has written a moving tribute to his father Foster Campbell Beck. But the story is so much more. It’s about south Alabama and the people that live there, about a region that never stopped defining itself in terms of the Civil War. It’s a story of racism, historical, but seemingly never ending.

The Beck family for at least three generations, which includes the author’s grandfather, would be considered “progressive” on racial issues, at least by Alabama standards. The author himself is a lawyer in South Alabama like his father. The centerpiece of the story is Foster Campbell Beck’s decision to represent a black fortune teller from Detroit who is accused of raping a local white girl. It’s 1938 and it’s a decision that benefits neither his firm’s finances nor his reputation locally. And the ramifications go long past the actual case. What it does support is “my father’s lifelong passionate belief that the law was there for the poor as well as the rich, for blacks as well as whites.”

Atticus Finch is the lawyer in Harper Lee’s 1950’s novel “To Kill a Mockingbird.” In that story Finch also represents a black man accused of raping a white woman in south Alabama. James Madison Beck hints that some have suggested his father’s case inspired the novel, although Lee has denied any connection. Maybe from Beck’s viewpoint this best selling novel just dramatizes the courage and conviction that his own father showed.

It’s no easy task to write about a father of whom you are enormously proud without being overly sentimental or preachy. Beck has done that. His is a story told in a straightforward manner based on meticulously researched facts. There’s plenty of drama, especially in his account of the trial of the accused man, Charles White. And there’s a bit of family drama as well. All in all, a great story, skillfully told.

Thi Bui was one of three children along with her father and eight-month pregnant mother who fled Vietnam by boat after the fall of Saigon in 1975. Thi tells the story of her family but also the history of Vietnam. It’s about her parents and her parents’ parents through the years of Japanese and French occupation and American intervention.

But the best part of the book is in the story of this family as ‘boat people.’ How they managed to find a boat to escape on, their experience at a refugee camp in Malaysia where Thi’s mother gave birth, and then their resettlement in the U.S., first in Indiana and then in California. At a time when U.S. politicians are trying to win votes by demonizing refugees and immigrants this is a timely tale. A different time and place but a reminder of what these people go through and why.

There are also stories about the author and her more recent life in America. The opening chapter is about her experience with childbirth and she closes the book with a bit about how hard parenting can be. It’s these experiences that put some perspective on her thoughts about her parents, some appreciation of what these imperfect parents who she is not always in synch with went through.

This is the first time I’ve read a full-length graphic novel. It took me a little while to get used to looking at the drawings and not just reading words. The pictures tell a story too. I certainly became engaged and ended up appreciating the format. Just might pick up another one someday.

All about the in-laws. Nate and Keru (rhymes with Peru) are a Manhattan couple who rent a Cape Cod summer house and reserve one week each for the two sets of in-laws, separately of course. The two visits are equally awkward and in each case it’s not clear who’s more uncomfortable, the offspring or his/her partner. At one point Keru stations herself on the toilet while Nate showers to avoid being alone with his parents.

Keru is second-generation Chinese. Nate is from a poor white Midwestern family. No amount of surface civility can mend the chasm that seems to create.

The story then skips ahead five tears to another seasonal rental, this one is upstate New York. No in-laws this time, just curiously intrusive neighbors and Nate’s ne’er do well brother. It’s just as awkward and the awkwardness seems to have spread into Nate and Keru’s relationship.

Life just seems to happen in this novel and in the end one suspects it will continue to happen. There’s no drama, tragedy, excitement or any obvious evidence of love for that matter.

That is not to say it’s boring. This is a lively, fast read that’s often worth at least a chuckle. Few of us married folks could claim we couldn’t relate to something about these in-law interactions.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged A Gesture Life, books, Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, My Father and Atticus Finch, Rental House, The Best We Could Do | 4 Comments

Aminah Robinson’s Autobiography is Hanging on These Walls

Posted on December 14, 2025 by Ken Dowell

Aminah Robinson: Journeys Home, A Visual Memoir

Newark Museum of Art

Brenda Lynn Robinson was born in 1940 in Columbus, Ohio, the daughter of two artist parents. She would later adopt the name Aminah after it was given to her by an Egyptian cleric while she was traveling in Africa. Robinson’s art tells her story — what’s important to her — her family, her home, her experiences. The works on display in this exhibit are on loan from the Columbus Museum of Art where she bequeathed her art when she died in 2015.

Family

Christmas Day in Poindexter Village, the public housing project in Columbus where she grew up.

Self Portraits

Sydney, Aminah’s son

Travels

Orthodox Jew, The Old City of Jerusalem/Sacred Pages

Returning from Israel to Columbus, Ohio/Sacred Pages.

To Be a Drum, illustration for book of the same name.

Posted in Art | Tagged Aminah Robinson, art, Columbus, museums, Newark Museum of Art | 2 Comments

Whatever Happened To? Philippe Petit

Posted on December 7, 2025 by Ken Dowell

French-born Philippe Petit was the perpetrator of what’s been called the artistic crime of the century.

“It was a hot summer morning in Lower Manhattan when the artist tiptoed across a ¾-inch cable hung 1,368 feet above the ground, crossing the 130 feet separating the two skyscrapers not once, but multiple times. It was August 7, 1974, and New Yorkers held their breath, watching in awe as Petit walked back and forth between the (World Trade Center) towers, performing knee bends and other stunts. The whole affair lasted an unforgettable 45 minutes.” (Daniel Jonas Roche, The Architect’s Newspaper, Aug. 5, 2024)

Fifty years later, Aug. 7, 2024, Petit is at it again, this time at New York’s Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine where he has been artist-in-residence for decades.

“With the majestic Gothic cathedral suffused in golden light, the man about to walk the taut cable rigged across the cavernous nave draped a glittering cloak over his white jacket and knee-length breeches, transforming into both master sorcerer and jester. He promenaded across the wire, now balancing without his pole, now lying down as if on a hammock and pretending to strum along with Sting, who sang his ballad ‘Fields of Gold’ from the stage: ‘You’ll remember me when the west wind moves’ and ‘forget the sun in his jealous sky.’ Perfect lines for his aerialist friend above, the legendary Philippe Petit, who is most at home in the upper regions.” (Wendy Blake, West Side Rag, Aug. 11, 2024)

Artistic, yes, but still a crime. And Petit was arrested after his World Trade Center performance. That wasn’t a first for him. There was a high-wire walk at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris in 1971 and another at the Sydney Harbor Bridge in Australia in 1973. “The police try to get me off, but they cannot. When I finish, I go to jail. I go to court. I pay a fine and usually I am freed. And I am on the front page of newspapers all over the world.” (Lisa lervolino, The Daily Item, Port Chester, N.Y., Aug. 5 1983)

The World Trade Center walk resulted in more than just front-page headlines. “The phone rang with one offer after another. There was a multimillion-dollar film deal from MGM. There was a book proposal: How To Walk The Wire in Your Back Yard in Five Days. There were beer endorsements; wine commercials; Burger King offered him $100,000 to dress up as a Whopper and wire across 8th Avenue to open a new franchise. Someone even wanted him to make a record, based on what he had said to the press after his arrest: ‘When I see two oranges, I juggle; when I see two towers, I walk.’ He turned them all down. ‘I could have become a millionaire within days. A stupid book would have been made, a stupid film, stupid T-shirts, stupid little dolls climbing on the tower like King Kong would have been made. I didn’t say no in principle, I said no because I looked at the people and heard their words and everything was wrong. There was a different language, it was a different point of view. It was not me. And I cannot be not me.’” (London Observer, Jan. 13, 2003)

There would be books. Six of them, in fact, most notably 1985’s “On the High Wire.” He is currently working on an autobiography. A documentary about the World Trade Center walk called “Man on Wire” won the audience award at Sundance for best documentary in 2008. It is available on a number of streaming services including Amazon, Apple and YouTube.

In 2015 there was a fictional movie “The Walk” directed by Forrest Gump director Robert Zemekis. That’s available on the same streaming outlets.
https://youtu.be/GR1EmTKAWIw?si=9bhbfelJlgjXWLa2

Petit never stopped thinking of himself as a street performer. When his feet are at ground level, that may involve juggling.

“Despite publicists, organized appearances and the paperwork and bureaucracy that accompany them, Petit is still doing his own thing on his own terms. In New York City, where he is an artist-in-residence at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, you might find him juggling on the street. He rarely announces his appearances, just draws a chalk circle on the ground, declares it his stage, and starts performing.” (Katya Cengel, Louisville Journal, Oct. 1, 2010)

He has never stopped walking on wire. He has done several shows at St. John the Divine. Shortly after his World Trade Center escapade, he did a five-week run with the Big Apple Circus in Lincoln Center. In 1983, he strung a wire from the top of the Center for the Arts building at SUNY Purchase. Here’s an account of a more recent performance in Washington, D.C.:

“It’s no small feat keeping hundreds of elementary school students still and silent for nearly ten minutes.
“That’s what high-wire artist Philippe Petit accomplished on Friday morning, as he crossed the National Building Museum’s Great Hall, more than 50 feet above students’ heads.
“Petit crossed a wire strung across the museum’s cavernous Great Hall several times, as students below sat craning their necks in awe. Philippe also performed at a $300-a-plate fundraiser for the museum on Thursday evening. The performance for schools was free.” (Jacob Fenston, dcist.com, March 24, 2023)

Petit moved to New York shortly after his famous walk. He lives in a small town upstate near Woodstock. He built a barn there using only tools from the 18th century. A reporter from the Observer interviewed him in 2003 and had this observation: “he is somehow not what I had expected of the world’s most famous wire-walker. A broad, weatherbeaten man in a corduroy cap, he wears a washed-out cotton jacket and suede clogs. He has thick, stubby, calloused fingers worn at the ends like well-used wooden spoons… His English is quick and confident but, even after 28 years in America, still heavily accented and sometimes odd.”
When Katya Cengel of the Louisville Journal met him she offered this description (Oct. 1 2010):

“Petit is dressed in ordinary black pants, brown walking shoes and a black, long-sleeve T-shirt. He may have risen to great heights as a high-wire artist, but in person he is surprisingly small in stature and rather unassuming. He is 61 years old now and a little round in the belly and with a deep furrow between his eyes.”

The author Collum McCann met up with Petit earlier this year for a story he wrote for Esquire (Aug. 11, 2025): “Nowadays he spends most of his time in Upstate New York, and the rest of it in his gloriously idiosyncratic head.
“‘I’m working on a dovetail joint,’ Petit told me, referring to a piece he has been toiling on in his carpentry shop. ‘I’m following the plan of a master craftsman. It’s for a drawer I’m making to go with my worktable in my barn.’”

At age 76, is he ready to retire? Here’s what he told McCann:

“I don’t have a philosophy of time. I just forget about time. It disappears from me. I don’t have any notions of age either. Ageing doesn’t exist for me. I’m just busy doing my thing. I am physically active and strong and supple. I ride my unicycle. I do my juggling. I practise on the high wire. I have my own programme of jogging and weightlifting. Two to three hours a day. One day, of course, my body may refuse to do all of these things, but for now I just don’t even acknowledge the passing of time.”

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(Newspaper articles cited above without links were accessed on newspapers.com.)

Posted in Whatever Happened To? | Tagged High wire, Philippe Petit, World Trade Center | 4 Comments

Whatever Happened To? Fabian

Posted on November 30, 2025 by Ken Dowell

In the 50’s, there was Elvis. In the 60’s came the Beatles. Somewhere in between came the teen idols — Bobby Rydell, Paul Anna, Frankie Avalon among them. Some were talented. Some mostly looked good. Fabian Forte, who performed just using his first name, probably fit the latter category.

Fabian was recruited by a talent manager when he was only 14. One of the stories told about his early experience suggests he was going to need some help. “‘The first voice teacher I took the boy to worked with him a month and threw up his hands in disgust,’ recalled Bob Marcucci, the man who was to make a fortune as mentor-manager of Fabian and Frankie Avalon.” (Ande Beck, New York Times, Oct. 2, 1977).

Fabian would later make the following admission. “Questioned in ’60s Congressional hearings about payola in broadcasting, Fabian explained at the time that his records were substantially doctored, electronically, in order to improve his voice.” (Liz Nichols, Edmonton Journal, Nov. 5, 1998)

Nonetheless, by the time he was 18, he had produced ten Top-10 songs. “Hold That Tiger” won a gold record and the album “The Fabulous Fabian” produced more than a million dollars in sales. Then he up and quit. He would later explain “I had no major desire to get into the music industry. I was never really infatuated with it: too many people telling me what to do, what to wear, how to comb my hair.” (Liz Nichols, Edmonton Journal, Nov. 5, 1998)

He then embarked on an acting career. “His first film, 1959’s Hound Dog Man, found him playing opposite Dodie Stevens, a 13-year-old who briefly found fame with a song called Pink Shoelaces. Later, he would turn up in a series of beach party films with fellow singers-turned-actors Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello, finally breaking character in 1963 in a TV series episode in which he played a vicious killer.” (Lynn Van Matre, Chicago Tribune Aug. 13, 1983)

He would later play Pretty Boy Floyd in a movie called “Bullet for Pretty Boy.”

Fort Worth Star-Telegram reviewer John Dycus offered this summation (July 16, 1970): “Floyd is portrayed by Fabian Forte, a teen singing idol in the relatively tame rock and roll era, who’s not so unbearable as unfeasible.”

Whatever Happened to Fabian? In her 1983 Chicago Tribune story, Van Matre, summed it up like this: “Fabian Forte, better known simply as Fabian (‘Fabe’ to his friends), has, among other things and in no particular order, been written off as just another no talent pretty boy; grown up; ‘come close to going off the deep end’; studied film at UCLA; been written off as an adult entertainer; married; had two children; divorced; made 30 films; gone the rock revival route; married again; put together his own show; sold real estate; posed for a Cosmo seminude centrefold; grown up some more; and been written off once more.”

Here are some of the details.

“Today, the superstardom, the hysterics of massed admirers are gone, and so, it might appear, is the modesty, since Fabe is about to be seen buck naked as the centerfold in a saucy publication specializing in male nudes. However, appearances are to a degree deceiving. Fabe still has enough of his reserve to be wondering whether or not he did the right thing when he shed his dignity for the camera.” (Bryan-College Station Eagle, Dec. 2, 1973)

The next year, he told Dan Lewis of Pop Scene Service (May 11, 1974) he was quitting his acting career and going back to singing. “I did nine pictures. But I was frustrated my acting career was going nowhere.” He would go on to appear in some 30 films.

UPI had this dispatch on March 8, 1976: “Fabian, the slick-haired rock singer of the early 1960s, was fined $200 and placed on three year’s probation last week, in connection with charges he beat his wife and mother-in-law. The 32-year-old singer, whose full name is Fabian Forte, was arrested Oct. 6 at the Toluca lake home of his estranged wife, Katie. She accused him of beating her and roughing up her mother, Moreau Reagan, 69.” Sounds like he got off pretty easy. Katie, with whom he had two children, was his first of three wives. Married in 1966, they divorced in 1979.

Fabian also tried his hand at race car driving, with apparently mixed results. According to the AP (Sept. 15, 1978) “Singer Fabian Forte suffered head injuries at a stock car race track while practicing for a New York charity auto race. Forte, 35, was not seriously hurt and said in an interview that he suffered cuts on the temple and left elbow that were stitched by doctors. The former teen idol said he was rounding a curve at the Willow Springs Raceway on the Mojave Desert at Rosamond Wednesday when his Toyota hatchback slipped three times and flipped end over end twice.”

That accident would eventually lead to a couple lawsuits. The Daily Breeze, Torrance, Calif., (April 1, 1982) had that story. “Forte, whose hits included ‘Hound Dog Man,’ is seeking at least $750,000 in damages from Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., based in Torrance, and race car driver Bill Simpson.

“The lawsuit stems from an accident which occurred on Sept. 13, 1978, during a practice session at Willow Springs Raceway near Rosamond in Kern County. Forte blames Simpson, his instructor, for the wreck and Simpson, who has filed suit against the singer, blames Forte.

“Forte alleges that Simpson, acting as an employee of the car company, caused his injuries by failing to take safety precautions or to tell him how fast to go around curves.

“Simpson tells another story. He said Forte caused the wreck by going between 90 and 115 mph despite repeated warnings to slow down.”

(I could find no information as to how this was resolved.)

Fabian had also filed a suit against the makers of the film “The Idolmaker,” charging defamation of character. “Fabian Forte, one of the top teen heartthrobs of the early 1960s, has filed a $64 million lawsuit contending there’s a slanderous representation of him in the film ‘The Idolmaker.’ The film, based on the experiences of Forte’s former personal manager, Bob Marcucci, is about a brash promoter who molds two young men into national stars. Forte, charging defamation of character and invasion of privacy, contends one of the two men is a representation of himself. The lawsuit names Marcucci, who served as a consultant on the film, as a defendant along with United Artists and its parent company, TransAmerica, producers Gene Kirkwood and Howard Koch Jr. and screenplay ‘author Edward DiLorenzo. (Daily Advance, Lynchburg Va., July 28, 1981). The suit was settled out of court resulting in public apologies made to Fabian. He also received Marcucci’s minority share of ownership in the film.

It appears that paying bills is not one of Fabian’s fortes. AP had this story about a lawsuit with a contractor who worked on his house (Nov. 24, 2000).

“For the second time in two months, Fabian Forte, a singing sensation in the 1950s and 1960s, has been sued by someone accusing the singer of not paying his bills. But this time, Forte and his beauty queen wife, Andrea Patrick Forte, are fighting back.

“A lawsuit filed Wednesday on behalf of Andrea Forte against Roy D DeWitt Jr. of Connellsville says the walls of the couple’s $355,000 home in Dunbar Township, about 35 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, are crooked and repairs will cost $50,000.

“The suit was filed the day after DeWitt sued the Fortes saying he had not been paid for finishing the home.”

Andrea is Fabian’s third wife. They married in 1998. And there seems to be some question as to whether they paid those bills.

“A Fayette County resort has dropped its lawsuit against singer Fabian Forte and his wife that claimed they failed to pay more than $4,000 owed for liquor consumed at their 1998 wedding. Forte, 57, and his wife, Andrea Patrick Forte, 39, of Dunbar, said they have been notified that Nemacolin Woodlands Resort and Spa will not pursue the lawsuit it filed against them last fall in Fayette County Common Pleas Court. Nemacolin Woodlands had charged that the Fortes owed $4,663 in unpaid bills plus interest from their wedding reception there.

“In December, Fabian Forte, who gained fame as a teen heartthrob during the 1950s and ’60s, and his wife moved to Dunbar, where Andrea Forte, a former Miss Pennsylvania and Miss West Virginia, grew up. (Cindi Lash, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, April 17, 2001)

Through the years Fabian has kept his career going by playing mostly nostalgia shows. During the 2010’s he toured with a group dubbed the Golden Boys, which also included Bobby Rydell and Frankie Avalon. He also put together a show called “The Original Stars of American Bandstand” that included The Chiffons, Bobby Vee, Brian Hyland and Chris Montez.

There is a Fabian web site. But when I clicked on the “on tour” page, it hadn’t been updated since 2008.

Looking back, Fabian had this to say about his teen idol days:

“‘They laughed at us.

“‘They wouldn’t take us seriously as artists,’ Forte told The Times in 1985, talking about music critics in the 1950’s and early ‘60s. But, he added, ‘Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t all bad. For a teenage boy, you can imagine what it was like having all those girls drooling over you. That was heaven.’” (Newark Star-Ledger, June 22, 2025)

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(Newspaper and wire service stories cited above were accessed on newspapers.com.)

Whatever Happened To? Eddie the Eagle

Posted on November 23, 2025 by Ken Dowell

In 1988, Michael David Edwards, a plasterer from Cheltonham, went to Calgary to compete in the Winter Olympics. When he came home, he was Eddie the Eagle. And not because he was carrying a suitcase full of medals. In fact, he finished dead last in the two sky jumping events he competed in. In the men’s Normal Hill, Edwards scored 69.2 points from two jumps of 55m. The second-last finisher, Bernat Sola-Pujol of Spain, scored 140.4 points from 71m and 68.5m jumps, respectively (Olympics.com).

Eddie was the first Englishman to compete in Olympic ski jumping. He held the British ski jumping record until 2001. With his coke-bottle lens glasses, his underbite and his big smile, he came home a hero. He was the lovable loser, much like the Jamaican bobsled team that competed in the same Olympics, far more memorable than most of the gold medal winners.

The aftermath: “Johnny Carson invited him to sit on the couch. He had his picture taken with showgirls. He marketed his own line of T- shirts. He made appearances to open malls, ski shops, amusement rides and parking garages, jumping off scaffolding and out of airplanes, landing on a nest egg that, by his account, was cushioned to the sum of $750,000 before it cracked. He has also launched himself from a man-made ramp in the financial canyons of New York City, raced monster trucks, parachuted onto a golf course to greet Arnold Palmer and even recorded a song about himself in Finland that reached No. 2 on the charts.” (Jere Longman, New York Times, Feb 8, 1996)

He told Martin Kelner of the Guardian (Feb, 26, 2013) about another benefit of his new-found fame: “’I was getting all this attention from all these women. I used to go off and do things in nightclubs, present things,’ explained Eddie. ‘Obviously these women are throwing themselves at you but it was only because you were popular and it was great fun. Sometimes I took advantage but most of the time I didn’t.’ A passport, then, to fame, fortune and the finest bedrooms in the west of England.”

But not everyone was enamored with the way the Eagle soared in Calgary. Dave Anderson on the New York Times News Service (Jan. 31, 1992) wrote: “But for all the fun, Eddie the Eagle didn’t deserve to take part. He sneaked in through a back door that was ajar. Now the British Olympic Association has slammed that door, tightening its qualifying standards.

“As it should. His wings clipped, Eddie the Eagle has been grounded. He’s not on the British team that will be marching at Saturday’s opening ceremony for the XVI Winter Olympics at Albertville in the French Alps. If it’s British stuffiness that grounded him, it’s also Olympic common sense. Protect competitors from themselves.

“Especially a ski jumper, a Winter bird of prey high above hard-packed snow. To the British Olympic Association, Eddie the Eagle was an endangered species. And the species was himself.”

Eddie had some personal setbacks as well. In 1989, he fractured his skull and broke two ribs after a bad landing in Innsbruck, Austria. “By 1992 things had taken a sour turn, as Edwards entered involuntary bankruptcy, unable to pay a tax bill due to his trust fund being managed poorly; Edwards would subsequently settle out of court against his trustees and get some of his money back.” (Steven Pye, Guardian Sport Network, Feb 4, 2014)

In 2009 he told James Daley of Ski Magazine “I’ve changed a lot since Calgary, and I’m surprised when people recognize me on the street. I had surgery on my jaw and eyes. I had a whale of a time being a celebrity, but now it’s calmed down and I can lead a normal life. I own a plastering business and do speeches as Eddie the Eagle almost every week. It’s actually a nice dual personality.”

Five years later (Jan. 18, 2014), Ken Belson of the New York Times described Eddie’s life 25 years after his Olympic jumps. “Edwards appears to have changed little in the quarter-century since Calgary. He has less hair and no longer wears thick glasses after Lasik surgery. He keeps trim by training for reality shows and working as a plasterer as his father and grandfather did. He is fixing a two-century-old home that he bought.

“While his fame pays his way to places as far as Australia, Edwards remains a creature of the Cotswolds, where he lives with his wife, Samantha, two young daughters and two Shetland ponies. His modest two-story home is filled with all the signs of a busy family with children.”

“Eddie met his wife Samantha Morton while working as a part-time radio presenter.

“They married in Las Vegas in 2003 and had two daughters together, Otillie and Honey May.

“However, in 2014 Sam dropped a bombshell when he returned home from a TV interview in Germany, saying she wanted to leave him.” (Danny Collins and Caroline Peacock, The Sun, Jan. 22, 2024)

Eddie has continued to show up just about anywhere. A year ago he was in Warwick doing a Q&A session at a retirement village. Last December he was booked to hobnob with guests at the French ski resort Les Gets. In March, he was the guest star on an Ambassador Cruise Line trip to Norway. In April he made an appearance at the town hall in Silsden in conversation with a BBC radio presenter.

Graham Chadwick of the Daily Mail managed to catch Eddie at his home in Woodchester, Gloucestershire, earlier this month (Nov. 5, 2025).

“The Eagle is treading carefully around his nest, sidestepping a small hole in the floor in front of his staircase before navigating the sheer chaos of a room that is meant to become his kitchen one day.

“‘I’ve lived here three years,’ the Eagle says. ‘I’ve made a room upstairs habitable and sleep there. I’ll do the rest when I have time in the next few years — I’m sure it’ll be nice when I’m finished.’

“‘When I first moved in here in 2015, after I was divorced from my wife, I slept in the shed for about a year,’ the Eagle says.

“‘Yes, in the shed. I had bought this house to do up while my wife and I were still together and I took the roof off it, but then we split and I left the family home to come here. With no roof, I stayed in the shed that year.

“‘I’ve barely had a night off in 18 months,’ he says. ‘That’s why I haven’t done the house — make hay while the sun shines. When the time comes that people don’t care I will go back to the day job.’”

Steven Pye of the Guardian (Feb. 4, 2014) summed up Eddie’s legacy like this: “For some, he was a hero who sacrificed a lot to live the dream: an athlete who competed with a smile on his face, and deservedly reaped the rewards of his unexpected fame while he could. For others, Edwards was a laughing stock who belittled both the sport of ski jumping and the 1988 Winter Olympics, and represented everything that was bad in a nation that seemed to adore sporting losers.”

Posted in Sports | Tagged #Eddie the Eagle, #sports #olympics #ski jumping #Eddie the Eagle | 4 Comments

A Hidden Gem in Washington, D.C.

Posted on November 16, 2025 by Ken Dowell

The Kreeger Museum

The Kreeger Museum is truly a hidden gem. It is located in the western part of Washington in the primarily residential Foxhall neighborhood. It is far from downtown and the big Smithsonian museums. It has a parking lot for about 15 cars, after which you have to drive around looking for a residential street to park on.

The museum is housed in what had been the home of David and Carmen Kreeger. David Kreeger was the son of Russian immigrant parents, a graduate of Rutgers. He made his money as chairman of GEICO. And a lot of that money went into amassing an incredible collection of mostly modern art. Among his other involvements in the arts in Washington, he was chairman of the Corcoran Gallery of Art and president of the National Symphony Orchestra. He founded the Washington Opera and sat on the board of the National Gallery of Art.

He and Carmen amassed a collection of modern art, heavy on impressionists and cubists. The collection includes a number of Picasso’s and Monet’s as well as works by Van Gogh, Miro, Degas, Cezanne and Chagall. Being in a private collection most of us have not seen these works. There are also a few ancient pieces and a lovely sculpture garden.

When I walked into the Kreeger I couldn’t believe what I found.

The Picasso’s

Vase, Pallette and Skull, Georges Braque

Posted in Art | Tagged art, cubists, David Kreeger, IMpressionists, Kreeger Museum, museums, Picasso | 5 Comments

What American Artists Had to Say in the Sixties

Posted on November 9, 2025 by Ken Dowell

Sixties Surreal is one of the current exhibits at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. The Whitney describes the exhibit as an “efflorescence of psychosexual, fantastical, and revolutionary tendencies.” (Say what?) The exhibit is way more interesting than that.