Maggie Jochild, 8/5/1955 — 1/6/2017

Goodbye Maggie: Beloved, Brilliant Writer, Colleague, Friend

Maggie Jochild changed my life.

Maggie Jochild, 1980
Bean Hollow Beach, near Pescadero, Ca

Maggie was a brilliant writer — of blog posts, of poetry, of fiction. She was a fierce advocate for women, children, the disabled, dykes, people of color, for the underprivileged.

Maggie's novel Ginny Bates is an amazing exploration of life lived intentionally by women, as free of the patriarchy as possible. It addresses issues of class, sexism, racism, and anti-semitism, all inside the family-by-choice lives of lesbians and their families. It is appropriately called "The Great American Lesbian Novel."

I hope whomever now holds artistic control of Maggie's writings, facilities the novel's publishing as soon as feasible. Ginny Bates deserves a permanent spot in the pantheon of great genuinely American novels. More importantly, its publication to a wide audience would be an enormous contribution to schools and young people.

A serialization of GB is on Meta Watershed. Her other (all amazing) novels are also serialized and posted there.

Maggie in 7th Grade

Maggie came to write at Group News Blog in 2007-2008 during the first Obama presidential campaign. She made an immediate difference.

Her writing helped GNB in ways public and private. It is fair to say Maggie's writing was core to the respect and fierce devotion our readers gave GNB at its peak. In addition to her public contributions Maggie as a person, as a force of nature, caused numerous behind the scenes changes at GNB which made us better writers, better advocates for our readers and mission (which mission she helped redefine), and better with each other. She made us better people.

Personally, Maggie's writings and friendship were instrumental in revealing to myself my own automatic investments: in class privilege, male privilege, white privilege, straight privilege, in revealing privilege. I was not the only one. She also gave of herself unstintingly. Weeks of her time were spent helping myself and others learn to deal powerfully with our disabilities.

Even with (or more accurately, because of) her radical and courageous feminism, Maggie was kind, compassionate, willing to hear, understand and forgive the sins of childhood and upbringing. She was a good friend, someone whom it is a lifelong badge of honor to be able to say that I too was privileged to know Maggie, to live and fight by her side.

Maggie Jochild, 1999, Austin Tx
Photo by Harper Vinkemulder

We were colleagues, collaborators, and for some years, close friends. For the decade I knew her, even after our lives drew apart, she remained dear to my heart.

Maggie's medical condition has been serious to dangerous the past decade, including hospitalizations and surgeries. Recently, she was placed on palliative care at the University Medical Center Brackenridge in Austin, Tx.

Maggie Jochild died Friday morning, January 6, 2017, at the age of 61. She was predeceased by her family, including her mother Mary Jo and her younger brother Bill. She is survived by her beloved Margot Williams, and a vast network of loving friends, cyber and tofu, in Austin and around the world.

Bill and Maggie, Summer 1964
Houma, La

All week long friends and loved ones of Maggie's have been saying goodbye — in person at her hospital bedside, on Facebook, through blog posts, emails, messages and texts, in conversations with each other, and in our hearts. The enormous outpouring of support has been appropriate to the life Maggie lived and the contribution she made.

She really was that great.

I am grateful for the gift Maggie's writing was to our readers, and the greater gift her friendship and gentle (and sometimes not so gentle) corrections and coaching provided.

Today I am a different and better person because of conversations with Maggie: more gentle, more honest, more human, more able to love and care for others.

I will miss her. As will everyone privileged to have known her.

Tat Tavm Asi.




Further Information
Many additional poems and writings are inside the following sites.

Maggie Jochild — Facebook
Margo Williams — Facebook

Maggie's blog — Meta Watershed
Maggie's earlier blog — Maoist Orange Cake

Maggie's posts — Group News Blog
Maggie's tweets — Twitter

Search on: Maggie Jochild — Google

Me and Michigan

Chasing the Second Wave in San Fran
The White Night Riot

Partial List of Poetry — I Fight Like a Girl
Two Poems

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Losing a Toccoan...

William "Wild Bill" Guarnere, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne "Screaming Eagles", 

1923.04.28 - 2014.03.08, image from wildbillguarnere.com

One of the "Band of Brothers" died yesterday at the age of 90.  William "Wild Bill" Guarnere, who was portrayed by Frank John Hughes in the HBO miniseries "Band of Brothers", died of a ruptured aneurysm at Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia.  Guarnere received the Silver Star, Bronze Star with cluster, Purple Heart with two clusters, and the Croix de guerre with palm, among other decorations.

Guarnere was one of the authors of a best-selling memoir about Easy Company, 506th PIR, 101st Airborne: Brothers in Battle, Best of Friends.  Edward J. "Babe" Heffron, Guarnere's co-author, died 96 days ago (on 2 December 2013), also at the age of 90.

The exploits of Easy Company, 506th PIR were popularized by Stephen Ambrose's book Band of Brothers and the HBO miniseries made from it.

If you read, you should read Band of Brothers.  If you don't read, watch the miniseries, then read the book.  If it interests you, read Donald Burgett's Currahee! and its sequels as well.  They are sanitized, as many stories of war are, but they are also powerful.  I prefer Burgett's books to Ambrose, but that may be because I read Currahee! decades before Band of Brothers was written.

I went to Normandy in 2009. I went through my images (how I wish I'd taken the good camera gear!) and found these:

Place Toccoa in Angoville-au-Plain, by Evan Robinson

The 506th PIR first trained at Camp Toccoa in Georgia.  They adopted "Currahee!" a Cherokee word which they believed meant "we stand alone" as their regimental motto.  They did training runs up Currahee Mountain.  When we were visiting Normandy, our guide suddenly turned off the main road and took us to Angoville-au-Plain.

Church at Place Toccoa in Angoville-au-Plain, by Evan Robinson

According to our guide, the church at Place Toccoa in Angoville-au-Plain become a medic post where two American medics from the 501st PIR set up shop.  Robert Wright and Kenneth Moore, both of the 2nd Battalion treated anyone who needed it, so long as they left their weapons outside.  During the night, at least one bomb pierced the roof of the structure and hit the floor, but did not explode.  For reasons unexplained, the church was shut almost immediately after the war and remained so for many years.  It is alleged that the pews still show the bloodstains of the soldiers treated here.  I can vouch only that they have dark stains.

Stained Glass, Church at Place Toccoa in Angoville-au-Plain, by Evan Robinson

Inside the church are several stained glass windows, one of which depicts an American paratrooper.

Stained Glass at Sainte-Mere-Eglise, by Evan Robinson

Stained glass in the church at Sainte-Mere-Eglise, also showing American paratroopers.

Ardean D. Vernatter, Private, 506th PIR, 101st Airborne "Screaming Eagles", Colleville-sur-Mer, by Evan Robinson

Private Ardean Vernatter from the 506th didn't make it past D-Day.

This stone is in the American cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer, overlooking Omaha Beach.  According to our guide, every year about 1,400,000 visitors come to this little piece of America in France.  Eight hundred thousand of those visitors are French, four hundred thousand are American, and many of the remainder are German.  According to the visitors brochure (PDF), the cemetery is 172 acres in size and has 9387 stones (9238 crosses, 149 stars of David), including 41 sets of brothers (I erroneously indicated 33 in my previous post) and 3 Medal of Honor recipients, whose names are lined with gold leaf.  The names of 1557 MIA soldiers are engraved in the Garden of the Missing.

It's worth the trip all by itself, but while you're there, walk down to Omaha Beach, too.

Omaha Beach near low tide, Colleville-sur-Mer, by Evan Robinson

This is the view of the beach out to sea -- roughly what the defenders might have seen at low tide.

Omaha Beach looking inland toward the American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer, by Evan Robinson

And this is the view up the hill.

Just stand and listen.  Try to imagine what it must have looked and sounded like as 50000 soldiers with their landing craft, vehicles, rifles, mortars, and explosives lay on this beach under withering fire.  Can you hear the screams?  Can you hear the prayers?  Close your eyes.  Can you see the blood they claim still comes from the rocks?  Can you see and hear the fear, the anger, the pain, the dying? 

Some people think that the raw emotion of awful things can stay in a place.  I think it might be true here.

Godspeed, Wild Bill.  Godspeed.  You deserve Valhalla.

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Maria von Trapp dies at 99

Maria von Trapp (portrayed as Louisa in the musical and film) died at the age of 99 at her home in Stowe, VT on Tuesday.  Although she was the last surviving member of the singing Trapps, she is survived by at least one half-sibling (born to the Baron Georg and his wife Maria).

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"One more thing..."

Steve Jobs
1955 - 2011

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Liam Clancy: 1935 - 2009

(Video: Liam Clancy & Tommy Makem, The Parting Glass,

February 1977, National Stadium, Dublin)

One year when I was a kid, my brother and I got vinyl records for our birthdays. I was jealous, because he got The Two Sides of Leonard Nimoy, and all I got was The Best of The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. In the long run, though, I won big, because if you look at the end result of that birthday, I've got 100s of songs in iTunes that are by The Clancy Brothers, Tommy Makem, The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, and Liam Clancy and Tommy Makem. Not to mention Andy Stewart and Manus Lunny, the Irish Rovers, the Chieftains, Loreena McKennitt, Tamarion Roberts, various Pipe & Drum bands, and probably others that I'm not finding right now. Of course, I do have several albums worth of Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner :-). But I digress.

The Clancys and Tommy Makem were central to the Folk Revival of the 50s & 60s -- at least the Irish part. As a performance group the Clancy Brothers were Ireland's first pop stars, cutting 55 albums, selling millions of records, and appearing at Carnegie and Royal Albert Halls. They were a primary influence upon Bob Dylan.

Liam Clancy was the youngest Clancy brother and both played guitar and sang with the group. When performing with Tommy Makem, Liam sang and played guitar, banjo, and bhodhran. All of them joked. I used to go see Liam Clancy and Tommy Makem perform at the Marin Center in San Rafael. Eventually I knew their patter well enough to repeat it verbatim.

According to Wikipedia, Bob Dylan regarded Liam Clancy as the greatest ballad singer in the world. Next to that, my opinion is unimportant, but I agree.

I'm sorry he's gone. He was the last, dying December 4, 2009. Tom Clancy died on November 7, 1990; Patrick Clancy died on November 11, 1998; and Tommy Makem died on August 1, 2007.

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Missing Molly for 2 Years Now.

Every time someone down the line is irreverent about authority, I’ll have my monument. Every time some kid who was born a nigger, a kike, a wop, a Polack, a gook, a gimp, a fag, or just a plain maverick lifts up her head and dares anyone to stop her, I’ll have my monument. Every time they peaceably assemble to petition their government for redress of a grievance, I’ll be there. Whenever they worship as they please (or not at all), I’ll be there. Whenever they speak up and speak out and raise hell, I’ll be there. And every time some blue-bellied, full-blooded nincompoop who holds elected office is called to the floor for deciding to keep us safe by rewriting the Constitution, or by suspending due process and holding a citizen indefinitely without legal representation, I’ll be there. Now that is immortality. I don't have any children, so I've decided to claim all the future freedom-fighters and hell-raisers as my kin. I figure freedom and justice beat having my name in marble any day. Besides, if there is another life after this one, think how much we'll get to laugh watching it all.

Molly died two years ago today.

The Department of Betsy has more at OurFuture.org.

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The Late Notorious Bettie Page, 1923 - 2008

Bettie Page Died Today

Susie Bright has an excellent column:

But Bettie's story was different from the average Suicide Girl. She was doing fetish photography when the subject was completely removed from any sense of camp or fashion. The closet was shut so tight not even a filament of sex-positivity could be imagined. The damnation she faced must have been entirely without context to comprehend.

Including an interview with Mary Harron, director/writer of The Notorious Bettie Page:

SB: You point a finger, without drawing a thick line, at her history of sexual abuse, incest, — and also, at her survival of a gang rape when she was a teenager, long before her modeling career.

How do you think women recover, sexually, from situations like that?

MH: The abuse by her father was the most damaging, because she was still a child. She was a traumatized person, but she did have an active sex life. Billy Neal, her first husband, told me they had a great sex life and I believe him -— it was clearly the motor in their relationship.

Sexual abuse, or rape, is an awful trauma but it doesn't mean you will never enjoy sex— although it may mean you become more sexually-identified, as the careers of countless porn stars will attest.

Many men who've seen the film complain that Bettie doesn't react much to the sexual abuse: she doesn't show more rage or grief. But most men have no idea how much sexual shit women go through, how many of their female friends, relatives, and co-workers have been raped or abused in some way. They don't know about it because the women don't talk about it, and just get on with their lives, as Bettie did.

SB: My interpretation of Page's "naivete," and her various personalities as model, missionary, etc., is that she was coping the best way anyone does when they are suffering from mental demons.

But if she had been homely — and crazy — or even just plain, what would have happened then? Sexual allure is often both the salvation and damnation of people who need to be seen more deeply than the surface....

MH: If she had been homely, her mental problems would have been spotted earlier. The people I talked to who knew her in the Fifties all talked about how sweet, friendly, unassuming she was— but at the same time, no one seemed to know her intimately.

Even her first husband, Billy Neal, found her a mystery. That suggests to me that she had sealed herself off: there was something blank and inaccessible about her. She was always late, often hours late, which implies that she would just space out.

Someone can be mentally ill, but if they are young and beautiful and their life is going well, people don't notice because at that point the cracks are almost imperceptible. I think it's significant that Bettie's breakdowns happened in her middle age.

There were a lot of things going wrong for her by then. Her fourth marriage had collapsed, and with it her hopes of happy family life.

There were the demons from the past, her father's abuse and the gang rape. You can't discount the traumatic effects of aging. By now she was a middle-aged woman, and she had spent her whole adult life as a beauty. Her identity, her finances, her social life, her sense of herself: everything depended on that, and it was gone.

Bettie (not Betty, although that was her birth name) was an icon twice: post-War, when she was an iconic pinup; and her revival starting in 1976 with the publication of A Nostalgic Look at Bettie Page from Eros Publishing. She "inspired" pieces of two generations, the Silents post Korea and the Boomers in the 80s. Her exquisite combination of girl next door and fetish model was original and potentially unique.

The official obituary.

As one of Susie's commenters has it:
There's a ... little Bettie in all of us

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Goodbye Mr. Newman

Paul Newman: 1925 - 2008

Paul Newman died of cancer yesterday, September 26, at his home in Westport, Connecticut. He was 83.

Mr. Newman is survived by his wife of 50 years, Joanne Newman, five daughters, and a number of grandchildren. The Newman's only son, Scott, died in 1978 of an accidental drug overdose.

I was about to post this up -- have been working on it now for hours -- and I just realized I forgot to write anything about Mr. Newman's Academy Awards. In retrospect, while they seemed to have mattered at the time, I'm glad about them really only for the pleasure the awards must have brought him at the time, for the opportunities they placed in his path, hopefully for the joy they may in the future bring his family as they recognize how his peers honored his craft, and as a symbol to all young actors learning their craft which says, "This. Watch this. THIS is how it is done." With 10 Academy Award nominations, one win, one honorary Oscar, and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, Mr. Newman was one of the most honored members of the Academy of all actors in recent memory. His wife, Joanne Woodward, has also been nominated by the Academy four times (including once when directed by her husband), winning once.

In well over 50 years, I am certain it was the journey and the people met along the way which were most valued, not the awards earned. Which is not to say that the awards were not valued, I am certain they were. At the time, I remember how much the Oscar for The Color of Money meant to Mr. Newman, to finally win a competitive Academy Award after so many nominations. He had even refused to show up -- politely of course, sending word he still hoped to win one in person -- when he was honored with an honorary Oscar. It took a while... a LONG while... but a number of nominations later, Mr. Newman had his very own, competitive Oscar. *smiles* And even nominations to follow.

Still, what I remember most about Mr. Newman is not his movies or his Oscars. Or even his timeless marriage, which, even with its ups and downs, clearly put family first and without question, women were equal in THAT home, long before they were in the rest of the country.

What I remember most about Mr. Newman is how gracious he always was. It did not matter to him if someone was a star, a day player, a grip, a star-struck fan, a waitress or waiter, or simply an ordinary woman or man trying to earn a living. Mr. Newman was kind and warm to everyone. He especially loved children.

What I hate about writing this is, it sounds like the kind of crap one writes in a hagiography, as if I am in the bag for Newman.

1. There are worse people to be in the bag for, than Paul Newman. And
2. Every word of this is the Gods' straight truth.

Newman sounds too good to be true, because in my life, I've only met one or two people like Paul Newman. He was the Real Deal. He came from The Greatest Generation, and truly he was great.

Rather than spend more time writing about Mr. Newman, instead I am simply going to put up some images and let you remember... Paul Newman.


Paul Newman. Cool Hand Luke. 1967. photo Warner Brothers.
Cool Hand Luke



Paul Newman & Katherine Ross. Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. 1969.
photo 20th Century Fox.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid



Paul Newman & Robert Redford. The Sting. 1973. photo Universal.
The Sting



Paul Newman & Elizabeth Taylor. Cat On A Hot Tin Roof. 1958. photo MGM.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof



Paul Newman directs wife and star Joanne Woodward to Oscar nomination. Rachel, Rachel.
1968. photo Warner Brothers.
Rachel, Rachel



Paul Newman & Sally Fields. Absence Of Malice. 1981. photo Columbia.
Absence of Malice



Paul Newman. The Verdict. 2002. photo 20th Century Fox.
The Verdict



Paul Newman, Tom Cruise, & Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. The Color of Money. 1986.
photo Touchstone.
The Color of Money



Paul Newman & Tom Cruise. The Color of Money,
promo cover with Academy Award sticker. 1987.
The Color of Money



Paul Newman. Founder, The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp.
photo HitWG, date unknown.
Hole-in-the-Wall Gang Camp


Mr. Newman was a wonderful man.
The world was richer for his life and art.
I will miss him.

My condolences to his family.
Tat Tavm Asi.

Mr. Newman highest art was his taking care of others.
Newman’s Own

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Brief Thought on Jesse Helms

Reading some of the coverage of Jesse Helms' death, I couldn't help but think....

It's too bad he died before Barack Obama was elected President. That would have killed him. :-)

As it is, on 2009.01.20 we're likely to hear a loud whirring sound from somewhere in NC.

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