Alistair Cooke

I remember when Alistair Cooke died a few years ago - "oh man, that sucks" I cleverly thought. To me he was the Masterpiece Theatre guy, a show I often watched with my dad when I was a kid even though I understood not one single moment (although I will always remember The Irish RM...I can remember my father laughing out loud twice when I was a young buck: during The Irish RM, at which I would chuckle along pretending I knew what was so funny, and when I played him my cassette tape of Bill Cosby: Himself, during which is the only time I saw him almost lose control laughing.)

But tonite I stumbled on Masterpiece Theatre: The Unseen Alistair Cooke, and I was shocked to find out not only that he had spent 58 YEARS doing a radio joint every week called Letter from America (I'm a fucking retard), but also he had a collection of journals of trips throughout America during the war, traipsing back and forth through "rural America" and getting people's reactions to the events of the day - a collection of writings largely unfound until shortly before his death in 2004 and since published as The American Home Front: 1941-1942. How had I never heard of that? Oh yeah, LC and Audrina were fighting.

Anyways. A fascinating life - 50 years in a rent-controlled apartment on 5th Avenue, THE European Gentleman to most Americans, and, according to his widow, "Not a silent farter." Awesome.