VECTOR: GEORGE LAINE WAS A NEWSPAPERMAN WHEN IT MEANT SOMETHING MORE
By Steve Lowery
Friday, October 1 George Laine passes away at the age of 84. I first met George in the early ‘90s when we were at the Press-Telegram and he was just about sweetest tough old bird I’d ever met, a grizzled/gracious cross between Burgess Meredith and the Hobbit. Yes, no one could tell you to fuck off with more genuine love and affection than George Laine. He was one of those man’s men you read about—the kind who join the Navy at the age of 16 at the height of WWII, the kind that do some amateur boxing for awhile and later write the liner notes for jazz albums, the kind who marry cocktail waitresses, get left because they aren’t good husbands, then make themselves into better men, marry that same woman again and stay happily together for the rest of their lives. George was a throwback to the days when someone could actually call themselves a newspaperman and receive respectful scorn, instead of today’s sympathetic grimace and, “I’m sure something will turn up.” He didn’t suffer fools but recognized everyone did foolish things, and when they did, he was there to help. He was a newspaper union stalwart, when that meant something, led AA meetings for 30 years and had a great and lasting effect on the trajectory of a great many people’s lives. And if you told him what a great guy he was for doing all of that he would tell you to fuck off behind squinted eyes and a crooked smile that would warm you through. See ya, George.
Saturday, Oct. 2 And I wonder how George Laine, newspaperman, would feel about a story the Los Angeles Times broke that luxury city Newport Beach has released the results of a survey that finds a majority of the rich people who live in this rich and opulent city are “generally satisfied” with the quality of life in Newport Beach, though some did have complaints that the complimentary, door-to-door shrimp cocktail service sometimes delivered less than perfectly chilled fare and there was some concern that the monkey butlers sometimes threw a bit of an attitude—and worse—but, you know, satisfied. Generally.
Sunday, Oct. 3 Just read on LBPost.com that Legends sports bar now has a 326-inch TV, and while I’m very happy for them, I’d just like to say that while I will be watching the NFL today at home on what seems to be a much smaller, 42-inch screen, I’d just like to point out that 42-inches is completely respectable and normal and I have nothing to be ashamed because I can only watch what has been provided me and anyways, you know what they say, it’s not how big your screen is, it’s, wait, it’s not the inches it’s the, it’s the … I’m a good person!
Monday, Oct. 4 Happy Birthday Jackson! Seventeen years ago I was awakened by a nurse at Long Beach Memorial who told me your mother was about to give birth to a beautiful baby boy, and while I will always challenge her assertion that my first inclination was to turn over and say “Gimme five more minutes,” she was right about you.
Tuesday, Oct. 5 And they took the child and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and a Volvo station wagon, and took him home to the ancestral home of Downey (yes!).
Wednesday, Oct. 6 Rain, rain and more rain, yes, we receive a whopping .30 inches of rain today setting a record for Oct. 6, beating out the previous mark of .003 recorded in 1984 when Ol’ Lady Rasmussen left the hose on in her yard.
Thursday, Oct. 7 Disgraced fat-ass Robert Rizzo, the former city manager of Bell currently under indictment for corruption that led him to being paid millions of dollars, now claims the city owes him back pay and severance and is demanding payment. Robert Rizzo now officially has the biggest balls in the world. Big. Balls. Balls of such planetary scope that they exhibit significant gravitational pull. Balls so large that not only have their own zip and area codes but their own eco-system as well. Really Rizzo? You couldn’t be any less popular if you were a Democrat up for re-election, and yet this is the direction you go? I have a letter here from Charles Manson he wanted me to forward to you, it reads, “Dude, too much.” You know, when I first saw Rizzo, I couldn’t help but feel a little sympathy for a sad sack that was so pathetic looking, I mean that gloomy little peanut of a head on top of all that girth, he looked like he was perpetually being swallowed by a morbidly obese shark with really bad taste in suits. But, there is no sympathy at all for this miserable excuse of a man. No excuse either. Guess that just leaves a miserable man.
5 Comments
Steve: I liked your tribute to George. I didn’t know him well, but once had the privilege of meeting him. My thoughts go out to those who loved him.
george laine, bill shelton, morry rabin..and I’m sure there are many others I’m forgetting..were what at one time made the p-t such a special place to work.
sadly, they are no longer with us.
a nice tribute, steve.
And yet, dear Jackson denies Downey as his ancestral home! (sweet tribute, Lowery)
I knew George Laine at the Independent-Press Telegram when it was fiesty paper under the leadership of Bill Broom, tackling the big subjects with a lot more courage than the Los Angeles Times. George with his outrageous costumes was a big part of that and a big part of the Newspaper Guild there. He fought for his fellow employees’, his comrades’ rights as he fought for the lives of his neighbors through AA. George, you fought the good fight, and you won more than your share.
Gil Bailey
Port Townsend, Wa.
The late Bill Shelton was the first of these gentlemen whom I met (never knew Morry Rabin); and in fact, he was just about the first person I met when I joined the P-T.
Someone whom I’d worked with at the city college newspaper, the Viking, had the dubious assignment of taking me around and introducing me on that first day.
I remember Shelton and the late David Levinson sitting next to each other at huge Steelcase desks in the Life/Style department, which was where I was to work.
And I remember Shelton for being just an all-around great guy to me–a bit gruff, but very funny and smart–and I remember his occasional colloquialism, like “Making little ones out of big ones,” which was slang for prisoners busting up rocks.
I wish I remembered more of those expressions, because I know he had them.
David Levinson I remember for his eerie, ironic calm in the face of just about anything. He’d walk around almost solemnly sometimes, and he’d say “All will be well”–when both of you just knew it wouldn’t be.
That was why it was so fun, and why I miss working with them all–Bill, David, George Laine, Linc Haynes, Judy Hazlett–and the folks who are still with us, like Buck Lanier, Pat Delaney, Bob Amaral, Leo Hetzel, Bob Houser, George Cunningham, Jim McCormack, and John Beshears.
Because things still got crazy even in the ’90s–fist-fights on election night, people supposedly found tied up in the hallways, electric typewriters lowered out of rear windows (okay, that one was before my time)–but no matter what happened, you always knew they’d seen it crazier.
And because they were there–all those people, and a certain pressman whom the late Judy Hazlett insisted never did a lick of work–the great, leaky ship of the fifth estate would eventually right itself enough to sail onward, listing just a bit.