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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
 Posted - 02/06/2011 : 09:00:15
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I met William Scanlon Murphy yesterday. He used to be a session musician for the Beach Boys, and wrote a book which said that Charlie Manson isn't responsible for the Tate and LaBianca murders. Murphy is now the organist for a church in Baltimore, the church my dad attended for years, and where my dad's memorial service was held yesterday. Murphy knew my dad pretty well.
After the service, we all gathered in the back hall of the church for chatting and food, and one of my relatives, Joyce, a cousin of my dad's, came over to me and said, "David, you have to meet the organist! He's got an amazing story!"
So she introduces me to Murphy (including the fact that he used to play with the Beach Boys), and he tells me that the previous Sunday (a day before my dad suddenly and totally unexpectedly died), he'd selected a piece of music by John Barry for the next Sunday's service (today), and it turned out that John Barry was born on, and died on, the exact same days as my father!
Murphy said something along the lines of "that couldn't have been a coincidence," and I said something like, "that's pretty cool." Joyce was upset with me for not being more astounded by this incredible story, and I told her I was saying "wow!" on the inside, while I was really trying to mentally go through the math, and went off to talk to some other people. I wasn't going to be more confrontational in a place and time at which emotions were already strained.
Well, it turns out that I didn't need to do any math at all. According to the Wikipedia article on John Barry, he was born three days before my father, and died one day before. So there wasn't even a coincidence. A totally non-amazing story.
Now I've got to break it to Joyce...
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- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 02/06/2011 : 11:09:06 [Permalink]
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Dave. Interesting story.
But hey, you have my condolences on your fathers passing... |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 02/06/2011 : 11:16:01 [Permalink]
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| As for Manson. Bullshit. The Tate and LaBianca murders weren't cases lacking in very strong evidence against Manson. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 02/06/2011 : 13:05:41 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
But hey, you have my condolences on your fathers passing... |
Thanks.| As for Manson. Bullshit. The Tate and LaBianca murders weren't cases lacking in very strong evidence against Manson. |
I can't find any evidence that Murphy's book about Manson was ever actually published. The article I linked to talked about the advance he was given to write it, back in 1999. One thing I ran across said that Murphy had been the target of two death threats, maybe "they" scared him off publication.
(Note that the book shares its title with a 2006 animated musical which isn't based on the book.) |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9687 Posts |
Posted - 02/06/2011 : 13:53:40 [Permalink]
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I'm sorry for your loss...
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
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Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 02/06/2011 : 18:44:22 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse
I'm sorry for your loss...
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I too. It's never easy to lose a family memebr.
Back in the '70s, I read Helter Skelter, written by Vince Bugliosi, who prosecuted the case. I wouldn't call it the be-all, end-all of the story, but it looked like a damned good case to me. I've read some on it since and seen nothing to change my mind.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Randy
SFN Regular
USA
1990 Posts |
Posted - 02/06/2011 : 19:28:08 [Permalink]
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| My sincere condolences Dave, on the loss of your father. Feel lucky to have him all these years...I was twelve when my dad departed life. Maybe sometime you can tell us some about his life. |
"We are all connected; to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, to the rest of the universe atomically."
"So you're made of detritus [from exploded stars]. Get over it. Or better yet, celebrate it. After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?"
-Neil DeGrasse Tyson |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 02/06/2011 : 20:55:13 [Permalink]
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My deepest condolences.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 02/06/2011 : 21:11:59 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Randy
My sincere condolences Dave, on the loss of your father. |
Thanks to all for your thoughts.| Feel lucky to have him all these years...I was twelve when my dad departed life. Maybe sometime you can tell us some about his life. |
Well... Over the past week, I've learned a lot about my dad that I didn't know.
My parents got divorced when I was less than 10, I generally saw my father only every other weekend from then until I was 18, and even less after that because I struck out on my own. Even though he was only an hour-and-a-half away by car, I didn't get my license to drive until I was 21, and so only saw him when he happened to be in my area during those three years.
And that sort of set a pattern for a while, since I apparently inherited the "don't bother reaching out to family" gene from my father. My wife, on the other hand, wound up with a strong need for keeping up with family, and she'd periodically insist that we call or go see my dad. Had she not been around, my dad and I probably would have subsisted on nothing but annual birthday calls back-and-forth for the last 17 years. Well, until dad discovered email. He'd email me news stories and suchlike.
At any rate, I'm not sure if the total "face time" I had with my father would total even 12 years. And when we spoke, he was much more likely to tell me about the goings-on of other family members than about himself. Talking, this past week, to my half-brother and half-sister (yes, I have one complete sibling of indeterminate sex) and other family members and friends has filled in some gaps.
Joyce, my dad's cousin who I mentioned in the OP, is someone who remembers me from when I was knee-high, but of whom I have no memory whatsoever (until Friday night's viewing, of course). From her, I learned that my father's father was the second of four brothers who were first-generation Americans of immigrant parents from Germany. From her, I learned that my dad's love of classic music was an aberration within the family, and that his uncles called it "long-hair music" more than a decade before hippies made the scene. From her, I also learned that my father and my mother (who died in 1986) were running around together for at least seven years before I was born as their first (and only) child. That may not be odd today (my son wasn't born until almost nine years after I met his mother), but for the late '50s and early '60s, it seems a little out of the ordinary.
And now it's getting late. More later... |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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The Rat
SFN Regular
Canada
1370 Posts |
Posted - 02/06/2011 : 21:18:42 [Permalink]
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| My condolences too Dave, I have yet to lose a parent so I can't imagine how you feel. |
Bailey's second law; There is no relationship between the three virtues of intelligence, education, and wisdom.
You fiend! Never have I encountered such corrupt and foul-minded perversity! Have you ever considered a career in the Church? - The Bishop of Bath and Wells, Blackadder II
Baculum's page: http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=3947338590 |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 02/07/2011 : 01:13:57 [Permalink]
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| So sorry to hear of your father's death, Dave. |
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 02/07/2011 : 10:10:05 [Permalink]
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Dave.....
Fascinating, and touching.
I, too, knew little of my father, although we lived in the same house for 26 years. I have missed him for 56 years, however. A bit maudlin, perhaps, but true. |
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Bill scott
SFN Addict
USA
2103 Posts |
Posted - 02/07/2011 : 11:35:10 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
I met William Scanlon Murphy yesterday.
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Sorry to hear about the lose of your dad, Dave. My condolences to you and your family.
Just out of curiosity what are your beliefs concerning the passing of your dad? Is it your belief that at the death of his body that his entire identity and memory of this life was completely eliminated as well and, other then in the memory of a few relatives and friends still alive here on earth, it is as if he never existed at all? If not then what happened to him or his identity? Does his identity somehow carry on? Will anything be left so that he will be aware of his existence and the time he spent here on earth or again once the body is deceased does all identity and self-awareness of one's own existence go with it into the grave? Yes nobody knows for sure but surly you must have some beliefs, or at the least some thoughts of what might happen. I am just curios as to what someone who holds your beliefs thinks happens to their loved ones at this point in the journey of life. |
"Lets get one thing clear, Bill. Science does make some assumptions." -perrodetokio-
"In the end as skeptics we must realize that there is no real knowledge, there is only what is most reasonable to believe." -Coelacanth-
The fact that humans do science is what causes errors in science. -Dave W.-
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 02/07/2011 : 13:41:49 [Permalink]
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| What are your beliefs, Bill scott? |
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Ebone4rock
SFN Regular
USA
894 Posts |
Posted - 02/07/2011 : 13:59:27 [Permalink]
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Sorry for your loss Dave. I am sending positively charged mind-bolts your way.
Your story about your relationship with your father touched me. My father and I have a similar relationship. We see each other maybe every year or two. If it weren't for my youngest sister it probably wouldn't even be that often. I hate the uncomfortable feeling that my father and I share when we are around each other. I'm sure we both feel that way because we really don't know each other very well. It needs to change.
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Haole with heart, thats all I'll ever be. I'm not a part of the North Shore society. Stuck on the shoulder, that's where you'll find me. Digging for scraps with the kooks in line. -Offspring |
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Bill scott
SFN Addict
USA
2103 Posts |
Posted - 02/07/2011 : 14:26:45 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by bngbuck
What are your beliefs, Bill scott?
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I believe I'll have another peice of pie. |
"Lets get one thing clear, Bill. Science does make some assumptions." -perrodetokio-
"In the end as skeptics we must realize that there is no real knowledge, there is only what is most reasonable to believe." -Coelacanth-
The fact that humans do science is what causes errors in science. -Dave W.-
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Wow!
