Lance Manion died unexpectedly this week. To those of us who came up in the early blogosphere, he was one of the Original Gangsters. I was struggling to write a proper tribute when I came across this from his friend Tom Watson and realized he’d said it all:
April 22, 2021
A Blogger’s Farewell
The great Lance Mannion has left us and his passing requires a testament to his gifts and generosity in a venue appropriate to his prolific blogging life. This particular slab of granite will be carved here, upon this ancient turf, this feed, this blog, this Typepad. For this is where Lance lived and created his world of words, where he sowed such a rich wildflower meadow of scents and colors and shapes and stories. His work was a gift to me and so many thousands of others, very lightly remunerated, and yet so consistent that we took yet another wordsmith spring for granted and the sudden killing frost of mortality has wiped the blooms away. There will be no more posts. No more musings on literature and film, television and media, politics and culture.
It was here where Lance Mannion joined the immortals of our game. He ranks with Steve Gilliard, Gehrig’s “luckiest man” to that Ruthian loss and – in my view – the Iron Horse of the liberal blogging era, a man who kept going long after all the RSS feeds dried up and Twitter injected its instantaneous meanness of spirit into what now passes for discourse. Those gauzy days of the aughts seem distant now, but they were a time of superheroes – writers who wore their disguises like marvelous capes and masks and costumes. I shudder at their remembered majesty and might. “Lance Mannion” invented himself, because he could. Because we all could. Lance was part Bing Crosby part Jack Lemmon and part Damon Runyon. But he also injected hardcore liberalism into middle American tastebuds, like Peter Parker’s radioactive spider. Tolerance crossed with curiosity was his superpower. And so he rambled with the Self-Styled Siren, with the Viscount LaCarte, with Neddie Jingo, with Blue Girl, with Shakespeare’s Sister, with M.A. Peel, with Jon Swift, with Majikthise, with Digby, and all the other crazy superhero bastards (including those of us foolish enough to use our real names). Keep your Rat Pack, brother, that was my crowd.
Lance Mannion was the witty guy down at the end of the best bar in town. You walked into the joint happy to see him there every damned night. You left with his jocular Fred MacMurray banter ringing in your ears, smoother than the most expensive Scotch.
Dave Reilly had a harder road.
Lance was my muse, but Dave was my friend. He was a brilliant writer, out of the Iowa Writers Workshop, and a devoted family man who hit some very tough times in late middle life. We went to the Clinton Global Initiative together. We hung around a few Democratic victory parties together. He joined my newcritics blogging venture back in the day. He was a regular at the Hillman Prizes. We marched with the Teamsters at Occupy Wall Street. And then harder times closed in. He had some serious health challenges. And his wife Adrienne – herself a brilliant journalist the very reason why Lance Mannion lionized Lois Lane – became ill. To blog readers, she’s the Blonde or Mrs. M. They were an incredibly close couple, and they loved their boys deeply and publicly. But in this time in this country for a blogger and a newspaperwoman, the economic bar was high even without the healthcare crisis.
Dave would always send a Christmas card. Now and again a postcard. My favorite – as he knew – was the one from Hyde Park, after a visit to FDR’s Presidential library, a place we both revered. He was a very thoughtful man; I was not always as thoughtful in return. Money was tight. The blog raised a bit, but perhaps not enough. The cracks through which a guy like Dave can fall in our society are too damned wide.
If you read the Lance Mannion blog – and by God, it should be preserved – I recommend the posts about his family. He created “Mannionville” and populated it with people. Pop M. The Blonde. Mom Mannion. His boys, Ken and Oliver Mannion. The barista at Barnes & Noble. The guy at the hardware store. A world where people knew each other and cared. That’s where Dave and Lance came together, the place where the blogging superhero took off his mask. They were the same. A loving father, husband, and son. I suspect that’s how he will be remembered the best.
But to me, he’ll always wear a cape.
NOTE: Dave’s family needs your help. Please consider making a financial donation to help them out at this difficult time via this online fundraiser organized by Susie Madrak.