There's a wake tonight, from 6 to 8, for Dad at the Hibernian Pub in Raleigh. I'm hoping for a night of wonderful, crazy, strange memories with good people. While toodling around on Dad's computer, John found the above photo which sums up the man pretty well. Somehow, he took three pictures of himself and then Photoshopped them together to make this panorama of his house in Benson, NC. This is the same place he used to hold his Mule Days party every year.

Click "continue" to see a larger picture, on its side so it fits. Continued...

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage, against the dying of the light.
--Dylan Thomas, "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night"

Here's the obituary I wrote for my Dad, who passed away just a few days ago:

Peter Schilling let go of the world he loved on Sunday, July 13. He was a wonderful Dad, friend to countless people, a teacher, activist, card player, film lover and avid reader, handyman, and a magician of exquisite talent. He would perform sleight of hand with a simple yet complex grace, tricks that grew in wonder as they progressed, surprising even the most hardened cynic. But Peter was magical in every sense of the word: small gestures of kindness toward everyone, a devout commitment to justice and peace, and an ability to uncover beauty in even the most mundane. Thanks to his passion for life, he leaves this world a better place. Continued...

Swallowing and eating. Doing a crossword puzzle. Moving, talking, pissing, writing. These are the little things we now mark as larger achievements, but they lack the shiny feeling of a toddler's first steps or inaugural word. Some days he wants to play cribbage, and I ask him to count the score off, out loud, in order to work his mouth and his tongue, and try to get that brain of his squared away for talking. I don't know cribbage so well, and sometimes the scoring gets a bit touchy--for instance, when he says "eighteen" over and over when he means "eight". I'm confused, trying to figure out if I've scored incorrectly, which is certainly possible. The funny thing is, after repeating the former number, he'll shake his head and say "I don't mean 'eighteen', I mean 'eight'," and then he can say the correct score. So we laugh and continue the game. Continued...

Allow me to delve into the deeply personal for a moment: my Dad, Peter Schilling Sr., was diagnosed last March with stage III lung cancer. This was an incredible blow for him, obviously, and it devastated me for a few days before I righted myself and sought to help him fight this damn thing. Well, on a visit to North Carolina to see him last month, on the Saturday morning before Father's Day, he suffered a massive stroke due to the tumor in his lung, which had thickened his blood. Were my brother, John, and I not visiting, he would probably not have survived, or have lost completely the power to speak, perhaps even been confined, forever, in a wheelchair. Continued...

Yes, friends, the summer movie bonanza is riding right over us, like so many conestoga wagons crushing the poor prairie dogs. Briefly: Iron Man is a sexist, asshole-oriented thrill-ride, a near-great movie for those men who need to feel macho (and who want to see Gwyneth Paltrow in high-high heels); Indiana Jones and the Crazy Alien Skulls is my vote for the worst movie of the year, an insulting an utterly joyless spectacle of hideous special effects, listless acting, and is so bad that, for the first time, Cate Blanchett was rendered dull; of Chronicles of Narnia I say, to hell with that, I didn't waste my time on the first and I have yet to see Speed Racer, but then again I don't look back fondly at the old cartoon. In fact, I look upon the old cartoon as an embarrassment, so why waste time with the new version? Continued...

Today marks the 100th birthday of the man that I consider the greatest actor in American film history: Jimmy Stewart. I say this because no one created a persona that so reflected the American male consciousness, and no actor so thoroughly challenged and altered what that meaning was. Consider that Jimmy Stewart was famous, incredibly famous, for his roles as the fella next door, as in The Philadelphia Story, It's A Wonderful Life, the unheralded (but very sweet) Come Live With Me, The Shop Around the Corner (a masterpiece by any standard and one of the greatest films ever made thanks in a large part to Jimmy), to name but a few. Then comes Rope, and a subtle change--Jimmy is stoic, troubled, his tension rising. Winchester '73 revolutionized how actors control their financial destinies (Stewart's contract with Universal was the first to include some sort of percentage of the take), but it also showed us that the character Jimmy Stewart peddled--that of the decent, hardworking, American--could be pushed to limits that, well, were disturbing. Over the next six years, Stewart was consistently challenging, strange, perturbed--The Naked Spur, Bend in the River, Rear Window... this image of the American man has warped slightly, though it could be said that this warping was a necessary ingredient in our nation's psyche.
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Last night I dreamt that I visited Tiger Stadium. I visit the old house frequently in the night-it's a part of the Sleep City that I live in now and again. Sleep City isn't Detroit, not entirely, just as it isn't New York or Chicago. They're approximations, amalgams of the city as I imagine it from books and movies, past experiences there, and whatever residual shit from the day asserts itself in my slumber.
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My Dad tells me of this place he calls "The Secret City". The Secret City doesn't exist in one place--in fact, it exists in many places, all over the world. It is that wonderful store or restaurant that does something exceptionally well, something out of the ordinary, and is, of course, a secret to most of the world. Beanbender's Beer Garden, featured in D. Manus Pinkwater's Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death is such a place, albeit in literature and not life, and one I've been looking for all my life (as is the Snark Theater as well, and its all-night buffet of classic black and white films). Whenever I'm on the road I seek refuge in the Secret City. On this trip I found it in such places as Yastrzemski's Cards and Sal's Pizza in Cooperstown; the Chinese restaurant whose name I forgot in NYC (but whose more sweet than hot General Tso's chicken was incredible); that part of Grand Central Station where you can stand opposite one another, whisper into the wall, and be heard across the room; and Dutch's Beer Dock in Cincinnati. I imagine, long ago, in the 40s, McSorley's Bar was a part of the Secret City until Joseph Mitchell exposed it to the world in the pages of the The New Yorker. No matter. Despite its popularity, McSorley's is a place that boggles the mind--while perhaps no longer a secret in this world, secret little worlds exist in every groove gouged into the floorboards.
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The great news: Detroit Tigers 8, New York Yankees 4. That's a sweep for my favorite nine. I was at last night's game, an utterly miserable evening spent in the upper deck in right field (actually my favorite seats in any ballpark) as a driving mist made the bill on my cap drip onto my ruined scorecard. It also didn't help that StubHub.com claimed that I was saving tons of money by purchasing a $45 ticket for $30, when it turns out that on that particular night those same $45 tickets were selling for $5. Yes, that's five bucks. If there's one thing I know it's this: on the street or on the net, I have absolutely no luck whatsoever with scalpers. They get me every time. Continued...

New York City. Like Chicago, I'm having a blast, but unfortunately like Chicago I and my little book can't entice anyone to attend these readings. My agent, Paul Bresnick was there, as was Walter Vatter, my publicist at Ivan R. Dee. And two other guys and a lady who I think was just using the back row to rest and read the stack of books she was carrying. Afterwards, she seemed to poke disdainfully at the table of my books in the back. Ah well. Continued...