Delivered at the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer on Lexington Avenue in Manhattan on May 10, 2022.
Let me begin by thanking Dorothy Carvello for organizing this memorial for John. I know it was a labor of love, but we are all grateful for this chance to come together and celebrate our friend, and remember what he meant to us. Thank you, Dorothy.
I’m happy to have the opportunity to speak about John today. Although, frankly, I was a little surprised Dorothy asked me. Of course, now, looking out on the faces of John’s friends and loved one, I am reminded of all the riff raff John knew, so here I am.
I’m very glad to join David Korznik up here today. I loved your remarks today, David. Thank you. Well done! One of my best memories of working at Spy was listening in when John and David would discuss the legal exposure that might result from John’s reports. What a treat! The learned, erudite attorney asking questions—the savvy, street smart investigator presenting his evidence. David would ask his questions, and whatever he asked, John would muster all his forbearance, and summon all his patience, and begin his answer by saying “Well, counselor. . . ‘’ I’ve seen Liza Minelli in Studio 54, I’ve seen John Gotti on Prince Street, but that as an authentic a New York experience as any.
Dorothy asked me to share some funny anecdotes about John. Our friends Carol Vinzant and Joanne Gruber reminded me that John had a favorite joke—a wisecrack, really—that he used over and over again, whenever the subject of recommendations came up. If he was recommending someone, or someone recommending him, or we were discussing recommendations involving parties unknown, John would invariably inject the phrase, “Well, we never caught him stealing.’’
Now this was a pretty funny line, and I laughed at it the first 2-3 times I heard it. But I’m sure I heard John say it a thousand times. But the funny part was that he would always laugh at his own joke, a high pitched giggle, almost girlish. He loved that line. Joanne says John wanted it as his epitaph.
Like many people here, I met John at Spy magazine.
Our friend Susan Morrison once said that those of us at Spy were like the toys from the Island of Misfit Toys. We didn’t quite fit with the rest of the world. Often we showed this by affecting a cool attitude, holding the world at arm’s length distance, the better to make fun of it. Or maybe that was just me. Anyway, we were misfit toys who fit in with each other.
John definitely wasn’t an arm’s length distance kind of person. John was an “in the middle of things” type. He always had something going on. John was never one to upstage somebody or hog the spotlight; he didn’t have to. John brought the show.
There was no ironic distance about John. He lived in a world inhabited by good guys and bad guys, and he wanted to catch bad guys. If John was a misfit, it was because there was something about the work he had been doing that misfit him. He saw himself doing something that left him more fulfilled, that challenged him more, that let him make more of a difference and to leave a bigger mark
And he fit right in. Starting right away at Spy and then at other publications, he became a big game hunter. And he was good at it. Donald Trump. Steven Seagal. Robert Maxwell. Anthony Pelicano, the Hollywood Madam, Jeffrey Epstein. Those were the pelts on his pony.
And he loved it. John had a lot of interests, a lot of enthusiasms, a lot of friends and family that he loved, but his mind was seldom far from a story. I spent hundreds of hours talking to him, but I have no memories of just shooting the bull. He was too restless. Many days he would come in and mention that he had gone to Yankee game or to the Tribeca Film Festival or some HBO screening, but he never spent much time on what he’d seen. Instead, it was always “I ran into a guy at the game last night. . .’’ or “I heard an interesting story at this party. . . ‘’
He always had a guy, Knew a guy. Was going to meet a guy. And he always found a guy who had something to say. He was a cultivator of sources, a curator of information.
After I left Spy, I briefly went to Us magazine, where I assigned John a story on the Hollywood Madam. We were going to pay for him to spend a week in Los Angeles. He left on a Sunday. Tuesday night he called me and said “I’m coming home. I got the story.’’ He talked to a guy, who talked to a guy, who put him in touch with an accountant, who gave him documents that showed that Columbia Pictures had the Hollywood Madam on retainer. I don’t know how he did it. There was a battalion of reporters running up and down Hollywood Boulevard chasing which stars might be in Heidi’s little black book, and John hits Los Angeles like he’s leading a raid of Entebbe Airport, and in 48 hours uncovers a larger, darker scandal.
But that was the classic John story. There was always the extra shock, the bonus scandal, the story you expected and combined with the one you didn’t see coming. One day he said “I’m going to go spend the weekend with the guy who I think killed his wife,’’ and comes back not only with proof in that case, but evidence that he killed an earlier wife. Then one day John says he wants to investigate a story about stolen software and smuggled weapons on an Indian reservation in California, and ends up with three stories, including one that showed that the purported suicide of a well known investigative reporter was actually murder—and he named the killer. He was remarkable.
And that work inspired everyone around him.
Early in the founding of Spy, high among the many brilliant things our leaders Kurt Andersen and Graydon Carter did, they created a slogan, that perfectly captured all that we were about: Smart Fun Funny Fearless.
Which we were. Right from the start. Particularly the fearless part. And John was all those things, too, particularly the fearless part. But I think John enlarged our sense of fearlessness. Early on we were fearless like kids in the park, throwing snowballs, trying to knock the top hats off the swells strolling on Fifth Avenue. With John came, the fearlessness became a little more daring. I don’t think John was solely responsible, but it wasn’t entirely coincidental that it was during that time that Bob Mack and John Brodie tailed Lee Atwater, and Gerry Taylor was headhunting John Sununu, and many other adventures began. We all had a little more swagger when John was around. And that was his gift to his fellow misfits.
He was fun. He was a leader. He was a great friend. He was more than colorful–he was Kodachrome.
I’m not sure where John is right now, but I hope he is still investigating.
“The Secrets of the Afterlife,” by John Connolly. I’d read that article.
John, if you’re listening, try to get us 4000 words by Memorial Day.
We may have to start a magazine, but I’m pretty sure we’ll give you the July cover.