I didn’t know Patrick Jake O’Rourke but I have been known to steal his middle name for various anonymous activities and correspondence (taps side of nose with index finger) like sending “secret admirer” valentines to the child bride. I haven’t done that yet but planned to a couple of days ago. Procrastination got the better of me. And this is the second time I’ve mentioned him recently as he figured in my most recent Christmas message
Like I said, I didn’t know him personally but after reading and still owning 18 of his books (I think he wrote 19), if we’d had an opportunity to have a drink which is something we have in common, we’d have had plenty to talk about….between drinks. Those books are now dog-eared and torn and the type has been read so many times it’s starting to fade. Unlike novels where once you know the ending there’s no point backtracking, his books overflow with one-liners and tragi-comedic but somehow appropriate expositions on politics and economics and life in general that you just wish you could remember so you could steal them and appear witty and politically erudite all at the same time. Of course there are very few “comedians” or like PJ, literary humourists, capable of this as most of them these days are from the Robert DeNiro “fuck Trump” school of applied hilarity.
He was born in Toledo, Ohio whose other famous resident was Max Klinger. The mashing together of their relative portrayals of the absurd somehow makes sense. PJ died today of lung cancer complications. I suspect cigars and whisky were all that remained of a youth that majored in practical chemistry while studying English Literature. He said this about suicide : “Guns are always the best method for a suicide. They are more stylish looking than single-edged razor blades and natural gas has gotten so expensive. Drugs are too chancy. You might mis-calculate the dosage and just have a good time.”
PJ has many claims to fame. He was editor-in-chief of National Lampoon magazine before the movies began to appear. Later and around the time when Hunter S Thompson was creating mayhem at the same publication, PJ was foreign correspondent for Rolling Stone magazine which mainly involved him reporting back from war zones. That makes about as much sense as being the tobacco correspondent for Men’s Health. He has contributed mirth and scorn to the lexicon ever since those heady days.
I first encountered PJ in 1977. The CB and I were on our way to Tasmania and I needed something to read on the ferry from Melbourne to Devonport. I spied a magazine I had never heard of called National Lampoon and that edition’s theme was Sex. A no-brainer really in an innocent age of no internet and therefore no internet porn. But thanks to the internet you can pull National Lampoon out of archive and see the humungously famous magazine cover – Buy This Magazine or We’ll Kill This Dog. I’ve even provided the link for you.
Most recently he wrote A Cry From the Far Middle which contained the usual quota of quotables, one of which was the rules he taught his kids to live by – keep your hands to your self and mind your own business – or as he calls them, the Clinton rules. Bill, keep your hands to yourself and Hillary, mind your own business.
Even though you’re no longer with us PJ, you’ll be making me laugh for as long as I am still capable of doing it.