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Wednesday, December 17, 2008
R.I.P. Jim Nichols
Word came to the newsroom this morning that one of our old friends and longtime colleagues, Jim Nichols, died yesterday at age 89. Here’s the obit.
Jim was a fixture in the newsroom the DDN left behind back at our original building at Fourth and Ludlow streets in downtown Dayton. He never made the move to our tidy new Media Center on South Main Street, but I don’t think he would’ve been very happy here anyway. He was, as anybody who knew him knew, a downtown Dayton guy.
In fact, the rhythm and pulse of downtown, its ups and downs over the decades, were Jim’s life and the underpinnings of his career in journalism. He came to be known as “Mr. Downtowner,” after the name of the publication that he edited and wrote for for many years, a tabloid that chronicled downtown news and events.
Nichols wrote for that and for the DDN for decades. Even after he officially retired, he still came to the features department newsroom on the fifth floor every day for years. He diligently typed his column and made phone calls to bar owners, band leaders and restaurateurs who all knew that Nichols wanted more than anything to let his many readers know what was going on in their joints.
He knew the history of the city as well as anybody. He could tell you what business had been in a certain storefront 10, 20 or 30 years ago, and knew the names of the owners and the guys who worked in the front. He knew stories about fighters, crooks, musicians and sportsmen. He knew cops, judges and crooks, and where they all ended up.
He ate lunch most days at the great Moraine Embassy, a lunch-counter restaurant with Greek flair that’s still open on Ludlow next to our old building. He spent most evenings after work at the Trolley Stop, where owner Robin Sassenberg was a good friend who helped take care of him in his old age, and where he liked to watch the comings and goings of folks who all stopped by to say hello to “Nick.”
He regretted that downtown had deteriorated to the state it’s at today from what he recalled in its heyday — but unlike many other people, he never hated it and never, ever gave up on it. He kept telling its tales and spotlighted its good points as well as he could, and even became a promoter of downtown events in his own right — founding and organizing the free music festivals at Dave Hall Plaza each summer that bring reggae, blues and Women in Jazz. What would downtown be like without them?
Nichols could be a little grouchy, as he got older, about changes to his copy, and he got a bit impatient sometimes with younger folks in the newsroom who did things differently from the ways he knew. I suppose that’s your right, after a certain point, and Nichols stuck around for so many years that he passed many, many milestones that others in ours or any business never reach.
He was neat guy. I wish I’d known him when he was younger, stronger, and more vigorous. I learned a lot from him, and that’s one of the best things I can say about anybody.
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New Killers CD: So-so stuff
The CD du jour:
The Killers DAY & AGE
Few bands have the intriguing mish-mash of influences that can be claimed by the Killers, a Vegas-based quartet who veer back and forth between wildly incongruent styles with verve — but, alas. also with mixed success.
The band’s first disc, 2004’s “Hot Fuss,” restirred the mid-’70s glam-rock pot and sounded glitzy and great, when the band turned around and followed it up with “Sam’s Town,” a big-production number that warmed over Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen and came off as a lame Bon Jovi ripoff.
Now comes “Day & Age,” which pulls the interesting trick of trying to mix both of those styles on the same disc — and sometimes on the same song. “Losing Touch,” the first cut, starts off with chimes that somehow recall “Badlands” before slipping gear into a cool shuffle and a wisecracking vocal by Brandon Flowers that made me think of “Diamond Dogs”-era Bowie. And it works.
In fact, if you can break down the Killers’ still-evolving sound into Bruce or Bowie column A and B, they almost always sound better, more authentic and more comfortable when they’re playing off the latter than the former; evidence the utterly disastrous “A Dustland Fairytale,” which rehashes every broken-dreams/washed-up-prom-queen rock cliche ever written. Ick. Stick with the mascara, guys, and you’ll do fine.
Grade: B-
iPod picks: “Human,” “Losing Touch,” “Joy Ride.”
