Remebering my friend Bill Albright

 

Just got word this morning that Bill Albright, my best buddy from my old days at The Houston Post (1982-1995), passed away a couple days ago. For more than a decade, we sat literally face to face in the Arts & Entertainment area of the newsroom — he was the theater critic, I covered film — and I often joked that I saw more of him than most of my blood relatives (including my father) during this time. We swapped stories, made rude comments and shared gossip about various individuals (who always had it coming), and occasionally admitted to each other how ridiculously fortunate we were to get paid for doing what we loved.

After the Post shut down, we remained in touch, through sporadic lunches — though not nearly as many as I should have made time to share with him — and much more frequent emails. He was my go-to guy whenever I needed to ask a question about theater, opera and/or classical music, and would ask me about what movies he should check out on streaming platforms. He was a big guy, and could cast an intimidating glare that would shatter reinforced concrete, but he was a big ol’ softie at heart. In the last email I received from him, dated Feb. 17, he shared his response to the most recent film he had watched: “The old Wuthering Heights. Sniff.” I had no trouble at all imagining him getting teary-eyed as he watched the spirits of Heathcliff and Cathy reunite at last.

A week or two before that, he shared this comment: “Abraham Lincoln said watching Melania was the worst experience he’s ever had in a theater.” My response: “You bad.” His rejoinder: “And proud of it.”

My favorite Bill story: Way back when Operation Desert Shield was just about to escalate into Desert Storm, an editor a named Ernie Williamson (also gone but not forgotten) wandered over to our desks to talk about the situation, and his own Vietnam experiences. I admitted that I had managed to get a 4F exemption while I was in college — and I will tell you only enough of the story so that the punchline makes sense. While I was attending LSUNO (now known as University of New Orleans), a young woman I was casually dating at the time told me she was pregnant, and I was the father, so I helped her obtain a then-illegal abortion. I found out later that she had lied – my gun shoots blanks. At the time, though, I was still a reasonably good Catholic, and the experience shook me so badly that the campus shrink wrote a letter to the draft board stating I was in no mental shape to serve in the military.

I ended the story this way: “So I guess I’m the only person you’ll ever meet who dodged the draft by fucking.”

Beat.

“Well,” Bill noted dryly, “fucking a woman.”

Ernie nearly doubled over with laughter. I nearly fell out of my seat laughing. But Bill only flashed a wicked smile. Because, hey, he was a bad, bad boy.

It’s been way too long since Bill and I had lunch, and I was hoping to remedy that when I returned from SXSW later this month. You always think you’ll have enough time. But sometimes — too many times, really — you don’t.