Tuba Man was a grin set to music
By ART THIEL
P-I COLUMNIST
FOR THOSE WHO don't attend sports or arts events in Seattle, you might not get the white-hot gash some of us are experiencing with the murder of Tuba Man.
Please let me explain.
He was the last innocent fun.
A little daunting at first but a kid at heart, always there, occasionally melodic, often malodorous and irrepressibly amiable, Tuba Man created grins as inevitable as they were spontaneous.
He generated on Seattle's streets a milestone in human kinetics: He proved it was physically impossible to keep a straight face walking past a bearded, bespectacled mystery in a Dr. Seuss hat playing Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" on solo tuba.
See? You're laughing.
Just as Steve Martin said a sad tune cannot be played on a banjo, a sad thought could not be held while in the musical presence of Tuba Man.
Edward McMichael and his tuba were fixtures outside Seattle sports venues and the opera house. Which is why the news and nature of the death of Edward McMichael is such a shot to the soul for those who knew him well, as well as those who knew him only as the background bass note for Seattle sports.
A simple man of good humor was beaten to death for a thrill and a few bucks.
The rage was plain in the Soundoffs that accompanied Robert Jamieson's Seattle P-I column Tuesday that broke the news of the tragedy.
It was audible in the anguish on the talk shows on KJR and KOMO.
I called my old radio pals Robin and Maynard.
"He was the cayenne pepper of this city," said a distraught Robin Erickson. "These (bleeps) cut out the last of it.
"All he wanted in life was a cheeseburger and a hug."
John Maynard recalled the time McMichael was invited to the radio station's annual Seafair party at a local restaurant, where Maynard gave away his chick wagon, a 1972 Camaro, as a door prize.
"Tuba Man played, 'Baby I'm A-Want You,' " Maynard said, laughing, of the 1970s hit by Bread. "Perfect. You never knew if he was off a click, or dead on."
In their 20-year-plus run on five Seattle radio stations, Robin and Maynard had on Tuba Man and his fellow street musician, Richard Peterson, as guests, frequently pitting them against one another in a Battle of the Bands.
Peterson, who often had turf arguments with McMichael outside the Kingdome, was desperate to triumph with his trumpet solos. But the contests were rigged for Tuba Man because Peterson's outrage made hilarious drive-time radio.
"Once on the show, they were on the phone on the air arguing with each other when we had to sign off," Maynard said. "They kept at it so long we broke into the next show to let in the audience. It was too good to miss.
"Richard was Coyote and Tuba Man was Road Runner."
The senselessness of the crime evokes a what's-happening-to-Seattle anguish to which I don't subscribe. We're the nation's 14th-largest urban area, with all the ills and misanthropy that vex any major metropolis. From Wah Mee to the Capitol Hill murders, the heartache is familiar.
Similarly, I'm not going to make much connection to the current shipwrecked state of Seattle sports. All of us should know that sports are not only cyclical, but secondary.
What makes this loss so aggravating is that Tuba Man was a harmless character who put himself in places where he made a good thing a little better. Whether at KeyArena, McCaw Hall, the Kingdome or its two successors, Tuba Man was by the event, not of the event, an independent dealer of mirth in an entertainment world increasingly organized and corporatized.
It is often said that those who live by the street die by the street. That wasn't meant for this guy. What little he did have he gave in the sweat equity of his ungainly music. He could have taken up guitar, piccolo or harmonica, but he picked the absurd instrument and made Seattle's streets a little less homogenous and a little more amusing.
In order to mitigate the urge for vigilante justice, something useful might be helpful. So I called Tod Leiweke, Seahawks and Sounders CEO who has the keys to one of Tuba Man's favored haunts, Qwest Field. I suggested to him that a warm, dry place needs to be found to mourn, celebrate and vent about an odd civic figure, one whose name was hardly known, whose music was inexplicably endearing and whose violent passing struck a profound community chord.
He agreed.
"Edward McMichael was an integral part of the Seattle sports and entertainment experience," he said.
"Anything we can do to help celebrate his contribution is our privilege."
Somewhere soon among the spaces in the stadium or WaMuTheater or the Exhibition Center, there will a public toot for Tuba Man. Suggestions are welcome at the Web site
www.robinandmaynard.com. KOMO-AM has helped create a fund for the services and relatives at any Bank of America branch. Donations can be mailed to Edward the Tuba Man McMichael Memorial Fund, PO Box 4935, Federal Way, 98063.
As America changed Tuesday, one corner lost a little eccentricity and originality. We're used to losing, sure. But not this guy, this way.
P-I columnist Art Thiel can be reached at 206-448-8135 or
[email protected].
