was his life so he might as well be dead. And if people regretted that they hadn't helped him, well, now they could have a second chance because he was still alive. The obituary evoked
inquiries from newspapers, wire services, foreign publications, radio and TV.
“What's the meaning of it?” one editor asked me. “There's a lot of excitement at the city
desk.” “That is the meaning of it.”
A few years later, without my permission, Jules Siegel, the editor of a short-lived magazine, Cheetah, published a fake obituary of me. I thought it was funny. An Associated Press
reporter called, and I explained that it was a hoax. “Are you sure?” he asked. “Of course. I would tell you if I was dead.”
Siegel started writing for Cavalier. His first assignment was a profile of Sterling Hayden, an
actor best known in Dr, Stranglove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
Journalist Adam Ellsworth described Siegel’s “Goodbye Surfing, Hello God” with his most famous example of rock journalism, but his most revolutionary was his article, “The Big Beat.” It appeared in the Playboy-esque Cavalier magazine in 1965 and was one of the earliest writings he’d ever seen on the development of rock and roll, from slaves singing in chains on their way
to America to Bob Dylan “going electric” at the Newport Folk Festival.
Then Jules’ friend, Arthur Kretchmer, became Cavalier’s managing editor. “When the editorial director later resigned,” Kretchmer said, “there was a 24-hour hiatus before the new editor arrived.” Siegel and Kretchmer had been discussing the possibility of publishing an issue on rock and roll, so to make it happen, Kretchmer went into the office at night and retyped the magazine’s
schedule to include their ideas.
When the new editorial started, Kretchmer handed him the schedules and said, “Here’s what
we’re working on.” The new editorial director suspected nothing and the rock and roll issue went
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