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j o h n s po n g
Senior Editor, Texas Monthly
b y c l ay s m i t h
He’s partied with the best of them and had his share of dates, but with a new book on the making of Lonesome Dove and a new marriage, the big-hearted, beloved and award-winning journalist enters the next chapter.
S
ome of the wild stories about journalist John Spong are dif-
What Spong does so well is capture the chaotic, contradictory ways that leg-
ficult to verify, but a number of them feature him “singing
ends get made—in this case, both the novel and the miniseries. Masterpieces
Eddie Rabbit at the top of his lungs,” like the time he and
don’t usually emerge with a pretty bow on top. He documents the clash of per-
another Texas Monthly writer and their friends were in New
sonalities on set, screenwriter Bill Wittliff’s obsession with ensuring that the de-
Mexico and Spong was blind drunk, dipping snuff and in-
tails of the period and the place were accurate and honored in the production of
spired to belt out Rabbit’s hits (if you’re not a fan of eighties music or a karaoke
the miniseries and the dichotomy between the way McMurtry’s fans worship his
aficionado, you may not recall that Rabbit, best known for “I Love a Rainy Night,”
epic novel and the disinterested, almost dismissive, neglect McMurtry heaps on
was a once-popular country singer). The stories about himself Spong has cited in
the book. Steve Davis, the curator at the Southwestern Writers Collection (where
print—like hauling a couch to South Padre Island for spring break one year with
props from the miniseries are housed), talks about the open grieving some vis-
his best friend Carlos and then at some other time peeing on Carlos’ leg during a
itors exhibit when they see the prop of Augustus “Gus” McCrae’s corpse at the
Dwight Yoakam concert—are representative of good Spong stories.
Collection (Gus was portrayed by Robert Duvall in the miniseries). And after a
You don’t hear that kind of story anymore about Spong, who had a prodigious
page of testimony from people like Tommy Lee Jones and Duvall praising the
tenure as the favorite party boy of the Austin media scene. Spong was a depressed
book (Jones says that “halfway through I realized I wasn’t going to want it to end,
civil litigator in Austin in the nineties before leaving that job behind to become a
so I would only read maybe fifty pages a day”), he quotes McMurtry saying, “You
journalist. He first realized what he was missing as a litigator when he was work-
know ... it’s just a book. The fact that people connect with it and make a fetish out
ing with Joe Nick Patoski and noticed that Patoski picked up the lifestyle section
of it is something I prefer to ignore.” Spong knows that readers don’t want to plow
of the newspaper before he read the front page. “That’s your job as a magazine
through 200 pages of actors, directors, set designers, screenwriters and writers
writer,” Spong observed. “You have to know about popular culture, and those con-
praising their own work—he got them to tell the entire, unruly story.
versations that would have been off-limits at the law firm except for during lunch
Spong attributes the willingness of name actors (and McMurtry) to speak
were actually what you did on the clock as a magazine writer—and that was a
to him about a long-ago miniseries to Bill Wittliff getting behind the book. But
thrilling realization.”
Spong has such an amiable, warm heart that it seems likely his personality had
But now Spong has grown up. He and Julie Blakeslee eloped in 2011 at the
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something to do with getting all those people to talk to him.
Alpine courthouse, ending his commitment-phobe days. There will be a fund-
Or maybe it’s simpler than that. “One of the first skills I developed was the
raiser next spring for the Waller Creek Conservancy, which he and Blakeslee are
ability to draw attention to myself,” Spong says. “I got that ball rolling quickly.” He
directing. He’s racked up a number of honors and awards for his stories at Texas
tells a story about a citywide essay writing contest about the Bicentennial when
Monthly, where he is now a senior editor, and he’s done the responsible thing of
he was in the fourth grade. His essay was judged the best from his elementary
publishing a book this year that grew out of one of those articles. A Book on the
school and was put on display at Highland Mall (“which is the dream, after all,”
Making of Lonesome Dove is a consummate oral history of the acclaimed western
as he recalls). But when his proud teacher asked him to read the essay aloud in
miniseries and the epic novel it was adapted from. Like many coffee table books,
class, he said “No way!” Because “the last thing I wanted was positive attention,”
A Book on the Making of Lonesome Dove is pretty to look at, but its format belies
he says. “I was probably already planning to make fart noises with my underarm
the depth and complexity of the story Spong tells in the book.
when we got back to class.”
december 2012
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