Some ten years ago, when Mr. Show was still on the air and the internet was MySpace and blog free, I hung out on a dank, smoky corner of Usenet called alt.drunken.bastards. I wasn't one of the more prolific posters (or even one of the most drunken), but I liked hanging out there. It was - at the time - a rare online locale that consisted largely of people in my age group from exotic places like the Isle of Man, Zimbabwe, and Tempe, AZ.
One of the guys I e-mailed with most frequently went by the handle "BDK." I learned, through the course of our communications, that his name was Dave Kelley and he lived in Austin. We talked about UT and our various exploits in and out of town (he remembered local news coverage of the Mt. Bonnell incident, I recalled the signs he used to put up at the Whip In - my favorite being "Nuke the Swiss and steal their gold"). We eventually met in Austin after the 1996 A&M game, doing our former newsgroup proud at the Ginger Man.
He made his living as a freelance journalist, writing for such publications as Boating World and Camping Life and also serving as the on-air automotive critic for KTBC in Austin. We communicated intermittently over the last decade, though we hadn't talked in several years, so when I went looking for his e-mail address on his web site to shoot him a freelancing question, I was - frankly - stunned to learn he had died on December 28.
Here's a link to his obit in the Austin-American Statesman:
Dave Kelley, print, web and television journalist, passed away unexpectedly on Thursday, December 28th, while running on his beloved Town Lake Hike and Bike Trail. Born in Shamrock, Texas, on St. Patrick's Day, 1963, Dave always called Texas, and especially Austin, home. Dave began his writing career while a student at The University of Texas Austin, where he was first published in The Daily Texan . After receiving his B.S. in Journalism, he spent several years in Austin doing everything from running an independent record label to marketing wakeboards before assuming the role of editor at Personal Watercraft Illustrated magazine in 1991, his first role as a professional journalist.
Dave was involved in a lot of cool stuff, and he played rugby (until a rather gruesome injury, documented extensively on his web page, put an end to that), something I always wished I'd been insane enough to try.
Cheers, man.
i found this while googling for dave’s old websites. thank you for posting this.
when dave and i first started dating, i remember his favorite black golf shirt with alt.drunkenbastards vegas 1996 or some variation on that theme printed on it. I didn’t really know what that was all about, but quickly learned …
he thought the world of y’all.
he was a beautiful man and i was very lucky to have known him.
peace,
carey kelley
Damn, you’d figure that anyone tough enough to survive that gnarly wrist action would be immortal.
On a different note, completely out of the blue yesterday, my wife said, “Fuck Pete, I sat through a whole Tesla video because of him.” Just wanted you to know that we’re thinking about you.