Art Murphy and I did a lot of radio and TV together, along with Herb Smith of McDaniel College. Art was always eager to come to a radio or TV station where I was working (WBAL-AM, or WMAR-TV), and talk politics, and he was particularly strong during the Clinton years, when there was a lot to analyze -- from the Republican's Contract With America to Monica Lewinsky. He was provocative and entertaining. He was bright, informed, acerbic, an unconventional thinker with a brilliant political imagination and, always, a disarming wit. (I invited him to an ice hockey game once. "What?" he said. "You want me to be around a bunch of white guys with sticks?") Art was proud of his family, and there was a lot to be proud of. He was, of course, particularly proud of his daughter Claye. Art is the second talented guy I've known to have died from MS within the last year, and to have been pulled from Baltimore's creative loop way too early, the other having been the graphic artist David McElroy. Rest in peace. Rest in peace.
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