Got some incredibly sad news yesterday. My old friend Richard Cantu passed away in Milwaukee. Cause of death hasn't been identified yet, but it looks like he died in his sleep. His obituary hasn't been published yet, but when it does, it will be at this funeral home.
Richard and I met in the early 1990s when I joined the John Records Landecker show a few weeks after it signed on the air at WJMK. The photo of the morning show was taken the day I met him. (Photo L-R: Richard Cantu, technical producer Lonnie Martin, John Landecker, me, and Vicki Truax)
Richard was our newsman, and he was a newsman in the old meaning of the word. He took his craft seriously. He wrote his copy crisply. He delivered his reports with authority. He made follow up calls to check sources and stories. He was an actual journalist.
His finest day on the air during the ten years I worked with him was on September 11, 2001. We were on the air when the planes hit the towers. Richard helped transform our wacky morning show into an actual news outlet that morning, along with John Landecker, Leslie Keiling, and Brant Miller. I don't think I've ever been prouder of a show than I was that morning. And Richard played no small part in it. Of course, in a sign of the times, he was let go a few weeks later. Budget cuts. He later worked at WBBM-AM, and then moved to New York to work at the ABC Radio Network.
After he moved to New York (actually New Jersey--he would correct me every time), we stayed in touch, and spoke a few times a year. The last time we chatted at length was when our old boss John Landecker was inducted into the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame. We were all planning on surprising John at the ceremony--which never took place because of COVID. The rest of our conversations were about trying to get him back to Chicago so we could have another garage poker night at my house.
I've never met anyone else quite like Richard. He was a complicated guy. A brilliant curmudgeon. A walking set of contradictions. He wore a tie to work every day, but he worked in radio. He was a serious man living in a serious world, but he had one of the greatest laughs you'll ever hear. When you got him to crack up, you knew you had earned it. He refused to have direct deposit on his paychecks because he didn't trust "the man" having access to his account. He grew up in Wisconsin, but thought that cheese was an abomination. He could joke around with you, but when it was time for the newscast to begin, it needed to begin at *exactly* the correct time. His musical tastes were incredibly eclectic ranging from punk to new wave to disco to R&B. When Kurt Cobain died, he led the newcast with that news on the Oldies station. Most listeners had no idea who he was talking about. He loved to dance, which didn't seem to fit his personality at all. He was a regular at my garage poker table, sipping some good whiskey (his e-mail address was dickwhiskey), and exhorting whoever had just lost the hand, "F-you. Pay me." He was a White Sox fan. When I told him I had taken my son Tommy to a Sox game, and an entire section of Sox fans booed the five year old because he was wearing a Cubs hat, Richard said, "Serves him right."
I found Richard so fascinating I based one of the lead characters of my novel $everance on him. I sent him a free copy of the book, telling him that I was dying to hear his opinion, to find out if I captured him correctly. He didn't bother reading it for years. That cracked me up.
Richard Cantu marched to the beat of his own drummer. He was one of a kind. Irreplaceable.
So sad he's not with us anymore. We are really going to miss him.
