John's Album

The Vortex

Our house was built adjacent to an old burial ground. We are a big family (8 kids) and when our parents added a bedroom it was no longer "cemetery-adjacent" but "who-dares-disturb-our-slumber-central." After years of weird goings-on (mainly involving Sparky, the electric wall heater), the undead upped their game and opened a vortex in the middle of the room. John stepped into it, sat down, and disappeared. Moments later the vortex gave him back to us, apologized for any inconvenience, and closed itself up

Up on the rack

These old pedal jalopies needed a lot of tinkering in order to reach 88mph. In this photo John was fine-tuning the plutonium containment system. The stand he has his car jacked up on was (I think) built by Chris to service his minibike.

John and Moose

John and Moose were best buddies. Moose let John chase him around the yard with a cardboard tube left over from Christmas wrapping paper, always one step ahead.

The G-Man

This was during my Weegee phase. I don't know what we were playing at, but John never failed to deliver a unique performance. He watched a lot of TV.

The Imposters

There were a lot of Johnny Imposters over the years.* On some afternoons 3 or 4 boys would be standing on the porch insisting that they were Johnny Doherty. The makeup was good, so good that even Mom had trouble picking out the right one. So we developed a test. They had to pose like John did in his baby portrait. That quickly sorted them out. *Why they would impersonate him was a mystery for a long time. David had a theory that Johnny was paying them to do it as a prank to torture him, and Ted thought it more than coincidental that this began after Johnny set a leg trap for Santa Claus. We finally learned that Alan Funt was behind it. Everybody had a good laugh, and refused to sign the release forms.

Center of gravity

John was born with a large tongue. It made speech difficult, and I guess most people thought that was a bad thing. But we could understand John, and one thing we understood was that his tongue gave him additional control over his center of gravity, and thus his balance. When we start to fall over we make micro-adjustments using the large muscles in our legs and torsos, which aren't designed for the task. So we fall over a lot. John could just extend or retract his tongue and remain upright. It's a superpower, and probably why he was such a daredevil.

Superman

Someone recently asked where the marks and scratches on John's face came from. Some of it was grease from the driveway. Some of it was peanut butter and jelly. Some of it was from doing stuff like this. Who could keep track?

My Shug

Milk was delivered to our house 3 times a week. On one of those we also got a bottle of orange drink. John claimed it. He'd take it from the fridge, sit in front of the TV, and drink from it like a moonshiner. Sometimes he'd put the cap back on when he left it in front of the TV for the next time. My mom ordered two bottles, and put John's name on one of them.

Southern Comfort

John was repeatedly warned that he can't drink and drive, and he kept saying it was OK because he was on the wagon.

John-Jitsu

John created his own style of martial arts, John-Jitsu. He borrowed heavily from Japanese monster movies (Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra, King Kong vs Godzilla, Mothra vs Godzilla, etc.), Universal monster movies (Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula, The Wolf Man, Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein, etc.), and Moe Howard. His signatures moves included rearing up and shooting flames from his mouth, implied threats ("We belong dead."), and direct threats ("Why I oughtta!"). John-Jitsu was so effective that actual physical force was rarely needed, but when it was, it was probably two fingers to the eyeballs. He was a traditionalist.

Moosewagon

In the early 1970s the Dodgers used a modified golfcart to drive relief pitchers in from the bullpen. John liked the idea. Our backyard was our baseball field, and he created The Moosewagon for those times when Tim's arm got sore and Kitty was waved in from left field. It was never used for its intended purpose, though, because (a) Tim's arm never got sore, and (b) Moose was a very good dog but had no sense of direction. John tried to adapt it to other purposes, but none of the other kids in the neighborhood wanted to play chariot race after the first time. The only thing John knew about chariot racing was from the movie "Ben Hur."

Swift Justice

John had theories about criminal justice. Steal hamburgers? Punch in the face.

Grunge

When a future scholar writes the definitive history of Grunge, chapter one will be just this photograph. The clothes, the attitude, and the personality of that movement are all descended from the choices John made c. 1974. At his 10th birthday party he led all the guests outside to where the clown had set up, and said, "Here we are now. Entertain us." That clown was some kid from Seattle. (Note: that Colt 45 bottle in the background is a candle. Someone gave us a glass cutting/glass gluing kit that allowed us to turn bottles into candles. We used the most plentiful bottles we had laying around.)

Sacrifice

David and John regularly burned offerings on the altar in the backyard. What was burned, and which deity was involved, varied depending on what was going on in their lives. All records of their worship practices were destroyed in the Great Move, but there are clues in this image. Multiple experts have independently concluded that John's clothing choices were cursed, so it's likely that they were making a sacrifice to the Greek goddess Clotho, who they mistakenly (and repeatedly) assumed was the Fashion God.

Grandma

Grandma Doherty showing John some clippings, c. 1974. Our dad took John and me to La Canada to visit his parents when his father was dying. How John and I were chosen for this trip I do not remember. Old Dad and Grandma were happy to see us, and Grandma took John aside to show him some newspaper clippings. This was an act of hope and kindness and connection with her grandson. Ten years before our parish priest recommended that John be institutionalized and not made a member of our family. It was not the last time we ignored the priests.

John liked to climb

John liked to climb. When he was quite young, maybe 6 years old, he was "sent away" for a couple of weeks to a place in Apple Valley. I suppose it was to give Mom some respite. Behind the facility was an open range with livestock. John was caught just before he reached the top of the fence, on his way to pet a bull on the other side. Later he took a bad fall that shattered his right arm -- his now *bionic* right arm.

Modeling

John had a budding career as a fashion model, but I don't think he took it seriously. One gig - modeling stain-resistant clothing - ended badly when he broke the clothes. If John wore something, it automatically became stain-accepting. Then there was the ill-fated shoe ad. As soon as he got to the set he took his shoes off and threw them over a fence. There was no fence before he threw them. It just appeared, and then vanished again.

He's Handy

To say that John was good with his hands is like saying that Patty McCormack was good with her feet. Goodness had nothing to do with it. John used rope, tape, string, and ace bandages to silence statues and convert objects into subjects. None of his dioramas survive.

The Neighborhood Watcher

We lived in a high-crime area. Kids riding unlicensed mini-bikes, illicit drugs, underaged drinking, illegal explosives, toxic runoff, and that was just in our household. John fashioned himself as the Neighborhood Watcher, keeping us on our toes by popping up in unexpected places. He didn't have any sort of law-enforcement inclinations, he just liked to be in the middle of things. It was a mostly harmless pasttime until he got binoculars. From then on we'd be doing something, anything, when from a distance we'd hear, "Aha! I got you! Yes!" And there John would be, hiding behind a bush or a trash can or a trash can full of bush trimmings, pointing and laughing. We got used to it. I can't imagine what it would be like for a total stranger.

Johnny Lever

The Exceptional Childrens School at Palisades Presbyterian brought our family into a different community than we knew before. Johnny Lever lived with his mom on Amalfi Drive, about 3 blocks from us, and we often gave him a ride home. He was a few years older than John, and like John he loved nothing more than a hug hello or goodbye.

The Reactor

We felt lucky to have balloons. Taking a big breath, blowing them up, and letting them fly around the room was great fun. Water balloon fights were infrequent, and reserved for special occasions like graduations, birthdays, and the 4th of July. Helium balloons were exceedingly rare. We might bring one home from somewhere like Disneyland, but the idea of buying a helium tank for the house was a ridiculous expense. Then John had an idea. He could repurpose some of the plutonium from his pedal car and make a small fusion reactor that burned hydrogen into helium. He got some theoretical help from our Uncle Pat, who was a nuclear physicist, and continued to work at school with help from his classmates. But he wasn't able to get enough boron into the containment space (pictured) to make it work, so he abandoned the project. Or at least that's what he told us whenever he returned from his weekends at RAND.

The Haircut

When I was in kindergarten my mom cut my hair with barber clippers, like she cut everyone's hair. But on my head the attachment fell off - twice - leaving two bald patches up the back. She gave me a hat and a quarter as an apology. We didn't get a lot of soft drinks, so I think whatever John is drinking here might be compensation for this particular haircut.

Distance

If you're following along you know that John watched (and still watches) a lot of TV. This is how close he sat. Did we try to discourage him? Probably. It wouldn't work. He wasn't belligerent or territorial. If he was blocking someone he'd move until he wasn't, but most of the time he was right in front, like the little girl in Poltergeist.