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Two quintessential American salesmen and mirror opposites, Tim Arndt and Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman

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“And the Good Samaritan, he’s dressing, he’s getting ready for the showHe’s going to the carnival tonight on Desolation Row.” — Bob Dylan, “Desolation Row”

Tim Arndt (1959-2024). All photos of Tim courtesy of Tim and Amy Arndt.

As I’m going in a sleepless gonzo-mode lately, I might not do justice to Cousin Tim Arndt or to spouse Amy Arndt’s power-packed obit of the extraordinary man who died of prostate cancer recently, at 64. It’s a revelation, the depth and myriad benevolence of Tim’s life. So, I hope this doesn’t seem too irreverent, as this is not an obit per se, and the ensuing analogy is meant to serve by contrast.

But as a culture vulture, I was struck by something in the sadness of Tim’s passing. In my house, we’re currently on a Better Call Saul-watching binge. Here’s the mirror reflection that caught my eye. It strikes me Tim’s life is the moral mirror-opposite of the title character. Tim started his professional career selling flip-style cellphones — close to the depicted the era when Jimmy “Saul Goodman” McGill starts re-inventing himself — selling “private” covert flip-style cell phones. And the TV series’ New Mexico setting ain’t far from Texas, so the cultural milieu isn’t too alien.

Jimmy McGill hustling private flip-style cell phones. The Georgia Straight

The big difference is how disgraced and disbarred lawyer Jimmy/Saul takes to selling cell-phones, for nefarious purposes. He has a born-salesman’s gift-for-gab, like Tim, but oh my, what Saul does with his gifts. Throughout the series he’s a salesman first and best, even when working as a lawyer.

What unfolds is a contemporary variation on the tragic American story of moral dissembling, through desperation, gravitating to the lure of free-market greed. He begins (with a lovely and upstanding blonde woman partner, like Tim), and he could’ve done so much good, and he knows it. We see this all grow like a cancer in him because Bob Odenkirk is a superb actor who reveals many shades of his character’s two-facedness. As Saul, he ends up exploiting his customers (initially retirees), and the system, as much as he can, eventually falling into the deadly cesspool of a Mexican drug cartel. He can’t help himself, his brilliant lawyer brother Chuck explains, dating from childhood, and consciously if compulsively continues to avoid the better angels of his nature.

Promotional image. Amazon.com

Activist Tim Arndt, by contrast, used the medium of Ma Bell for the sake of Mother Earth, as a springboard to profoundly protect and replenish the planet as a “climate change warrior,” and to help anyone who needed help. It seems that, like Saul, Tim couldn’t help himself, but to “do the right thing.” I shouldn’t make him out to be a saint but he seemed to be one of an empowering sort who “saw the potential in everyone and everything,” as his brother Steve commented. Saul sees the potential weakness in everyone.

Quoting Amy: “At Austin Energy, Tim was instrumental in the creation of the Energy Conservation Audit and Disclosure (ECAD) Ordinance. He took his passion for combatting climate change to 360 Energy Savers, where he leveraged rebates to help lower utility bills for residents of Austin.
Tim purchased 1st Choice Energy in 2021. There, he continued to fight climate change and helped make Austin’s low to moderate-income families more comfortable by providing energy efficiency upgrades as part of Austin Energy’s Weatherization Assistance program.”

Widow Amy also notes that Tim would stop to help anyone with car trouble. Jimmy McGill’s beat-up 1998 Suzuki Esteem – rusted-out yellow with one red car door, would’ve needed Tim’s help. In fact, Jimmy is in an accident in the series pilot when two skateboarders try to scam him by purposely running into Jimmy’s car. Jimmy’s nearly broke at the time (working at a Cinnabon shop) and the punks-on-little-wheels demand $500 compensation for the “accident.” Jimmy points to his car as “a steaming pile of crap” to show how hard-up he is and says, “The only way this car is worth $500 is if there’s a $300 hooker in it!”

If Tim Arndt had been cast in the show at that point, Jimmy might’ve seen the erring of his ways, though probably continuing down his slippery slope. That ethical task is up to Jimmy’s girlfriend, the sharp-lawyer Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn), who loves her pro bono work, in an almost morally preening way. She loves Jimmy, too, as his sounding board yet is strangely vulnerable to his “aw shucks” charms and deceptive bloviations. It’s a variation on a Macbethian love story, with the man as the infecting partner.

As Amy’s obit recounts in admiring detail, Tim Arndt was “The Ultimate Good Samaritan.” Jimmy’s version of “Goodman” Samaritan is to teach the young skateboarders how to scam better.

Girlfriend Kim Wexler (Reah Seehorn) listens to another explanation/vow from Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk). Although high-minded, she has a weakness for his powers of persuasion and evasion. global.ca/news

Over time it became known that Tim had helped everyone in the neighborhood. If Tim could have been satirized at all, it might’ve been as a too-good-to-be-true do-gooder and tree-hugger, who might rankle some, but only as if we don’t need more of those in America. His tendency to be a found-objects “hoarder” might seem comical too, but all his gatherings were stashed in his garage (nicknamed “Vietnam” because of its devastated-looking chaos) which, with his special brand of genius, became a myriadic fix-it and repurpose shop for anyone who needed the once-again right stuff.

Among the more remarkable things Tim did was “returning BB King’s famous guitar Lucille to its rightful owner when it ended up in his possession,” as Amy recounts. (Please read Amy’s obit on Tim following this article — originally posted on her Facebook page — on more of what made him an extraordinary man.)

Tim Arndt, proud family man with (L-R) daughter Emily, spouse Amy, Tim, daughter-in-law Taylor, son Matthew.

Tim Arndt and Jimmy McGill embodied two versions of a quintessential American. Tim might have come as close as anyone with limited resources to being the ideal American, living to pursue justice, equality, and a measure of happiness for his own (the proud father of three) and anyone, and to help save the only planet we have to survive on. Though I didn’t know him well (he was a life-long Texan, I a Wisconsinite), Tim now feels like the brother I never had. In our shared Lynch genes, we even resemble each other. But he was probably a better man than me, than most.

Jimmy the Saul-man, with his own peculiar resourcefulness, was the every-man-for-himself American, the transactional con-man first brilliantly characterized in Melville’s The Confidence Man: His Masquerade from 1857), and agonizingly relevant today. Jimmy/Saul was a winning glad-hander, even capable of a flawed love, ever despoiled by the neediness of his greediness.

As for the way Tim loved, as Amy sweetly notes: “Tim was born in Dallas, Texas on Valentine’s Day in 1959. His mother Eileen almost named him Val, but thankfully, she chose Timothy James instead. Still, being born on Valentine’s Day meant Tim Arndt was born to exemplify love.”

May the Tim Arndts of the world inspire us, and may we be ever vigilant of the Saul Goodmans.

Tim and Amy.

_________

*Saul (Bob Odenkirk) may still be better known as the sleazy lawyer on Breaking Bad. Better Call Saul was a sort of prequel, telling the story of how Jimmy McGill came to be Saul Goodman. Odenkirk (only three years younger than dear Tim) has received six nominations for Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series, marking his comic-tragic brilliance at embodying the conflicted yet chillingly mutating character.

_______________________

Tim Arndt’s obituary – the hardest thing I’ve ever written. What a guy!
By AMY ARNDT
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Timothy James Arndt, 64, died on January 22, 2024, after a 6-year battle with prostate cancer. Tim was the ultimate Good Samaritan, a climate change warrior, friend to many, and owner of the best laugh on the planet.
Tim was born in Dallas, Texas on Valentine’s Day in 1959. His mother Eileen almost named him Val, but thankfully, she chose Timothy James instead. Still,   being born on Valentine’s Day meant Tim Arndt was born to exemplify love.
Tim is survived by his wife Amy, the love of his life and pain in his ass, his son Matthew Arndt, daughter-in-law Taylor, daughter Stephanie Martinez-Arndt, and daughter Emily Rose Arndt. He is also survived by his brother Steve Arndt and wife Joy, brother TJ Arndt, and brother Mike Arndt. Other relatives include mother-in-law Judy Wilkins, father-in-law Glenn Underwood and wife Pam, sister-in-law Emily Montez and husband Rocky. Tim was predeceased by his mother, Dr. Eileen Lynch, and father Terry Arndt (unless you consult 23andMe, but that’s another story).
Tim attended W.T. White High School in Dallas, Texas, and graduated from Walden  Preparatory School in 1976. When Tim’s grades didn’t quite cut the mustard, he used his charm and gift of gab to gain admission to the McCombs Business School at the University of Texas.
Tim’s career was always focused on helping people. His sales career began at Cellular One in San Antonio, TX, where he sold the original “brick” cell phones and the original flip phone which sold for over $2,500. He later worked at the Travis County Medical Society’s Medical Exchange, where he sold pagers and communications services to physicians. He was responsible for developing the training of thousands of Central Texans at the Customized Training division of Austin Community College. At Austin Energy, Tim was instrumental in the creation of the Energy Conservation Audit and Disclosure (ECAD) Ordinance. He took his passion for combatting climate change to 360 Energy Savers, where he leveraged rebates to help lower utility bills for residents of Austin.
Tim purchased 1st Choice Energy in 2021. There, he continued to fight climate change and helped make Austin’s low to moderate-income families more comfortable by providing energy efficiency upgrades as part of Austin Energy’s Weatherization Assistance program.
Tim’s brother Steve wisely noted that Tim “saw potential in everyone and everything.” An altruistic hoarder, Tim’s garage was well known as “Vietnam,” because his collection of random objects looked more like a war zone than a garage full of dreams. We joked that if you needed something, Tim would ask, “What color?” because he likely had more than one of whatever it was you needed. He stopped to help anyone having car trouble. He refused to pass a lemonade stand without stopping to support a small business. One time Amy realized Tim had helped someone from every single home on their street. He considered people experiencing homelessness to be his neighbors, and he never judged a person for their circumstances. He simply helped them.
Tim’s laugh is almost as well-known as his good deeds. When the kids were little, if they got separated from Tim in a store, they never worried because they could find Tim by the sound of his bellowing laugh. Amy described Tim’s laugh as “a cross between a machine gun and Bert from Sesame Street.”
Tim could do so many things that we kept a list of “Things Tim Arndt Can Do.” The list included: taking almost anything apart and putting it back together, buying and fixing cars, building a treehouse out of recycled materials, and returning BB King’s guitar Lucille to its rightful owner when it ended up in his possession. He could dance the Jitterbug, cross-country ski, juggle, walk on stilts, safely hold bees in his mouth, and catch snakes and tarantulas. He could cook like nobody’s business, sew his firstborn son’s baby bedding (including bumpers), and create custom Halloween costumes, often at the very last minute. He could swim the length of a pool in one breath. He could even catch a fly with chopsticks.
Though Tim spent his life serving others, his family and friends were his greatest joy. He was often overheard telling someone on the phone, “I’m just lucky that I’m still madly in love with my wife.” He loved his Saturday morning ritual of talking to his brother Steve (and by way of speakerphone, Steve’s wife Joy). He was a caring role model for his little brother Mike. His Sunday morning breakfasts with his best friend Jon were his favorite start to the week. Nothing made him prouder than being a parent to Matthew, Stephanie, and Emily Rose. His legacy of love and good deeds lives on in his children, who all possess his best qualities.
Tim was a Yellow Dog Democrat to his core, working on numerous campaigns, block walking, phone banking, and helping register voters. One of his favorite things to tell people was, “The only part of my permanent record that I’m proud of is that I’ve never missed an election.” And it’s true; Tim voted religiously.
Speaking of religion, Tim was a cradle Catholic and lived the examples of a Christian life his entire life. However, when Tim’s cancer spread to his bones, he developed a skepticism about God and the afterlife. During this time Tim developed a friendship with Father Matt Boulter, the priest at St. George’s Episcopal Church in Austin. Tim concluded one of their last conversations by saying, “If you’re right, I’ll see you on the other side!” Then he laughed his giant laugh.
Tim’s family and friends believe that Tim’s work on earth gave him a VIP pass to the other side. While the world is a quieter place without Tim and his famous laugh, his memory will live on through his children, his countless good deeds, and the good deeds we can all do to honor him.
The family sends their unending appreciation and love to Tim’s medical team and caretakers. To the team at Texas Oncology: Dr Carlos Ruben de Celis, Colleen Adkins, PA-C, Dr. Louis Lux, Francesa Ciponi, LCSW, C-DBT, Vanessa Hohn, Senior Patient Services, and the many nurses and techs that Tim made laugh, thank you for your excellent care. Thank you to the team at Hospice Austin, especially Stephanie Beam, RN, and Cat Ross, CNA, whom Tim truly loved. Thank you to the incredible team at Christopher House, who cared for Tim so lovingly in his final days.
A celebration of life will be held on Saturday, March 23 at 2:30 at the Hancock Recreation Center in Austin. To honor Tim’s memory, please consider a donation to Hospice Austin, Christopher House, the Forensic Anthropology Center at Texas State (FACTS), or a climate change organization of your choice. If donations are cost-prohibitive, please consider doing a kind deed in Tim’s honor.
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Amy Arndt’s comic perspective on life reaches far beyond her “One Hairy Knee”

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Editor’s note: Apologies to author Amy Arndt (Over two weeks ago, I informed her this review was written) and to blog readers for Culture Currents’ extended absence. The problem was with the limbo my Facebook page was in, which I won’t get into here. The FB page allows announcement links to a new blog post to interested individuals and FB groups. So I didn’t want this book review short-changed. The lack of traffic on my previous review of The Dave Bayles Trio’s live album reflects that platform problem (so apologies to Dave and bandmates, too).

Book Review: One Hairy Knee by Amy Arndt. Pigeon Girl Press 

As men rarely fret over their hirsute knees, it might seem beyond the razor’s edge for a man to review a book by a woman titled One Hairy Knee. The cover is pink and the image is a cartoon depiction of the author brandishing a razor over her knee while assumingly regarding a “male gaze.”

This might seem a topic reject from the Oprah show. But not so fast. Could not the title image be some primal symbol for life, or at least the workings of it? Something like, “It may, alas, be hairy (am I not human?), but look how splendidly the knee helps me get along. Admiring men even long to pet it like a fuzzy kitten, if they dare!”

Or is it a sort of absurdist, would-be MacGuffin (or plot pivot device, as Alfred Hitchcock used to say)? I place this book in the “common” (and unpretentious) segment of my blog coverage realm of “our common and uncommon culture,” even as author and blogger Amy Arndt displays uncommon talent for comic memoir.

Hairy has a high quotient of LOLs, snickers, snoot-toots, and knee-slappers (sorry), and enough points to reflect upon.

Indeed, since being published in 2019, the book has racked up 4.5 out of 5 stars from goodreads, though with a slight sample size, and its cover blurbs are meaty.

The book reflects the contemporary feminist-oriented woman’s life in Texas, a state which long ago seceded from the notion of feminism. Such politics is addressed with feints and jabs, and the author does enjoy a certain liberal cover by residing in the Alamo-ish lefty bastion of Austin. 1

Amy Arndt. Courtesy amyunderwoodarndt.contentedly.com

Full disclosure: Arndt is the spouse of my cousin Tim Arndt.

Given that, I am striving to grapple with the book as evenly and substantially as I can. In fact, what came to mind when I read it was a possible inspiration from fellow East Texan comic memoirist Mary Karr, widely acclaimed and best-known for The Liars Club. The comparison might seem unfair, given that Karr takes us on a treacherous heart-of-darkness trek from her very troubled childhood and thus readily traffics in shadowy psychological realms that Arndt might stretch too hard to match. Karr’s often-brilliant comedy, is much more darkly textured through a deeper biographical story, given also her book’s more substantial length.

By comparison, Arndt’s childhood seems almost charmed. Even though her parents divorced when she was eight, “it wasn’t particularly traumatic.” In adulthood, Arndt’s touching imaginary-film family transformation rises from the ashes of her father’s divorce and his rather magical meeting with Pam, the Mother Mary-type figure who will become dad’s new love and “make his heart whole again,” and bless the kids with her benign step-motherhood.

The depths of Arndt’s personal abyss seem to be The Incident of the Head Lice and, much earlier, failing to be a young teen boy magnet. She was (sigh) “one of those poor ostriches” at school dances.

But this big bird gets by without ever flying, becoming a master observer-ostrich of the here-and-now. So, Arndt wields a much lighter touch than Karr in general, though slyly: Before long she’s wading her way through a number of weighty issues, including a somewhat climactic mid-book saga of her C-section birth delivery, marriage and family, matters of aging commingling with sexuality (illicit and marital), religion, mental health, obesity, “diddling,” and, yep, Texas politics, among other things. Yet she’s a deft, if sometimes broad-sweeping, lance-wielder in pricking the emotional angst and dizzying highs and lows accompanying such situations.

For example, she must envision the horror of, at giving birth, being informed that ” ‘your vagina is gonna get THIS BIG!’ She held her arms up to the size of a manhole.”

She had envisioned lit candles, and “a string quartet gently playing Vivaldi to her contractions,” while she gave birth, to Emily Rose. Later, she suffers guilt (as a Catholic convert) after healing up from her surgical birth, of not enduring the mother-as-Christ agony of actual labor.

However, she’s free enough of Catholicism’s gothic grip to handle the topic of religion with panache. She sets her discourse in the context of her conversion to her husband’s religion in the chapter “Jesus was a Hipster,” which may shock thousands of Kool-Aid guzzling Evangelical Christians.

Then she giddy-ups her high liberal horse by taking on one of America’s worst vices: greed. Again, her light, if sometimes stinging, touch butterflies through the mentality of “piggy piggyness,”” which extends from simple gluttony to political corruption.

I’m prompted to an extended quote, of propulsive drama:

“But this is not about true hunger, it’s about the competition that’s born from greed. You could own three bottom drawers full of ugly printed T-shirts that are being used as car towels but go to a sports event where they start shooting T-shirts out of a T-shirt gun, and you will run over an elderly man with an oxygen tank to claim a free shirt you’ll never wear because it’s too small. And you want to know why that shirt is too small? Because you’re the same guy who shoves his way in front of others to eat the free guacamole and stale chip samples at the grocery store. It’s about winning.”

Touche to primal capitalist instincts and rationalizations! Ongoingly, we get mostly Amy’s first-person experience though we finally learn more about my cousin Tim, who is apparently a hoarder, yes, but the most “exalted” sort, if such adjective could ever apply. He collects stuff in their garage and back yard (not in the house!) that can be tinkered with, repurposed and given to others.

In fact, he’s hoisted on the rhetorical pedestal of “saint,” and repeatedly thus burnished on high. Yikes. Time for me to measure myself up? It’s a tad of a challenge for male readers with a conscience. Good soul exercising, for sure.

Arndt’s life shows how you can roll with life’s many punches and keep pressing ahead, with your swollen eye on your biggest dream:

“I’m a firm believer that if you dream hard enough and work just as hard, it will happen.”

Finally, there is a painfully poignant post-script that Amy never got to write in this book — at the time, a blessing. After her book was published, our dear Tim contracted prostate cancer which has metastasized into his bones. He battles the cancer gamely to this day, with powerful optimism, and his mate’s undying love and support.

_______________

1.Texas forces for reproductive rights are fighting back against the state’s draconian, medieval abortion laws, where a physician can get life in prison for providing an abortion, and the state now funds vigilante informers, among other radical measures. NPR reports:

“On Tuesday (Nov. 28), the Texas Supreme Court considered this question: Are the state’s abortion laws harming women when they face pregnancy complications?

The case, brought by the Center for Reproductive Rights, has grown to include 22 plaintiffs, including 20 patients and two physicians. They are suing Texas, arguing that the medical exceptions in the state’s abortion bans are too narrow to protect patients with complicated pregnancies.”

Here’s the link: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/11/28/1215463289/texas-abortion-lawsuit-texas-supreme-court#:~:text=The%20case%2C%20brought%20by%20the,protect%20patients%20with%20complicated%20pregnancies.

To order One Hairy Knee, visit this website: Books by Amy U. Arndt – Bookshop.org

Also, to help deal with Tim Arndt’s terminal condition, the Arndts have registered with this support-raising site, for those interested in helping out (As a free-lance writer, Amy doesn’t have much income, a situation I can attest to): https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/amyandtimarndt 

Site name: amyandtimarndt

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