Gates Magoo August 8, 1970 – April 17, 2023

Gates Magoo was born Joel Franklin Breckenridge at Baylor Hospital in Dallas, Texas, on the 8^th of August 1970, the third of three children to Robert Joseph and Lela Viola Breckenridge. He passed away in his sleep in the wee hours of April 17, 2023.

He is survived by his father Bob Breckenridge, sisters Angela Dawn Breckenridge and Alison (Breckenridge) Bush; nephews Elliott Moriah Balch and Matthew James Bush; niece Grace Josephine Bush; and brothers-in-law Tedd Walley and Tracy W. Bush.

His life was as a river’s.

As a kid, Gates loved magic and entertaining family and friends with card and sleight-of-hand tricks. He had a Mortimer Snerd doll and “learned” how to throw his voice and do a ventriloquist routine. He had a unicycle and could ride it pretty well. He went from hacky sack to juggling scarves and balls and then bowling pins.

He went to Brian Adams and Booker T. Washington (Arts Magnet) High Schools in Dallas. He passed his American History course by composing and performing (for his and all the other history classes) an original composition detailing the story of Plessy v. Ferguson.

Gates loved Frank Zappa, Tom Waits and Dannie Barker. An avid reader, he kept Kerouac, Vonnegut, and Steinbeck always close at hand. He did the NY Times crossword puzzle in pen.

In the early ‘80s, as a member of the Celebration Singers youth choir at St. Stephen United Methodist Church in Mesquite, TX, Gates performed Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar on tour, and countless popular songs in “Spring Shows.”  He played the role of Jesus in Superstar on one memorable tour and debuted his first original song “Wash Your Hands” at a Spring Show.

In 1997, inspired after the death of his brother-in-law Willie, he plotted out and built, to scale, a labyrinth behind Willie’s mom’s house, of the same pattern as that on the floor of the Cathedral at Chartres. In Eureka Springs, he learned to lay stone – the old-fashioned way – without mortar. There are walls still standing in the Ozarks that he built with his friend Tom 30 years ago that will last for centuries. He was good with his hands and crafted sculptures, staircases, painted watercolor, tie-dyed, batiked, sewed his own clothes and made his own shoes. Ah, shoes. There was that one year when he wore no shoes.

Gates could not, would not litter. He snuffed out the ends of his cigarettes and put them in his pocket for proper disposal and did the same with “at least two pieces of garbage a day” that came across his path.

His talents were many, but he loved playing music for people most of all. He said everyone should have music in their lives, that it was the universal language of human connection. He gave and gave and gave and gave every last fiber of himself in his music.

Gates taught himself the guitar at an early age, starting with the Beatles’ scores and Arlo Guthrie. He learned everything the Grateful Dead recorded before following along with their tour in the late ‘80s. This took him to the Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco. He began busking and did so wherever he could draw a listener: Eureka Springs, Venice Beach, Dallas, New Orleans, Lucerne. He found his way onto the stage with the New Bohemians in Deep Ellum, Dallas, playing alongside Kenny Withrow. In 2004, he traveled to Europe to play on the streets of Germany with his friends Ernie and Mary under the name Opal Fly and the Swatters.

After Hurricane Katrina, he traveled with his friends Chuck, Jerry, and Kurtz to help where they could and landed in Mississippi at a faith-based outpost where the guys endeared themselves by washing many dishes, providing medical care, and entertaining the hundreds of campers displaced by the storm with song and story.

Joel Breckenridge became Gates Magoo at a Rainbow Gathering. His camp was called Yer Roost, and he was the “gatekeeper” of sorts, for people entering the gathering. They started calling him “Gates” and it stuck. “Magoo” came about because he was legally blind in both eyes, often likened to “Mr. Magoo” of long-ago cartoons. So, it was. Gates Magoo was his legal name as of 2006.

While he spent a great deal of time and love in New Orleans, Eureka Springs was Gates’ home. He found his people there, and they opened their homes, their lives, and their hearts to him. Eureka cared for Gates as he cared for them. He brought the house down with the Skinny Gypsies on St. Paddy’s Day year after year at Chelsea’s.

Never one to shy away from a costume, he put the “ween” in Halloween and “gras” in Mardi Gras with the creative zeal of a natural shape shifter. He paraded and sang out on many a stoop, setting up with Kevin and Banjo Man and others in front of the Orleans Hotel. His legacy is embedded in Eureka Springs like a ring in the life of a tree.

He thought everyone should be a member of WWOZ radio station in New Orleans and gave the little money he had to them and to the New Orleans Musicians’ Clinic, where he gratefully accepted what he said was the best medical care in his life. Memberships and donations to these organizations would honor his memory.

There will be a celebration of his life at Chelsea’s in Eureka Springs on May 21 at 2 p.m. and another with a second line August 5 on Bayou St. John in New Orleans. Details and your own memories can be shared on his tribute site: weremember.com/gates-magoo/8a1u/memories?utm_campaign=memorial_share.

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Gates brought light and joy and humor and spirit to his surroundings. Neither a leader nor a follower, Gates knew how to “be,” as in the song he said he wanted played at his celebration of life (whenever that would be) from the soundtrack of the Rocky Horror Picture show, “… don’t dream it… be it…”