Robert Gibbons: Little-Known Rockstar, Well-Meaning American

Depending on the time of day and mood you caught him in, you’d find Robert Gibbons downright obnoxious or too sweet for words. 

Obnoxious because he had neither time for BS nor patience with those pretending to know what they didn’t. 

Too sweet because he’d put work aside to give you his wisdom — and, mind you, he knew a thing or two — on a multitude of things. It can be politics, history, society, culture, sports, music or energy infrastructure. He was passionate about them all. The last two dominated his life, with his Gibson guitar and work as an oil reporter counting as among his greatest loves, besides wife Lisa.

Robert’s attitude was perfect for the journalist he was, said Lisa.

“He simply did not take crap from anyone, and could talk to anyone, no matter who they were,” she wrote, after his passing on April 20, 2024 from lung cancer. “He generally was a very nice guy. If you pissed him off, you must have really done something. And then, heaven help you.”

It was a side of Robert I could relate to, having worked with him for more than a decade at a news organization in New York whose managers Lisa found repulsive enough to exclude any mention of the company in her obituary about him.

At this place, I remember, particularly, what Robert did when the weekly oil supply-demand report was released by the Energy Information Administration, the datakeeper of the US Energy Department. Gene Ramos, a veteran reporter, would shout out the numbers as he saw them on the screen, with Robert jibing him — in a loud enough voice — on what he may have left out. The two would then get into a slanging match, which the rest of us simply found too amusing. True enough, by the end of the day or week, they’d be laughing in each other’s company at the bar, with generous Robert often buying his colleagues drinks once the company’s tab closed for the night.

To me, Robert’s words still ring from his empathy for me and my worth. He was out of the door just before me at that news place and often told me: “It’s not about you, Barani. It’s THEM!” 

Keeping It Right

I also remember one other thing I learned from Robert: The oil market in New York NEVER CLOSES; it ONLY SETTLES trading for the day at some point. That’s because the market goes into after-hours or so-called electronic trade when the US side of the business officially concludes. It might seem like splitting hairs to insist on calling the final official price of the session as settlement instead of close. But such nuanced and accurate reporting was what Robert was all about.

Marguerita Xu, desk editor at the New York news outfit where Robert and I worked, would concur. Robert, she wrote in her own tribute, was “an excellent reporter who was meticulous about details, passionate about the truth, even cranky about what a bad job America was doing about keeping the country honest.” 

Robert was “always a gentleman, even when I would change his copy and he would always thank me for any improvements — which weren’t often,” she said.

That aside, she remembers a man with an impeccable sense of dressing and a love for music and films. “Don’t think I recall ever seeing him not in a suit,” she said, adding that they often discussed ‘Dog Day Afternoon’, a 1975 movie that had Al Pacino as a bank robber, and the Oscar-winning British actress Julie Frances Christie.

Robert was also nice whenever he commented about her cats on Facebook. “You know you can always trust a man who loves cats.”

There were more colorful tributes about Robert from others at that news outlet. 

“Banana Split With All The Toppings”

“In a world of vanilla, Robert was a banana split with all the toppings,” wrote Ben Berkowitz, who has since left the place to become editor-in-chief at Hedgehog Social. “He was an original, a character, a gentleman, and just a nice guy to see every day.” 

Jeff Kerr, former energy team mate of Robert’s, said the two used to play a game to mock the top stories chosen by the editors there. “Since many, if not most, of the general business headlines were ‘patently obvious’, we would suggest that the opposite headline would be actual news. We would do this rather loudly so that the Top News editors could hear us.”

Bernie Woodall, a reporter who retired from the same news organization in 2018 and had known Robert for more than 20 years, said he sometimes imagined him as “the Perpetual Rage Against the Machine”. He said it was a compliment because Robert “so wanted the world to be fair”. 

John Kilduff, a New York energy hedge fund partner Robert regularly spoke with, calls him a “true renaissance man”. 

“You could talk to Robert about almost everything, from a historic touchdown in football to NASA’s groundbreaking missions, New York’s punk rock movement — which he serialized in the music columns he wrote so passionately about — and the latest state of Middle East politics,” Kilduff told me. “I always took for granted his knowledge of energy infrastructure from the shale fields to the pipelines, the storage depot in Cushing and the heartland of oil, which was his home-state of Texas.”

“Most Interesting Guy In The Room”

That jives with what Lisa says about her man. She was often in awe of him, describing him the “greatest guy I had the privilege to know”.

“If you talked to him for just 60 seconds, you realized he was the coolest, most interesting person in the room. So intelligent, hilarious, open-minded, creative, well-read, tall and handsome, you name it, he had it.” 

The two clicked and were a perfect match for almost 22 years, even when she “wasn’t anywhere near as interesting” as him, she said.

A long-distance runner in school, Robert kept lean despite holding a desk job, easily walking over 10,000 steps a day, Lisa said. 

Thus, his illness was unexpected, discernable first from a drop in energy levels and then a persistent cough that was initially diagnosed as pneumonia and only discovered to be Stage IV lung cancer when it was too late to treat. 

Thoughtful Till The End

Each time Robert awoke at New York’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center from the medication he was given, he’d ask Lisa if she was alright. 

“He never inquired about his own well being,” she said. “He took it much better than me. I was still trying to fight for him until it was clear that nothing could be done.” 

Her only relief was that there was no pain for him. “He was given medication in the last few days to help him ‘glide out’ the way that he wanted. He passed away peacefully. I was holding his hand, talking to him, so he was not alone.”

In further testimony to the thoughtful person he was, Lisa said Robert requested that there be no wake, funeral or formal memorial service.

“He asked me to wait until after his passing to inform you,” she told those reading her post on Robert. “He’d like you all to remember him the way you last saw him, or spoke with him. Robert lost his father to lung cancer when he was 16 years old, and he did not believe that he would find comfort in a sad goodbye after seeing what happened to his Dad. This was Robert’s choice and I am honoring it.”

Just as incredible was how he kept to his pledge to marry her — doing the deed on April 17, three days before he breathed his last.

“Robert asked the hospital to help expedite our wedding,” Lisa said. “We were married in Room 1806 at MSK. The staff kindly brought us a tray of white cupcakes and wedding balloons, and a bouquet for me. Being able to accomplish this was a great relief for him.”

The Early Days

Lisa Del Greco, as her maiden name was, met Robert at Knight Ridder/Bridge News, where she worked as copy editor.

“He was very well-liked,” she recalled. “After Bridge closed on 9/11, we ran into each other a year later at a party. He emailed me after the party, writing: “I don’t know if you’re married or have ’16 gentleman callers’ as Tennessee Williams once wrote, but I would like to see you sometime if that idea isn’t too repelling.” He’s the only man who’d quote Tennessee Williams to ask me out on a date. Of course, I had to get to know him after that.”

She learned that Robert was born in Hampton, Virginia, and had moved to Houston, Texas, on his seventh birthday because his Dad worked for NASA at the height of the first moon landing. 

She remembers him telling her of his two favorite quips — “I’m just going to see the Alamo, and then I’m headed back for home” at age 7, and later on “If you haven’t been to the moon, I’m not impressed”. 

Polly Ross Hughes, who attended Houston’s Richmond Elementary School with Robert, remembers him sitting behind her in sixth grade. “We were both fans of a 1960s TV show called ‘The Man from U.N.C.L.E.’ It paired an American and a Russian spy working together. Robert liked the handsome Russian spy, Illya Kuryakin, who had a secret (fountain pen) phone activated when he lifted the lid off. So, sitting behind me in Mrs. Steagall’s class one afternoon, Robert opened his pen, leaned forward and said, “Illya Kuryakin here.” I started giggling. ” ’Robert!’ Mrs. Steagall said. ‘Stop whispering sweet nothings in Polly’s ear!’ ”

Houston Grad And Rockstar

Robert went on to Houston’s Clear Lake High School and Lamar High School. After his father Howard passed on, his mother Mary Anne held the family together, bequeathing upon him a great deal of her creative nature.

Robert graduated from the University of Houston and worked in the publications department there for a number of years. He then became an editor at Houston’s famous alt-weekly, Public News.

Deborah Moore remembers him from there. “At Public News, Robert would rework my articles sometimes – chopping them when required – and I was so young and inexperienced as a writer that I would just howl! OMG I would get so mad – and we would argue it out. Later when I reread those articles I would see how elegant his edits really were – he made me look like a much better writer than I was.”

“I would feel so embarrassed at how I had acted – but he never held my outbursts against me and we were always quite fond of each other – we clicked, I guess.”

Over the years when we ran into each other I always made a point to thank him for making me look so smart.”

She also remembers Robert being “a key player in that ragtag band of artists and writers that made PN so great.” 

“He was such a special guy – the King of Houston Cool.”

Seeing Light In Life

Replete with all trappings of a rockstar — long hair, great guitar licks and the energy to busk anywhere and travel to any music fest — Robert co-founded and played in various bands with names such as The Banks and The French Letters.

He never quite attained the fame one would have expected of his talent. But then again, being famous was never really Robert’s aim. What he really savored was the joy of playing. And as per his good self, he would always give more credit to his bandmates than himself, remarking in a Facebook post that Harold Logan of The Banks “was [a] better guitarist and drummer than I was”.

While Robert figuratively lit the stages and streets where he performed, it was his work as a staff writer that illuminated the internal publication of Houston Lighting & Power. That parlayed into an energy correspondent’s job at Knight Ridder/Bridge and the eventual romance with Lisa.

His partner of more than two decades said she practically learned to see the lighter side of life from him. “He showed me how to have fun,” Lisa said. “I couldn’t have asked for a more supportive, loving partner.”

In return, whatever she did, planned or hoped for was for Robert, she said.

“Eventually we moved to Brooklyn Heights and set up our own little home together. We made each other happy. He was there for me through very difficult times. He said I helped him to become an adult.”

She adds:

“Right now I don’t know how I will carry on the rest of my life without him. I know that we were very lucky to have each other, but we should have had more years ahead.”

* Robert is survived by his wife Lisa, his older brother James Gibbons, his younger sister Anne Gibbons Eisner, brother-in-law Michael Eisner and nephews Daniel ‘Houston’ Eisner and Benjamin Eisner.

** Adapted from tributes by Lisa Gibbons and Marguerita Xu

*** All pictures from Facebook