RIP Keith D.

[MrPixel]

While I never crossed swords with him, ...

I did, and he nearly drove me off the forum altogether his vitriol was so toxic, descending into personal abuse on his part. I respect that he had an interesting life (I don't recall when I figured-out that sr71_plt and Keith D. were the same person), and I respect that he was hands-on with SR71s since I was in aerospace research for a short period. But he was kept on my ignore list for very good reason.

Condolences to his family and friends.

 

[PennameWombat]

re the obituary... is there an option for publishing a Literotica obituary that doesn't out him but includes some of the information that he had shared about himself to paint a picture of the man? I didn't interact with him, but it does seem like a good idea to honour somebody who has given a lot to the online community.

I would not recommend that.

Ogg's family was open about sharing his identity, to the point of allowing us from the LitE community to join a livestream of his funeral service.

Clearly, that's not the case with KeithD and his family.

That information you describe would allow anyone to backtrack to the actual obit. I respect Lovecraft's sensitivity to what he's shared, but he's been careful to not allow that (at least not easily.) Everyone here has some sensitivity level between our LitE and 'real' identities, KeithD never openly revealed his so we should respect that.

But the man was prolific both in posted stories and in his postings on this forum. As most of us here attest, he and I had the odd run-in over some issue or another, he once jumped all over me for agreeing with him in an apparently incorrect manner. But many aspects of his life were tipped in various postings (again, as Lovecraft intimates) and those all remain.

 

[intim8]

Sad to hear. Like many here, I butted heads with him a few times, but overall, I'd say we were better off with him here than not. Which, in the end, is what counts.

 

[lovecraft68]

It's odd how things seem to fall into place like dominos.

Yesterday I posted a thread about where I feel I am in regard to my writing, and what some of my not so nice motivations have been.

That part of the thread was inspired by the malicious voting thread where some of the discussion brought all that back to me.

In that thread I mentioned the infamous Cabin drama and there were two people on my side with that, TX Rad, and Keithd (under his prior name) which made me think back to that time, then when the Keith thread resurfaced this morning it made me think more on it, and I did the research, but just the way things work I knew what I'd find.

A morbid serendipity of sorts.

The crowd that was here when I started is rapidly dwindling.

 

[MrPixel]

re the obituary... is there an option for publishing a Literotica obituary that doesn't out him but includes some of the information that he had shared about himself to paint a picture of the man? I didn't interact with him, but it does seem like a good idea to honour somebody who has given a lot to the online community.

I would not recommend that.

I agree with PW. Similar situation with TxRad, LC68 did indeed announce his passing to the forum after I had done the legwork, but he and I consulted in PMs with three others since it was our supposition in knowing him personally that Tx had interests outside of LitE that could (probably would) have been impacted in outing the IRL person.

Ogg had long advance notice of his impending demise, and made sure his LitE friends shared in his hospice. He made the choice. TxRad and Keith D. were caught by surprise, and we collectively are not in any position to make those decisions for them postmortem.

 

[jsmiam]

RIP, Keithd. In addition to condolences though, he also deserves to be patted on the back for a life richly lived, including I believe, making it to a rather advanced age.

My vote is for zero/zilch/nada on any further revelations. Keith’s occasional self revelations of a bit too much information were a case of letting his guard down. I feel as if he slowed down on those revelations in more recent times, and i vote for us to respect that.

 

[Auden James]

Does anyone familiar with his corpus want to recommend a couple of the highlights? Seems like the way to memorialize an author, by reading his work.

I have translated his story "Descent into Chaos" into German. Maybe you would like to start with this one? (He also published some helpful "How Tos" on writing and publishing back in the days under his original nick sr71plt.)

I am also grateful for his rede with the title under which the first story I wrote in English was published on LIT.

May he live on in the memory of his readers!

 

[AloneTooLong]

I agree with PW. Similar situation with TxRad, LC68 did indeed announce his passing to the forum after I had done the legwork, but he and I consulted in PMs with three others since it was our supposition in knowing him personally that Tx had interests outside of LitE that could (probably would) have been impacted in outing the IRL person.

Ogg had long advance notice of his impending demise, and made sure his LitE friends shared in his hospice. He made the choice. TxRad and Keith D. were caught by surprise, and we collectively are not in any position to make those decisions for them postmortem.

I am not certain TxRad was totally caught by surprise; I think perhaps he knew things might not be going well and I suspect they went much worse than he thought. Incidentally, his birthday is next month, 12/4--he would have been 78 according to his obit.

 

[Duleigh]

(He also published some helpful "How Tos" on writing and publishing back in the days under his original nick sr71plt.)

I was under the assumption that SR71plt was retired but there's some very new stories there.

 

[Areala-chan]

Well, shit... He and I swapped some PMs after I came back from my original 10+ year hiatus when I had some questions, and I always smirked at the shots he and JBJ (and his various alts) would snipe at one another across the various forums.

He gave me good advice the couple times I requested it, and he gave it freely. I didn't know more than what I saw here at the forums, but he did right by me those couple times, and it's been odd not seeing him around here as much lately.

RIP, Keith. Hope you're back in the cockpit, where it's zero turbulence and straight on 'til morning.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

Two stories of his that I liked are Amish Honeymoon Cruise, a somewhat oddball tale about an older woman who seduces a young Amish bridegroom who is with his new bride on a honeymoon cruise, and The Forever Man, a collaboration he wrote with another author under the name, if I can recall, Shabu.

I'll post the links in case anyone wants to join me in this little memorial:

https://www.literotica.com/s/amish-honeymoon-cruise
https://www.literotica.com/s/the-forever-man

The latter is by Shabbu with two B's, whose bio says, "sr71plt (who is also known as habu)". That parenthetical comment was the first time I understood the sr71plt username: SR-71 Pilot. Was he really?

If so, it adds a whole new dimension to the fact that he wrote almost exclusively gay male. Remaining closeted would have been a professional requirement for him. And maybe not just in a "roll your eyes, do the paperwork" kind of way. The ready room took its homophobia seriously back then, from what little I understand of that world.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I'll post the links in case anyone wants to join me in this little memorial:

https://www.literotica.com/s/amish-honeymoon-cruise
https://www.literotica.com/s/the-forever-man

The latter is by Shabbu with two B's, whose bio says, "sr71plt (who is also known as habu)". That parenthetical comment was the first time I understood the sr71plt username: SR-71 Pilot. Was he really?

That's what he said. When I joined AH he mentioned it fairly often, though the claim was not universally accepted as true. I don't recall him bringing it up in recent years, but nor did he ever back away from it that I saw.

If so, it adds a whole new dimension to the fact that he wrote almost exclusively gay male. Remaining closeted would have been a professional requirement for him. And maybe not just in a "roll your eyes, do the paperwork" kind of way. The ready room took its homophobia seriously back then, from what little I understand of that world.

IIRC from what he said, the CIA was well aware that he was bi, because he worked for them in a role that involved seducing male diplomats etc.; later he transferred into piloting SR-71s for them.

(I was and am skeptical about some aspects of that story, but he's not here to argue his side of things, so I'll leave it be.)

 

[_Lynn_]

Keith was astonishingly prolific. If you add up all the stories published under sr71plt and KeithD, it adds up to 1571, which is the fourth-highest number of submissions in Literotica history.

He had an account for the stories he wrote in the Romance category too.

 

[Duleigh]

When I joined AH he mentioned it fairly often, though the claim was not universally accepted as true.

Keith D seems to think it was true - he wrote about it in his biography
https://www.amazon.com/Flying-High-Diving-Deep-habu-ebook/dp/B008DXZP74

We talked about it, I teased him for getting all hot and bothered about an airplane that had no weapons system. He didn't like that

BTW - Habu is a snake, a very poisonous snake. It's also the Call Sign for SR-71's doing photo reconnaissance over Vietnam, and Habu is Keith D's alt that he published under. It would be very odd that someone would call themselves SR71plt at one site and Habu at another, claiming to be a SR-71 pilot at both sites and in print, and not be an SR-71 pilot. They're not as rare as chicken teeth. The USAF had over 450 SR71 crew members which is quite a few bodies for 32 airplanes. The world may never know how many the CIA had.

 

[_Lynn_]

When I started here back in 2007, I didn't have a clue how little I knew about writing. I lurked the forums and soon noticed how much information he shared. I wanted to learn. So I took a chance and sent him a PM. Every single one came back with thorough and polite answers.

Back in 2011, I asked him if he would allow me to interview him for a college paper I was writing. (Yes, I was old then). He agreed and I sent him a list of questions. The next day I had his answers and tons of helpful information. He could have said no. Others might have.

The arrogance he showed in forum posts didn't bother me. It was just his way.

RIP

 

[PennameWombat]

That's what he said. When I joined AH he mentioned it fairly often, though the claim was not universally accepted as true. I don't recall him bringing it up in recent years, but nor did he ever back away from it that I saw.



IIRC from what he said, the CIA was well aware that he was bi, because he worked for them in a role that involved seducing male diplomats etc.; later he transferred into piloting SR-71s for them.

(I was and am skeptical about some aspects of that story, but he's not here to argue his side of things, so I'll leave it be.)

I never saw any of the discussions on this subject that took place here.

My understanding has always been that the CIA flew A-12s, and that the USAF flew the SR-71s. The latter was a subsequent and slightly modified design of the former, with slightly different performance specs and envelopes, as well as considerably different spying capabilities. This last item a key reason for developing the latter airframe. It also had a pilot and RSO, not a single-seater like the A-12. You can find online lists of the USAF personnel involved, and I have a signed copy of USAF Maj. (ret) Brian Shul's "Sled Driver,"

But as so much of it was a 'black' program, even now there are blank spots.

 

[gordo12]

Wow, Keith gone? The end of an era. I had many battles with that guy over the years. In fact, it was something he wrote on AH that pissed me off so much I registered here in 2011 so I could tell him off.
And despite fighting with him so much, I will miss him. RIP Keith!

 

[ChloeTzang]

I was under the assumption that SR71plt was retired but there's some very new stories there.

No, he dropped SR71plt and moved to KeithD when he felt he had so many stories as SR71plt that he needed a new userid to post them under. I remember back when I first started here in 2015 there was a bit of too and fro over the SR71 pilot claim, which Keith always claimed to have flown as a CIA pilot, not air force.

He published as "habu" on Amazon - here's what his Amazon bio has to say - and this is all linked to thru the "Author Published Books" thread up at the top of the AH so it's linked to by KeithD and openly available online - nothing here he didn't say himself. Habu, incidentally, was the nickname for the SR71's, name after a pit viper indigenous to Japan, which the Okinawans thought the plane resembled.

About the author​

habu/sr71plt is published by BarbarianSpy and eXcessica publishing, in e-book and paperback.

habu also writes with Sabb as Shabbu and can be found at www.barbarianspy.com the website he shares with Dirk Hessian and Sabb
habu's first major effort in writing erotica was not autobiographical. It was actually a fictional series that was lengthened and, in 2009, finally released as the novella House on Park, soon to be revised and reissued by BarbarianSpy.

habu is a published mainstream novelist and short story writer under another name and in another dimension of his life.

habu, or sr71plt as he is also known, has been writing erotica seriously since 2005. He began posting his writing at MOTNES, and early versions of some of his autobiographical stories, which appear in Flying High, Diving Deep can still be found there.

The author was a male model and film actor who turned to international intelligence service during the Vietnam War era. Although coming late, he was already in his late twenties, to the gay scene, the author's sexual encounters and experience blossomed quickly in the exotic, sexually free, risk taking, and pre-AIDs environment of Bangkok, Thailand.

 

[Areala-chan]

Wow, Keith gone? The end of an era. I had many battles with that guy over the years. In fact, it was something he wrote on AH that pissed me off so much I registered here in 2011 so I could tell him off.
And despite fighting with him so much, I will miss him. RIP Keith!

In ~1595, Shakespeare penned the line, "My only love sprung from my only hate."

In 2011, @gordo12 joins Literotica for much the same reason.

 

[Duleigh]

No, he dropped SR71plt and moved to KeithD when he felt he had so many stories as SR72plt that he needed a new userid to post them under.

Take a look at his SR71plt page, his latest story posted 2 weeks before he passed away

 

[gordo12]

In ~1595, Shakespeare penned the line, "My only love sprung from my only hate."

In 2011, @gordo12 joins Literotica for much the same reason.

I'm not so sure I'd use the word love about Keith. He could piss me off faster than a cobra striking with his contrarian posts.
But at some point, familiarity became acceptance. He wasn't going to change, and I sure wasn't. It wasn't worth fighting anymore.

So I will miss him. He was a big part of my author journey. I learned things from him and will remember him for that.

 

[FifthEstate]

Thank you for making this final. It sucks when you know but you still don't know.
As others said, he was often snarky, and I had a difficult start with him. In time, some strange and tenuous mutual respect formed, not love for sure, but recognition and respect, yeah. And I did respect him for standing by his own opinion and not caring who he was going up against. He was no suckup, that's for sure.
I'd say that Keith would definitely have a good chuckle at the fact that @lovecraft68 was announcing his passing and honoring him.

May he find peace and good stories where he is now.

I was going to write something very similar, but AwkwardlySet already did, so I’ll second it. RIP KeithD, Literotica won’t be the same without you!

 

[Blind_Justice]

Couldn't stand the man and his prickly attitude but it's sad to see him gone regardless.

RIP.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Couldn't stand the man and his prickly attitude but it's sad to see him gone regardless.

RIP.

I think for me, that prickly attitude reminded me a lot of both my granddads, so it was kind of familiar and I liked it without taking it too seriously. Underneath that prickly exterior, there was a heart of gold who was willing to dive in and answer questions and give out info regardless of how you interacted with him elsewhere. And yeah, very sad to see him gone. I'll miss him.

 

[jsmiam]

I will admit that the showtime-paramount series “fellow travelers” made keithd pop into my head whenever I watched it. The premise included closeted gay men in government jobs in the fifties through eighties and the things they had to do to hide it.

Bad makeup notwithstanding in how they tried (and failed) to make the actors look different ages during different times, it was worth watching.