Beloved Local Blues Performer, “White Noise” Jones, Dead at 103

 

The Daily Flyleaf, 9/3/2025

 

By Rupert Pinstripe

 

Beloved Ann Arbor blues musician “White Noise” Jones died today at the ripe old age of 103. A guitarist, singer, and songwriter, “White Noise” was known for writing many locally popular originals such as “My Muffin’s Got a Hole In It,” “I Cried a Blue Thousand Miles,” “Sour Milk Serenade,” and “Funky Mule Two-Step.” But local blues legend Jones is best remembered not for his performance of any of these songs, but rather for the unique sounds which gave him his name: every single performance by Jones produced only the static sound of white noise.

 

Jones fascinated onlookers, medicinal professionals, and scientists alike, as his performances appeared visually typical and even appeared to be (based on visual analysis of his finger and mouth movements) performances of blues standards, yet the only sound ever heard emanating from him was white noise. No matter the variations in his playing or singing, only white noise was ever heard. While various efforts were made by professionals in various scientific communities to study and explain this phenomenon, no cause has ever been determined.

 

Despite the peculiarity of “White Noise” Jones’s particular brand of music, the artist himself (who liked to be called a “blues-man and gee-tartist”) never offered any explanation of his unique sound, nor did he seem particularly aware of it. When questioned directly, he implied he had no idea what was being referred to. His typical response was simply that he “liked to play [his] music. Words know to be spoken, and when. You can’t choose it. Magic knows its own way, and you are the road. You’re lucky when it travels ya.”

 

In later years, Mr. Jones’ began emitting white noise constantly, rendering him incapable of standard communication via speech.

 

A tribute concert is being organized at the Kutchar Ballroom in the Catalan Mélange restaurant, featuring covers of his songs as well as, of course, lots of white noise. Condolences have come from far and wide, from local musicians like Dog Stephens, who said “White Noise knew the real word,” to internationally renowned noise artist Blasé, who said “I still hear him. I will, always.” Local television show host and personality Jeremy Kellerman said of Jones “he was one of the greatest guests to ever appear on The Jeremy Kellerman Advice Hour. After hearing him play, I could not stop smiling for two weeks straight. The hospital bill was worth it. Rest in peace, Mr. Lowe [sic].”

 

Flowers may be sent to Danson and Sons Funeral Home in Ann Arbor.

 

UPDATE:

 

Danson and Sons Funeral Home has requested that no more flowers be sent, as, hours after burial, Mr. Jones’s corpse apparently exploded, scattering flowers all over the cemetery. Volunteers are requested for cleanup once the cause has been ascertained and safety is assured. Authorities know of no prior incidents of the spontaneous combustion of a corpse. Please wear thick clothing.

“Mentally Ill Woman Escapes Police Custody” The Daily Flyleaf, 6/11/1996

“Mentally Ill Woman Escapes Police Custody”

 

Originally published in

“The Daily Flyleaf”

 

June 11^th, 1996

 

“Ann Arbor, Michigan –

 

Ann Arbor Police Chief Darren McAvoy reported a highly unusual situation in their holding cells on June 7^th, when a woman who was apparently mentally unbalanced managed to escape temporary confinement under mysterious circumstances.

 

The woman, believed to be homeless, was found in a disheveled state on June 6^th on Windmill Way, near the scene of the fatal crash that killed beloved Daily Flyleaf reporter Victoria Kellerman. Initially questioned as a witness in the investigation of the tragic incident, the woman, identifying herself as Stefanie Gunderson, was helpful before “babbling a lot of nonsense” according to Chief McAvoy. Before she was taken into police custody, “Gunderson” reportedly began repeating the chorus of the song “Once in a Lifetime” by hit 1980s band Talking Heads.

 

She was held overnight, as she was considered a danger to herself or others, while potential caregivers were sought. No family could be identified. The woman calling herself Stefanie Gunderson had an Ann Arbor, Michigan driver’s license bearing the name given; however, the license was determined to be fraudulent as it bore an issue date nearly thirty years in the future. In addition to the fraudulent license, the so-called Stefanie Gunderson was also in possession of a strange, apparently inactive electronic device bearing a logo similar to that of Apple Computers. The woman displayed extreme agitation when the device was confiscated, McAvoy said, repeatedly stating that the device needed to be charged.

 

While locked in a secure cell overnight, the woman calling herself Stefanie Gunderson apparently vanished between guard checks at midnight and 1 AM. Her cell was still locked, and the sole exit from the holding cells had remained under close watch all night. No sign of forced entry or exit from the building was found. Chief MvAvoy is asking anyone with information on this most unusual incident, or information on the whereabouts or background of the escaped woman, to please come forward. The woman is described as being in her early 30s, slightly overweight, with brown hair worn in a ponytail and dark circles under her eyes. She was last seen wearing a gray hoodie, white running shoes with velcro fastenings, black leggings, and a t-shirt featuring an image of a green dog character yelling the word “tacos.”

 

In a strange twist to this already strange story, the unusual black rectangular device confiscated from the woman also went missing, even though it was stored securely in an evidence locker. It was replaced by an early 1970s replica of a black rotary telephone of a type commonly used decades earlier, with a tag indicating it was the property of Jeremy Kellerman, widower of the late Victoria Kellerman. The telephone was returned to Mr. Kellerman, who was at a loss to explain the mystery.

A Kellerman Karol - Blog Post Christmas Eve 2015

A Kellerman Karol

12/24/2015

Hiya, folks!

I haven’t blogged in a while, and I thought to myself, what better time to start again than on that jolliest of holiday times, Christmas Eve?

Wow, it’s hard to believe it, but I’ve been on the internet for five whole years as of this month! Yowza! My, how time flies!

In the time I’ve been on the internet and re-starting my brilliant and beautiful career as a creative genius and advice guru, I have accomplished so many wonderful things. I have made so many wonderful Youtube videos, continuing the career path I started in the 1980s when I launched my original series THE JEREMY KELLERMAN ADVICE HOUR. I have posted countless (I mean you could count them if you wanted and you should because it’s so inspiring to know how prolific I am) blog posts here on THE JEREMY KELLERMAN BLOG! I’ve even created a few audio masterpieces, visual art, and I even released my first videogame, BUTT, which was even a featured game on the game console OUYA [defunct]! My honor could not soar any higher without bursting into flames in the upper atmosphere.

There is seriously no limit to the amount of inspirational glory that I can create when I set my mind to it. I am such an amazing person and I’m so grateful to be me. And I hope my greatness inspires you to be grateful for yourself, too, even if you aren’t the kind of person who is constantly producing high quality creative content that inspires and provokes profundity in all who experience it.

The internet has also been a great way to make friends that I wouldn’t have met within the confines of my native Michigan, majestic though this great state is. I’ve met musical angels like Vasamotion, of the Alaskan tundras, and Hussalonia, of the New York tundras. I’ve met a writer friend, Leonard Kirke, of the Ohio tundras, who has been really helpful in producing my literary masterpieces and editing stuff for me. From the Vermont tundras there are my game developer friends known collectively as “Not a Hipster Coffee Shop,” including such luminaries as Ryan Leslie, Jak Tiano, Matt Struble, Zach “Dumpster Tree,” Chas Elterman, and so many other wonderful people. Who could forget folks like Brendon Bigley and rap master Trey Cole? I even met Jim Crawford, the creator of something called “Frog Fractions.” I was published in the online journal The Seattle Star, founded by fellow starman Omar Wiley and co. I was absorbed into the world of Shaye Saint John, that gorgeous Hollywood starlet, and discovered her documentarian chronicler, Larry Wessel. Last but most definitely not least, I met Sven Hegedus, a spirit so ethereally beautiful that I can scarcely believe his glow.

These have been five really fantastic years, and they’ve only convinced me ever more how much light I bring into the world and how great it will be to keep shining with my high beams on full-on throttle, yes.

To conclude this meditation of gratitude and positive attitude, I’ll tell you sweet sprites in the universe a tale of a dream I just had during a Christmas Eve nap.

In the dream, I was woken up from my sleep at midnight by the ghost of Reginald P. Quest, one of my great mentors here at WXVH, Channel 23, Ann Arbor local access.

Reggie Reg told me that I would be visited by three spirits (he used a different word at first but I told him he was being racist again so then he clarified and it was fine) who would impart to me some important truths. As Reggie well knows, I am always up and/or down for that. Truths being imparted by spiritual beings is pretty much what I’m all about. I channel that stuff for the masses, because my job is deeply important to the psycho-emotional-spirituo-health of many a soul.

So he said to go back to sleep and the spirits would visit me at 1 AM, 2 AM, and 3 AM. I asked if they could come sooner because I need my beauty snooze, but he said everything was pre-arranged and couldn’t be rescheduled and he was sorry and I said that’s okay Reggie I know you do your best.

As he told me to, I went back to sleep and sure enough, when my genuine Rubendo Digi-Watch tingled at 1 AM, I was woken up again. The spirit turned out to be my nephew Scott, waking me up to ask me if I bought him that video game thing he wanted for Christmas. I told him no, the video game store said they don’t sell any electronic “wands” and didn’t know what I was talking about, and I told they guy I don’t know what the kids today like either. Then Scott went on this big rampage about how when he was a kid I never bought him the 4 Non Blondes cassette and I told him I was sorry but I just didn’t think it was appropriate for a kid his age. Then he said some bad words and cried a little and I knew he was missing Vickie like I do every Christmas and so I hugged it out with him and then he went into the living room to eat pie and I went back to sleep.

Some spirit! I guess that one was absent or something.

At 2 AM, once again that tingle sound woke me up. I didn’t see a spirit this time either. I went into the kitchen for some water and found Scott choking. That silly billy dropped one of his action figure accessories into his pie and was choking. I drove him to the ER and it took forever because I couldn’t find my dang keys. When we got there the staff was really happy to see him. They gave him the “Heimlich Manure” and popped that little plastic toy thing out of him and then they hung out for a while. Scott is friends with the ER staff because things like this happen to him a lot. They were glad he visited on Christmas. He better not have done this on purpose!

In the waiting room I met my old pal, Daily Flyleaf reporter extraordinaire, Rupert Pinstripe. I asked him why he was there and he just mumbled “John Lithgow flashbacks.” We talked about Christmas traditions and he said every year on Christmas he plays his favorite holiday album, “Solstice Rectitude 29.” I told him that Scott and I carry on the tradition that Victoria and I started back in the 1980s, our annual Christmas visit to the Hergunglarg in downtown Ann Arbor. I told him about how it makes me miss Vickie so much, but that Scott and I grow closer every year when we share in that experience and in our memories of her. The Hergunglarg is such an awe-inspiring sight to see, and it’s never quite the same experience twice.

Rupert asked me what my Christmas wish for the year is, and if I thought the Hergunglarg would make it come true. I told him my wish was for world peace, for a movie to be made of my glorious life, and also to finish my wisdom book, the Kellermonicon, very soon. I asked Rupert what he wished for and he said his Christmas wish is for people to stop making commercials and greeting cards with imagery of animals with human teeth.

Eventually Scott was released, I bid Rupert a fond farewell and a merry Christmas and/or solstice, and then Scott and I went home and I got back to bed. Finally, at 3 AM, my watch tingle-dingled for the final time that morn. I wasn’t expecting much, since I hadn’t seen any of the predicted spirits. But this time, something did happen.

Standing in front of me as I sprawled out on my bed, there was a man. At least I think it was a man. I don’t remember much about the body…I just can’t remember it. But the face was weird. It was like someone wearing a paper plate as a mask, with a face drawn on the bottom of the plate. The face was smiling at me, in a weird smile. It was kind of like a cartoon face. It beckoned me forward with an outstretched hand, motioning downwards and towards it, the Japanese way. Something about this thing was very, very familiar. Whenever I blinked or looked away and back, its face changed. Sometimes it smiled, sometimes it cried, sometimes it looked angry. Sometimes it smiled in a way that didn’t seem really happy.

I followed it and the room shimmered and shivered and wiggled and woggled. Soon I was no longer in my room, but a graveyard. I saw Victoria’s grave, but of course it was empty. The strange thing is that someone had dug out all the dirt, and deep down at the bottom was like a portal or vision. I saw streets, sacred cows, monkeys, elephants, and the Taj Mahal. Then the strange figure motioned to me again, and I followed him to another grave. It was MINE. But there was no date of birth or death listed. Instead, there was only an infinity symbol, a dash, and another infinity symbol where the dates should be.

My grave was dug out, too, and there was a vision at the bottom of mine as well. This vision showed me back on the set of my classic television series, THE JEREMY KELLERMAN ADVICE HOUR. I looked as great as ever, so beautiful. Perfect moustache, perfect. I was smiling really big at the camera and I could just tell I was about to say something, when a door opened. Behind me, at the back of the set, the plate-faced guy/person/thing who had brought me to this vision burst through the door from the set to the outside parking lot and held a gun at me. I stared at it in utter fear.

Everything rewound, like someone was rewinding an old VHS tape, and I was about to speak all over again. This time the smile on my face froze in the moment, my eyes large, expectant, like I knew the words already but was still trying to find them anyway. The audience was waiting for me. I was the audience, and I was waiting for me. I was about to say something.

Suddenly everything shifted. I was shooting through space and time. I saw brains hooked up to a computer thing somewhere in space. I saw a man-sized teddy bear wandering the streets. There was a dark, ornate office building. Then there was an audience on a sunny afternoon, and then they were replaced by balloons that floated away. An old woman sat on a bench in a park. A young man sipped a drink at a bar. Deborah’s face rose up from the abyss, angry-looking. Victoria screamed. Victoria was smiling. Victoria was far away. Scott was crying. Lance collapsed against my host chair on the set. Victoria was gone, but she was still there. I could hear the theme song of The Jeremy Kellerman Advice Hour echoing through the corridors of space.

Then the vision ended. I was back in my room. The plate-faced person danced in a mildly provocative way in front of me. I stared transfixed at the slow, sensuous movements. The drawn look on its face was a simple, cheerful smile. I blinked, and the face became mischievous, and it held up a finger to its face as if to whisper “Shh…” It pointed to its wrist, to indicate my watched. I looked, and it was 6 AM. When I looked back up, its face was a grin. I blinked, it was gone.

Suddenly I woke up, and checked my watch. It was only half past 3 AM.

Scott was in the bathroom throwing up. He had too many peppermint drinks, silly goosey. It happens every year!

I wondered about my strange dream. What did it mean? I thought a lot about it and I decided that it was some sort of disorganized allegory for my life, maybe mixed with a premonition and lots of complex metaphors.

The more I thought about it, though, I remembered that it started with the ghost of my mentor Reginald P. Quest and he’s not dead. So it was probably just a weirdo dream or hallucination brought on by that Ramune-drinking contest I had with Scott earlier. Those Japanese sodas pack a wallop! Plus I took a giant gulp of what I thought was egg nog, but it turned out to be that brown liquid that Deb sometimes stores in the fridge. I keep telling her to put labels on drink containers if she’d re-using him! That goofus. She’s off on one of her “jaunts” again, gone for two weeks now. Oh well, more Christmas cheer for me and Scotters!

I hope you enjoyed this joyous blog update for the holiday season, and that whatever holiday and/or rituals you celebrate this time of year, they are merry.

I hope, too, that in the future I will bring you more exciting goodness, Kellermaniacs. There are lots of projects I hope to accomplish and/or delegate to others to accomplish. Of course the Kellermonicon is still in progress, it marches on. I’m in talks with a trusted collaborator to make a biopic/documentary of my life a reality. I’m in further talks with a certain eccentric baloney-based fast food magnate to create yet another video game, in addition to another video game project or two I’ve been considering. And someday I might get the Kellerman Family Band back together, as well as producing an album for my good friend Marty Stevens. There might even be a fresh re-release of the classic 1989 era theme song of THE JEREMY KELLERMAN ADVICE HOUR on the way! Not to mention the  possible first-ever LIVE READING OF KELLERMAN WRITINGS! Who knows? Plus there are hopefully more stories, videos, and other fun just waiting to be born anew.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, glad tidings, comfort and joy, creative wonder, and infinite love to all of you,

THINK WELL, LIVE WELL, AND BE WELL,

JEREMY KELLERMAN