Magic, Music, Medicine, More

Zombies, vampires, and superheroes swarm shortly before dusk, as if armed with a tactical terrain map. Porch to porch they advance, pillowcases and bags thrust open wide, like baby birds. Past flower beds transformed into graveyards. Shrubs shrouded in gauzy cobwebs. And look, a green-faced witch had a mishap with a tree, her broomstick stuck in its trunk. 

It's spooky season. Time for fun-size peanut butter cups and a good scare. Trick or Treat! 

Up the street, Billy Cohn is all in. No bones about it – well, lots of bones in this case. Halloween is his favorite holiday.

“More so than any other holiday, it fosters creativity and expression,” says the Bellaire inventor, 64. He’s been chopping up large, plastic skeletons in his garage workshop for weeks for a boney whirl-a-gig that’s sure to mesmerize and baffle a few. 

Because when the night falls and the hordes assemble, creaky, creepy skeletons will break through the Cohn family lawn and fly into the ether, thanks to Billy’s hand-crafted, 120-pound, fast-spinning, strobe-lit zoetrope that gives the illusion of movement. 

Tail-wagging sheepdog Andy is anything but sheepish when it comes to taking a spin in the car with owner Billy. (Photo: hartphoto.com)

An animated skeletal spectacle. 

He’s talking about his contraption like a giddy kid on the first day of summer break, his sheepdog Andy at his side. Andy has tricks of his own.

 “Andy, Annndy! Sit!” he instructs the wooly bear of a dog. Not just sit sit. But hoist his shaggy tuchus onto a dining room chair kind of sit. 

Good boy!

“My favorite thing to do is just drive around with Andy in the car. He sits there like a proper gentleman,” he says of the dog, who’s now off to investigate other things in the house. 

They’ve got matching energies, dog and owner. Happy, busy. Up to something.

Billy is always up to something.

Skeletons from past Halloweens spin on a zoetrope, a contraption that makes them look as if animated, in fluid motion, at night.

“I’m a hedonist, for real,” quips the father of five grown children, and husband to Shaun, the second pea in this pod. “We all love Halloween. We love fun stuff. I just want to do fun stuff that’s entertaining to me. For me, I’m super lucky. I have a need to create. I get to do things I love all the time.”

Not just spook-tacular things. Things of the heart, too. Because Billy is that inventor, cardiothoracic surgeon and engineer William Cohn, widely recognized for his contributions to the development of the continuous-flow, totally implantable artificial heart. 

The device has been implanted in a few patients now as part of an FDA-approved, first-in-human early feasibility study to assess its use as a bridge-to-transplant solution for those with severe heart disease. 

“Turns out 200,000 Americans die every year of heart failure. We transplant about 3,500 because that’s all the donor organs that we have,” Billy explains. “The ambition is that this device will be used eventually instead of an actual heart for a transplant. 

“It’s cool. We’re changing the world,” he says matter-of-factly.

Halloween zoetrope. Artificial heart. A bevy of other medical devices under his belt, too. All spun from a flurry of schematics in his head.

A workshop in his garage tells the tale, ground zero for medical inventions and skeleton chopping. Breakthrough medical devices started here, Billy slaving into the night on iterations of prototypes. “I know it looks humble and a bit kludgy, but some of the stuff that has come out of here has been really impactful,” he says, of the hodgepodge of materials and objects on every surface. Artifacts from an inventive mind. 

BUSY BROTHERS John and younger brother Billy (pictured, from left) were curious from the get-go, thanks to energetic, creative parents. Growing up with Houston’s medical advances and space program as a backdrop, the two performed scientific experiments at home at an early age.

“We used to call him Bizzy. He was a flurry of activity even back then,” quips Billy’s older brother, John, also no slouch. The IBM Fellow Emeritus held the most senior executive technical rank while there. He now invents things for an electric aerospace company. He holds patents galore and, like his brother, is drawn to fun.

Like his 2009 self-propelled mobile Ferris wheel with 20-foot diameter drive wheels for Burning Man, a hotbed for creators. The festival attracts tens of thousands to Nevada’s Black Rock Desert each year. Billy couldn’t resist driving that thing.

“Oh man, that was fun!” he says, quickly producing a video of him at the wheel of his brother’s contraption. 

Billy was 18 months old when his family moved to Houston. He, John, and sister Mary had childhoods filled with inspiration, thanks to energetic, creative parents and a city that was coming into its own through medical advancements and its space program. 

“Our parents were both incredibly playful in a goofy, fun sort of way, and kind of looked the other way when we would do shady stuff, like blow things up in the backyard,” John says, with a laugh. “We went to school with some of the astronaut kids. I remember astronaut Ed White coming to our house. So, it was this atmosphere of big scientific achievements. We were exposed to that, and Billy got all the charm and the music genes to boot.”

Yeah, Billy’s the one sliding that trombone to funky tunes at The Continental Club, as a member of the band, Disco Expressions. He took up the instrument at Spring Branch Junior High, pursuing it in marching band at Memorial High School, as well as playing in a combo during teen years. He’s in another band, too, an all-original group called the Texas Turbines where he jams on bass guitar.

No bones about it, the inventor, well-known for groundbreaking medical devices, is a lifelong Halloween enthusiast. (Photo: hartphoto.com)

“No matter what the gravity of anything… all these amazing medical things he does, he is always playful,” says John. “He has this insatiable curiosity and just can’t sit still. He has so much horsepower that he can get the serious stuff done and the just-for-the-heck-of-it fun stuff.”

Todd Thrash knows a bit about this. He’s known Billy and family for years, a friendship cemented through their kids’ Cub Scout and Boy Scout days.

“I don’t think the man sleeps,” Todd deadpans. “And have you seen him do magic?” 

Yes. Billy’s been perfecting close-up magic for 35 years.

“I’ve got a guy who is a real magician, and he took me under his wing, taught me some cool stuff,” says Billy, rolling up his sleeves to show he’s hiding nothing. He proceeds to turn $1 bills into $100 bills before closeup baffled eyes, a nifty trick he keeps close to the vest. 

Magician. Musician. Medical Device Man.

“He loves doing the magic,” Todd says. “He told me that back when he was doing a lot of traveling on planes, doing a lot of surgeries, going to other countries, others would just zone out on inflight movies. But he’d read and watch DVDs and stuff about how to do magic tricks.

“We block out every Halloween to spend at the Cohn’s house,” he adds. “It’s incredible the things he comes up with.”

TROMBONE FUNK & DOG UP FRONT Billy performs trombone in the band Disco Expressions at The Continental Club in Houston.

Billy’s youngest son, Chris, 24, would agree. He loves his dad’s “one-man-band approach to DIYing everything,” he says. Halloween was always a blast for him and siblings Ben, Elizabeth, Billy, and Robert.

“Growing up, my dad always went above and beyond in the art department, making us custom props and costumes. He’s very intentional with his design choices to capture the essence of whatever it is he’s making to ensure the wow factor,” Chris says. “I felt proud knowing that my costumes would get appreciation not only from my friends, but from their parents and our teachers.

“My dad is a total Renaissance man,” he continues. “I’ve always admired the ‘lone-inventor-in-the-garage-working-into-the-night’ archetype he embodies. There’s a certain optimistic bravery there that resonates with me. I’ve only recently started flexing that inventor muscle but have really been getting into it!” 

Neighbor Debbie Lapin isn’t surprised that Billy’s talent extends to his offspring.

“Billy’s always tinkering in his garage,” she says. “He’s invented some pretty amazing things in the medical field that are used worldwide. But it’s funny, if you were to ask him what he was, I think he would say musician before he would say doctor or medical device inventor. I think playing music is pretty high on his list.”

She and urologist husband Stephen, who has known Billy since grade school, look forward to watching his Halloween antics this year. “Every year it gets bigger and better. As an inventor, he starts thinking about things way in advance,” she says. 

Whatever he does, lots will see it. About 1,100 trick-or-treaters graced the Cohn’s property last year, according to captured frames from a mounted camera.

“Our neighborhood is crazy, so many people everywhere that you can’t get through,” Debbie says. “I bought 1,500 pieces of candy last year and gave away one piece to each person, and I ran out. I think I need 2,000 pieces this year. There are a lot of great Halloween decorations out here, but a lot of our kids have grown, so we don’t quite go all out anymore. Billy still goes all out.”

This day, Billy points out his latest project. A 2003 BMW convertible that he’s retrofitted to run off a conventional radio controller. “I’ve integrated 3D printed parts into it and linear actuators, and a high torque gear motor working with 3D printed gears to control the car with the radio,” he says in geeked-out fashion. “It’s pretty simple.”

Why?

“Andy and maybe a few of his dog friends will sit in the car. I’ll try to train him to put his paws on the steering wheel to make it look like he’s driving. That’s the goal for next year’s Art Car Parade.”

His favorite thing to do is ride around in his car with Andy, a proper English gentleman, who rides shotgun. (Photo: hartphoto.com)

As if on cue, Andy bolts up the driveway to the car, like Heck yeah, we’re doing this!

“I’m sure it’s gonna happen,” insists Billy. “Toby, our first sheepdog… I taught him to take the bag off the Sunday newspaper, dig through it, find the comics, and bring them to me. Andy’s got this. I’ve got till April to teach him. With my resolve and his native intelligence, we will be fine.”

After all, resolve is the largest part, stresses the inventor, who, no doubt, has more tricks up his sleeve. 

“When I’m working on a magic trick, I’m the same guy who works on a heart. I’m just coming up with ideas, vetting them, and evolving them as I have new information presented to me. I work hard at everything that interests me,” he says. 

“At the end of the day when you put your head to the pillow, it’s great to be able to say, ‘What a day!’ The more of that you get in your life, the more fun it is.”