(Previously.)
Another one down, another one down, another one bites the dust:
(Aren’t those actually two different charges? How did he plead to a single count?)
Archive for December, 2012
Your Austin nightclub trial update.
Tuesday, December 4th, 2012Well said, sir.
Tuesday, December 4th, 2012
(That second photo was taken by my mother with her camera.)
(Biographical information on J. Frank Dobie from the Handbook of Texas Online.)
(Interestingly enough, both Webb and Dobie are buried in the state cemetery, but Roy Bedichek, the third member of the group, is buried elsewhere. It isn’t unusual, as we will see, for the cemetery to have monuments for people who are buried elsewhere, but as far as I can tell there’s none for Bedichek. And for those of you outside of Austin who aren’t aware of the significance of Webb/Dobie/Bedichek, here’s a nice article on the state cemetery website that explains it all for you.)
Millar update.
Monday, December 3rd, 2012Here’s a very nice tribute to Jeff Millar from the WP “Comic Riffs” blog.
Bill Hinds is quoted at length. Noted: “Tank McNamara” will continue, with Hinds doing both the writing and art.
I’ve suffered for my art.
Monday, December 3rd, 2012Actually, I haven’t suffered that much.
My mother recently bought a new camera, and wanted to go out and practice taking pictures with it. I’ve got a Nikon camera, and I love to take photographs. Plus I have a copy of The Crime Buff’s Guide to Outlaw Texas
There are some folks who give you the feeling that they (or their families) were kind of defensive about being buried in the state cemetery (which, let’s face it, is in the middle of downtown and has limited space). So they feel like they have to list every accomplishment in their life, starting with being elected class president in the sixth grade and going on forever and ever ad infinitum.
Then you get the quiet, modest people.
(Biographical information on Webb from the Handbook of Texas Online.)
Random notes: December 3, 2012.
Monday, December 3rd, 2012Jim Washburn is out as defensive line coach of the Eagles. Yes, already.
Obit watch: David Oliver Relin, journalist and co-author of Three Cups of Tea. I wish I had more to say on this, but right now I’m not sure what I can say.
As I recall, the case of the lawyer who shot at a census worker was well publicized at the time. The lawyer. Carolyn Barnes, denies the incident ever happened. But she was declared incompetent to stand trial and sent off to a state mental hospital.
Here’s the punchline: her law license is still valid, and she’s representing at least one client.
So, in other words: if the state hasn’t taken away her law license, she’s sane and can be tried for shooting at the census worker. If the state takes away her law license, that just certifies that’s she’s insane and can’t stand trial. That’s some catch.
There goes Toyko.
Sunday, December 2nd, 2012Paging Andrew! Andrew to the white courtesy phone, please!
Obit watch and a bit of personal indulgence: December 1, 2012.
Saturday, December 1st, 2012This has not been a good week for various reasons. Add another one to the list.
Jeff Millar, columnist and former movie critic for the Houston Chronicle, and also writer of the “Tank McNamara” comic strip, has passed away.
Millar’s time as a HouChron columnist and film critic overlapped my childhood and teenage years. I’ve written before that he was one of three people (Siskel and Ebert being the other two) who made me love movies. (My teenage years were a time when teen slasher flicks were approximately every third movie in the theaters. It was so bad, Millar came up with the “teen scream checklist” format for his reviews of those movies; I laughed every time I saw he’d done one of those.)
(And I’m glad somebody mentioned “Murray the Wonder Publicist”. I had almost forgotten about him.)
“Tank McNamara” was a hoot in those years, too. It still is, but sports have become so ridiculous that they’re hard to satirize any more. And I was a big fan of “Second Chances”, too: it was often funny, but also deeply moving (and I wonder how much of it was autobiographical). (Somebody should do a complete collection of that comic, damn it.)
I even saved up my pennies and purchased a copy of his novel Private Sector
And the columns. Most of them were side-splittingly funny. But the one that I remember best right now was one he wrote about his first wife (the legendary “Spot” of his columns) after her death. I’d love to find a link to that, but the HouChron doesn’t go back that far.
I had it in my head that, at some point, I was going to write Mr. Millar and thank him for his influence in my life. I met him once, when I was a teenager, at a book signing. But I was too shy and intimidated to talk with him much. We had a brief email correspondence shortly before he retired as a reviewer, and that was the extent of my contact with him. I tried several times to see if he had a presence online, and couldn’t find any contact information, so I gave up on it.
Too late now. I guess this has to be my thank-you note.
Domo arigato, Millar-sensei.