Archive for December, 2012

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“…with the eyes wide open”

Thursday, December 6th, 2012

Something about the state cemetery that I didn’t realize until I went there; many of the monuments are, for want of a better work, architecturally interesting.

There are quite a few standard flat tombstones (especially in the section for the Confederate dead) but it seems like many people have the attitude of “This is the state cemetery; let’s make it interesting.”

I wish the focus had come out a little better on this one. I think it works, but in retrospect, it would have been better if i had taken another shot with a smaller aperture to get better depth of field.

(And call me a sentimental old fool, but I like the inscription.)

(Tom Lea Institute. The Tom Lea Collection at the University of Texas.)

Posted in Art, Books, Obits, Photography | Comments Closed

Random notes: December 5, 2012.

Wednesday, December 5th, 2012

So has anyone been following the Indian Olympic Committee story? In brief: India wants to elect people to their national Olympic Committee following their rules, the IOC says “No, you’ve got to follow our rules”, and suspends the Indian committee. Suspension means that Indian athletes can’t compete in IOC sanctioned events, there will be no IOC funding for Indian athletes, and Indian sports officials can’t attend international meetings.

The Indian committee has basically said “F you” and elected Lalit Bhanot secretary general of the committee. Bhanot was unopposed.

Bhanot also spent 11 months in jail before he managed to make bail. Why? Corruption charges, specifically related to the 2010 Commonwealth Games.

The humiliating Olympic suspension follows India’s hosting of the Commonwealth Games in 2010 in which a pedestrian bridge collapsed, suppliers went unpaid, human excrement was left in athletes’ quarters and the budget ballooned to $8 billion from $75 million, much of it unaccounted for. Local newspapers, citing internal documents, detailed $80 rolls of toilet paper, $61 soap dispensers that normally cost $1.97 and $250,000 high-altitude simulators that usually sell for $11,830.

“to $8 billion from $75 million”? Wow. That’s corruption on an epic level: gold medal worthy corruption, if you ask me.

And speaking of corruption, the NYT explains how a Ferrari crash led to a change in the leadership of the party:

China’s departing president, Hu Jintao, entered the summer in an apparently strong position after the disgrace of Bo Xilai, previously a rising member of a rival political network who was brought down when his wife was accused of murdering a British businessman. But Mr. Hu suffered a debilitating reversal of his own when party elders — led by his predecessor, Jiang Zemin — confronted him with allegations that Ling Jihua, his closest protégé and political fixer, had engineered the cover-up of his son’s death.

“The Maid of the Mist” folks, who run the tours on the NY side of Niagara Falls, have made a new deal with the state that should keep the boats running. (Previously. Also.)

“Restaurant Impossible: The Musical!” All singing, all dancing, all Robert Irvine!

Okay, we kid. Slightly. But Adam Gopnick of the New Yorker is working with some other folks on a musical based on Gopnick’s book The Table Comes First: Family, France, and the Meaning of Food.

As long as we’re on the theatre beat:

The musical “Scandalous,” Kathie Lee Gifford’s Broadway debut as a lyricist and book writer, will close this Sunday after 31 preview performances and 29 regular performances, the producers announced on Tuesday night.

It is a little late now, but perhaps, if we’re lucky, this will free up Ms. Gifford for more Christmas specials.

Also closing: “The Anarchist”, David Mamet’s latest play.

Posted in Clippings, Food, Law, Sports, Theatre | Comments Closed

Tom Landry’s hat!

Wednesday, December 5th, 2012

(Tom Landry is part of that group of folks I referred to earlier; the ones who have monuments in the state cemetery, but are actually buried someplace else. Here’s his actual grave from Find a Grave.)

(I wonder if winning a national championship in any sport is enough to get you a slot at the state cemetery. Darrell Royal has his. Will Jody Conradt and Rudy Tomjanovich get one? Seems to me they’re deserving.)

(Subject line hat tip. (Ha!))

Posted in Obits, Photography, Sports | Comments Closed

Darden, Darden, Darden…

Tuesday, December 4th, 2012

The Olive Garden, Red Lobster and LongHorn Steakhouse parent lowered its profit and revenue projections for the quarter ended Nov. 25, blaming sour promotions in its eateries, Superstorm Sandy, its purchase of the Yard House USA chain and even its efforts to mitigate the coming costs of healthcare reform, also known as “Obamacare.”

Also blamed: global warming and the vertical integration of the broiler industry.

Mostly, though, we’re using this as a transparent excuse to link to the legendary tale of Red Lobster and the all-you-can-eat crab fiasco. It nearly put the chain out of business, but it also has provided us with laughs for the past decade.

Posted in Clippings, Food | Comments Closed

TMQ watch: December 4, 2012.

Tuesday, December 4th, 2012

We apologize for the lateness of this post. We are dealing with some personal issues that put us a little behind this afternoon.

Let’s just go ahead and jump into this week’s TMQ. Before we get started, though, we’d like to note something that strikes us as unusual: there is no mention of Jovan Belcher or Saturday’s events in this week’s column. We don’t think TMQ is the type of person who would say “Everyone else has said it better, so there’s no point in my saying it”, so his silence strikes us as unusual.

After the jump…

(more…)

Posted in Geek, Guns, NFL, TMQ watch, TV | Comments Closed

Your Austin nightclub trial update.

Tuesday, December 4th, 2012

(Previously.)

Another one down, another one down, another one bites the dust:

Nizar Hakiki pleaded guilty Monday afternoon to a single count – transferring a firearm used in a violent crime and aiding and abetting – according to court documents obtained by the American-Statesman. He’d been set to go to trial this week.

(Aren’t those actually two different charges? How did he plead to a single count?)

Posted in Clippings, Law | 1 Comment »

Well 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.)

Posted in Books, Obits, Photography | Comments Closed

Millar update.

Monday, December 3rd, 2012

Here’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.

Posted in Clippings, Obits | Comments Closed

I’ve suffered for my art.

Monday, December 3rd, 2012

Actually, 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, and there are a lot of interesting folks buried in the Texas State Cemetery, so I thought it might be fun to take some photos there. I figure I’ll dribble these out a few at a time for a while. I’m happy with the way most of them came out, though it was somewhat overcast. If it had been brighter, I would have shot more photos using aperture priority and an f/22 setting, which might have helped the focus some.

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.)

Posted in Obits, Photography | Comments Closed

Random notes: December 3, 2012.

Monday, December 3rd, 2012

Jim 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.

From Barnes’ perspective, the fact that she has been permitted to continue practicing law is clear evidence she should be released from her forced confinement in the state hospital and be allowed to proceed to her own trial. Her logic: If she is legally able to represent Gourley, as she has been doing, then she is more than capable of understanding the charges against her and participating in her own defense – the legal standard used to determine if a defendant is mentally competent to stand trial.

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.

Posted in Books, Clippings, Firings, Law, NFL, Obits, Sports | 2 Comments »

There goes Toyko.

Sunday, December 2nd, 2012

Paging Andrew! Andrew to the white courtesy phone, please!

At least seven people were feared missing and several dead after about 150 concrete panels fell from the roof of a tunnel on the main highway linking Tokyo with central Japan.

Posted in Clippings, Roads, Safety | Comments Closed

Obit watch and a bit of personal indulgence: December 1, 2012.

Saturday, December 1st, 2012

This 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. (I had to wait for the paperback, because I was a broke kid. Sorry, Mr. Millar.) I still think that’s a pretty spiffy thriller; even though it was published in 1978, the core concept doesn’t seem that far-fetched to me today.

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.

Posted in Books, Clippings, Movies, Obits, Sports, Theatre | 1 Comment »

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