I like Joe R. Lansdale.
I like free stuff.
Joe’s Bullets and Fire
(Hattip: Mike the Musicologist. Stuff from Joel’s Classical Shop makes swell gifts this time of year. And remember, the Twelve Days of Christmas begin on December 25th, and don’t end until January 6th. So you’ve got plenty of shopping days left!)
Yesterday was a bad day for the Joes.
Joe Cocker: LAT. NYT. A/V Club.
This is the only story I’ve found so far, but prolific television and movie director Joseph Sargent also died yesterday. Among his credits: the original “Taking of Pelham 123” and “The Marcus-Nelson Murders” (the pilot for “Kojak”).
I’m actually starting to get into the spirit of the season, believe it or not.
Part of the reason is that I got an early sort-of-but-not-really “Christmas present” over the weekend, which will be blogged in due time.
And then there’s this, which I think is really cool:
Besides the fact that I have an amateur interest in prime numbers, this is also a famous Paul Erdős problem.
Even cooler: one of the guys who solved this problem, Terence Tao, has a direct connection to Erdős:
(Someone on my Christmas list is getting this
At dinner Saturday night, the topic of crap TV shows we watched in syndication came up. For some reason, I got kind of curious about “Hogan’s Heros“:
We all know about Bob Crane. No need to rehash that here.
Werner Klemperer died of cancer in 2000.
John “Sgt. Schultz” Banner died two years after Hogan went off the air. He was only 63.
Robert “Corporal LeBeau” Clary is still alive, and the only surviving original cast member.
Richard Dawson died in 2012. I didn’t realize he was Diana Dors’ second husband. (And, as a side note, the Diana Dors/Alan Lake story is a good one if you happen to be looking for a massive dose of sad this holiday season. I knew a little about Dors and Lake, as they were apparently close friends of the Kray brothers.)
Larry “Sergeant Carter” Hovis died in 2003. What I did not know: he was teaching drama at Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos (just down the road from Austin) at the time of his death.
Ivan Dixon died in 2008. It sounds like he had a fascinating career both before and after. Especially after:
That’s another movie I’d like to see.
And Kenneth Washington, who replaced Ivan Dixon in the last season, is also still alive.
I don’t (and won’t) talk about my religion here. But I will say: I have a lot of respect for Ryan Bell, and would love to sit down and talk with him at some point.
…to lose your job as a cop?
If you’re the police chief in Phoenix, the answer is “insubordination”. Specifically, calling a press conference and demanding a new contract after the city manager said “Don’t DO that!” seems to be a sure way to get yourself terminated.
If you’re with the Austin Police Department, the answer is “running your mouth to a reporter”. Technically, Andrew Pietrowski “retired”, but it seems like his retirement was just ahead of “being canned by Art Acevedo”.
The way I read this, it wasn’t like Pietrowski was asked for his opinion; he just walked up to a reporter who was there for another reason and started spouting off.
Mandy Rice-Davies has passed away at 70.
Ms. Rice-Davies, you may recall, was one of the central figures in what became known as the Profumo Affair. In brief, she was a roommate and friend of Christine Keeler, who had brief affairs with both Secretary of State for War John Profumo and Yevgeny Ivanov, a Soviet intelligence agent. This was quite the scandal back in 1963.
Quick takes:
From the Austin Chronicle‘s runoff endorsements for District 8:
How did that work out for you, Ed?
Oooooooh. Not so well.
By way of Overlawyered, here’s an Orange County Register article on the Costa Mesa PI case, which I wrote about a few days ago.
I was not aware that the law firm had shut down; that’s a good first start, but nothing in the article indicates that any of the lawyers involved have been forced to surrender their licenses.
Even after the phony DUI report, as the union attempted to distance itself form its former law firm – Lackie, Dammeier, McGill & Ethir – and the P.I.’s records show that money continued to flow from the union to the law firm to investigators.
The affidavit shows that even after the union said it fired its law firm, after word of the DUI setup got out, the union continued to pay its elevated retainer rate of $4,500 per quarter to the firm as late as January 2013. Lanzillo and Impola were paid by the law firm through January, as well.
Another thing I’m curious about: why does the Costa Mesa Police Department continue to exist? At this point, given that the department is clearly out of control to the point where they’re threatening politicians, wouldn’t it be better to disband them, fire everyone, and let the county sheriff’s department patrol Costa Mesa until they can build a new department from the ground up?
(Of course, this being California, many of the crooked cops from Costa Mesa will probably end up with jobs in the sheriff’s department or other cities in the area.)
The runoff election was today. The polls closed at 7 PM.
According to the Statesman, Mike Martinez called Not Mike Martinez at 7:15 to concede.
Also, in case you were wondering, Steve Adler was the only candidate who responded to my emailed question about Art Acevedo’s future. That’s why you haven’t seen any updates: because Martinez, Sheri Gallo, and Mandy Dealey couldn’t be arsed to answer.
Since we are seeing some activity, mostly around older TMQ Watch items, we thought we’d throw up a general reminder (along with the sash): TMQ is taking a bye this week, and will be back next week.
Fred “Fuzzy” Thurston, former Green Bay Packer.
Thurston was a key element in Green Bay’s implementation of the sweep:
In the sweep, sometimes called the Lombardi sweep for the coach’s fine-tuning of a play that originated in an earlier football era, the two guards are required to pull. That is, instead of pushing forward against the defensive players lined up in front of them, they race in tandem along the line of scrimmage toward one sideline or the other before surging upfield, one ideally blocking a linebacker and the other a defensive back, providing an avenue for the runner behind them.
With Hornung and Taylor carrying the ball behind Thurston and Kramer, the Packer sweep was close to unstoppable, even though opponents often knew it was coming. Generally speaking, guards are among the most anonymous players on the field, but the Green Bay sweep was iconic enough that Thurston and Kramer became well known to football fans.
Unconfirmed reports indicate that the Sacramento Kings (who are a basketball team) have fired coach Michael Malone.
Updates to follow.
Edited to add 12/16: It took a long time for the team to make an official announcement, but they finally did.
“Philosophical differences”? So, what, Malone was a Kantian, and D’Alessandro is a follower of divine command theory?