Archive for January, 2022

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Obit watch: January 31. 2022.

Monday, January 31st, 2022

NYT obit for Howard Hesseman, which was not up when I posted yesterday.

Mike the Musicologist sent this over, with the observation that it had been posted yesterday:

Cheslie Kryst. She was Miss USA 2019, and worked as a lawyer and a correspondent on “Extra”.

The number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-TALK (8255). If you live outside of the United States or are looking for other help, TVTropes has a good page of additional resources.

Hargus Robbins, noted session pianist in Nashville.

A longtime member of Nashville’s so-called A-Team of first-call studio musicians, Mr. Robbins appeared on thousands of popular recordings made here between the late 1950s and mid-2010s.
Many became No. 1 country singles, including Hank Snow’s “I’ve Been Everywhere” (1962), Loretta Lynn’s “Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind)” (1966) and Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” (1974). Several also crossed over to become major pop hits, Patsy Cline’s “I Fall to Pieces” (1961) and Kenny Rogers’s “The Gambler” (1978) among them.

…

Mr. Robbins’s influence was maybe most pronounced as the Nashville Sound evolved into the more soul-steeped “countrypolitan” style heard on records like George Jones’s 1980 blockbuster single, “He Stopped Loving Her Today.”
Mr. Robbins’s rippling, jazz-inflected intros to Charlie Rich’s “Behind Closed Doors” (1973) and Crystal Gayle’s “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue” (1977) became enduring expressions of the Southern musical vernacular of their era. Both records were No. 1 country and crossover pop singles.

…

Afforded the chance to stretch out stylistically on “Blonde on Blonde,” Mr. Robbins played with raucous abandon on “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35,” the woozy, carnivalesque No. 2 pop hit hooked by the tagline “Everybody must get stoned.” He employed a tender lyricism, by contrast, on elegiac ballads like “Just Like a Woman” and “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands.”

Posted in 1970s, Music, Obits, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 30, 2022.

Sunday, January 30th, 2022

Booger.

Howard Hesseman.

In other eccentric turns, Hesseman played hippies in Richard Lester’s Petulia (1968) and on NBC’s Dragnet (he was billed as Don Sturdy back then); a patient suffering from writer’s block on The Bob Newhart Show; a psychiatrist on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman; a pimp opposite Dan Aykroyd in Doctor Detroit (1983); and a shock rocker in This Is Spinal Tap (1984).

I didn’t watch “Head of the Class”, and, while I may have watched the original “One Day at a Time”, I’m pretty sure I had checked out by season 9. (We were actually discussing that show last night at dinner: I believe we all watched it, but with the mitigating excuse that there were only three channels at the time.)

I can’t find my favorite Dr. Johnny Fever moment online. (Johnny takes a sobriety test, and the drunker he gets, the better his reaction time gets. This is the kind of humor you could get away with in the late 1970s/early 1980s, before joyless fun suckers sucked all the fun out of everything.) And I don’t want to use the turkey drop stuff, because overused and it isn’t Thanksgiving.

So here’s a nice golden moment for you.

Edited to add 2/7: Lawrence pointed out something over the weekend that was quite a surprise to me (I should have checked his credits more closely): Howard Hessman did a “Mannix”. (“A Ransom for Yesterday“, season 8, episode 17. We watched it Saturday night: given that it was so close to the end of the series, it is actually a pretty good episode, and Hessman’s role is substantial. It also isn’t an old Army buddy episode, thank Ghu.)

Posted in 1970s, Mannix, Obits, TV | 1 Comment »

That old devil is at it again.

Saturday, January 29th, 2022

Four Arizona State coaches are no longer with the program.

According to reports, offensive coordinator Zak Hill and tight ends coach Adam Breneman “resigned”: wide receivers coach Prentice Gill and secondary coach Chris Hawkins were fired.

Why? Everybody’s favorite reason: recruiting violations.

Sources told ESPN that part of the NCAA’s investigation involves Arizona State hosting prospects during the recruiting dead period, which lasted from March 2020 to June 1, 2021. FBS programs were prohibited from having recruits on campus during that period. Several sources in the Pac-12 told ESPN that Arizona State also faces allegations about recruiting practices that occurred when the dead period ended, including possible improper contact with prospects at an off-campus recruiting camp in June.

Posted in Firings, Sports | Comments Closed

Art, damn it, art! watch (#61 in a series)

Saturday, January 29th, 2022

Damien Hirst has done other works than “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living“.

One of those was a diamond encrusted skull called “For the Love of God”.

Back in 2007, Hirst’s market was exploding. The same year he said he sold For the Love of God, his work made a total of $86.3 million at auction, according to the Artnet Price Database. The following year, he notoriously sold his work directly through Sotheby’s for a whopping $201 million. But his auction sales never approached those heights again. (Last year, his work generated $38 million, a 13-year high.)

Hirst has claimed for a while now that he sold the work for $100 million in 2007.

Turns out…

In a profile published in the New York Times on the occasion of his first New York show in four years, Hirst said the work, titled For the Love of God and allegedly made from more than 8,600 diamonds, was sitting in a storage facility in Hatton Garden, London’s jewelry district.
According to Hirst, he still owns the bauble in partnership with his gallery, White Cube, and a group of unnamed investors.

More:

In the recent Hirst New York Times profile, the newspaper took at face value the artist’s claim that he sold around 80 new works for between $750,000 and $3.5 million each.
“We could have sold many, many more,” Larry Gagosian told the Times. “People were literally begging to buy these paintings.”

ArtNet article. Some people have told me they have trouble with this link, so here’s an archive.is version.

NYT profile.

“He’s a talented artist, but this? Really?” said Alan Baldwin, an art collector, looking down recently at a fluffy black sculpture of a spider with bow legs and googly eyes. Back in 1992, three years before winning the prestigious Turner Prize, its creator had astounded the art world by displaying a real 14-foot tiger shark embalmed in a tank of formaldehyde.

Archive version of the NYT profile.

Posted in Art | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: January 29, 2022.

Saturday, January 29th, 2022

Today is just quick follow ups from the paper of record:

Carol Speed.

Peter Robbins.

And, astonishingly (to me), the NYT actually ran an obit for Ron Goulart. Not that he doesn’t deserve it, but this is the same paper that still (to the best of my knowledge) has never run an obit for Gardner Dozois.

Posted in Obits | Comments Closed

Bagatelle (#55 in a series).

Friday, January 28th, 2022

Shot:

Chaser:

In a visit to Swiss military maneuvers just before World War I, the German Kaiser asked a Swiss militiaman what he would do if a German invasion force of a half-million attached the Swiss militia of a quarter-million. His reply: “Shoot twice and go home.”

Refreshing glass of ice water.

Posted in Bagatelle | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 28, 2022.

Friday, January 28th, 2022

Dr. Johan Hultin. He was 97.

Back in 1950, Dr. Hultin, a pathologist, was having lunch with William Hale, a microbiologist. As the conversation often does, it turned to the 1918 flu pandemic.

Dr. Hale mentioned that there was just one way to figure out what caused the 1918 pandemic: finding victims buried in permafrost and isolating the virus from lungs that might be still frozen and preserved.
Dr. Hultin, a medical student in Sweden who was spending six months at the university, immediately realized that he was uniquely positioned to do just that. The previous summer, he and his first wife, Gunvor, spent weeks assisting a German paleontologist, Otto Geist, on a dig in Alaska. Dr. Geist could help him find villages in areas of permafrost that also had good records of deaths from the 1918 flu.

So Dr. Hultin went north to Alaska in 1951.

Three villages seemed like they might have what he wanted, but when he arrived at the first two, the victims’ graves were no longer in permafrost.
The third village on his list, Brevig Mission, was different. The flu had devastated the village, killing 72 out of 80 Inuit residents. Their bodies were buried in a mass grave with a large wooden cross at either end.
When Dr. Hultin arrived and politely explained his mission, the village council agreed to let him dig. Four days later, he saw his first victim.
“She was a little girl, about 6 to 10 years old. She was wearing a dove gray dress, the one she had died in,” he recalled in an interview in the late 1990s. The child’s hair was braided and tied with bright red ribbons. Dr. Hultin called for help from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and the group eventually found four more bodies.
They stopped digging. “We had enough,” Dr. Hultin said.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) Dr. Hultin wasn’t able to culture virus from the samples he collected at the time. But in 1997:

…sitting by a pool on vacation with his wife in Costa Rica, he noticed a paper published in Science by Dr. Jeffery K. Taubenberger, now chief of the viral pathogenesis and evolution section at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
It reported a remarkable discovery. Dr. Taubenberger had searched a federal repository of pathology samples dating to the 1860s and found fragments of the 1918 virus in snippets of lung tissue from two soldiers who had died in that pandemic. The tissue had been removed at autopsy, wrapped in paraffin and stored in the warehouse.

Dr. Hultin got in touch with Dr. Taubenberger.

“I can’t go this week, but maybe I can go next week,” he told Dr. Taubenberger.

He went back and recovered more samples.

Dr. Taubenberger got all of the packages. The lung tissue from the Brevig woman was invaluable, he said, because the snippets of lung from the soldiers had so little virus that, with the technology at the time, the effort to get the complete viral sequence would have been delayed by at least a decade.
Using the tissue Dr. Hultin provided, Dr. Taubenberger’s group published a paper that provided the genetic sequence of a crucial gene, hemagglutinin, which the virus had used to enter cells. The group subsequently used that tissue to determine the complete sequence of all eight of the virus’s genes.

One of the things that truly impresses me about this story (besides the scientific angle) is Dr. Hultin’s interactions with the villagers of Brevig Mission. They let him dig up the graves and take samples: and they let him do this because he treated the bodies with honor and respect.

After closing the grave, he made two wooden crosses to replace the original ones, which had rotted. Later, he had two brass plaques made with the names of the Brevig flu victims, which had been recorded, and returned to the village to attach them to the new crosses flanking the grave.

Posted in Geek, Obits | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: January 27, 2022.

Thursday, January 27th, 2022

Don Wilson, of the Ventures.

In addition to their success in the United States (where their other hits included “Walk — Don’t Run, ’64,” a remake of their own hit that also made Billboard’s Top 10), the Ventures became wildly popular in Japan — so much so, Mr. Wilson said, that numerous bands there took to imitating them. That led to an uncomfortable surprise when the band made its second trip there, its first as headliners, in 1965.
“We had an opening group,” he told The San Diego Union-Tribune in 1984, “and they played all of our songs before we went on.”

We’re talking about the Ventures, so you know what that means, right?

Jim Drake, one of the old time Sports Illustrated photographers. I wanted to mention this here because there’s a lot of classic Drake photos reproduced in the obit, including the one of Broadway Joe in Times Square.

Morgan Stevens, actor. He was “Nick Diamond” on “Melrose Place”. He was also “David Reardon” in “Fame” and did other TV guest spots.

Kevin Ward, the mayor of Hyattsville, Maryland, which is a DC suburb. He was found dead in a park: his death is suspected to have been a suicide.

The number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-TALK (8255). If you live outside of the United States or are looking for other help, TVTropes has a good page of additional resources.

Posted in Music, Obits, Photography, Sports | Comments Closed

Dr. Rockzo, call your office, please.

Thursday, January 27th, 2022

NYPost headline, noted because this is also hookersnblow.com:

(Actual article.)

Posted in Bagatelle | Comments Closed

Followup.

Thursday, January 27th, 2022

A few weeks ago, I wrote up an after-action report on John Hearne’s classes at KR Training.

Michael Bane was also in Mr. Hearne’s class, and recorded an interview with him. That interview is now posted on his web site, for your information and edification.

The whole thing is a little over 20 minutes, but not all of that is Mr. Hearne, so you can probably fit this in to a coffee break.

Hattip: KR Training on the book of face.

Personal note: Mr. Hearne and I have corresponded a bit by email since I wrote that after action report, and our correspondence just confirms my original opinion: he’s a swell guy, who went out of his way to answer my questions. Again, if you have the chance, take his courses.

Posted in Guns, Safety | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 26, 2022.

Wednesday, January 26th, 2022

Peter Robbins. THR.

He voiced Charlie Brown in “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown”. According to reports, he was 65 years old, and died by suicide.

The number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-TALK (8255). If you live outside of the United States or are looking for other help, TVTropes has a good page of additional resources.

Kathryn Kates, actress. Roles include “Seinfeld”, “Orange Is the New Black”, and “Law and Order: Sport Utility Vehicle”.

This got past me yesterday, though I did intend to mention it: Sheldon Silver, former leader of the New York State Assembly who was serving time in prison on corruption charges.

Posted in Obits, Politics, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 25, 2022.

Tuesday, January 25th, 2022

Gloria McMillan.

She was “Harriet Conklin” in “Our Miss Brooks”, a series I hate to say was before my time. Other credits are pretty limited: she appeared in the “Centennial” mini-series, Michael Ritchie’s “Smile”, and some TV guest shots.

Posted in Obits, TV | Comments Closed

Important safety tip (#23 in a series)

Sunday, January 23rd, 2022

This is something I did not know, but a person close to WCD mentioned it to me. The Texas Comptroller’s office confirms it.

Gun safes in Texas are exempt from sales tax.

Actually, it isn’t just gun safes:

The sale, storage, use and other consumption of firearm safety equipment is tax free. This includes, but is not limited to, a gun lock box, gun safe, barrel lock, trigger lock, firearm safety training manual or electronic publication, or other item designed to ensure safe handling or storage of a firearm.

So if I ever buy one of those Hornady lock boxes for my car…tax free, baby!

(Seriously, I was going back and forth on one of those for a while, so I could stash my gun in my car while I was at the office. Then the Chinese Rabies hit. Now I have no idea when I’m going back to the office, so buying one seems pointless.)

Posted in Guns, Safety | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 23, 2022.

Sunday, January 23rd, 2022

Dennis Smith.

I think a lot of people (outside of firefighting) have forgotten that name, but Report from Engine Co. 82 was a huge deal back in the day.

The book sold some three million copies, ennobled Mr. Smith as a champion of his profession and inspired countless men and women to become firefighters.
“The author’s pride clearly derives not from his writing, but from his job as a firefighter — the most hazardous job of all, according to the National Safety Council,” Anatole Broyard wrote in his Times book review. “The risk one takes in, writing a book — and there are those who will tell you that this is the most hazardous occupation — must seem comparatively small to him. One hopes he will go on taking it.”

I read it at an inappropriately young age. I won’t say how old I was, but “Emergency” was on first-run network television at the time. The thing that sticks with me all these years later is how much abuse Smith and his colleagues took from the people they were trying to help.

Mr. Smith was a Renaissance firefighter.
He played eight musical instruments; founded Firehouse magazine in 1976 (and sold it in 1991 and made $7 million); was the founding chairman of the New York City Fire Museum and was instrumental in converting the Engine Company 30 firehouse in SoHo as its site; was president and chairman of the Kips Bay Boys and Girls Club, which moved from Manhattan to the South Bronx; and was a chairman of the New York Academy of Art.
He was the first chairman of the International Association of Fire Chiefs’ Near Miss task force, focused on preventing firefighter injuries and deaths, and won awards from the Congressional Fire Services Institute and the National Fire Academy, and the New York Fire Department.

Any man who tries to prevent deaths and injuries in his chosen occupation, no matter what that is, deserves mad props in my opinion.

In a Times opinion essay in 1971, Mr. Smith recalled his ebullience at the prospect of becoming a firefighter: “I would play to the cheers of excited hordes — climbing ladders, pulling hose, and saving children from the waltz of the hot masked devil. I paused and fed the fires of my ego — tearful mothers would kiss me, editorial writers would extol me in lofty phrases, and mayors would pin ribbons to my breast.”
After eight years, he wrote, the romantic visions had faded.
“I have climbed a thousand ladders, and crawled Indian fashion down as many halls into a deadly nightshade of smoke, a whirling darkness of black poison, knowing all the while that the ceiling may fall, or the floor collapse, or a hidden explosive ignite,” Mr. Smith added. “I have watched friends die, and I have carried death in my hands. With good reason have Christians chosen fire as the metaphor of hell.”
“There is no excitement, no romance, in being this close to death,” he wrote, later adding: “Yet, I know that I could not do anything else with such a great sense of accomplishment.”

I’ve gone back and forth for a few days about whether I should include the obit for Ann Arensberg. There was finally one thing that tipped me over the edge.

“Sister Wolf” was roundly praised by critics and won the 1981 National Book Award for best first novel, beating out Jean M. Auel’s mega-best seller, “The Clan of the Cave Bear.” (Between 1979 and 1987, the awards were known as the American Book Awards, not to be confused with another, unrelated literary prize with the same name; they also included many more categories than they do today, including best first novel.)

That wasn’t the tipping point. This was:

Ms. Arensberg’s next book, the satirical “Group Sex” (1986), grew out of a short story she had written in 1980 and drew on material closer at hand, including her own life. It told the story of a meek, eager-to-please book editor named Frances Girard who falls in love with her temperamental opposite: a brash, rebellious theater director named Paul Treat, best known, Ms. Arensberg wrote, for putting on a production of “As You Like It” but with seals.

I’m sorry to laugh at someone’s obit, but “As You Like It” with seals kicks over my giggle box. Indeed, it has me thinking about a whole line of Shakespeare productions with animals. An all-racoon production of “Macbeth”?

Posted in Books, Heroism, Obits | 2 Comments »

Obit watch: January 22, 2022.

Saturday, January 22nd, 2022

Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddhist monk. Tricycle:

Known to his thousands of followers worldwide as Thây—Vietnamese for teacher—Nhat Hanh was widely considered among Buddhists as second only to His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama in the scope of his global influence. The author of some 100 books—75 in English—he founded nine monasteries and dozens of affiliated practice centers, and inspired the creation of thousands of local mindfulness communities. Nhat Hanh is credited with popularizing mindfulness and “engaged Buddhism” (he coined the term), teachings that not only are central to contemporary Buddhist practice but also have penetrated the mainstream. For many years, Thich Nhat Hanh has been a familiar sight the world over, leading long lines of people in silent “mindful” walking meditation.
It is difficult to overstate the importance of Thich Nhat Hanh’s role in the development of Buddhism in the West, particularly in the United States. He was arguably the most significant catalyst for the Buddhist community’s engagement with social, political, and environmental concerns. Today, this aspect of Western Buddhism is widely accepted, but when Nhat Hanh began teaching regularly in North America, activism was highly controversial in Buddhist circles, frowned upon by most Buddhist leaders, who considered it a distraction from the focus on awakening. At a time when Western Buddhism was notably parochial, Nhat Hanh’s nonsectarian view motivated many teachers to reach out and build bonds with other dharma communities and traditions. It would not be an exaggeration to say that his inclusive vision laid the groundwork for the flourishing of Buddhist publications, including Tricycle, over the past 35 years.

I am not a Buddhist, and I am spectacularly bad at Zen. But I enjoy reading about Zen, and I was familiar with him from my reading.

Thich Nhat Hanh dismissed the idea of death. “Birth and death are only notions,” he wrote in his book “No Death, No Fear.” “They are not real.”
He added: “The Buddha taught that there is no birth; there is no death; there is no coming; there is no going; there is no same; there is no different; there is no permanent self; there is no annihilation. We only think there is.”

“Nhat Hanh is my Brother” by Thomas Merton.

Louie Anderson. THR.

Breck Denny, writer and actor. He was only 34: according to his family, he died of a “rare spontaneous splenic artery rupture”.

Posted in Movies, Obits, Religion, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 21, 2022.

Friday, January 21st, 2022

Marvin Lee Aday, also known as “Meat Loaf”. THR. NYPost. IMDB.

(I can’t confirm it now, but I remember a legend that the NYT did a story about Meat Loaf…and, as is their custom on second and subsequent reference, referred to him as “Mr. Loaf”.)

Edited to add 1/22: Since I posted this obit, the NYT has added a note to their coverage discussing the “Mr. Loaf” story. They assert it is not true. And apparently he preferred to be called “Meat”:

In 1971, Meat Loaf was cast in the Los Angeles production of the musical “Hair.” He later joined the original LA Roxy cast of “The Rocky Horror Show” in 1973, playing the parts of Eddie and Dr. Everett Scott. After the success of the musical, Meat Loaf was asked to reprise his role as Eddie in the 1975 film adaptation, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” which became one of the most beloved cult films of all time.

Later, Mr. Steinman was trying to write a post-apocalyptic musical based on “Peter Pan,” but, unable to secure the rights for the tale, he turned the work into “Bat Out of Hell,” bringing in Meat Loaf to give the songs the style and energy that made them hits. The title track alone is a mini-opera in itself, clocking in at nearly 10 minutes and featuring numerous musical breakdowns. The album’s seven tracks also included the songs “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad” and “Paradise by the Dashboard Light.”

In 2013, he told The Guardian that he was definitely retiring from music after another farewell tour. “I’ve had 18 concussions,” he said. “My balance is off. I’ve had a knee replacement. I’ve got to have the other one replaced.” He wanted to “concentrate more on acting,” he added, since “that’s where I started and that’s where I’ll finish.”

…

According to his autobiography, Meat Loaf was born on Sep. 27, 1947, but news reports of his age varied over the years. In 2003, he showed a reporter from The Guardian newspaper a passport featuring a birth date of 1951 and later said about the discrepancy, “I just continually lie.”

Posted in Movies, Music, Obits, Theatre | 2 Comments »

Sort of a firings watch.

Thursday, January 20th, 2022

I covered the firing of Kevin Ollie as men’s basketball coach at the University of Connecticut when it happened.

Now…

An independent arbitrator has ruled that UConn improperly fired former men’s basketball coach Kevin Ollie and must pay him more than $11 million, Ollie’s lawyer said Thursday.

…

Irvings ruled that Ollie is due $11,157,032.95 within next 10 business days, Parenteau said.

Interestingly, though, those recruiting violations did pan out:

UConn was placed on probation for two years and Ollie was sanctioned individually for those violations, which occurred between 2013 and 2018.

…

Parenteau and co-counsel William Madsen had argued that UConn failed to meet its burden under an agreement between the school and the American Association of University Professors, of which Ollie is a member. That agreement required a showing of serious misconduct in order to fire an employee for “just cause” and also affords Ollie other union protections.
The school had argued that Ollie’s transgressions were serious and that his individual contract superseded those union protections.

Posted in Obits, Sports | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 20, 2022.

Thursday, January 20th, 2022

Hardy Kruger (also billed as Hardy Krüger). Sloppy obit from THR.

His character in “The Flight of the Phoenix” was not a German solider or a Nazi baddie, and that movie came out in 1965, not 1975. But he was excellent in it. (Noted: Criterion is releasing it on blu-ray in March. Affiliate link.)

Edited to add: THR corrected their obit shortly after I posted this. It no longer refers to Kruger’s character in “Phoenix” as a German solider, and has the correct date for the movie.

Edited to add 2: NYT obit, which was not up when I first posted.

He was also good in “Barry Lyndon”. I’ve seen “The Wild Geese”, but cut up for TV a long time ago, and I’d like to watch it again.

Carol Speed. Credits include “The Mack” and “Disco Godfather”.

Ron Franklin, fomer ESPN announcer.

Franklin worked at ESPN from 1987 through 2011. He was fired after reportedly saying, off-air, to sideline reporter Jeanine Edwards, “Listen to me, sweet baby, let me tell you something …” When she told him not to talk to her like that, he responded, “Okay, then listen to me asshole.”

Posted in Movies, Obits | Comments Closed

The time has come around again.

Thursday, January 20th, 2022

Namely: Happy National Buy an AK Day!

Classic Firearms appears to have a few AK pattern rifles in 7.62×39 in stock, if you’re looking. (I don’t get any kickback from those people.)

Posted in Guns | Comments Closed

Important safety tip (#22 in a series)

Wednesday, January 19th, 2022

Lawrence brought up an important safety tip the other night, based on two documentaries the Saturday Movie Group has watched. (“Barry Lyndon” and “Gone With the Wind”.)

Don’t buy a horse for your child.

It never ends well.

(Did you know IMDB has a “riding accident” keyword?)

Posted in Horses, Safety, Sarcasm | Comments Closed

More firings.

Wednesday, January 19th, 2022

Ken Norton Jr. out as defensive coordinator for the Teattle Teahawks…I mean, Seattle Seahawks.

Also out: Andre Curtis, “defensive passing game coordinator”.

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 19, 2022.

Wednesday, January 19th, 2022

Yvette Mimieux. THR.

Other than “Weena” in the 1960 “The Time Machine” and “Where the Boys Are”, credits include “Jackson County Jail”, “The Black Hole”, “Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell”, “Diamond Head” (opposite Cheston!) and a “doomed surfer” in “Dr. Kildare”.

Gaspard Ulliel. He was the young Hannibal in “Hannibal Rising”, and is in the coming Marvel series “Moon Knight”. He was only 37, and died as a result of a skiing accident.

Posted in Movies, Obits, TV | 1 Comment »

Firings watch.

Tuesday, January 18th, 2022

Mike Mayock out as general manager of the Las Vegas Raiders.

In Mayock’s three seasons with the Raiders, the club’s record improved each season, culminating this year with a 10-7 regular-season mark and just their second playoff appearance in 18 seasons. The Raiders’ record under Mayock was 25-24.

The biggest issue seems to be that Mayock was closely tied with Jon Gruden (I’ve seen him described as “Gruden’s hand-picked choice for GM”) who, as you may recall, got fired in October.

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 17, 2022.

Monday, January 17th, 2022

Brigadier General Charles E. McGee (USAF – ret) has passed away at the age of 102.

Gen. McGee was one of the Tuskegee Airman. He was promoted to brigadier general by President Trump in 2020.

Captain McGee flew more than 130 combat missions in World War II, and returned to the United States in December 1944 to become an instructor for another unit of Tuskegee Airmen, the 477th Bomb Group, flying B-25 Mitchell bombers out of stateside bases. That group never got into the war. Mr. McGee served at Tuskegee Field until 1946, when the base was closed.

He remained in the military after the war and served with the Air Force flying P-51s in Korea (100 combat missions) and “172 combat missions in McDonnell RF-4 photo-reconnaissance aircraft” over Vietnam.

After other postings in the United States, Italy and Germany, he was promoted to full colonel and retired on Jan. 31, 1973, ending his career with 6,308 flying hours and 409 combat missions, among the most in service history. That three-war total was exceeded only by Col. Harold Snow, who flew 666 missions in those wars, and Col. Ralph Parr Jr., who flew 641, according to Air Force records. Colonel Snow died in 2016 at 93, and Colonel Parr died in 2012 at 88.

I am having trouble determining how many of the airmen are left. The NYT obit says there were nine living (counting Gen. McGee) as of February of 2020. Wikipedia states there were 11 living as of 2019, but does not mention any deaths since then.

John Connolly, “investigative journalist”. He wrote some for “Spy” and various other magazines. He also wrote a book (“with James Patterson”), Filthy Rich: The Shocking True Story of Jeffrey Epstein – The Billionaire’s Sex Scandal (affiliate link).

As an author, Connolly had been working on a new book on infamous LA private eye Anthony Pellicano to be called “The Sin Eater.”

I hope this is completed, as I’d actually like to read that book.

NYT obits for Ralph Emery and Dallas Frazier.

Tributes to Ron Goulart: “Great But Forgotten” on “The Morning Chex Press”, and Michael Swanwick on meeting Ron Goulart’s college roommate.

Posted in Books, History, Obits | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 16, 2022.

Sunday, January 16th, 2022

It has been a bad time for country music and SF writers.

Ralph Emery, noted country music broadcaster.

Beginning his career at small radio stations and then moving into television as well, Emery was probably best known for his work on the Nashville Network cable channel. From 1983 to 1993, he was host of the channel’s live talk-variety show Nashville Now, earning the title “the Johnny Carson of cable television” for his interviewing style. From 2007 to 2015, Emery hosted a weekly program on RFD-TV, a satellite and cable TV channel.

By way of Lawrence: Ron Goulart, SF and mystery writer.

Dallas Frazier. Among other credits, he wrote “Elvira” (“…previously recorded by Rodney Crowell before it became a smash hit for the Oak Ridge Boys in 1981”)

Frazier also found success co-writing songs with A.L. “Doodle” Owens, including Charley Pride‘s first No. 1 Billboard Hot Country Songs hit, 1969’s “All I Have to Offer You (Is Me).” Pride also had No. 1 country hits with the Frazier/Owens collaborations “(I’m So) Afraid of Losing You Again,” “I Can’t Believe That You’ve Stopped Loving Me” and “Then Who Am I.”

Dave Wolverton, who also wrote as “Dave Farland“.

Wolverton worked as an English professor of creative writing at Brigham Young University, and held writing workshops for aspiring and established writers. He taught writers Brandon Sanderson, Brandon Mull, Jessica Day George, Eric Flint, James Dashner, as well as others.

NYT obit for Andrew Vachss, including quotes from Joe R. Landsdale. According to the paper of record, he passed on November 23rd, but “his death had not been widely reported previously”.

Obit from “The Rap Sheet” for Mr. Vachss and for J.J. Lamb.

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