Archive for February, 2022

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Norts spews.

Wednesday, February 2nd, 2022

The Brian Flores lawsuit against the NFL is mildly interesting, but it is also being well covered in other places, and I don’t know what I can say about the suit itself.

However, there is one aspect of it that I think isn’t getting as much coverage as I’d like:

Flores claimed that [Stephen] Ross [owner of the Dolphins – DB] said he would pay him $100,000 for each game the team lost in 2019, his first year with the Dolphins. Flores refused and when the Dolphins started winning games, Flores said he was told by the team’s general manager, Chris Grier, that Ross was “mad” that the team’s victories were hurting the team’s position in the draft position.

…

Flores’ lawyers said his experience was not unique and that other coaches have reached out to them with similar stories in regard to being incentivized to tank as well as enduring discriminatory hiring practices.

I have to wonder: if paying coaches to lose is a common practice, why haven’t we seen more 0-16 (or 0-17) teams? Is there so much “respect for the game” out there that nobody’s willing to take the offer? Even if you’re going to end up with a #1 draft choice?

Edited to add: Well, this is interesting:

In the wake of Brian Flores’ bombshell discrimination lawsuit against the NFL, former Browns coach Hue Jackson suggested Tuesday that he too was paid to lose games for his former organization.

Posted in Law, Loser, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Obit watch: February 2, 2022.

Wednesday, February 2nd, 2022

Bob Wall, noted ass kicker.

He was in three out of five Bruce Lee films post 1968: “The Way of the Dragon”, “Enter the Dragon” and “Game of Death”. (He played O’Hara, the bad guy’s bodyguard, in “Enter the Dragon”.)

A 9th degree black belt, Wall for years trained alongside good friend Chuck Norris; they first met in the mid-1960s and were business partners in a chain of karate studios. In addition to Way of the Dragon (1972), they appeared together in Code of Silence (1985), Invasion U.S.A. (1985), Firewalker (1986), Hero and the Terror (1988), Sidekicks (1992) and in episodes of Walker, Texas Ranger.

…

Inducted into the Professional Karate Hall of Fame in 1975, Wall taught combat skills to the likes of Elvis Presley, Steve McQueen, Jack Palance, Brian Keith, Freddie Prinze Sr. and Arnold Schwarzenegger. He also hired Jackie Chan as a stuntman for Enter the Dragon.

Monica Vitti, Italian actress. She was in Michelangelo Antonioni’s movies (“L’Avventura”, “La Notte”, “L’Eclisse”).

A romantic relationship blossomed between Ms. Vitti and Antonioni during the filming of “L’Avventura” and grew stronger in the years that followed. At one point, before their relationship became widely known, Ms. Vitti lived in an apartment just below Antonioni’s in Rome, and the director had a trap door and spiral staircase installed so they could see each other whenever they liked without rousing outside notice.

She was also “Modesty Blaise” in the 1966 movie.

Posted in Movies, Obits | Comments Closed

Music news.

Tuesday, February 1st, 2022

By way of great and good Friend of the Blog (and official trainer to WCD) Karl Rehn, we have learned that Hookers & Blow are touring.

As you may recall, Hookers & Blow is a band formed by Dizzy Reed (former Guns ‘N Roses keyboard player) and Alex Grossi (former Quiet Riot guitarist). I assume their March 2020 tour went the way of so many other things during the early days of the Chinese Rabies, but they’re back now.

Even better, they’re getting out of California, but only to Nevada, Idaho, Arizona, and Utah. No Texas shows. Yet.

Also unfortunately, there does not seem to be a Hookers & Blow t-shirt. Yet.

But the eponymous Hookers & Blow album is available from Amazon as a MP3 download, CD, or vinyl (affiliate link).

Thanks to Karl for the heads-up on this. We will be waiting eagerly for news of Texas tour dates.

Posted in Music | Comments Closed

Obit watch: February 1, 2022.

Tuesday, February 1st, 2022

Maj. Gen. John K. Singlaub (United States Army – ret.) has died. He was 100.

General Singlaub trained resistance fighters in German-occupied France and rescued Allied prisoners of war held by the Japanese during World War II. He conducted intelligence operations during the Chinese Civil War and in the Korean War while assigned to the C.I.A., and he commanded secret Army forays into North Vietnam and neutral Laos and Cambodia during the 1960s to ambush Communist troops.
A sturdy 5-foot-7 with an enduring military brush haircut, General Singlaub seemed fit for combat long after his last war. He was “the kind of guy you’d like to have on your side in a barroom brawl,” Pat Murphy, an acquaintance and the publisher of The Arizona Republic at the time, told The New York Times in 1986.

…

But for all his military feats, General Singlaub’s career ended over issues of grand strategy.Mr. Carter removed him as the military’s chief of staff in South Korea in May 1977 after he told a reporter for The Washington Post that the president’s plan to withdraw American troops there could lead to another North Korean invasion.
General Singlaub later maintained that his remarks were off the record, an assertion disputed by The Post. But Mr. Carter was outraged at what he perceived as a challenge to civilian authority.
His order recalling General Singlaub from Korea was the first action of its type since President Harry S. Truman fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur as the Pacific commander when MacArthur advocated extending the Korean War into China.
After being reassigned to Fort McPherson in Georgia, General Singlaub criticized the Carter administration’s military policies again in April 1978, in a talk before R.O.T.C. cadets at Georgia Tech. He called Mr. Carter’s decision not to produce a neutron bomb “ridiculous” and “militarily unsound” and criticized the administration’s efforts to give up control of the Panama Canal.
The Army ordered him to report to the Pentagon immediately, announcing a day later that it had accepted his request to retire.

He was also involved (as a private citizen) in the “Iran-Contra affair”.

General Singlaub told Congress that Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, while a National Security Council staff aide, had approved of his being highly visible in his support for the contras. The goal, General Singlaub testified, was to take public attention away from the secret government program. Colonel North was eventually convicted of obstructing Congress, destroying official documents and accepting an illegal gift, but the convictions were later overturned on appeal.
General Singlaub, who acted as a private citizen in helping the contras, was never accused of wrongdoing in the investigation. But in his 1991 memoir, “Hazardous Duty,” written with Malcolm McConnell, he bristled at what he considered the defaming of his character.
“For a decade I’d been smeared as a right-wing fanatic, even a crypto-fascist, by some members of the media,” he wrote. “I’d always found this ironic, considering the fact that I was one of a handful of American soldiers who had risked torture and execution by both German and Japanese fascists while serving behind enemy lines in Europe and the Far East.”

Moses J. Moseley, actor. He was a “pet zombie” in “The Walking Dead”.

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 History, Obits, TV | 2 Comments »

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