Jim Fassel, former coach of the New York Football Giants. ESPN.
Obit watch: June 8, 2021.
June 8th, 2021Obit watch: June 7, 2021.
June 7th, 2021…
…
After the show ended, Mr. Williams dropped out of sight for a while, expressing disappointment in the kinds of roles available to Black men. He returned to Broadway, appearing as an African head of state, with Maggie Smith, in a Tom Stoppard drama, “Night and Day” (1979).
Beginning in the 1980s, he had a busy film career. He played Prince’s abusive father in “Purple Rain” (1984) and Wesley Snipes’s heroin-addicted father in “Sugar Hill” (1993). He was a crazed blackmailer in John Frankenheimer’s “52 Pick-Up” (1986) and a wild-eyed storytelling mortician in “Tales From the Hood” (1995). He had small roles in the blaxploitation parody “I’m Gonna Git You Sucka” (1988) and in Norman Mailer’s “Tough Guys Don’t Dance” (1987).
Television brought Mr. Williams new opportunities too. He was a leader of the Attica prison riots in HBO’s “Against the Wall” (1994); a segregationist governor’s manservant in the mini-series “George Wallace” (1997); Muhammad Ali’s father in “Ali: An American Hero” (2000); and a retired C.I.A. operative in 10 “Mystery Woman” movies (2003-07). He did guest appearances on close to 40 series, from “Hill Street Blues” to “Empire.”
Being evil.
June 7th, 2021I came up with a horrible, awful, bad idea the other night and feel like I have to share it here.
Lawrence and I were watching “The In-Laws“, and it occurred to me that it was about time for a remake (because Hollywood is out of ideas). And then it came to me…
…why not do a gender-swapped remake?
After all, who says women can’t be dentists? Or CIA agents?
I figure Melissa McCarthy has to be one of the leads, but I’m not sure if she’s best for the Peter Falk or the Alan Arkin role. And I’m not sure who would work for the husbands, or for General Garcia.
Obit watch: June 4, 2021.
June 4th, 2021Bailey was a giant. Notwithstanding the good he did for his clients, perhaps the best thing he did for America was to promote the notion that everyone is entitled to a vigorous defense, and to remind us of the presumption of innocence. And he did it during dark times. https://t.co/T4a0g5Nqwa
— Reinstated President Dawg (@PresidentDawg) June 4, 2021
One of the ways Rome stands out in the ancient world is that the Romans, unlike the Greeks, considered defending the accused an honorable profession, a fitting career for an educated gentleman. https://t.co/0RDNDpz9Am
— Reinstated President Dawg (@PresidentDawg) June 4, 2021
What a career:
And props to him for honorable service in the military:
The NYT obit hits all the high points of his legal career: Dr. Sam Sheppard, the Boston Strangler, Patty Hearst, Capt. Ernest L. Medina, O.J….
In 1977, Mr. Bailey, a master of turning simplicity into complexity, successfully defended a racehorse veterinarian, Mark J. Gerard, from two felony charges in a notorious racetrack fraud at Belmont Park. The defendant was accused of switching two look-alike horses — a top 3-year-old, Cinzano, for a long shot, Lebon, that the New York Times sports columnist Red Smith said “couldn’t beat a fat man from Gimbels to Macy’s.”
The switch produced 57-to-1 odds, and Mr. Gerard won $80,000. But the strands of the case proved too hard for prosecutors to untangle in Nassau County Court on Long Island, and Dr. Gerard, who had tended Secretariat and Kelso, got off with a misdemeanor and a few months in jail. “The record,” an appeals court said, “reveals a factual scenario that might have been authored jointly by an Alfred Hitchcock and a Damon Runyon.”
I have a vague memory of seeing F. Lee Bailey’s “Lie Detector” when I was younger. And this is a good story:
Lawrence also mentioned that he voiced himself in an episode of the animated “Spider-Man” series.
The stupid, it burns…
June 3rd, 2021Florida Man, Florida Man…
Cutting to the chase, the homeowner returned fire. With a real gun. The 10-year-old was injured, and the dad is charged with “child neglect with great bodily harm”.
If the boy is 10, that would make the dad 16 when he had the child. Which may indicate something…
Bonus:
Florida Man, Florida Man…
…
Prosecutors say Patterson “savagely beat, tormented, tortured, and killed” the 3-foot (1-meter) iguana in a half-hour attack caught on surveillance video. Prosecutor Alexandra Dorman said that “at no time was the iguana posing any real threat” to Patterson last September and he “was not justified in his actions when he kicked this defenseless animal at least 17 times causing its death.”
Animal control officials said Patterson tormented the animal, which is why it bit him on the arm, causing a wound that required 22 staples to close. Under state law, people are allowed to kill iguanas, an invasive species, in a quick and humane manner. A necropsy, though, showed the iguana had a lacerated liver, broken pelvis and internal bleeding, which were “painful and terrifying” injuries, prosecutors contend.
But Patterson’s public defender, Frank Vasconcelos, wrote that the iguana was the aggressor when it “leaned forward with its mouth wide open and showing its sharp teeth, in a threatening manner” and attacked Patterson. Bleeding from his bite, Patterson “kicked the iguana as far as he could,” Vasconcelos said.
Florida Woman, Florida Woman…
Paraphrasing someone: “To fall into one storm drain may be regarded as misfortune, to fall into a second storm drain looks like carelessness.”
Houston Woman, Houston Woman…
The boy was hit by a ricochet. His injuries are “not expected to be life-threatening”.
Things I did not know. (#8 in a series)
June 2nd, 2021There is a caliber called – I kid you not – “22 Wampus Kitty”.
No, there isn’t a Wikipedia entry for it, which makes it an ideal hipster caliber for varmint hunting. (“I shoot gophers with a rifle chambered in 22 Wampus Kitty. It’s a pretty obscure caliber. You’ve probably never heard of it.”)
I found out about this because MidwayUSA actually lists reloading dies for it.
I’m slightly tempted to get something chambered in 22 Wampus Kitty, but: not only would I have to reload it, the process of reloading is complicated.
I’ll stick with .221 Remington Fireball for my hipster cartridge needs, thank you very much.
That’s your problem, right there…
June 2nd, 2021I’m sure he would have gotten away with it, too, if only he had told her she was on “double secret probation“.
Obit watch: June 2, 2021.
June 2nd, 2021Arlene Golonka. She did a fair amount of Broadway work, and a lot of TV. She was “Millie Swanson” on “Mayberry R.F.D.”, and did a lot of guest spots on other shows.
Noted:
Also:
Robert Hogan. Man, he was in every damn thing: as the headline notes, his career stretched from “Peyton Place” to “The Wire”, with stops along the way at the various “Law and Order” franchises, “Quincy, M.E.”, “Alice”, “Barnaby Jones”, “The Rockford Files”, “Richie Brockelman, Private Eye”, the good “Hawaii Five-O” and many other series…
…yes, including “Mannix”. (“The Crime That Wasn’t”, season 4, episode 18)
Obit watch: June 1, 2021.
June 1st, 2021Buddy Van Horn. He has 109 credits in IMDB for stunt work: many of those were as Clint Eastwood’s stunt double or as a stunt coordinator on Eastwood movies.
He also directed three Eastwood movies: “Any Which Way You Can”, “Pink Cadillac”, and “The Dead Pool”.
Romy Walthall. She was in “Face/Off”, the 1989 “The House Of Usher”, and “The Howling IV: The Original Nightmare”, and a fair number of 1980s and 1990s TV series.
By way of Lawrence: Foster Friess, “successful investor, Republican donor and onetime Wyoming governor candidate”.
Thomas Sullivan. He was a Federal prosecutor in Chicago, and Diogenes would likely have been glad to meet him.
As federal prosecutor, Mr. Sullivan embarked on an audacious plan to root out bribery and case-fixing in the Cook County Circuit Court system. It included installing listening devices in judges’ chambers and creating fabricated cases that would be tried before judges who were under investigation. The sting came to be known as Operation Greylord.
“If we used real cases,” he said in an interview on his law firm’s website in 2014, and the prosecutor or judge “takes a bribe and a guy is released from a minor crime and then goes out and commits a really horrible crime, I’m going to get blamed for it. So you can’t use real cases; you have to use fake cases.”
As part of the sting, F.B.I. agents who were lawyers established legal practices to gain access to judges.
…
Continuing adventures in hoplobibliophilia.
May 31st, 2021I’ve actually bought a fair number of used gun books over the past few months. I didn’t bother writing about them here because they were pretty much all semi-crappy copies of books that I bought for reading purposes, not really worthy of a blog entry.
This is something I ran across today at Half-Price Books that I found interesting for more than one reason.
Elephant Hunting in East Equatorial Africa by Arthur H. Neumann. This is a reprint of the original 1898 edition, and volume 3 in the “Library of African Adventure” series from St. Martin’s Press. It has a little wear to the top and bottom of the dust jacket, but not too bad, and was purchased for about half of what “good” copies are going for on Amazon.
The other reason I found this interesting: you know who edited the “Library of African Adventure” series?
No, not that guy: he had his own series. The “Library of African Adventure” was edited by…noted SF writer Mike Resnick. Which is no great shock, as Resnick wrote extensively about Africa: it was simply an unexpected find.
Now I want to find the other volumes, especially since I’ve completed my Capstick set.
There is also something called “Resnick’s Library of African Adventure” that comes up when you search Amazon. I’m not 100% sure it is the same series – I suspect it is, but the bibliographical information on Amazon is scant, and the covers seem…less subdued.
Historical note, suitable for use in schools.
May 31st, 2021You know who was a Marine?
If you’re one of my readers who was a Marine, the answer is probably “Yes”. I figure the list of famous Marines is drilled into folks at boot camp.
But for everyone else: Don Adams.
I kid you not. Before he was “Maxwell Smart”, he served in the Marines during WWII. He fought (and was wounded) in the battle of Guadalcanal. He also came down with “blackwater fever”, and was medically evacuated to New Zealand, where he was hospitalized for over a year. After that, he served as a drill instructor until 1945.
As a side note, I went down a rabbit hole about “blackwater fever” a few months ago when I was reading White Hunters: The Golden Age of African Safaris (affiliate link). It also comes up in “The Bridge on the River Kwai“, which I did finally watch Saturday.
Blackwater fever is a complication of malaria. From what I’ve picked up, red blood cells burst and release hemoglobin, which enters the kidneys and can cause them to fail. I’ve seen suggestions that quinine either caused it, or was a contributing factor: now that we have other anti-malarial drugs, the incidence of blackwater fever has decreased.
A lot of those old-time African hunters came down with blackwater fever at one time or another: the folk remedy (which seems to have worked for many of them) was…massive consumption of champagne. I would think that would overload the kidneys and make things worse, but enough of those guys seem to have survived (the mortality rate is claimed to be 90%) that maybe there was something to it…?
Father Joseph Timothy O’Callahan.
May 31st, 2021Father O’Callahan was a good Boston boy. Shortly after he graduated from high school in 1922, he signed up with the Jesuits.
He was ordained as a Jesuit priest in 1934. Along the way, he picked up a BA and a MA from St. Andrew’s College, “specializing in mathematics and physics”. He was a professor of math, physics, and philosophy at Boston College for 10 years (1927-1937), then he went over to Weston Jesuit School of Theology for a year. From 1938 to 1940 he served as the director of the math department at the College of the Holy Cross.
He enlisted in the United States Navy Reserve Chaplain Corps in August of 1940 as a lieutenant junior grade. But I gather he was pretty good at his job: by July of 1945 he had reached the rank of commander. He participated in Operation Torch and Operation Leader.
On March 2, 1945, Commander O’Callahan reported to the aircraft carrier USS Franklin.
On March 19, 1945, the Franklin was hit by two bombs from a Japanese aircraft. The bombs started a massive fire on the carrier deck.
There is a short documentary, “The Saga of the Franklin“, that you can find on the Internet Archive.
Commander O’Callahan was offered the Navy Cross, but refused it. There is speculation that his refusal had to do with “his heroic actions on USS Franklin highlighted perceived lapses in leadership by the ship’s commanding officer, Captain Leslie E. Gehres, which reflected poorly on the Navy”. Wikipedia claims there was a controversy at the time, Harry Truman stepped in…
…and Commander O’Callahan was awarded the Medal of Honor on January 23, 1946. (Another officer, Lieutenant junior grade Donald Arthur Gary, also received the Medal of Honor for his actions: “Lieutenant Gary discovered 300 men trapped in a blackened mess compartment and, finding an exit, returned repeatedly to lead groups to safety. Gary later organized and led firefighting parties to battle the inferno on the hangar deck and entered number three fireroom to raise steam in one boiler, braving extreme hazards in so doing.“)
Father O’Callahan retired from the Navy in 1948 and headed the math department at The College of the Holy Cross. He also wrote a book, I Was Chaplain on the Franklin (affiliate link).
He died in 1964 at the age of 58, and is buried in the Jesuit cemetery at The College of the Holy Cross. The destroyer USS O’Callahan was named after him.
One of Father O’Callahan’s students at Holy Cross before the war was John V. Power, who also received the Medal of Honor (posthumously).
(Previously. Previously.)
Obit watch: May 30, 2021.
May 30th, 2021…
The Germans enlisted her to take commemorative photographs of them and, in some cases, their newly acquired mistresses. (“It better be good, or else you’ll be kaput,” she recalled a Gestapo commander warning her before, trembling, she asked him to smile.) They thus spared her from the firing squad because of their vanity and their obsession with bureaucratic record-keeping — two weaknesses that she would ultimately wield against them.
At one point the Germans witlessly gave her film to develop that contained pictures they had taken of the three trenches into which they, their Lithuanian collaborators and the local Polish police had machine-gunned Lenin’s remaining Jews, including her parents, sisters and younger brother.
She kept a copy of the photos as evidence of the atrocity, then later joined a band of Russian guerrilla Resistance fighters. As one of the only known Jewish partisan photographers, Mrs. Schulman, thanks to her own graphic record-keeping, debunked the common narrative that most Eastern European Jews had gone quietly to their deaths.
“I want people to know that there was resistance,” she was quoted as saying by the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation. “Jews did not go like sheep to the slaughter. I was a photographer. I have pictures. I have proof.”
In the wholesome era of “Our Miss Brooks” and “Father Knows Best” on television, Ms. Warren, who died at 91 on Tuesday in Orange County, Calif., developed a scandalous comedy routine that was full of barely veiled innuendo about sex, outrageous references to breasts and more, much of it delivered in a husky shout.
With that new risqué routine, she began packing larger clubs all over the country. The release in 1960 of her second comedy album, the brazenly titled “Knockers Up!,” only increased her fame.
It was a booming time for live comedy and comedy records — “The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart,” Mr. Newhart’s Grammy-winning breakthrough, was released the same year — and Ms. Warren emerged as a star in an out-of-the-mainstream sort of way.
…
If it hasn’t already been written, somebody could get a good book out of the history of comedy records roughly mid-century (I’m guessing 1950-1975, maybe slightly later). Especially if they went into the history of “blue” or “party” records: not just Ms. Warren, but Redd Foxx, Moms Mabley, Rudy Ray Moore, and lots of other now mostly forgotten folks.
Lawrence sent over two: Shane Briant, British actor. (“Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell”, “Cassandra”, “The Picture of Dorian Gray”)
…
…
Cahiers du Cinéma: on war movies.
May 28th, 2021The Art of Manliness posted a list of “The 10 Best War Movies of All-Time”.
Aesop over at the Raconteur Report posted a response.
Borepatch posted a response to Aesop’s response.
My turn. Readers should be aware up front that I have never served with any branch of any military anywhere in the world: my opinions about war movies basically come down to “Did I enjoy it? Did I think it was a good story, well told?” Not necessarily “Were they using a period correct AR platform? Were the missile launch scenes accurate?”
If you think I’m ignorant and want to skip to the next entry, go right ahead. Something else will be coming along soon.
With my lack of qualifications out of the way, my takes on the list. The Art of Manliness first:
- “Saving Private Ryan”: I’ll get this out of the way up front. Never seen it. I guess I wouldn’t mind seeing it, but I feel like it was one of those movies that was so overhyped at the time, it triggered my rejection gland. (See also: “E.T.”)
- “The Great Escape”: Also have not seen it. Do have the DVD, it is on our list, and I do want to watch it soon.
- “Das Boot”. Saw the director’s cut in a theater with Lawrence, loved it.
- “Glory”: Never seen it. Unlike Lawrence, I am not a big Civil War buff, so this movie has little appeal for me.
- “Apocalypse Now”: I liked it, but I need to watch it again. Is it a good war movie? I don’t know: Aesop and others don’t seem to think so. Is it a good movie? I thought so.
- “The Thin Red Line”: Have not seen it. Primarily because I have some friends who went to see it in a theater and walked out.
- “Patton”: one of my favorite movies of all time.
- “1917”: Didn’t get around to seeing it in theaters, would not mind seeing it. But putting a movie from 2019 on the best list? Really? Could we get some historical distance here? Perhaps a five or ten year gap before we start calling movies “best”? (Also, I have seen “All Quiet on the Western Front” and “They Shall Not Grow Old”, both of which are excellent films. Frankly, I am shocked that neither Borepatch or Aesop mentioned the latter.)
- “The Longest Day”: saw large parts of it on TV when I was younger, would not mind seeing the whole thing again. But it strikes me as one of those relics of the old Hollywood system where everybody is in it, and it may be just a little overstuffed.
- “The Bridge on the River Kwai”: haven’t seen it, believe it or not. Very much want to, and it is on the list.
Aesop’s list:
- “Zulu”: Heck to the yes!
- “The Great Escape”: See above.
- “Patton”: See above.
- “Lawrence of Arabia”: also heck to the yes!
- “Blackhawk Down”: Saw that in a theater with Lawrence as well. Am a huge fan of the book. Another damn fine movie.
- “Hamburger Hill”: have not seen it, would be interested in seeing it.
- “Das Boot”: see above.
- “Gettysburg”: have not seen it, see my comments above on “Glory”.
- “Braveheart”: have not seen it. I believe it is on our list as an Oscar winner.
- “A Bridge Too Far”: watched it recently with Lawrence and the gang. It’s…okay. But to my taste, it was way too long.
Borepatch:
- “Glory”: see above.
- “Stripes”: it has been a long damn time since I’ve seen that, and I need to watch it again. I do agree with Borepatch’s comments that comedy doesn’t get any respect.
- “Band of Brothers”: haven’t seen anything but clips on YouTube, but those make me want to watch the series. Once Lawrence and I get some of our other TV series out of the way, that may be next on the list.
- “Hogan’s Heroes”: also been a long damn time since I’ve seen an episode of that, even though it is on MeTV.
Things that I’m surprised are missing from all three lists:
- “12 O’Clock High”. The movie, though what I have seen of the TV series is also good. But I think “12 O’Clock High”, like “Patton”, would go on my top ten list.
- “The Hunt For Red October”: yes, I think this qualifies as a war film.
- “They Shall Not Grow Old”: see above.
- “All Quiet on the Western Front”: see above.
- “300”: I’m more just surprised that nobody mentioned it, rather than being willing to argue that it’s actually great. (I enjoyed it, but I’m not sure I would call it “great”.) I’d be happy to have a discussion with Aesop and Borepatch about this one.
- “Paths of Glory”: you didn’t like “Full Metal Jacket”? How about this one? (I think “FMJ” is about half of a good movie.)
- “Kelly’s Heroes”: I think I didn’t see “Great Escape” because this one was the one that was all over late-night TV when I was growing up. I have fond memories of it, but need to re-watch it.
- “The Wind and the Lion”: I think it counts.
- “Run Slient, Run Deep”
- “The Alamo”: the good one, with John Wayne.
- “Mister Roberts”: speaking of comedy not getting any respect…also, I think there’s a good leadership lesson in this one. (Don’t be like James Cagney.)
“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 422
May 27th, 2021This is the last entry in the series.
I feel we’ve reached the point where we are, more or less, out of jail: restrictions are being relaxed, I am fully vaccinated, and I’m seeing many businesses doing away with mask requirements.
I originally started this as a diversion while we were all on home confinement. If you were locked in, what did you have that was better to do than watch weird old videos that popped up in my YouTube recommendations? Now, it seems like this…feature? recurring trope?…has gone beyond what originally motivated it. This seems like a good time to wrap it up.
Mostly. I’m holding a couple of things in reserve for days in the future. And if we’re hit by a new variant and have to lock ourselves in again, I reserve the right to restart this.
I have something special I want to post, as the final entry, and also as a tribute.
Gardner Dozois passed away three years ago today. To the best of my knowledge, the NYT still has not published an obituary for him.