“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 196

October 12th, 2020

I had a late night last night, and I have a doctor’s appointment this afternoon, so I’m being a little lazy today.

“Magic Highway, USA”, an episode of “Wonderful World of Disney” from 1958.

This episode from 1958 mostly looks back at the history of roads and travel in America, from the time that America was discovered right up through the creation of the super highways in the 1950s. It shows how slow progress was back when pioneers such as Daniel Boone moved west in the 19th century, how the railroad nearly sounded the deathnell of the highway, and how the creation of the automobile and it’s popularity just after the dawn of the 20th century changed things.

Bonus: the reason I had a late night last night was that Andrew and I went to see Greg Gutfeld at the HEB Center in Cedar Park. Spoiler: it was a lot of fun, like a giant tailgate party. But the staff (the HEB Center staff, not Mr. Gutfeld’s staff) were curiously obsessed with “the box”. You had to park squarely in the box. You had to back into the box (even though that put your car facing away from the stage, so you couldn’t sit in the front seats and watch). You could take off your mask if you were in the box, but if you left the box you had to mask up. You couldn’t jump boxes (move up to a closer box if your friends were there). You couldn’t get too close to the box surrounding the stage or they’d chase you back.

But I did get a free book and an autographed coffee pod out of it.

Why do I bring this up? No particular reason…

Posted in History, Movies, Roads | Comments Closed

Noted.

October 12th, 2020

1. I was looking over some old blog posts, and ran across this quote from a 2014 “Tuesday Morning Quarterback” column on ESPN:

TMQ Vows: By 2020, I Will Reduce Factual Errors 17 Percent Compared to 2005 Columns

Credit where credit is due: TMQ has certainly met – as a matter of fact, exceeded – that goal. Hats off to Easterbrook.

2. I wanted to highlight this blog post (by way of Hacker News): I think it’s a nice bit of writing, but it also is a good illustration of the kind of thing I was talking about in this post.

Posted in Sports, TMQ watch | Comments Closed

Obit watch: October 12, 2020.

October 12th, 2020

It is the stated policy of this blog that, if you were a Bond girl, you get an obit.

Margaret Nolan. She was “Dink” in “Goldfinger” (she was also the model in the title sequence), appeared (uncredited) in “A Hard Day’s Night”, and appeared in various other UK movies and TV shows (including “Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness?” and some of the “Carry On” series). She has a small role in Edgar Wright’s upcoming “Last Night in Soho”, and the THR obit reprints some of his tweets.

Tom Kennedy, most famous as a game show host. He doesn’t have many non-game show credits, but he did appear on both “Cannon” and “Hardcastle and McCormick”.

Posted in Movies, Obits, TV | Comments Closed

Your loser update: week 5, 2020.

October 12th, 2020

NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:

Atlanta
New York Football Giants
New York Jets

Posted in Loser, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 195

October 11th, 2020

Science Sunday!

This sits at a weird intersection. “The Land Beneath The Sea” is a US Navy film from 1967, but the subject it covers is the Navy’s oceanographic research programs. That puts it squarely, to me, in the “science” category. But then, I’ve been interested in oceanography ever since my parents gave me one of those “How and Why Wonder Books” on the subject a long time ago (when I was in the single-digit age range).

Bonus: here’s something that may be a little more explicitly science. “Man in Space” from 1955. This is a vintage Disney video: Uncle Walt himself shows up at about the 1:00 mark.

#TheFutureWeCouldHaveHad

Posted in Geek, History | Comments Closed

Obit watch: October 10, 2020.

October 10th, 2020

Whitey Ford, legendary Yankee.

Pitching for 11 pennant-winners and six World Series champions, Ford won 236 games, the most of any Yankee, and had a career winning percentage of .690, the best among pitchers with 200 or more victories in the 20th century.

…

At 5 feet 10 inches and 180 pounds, Ford seldom overpowered batters. But in his 16 seasons he mastered them with an assortment of pitches thrown with varying speeds and arm motions and delivered just where he wanted them. “If it takes 27 outs to win, who’s going to get them out more ways than Mr. Ford?” the longtime Yankee manager Casey Stengel once said.
Methodical on the mound, Ford was irrepressible off it. He joined with Mantle and Billy Martin for late nights on the town, inspiring Stengel to call them the Three Musketeers. Mantle, too, entered the Hall of Fame in 1974, and at the induction ceremony he was asked about the chemistry behind the friendship between him, the country boy from Oklahoma, and Ford, who grew up on the streets of Queens. “We both liked Scotch,” he said.
“In those early years it was three of us — me, Whitey and Billy Martin,” Mantle said, adding, “They were both brash, outspoken guys, and I could stay in the background.”

…

Ford missed the 1951 and 1952 seasons while in the Army, but returned with an 18-6 season in 1953. As he remembered it, Yankee catcher Elston Howard gave him the nickname Chairman of the Board around the mid-’50s.
Ford kept rolling along, winning 53 games from 1954 to 1956.
Then came an infamous night in Yankee lore. In May 1957, Ford and Mantle joined with a few teammates to celebrate Martin’s 29th birthday at the Copacabana nightclub. A patron wound up on the floor with a broken nose and accused Hank Bauer, the Yankees’ strapping right fielder, of decking him. Bauer denied it, and no charges were filed, but the Yankees fined all the players who were there for the embarrassing headline-making episode. It was never clear who clobbered the customer, and Berra famously explained, “Nobody did nuthin’ to nobody.” But Martin was soon banished to the lowly Kansas City Athletics.

I haven’t seen this reported elsewhere (though I’m sure the NYT will get around to it, just like they did for Gardner Dozois…oh, wait) but my mother forwarded an obit for Bette Greene. She was probably most famous for Summer of My German Soldier.

Posted in Books, Obits, Sports | 1 Comment »

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 194

October 10th, 2020

I thought today I’d dabble a little in true crime. Also, I wanted to do some more CanCon.

This is a fairly short documentary from The Globe and Mail: “Manhunt, Manitoba” about two vicious Canadian murderers…and the tracker who ran them to ground.

Bonus: this one from the land down under. “Manhunt”, from 60 Minutes Australia. This was posted fairly recently, but dates back to 2011, and covers the hunt for Malcolm Naden. Naden was a child molester and murderer, who evaded capture by the authorities for seven years.

Naden was finally captured in 2012. He pled guilty on 18 counts (including two murders) in 2013.

I’m trying to think of US fugitives who were on the run for that long or even close to it. Eric Rudolph evaded capture for five years. Whitey Bulger evaded capture for 16 years, but I’d argue his circumstances were different than Rudolph’s or Naden’s.

Posted in Law | 2 Comments »

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 193

October 9th, 2020

Travel Thursday. Science Sunday. Is it time to make Self Indulgent Friday a thing?

Savage Arms has a YouTube channel, “SavageAccuracy”, with various playlists. One of those playlists is “Gunsite Academy with Cory Trapp“, in which Mr. Trapp gives tips on long range shooting.

For example: “Three Elements of Making a Long Range Shot”.

Another: “Ranging Without a Rangefinder”.

And a third: “Calculating Wind Value”.

Bonus: I’ve mentioned Ryan Cleckner before. Here’s a video with Mr. Cleckner and John Lovell about “Essential Gear for Long Range Shooting”.

Posted in Guns | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 192

October 8th, 2020

Travel Thursday!

Today: the Philippines! “New Horizons: The Philippines” from our favorite airline, Pan Am, sometime in the 1960s.

Bonus video: another point of view, from the 1950s and Northwest Orient, yet another defunct airline. (Northwest Orient merged with Republic in 1986 and dropped the “Orient”. Northwest filed for bankruptcy in 2005, and merged into Delta in 2008.)

Posted in History, Travel | Comments Closed

Obit watch: October 8, 2020.

October 8th, 2020

Johnny Nash, musician (“I Can See Clearly Now”).

Mr. Nash was a singer, an actor, a record-label owner and an early booster of Bob Marley in a varied career that began in the late 1950s when, as a teenager, he appeared on Arthur Godfrey’s CBS-TV variety show. He also sang on Mr. Godfrey’s popular radio broadcasts.

…

When Mr. Nash traveled to Jamaica to promote “Let’s Move,” he became enamored of the emerging reggae sound. He recorded at Federal Studios in Kingston, bought a house in the city and one night in 1967, at a Rastafarian ceremony, met a young Bob Marley and heard him sing.
Mr. Nash and Mr. Sims were so impressed that they signed Marley and his group, the Wailers, to their label (now called JAD), with the idea that he would write material for Mr. Nash to sing.
In his book “Before the Legend: The Rise of Bob Marley” (2007), Christopher John Farley described a complicated relationship between the two singers. Mr. Nash promoted Marley to international audiences, bringing the Wailers to London in 1972 as his opening act and recording Marley’s songs. But to Marley’s ears, an American singer doing a commercial take on reggae was inauthentic.
“He’s a nice guy, but he doesn’t know what reggae is,” Mr. Farley quoted Marley as saying. “Johnny Nash is not Rasta; and if you’re not a Rasta, you don’t know nothin’ about reggae.”

Peregrine Worsthorne, who the paper of record describes as “an arch-Conservative newspaper editor, contrarian columnist and defender of empire and aristocracy”. I highlight this obituary for two reasons:

1) I don’t believe in making fun of people’s names: that’s the lowest form of insult humor. However, I have to say: you don’t run across people with names like “Peregrine Worsthorne” much these days.

2) This extremely annoying passage from the NYT obit:

In 1973, in what Mr. Worsthorne had described as a rehearsed and knowingly provocative episode, he appeared on British television and was asked to comment on the likely public reaction to news of a sex scandal involving a Conservative government minister, Lord Lambton, the Earl of Durham (who would, by coincidence, become his father-in-law).
Mr. Worsthorne forecast public indifference, using a four-letter word that later crept into use on cable television and in some general interest publications, but which in 1973 was wholly forbidden. His remark was long credited as only the second use of the word on British television after the theater critic Kenneth Tynan uttered it in 1965 in what became a cause célèbre in a national debate about public morality.
Mr. Worsthorne’s language caused a stir with both the BBC and the owners of the Telegraph newspaper group, very likely costing him any chance of becoming editor of The Daily Telegraph, the flagship of Conservatism at the time.
“I still don’t know why I made such a fool of myself,” he wrote in the liberal newspaper The Guardian in 2004. “Foolhardiness, I suppose. It seemed the mot juste, and I could not resist the temptation to make a splash. As a result, I shall be remembered, if at all, as the second person to say” — and here he said it again — “on British TV. What a deservedly horrible fate.”
Later he suggested that the episode may not have been spontaneous, since it followed private conversations at El Vino, a notorious wine bar and eatery on Fleet Street, then the hub of many British newspapers. Contrarianism, he once remarked, was synonymous with “the pure pleasure and enjoyment of annoying people.”

(According to The Guardian, that word was “fuck”.)

Posted in Media, Music, Obits | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 191

October 7th, 2020

I’m bending some rules today:

  • Long video.
  • Haven’t watched it all yet.

But: James “Connections” Burke, on “Is The Internet Redefining Knowledge?” Buttons. Pushed.

This was posted in May, but from context clues in the introduction, I think it dates back to 2001 or 2002. I set it to start about two minutes in, skipping the introductions, but you’re welcome to rewind if you wish.

Bonus: This is an episode of “New Mexico In Focus”, I think from 2014 (at least, that’s when it was posted). This one’s only about 21 minutes.

Posted in Geek, History | Comments Closed

Obit watch: October 7, 2020.

October 7th, 2020

A lot of folks told me about Eddie Van Halen: I decided to hold the obit until today because, when I looked, the NYT only had their preliminary obit up.

I know a lot of folks who I respect liked Van Halen, but I really don’t have anything to add to what’s out there already.

Thomas Jefferson Byrd. He was in several Spike Lee films, and also did some theater:

Mr. Byrd was a regular on Off Broadway and regional stages, appearing frequently in August Wilson plays, among them “The Piano Lesson” at San Jose Repertory Theater in California in 2001, “Seven Guitars” with the St. Louis Black Repertory Company in 2002 and “Gem of the Ocean” at the Actors Theater of Louisville in Kentucky in 2006.
He was a late addition to the Broadway cast of Mr. Wilson’s “Ma Rainey,” taking over the role of Toledo, the reflective, philosophizing piano player in the title character’s band. The cast was headed by Whoopi Goldberg in the title role and Charles S. Dutton as the trumpeter Levee. Though the production, which ran for 68 performances, drew mixed reviews, Mr. Byrd and the actors playing two other musicians, Stephen McKinley Henderson and Carl Gordon, drew widespread praise. Mr. Byrd was nominated for the Tony for best featured actor in a play.

Murray Newman posted a very nice obit a few days ago for Harris County legal figure Mike Hinton, which I encourage folks to go read. Mr. Hinton sounds like an amazing gentleman who I would have enjoyed knowing.

Seasonally appropriate note: Mr. Hinton prosecuted Ronald Clark O’Bryan.

Posted in HCDA, Law, Movies, Music, Obits, Theatre | 1 Comment »

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 190

October 6th, 2020

It isn’t Thursday, but I thought we’d go on a safari.

A surfing safari.

“Kingdoms of the Sea”, a 1950s TV series. This episode covers water skiing, surfing, and “other water acrobatic stunts”.

Very short, and totally unrelated, bonus: this is one of my favorite “Perry Mason” moments. Della teases Lt. Tragg…and Tragg responds with perfect 1950s hepcat jive.

Posted in History | Comments Closed

Your loser update: week 4, 2020.

October 6th, 2020

NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:

Atlanta
New York Football Giants
Houston
New York Jets

In related loser and sports firings news, having started the season 0-4, the Houston Texans have fired Bill O’Brien.

O’Brien, who went 52-48 in six-plus seasons with the franchise, led the Texans to four AFC South titles including each of the past two seasons, but hasn’t won a game since a come-from-behind playoff win over the Buffalo Bills last season. That was followed by the Texans blowing a 24-0 lead to the Chiefs in the second round of the playoffs. The Texans haven’t won a game since.

You know, I’m liking the chances for someone to go 0-16 this year. Not necessarily the Texans, but one of these four teams.

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

Memo from the legal beat.

October 5th, 2020

Two Austin legal stories from the past couple of days that I wanted to cover:

1) A former employee of the Austin Public Library has been charged with stealing $1.3 million from the library.

Now, I’m sure you’re asking yourself: “How do you steal that much money from a library?” Answer: according to the indictment, he was purchasing printer toner with a city issued credit card and reselling it online.

“The library’s poor practices and procedures provided an opportunity for Whited to steal from the city during his tenure, leading to waste and overspending by the department,” according to the report. “Whited took advantage of poor purchasing reviews by his supervisors, former Financial Manager Victoria Rieger and Contract Management Specialist Monica McClure. Whited also took advantage of several other purchasing and budget-related shortcomings, such as having a role in the approval of his own purchases and insufficient oversight of the Library’s budget by Rieger and Assistant Director Dana McBee.”
As an accounting associate, Whited was responsible for making and approving purchases, cash receipts, billing, and other accounting transactions, the report states.

Bonus: this wasn’t his first go-around at the rodeo, but somehow the library put him in charge of all that stuff.

2) Strippers. Always with the strippers. A group of them are suing some of our finer local “gentleman’s clubs” (specifically, The Yellow Rose, Perfect 10 and Palazio, if you know Austin strip clubs).

The basis for the lawsuit is kind of unsurprising: the strippers claim that they were improperly categorized as “independent contractors” rather than employees.

The women signed documents agreeing to be independent contractors rather than employees, records show. However, Ellzey said the clubs treated them like employees — requiring them to work a certain shift, setting prices for dances and charging the women late fees if they did not arrive on time.
Under labor laws, that makes them employees, Ellzey said.
“The law looks to the conduct of the club … not the documents cooked up by the clubs,” Ellzey said. “The documents have no real legal significance.”

The responses from the clubs are about what you’d expect: the strippers wanted it that way.

Yellow Rose’s management also said that it’s in the dancers’ best interest to work as independent contractors.
“All Yellow Rose employees make at least minimum wage and generally far more than that,” the club said in a statement. “This case involves three — we have no clue who the fourth person in this lawsuit is — entertainers who knowingly and willingly worked as independent contractors, all of whom made a great deal more money than what they would have made had they been minimum wage employees. They now claim they were/are ‘actually’ employees and are due compensation directly from the Yellow Rose. We disagree.”

…

Bishop said the independent contractor agreements gave performers the opportunity to avoid turning over their tips to the club. However, Ellzey said that, despite this, the club often required the performers to divide their tips among other employees, such as the DJ, the security guard and management.
“The performers are typically younger,” Ellzey said. “They go to work in these clubs, and the money they’re making on stage is sometimes really surprising. I think when an older club owner or a manager with apparent authority says, ‘This is what you have to do. This is what everyone does. You need to split your tips, you need to pay house fees,’ then a younger, more vulnerable dancer is just going to believe them.”

This is also another “not the first go-around at the rodeo” affair: there was a previous settlement in another lawsuit filed against four clubs in Houston.

I’m no employment lawyer, but: if they control your schedule, set prices, and charge “late fees”, that kind of sounds to me like the strippers may have a case.

Posted in Austin, Law, Politics | Comments Closed

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