Benjamin Storm Keough, Elvis Presley’s grandson. He was 27.
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.
Science Sunday!
I wanted to do something a little different today. From 1960 and those wonderful folks at Shell Oil, “A Light In Nature”.
This isn’t a film about a specific area of science, but: “…shows scientific research and the creative process of discovery in probing radioactivity, astronomy, materials science, geology, biophysics, oceanography, the discovery of DNA, etc.” 1960 was the 300th anniversary of the founding of the Royal Society, and this was apparently sort of a tie-in to that. There’s some awesome vintage video of members of the Royal Society smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo hanging out, if you’re fond of early 1960s style.
Bonus: Space history counts as science, right?
“Apollo 8 Go For TLI”, a NASA documentary about the mission.
This popped up randomly in my recommendations, but I would have posted it no matter what once I knew it existed.
From the “World Of Warships” channel: “Naval Legends: USS Batfish”.
As you may recall, Mike the Musicologist and I visited the Batfish…cheez louise, it has been almost six years?
And as I think I’ve mentioned before, the USS Batfish was damaged in the flooding of 2019, and the Friends of the Muskogee War Memorial Park are trying to raise money to put it back into shape. If you have a few dollars to spare, why not float them over to the Batfish?
Bonus video: an episode of “The Silent Service” TV series about the USS Batfish.
Fun fact: “DeForest Kelley appeared in three episodes as Lieutenant Commander James C. Dempsey and Leonard Nimoy appeared in two episodes as Sonarman.” Also appearing at various points: Edward Platt (who played a lieutenant commander, not a chief), Jack Lord, Bob Denver, and Dennis Weaver. And that’s not an exhaustive list.
I thought it might be interesting to talk about Nike.
Not the goddess of victory, or the shoe company: the missile system. I’ve always thought that was a cool looking system.
First up, “The United States Army Air Defense Command”. This one is only about 10 minutes.
Bonus video #1, and also short: a vintage AT&T Tech Channel video about the Nike Zeus ABM system.
Bonus video #2, which is a bit longer: “The Nike Hercules Missie System” from the US Army.
List of Nike missile sites from Wikipedia.
San Vicente Park in California. Part of the park was an old Nike-Ajax missile site, which has been preserved and is accessible to the public. I’d like to visit there one of these days.
There were two Nike-Hercules sites in Austin: according to the Wikipedia list, one is in Elroy (which is kind of near the airport and the Formula 1 track, and is the home of Wild Bubba’s Wild Game Grill), and the other “is now the location of the University of Texas System Police Academy”.
(I had no idea UTPD had their own academy. I figured they shared space with the Austin PD’s academy. You learn something new every day.)
Lawrence linked to a follow up story from Bearing Arms about a weird case I wrote about back in February: an ex-stunt woman formerly from Bee Cave and her husband drove to Ohio to shoot her ex-husband, and instead were shot by the ex.
Spoiler: the grand jury no-billed the ex-husband and his current wife.
Today’s entries are part military aviation, part general aviation. Specifically, both of these focus on the kind of mistakes that got military pilots killed (not in combat) in the 1940s: many of those are equally applicable today, as I’m sure FotB RoadRich will attest. (I don’t know if any of the planes he’s flown have talking oil temperature gauges, though.)
“Unless You Fly With Safety”. This is the short version.
Bonus: “Learn and Live”. This is the long version, but it feels like some has been cut off of the end.
I think it is time for some more virtual travel, back to the past, on a defunct airline.
Where to go this time? How about…Bermuda?
From 1961, “Wings to Bermuda” (in color!), brought to you by Pan Am (and the Periscope Film channel on the ‘Tube).
Bonus video: I’m having trouble deciding: did I post the Paul Shaffer video as a segue into “Wings to Bermuda”, or did I post “Wings to Bermuda” to give myself an excuse for the Paul Shaffer video? Decisions, decisions…
Here: enjoy Paul Shaffer in “Behind The Music”.
And just for grins, !Paul Shaffer:
Ronald Graham, noted mathematician and noted juggler.
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Henry Martin, one of the old time New Yorker cartoonists. The NYT obit features a few examples of his work, and I have to admit: they did provoke a chuckle or three.
Finally: Mary Kay Letourneau.
I know I’m running a little long (again) but in my defense, this is in color, and I think better quality than usual.
“Survival”. The YouTube notes say this dates to the 1980s, but the opening says 1978. I’m kind of wondering if at least one person on my blogroll saw this when they were serving.
The other thing that makes this interesting to me is that the setting looks more like Europe (or some areas of the US) rather than the general run of “survival at sea” films I see a lot of on the ‘Tube. Not that there’s anything wrong with those, but I’m far more likely to be lost in the woods than to be bailing out of an aircraft at sea.
Bonus video: “Land and Live in the Jungle”. From 1944 and featuring Van Heflin.
This is a little longer than I’d like, but it popped up in my recommendations, and pushes several buttons at once:
From 1970, “It Couldn’t Be Done”, a Bell System film about “impossible structures”, featuring Mr. Marvin and the 5th Dimension.
Bonus video: since we’re talking about what we can accomplish when we want to, “They Came To An Island”. From 1946, a documentary about the Navy Civil Engineer Corps (aka the Seebees).
Bad day for music.
Imitated, scorned, spoofed, what came to be known as “The Dollars Trilogy” — “A Fistful of Dollars” (1964), “For a Few Dollars More” (1965) and “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” (1966), all released in the United States in 1967 — starred Clint Eastwood as “The Man With No Name” and were enormous hits, with a combined budget of $2 million and gross worldwide receipts of $280 million.
The trilogy’s Italian dialogue was dubbed for the English-speaking market, and the action was brooding and slow, with clichéd close-ups of gunfighters’ eyes. But Mr. Morricone, breaking the unwritten rule never to upstage actors with music, infused it all with wry sonic weirdness and melodramatic strains that many fans embraced with cultlike devotion and that critics called viscerally true to Mr. Leone’s vision of the Old West
“In the films that established his reputation in the 1960s, the series of spaghetti westerns he scored for Mr. Leone, Mr. Morricone’s music is anything but a backdrop,” The New York Times critic Jon Pareles wrote in 2007. “It’s sometimes a conspirator, sometimes a lampoon, with tunes that are as vividly in the foreground as any of the actors’ faces.”
Mr. Morricone also scored Mr. Leone’s “Once Upon a Time in the West” (1968) and his Jewish gangster drama, “Once Upon a Time in America” (1984), both widely considered masterpieces. But he became most closely identified with “The Dollars Trilogy,” and in time grew weary of answering for their lowbrow sensibilities.
Asked by The Guardian in 2006 why “A Fistful of Dollars” had made such an impact, he said: “I don’t know. It’s the worst film Leone made and the worst score I did.”
“Lowbrow sensibilities”, my Aunt Fannie.
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Edited to add: Just got this: a nice tribute to another aspect of Mr. Morricone’s work that I was unaware of.
Morricone, a man of staunch yet humble faith, was part of a gathering of 60 artists who paid musical tribute to Pope Benedict XVI’s 60th anniversary of his ordination.
The Vatican’s obituary goes on to tell how Morricone was so inspired by Pope Francis’s elevation that he wrote a Mass to celebrate both the new pope and all Jesuits. Titled Missa Papae Francisci, the work was also dedicated to his wife, Maria Travia, who had been encouraging Morricone to write such a sacred work for years. The Mass was premiered on the 200th anniversary of the re-establishment of the Jesuit order.
Morricone went on to work with Pope Francis to organize a concert “with the poor and for the poor” in 2016. The charity concert was performed by the Roma Sinfonietta Orchestra, the National Academy of St. Cecilia, and Fr. Marco Frisina, raising much needed capital for several charitable projects of the Pontiff. Pope Francis later awarded Ennio the Pontifical Gold Medal, presented by Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, President of the Pontifical Council for Culture, on April 15, 2019.
This article also quotes the eloquent and touching statement Mr. Morricone requested be read on his passing.
Charlie Daniels. I loved “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” when I was a kid. Still have a soft spot for that song, even though some people might say I have “lowbrow sensibilities”.
There are many candidates for the libertarian national anthem. I’d argue this is one of the better ones:
A drunkard wants another drink of wine, and a politician wants your vote
I don’t want much of nothing at all, but I will take another toke
‘Cause I ain’t asking nobody for nothin’
If I can’t get it on my own
If you don’t like the way I’m livin’
You just leave this long haired country boy alone
And because it is there:
Science Sunday!
Nobody has said this to me directly, but I am sure that some folks out there are saying under their breath, “These videos you keep posting are about as exciting as watching paint dry.”
Well, maybe. I like to think that these are slices of a bygone era, a time when we worked together and got things done. But I also keep telling myself:
Anyway, for the “as exciting as paint drying” group, I bring you: “Paint”. A 1967 film about paints and paint making, from our good friends at the Shell Oil company.
And as a bonus, also from Shell: “The Diesel Story”.
Skyrockets in flight!
Okay, this is another “not quite random” pick. But in honor of the 4th of July, I thought it might be fun to post some things that go “boom”.
“10 INCREDIBLE Space Launch Failures!” In 4k, for the discerning viewer.
Here’s a short one: eyewitness video of the 2015 Tianjin explosion. I’m posting this based on the assumption that the people filming made it out okay (seems reasonable).
My initial reaction when I first saw this was: “Why did you wait? Why didn’t you start running IMMEDIATELY!” But on second thought, what’s safer: sheltering in place (and hoping the blast doesn’t knock over your building, or send fragments through the windows), or running into the street and hoping you don’t get hit by falling fragments or inhale toxic byproducts? I honestly don’t know.
Every once in a while, I spend a little time watching BLEVEs on YouTube. Here’s a good compilation: and, if you are unfamiliar with the term “BLEVE”, it also explains what those are. Life pro tip: you don’t want to be anywhere near one.
Here’s another point of view of the Murdock BLEVE, featuring a news crew who found that out the hard way.
I’m easing into the July 4th weekend myself. So there’s no overarching theme here, other than: America!
“Grayhounds of the Sea”, a history of U.S. Navy destroyers, narrated by none other than Mr. Jack Webb.
Ordnance Lab builds a replica of the Syrian Hell Cannon Mortar. This is part 1: as far as I can tell, they haven’t posted part 2 yet. (The Wuhan Flu probably has something to do with that. But it looks like they’ve been doing stuff recently with the Roomba-Boomba.)
“Ten Years To Remember”. This is a promo film from the Martin Company (which later merged and became Martin Marietta, and even later on merged again and became Lockheed Martin) from 1964, covering ten years of rocket development.
1972 NASA promo film for Skylab. I’ve always been kind of partial to Skylab.
I was only going to do three, but this one popped up, and it is short: a tribute to Robin Olds from AirForceTV.
Tomorrow: things blow up real good.
Hugh Downs, long time TV guy and good Akron boy. (“20/20”, “Today”, “The Tonight Show” with Jack Parr.)
In February 1960, Mr. Paar, no stranger to volatility, became furious after NBC removed a joke from the show for reasons of taste. (The joke, tame by today’s standards, involved the use of the term “water closet,” meaning bathroom.) He decided that the best way to teach NBC a lesson was to walk off the next night’s show as it was being taped, leaving Mr. Downs in charge. Mr. Downs assumed the host’s chair immediately, if not confidently: at one point he looked into the camera and plaintively said, “Jack, come back.” The show aired as scheduled, walk-off and all.
Mr. Paar did come back, to the surprise of nobody, but not until 25 days later. In his absence Mr. Downs — who years later would diplomatically remember his former boss as “quite a bundle” — ably assumed his duties as “Tonight Show” host. The Times critic Jack Gould saluted Mr. Downs for having “in most trying circumstances carried off the situation with dignity.”
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Andrew “Jack” Whittaker Jr. The name may not ring a bell right off: he hit the Powerball for $315 million in 2002, took a lump sum payout of $113.4 million post tax…and it didn’t work out quite like wanted.
…he quickly fell victim to scandals, lawsuits and personal setbacks as he endured constant requests for money, leaving him unable to trust others. He was often quoted as saying he wished he had torn up the ticket.
His wife left him. A friend of his drug-addicted granddaughter was found dead at his home in 2004. Three months later, his 17-year-old granddaughter was gone, too.
His daughter, Ginger Whittaker Bragg, died of cancer in 2009 at 42.
And in 2016, he lost a Virginia home to a fire.
Byron Bernstein. I’d never heard of him, but he was a popular Twitch streamer under the name of “Reckful” and noted World of Warcraft player. He was 31.
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.
