Julee Cruise, musician. You probably recognize the name from “Twin Peaks”:
She also toured with the B-52s (“from 1992-1999 as a fill-in for member Cindy Wilson“).
Obit watch: June 10, 2022.
June 10th, 2022Random gun crankery, some hoplobibliophilia.
June 9th, 2022This is going out to Bones. You asked, we provide. We’re running a full service blog here.
Obit watch: June 9, 2022.
June 9th, 2022Two interesting obits from the NYT for somewhat obscure people:
Jim Murphy. He specialized in history books for kids.
I’m a little old to be his target audience, but the books on yellow fever and the “blue baby” operation sound right up my alley.
Oris Buckner. He was a homicide detective with the New Orleans Police Department in the 1980s – the only black homicide detective at the time.
Then things went to hell. Briefly (the obit goes into more details) other homicide detectives beat witnesses to the killing of a police officer until they implicated two men, then killed both men, along with the girlfriend of one.
Mr. Buckner testified against the other officers. The local grand jury refused to indict them, but seven officers were eventually charged with federal civil rights violations. Three were convicted and sentenced to five years.
Obit watch: June 8, 2022.
June 8th, 2022Jim Seals, of Seals and Crofts.
Paul Vance, most famous for “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini”.
Firings watch.
June 7th, 2022No punny title, because it has been a busy day and we have multiple firings out of LA to report.
Joe Maddon out as manager of the Los Angeles Angels.
…
Derek Fisher out as coach of the Los Angeles Sparks (of the WNBA). 54-46 over “less than” four seasons, 1-4 postseason, and 5-7 to start this season.
And the Lakers, having just hired a new head coach, fired a bunch of assistants: David Fizdale, Mike Penberty and John Lucas III.
Obit watch: June 6, 2022.
June 6th, 2022Linda Lawson, actress. Other credits include “Sea Hunt”, “Hawaiian Eye”, and “Ben Casey”.
Alec John Such, drummer bassist [thanks, LP] for Bon Jovi.
Lawrence sent over an obit for Isidoro Raponi, who did a lot of practical effects work.
Obit watch: June 3, 2022.
June 3rd, 2022Brad Johnson, actor. Other credits include “The Outer Limits” (the 2000-ish revival), several appearances on “CSI: Original Recipe”, and “The Robinsons: Lost in Space”.
The last Howard Johnson’s. But there’s a quibble:
The Lake George, N.Y., location is closed, and the property is up for lease, listing agent Bill Moon of Exit Realty Empire Associates confirmed. However, Moon said, for the last several years, the restaurant wasn’t operated as a “traditional Howard Johnson’s experience.”
“It was a local lessee that was running a restaurant out of the Howard Johnson’s building,” he said.
Apparently, there’s a Kindle edition of The Oranging of America and Other Stories by Max Apple. (The titular story is about Howard Johnson and his personal assistant. It is a fun collection. Affiliate link.)
Ten Restaurants That Changed America by Paul Freedman. HoJo’s was one of them.
The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen by Jacques Pépin. Mr. Pépin worked for HoJo’s in the early 1960s.
“Eat My Globe” interview with Mr. Pépin, which is notable for the following:
…But the dish that everybody loved was the fried clams from Howard Johnson’s.
Baseball season is finally underway…
June 3rd, 2022…with the ceremonial throwing out of the first manager.
Joe Girardi out as manager of the Phillies.
The Phillies hired Girardi after the 2019 season to replace deposed Gabe Kapler. At the time, owner John Middleton hailed Girardi’s track record, including a World Series championship with the New York Yankees in 2009, and his reputation for blending old-school feel with the use of analytics and data.
But the Phillies went 28-32 under Girardi in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season and 82-80 last season, missing the playoffs both times. They were 132-141 overall with Girardi at the wheel.
…
Obit watch: June 2, 2022.
June 2nd, 2022Marion Barber III, of the Dallas Cowboys. (He also spent one season with Chicago.) He was 38.
Barber led the Cowboys in rushing for three consecutive seasons. The highlight of his time with the club came in 2007, when he rushed for 975 yards with 10 touchdowns and was named to the Pro Bowl for a Dallas team that compiled a 13-3 record.
Barber finished his career with 4,780 rushing yards and 53 touchdowns. He caught 179 passes for another 1,330 yards and six touchdowns.
Krishna Kumar Kunnath, aka “KK”, Bollywood singer. He was 53.
KK had been performing in an auditorium packed with college students when, after singing his last song of the evening, cameras caught him wiping his brow as he was led offstage in a hurry.
He was declared dead at a hospital soon after. The cause was not yet known, his publicist said.
Obit watch: June 1, 2022.
June 1st, 2022Lester Piggott, one of the great British jockeys. I don’t know a lot about British horse racing (or Irish horse racing, for that matter, though I can tell you who Shergar was) but even I’d heard of him.
…
“The way he rode, with an unusually short length of stirrup for a relatively tall man and his bottom high in the air, must have made the horses feel there was no weight on them,” Luck said in a phone interview. “People said to him, ‘Why do you ride with your butt in the air?’ And he said, ‘Well I have to put it somewhere.’”
Luck added, “Piggott ushered in a golden generation of riders in Europe; he was the one they all aspired to.”
Kenny Moore. He sounds like an interesting guy: he was an Olympic marathon runner, an early tester of Bill Bowerman’s shoes (which went on to become Nike), an All-American in cross-country…
…and a long-time Sports Illustrated writer, specializing in track coverage.
…
George Hirsch, a former publisher of Runner’s World magazine, which Mr. Moore wrote for after he left Sports Illustrated, said that Mr. Moore’s athletic past had enhanced his access to his subjects.
“I can remember when he interviewed someone like Bill Rodgers or Joan Benoit,” Mr. Hirsch said in a phone interview, referring to two elite marathoners, “and he would run with them and see who they were in ways that he couldn’t have done if he had not been an elite runner.”
Charles Siebert, actor. Other credits include “Xena: Warrior Princess”, “Mancuso, FBI”, “And Justice for All”, “Richie Brockelman, Private Eye” (and of course “The Rockford Files”), and “Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo”.
A little late…
May 31st, 2022…for Memorial Day, and I don’t know how old this story is. (It just came across Hacker News, for what that’s worth.)
From Hodinkee, a story about a Rolex watch. The serial number dates it to 1947.
But there’s more to the story than it being an old watch. It spent 52 years buried in an unmarked grave…because it belonged to a CIA pilot that was killed in action.
(Previously.)
Angelo J. Liteky.
May 30th, 2022Those who have been following my entries for Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day may have figured out there’s a theme going on here.
I went back and forth on whether I wanted to include this entry or not. In the end, I felt like: a person who receives the Medal of Honor, no matter what they do with their life later on, deserves praise and credit for heroism.
I can’t find a lot of information about Mr. Liteky’s early life, his ordination, or his joining the military online. But he did join the Army and served as a chaplain (with the rank of captain) with the 199th Infantry Brigade of the 12th Infantry Regiment.
He was out with the troops on December 6, 1967 when they came under fire from what’s described as a “numerically superior enemy force”. From his Medal of Honor citation:
At some point, he changed his name to Charles James Liteky. In 1975, he left the priesthood. In 1983, he married: his wife was a former nun.
He went on to become a peace activist (out of respect for his views, I am not using his military rank), and, on July 29, 1986, he renounced his Medal of Honor. According to his Wikipedia entry, he placed “it in an envelope addressed to then-President Ronald Reagan near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.” He is the only recipient of the Medal of Honor who renounced the award. He went on to participate in protests against US intervention in Central America and the invasion of Iraq.
He died on January 20, 2017, at the age of 85.
There is a website devoted to Charles Liteky which discusses his life (and quotes from his Medal of Honor citation). Mr. Liteky also wrote a book, Renunciation: My Pilgrimage from Catholic Military Chaplain, Vietnam Hawk, and Medal of Honor Recipient to Civilian Warrior for Peace.
Mixed drink note.
May 29th, 2022I could have out this in an earlier entry, but, well, I forgot.
After dinner at Mala, Mike the Musicologist stopped off at Anvil Bar and Refuge for a drink. Because it was in the neighborhood, I’d heard about it but never been, and it was a weeknight so the crowd was more manageable.
One of the classic cocktails on their list – which I had not heard of before – was the Up to Date. This cocktail is credited to Hugo Ensslin – who I had also not heard of before – around 1917.
Mr. Ensslin was an interesting guy. In 1917 (or 1916 – sources differ) he published a book called Recipes for Mixed Drinks, which many people consider the last gasp of cocktail culture before Prohibition. Mr. Ensslin was a hotel bartender, and Mixed Drinks is mostly based on his hotel recipes, not on ones he got from other people. It is supposed to have been a big influence on people like Harry Craddock (of The Savoy Cocktail Book).
There was a reprint edition a few years back (WP review) that seems to still be in print. But there’s also a scanned version online.
It was a good cocktail. I liked the balance, and may try making one at home at some point.
Also: The Chanticleer Society, though they aren’t updating as much as I would like them to.
Also also: the Sazerac at the Rainbow Lodge is very good.
NRA Annual Meeting day 3: show’s over, back on your heads.
May 29th, 2022The lens pen was from Trijicon. Yeah, like they need an endorsement from me, but consider this one anyway.
At the weird intersection of SF geekery and gun geekery:
The other thing I wanted from Speer/Federal/CCI, which I did go back and get:
Not that much new to report, really. As I mentioned yesterday, we used today to go back and re-visit various targets of opportunity.
I had a good conversation with the folks at XS Sights: I have ghost ring sights on my Marlin lever gun, and I want to set up my social shotgun the same way.
We also had a nice conversation with the husband and wife who run Gru-Bee scopes. Gru-Bee sells (among other things) a modern version of the old 4X “baby” Redfield scope. These look great on a Browning SA-22, and the eye relief is enough so I can actually get a good sight picture. I sense an order in the near future, good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise.
The folks at Elite Tactical Systems are very nice, but I am a little frustrated with them. They make 7, 9, and 12 round magazines for the Glock 42. I thought the 9 and 12 rounders might be worth trying out: they had the 9, but did not have the 12 at the show. They did give me a card with a 20% discount code so I could order one online though. Except: the 7 and 12 round mags are out of stock online. The 9 is the only one that’s available. And the code expires June 1st, and there’s no backorder option. Sigh.
I see that I haven’t said much about food, other than the $14 bagels, coffee, and juice in the lobby. Breakfast has been pretty much catch as catch can. Lunch has been “what’s lunch?”.
We have had very good dinners, though, at all of the following places:
- Zara’s Mediterranean Kitchen (amazingly good mint tea)
- Mala Sichuan Bistro (the Montrose location)
- Rudi Lechner’s (old-school German food)
- Steamboat Bill’s (Pearland)
Tonight, since it is traditional as part of these affairs to have a good dinner on Sunday night: Rainbow Lodge.
Obit watch: May 29, 2022.
May 29th, 2022Still in on the road mode:
Bo Hopkins, actor. My mother described him as one of those “oh, yeah, that guy” guys.
Ronnie Hawkins, musician. I feel like some of my readers will have more to say about him (and they are welcome to do so in the comments) but I did like this: