And I’d like to talk about Spring…fields. Or at least books about Springfields. Plus some sniping content after the jump…
Springtime!
May 29th, 2025Obit watch: May 29, 2025.
May 29th, 2025FotB Joe D pointed out in comments the death of Harrison Ruffin Tyler at the age of 96.
He was the grandson of president John Tyler. It is actually a kind of interesting story: he was born to Lyon Gardiner Tyler, John’s son. Lyon was 75 when he was born. John Tyler was 63 when Lyon was born.
Bruce Logan, who did a lot of movie special effects. Among his credits: he blew up the Death Star.
Mr. Logan — who was also a cinematographer and director — recalled that he could not film the Death Star’s detonation as if it were happening on Earth.
“When you shoot an explosion conventionally, with the camera straight and level, with forces of gravity and atmospherics acting on it, what you get is a mushroom cloud which doesn’t look like it’s exploding in outer space,” he wrote on Zacuto.com, a film equipment website, in 2015.
To achieve the needed effect, Mr. Logan manned a high-speed camera, which was surrounded by a sheet of plywood, with a hole cut out for the lens and a sheet of glass covering it. With the camera pointed upward, Joe Viskocil, a pyrotechnics specialist, set off a series of miniature bombs overhead, which created the illusion of the explosions occurring in zero gravity in outer space.
The bombs’ ingredients included black powder, gasoline, titanium chips and napalm — and the only protection the crew had was a grip holding a fire extinguisher.
“I do remember wiping some burning napalm off my arm,” Mr. Logan told the Manhattan Edit Workshop, a postproduction school, in 2019.
Ed Gale, actor. Other credits include “Chopper Chicks in Zombietown”, “Land of the Lost”, and “Phantasm II”.
Peter Kwong, actor. Other credits include “Theodore Rex”, “Homeboys in Outer Space”, and “Renegade”.
(Hattip on the last two to Lawrence.)
Obit watch: May 27, 2025.
May 27th, 2025Catching up from the three-day weekend:
Phil Robertson, noted beard guy and founder of Duck Commander. He was also on a TV show. NYT.
(I kid a little. I kind of liked what I saw of “Duck Dynasty”.)
Marcel Ophuls, French documentary film maker. He was pretty famous for “The Sorrow and the Pity”, but he first came to my attention when “Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie” was released. I haven’t seen either one, though I feel obligated to. THR.
Charles B. Rangel, former Congressman from New York City.
James McEachin. Other credits include…well, just about every damn thing. “The F.B.I”, “Play Misty for Me”, “The Bold Ones: The Senator”, “The Bold Ones: The Protectors”…and “Mannix” (“Pressure Point”, season 2, episode 3. He was “Benjy”, but went uncredited.)
Rick Derringer, musician.
Memorial Day 2025.
May 26th, 2025My oldest nephew got married this past weekend.
While it was certainly a fun time, it was also a busy one, so I didn’t have as much time to prepare a Memorial Day post as I would have liked.
I’ve written before about the Catholic chaplains who have received the Medal of Honor. You can find those posts here, here, here, here, and here.
There are four other chaplains who received the Medal of Honor, all during the Civil War:
- Francis Bloodgood Hall, for actions on May 3, 1863 at Salem Heights, VA.
- Milton Lorenzi Haney, for actions on July 22, 1864 in Atlanta, GA.
- James Hill, for actions on May 16, 1863 at Champion Hill, MS.
- John Milton Whitehead, for actions on December 31, 1862 at Stone River, TN.
The links above go to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society pages for each man. The citations are a lot shorter than those for 20th and 21st century recipients. I don’t know enough about CMOH history to comment intelligently on this.
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The actual wedding ceremony yesterday was outdoors. Some of us had to hang out outside after the ceremony for photo taking. It was hot – at least 94 degrees fondly Farenheit – and I was wearing a suit, so I was getting more than a little warm under the collar.
And then, out of nowhere, down the path, came two charming young women with miniature donkeys. Even better, the miniature donkeys had saddlebags loaded with ice cold beer and hard seltzer. Their timing was impeccable. And the donkeys were very charming.
I commented later to Mike the Musicologist that, between this and the Wienie 500, America really is the greatest country on Earth. Do you think they have donkeys bearing cold drinks in North Korea? Or Communist China? Of course not.
And it is because of the contributions of men like Hall, Haney, Hill, and Whitehead that we can have nice things like this today. Remember.
Norts spews.
May 24th, 2025McThag has posted video of the Wienie 500. Instead of copying him here, I’m going to suggest that you go over to his blog and give him some love. The video is about 27 minutes long: I didn’t watch the whole thing, but I did fast-forward to the end.
I will say that I think it’s nice they have someone with a British accent doing the race coverage, but I’m an old man and remember Jackie Stewart from when I was young and watching the Indy 500.
(Huh. Did not know this:
)
In other news, El Hijo del Santo is retiring.
Not to worry, though:
I was going to say “please, let there be some El Hijo del Santo movies” but it looks like there already are. Many of them look like wrestling videos, but I am interested in the short “¡Esta máscara es mía! o Santo contra los burócratas” (“This Mask Is Mine! or Santo Versus the Bureaucrats”). Also:
The third generation wrestler, El Santo Jr. will carry on with the family’s tradition in the ring.
“As an athlete and wrestler, he is very well-prepared and is schooled in other disciplines such as olympic wrestling, taekwondo, jiu jitsu and muay thai,” he said. “So far, fans have received him well, he’ll have to find his own style and break down barriers, the name is not enough, it takes a lot to succeed in the ring.”
The Unintended Consequences of a Silly Person With Money. (Random gun and gun book crankery.)
May 22nd, 202534. If you’re leaving scorch-marks, you need a bigger gun.
–“The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries“, Schlock Mercenary
Sometimes you buy the book, then you buy the gun.
Sometimes you buy the gun, then you buy the book.
Some days you get the bear, other days the bear gets you.
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When the Smith and Wesson .500 Magnum came out, I didn’t care much for it. I still don’t like pretty much all of the production guns.
What’s not to like about one of the most powerful handguns in existence?
Well, for one thing, the factory guns are shiny. Awful shiny to me.
Secondly, I don’t care much for the barrel options. FotB Andrew is interested in the .500 Magnum, so I’ve taken a look at a few. There’s one with a 10 1/2″ barrel that we got a chance to handle at Collector’s Firearms in Austin. I’m sure that’s great for some people. For me, if i wanted a crew-served weapon, I’d buy a vintage French 75.
There’s an 8 3/8″ version that still seems awkward to me (and we haven’t found one anywhere recently). There’s a 7 1/2″ Performance Center version that seems perhaps less awkward than the 10 1/2″. (Since this is a Performance Center gun, we’d probably have to special order it: I don’t think anybody is going to have one in stock.) There’s a 4″ version that seems too short to me. And there’s a 3 1/2″ version that’s probably great for self-defense: if you don’t hit the bad guy, the muzzle blast will deafen him, and the fireball will set him on fire.
(Smith and Wesson at one point made an “Emergency Revolver Survival Kit” and a bear emergency kit, both containing a .500 Magnum with a 2 3/4″ barrel. I sort of vaguely wanted one of those, just because it seemed so ridiculous. Also, I like the fact that the bear one includes a book on “bear attacks”.)
(And, on a side note, why aren’t there more .500 Magnum lever guns? The few I have seen are from high-end custom or semi-custom gun makers. I haven’t seen any that I’d consider “mass produced”. I have heard rumors that S&W is looking at a .500 Magnum chambering for their 1854 lever gun, sometime in the not too distant future (but not next Sunday, A.D.).)
There is, however, one Smith and Wesson .500 Magnum that I do like. But I didn’t know about it until I read Timothy J. Mullin’s Serious Smith & Wessons The N- and X-Frame Revolvers: The S&W Phenomenon.
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#147 in a series)
May 22nd, 2025Tiawana Brown is a councilwoman in Charlotte, North Carolina.
She was elected in 2023. According to the reports I’ve found, she was convicted of felony fraud in 1994 and served four years.
She was indicted today, along with her two daughters.
Charlotte City Councilwoman Tiawana Brown threw herself a $15,000 birthday party with a throne and a horse-drawn carriage using COVID pandemic relief funds wired to her nonprofit, federal prosecutors say.
She and one of her daughters also are accused of using relief money to purchase items from luxury brand Louis Vuitton.
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From the US Attorney’s press release:
Charlotte Observer (archived). WBTV, which includes a Scribd version of the indictment.
Obit watch: May 22, 2025.
May 22nd, 2025George Coulam, also known as “King George”. He founded the Texas Renaissance Festival.
In 2024, the HBO docuseries “Ren Faire” focused on the festival’s succession and Coulam’s eventual retirement, highlighting the tension between his desire to find a romantic partner and his need to choose a successor. It also highlighted Coulam’s strict leadership style.
There have been ongoing legal disputes and potential sales of the festival, with a recent judge’s order in early May mandating the sale of Coulam’s properties, including the festival.
Michael McStay, British actor. Other credits include “EastEnders”, “The Persuaders!”, and “The Sweeney”.
The greatest spectacle in auto racing.
May 21st, 2025This is fallout from a cheating scandal:
The trouble for Team Penske began before the fast 12 shootout on Sunday, when rival team owner Chip Ganassi was among a chorus of competitors who accused it of cheating. They noticed unapproved changes had been made to the rear attenuator, a safety device designed to absorb and reduce the force of impacts, and the assumption was the modifications would have given the two Team Penske cars an aerodynamic advantage in their four-lap qualifying runs.
Further investigation showed Newgarden’s winning car from last year that is displayed in the Indianapolis Motor Speedway museum has the same illegal modification, as did the car Team Penske brought to the White House last month. Rivals claim to have photos indicating the modification has been in place for some time.
This is the second Team Penske scandal in a year:
By the way, the greatest spectacle in racing is not the Indy 500. At least, not this year.
This will be streaming live on Friday, but, sadly, while I’m at work. I’m hoping that someone will try to drift a Wienermobile, and highlights show up…somewhere.
Obit watch: May 21, 2025.
May 21st, 2025Other credits that don’t involve him appearing as Norm include “Larry the Cable Guy’s Christmas Spectacular”, “Columbo: Strange Bedfellows”, and the 1986 “Twilight Zone” revival.
Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D – Virginia).
Vlastimil Hort, chess grandmaster. There’s a great story about Mr. Hort. Actually, there’s probably more than one, but this may be the one he’s most famous for.
In 1977, he was playing Boris Spassky in Reykjavik.
The match was a best-of-12 quarterfinal, whose winner would be one step closer to the top title in chess. After 12 games, they were tied, prompting a two-game playoff.
Then Mr. Spassky fell seriously ill. He was taken to the hospital, and his appendix was removed. According to the rules, he was entitled to three postponements of three days each. He took them all, but was still too unwell to play.
Mr. Spassky would have to forfeit, meaning Mr. Hort would advance to the semifinals.
Then Mr. Hort did something unexpected. To give Mr. Spassky a chance to continue to compete, Mr. Hort requested a three-day timeout, which was granted. It was a choice seen for decades as one of the greatest acts of sportsmanship in the history of the game, and it ended up costing Mr. Hort the match.
By the end of the timeout, Mr. Spassky could resume play, and after Games 13 and 14 were drawn, another two-game playoff was needed. In Game 15, Mr. Hort reached a winning position, but he froze. His time expired before he had made the required number of moves, thus forfeiting the game. After the next game ended in a tie, Mr. Spassky was declared the winner of the match.
Mr. Hort lost his chance to play for the world championship and never qualified again.
…
Obit watch: May 19, 2025.
May 19th, 2025Jeff Blank, massively influential Austin chef.
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We ate a couple of birthday dinners there, and it was a swell joint: expensive, but worth the money.
We never tried any of the attempts to reboot Hudson’s, though. Right now, that space is being converted into a Wahoo’s Fish Tacos.
Lawrence pointed out to me the obit for Ed Smylie, the man who put duct tape to the highest and best use ever: saving the crew of Apollo 13.
…
The Museum of Ice Cream in the Domain in Austin. I guess they just couldn’t come to terms on a new lease, and will be closing when the current one expires. We talked about having some corporate events there, but never actually did. And it seems kind of expensive: $30 will buy me more Amy’s Ice Cream than I can, or should, eat.
Biderman’s Deli off of Far West. This was their last standing location. I went there a few times with Mom: I think she liked their Reuben, and I know I liked their bagels and lox.
It’s Baltimore, gentlemen.
May 17th, 2025Obit watch: May 16, 2025.
May 16th, 2025Charles Strouse, noted Broadway composer. THR.
…
Some of Mr. Strouse’s numbers became so ubiquitous that they seemed revered and reviled by the public in equal measure. Each response in its own way was a badge of honor.
There was the time, for instance, that a stranger accosted Mr. Strouse at a party.
“If I have to hear my daughter sing ‘Tomorrow’ one more time,” he thundered, “I’m going to kill myself — and you!”
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Your loser update: May 16, 2025.
May 16th, 2025We’re about 25% of the way through the MLB season, so I thought it was time to do a loser update.
The question is: what teams are worth covering?
The Braves, which started out horribly, are now 22-22, for a .500 average. I don’t think they’re worth considering in the loser update any longer unless there’s a dramatic change.
There are some teams that are below .400 that might be worth consideration:
Baltimore is at 15-27, for a .357 winning percentage.
The Miami Marlins are at 16-26, .381.
Pittsburgh, the first team this season to fire their manager, is at 15-29, .341.
The Chicago White Sox are at 14-30, for a .318 winning percentage. This projects out to 110 losses, which is bad, but not historically bad, and at least better than last year.
And the Colorado Rockies…7-36, .163 winning percentage. This is bad. This is historically bad. This is a projected total of 135 losses. This is the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network publishing an article:
“Are Rockies worse than 2024 White Sox? Breaking down the numbers”.
The 2024 Sox lost 121 games, but didn’t quite nail down the “worst team in the modern era” mark. Could the Rockies accomplish what the Sox didn’t? Hope springs eternal.
Obit watch: May 15, 2025.
May 15th, 2025Joe Don Baker. Damn.
THR. He was in a lot of good stuff: “Charley Varrick”, “Golden Needles”, “The F.B.I.”, “Lancer”…
He was also in a lot of crap: “Leonard Part 6”, “Final Justice”, and, of course…
Joan O’Brien, actress. Other credits include “Bus Stop” (the series), “Rawhide”, “The Alamo” (the good one, with John Wayne), and “Perry Mason”.