Byron Scott out as coach of the Lakers.
17-65 this season, 38-126 overall in two years with the Lakers.
Not so great Scott.
April 25th, 2016Obit watch: April 22, 2016.
April 22nd, 2016Your Prince obit round-up: NYT. Star-Tribune. LAT coverage. WP.
“Poor Lonely Computer: Prince’s Misunderstood Relationship With The Internet” from NPR.
I feel much the same way about Prince as I did about Bowie. I wouldn’t call myself a fan, I never saw him live, but thinking back on it, he turned out a lot of music I like. “1999”. “Little Red Corvette”. “When Doves Cry”. “Let’s Go Crazy”. And every now and then, I’ve been known to spontaneously start singing “She wore a raspberry beret, the kind you find in a second-hand store…” much to the annoyance of my cow-orkers.
And I didn’t realize it until yesterday, but he actually wrote “Manic Monday”.
Also among the dead, according to the A/V Club: Richard Lyons, co-founder of Negativland.
Art, damn it, art! watch (#51 in a series)
April 21st, 2016And speaking of Damien Hirst:
In other words, some people are concerned that a tank full of formaldehyde with a dead shark in it may be leaking formaldehyde fumes. Shocked, shocked I am.
I was working when I wrote this, forgive me if it goes astray…
April 21st, 2016The A/V Club is on this like flies over a cow’s head in a Damien Hirst installation.
Full obit roundup tomorrow for two reasons: I want to wait for the dust to settle, and I need that long to figure out how to put this:
into a blog post.
Worthy of note II.
April 21st, 2016…
Here’s the sentence each officer would face under the proposed plea deals presented Wednesday, followed by their previous sentence:
Kenneth Bowen, 10 years, previously 40 years.
Robert Faulcon Jr., 12 years, previously 65 years.
Robert Gisevius, 10 years, previously 40 years.
Anthony Villavaso, 7 years, previously 38 years.
Arthur Kaufman, who was involved in the cover-up but not the shooting, 3 years in prison, previously 6 years.
(Previously. Those convictions were later thrown out due to misconduct by the prosecution.)
They’re Masons, Donny.
April 19th, 2016Remember the Masonic Fraternal Police Department? Wasn’t that a couple of days wonder?
Latest developments: charges against one of the defendants, Brandon Kiel, have been completely dropped.
And a second defendant, David Inkk Henry, who was apparently the “chief”, died suddenly.
Obit watch: April 18, 2016.
April 18th, 2016Richard Ransom, founder of Hickory Farms.
Now I’m nostalgic: I remember the Hickory Farms stores in the malls when I was a child, and going in to scam some free samples. These days, I have to get my free samples of meat and cheese at the gun show…
By way of Popehat (which also calls him “the meanest sonofabitch who ever wore the black robe”), the WP obit for Joe Freeman Britt, whose passing we noted previously.
The WP obit fills in some context:
A 1983 study by an organization investigating justice in rural America found that Mr. Britt’s near-total control of the court system in Robeson and Scotland counties led to “a widespread and serious denial of [the] rights” of poor defendants.
Bails were set unreasonably high, the study found, and the court calendar — set by Mr. Britt — often forced defendants to wait for weeks before their cases were heard. Minority defendants were prosecuted at higher rates, and many were improperly told that they would have to repay the state if they asked for a court-appointed lawyer.
…
“Because I ain’t killed nobody,” McCollum said. “I want to tell you something, Joe Freeman — God got your judgment right in hell waiting for you.”
McCollum and Brown served more than 30 years in prison — including years on death row — before they were exonerated by the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission. A cigarette found at the scene of the crime contained DNA from the man who had been convicted for the other nearby killing while the brothers were jailed.
Karl!
April 15th, 2016Not Llamas with Hats, but coaches without teams.
George Karl out as head coach of the Sacramento Kings. Sacramento was 33-49 this season.
Randy Wittman out as head coach of the Washington Wizards. The Wizards went 41-41 for the season, and Wittman was 178-199 during his tenure (4 1/2 seasons, per ESPN.)
Neither team made the playoffs.
This brought a much needed smile to my face.
April 14th, 2016Obit watch: April 14, 2016.
April 14th, 2016Two! Two! Two themes in one!
Theme 1: people who had interesting lives and careers.
Anne Jackson, noted actress.
She was also married to Eli Wallach from 1948 until he died in 2014. And they were good together:
Arthur Anderson. He was perhaps most famous as the voice of the Lucky Charms Leprechaun. But he did a lot of other stuff, including working with Orson Welles:
After acting in “The Mercury Theater on the Air,” Mr. Anderson was cast in 1937 as Lucius, the herald to the 22-year-old Welles’s Brutus, in a Broadway production of “Julius Caesar” set in Fascist Italy. Arthur sang, accompanying himself on a ukulele camouflaged as a lute.
His most memorable moment during the show occurred offstage. After heeding an order to stop hurling light bulbs at a brick wall, he decided to light matches to test the melting point of the sprinkler heads. Besides setting off a fire alarm, he triggered a deluge just as Brutus ascended the pulpit above the body of Caesar on the stage below.
Remember, folks, the sprinkler is not a toy, nor is it a load-bearing device.
Theme 2: the death penalty.
Jack H. Smith passed away a few days ago.
Mr. Smith had convictions for robbery-assault and theft in 1955 and another robbery-assault conviction in 1959 that earned him a life prison term. He also had a prison escape attempt in 1963.
He was paroled from his life sentence on Jan. 8, 1977, after serving 17 years. One day short of a year later, on Jan. 7, 1978, Mr. Smith and an accomplice were arrested in the killing of Roy A. Deputter, who was shot to death while trying to stop a holdup at a Houston convenience store known as Corky’s Corner.
Mr. Smith’s accomplice testified against him and was sentenced to life. Mr. Smith was sentenced to death:
Joe Freeman Britt also passed away a few days ago. He was a prosecutor in North Carolina:
After his time as a prosecutor, he became a judge:
Hear that lonesome howl…
April 12th, 2016Don Maloney out as general manager of the Arizona Coyotes.
In case you were wondering – I was – the Arizona Coyotes play hockey in the NHL.
This is intended to enrage you. (#7 in a series)
April 11th, 2016Okay, the title may be somewhat of an exaggeration. I’m guessing the only people enraged by this will be:
- me
- my mother
- and Jim over at The Travis McGee Reader.
But I’m willing to be proven wrong. Feel free to do so in comments.
Anyway. A long time ago – 1987, to be precise – a group of John D. MacDonald fans put up a plaque at what was Slip F602 at the Bahia Mar Marina. Slip 602 was also renamed Slip F18.
What was the significance of this? MacDonald’s most famous creation, Travis McGee, docked his houseboat, the “Busted Flush”, at Slip F18. I know it probably sounds kind of silly and trivial to a lot of you, but it always seemed to me to be a nice gesture in honor of a man who has influenced more writers than you could fit into a 1936 Rolls-Royce pickup truck. (Just a few names you may have heard of: Michael Connolly, Randy Wayne White, Lee Child, Carl Hiaasen, David Morrell, and some guy named Stephen King.)
But I ramble. My point now is: the plaque isn’t there any longer. It has been moved to the harbormaster’s office. I can’t really get a sense of how easy or hard it is to find from the photos online. But more to the point:
The relegation seems particularly poignant in 2016, McDonald’s centennial birthday year. Sarasota, where MacDonald lived, will be staging a big celebration in July. But there’s nothing going on in Fort Lauderdale.
“I had tried to contact the Bahia Mar offices to see if anything would be done to celebrate the 100th Birthday of JDM but I received no answer,” Calvin Branche told me via email. Branche, who runs the John D. MacDonald website and will be staging slideshow presentations in Sarasota this summer, suggested that the marina place the plaque somewhere more conspicuous. “But nothing came of it.”
It just seems kind of a lousy way to treat a good man and a great author.
(Hattip: Lawrence, via email.)
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#29 in a series)
April 11th, 2016Okay, maybe not flames, since this is a civil suit. But I run an equal opportunity blog here, and there are also criminal charges involved.
The SEC is suing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
The SEC claims that Paxton was paid $100,000 worth of stock, and, when asked about it by the SEC, claimed the stock was a “gift” from William Mapp, who was Servergy’s chairman at the time. Mapp is also accused of fraud, and a third man (“Caleb White, a Tyler businessman”) is also accused of failing to disclose commissions he received. According to the HouChron, “Servergy and White already have settled their cases by paying a combined $260,000 in penalties.”
More from the Chron:
The complaint alleges that Paxton told the SEC that he intended to pay for the shares and even offered to pay $100,000 to Mapp during a meeting at a Dairy Queen in McKinney, Texas.
According to Paxton, Mapp then said, “I can’t take your money. God doesn’t want me to take your money.” So, Paxton took the shares as a gift.
I think the important question here is: what did AG Paxton order at the Dairy Queen? Is he a Blizzard man? Maybe some sort of sundae, or possibly even a banana split? A Peanut Buster Parfait? Or is he just a humble dipped-cone sort of guy? The people demand to know!
(Damn it. I went to the DQ web site to check spellings. Now I want a S’Mores Blizzard, and the nearest DQ is miles away.)
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#28 in a series)
April 11th, 2016I probably should have covered this last week, but it got past me. Work’s been kind of rough. Anyway:
The NYPD reassigned three deputy chiefs and a deputy inspector:
Meanwhile, a prominent NYC restaurateur was arrested and charged with running a Ponzi scheme:
What do these two things have in common? Glad you asked. They both seem to be tied to a federal investigation involving two of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s fund-raisers:
More:
…
Mr. Rechnitz and Mr. Reichberg were also investors in the Peralta Ponzi scheme.
Like I said, I’ve been kind of behind the 8-ball, so here’s another one I should have blogged before now: Paul Tanaka was convicted of obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice last week.
Mr. Tanaka was the undersheriff of Los Angeles County: basically, he was Lee Baca‘s second-in-command.
The LAT claims that Mr. Tanaka could get “as long as 15 years in prison”: as we all know, such claims should be taken with soy sauce and wasabi.
Random notes: April 11, 2016.
April 11th, 2016Statesman writer subscribes to LootCrate so he can get a box of pop-culture crap delivered to him every month.
Statesman writer discovers that he really doesn’t like getting a box of pop-culture crap delivered to him every month.
Stateman writer decides, not just to quietly cancel his LootCrate subscription and move on with his life, but to publish a “breakup letter” in his newspaper.
Editors. Where are the editors?
Obit watch: Dr. Charles S. Hirsch, chief medical examiner of New York City from 1989 to 2013.
In 2001, when two jetliners commandeered by terrorists struck the World Trade Center, Dr. Hirsch and six aides rushed downtown to establish a temporary morgue.
When the North Tower collapsed, two aides were severely injured. Dr. Hirsch, thrown to the ground, broke all of his ribs. His cuts sutured by a medical team, he returned to the examiner’s squat brick headquarters at First Avenue and 30th Street, coated in a ghostlike gray soot.
Begun, the “Hamilton” backlash has.
Quote of the day:
“I can recognize a nipple from 600 yards in the background behind a leaf at this point.”
