NRA annual meeting day 2 notes.

May 18th, 2024

The people at Underwood Ammo are really nice. Go buy stuff from them, please. It doesn’t even have to be .356 TSW ammo. I bought a shirt, because you can’t buy guns or ammo at the meeting.

Miles walked today: 4.2. We finished off the entire lower level and got about halfway through the upper level. I expect to be finished before the show closes tomorrow and have enough time to go back to a few places. We haven’t quite made it to the Smith and Wesson booth yet, but we have been within feet of it.

We’ve had excellent meals so far at Royal China (repeat, took friends, still great) and Taste of Europe.

Best swag today: nothing really outstanding, but Fiocchi did give me a hat. They seemed to be really pushing 5.7 ammo.

Someone else gave me a book: Rod Of Iron Kingdom, by Hyung Jin Sean Moon. They told me it was a Biblically based defense of the Second Amendment. I haven’t read it yet (we just got back to the room) so I can’t tell you any more about it. Here’s their website, but I can’t get past the front page on my phone.

Most interesting thing seen today: the LabRadar LX. It looks a lot like the Garmin Xero C1, and appears to be close in price. Unlike the original LabRadar, it can only measure out to 15 yards from the muzzle rather than 100. But the LX can measure up to 5,000 fps: the original LabRadar is limited to 3,000 fps. (I know, it probably sounds silly. But when I get around to chronoing my .220 Swift, I expect the loads to be well over 3,000 fps.)

Superior Outfitters is opening a new store and asked me to note that. So noted: the new store is in Terrell, behind the Buc-ee’s, and they make a point of saying it is behind the Buc-ee’s, which amuses me.

Noted:

SIG Sauer XM7 in 6.8×51.

SIG Sauer XM250, also in 6.8×51 (or .277 Furry Fury).

No, we did not go to see Trump or Abbott. Nor did we go to the actual meeting, though our friends did. The big news is that the motion to move the NRA to Texas was rejected: it seems that people think it is premature and not enough work has been done on what it will cost.

I’ll vote that ticket. I went by Wilson’s booth to ask them about gunsmithing: I have a gun that I’d like for them to work on, but they aren’t taking any work for non-Wilson guns rught now. According to them, they have…two gunsmiths working right now. So nobody can get sick or take a vacation.

We went by the Hornady booth and I got to talk to the folks behind the podcast, which was cool. Thanks, guys! Also got a poster with all their bullets on it…I believe actual size.

We also had nice conversations with people at the Ruger/Marlin booth. The best was with one of their factory reps about the left-hand market and Ruger’s catering to it. According to this gentleman (and he was truly an old-school gentleman) 20% of the firearms market is left-handed. Many of them have learned to shoot bolt guns and other rifles right-handed, but Ruger thinks there’s a market for left-handed guns. They already have done left-handed Gunsite Scouts, and a left-handed 10/22. And there’s plans for something new this fall…

Worth more investigation: TagMe by Ocufil. This is a beacon system that transmits to a local base station: you can have up to 10 beacons per base station. The beacon is attached to something you want to protect, like a gun. When the beacon moves because someone picked up the item, the system sends an alert to your phone. It definitely isn’t like an AirTag or Tile because it doesn’t do motion tracking: it only alerts you if something moves your stuff.

Okay. I’m tired again. Strange how that works. I did also want to mention from yesterday the neat little Tippmann Ordnance .22 Gatling gun. You could have a bunch of fun with that.

Time for to go to bed. More tomorrow on this station.

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Random NRA meeting photos.

May 17th, 2024

This one’s for Lawrence:

No springs!

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NRA annual meeting day 1: short quick notes. I’m

May 17th, 2024

Distance walked today: 4.7 miles.

Best swag bag: SAR USA. But that’s not 100% fair, since we haven’t made it to the Brownell’s booth yet.

Best swag so far: Sierra was handing out a really cool mat illustrating all of their bullets. It has a thinnish backing, so you could also use it as a work mat. But I wouldn’t hammer stuff on it.

Runner up: Shooter’s World combo pen/ruler (English and metric)/level. See, you don’t always have to go big.

Things that interested me: the Caliber Card. You pay for the card, and in return you get discounts and preferential treatment at participating ranges. There are about 100, as I understand it, right now. Unfortunately, due to the weather and power problems in Houston (where their IT is located) they haven’t been able to update the list.

Someone at the show is selling actual pen guns. I wasn’t able to get close to get a name or price, but I plan to swing back by.

Several of my friends spent a long time talking to a Beretta rep about the BRX1 and came away impressed. I admit, the idea of a rifle that’s ambidextrous and has interchangeable calibers intrigues me, too.

Magpul was showing off their version of Tracking Point. Heads-up display, atmospheric conditions sensor (it doesn’t do wind, but you can interface a Kestrel), and a round counter in the magazines so you know how many rounds you’ve got left.

It’s late, I’m tired, and WordPress ate part of my draft. More tomorrow.

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Obit watch: May 17, 2024.

May 17th, 2024

The great Dabney Coleman, who was also a good Texas boy.

IMDB. I’m riding shotgun on the way to dinner right now, so I’ll just note: he was, among all his other credits, a “Mannix” three-timer.

I always liked him.

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Well, that was easy.

May 16th, 2024

The email I got from the NRA approving my credential request said to bring a copy of the email, a photo ID, plus “proof of media employment (business card, press credential, online bylines, etc)“.

I printed out some of the gun related articles from the blog. I have a press pass (thanks LawDog) so I brought that. I printed business cards.

They didn’t ask for anything except my ID. I was in and out in less than five minutes.

Show starts tomorrow. Tragically, our hotel is charging $14! Dollars! A! Day! for WiFi. I may be limited to phone blogging, unless I decide to eat the cost for you, my loyal and tolerant readers.

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You’re scheming on a thing, it’s sabotage…

May 16th, 2024

While Mike the Musicologist drives, I have just enough time to note:

The Mirage is closing.

My first reaction was: that’s a big space, what are they going to do with it?

Answer: they’re actually going to spend three years turning it into “Hard Rock Hotel & Casino and Guitar Hotel Las Vegas“.

There is no word yet about the volcano, though the press report mentions a “Save the Volcano” petition.

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On the road again…

May 16th, 2024

Heading to Dallas for the NRA Annual Meeting.

Reportage to come once we get checked in and etc.

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Obit watch: May 14, 2024.

May 14th, 2024

David Sanborn, jazz saxophonist. NYT (archived).

Alex Hassilev, the last surviving original member of the 1960s folk group the Limeliters.

Before Beatlemania gripped America’s youth in 1964, the country fell in love with the tight harmonies and traditional arrangements of folk music — and few acts drew more adoration than the Limeliters, a trio made up of Mr. Hassilev, Glenn Yarbrough and Lou Gottlieb.
Mr. Hassilev played banjo and guitar and sang baritone, not only in English but in French, Portuguese, Spanish and Russian, all of which he spoke fluently. His bandmates were equally brainy: Mr. Gottlieb had a doctorate in musicology and Mr. Yarbrough once worked as a bouncer to pay for Greek lessons.
Urbane and witty, they packed coffeehouses and college auditoriums with a repertoire that mixed straight-faced folk standards like “The Hammer Song” and cheeky tunes like “Have Some Madeira, M’Dear,” “The Ballad of Sigmund Freud” and “Charlie the Midnight Marauder.”

They broke up in 1965, but reformed in various arrangements through the years.

Mr. Hassilev retired from the Limeliters in 2006, though he continued to play with them occasionally, and the band remains active today. Though they never returned to their 1960s popularity, they continue to play to large and enthusiastic audiences.

Alice Munro, Nobel prize winning author.

Ms. Munro was a member of the rare breed of writer, like Katherine Anne Porter and Raymond Carver, who made their reputations in the notoriously difficult literary arena of the short story, and did so with great success. Her tales — many of them focused on women at different stages of their lives coping with complex desires — were so eagerly received and gratefully read that she attracted a whole new generation of readers.
Ms. Munro’s stories were widely considered to be without equal, a mixture of ordinary people and extraordinary themes. She portrayed small-town folks, often in rural southwestern Ontario, facing situations that made the fantastic seem an everyday occurrence. Some of her characters were fleshed out so completely through generations and across continents that readers reached a level of intimacy with them that usually comes only with a full-length novel.
She achieved such compactness through exquisite craftsmanship and a degree of precision that did not waste words. Other writers declared some of her stories to be near-perfect — a heavy burden for a writer of modest personal character who had struggled to overcome a lack of self-confidence at the beginning of her career, when she left the protective embrace of her quiet hometown and ventured into the competitive literary scene.

…

The Irish novelist Edna O’Brien ranked Ms. Munro with William Faulkner and James Joyce as writers who had influenced her work. Joyce Carol Oates said Munro stories “have the density — moral, emotional, sometimes historical — of other writers’ novels.” And the novelist Richard Ford once made it clear that questioning Ms. Munro’s mastery over the short story would be akin to doubting the hardness of a diamond or the bouquet of a ripened peach.
“With Alice it’s like a shorthand,” Mr. Ford said. “You’ll just mention her, and everybody just kind of generally nods that she’s just sort of as good as it gets.”

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Obit watch: May 13, 2024.

May 13th, 2024

Mark Damon, actor and producer. Other credits include “Pistol Packin’ Preacher”, “Ivanhoe, the Norman Swordsman”, and an uncredited role in “The Longest Day”, followed a year later by an uncredited role in “The Shortest Day”.

Tributes to Roger Corman.

Celebrity coroner Cyril Wecht.

A nationally known forensic pathologist with a law degrees from the University of Maryland and the University of Pittsburgh and a medical degree from Pitt, Dr. Wecht was one of the more vocal critics of the Warren Commission report that concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald alone was responsible for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

…

Months before his death, Dr. Wecht donated his massive cache of records and research to Duquesne in the months before his death.
The collection includes his case files on such high-profile killings as David Koresh and the Branch Davidians, JonBenet Ramsey, the Menendez brothers, Casey Anthony, Scott Peterson, and Chandra Levy.

(Hattip to my brother on this. Archived because the Post-Gazette really doesn’t like adblock.)

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Obit watch: May 12, 2024.

May 12th, 2024

Roger Corman. Variety. NYT.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. “King of the B’s” and all that crap. But it’s worth noting that he gave a lot of obscure filmmakers – Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Jonathan Demme, etc. – their starts in movie making. It’s also worth noting that his company took chances on a lot of foreign films that ended up doing well over here.

It’s also worth noting that (from what I hear) he was responsible for the only decent “Fantastic 4” movie.

Corman had certain aesthetic rules and qualitative guidelines, which he delivered with his characteristic insouciance: “In science fiction films, the monster should be always be bigger than the leading lady.” He pioneered such cinematic staples as the girls’ shower scene, usually the second scene in a Corman teen film. He insisted his directors practice proper professionalism: namely, always have the girls lather up their arms and stomachs so as not to obscure the integrity of the breast shots.

…

Ever restless, Corman ventured into weightier territory, producing The Intruder (1962), a hard look at racial prejudice. It was his first “message” film, and he financed it himself when the major distributors balked at the subject. The story centered on a hatemongering racist (William Shatner) who organized violent opposition to court-ordered school desegregation. It used the N-word in a realistic, non-gratuitous manner, but the film was denied the Production Code’s seal and screened in only a few movie houses in the country.
Although it received commendations from such critics as The Hollywood Reporter‘s Arthur Knight and The New York Times’ Bosley Crowther, it was to be Corman’s first money-losing film. He vowed never again to make a movie with “so obviously a personal statement.”

I’m hoping Lawrence is going to do his own tribute to Corman later, and he’ll almost certainly talk about “The Intruder”, so I’ll just say: if you haven’t seen it, go watch it. Shatner is amazing.

Susan Backlinie. Other credits include “Two Minute Warning”, “The Fall Guy” (the TV show), and “Quark”.

Mary Wells Lawrence, noted advertising executive.

She splashed jazzy colors on Braniff airliners. She put the “plop plop, fizz fizz” into Alka-Seltzer. She warned Benson & Hedges smokers that long cigarettes might pop balloons or set fire to beards. And from Niagara Falls to Broadway, she reached millions with her “I ♥ NY” campaign.

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Obit watch: May 10, 2024.

May 10th, 2024

Dennis Thompson, drummer for the MC5. He was also the last surviving member.

Pete McCloskey (R – California). He may be more famous for having run against Nixon for the presidential nomination in 1972.

I’ve been holding this one for a few days for reasons, but KVUE has a nice tribute to Robert “Bob” Reale. Mr. Reale was the founder and owner of Reale’s Italian Cafe, which is a swell Italian restaurant and a favorite of both myself and Lawrence.

Posted in Food, Music, Nixon, Obits, Politics | No Comments »

Firings watch.

May 10th, 2024

Frank Vogel out as head coach of the Phoenix Suns.

49-33 in his one and only season with the team.

The Suns will now have a third different head coach in three seasons. This is after Vogel said he had “full support” from Suns team owner Mat Ishbia going into Game 4 against the T-Wolves they lost at home to end the season.

Previously. ESPN.

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