Firings watch.

December 2nd, 2019

Matt Luke fired as head coach of Ole Miss. They went 4-8 this year, and 15-21 over three seasons.

Steve Addazio gone at Boston College.

44-44 over seven seasons.

UT fired and reassigned a bunch of folks. Fired: defensive coordinator Todd Orlando and outside receivers coach Drew Mehringer. Reassigned: offensive coordinator Tim Beck (now quarterback coach) and inside receivers coach Corby Meekin (reassigned to “an administrative role”).

Frankly, I expected Herman to be fired last week. Looks like I was wrong about that. (I also expected Jason Garrett to get canned.)

Posted in Firings, Sports | Comments Closed

Your loser update: week 13, 2019.

December 1st, 2019

Apparently, 4-8 does not accurately reflect how bad the Jets are.

There’s “bad” and then there’s “lose to the Bengals” bad. But on the bright side, we don’t have to worry about the Miami game on the 22nd any longer.

NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:

None.

That’s a wrap for 2019, folks. We plan to be back next year.

Posted in Firings, Loser, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Firings watch.

November 30th, 2019

Unai Emery fired as manager of Arsenal.

Barry Odom fired as head coach of Missouri. 25-25 overall, and 13-19 in conference over four seasons.

This isn’t exactly a firing, but: Josh Shaw, cornerback for the Arizona Cardinals, has been suspended by the NFL through the 2021 season. He can appeal, but if the appeal is unsuccessful, the earliest he can apply for reinstatement is February 15, 2021.

Why? He was betting on NFL games.

The NFL’s investigation into Shaw did not uncover evidence that indicated he used inside information or that any game was compromised. The NFL also announced that Shaw’s teammates, coaches and other players around the league were not aware of Shaw’s gambling.

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Tweet of the day.

November 28th, 2019

(It isn’t just the folks in the armed forces who are standing the watch, too. Remember the EMTs and the law enforcement folks and the fire department putting out turkey fryer fires. And the cashiers at the gas stations. And the sysadmins who are carrying the pager or browsing Reddit at work so you can do your “Black Friday” online. And probably lots of other folks who I’m forgetting at the moment.)

(It isn’t Christmas yet, but talking about having duty makes me think its worth calling back to this.)

Posted in Admin | Comments Closed

Obit watch: November 28, 2019.

November 28th, 2019

Godfrey Gao, actor. He was in “The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones” and did some other work in Chinese films. (He was also the voice of Ken in the Mandarin version of “Toy Story 3”.)

Mr. Gao was 35 years old. He died of an apparent heart attack while filming a Chinese reality TV series, “Chase Me”, in which “participants scale tall buildings, skid down obstacle courses and hang from tightropes”.

The death of Mr. Gao, who was born in Taiwan and raised in Canada, set off a wave of anger on the Chinese internet, with millions of people criticizing the entertainment industry as focused on ratings at the expense of safety.
By Wednesday evening, the death of Mr. Gao was one of the most widely discussed topics on Weibo, a popular microblogging site, and hashtags about it had garnered hundreds of millions of views.

William Ruckelshaus, “Saturday Night Massacre” figure.

And on a night of high drama, as the nation held its breath and constitutional government appeared to hang in the balance, Nixon ordered his top three Justice Department officials, one after another, to fire the Watergate prosecutor, Archibald Cox, rather than comply with his subpoena for nine incriminating Oval Office tape recordings.
Mr. Cox’s complete independence had been guaranteed by Nixon and the attorney general during the prosecutor’s Senate confirmation hearings the previous May. He could be removed only for “cause” — some gross malfeasance in office. But none was even alleged. Nixon’s order to summarily dismiss Mr. Cox thus raised a most profound question: Was the president above the law?
Mr. Richardson and Mr. Ruckelshaus refused to fire Mr. Cox and resigned even as orders for their own dismissals were being issued by the White House. But Robert H. Bork, the United States solicitor general and the acting attorney general after the dismissal of his two superiors, carried out the presidential order, not only firing Mr. Cox but also abolishing the office of the special Watergate prosecutor.

Clive James, British critic.

He once dismissed a tedious public affairs program as “the mental equivalent of navel fluff.” He described William Shatner’s acting technique in “Star Trek” as “picked up from someone who once worked with somebody who knew Lee Strasberg’s sister.”

Jonathan Miller, theater and opera director, “Beyond The Fringe” member, television host, and medical doctor.

I’m generally unfamiliar with his theater and opera work. But I remember when “The Body in Question” aired on US television: I was pretty impressed with the episodes I managed to catch, and would love to watch the whole series again. (It looks like it may be on YouTube, though not in great quality. I can’t find a DVD of it, or of “States of Mind”, which I would also love to see.)

Posted in Nixon, Obits, Theatre, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: November 26, 2019.

November 26th, 2019

John Simon, acerbic critic for a wide range of publications (including New York magazine and National Review). Short tribute from NR: I’m hoping for a longer one later.

Many readers delighted in what they considered Mr. Simon’s lofty and uncompromising tastes, and especially in his wicked judgments, which fell like hard rain on icons of culture: popular authors, Hollywood stars, rock and rap musicians, abstract artists and their defenders in critics’ circles, for whom he expressed contempt.
But Mr. Simon was himself scorned by many writers, performers and artists, who called his judgments biased, unfair or downright cruel, and by readers and rival critics with whom he occasionally feuded in print. They characterized some of his pronouncements as racist, misogynist, homophobic or grossly insensitive.
He denied being any of those things, and argued that no person or group was above criticism, especially those who, in his view, lacked talent and covered themselves in mantles of race, ethnicity, gender or sexual identity and used them to claim preferential treatment in the marketplaces of culture.

…

Mr. Simon was barred from some film screenings. An advertisement signed by 300 people in Variety in 1980 called his reviews racist and vicious. At the New York Film Festival in 1973, the actress Sylvia Miles dumped a plate of food on his head after he described her in print as a “party girl and gate crasher.”
“This incident was so welcomed by the Simon-hating press that the anecdote has been much retold,” Mr. Simon recalled. “She herself has retold it a thousand times. And this steak tartare has since metamorphosed into every known dish from lasagna to chop suey. It’s been so many things that you could feed the starving orphans of India or China with it.”

As a reminder to everyone, that’s Sylvia “would attend the opening of an envelope” Miles.

Back when Lawrence and I lived together, I would read Simon’s film criticism in copies of NR I scavenged from him.

Mr. Simon liked the plays of August Wilson, John Patrick Shanley and Beth Henley. “From time to time a play comes along that restores one’s faith in our theater,” he wrote of Ms. Henley’s “Crimes of the Heart,” which won a 1981 Pulitzer Prize. He said Mr. Shanley’s “Doubt” (2004), about Catholic school scandals, “would be sinful to miss.”
He invited readers to see the world through the literary works of Heinrich Böll, Jane Bowles, Alfred Chester, Stig Dagerman, Bruce Jay Friedman, J.M.G. Le Clézio, Bernard Malamud, Joyce Carol Oates, Flannery O’Connor, Ferenc Santa and B. Traven, and through the films of Antonioni, Bergman, Fellini or Kurosawa — but only “at their best.”

Lawrence will correct me if I’m wrong, but I recall that Simon also highly praised “The Lives of Others“, and I know that Lawrence agrees with this praise. Watching this might be a nice tribute to the late Mr. Simon. (Edited: see comments.)

(I personally have not seen it yet. I’ve only heard LP and others talk about it, and I’ve been kind of waiting until a good edition comes along on home video, perhaps from Criterion.)

Posted in Books, Movies, Theatre | 1 Comment »

Your loser update: week 12, 2019.

November 25th, 2019

NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:

Cincinnati

Next Sunday, the Jets. ESPN is calling it 57% in favor of the Jets right now.

In other news, my Spider Sense is tingling: I’m expecting some firings this week.

Posted in Firings, Loser, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

More bibliohoplophilia.

November 24th, 2019

I made it down to the South Lamar Half-Price Books yesterday for the first time in a while. Good gun books have been scarce on the ground, but I found this:

Sixgun Cartridges & Loads by Elmer Keith. You can get reprint editions on Amazon fairly easily, but this is (as far as I can tell) an original Samworth/Small-Arms Technical Publishing Company first printing from 1936. Amazon lists one of these for $45.85+shipping in “acceptable” condition. I’d probably put this at “acceptable” condition, too: it has some jacket wear, and there’s underlining and writing throughout.

I paid $50+tax for this one, which may have been a little high (prices on ABE Books for this edition seem to be all over the place), but it has character. And I didn’t have a coupon, alas.

On the other hand, I did (through a series of work events) fall into some Amazon funny money, which I used to check off the last Timothy J. Mullin book on my want list:

Serious Smith & Wessons the N- and X-Frame Revolvers. Look for the smiling face of Archduke Ferdinand Elmer Keith on every copy!

I already had the other two Mullin S&W books (Magnum: The S&W .357 Magnum Phenomenon and The K-Frame Revolver: and I also have a copy of Letters from Elmer Keith: A Half Century of Advice on Guns, Ammo, Handloading, Hunting, and Other Pursuits) and I’ve had this one in hand for about 90 minutes now.

But it looks like there’s a lot of fun stuff in it. I’m kind of a sucker for N-frames to begin with, but:

  • I had no idea there was a run of 3″ .45 ACP guns for Lew Horton. Want.
  • I had heard about the John Ross Performance Center .500 Magnum, but literally only within the past week: Mullin devotes a considerable amount of space to it. (For the people who aren’t as much into Smiths as I am: imagine a .500 Magnum X-frame, but with a 5″ barrel. Sort of a larger, heavier, but still packable and shootable variant of the .44 Magnum.) S&W makes a 3.5″ stainless version (which looks absurd to me), a 4″ stainless version (maybe not so bad) a 6.5″ stainless version with a compensator, and 7.5″ and 14″ stainless variants (and I may be missing some). But this looks like a well-balanced gun for field carry and use: I’m thinking if I were to pick up a .500 Magnum, this would be the way I would go.)
  • There’s a nice section of Keith gun photos from the auction.

I’m sure I’ll find more as I go through this: I’m hoping to have down time to do so during the upcoming week.

Posted in Books, Guns, Hoplobibilophilia | Comments Closed

Obit watch: November 24, 2019.

November 24th, 2019

Gahan Wilson, one of the greatest cartoonists ever.

Michael J. Pollard, character actor. Among his roles: “C.W. Moss” in “Bonnie and Clyde”, “Jahn” in the “Miri” episode of “Star Trek: Original Recipe”, “Fauss” in “Little Fauss and Big Halsy”, and a lot of assorted 60s and 70s TV.

At the Actors Studio he did a scene with Marilyn Monroe, at her request. According to Ms. Ephron, when Ms. Monroe had called him up to do the scene, she said: “Hello, this is Marilyn. The girl from class.”

NYT obit for Fred Cox. (Previously.)

Posted in 1970s, Books, Movies, NFL, Obits, Sports, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: November 22, 2019.

November 22nd, 2019

Fred Cox, former kicker for the Minnesota Vikings.

More significant (at least to me): Mr. Cox and another guy, John Mattox, invented the NERF football.

Posted in NFL, Obits, Sports | Comments Closed

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#61 in a series)

November 20th, 2019

Remember Catherine Pugh, the former mayor of Baltimore? The “Healthy Holly” scandal?

She’s just been indicted on 11 counts of “fraud, tax evasion, and conspiracy”.

In a grand jury indictment made public Wednesday, prosecutors allege Pugh defrauded area businesses and nonprofit organizations with nearly $800,000 in sales of her “Healthy Holly” books to unlawfully enrich herself, promote her political career and illegally fund her campaign for mayor.
Though her customers ordered more than 100,000 copies of the books, the indictment says Pugh failed to print thousands of copies, double-sold others and took some to use for self-promotion. Pugh, 69, used the profits to buy a house, pay down debt, and make illegal straw donations to her campaign, prosecutors allege.

I don’t have a lot of time to dwell on this at the moment (I’ll be leaving work in about 15 minutes and hoping I don’t have to deal with the presidental motorcade) but I may update later this evening or tomorrow.

(Hattip to Mike the Musicologist. Apparently, there are several web sites reporting she’s been convicted, but the Sun’s coverage is just reporting an indictment.)

Posted in Law, Politics | Comments Closed

Step 1: go big.

November 20th, 2019

I’ve noted before that I don’t like linking to ESPN. But this is too good a story, and I haven’t seen coverage of it elsewhere.

Jeff David was the former “chief revenue officer” for the Sacramento Kings from 2011 to 2018. During that time, he managed to line his pockets. And not just with his regular salary.

He embezzled over $13 million dollars.

While he’s a crook, I’ve got to give the guy some props for complying with my rule number one: if you’re going to steal, steal big. $13 million is hardly penny-ante: that is the kind of money that I believe could set you up in a country without an extradition treaty for the rest of your life.

However, it seems like his downfall was an unwillingness to uproot his family and move permanently to one of those places. Or, rule number two:

Posted in Clippings, Law, Sports | Comments Closed

DGU

November 19th, 2019

Two local defensive gun use stories that I want to note (without much comment) for reasons:

1. Uber Eats driver gets into a standoff. Noteworthy because the Statesman is highly specific about the guns:

Palomino then pointed a black, semi-automatic Glock handgun at the man, the court documents say.
The delivery man pulled out a Sig Sauer P238 handgun and pointed it at Palomino.

2. Running gun battle in South Austin Sunday night.

The incident happened in and outside of the Mustang Pawn Shop near the Stassney Lane intersection. A witness says that shortly before 7:00 p.m. several men, armed with assault rifles got the drop on an employee. Once inside they smashed a jewelry display and grabbed what they could. When they ran out, the store owner reportedly gave chase with a shotgun.
A shootout followed, which apparently smashed a window at a business across the street. The violent confrontation was justified according to a neighbor, who didn’t want to give his name but knows the store owner.

The store owner apparently disabled one vehicle the robbers were using, but they managed to get away in a second vehicle.

Some of those who spoke to FOX7 said they sought cover by falling to the floor. Others said they are frustrated by the growing crime problem.
“It’s an overflow of gang wars and little thugs that are running around that have access to all the guns, and how they do it is, they just kick the door in and take them,” said the neighbor.
The solution, according to the resident, is simple but potentially deadly.
“Start shooting back, all the people around here, are pretty much armed.”

Posted in Austin, Cops, Guns, Law, Politics | Comments Closed

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#60 in a series)

November 19th, 2019

Dennis Tyler, the mayor of Muncie, Indiana, was arrested by the FBI yesterday.

Tyler is charged with theft of government funds, according to a federal criminal indictment that was unsealed Monday. He is accused of accepting a $5,000 cash payment after allegedly steering “lucrative” excavation work to a local contractor.

…

With his arrest, Tyler joins at least six other Muncie city officials or business leaders taken into custody in connection to a corruption probe launched in 2016 by federal authorities related to bid-rigging, fraud, money laundering and other organized crime.
He is also the fourth person to be arrested in connection to the investigation so far this year.

The linked article goes on to detail the long sordid history of the Muncie corruption scandal, and is worth reading.

Hat tip on this to Lawrence, who also did the legwork so I didn’t have to. Yes, Mayor Tyler (a Democrat) is also a member of Crooked Mayors Against Legal Gun Owners!

Is anybody keeping a count of crooked mayors against guns?

Posted in Guns, Law, Politics | Comments Closed

Obit watch: November 19, 2019.

November 19th, 2019

Vera Clemente, Roberto Clemente’s widow and keeper of the flame.

When he died, Roberto Clemente had been planning to create a sports center for children in Puerto Rico, and Ms. Clemente had planned to teach there.
In short order, she established the Ciudad Deportiva Roberto Clemente (Roberto Clemente Sports City), which he had envisioned as a place where young people could play sports, but where they could also learn other skills, like reading, and attend programs, like drug and alcohol rehabilitation clinics. Since then, hundreds of thousands of youths have taken part in its activities.
“When he died, I felt the responsibility to at least make a reality of a sports city, to give children the opportunity not just to become stars but good citizens,” Ms. Clemente told The New York Times in 1994. “My main purpose was to do what he was planning to do.”
She said she was compelled to carry out her husband’s wishes not only because of the way he died but also because of the way he had lived.
“If he had died in a common way, people would still remember him,” she said. “But Dec. 31, it was a special day, and his was a special mission. I admire him for that, as a person, as a human being. So his image I keep alive. I feel happy doing what I am doing.”

…

After Hurricane Harvey, she flew to Houston during the 2017 World Series to present the award to Anthony Rizzo, the Chicago Cubs’ first baseman, who was a cancer survivor and who had established a foundation to help children with the disease.
While in Houston, she took time out to volunteer at a food bank to help families recovering from the hurricane.

Posted in Obits, Sports | 2 Comments »

Obit watch: November 18, 2019. (Also: historical note, suitable for use in schools)

November 18th, 2019

Werner G. Doehner. He was 90 years old.

Mr. Doehner was the last survivor of the Hindenburg disaster. His father and sister died: his mother and brother lived.

“There were many facets to my dad,” Bernie Doehner said. “He was a bit of a dinosaur, a connoisseur of old operas and classical music. He was into remote-controlled airplanes and lots of traveling, but he valued the education of his kid above everything else.”

Posted in History, Obits | Comments Closed

Your loser update: week 11, 2019.

November 18th, 2019

NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:

Cincinnati

At this point in the year, we’re averaging 0.3 winless teams. I’m still cautiously optimistic about the Bengals chances.

The final six games are:

  • Pittsburgh at home (ESPN gives the Steelers a 66% chance of winning).
  • The Jets at home (this one worries me: ESPN gives the Jets a 53& chance).
  • on the road in Cleveland (the Browns are given an 81% chance of winning).
  • New England at home (91% chance of winning for the Patriots).
  • on the road against Miami (another worrisome game: ESPN is calling it 53% for the Dolphins).
  • and Cleveland again at home (69% chance of winning for the Browns).

So if they get past the Jets, things look good until week 16.

Posted in Loser, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Recent acquisitions (some bibliohoplophilia)

November 16th, 2019

Half-Price Books had another one of their coupon sales last week (the 4th through 10th).

Unfortunately, this was a busy week for me between voting and Wurstfest and meetings and other things, so I didn’t get as much of a chance to shop as I would have liked. Also, the gun book pickings have been kind of slim recently. Even the big central Half-Price has gotten rid of a lot of their fancy leather-bound books.

The only gun book that I found was A Varmint Hunter’s Odyssey by Steve Hanson for $10+tax after coupon. This is another one of those books published by the (now sadly defunct) Precision Shooting Press, and as I’ve written before, I like to snap those up when I find them.

Other than that…I found a nice trade paperback copy of Popular Crime: Reflections on the Celebration of Violence by Bill James to replace my old hardback. I enjoy this book (though James sometimes makes me go “What?!”) and didn’t realize that the trade paperback had some additional material. (Including James’s list of his 100 top true crime books.) $4.24+tax after coupon.

And I also found a good copy of The Annotated Tales Of Edgar Allen Poe by Stephen Peithman for $6+tax after coupon. Oddly enough, I did not have a collection of Poe’s short works previously, and it is a well known fact that I’m a sucker for annotated books…

…so now I’ve got my eye out for a copy of The Annotated Poe by Kevin J. Hayes. Because you can never have enough Poe.

Posted in Books, Guns, Hoplobibilophilia | 2 Comments »

Today’s bulletin from the Department of WTF?!

November 15th, 2019

Lucky Miller was the police chief of Mannford, Oklahoma (which is somewhere near Tulsa).

I say “was” because Chief Miller was killed while attending a law enforcement conference in Florida.

The department’s detective is charged with killing him.

On Sunday around 9:50 p.m., the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office responded to complaints at the Hilton Pensacola Beach hotel, where deputies found Chief Miller unresponsive on the floor, and Mr. Nealey lying a short distance away, mumbling, according to a police report.
Sgt. Melony Peterson, a spokeswoman for the sheriff’s office, said in an interview that the cause of death had not been determined and that an autopsy was being performed. She said the two men had been drinking before the fatal encounter.

Apparently, this wasn’t a shooting:

A hotel worker went to check on the situation and knocked on the door several times, but “only heard a grunting noise.” The worker entered the room and found Mr. Nealey sitting on top of Chief Miller, who was lying on the floor, according to report. The worker yelled at Mr. Nealey to get up, and then pulled him off the chief.
By the time the police arrived, Chief Miller was dead. His face was beaten and his right eye was completely swollen, but there were no other apparent injuries, according to the police report.

In other news, which I didn’t get a chance to note yesterday: the former DA of Suffolk County, NY, is on trial. One of his deputies is also being tried. I’ve written about this before: guy stole a bag of “cigars, sex toys, and pornographic DVDs” out of the police chief’s car, police chief arrested him, handcuffed him to the floor of an interrogation room, and assaulted him, and the DA and his deputy are charged with helping to cover up the chief’s actions.

Posted in Cops, Law | Comments Closed

Obit watch: November 14, 2019.

November 14th, 2019

Ronald Lafferty died earlier this week. He died of natural causes, as opposed to being executed by a firing squad.

I think it’s more likely than usual that this name will ring some bells with folks. Mr. Lafferty was a religious fanatic: he was excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for “increasingly extreme religious views” (yes, he did believe in polygamy) and founded a new sect, School of the Prophets. He and his brothers (who were also members of the sect) claimed that they received messages from God.

Mr. Lafferty said one of those messages told him that his ex-wife, who had left him and taken their six children to Florida, had been the bride of Satan in a previous life.
In another message, he said, he was told that four people caused his excommunication and divorce, including his brother Allen’s wife, Brenda, and their 15-month-old daughter, Erica, “who he believed would grow up to be just as despicable as her mother,” according to court documents.
God told him to kill all four of them, Mr. Lafferty said. So on July 24, 1984 — a state holiday that commemorates the arrival of Mormons in the Salt Lake Valley — Mr. Lafferty and a group of followers, including his brother Daniel, went to Brenda’s house in American Fork, Utah.

Mr. Lafferty and his brother Daniel killed Brenda and the baby. They abandoned their plan to kill the other two on the list. Ronald and Daniel were arrested in Nevada about a month later. Daniel is serving a life sentence.

Mr. Lafferty’s mental competence to stand trial quickly became an issue in the case and would be the focus of his subsequent appeal efforts.
He was convicted of both killings and sentenced to death in 1985. But in 1991, the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit vacated Mr. Lafferty’s convictions and ordered a new trial after finding that the wrong legal standard had been used to determine his mental competence.
Prosecutors again charged Mr. Lafferty with the killings, but a competency hearing in November 1992 found him to be mentally unfit to stand trial owing to mental illness. He was sent to a state psychiatric hospital until a new competency hearing was held in February 1994 and he was found competent to stand trial.
In April 1996, he was again convicted of the killings, and again sentenced to death.

The reason I say this will ring some bells is that the Lafferty murders were at the center of Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, a book which I’ve read and liked. (And, no, it did not strike me as being “anti-religion”. Anti-“religious fanatics killing women and babies”, maybe, but not anti-religion.)

Posted in Books, Law, Obits, Religion | Comments Closed

The most fun I’ve had recently with my clothes on…

November 14th, 2019

…or, for that matter, off.

I’ll start with the musical interlude. I rather like this, though the banjo player should put on a damn shirt.

So, last night, I was down at the Austin Film Society. (It sounds more amusing if you say it with kind of a snooty accent.) What was I doing there? Getting some culture into my system…

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Endorsements, Movies, Music, Rhode Island | Comments Closed

Obit watch: November 13, 2019.

November 13th, 2019

Zeke Bratkowski, Green Bay Packers quarterback. He didn’t quite get the level of fame he probably deserved as he spent most of his time backing up some guy named Starr.

By way of Lawrence: Charles Rogers, first round NFL draft choice (and second overall pick) in 2003.

The 6-foot-3, 220-pounder had just 36 catches for 440 yards with four touchdowns in 15 games before he left the league in 2005.

Also by way of Lawrence: Virginia Leith. Possibly an obscure figure, but some folks may remember her as “Jan” (or “Jan In the Pan”) from “The Head Brain That Wouldn’t Die”, which was (of course) a MST3K.

Interestingly, she also did guest shots on some of the better cop shows of the 1970s: “Baretta”, “Starsky and Hutch”, “Barnaby Jones”. “Police Woman”.

Frank Giles, former editor of The Sunday Times of London. He may be best remembered as the man who published the Hitler diaries, though he claimed he knew they were fake and Rupert Murdoch ordered them published anyway.

Posted in 1970s, History, Media, Movies, Nazis, NFL, Obits, Sports, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: November 11, 2019.

November 11th, 2019

pigpen51 left a very kind and much appreciated comment on the last obit watch. In that vein, someone who I feel like i should remember, but is probably just a little outside the fringes of my consciousness:

Maria Perego. She created Topo Gigio.

Ms. Perego, who worked alongside her husband, Federico Caldura, came up with the 10-inch-tall Topo Gigio in the late 1950s. Topo Gigio was a sort of cross between a puppet and a marionette; three puppeteers, hidden in a black background, moved various body parts with rods.
According to “Sundays With Sullivan: How ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’ Brought Elvis, the Beatles, and Culture to America,” a 2008 book by Bernie Ilson, Mr. Sullivan saw a tape of the puppet from Italian television and booked Topo Gigio for a series of appearances on his popular Sunday-night CBS variety show. The first, the book said, was on April 14, 1963.
Ms. Perego and two other puppeteers were on hand to impart the movements, and a fourth provided Topo Gigio’s voice — but, Mr. Ilson wrote, Mr. Sullivan had not realized that someone would also have to serve as the puppet’s straight man. Mr. Sullivan, who was famously wooden on camera, stepped into that task for the initial appearance, figuring he would arrange for a professional comic to take over for later ones if the bit caught on.
“It was evident from the very first appearance, however, that the chemistry between Sullivan and Topo Gigio worked extremely well,” Mr. Ilson wrote. “The exchanges between Sullivan and the mouselike puppet revealed another side of the host, a warm and humanizing element.”
Mr. Sullivan remained in the role of sidekick for what the book says were some 50 appearances by Topo Gigio over the years. (Other sources give higher numbers.) The appearances often ended with the mouse saying, in a thick Italian accent, “Eddie, kiss me good night.”

A little late on this, but: Ernest J. Gaines. (The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, A Lesson Before Dying)

Laurel Griggs. Nobody should die at 13.

Posted in 1970s, Books, Obits, TV | 1 Comment »

Your loser update: week 10, 2019.

November 11th, 2019

NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:

Cincinnati

Not much more to say than that, really.

Posted in Loser, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Obit watch: November 8, 2019.

November 8th, 2019

Louis Eppolito is burning in Hell.

Some of you probably remember that name, either because you’re true crime buffs or else you’re regular readers of this blog.

For those who don’t recall the name, Eppolito was one of the “Mafia Cops“: two NYPD officers who made deals with the Mob to provide confidential information and even whack guys.

Nineteen eighty-five was also the year Mr. Eppolito and Mr. Caracappa began their relationship with Mr. Casso’s circle. A career criminal with ties to Mr. Casso hired them that year to kill a Long Island jeweler to keep him from testifying in an F.B.I. inquiry.
The detectives used a confidential police database to find the jeweler’s home address, the type of car he drove and his license plate number. They pulled him over and asked him to come to the precinct station house.
Instead, they took him to a building in Brooklyn, where Mr. Caracappa and another man killed him. Mr. Eppolito acted as a lookout.
It was the first of the eight killings they would participate in over the next several years on Mr. Casso’s orders. They received $4,000 a month and up to $65,000 for individual murders, prosecutors said.
The other victims included a Brooklyn man gunned down mistakenly because he had the same name as a rival of Mr. Casso’s; a Luchese gangster; two Gambino soldiers; and two F.B.I. informers.

Stephen Caracappa, Mr. Eppolito’s partner in crime, died in 2017: somehow I missed hearing about this.

The good book on this case is The Good Rat by the late great Jimmy Breslin. I’m not recommending or endorsing it, but Eppolito’s Mafia Cop is still widely available: you can even purchase a Kindle edition. (Yeah, that is an affiliate link: it’s not like Eppolito is going to benefit from sales now, and I’m pretty sure anything he earned while alive went towards compensating the families of his victims.)

Posted in Books, Cops, Law, NYPD, Obits | 1 Comment »

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