Brian Callahan out as head coach of the Tennessee Titans.
He was coach for roughly a season and a half. The Titans are currently 1-5. Additional coverage from ESPN.
Callahan!
October 13th, 2025Firings watch.
October 13th, 2025Trent Dilfer out as head coach of the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
(Sorry this link is so mangled. ESPN, if you prefer.)
2-4 this season, 9-21 in “two plus” seasons.
UAB actually tried to shut down their football program a while back, but there were mass protests, etc. and they went back on that decision. Maybe it is time to reconsider.
Obit watch: October 12, 2025.
October 12th, 2025Diane Keaton. THR. IMDB.
I think her death has been very well covered everywhere, but fun fact by way of Lawrence: yes, she was a “Mannix” alumna. (“The Color of Murder”, season 4, episode 22. She was “Cindy Conrad”.) She also appeared on “The F.B.I.”.
Your NFL loser update: week 6, 2025. (Plus: firings!)
October 12th, 2025NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-17:
NY Jets
Denver 13, NY Jest 11. It was closer than I (kind of) expected, but I did say these foreign games are unpredictable.
Next week: Carolina. At the moment, the Jets are a slight favorite.
And, in an attempt to put all the norts spews in one place for everyone:
James Franklin out after 12 years at Penn State. 104-45 overall, “the second winningest coach” in PSU history, but they lost to Northwestern 22-21 yesterday. PSU was a heavy favorite in that game.
They are 3-3 this season, and it looks like they lost their starting quarterback for the season. More from ESPN.
Trent Bray out as coach of Oregon State, which is 0-7 this season. 5-14 over “less than two seasons”, lost 13 of his final 14 games, and OSU was defeated 39-14 by Wake Forest yesterday. ESPN.
Edited to add: Lawrence pointed out that the Jest finished with…-10 yards passing. That’s not a typo: negative 10 passing yards. 45 yards passing, 55 yards lost to sacks.
Wow. Ryan Leaf.
Your NHL loser update: week 1, 2025.
October 10th, 2025NHL teams that still have a chance to go 0-82:
Tampa Bay Lightning
Buffalo Sabres
Detroit Red Wings
New York Islanders
Columbus Blue Jackets
Philadelphia Flyers
Washington Capitals
New Jersey Devils
Chicago Blackhawks
Winnipeg Jets
Utah Mammoth
St. Louis Blues
San Jose Sharks
Edmonton Oilers
Anaheim Ducks
I don’t have much to say right now. It is early in the season, and, to be honest, I don’t know that much about hockey. Any predictions I would make are guaranteed to be wrong.
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#152 in a series)
October 9th, 2025Woo hoo! This is one of those flaming hyenas that makes me want to break out the AK-47 (with the shoulder thing that goes up) and do the happy dance in the backyard.
Letitia James, the corrupt attorney general of the corrupt state of New York, has been indicted.
Text of the indictment from the NYT (archived).
Statement from the Department of Justice.
It looks like there’s two counts: bank fraud, and “making false claims to a financial institution”.
James, 66, bought the three-bedroom, one-bathroom home in August 2020 for roughly $137,000, most of which was financed with a $109,600 loan that prohibited it from being used as a rental investment property, prosecutors alleged.
That allowed her “to obtain favorable loan terms not available for investment properties,” they noted in the five-page filing, saving her “approximately $18,933 over the life of the loan.”
When a Post reporter visited the Norfolk home in April, neighbors said they had never seen James at the property.
Meanwhile, her income tax forms designated the home as a rental that brought in thousands of dollars in additional income.
You may remember the corrupt Ms. James from her long legal battle with the National Rifle Association, which ended up with…not much of anything, really. Or her legal battle against Donald Trump, which also ended with not much of anything, really.
Loser update update.
October 8th, 2025I think I am going to try to do a loser update for the NHL. (Hattip: Angus McThag.)
However, looking at the NHL schedule, I think I should hold off on doing this until Friday. While the regular season has started (as I understand it) it looks like most of the games are Thursday night.
This might become a regular Friday thing.
Your NFL loser update: week 5, 2025.
October 6th, 2025NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-17:
NY Jets
The worthless Bills lost.
The worthless Chargers lost.
New Orleans won, but they were playing the New York Football Giants, so that wasn’t exactly a titanic achievement.
And Tennessee narrowly defeated the Cardinals.
This leaves the Jets as the last team standing. Their next game is against Denver in London early Sunday morning. Denver is a heavy favorite, but in my opinion there’s never anything certain about London games.
I’ll try to get the loser update up as early as I can on Sunday.
Mendoza!
October 3rd, 2025Obit watch: October 3, 2025.
October 3rd, 2025Patricia Routledge, noted British actress. She was 96.
…from the beginning she was a stage performer, and an acclaimed one.
Ms. Routledge won a Tony for her 1968 Broadway appearance in the musical “Darling of the Day” (a tie with Leslie Uggams, for “Hallelujah, Baby!”) and its British equivalent, the Laurence Olivier Award, as the Old Lady in a 1988 production of “Candide” at the Old Vic.
…
Many of Ms. Routledge’s biggest fans, from “Appearances” and from “Hetty Wainthropp Investigates,” the detective series she starred in afterward (1996-98), may never have even known about her time with the Royal Shakespeare Company or her stage roles on the West End.
She was the temperamental character actress Dotty Otley and a harried housekeeper in the farce “Noises Off” (1982), the imperious Lady Bracknell in “The Importance of Being Earnest” (1999), the title character in “Little Mary Sunshine” (1962), Madame Ranevskaya in “The Cherry Orchard” (1975), Queen Margaret in “Richard III” (1984), the confused Mrs. Malaprop in “The Rivals” (1976), the earthy Nettie Fowler in “Carousel” (1992) and a religious fanatic in “And a Nightingale Sang” (1979).
…
Other American stage appearances included the 1980 Shakespeare in the Park production of “The Pirates of Penzance,” with Kevin Kline, as Ruth the pirate maid; and the London comedy “How’s the World Treating You?” (her Broadway debut, in 1966), as a frumpy 1940s mom.None of her Broadway shows had long runs. In 1968, “Love Match” (her second time portraying Queen Victoria) never opened, because of a disappointing Los Angeles run.
Her most notable flop was the Broadway production of Leonard Bernstein’s “1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,” in which she played a series of American first ladies. It opened on May 4, 1976, and closed on May 8. She looked back on the experience as a composer-lyricist mismatch, telling the London newspaper The Telegraph in 2007, “I think Alan Jay Lerner was frightened of Lenny.”
…
IMDB.
She was best known as “Hyacinth Bucket” (pronounced by the character “Bouquet”) on “Keeping Up Appearances”, a show (and a character) beloved by many people in my family.
One of those family members sent me this, which I rather like:
I’ll be turning 95 this coming Monday. In my younger years, I was often filled with worry — worry that I wasn’t quite good enough, that no one would cast me again, that I wouldn’t live up to my mother’s hopes. But these days begin in peace, and end in gratitude.
My life didn’t quite take shape until my forties. I had worked steadily — on provincial stages, in radio plays, in West End productions — but I often felt adrift, as though I was searching for a home within myself that I hadn’t quite found.
At 50, I accepted a television role that many would later associate me with — Hyacinth Bucket, of Keeping Up Appearances. I thought it would be a small part in a little series. I never imagined that it would take me into people’s living rooms and hearts around the world. And truthfully, that role taught me to accept my own quirks. It healed something in me.
At 60, I began learning Italian — not for work, but so I could sing opera in its native language. I also learned how to live alone without feeling lonely. I read poetry aloud each evening, not to perfect my diction, but to quiet my soul.
At 70, I returned to the Shakespearean stage — something I once believed I had aged out of. But this time, I had nothing to prove. I stood on those boards with stillness, and audiences felt that. I was no longer performing. I was simply being.
At 80, I took up watercolor painting. I painted flowers from my garden, old hats from my youth, and faces I remembered from the London Underground. Each painting was a quiet memory made visible.
Now, at 95, I write letters by hand. I’m learning to bake rye bread. I still breathe deeply every morning. I still adore laughter — though I no longer try to make anyone laugh. I love the quiet more than ever.
I’m writing this to tell you something simple:
Growing older is not the closing act. It can be the most exquisite chapter — if you let yourself bloom again.
Let these years ahead be your *treasure years*.
You don’t need to be famous. You don’t need to be flawless.
You only need to show up — fully — for the life that is still yours.
With love and gentleness,
— Patricia Routledge
Obit watch: October 2, 2025.
October 2nd, 2025Lt. Colonel George Hardy (USAF – ret.). He was 100.
Colonel Hardy, a Philadelphia native, was 19 and had never even driven a car when he began aviation cadet training in September 1944 at Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama. By early the next year, in the closing months of the war in Europe, then-Second Lieutenant Hardy was assigned to an Army Air Forces base in Italy, from which he flew 21 missions accompanying bombers to their targets over southern Germany in early 1945.
In addition to those high-altitude missions in P-51 Mustang aircraft, he made strafing runs on German trains, trucks or river barges and was once struck by small-arms fire. He knew he was hit, he recalled to the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, when he saw a flash of light coming through the cockpit floor, which was usually dark.
He also flew 45 missions during the Korean War, and 70 during the Vietnam War.
Wikipedia says he was the last surviving member of the Tuskegee Airmen who saw combat during WWII.
Updated NYT obit for Jane Goodall. This includes corrections that were added today.
Marilyn Knowlden, child actress. She was 99. IMDB.
…Ms. Knowlden’s parents did not even take her to see her own films, fearful that she would develop a titanic ego. Her father, who managed her career, refused to let her be bound by a studio contract.
As a result, “I was always a freelance actor, so I had complete freedom to choose my roles,” she told Mr. Thomas. “If you were under contract like Judy Garland or Shirley Temple, you went to a studio school and really lost your ordinary life. I went to public school, had a very normal life, and then occasionally would go off and make a film.”
Firings watch.
October 1st, 2025Brian Snitker is out as manager of the Atlanta Braves.
This is questionably a “firing”, as the team says he’s moving into an “advisory role”. He’s been around the organization for 49 years, and won the World Series in 2021.
But Atlanta was 76-87 this season, which seems to have made the retirefiring decision easier.
(I apologize for the ESPN link, but the AJC is unreadable without a subscription. And my attempt to archive the story resulted in garbage.)
Bill Schmidt out as general manager of the Colorado Rockies. That’s the 119 loss Colorado Rockies, for those of you keeping track at home.
Obit watch: October 1, 2025.
October 1st, 2025Jane Goodall has passed away. She was 91.
It goes against my usual policy, but here’s a NYT obit from today that seems pretty comprehensive. I’ll try to post an updated version tomorrow if it is justified.
NYT obit for Thomas Perry. Fun fact I didn’t know: he and his wife worked as TV writers and producers. Credits include “Simon and Simon”, “Snoops”, and a spin-off of a minor SF TV series from the 1960s.
Viv Prince, drummer for the Pretty Things. I’d never heard of the Pretty Things (pigpen51?) but the paper of record describes them as a “ruder, cruder version of the Rolling Stones”. And the obit is entertaining, especially if you’re a fan of Spinal Tap.
An appreciation published in The Guardian after his death unearthed a 1965 interview with Mr. Prince from Record Mirror, the British music newspaper, in which he was grilled about his antics with the band during a scorched-earth tour of New Zealand that year.
In the interview, Mr. Prince denied lighting fires onstage but did admit to sabotaging a performance by the teen idol Eden Kane by laying carpet onstage while Mr. Kane was performing. “Everyone was digging it,” Mr. Prince said.
And he addressed news accounts that he had released live crayfish in an airport lounge. “The fish were dead when we bought them,” he said. “They always are. How on earth can dead fish run around?”
Firings watch.
September 30th, 2025Ron Washington out as manager of the Los Angeles Angels.
Mr. Washington had medical issues that caused him to miss a large part of the season. ESPN quotes him as saying this wasn’t based on health, but on performance. He was 99-137 in two seasons.
Somewhat related: the City of Anaheim gets $2 for every ticket the Angels sell above the 2.6 million ticket mark.
The city’s cut this year? $31,012.
…
And the city has a $64 million budget deficit.
Your NFL loser update: week 4, 2025.
September 30th, 2025NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-17:
NY Jets
Tennessee
New Orleans
The worthless Bills are 4-0.
The New York Football Giants actually beat the worthless Chargers?
And the Packers and Cowboys tied? Not just a tie, but it was also a Scorigami.
In other news, the firings will continue until morale improves. Bruce Bochy out as manager of the Texas Rangers. This is being spun as “by mutual agreement”, but I always wonder how much “mutual” there is in these.
That was over three years: the team was 81-81 this year.