Ken Norton Jr. out as defensive coordinator for the Teattle Teahawks…I mean, Seattle Seahawks.
Also out: Andre Curtis, “defensive passing game coordinator”.
More firings.
January 19th, 2022Obit watch: January 19, 2022.
January 19th, 2022Other than “Weena” in the 1960 “The Time Machine” and “Where the Boys Are”, credits include “Jackson County Jail”, “The Black Hole”, “Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell”, “Diamond Head” (opposite Cheston!) and a “doomed surfer” in “Dr. Kildare”.
Gaspard Ulliel. He was the young Hannibal in “Hannibal Rising”, and is in the coming Marvel series “Moon Knight”. He was only 37, and died as a result of a skiing accident.
Firings watch.
January 18th, 2022Mike Mayock out as general manager of the Las Vegas Raiders.
The biggest issue seems to be that Mayock was closely tied with Jon Gruden (I’ve seen him described as “Gruden’s hand-picked choice for GM”) who, as you may recall, got fired in October.
Obit watch: January 17, 2022.
January 17th, 2022Brigadier General Charles E. McGee (USAF – ret) has passed away at the age of 102.
Gen. McGee was one of the Tuskegee Airman. He was promoted to brigadier general by President Trump in 2020.
He remained in the military after the war and served with the Air Force flying P-51s in Korea (100 combat missions) and “172 combat missions in McDonnell RF-4 photo-reconnaissance aircraft” over Vietnam.
I am having trouble determining how many of the airmen are left. The NYT obit says there were nine living (counting Gen. McGee) as of February of 2020. Wikipedia states there were 11 living as of 2019, but does not mention any deaths since then.
John Connolly, “investigative journalist”. He wrote some for “Spy” and various other magazines. He also wrote a book (“with James Patterson”), Filthy Rich: The Shocking True Story of Jeffrey Epstein – The Billionaire’s Sex Scandal (affiliate link).
I hope this is completed, as I’d actually like to read that book.
NYT obits for Ralph Emery and Dallas Frazier.
Tributes to Ron Goulart: “Great But Forgotten” on “The Morning Chex Press”, and Michael Swanwick on meeting Ron Goulart’s college roommate.
Obit watch: January 16, 2022.
January 16th, 2022It has been a bad time for country music and SF writers.
Ralph Emery, noted country music broadcaster.
By way of Lawrence: Ron Goulart, SF and mystery writer.
Dallas Frazier. Among other credits, he wrote “Elvira” (“…previously recorded by Rodney Crowell before it became a smash hit for the Oak Ridge Boys in 1981”)
Dave Wolverton, who also wrote as “Dave Farland“.
NYT obit for Andrew Vachss, including quotes from Joe R. Landsdale. According to the paper of record, he passed on November 23rd, but “his death had not been widely reported previously”.
Obit watch: January 15, 2022.
January 15th, 2022Eddie Basinski has passed away at the age of 99. He was the second oldest former major league baseball player.
Interestingly, Mr. Basinski was also a trained classical violin player.
…
…
Saousoalii Siavii Jr., former defensive tackle with the Kansas City Chiefs. This is an odd one: he died in custody at Leavenworth.
Obit watch: January 14, 2022.
January 14th, 2022Terry Teachout, critic, blogger, playwright, cultural commentator, and biographer, passed away yesterday.
“About Last Night” blog. WSJ (through archive.is). National Review.
I wrote briefly about him and his blog when his wife died. I was still an irregular follower – I tried to check in once a week – but I knew he had found a new love and was excited about that. This seems especially unfair.
I never met Mr. Teachout, though I would have liked to. He seems like one of those good decent people whose passing leaves a void in the world.
Edited to add: tribute from Rod Dreher.
Culley-ing the herd.
January 14th, 2022Well. Well well well. Well.
David Culley out as head coach of the Houston Texans after a single season. Battle Red Blog.
The Texans were 4-13 and, quite frankly, stank. But:
Also out: offensive coordinator Tim Kelly.
Battle Red also reports that, while Culley had a five-year contract, only the first two years were guaranteed. So he’ll get paid a mere $4 million instead of $12 million to $14 million if all five years had been guaranteed…
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#79 in a series)
January 14th, 2022Marilyn Mosby, Baltimore prosecutor, indicted on federal charges of “perjury and making false statements”.
Additional coverage from the NYT.
What do we always say, folks?
Obit watch: January 12, 2022.
January 12th, 2022Jean Ramirez, catcher for the Tampa Bay Rays. He was 28.
I have no joke here…
January 12th, 2022…I just want to observe that you can get “The Day of the Dolphin” on blu-ray from Amazon at a not unreasonable price (affiliate link).
Firings watch.
January 12th, 2022Sorry for the lack of a clever headline, but the NY Post cut me off at the pass on this one.
Joe Judge out as coach of the New York Football Giants. Two seasons, 10-23 overall.
Obit watch: January 11, 2022.
January 11th, 2022Lawrence sent this over for the “Burning In Hell watch”, but I have to say: I don’t have the strong feelings about Durst that I’ve had about other criminals who I hope are roasting. Durst was almost certainly nuttier than a Stuckey’s pecan log roll, and was probably guilty of the crimes he was convicted of.
Admittedly, I only followed the trials from the fringes, but it did seem to me that there was a lot of…stuff…that made me go “hmmmmmmm”. I wasn’t on any of the juries, I didn’t hear all the evidence, but I’m not sure there was enough there to convince me beyond a reasonable doubt.
At this point, it doesn’t matter: he knows, God knows, and that’s good enough.
Rules of the Gunfight.
January 11th, 2022I did some training this past weekend at the KR Training facility. (KR Training, official firearms trainer of Whipped Cream Difficulties.)
Before I talk about this, I feel like I need to address an elephant in the room. It seems like there are two schools of thought in the gun blogging community:
- “Why aren’t you running out every weekend and traveling 500 miles, and then 500 more, to attend tactical operator fantasy camp where you learn how to operate tactically in operations using tactics? Aren’t you serious about this stuff? Don’t you have a job that lets you travel and pay thousands of dollars multiple times a month to take training courses?”
- “Fark you, I don’t have the time or the money to travel every weekend and play pretend ninja with my gun writer buddies. I have a job that doesn’t involve shooting guns or people, a family to take care of, and I don’t get free training classes because I’m a gunwriter.”
I hate to be lukewarm, but I totally get both sides of this issue. Training is good. Training is fun. I should do more of it. But I don’t have time or money to train every weekend, so I pick my opportunities carefully.
I’m lucky in that KR Training’s facilities are just a little over an hour away from my house (an hour and a half if I stop at Buc-ee’s on the way). I’m also lucky in that KR Training concentrates almost entirely on practical training for private citizens. (I do not get free training from KR Training, even though they are the official trainer of WCD. I would not accept free training if it was offered: I insist on paying real American money for their services. They do not accept Bitcoin or Dogecoin yet, as far as I know.)
In this case, KR Training was offering two classes from John Hearne. Yes, they were a little expensive. But I decided to treat this as a personal indulgence. I’ve heard Karl talk about Mr. Hearne’s presentations at the Rangemaster conferences, and figured this was worth taking a flyer on.
(These two classes were the second and third I have taken in roughly a month, so you can throw stones at me now. However, the first class was Red Cross First Aid/CPR/AED certification: also through KR Training because that was convenient, but you can pretty much do that anywhere these days. And you should, in my ever so humble opinion.)
tl,dr: If John Hearne is teaching near you, go if you can. He’s worth it.
I’m putting in a jump here because this is going to run long. I can feel it.
Obit watch: January 10, 2022.
January 10th, 2022Playing catch-up from the weekend:
His most famous role was as the title character on “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis”. Other roles included “Whatever Happened to Dobie Gillis?”, “Bring Me the Head of Dobie Gillis”, “How to Stuff a Wild Bikini”, and “Sergeant Orkin” in “The Youth Killer” episode of “Kolchak: The Night Stalker”.
Marilyn Bergman. She and her husband Alan were Hollywood lyricists.
…
NYT obit for Max Julien, for the record.
Lani Guinier, historical footnote. Bill Clinton nominated her for the post of “assistant attorney general for civil rights” in 1993, but was forced to withdraw her nomination after some of her views came to light.
(Hattip: Lawrence.)