Yes, I know.
I think it’d be better to wait until tomorrow for the James Earl Jones obits, to allow the dust to settle and the corrections to be made. I know I’m sacrificing timeliness, but I’d rather be right.
Obit watch watch.
September 9th, 2024Bob and Jack and Julian and John.
September 6th, 2024It was a busy weekend. There’s a new gun show near Leander that a bunch of us ended up going to, and I found quite a bit of stuff. Including .220 Swift and – believe it or not – .22 Remington Jet ammo.
Then I ate something that disagreed with me on Tuesday and haven’t been feeling great. Things are looking up, but all of this is to say that I’ve been behind the curve, so I’m only now getting to more gun book blogging.
I think I’m going to try to knock off the last five books that are down here on the kitchen table so I can move those upstairs. And bring some more down later, but don’t tell anybody I said that. This is going to be a long one, so I’m putting a jump here.
Loser update update.
September 6th, 2024The NFL regular season started last night.
The NFL loser update will return on Tuesday (because Monday night game) unless I am hit by a bus between now and then.
I am thinking that I will probably wait until Tuesday and combine the NFL loser update with the White Sox update, so I can take care of them both in one swell foop.
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#128 in a series)
September 5th, 2024This may not the five-alarm fire I thought it was at first, but it is still pretty significant to say the least.
The police commissioner. They seized the police commissioner’s phones. Wow.
Among the other officials the federal investigators sought information from were the deputy mayor for public safety and a senior adviser to the mayor who is one of his closest confidants, the people said. Both men have had other legal challenges.
The agents also searched the home and seized the phone of a consultant who is the brother of both the schools chancellor and one of the deputy mayors, the people said.
The nature of the investigations is unclear, but it appears that one is focused on the senior City Hall officials and the other touches on the police commissioner, the people said.
…
Representatives of the City Hall officials — the first deputy mayor, Sheena Wright; her partner, Schools Chancellor David C. Banks; the deputy mayor for public safety, Philip Banks III; and a senior adviser to the mayor, Timothy Pearson — could not be reached or declined to comment.
The consultant, Terence Banks, a brother of Philip Banks and David Banks, recently opened a government and community relations firm aimed at closing a gap “between New York’s intricate infrastructure and political landscape.” He, too, could not be reached for comment.
Several of the officials had their phones seized or records of their communications subpoenaed.
…
…
In 2013, Ms. Wright and David and Philip Banks were involved in an incident that raised ethical questions. Ms. Wright and Gregg Walker, her then husband, had a dispute that led to mutual allegations of domestic abuse and the arrest of both people. The City reported that David Banks called his brother Philip, then a high-ranking police official. The charges were dropped.
Ms. Wright has denied any wrongdoing in the case, telling The New York Times in 2022 that she “never asked anyone to make any phone calls” on her behalf and that she was released “almost immediately not because of any outside influence, but because the facts of the case were so obvious.”
…
After taking office in 2022, Mr. Adams selected Philip Banks as his top aide overseeing public safety, though Mr. Banks himself had previously been ensnared in a federal criminal investigation.
Years earlier, the same federal prosecutors’ office conducting the current investigations named him an unindicted co-conspirator in an expansive corruption case that led to prison time for Mr. Banks’s then close friend Norman Seabrook, at the time a leader of the city’s correction officers’ union, among others.
Over the course of two years, prosecutors scrutinized Mr. Banks’s acceptance of gifts in 2013 and 2014 while he was chief of department, the city’s top uniformed police official. The gifts included paid vacations to the Dominican Republic and Los Angeles, cigars and a ring worn by Muhammad Ali. He received gifts from and socialized with two businessmen who were trying to curry favor with city leaders. One later pleaded guilty to criminal charges, cooperating with prosecutors, while the other was convicted at trial.
But prosecutors did not charge Mr. Banks, concluding that they did not have sufficient evidence to prove that he had taken official action in exchange for the gifts he received, people familiar with the case have said.
Nobody will go on the record as knowing what’s going on, but there’s speculation that it is tied to that whole weird Turkish consolate thing.
Or it could be something else. It sounds like the whole Adams administration is so packed with corruption, they can’t even keep the lid screwed on. Of course, all suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. And to be fair, none of the subjects of the raids have been charged with any crimes.
Yet.
UnHinged.
September 4th, 2024Rael Enteen, VP of content for the Washington Commanders, has been suspended. Which isn’t technically a firing, but I kind of have a feeling it is going to turn into one.
What happened?
Mr. Enteen met a woman on the Hinge dating app. He went out to dinner with her twice. During those dates, he made some…unfortunate comments.
He told…that, “over 50% of our roster is white religious, and God says, ‘F— the gays.’ Their interpretation. I don’t buy any of that. Another big chunk is low-income African Americans that comes from a community that is inherently very homophobic.”
…Enteen also said some players are “dumb as hell” and said some who were smart don’t stay that way after getting hit in the head too many times. He also said those who “get their heads knocked around a few times” are more susceptible to conspiracy theories.
Enteen also said, “I don’t think the commissioner of the NFL hates gay people, hates black people. Jerry Jones, who really runs the NFL, I think he hates gay people, black people.”
Enteen, who was with the New York Jets for two years before coming to Washington, called the league’s social justice initiatives “performative.”
“It’s not done out of the goodness of their heart,” he said. “It’s done because George Floyd changed the game … It’s to make as much money as possible. The NFL cares about the bottom line, like any corporation, above all else.”
Enteen said because the league makes so much money, “they can faux prioritize DEI for the sake of good publicity.
“Enteen told…that “most of the fans are high-school-educated alcoholics” and called them “mouth breathers.”
There were just two problems with these comments:
1) His date recorded them.
2) His date was actually “…an undercover reporter for the O’Keefe Media Group.”
Kind of a big “whoops” there. But remember: these people hate you, and they want your money.
Edited to add 9/5: The suspension indeed became a firing.
Obit watch: September 4, 2024.
September 4th, 2024Paul Harrell, noted gun YouTuber. (Hattip: Lawrence.) McThag.
Edited to add: The Firearm Blog. NYPost, which kind of makes me want to go “!!!!”. On the other hand, the NYP ran an article yesterday about a heron eating a rat, so running an obit for a popular YouTuber, even if he was a gun guy, is probably closer to news.
Rob “Rabbit” Pitt, car guy. Sacramento Bee. (Hattip: FotB RoadRich.)
Archived NYT obit for James Darren, which did not go up until after I posted yesterday.
Obit watch: September 3, 2024.
September 3rd, 2024James Darren, actor and musician.
Other credits include the good “Hawaii Five-O”, “S.W.A.T.” (the original), “Black Sheep Squadron” (aka “Baa Baa Black Sheep”), and “Renegade”.
Simon Verity, stone carver.
Mr. Verity was chosen to direct the St. John the Divine project in 1988. That venture placed him on a scaffold on Amsterdam Avenue for parts of nine years, leading a team that, using hammers, mallets and chisels, carved 31 biblical figures, including Moses, Elijah, John the Baptist, Abraham and Sarah, from limestone blocks in the niches that frame the great brass doors at the Portal of Paradise.
One carving, a reimagining of the burning of Jerusalem, depicts the destruction of the World Trade Center and other city landmarks under a nuclear mushroom. (It was created more than a decade before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.) The carving illustrates signs of a rebirth, building on the city’s ashes.
The Very Rev. Patrick Malloy, dean of the cathedral, said in a statement that many tourists visited the cathedral just to see the portal.
“Mr. Verity took the long-dead worthies of the Hebrew and Christian traditions and made them things of wonder for people in our own day,” he added. “Beyond this present age, his work will endure into a future beyond us.”
…
…
One of his original grottoes was at Leeds Castle, in Kent, England, which visitors entered through a suite of rooms. Nearly all the rooms were encrusted, from ceiling to floor, with colorful mosaics made from minerals, shells and animal bones, and some of the walls were covered with elaborate limestone sculptures.
In addition, he carved statues of four whales and a fountain for King Charles III when Charles was the Prince of Wales; a teacup made of broken crockery for Elton John’s garden; a seated king in the front of Wells Cathedral, whose restoration he also worked on; and “The Agony in the Garden,” which depicts Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane before his betrayal.
Mr. Verity created fountains and a sundial at the American Academy in Rome and headstones for the writer Nancy Mitford; George Wein, the Newport Jazz Festival impresario, and his wife, Joyce (for which he sculpted a jazz band); and the British poet laureate John Betjeman.
Loser update: September 2, 2024.
September 2nd, 2024Final score of today’s game: White Sox 3, Baltimore 13.
The White Sox are currently 31-108 and have lost their last 11 games. 31-108 puts them at a .223 (heh!) winning percentage, which projects out to nearly 126 losses this season. Over the weekend, they set a franchise record for most losses in a season.
At this point, with 23 games left in the season, the Sox will have to win 12 of those just to finish at 119 losses and miss tying the modern MLB record for futility. That would be a winning percentage of .521 in the stretch.
Hooray!
August 30th, 2024Big Boy is coming to Texas!
No, not that one.
Not them, either. They are (or were) already good Texas boys. But I threw that in because I recently discovered a fun fact about one of the Big Boys, which I will put at the bottom of this post.
This Big Boy is Big Boy 4014, the Union Pacific steam locomotive. It is the second largest steam locomotive ever built, and the largest still in operation.
You may recall that I linked to a couple of videos on Big Boy during the recent unpleasantness.
Here’s the UP schedule for the “Heartland of America Tour”. The tour has already kicked off, but it doesn’t look like Big Boy will reach Texas until September 17th.
It will be in:
- Dallas, September 18th.
- Houston, October 6th.
- Bryan, October 8th.
- Fort Worth, October 10th and 11th.
Check the schedule for more details, and keep in mind that the schedule may change due to mechanical or other issues.
I’m trying to decide if I want to go to Bryan, which is slightly closer, but is “viewing only”, or Houston, which is a little further away, but seems to be more open to the public for touring. If I can pull it together to do one or the other, I’ll post a report here.
That fun Big Boys fact I promised you? Tim Kopra, who played horns with the band, went on to bigger and better things. He became a NASA astronaut. Here’s his NASA biography.
Unusual career trajectory, I think.
Obit watch: August 30, 2024.
August 30th, 2024Lawrence sent this over, but it was already on my radar and just waiting until I had time.
Johnny Gaudreau, winger for the Columbus Blue Jackets of the NHL, was killed yesterday along with his brother. He was 31. His brother was 29. NHL.
According to the reports, Mr. Gaudreau and his brother, Matthew, were out cycling. A car moved over to one side to give them clearance as it passed: another driver, who was allegedly drunk, tried to pass that vehicle on the right and hit the two brothers from behind.
…
Land of 10,000 heart attacks.
August 30th, 2024I do not want to say this is the highest and best achievement of Western civilization: that would be either Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony or deep-fried butter on a stick, depending on my mood.
But this. This is up there.
At the Minnesota State Fair, you can get deep-fried ranch dressing.
…
Personally, I’m not that big a ranch dressing fan. Also, this loses points for not being on a stick (as far as I can tell). But it is a pretty solid effort. Perhaps we will see this at next year’s State Fair in Texas.
“…he thought he was good.” (Random gun crankery.)
August 29th, 2024I have an impression that the Colt Woodsman looms large in American popular culture.
Chandler, in one of his stories (“Trouble Is My Business“), had two gunmen come through the door, one armed with “a Colt Woodsman with a long barrel and the front sight filed off. That meant he thought he was good.”
(Sorry. Just wanted to break the wall of text up a bit.)
Flaming hyena update.
August 29th, 2024I wrote a while back about Robert Telles, the former public administrator of Clark County, who was charged with murdering Jeff German. Mr. German was a reporter for the Las Vegas Review-Journal who had been covering Mr. Telles management of the office, and discovered all sorts of problems: hostile work environment, affairs with subordinates, those kind of things.
Mr. Telles went on trial a couple of weeks ago.
He was convicted yesterday of first degree murder. He’s already been sentenced to life in prison, though he can apply for parole in 20 years.
Coverage from the R-J by way of archive.is. Since it is close to the end of the month, I’m going to burn a NYT gift link to their coverage of the story.
Obit watch: August 28, 2024.
August 28th, 2024Things have been kind of slow on the obit front. I don’t know if it just too hot for people to die, or what’s going on, but it just doesn’t seem like there’s been a lot to report.
I have had this one in my pocket for a few days now. I’m wondering if it will ring a bell with any of my readers: Mitzi McCall.
Ms. McCall was a pretty successful entertainer. She had a comedy act with her husband, Charlie Brill.
They got a big break on the night of February 9, 1964. They were booked to appear on “The Ed Sullivan Show”. The lists of acts that night included:
Oh, yeah, there was one other act booked that night: a group of obscure British musicians that called themselves the Beatles.
In their sketch, Mr. Brill played a producer casting a young actress for a new movie. Ms. McCall played his secretary and three other roles: a nervous former Miss Palm Springs, a pushy stage mother and a Method actor. The sketch fell with a thud, except for some chuckles when Ms. McCall tossed in an ad lib as the stage mother.
“My little girl was waiting outside, you know,” she said. “She used to be one of the Beatles.”
“Oh, what happened?” Mr. Brill asked.
“Somebody stepped on her.”
They bombed. Their agent didn’t call them for six months. But they recovered:
Ms. McCall was 93. Her husband, Mr. Brill, survives her.
She was also the dry cleaner’s wife in that “Seinfeld” episode. Other credits include “Twilight Zone” (both the original and the 1986 revival), “The Jim Backus Show”, “The Dennis O’Keefe Show”, the 1990 “Dragnet”, and “Madman of the People”.
Reminder.
August 27th, 2024Memos from the Sports Desk.
August 27th, 2024Lawrence and I have bet $5 straight across on the Houston Texans’s chances of making the playoffs. Lawrence is taking the pro-playoffs side, while I am skeptical enough about Houston sports teams in general that I am willing to put up $5 that they won’t make the playoffs.
This is probably a sucker bet, but I get more than $5 worth of entertainment out of my bets with Lawrence, and we haven’t done a bet in a while, so why not?
Lawrence also sent over a story from Not the Bee, though I was already on it and planning to cover it today.
Danny Jansen became a historical footnote on Monday. He was the first (and so far only) baseball player to play for both sides in a baseball game.
As a matter of fact, not just both sides, but both sides in the same inning.
How did this happen? He was playing for the Toronto Blue Jays on June 26th. In the second inning, he hit a foul ball off of Boston pitcher Kutter Crawford. Then the rain started and the game was postponed.
On July 27th, Mr. Jansen was traded to Boston for three minor league players.
The postponed game was resumed on Monday.
Before the game resumed at 2:06 p.m. ET Monday — a delay of 65 days, 18 hours and 35 minutes — Red Sox media relations coordinator Daveson Perez announced the changes in the Fenway Park press box: “Pinch hitting for Danny Jansen: Daulton Varsho. Defensive changes: Danny Jansen now at catcher.”
With Jansen behind the plate, Nick Pivetta struck Varsho out to complete the at-bat Jansen started. Then Jansen came up for the Red Sox with two outs in the bottom half of the frame, getting a nice cheer from a sparse makeup game crowd, and hit a lazy liner to first base to end the inning.
Toronto won, 4-1.
Loser update: August 26, 2024.
August 26th, 2024The Chicago White Sox lost their 100th game on Sunday.
The Sox are currently 31-100, for a .237 winning percentage. Projected out, that comes to 123 losses.
Put another way, in order to go 43-119, and miss tying the record set by the 1962 Mets, the Sox will have to go 12-19 in their remaining games, for a .387 winning percentage. They play Detroit at home tonight: Detroit is favored about 55% – 45%.
Duke, Duke, Duke…
August 23rd, 2024…not of Earl, Earl, Earl. I have two books by the late Mike “Duke” Venturino I want to get cataloged. And while I’m at it, I want to also hit another Samworth and another O’Connor. So why don’t we get started?
I think, before I insert the jump, that I do want to note: I know there are some people (including one reader here) who don’t care for Duke’s writing. I’m 100% okay with that. While I enjoyed reading him, I understand tastes differ. De gustibus non est disputandum and all that crap. Plus I don’t have a personal investment in people sharing my tastes. I remember having this discussion with one of my nephews once upon a time: I don’t want you to like the same things I do just because I like them, but I would like for you to be able to articulate why you do or don’t like things. (Again, that was one of my nephews. That’s not an issue with anyone here.)
Anyway, if you didn’t care for Mr. Venturino’s writings, you’re welcome to skip over the last two entries. Deal?
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#125, #126, and #127 in a series)
August 23rd, 2024Quel fromage!
Mike the Musicologist sent over a link from the Department of Justice: Trayon White Sr., who is a member of the DC City Council, was arrested Monday on bribery charges. (I know, a little old, but I missed this until MtM called it out.)
A corrupt DC city council member? What are the odds?
More from the WP (archived) which describes him as “a Marion Barry protege”.
Barry, for all his legal issues, never faced charges that he sought to enrich himself, although his associates were convicted of public corruption, including Ivanhoe Donaldson, a senior adviser who pleaded guilty to embezzling $190,000 in city funds.
“People looked at Marion’s issues as human frailties,” said Ron Lester, a veteran D.C. pollster whose clients included Barry. “Whether you liked or disliked him, Marion wasn’t someone accused of taking bribes. If these allegations prove to be true, Trayon doesn’t have a political future. It’s more clear-cut than anything Marion faced.”
In other news:
According to KXAN, she resigned from the district in March of last year, and went to work for…the City of Austin.
So just to be clear, that’s two former AISD employees, who seem to have worked in the same department, that have been indicted.
Yeah, the names are in the KXAN article, but I’m avoiding using them here. Why avoid using them, while at the same time naming Trayon White Sr.? Given the previous mess with an AISD employee, I’m not sure the district can be trusted to get it right, so I’m erring on the side of caution here.
Marooned.
August 22nd, 2024I am seeing reports that the Seattle Mariners are going to fire general manager Scott Servais.
Right now, this is all just “sources” and nobody’s reporting anything definite yet. The Entertainment and Sports Programming Network isn’t even covering the story.
Realistically, it was the culmination of two months of losing and failure following that apex day June 18.
Since that high-water mark above .500, the Mariners have posted a 20-33 record, losing their 10-game division lead in a span of 24 games and now trailing the Astros by five games. Only the hapless Chicago White Sox have had a worse record over that stretch (10-43).
Following Wednesday’s 8-4 loss in which they were swept in a three-game series by the Dodgers in Los Angeles to close out the trip, the Mariners fell to an even 64-64. The previous time the Mariners were at .500 was April 24 when they were 12-12.
When I see something beyond “sources say”, I’ll update here.
(I’m trying to keep the White Sox posts to one per week.)
Edited to add 8/23: official now. The Seattle Times story was updated in place, but here’s the ESPN story.
Art, damn it, art! watch (#62 in a series)
August 20th, 2024The art market is collapsing.
At least, according to the NYT. “Young Artists Rode a $712 Million Boom. Then Came the Bust.”
The paper of record gives examples such as Amani Lewis:
First came the meteoric rise. A haunting painting Lewis made in 2020 sold at auction just a year later for $107,100, more than double its estimate. Two other works had recently tripled expectations, and a collector offered $150,000 in cash for new pieces fresh from the studio. There were shows in Paris and Miami — Lewis had seemingly conquered the market at age 26, upgrading to a new art studio and a Tesla.
But when the original painting re-emerged at auction in June and its price plunged to $10,080 — losing 90 percent of its value — the party was over. By then, Lewis had stopped renting a $7,000-a-month luxury apartment in Miami and temporarily moved in with their brother.
“It was such a nice high and then it drops,” the artist, now 29, said. “It feels like, ‘We’re done with Amani Lewis.’”
More:
…
“…should go for $25,000 to $50,000”? Seems to reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of how markets work.
The comments on this article are now closed, but from my review of the ones already posted, there’s one recurring theme (which may also explain why the NYT closed the comments): these emperors have no clothes.
Or to put it another way: “The art shown in the article is awful — not something I would like to see in 10 years let alone 100.” And: “I’m not interested in looking at any of these paintings for months or years. No offence intended, but what’s the point of collecting paintings unless you enjoy looking at them.”
Virtue. Rewarded.
August 20th, 2024Yes, another rare event in the history of the republic.
After many years (seriously: I’ve known him since Jesus was getting his hair cut at boot camp) of honing his craft…
…friend, fellow blogger, writer, and noted book dealer Lawrence Person has won a major literary award.
Specifically, the Grand Prize in the 2024 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest.
More from Lawrence here. Hearty congratulations to him on this achievement.
Sadly, I do not believe the award comes with any money attached. It used to come with a leather-bound set of Bulwer-Lytton’s books, but I have been unable to determine if that is still the case.
I did briefly consider buying him a leg lamp to commemorate the occasion, but an authentic leg lamp from the Christmas Story House is $300! Freaking! Dollars!
Can you get a ham hock bronzed?
Obit watch: August 19, 2024.
August 19th, 2024Loser update: August 19, 2024.
August 19th, 2024Sometime over the weekend – I’m not sure if it was Saturday or Sunday – the Chicago White Sox became the first (and so far only) team to be mathematically eliminated from post-season play.
The Sox are currently 30-95, for a .240 winning percentage, and are currently 42.5 games out of first in the AL Central. A .240 winning percentage projects out to 123 losses.
For them to lose only 119 games (which would make them not as bad as the 1962 Mets) they will have to win 13 out of the remaining 37 games, for a .351 winning percentage over the rest of the season.
They play in San Francisco tonight. SF is roughly a 70-30 favorite.
Obit watch: August 18, 2024.
August 18th, 2024Alain Delon, noted French actor. NYT (gift link).
Other credits include “Someone Is Bleeding” (aka “Icy Breasts”, based on a Richard Matheson novel), “The Assassination of Trotsky” (apparently, he was the assassin to Richard Burton’s (!) Trotsky), and…
…he didn’t have much of a US career, but he did play “Joe Patroni”‘s co-pilot and procurer in “The Concorde…Airport ’79“.
John Aprea, actor. Other credits include a movie that does not exist and is clearly a copyright trap by IMDB, “Renegade”, “Lt. Vince Novelli” on “Matt Houston”, “Mrs. Columbo” (but not “Columbo”), “The F.B.I.”, “The Seven-Ups”…
…and yes, he did do a “Mannix” (“Murder Revisited”, season 3, episode 23. IMDB lists him as “Thug (uncredited)”.)