Obit watch: December 4, 2019.

December 4th, 2019

Interesting pair of obits from the NYT:

Wayne Merry has passed away at the age of 88. Mr. Merry, Warren Harding, and George Whitmore were rock climbers:

On Nov. 12, 1958, they became the first climbers to reach the top of El Capitan after ascending the Nose, notable for a daunting overhang called the Great Roof. The climb took 45 days, spread out over about a year and a half; in each leg of the climb they would secure fixed ropes to the highest point they had reached so that they could later resume the climb with relative ease.

…

They subsisted on cheese, raisins, canned fruit and sardines. They carried water in an old paint-thinner can, and drank wine. “We trained on red wine, if anything,” Merry told The Yukon News in 2015.
They relied on improvised implements, including pitons that they fashioned from the legs of old wood stoves and tools from a hardware store that they repurposed for climbing.
“I wouldn’t hang a picture from them today, but back then we hung our lives on them,” Merry told Yukon North of Ordinary magazine in 2016.

Brad Gobright passed away last week at 31.

Mr. Gobright, a native of California, was hailed as one of the world’s best free solo climbers, a technique that uses no ropes. He set a speed record in 2017 — 2 hours 19 minutes 44 seconds — at the popular climbing route called the Nose on El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. It has since been surpassed.

Mr. Gobright died in a fall while rappelling with a climbing partner in Mexico.

In non-rock climbing related news, this is a nice tribute to Tim George. Dr. George was a pediatric neurosurgeon at Dell Children’s Hospital:

In 2006, Bill Dollahite’s son Scott was badly hurt playing football for Cedar Park High School in Waco. Doctors told him Scott was paralyzed. The family decided to move him closer to home.
“We took about a three-hour ride in the worst weather in the world … following an ambulance,” Dollahite said. In the middle of the night, the ambulance pulled into what was Brackenridge Hospital, “and here comes Dr. George.”
George was still new to Austin; Dollahite is not sure if he even had an office. Dell Children’s was under construction.
“Dr. George looked at him and goes, ‘You know, let’s not give up everything just yet. Let me take a look at this, because everything looks too perfect,’” Dollahite said. “Long story short, Scott went into Brackenridge quadriplegic. A couple of days later, he walked out. No ill effects after that. By the miracles that Dr. George did, he gave him his life back.”

Dr. George went on to take up racing as a hobby. He was competing in an endurance race at Sebring in Florida last month (as part of a team with Scott Dollahite) when he suddenly became ill, pulled into pit row, and collapsed.

I never watched “Will and Grace”, but Shelley Morrison had a long career before that show: “Laredo”, “The Flying Nun”, “240-Robert”…

NYT obit for D.C. Fontana.

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

Da do Ron Ron, da do Ron Ron…

December 3rd, 2019

Ron Rivera fired as head coach of the Carolina Panthers.

76-63-1 in regular season games, 3-4 post season.

I’m approaching the end of my work day and am about to leave. I might have more to say later, but I kind of doubt it.

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Obit watch: December 3, 2019.

December 3rd, 2019

Robert K. Massie, author, historian, and Pulitzer Prize winner.

Mr. Massie said his literary odyssey was set in motion by research he did at the New York Public Library during lunch breaks from his job as a young journalist. It was purely personal research at first: He wanted to know more about the bleeding disease of hemophilia and how he and his wife at the time, Suzanne Massie, who became a noted Russian scholar, could help their hemophiliac son, Bob.
During his research he became fascinated with perhaps the most famous childhood case of hemophilia, that of Alexei, a son of Nicholas and Alexandra. It was to help Alexei that Alexandra had summoned Grigory Rasputin, the notorious faith-healing monk who gained influence over the imperial court. Public disdain of Rasputin contributed to the Russian people’s turn against the monarchy, helping to pave the way for the revolution of 1917.
Mr. Massie wound up writing an article on hemophilia for The Saturday Evening Post, where he had taken a job in 1962. He wrote an accompanying article about Alexei and his parents, but The Post did not print it. Still, he found himself unable to abandon the family drama of the Romanovs, as the Russian dynasty was known, and he eventually quit his job to pursue the subject full time.
A decade later, “Nicholas and Alexandra” was published to acclaim. Though nearly 1,000 pages long, it sold more than 4.5 million copies and is regarded as one of the most popular historical studies ever published.

When I was a little kid, we had a Reader’s Digest Condensed book that had Nicholas and Alexandra in it. I remember being both fascinated by it and incapable of understanding it, because I was a little kid, and Russian history was just a little above my level. Not too long ago (back when I was at St. Ed’s) I read – and loved – the actual, non-condensed book.

Lawrence tipped me off to this, but I don’t have an obit to link: Dorothy Catherine Fontana, aka D.C. Fontana. She did a lot of writing for television, including “The Waltons”, “Land of the Lost”, something called “Captain Simian & The Space Monkeys”, “Babylon 5”, “Dallas”, “Logan’s Run”, “Lancer”…

…and she was also heavily involved with a minor series called “Star Trek”, as well as some of the sequels: “Star Trek: The Next Generation”, “Star Trek: The Animated Series”, and various spin-off products.

Edited to add: THR obit. (Hattip: RoadRich.)

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

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

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