Ron Glass. A/V Club.
Loved him in “Barney Miller”, loved him with Sherman Hemsley in the “I of Newton” episode of the revived “Twilight Zone”, don’t have a damn thing to say about “Firefly” thank you very much.
Obit watch: November 27, 2016.
November 27th, 2016Your NFL loser update: weeks 12 and 13, 2016
November 27th, 2016NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:
Cleveland
The Browns have a bye in week 13, which is why this is a combined update.
After that, they play at home against the Bengals, on the road in Buffalo, at home against San Diego, and on the road in Pittsburgh. Three out of four of these teams are basically mediocre, and the Bengals are bad, so it’s still possible for the Browns to pull out a couple of wins. I wouldn’t bet that way, but it is possible…
Inevitability.
November 26th, 2016Charlie Strong officially out as University of Texas head football coach.
16-21 in three seasons: 6-7 in 2014, 5-7 in 2015, and 5-7 again this year.
Strong ran his program by his personal moral compass whereby players could lose their scholarship by violating one of his five core values, which included being honest and not using drugs. He kicked 10 players off the team that first year and doubled the amount of drug testing that went on under Brown.
Strong won universal praise from UT administrators and parents. That’s a primary reason how he captured consecutive top-10 recruiting classes the last two years. Dozens of recruits’ parents told the American-Statesman they wanted their sons to play for a man of Strong’s character.
That’s pretty much the saddest thing about this: it seems like he is a great guy, and everybody liked him. But his teams just were not performing on the field, and (this is also sad to say) there’s just too much invested in UT football to have three consecutive losing seasons.
The mildly amusing aspect of this is that UT has supposedly already hired Tom Herman, current University of Houston head coach and former Ohio State offensive coordinator. (Hello, my northern relatives who are currently watching the Ohio State game!) This is mildly amusing because earlier in the week ESPN was reporting that UT boosters were pushing hard for Herman. By the middle of the week, the reports were that LSU was going to hire Herman. By yesterday, the reports were that LSU wasn’t going to wait around on Herman and had made their interim coach (Ed Orgeron) the non-interim coach instead.
So almost everybody got more or less what they wanted: UT boosters got Herman, LSU got somebody who is at least familiar with the program, Herman gets a larger paycheck, more prestige, and less family disruption. And Charlie Strong gets a contract buyout (“Strong has two years remaining on a guaranteed contract worth $10.7 million.”)
Obit watch: November 26, 2016.
November 26th, 2016Scum sucking dictator Fidel Castro is burning in Hell.
Cuban geopolitics is a little outside of my area of specialization (though I did stick a toe in those waters when I was taking “Modern Revolutions” with Dr. Sanchez back in the St. Edwards days). If I see any smart takes while I’m out and about I’ll try to link them here.
Edited to add: Various takes: Tam. Lawrence. Amy Alkon.
Edited to add 2: by way of a retweet from Popehat on the Twitter, the Miami Herald obit.
While I’m thinking about it, can I put in a plug for Stephen Hunter’s Havana? Not that it’s completely historical or anything, but I did think it was a fun book. (And Castro is a pivotal character in it.)
Obit watch: November 25, 2016.
November 25th, 2016…
Intersectionality.
November 22nd, 2016At the weird intersection of book collecting and weapons geekery: a facsimile edition of the I.33 manuscript, a legendary 14th century combat manual.
Only £750. And that’s the cheap edition.
I can think of one person whose wheelhouse this would sort of be in: he’d probably buy two copies and resell one, except this is a little outside of his specialty…
(On a totally unrelated note, the Lame Excuse Books web page has been updated, and a new catalog is in progress. Books from Lame Excuse Books make fine presents for the holidays.)
(Hattip on I.33 to Hognose over at Weaponsman.)
At the weird intersection of gun crankery and entertainment history:
There are two things I enjoy doing when Mike the Musicologist and I go to Tulsa (well, three, but the shopping is really the whole point of the trip, so it doesn’t count):
- Visiting with folks from the Smith and Wesson Collector’s Association.
- Visiting the NRA Museum table. Especially if Jim Supica is there.
I didn’t see Mr. Supica this time, but we hung around the table for a bit and I picked up a few postcards, one of which contained the following odd bit of history.
I kind of knew Sammy Davis Jr. was a gun owner and collector (probably from reading his Wikipedia entry). What I didn’t know was that Mr. Davis was a serious fast draw practitioner. Serious.
Photo by way of Gabby Franco’s blog, also linked.
That’s one of Mr. Davis’ Colt Single Action Army revolvers. The rig was custom made for him by the great Arvo Ojala, holster maker and consultant to the stars. Mr. Davis was fast enough that he did his own gun work for many of the TV shows he guested on.
Here’s some vintage film of Mr. Davis at work:
Mr. Davis and Mr. Martin apparently were not the only fast draw artists in the Rat Pack: according to the back of the postcard (which, sadly, I’ve dropped in the mail and don’t have in front of me), Mr. Davis and Frank Sinatra had a fast draw competition with a new car as the stakes. And Mr. Davis won.
(And Dr. Brackett too? The earth was full of giants in those days: or, more likely, a lot of these folks learned fast draw as a way to get roles in the endless parade of TV westerns.)
I’ll leave you with a short NRA “Curator’s Corner” video about the Davis gun.
Public service announcement.
November 22nd, 2016Partly as a reminder to myself, partly as a warning to any Austin area readers who may not be aware yet:
The weekend of December 3rd through December 5th, MoPac is going to be completely hosed going northbound.
More firings!
November 21st, 2016Well, really, just one: Jurgen Klinsmann out as head coach of the United States men’s soccer team.
Firing watch.
November 21st, 2016The drumbeat is getting louder: Charlie Strong is probably out at UT. The only question now is: do they let him finish out the TCU game and any bowl game UT might wind up in, or do they cut ties now? Waiting until after the TCU game gives them more time to line up the ducks…
According to family members, Kliff Kingsbury is also possibly in trouble at Texas Tech, but I’ve seen very little coverage of this.
Your NFL loser update: week 11, 2016
November 20th, 2016NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:
Cleveland
Unfortunately, since my last loser update, Philadelphia has managed to win three games: there are no longer any NBA teams that have a shot of going 0-82.
Lawrence sent along this interesting piece from Battle Red Blog that goes into detail about Cleveland’s losing streak. Short version: the author thinks they’ve got a shot at going 0-16, and that this is a good thing. They’ve got high draft choices and are making all the right moves to rebuild.
I’d like for him to be right, but: who have the Browns used their high draft choices on in the past? And how did that work out for them?
Obit watch: November 19, 2016.
November 19th, 2016Dr. Denton Cooley, former UT basketball player and one of the greatest surgeons ever.
Obit watch: November 18, 2016.
November 18th, 2016Howard Ruff, author and “conservative” economist.
I had a copy of How to Prosper During the Coming Bad Years when I was a boy. The young me thought Ruff made a lot of sense, but I really wasn’t in a position as a lad to take any action on his recommendations. In retrospect, it doesn’t seem like much of what he predicted ever came true, so maybe that was for the better.
I would like to see an objective analysis of how his recommendations performed against the market, but I don’t have the time or data to do that. Maybe someone else will.
Important safety tip (#20 in a series)
November 17th, 2016For the love of God, don’t go swimming in a Yellowstone hot spring.
First of all, it will kill you.
Second of all, those springs are acid, and will dissolve your dead body.
We haven’t had a musical interlude in a while. Let’s fix that. Besides, this is a rather catchy little ditty,
Art (Acevedo), damn it! watch. (#AC of a series)
November 17th, 2016I don’t think this is going to be the last one, but we may be nearing the end.
I have reservations, given that this is so far just “a source” said and there’s been no official announcement. Also, if he is taking the Houston job, I may want to continue the Art watch: it isn’t like he’s going to be on the other side of the world…
If this does become official, I’ll throw an update in.
Edited to add: The HouChron is quoting Mayor Adler as making it official.
Yeah. I had a theory (which was poo-pooed by others) that if Clinton won, he’d be moving to some sort of government position in homeland security. I guess I wasn’t too far off after all.
Edited to add 2: official statement by the Chief. (Hattip: RoadRich.)
Consumer advisory.
November 15th, 2016Remember The Jerk?
Some of the good folks who read this blog might be interested to know that the Standard Catalog of Smith & Wesson 4th Edition is available in print and Kindle editions.
My print copy is on the way, but not here yet. The one person who had copies in Tulsa had already sold out of them when we got to his table. And I do plan to order the digital edition, but not right away: I’m not complaining, but the price of the new digital edition is about double what I paid for the digital version of the 3rd Edition, and just slightly under what the 528 page print edition goes for.
(Why both? Because the digital edition is a lot easier to carry around than the phone book sized print version. But sometimes, I just want print.)