"I Lived My Life."
To please myself.https://t.co/bHy27xDFGq— Patrick Nonwhite (@NonWhiteHat) October 25, 2017
Archive for the ‘Music’ Category
Obit watch take 2.
Wednesday, October 25th, 2017Promoted.
Thursday, October 19th, 2017By way of great and good friend of the blog Joe D, in the comments: a record store owner in Michigan decided to pull a prank on his customers and make them think he only had one album in stock.
And what album was that?
You’ll have to click through to find out, though I will give a hint: it was one that is thematically appropriate for this blog.
Obits, firings, and random: October 3, 2017.
Tuesday, October 3rd, 2017I didn’t feel much like blogging yesterday: what the hell was I going to say that everyone else wasn’t saying better? Plus, I was trying to dig myself out of a backlog at work most of the day, and then I had a doctor’s appointment (at least that went well) and then I went down to the cop shop to help with the CPA class (which had been moved from Tuesday)…
…so I really didn’t get a chance to blog Tom Petty, which was a good thing. First he was dead, then he wasn’t dead and the LAPD knew nothing, and now he’s really dead. What a mess.
I probably would have inserted a musical interlude or three, but really, you’ve heard them all.
John Coppolella out as general manager of the Braves in a “resignation”:
…after an investigation by Major League Baseball revealed serious rules violations in the international player market.
The Braves announced Coppolella’s resignation Monday, citing a “breach of Major League Baseball rules regarding the international player market.” Gordon Blakeley, a special assistant to the GM who was the team’s international scouting chief, also has resigned.
Longtime readers know of my interest in baking bread. I just found out about this: Modernist Bread. From those wonderful folks who brought you Microsoft Windows Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking.
Right up my alley? Perhaps. But not no damn $562.50 worth. Though I’m sure it is beautifully photographed, and if you have that kind of money, good for you. I’ll wait for it to show up at Half-Price Books.
Obit watch: September 9, 2017.
Saturday, September 9th, 2017Dr. Jerry Pournelle, noted SF writer and longtime computer columnist for Byte magazine back in the day.
Official website. Lawrence. Borepatch.
I don’t have a lot to add here. I never met Dr. Pournelle, and I don’t think I’ve read any of his solo SF. I’m spotty on his collaborations with Larry Niven, though the ones I have read I think are better than Niven’s solo work.
I enjoyed his Byte column, though at the time some of his recurring tropes did kind of grate on my nerves. (See also: Gregg Easterbroook.)
(For the younger set, and/or those who may not know: the Internet Archive has a large digital collection of Byte.)
I’m very fond of Oath of Fealty. And I believe Lucifer’s Hammer has been a huge influence on a lot of people (including me, somewhat),
The only other thing I have to say is: I’m ordering a copy of The Survival of Freedom, as my personal tribute to the good doctor.
Also among the dead: Don Williams, noted country musician.
Troy Gentry, also a country musician with Montgomery Gentry, was killed in a helicopter crash yesterday.
And finally, Rick Stevens, not a country musician, but a funk-soul one. He sang with the group Tower of Power, and did the lead vocal on “You’re Still a Young Man” from the 1972 album “Bump City”.
Then he got into heroin and other drugs. Over about a two-day period in 1976, he killed three men. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to death, but California declared the death penalty unconstitutional and he was resentenced to life. He was paroled in 2012 and started working again.
In January 2013 his old band brought him onstage at the Oakland club Yoshi’s to sing his signature song.
“When he got back onstage with Tower of Power for the first time in 40 years,” Mr. Maloney said, “he felt like he was levitating. That’s what he told me.”
While he was in prison, he became a Christian. He also did counseling and mentoring for other inmates, and formed prison bands.
He remained remorseful for the deadly events of 1976, which he said occurred during a time in his life when he was going from one drug high to another and not thinking clearly — “a jackass in a jumpsuit,” he would describe himself years later. When he began performing again after his release from prison he was realistic about his past.
“I know a lot of people won’t forget,” he said in a 2013 interview. “I won’t forget.”
Not exactly an obit, but:
Her parole still has to be approved by the governor. Jerry Brown rejected her bid for parole last year.
Obit watch: September 4, 2017.
Monday, September 4th, 2017Walter Becker, co-founder of Steely Dan, passed away yesterday. He was 67.
As Steely Dan, Mr. Becker and Mr. [Donald] Fagen changed the vocabulary of pop in the 1970s with songs like “Do It Again,” “Reelin’ in the Years,” “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” and “Peg.” Mr. Becker and Mr. Fagen were close collaborators on every element of a song: words, music, arrangement. “We think very much the same musically. I can start songs and Walter can finish them,” Mr. Fagen said in a 1977 interview.
Steely Dan’s musical surfaces were sleek and understated, smooth enough to almost be mistaken for easy-listening pop, and polished through countless takes that earned Mr. Becker and Mr. Fagen a daunting reputation as studio perfectionists.
….
I think it is time for a longer than usual musical interlude. I’ll put in a jump.
TMQ Watch: August 29, 2017.
Wednesday, August 30th, 2017Week two. Gesundheit.
Our count is roughly 9,400 words. Will TMQ join the 10,000 Club this season? We would not be surprised.
(And this is why we’re running behind: we do plan to try to get these up on Tuesday, but if the Weekly Standard is going to let Easterbrook run on as long as he wants, without apparent editing or restrictions, we can’t promise that.)
After the jump, this week’s column…
Random notes: August 24, 2017.
Thursday, August 24th, 2017Also among the dead: the print edition of the Village Voice.
In other news: WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!
Just-completed GFS model (12Z) shows nothing less than a flooding catastrophe for Texas. 24-48" of rain in 3 or 4 days.
Please pay attention pic.twitter.com/VWmOe1DtG7— Eric Holthaus (@EricHolthaus) August 23, 2017
Keeping your head up, your eyes open, and not driving into high water is probably a good idea. But. I remember the last time a hurricane came ashore near Houston, and was threatening Austin. I was still attending St. Ed’s at the time, and the university was sending out regular updates. There was tremendous hysteria. Everyone was hunkering down waiting for the storm.
In my part of town, the skies turned dark…and we got maybe three drops of rain, total. The hurricane was a giant bust.
I suggest being careful. But I’m not going to put any faith in apocalyptic predictions until the water starts coming over the top of the dam.
Whatever happened to Alice Goodman? She wrote the librettos to John Adams’s “Nixon in China” and “Death of Klinghoffer”…and then she just sort of vanished.
Turns out, she’s an ordained Anglican priest living in England.
Now I’m only falling apart…
Monday, August 21st, 2017There are reports from Leipzig that Johann Sebastian Bach has risen from his grave, saying, "What the hell is all this crap?" #eclipse
— Alex Ross (@alexrossmusic) August 21, 2017
Headline of the day.
Tuesday, August 15th, 2017This is ridiculous, and Costco should be ashamed.
Everybody knows that a beautiful bunch of ripe bananas hides the deadly black tarantula, not scorpions. Is this just cost-cutting on Costco’s part? Are scorpions cheaper than tarantulas?
(Sorry. I’m feeling a little punchy. You might even say me wanna go home.)
Obit watch: August 9, 2017.
Wednesday, August 9th, 2017Glen Campbell: NYT. South Texas Pistolero.
Obit watch: July 21, 2017.
Friday, July 21st, 2017To honor Chester Bennington's life the best thing you can do is retweet the suicide hotline prevention number.
1-800-273-8255— Sean Kent (@seankent) July 20, 2017
If you are outside of the United States, the TVTropes page linked on the sidebar has resources for other countries.
Obit watch: June 17, 2017.
Saturday, June 17th, 2017Helmut Kohl, former German chancellor.
John G. Avildsen, noted film director. Among his credits were “The Karate Kid” and “Rocky”, the movie that shouldn’t have won Best Picture in 1977, but beat out the far superior “Network”.
Not that I’m bitter or anything.
Anita Pallenberg, sometime actress:
She may, perhaps, have been better known for her relationships with Brian Jones (“who was reported to have physically abused her”) and after him, Keith Richards. (“She lived with Mr. Richards from 1967 through 1980, and had three children with him.”)
Finally, there’s an interesting obit for Marine Corps Capt. Arthur J. Jackson, who passed away at 92 last Sunday.
During WwII, Jackson (at the time a private first class) committed serious acts of badassery during the invasion of Peleliu:
Loaded up with grenades, he charged the pillbox, raking it with automatic fire while discharging white phosphorus grenades and other explosives. He was credited with killing all 35 occupants.
Continuing alone and again at tremendous peril, he repeated the same maneuver at 11 smaller pillboxes that contained another 15 Japanese soldiers.
He received the Medal of Honor for his actions. After the war, he became a commissioned officer in the Army and then in the Marines.
On the night of September 30, 1961, as a company commander at Guantanamo Bay, he discovered a Cuban who worked as a bus driver (“even though he expressed openly pro-Fidel Castro sympathies and was under surveillance by naval intelligence”) in a restricted area of the base. Jackson and his executive officer decided to escort the Cuban, Ruben Lopez, off the base. But the gate they were using was locked: Jackson sent his XO to get something to break the lock with. And while the XO was gone, Jackson claimed that Lopez “lunged at him” so he shot and killed Lopez with his sidearm.
Jackson and some other Marines buried Lopez in a shallow grave on base. Cutting to the chase, the truth eventually came out, and Jackson was allegedly “thrown out” of the Marines.
Capt. Jackson, who said he long felt “ashamed” of his Guantanamo killing, did not speak publicly about the incident until an Idaho Statesman reporter interviewed him in 2013.
He said his key concern was his “understanding” of a treaty between the United States and Cuba that could have resulted in his detention in a notorious Cuban prison.
“I hoped no one would find out,” he told the newspaper. “The world found out.”