The A/V club and other reliable sources are reporting the death of legendary musician Slim Whitman.
(Yes, this does count as 1970s television: quoth the A/V Club, “That changed in 1979, with a saturation TV ad campaign promoting a greatest-hits collection by an artist who, the commercials swore, had sold more records than Elvis and The Beatles. The commercial simultaneously revived the 55-year-old Whitman’s domestic career and turned him into a pop-culture punchline.”)
NYT headline:
I think, with Father’s Day approaching, this is an important safety tip for everyone. A tie may be a good gift for Dad, if he has to wear ties and if you put some thought into it. However, I’d recommend staying away from ties with Nazi iconography, just as a general rule.
Randal Schwartz, call your office please.
(That was perhaps my only disappointment at YAPC. As I noted, I did get to shake Larry Wall’s hand, but I never saw Randal Schwartz; I’m not even sure if he was there.)
There’s a protest singer singing a protest song.
Another NYT headline:
Not Constantinople?
(Technically, I suppose that’s nobody’s business but the Turks. And, I guess, the IOC.)
Ray Manzarek. NYT. LAT. A/V Club.
Mentioned by Lawrence last night: Manzarek wrote a horror novel (the A/V Club calls it “a Civil War ghost story”), Snake Moon
More:
Heading out to the gun show, and then a ceremony at the university later on. Busy day coming.
The mayor of Patton Village, Texas, is no longer the mayor of Patton Village.
She was removed from office by the judge shortly after her conviction. Ms. Munoz still faces charges of tampering with government records: she was convicted of a felony in 1979, but lied about that conviction when she ran for mayor.
(Previously. Previously.)
Obit watch: the late great George Jones. NYT. LAT. A/V Club.
Firings: Mike Dunlap, Charlotte Bobcats head coach. One season, 21-61.
Obits: Richie Havens. NYT. LAT. A/V Club.
E. L. Konigsburg, noted author (From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
This is one of those little tidbits that I find fascinating: “From the Mixed-Up Files…” won the Newbery Medal in 1968. That was Ms. Konigsburg’s second book. Her first book, Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth
There will probably be more to say about this tomorrow, but Allan Arbus has also passed away.
In other news, while I was out and about having fun, Lawrence was working. Specifically, he’s been posting video of the Travis County DA being arrested for DWI, and of the DA in jail.
And what do I have to offer to compare with that? Pictures, maybe?
Here we see the elusive Mike the Musicologist. While Jim attempts to throw a net over him, let me tell you about Mutual of Omaha…
And one for my great and good friend Weer’d Beard: ducks!
Theremin expert Jon Bernhardt has been at MIT’s WMBR since 8am, under lockdown but DJing defiantly wmbr.mit.edu
— Alex Ross (@alexrossmusic) April 19, 2013
…the radio stations will be all theremin, all the time. Except when I want to provide the people with important updates on the progress of our flying monkeys.
Paul S. Williams, noted music critic, founder of Crawdaddy. Hollywood Reporter. Locus Online.
The Locus Online obit touches on this briefly, but Mr. Williams was a friend of Philip K. Dick and, after Dick’s death, his literary executor. Mr. Williams founded the Philip K. Dick Society, which was a major force in getting Dick’s works out in front of the public. I did volunteer work as a secretary for the PKD Society for a period of time; Mr. Williams was always incredibly nice to me when we spoke, but I get the feeling he was the kind of person who was incredibly nice to everyone he met.
Post-PKD Society, he also was the force behind The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon, which would make him a hero of mine even without the PKD connection.
If you want to get a feel for his writing and his philosophy, I commend to your attention his book The 20th Century’s Greatest Hits: A Top 40 List
Here’s your obit for Herbert Streicher, aka “Harry Reems”, the male star of “Deep Throat”: NYT. A/V Club.
Oh, look! New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is re-thinking his hastily passed and poorly thought out gun control measures! It couldn’t have anything to do with his declining popularity, could it?
But gun control works!
I have not had time to go through all of it yet, but the NYT special section on “Museums” looks interesting. Call this a bookmark.
Here’s the LAT‘s second day article on the Bell convictions.
And if the dam breaks open many years too soon
And if there is no room upon the hill
And if your head explodes with dark forebodings too
I’ll see you in the national recording registry…
(Also: The Ramones first album! “Einstein on the Beach”! “South Pacific”! “Sounds of Silence”! The “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack?)
Continuing our N.C.A.A. coverage:
Meanwhile, Joel Bauman is a wrestler on scholarship at the University of Minnesota. He’s also a musician, and wants to inspire people through his music.
So?
(I wonder: if he wasn’t selling the video on iTunes, would the N.C.A.A. still have an issue?)
In other news: your dog wants steak. Your dog does not want rodent poison. Your dog does not want people feeding it rodent poison, especially if it is in competition at Westminster.
(It strikes me as odd that a necropsy wasn’t done. “[Lynette] Blue [one of the owners] declined for Cruz to have a necropsy because she was confident that he swallowed poison, she said.” But wouldn’t it be better to have a necropsy done and to be sure, as well as having evidence for a possible criminal case?)
(Gee, wouldn’t this make a good episode of “Law and Order”, if that show was still on the air.)
Obit watch: Van Cliburn. LAT account of his 1994 appearance at the Hollywood Bowl. A/V Club.
Dale Robertson. No A/V Club obit yet.
Spoiler: things did not end well for the guy with the hammer. And no guns were involved.
This also gives me a chance to note the arrest of M.C. Hammer, who “became very argumentative” when the police asked him to get out of the car he was driving (“…that had expired registration and that was not registered to him”).
Every time I hear “U Can’t Touch This” on the radio, I want to call the station’s request line and ask them to play Rick James’ “Super Freak”. Then I want to say, “Oh, wait. You just did”, cackle maniacally, and hang up the phone.
Conrad wrote two books that I liked very much: The Martini: An Illustrated History of an American Classic
I have very little to say about Mindy McCready except this: the number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255.
, that was little more than a therapy exercise masquerading as fiction, in which a Jim Morrison-type rock star known as “The Snake Man” fakes his own death, reunites with his keyboard player “Roy,” apologizes for how he treated him, then thanks him profusely for keeping his legacy alive. As of 2011, Manzarek was still trying to turn it into a movie, convinced, as always, that this story needed to be told… by Ray Manzarek.