Other credits include a recurring role on one of the worst TV series ever, “Riptide”, “Kojack”, “Herman’s Head”, and “Deadline for Murder: From the Files of Edna Buchanan”.
Archive for April, 2022
Obit watch: April 16, 2022.
Saturday, April 16th, 2022Happy (belated) BAG Day!
Saturday, April 16th, 2022Sorry I didn’t post yesterday. I had time to post in the morning, but honestly, BAG Day got past me, and things got hectic in the afternoon.
As you know, Bob, I generally give folks a couple of days on either side as a fudge factor, especially if BAG Day falls on a holiday or a Sunday, so as far as I’m concerned, you’ve still got time to make your purchase.
I’ve got something to do this morning, but after I get done with that, my plan is to go by my local gun shop and have a chat with them about something I’ve got my eye on. We’ll see what they have to say.
Edited to add: My LGS is going to call on Monday and get back to me on availability, lead time, and price. This is a special order item, not something they have in stock. I’m hopeful they’ll be able to get it, since:
- It is a Smith and Wesson that’s in the current catalog.
- They generally don’t seem to have any problem getting their hands on the M&Ps and the smaller revolvers.
If they can’t get it, I may have to call around to the larger dealers, or I might have to settle. Ruger has something very much like what I’m looking for, at a little cheaper price.
Those Glorious ’70s…
Friday, April 15th, 2022There’s a high bar that has to be cleared for me to link to something on ESPN.
Bonus: the Canadian Football Act (which isn’t really an act, as it has never been signed into law).
Important safety tip (#25 in a series)
Friday, April 15th, 2022I admit: I am not a NRA certified firearms instructor. Perhaps I should consult Karl of KR Training (official firearms trainer of WCD) before posting this.
Then again, this just seems like common sense to me.
When you’re teaching classes, a little humor is good. It keeps the students alert.
But you might want to avoid the racial jokes. Doesn’t matter if you are a minority, doesn’t matter if you’re an equal opportunity roaster, somebody’s going to run with this and try to make you (and people of the gun in general) look bad.
Again, nothing wrong with jokes: I’m just saying, steer clear of the racial ones. Probably ought to stay clear of sexist ones, too.
Obit watch: April 15, 2022.
Friday, April 15th, 2022Jack Newton, noted golfer.
Newton turned professional in 1971 on the European Tour and won his first event, the Dutch Open, the following year. A week later, he won another tournament at Fulford, England and, in 1974, the tour’s match play championship.
The Australian’s playoff loss in the 1975 British Open at Carnoustie came after Watson had a few rather fortuitous shots. A wire fence kept Watson’s ball in bounds on the eighth hole and the American chipped for eagle at the 14th to claim the Claret Jug by a shot over Newton.
Then, on July 24, 1983, he walked into an aircraft propeller.
His right arm was severed, he lost sight in his right eye and also sustained severe injuries to his abdomen. Doctors gave him only a 50-50 chance of surviving, and he spent nearly two months in intensive care and required lengthy rehabilitation from his injuries.
“Things weren’t looking too good for me. I knew that from the priest walking around my (hospital) bed,” Newton said later. He was 33 at the time of the accident.
…
Mike Bossy, of the New York Islanders.
Franz Mohr, who the paper of record describes as the “piano tuner to the stars”. He was Steinway’s chief concert technician for 24 years.
For years, he went where the pianists went. When Vladimir Horowitz went to Russia in the 1980s, Mr. Mohr traveled with him, as did Horowitz’s favorite Steinway. Mr. Mohr made house calls at the White House when Van Cliburn played for President Gerald R. Ford in 1975, and again in 1987, when Mikhail S. Gorbachev was in Washington for arms-control talks with President Ronald Reagan.
Mr. Gorbachev’s wife, Raisa, wanted Cliburn to play one of the pieces that had made him famous — Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 — but there was no orchestra. Instead, Cliburn played some Chopin and, as an encore, played and sang the Russian melody “Moscow Nights.”
“I was amazed that Van Cliburn, on the spur of the moment, remembered not only the music but all the words,” Mr. Mohr recalled in his memoir, “My Life with the Great Pianists,” written with Edith Schaeffer (1992). “The Russians just melted.”
He was also Glenn Gould’s New York piano tuner.
And (as noted in the obit) he wrote a book, My Life with the Great Pianists (affiliate link).
He also attended to performers’ personal pianos. The pianist Gary Graffman, whose apartment is less than a block from the old location of Steinway’s Manhattan showroom, and Mr. Mohr’s home base, on West 57th Street, recalled that Mr. Mohr would come right over when a problem presented itself.
“If he came because I broke strings, he would replace the strings,” Mr. Graffman said in an interview. But if more extensive work was needed — if Mr. Graffman’s almost constant practicing had worn down the hammers and new hammers had to be installed, for example — “he would take out the insides of the piano and carry it half a block to the Steinway basement. He would work on it and carry it back.” (The unit Mr. Mohr lifted out and took down the street is known as the key and action assembly, a bewildering combination of all 88 keys and the parts that respond to a pianist’s touch, driving the hammers to the strings.)
Mr. Mohr was 94 when he passed.
Obit watch: April 13, 2022.
Wednesday, April 13th, 2022Your Gilbert Gottfried roundup, as promised: NYT (Note the correction. What did I tell you?). Variety. THR 1. THR 2.
In honor of the late #GilbertGottfried, everyone tell the filthiest, most politically incorrect joke you know. https://t.co/q60BSYgTn4 pic.twitter.com/5efeoZRV6P
— BattleSwarm (@BattleSwarmBlog) April 12, 2022
I don’t have a lot I want to say about the late Mr. Gottfried. My close friends know how I felt about his work, and for everyone else: “any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in all mankind” and “De mortuis nil nisi bonum dicendum est.”
I will say:
1.
…the actor succumbed to a heart abnormality called recurrent ventricular tachycardia, an arrhythmia caused by myotonic dystrophy Type 2.
Myotonic dystrophy (DM) is a genetic disorder marked by progressive muscle wasting and weakness which predominantly affects the limbs and face but can create increasingly dire complications for respiratory, skeletal and cardiac muscles.
People with DM are at a higher risk of irregular heartbeat, including ventricular tachycardia, an arrhythmia in the lower chambers of the heart (ventricles) that causes the heart to beat faster. A sustained sped-up rhythm can cause a fatal drop in blood pressure.
I’ve never heard of this disorder before, but damn, what a sucky way to go.
2. It surprised me, but Mr. Gottfried’s version of the joke in “The Aristocrats” documentary was, to me, the best of them all. Apparently, I’m not the only person who felt this way.
In other news: Michel Bouquet, French actor.
…
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#88 in a series)
Wednesday, April 13th, 2022South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg was impeached yesterday.
That doesn’t mean he’s out of office, just that he’s going to an impeachment trial in the state Senate.
The impeachment is tied to a traffic accident in 2020.
…he initially told authorities he thought he had struck a deer or another large animal.
He actually hit a man, Joseph Boever, who died.
Ravnsborg, who took office in 2019, initially told aides and a 911 dispatcher he did not know what he hit on a rural highway as he was returning home from a Republican dinner in September 2020. He went back to the scene the next day and found the body of 55-year-old Boever, who had been walking on the highway’s shoulder.
The Highway Patrol concluded that Ravnsborg’s car crossed completely onto the highway shoulder before hitting Boever, and criminal investigators said later that they didn’t believe some of Ravnsborg’s statements.
Ravnsborg pled to two traffic related misdemeanors in the accident, but apparently there are a lot of people who don’t believe his story. Including Governor Kristi Noem, who is also a Republican: Ravnsborg claims she’s out to get him because he’s been investigating her.
Administrative note, for those sent this way by Borepatch.
Tuesday, April 12th, 2022I’m going to wait until tomorrow to post the Gilbert Gottfried obit roundup.
Generally, I like to wait at least a little bit after the passing is reported before I post an obit watch. The early obits are often just that: early, and incomplete. And sometimes (I’m looking at you, New York Times) they contain errors that are corrected later.
Obit watch: April 12, 2022.
Tuesday, April 12th, 2022Patricia MacLachlan, author. (Sarah, Plain and Tall)
Kathy Lamkin, actress. Other credits include “My Name Is Earl”, “Boston Legal”, and “Bones”.
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#87 in a series)
Tuesday, April 12th, 2022Brian A. Benjamin, the lieutenant governor of the state of New York, has been indicted on federal bribery charges.
…
In a grand jury indictment last November, prosecutors said that Mr. Migdol began to steer thousands of dollars worth of fraudulent contributions to Mr. Benjamin in October 2019, just a month after the state senator filed to run for comptroller. They accused him of making straw donations in the name of individuals, including his 2-year-old grandchild, who did not consent to them, and of reimbursing others for the cost of their contributions.
At the time, the prosecutors did not comment on Mr. Migdol’s motive, or explicitly name Mr. Benjamin. But they said his scheme was designed to help the candidate tap into New York City’s generous public campaign matching funds program and secure him tens of thousands of dollars in additional campaign cash.
Edited to add: Well, that was fast. Mr. Benjamin is now the former lieutenant governor.
How about those Lakers?
Monday, April 11th, 2022Answer: they missed the playoffs.
And Frank Vogel is out as coach.
I saw reports this morning: apparently, everybody but Vogel knew yesterday he was going to be fired.
…
The Lakers were officially eliminated from postseason contention Tuesday, when they lost in Phoenix and the San Antonio Spurs won in Denver.
The Lakers would lose eight games in a row before winning against Oklahoma City in the home finale at [I’m not going to give them free advertising – DB] Arena.
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#86 in a series)
Monday, April 11th, 2022In haste, for two reasons. One is that I have other things to blog.
The three people charged are Chief of Staff Alex Triantaphyllis, Wallis Nader, and Aaron Dunn. The charges are related to a “COVID-19 communication contract” which…
My second reason for blogging in haste is: Lawrence is on this story like flies on a severed cow’s head in a Damien Hirst installation. You should really go over to his site for coverage on this, especially since he’s linking to more local sources.