Archive for March, 2023

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More firings!

Friday, March 10th, 2023

Well, really, only one, and oddly not men’s (or women’s) college basketball.

Chuck Fletcher out as GM of the Philadephia Flyers.

The Flyers, currently 24-30-11, went 141-144-43 (.495 points percentage) overall under Fletcher. They only reached the playoffs once, in the 2020 season. Three of those seasons were impacted by COVID-19, including that playoff season when the Flyers racked up a 41-21-7 record and came up one game short of reaching the conference finals.
Things quickly started to go downhill during the 2020-21 season, though, as the Flyers, who entered that season with lofty expectations, finished sixth of eight teams in their division and missed the playoffs. Last season was even worse, as the Flyers’ .372 points percentage was the second-worst in franchise season. The team also suffered through two 10-plus game losing streaks, including a franchise-record 13-game skid, while suffering a slew of injuries that resulted in over 500 man-games lost.

I have no joke here, I just like saying “man-games”.

Edited to add: Well, spoke too soon.

Mike Anderson out as men’s basketball coach of St. John’s.

St. John’s finished eighth in the Big East with its worst NET ranking (98) under his watch and a 2-14 record in Quad 1 and 2 games.
Over Anderson’s final two seasons, St. John’s went 3-22 in Quad 1 games and 2-14 against ranked opponents.

Side note: St. John’s is rumored to be looking at Rick Pitino as a new coach.

Which leads me to side note #2: “How an FBI agent’s wild Vegas weekend stained an investigation into NCAA basketball corruption”.

Also: Josh Pastner out as men’s basketball coach at Georgia Tech. Seven seasons, 109-114 overall and 51-78 in conference.

Pastner’s tenure will be remembered for the 2021 ACC championship – Tech’s first since 1993 – and his seemingly endless enthusiasm and positive energy. He spoke of how he didn’t see the glass as half full, but instead overflowing.
He was generous with his time and happily served as an ambassador for the institute. On behalf of the ticket office, he called fans to help sell season tickets and even personally answered emails from fans telling him that he should resign.

Posted in Firings, Sports | 2 Comments »

Quick flaming hyena update.

Friday, March 10th, 2023

KXAN has updated their story on Burnet County Judge James Oakley.

According to the indictment records, Oakley is facing two abuse of official capacity counts, stemming from his role as a Pedernales Electrical Cooperative board member while also serving as Burnet County judge. The court record claims this is in violation of Texas local government code.
Records state, on multiple occasions in 2021, Oakley used a Burnet County vehicle to drive to PEC. Oakley told KXAN earlier Thursday the charges stemmed from his “multi-term service as a member of the Director of the Board of the Pedernales Electric Cooperative.”

Yeah, I can easily see using a county vehicle on non-county business as being a crime. Perhaps a low-level crime, but still something you shouldn’t do as an elected official.

Posted in Law, Politics | Comments Closed

Obit watch: March 10, 2023.

Friday, March 10th, 2023

Robert Blake. LAT. THR.

Yes, yes, “Baretta” and Bonny Lee Bakley. Also: “The Court of Last Resort”, “The F.B.I.”, “Electra Glide in Blue”, and “12 O’Clock High” among other credits. I’ve seen “In Cold Blood” but it was a long time ago. (I think I actually rented it on VHS.) I’d like to see it again: my recollection is that it was an excellent adaptation of what I consider to be a very good book, with some astonishing cinematography.

I can’t tell if Blake was the last surviving “Our Gang” member or not. If he wasn’t, he was certainly pretty darn near being the last one.

(And on a side note: “Fred” was actually played by two different Triton cockatoos: “Lala” and “Weird Harold”. “Weird Harold” was a “stunt double” that they only used when “Fred” was flying. I don’t know if either one is still alive, but the San Diego Zoo website claims that, with proper care, cockatoos can live anywhere from 60 years to a full century.)

The Reno Air Races. At least, in their present form. (Hattip to FotB RoadRich.)

The first major step in its demise happened Thursday when the Reno-Tahoe Airport Authority’s board of trustees voted unanimously to authorize its president and CEO, Daren Griffin, to negotiate final terms for the event.
It calls for the event this year from Sept. 13 to 17 to be the final air race at Reno-Stead Airport, with an air show in 2024 to celebrate its 60th anniversary.

But:

Although the Stead location is off the table, the Reno Air Racing Association – which organizes the event – sent out an email Thursday afternoon saying, “We are committed to finding a new location so that the event can continue. In fact, we are currently exploring several other possible locations to host the event in the future but it starts with making this year’s event the biggest and most successful it can be.”
Among the challenges cited in this decision was an increase in insurance costs for the event from $780,000 to $1.3 million and regional growth that makes hosting it at Reno-Stead Airport more challenging.

I’ve been to Reno fairly recently, but have never been to the air races. (Always wanted to go, though.) I hope they find a new location. But I’m having a lot of trouble, just based on what I saw when I was in the area, visualizing a location that has the required infrastructure and space to support all those planes, as well as having enough hotels/motels/campgrounds to house the crowd coming in for the races. Perhaps the plan is to move to another location in Nevada? Or out of Nevada? I have a vague memory that there was talk about doing air races in South Texas some time ago…

Posted in 1970s, Birds, Law, Movies, Obits, Planes, Sports, TV | 1 Comment »

Firings watch.

Thursday, March 9th, 2023

Playing catch-up here. Sorry for drawing heavily on the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, but I’m having trouble finding better links.

Patrick Ewing out as head basketball coach of Georgetown. Six years, 75-109.

Mark Fox out as head coach of the California Golden Bears. Four seasons:

The Golden Bears finished their season Wednesday with a first-round Pac-12 tournament loss to Washington State that dropped them to 3-29 on the season. They went 2-18 in Pac-12 play.

Mark Adams resigned as head coach of the Texas Tech men’s basketball team. I’m calling this a “firing” because he was suspended eight days ago for making an “inappropriate, unacceptable, and racially insensitive comment.”

According to the school, Adams was encouraging a player to be more receptive to coaching and “referenced Bible verses about workers, teachers, parents, and slaves serving their masters.” Adams apologized to the team immediately after the comment, the school said.

Jim Boeheim out as men’s basketball coach of Syracuse. This one is weird: I can’t tell if it is a firing or a retirement. It feels like a “mutually agreed” retirement.

47 seasons, 1,015-441 overall in his career, and the second best record as a Division I coach. (Mike Krzyzewski is the record holder.)

Posted in Firings, Sports | Comments Closed

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#101 in a series)

Thursday, March 9th, 2023

This is still a breaking story, and details are slim.

Burnet County Judge James Oakley was indicted this week on felony and misdemeanor charges, according to the Burnet County Sheriff’s Office.

Burnet County is fairly near Austin. The charges:

  • Tamper/Fabricate Physical Evidence W/Intent to Impair
  • Abuse of Official Capacity-Cnt 1
  • Abuse of Official Capacity-Cnt 2
  • Official Oppression

The Sheriff’s Office won’t provide copies of the indictment or the arrest warrant until Judge Oakley is arrested and booked. Supposedly, the office is waiting for him to turn himself in.

In a statement, Oakley told KXAN the charges stem from “a fender-bender at a gas station two years ago, where I moved a piece of plastic bumper on the ground to clear for drivers” and his “multi-term service as a member of the Director of the Board of the Pedernales Electric Cooperative.”
Oakley went on to say “I have every confidence that my attorney will be successful in the outcome of addressing these allegations during the process.”

I don’t want to rush to judgement, but: somehow I doubt moving “a piece of plastic bumper on the ground to clear for drivers” results in charges of “official oppression“.

More details as I have them.

Posted in Law, Politics | Comments Closed

Obit watch: March 9, 2023.

Thursday, March 9th, 2023

Great and good FotB Borepatch sent over an obit from Military.com for Jack Holder, who died February 24 at the age of 101.

Mr. Holder was a WWII veteran and a survivor of Pearl Harbor.

The young sailor survived that day by diving into a ditch between airplane hangars to avoid getting strafed by a Japanese pilot.
He went on to fly as a flight engineer on a PBY at Midway, scouting for Japanese forces with squadron VP-23. He later flew missions over Guadalcanal, retrained on the new B-24 and completed his WWII service flying missions over the English Channel. All in all, the young man had himself quite an eventful war.

He wrote a memoir, Fear, Adrenaline, and Excitement which you can get from Amazon.

On the occasion of an honor flight that celebrated his 100th birthday in December 2021, Holder announced that the secret to his long life was “good heart exercise and two scotch and sodas every night.”
There was a party after the 2019 “Midway” screening at the STK Restaurant at the W Hotel, the kind of hip, contemporary joint that makes a lot of folks over the age of 50 uncomfortable. Holder was right at home and was one of the very last people to leave as the night wound down.
The Jack Holder I met was slyly funny, incredibly enthusiastic about meeting new people and very excited about the chance to talk to younger women. The bonus for him was that almost every single woman he met qualified as a younger woman.

The Notorious B.I.G. “B.I.G.” in this case is Bert I. Gordon, who passed away yesterday at 100. THR.

For those of you who don’t know, Mr. Gordon was a monster movie impresario.

Six months after the release of the popular “The Incredible Shrinking Man,” directed by Jack Arnold, American International Pictures distributed Mr. Gordon’s “The Amazing Colossal Man” (1957). Caught in a nuclear accident, the title character grows to 60 feet and is shot by the police in Las Vegas. Variety said the film’s technical aspects were “well handled,” and other reviews were generally positive.

I’ve actually never seen that, but I have the impression that it is pretty good.

In “Beginning of the End” (1957), a scientist (Peter Graves) uses radiation to make giant fruits and vegetables to end world hunger, but a plague of giant grasshoppers that has eaten the food invades Chicago and starts feasting on people. Lured into Lake Michigan with an electronic mating call, the grasshoppers drown. Mr. Gordon did the special effects in his garage, filming 200 grasshoppers jumping and crawling on photos of the city. Reviewers called the special effects absurdly obvious and the screenplay ludicrous.

Elements of the beach-party genre were combined with Mr. Gordon’s usual themes in “Village of the Giants” (1965). A substance called “goo,” produced with a boy’s chemistry set, causes gigantism in a gang of rocking teenagers, who become 30-foot delinquents running amok in a California town. More chemistry-set magic produces an antidote, and all returns to normal. The Los Angeles Times’s reviewer liked the special effects and the “endless views of healthy young torsos gyrating to the rhythms.”

We watched the MST3K version of this one fairly recently. It is not anywhere near as good as the NYT makes it sound.

Orson Welles, often desperate for money to finance his own films, starred in Mr. Gordon’s “Necromancy,” about a sinister man who wields mystical powers over a small town with rituals seeking to bring back the dead.
Ms. Lupino appeared in “The Food of the Gods,” one of three Gordon films loosely based on H.G. Wells tales, which portrayed people on an island fighting overgrown rats, wasps and chickens that have lapped up radioactive stuff that looks like pancake batter oozing from the ground. Vincent Canby of The New York Times called the film “stunningly ridiculous.”

His autobiography on Amazon.

All this was fodder for the hosts of the comedy series Mystery Science Theater 3000, which brought the Gordon canon to a new audience. “I watched it one time, and I didn’t like them making fun of [his work],” he said. “I take my films very seriously.”

Left out of most discussions I’ve seen: “Tormented”, which we also watched the MST3K version of. I don’t think it is as bad as “Village of the Giants”…

(Yeah, I might be a little unfair in referencing the MST3K versions. But for the ones I’ve seen, I’ll steal a line from Gene Siskel about another movie: “If the third reel had been the missing footage from Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons, this movie still would have sucked.”)

Chaim Topol, or just “Topal”, of “Fiddler on the Roof” fame. THR.

Other credits include both “The Winds of War” and “War and Rememberance”, “SeaQuest 2032”, “For Your Eyes Only”, and he played Dr. Zarkov in the 1980 “Flash Gordon”.

Posted in History, Movies, Obits, Planes, Theatre | Comments Closed

Obit watch: March 8, 2023.

Wednesday, March 8th, 2023

Dr. Justin O. Schmidt. He was an entomologist, and you may actually have heard of him.

Dr. Schmidt invented the “Pain Index for Stinging Insects”.

He ranked, from 1 to 4, the pain caused by the stings of 80 types of bees, wasps and ants that he had encountered, and gave vivid descriptions of what they felt like.
Anthophorid bee, Level 1: “Almost pleasant, a lover just bit your earlobe a little too hard.”
The bullhorn acacia ant, Level 1.5: “A rare, piercing, elevated sort of pain. Someone has fired a staple into your cheek.”
Red-headed paper wasp, Level 3: “Immediate, irrationally intense and unrelenting. This is the closest you will come to seeing the blue of a flame from within the fire.”
Bullet ant, Level 4: “Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch nail in your heel.”

…

“He was one of the most insatiably curious people I’ve ever met,” Stephen Bachmann, a colleague at the Hayden center and a close friend, said in a telephone interview. “He questioned everything and didn’t suffer fools, especially administrators.”
Martha Hunter, a professor of entomology at the University of Arizona, where Dr. Schmidt was an adjunct scientist, called him “an amazing natural historian” with an extensive knowledge of the plants of the Sonoran desert, in addition to stinging insects.
“The story is that Justin once grabbed a tarantula hawk, just to see what the sting would be like,” she said. “It’s the last thing I would do.”
The tarantula hawk, a kind of wasp, ranked a 4 on the pain index:
“Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair dryer has just been dropped in your bubble bath.”

David Lindley, noted musician. He did a lot of session work:

With his head-turning mastery of seemingly any instrument with strings, Mr. Lindley became one of the most sought-after sidemen in Los Angeles in the 1970s. Mixing searing slide guitar work with global stylings on instruments from around the world, he brought depth and richness to recordings by luminaries like Bob Dylan, Dolly Parton, Warren Zevon, Ry Cooder and Iggy Pop.

…

He is best known for his work with Mr. Browne, with whom he toured and served as a featured performer on every Browne album from “For Everyman” (1973) to “Hold Out” (1980). His inventive fretwork was a cornerstone of many of Mr. Browne’s biggest hits, including the smash single “Running on Empty,” on which Mr. Lindley’s plaintive yet soaring lap steel guitar work helped capture both the exhaustion and the exhilaration of life on the road, as expressed in Mr. Browne’s lyrics.
Mr. Lindley’s guitar and fiddle could also be heard on landmark pop albums like Ms. Ronstadt’s “Heart Like a Wheel” (1974), which included the No. 1 single “You’re No Good,” and Rod Stewart’s “A Night on the Town” (1976), highlighted by the chart-topping single “Tonight’s the Night (Gonna Be Alright).”
Ever on the hunt for new sounds and textures, Mr. Lindley had “no idea” how many instruments he could play, as he told Acoustic Guitar magazine in 2000. But throughout his career he showed a knack for wringing emotion not only from the violin, mandolin, banjo, dulcimer and autoharp, but also from the Indian tanpura, the Middle Eastern oud and the Turkish saz.

Ed Fury. He has a fair number of credits in IMDB, mostly small roles, including “The F.B.I.”, “The Wild Women of Wongo”, “The Magician”, and a minor SF TV show from the 1960s.

Posted in Geek, Movies, Music, Obits, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: March 7, 2023.

Tuesday, March 7th, 2023

Sara Lane, actress.

As the headline notes, she was in 105 episodes of “The Virginian”. She only has four other credits in IMDB, two of which are Billy Jack movies. (“The Trial of Billy Jack” and “Billy Jack Goes to Washington”) The other two were “I Saw What You Did” and “Schoolgirls in Chains”.

For the record: NYT obit for Gary Rossington.

Posted in Obits, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: March 6, 2023.

Monday, March 6th, 2023

Gary Rossington, founding member of Lynyrd Skynyrd.

In 1976, Rossington survived a devastating car wreck in which he drove his Ford Torino into a tree. The crash inspired Lynyrd Skynyrd’s song “That Smell.” Only a year later, in 1977, he survived the tragic plane crash in Mississippi that killed lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines and backing vocalist Cassie Gaines.
Rossington broke both arms and a leg and punctured his stomach and liver in the infamous plane crash.

Jerry Richardson, former NFL player and former owner of the Carolina Panthers.

Mr. Richardson was only the second former player to own a team (George Halas of the Chicago Bears was the other), and he made the most of his two seasons in the league. A wide receiver for the Baltimore Colts, he caught a touchdown pass from quarterback Johnny Unitas in the 1959 N.F.L. title game and used his bonus of several thousand dollars to pay for the first Hardee’s hamburger restaurant in Spartanburg, S.C.
Mr. Richardson would open hundreds more restaurants in the next 30 years, making him one of the richest men in the Carolinas.

…

In 2017, he announced he was selling the Panthers soon after Sports Illustrated reported on accusations that he sexually harassed women working for the team and that he had used a racial slur in the presence of a Black scout. The league investigation into Mr. Richardson’s workplace behavior led to a $2.75 million fine. But by then, he had already reached an agreement to sell the team for a then-record $2.3 billion. Mr. Richardson never publicly addressed the allegations.

…

After his second season, he asked for a raise to $10,000. After the team offered $9,750, Richardson returned to Spartanburg, and with his former college teammate, Charles Bradshaw, bought the first Hardee’s hamburger restaurant there. Mr. Richardson was hands-on, cleaning parking lots, mopping floors and flipping burgers.
“He was very serious, very intent, and very quickly found himself to be interested in the running of the businesses,” said Hugh McColl, the former chief executive of Bank of America who, in the 1960s, lent Mr. Richardson $25,000 to open a Hardee’s in Charlotte, and who later helped him purchase the Panthers and build a new stadium.
Decades ago, Mr. McColl visited a Hardee’s with Mr. Richardson and watched him pick up trash outside the restaurant and hand it to the manager. “I’ve never seen it before or since,” he said of Mr. Richardson’s attention to detail.

Dave Wills, radio guy for the Tampa Bay Rays. He was 58.

Darin Jackson, a veteran member of the Sox broadcast team, always looked forward to catching up with Wills when the teams met.
“Man, he was as big as life. Dave was always a legend in the city of Chicago,” Jackson said. “And he was a good man for the game of baseball. If you had Dave as part of any organization, you’ve got yourself a true warrior going to war with you guys and for you guys.
“That’s what I remember most about Dave when he was doing his job. He was there to let the people know the truth. He was there to be honest about the organization. And he wasn’t afraid to go ahead and hold people to task. I loved that about him. He’s going to be missed.”

For the record: NYT obits for Ricou Browning and Gordon Pinsent.

Posted in Movies, Music, NFL, Obits, Radio, Sports | Comments Closed

Brief notes on film.

Sunday, March 5th, 2023

We went to see “Cocaine Bear” yesterday.

Summary: if you only see one movie called “Cocaine Bear” this year, this is the one to see.

More seriously, “Cocaine Bear” delivers exactly what it advertises. There’s a bear, it eats a bunch of cocaine, and it mauls people. If this sounds like your cup of dark humored tea, you’ll probably enjoy this movie. If you’re asking yourself “Why would anyone go see a movie called ‘Cocaine Bear’?” or “Is there anyone in it I’ve ever heard of?”, this is almost certainly not the movie for you.

Two quick spoiler free notes:

1. There is not, as of this moment, an Internet Movie Firearms Database entry for “Cocaine Bear”. I hope this changes soon. I want to know what Ranger Liz was carrying. (It looked like some sort of Smith and Wesson to me. Maybe a Model 19 Combat Magnum, although it could possibly have been a Model 27. Lawrence observed that he thought the gun changed size in between scenes, so there could have been a continuity problem and perhaps they used both?) Other people wanted to know what Syd was using, and I’m kind of curious about that myself. And then there’s Bob (a Detective Special?) and Daveed (a Tokarev?)…

2. It is rare that a trailer actually makes me angry. But there’s a upcoming movie with Will Ferrell and Jamie Foxx doing voice work that succeeded in doing so. I won’t name the movie here (though a quick IMDB search would probably turn it up) so that I don’t give it any publicity. But based on what I saw in the trailer, everyone who worked on this pile of canine (waste) starting with the producers, extending down to Ferrell and Foxx, and going on down the line until we get to the craft services people, should have their license to work in film revoked and should be forced to get honest work. Perhaps cleaning out dog kennels.

Geez. Even the trailer for “Indiana Jones and I’m Getting To Old for this Stuff” didn’t make me mad. (Actually, I think there’s a possibility that could be fun. But I’ve only seen “Last Crusade” out of all the Indy films. No, I’ve never seen “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, and I never watched “The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles”. Point being, I don’t have a huge personal investment in the Indy franchise, so I may not be the best judge of these things.)

(The last trailer I can think of that actually made me angry was “All the Vermeers in New York”. And the problem with that wasn’t so much the movie itself, or even the trailer. It was that I seemed to be going to a lot of movies at the old Dobie Theater back then, and every time I went to one, they played that d–ned trailer until I got sick of it.)

Posted in Guns, Movies, Smith and Wesson | Comments Closed

This. This right here is why the Internet was invented.

Saturday, March 4th, 2023

It is a few days old, but I only encountered it last night. And not so much for Joe Biden, but: Theodore Roosevelt.

Abe Lincoln.

And is it just me, or does Andrew Jackson look like he stepped out of a Universal werewolf movie?

Posted in History | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: March 4, 2023.

Saturday, March 4th, 2023

Tom Sizemore. THR.

I did not know he was in “Twin Peaks” or “Shooter”. Or the bad “Hawaii 5-0”. And he was in the legendary “Zyzzyx Rd”. I did remember he was in the short-lived but stylishly violent “Robbery Homicide Division”.

Steve Mackey, of Pulp.

Thing I did not know:

In 2007, a ballet called Common People, set to the songs from [William Shatner’s] Has Been, was created by Margo Sappington and performed by the Milwaukee Ballet.

Ted Donaldson. Other credits include an episode of “The Silent Service” in 1958 (his last one in IMDB) and “The Red Stallion”.

Posted in Movies, Obits, TV | Comments Closed

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