Archive for October, 2023

Obit watch: October 31, 2023.

Tuesday, October 31st, 2023

Judy Nugent, actress.

Other credits include “The Greatest Show on Earth”, “77 Sunset Strip”, and the “The Thin Man” TV series.

Obit watch: October 29, 2023.

Sunday, October 29th, 2023

It turned into a busier weekend than I thought it was going to be, and it also turned out that there was more going on this weekend than I expected. I wanted to get these up today, as I have an eye doctor’s appointment tomorrow and am not sure how things are going to go afterwards.

Richard Moll. THR. I’ve mentioned before how much I liked the original “Night Court” and what a great ensemble those folks were.

Moll had a shaved head — he did that to play the warrior Hurok in the sci-fi film Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn (1983) — when he auditioned for the role of Shannon on Night Court, created by Reinhold Weege.
“They said ‘Richard, the shaved head looks good. Will you shave your head for the part?” he recalled in a 2010 interview. “I said, ‘Are you kidding? I’ll shave my legs for the part. I’ll shave my armpits, I don’t care.’”

IMDB.

Joan Evans, actress who was shot by Farley Granger.

While director Nicholas Ray was doing reshoots on the film, Evans was “accidentally shot very, very seriously” in the arm by Granger when a gun he was carrying discharged in the hills outside Columbia, California, she told Hirsch. She needed emergency surgery and was hospitalized.

This is in the obit, but I did want to note that she was the love interest for Charles Drake’s character in “No Name On the Bullet“, about which I have written before and probably will again.

IMDB.

Matthew Perry. THR. IMDB. Everyone is on this like flies on a severed cow’s head at a Damien Hirst installation, and I don’t have anything to add.

Your loser update: week 8, 2023.

Sunday, October 29th, 2023

Houston sports teams will always break your heart.

NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-17:

None.

That’s a wrap for this year. Maybe. We’ll see how the NBA looks later on this week.

Obit watch: October 27, 2023.

Friday, October 27th, 2023

Lawrence sent over an obit for Stephen Kandel, screenwriter.

He has 103 credits as a writer in IMDB. Man wrote for everything. “Harry O”. “The Magician”. “Bearcats!”. “Banacek”. “The Bold Ones: The New Doctors”. “The Bold Ones: The Lawyers”. The good “Hawaii Five-0”. Two episodes of a minor SF TV series from the 1960s, and two episodes of the animated spinoff…

…and eleven episodes of “Mannix”, which is more than I want to list here.

Obit watch: October 26, 2023.

Thursday, October 26th, 2023

I’m not a big fan of posting obits for children of celebrities just because of their relationship. Generally, when I post one, the person has to be interesting for some other reason.

Rock Brynner, whose life as a road manager for the Band, bodyguard for Muhammad Ali, farmer, pilot, street performer, novelist and professor of constitutional history overshadowed what, for a lesser mortal, might be a more than sufficient laurel on which to rest — he was the son of the actor Yul Brynner — died on Oct. 13 in Salisbury, Conn. He was 76.

I think that qualifies. Also, someone close to me called out the paper of record’s use of the word “peripatetic“. I personally think that’s a perfectly cromulent word, and, much like “gargantuan“, is one that I rarely have an opportunity to use in a sentence.

Murray Newman has a very nice obit up for Skip Cornelius:

From his fellow members of the Defense Bar to the Prosecutors who handled cases against him to pretty much all of the Judges he practiced before, Skip was the Gold Standard of what it meant to be a lawyer practicing indigent defense.

He was so good at everything he did and he was so good in trial. As news of his passing spread, former prosecutors shared stories of their whale cases against Skip where he somehow kept the juries out for hours and hours. His name rarely made the news but he was most definitely the lawyer that all of the other lawyers knew and respected. He was a subtle, but commanding presence in the courtroom. He was serious but also had an outstanding dry sense of humor. He was confident and steady in all of his cases and there wasn’t a prosecutor born that rattled him.

Obit watch: October 25, 2023.

Wednesday, October 25th, 2023

Richard Roundtree. THR. Tributes. IMDB.

Obit watch: October 24, 2023.

Tuesday, October 24th, 2023

Dr. Donlin Long, big damn hero.

Dr. Long was one of the pioneers of the insulin pump.

In addition to the insulin pump, Dr. Long, as an expert in relieving chronic pain, also had a collaborative hand in introducing, in 1981, the first battery-powered, rechargeable, implantable electronic device to stimulate peripheral nerves to relieve pain, according to Johns Hopkins. The device, known as TENS, for transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulator, became a standard medical tool.

He was a neurosurgeon.

As an accomplished practitioner of skull base surgery, Dr. Long was also instrumental in the first successful separation of twin infants born conjoined at the head. The operation, performed in 1987, involved 70 surgeons, nurses and assistants and lasted 22 hours.
The twins’ brains were separated, and one of the infants’ skulls was closed by Dr. Benjamin S. Carson, whom Dr. Long, the founding chairman of the department of neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, had recruited to the university…
…Dr. Long, Dr. Carson’s mentor, closed the other boy’s skull during the operation.
Drs. Long and Carson had just one hour to accomplish final separation, to reconstruct the divided brain cavities and veins, and to restart the hearts in the infants, both of them boys.

And he was a mentor to people other than Dr. Carson:

Many of the surgeons trained during Dr. Long’s tenure at Johns Hopkins were hired as full professors, as leaders of neurosurgery departments at hospitals and universities, and as heads of professional associations.
“Neurosurgeons everywhere stand on his shoulders,” Dr. Connolly said.

Remembered for his equanimity, his role as a mentor and his can-do passion, Dr. Long often told his children and grandchildren, “There is no try, only did and did not.”

Elizabeth Hoffman, actress. Other credits include “Stargate SG-1”, “Cutter to Houston”, “Blue Thunder”, and a spin-off of a minor SF TV series from the 1960s.

Angelo Bruschini, guitarist for Massive Attack.

Quick random thought.

Monday, October 23rd, 2023

Prompted by this:

Connor Stalions, the suspended Michigan staffer at the center of the NCAA’s sign-stealing probe, purchased tickets in his own name for more than 30 games over the past three years at 11 different Big Ten schools, sources at 11 different league schools told ESPN.

And this, from McThag:

For someone who did what he did in the military for so long, you’d think he’d have internalized some fucking OPSEC and COMSEC.

(Related to this.)

I wrapped up the “What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” series, and it doesn’t look like we’re going back to those days anytime soon. But hand to God, I swear I am considering reviving it for a special limited engagement, collecting videos on the subjects of OPSEC and COMSEC. Seems like too many people don’t understand basic rules, like “don’t buy stuff under your own name”, “pay CASH”, and “don’t brag about your clever scheme to evade the law in email”.

Cheez Louise, I never served in the military or in the intelligence apparatus, but apparently I have more sense than some of these people. And that scares me.

Obit watch: October 23, 2023.

Monday, October 23rd, 2023

Bobby Charlton, English soccer player. He was 86.

Charlton was famed for his bullet shot and his relentless goal scoring, even though he did not play as a traditional striker. He was England’s top scorer, with 49 goals, for 45 years until Wayne Rooney beat the mark in September 2015. Charlton was also Manchester United’s top scorer for decades, with 249 goals in 758 appearances over 17 years, until Rooney surpassed that figure, too, in January 2017.

Worthy of note: he was also a survivor of the 1958 Manchester United plane crash.

Elaine Devry, actress. Other credits include “Project U.F.O.”, “The Boy Who Cried Werewolf”, “Cannon”, and three appearances on the 1960s “Dragnet”.

Vincent Asaro, mobster. Readers of this blog with an excellent memory may recall that he was charged in the 1978 Lufthansa robbery…and was acquitted in 2015. However, he was convicted in 2017 of having a guy’s car set on fire. He got eight years for that, but was released in 2020 for “health reasons”.

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#111 in a series. Also, random gun crankery.)

Saturday, October 21st, 2023

There is no joy in this one.

Larry Vickers pled guilty to federal firearm charges yesterday.

“But,” you say, “Larry Vickers isn’t a political figure.” Right you are, Bob.

Mr. Vickers was charged with four other men: Sean Sullivan, James Tafoya, Matthew Hall, and James Sawyer. Mr. Hall was the chief of police in Coats, North Carolina, and Mr. Sawter was the chief of police of Ray, North Dakota. This is where the flaming hyenas come in.

Sullivan was the owner and operator of Trident, LLC, located in Gambrills, Maryland, and was also an Intelligence Analyst with the Department of Homeland Security Investigations.

He was a Fed?! I know, I know, quel fromage! But really?

Sullivan and Trident were Federal Firearms Licensees (“FFLs”) and Special Occupational Taxpayers (“SOTs”), which allowed them, in certain circumstances, to possess, import, manufacture, and deal in fully automatic firearms (machineguns) and other regulated firearms. Tafoya and Vickers owned and operated firearms related businesses in New Mexico and North Carolina and were also FFLs and SOTs.

Allegedly, all of these guys came up with a really clever scheme.

The indictment alleges that, beginning in at least June 2018 through at least March 2021, the defendants conspired to acquire machineguns and/or other restricted firearms, such as short-barreled rifles, by falsely representing that the firearms would be used for demonstration to law enforcement agencies, including the Coats Police Department and the Ray Police Department. The indictment further alleges that Hall, Sawyer, and other conspirators signed law letters with no expectation that the weapons would ever be demonstrated to their respective law enforcement agencies.
The defendants allegedly intended to impermissibly import into the United States and resell the machineguns and other firearms for profit or to keep for their own use and enjoyment. Sullivan allegedly submitted the false law letters to the ATF seeking to import the machineguns and other restricted weapons. Once the firearms were received, Sullivan allegedly kept some of the machineguns and other restricted weapons and transferred some of the weapons to Vickers, Tafoya, and other conspirators.

Now, everyone else hasn’t gone to trial, and should be considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

In addition to the indictment, Larry Vickers pleaded guilty yesterday to participating in the conspiracy to import and obtain machineguns and other restricted firearms and admitted that he received some of the imported machineguns and other weapons. As detailed in his plea agreement, Vickers kept some of the machineguns and other restricted weapons in his personal collection and transferred other machineguns and restricted weapons to other FFLs and third parties. Vickers also pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to violate U.S. sanctions against a foreign firearms manufacturer between July 2014 and March 2021, in the Southern District of Florida.

So just not illegal import of restricted firearms, but also sanction violations. “Between July 2014 and March 2021” makes me wonder who the sanctions violations were against.

I haven’t seen any coverage of this anywhere, including the usual gun blogs. The only reason I know about it is that Mike the Musicologist sent me a link to the Justice Department press release. I feel kind of bad for Mr. Vickers, who also was dealing with cancer a while back. But this doesn’t sound like BATFE “paperwork” violations. This sounds like a pretty serious conspiracy to illegally import restricted weapons under cover of the law enforcement exemption.

While I object to the idea that what these people did should be against the law, the fact remains that it is, and they apparently (“all suspects” etc) tried to camouflage it as “only ones”. You know, “we’re the only ones competent enough to have full-auto weapons. We’re the only ones competent enough to carry a Glock.

That, I do resent.

Firing or not?

Friday, October 20th, 2023

I say “not a firing”. Yet. But the winds are blowing in a direction that makes me think a whole bunch of people are going to get fired.

Connor Stalions, a “football analyst” with the University of Michigan, has been suspended indefinitely with pay.

There’s an ongoing investigation into Michigan by the NCAA. The university is accused of using “an ‘elaborate’ scouting system to steal signals from future opponents since at least 2021“.

Athletic director Warde Manuel announced Stalions’ suspension with pay on Friday, one day after the analyst was identified as a person of interest in the investigation into whether No. 2-ranked Michigan violated an NCAA rule by scouting future opponents in person at games, sources told ESPN. The NCAA prohibited such scouting in 1994.

I can understand the issue with “stealing signs”, though I really don’t know what that means in college football. But the NCAA has a rule against attending your opponents games in person? Seriously? I guess, maybe, they are afraid larger schools with more resources will have an advantage over smaller schools that can’t afford to travel as much? Or is this just more of “we’re the NCAA. Nothing we do has to make sense”?

Harbaugh served a three-game suspension to start this season related to NCAA charges of failure to cooperate and head-coach responsibility over alleged recruiting violations during the COVID-19 dead period. A violation by a member of his coaching staff could trigger another charge of head-coach responsibility, potentially a Level I violation.
Sources said the NCAA enforcement staff’s level of interest in Stalions was so significant that it sought access to his computer as part of its investigation.

So they were already looking at Harbaugh for recruiting violations, and he basically pled guilty to that. This would be the second rules violation in less than a year. What would be the implications in terms of NCAA penalties if this is substantiated?

Could we see…dare I say it…the “death penalty“?

I doubt it myself. But it’d be fun to see. Realistically, if this is substantiated, I suspect major loss of scholarships, a ban on post-season play, and possibly for Harbaugh to get a “show-cause penalty“.

Obit watch: October 19, 2023.

Thursday, October 19th, 2023

Burt Young. THR.

Other credits include “The Rockford Files”, “Once Upon a Time in America”, “Miami Vice”, and “Pig Pen” in “Convoy”.