Archive for November, 2023

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Entertainment news.

Wednesday, November 22nd, 2023

Another interesting story by way of Hacker News:

Carl Erik Rinsch is a director. He has one feature length credit in IMDB: “47 Ronin”, the Keanu Reeves movie. It apparently did not do well, and he allegedly fought with the producers.

However, in 2018, Neflix signed a deal with him to produce a SF series called “White Horse” (later “Conquest”). They’ve put $55 million into the series.

And they have nothing to show for it.

Soon after he signed the contract, Mr. Rinsch’s behavior grew erratic, according to members of the show’s cast and crew, texts and emails reviewed by The New York Times, and court filings in a divorce case brought by his wife. He claimed to have discovered Covid-19’s secret transmission mechanism and to be able to predict lightning strikes. He gambled a large chunk of the money from Netflix on the stock market and cryptocurrencies. He spent millions of dollars on a fleet of Rolls-Royces, furniture and designer clothing.

…

Mr. Rinsch transferred $10.5 million of the $11 million to his personal brokerage account at Charles Schwab and, using options, placed risky bets on the stock market, according to copies of his bank and brokerage statements included in the divorce case. One of his wagers was that shares of the biotech firm Gilead Sciences, which had announced that it was testing an antiviral drug on Covid patients, would soar. Another was that the S&P 500 index, which had already declined more than 30 percent, would fall further. Mr. Rinsch lost $5.9 million in a matter of weeks.

Relevant to Lawrence‘s interests:

Mr. Rinsch had begun using what remained of the $11 million that Netflix had wired his production company to place bets on crypto. He transferred more than $4 million from his Schwab account to an account on the Kraken exchange and bought Dogecoin, a dog-themed cryptocurrency, according to an account statement reviewed by The Times. Unlike his stock market investments, this one paid off: When he liquidated his Dogecoin positions in May 2021, he had a balance of nearly $27 million.

(Non-archive NYT link. You may be able to read this if you use incognito mode.)

Posted in TV | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: November 22, 2023.

Wednesday, November 22nd, 2023

Willie Hernández, relief pitcher for the Detroit Tigers. ESPN.

The left-handed Hernández had a 13-year career but is mostly known for his role as the closer on one of the most dominant teams in the past 40 years. The 1984 Tigers, led by Alan Trammell, Lou Whitaker and Jack Morris, opened 35-5 and cruised to the AL East title with a 104-58 mark before sweeping Kansas City in the AL Championship Series and beating San Diego in a five-games World Series.
Hernández had a 9-3 record and 32 saves in 33 chances in 1984, with a 1.92 ERA over 80 games and 140⅓ innings. He is among just 11 pitchers to win the Cy Young and MVP in the same year, edging Kansas City’s Dan Quisenberry for Cy Young in 1984 and Minnesota’s Kent Hrbek for MVP.

(Thanks to pigpen51 for the tip.)

Herbert Gold, novelist.

Carlton Pearson. I had not heard of him previously, but I find his story interesting. He was a prominent evangelist who ran a megachurch in Tulsa. He was a board member of Oral Roberts University. And then…

While watching a TV report in the 1990s on children starving during the Rwanda genocide, Bishop Pearson had an epiphany. He could not believe that God would consign innocent souls to hell who had not accepted Jesus Christ as savior before their deaths. He concluded that hell does not exist, except as earthly misery created by human beings; that God loves all mankind; and that everyone is already saved.
It was a view he shared in interviews and preached at his church, the Higher Dimensions Family Church, which he co-founded in 1981 and which grew into one of the largest in Tulsa, known for its multiracial pews in a city and a faith, evangelical Christianity, that was largely segregated.
“I believe that most people on planet Earth will go to heaven, because of Calvary, because of the unconditional love of God and the redemptive work of the cross, which is already accomplished,” Bishop Pearson told The Tulsa World in 2002, adding that he included Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists among the loved. “I’m re-evaluating everything,” he said.

This led to him being branded a heretic, leaving the denomination he’d been ordained in, and losing his megachurch.

Mr. Bogle, Bishop Pearson’s agent, said he often asked him about whether he regretted the loss of prestige, income and worshipers that followed his turning away from Pentecostal Christian orthodoxy.
“I said, ‘You’ve lost a lot of money, don’t you think you should have just shut up?’” Mr. Bogle said. “He would always say, ‘No, I don’t believe I made a mistake.’”

Posted in Books, Obits, Religion, Sports | Comments Closed

Blame Canada! Blame Canada!

Tuesday, November 21st, 2023

Matt Canada out as offensive coordinator of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Non-archive link, extremely aggressive about turning off your ad blocker. Archive link, which may not work for some people. ESPN, which will probably work for almost everyone.

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | 2 Comments »

Obit watch: November 20, 2023.

Monday, November 20th, 2023

Rosalynn Carter obit roundup: NYT (archived). WP (archived).

I’ve had one person complain to me that they can’t access archive.is links, and I’ve seen reports of this on Hacker News as well. The problem from what I’ve read is a DNS issue between archive.is and CloudFlare, and I don’t know how to tell folks to resolve it. I would love to be able to use another archiving service, but I’m not aware of another one. I feel like my choice is: knowingly post paywalled links (which has gotten me griped at in the past) or post archived links and take the complaints on that. If someone knows of another archiving service, please leave me a comment or drop me a line, and I’ll try switching to that as an alternative.

And I’m not linking to the Atlanta newspaper because, you guessed it, they’re excessively aggressive about ad blockers.

Bobby Ussery, jockey. Mostly noted here because I don’t get to use the “horses” tag as often as I would like, but he did win the 1967 Kentucky Derby (on Proud Clarion, a 30-1 shot). He won a total of 3,611 races between 1951 and 1974.

Joss Ackland, actor. Other credits include “K-19: The Widowmaker”, “The Hunt for Red October”, and “The Apple“.

Posted in Horses, Movies, Obits, Politics, TV | 2 Comments »

Obit watch: November 19, 2023.

Sunday, November 19th, 2023

I’m aware of Rosalynn Carter, but I think it’d be better to wait until tomorrow to post an obit roundup.

Captain Don Walsh (USN – retired). Regular readers of this blog might recall the name. For everyone else: on January 23, 1960, Lt. Walsh and Jacques Piccard descended in the bathyscaph Trieste seven miles under the ocean, to the very bottom of the Mariana Trench, into the Challenger Deep.

Late in life, Dr. Walsh began to revisit his pioneering dive site. In 2012, at age 80, he advised the filmmaker James Cameron when he became the first person since Dr. Walsh and Mr. Piccard to make a dive into the Challenger Deep. “I feel so fortunate,” Dr. Walsh said at the time. “Dudes my age are mostly sitting in rockers passing around snapshots of grandkids and great-grandkids.”
He also advised the undersea explorer Victor L. Vescovo when he dived into the Challenger Deep in 2019. The next year, Mr. Vescovo once again made the dive; this time, he took Dr. Walsh’s son, Kelly, as a passenger. The two men spent four hours exploring the planet’s deepest spot.

He was 92. According to his son, he died “sitting in his favorite chair”.

Viktor Belenko passed away on September 24th, but his death was not widely reported back then. Mr. Belenko was the Soviet pilot who defected to Japan in his MIG-25 in 1976.

The MiG-25 turned out to be a paper eagle. Its giant wingspan was not for maneuverability but simply to lift the plane and its 15 tons of fuel off the ground. It couldn’t even do its job: Though it flew fast, it was no match for the American aircraft it was meant to take down.
Of great value, though, was what Lieutenant Belenko told the Americans about conditions and morale within the Soviet armed forces.
American officials had long believed that Soviet military personnel were chiseled supermen. Lieutenant Belenko revealed that they were often half-starved and beaten down, forced into cramped living spaces and subject to sadistic punishment at the tiniest infraction.
During a visit to a U.S. aircraft carrier, he was astonished that sailors were allowed unlimited amounts of food, at no cost. He once bought a can of cat food at a grocery store, not knowing it was for pets; when someone pointed out his error, he shrugged and said it still tasted better than the food sold for human consumption in the Soviet Union.

John Barron’s book MIG Pilot: The Final Escape of Lt. Belenko is available in a Kindle edition.

David Del Tredici, composer. I remember hearing the name a lot in the 80s and 90s when I was buying music, but I don’t think I ever owned a Tredici recording.

Flamboyant and gregarious, Mr. Del Tredici cultivated a reputation as a beloved scamp who did what he wanted. But he also had a gift for explaining his musical goals and how he had settled upon them. And he was frank about his personal life and his demons — alcoholism, for one. If the composer George Antheil had not already laid claim to the phrase “Bad Boy of Music,” Mr. Del Tredici could easily have adopted it himself.

…

But his fascination with Lewis Carroll’s “Alice” books led him toward the lushness of a neo-Romanticism that erupted with full force in “Final Alice” (1975), a 70-minute score for soprano and a huge orchestra that was packed with hummable melodies, as well as just enough chaotic brashness to keep its late-20th-century provenance clear.
Some atonalists regarded “Final Alice” as a betrayal. But a PBS broadcast and a recording by the soprano Barbara Hendricks, with Georg Solti conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (which had commissioned the work), brought “Final Alice” to a large audience that embraced it enthusiastically — as did many musicians.

…

Some modernists looked askance at the work. But Harold C. Schonberg, the chief classical music critic of The New York Times, found it heartening. After a Carnegie Hall performance by the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1978, he wrote: “‘Final Alice’ may not be a profound score, and some of it is kitsch, but it does have life, imagination and — mirabile dictu! — audience appeal. People were coming out of Carnegie Hall humming and whistling the ‘Alice’ theme.”

Suzanne Shepherd, actress. Other credits include the LawnOrder trifecta (original recipe, “Criminal Intent”, Sport Utility Vehicle), “Uncle Buck”, and “Requiem for a Dream”.

Posted in Geek, Music, Obits, Planes, Politics, TV | 1 Comment »

Firings watch.

Sunday, November 19th, 2023

Dino Babers out as Syracuse head coach.

Eight seasons, 41-55 overall, 20-45 in the ACC. One bowl appearance in the last five years.

The Orange (5-6) have lost six of their past seven games, marking the second consecutive year that featured a precipitous slide to end the season. Last year, Syracuse lost six of its last seven games.

Am I delusional, or didn’t Syracuse used to be called “The Orangemen”? Now it seems like they are just “The Orange”, and I can’t find any explanation for the name change online.

Edited to add: and shortly after I posted this, I found out that East Tennessee State had fired George Quarles as their football coach. 6-16 in two seasons, 3-8 this season.

Posted in Firings, Sports | 2 Comments »

What to do? What. To. Do?

Friday, November 17th, 2023

I could do three, maybe four, very short posts covering and updating about various news items.

Or I could do one post hitting all of those items, even though it wouldn’t be as organized as doing multiple posts. But it’d just be one post, and maybe slightly more substantial. So one post it is.

Obit watch: A.S. Byatt, noted British author (Possession).

George Brown, drummer for Kool & the Gang.

Non-flaming non-hyenas watch: Mike the Musicologist sent over a link (but I’m using the Post‘s instead) stating that the gun charges against NYC Councilwoman Inna Vernikov are going to be dropped. Turns out that her gun was unloaded and also missing the recoil spring assembly, so it couldn’t be fired.

“In order to sustain this charge, it must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the weapon in question was capable of firing bullets,” Brooklyn DA spokesman Oren Yaniv said in a statement. “Absent such proof, we have no choice but to dismiss these charges.”

This actually makes me feel less sympathetic to her. It seems like she was carrying the gun as a prop, not because she felt a need for protection. And that doesn’t strike me as being very smart.

Firings watch: Chris Partridge, linebackers coach at the University of Michigan. This does seem to be tied to the ongoing scandal.

There are somewhat more than hints in that article and this one that UMich has found out some things about what’s been going on that are causing tsuris.

Sources told ESPN that university leadership this week has shifted its tone from the stern rebuke of the league’s sanctions to a growing acceptance that the football program may be dealing with significant NCAA infractions that could include a failure to properly monitor the program on Harbaugh’s part.

Posted in Books, Firings, Guns, Law, Music, Politics, Sports | 1 Comment »

Trip report: Tulsa, OK.

Thursday, November 16th, 2023

So Mike the Musicologist and I went back to Tulsa for the Wanenmacher’s Tulsa Arms Show again last week. Left Wednesday, got back this past Monday night.

I don’t want to say it was a bad trip: it wasn’t, but it did seem kind of ill-fated from the start. No broken friendships, no car damage (though MtM did get a little love tap from behind on a San Antonio freeway – no harm done), no lost money, no hotel problems.

But I took the Tuesday off to pack, and instead of things going smoothly, it was a parade of petty annoyances, including a dryer that broke while I was doing laundry. (The laundromat on Hudson Bend near Lakeway is the grungiest one I’ve ever seen in my life.)

Then, once we got to Tulsa, I felt a little off my feed much of the trip. It seemed like I was having constant mild allergic reactions to something: watery nose, itchy skin, scratchy throat, etc. It was low level and didn’t keep me from enjoying myself, but it was enough to bother me.

(We’ve taken to getting a VRBO when we go, instead of a hotel room. That generally works out okay, though MtM often has criticism of the interior design of the homes we get.)

I didn’t buy any guns at the show. I did find a few I liked, including a S&W Model 53 with the 8 3/8″ barrel. But the seller wanted $2,300, which was more than I was willing to pay. I planned to go back before the show ended on Sunday and see if he’d take a lower offer, but when we got there at 2 PM (show closes at 4 PM on Sunday) he’d already packed up and left. I saw a few other attractive guns (a Mannlicher stocked CZ .22 Hornet, a couple of Miroku clones of the Winchester 52 Sporter) but I was so worn out by that point I couldn’t muster the energy to go back for any of them. Plus they would have been consolation prizes, plus these shouldn’t be hard to find on GunBroker.

It seemed like the show had changed a little since Joe Wanenmacher’s death. I felt like there was more non-gun related junk (candy, jerky, toys, etc.) than there was previously. I personally didn’t hear any vendors complaining, but MtM told me he did. At least the “no scentsy” policy is still in effect.

I did pick up some books at the show which I will be cataloging. Additionally, while we were running around in the days before the show, MtM and I found what seems to be the only used bookstore in Tulsa: Gardner’s Used Books. It is a big sprawling place. I wasn’t expecting much…

…and I walked out with a large box totaling $110 (after a 20% discount for spending over $100) of old gun books and gun magazines. Including some old Gun Digest volumes for the ongoing project (the two earliest being 1960 and 1962: the 1962 one has a particularly cool illustration of a .22 Jet on the cover. That’ll make a good prop when I find one.) and a bunch of American Handgunner annuals and other ephemera. I’m probably not going to catalog all of the box individually, but I may highlight a few specific things I find interesting.

One of the other days we took to visit the U.S. Marshals Museum in Fort Smith, Arkansas. (That’s only about two hours from Tulsa.) The museum just opened in July, and, while it was a nice place to visit and we had a lot of fun, it feels kind of big for the number of exhibits they have. I’m kind of hoping that they plan to bring in even more stuff, and next time when we drag a friend there, it’ll feel a bit more fleshed out.

We had good meals at:

  • Siegi’s Sausage Factory, our traditional haunt.
  • Biga, a nice Italian place. It felt a little odd to me. Not in the bad sense, but it felt very much like a family owned and run place that was at least a couple of generations old…with waitstaff that looked very young to me, like college kids…but acted like professionals. Highly recommended.
  • Prhyme, a downtown steakhouse. I admit, I was a little put off by the spelling of the name, but MtM talked me into it, and I was glad. I wasn’t feeling up to a big steak, so I ordered French Onion soup and what turned out to be a massive charcuterie board that Mike had to help me finish. It was all very very good. And speaking of professional waitstaff, ask for Hannah if you go.
  • The Big Biscuit, a chain, but a nice breakfast and lunch place. In spite of the name, they also have pancakes, french toast, and other normal breakfast fare. We could use one of these out in my part of town. Just sayin’.

We had dinner Saturday night with one of my Association friends at a Billy Sims BBQ. The ‘cue was good, but the experience was odd. We actually thought they were closed when we pulled up around 7:30. It wasn’t closed, but they had turned off half the lights in the restaurant so it looked that way from the outside. That left the other half in sort of a semi-dark state, which was mildly annoying but didn’t upset our digestion or our conversation too much.

We also had lunch at a diner type joint in the same center as the Billy Sims, but I can’t remember the name of it for the life of me. If MtM texts it over to me, I’ll update here. (Update 11/17: MtM informs me that it was Ron’s Hamburgers & Chili, which seems to be a regional chain.)

Next trip to Tulsa for Wanenmacher’s is tentatively scheduled for April of 2025. I’m hoping I can drag along recruit a couple more friends to join us on that trip. However, the 2024 S&WCA Symposium is there next June, so I will be going back for that (good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise).

Posted in Food, Guns, Museums, Travel | Comments Closed

Fun with gun books!

Thursday, November 16th, 2023

I think I promised old gun sights last time, so old gun sights is what you’re getting…

(more…)

Posted in Books, Guns, Hoplobibilophilia | Comments Closed

Obit watch: November 16, 2023.

Thursday, November 16th, 2023

Joe Sharkey, travel writer who cheated death once before.

He wrote a travel column for the NYT and also did some freelance work. On September 29, 2006, he was working on one of those freelance stories for Business Jet Traveler. He was a passenger in an Embraer Legacy 600 when it collided with a Boeing 737 at 37,000 feet.

The executive jet managed to land safely at a remote military airport, but the Gol Linhas Aéreas commercial airliner it collided with did not have such a fortunate fate: It nose-dived to the ground, killing all 154 people on board. It was the deadliest civilian aviation accident in Brazil at the time.

His story for the NYT.

Admiral Cloudberg’s writeup.

Lawrence sent over an obit for Robert Butler, director. Other credits include the good “Hawaii Five-O”, “Columbo”, and “The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes”.

Posted in Obits, Planes, TV | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: November 14, 2023.

Tuesday, November 14th, 2023

Michael Bishop, one of the great SF writers of our day. Lawrence sent over a Facebook link from Asimov’s, and Michael Swanwick has a very nice obit on his blog.

I had the privilege of meeting Mr. Bishop in person twice, once at a signing in Houston and the other at an Armadillocon (back in the day when I was still going to those). He always treated me with a great deal of kindness, which surprised me. But I guess it shouldn’t have: the word everyone seems to use when describing Mr. Bishop is “kind”. I think I made him smile when I brought breakfast tacos for an 8 AM Sunday morning science fiction poetry panel.

I didn’t know (as Mr. Swanwick points out) that he was a “sincere Christian”. We never got to the point where we talked about religion. But I think I’m going to ask my people to say a prayer for the repose of his soul Sunday morning. He was a good man. I liked his writing, and his passing leaves a hole in the world.

Officer Jorge Pastore of the Austin Police Department. He was killed during a SWAT standoff Saturday morning. Two apparent hostages and the suspected shooter also died in the incident.

Pastore’s passing was one of three deaths in total for the Austin Police Department over the weekend.
Two other officers died in separate incidents, one retired officer in a car crash and another officer died by suicide.

Peter Seidler, chairman and controlling owner of the San Diego Padres.

Posted in Books, Cops, Law, Obits, Sports | 2 Comments »

Firings watch.

Tuesday, November 14th, 2023

I’m home now, and expect to get back to regular blogging soon. In the meantime, Ken Dorsey out as offensive coordinator of the worthless Buffalo Bills.

Seriously, Buffalo got pwned by Denver? Seems to be consistently the story of the Bills: every year, they’re expected to do great things and go places, and every year they finish middle of the pack.

Posted in Firings, Sports | Comments Closed

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