Collectables.

October 10th, 2023

My regular readers know that one of the obsessions of this blog is the Inverted Jenny.

Inverted Jenny #49 is going up for sale again.

Robert A. Siegel Auction Galleries, which will sell No. 49 on Nov. 8, had it graded by two organizations of stamp experts. Each gave it a 95 on a scale of 100, a rating that Scott Trepel, the president of Siegel, said was the highest grade an Inverted Jenny “has ever received or will receive.” Robert Rose, the chairman of the Philatelic Foundation, one of the groups that graded it, said, “It’s really one of a kind.”

Here are some good images of it.

In other news, I had an interesting discussion at my local gun shop last night. I went in on Monday because I got hosed out of going on Saturday (NOT THAT I’M BITTER OR ANYTHING.)

The used gun buyer was there. He’d been out sick for a couple of weeks, so this is the first time in a while that I’d seen him, and we spent some time catching up.

My regular readers also know that one of the obsessions of this blog is the pre-1964 Model 70 Winchester. They’ve had one on the shelf for a few weeks: based on the serial number, it’s a 1949 gun complete with a Lyman Alaskan 4x scope. I jokingly referred to it as “the Jack O’Connor starter kit”.1

The gun buyer told me, “Oh, yeah. That gun belonged to some famous Hollywood guy. Give me a minute and I’ll tell you who.” So he went back through his emails and eventually found it. That Model 70 previously belonged to…

Sid Caeser.

Yes, Sid “Your Show of Shows” Caeser. Sid “dangled Mel Brooks out of an 18th story window” Caeser. Sid “punched a horse” Caeser. That one.

The past was another country, and lots of celebrities owned guns back then, so this shouldn’t be so surprising to me. I think it might be the odd combination of someone who you don’t think of as a gun guy owning guns, and that gun showing up in an Austin gun shop.

People often say, “You’re not paying for the gun, you’re paying for the story behind it.” So how do I know this story is true?

There’s backup for it. I checked the serial number, and it’s right.

I wasn’t considering purchasing it. The gun fund is a little tight, we’re planning to go to a gun show in November, and I’m lucky enough to already have temporary custody of one pre-64 Model 70 in .270 Winchester. But the associational element, combined with the price, is making me think.

The same shop also has a few more of Sid’s guns: there’s an older Husqvarna bolt gun in .308, a Sako (which they may have sold: the gun buyer couldn’t find it on the rack) and I think they also got a couple of Sid’s Browning shotguns.

1. As you know, Bob, especially if you’ve been around me long enough, Jack O’Connor was a big fan of the pre-64 Winchester Model 70, especially in .270 Winchester. And the very thinly disguised version of Jack O’Connor in Stephen Hunter’s Pale Horse Coming uses a pre-64 Model 70 in .270 Winchester with a Lyman Alaskan 4x scope to great effect.

Posted in Guns, O'Connor, Stamps, TV | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: October 9, 2023.

October 9th, 2023

Ellsworth Johnson passed away on September 30. He was 100.

Mr. Johnson was a member of one of the Operations Groups of the Office of Strategic Services in WWII. He was originally trained as a medic:

“My disappointment at being a medic was great,” he wrote in a memoir, “Behind Enemy Lines: The O.S.S. in World War II” (2019). “I knew that surgical training would at least keep me out of a ward where I could expect to be no more than a bedpan jockey.”
He drew a distinction between participating on the field of combat and treating its victims after the battle.
“I wanted to get into the fight,” he said in a television interview. “I didn’t want to see the results of the fight.”

…

In August 1944, he parachuted from the belly of a B-24 bomber 400 miles behind German lines to harass enemy troops and feed intelligence to London as the Allies were poised to invade southern France. His team and the French Resistance captured a vital dam and its hydroelectric power plant after forcing the German garrison guarding it to flee.
After serving in France for about a month, he and many of his comrades chose to transfer to the Pacific Theater as members of an Operations Group rather than be absorbed into the regular Army.
Joining recently trained Chinese paratroopers, Mr. Johnson and other Americans, all serving officially as advisers, jumped some 600 miles into Japanese-occupied territory in the summer of 1945.
“We learned to live under the noses of the enemy,” he wrote.
They successfully intercepted enemy supply lines and communications and inflicted casualties in an unsuccessful attempt to retake a town.

…

Technician 4th Grade Johnson (he was commissioned an honorary colonel in the Chinese Nationalist Army) received two Bronze Stars. Office of Strategic Services veterans were also awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for intelligence and special operations during World War II. His missions remained classified until 1995, after which the Army determined that he met the requirements to join the Special Forces Regiment.

The OSS Operations Groups are considered a precursor to today’s Special Forces.

His death was confirmed by his daughter-in-law, Anna Johnson. It came four weeks after he was presented with an Army Special Forces tab and a Green Beret in a ceremony at the assisted living facility where he lived near Grand Rapids, Mich.
“This is an extremely rare event and, quite frankly, the last of its kind that will ever occur,” Major Russell M. Gordon, the director of public affairs for the 1st Special Forces Command, said of the ceremony.
And Maj. Gen. Patrick Roberson, the deputy commanding general of the Army Special Operations Command, said during the event: “Everything that he did in 1944 — we model ourselves on in our training and the operations that we conduct. It’s our origin story.”

Murray Stenson, cocktail guy.

He shunned attention, even as his fame grew alongside the rise of craft cocktails in the 2000s. When he was named the best bartender in America in 2010 by Tales of the Cocktail, an annual conference in New Orleans, he refused to go to the ceremony. He said he had a shift to fill.

…

Mr. Stenson was among a small group of bartenders who as early as the 1980s began to push back against the sickly sweet concoctions of the 1970s — Sex on the Beach, Harvey Wallbanger — in favor of elevated drinks made with quality ingredients, a seemingly obvious approach that was almost unthinkable when he began.

…

He was known, above all, for resurrecting a forgotten pre-Prohibition cocktail called the Last Word, made with equal parts gin, lime juice, green chartreuse and maraschino liqueur. He discovered it in a 1951 cocktail book and added it to his menu, and within a few years it had not only spread nationwide but had become the archetype for a whole genre of modern classic cocktails, like the Paper Plane and the Gin Blossom.

I’ve made myself a Last Word a couple of times, and I’ve had them when I’m out and about and drinking. The ones I make at home seem just a little sweet to my taste: the ones I get elsewhere I think are better balanced. If I can find Mr. Stenson’s recipe, I’ll compare it to the ones I’m using.

Mr. Stenson did not consider himself a mentor. He did not write books or become a highly paid brand ambassador, as many successful bartenders do, especially once they reach middle age and their bodies start to rebel against hours of constant standing. Well into his 60s, and even after open-heart surgery in 2012, he worked up to seven nights a week.
“I enjoy being behind the bar,” he told Imbibe magazine in 2012. “That’s where you meet all the really interesting people.”

Posted in Heroism, Mixology, Obits | Comments Closed

Your loser update: week 5, 2023.

October 8th, 2023

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

Carolina

Not much more to say, really.

Posted in Loser, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Biz news.

October 6th, 2023

I thought this was a mildly interesting business story, mostly because it starts out in one direction and then goes in another.

Molekule Group has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Molekule made (makes?) air purifiers. I remember a time when they advertised pretty heavily on some of the podcasts I listened to.

The claimed reason for bankruptcy seems to be wanting to get out of their office lease, because San Francisco.

Molekule started a seven-year lease spanning the entirety of the building in February 2019. The monthly base rent began at $209,231 with an annual 3% increase.
The bankruptcy petition alleges that the company abandoned its headquarters in May “out of concern for its employees’ safety” and attempted to negotiate with its landlord to terminate the lease.
“San Francisco’s homeless crisis created a dangerous environment around the SF Headquarters, especially in the area between the SF Headquarters and the nearest public transit stop,” Tyler stated in his declaration.

Except:

But three former Molekule employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the safety situation described in the filings was an exaggeration. Although there were issues with cleanliness around the office location, the former employees don’t remember safety being a primary concern while they worked there.

…

According to the former employees, the office was only intermittently used after March 2020, and far from dissuading workers because of safety concerns, Molekule attempted to draw people in by installing a pingpong table and touting the effectiveness of its products in keeping the office clean and safe.

…

One of the other factors in the company’s bankruptcy listed in its legal filing was a fractured partnership with Aura Smart Air, an Israeli air purifier company.
Aura’s failure to submit source code for a product known as Molekule 360 Hub led to the product’s suspension shortly after its launch and “severely impacted the Debtors’ revenue and growth strategy,” according to the bankruptcy filing.

What gets glossed over in the coverage: Molekule was a scam.

Wirecutter (back in the day when they were decent) called their products “Some of the worst air purifiers we’ve ever tested“. Molekule was forced to withdraw almost all of their advertising claims. Consumer Reports panned it.

How big a scam was it? Big enough that at least one of those podcasts went back and removed the ads, and any mention that Molekule was ever a sponsor, from their feed. There was at least one class action lawsuit which appears to have been settled.

So, yeah, at the very least, this looks like a dodge by a troubled company to get out of their lease by blaming San Francisco’s problems, not a legit example of the Bay Area’s ineffective government.

Posted in California Über Alles, Law | Comments Closed

Obit watch: October 6, 2023.

October 6th, 2023

Dick Butkus, one of the greats. ESPN.

At 6 feet 3 inches and 245 pounds, good size for his era, Butkus stuffed running plays up the middle. He was also speedy and mobile enough to drop back and foil opponents’ pass plays. He was cited as a first-team All-Pro five times and was chosen for the Pro Bowl game eight times. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1979, his first year of eligibility.
Sacks did not become an official statistic until 1982, so the number of times Butkus smothered opposing quarterbacks remains unrecorded. But he was considered to have intercepted 22 passes and recovered 27 fumbles while playing for the Bears from 1965 to 1973.

…

Butkus was chosen by the Bears in the first round, third overall, in the 1965 N.F.L. draft and by the Denver Broncos of the American Football League in its second round. He went with his hometown team, a storied N.F.L. franchise owned and coached by the future Hall of Famer George Halas. In his rookie season, he intercepted five passes and recovered seven fumbles.
But the Bears fell on hard times during Butkus’s years. They won 49 games, lost 74, tied four and never reached the playoffs. In his last few seasons, Butkus played on with a badly injured right knee despite having undergone surgery. In May 1974, having retired, he sued the Bears for $1.6 million, contending that the team had not provided him with the medical and hospital care it had promised in a five-year contract he signed in July 1973. The case was settled out of court.

He also did some acting.

IMDB.

Joe Christopher, one of the original 1962 Mets.

He was a part-time player in 1962 — the perfectly awful “Amazin’ Mets,” as their manager, Casey Stengel, called them, had a 40-120-1 record that season — when he got batting tips from a Mets coach, the renowned Rogers Hornsby, who hit over .400 three times in the 1920s.
“He was sitting in hotel lobbies,” Christopher recalled in an unpublished interview in 2010 with George Vecsey, a sports columnist for The New York Times. Christopher recalled Hornsby telling him that the secret of hitting was “don’t let the pitcher jam home plate” and “it’s not about contact, it’s impact.”

…

In June, when he was hitting .307, he talked about getting a chance to play full time.
“I always knew I could hit, but nobody up here believed me,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press. “I always hit well in the minors, but when I got to the majors nobody had any confidence in me.” He added, “They just wouldn’t give me a chance to play regularly. There was always that worry that if I went 0 for 4 I’d be on the bench the next day.”
He finished the season at .300, 16th best in the National League and only the third time a Met had reached that level. (The Mets’ Ron Hunt hit .303 that season.) He also led the Mets with 76 runs batted in and was second in home runs with 16.

…

He had a career batting average of .260, with 29 home runs and 173 R.B.I.

Keith Jefferson, actor. IMDB.

Russell Sherman, pianist.

Mr. Sherman, who gave his last recital at 88, made his name performing virtuoso works such as Franz Liszt’s daunting “Transcendental Études.” Referring to the composer’s reputation as a showman, Mr. Sherman told The New York Times in 1989 that he was engaged in a “lifelong battle to reconstitute Liszt as a serious composer.”

…

Mr. Sherman was in many ways an anti-virtuoso; he devoted much of his time to other interests, like poetry, philosophy and photography. In the late 1950s, instead of becoming a touring concert pianist, he left New York to teach piano at Pomona College in California and the University of Arizona in Tucson.
In 1967, he began a long tenure at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, hired by its president at the time, the composer Gunther Schuller. Mr. Schuller, who founded GM Recordings in 1981, produced a Beethoven album by Mr. Sherman, who became the first American pianist to record the complete Beethoven sonatas and piano concertos.
On a GM Recording album, “Russell Sherman: Premieres and Commissions,” Mr. Sherman performed works composed for him in the 1990s by Mr. Schuller, Robert Helps, George Perle and Ralph Shapey. His recordings also include works by Claude Debussy and Arnold Schoenberg, as well as Chopin Mazurkas, the complete Mozart Piano Sonatas and Bach’s English Suites.

…

Some two decades later, Allan Kozinn wrote in The Times that Mr. Sherman’s “interpretive style, it should be said, is an acquired taste,” but that his “performances are usually illuminating alternatives to the standard view.”
Mr. Sherman resented these accusations of eccentricity. “I think of myself as a compassionate conservative” who responded “radically to the score and nothing but the score,” he told The Times in 2000. He suggested that listeners who disliked his interpretations lacked imagination.

…

Mr. Sherman married Wha Kyung Byun, a Korean-born former student of his, in 1974; she began teaching at the New England conservatory in 1979. They sometimes celebrated their anniversaries by performing together.

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

I’m just a poor, dumb white boy from Hampden…

October 5th, 2023

“There is a real danger with bringing fecal matter into the U.S.,” said LaFonda D. Sutton-Burke, CBP Director, Field Operations-Chicago Field Office, in a statement.

Posted in Bagatelle, Mammals | Comments Closed

Brief historical note, suitable for use in schools.

October 4th, 2023

30 years ago yesterday and today, a group of UN soldiers (including US Special Operations troops, and units from Malaysia and Pakistan) went out on a mission to capture high-ranking members of the Somali National Alliance (SMA) in Mogadishu.

Things went bad. Then they went very bad. When it was all over, 18 US soldiers had been killed, and another 73 were wounded. One Malaysian Army soldier and one Pakistani soldier were also killed.

Battle of Mogadishu from Wikipedia.

Medal of Honor citations for Master Sergeant Gary Ivan Gordon and Sergeant First Class Randall David Shughart, killed in action during the battle.

Also killed:

  • Staff Sergeant Daniel Darrell Busch.
  • Sergeant First Class Earl Robert Fillmore, Jr.
  • Master Sergeant Timothy Lynn Martin.
  • Sergeant First Class Matthew Loren Rierson.
  • Corporal James E. Smith.
  • Specialist James M. Cavaco.
  • Sergeant James Casey Joyce.
  • Corporal Richard W. Kowalewski, Jr.
  • Sergeant Dominick M. Pilla.
  • Sergeant Lorenzo M. Ruiz.
  • Staff Sergeant William David Cleveland, Jr.
  • Staff Sergeant Thomas J. Field.
  • CW4 Raymond Alex Frank.
  • CW3 Clifton P. Wolcott.
  • CW3 Donovan Lee Briley.
  • Sergeant Cornell Lemont Houston, Sr.
  • Private First Class James Henry Martin, Jr.
  • Lance Corporal Mat Aznan Awang (Malaysian Army, posthumously promoted to Corporal).

I have been unable to find a name for the Pakistani soldier who was killed.

Black Hawk Down is still a heck of a book, in my opinion. The movie’s pretty good, too, but I’m not going to stake my life on it being 100% accurate. (Though I do believe the movie makers tried very hard.)

“Folly and Redemption: Thirty Years After Black Hawk Down” from The American Conservative.

Posted in Heroism, History | 2 Comments »

We have a new winner!

October 3rd, 2023

That is, a new winner of the highly un-coveted Saturday Dining Conspiracy “Die In a Fire” award.

Yes, I am pretty peeved right now. Yes, I am using the power of my blogs to work on a grudge: but if you can’t do that on your blog, what’s the point of having one?

I used to (sort of) like Mod Pizza. We have better local pizza places, but sometimes it was just nice to be able to get a small personal pizza with exactly the kind and variety of toppings I wanted.

There’s one within easy driving distance from the house out here in the hinterlands. Mom was craving pizza, and I thought a small pizza sounded good myself. So I placed an online order.

Below is the feedback I left Mod Pizza corporate on their website. I’ve left out the original order number (referenced in the email) because it wouldn’t mean anything to anyone except corporate.

——————

I placed this order at 3:30 PM for pickup at 4:15 PM. When I got to the store (around 4:10 PM) I gave the employee my name. He wasn’t clear about what was going on. I waited about 30 minutes for my food.

Finally, one of the other employees informed me that the store had CANCELLED MY ORDER (my because “they didn’t have enough people to make it”. I counted four employees in the store at the time.

I was further told that if I wanted my food I would have to place my order all over again, while I was in the store waiting, because they had enough people (in the store with no other customers) to make it now. No offer to place the order themselves based on my original receipt, just “you have to do it all over again”. That’s ridiculous.

I left and went to another local pizza place. I will NEVER EVER order from ANY Mod Pizza ever again. Especially this one, as this is the second time in a row they have messed up a pickup order.

Y’all need to shut this location down, as it is doing real harm to your brand.

——————–

I should add to this: the Mod Pizza claims to have refunded my card for the order I placed, but I see no evidence of that in my account yet.

(Crossposted to the Logbook of the Saturday Dining Conspiracy.)

Edited to add 10/4: I did get a refund credited to my card this morning, just for the record.

Posted in Food | Comments Closed

Obit watch: October 3, 2023.

October 3rd, 2023

Jim Caple, sportswriter.

I sort of remember the name: I was probably reading him back in the good old “Page 2” days. My feelings about lyrical happy horsepucky baseball writers are well known, but it seems like he wasn’t one of those guys:

He was also one of the most popular columnists for ESPN.com’s Page 2, where he took a lighter look at sports and rarely missed a chance to poke fun at the New York Yankees. He turned that into a book, “The Devil Wears Pinstripes.” He also co-wrote the book “Best Boston Sports Arguments” with fellow sportswriter Steve Buckley and penned a novel, “The Navigator,” which was based in part on his father, who was a B-24 navigator in World War II.

…

Former colleague and fellow baseball writer Jerry Crasnick recalled Caple as “one of the most brilliant, creative and thoughtful people I’ve ever met” in a poignant social media post. He also recalled Caple’s offbeat side, including stories of getting a pedicure with figure skater Johnny Weir and participating in the International Wife Carrying championships with Vicki.

Posted in Media, Obits, Sports | Comments Closed

This is intended to enrage you. (#10 in a series)

October 3rd, 2023

I’m going to put a jump here, for those of you who want to avoid being enraged. Something else will be coming along eventually.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Mammals, Rage | 1 Comment »

Blood in the streets!

October 2nd, 2023

Phil Nevin out as manager of the Los Angeles Angels.

ESPN calls this a firing, while other sources say they “declined the option on his contract”. That to me is functionally indistinguishable from a firing, but maybe it makes some sort of difference to someone.

The Angels finished 73-89 and fourth in the AL West. Nevin’s first managerial position concluded with a 119-149 career record.

Posted in Firings, Sports | Comments Closed

Obit watch: October 2, 2023.

October 2nd, 2023

Lucy Morgan, Florida journalist. She wasn’t someone I had heard of before, but the obit (which I encourage you to read) makes her sound fascinating.

She specialized in uncovering political corruption. In 1973, she went to jail because she refused to reveal her source for grand jury proceedings.

In 1976, the Florida Supreme Court overturned previous rulings against Ms. Morgan and expanded press privileges in Florida, setting a precedent that local reporters still cite.

She shared a Pulitzer (with Jack Reed) for exposing the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office.

Ms. Morgan’s reporting showed, among other things, that one in eight officers in Pasco County had criminal arrest records, and that more than half had lied about their pasts to get certified. One officer had an outstanding grand theft arrest warrant for stealing a police dog in another Florida county. Another had been the wheel man in several armed robberies.

She also exposed the sheriff of Gulf County, who got sent to prison for extorting oral sex from female inmates.

After the sheriff was found guilty of seven counts of violating the civil rights of female prisoners, Ms. Morgan returned to her office and found a dozen roses with a note: “From the women you believed.”

…

When she was about 60, she shattered her right ankle in the Florida House press gallery. But she continued limping around the Capitol building, bringing a fog of Trésor Eau de Parfum with her wherever she went. She greeted the legislators, lobbyists and maintenance people she knew not by asking, “How are you?” but instead calling out, “You doin’ somethin’ bad?”

…

Her investigations exposed widespread misreporting of gifts to state politicians, indicating that many of them should be charged with criminal misdemeanors. They also exposed what Ms. Morgan herself nicknamed the “Taj Mahal” scandal, which involved slipping an appropriation of more than $30 million for a luxurious courthouse into unrelated transportation legislation at the last minute.

Russ Francis, former tight end for the Patriots and 49ers, was killed in a plane crash on Sunday. Also killed was Richard McSpadden, a vice-president of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA).

It appears they were taking off from Lake Placid Airport and there was some sort of problem. Reports say they tried to make it back to the airport but couldn’t.

Mr. Francis, in additional to a successful NFL career (first round NFL draft pick, three time Pro Bowl player) was also an avid pilot. He’d recently bought an interest in Lake Placid Airways, a local charter and scenic flight service.

Mr. McSpadden, in addition to being an AOPA VP, was a former commander and flight leader for the Thunderbirds.

Tim Wakefield, former Boston Red Sox pitcher (and a past winner of the Roberto Clemente Award). Cancer got him at 57.

Chris Snow, of the Calgary Flames. He was diagnosed with ALS in 2019, and passed away after a “catastrophic brain injury”.

Posted in Media, NFL, Obits, Planes, Sports | 1 Comment »

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