Andy Rourke, of the Smiths. THR. Pancreatic cancer got him at 59.
The Disney Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser hotel.
Which, you know, is one way of looking at it. On the other hand:
On the gripping hand:
Obit watch: May 19, 2023.
May 19th, 2023Obit watch: May 18, 2023.
May 18th, 2023Superstar” Billy Graham, noted wrestler.
A bodybuilding friend of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Graham got into pro wrestling in the late 1960s with Stew Hart’s Stampede Wrestling in Calgary and wrestled until 1987 until injuries and health issues pushed him out of the ring.
Graham, who moved into a commentary role, wrestled for AWA, WWWF, NWA and WWF during his career.
He was dubbed “Superstar” during his time in the AWA.
Graham won the WWWF championship from Bruno Samartino in April 1977 and held the belt for nine and a half months — losing the title to Bob Backlund in February 1978.
Ralph Lee, founder of the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade and puppeteer.
Amy Silverstein, author. When she was 24, she was diagnosed with congestive hear failure and had a transplant. She published a book, Sick Girl, in 2007.
The first heart eventually failed, and she went through a second transplant in 2014. In 2017, she published My Glory Was I Had Such Friends.
She was 59, and died of cancer, which is believed to have been caused by the medications she was taking to prevent organ rejection.
Quick random gun crankery, no filler.
May 17th, 2023From YouTube: a factory tour of the Smith and Wesson plant in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Why, yes, as a matter of fact, I have been on that tour…
Norts spews.
May 17th, 2023I’m tagging this under “firings”, even though it isn’t a firing in the normal sense of the word.
There were elections yesterday in various parts of the country.
Voters in Tempe, Arizona had three propositions to vote on. All three were related to a plan to build a brand-new arena (and a related large “entertainment complex”) for the Arizona Coyotes NHL team, which is a complete disaster.
In order for the arena to be built, all three propositions had to pass by a simple majority vote.
All three failed by a pretty large margin.
The estimated cost of this plan was $2.1 billion. It isn’t clear to me how much of this would have been funded with public money, though Field of Schemes cites “$500 million in tax breaks“.
Right now, the team is playing in a 5,000 seat college arena.
There are persistent rumors that the team is going to move out of Arizona completely: one potential location I’ve seen is, believe it or not, Houston.
(I think I went to a Houston Aeros game in the Summit back in the day, possibly as a Boy Scout thing. Never went to see the other Houston Aeros, though, or the Ice Bats.)
More from the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network.
Edited to add: coverage from Reason, which wasn’t up when I posted earlier.
Firing watch.
May 16th, 2023Doc Rivers, who as far as I can tell is neither a doctor or a river (discuss) out as coach of the Philadelphia 76ers.
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Rivers has been one of the NBA’s most recognizable and successful coaches for more than two decades, being honored as one of the top 15 coaches in league history during its 75th anniversary celebration. He won a championship with the Boston Celtics in 2008, before guiding a once-embarrassing Los Angeles Clippers franchise to six playoff appearances in seven seasons. The former All-Star point guard began his coaching career with the Orlando Magic in 1999-2000, where he was named coach of the year in his first season and took that team to three playoff berths in five seasons.
Yet Rivers has also become known for playoff failures, particularly in close-out games. He is now 17-33 in such situations, and 6-10 in Game 7s, after the Sixers surrendered their 3-2 series lead to Boston.
Obit watch: May 15, 2023.
May 15th, 2023Doyle Brunson, legendary poker player and a good Texas boy.
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Mr. Brunson was among the three dozen players invited in 1970 to the inaugural World Series of Poker, a name that belied its modest beginnings. The tournament was the brainchild of the casino owner Benny Binion and Jimmy Snyder, then a public relations agent better known as Jimmy the Greek.
The World Series expanded its roster of poker contests to include several variants of the game, but Texas hold ’em remained the most publicized and lucrative event. Mr. Snyder called Mr. Brunson “Texas Doy-lee,” which reporters mistook for Dolly, and the nickname Texas Dolly stuck, though it seemed incongruous for someone who stood 6 feet 3 inches tall and weighed well over 250 pounds.
After moving to Las Vegas in 1973 for steadier gambling opportunities, Mr. Brunson won the tournament’s main event in 1976 and 1977, widely viewed as the world championship, earning $560,000 in a winner-take-all format. His 10 World Series bracelets are tied for second behind Phil Hellmuth’s 16.
Bill Oesterle, co-founder of Angie’s List (now just “Angi”). He was 57, and died of complications from ALS.
Semi-obit: Vice Media. They’ve officially filed for bankruptcy, but it is a Chapter 11, they have a $20 million operating loan, and the plan for their lenders (“including Fortress Investment Group and Soros Fund Management”) to buy the company is still on.
“Archer“.
The long-running animated comedy will conclude with its upcoming 14th season.
Sun’s Up!
May 14th, 2023Monty Williams out as head coach of the Phoenix Suns.
They lost to the Nuggets in six games this year. They made the finals in 2021, and lost in seven games to Dallas in the semi-finals last year.
Obit watch: May 13, 2023.
May 13th, 2023Hodding Carter III, journalist and aide to Jimmy Carter.
The son of the journalist Hodding Carter Jr., who won a Pulitzer Prize for editorials calling for racial moderation in the old segregated South, Hodding Carter III succeeded his father as editor and publisher of The Greenville Delta Democrat-Times, and as a voice of conscience in a state torn by violence and social change during the struggles of the civil rights era.
But after 5,000 editorials and years of journalistic trench warfare, Mr. Carter took his fight into politics.
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In the 1976 presidential campaign, Mr. Carter helped engineer a narrow victory in Mississippi for Jimmy Carter, who was no relation, and was rewarded with an appointment as assistant secretary of state for public affairs. As chief spokesman for the State Department, he delivered nuanced statements on foreign policy with candor and wit, and developed a good if sometimes acerbic rapport with the diplomatic press corps.
He became the national face of the Carter administration during the Iranian hostage crisis, which broke on Nov. 4, 1979, when militants took over the United States Embassy in Tehran and seized 52 Americans. Their captivity lasted 444 days — virtually the remainder of President Carter’s single term in office, a tenure ended by a frustrated electorate that chose Ronald Reagan for president in 1980.
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I was alive and around during that time, but I do not recall the rubber chicken thing…
Obit watch: May 11, 2023.
May 11th, 2023Sam Gross, “New Yorker” and “National Lampoon” cartoonist.
And while there are lines of taste that many cartoonists will not cross, Mr. Gross leaped over them, doused them with gasoline and lit them on fire, cackling as he did.
A stiff-legged dog lies on its back next to a blind man holding a sign that says, “I am blind, and my dog is dead.” A gigantic beanstalk grows out of a medieval peasant’s posterior, and another peasant says, “I told you they were magic beans and not to eat them.” Diners sit in front of a sign advertising frogs’ legs in a restaurant as a despondent legless amphibian rolls out of the kitchen. Some of his cartoons can’t be fully described in a family newspaper.
Jacklyn Zeman, actress. Other credits include “Sledge Hammer!”, “Young Doctors In Love”, and “The New Mike Hammer”.
Lisa Montell, actress. She did a lot of TV westerns, but her credits end in 1962. According to her IMDB biography, she went on to become “a spiritual exponent of the Bahá’í faith”.
Obit watch: May 10, 2023.
May 10th, 2023Joe Kapp, former quarterback for the Vikings.
Kapp tied a single-game National Football League record — one held by several quarterbacks — when he threw seven touchdown passes against the defending league champion, the Baltimore Colts, in September 1969.
He threw 19 touchdown passes during the 1969 regular season, leading the Vikings to the 1970 Super Bowl against the Kansas City Chiefs, the champions of the American Football League, which was in its last season before it merged with the N.F.L. The Vikings, anchored by the Purple People Eaters, a fearsome defensive line with Carl Eller and Jim Marshall at the ends and Alan Page and Gary Larsen at the tackles, were strong favorites, but the Chiefs defeated them, 23-7.
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Kapp joined the Boston (later New England) Patriots in 1970. The Patriots finished with a 2-12 record, then drafted quarterback Jim Plunkett of Stanford, the Heisman Trophy winner.
Having already been involved in a contract dispute with the Patriots, Kapp refused to sign a standard players contract for the 1971 season and quit the team in July, then filed an antitrust suit against the N.F.L. A jury declined to award him damages, but the case represented an early challenge in the players’ ultimately successful struggle to win free agency rights.
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Denny Crum, former Louisville Cardinals basketball coach.
Nicknamed Cool Hand Luke because of his unflinching sideline demeanor, Crum retired in March 2001 after 30 seasons at Louisville with a record of 675-295 and championships in 1980 and 1986.
A former assistant under the renowned U.C.L.A. coach John Wooden, Crum often wore a red blazer and waved a rolled-up stat sheet like a bandleader’s baton as he directed Louisville to 23 N.C.A.A. tournaments and six Final Fours. He was voted college coach of the year three times.
Lawrence emailed an obit for British actor Terrence Hardiman. Other credits include “The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles”, “Midsomer Murders”, and “McLibel!”.
Heather “Dooce” Armstrong, blogger and author.
She was one of the early and influential bloggers, who famously got fired when her employers discovered her blog. (This originated the briefly popular slang term “dooced” for someone who got fired for their online writing.) She evolved into a prominent “mommy blogger”, writing about parenthood, domestic life, and her struggles with mental health, especially post-partum depression.
I used to read her somewhat intermittently, back in the day. I thought she wrote well about mental health issues.
She became sort of a big name in the blogsphere. She had content and sponsorship deals. She even had a short lived deal with HGTV.
By [2009], ads visible to Dooce’s 8.5 million monthly readers made a reported $40,000 for the Armstrongs each month, making it her primary source of income; she began running sponsored content as well…
…Jon joked in 2011 that the traffic from the hate sites had been better for the family business than the birth of their second child two years earlier. By then the revenue from Dooce paid salaries not only to the Armstrongs but an assistant and two full-time babysitters.
She and Jon (her husband) divorced in 2012, and she stopped blogging for a time. When she came back, social media was bigger, and even though she had an Instagram feed, her reach had declined. She also went through an experimental treatment for clinical depression, and a couple of years ago announced she was a recovering alcoholic.
She was 47.
Pete Ashdown, her longtime partner, who found her body in the home, said the cause was suicide.
The number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-TALK (8255). You can also dial 988 to reach the Lifeline. If you live outside of the United States or are looking for other help, TVTropes has a good page of additional resources.
Mental illness is a monster. If you are struggling, reach out for help. Don't be afraid to call the suicide hotline. Don't stop until you are safe. You are worth it.
Don't believe the lies depression tells you.
You are not alone.
— Jenny Lawson (@TheBloggess) May 10, 2023
Brief loser update.
May 10th, 2023We are into the baseball season, but not as far in as I would like to be. I sometimes try to post a loser update around the All-Star break.
But I did decide I wanted to throw up a link to this:
“Why the worst MLB teams of 2023 are historically bad“.
There are a lot of stats in the article for you baseball people, but summarizing:
Oakland is currently 8-30, for a winning percentage of .211. That works out to 127 losses this season if trends continue. The 1962 Mets lost 120 games, and the 2003 Tigers lost 119.
Obit watch: May 9, 2023.
May 9th, 2023Bruce McCall, artist.
Borrowing from the advertising style seen in magazines like Life, Look and Collier’s in the 1930s and ’40s, Mr. McCall depicted a luminous fantasyland filled with airplanes, cars and luxury liners of his own creation. It was a world populated by carefree millionaires who expected caviar to be served in the stations of the fictional Fifth Avenue Subway and carwashes to spray their limousines with champagne.
“My work is so personal and so strange that I have to invent my own lexicon for it,” Mr. McCall said in a TED Talk in 2008. He called it “retrofuturism,” which he defined as “looking back to see how yesterday viewed tomorrow.”
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In addition to “Playboy”, “National Lampoon”, and the “New Yorker”, he was briefly a writer for “Saturday Night Live” and also did work for “Car and Driver”. Lawrence sent over an obit from that august publication.