Edited to add: Reason tribute. Noted here for two reasons:
1. Jesse Walker mentions another of my favorite Kinky songs that I decided not to use, but it was a close decision: “We Reserve the Right to Refuse Service to You”.
2. I had always associated Kinky with the “dropped acid and listened to Shiva’s Headband at the Armadillo World Headquarters” crowd, so this is an interesting quote:
This is pushing the definition of an “obit” just a bit, but Will Dabbs, MD, who is rapidly becoming one of my favorite modern gun writers, has a nice tribute up to Donald Sutherland.
I’ve seen “Kelly’s Heroes”, but when I was a child, on the late night movies. (Kids, ask your parents about late night movies on TV.) I think the Saturday Movie Conspiracy is going to be re-watching it in the fairly near future. And I had not heard the story about the grenades.
The auction opens tomorrow, though some things have already sold at the “Buy It Now” price. Yes, it is pricy stuff, but it is also for (what I think is) a good cause.
And even if you don’t buy anything from the auction, there’s a lot of artists participating that might be worth looking into.
Bill Cobbs, actor. NYT (archived). Other credits include “A Mighty Wind”, “The Slap Maxwell Story”, and one of the spinoffs of a minor 1960s SF TV series.
I have said, more than once, that I am an equal opportunity observer of hyenas on fire. Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, or Communist, I don’t care. (Except maybe I take more joy out of Communist hyenas on fire.)
(“Communist Hyenas On Fire” is the name of my next band. We play covers of Trotsky Icepick.)
Also, I couldn’t pass this up because: strippers, always with the strippers.
Neil Friske is a Republican Michigan House representative. I’ve seen him described as a “prominent Second Amendment activist”. I’d never heard of him previously, but perhaps his 2A activism is more prominent in Michigan.
By the way, Mayor Thao is dealing with a recall election this November, a fact I did not previously know.
FotB RoadRich sent over a story (by way of Must Read Texas) that also isn’t quite flames, yet, but definitely a lot of smoke. Let me see if I can summarize it for you:
David R. Jones was a Federal bankruptcy judge in Houston.
Kirkland & Ellis is the world’s largest law firm.
Jones became the nation’s busiest bankruptcy judge after Kirkland, the top U.S. firm for advising financially-troubled companies, steered most of its largest chapter 11 cases to his court.
Elizabeth Freeman is an attorney who worked as co-council with Kirkland on bankruptcy cases in Jones’s court. She worked for a law firm, Jackson Walker, until December of 2022, when she left and started her own law office.
So a judge and a lawyer were engaged in a pretty serious conflict of interest, and the two law firms involved plus the Federal bankruptcy court conspired to cover it up.
I don’t know that there’s anything actually criminal here, though I suspect there is if someone cares to look hard enough. But this seems like the kind of thing that should get people disbarred from the practice of law. (And removed from the bench, but Jones is already gone. It seems like Judge Isgur is still a bankruptcy judge, though.)
IMDB. I did not realize he was Wilhelm Reich in the video for “Cloudbusting”. And we’ve watched “Don’t Look Now”: I can’t recommend it, even with the sex scene. On the other hand, I would like to see “Kelly’s Heroes” again, not cut up for television. And I’ve never seen “M*A*S*H”.
Master Chief Goines is credited as being the first black Navy SEAL (though the paper of record does note that there was at least one black frogman in the underwater demolition teams that preceded the SEALs).
From sumo, he went into acting. Other credits include both versions of “Magnum P.I.” (an uncredited appearance in the first, “Kamekona” in the second), the “MacGyver” reboot, and “One West Waikiki”.
I’m glad to say that this year’s hotel (which we were also at in 2021) was very very happy to see us. Last year’s hotel…wasn’t, and I’ll just leave it at that. The Renaissance Tulsa Hotel & Convention Center, on the other hand, could not have been more accomodating. (They did have “No Firearms or Weapons” stickers on the doors, but I never heard anything about anybody being hassled by the hotel staff.) I was privy to a conversation between one of my friends (who is a S&WCA officer) and one of the hotel managers, and the manager was very excited about having us back. We tip well, we don’t throw loud obnoxious parties, we have our own security, and we don’t trash the place.
There are two popular questions people ask me. Well, maybe one “popular” question and one not-so-popular.
“Did I buy any guns?” Answer: yes, but we’re still going through the transfer process. Once that’s complete, I plan to do a post. Here’s a hint:
“Did I buy any books?” asked nobody, ever. Answer: Yes! My book buddy from the Association came down from Canada and brought a stack of books. He thought I might be interested in “some” of them and planned to put the others on his sales table. I bought the whole lot, which came out to ten books by my count. This includes two new-to-me Samworths, one duplicate Samworth that’s in better shape than my copy, three Jack O’Connor books that I didn’t have, and some miscellaneous books from other publishers. I will be annoying my loyal reader with posts on those books as time permits.
Additionally, I happened to be working the registration table with another gentleman who, it turned out, was also a gun book person. He had somehow wound up with a spare copy of a recent gun book and gifted his spare to me.
I also picked up a fair amount of old paper, some of which my book buddy threw in as part of my purchase and some of which I bought from other dealers. I may scan and post some of this, especially when I do the gun post.
(And as a side note: the night before I left, I got two huge and heavy packages from an auction lot I’d placed a lowball bid on, and won. The lot was for old “gun and ammo” books. So I’ll be sharing interesting bits from that lot as well.)
Since Sunday was an off day, I drove up to Oklahoma City specifically to see the 45th Infantry Division Museum, which is now known as the Oklahoma National Guard Museum (and which is moving to a new facility). You may recognize the 45th Infantry Division Museum from such hits as:
I thought it was a very nice museum. They had me when I discovered there was an entire room devoted to Bill Mauldin.
Here. Have a random photo of some bazookas.
I’m very glad I went, especially now. As I noted above, the museum is moving to a new location. And I got into a conversation with the curator, who told me that they are planning to deaccession some things, as the new museum will be placing more emphasis on “telling stories”. I think that’s kind of a shame. Where else are you going to see this?
I encourage you to go now, if you’re in the area and have the opportunity. I would actually like to spend more time at the museum, but I wanted to get back in time for dinner and to take a couple of photos in Muskogee:
I took a group of my friends to Siegi’s Sausage Factory and, as far as I could tell, everyone loved it. Another large group of my friends took me to the White River Fish Market and Restaurant, which I liked, but which was in a really gritty part of Tulsa.
We also went to an Abuelo’s one night, because it was very near the hotel. I went by myself one night to a place Mike the Musicologist calls “The Laugh-In Restaurant”: Sake 2 Me Sushi. It is all-you-can-eat, but I wasn’t wild about the sushi.
And Sunday night’s celebratory dinner was at The Chalkboard, because I haven’t been in forever and wanted some Beef Wellington.
Everything went smoothly. No complaints here, except that eight hours in a car does get a little tiring.
Usual thanks to the usual suspects. You know who you are. (It appears that word has gotten around within S&WCA circles that I have a blog.)
Neil Goldschmidt, former mayor of Portland and governor of Oregon. He seemed to have a promising political career (he was also transportation secretary under Jimmy Carter) but left office in 1990. There were a lot of rumors about his extramarital activities at the time.
In 2004, it came out that he’d been raping a teenage girl.
Yesterday was an extended travel day. I got in around 5 PM last night, and had to unpack the car and take care of other business. So blogging opportunities were limited.
Oddly, I have to work today, and have meetings tonight. But tomorrow is a company holiday. I’m planning to post something of a trip report then.
