Saturday, March 14, 2015

Al Rosen, R. I. P.

Indians great Al Rosen dies at age 91 - Let's Go Tribe: Al Rosen, one of the greatest players in Cleveland Indians history, passed away Friday night at the age of 91. 

Rosen (#16 in LGT's countdown of the greatest players in franchise history) was born in South Carolina but grew up in the Little Havana section of Miami. Al suffered from severe asthma as a boy, but was encouraged by his mother to be active. A series of fistfights (stemming in part form him being one of very few Jewish boys in the neighborhood) helped him develop into a fine boxer, and of course he became a great ballplayer as well.

Gene Simmons Is a Powerful and Attractive Man and Other Irrefutable Facts -- Christina Vitagliano

My son, Allen, has been a KISS fan for a long time.  The first big concert he ever attended was a KISS performance in Houston in the old Sam Houston Coliseum, which no longer exists.  Since Gene Simmons is a part of KISS, Allen would probably get a kick out of this book, which plays off the Chuck Norris meme ("Guns carry Chuck Norris for protection") that you may have seen.  Only this time it's Gene Simmons.

Samples:  Gene Simmons has a yacht . . . in his swimming pool.

When Gene Simmons has a candy bar, it takes off its own wrapper.

Friday the 13th is afraid of Gene Simmons.

There's a lot more, including some great illustrations by Corey Marier and Crag Marier, kids giving their thoughts on Gene Simmons, poetry, wacky definitions, posters from famous movies altered to depict Simmons in the lead role, and even a foreword by Simmons himself, which proves that he's a good sport.  Or maybe he believes all this stuff.  At any rate, KISS fans and Gene Simmons fans will have to get this, of course, and who can blame them.  Others might find some fun in this "authorized parody," too.  Check it out.

Doesn't Everybody?

Why Do the French Love Jerry Lewis?

Song of the Day

The Hilltoppers - Till Then - 1954 - YouTube:

Or Maybe Not

7 Monsters that Deserve More Publicity than Bigfoot

Today's Vintage Ad


Jimmy Sacca, R. I. P.

Bowling Green Daily News: News: Lockport, N.Y., native Jimmy Sacca, lead singer of the Hilltoppers, a vocal quartet that notched 29 hit singles from 1952 to 1957, died Saturday in St. Joseph’s Hospital in Lexington. He was 85.

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Kurt Singer, Gentlemen Spies, Pinnacle, no date

Once Again Texas Leads the Way

9 Historical Mysteries Solved By Astronomy: Who uses the skies to solve historical mysteries? Astrophysicist and forensic astronomer Donald W. Olson and his team at Texas State University use their astronomical tools to solve all manner of mystery.

Erik Larson Interview

Erik Larson: By the Book

Gene Patton, R. I. P.

Yahoo News: Gene Patton, the NBC stagehand in Burbank who stole the spotlight as Gene Gene the Dancing Machine on NBC’s wacky The Gong Show, died Monday, his family announced. He was 82.

An Astounding Science Fiction Testimonial

An Astounding Science Fiction Testimonial

Happy Pi Day!

Pi Day: Pi Day is celebrated on March 14th (3/14) around the world. Pi (Greek letter “Ï€”) is the symbol used in mathematics to represent a constant — the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter — which is approximately 3.14159.

Friday, March 13, 2015

No Reader of this Blog Will Be Surprised

Crocodile Found in New Jersey Basement During Drug Raid

Archaeology Update

Archaeologists used Light Detection and Ranging technique to discover fabled lost city in Honduras: After centuries of lore that promulgated the idea of a lost El Dorado teeming with untold riches deep within the Honduran rainforest, a team of archeologists, engineers and anthropologists claims to have discovered the fabled location of the City of the Monkey God or The White City, where people worshipped a monkey god and from which visitors never returned.

Song of the Day

one scotch one bourbon one beer amos milburn - YouTube:

Barry Award Nominees

Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine:  Barry award nominees.

I Found a Penny Last Week

U.S. College Finds Priceless Coin Collection

Today's Vintage Ad


Phil Collins Named Honorary Texan

Phil Collins Named Honorary Texan for Donating Artifacts to the Alamo

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Robert E. Howard, Tigers of the Sea, Sphere, 1977

Some of Us Haven't

10 words we've forgotten how to pronounce

I Miss the Old Days

22 Eighties Hairstyles

Criminal Genius of the Day

Knife-wielding man mistakes stamp kiosk for ATM, tries to rob woman inside post office 

Jenna McMahon, R. I. P.

Yahoo News: Jenna McMahon, a three-time Emmy Award winner and the co-creator of the long-running comedies The Facts of Life and Mama's Family, has died. She was 89. McMahon, whose real name was Mary Virginia Skinner, died March 2 of heart failure at a hospital in Monterey, Calif., her daughter, Kerry Holden-Dixon, told The Hollywood Reporter.  

Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.

Perfectly Understandable

Indian bride walks out of wedding when groom fails math test

Robert Silverberg on the First Year of Galaxy Science Fiction

Robert Silverberg on the First Year of Galaxy Science Fiction

FFB: Any Woman He Wanted -- Whit Harrison (Harry Whittington)

A post about this book on Detectives Beyond Borders made me pull it off the shelves and reread it.  There's an interesting story behind it.  Whittington submitted it to Gold Medal books as a sequel to one of my favorites among his many novels, Brute in Brass.  For some reason Gold Medal turned it down and it was sold instead to Beacon Books, of all places.

Note the quotation from Joseph Moncure March on the cover.  It has nothing at all to do with this book.  No sex acts occur here, not a one, though there's some disrobing and near-sex, along with plenty of references to women's bodies.  How much of this was added for the Beacon publication is anybody's guess.  This isn't a sex novel.  It's a crime novel through and through.

Mike Ballard is a cop who's just trying to get through the day and do as little as possible.  In the past he was branded as crooked and although his job was saved, he no longer seems to care.  The town where he works is as crooked as they come, and the DA wants Ballard's help in cleaning it up.  The DA, by the way, is married to Ballard's former fiancée.  Ballard turns him down.  People start to die, beginning with the DA.  Ballard stays out of it.  He's thoroughly tough, disillusioned, disaffected.  He wants no part of anything.  But of course . . . .

Any Woman He Wanted (the title has no more to do with the book than the quotation from March) is hardboiled and dark all the way through, almost.  The ending is something you have to read to believe.  I'm sure it wasn't the original ending, and maybe we'll never know what that was.  I'd bet the house it wasn't the one in the book, however.

I don't know why Gold Medal rejected this book.  It's topnotch Whittington, and that means it's very good, indeed.

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Free for Kindle for a Limited Time

Amazon.com: BEAT to a PULP: Hardboiled 3 eBook: Patti Abbott, Fred Blosser, Hilary Davidson, Chris F. Holm, Sophie Littlefield, Andrew Nette, Keith Rawson, Kieran Shea, Josh Stallings, David Cranmer: Kindle Store: The third time’s a blood-splattered charm as BEAT to a PULP and nine of today’s hard-hitting, top writers stalk the depraved streets where no good deed goes unpunished, vengeance is the norm, and lady luck is a cold-hearted bitch that just left you for dead in a back alley. Raw-nerved, pure virtuosity seeps from the grunge-tainted keyboards of Patti Abbott, Fred Blosser, Hilary Davidson, Chris F. Holm, Sophie Littlefield, Andrew Nette, Keith Rawson, Kieran Shea, and Josh Stallings.

26 Discworld Quotes About Life, The Universe, And Everything

26 Discworld Quotes About Life, The Universe, And Everything

Five Astounding Animal Automata

Five Astounding Animal Automata

Song of the Day

David Box - Little Lonely Summer Girl - YouTube:

RIP: Terry Pratchett (1948 - 2015)

RIP: Terry Pratchett (1948 - 2015): BBC is reporting that author terry Pratchett has passed away at the age of 66. Pratchett had been battling with Alzheimer’s disease for the past few years.

8 of History's Greatest Cat Ladies

8 of History's Greatest Cat Ladies 

Today's Vintage Ad


10 People Who Were The Last Of Their Kind

10 People Who Were The Last Of Their Kind

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Michael Moorcock, The Sword and the Stallion, Quartet, 1975

Naked Sasquatch WBAGNFARB

Hunter attacked by naked 'Sasquatch' asks: 'Why are you trying to kill me?': "Well, I asked him who he was, and he replied very calmly, just as sane as anyone, that his name was Linus Norgren," McDonald recalled. And in the same reasonable voice, that "he was a Sasquatch from a family of Sasquatches."

23 Struggles Only Book Nerds Will Understand

23 Struggles Only Book Nerds Will Understand

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Researchers nearly double the size of worker ants

Vintage Treasures: Sheila Gilluly’s Greenbriar Trilogy

Vintage Treasures: Sheila Gilluly’s Greenbriar Trilogy

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Jimmy Greenspoon, R. I. P.

Examiner.com: On its official Facebook page, legendary rock group Three Dog Night today announced the death of its original keyboardist, Jimmy Greenspoon.

Gator Update (Golf Course Edition)

Jurassic Park is in Florida, if This Huge Roaming Gator is Any Indication

Criminal Genius of the Day

Man allegedly tries to avoid arrest by rolling in dog feces

How Clocks Changed Humanity Forever

How Clocks Changed Humanity Forever, Making Us Masters and Slaves of Time 

Song of the Day

Del Shannon - That's The Way Love Is - YouTube:

Pictures From Inside A Crayola Factory

Pictures From Inside A Crayola Factory

Today's Vintage Ad


“A Break in the Order of Things: Coincidence in Fiction and in Life”

“A Break in the Order of Things: Coincidence in Fiction and in Life” by Steven Gore | SOMETHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN

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Jack Williamson, The Green Girl, Avon, 1950

The Paranoid’s Field Guide to Secret Societies

The Paranoid’s Field Guide to Secret Societies

New John D. MacDonald Bio

Bloodshot Rainbow: The Spectra of John D. MacDonald 

Windell D. Middlebrooks, R. I. P.

NY Daily News: Windell D. Middlebrooks, a gentle giant on numerous TV series and the picky deliveryman in Miller High Life commercials, died Monday morning. He was 36.  

Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.

I've Seen Most of Them

30 Cult Movies That Absolutely Everybody Must See

The Eternal Champion by Michael Moorcock

The Eternal Champion by Michael Moorcock

New Poem at the Five-Two

The Five-Two: Scott Wozniak: GET TO SMASHING

Philip K. Dick was right

Philip K. Dick was right: we are becoming androids 

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Ulysses for Dummies

Ulysses for Dummies

Hat tip to John Duke.

Archaeology Update

Huge tomb of Celtic prince unearthed in France: 'Exceptional' 2,500-year-old burial chamber reveals stunning treasures

Song of the Day

1955 HITS ARCHIVE: The Yellow Rose Of Texas - Stan Freberg - YouTube:

Uh-Oh

Study shows each hour sitting increases heart disease risk by 14%

Today's Vintage Ad


Here’s What Artists Reportedly Made At Woodstock ’69

Here’s What Artists Reportedly Made At Woodstock ’69 

We're Gonna Need a Bigger Pizza Oven

Ocala.com: Truck, trailer, tons of mozzarella stolen from parking lot in Summerfield

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Michael Moorcock, The Oak and the Ram, Quartet, 1974



6 Insane Realities of Being a Confidential Informant

All 6 of these realities are on fictional display in Duane Swierczynski's new book, Canary, which I might get around to commenting on one of these days.

6 Insane Realities of Being a Confidential Informant

Notoriously Difficult Literary Classics, Transformed Into Popular Page-Turners

Flavorwire: Notoriously Difficult Literary Classics, Transformed Into Popular Page-Turners

We Can Remember It for You Wholesale

New memories implanted in mice while they sleep

Vintage Treasures: The Chronicles of Corum by Michael Moorcock

Vintage Treasures: The Chronicles of Corum by Michael Moorcock

Overlooked Movies -- Wag the Dog

Hard to believe this movie appeared in 1997.  Seems like only a couple of years ago.  Maybe part of that is because I'm an old guy, but part of it is because the movie's just as relevant now as it was then.

The president of the U.S. is running for reelection and gets involved in bit of a scandal with an underage girl.  Conrad Brean (Robert de Niro) is the spin doctor brought in to distract the nation from the scandal.  His solution is to get the country into a fake war with Albania, and he hires Hollywood producer Stanley Motss (Dustin Hoffman) to do the faking.  

This cunning plan works at first, and when it starts to unravel, Conrad and Stanley go to greater and greater lengths to cover things up.  The more bizarre it gets, the funnier it gets, or at least that's how I found it.  At each disaster, Stanley declares, "This is nothing!" and comes up with a story from his Hollywood past to top it.  And then goes on to create more outrageous incidents.  The CIA gets involved, but Stanley and Conrad get them on board with the plot.  Things get all too real in the end, and it's easy to believe something like this could happen just as it's shown in the movie.

De Niro and Hoffman are great, but so is the rest of the all-star cast.  Things move fast, the dialog is snappy and funny, and the satire is sharp and on point.  Great stuff.

Wag the Dog

Wag the Dog - Movie Trailer - YouTube:

Monday, March 09, 2015

First It was the Thin Mints Melee

Patrons beat employees at Chuck E. Cheese

Joe Lansdale TV Update

Michael K. Williams To Star In ‘Hap and Leonard’ : “The Wire” and “Boardwalk Empire” star has been cast as a lead in Sundance TV’s “Hap and Leonard,” plus IFC’s “The Spoils Before Dying,” alongside Will Ferrell, both cablers announced Monday.

Daylight Saving: Spring Forward

Daylight Saving: Spring Forward - Movie Trailer - YouTube:

Sam Simon, R. I. P.

Flavorwire: Sam Simon, co-creator of The Simpsons, died Sunday, surrounded by his family and beloved dog, after a long battle with colon cancer. He was 59 years old, and was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2012.

The Babe's Lost Homers

Now I Know: The Babe's Lost Homers

Listen to a Brand New Jimi Hendrix Tune

Listen to a Brand New Jimi Hendrix Tune, ‘Station Break,’ Unearthed After 50 Years 

As I was saying . . . .

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Daylight Saving Time - How Is This Still A Thing? (HBO) - YouTube:

Here's Hoping

Fox4News.com: State legislators on Tuesday will look at a bill that would end Daylight Saving Time in Texas.

A Review of Interest (To Me, Anyway)

Authors Showcase: Death on the Move by Bill Crider

Song of the Day

The Human League - Don't You Want Me - YouTube:

Forgotten Hits: 50 Year Flashback - March 9th, 1965

Forgotten Hits: 50 Year Flashback - March 9th, 1965

Today's Vintage Ad


I'm Sure You'll All Agree

The 25 Best Time Travel Films of All ... Time 

PaperBack


Keith Laumer, A Plague of Demons, Coronet, 1977

I'm Not Sure You Should Try this at Home

How To Deep-Fry Cadbury Eggs For Easter

John D. MacDonald: The man who turned pulp fiction into classics

The man who turned pulp fiction into classics

Vintage Treasures: Horrors in Hiding edited by Sam Moskowitz with Alden H. Norton

Vintage Treasures: Horrors in Hiding edited by Sam Moskowitz with Alden H. Norton

10 Books That Will Change How You See History

10 Books That Will Change How You See History

18 Everyday Expressions Borrowed From the Bible

18 Everyday Expressions Borrowed From the Bible 

Sunday, March 08, 2015

My Final Anti-DST Post of the Day

There’s no proof Daylight Saving Time saves electricity, so why do we even bother?: “Slowly people are realizing that the energy savings is not there,” says Alison Sexton, one of the co-authors on the 2014 paper, on the subject of what research suggests about DST.  “So is there reason to go on?”

Song of the Day

Uncloudy Day - YouTube:

Eight Of The Worst Fad Toys From The Last Forty Years

Eight Of The Worst Fad Toys From The Last Forty Years 

Today's Vintage Ad


I'm Sure You'll All Agree

Lost in the Andes: the finest Donald Duck story ever written

PaperBack



Edgar Wallace, The Man at the Carlton, Hodder, 1969

It's Even Worse Than You Thought

7 little-known side effects of daylight saving time: Springing forward can do a lot more damage than just making you sleepy.

I Miss the Old Days

When Daylight Saving Time Was Illegal

How the Civil War Broke Up the Camel Corps

How the Civil War Broke Up the Camel Corps

World’s most isolated house

Ellidaey Island, Iceland: World’s most isolated house