If we know each other and you want to keep up with things from this point forward, let me know; there is a slight transition occurring — so slight that you may not even notice the difference — to de-universalize this effort to make it more effortless on my part. If we know each other and I make other efforts to keep in touch, you’ll receive directions whether you want them or not. The rest of you will have to search for it (it isn’t hidden, but I’m trusting, nay, hoping that any effort will be too much).
Doug Stanhope’s Celebrity Death Pool suddenly disappeared a couple of years ago (which is fine as no one on my list was harvested that year). I found this other Death Pool on Twitter for the last two years but it has gone to this pay-to-play format so I’m out. Instead, I’ll periodically update this list as the TBD’s (to be dead) dwindle. I don’t really need Twitter anymore, either, now.
No hard feelings at all.
Here are all my picks since 2018 (can’t find the 2013-2017 lists). First the ‘completed’ group followed by the ‘pending’ ones (and the years I had each of them on my list).
Finished: Carl Reiner: 2020, 2019 (29 June 2020, 2 points) David Crosby: 2023, 2022 (18 January 2023, 19 points) Jerry Lee Lewis: 2022 (28 October 2022, 13 points) John Lewis: 2020, 2019, 2018 (17 July 2020, 20 points) June Brown: 2022 (3 April 2022, 5points) Pat Robertson: 2019 (8 June 2023, missed) Queen Elizabeth II: 2022 (8 September 2022, 4 points) Robert Mugabe: 2019, 2018 (6 September 2019, 5 points) Shane McGowan: 2023, 2022 (30 November 2023, 35 points) Ted Kaczynski: 2022 (10 June 2023, missed) Winnie Mandela: 2018 (2 April 2018, 19 points)
Awaiting completion: Andy Andrist: 2022 Betsy DeVos: 2020 Bob Dylan: 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018 Brian Wilson: 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018 Chris Christie: 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018 Clint Eastwood: 2022 Dan Quayle: 2021, 2020, 2018 Dick Cheney: 2022 Dolly Parton: 2021, 2020, 2019 Don McLean: 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018 Donald Trump: 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018 Donald Trump Jr: 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020 Eric Trump: 2021, 2020 Ghislane Maxwell: 2022 Ivanka Trump: 2021, 2020 James Whale: 2022 Jared Kushner: 2021, 2020 Jello Biafra: 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018 Jerry Brown: 2021, 2020, 2018 Jimmy Carter: 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018 Kevin Spacey: 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018 Lady Gaga: 2018 Lil Nas X: 2023 Lil’ Wayne: 2022 Linda Ronstadt: 2023, 2022 Lindsay Lohan: 2019 Marsha Mason: 2022 Maryanne Faithfull: 2022 Matt Gaetz: 2023, 2022 Mel Brooks: 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018 Michael Cohen: 2021, 2020 Michael Flynn: 2021, 2020 Mick Jagger: 2018 Pete Davidson: 2023, 2022, 2019 Philip Glass: 2018 Piers Morgan: 2019, 2018 RuPaul: 2019, 2018 Sharon Osborne: 2023, 2022, 2020, 2019, 2018 Silvio Berlusconi: 2022 Stephen Miller: 2019
Triangulation Point 12770 is the church spire down the end of Solihull High Street, with the still pending Mason’s Arms to the left
Jackie had a 3:30 appointment in Olton well after Jimi’s 10:30 final post-op visit, so we made our way to Solihull to dick around in the shops.
I bought a humorously named ‘meat mincer’ (growing up in the 70s, I’ve known a few of these…hell, I’ve BEEN one). Sitting around to watch the yuppie scum (the Old English word for them is, in fact, Solihullions), we examined the lit inside said mincer’s package (let the innuendo begin) to find these other labels to snigger at:
Screw; Mincing cup (ah, both genders of meat mincer…how modern); Shaft spacer and Shaft; and, of course, Sausage nozzle.
Speaking of innuendo, one of the few American Football players I actually idolised as a child, like Y. A. Tittle and Joe Namath and Alex Karas (this clip from Blazing Saddles features him and some of the best jokes from the whole movie), just passed away. Dick Butkis was an absolute animal and, of course, he had the funniest name in the NFL: Dick, Butt Kiss. Outstanding. Chicago born, raised, and spent his entire career there. Rest well, monster.
Dick Butkis single handedly stopping the entire contingent of the Packers
We also went to this fabulous used record shop Jackie found last year on a day off work. She was kind of loaded from the Mason’s Arms (which we fell short of time to visit this trip so I still haven’t broken that membrane…NEXT time, for sure). On her solo trip, there were some old musicians shooting the shit with the proprietor who seemed to have had near misses with fame whilst their compatriots at the time did quite well indeed. She stopped thumbing through the stacks and was staring off into space when the shop owner asked if she was okay; “oh, I’m just eavesdropping, sorry…do carry on” and they did.
The cover photo of “Scott” is eerily similar to Noel Gallagher and Walker’s real name is Noel Scott Engel . . . freaky
Hounds of Love was playing when we arrived and I went through the cheap stacks and found a Walker Brothers best of and decided it was worth 3 quid. I was looking through some Doors records looking to replace The Soft Parade when the owner sidled up and asked if I was interested in 60s music to try to steer me and I told him we were probably going through every category before we left. He indicated the album I was holding; “Oh, this…Scott Walker’s voice just knocks me out.” He asked if I really liked “Montague Terrace” but I wasn’t sure, that the only one we knew the title of was “Jackie“; “oh, that’s a Jacque Brel song,” he noted and I added, “mm-hmm … in a stupid-ass way.” By the time, seconds later, we stopped laughing he had pulled the first solo album out of the stacks and headed over to put on side 1 (not a lot of things would find me willing to interrupt Kate Bush like that, but side 2 became our dinner music that night). Here’s Jimi grooving to it at the time:
Jimi finds “Amsterdam” — another Jacques Brel song — copacetic
Verdict on “Scott”: it’s alright, you should listen to it.
Today is the day before start of Advent and I awoke to the news our beloved Shane MacGowan yielded me another 35 points on this year’s Deathpool. Go down to the mud, lad, where the rivers all run dry.
The totals for the month: 90 miles running, 10 pubs, 3 kebabs, 3 fish and chips, 2 short reviews. The mileage is low but I’ve started using TrigPointing as a way to add new interest to the runs (for me, at least … posts will start appearing in due course and a new map to cover this is here).
Started using a topical medicine that induces an immune response so my body attacks some BCC lesions on my arm; this results in aches and fever, a bit more sensitivity to the sun, and foggy headedness so that I’m not sure if I’m actually sick or just experiencing the chemo side effects. Pharmacokinetics and past experience suggest it will become worse until about 2 weeks after the last doses (progress report to follow) then taper back to normal over the subsequent 4 weeks. The last time (8 years ago) I was in the midst of training for the Ridgeway Challenge and doing a little more than 50 miles per week in the hills, so I just need to ignore it (and test regularly for COVID).
Here’s the cartoon of the month (not necessarily a monthly feature):
Names important to me in my youth and adolescence are now cut into tombstones. Farewell Astrud Gilberto, Daniel Elsburg, Robert Gottlieb, and Ted Kaczinski (who I know is a controversial choice especially in my line of work, but he was right even if his methods were ill advised). Additionally, Yossarian (the movie one) died the last day of the month. Rot in hell Pat Robertson.
Spotted in the Aldi…disgusting:
Some of the grafitti in this Monthly Update is from Chapel Ash Island near the WNW corner of central Wolverhampton.
A pretty good gallery relatively unmarred by the brainless tagging that will inevitably overlayer the bits that require some minimal amount of talent.
This one came from beneath a canal bridge, but at least it is clever and simple:
Had another litre of Keptinis, a Lithuanian beer I pick up at the Polish supermarket down the street. First time I noticed the royal eels sharing flagons of ale using a barrel as a table. Marvelous.
Fairly allergic to bee venom, this little fucker nailed me twice after flying up my shirt then one more time on my hand as I tried to rip the shirt off. Not sure if the neighbours spotted me naked from the waist up jumping up and down on a t-shirt but the spectacle was there for them:
Finally, a tip of the cap to Led By Donkeys for dumping this billboard over in a financially distressed, working class neighbourhood in Tipton that typically votes against its own best interest and which went strong ‘for ‘YES’ in the Brexit Referendum (spotted 14 June across from the Tilted Barrel pub, link live 29 July):
I joke about being old but nothing was more geriatric than our Sunday Tea listening to Paul O’Grady on Radio 2. My favourite was the “dead pets” memorial segment closely followed by “lost tv themes.” We were already mourning his passing when they unceremoniously replaced him with Rob Beckett.
Speaking of “TV” themes, in a photo from a recent pub write up, his alter ego Lily Savage was peering through the window:
Our Paul only went and died on us last week, unexpectedly, aged 67. I leave the last words to his show’s former producer, Malcolm Prince (seen in the main photo above):
PO’G: “What do we do, Malcolm?” MP: “We keep the faith, Paul.”
The obits are fast and furious this month. Another Athens icon has slipped the coil: William Orten Carlton has passed at the age of 73.
Our first day as residents in Athens, me and the the missus were waiting to get a document from a teller at Wells Fargo Bank and were next in line after Ort who without introduction, hesitation, or prelude of any sort started telling us about some records he found stashed at the bottom of the pile of clothes (fill a garbage bag for a dollar) at the Potters House Thrift Store (that’s what they call charity shops in the States, brits). When he took a breath, we both pointed at the unoccupied teller window and noticed the teller wince as he headed toward her and tried, unsuccessfully, to cash a check (cheque) for $1.37 which was declined because he had an account that required a minimum balance of $5. The negotiation went on for at least a half hour.
You’d run into Ort everywhere, though. At the Globe, in the library, or parked in front of the records or old magazines in another thrift shop near the 40 Watt when it was on Clayton (or Washington? long time ago, now). You could never be sure if he was a customer or employee at any of these because he always acted like he owned the place.
Liver transplants, diabetes, HepC, heart attacks, and general sociopathy…he should have been long time gone. But, I’m on the board earlier than I’ve ever been with 19 points of low hanging fruit that David Crosby provided.
Endless British Pub Crawl (Part 3) 