Moar about the dead and undead
No more clients died since I was last here. That I know of, anyway. Takes some time, sometimes; as Johnny Carson once observed, after you die, your fingernails continue to grow but your phone calls taper off.
Midweek, the calendar turned to December, and I greeted it with my usual incantation:
Labrat labrat labrat!
December also brought a coda of sorts to the memories I shared of last time of John Lennon's passing, which we will remember next week:
I’ve heard the story many times about Howard Cosell announcing the legendary Beatle's death on Monday Night Football. I’ve also heard the story many times about U2 making its first Buffalo appearance at a small club in Clarence, opening for legendary local bar band Talas. (This was their first US tour, the same one where a future Rochester client of mine threw them out of his bar before their set.) I did NOT realize, until just now, that these events were on the same night.
There's been a lot of talk around here about the MNF connection to Lennon's murder. The Bills were not in that game, but we’re hosting a Monday night game next week against New England, which was one of the participants. A guy called into a local sports talk show the other day to mention the MNF role in reporting the news. They also talked about the U2 tie-in, and how that band always plays some Beatles music at their stadium shows here to honor that connection. He learned of the murder on the radio while sitting in his car outside the Clarence club where U2 was playing that night, being too young to be admitted.
But the caller also mentioned that, a few years ago, he wrote and directed a film about the incident, from the POV of the killer (still in residence in adjacent Orleans County at last report) and tied to his defense, at his murder trial, that he was somehow inspired by Catcher in the Rye. The filmmakers never got clearances on any of the Beatle music or broadcasts in the film, so it remains something of a hidden gem, but it occasionally gets screened as parts of historical film presentations locally, including this one from 2018:
Yet another bar-owning friend of mine is running a Christmas music film series this month, and I'm trying to arrange a screening of it there.
----
The workweek was relatively quiet in terms of appointments, but got plenty busy the past couple. A long-pending case looks ready to fire into the world, a new collection came in against a joint down the road from where Eleanor lived when I met her, and then yesterday came another wacky referral. I haven't decided to take it, and I can't share details, but it's got everything: arson, family feuds, shotguns, frauds upon a court, and a treasure trove of memes.
I came home last night to find five new DVDs, four from the library, and Eleanor in a bit of a state. We spent most of Thursday on a whirlwind of errands, including her getting her post-cataract eye checkup (she's actually better than last time, and I go in for my first pre-cataract exam next week), picking up my newly-tired and inspected car, and having a repair guy fix the recurring leakage problem in our fridge. More importantly, he showed Eleanor how to do it; apparently it's a problem with a plugged up pipe, caused, surprise surprise, by accumulated pet hair. She now knows where it is and how to remove, clean and replace it. But last night was about what she couldn't do: she installed our outdoor landscape lights close to 20 years ago while she was working professionally to do it at other homes. A few fixtures needed updating, and it wasn't that she didn't know how or couldn't handle the work. The replacement parts simply were not available. As in, likely, ever; so, not supply chain but forced redundancy. She got pretty down about it, but is taking a break to figure out options for regrouping.
After that, we needed something, um, light- so we went with this:
It stars Aubrey Plaza from the Parks and Rec series and a range of other comic actors from sitcoms to standup. It goes relatively easy on the "undead" tropes but when it uses them, it does so well; you will never look at your kitchen stove quite the same way again.
And with that, off for All The Saturday Things.... This entry was originally posted at https://captainsblog.dreamwidth.org/1677677.html. Please comment here, or there using OpenID.
Midweek, the calendar turned to December, and I greeted it with my usual incantation:
Labrat labrat labrat!
December also brought a coda of sorts to the memories I shared of last time of John Lennon's passing, which we will remember next week:
I’ve heard the story many times about Howard Cosell announcing the legendary Beatle's death on Monday Night Football. I’ve also heard the story many times about U2 making its first Buffalo appearance at a small club in Clarence, opening for legendary local bar band Talas. (This was their first US tour, the same one where a future Rochester client of mine threw them out of his bar before their set.) I did NOT realize, until just now, that these events were on the same night.
There's been a lot of talk around here about the MNF connection to Lennon's murder. The Bills were not in that game, but we’re hosting a Monday night game next week against New England, which was one of the participants. A guy called into a local sports talk show the other day to mention the MNF role in reporting the news. They also talked about the U2 tie-in, and how that band always plays some Beatles music at their stadium shows here to honor that connection. He learned of the murder on the radio while sitting in his car outside the Clarence club where U2 was playing that night, being too young to be admitted.
But the caller also mentioned that, a few years ago, he wrote and directed a film about the incident, from the POV of the killer (still in residence in adjacent Orleans County at last report) and tied to his defense, at his murder trial, that he was somehow inspired by Catcher in the Rye. The filmmakers never got clearances on any of the Beatle music or broadcasts in the film, so it remains something of a hidden gem, but it occasionally gets screened as parts of historical film presentations locally, including this one from 2018:
Yet another bar-owning friend of mine is running a Christmas music film series this month, and I'm trying to arrange a screening of it there.
----
The workweek was relatively quiet in terms of appointments, but got plenty busy the past couple. A long-pending case looks ready to fire into the world, a new collection came in against a joint down the road from where Eleanor lived when I met her, and then yesterday came another wacky referral. I haven't decided to take it, and I can't share details, but it's got everything: arson, family feuds, shotguns, frauds upon a court, and a treasure trove of memes.
I came home last night to find five new DVDs, four from the library, and Eleanor in a bit of a state. We spent most of Thursday on a whirlwind of errands, including her getting her post-cataract eye checkup (she's actually better than last time, and I go in for my first pre-cataract exam next week), picking up my newly-tired and inspected car, and having a repair guy fix the recurring leakage problem in our fridge. More importantly, he showed Eleanor how to do it; apparently it's a problem with a plugged up pipe, caused, surprise surprise, by accumulated pet hair. She now knows where it is and how to remove, clean and replace it. But last night was about what she couldn't do: she installed our outdoor landscape lights close to 20 years ago while she was working professionally to do it at other homes. A few fixtures needed updating, and it wasn't that she didn't know how or couldn't handle the work. The replacement parts simply were not available. As in, likely, ever; so, not supply chain but forced redundancy. She got pretty down about it, but is taking a break to figure out options for regrouping.
After that, we needed something, um, light- so we went with this:
It stars Aubrey Plaza from the Parks and Rec series and a range of other comic actors from sitcoms to standup. It goes relatively easy on the "undead" tropes but when it uses them, it does so well; you will never look at your kitchen stove quite the same way again.
And with that, off for All The Saturday Things.... This entry was originally posted at https://captainsblog.dreamwidth.org/1677677.html. Please comment here, or there using OpenID.