RIP someone or another

[robm321]

 

[Absorbine_Sr]

Time to watch my favorite Robert Duvall movie, "The Great Santini." RIP to one of the greats.

Need to fit in "To Kill a Mockingbird" too.

[morphsci]

25 minutes ago, Absorbine_Sr said:

Time to watch my favorite Robert Duvall movie, "The Great Santini." RIP to one of the greats.

I love that movie and True Grit (1969) has one of my all-time favorite exchanges 

 

 

[TMoney]

The man just wanted to find a good beach to surf. Something with a good break.

RIP, Col. Killgore.

[Absorbine_Sr]

6 minutes ago, morphsci said:

I love that movie and True Grit (1969) has one of my all-time favorite exchanges 

 

 

"Fill your hand, you son of a bitch!"

Thank you for that reminder!

 

[Voltron]

Go on, squirt a few!

[Dusty Chalk]

https://www.npr.org/2026/02/17/963124454/jesse-jackson-civil-rights-leader-rainbow-coalition-dies

☹️

[Knuckledragger]

Rev. Jesse Jackson, a civil rights icon, dies at 84. 

I met him in 1999 or so by being at the wrong place at the right time.  I worked for Amherst College in the Media Center in the late 90s.  It was a lousy job that paid terribly.  I never saw $10 an hour, and my boss had to keep my hours under 20 a week or the college would be forced to give me benefits.  That meant I'd have to take entire weeks off but also get called in last minute because I was needed.

At that time, Jesse Jackon's star had ridden pretty high and he hadn't yet been rocked by any scandals.  He was giving a talk at Amherst College.  The largest auditorium space they had (outside of the goddamn gymnasium, which was an echoey nightmare) was Johnson Chapel.  I was tasked with getting the sound running, but I wasn't allowed to wire up the speaker with a lavalier mic.  Filthy peasants like me weren't supposed to get near the important people.  Joke was on them, because Jesse wanted a conventional podium mic.  

Long and not super interesting story short, I was late getting to one of the locations.  I arrived huffing and puffing.  There was extra security on campus because Jesse Jackson was a big deal but the cops were still pretty chill (this was pre-9/11 and the age of paranoia).  The town police had no idea who I was of course, the College ones knew me.  I told one of them "I'm here to do sound, where are they?"  He said "they're in the The Octagon, doing a press conference."  I jogged over there and went in the front door.

The press conference was in what had been the Octagon's library.  One part of the downstairs was home to "The Afro-American Department" (the sign had not changed since the 70s) but it was too small even for a press conference.  The library was upstair and the steps to are spiral (octagonal) and very creaky.  I knew if I went up them, even slowly, I'd make such a racket everyone would be staring at me as I entered.  So I stood there and waited.  Next thing I knew there was a very tall black man, standing over me with his hand out.  I hurriedly shook it and "uuh nice to meet you Mr. Jackson."  The entire press gaggle and all the various dignitaries followed him down.

Once the scrum had cleared, I went over to Johnson Chapel and found my boss and his (full time) assistant working.  He gave me the look of death.  I quickly told him the above story and he was sufficiently amused that he didn't admonish me for being late.  There was a group from Poland that was video taping the talk.  They had one guy who spoke English. He asked me for an audio tap from our sound board.  I said "Yeah, not problem.  It's mic output only however."  He said "I had better get our sound engineer."  The engineer spoke no English, but I pointed at the output that said "mic" and he nodded.  The English speaking Pole said to my boss "the universal language of sound engineers."

[dsavitsk]

Even as a 10 year old, I thought this was great.

 

 

[Knuckledragger]

RIP Caltech astrophysicist Carl Grillmair, fatally shot on porch of his rural SoCal home.