Thanks to Harrison for pointing out the day’s — and probably the week’s, month’s and perhaps the year’s — OID (only in Detroit) story:
Corpse found frozen in pool of water in abandoned Detroit building. Call to 911 gets results in…24 hours, give or take.
(Sorry I missed this, guys. My newsprint wasn’t delivered until late this morning.)
UPDATE: Gawker says snarky things about the story.
Dexter said on January 29, 2009 at 11:41 am
Jesus Christ, harrison! That’s one photo that’s gonna be stuck in my brain for a long time!
95 chars
moe99 said on January 29, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Track Obama’s progress at living up to his campaign promises:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/
114 chars
Mindy said on January 29, 2009 at 12:20 pm
For a good laugh or a hard cry, everyone click over to Bossy where Former President George W. Bush has been set to jazz. I hope I don’t cry when I’m finished laughing.
http://www.iambossy.com/
194 chars
Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on January 29, 2009 at 12:29 pm
You MUST go to cable news of any sort and watch Blagojevich do his “defense” — this is like the director’s cut of the judicial hearing scene in “Animal House.” Acronym i rarely use — OMG.
190 chars
Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on January 29, 2009 at 12:29 pm
It’s already been worth watching for the John Warner anecdote, but he’s far, far from done.
91 chars
Connie said on January 29, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Headline I saw today: Contractor drowns under Warsaw city street.
66 chars
LA Mary said on January 29, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Looks like Ted Haggard is in trouble again. I thought he was “cured.”
69 chars
Catherine said on January 29, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Mindy, I could not get more than 15 seconds into that, no matter how amusing. If I never ever listen to that man again, it will be too soon.
141 chars
alex said on January 29, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Cured? No, LA Mary, he’s “heterosexual, with issues.” That’s how he described himself this morning on GMA. And I’m sort of pregnant.
In all seriousness, his problems really serve well to illustrate the divide between the old school and the new. The idea that gays can be in an emotionally bonded, committed, normal relationship is threatening to social conservatives, who get their gay sex through prostitutes and anonymous encounters with strangers. They don’t like the destigmatization of same-sex coupledom because it dries up their prospects for getting laid.
567 chars
Catherine said on January 29, 2009 at 2:56 pm
MichaelG, if you’re out there, it looks like Ahnuld’s furloughs are going to happen. Will that affect you?
107 chars
Catherine said on January 29, 2009 at 3:01 pm
More proof, if anyone needed it, that discrimination is alive and well: 2 girls expelled from a Lutheran private school for “conducting themselves in a manner consistent with being lesbians.”
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-school28-2009jan28,0,4594347.story
WTF?
275 chars
alex said on January 29, 2009 at 3:23 pm
How the hell does that Lutheran school know those girls aren’t simply heterosexual, with issues? Or simply heterosexual?
120 chars
Catherine said on January 29, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Or LUGs?
8 chars
LA Mary said on January 29, 2009 at 3:54 pm
Are LUGs those ugly Australian boots?
37 chars
Catherine said on January 29, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Lutheran Until Graduation.
26 chars
brian stouder said on January 29, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Well, very shortly the young folks and I will make the run to IPFW, and see if we can get in for Hal Holbrook’s Mark Twain show….wish us luck!
144 chars
Dexter said on January 29, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Holbrook’s the best Twain…I saw the televised production of the taped broadway show in 1966, but by then Holbrook had been “doing” Twain for eleven years. Yes, he’s been at this for 54 years now.
I wish you luck, brian stouder, in getting into the show. Do they allow “Twain” to smoke cigars?
My brother saw “Jersey Boys” in Chicago last summer … big squabble about allowing the actors to smoke cigarettes during the play.
434 chars
Kirk said on January 29, 2009 at 5:50 pm
AMF, Blago.
11 chars
Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on January 29, 2009 at 6:15 pm
Wow . . . this will be in an as yet unpublished collection of poetry by John Updike, titled “Requiem”:
It came to me the other day:
Were I to die, no one would say,
“Oh, what a shame! So young, so full
Of promise — depths unplumbable!”
Instead, a shrug and tearless eyes
Will greet my overdue demise;
The wide response will be, I know,
“I thought he died a while ago.”
For life’s a shabby subterfuge,
And death is real, and dark, and huge.
The shock of it will register
Nowhere but where it will occur.
534 chars
Dexter said on January 29, 2009 at 6:21 pm
J-MO…you sure that ain’t something Blagojevich spewed forth today at the end? I’ll catch the reports on WGN…sure didn’t want to spend my time listening to him in Springfield for 90 minutes today….
203 chars
alex said on January 29, 2009 at 6:37 pm
For what it’s worth, Updike’s death has ignited a Pink Floyd nostalgia trip in my head that just won’t quit. “Run, Rabbit, run” keeps running through my head with every mention of his books. (The lyrics were in a song on Dark Side of the Moon.)
Tonight I think I’ll dig out that one and play it and raise a glass of Maker’s to Updike.
338 chars
Jeff Borden said on January 29, 2009 at 6:38 pm
Free at last. Free at last.
And in the bipartisan spirit so sadly lacking in Washington, Democrats and Republicans vote unanimously to send this weasel on his way. But, wait, folks. This was just a preview of coming attractions.
Wait until our own Inspector Javert aka Patrick Fitzgerald indicts the creep on criminal charges. Word is that many, many powerful men of both parties in Chicago and statewide are nervous about what will come out in the criminal trial.
For now, however, we will have a state executive who is focusing on our enormous financial problems instead of fluffing himself on “The View.”
616 chars
MichaelG said on January 29, 2009 at 8:31 pm
Just got home after spending the last four days at a conference in Orange County. Eventful times in L.A. A guy killed himself and his wife and five kids. There was a wreck on the freeway that killed two. Some kids (14 year old driver) got hold of a car and crashed. Three more dead. Some crazy woman stole a U-Haul van and led the CHP on a merry 100 mile plus chase. I watched the last hour live in my hotel room. A single mother of six who lives with her mother gave birth to octuplets. That’s eight, count em, eight more kids bringing her total spawn to, if my rudimentary math serves me, 14 kids. Whew.
And yeah, Catherine, I win a 10% pay cut which in the context of other folks’ misery here on nn.c is not as bad is it could be.
I’ve got an L.A. question. A year or so ago Rachel What’shername, the AM weather person on Channel 4 departed and was replaced by a young woman with an improbable chest. What happened to Rachel? She was kind of goofy and I liked her. Another good thing about L.A. (I speak heresy for a Northern CA type in saying that I really like the L.A. area) is listening to Sandra Tsing Loh on KPCC.
1154 chars
caliban said on January 29, 2009 at 9:10 pm
This was done on Third Watch. Pretty good show that got better from an inauspicious Adam 12 sort of beginning. An apparent corpse was found froxen in a basement because some trickle down landlord had cut off the heat. The humancicle was revived.
Third Watch caught on to the story arc, and introduced a supremely evil villain called Luther Mahoney, who may or not have been executed by Cop. Thhis show began dumbass, got smart, and then got smarter and more engaging, then it was cut off at the knees.
There was a show called Due South, that was funnier (a deaf Huskie called Diefenbaker and shadowy agents called Huey, Dewey and Louie, and spooks called Helms, Casey and Bush), and better than anything else available. Two Seasons. There was Briscoe County, and, lately, the Middleman. Dresden Files. Given imagination and good acting, people prefer Sanjaya? Incredibly lousy singing and ridicule? DThat’s what people want on TV?
When I was a kid, we had Paladin and Bonanza, and Run For Your Life. The Fugitive. Twilight Zone. Dancing With the Stars? If I had to choose, I’d take intelligence and imagination. This is why you have some misanthropic, racist asshoe like Simon Cowell on TV. There really isn’t any excuse for a smarmy little nouveau riche shit like this spoiled little boy that focuses a magnifying glass on vulnerable people and doesn’t just enjoy pulling wings from sockets, he justifies his sorry ass self.
John Updike wrote three good novels, but it’s not like he’s John Cheever.
Re: Netflix. No advertisements here, but a question. Y’all that subscribe, how do you pick movies to build your queue? Read reviews? Remember something you think you liked in formative days?
I think Blade Runner is the best movie I’ve ever seen. Not to put to fine a point on it, but it seems to be dealing with both existence and essence at the same time. And throwing in memory and time. It’s what you could call philosophical., but maybe Deckard’s in love and nothing else matters, and Rachel lives because he wants, wills her to.
So, if you have a NetFlix account, how do you choose your movies? Next on my queue is Local Hero. Amazing movie, but to me, it’s a lot like Long Rriders. Great film, great soundtrack. Great movie.
I’ve noticed that Netflix hasn’t got Brewster McCloud. This is a Robert Altman movie, for God’s sake. Every Frank Capra, not every Robert Altman?
Our most recent Netflix was City of Lost Children. There’s not another movie to compare it to. The opening scene is the single scariest thing I’ve ever seen. I grew up in Detroit, so I’m not scared of anything, but this carries a frisson. Seriosly good movie if you don;t mind lame subtitles. Recrwational French is better.
2732 chars
Linda said on January 29, 2009 at 9:29 pm
The story of the abandoned, frozen man freaks me out, and the behavior of “civilized” society freaks me out worse. This man was probably homeless, but he was human, and now his dead body–or the part above the ice–is a widely displayed media freak show, used as a display to tutt tutt about the barbarism of Detroit by other, more callous people.
348 chars
Catherine said on January 29, 2009 at 10:03 pm
MichaelG, yeah, just another day in LA. Net population gain/loss: -2.
Wish I could help with the weathergal. They all have identical, interchangeable chests as far as I can tell. The only ones I pay any attention to are Fritz and Dallas Raines (yup, that is his name fer real), who’s a neighbor of my SIL.
I’ve probably said it here before, but Sandra Tsing Loh rocks. There are too many good things about KPCC to count, really. Probably why I don’t much bother with local TV.
487 chars
brian stouder said on January 29, 2009 at 10:16 pm
Dexter, we made it in! They packed the place to the rafters – and as it turned out, it was just Pam and I on a date; the young folks bailed on us.
What a marvelous show; superb
179 chars
caliban said on January 29, 2009 at 11:13 pm
The abandoned frozen guy story, well, Bob Dylan wrote this song. Only a hobo. Rod Stewart as good as Rod is (Gasoline Alley is just as perfect as When the Levee Breaks or You Really Got Me.)
One morning I took the T to downtown Boston, Filene’s, Jordan’s, you know all of those Department stores that bit the dust. I was on the lookout for tickets to seethe Kinks, Box office was closed, wind-chill was about -5. Boston is laid out by cowpaths with ill-advised skyscrapers, and the wind is hellacious. It blows you down icy sidewalks where the snow has been piled up like your an iceboat with the jib engaged.
I found a guy in the entramce, and he appeared to be frozen. I mean, he was blue, and he was dressed in rags. I thought he was dead. There was no such thing as a cell phone at the time, so I bashed on the theater door and said ‘Call an ambulance. I went back to trying resuscitation. Bastard woke up and puked, and I bought him some coffee at th Capitol Coffee Shop. He remained pissed off at me.
That coffee shop has a gigantic Paul Revere style teapot that pumps out steam. It always reminded me of the Fabulous Star Bakery on Seven Mile. Places that sold baked and boiled goods and always thought they knew what was about to happen.
I wouldn’t say I saved that old guy’s life. He wasn’t old, and he really just wanted to put an end to things. No matter how hard I try, it seems I’m too young to die.
Hard to say. Bastard was pretty stiff. I’m no dummy. I thought he was a gone, and I know resusitation r. Then he’s spitting bile at me.
So, we saw the Kinks and, as usual, Ray and Dave and the companie were amazing. Slightly wierd, my brother and my sister-in-law, well, you know.
But there’s the unknown. You may ask yourself? How did I get here?
1782 chars
Dexter said on January 30, 2009 at 12:23 am
…quite a tale, caliban, about the bile spittin’ guy. Anybody who has been around any urban area has homeless-guy stories, here is a humorous one (now it is…) .
I was riding my fold-up bicycle slowly on the Halsted Steet sidewalk from a parking lot at 37th Place to old Comiskey Park, for a playoff game, in 1983.
The sidewalk was wide and I was only riding there for a couple hundred feet before I entered the street at a light. I and a homeless guy were the only ones in about a half-block stretch of sidewalk.
He saw me and went into a rage, cussing and waving his arms around , and he proceeded to kick the hell out of my front spokes.
I fended him off and rode a couple blocks and assessed the damage…he hadn’t mustered enough leg-mo to even break one spoke. I learned a good lesson…stay off the pedestrians’ sidewalks!
843 chars
Dexter said on January 30, 2009 at 12:26 am
Angelina wears dress backwards, but it’s Elvis Costello’s bent for wearing fedoras backwards on his Sundance show, Spectacle,that bugs me more.
http://oscars.movies.yahoo.com/blog/20-angelinas-red-carpet-reversal?nc
218 chars
Dexter said on January 30, 2009 at 12:39 am
brian stouder…who underwrote the production? I see it was a free show.
73 chars
moe99 said on January 30, 2009 at 12:48 am
Caliban, I just came from Safeway where they were playing that Talking Heads song. I told the checkout guy it was weird to be hearing it in Safeway.
Put Last Chance Harvey on your Netflix list for the future. It’s a quiet movie but Dustin Hoffman does a damn fine job of being a guy whose lost more than he’s won most of his life. And what can I say about Emma Thompson? I think she was superb.
And Caliban, if you think Blade Runner is the best, why are you not watching Battlestar Galactica? It’s longer and playing with the same themes.
559 chars
Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on January 30, 2009 at 7:00 am
I’m betting the gentleman in the Detroit ice block will turn out to be an urban explorer — drug dealers who get whacked don’t put new laces on old sneakers, and homeless guys don’t have new, clean white socks on very often (maybe Dec. 26 if they got into the right shelter when they were getting handed out). Add in the bits we know of the clothes, and i’m betting we’ll end up resolving a missing persons case whose family hadn’t realized their active, underemployed young man was missing yet.
496 chars
brian stouder said on January 30, 2009 at 8:18 am
Dexter, Indiana University/Purdue University at Fort Wayne – which has become a real jewel of (not only the city, but) the whole region – has a marvelous free public series of events each year called the Omnibus Lecture Series
http://www.omnibuslectures.org/
which is underwritten by local media and various foundations and trusts, most especially including the English, Bonter, Mitchell Foundation.
The first one I attended was a very engaging discussion by Samantha Power last year; we now strive to catch each one – especially after the loss of the Lincoln Museum and the visiting scholars that it always attracted.
BTW – there were signs all over forewarning people that Holbrook would smoke cigars throughout the play; but in the event, he struck one match, and (I think) never actually lit up. Pam and I were gabbing about that; at his age, Holbrook probably cannot really afford to do all the smoking that he (apparently?) used to do in that show.
The Remnant Trust is on display at IPFW, and the Twain show was in relation to that, and several classes are utilizing the Remnant Trust visit in their course work. We were seated next to a student who was assigned to be there, as part of her class’s examination of the works of Mark Twain.(she watched the show more than she texted, I think), and the house was packed to the rafters. At intermission some people hit the exits (maybe a dozen or two), and then Holbrook shifts gears, and goes from uproariously funny to thought-provoking and dramatic – with a cutting from Huck Finn.
It was simply marvelous.
I don’t know about the next speaker (although I expect we’ll be there) – but after him we get Sandra Day O’Conner, which will be marvelous! I’ve seen her on C-SPAN before, and she is a lively and intelligent speaker (as one would expect, come to think of it!)
1845 chars
brian stouder said on January 30, 2009 at 8:35 am
Here is a website that a friend just pointed me to – and just looking at the pictures made my arteries harden
(insert internet pictures/hardening joke here)
http://www.bbqaddicts.com/bacon-explosion.html
215 chars
harrison said on January 30, 2009 at 8:58 am
Nancy,
You’re welcome.
Harrison
37 chars
MichaelG said on January 30, 2009 at 9:16 am
I found a dead guy once about 10 years ago. I was on my way to work at 0500ish and stopped to buy a paper on the corner by the main PO here in Sacto. There was someone lying on the steps. I walked up to see if he needed help. There was another guy walking toward me. One good look at the body on the steps served to tell me that it was indeed a body. The other guy whipped out his cell and started calling the authorities. Figuring there was nothing I could do to help and not wanting to be caught up in hours of questions and cops, I discreetly departed the scene.
572 chars
Dexter said on January 30, 2009 at 11:38 am
well…I did too…Vietnam, Nha Trang beach, swollen, been in the water a long time, very disturbing—the male body looked surreal, like out of an Ed Wood movie—we commandeered an ambulance and hauled the body to the medical Quonset hut, where the officers took over and hauled him off to another destination….odder still, here we were in Vietnam and the docs had to send a medevac chopper off to somewhere to fetch a body bag.
432 chars