Q Notes, Day 140

Week 20 of Q Life comes to an end today. So far, so good.

One of my favorite character actors, Wilford Brimley, has died at age 85. He was excellent in every movie I saw him in. He won me over with a brief appearance at the end of Absence of Malice, and his performance was one of the best things about The Natural, a movie I've seen at least six times. He played a lovable grandpa in Cocoon and a bad guy in The Firm. It seems like we're losing our best people at a faster rate than we're getting rid of the worst ones.

When I read about what's happening in the country now, it seems like there are many, many people working as hard as they can to find ways of dealing with problems that threaten us, both as individuals and collectively, as a nation. Meanwhile, the guy in the position we think of as the most important job in America? He spends his time tweeting, watching cable news shows, playing golf, and feeling sorry for himself.

My opinion: If Cheezy even drops a hint, maybe as a teaser, that he's thinking about refusing to debate, Biden should jump on it and cancel. I agree with Biden advisers who see more drawbacks than advantages to giving Cheezy the platform that he was handed against HRC. I already know that nothing I could see on a televised debate would change my mind about how I'll vote.

Much is being made on liberal websites about Cheezy's surrogates who appeared on Sunday morning news shows and refused to answer questions about using foreign assistance to defeat Biden or postponing the election. Since lying on network talk shows could never be perjury, surrogates like Meadows and Jason Miller could easily say "No, of course not" and move on.

They understand they can create panic among Biden supporters by simply ducking the questions and letting (D) imaginations run wild. That's been one of Cheezy's classic moves when he wants to stir up a shit storm.

Here's an excerpt from a report in the Washington Post re: what Cheezy's up to now:

"And as the campaign aims to mount a more aggressive defense of Trump’s handling of the (coronavirus) pandemic, the president has reverted to touting unproven miracle cures, attacking public health officials and undercutting his own government’s push to encourage good health practices."

It's not clear to me how you "aggressively" defend Cheezy on handling COVID-19, since all the available evidence shows that COVID is handling HIM.

Robin Williams

Robin Williams, who could make me laugh until it hurt when he was at his best, is dead at age 63 -- apparently a suicide. Meanwhile, this fat bucket of guts lives on.

James Garner

James Garner died at age 86. On my list of movie heroes, he wasn't in Steve McQueen's class, but the first movie I saw him in was The Great Escape, which also starred McQueen. Over the years, Garner's movies and TV series kept me entertained, and I admired him because he always made it clear that he never took himself too seriously.

So Jim Garner is gone, and Limbaugh lives on.

Departures

Peter O'Toole has resigned from life at 81. This is meaningful to me because for about 12 years or so, from 1962 until the mid 70s, I believed the David Lean film Lawrence of Arabia was the best movie I'd ever seen, and probably the best movie ever made. It's still in the top ten, and in the top five among movies over 200 minutes long.

Another departure, less final and much less consequential in the overall scheme of things: Mack Brown has been booted out of his high-paying gig as longhorn head coach. This may or may not be a BFD depending on who is hired to replace him.

Added 8:50 PM Sunday: Sports Illustrated has thumbnails on potential Mack replacement hires.

Scorekeeping: Paul Newman

Paul Newman died at age 83. I knew he was sick, but the news still ruined my day because Newman was one of the few people on earth I can honestly say I admired. I saw a lot of his movies over the years, and his name in the credits usually meant a movie would be worth seeing. In addition to his film career, I admired his political convictions, his enduring marriage, and his willingness to put his money where his mouth was. I even like his marinara and spaghetti sauces. In today's world it's difficult to find somebody who has it all so to speak, but Newman came close to being the total package, a guy who could walk it as well as he talked it.

Now that Paul Newman's gone, they'll have to bury a bunch of bad guys to get the score in this game back to a tie.

Scorekeeping: Wexler and Hayes

I started listening to music on AM radio when I was a little boy, and began collecting records in the mid-1960s. The first LP record I recall buying was Mr. Tambourine Man by The Byrds in summer 1965.

I still consider 1964-1976 the Golden Age of Popular Music, and much of my collection is made up of music recorded during that fertile period. I keep telling myself that someday, I'll write a long article on my home blog, Hot Water Sandwich, about my love affair with music in general and record collecting in particular. I consider 1964 the onset of the Golden Age since that's when the Beatles and the British Invasion really became popular in the United States, and 1976 was the year before disco, punk rock and new wave became dominant forms.

During The Golden Age (1964-76), one of my favorite musical genres was the one broadly referred to then as soul music, which actually encompassed several styles. We had the Motown sound, the Philadelphia sound, the Memphis sound, etc. Someone buying soul music in those days owned records on the Atlantic and Stax labels, and was seeing the names Jerry Wexler and Isaac Hayes regularly.

Jerry Wexler was most famous as a producer at Atlantic, and was responsible for some outstanding records by Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, and other roster artists. Isaac Hayes was a renaissance man of sorts, writing and performing, even acting later on. To this day, "Theme from Shaft" is one of my favorite songs, and Hot Buttered Soul one of my favorite albums.

Wexler and Hayes both passed away recently, and The Golden Age of Popular Music continues to move gradually toward becoming a distant memory.

Paul Newman

It's the cliche to end all cliches, but life goes on. It goes on, and sometimes it's painful. Tonight I was blog-hopping and came across the news that Paul Newman, now 83, is apparently in the terminal stages of cancer and may be down to his final weeks among us. People the age of my children (and younger) won't understand why I'm disturbed by this information, but I am. Through his movie roles, Paul Newman is connected with some of the best memories of my lifetime. He and Steve McQueen were the definition of cool when I was easing from adolescence into young manhood, the kind of guys I always wanted to be. More than once, I tried to handle situations the way I imagined Paul Newman would handle them. It didn't seem silly at the time.

Paul Newman was a star of such magnitude that it felt like he was an integral part of American life and always would be. It's hard to realize he might not be around. I've seen some of his movies over and over and will watch 'em a few more times before I'm through, and in that sense he'll be immortal as far as I'm personally concerned.