60 Comments

No DBD for Oct 30? I can’t find it.

Expand full comment
Oct 29·edited Oct 29

Teri Garr, comic actress in ‘Young Frankenstein’ and ‘Tootsie,’ dies at 79

https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2024/10/29/teri-garr-dead/

Teri Garr, a pert blond actress who danced in Elvis Presley musicals, vaulted to attention as the shapely, German-accented lab assistant in Mel Brooks’s farce “Young Frankenstein” and received an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of a self-doubting feminist in “Tootsie,” died Oct. 29 at her home in Los Angeles. She was 79.

The cause was multiple sclerosis, said her publicist, Heidi Schaeffer. Ms. Garr began displaying symptoms of the degenerative disorder two decades before she went public about her condition in 2002, and she attributed widespread rumors about her health to the rapid decline of her career in the late 1980s.

On camera, Ms. Garr cultivated an appealing down-to-earth persona that was sometimes screwily discursive and other times frazzled to impatience by the men in her life, including screen husbands such as John Denver (“Oh, God!”), Richard Dreyfuss (“Close Encounters of the Third Kind”) and Michael Keaton (“Mr. Mom”). New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael once described Ms. Garr as “perhaps the funniest, most neurotic dizzy dame on the screen.”

I think, now, that all of the principal actors in Young Frankenstein have passed away -

Marty Feldman (Igor) - died December 2, 1982, in Mexico City (age 48)

Madeline Kahn (Elizabeth) - died December 3, 1999 (age 57)

Peter Boyle (The Monster) - died December 12, 2006, in New York City (age 71)

Kenneth Mars (Police Inspector Hans Wilhelm Friedrich Kemp) - died February 12, 2011 (age 75)

Gene Wilder (Dr. Frederick Frankenstein) - died August 29, 2016, in Stamford, CT (age 83)

Cloris Leachman (Frau Blucher) - January 27, 2021 (age 94)

Teri Garr (Inga) - died October 29, 2024 (age 79)

Expand full comment

And yet, Mel Brooks is remarkably still going strong.

Expand full comment

I loved Teri Garr. She was also in Tootsie, The Conversation, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Mr. Mom. I remember her most for her appearances on Dave Letterman with whom she had a fun rapport.

Expand full comment

She was fantastic in Let It Ride

Expand full comment

A friend forwarded this to me. It’s National Indigenous People’s Thanksgiving Day- in The Philippines.

https://nationaltoday.com/national-indigenous-peoples-thanksgiving-day/

Expand full comment

VOTING EARLY OR AT YOUR POLLING SITE?

Expand full comment

will vote early and drop it at the secure box inside our local supermarket. I enjoy doing the polling thing, but the ease of early drop box voting is hard to beat.

Expand full comment

Both- early, in person at an early polling spot in GA, local rec center, last week- 10 minutes total from getting out of car, voting, getting back in car. Our day of election local polling place is in a church, which I have found odd for 20+ years, though thankful for the civic hospitality. Still no food or water allowed near polling places here in GA, so no cute bake sales to support.

Expand full comment
Oct 29·edited Oct 29

On the subject of polling places - my polling places have often been in a neighborhood garage. But I have also voted in places of worship - Second Church of Christ, Scientist (on Spruce Street), and at the Friends Meeting House (Quaker) kitty corner to the original Peet's Coffee.

Imagine my surprise a few years ago when I came to understand that there are about 180 addresses in Berkeley recognized as places of worship (!).

The neighborhood polling place, however, has gone the way of the dodo in California, though. Every registered voter gets a ballot in the mail and can send it back by mail, by dropping it at a Ballot Drop Box or taking it to a Voting Center. There are many fewer Voting Centers than there were precinct-based polls.

Expand full comment

We still have precinct polling places in SF. Mine hasn't changed in the entire time I've lived in the city (it's my local Catholic K-8 school).

Expand full comment

I voted a couple weeks ago in person at the courthouse. I thought about going to the Harris speech tonight anyway but you have to register in advance with the DNC to get within the secured area and I don’t want to get on their mailing list.

Expand full comment
Oct 29·edited Oct 29

I voted yesterday by dropping my ballot at a Drop Box.

I find that I've become intolerant of silly candidates, propositions, and local measures. I am increasingly critical of the California legislature because they leave lawmaking and some big budgetary items to propositions and bond measures. That's not what they are paid for.

I have a similar gripe with Berkeley City Council. And performative nonsense like Measure DD and Measure GG in Berkeley. Bunch of crap.

Expand full comment

I vote no on all measures that I believe should be handled by the legislature (state and city/county). Do your damn jobs!

Expand full comment

Agreed on bond measures. We don't have an overview of the overall budget, how can we just approve and spend these big bonds without the greater, overall budgetary picture? Still, I support bond measures for improving California's colleges, as a general matter, so these bond measures put me into a quandary.

Expand full comment

I feel very similarly. And there are other worthwhile capital projects having to do with elementary and secondary schools, and water infrastructure; however, I will never vote to ship water south from the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta.

Expand full comment

Why not?

Expand full comment

1. There will never be enough environmental safeguards to prevent over drafting the Delta,

2. shipping water south is like adding lanes to a 6-lane highway: it only encourages more building in the region that doesn't have enough water as it is now,

3. there are reforms that can be made in allocations to agricultural interests that will result in significant savings that can be directed to residential uses,

4. there needs to be clearer prioritization of water uses. That doesn't exist if there's a move to take water from one region and send it to another.

California needs to get its water house in order: it needs to protect the Delta environment and residential water users in Northern California first before sending any additional water to the Southland. It's as simple as that.

Expand full comment
Oct 29·edited Oct 29

1. The overdrafting and environmental issues is already occuring.

2. Despite adding a million people, LA has maintained the same amount of consumptive water use over the past 45 years.

3. Ag interests have little financial incentive here, partly because they pay below market rate for water and because of the sentimental desire to preserve a way of life. It doesn't help that many water transfers exempt ag users from beneficial use laws when they transfer water. Still, San Diego Water Authority is a good example of muncipal users subsidizing ag efficiency and utilizing the benefits. Again, beneficial use laws don't always support this.

4. I don't disagree, but you pose the question of "prioritization" as a political question, while "prioritization" is truly a legal question, that largely defers to senior water uses as an issue of real property rights. These are vested property interests. The CA Supreme Court layered water use in CA with the public trust doctrine in the Mono Lake case in the 1980s. That was a game changer. Potentially, they could achieve prioritization by deeming some uses of water as not being "beneficial" in modern context, and when weighed against competing uses. An obvious example is alfalfa grown and shipped overseas, one step shy of importing H20 in its liquid form for the benefit and use of other countries.

Over 1.6 trillion gallons of water is already pumped from the Delta to Southern California. To the extent the current amounts, and nothing more were diverted through a peripheral canal, it is my understanding it would result in a net benefit to the Delta. The problem is, as you say, the canal makes it easier for users in the south to ask for more, but legislation can safeguard against this. Either way, the current situation is untenable and the delta ecosystem has already been dramatically altered.

Expand full comment

It needs to be a lot harder to get a measure on the ballot in this state.

Expand full comment
Oct 29·edited Oct 29

Agreed. Too many issues find their way to the ballots.

And bond measures mean that we pay much more for a project than we would if it were funded with available funds from the General Fund. We're not a well-run state.

Expand full comment

All these fiscal decisions really need to be made by someone with knowledge of the overall financial picture. It is impossible to know the implications of these measures on the budget as a random voter

Expand full comment

Early, by mail. Oregon has been an entirely vote by mail state for many years. Works great.

Expand full comment

San Mateo County is same and I voted already but tbh I would prefer in person as I enjoy the hoopla and ritual

Expand full comment

polling site. it is our kids old elementary school and a short 2 min walk from the house. kinda nostalgic to have a reason to go back.

i dont mind the 30 min that it takes to go cast ballot and buy something from the bake sale at the school

Expand full comment

POLITICS

Expand full comment

my wife is concerned about attending large gatherings post-election after the dark and foreboding Trump MSG rally recently and a possible Harris victory.

while i dont doubt it will be a unprecedented disaster, i am not personally concerned for my safety.

i asked if the Cal-Syracuse game counted ...

Expand full comment

Oy.

Expand full comment

only a week till election day and things seem as murky as ever. the only thing that seems certain is that Yankees will not be winning the WS this year.

Expand full comment

Yup. Has any team has come back from a 3-0 deficit in the World Series? There's always a first time for everything, but it seems unlikely.

Expand full comment
Oct 29·edited Oct 29

no. the Red Sox came back from 3-0 vs Yankees in ALCS is the only example of coming back in a 7 game series.

there have been some 3-1 comebacks in WS

Expand full comment

Yeah, and the problem with expecting a 3-0 comeback this time is that it seems pretty clear the Dodgers are the better team.

And they don't have Kershaw around to screw it up anymore.

Expand full comment

No team to go down 3-0 in the WS has ever even forced a 6th game.

Expand full comment

DBD AV CLUB

Expand full comment

ELSWHERE IN COLLEGE

Expand full comment

PRO

Expand full comment

CAL

Expand full comment

FiatS illuminated us all to the fact that there are about 180 addresses in Berkeley recognized as places of worship.

The question is are there specific locations where Oski Disciples go to worship Oski? Besides Memorial Stadium?

I figured you would know.

Expand full comment

any of the bear statues on campus.

Expand full comment

Haas Pavillon and anywhere else where two or more gather in his name.

Expand full comment

It’s time again for Oski Disciple’s Bear Facts.

Nick Harris (’97-2000) is probably the most notable punter who has booted the ball for California. Part of the desultory Holmoe teams, the punter even inspired a tongue-in-cheek “Harris for Heisman” campaign for which tee-shirts were made. He averaged 42.3 yards per punt in his three years with the Bears. His 13,621 total yards is an NCAA record ss are 322 career punts. As a junior in 1999, he had a 44.7 yard average. As a senior in 2000, he earned consensus first-team All-American honors. In his senior year versus UCLA he punted seven times for 371 yards a 53.1 yard average. For his career Nick placed 56 punts inside the opponents’ 20 yard line. The longest punt of his career went for 70 yards. Harris went on to enjoy a twelve-year pro career, punting for five different teams, mostly the Detroit Lions who he was with for nine seasons.

Oski Disciple’s Bear Facts appears Tuesday through Thursday on the DBD throughout the 2024 college football season. It’s brought to you by Dialing for Dollars, weekday afternoons on KTVU with your host Pat McCormick. Today’s feature: Creature from the Blue and Gold Lagoon.

Expand full comment
Oct 29·edited Oct 29

I was living in Chicago in the aughts and went down to the game at Illinois. Harris punted 12 times that day with 5 that dropped inside the 5 yard line and like a 70-yarder. Still the only time I've seen a punter dominate the game in such a way. He was unreal that day. Had to check mym memory and found this: https://www.news-gazette.com/sports/illini-sports/football/cal-punter-wows-em/article_68755b96-bcd7-5dd4-a2aa-0e1c885a596f.html

Expand full comment

I was at that game too. Remember multiple IL fans on the walk back to friends place stopping us to say how amazing the Cal punter was.

Expand full comment

I only know Tedford era and beyond, so thank you for the trivia.

In my memory Anger is the best punter and Wilson's 73 yard punt vs UCLA last year is the best punt.

Expand full comment

I actually remember that 70 yard punt. It was a thing of beauty. However, as awesome as he was, I'm not so sure if you REALLY want to have the NCAA record for most punts. Means that your offense doesn't score. Those Holmoe teams were BAD.

Expand full comment

Love the Pat McCormick reference. Long live Charlie and Humphrey!

Expand full comment

in fun stuff about Charlie and Humphrey, we got our kids to act out "Borrowing Without Asking" once upon a time.

https://youtu.be/69xExwBva-s

Expand full comment

You've HEARD of bees? Well, a HERD of 'em is chasing me!

Charlie & Humphrey is a great litmus test to tell who is really from the Bay Area.

Expand full comment

I got to see them in person once at the UC theater in Berkeley. An early thrill in my life.

Expand full comment

thx for this. i barely remember this Holmoe era

Expand full comment

Lucky

Expand full comment

Indeed. He also missed out on the Kapp era, the Theder era, and the Willsey era (remarkably similar to the Wilcox era). I didn't really become aware of Cal football until the Willsey era.

Expand full comment

I remember the tail end of the Levy era. And yes there are numerous parallels between Willsey and Wilcox.

BTW he also missed the Gilby years only one of which ('93) is worth remembering.

Expand full comment
Oct 29·edited Oct 29

See, I entirely erased the Gilby era when I wrote that comment. I can hardly believe that. After all, Tony Gonzalez was an integral part of that era. Mrs Slug and I are big fans of Tony Gonzalez.

Expand full comment