Thankfully, things seem to be settling down around the Crazed Fanboy compound after a harrowing two weeks of very stressful management headaches. Thanks to all our supporters for hangin' in there.
Belated: Notable passings
I was clearly negligent last week in not mentioning two passings of note, that of Lady Bird Johnson and that of character actor Charles Lane.
Lady Bird
Lady Bird Johnson, wife of the late US President Lyndon Baines Johnson, died of natural causes at the age of 94 at her home in Austin, Texas, July 11th.
At first seemingly pale in comparison to the previous first lady, Jackie Kennedy, Lady Bird soon made her mark with a less cosmopolitan, Southern style, and a keen discipline and intelligence associated with the Texas president. Mainly associated with beautification projects, she stood steadily by Lyndon Johnson during the darkest days of the Vietnam War, the experience over which the President never fully recovered. (He chose not to run a second term and died in 1973.)
Suffering a stroke in 2002, she continued to make public appreances, despite difficulties in speaking. In May, she attended an event at the LBJ Library featuring Robert Dallek, a biographer of her husband. Obviously a strong woman who would not be kept down merely by declining health! She was an inspiration as a first lady, and in later life, an inspiration to seniors.
Charles Lane
Back in the day, I could pick out character actors in different TV shows like old friends from a photo album. I think my earliest memory of character actor Charles Lane is from TV's Dennis the Menace (Jay North) as the curmudgeonly corner drug store operator or something like that (he played a similar role in Petticoat Junction). He was among the first to sketch out the grouchy-but-with-a-heart-of-gold character that became typical of older actors over the decades. With his tall, gaunt presence, booming voice, and topped off with horn-rimmed glasses and a high forehead, he was castable in almost anything.
Besides Menace, his TV credits include I Love Lucy, Dark Shadows, Bewitched, L.A. Law, St. Elsewhere, Little House on the Prairie, The Odd Couple, his movie credits include It's A Wonderful Life, The Road To Singapore, 42nd Street, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. I was shocked to learn his last role was in 2006(!) as the narrator a short film version of The Night before Christmas.
He passed away quietly at home in California, July 10th, at age 102. He was one of the last survivors of the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906. His wife of 70 years passed away in 2002. He smoked until he was at least 85. When he accepted an award from cable television's TV Land channel in honor of his 100th birthday, he made a point of saying he was still available for work!
The Tampa Film Review for July.....and pics from Hooters
You might be wondering why I put pictures from our last Hooters gathering on the same page as The Tampa Film Review for July?
Like so many times before, it's because it so often feels like an extension of the TFR!
Because this was a very special internationally-enhanced meeting, I was tempted to put the pics right here on the homepage which I've done before (or duplicate them here), but it feels so natural on the TFR page this time. Check 'em out! Well, of course, after you read the reviews first!
New Columnist(s) on the Horizon!
Quite a few of you noticed our ranks looking a little thin the past few weeks and wrote me your concerns. I remind everyone that the writer population here has always swung wildly to and fro over the years, many times it's just me and Mike Smith for weeks at a time! I'm glad, though, that those days seem to be occluded by memories of a more robust PCR (the recent spell has been a bit exaggerated if you look in the Archives). For that I'm grateful.
However...it is worth noting we've been publishing for over 7 years and several long-time contributors have experienced recent life changes that necessitated ceasing their heretofore frequent involvement with PCR until further notice. Others have taken a more "infrequent/irregular" approach to publishing, still others who decided this wasn't for them after all. Currently there is no one other than Mike Smith and myself guaranteeing weekly columns (Andy Lalino comes the closest).
It has not escaped me that Message Boards (including our own) and sites such as MySpace and its ilk provide a more immediate satisfaction for writers seeking to upload daily items or participate more interactively in internet expression. I found it surprising that reader feedback (targeted, not general) turned out to be enormously important to sustain motivation around here. (It's always nice to get, of course, but I never counted on it all that much. I write 'cuz I feel like it. There are former writers who quit after, like, two issues, convinced no one was reading their columns when they weren't deluged with mail. To me, ignoring the long-term benefits of search engine hits is just plain unwise.) This is a big reason our Readers Comments section was born, for example. But that's just for starters.
Three things:One, there are two brand new columnists on the way I think you'll enjoy! Their frequency hasn't been hammered out yet, but they will likely be semi-regular/irregular (even that's very encouraging.) Two, there are some technical changes I'll be implementing in Crazed Fanboy over the next few months to meet the challenges of a more interactive reader/writer fandom. And Three, encouraging "immediate feedback" can have an effect of the frequency of Letters to the Editor, so please don't freak out if you don't see that section very often (Letters is still the way to respond to older columns, of course). Readers Comments is only active a week at a time, then archived. After that, it's Letters or the Message Board. I don't see that changing. But there'll be other ways to interact and it'll be cool. Stay tuned.
Please consider making a donation to help support Crazed Fanboy! Click on the "donate" link below and give whatever you can. I sincerely thank you for any and all consideration.---Nolan
by Nolan B. Canova, Chris Woods, and Chris Passainault
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