Happy Halloween from Plagg!

Jerry Taff

Jerry Taff, the main anchor for Channel 12 WISN from 1979 through 2005, died last night at his home in Texas.  He was 85.

Taff was a ubiquitous face in my first three decades on this planet.  My family most often tuned in to watch the news on Channel 12, which famously had its real life newsroom running in the background of the newscast. (We watched Channel 6 less frequently, bougie Channel 4 rarely if at all).

Taff, a Texas native who mentored documentarian Michael Moore while working in Detroit, was the face of WISN, and a trusted one - the Cronkite of Milwaukee in that regard. 

 

He had his faults: he was fired for two years in the mid-80's, for reasons I know longer recall, causing him to miss reporting on a passenger jet crash here in '85. He also had an alleged feud with longtime co-anchor Marty Burns Wolfe that wasn't a very well kept secret.

When he signed off his newscasts, he did so with a signature phrase that still sounds like the best wish possible to me:  Good Night, and Better Tomorrows. 

Good night Jerry.  Rest in Peace.

Love and Diet Pepsi

35 Years Ago Today

Pearl Jam - at the time still known as Mookie Blaylock - played its first ever gig on this day in 1990, at the Off Ramp Café in Seattle Washington.

 

The setlist consisted of eight songs:

Release

Alone

Alive

Once

Even Flow

Black

Breath

Just A Girl

And history was made. 

A Pathetic LCS So Far

Diane Keaton

Diane Keaton, the talented and iconic actress best known for Annie Hall and for playing Kay in The Godfather trilogy,  has passed away at age 79.

Her Academy Award winning career spanned from the first Broadway run of Hair in 1968 to the current day. 

The photo above is from her 1987 comedy Baby Boom which my parents took us to see at the theater. It was the start of quite the crush for me, a feeling that deepened the next year when my freshman crush Joanie had a passing resemblance to Keaton.

RIP

I Do Not Like This Word

There is no word in the English language that irritates me quite as much as "whilst."

I do not mean that the meaning bothers me, or the sound the word makes when pronounced. I simply react, instinctively, with both revulsion and condescension whenever someone trots it out. 

I do not like it, and I have no explanation for my preference. 

What A Day That Was

30 years ago today I had the honor of watching as an innocent man was exonerated, despite the machinations of the state. RIP  Orenthal. I'll think of you every Thanksgiving