Thank You, Mr. B.I.G.

RIP Hollywood schlockmeister Bert I. Gordon, 100. Born in Kenosha, family of Russian-Jewish descent, he was nicknamed Mr. B.I.G.. He began making home movies at nine. He dropped out of college and joined the Army Air Forces during WWII. He worked as a production assistant on the CBS series Racket Squad during the ’50s, then became a producer, cinematographer and supervising editor on the series Serpent Island. He was a celebrated visual effects artist known for the rear-projection technique that created colossal rats, bugs, chickens and even teenagers. He produced and directed 24 films, and wrote 20 of them. As a kid I was mesmerized by The Amazing Collosal Man (1957) and its sequel War of the Collosal Beast (1958), and also enjoyed The Boy and the Pirates (1960). Married twice, Gordon was a father of four. Thanks for the fun, sir. Facts from IMDb & the Variety obituary, photo from Google Images:

RIP Bud Grant, 95, CFL and NFL football player, head coach, and NBA player. He played football, basketball and baseball at the University of Minnesota. He played two years for the Minneapolis Lakers and was a member of the 1950 championship team. He then concentrated on pro football, signing with the Eagles. He was the unofficial league sacks leader in ’51 and was second in receiving yardage in ’52. He then went north, signing with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, where he had great success as a receiver. In 1953 he had five interceptions in a playoff game. Soon he was the head coach and would win four Grey Cup championships. He became the Minnesota Vikings head man in 1967 and won eleven division titles, one league championship, three National Football Conference championships, and made four Super Bowl appearances, all losses. Well, nobody’s perfect, but Grant certainly came as close as a human gets. He was a father of two. Awesome, sir. Photo from GI:

Nice haul for the floating book shop on this pleasant day. My thanks to the middle aged woman who kicked things off by taking home the huge Merriam-Webster’s Elementary Dictionary; and to the young woman who bought Someone Knows by Lisa Scottoline; and to the young mom who let her beautiful little girl pick out three kids’ books; and to the gentleman who jumped on the four-for-a-dollar sci-fi paperback deal, selecting eight; and to the wheelchair-bound woman I hadn’t seen in a long time, who chose DVDs of Seven (1995) and My Name Is Bill W (1989), audio books Women’s Murder Club box set by James Patterson, They Bled Blue: Fernandomania, Strike-Season Mayhem, and the Weirdest Championship Baseball Had Ever Seen: The 1981 Los Angeles Dodgers by Jason Turbow, and A Moment in Time: An American Story of Baseball, Heartbreak, and Grace by Ralph Branca & David Ritz, a Goosebumps story by R. L. Stine, and Mercury and Me by Jim Hutton and Tim Wapshott, an ode to Freddie.

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