I just heard about Pat Morita. He always seemed to be very good at picking roles. Except for one clunker with Jay Leno, I've never seen him in a bad movie.

Even when he was playing comic roles, he always brought a likeable dignity to his characters, so that everyone was on his side.

Here is his Internet Movie Database profile.

dammit. i guess that puts the kabosh on any hopes Ralph Machio had for a comeback.

Not really, now he can play the sensei, sort of like what Stallone did in Rocky ??.

BTW, he probably had fun playing himself in Entourage in the episode at the Playboy mansion.

George Best died last week. An amusing commentary on how bad it got-Later in life, Best laughed at his own dissolution. He would recount the moment it all went bad: "Tell me, Mr. Best, where did it all go wrong?" asked the waiter as he delivered vintage champagne to the footballer in a luxury hotel suite. At the time £20,000 was scattered on the bed, which also happened to contain Miss Universe.

"...he turned yellow, and died with tubes in his nose."

Great obit writing, a guy after my own heart.

John Simonton, Synth Designer for the Masses
 

Okay, he isn't a celebrity - not in the strictest sense of the word. Unless you are something of synthaholic (and I am), you probably would have never heard of him, nor the company he founded in the late 1960's, naming it after a Hawaiian city he remembered fondly - Paia (pronounced pie'-uh). But for people like me, who grew up during the golden age of DIY synthesizers, Paia was a household word. Their catalogues came to my mailbox at regular intervals - not because I bought anything from them, but because I liked to look through them and dream.

The products produced by Paia came from the mind of John Simonton for the most part, although he also produced kits to help budding musical electronics heads build the ingenious designs of Craig Anderton which frequently appeared in electronics and musician's magazines during the same period. John ran his basically one man business out of his homeland, Oklahoma, for 35 years, until his recent passing from cancer.

John did for synthesizers what Heathkit did for radios - he made them accessible to people with much more time than money, and who didn't mind learning a new, patient skill to get what they desired out of the deal. Few could afford even Moog or ARP's most reasonably-priced gear unless they were working musicians (or at least musical hobbyists with decent jobs), but almost anyone could afford to piece together a small, fully-featured modular synth from John's wide variety of component kits, and, in the process, learn not only about the mechanics and principles of electronic construction, but also the theory and practice of sound synthesis. Because of Paia, Joe Sixpack (usually, Little Joey Sixpack, actually) could procure components over time and end up as a budget Keith Emerson in the comfort of their own home.

Although the onslaught of digital synthesis and MIDI took a huge bite out of John's livelihood, he never stopped serving those who needed what he did. Indeed, tales abound of his generosity with his time as his old designs were rediscovered and restored by those who once again wanted a cheap inroad to the newly reborn interest in analogue synths. And John did not sit idle, dreaming of the old glory days during the slow years. John saw the resurgence of analogue early on, and developed an incredibly affordable mini-synth kit, the Paia Fatman, to serve the new generation of technoids and electronica performers. Indeed, Simonton's touch has reached as far as The Cellar, where only a few weeks back someone was mentioning their desire to purchase Paia's Theremax theremin kit and build it for their own amusement.

Celebrities are celebrities only because we *make* them so in our own minds. Therefore, in my oscillator-afflicted brain, John Simonton was quite the celebrity indeed. RIP, John. Here's to the hope that someone can carry your banner into this new milennia.

Bill Brasky had a four day heart attack...a day for each chamber. At the autopsy, they said his heart looked like a basketball filled with riccotta cheese.

Richard Pryor - R.I.P.

:( :cry:

I'm sure Mark Twain is doing a flip flop over his award! IMHO

One of my favorite Pryor jokes:

"I don't drink and drive anymore. Nuh-uh."

"Got tired of waking up in my car..."

"....doing 90."

http://www.cellar.org/images/smilies/lol.gif

Interviewer: Alright, Mr. Wilson, you've done just fine on the Rorshach.. your papers are in good order.. your file's fine.. no difficulties with your motor skills.. And I think you're probably ready for this job. We've got one more psychological test we always do here. It's just a Word Association. I'll throw you out a few words - anything that comes to your mind, just throw back at me, okay? It's kind of an arbitrary thing. Like, if I say "dog", you'd say..?

Mr. Wilson: "Tree".

Interviewer: "Tree". [ nods head, prepares the test papers ] "Dog".

Mr. Wilson: "Tree".

Interviewer: "Fast".

Mr. Wilson: "Slow".

Interviewer: "Rain".

Mr. Wilson: "Snow".

Interviewer: "White".

Mr. Wilson: "Black".

Interviewer: "Bean".

Mr. Wilson: "Pod".

Interviewer: [ casually ] "Negro".

Mr. Wilson: "Whitey".

Interviewer: "Tarbaby".

Mr. Wilson: [ silent, sure he didn't hear what he thinks he heard ] What'd you say?

Interviewer: [ repeating ] "Tarbaby".

Mr. Wilson: "Ofay".

Interviewer: "Colored".

Mr. Wilson: "Redneck".

Interviewer: "Junglebunny".

Mr. Wilson: [ starting to get angry ] "Peckerwood!"

Interviewer: "Burrhead".

Mr. Wilson: [ defensive ] "Cracker!"

Interviewer: [ aggressive ] "Spearchucker".

Mr. Wilson: "White trash!"

Interviewer: "Jungle Bunny!"

Mr. Wilson: [ upset ] "Honky!"

Interviewer: "Spade!

Mr. Wilson: [ really upset ] "Honky Honky!"

Interviewer: [ relentless ] "Nigger!"

Mr. Wilson: [ immediate ] "Dead honky!" [ face starts to flinch ]

Interviewer: [ quickly wraps the interview up ] Okay, Mr. Wilson, I think you're qualified for this job. How about a starting salary of $5,000?

Mr. Wilson: Your momma!

Interviewer: [ fumbling ] Uh.. $7,500 a year?

Mr. Wilson: Your grandmomma!

Interviewer: [ desperate ] $15,000, Mr. Wilson. You'll be the highest paid janitor in America. Just, don't.. don't hurt me, please..

Mr. Wilson: Okay.

Interviewer: [ relieved ] Okay.

Mr. Wilson: You want me to start now?

Interviewer: Oh, no, no.. that's alright. I'll clean all this up. Take a couple of weeks off, you look tired.

"When I was 25, I used to be able to pee in the toilet in the morning and not even get out of bed..."

"Grandpa" Al Lewis 1910-2006
 

Al Lewis just passed. As a typecast actor, I didn't get to see him on TV much, but like Bob Denver, the real story of his life is what he did with it after his acting career cooled down.

Looking at his obituary and his acting credits, it seems he had a full, fun life. He sounds like a cool guy to know who was respected by his friends and a pain in the ass to his enemies.

Goodbye, Grandpa.

How could you not love the guy who drove Dragula?

I was 14 in 1968, when Robert F. Kennedy was shot and killed. He was very much our man - the Presidential candidate of the young...at least that's how we thought of him. The level of generational division and hostility was exceptionally high then, and many of us were immediately angry at our elders (despite their having had nothing to do with his death) and took it out on them whenever possible.

Somewhat more recently (although it's been over ten years ago now, I think), the death of John Candy hit me pretty hard.

Hunter S. Thompson, certainly. Peter Cook - a genuis without whose influence the whole of British comedy would look entirely different, I think.