October is Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) Awareness Month. Were you aware of that? I wasn’t. Now that I am, I’ve got one thing to say to the SCA people: WHO IS ADVISING YOU?! October is Breast Awareness Month! You can’t compete against breasts! Pick another month! As for cardiac arrest, fuck that noise! I’M A VERY BUSY PERSON! I don’t have time . . . (gasp) . . . I don’t have time . . . for a . . . a herat attardhuhjbzsvggggggggggggggggggggggggg Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Death
Another Reason I Like to Just Stay Home
What Do They Do to the Unpopular Professors?
More People I’m Sick Unto Death Of
As some day it may happen that a victim must be found, I’ve got a little list–I’ve got a little list Of society offenders who might well be underground, And who never would be missed–who never would be missed! — W.S. Gilbert, The Mikado People who say “pitcher” when they mean “picture” . . . Read more →
Randy Pausch, 1960-2008
Brick walls are there for a reason: they let us prove how badly we want things. — Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture If I could only give three words of advice, they would be, ‘Tell the truth.’ If I got three more words, I’d add, ‘All the time.’ — Ibid. All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier. — Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself” Randy Pausch was lucky in that, thanks to the worldwide fame he achieved from his lecture and book, he died knowing that things he did and said would not be forgotten after he was gone. Without the pancreatic cancer, he couldn’t have achieved that. Let’s face it, you can’t peddle the kind of pabulum cited above as “wisdom” in the absence of a terminal illness. We own this book because my mom sent… Read more →
Never Wait in Buffet Lines Again
We went to Souplantation for dinner tonight. I was really hungry but when we got there, there was already a line of people at the salad bar. I hate when that happens. Let me tell you what I did: I grabbed a tray and came in swinging, cracked a few people in the cranium, then finished them off with a serrated-edge knife from the silverware station. It’s a crude plan, but let me tell you why it works: the element of surprise. No one goes to Souplantation expecting to be knocked over the head and stabbed . . . Read more →
HW’s Movie Reviews: The Dark Knight
It was a sickness: this great interest in a medium that relentlessly and consistently failed to produce anything at all. People became so used to seeing shit on film that they no longer realized it was shit. — Charles Bukowski, Hollywood Haven’t seen it. Might see it . . . not sure yet. I’ve seen the trailer though and I’ll tell you something: Heath Ledger is TERRIBLE! That’s not acting! Put the same makeup on somebody else, give ’em a script, let ’em read the same lines . . . there’s a million people who could do the same thing. You don’t think so? You don’t think Heath Ledger knew that? Why do you think he’s dead of an overdose? Read more →
My Dog Calls a Press Conference
I just want to say to the American people: I am not a vicious dog, but I don’t put up with a lot of nonsense either. — Lightning Read more →
My Father-In-Law Died Today
My father-in-law died today. Or, maybe, tomorrow; I can’t be sure because of the time difference. He’d been sick . . . my wife was planning to visit him one last time this summer, but it was always one more week, too much work to finish, and finally he couldn’t wait any more. I cried a little when she told me, even though he lived in a far-off country and I never met him, because all of a sudden she seemed like a lost little girl, and I wished I could do something for her and I couldn’t, and for all the other things I’ve wished I could do for her and I couldn’t . . . Read more →
George Carlin, 1937-2008
To paraphrase George Patton: Carlin, you magnificent bastard! I read your books! I also bought his videos and saw his live shows! I don’t know who’s ever been funnier, really . . . CNN has an obit, and Fox Sports has wisely reprinted “The Difference Between Baseball and Football.” Read more →
Two More Reasons I Won’t Go on a Cruise
Captured by pirates, you are given a choice between walking the plank or joining the crew. The crew are all Yankees fans. When your luxury cruise ship, featuring Las Vegas–style live entertainment, sinks in midocean, you find yourself adrift in a lifeboat with a tiger, a chimp, and an Herbalife salesman. On the second day, the tiger and the chimp commit suicide. — Susan Schorn, “Worse Things Happen at Sea” Read more →
Another Reason I Like to Just Stay Home
ROME – Italian railway police say an American tourist was hit and killed by a train at a Rome station as he was walking on the tracks in a daze after being drugged and robbed. Police official Giovanni Piccolantonio said Monday that 74-year-old Frank Phel from California died early Friday at the suburban Tiburtina station. — Associated Press Arrivederci Roma! Read more →
The Secret of All Secrets
I am letting you into the secret of all secrets, mirrors are gates through which death comes and goes. Moreover if you see your whole life in a mirror you will see death at work as you see bees behind the glass in a hive. — Jean Cocteau, Orphée Read more →
He Didn’t Go Crazy
JACKSON, Mississippi (AP) — Paul Davis, a singer and songwriter whose soft rock hit “I Go Crazy” stayed on the charts for months after its release in 1977, died Tuesday. He was 60. — CNN.com That’s disappointing. Not the fact that he died, because who cares, really, but the fact that he didn’t actually go crazy and kill himself in some bizarre fashion . . . Read more →
William F Buckley Jr: 1925-2008
Once upon a time there was a political observer who was thoughtful, intelligent, witty and polite, not an angry demagogue. I know, it sounds like a fairy tale . . . Read more →
People I Thought Were Dead
Charlie Callas – comedian Robert Clary – actor, “Hogan’s Heroes” Mike Connors – actor, “Mannix” Jackie Cooper – actor Ann B. Davis – actress, “The Brady Bunch” Joan Fontaine – actress Shecky Greene – comedian Ray Harryhausen – film producer, “Jason and the Argonauts” Tom Kennedy – game show host Gina Lollobrigida – actress Peter Marshall – game show host, “The Hollywood Squares” Jack Narz – game show host Joyce Randolph – actress, “The Honeymooners” Ravi Shankar – sitar player Gale Storm – actress Mort Walker – cartoonist, “Beetle Bailey” Updates Charlie Callas – died 1/27/2011, age 83 Robert Clary – died 11/16/2022, age 96 Mike Connors – died 1/26/2017, age 91 Jackie Cooper – died 5/3/2011, age 88 Ann B. Davis – died 6/1/2014, age 88 Joan Fontaine – died 12/15/2013, age 96 Shecky Greene – died 12/31/2023, age 97 Ray Harryhausen – died 5/7/2013, age 92 Tom Kennedy… Read more →
Don’t Waste Your 15 Minutes of Fame
[Heath] Ledger’s ex-fiancée Michelle Williams and their two year old daughter Matilda flew from a film set in Sweden to their home in Brooklyn following the tragedy. . . . Her father Larry Williams said: “It has just broken everybody’s heart in my family. I think Tennyson got it right in the poem he described someone as having died at a young age but burning the candles at both ends. And oh what a beautiful flame he made. That was Heath. “The saddest thing is his daughter whom he just loved dearly. The Tennyson poem is just so true. His years were few but he left a beautiful legacy.” — Daily Mail Okay . . . Tennyson?! Tennyson did write In Memoriam A.H.H. about a friend who died young, but the candle poem was written by Edna St. Vincent Millay: My candle burns at both ends; It will not last… Read more →
Can You Die Too Soon?
Some media outlets are using the occasion of Heath Ledger‘s demise to publish lists of stars who died “too soon.” Does anyone really die too soon? Maybe everyone dies at exactly the right time. Maybe some people die too late. [James] Dean died before he could fail, before he lost his hair or his boyish figure, before he grew up. — Donald Spoto, Rebel: The Life and Legend of James Dean James Dean died at age 24. Did he die too soon? Would he have been remembered as fondly if he’d lived to an old age? Better to be a delicious fruit snatched away in mid-bite than something one finds in the back of the refrigerator and says, “My god, we should have thrown this out a long time ago.” It’s never a bad career move to check out in your prime . . . Read more →
79 More
In memory of Heath Ledger, here’s a list of 79 more stars killed by drugs . . . Read more →
Heath Ledger, 1979-2008
NEW YORK — Actor Heath Ledger was found dead Tuesday of a possible drug overdose in a Lower Manhattan apartment, the New York Police Department said. — CNN.com Possible drug overdose, possible suicide! Oh dear . . . another blow to the theory that being rich and/or famous is the ticket to happiness. I think most famous actors — not all, obviously — are convinced that they can do things that nobody else can do, that they’re not cardboard people who are adored for no reason. Tom Cruise, for example, I don’t think will ever commit suicide. Oh well . . . Read more →