Tag Archives: Mr. Blog’s Tepid Ride

Heath Ledger

13 Nov

from January 23, 2008

Everybody is talking about Heath Ledger.

Remember when Heath Ledger brought food and medicine to Katrina victims?
Remember when Heath Ledger helped end poverty?
Remember when Heath Ledger found the cure for cancer?

Neither do I.

Heath Ledger died yesterday.

A tragedy for his young daughter and the rest of his family, to be sure.

A loss to the film world? Debatable, but he had fans.
Best known as one of the cowboys in Brokeback Mountain, Ledger was poised for breakout success in this summer’s The Dark Knight, the latest Batman film, where he played the Joker.

Yes, he was an actor.
And an actor with a short body of work at that.

To be true, there seemed to be no one with a bad word about him.

By all accounts he was a nice guy and a good father.
And it is always a loss when a good man dies.

But he was an actor.

Brad Renfro died last week too.

Newscasts broke into daytime talk shows with special reports.
Newspapers had special wrap-around sections.
Camera crews staked out the building where he died.
Flowers and candles seemed to grow out of the air around his building’s front entrance.
He’s bigger news now than when he was alive.

Everyone is wondering if it was drugs.
Everyone knows how he was found naked by his masseuse.
Everyone has a theory.

How terrible it is to die young.
How terrible it is to be famous.
How terrible it is to be in the spotlight.

Heath Ledger was not a construction worker.
He was not a firefighter or a policeman.
He was not a teacher or a doctor.
He did not die in Iraq.
He did not save a life.
He did not cure the ill.
He did not maketh the crippled to walk nor the dead to rise.

He was an actor.

He played parts in movies.
He was a cowboy in a cowboy movie.
He was a patriot in a patriot movie.
He was a knight in a knight movie..

Sad that only now does he find his biggest audience.
Sadder still that we devote so much time to his life and so little to things that really matter.

Can you name five Presidential candidates?
Can you name five of your children’s teachers?
When did you reach out to someone in need?

Heath Ledger died yesterday.

Naked and alone and surrounded by drugs.

He left behind a young daughter.

His parents outlived him.

He was an actor.

Life goes on.

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Five Things You Don’t Find Out Until They Happen (Yes, this title sort of makes sense.)

13 Nov

from January 27, 2008

1- Yes, TV can get worse.
Television sucks. How many times have we said this? But wait until a writer’s strike and BAM! we are flipping to TVLand for The Beverly Hillbillies reruns. (Granny cracks me up. And when Jethro puts on a wig and calls himself Jethrine? Classic. And I am notoriously hard to amuse. I only laugh at other’s tragedy.) So help me if I see another ad for American Gladiators I may kill. And have you seen how old Hulk Hogan is lately? I bet I can take him. “Watchoo gonna do when my arthritis makes me fall over on you?”

2- Movies can get worse too.
Have you seen the commercials for Meet the Spartans? They air like two every minute. Sometimes they air them twice, at the same time, on the same channel. I know this sounds silly but I swear they do it. First, I thought the movie came out two months ago, I saw the commercials so much. Secondly, it was topical maybe six months ago. Wow! It is full of jokes about Britney cutting off her hair. Wow! It has the fat guy from Borat. Wow! It makes fun of Dancing Feet. Who even remembers that penguin flick?

3- You don’t know people until you work with them.
I am sooo not going there.

4- You don’t know people until you know them.

D’uh. And ditto. But if you know what I mean then you know what I mean. You know how your cell phone has contacts and you can put them into categories like friends, work, and school? Well, it forces you to pick a category for every person in your phonebook.  And sometimes you have to think about it. Ever wonder “Hmmmm. Do I put her (or him. Or her.) under friends? Started out under work. Should I move the contact?” Nah, do what I do, leave them all uncategorized. Saves the hassle when you want to move them all back to work. You don’t need a cell phone to tell you who your friends are.

5- Bill Clinton can get funnier.
If this happened just a few days ago this would have made the last blog. Clinton was sitting behind the podium at a Martin Luther King (Junior to you) tribute (or screed or whatever) and, fully in view of everyone, but more importantly the cameras, he fell asleep, shook himself awake, fell asleep, shook himself awake, and fell asleep again. Check out the video here: http://www.nypost.com/video/?vxSiteId=0db7b365-a288-4708-857b-8bdb545cbd0f&vxChannel=NY%20Post&vxClipId=1458_227094&vxBitrate=700

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