Cleaning out the inbox: Non-Sports Passings

There has been such a sad run of people of note that have passed away that I had enough for a football-only post and for a non-sports version along with yet another sports version when I have time.

If you have been around long enough to notice, I'm sure that you see the trend that I write a lot during football season, a reasonable amount in the three winter months and whenever I have the time during the baseball season, so as Jim Ross used to yell on Mid-South Wrestling- Business is about to pick up.

Goodbye to Rob Garrison at the age of 59.

Garrison portrayed "Tommy" of the Cobra Kai in the original Karate Kid film and uttered the one line that, among the many that became part of pop culture from the film, is remembered most.

As a battered Daniel LaRusso was whacked around the mat by the superior skills of John Lawrence, it was Garrison as Tommy that stood behind the inspirational leadership of Sensei John Kreese and shrieked "GET HIM A BODY BAG, YEAHHHHH!"

Garrison would appear with Cobra Kai members in the music video "Sweep the Leg" by No More Kings and of course, would repeat his trademark phrase (at 5;53 of the video, if interested)

Garrison appeared in an episode of the YouTube series "Cobra Kai" (which is excellent by the way) during its second season and was scheduled to return for the upcoming season three.

If you've known me, I'd be stunned if you didn't know what a huge fan of the film and the Cobra Kai that I am and I have often said if there ever was an event that I could get to that had all of the Cobra Kai members available, I'd go for a picture with all them/

Garrison and others were at the Pittsburgh comic convention last year, but all of them were not in attendance, so I didn't go and now a full reunion will never happen.

Goodbye to Aron Eisenberg at the age of 50.

As a Star Trek fan, I've always thought that Deep Space Nine was the best of the Trek spinoffs shows and yet often isn't mentioned when Star Trek shows are discussed by the casual watcher.

Eisenberg portrayed Nog, the delinquent station runabout that becomes the first Ferengi to enter Starfleet.

The character evolved over the seven-year arc of the show (Arguably too much, but that's a minor quibble), but Eisenberg played the role well and didn't become an annoying presence as so many supporting characters can be.

The diminutive Eisenberg had only one functioning kidney and as a result, would have his height slowed and resulted in his height stopping at 4'11.

Eisenberg didn't stop acting after DS9, but would also own his own photography studio.

Goodbye to Cokie Roberts at the age of 75.

Roberts was a longtime political reporter and commentator, working for National Public Radio for over forty years and for ABC News for over thirty years as well.

Roberts was often recognized as one of the female trailblazers in Washington journalism, winning several awards including the Edward R, Murrow award for contributions to public radio and the Walter Cronkite Award for excellence in journalism.

Both of Roberts's parents represented Louisiana in the House of Representatives as her father Hale Boggs was the Majority Leader in 1972 (Boggs served 15 terms over two tenures) when his plane disappeared over Alaska, and her mother Lindy Boggs would succeed her late husband and serve for eight terms.

Goodbye to Rick Bognar at the age of 49.

Bognar was a professional wrestler that was best remembered for a failed run in the then-WWF in the late 90s.

In 1996, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash had left the WWF to move to WCW and even though the WWF couldn't stop the pair from going to the competing organization, however, they could stop them from using the wrestling names that they used for the WWF in "Razor Ramon" and "Diesel" as those were trademarked by their company.

In an ill-advised decision, the company attempted to emulate soap operas, which often slide a new actor into an existing role in their program with a one time voice over acknowledgment of the new actor playing the character and then move along as nothing had changed.

Bognar was installed as "Razor Ramon" and Glen Jacobs (who would reach stardom later as "Kane")

would be inserted into the position as "Diesel"

The pair were quickly dubbed by fans as "Fake Razor" and "Fake Diesel", but the experiment was a huge failure and would last just a few months before being dropped. 

Bognar would injure his neck in Japan in 1998, which for the most part ended his career, although he still would wrestle occasionally in Japan and his native Canada using the name "Rick Titan", which played off the Razor character to a certain degree.

Cleaning out the inbox-Non-Sports Edition

The Non-Sports Edition of the inbox sometimes is one of our least read versions.
We've also had a few that exploded in views, so it's hard to tell just what will hit and what will miss, but it gives me a chance to write about something other than sports, which is always a nice change of pace.

I wrote years ago about Floyd Lawton- Deadshot in the Suicide Squad and my favorite character, but I've never written about my second favorite Squad character, who is very close to Floyd, Count Vertigo.
I might write a Vertigo post over the off-season but for now, the blog Sequential Pictures has a deeper look at the Count and just why he's the "hero at heart" of the Squad.

You wouldn't select Sports Illustrated as the most likely landing spot for an oral history of the Karate Kid, but that's where that article landed and it's interesting to read if you are a mega-fan like me or just a casual fan.
Most of the stars and co-stars in the film were spoken with for the piece and I really enjoyed it.
I found the potential casting sheets to be very interesting and I also liked the discussion on how the Cobra Kai gang were kept away from Ralph Macchio even on the set to build the tension naturally to be used in the film.

I'm not really a Will Ferrell fan.
Honestly, I've found his supporting characters (Ashley Schaffer in Eastbound and Down and Chaz in Wedding Crashers) to be far funnier than movies that are based around his starring characters.
However, there is one exception-Step Brothers, which ranks very high in my all-time favorite comedies.
Farrell is funny in this, along with John C. Reilly, who I've always been a fan (I thought Walk Hard-the Dewey Cox story was hilarious, which I have found few that agree with me) of and have always thought that there is still comedy gold to be mined from "Dale and Brennan".
The Ringers writes an oral history of Step Brothers and again, whether a fan or not, it's interesting to read how these films come to be made.

The lovely Cherie sent the next two notes of interest to me for the inbox, the first of which is from Weather Nation and discusses just how a brief torrential downpour can result in a major flash flood as has happened twice in the last three years in Ellicott City, Maryland.
It gives plenty of charts and graphs, looks at just how an area can be so clogged in a small area and cause so much damage.
It also looks at just how deceiving the term "thousand-year storm" can be and just how often these events can occur.

Cherie's other link comes from Mother Nature Network and the loss of thirteen Bald Eagles recently in Maryland.
Apparently, the birds ate a raccoon that had been poisoned and then the drug Carbofuran was ingested by the Eagles.
Carbofuran is supposedly banned from the U.S since it is toxic to birds, yet it was here anyway.
Maryland natural resources claimed that this was the largest single eagle die-off in the last thirty years.

Frank Bruni of the New York Times talks to Maryland Governor Larry Hogan about whether the Republican Party belongs to the more traditional Republicans such as Hogan or to the Donald Trump influencers.
I'm pretty middle of the road politically, but I think Hogan has been the best governor that Maryland has had in years and he deserves re-election.

Still more to come soon!