Tag: RIP

Mork and Happier Days

The world is saddened today by the news that Robin Williams has passed away. He was such a part of our lives that everyone has their own favorite movie scenes or performances, and I cannot add much that you already do not know or that you cannot find elsewhere.

But Williams is one of the few performers where I remember the first moment I saw him. And I was blown away. As a kid turning on Happy Days, a show that was in its fifth season and showing signs of old age, I suddenly saw something completely new. This strange alien character called Mork and the actor playing him was one of the funniest things I had ever seen. The next day at school, everyone was talking about him and his appearance on the Happy Days episode called “My Favorite Orkan.” Here is a scene with Henry Winkler as Fonzie and Robin Williams as Mork.

Robin Williams and Mork, of course, got their own spinoff series which I followed until that one went into its own old age. In many ways, I feel Williams and I grew up together, as I enjoyed his juvenile antics but then got to appreciate his more serious adult work in movies I’ve written about in different contexts like Dead Poets Society (1989), Insomnia (2003), and the underrated World’s Greatest Dad (2009).

It is very sad to hear how he passed, but I am very thankful he lived and gave us so much. Rest in Peace. Na-nu Na-nu.

What is your first memory of Robin Williams? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Blues Legend Johnny Winter Live in Copenhagen

    Blues guitarist and singer Johnny Winter has passed away in Switzerland at the age of 70. During his lifetime, he made some great music, including this wonderful full show from Copenhagen in 1970. Check it out.

    For more on Winter, check out this story on NPR. RIP.

    What is your favorite Johnny Winter performance? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Charlie Haden’s “Spiritual”

    haden The great jazz bassist Charlie Haden has passed away at the age of 76 after a prolonged illness. Haden had a long and influential career, including being a part of the Ornette Coleman Quartet starting in the late 1950s and a part of the Liberation Music Orchestra starting in the late 1960s. Haden made the world a better place in other ways too, as a teacher and as an advocate for social justice.

    As a teenager, Haden lost his singing voice from bulbar polio while he was playing in a family country band, so he turned his focus to playing bass. The country influence stayed with the Iowa-born Haden on much of his music, including 2008’s Rambling Boy album, even as he became a groundbreaker in a number of genres.

    One of my favorite albums is the Grammy-winning Beyond The Missouri Sky (Short Stories) (1996), where Haden and guitarist Pat Metheny created some of the most haunting and beautiful country-infused jazz music ever recorded. “Spiritual,” one of the tracks on the album was written by Haden’s son Josh Haden. Although I also would later fall in love with the Johny Cash version that included the lyrics, this instrumental version still breaks my heart every time I hear it.

    The same disease that took away Haden’s voice and forced him to turn to the bass eventually affected his playing. In 2010, due to post-polio syndrome, Haden stopped performing in public even though he continued to play at home and with friends. The disease, however, could never take away the beautiful recordings that Haden made during his lifetime. For more on Haden’s life, check out these articles from Variety and the New York Times. RIP.

    Photo via Geert Vandepoele (Creative Commons).What is your favorite Charlie Haden track? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Maya Angelou’s Best Advice

    Poet and author Maya Angelou has passed away at the age of 86. In this video, the poet who has dispensed wisdom in numerous ways, discusses the best advice she has ever given and the best advice she has ever received. Check it out.

    When she speaks of forgiveness, she speaks from experience, having experienced horrible trauma as a child. Through her struggles, she helped make us better. Rest in peace.

    Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Ruben “Hurricane” Carter “in a Land Where Justice Is a Game”

    The arrest and conviction of former boxer Ruben “Hurricane” Carter inspired one of Bob Dylan’s great protest songs and an award-winning performance by Denzel Washington.

    Hurricane Ruben “Hurricane” Carter, who had been suffering from prostate cancer,  passed away on April 20, 2014 at the age of 76. Carter, who was born on May 6, 1937 in New Jersey, was a former boxer who was accused of murder in 1966.

    Carter spent 19 years in prison in New Jersey before a court reversed his conviction in 1985 and set him free.  His story inspired a great Bob Dylan song and a movie starring Denzel Washington.  While both the song and the movie took some liberties with Carter’s story, they both captured truths about the criminal justice system.

    Bob Dylan’s “Hurricane”

    Carter’s case became a rallying cry for the Civil Rights Movement.  Bob Dylan and Jacques Levy wrote a song about the wrongful conviction.  And then Dylan released “Hurricane” as a single in November 1975.

    Dylan played what many fans consider his last great protest song during almost every performance of the 1975 Rolling Thunder tour. “Hurricane” went on to become a top 40 hit, despite its length and level of detail in telling a story.

    Denzel Washington’s Hurricane

    Ruben Carter’s life appeared in a major film too.  In 1999, Denzel Washington portrayed Carter in the movie Hurricane, which was directed by Norman Jewison.

    Washington gave a wonderful performance as Carter, winning a Golden Globe and earning a nomination for the Best Actor Academy Award.  In this scene near the end of the film, Denzel Washington as Carter makes a final plea to the court.

    The Real Story

    The movie and the song took some dramatic license with the facts of Carter’s life. For example, many noted that Dylan’s song overstated Carter’s ranking in the boxing world (“He could-a been/ The champion of the world”).

    Further, some critics argue that the song and movie made Carter too much of a saint and martyr.  Even Carter revealed a more complex story in his own autobiography written in prison, The Sixteenth Round: From Number 1 Contender to Number 45472, and later in a 2011 autobiography, Eye of the Hurricane: My Path from Darkness to Freedom.

    Ultimately, the federal judge who reversed Carter’s conviction noted the unjust role of race in the case. And, like all folk songs, the message of Dylan’s song became important on its own.  Although the singer tells a story about one man, the song told the truth about wider problems in the criminal justice system.

    After getting out of prison, Carter devoted his life to helping people in prison who were wrongfully convicted. From 1993 until 2005, he worked as Executive Director of the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted, and he founded a nonprofit organization, Innocence International. RIP.

    Photo of Carter in 1958 via public domain.

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