Celebrity Deaths Just Won’t Be The Same

One thing I miss is my Dad’s signature Celebrity & Persons of Note Death Report & Tally. I would call or he would call and one of the first things said would always be: “I’ve got some sad news…”

I became conditioned into not being worried, as most people automatically would with that as the start of a sentence because, eventually, I learned that this was how the regular Celebrity & Persons of Note Death Report & Tally started.

“Guess who died,” he would say.
I would already know the answer because the Innanet tells me news like 2 minutes after it happens but I would always play along and pretend I didn’t know. “Who?”
“You remember that movie with so-and-so?” he would ask.
“Yeah, that guy died?”
“No. The woman who played the mother.”
“Oh, well OK,” and then we would move on.

But Pat Morita, Innanet! Pat Morita’s death would have been a H-U-G-E thing for my Dad to report and he missed it. You don’t get it. H A A A A A A A A A - U U U U G E.

Why Pat Morita? Because Pat Morita is only Mr. Miyagi and Mr. Miyagi is, well, I don’t need to explain, do I? For the kids out there, Mr. Miyagi is only the best part about one of Dad’s favorite movies of all time ever in the history of ever and forever.

Dads have a way of latching on to some of the stupidest movies that they’ll watch over and over when they pop up at random times on cable. Two of my Dad’s clear favorites: The Karate Kid and Die Hard. Me being a Dad for over two years now, my taste in movies should slowly be starting to dull, no? What ever happened to that Police Academy series of movies anyway? That franchise still has some life left in it.

So Dad would have probably made a special phone call, even have left a message on my machine, just to tell me that Pat Morita died. That’s how huge a scoop that would have been.

But oh no, Dad passes first, leaving Mr. Miyagi’s death only to remind me that, not only is Dad gone, but so too is the weekly Celebrity & Persons of Note Death Report & Tally that I never cared much for before but now kind of miss.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 30th, 2005 at 8:22 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.