Tag: eulogy

Happy Trails, Mt. Mutombo

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It might not be one of my most prevalent Dannyhong-isms, like Sonny Chiba, lobsters and truckloads full of food spilling onto Georgia highways, but I’ve always been a big fan of Dikembe Mutombo, and hold him in a similar esteem as I do a lot of the random things that I’m fiercely devoted to.  So to hear about his unfortunate passing at just the age of 58, genuinely, really makes me sad and regardless of the fact that the Braves miraculously managed to eke their way into the playoffs on this bonus day of baseball, I still consider the day completely ruined on the news of Mutombo.

Admittedly, a lot of my earliest fandoms of Dikembe were along the lines of irony and stemmed mostly from the fact that he had a name that sounded silly to my American ears, and teenage me would butcher it in all sorts of ways, but still be picking the Denver Nuggets in NBA Jam, because Mutombo had a max stat in defense, and Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf had a max stat in three-pointers, and they were a way better team than most realized.

But also, being a Georgetown guy, he was somewhat local to where I had grown up, and thanks to the fact that I was a Knicks fan, which meant I was a Patrick Ewing fan, which meant that I knew all about his history, including Georgetown, and along with Alonzo Mourning, I had an interest in him early on.  Among the numerous great stories about Mutombo that will surely bubble up in the wake of his passing, one of the funniest ones will be how he would go into local area bars, and in his big booming, accented voice, query to female patrons, “WHO WANTS TO SEX THE MUTOMBO?”

Irony aside, in 1994 I became an actual fan of Dikembe Mutombo the basketball player, when in the playoffs, he led the #8 seed Denver Nuggets to become the first #8 seed to topple a #1 seed, when they defeated the 64-win Seattle Supersonics in five games.  Seriously, Mutombo’s defense was other-worldly during this series, and he swatted 31 blocks in the five games, which is about a third of what the best defenders in the league were doing in 82.

Rudy Gobert is a stalwart defender today, but Dikembe’s performance in the 94 first round is a true masterclass of defense, and watching a man go from blocking a few shots, to completely rendering an opposing offense petrified of going into the paint, lest Mutombo block another shot or two.  Even beasts like Shawn Kemp and the 6’10 Detlef Schrempf were turned into Muggsy Bogues under the living tree that was Mt. Mutombo guarding the rim.

I’d always followed his career, from where he basically had a second home when he was traded to the Atlanta Hawks, and became a perennial all-star for them, and some more playoff successes, in spite of never winning a championship himself.  And no matter where he landed, I was always willing to cheer for the guy, even when playing for teams like the 76ers, Nets, Rockets and even the Knicks.

However, as incredible of a basketball career Dikembe had, what’s more important is the fact that he will always be remembered as a true humanitarian, who was always at the forefront of NBA charitable initiatives.  The man was always involved in charitable efforts, especially when they pertained to matters in Africa, and the Congo native never, ever missed any chance to give back to his home.  The man basically built a hospital completely out of his own pocket.  He suited up with Hakeem Olajuwon in 2015 to play in the first NBA (exhibition) game in the continent of Africa despite the fact that both were long past their playing days, but it was way too historic and important of a game for them to not participate.

And I can’t talk about Dikembe Mutombo without bringing up his Geico commercial, which is one of the greatest commercials of all time.  Oh, and his partnership with Old Spice, where he was the star of his very own 8-bit video game, Dikembe Mutombo’s 4.5 Weeks to Save the World.

Like a guy like Sonny Chiba was to my life, Dikembe Mutombo wasn’t just a person, a basketball player, a humanitarian, a meme; he was in a way, a way of life.  I’ve always tried to give defense the respect it deserves in sport, and I always put a lot of personal weight in good deeds and humanitarian efforts.  Mutombo’s name is one that’s always at the top of mind when coming up with names for use in video games, trivia names.  His iconic finger wag, and quotes like “NO NO NO” or “NOT IN MY HOUSE” are used without concern or care if anyone knows where they stem from or not.

It’s cliché to say that a piece of one’s self is killed when an important person, place, or thing is ended, but in the case of Dikembe Mutombo, I do feel like a little piece of me, and probably everyone else who thought highly of him, died a little bit today.  But a guy as influential as Dikembe Mutombo was, it should be easy to keep his memory alive, with stuff as simple as finger wags or quotes, of a guy that the world simply did not deserve.

The world no longer has the greatest living center alive

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

RIP: Bill Walton passes away at the age of 71

I don’t even remember who preceded Bill Walton on the NBA on NBC broadcasts throughout the 90s, but when I had really gotten into basketball, my memories of watching hoops always had the voice of Marv Albert and someone else in it.  Maybe it was Paul Westphal or Doug Collins, I don’t remember, but what I do remember is when Bill Walton joined Marv Albert behind the desk, and the two of them commentated on some of the greatest games of basketball I’ve ever watched.

I didn’t know really anything about Bill Walton when he took over the broadcasting duties, except for the fact that he was a former NBA player from yesteryear.  I didn’t know that he was some beatnik hippie player who played for the Portland Trailblazers and the Boston Celtics, and I frankly didn’t know anything about his career, playstyle or any remote idea of his general numbers.  The internet didn’t really exist then, much less have an online database where I can satiate any curiosity of any player of any time in history these days.

Honestly, at first, I found Walton to be kind of obnoxious, from his nasal-ey voice, tendency to go off on tangents about things that weren’t basketball, and inject a little too much opinion and editorial into his commentating style.  I didn’t need to hear about the famines in Sri Lanka, while I’m sitting at the edge of my seat watching Patrick Ewing trying to come out victorious over the Indiana Pacers.  I didn’t need to hear about how he was happier being the greatest sixth man ever for the Celtics instead of being the star in Portland when I was amped up watching Anfernee Hardaway prepare for some last second heroics against the Hakeem Olajuwon and the Houston Rockets.

But as the years passed, the sound of Bill Walton grew into a familiar comfort, and as I grew older and my general brain began to expand, the things he would drone on and on about during the span of a basketball game became entertaining.  Especially when while he was doing it, Marv Albert was being the studious straight man calling the action to the book, along with his iconic YESSSS calls whenever Michael Jordan drilled a fadeaway in John Starks’ face.

One of my favorite Bill Walton cliches, before the phrase meme even came into existence, were all the times throughout the decade where Walton would make remarks or insinuations that he was a better center than Shaquille O’Neal.  Which was laughable, considering Walton was a lanky white guy who excelled at set play team basketball while Shaq was probably the single greatest dominating physical force in the history of the game, but it never stopped old Bill Walton from trying to hint that he was always a better player than him, mostly because of his superior free throw percentage and ability to pass the ball.

My friends and I would often do bad impressions of Bill Walton whenever we talked hoops, and it always boiled down to a caricature quote of him saying:

I know a better center than Shaq.  Me.

Oh and how we ended up loving Bill Walton in the end.  Eventually, NBC would foolishly lose the license to the NBA, and it would be quite some time before Bill Walton would be back in the booth with any regularity, and by then, I had already long phased out of my love for hoops, the NBA and having time in general to watch basketball.

But I have memories as recent as just a few years ago, of where Bill Walton was doing some guest commentary during a college basketball game, and in true classic Bill Walton, the man would just not shut the fuck up about topics that had to do with anything other than basketball, like some of the turmoil going on in Syria or some other third world country.  The guy doing the play-by-play was probably getting annoyed, but I definitely was enjoying it the whole time, because despite the fact that time had aged and eroded Bill Walton physically, he was still the same beatnik underneath it all, and his past basketball accolades always got him in the door to be on television to talk about absolutely anything but basketball; during basketball games.

At 71 years of age, the man had lived a fairly full life, close to general life expectancy.  Probably a lot of the psychedelic drugs he did as a devout Dead Head probably shaved a few years off, but it’s probably hard to argue that he didn’t live his life to the fullest.  It does make me sad to learn that the greatest living center is no longer among us, and he clearly impacted my life to the point where his passing warrants a post in the brog.

Happy trails, Bill Walton – you certainly were a better center than Shaq was, at quite a few things.

Happy trails, Virgil

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Lonely no more: Mike Jones, better known as former WWE wrestler, Virgil, passes away at the age of 61

I know it seems like every single wrestler from yesteryear that passes away was a favorite of mine in some way shape or fashion, and after twenty years of brogging, there’s no shortage of wrestler eulogies that I’ve written in my own way, at this point.

But Virgil, this guy, was truly a guy that I can’t say was necessarily a favorite of mine, but he was something of an icon in his own way, that I was fixated with, pretty much from the time I learned of his existence until the day he passed.

When I first got into wrestling, a lot of it had to do with the fact that I actually got into a WWF video game first, the arcade version of WWF Superstars, before I actually parlayed it into indulging in the real life variant of the game on television, into the life-long fandom that still maintain today. 

In the game, the final bosses were the tag team of “Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase and Andre the Giant; but before you actually started playing against them, there’s like a 12-second cutscene prior to the match where you see “Mean Gene” Okerlund interviewing both DiBiase and Andre, but also standing with them was a jacked black guy in a shiny tuxedo counting money.

When I started watching wrestling, and the first time I laid eyes on the real-life Million Dollar Man, sure enough, there was the same jacked black guy accompanying him, holding the money, and that was when I first learned of the existence of the real-life Virgil.

Little did I know that he was named Virgil, as a personal attack from Vince McMahon to rival promoter/booker/wrestler Dusty Rhodes, whose real name was actually Virgil, and in only a manner that could come from Vince McMahon, he slapped basically a slave persona onto a black man and called him Virgil.

But throughout the years, it became quickly apparent that despite Virgil’s imposing stature and menacing scowl, he was tantamount to the WWF’s punching bag to the stars, and in just a few short years of getting into wrestling, I’d seen Virgil get his ass beat by Hulk Hogan, the Ultimate Warrior, Macho Man Randy Savage, and Hacksaw Jim Duggan among others.  He was a jobber before I even knew what a jobber was, a term I wouldn’t learn until like 12 years later.

Continue reading “Happy trails, Virgil” →

Happy Trails, Bob and Arleen

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Talk about an absolutely brutal week as far as fandoms, nostalgia and symbols of millennial childhood go.  Wrestling fans had to endure the passing of a legend, and a sudden departure of a star that wasn’t anywhere near the heights he was destined for, but then fans of the same television I grew up watching had to bear witness as a legend passed, and an icon that defined basically an entire television series.

I don’t particularly have a ton to say about Bob Barker or Arleen Sorkin, at least nothing new from one of the many countless tributes on the internet there are for either of them, but it hit me enough in the feels when both of them left us to where I still feel like at the very least, documenting it in my own brog to try and emphasize at the very least, my appreciation for them and what they did.

Obviously, at 99 years of age, it’s easy to say that Bob Barker did not leave us to soon, and he most definitely lived a full and successful life and career.  Cue the bittersweet jokes about how if anyone was going to ace the big wheel game of getting as close to 100 without going over, it’s Bob Barker.

But like many, the OG Price Is Right was the show that we all watched when we were home sick from school, or over summer vacations, because at least where I grew up, it was always on at 11 am, obviously not a time in which we could watch it at school.  But Bob Barker’s talent was so effortlessly immense that it didn’t matter if you were nine years old, 29 years old, 59 years old or 79 years old, his delivery, his smooth on-screen charisma and charm made him watchable, made him entertaining and made the show the legendary program it was, all because of him.

I always enjoyed watching the show, playing along with the showcase, screaming at the television when contestants didn’t ever seem to realize that the items on the show were always marked up 5000% and undershot their estimates, and of course loved Plinko.

Drew Carey’s variant of the show is garbage in comparison, and as far as I’m concerned, the show ended when Bob Barker retired.  There was once an incident where a contestant hit the nail on the head in the final showdown at the end of the show, and Drew Carey immediately deadpanned him and killed the episode, because he thought that the guy must have been cheating; most everyone was quick to point out that if that had happened under Bob Barker’s watch, he would have sold it like the greatest achievement of mankind, and made it into a memorable event. 

There are just some things that can never be replaced, and Bob Barker is most definitely one of them.  The show is better off discontinuing, than to let Drew Carey sink the prestige and equity that Bob built with his legendary run.

Continue reading “Happy Trails, Bob and Arleen” →

Happy Trails, Windham Rotunda

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Talk about a brutal week for the wrestling business; losing a genuine icon, legend and forefather of the industry on one day, and then losing one of the most captivating and yet to be fully untapped stars of today, very much in the category of having gone way too soon, in Windham Rotunda, whom most people know primarily as Bray Wyatt.

I’m very deliberate in using his real name over Bray Wyatt, because with no disrespect to the the departed, I can’t say that I was really ever that big of a fan of Bray Wyatt.  The whole supernatural character is something that I’m clearly not in the right demographic to really be a fan of.  And as much as I did like the originality and intrigue he brought to the table earlier in his run as Bray Wyatt, I do think his whole character evolution went from weird to progressively weirder and more bizarre, and not in good ways either.

I loved the whole creepy southern gothic cult leader of the original Bray Wyatt persona, but then that it literally killed by Randy Orton in storyline.  The eventual return of the split personality, super-positive and cheerful Bray Wyatt compared to the emergence of the demonic Fiend started off well enough in my opinion, but when he started up with brainwashing Alexa Bliss and being basically unkillable against Seth Rollins but then getting squashed by fucking Goldberg, I was kind of losing my shine to the character as a whole.  Ironically, this too was killed by Randy Orton in storyline.

Which brings us to his final incarnation and last stint with the company, kind of this strange amalgamation of Bray Wyatt who is kind of good, but kind of dark, with the Field still lurking around, but then the introduction of Uncle Howdy, and I’m just kind of like wtf is all this bullshit now.  At this point, I was no longer a fan of the Bray Wyatt universe, and I likened him to being like, Randy Orton, as in a guy whom with once you get tangled up with in storyline, you’re stuck with it for like 3-5 months of having to play scared patron to a haunted house, and barely a professional wrestler anymore.

It was actually during his feud with LA Knight, that I realized that I was starting to become impressed with LA Knight, seeing as how his whole tenure prior, ol’ Eli Drake wasn’t impressing me at all, but while feuding with Bray Wyatt, I found LA Knight to be a shining beacon of charisma and promo school, and even though he was getting his ass kicked and having creepy shit thrown at his character for three months, he was absolutely killing it on the mic, and even though he lost the feud, he clearly won over a lot of fans, seeing as how over he is with the WWE Universe currently.

I just felt that Bray Wyatt was a character that was clearly not geared for people my old age, and is clearly meant to capture the imaginations of those who are in “the demos” that the professional wrestling industry tries their hardest to cater to, children, and the vaunted 18-35 male range.  Aside from such, I just felt that a supernatural character is among the hardest characters to write and book for, especially when you exist in a universe with MMA converts, European wrestling purists and a Samoan dynasty running roughshod through the rest of the company.

Continue reading “Happy Trails, Windham Rotunda” →

Happy Trails, Kevin Lillard

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I think I can say that I’ve been fortunate that there haven’t been a lot of deaths in my life of people that really, genuinely impacts me.  The passings of figures and celebrities are sad, like when Bobby Heenan or Sonny Chiba passed, but they’re still celebrities to me and I never knew them personally.

But today, I found out that a guy I knew way back from my old convention days passed away, and it definitely was a wtf kind of moment to hear about, and brings me sadness to have learned about it.  Kevin Lillard, a legendary figure to those of us convention going olds from the late 90s into the 2000s, who was a photographer and historian who ran the very well-known Fan’s View website, where he went to a staggering number of conventions every year and basically photographed every single costumer in existence at the time.

Like, a convention wasn’t a convention if Kevin Lillard wasn’t there to document it.  At the time, there were only really like 9-12 conventions a year, and he would somehow go to each and every one of them.  I remember the first time he pulled double duty, and was at one convention on a Friday, and literally flew out Saturday morning so that he could go cover a second convention for the remainder of the weekend.  I was floored, because it was always one of my goals to get him to join my merry group of miscreants for dinner or an off-site outing, because I was a hipster and was always planning on ways to flex being too cool for the conventions, but he was ever the loyal, consistent guy with the press pass who always, always dutifully did his own thing for the sake of his site.

It’s funny looking back, because I really only was hardcore active in the convention scene for like 2-3 years before petering out for the next few before I really kind of stopped going to anime cons outright.  But I can confidently say that I developed a friendly relationship with Kevin throughout those years, and I genuinely liked and cared about the person.  Like many people, I had pored and combed through his site over the years, and even through his non-anime convention stuff, I saw that he had covered an ECW house show at one point, so I knew he had to have had some interest.  In 2000, when my friends and I were planning to go to an ECW show that overlapped with Katsucon, I made a point to lobby hard to Kevin to try and get him to come with us, to which he was interested, but politely declined so that he could document the opening ceremonies instead.

But that was the Kevin Lillard I grew to know; consistent, always friendly and polite, and without question the most unbiased and inclusive person that stepped foot into every single convention he went to.  It didn’t matter if a costumer was a hardcore tryhard cosplayer, or a novice teenager in a cardboard Samus suit, he took everyone’s picture.  He and his camera had the innate ability to make people feel special and confident, and give them something to look forward to later to just know that they were going to be able to find their picture on his website.

I remember the first time he took my photo, I was dressed up as Tasuki with my friends also in Fushigi Yuugi costumes.  I was quite tickled when I found the photo, and throughout the ensuing years, it never didn’t make smile whenever I came across myself, or friends, and to recollect the stories and memories of a convention weekend through his parade of photos.

Through his site, I enjoyed a little bit of convention credibility when he had made me one of his personality of the weeks, and written some nice words about me, and my dedication to going to conventions and having fun at the time, which really touched me, because he was usually a little dry and sarcastic in conversation in person.  I was an antisocial awkward teenager, and his acknowledgment and exposure really did a number for my confidence, and considering there are a lot of people from those days that are still actively in my life today, there’s something to be owed for that.

After the journey of life drifted me away from conventions, I heard bits and pieces of his health and life in general.  When I finally came aboard Facebook much later, I wish I had reconnected with him at some point, but I suppose the opportunity just never presented itself.  I’d probably have loved to have had a conversation with him about the changes of the convention scene that had happened throughout the last 20 years, and gotten his take on, everything, from the sheer number of cons, to the immense growth of the cosplay community and its skill levels.

But would’ve, should’ve, could’ve; things didn’t happen that way, we never reconnected, and now I’ll never get the opportunity.  Such is the nature of living and the passage of time sometimes.  Regardless, it does not make me any less sadder than any of the numerous people who are discovering this unfortunate news today as we all are, and I just wanted to put some words down on brog to express my appreciation for his existence, some positive memories I have of him, and well wishes to whatever happens next in his journey.

Happy trails, Kevin.  It was an honor to have known you, it’s an honor to have a rare copy of your book, and I appreciate all your contributions to a scene and culture that would undoubtedly never grown to its current heights without you.

Happy trails, Batman

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This one really hurts: Kevin Conroy, the voice of Batman from Batman the Animated Series, passes away at the age of 66

I remember I was in the fifth grade when Batman the Animated Series debuted on FOX Kids. It was slotted at 4:30 after Tiny Toons and Animaniacs.  I was dubious about how good it could be, considering it was intended to be a kid-friendly cartoon, and to that point I was already aware that Batman comics were pretty heavy-handed, gritty and violent.

Despite my skepticism, before I knew it, I was hooked on the show, and I was amazed at how the show reimagined the entire property to be kid-friendly but still tell great stories and implement all sorts of Batman expanse and really open my horizons to more characters, villains and arcs.  Without the show, I never would have become as big of a fan of Batman in general.

Before I can go off in the wrong direction with this, it all really started with Kevin Conroy’s performance as both Batman and Bruce Wayne.  Unlike the Adam Wests and Michael Keatons who  portrayed live-speaking Batmans before the cartoon, Conroy transforming his voice to adeptly transition between the two personas really raised the bar of what the character should have always been portrayed like.

It only happened a few times in the life of the show, but I always got a tremendous kick out of whenever Batman in full Batman gear, would use the Bruce Wayne voice, usually over the speaker phone in the Batcave.  And his eyes were always animated more happy and not the angry stern look that Batman typically has, and once the phone calls were terminated, we’d immediately be back to the cold and calculated Batman voice before the episode resumed.

The point of all this is that as far as I’m concerned, Kevin Conroy is to me, truly the one and only Batman, as I am sure he is to all sorts of Batman fans out there that share my sensibilities.  His passing is one that genuinely hurts and really does take chunks of our collective childhoods with him into the grave, because he really was one of the actual voices of my generation’s childhoods.

On a personal level, Kevin Conroy’s passing truly is up there with Sonny Chiba and Bobby Heenan for me. His portrayal of Batman really was one of those things that helped raise and shape me, and there’s a very clear reason why he was always tapped to reprise the role for all sorts of shows and video games, long after the Animated Series had ended its original run.

So happy trails, Mr. Conroy.  You will forever be remembered as the official voice of Batman, and although comics live forever, the world is a poorer place without your talents and legacy.