DANIEL ROBERT EPSTEIN, 1975 - 2007, RIP

Sad news runs across the net today with the reported death of pop culture genius, Daniel Robert Epstein. It's been reported that the master interviewer was found in his Astoria, NY home this morning, cause of death yet unknown. Epstein was only 31 years old.

I didn't know Dan Epstein, but I felt like I did, from reading countless interviews that he posted all over the web, from Newsarama to Suicide Girls to UnderGroundOnline.

The astonishing number of interviews that Epstein posted was only rivaled by the truly unbelievable quality of those interviews. Truly a pop culture aficionado, Epstein could post an interview on Suicide Girls with Lady Sovereign and then follow it a few hours later with mini-comics phenom, Kevin Huizenga. From Marty Krofft to Stan Lee to Gerard Butler to Al Franken to Travis Barker to Lily Tomlin, Epstein covered them all.

And not one of those interviews was ever boring, they were never trite, never predictable. He made the interviews conversations. He made the subject comfortable and the reader intrigued.

Daniel Robert Epstein will be missed.

Here is a much more eloquent note on his passing.

Go here for a brief sampling of his Suicide Girls interviews.

Probably the last interview that Dan did, with Ghost Rider director Mark Steven Johnson. (via Newsarama)

An interview with one of my favorite genre/cult actors Ron Perlman. (via Newsarama)

DON HO 1930-2007

Hawaiian crooner Don Ho passed away from heart failure this morning following several years of battling various heart ailments. Ho, for the past four decades wearing his trademark raspberry tinted sunglasses, had entertained hundreds of thousands of visitors at his Waikiki show - an evening of songs, jokes, Hawaiian history, double entendres and audience participation.


Ho was best known for his most famous song, Tiny Bubbles. In addition to his name being synonymous with the Waikiki entertainment scene, Ho also hosted ABC's the Don Ho Show from 1976 to 1977 and appeared on the famous Hawaii episodes of The Brady Bunch. His daughter, Hoku, is also a pop music performer.

THE LINER NOTES OF TINY BUBBLES
Author Unknown

DON HO has become more than a bit of a legend. At Duke's in Hawaii he's a bigger tourist draw than Mauna Loa. His seductive voice has laid more people out flat than the sands of Waikiki. London may be where "it's happening," but Honolulu, hun, is where it's getting done.

Don Ho's doing it...packing them in, swinging some songs, getting everybody to suck 'em up to the point of no return. He looks and sounds as if he's grooming himself to star in "The Return of the Sybarite." The hard life, Ho style: getting a little juiced, singing the good songs, getting nuzzled by the visiting ladies, making a good buck.

The Mainland is slowly but surely coming 'round. Don Ho is breaking down a couple of centuries of Puritanism quicker than a missionary can say, "Now girls, on with your T-shirts."

If there's going to be an Ambassador of Ho for the Mainland, it'll probably be H.B. Barnum, the spectacularly talented young man from California who flew over to Hawaii, dug, dug some more, had a couple more Mai Tais, really dug some more, then flew back to the Mainland before it all got the better of him. His assignment: write the arrangements for Don Ho.

Don Ho came to Hollywood to record this album. The sound and the excitement should please longtime Don Ho fans. It should knock down and drag around three times anyone who's never been near the Don Ho magic. With the aid of an augmented orchestra and a sneaky little group of girls who keep putting delights behind Don's voice, Don Ho pulls off his most "with it" album to date.

If you thought Don Ho swung, then listen again. Lolled in a Hollywood recording studio. In white pants and boots. His velour shirt tossed over his shoulders. His thick black hair falling like a palm frond over his forehead. Grinning, relaxing, concentrating, grooving. A different kind of Don Ho session, producing a new kind of Don Ho music.

From Tiny Bubbles grows much music.

The final part of my tribute to Don Ho is a nice oddity. It's an animated music video of Don Ho covering Peter Gabriel's Shock The Monkey.

KURT VONNEGUT 1922-2007

From Back to School (1986):

DIANE

And whoever actually wrote that paper doesn't
know the first thing about Kurt Vonnegut.

CUT TO:

Thornton is on the phone.

THORNTON

And another thing Vonnegut, I'm cancelling
the check.

(beat)

Fuck me?

(beat)

Hey Kurt, you read lips? Fuck you!

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
1922-2007

Vonnegut was the influential author of over 19 satirical novels including the Slaughterhouse Five, Cat's Cradle, Breakfast of Champions and Mother Night. He also had a brilliant cameo as himself opposite Rodney Dangerfield in Back to School, but I doubt he found it as amusing as I did.

BOB CLARK 1941-2007

The Los Angeles Times reports that director Bob Clark passed away, the result of a car accident along the Pacific Coast Highway early Wednesday morning. Despite an eclectic career in the film industry, Clark directed and wrote several films for which will always be remembered.

Among his Clark's finest work:

Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things (1972) Several friends dig up a corpse, using it in a Satanic ritual to resurrect the dead. Clark was to start filming a remake this Spring.

Black Christmas (1974) The first slasher film and precursor to John Carpenter's Halloween. This recently remade film told the story of a sorority house terrorized by a maniac during the holidays.

Murder By Decree (1979) Sherlock Holmes fights Jack the Ripper.

Rhinestone (1984) Sylvester Stallone and Dolly Parton in a rip-roaring musical!

See Sly Sing!!!



In 1982, Clark made a film that he had worked on for fifteen years. The story turned out to be a composite of tales he had heard intertwined with some of his own personal memories of growing up in high school. The film went on to be the third highest grossing film of 1982 and will soon be released on dvd with a new special edition. The film, is the very funny teen comedy, PORKY'S!


Enjoy a very funny and most likely NOT SAFE FOR WORK clip:




And finally, the best for last.

Porky's success gave Clark the power to make his next film, a pet project based on humorist Jean Shepherd's novel, In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash.

The film, which was released just prior to Thanksgiving, was a sleeper hit, and has been referenced as a direct influence on both South Park and The Wonder Years. Over the last several years, the film has become a true holiday classic, originally airing nightly over twelve days, and now airing in twenty-four hour marathons. With Darren McGavin as the Old Man and Peter Billingsley as the hero, Ralphie Parker, Clark's A Christmas Story, has become a true holiday classic.

Enjoy some of A Christmas Story's most beloved moments:













From the 2003 dvd release party of A Christmas Story: Special Edition: R.D. Robb (Schwartz), Ian Petrella (Randy Parker), Peter Billingsley (Ralphie), Bob Clark, Scott Schwartz (Flick) and Zack Ward (Scut Farkus)

THE GOOD BATMAN ARTIST

Marshall Rogers 1950-2007

Fellow FOG!-ger Ryan Jackson covered the passing of comic book artist Marshall Rogers earlier today, but I had a few thoughts that I didn't want to bury in a comment.

Marshall Rogers had a profound influence on my childhood even though I didn't know his name until many years later. I just thought that he was the "Good Batman artist".

I used to spend time in the summer with my father's brother and his family in Gloucester, Massachusetts. My dad was a voracious reader, and I would occasionally get the opportunity to accompany him to a small bookstore downtown (The B&B if I remember correctly). There I got countless Treasury Editions, the original Marvel paperback reprints and a slew of comics, from Justice League of America to Richie Rich.


As I write this, I'm looking at a framed copy of one of those issues that I devoured as a child, Detective Comics #472. This particular issue blew my mind with an intense splash page of The Batman removing his mask to reveal his Bruce Wayne identity and then, removing Wayne's face to reveal the diabolical Dr. Hugo Strange. Marshall Rogers drew that issue, collaborating with Steve Engleheart and Terry Austin. Over the years as I tracked down many of Rogers' Batman issues, I've been pleasantly surprised to realize that I had read many of them as a child and that little story or art quirks had burned themselves onto my brain.

Marshall Rogers work on Batman confirmed him as my favorite Batman artist of all time (closely followed by Dick Sprang, David Mazzucchelli and Alan Davis, all of whom offer quite different interpretations.)

His Batman stalked the rooftops of Gotham, in vigilant pursuit of his Rogues gallery of villains; swinging across the rooftops of his Gotham City, a stunning interpretation of a modern metropolis with nods to the past (like the giant Sprang-esque typewriter in "Deadshot's Revenge").

In my opinion, his work was never as good as his short run on Detective Comics. His Batman was heroic; His Joker was frightening; His Silver St. Cloud, beautiful; His Gotham City a stunning interpretation of a modern metropolis with nods to the past (like the giant Sprang-esque typewriter in "Deadshot's Revenge").

And his comics, unforgettable.

MARSHALL ROGERS, 1950-2007

While few details are available at this time, the great comic artist, Marshall Rogers, has passed away. The trained architect turned comics penciller was only 57 years old.

One of the most definitive Batman artists of all time, he is best known for his run on Detective Comics with writer Steve Englehart in the late 1970s. Rogers was also highly-acclaimed for work he did on Mister Miracle, The Silver Surfer and Dr. Strange at Marvel, and most recently, new work with Englehart in the Batman universe with their sequel to their classic 70s run Dark Detective.