The co-founder of Baskin-Robbins died at 90. The creator of LSD died at 102. Do I need to start smoking crack?

Momofuku Ando, the creator of Ramen instant noodles, died on Jan. 5, 2007. It was a slow and painful death.

On his death bed, Ando addressed the long-time health critics of his deep-friend instant noodles. “Maybe they were right. Maybe my noodles are unhealthy.” He died soon after less than a century old.

I got really excited when I heard on NPR today that cinematographer Sven Nightfist died. I’ve never heard of him, and I couldn’t understand why as he has the Coolest Name Ever. (True side note: I’ve tried a variety of methods, from deadly serious to comical, to get responses to my email inquiries about rooms for rent, all will little success. My luck did not change with my latest technique: introducing myself as “Phineas HornBlower, Pirate Extraordinaire”.)

Anyway, I couldn’t believe that someone had a name that awesome. If I were Death, I couldn’t kill someone with that cool of a name. Unless I also had a cool name, like Death Rocket Hands the III, esq.

Yet when I got home and searched for “Sven Nightfist” on Google to find a news story on his death (yes, many of the posts I write are supported with a modicum of research) nothing relevant turned up. My first thought: Am I spelling Sven wrong? Is it Swen?

I later found out that I got the boring part right and the interesting part wrong. That happens a lot with me. His true name: Sven Nykvist.

I want to find an audiofile of a newscaster reading his last name because it sounded exactly like Nightfist. In fact, if this guy was so great, why didn’t he change his name to Nightfist himself? The dots were all there. All he had to do was draw the lines.

Well, the Swedes disappointed me again. From Swiss Miss “Hot” Chocolate (there’s not even liquid in the pouches!) to Swedish “fish”, it’s one lie after another with these people.

Does anyone else think that Ken Lay was desperately stuffing his mouth with doughnuts, fried chicken, and molasses for the past three months?

The best time to play a practical joke is on your death bed.

If I have a kid by the time I die, I’m going to call him by my bedside, motion him to lean in, and then whisper in his ear: “You were adopted.” [urrk]

Famous people are lucky. They can play the best jokes on their death bed.

John Glenn: “The moon landing was faked.” [gaarr]

Eric Clapton: “I shot the sheriff.”
Family Member: “We already know that.”
Eric Clapton: “Oh. Well then, I shot Kennedy.” [aaaggg]

George W. Bush: “I peed in the reflecting pool.”
Jenna: “Dad, why are you telling us this?”
George W. Bush: “It’s one of them practical jokes, you see. You tell them right before you die.”
Barbara: “But you’re not about to die. You’re still President of the United States.”
Jenna: “You went jogging this morning.”
George W. Bush: “Damn CIA. Gave me faulty intelligence.”

Snippets from an article on Marlon Brando’s life (July 3, 2004; The Washington Post).

“Mutiny” director Lewis Milestone was one of many directors and studio officials he confounded with his distaste for authority. “Before he would take direction, he would ask why,” Milestone said. “Then when the scene was being shot, he put earplugs in so that he couldn’t hear my direction.”

Starting in the 1960s, Brando became one of the first actor-activists to march for civil and Native American rights. He memorably refused to accept his Oscar for “The Godfather,” protesting what he said was discrimination against Native Americans on film and in government policy.

Instead, he dispatched to the Academy Awards a woman who claimed to be a Native American named Sacheen Littlefeather and read an abridged version of Brando’s 15-page indictment of policies toward the Indians. Later, she was revealed to be an actress named Maria Cruz, winner of the 1970 Miss American Vampire competition.

“Over time, he represented the disintegration of a sex symbol, as his muscular physique crumbled and he ballooned to more than 300 pounds; he often broke his diets by persuading McDonald’s employees to pitch French fries and Big Macs over his fence.”

One of his instructors was Adler, who came from a distinguished family of Yiddish actors. One day in class, she asked her students to imitate chickens in a henhouse who had just learned they were about to be hit with an atomic bomb. While others flailed about, Brando sat still and pretended to lay an egg.

“Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Death.”
“Death wh-AUUGKKK”

Like all my great jokes, that one was inspired by Utah. I’ll get to that in a minute.

I have mixed feelings about the death penalty. It reduces our ability to be compassionate, but maybe this is a worthy price for retribution. I’ve noticed though that the death penalty debate is no longer about morality vs. justice. The yardstick is which method would make the criminal suffer more. During the D.C. sniper trial, I read and heard comments like “They don’t deserve to live” v. “we should keep them alive so they suffer for their entire lives.”

This reflects a general philosophy about incarceration in America. The idea of rehabilitation rarely enters the debate anymore. The focus is on making criminals suffer. Utah is currently debating whether to do away with execution by firing squad. Because shooting someone is a cruel way to kill a person? Not exactly:

During the Senate debate on Thursday, Sen. Ron Allen, a Democrat, said allowing murderers to choose firing squads so they can “go out in a blaze of glory” makes heroes of criminals and causes victims’ families more pain.

“We don’t want these sentences to be carried out in the dead of night so no one knows,” said Thomas, adding that lethal injection is painless and “the easy way out.”

It’s easier to hate someone than forgive him or her. It’s often easier to point out what’s wrong instead of what’s right. Maybe this is just me, but I find the good parts of humanity a little harder to reach than the bad parts. We can be tough on crime, but perhaps we should be tougher on ourselves.

Elliott Smith leaves on a down note.

The man who jumped into Niagra Falls, and survived, says he was pushed to do so because of depression. “I honestly thought that it wasn’t worth going on. But I can tell you now after hitting the falls I feel that life is worth living,” he said.

“When I was in kindergarten, I was pushed into a water fountain, and split my lip open. I had to go to the hospital to get stitches, but instead of being scared, I was just really excited, since everything I saw was just like the “Going to the Hospital” episode of Mr. Rogers I has seen earlier that week.

My mom wrote a letter to Mr. Rogers thanking him for his show helping me through what could’ve been quite a traumatic experience, and Mr. Rogers actually wrote back two letters, one signed “Fred Rogers” that was addressed to my mom, and one signed “Mr. Rogers” that was addressed to me.” (commenter on Fark)

I wasn’t planning on writing anything about Mr. Rogers, but I was reading comments about him on Fark, like the one above, and it made me emotional to see how many people he touched.

I think there are no good or bad people, only people who do good or bad actions. Mr. Rogers may be the one exception to this rule. Over the years, everything I read about him suggests that he devoted his total energy to being kind to others, to understanding people’s suffering and easing it at the same time. Mr. Rogers’ warmth and sensitivity towards other people was so great that I can conceive of him being one of the few people able to resist, every day, the desires to be mean or hurtful that we all get because of the pain it would cause someone.

Everyone has flaws, but the image I have of Mr. Rogers is that he overcame the negative part of human nature as much as any human can. Maybe there exists a saccharine image of him in the media, but I’ve read so many personal stories that suggest otherwise. I still hold onto my belief that there are no good or bad people, only people who do good or bad actions. But it’s a belief that Mr. Rogers has shaken, if even for just a little.