pat morita (aka mr. miyagi from karate kid fame) died yesterday. i find it at once incredible and completely logical that he was nominated for an academy award for the role of mr. miyagi in karate kid. i mean, karate kid, a marginal movie, but on the other hand, mr. miyagi is a pop-cultural icon. everybody knows who he is. i salute you, morita-san.
in happier news, it’s ricardo montalban’s birthday today and he’s still alive at 85. a world without ricardo montalban is a world that’s not worth living in, is it? what would we have done without his villainous presence in both the original naked gun and star trek: wrath of khan? khan noonien singh…why was khan indian anyways? i guess for the same reason captain jean-luc picard speaks with an english accent. regardless, this man loves starring in films with colons in the title.
yesterday i managed to make it all the way to lunch before finding out the earth-shattering news that jessica simpson and nick lachey (more commonly known as one of the dudes from…98 degrees maybe, or ‘nsync, i’ve lost track) are getting divorced. luckily, cnn had this scurrilous piece of infotainment pasted across their homepage next to an article about elton john getting married and underneath a piece about 12 dead in afghanistan. this media-inspired divorce makes me feel pretty sorry for them. it’s fairly obvious to me that if it wasn’t being reported daily for over a year that they were breaking up that they may have had, at the very least, the chance at lasting longer than this. but, on the other hand, they brought it on themselves to a large degree by allowing themselves to be videotaped 24/7. every hit tv series has to have a big finale. they are just the right people to have blurred the line between their real lives and the mediascape of hypertext and celebrity. it echoes very faintly scenes from boogie nights, raging bull, and network, for me, as if all those sad characters with positive outlooks in the midst of depressing situations meld together in an orgy of self-illusory lust for happiness through celebrity. but even making that comparison is laden with irony, i guess.
considering nick lachey basically has no talent, we can expect him to linger in the public eye for another year or so, doing the talk show circuit talking about how he and jessica are “still friends” while promoting another terrible attempt at music before he fades into oblivion, only to resurface on the surreal life after several high-profile trysts with a long train of b-list celebrities. his looks might even get him into some a-list poon, but it won’t last long because he hasn’t got breasts and the media-hungry masses don’t put up with useless male celebrities. it’s a jealousy thing (i.e. from the male perspective, why should he have all the sex with women that i wish i was having sex with; or on the female side, what does she see in him [inner monologue: he is so incredibly gorgeous]?).
jessica, of course, will be fine. i’m now going to go punch myself in the groin for being on a first name basis with these avatars of human beings that i don’t even know.
moving along, the viraginous keke is officially a toronto fashionista and general gadabout. if you can pry your ravenous eyes away from the face-meltingly sexy sarah taylor, you will find keke’s expert insight into toronto fashion week and a beautiful photo of the lady herself, draped in marc jacobs (jacket, not the man…yet). i ran into keke on the street the day she bought that jacket, which was odd because it was the morning after i had first met her. can this girl have more beautiful skin, lips, style? uh uh.