little. yellow. different. A weblog by Ernie Hsiung

battle of the dead johns

I’m so going to hell for that weblog entry title.

My roommate and I, we come from very different backgrounds. He grew up in Sonora. I grew up in, well, a less rural setting.

Paris: Dude, I was totally sad today. Johnny Cash is dead.
Ernie: That country guy?
Paris: “That country guy?!” Dude… that song, “Ring of Fire!” “I went down, down, down and the flames went higher / And burned, burned, burned / A ring of fire.”
Ernie: I think the first and only time I heard that song was in a truck commercial.
Paris: He was the original “Man in Black!”
Ernie: …
Paris: Not Will Smith.
Ernie: oh.

(sometime later)

Ernie: (calling to the other room) Oh yeah, John Ritter died too!
Paris: John who? Feh!
Ernie: (oh, hell naw.)

(Oh yeah, I start a gig with Yahoo! on Monday. Wish me luck.)

Good luck at YAHOO!

Make sure to get some people fired so i could get a posh job there, too.

Congratulations on the Yahoo job! As long as we’re on the theme of making light of recent deaths, did you notice Gregory Hines died at the age of 57? Hines… 57… Argh.

Big. Categorized. Different.

Ern, if it’s any help, the Yahoo! front page has Ritter’s death *above* Cash’s.

On NPR’s hourly news today, they played Cash singing that line about him falling into a ring of fire and then announced that he had died. All I could think of was him burning in the eternal flames of Hell.

I doubt that’s what NPR had in mind.

Congratulations and good luck (fingers crossed) at Yahoo!

Yahooooooooo! Me so jealous. Good luck, homie.

Everyone seems way more upset about John Ritter than about Johnny Cash. Maybe it’s because Johnny Cash wore black all the time and sang really depressing songs, and John Ritter was always hopping around like a chipmunk on crack, which was really annoying when he was alive but which now seems like a sweet kind of “joie de vivre.” And am I the only one who cannot hear “I Walk The Line” without automatically replacing it with the Leonard Nimoy version? Spoils every damn rendition of that song, I tell you.

(And congratulations on the Yahoo! job. We all knew you were a yahoo…)

ern–congrats

also, john ritter got higher billing for dying more recently I believe.

If only for “A Boy Named Sue”, Johnny Cash will be remembered.
Oh yeah, and for that Billboard ad, too:
see it

I won’t say good luck, because I know you’ll do well. Truth is I have a bet going on, so you better bloody do well. Joking. I’ll just say go kick some ass Ernie.

Ernie… Dude, you ROCK!!!

This Rock-a-billy friend of mine told me that he was going to celebrate the “Man in Black’s” passing from this world into the next…

*I am Bills unknowledgeable Madula Oblongata*
(pardon the poor spelling…)

Memories of a space ship instantly entered my mind… and YES it was the “Men in Black” movie, not my flashbacks…
Why do some people wrap themselves in a culture that worships old Country and Western stars? Is it an imbalanced diet? in my friends case, yes… I now have the answers that I seek…

So whose death IS more important, Ritter or Cash? Discuss.

For sake of argument, of course.

Reminds me of http://www.machall.com/index.php?strip_id=213

Ahhh….the joy of an hour long commute on the Nimitz. Hey! We can totally do lunch now!

Best of luck dude

what are ya gonna be doing for yahoo? my partner worked there for it’s first 3-4 years and we still have lotsa friends and family that still are in their employ (although we have more friends that used to be in their employ and are now slackers and loafers - lol).

also, hi! i read your blog, did ya know that!?!

carvegirl

Now Joyce DeWitt has something to do.

Good luck at the new job!

Been readin’ the blog for a while now, and just wanted to say that you perk up the crappy days. Thanks!

And did you happen to see this yet?
http://www.girlcrazy.org/archives/individual/0309120946PM.php

Congrats again!

i knew cash wouls pass away soon… but ritter… that was a total suprise.

odd, that a couple of days before he died, i had the privilege of listening to johnny cash’s renditions of “hurt” (originally by nine inch nails) and “personal jesus” (originally by depeche mode)

“i shot a man in reno just to watch him die” — “Folsom Prison Blues” by Johnny Cash

“every man knows he’s a sissy compared to Johnny Cash” — Bono

It’s too strange to talk about them in the same sentence. Congrats on your gig! Knock ‘em dead and all that.

LUCK!!
man, you just crack me up. way to be. hahaha what an 80s saying… anyway, good LUCK at your new job

Good luck Ernie! I know you’ll do great. Now could you do something about all the spam I get in my Yahoo e-mail account?

Congrats on the new gig

While Ritter died younger and more “unexpectedly”…it’s not a contest.

Johnny Cash transcended country. Amazing songwriter, amazing singer, amazing performer in general. It’s really bizarre that he took to covering songs like “Hurt” and “Personal Jesus,” but if anyone could make that work, it’s Cash. He’s as important a figure in the history of popular music as anyone else you could name except maybe the Beatles, and he’s worth knowing about even if country makes you cringe (and rightly so).

I don’t really know much about John Ritter except for “Three’s Company.” That was a great show; I don’t know anything he’s done since that I should care about, but that was enough, I guess.

In general I don’t get sad about celebrity deaths. They’re too distant to directly affect me. But these two were more of a bummer than, say, Diana or John-boy.

Congratulations on becoming a Yahoo.

“But these two were more of a bummer than, say, Diana or John-boy.”

Better watch out, Drew. You’re gonna have a bunch of pissed off gay boys from Connecticut come after you now.

dude.. i hope you dont go in until 3, or your gonna get shitcanned the first week
no,no no.. Congrats ho..
now make with the coding!

Congratulations on the new gig, bud! Unfortunately, Steve and I just ditched Yahoo hosting, so I won’t indirectly be paying your paycheck.

Since the deaths of John Ritter and Johnny Cash, many people have commented that it’s rather unfortunate that the two have to share top billing in the obits; that giving equal weight to the memories of both men somehow cheapens them both, or one, or the other.

To lighten the issue my friends and I have been playing a morbid game of “Splitscreen Celebrity Deaths,” pairing other unlikely celebrity couples to die on the same day, often with hilarious results! The joy of the game is to see how often you can pair two people together that have an obvious, yet awkward contrast that simply can’t be mentioned in print or on TV. Here are some of my favorites (just imagine the celebrity split-screen!):

Stephen Hawking & Paul Rubens
Tracy Chapman & Gary Coleman
Jesse Jackson & 50 Cent

You get the idea
Any others??

Giacomo… let me try:

* Richard Simmons & Amy Grant (AMY WILL NEVER DIE. DO YOU HEAR ME? SHE WILL *NEVER DIE*)
* John Wayne Bobbit & Carmen Rasmussen, the Mormon girl from American Idol
* Jimmy Carter and the rich old socialite bitch that has plastic surgery on her face so she looks like a cat (you know who I’m talking about, right?)

Joselyn Wildenstein!

Ernie’s got a job! Ernie’s got a job! Yaaayyyy!!!

Ernie’s got a job! Ernie’s got a job! Yaaayyyy!!!

Well, I’m from a definitely un-rural background (Paris France) and I’m sorry to say I’ve never heard of John Ritter. On the other hand, Cash death made the front page of Liberation. And I love Ring of fire…