& Recently . . .

The Recently Recovered Love Letters of Vincent van Gogh

by Daniel Maurer

May 24, 1888 Dear Rachel, Look, I’m not trying to get you back. I understand you don’t want to see me anymore. Fine. I just want to apologize for last night. I said a lot of things I shouldn’t have….

My Predictions for Major League Baseball’s Post Season

by Dennis Proctor

Sammy Sosa will refuse to play a single game in the National League Championship Series after fellow Cub Greg Maddux accidentally deletes all the episodes of “Wife Swap” from the team’s TiVo. Unfulfilled after breaking George Sisler’s single-season hit record…

Mootpoint

by Will Layman

My Almost Interminable Conversation with Famed Literary Minimalist, Nicholson Baker August 2004 Sheraton Suites on the Hudson Weehawken, N.J. nick: Testing, testing … will: What’s with the tape? nick: Don’t you think it lends an air of…

Reviews for Nicholson Baker’s Checkpoint that I Started to Write before Realizing I Was Thinking of Something Else

by Matthew Tobey

Nicholson Baker’s Checkpoint is a tour-de-force roller coaster of a book, worthy of a place on anyone’s bookshelf. The hotly anticipated sequel to The Old Testament, the book compiles several accounts of the life of Jesus Christ of Nazareth as…

Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam Synopsize Nicholson Baker’s Checkpoint

by George Motisher

bugs: Nyaah, what’s up, doc? sam: I’m a-gonna kill that varmint president. bugs: No you’re not. sam: Yer doggone right I am. And no flea-bitten rabbit’s a-gonna stop me. bugs: Oh yeah? sam: Yeah. That no good mangy varmint’s gotta…

Polish Fact

The 16 Voivodships (województwa)
Greater Poland Voivodship (Wielkopolskie),
Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodship (Kujawsko-Pomorskie),
Lesser Poland Voivodship (Ma³opolskie),
Lodz Voivodship (£ódzkie),
Lower Silesian Voivodship (Dolnoœl¹skie),
Lublin Voivodship (Lubelskie),
Lubusz Voivodship (Lubuskie),
Masovian Voivodship (Mazowieckie),
Opole Voivodship (Opolskie),
Subcarpathian Voivodship (Podkarpackie),
Podlasie Voivodship (Podlaskie),
Pomeranian Voivodship (Pomorskie),
Swietokrzyskie Voivodship (Œwiêtokrzyskie),
Silesian Voivodship (Œl¹skie),
Warmian-Masurian Voivodship (Warmiñsko-Mazurskie),
West Pomeranian Voivodship (Zachodniopomorskie)

Learn a Foreign Tongue!

Impari L'Italiano
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Wednesday, October 6, 2004   |    Non-Fiction

At Last, Respect: Rodney Dangerfield, 1921-2004



An Obituary for a Comic,
Compiled Entirely from Trivia Gleaned from
the Internet Movie Database’s Biographical Page for the Actor


Jacob Cohen was born in Babylon, New York, in 1921.

At some point, he adopted the stage name Rodney Dangerfield. His trademark bit was self-deprecating one-liners.

His first big break was on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” a program he returned to 15 times. He made 70 appearances on “The Tonight Show.”

Through his HBO shows from Dangerfield’s, he introduced Jim Carrey, Roseanne, Louie Anderson, Jerry Seinfeld, Tim Allen, Rita Rudner, Sam Kinison, Robert Townsend, Bob Saget, and Jeff Foxworthy to TV.

Wanting to remain near his children, he opened the now-legendary Manhattan comedy club that bears his name.

In 1949, he married Joyce Indig. They have two children, Brian and Melanie. They were divorced in 1961. Decades later, he would open Dangerfield’s, a comedy club in New York City, in order to be closer to his children.

Thanks to the HBO comedy series broadcast from Dangerfield’s, Jim Carrey, Jerry Seinfeld, and Sam Kinison got their big breaks on television. Unfortunately, so did Rita Rudner, Jeff Foxworthy, Roseanne, Tim Allen, Louie Anderson, and Bob Saget.

His album, No Respect, won the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Recording in 1980. His single, “Rappin’ Rodney,” reached the No. 89 position on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1983.

On December 26th, 1993, he married Joan Child, a Mormon 30 years, 11 months, 3 weeks, and 2 days his junior.

In 1995, he launched Rodney.com, the first official Web site for an entertainer. Thanks to his pioneering spirit, now even Carrot Top is online.

The première of his 1997 film, Meet Wally Sparks, was held in the small town of Daingerfield, Texas, where a street was then named after him. Later that year, he for the first time spoke openly of his lifelong depression, although his previous cries for help were pretty thinly veiled in his comedy material.

On November 22nd, 2001, his 80th birthday, he suffered a mild heart attack. On April 8th, 2003, Mr. Dangerfield underwent brain surgery to improve his body’s blood flow in preparation for an upcoming heart-valve replacement surgery. After regaining consciousness from the surgery, his first request was to watch “The Jerry Springer Show.” This is probably a popular request following brain surgery.

On August 24th, his blood then flowing properly, he had his heart-valve replacement. In May of that year, between his brain and heart surgeries, his autobiography, It Ain’t Easy Being Me was published.

It is not easy to be someone undergoing heart and brain surgeries.

His trademark white button-down shirt and red necktie hang in permanent display at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.