By now you have heard of the untimely passing of Andrew Koenig, 41, in Vancouver, B.C. It’s still hard to comprehend.
I guess you could say I was a fan of Andrew’s, but only for about the past year. It wasn’t until recently that I knew he had been on the ‘80s-era sit-com Growing Pains playing “Boner” Stabone. To me, he was Andrew Koenig, video producer and aspiring director. Perhaps I’ll explain.
Andrew was the video producer for the popular podcast Never Not Funny, hosted by his brother-in-law, stand-up comic Jimmy Pardo. I had interviewed Jimmy a number of times for appearances in Cincinnati and Minneapolis. Last year I started listening to NNF. Via his web-site Monkey Go Lucky, Andrew posted a video version of the podcast. Sometimes he would be on microphone, other times, he would add comments in the background. He had a quick wit, and easy going manner.
Knowing Jimmy is married to Danielle Koenig, I quickly deduced that Andrew was the son of Star Trek’s Walter Koenig (ensign Chekov). What’s odd about that is that Walter Koenig was the only Star Trek cast member I ever met. It was at the only Star Trek convention I ever attended. Undersatnd, I’m a huge fan, but one convention was good enough for me, cool as it was. Walter Koenig was the featured speaker, and I remember him laughing at the question posed by another fan. “Is Chekov going to scream in the next film too?” This was between Wrath of Kahn and The Search for Spock.
Those sorts of things didn’t come up much on NNF. Once, when Danielle was on the podcast, Jimmy noted with a laugh that she and her brother had probably had their fill of any kind of conventions. I think they had been talking about Comic-Con in San Diego.
As for Growing Pains, again, a mention here or there. It was Andrew that told the most hilarious story though. While at a diner in Tuscon, Arizona, a waitress rushed out from the kitchen, frantically looking around.
“What’s going on? Andrew asked her.
“I heard Bono was out here.”
“No,” Andrew said. “You heard Boner was out here.”
Along the way I friend requested him on Facebook, and he accepted. At the time he was in the midst of drumming up interest in a film he hoped to make called New Wave. I had just started posting my “Lost New Wave Greats” on Facebook and Twitter, and soon after, Andrew borrowed the idea to help promote New Wave. I kidded him about stealing my idea, and at first he thought I was serious. “The more the merrier,” he said. Of course I agreed and pointed out that I was in fact flattered. His film by the way looks very cool, and sooo ‘80s in the best ways.
That’s how I knew Andrew Koenig. A guy, about my age, who loved new wave music (still!), science fiction and comedy. It was only a footnote to me that he was on Growing Pains.
After he disappeared, it became obvious how many lives he had touched and in so many ways. Growing Pains fans of course, but Never Not Funny fans, those connected to the causes he cared about, his friends in Canada, California and around the world---all desperate to find him.
I still can’t over the image of his poor mother and father at that picnic table in Vancouver’s Stanley Park, breaking the news that Andrew had taken his own life. Terribly upsetting.
As the elder Koenig indicated, at the very least, this tragedy can hopefully help others. It sounds like an empty platitude and perhaps even trite, but you have to believe it. Life is just too precious.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Thursday, February 4, 2010
The Super, Pro and Playoff Bowls
Thoughts on the Super Bowl, The Pro Bowl and the long forgotten Playoff Bowl…
The Super Bowl is all but an official holiday in America, and rightly so. The culmination of the National Football League’s season deserves a special place in our culture.
Now where did I put that other shoe? Aw, yes. Thud. Actually, I’m not going to drop the other shoe, but merely set it down gently. I really do think the Super Bowl is special and something fun to look forward to. In some ways it’s a better excuse for a get together than, say, Thanksgiving, because you don’t have to invite your relatives.
Over the years, the game and the pageantry have gotten incrementally grander. That I could do without. In 1967, Super Bowl I didn’t even sell out. Just over 60,000 fans in a stadium (The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum) that seats over 90,000. No one cared, really. 22 million fans tuned in, but that dropped by 2 million the following year.
Today it’s “off the hook” as the young people say. We have to sit through a week of dopes saying “oh, I just like to watch for the commercials.” Or there are others who look forward to seeing the halftime show. Good grief. At least we don’t have to hear that jive about Super Bowl Sunday being the number one day for calls to domestic violence shelters. Thank you Snopes and whoever else finally debunked that.
Call me a purist, but the pre-game show should not be four hours. That’s crazy! I’ll give you an hour and a half. It should be a half hour on each team’s season, a half hour on the match-up, thank you, let’s go down to the field for the coin toss. A glitzy halftime show? I don’t need it, but for those who kind of felt compelled to watch and aren’t really fans, well then O.K. Commercials? I’ll be getting another beverage, refilling my snack and checking to see if anyone else wants anything while I’m up. But, hey, knock yourself out.
Every year my wife wonders why I need to watch it. Well, cuz it’s the Super Bowl. I’m rarely invested much in the teams, either way. I try to find one to route for or, worst case scenario, one to route against (see Super Bowl XXXV).
This year it’s another toss up. I’m a Reggie Wayne fan, but how can you route against the people of New Orleans? And the Colts have won two Super Bowls, one of them since they moved to Indianapolis. Really, I’m happy with a close game which we seem to get about every other year these days. Our friends up north in Canada seem to get a good championship game every year, which almost always seems to be decided by a last minute field goal.
Speaking of the C.F.L., I just learned the other day that in the fifties, the N.F.L. played half a dozen exhibition games against teams from the Canadian circuit. The N.F.L., won all six, with the only win by a Canadian against an American team coming when Hamilton defeated the A.F.L. Buffalo Bills in 1961.
Another forgotten exhibition game from that era is the “Playoff Bowl.” Officially known as The Bert Bell Benefit Bowl, it was named in honor of the former NFL commissioner who past away in 1959, while watching a game in Philadelphia’s Franklin Field.
It pitted the runners up of the NFL’s two conference championships (East and West). The series ran from 1961-1970 with all ten games being played in Miami’s Orange Bowl the week after the NFL title game. With the inception of the Super Bowl, and its two week gap between AFL and NFL league championship games, the Playoff Bowl was played during the off weekend. That, of course, is what they did with the Pro Bowl this year.
People think I’m joking when I say this, but I like the Pro Bowl. Of all the major pro all-star games, I like it the best. It doesn’t really pretend (well, not real hard) to be anything but what it is. On a side note, I actually find minor league (baseball and hockey) all-star games to be the most compelling, as they gather a wide range of up-and-coming talent in their respective sports that you might not see otherwise.
While I have always advocated the Pro Bowl being played before the Super Bowl, and thus without the players from the championship teams, I wasn’t sure I’d like it outside of Hawaii. Odd, I know, but for most of my football watching life the game has been in Honolulu. It just seems natural. That aside, I enjoyed this year’s game.
But how about this? Bring back the Playoff Bowl, and move the Pro Bowl back to the week after. Then again, you would have some players playing two otherwise meaningless exhibition games. It’s certainly something that can still be tinkered with. Perhaps all of the teams in the conference of the winning Pro Bowl team draft first in April? Although, I don’t think there needs to be anything attached to it like baseball’s (though there’s has that compelling wrinkle), but there folks that would like it to mean more.
After Sunday, no more pro football until August. Well, July for the CFL, whose regular season starts July 1. What to do between mid-February and July? Well, enjoy the play-off hunt in the NBA and NHL, the Final Four and baseball to be sure. I’ll give you one other option. Spring football. Move the AAA-esque UFL to spring. Your welcome.
The Super Bowl is all but an official holiday in America, and rightly so. The culmination of the National Football League’s season deserves a special place in our culture.
Now where did I put that other shoe? Aw, yes. Thud. Actually, I’m not going to drop the other shoe, but merely set it down gently. I really do think the Super Bowl is special and something fun to look forward to. In some ways it’s a better excuse for a get together than, say, Thanksgiving, because you don’t have to invite your relatives.
Over the years, the game and the pageantry have gotten incrementally grander. That I could do without. In 1967, Super Bowl I didn’t even sell out. Just over 60,000 fans in a stadium (The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum) that seats over 90,000. No one cared, really. 22 million fans tuned in, but that dropped by 2 million the following year.
Today it’s “off the hook” as the young people say. We have to sit through a week of dopes saying “oh, I just like to watch for the commercials.” Or there are others who look forward to seeing the halftime show. Good grief. At least we don’t have to hear that jive about Super Bowl Sunday being the number one day for calls to domestic violence shelters. Thank you Snopes and whoever else finally debunked that.
Call me a purist, but the pre-game show should not be four hours. That’s crazy! I’ll give you an hour and a half. It should be a half hour on each team’s season, a half hour on the match-up, thank you, let’s go down to the field for the coin toss. A glitzy halftime show? I don’t need it, but for those who kind of felt compelled to watch and aren’t really fans, well then O.K. Commercials? I’ll be getting another beverage, refilling my snack and checking to see if anyone else wants anything while I’m up. But, hey, knock yourself out.
Every year my wife wonders why I need to watch it. Well, cuz it’s the Super Bowl. I’m rarely invested much in the teams, either way. I try to find one to route for or, worst case scenario, one to route against (see Super Bowl XXXV).
This year it’s another toss up. I’m a Reggie Wayne fan, but how can you route against the people of New Orleans? And the Colts have won two Super Bowls, one of them since they moved to Indianapolis. Really, I’m happy with a close game which we seem to get about every other year these days. Our friends up north in Canada seem to get a good championship game every year, which almost always seems to be decided by a last minute field goal.
Speaking of the C.F.L., I just learned the other day that in the fifties, the N.F.L. played half a dozen exhibition games against teams from the Canadian circuit. The N.F.L., won all six, with the only win by a Canadian against an American team coming when Hamilton defeated the A.F.L. Buffalo Bills in 1961.
Another forgotten exhibition game from that era is the “Playoff Bowl.” Officially known as The Bert Bell Benefit Bowl, it was named in honor of the former NFL commissioner who past away in 1959, while watching a game in Philadelphia’s Franklin Field.
It pitted the runners up of the NFL’s two conference championships (East and West). The series ran from 1961-1970 with all ten games being played in Miami’s Orange Bowl the week after the NFL title game. With the inception of the Super Bowl, and its two week gap between AFL and NFL league championship games, the Playoff Bowl was played during the off weekend. That, of course, is what they did with the Pro Bowl this year.
People think I’m joking when I say this, but I like the Pro Bowl. Of all the major pro all-star games, I like it the best. It doesn’t really pretend (well, not real hard) to be anything but what it is. On a side note, I actually find minor league (baseball and hockey) all-star games to be the most compelling, as they gather a wide range of up-and-coming talent in their respective sports that you might not see otherwise.
While I have always advocated the Pro Bowl being played before the Super Bowl, and thus without the players from the championship teams, I wasn’t sure I’d like it outside of Hawaii. Odd, I know, but for most of my football watching life the game has been in Honolulu. It just seems natural. That aside, I enjoyed this year’s game.
But how about this? Bring back the Playoff Bowl, and move the Pro Bowl back to the week after. Then again, you would have some players playing two otherwise meaningless exhibition games. It’s certainly something that can still be tinkered with. Perhaps all of the teams in the conference of the winning Pro Bowl team draft first in April? Although, I don’t think there needs to be anything attached to it like baseball’s (though there’s has that compelling wrinkle), but there folks that would like it to mean more.
After Sunday, no more pro football until August. Well, July for the CFL, whose regular season starts July 1. What to do between mid-February and July? Well, enjoy the play-off hunt in the NBA and NHL, the Final Four and baseball to be sure. I’ll give you one other option. Spring football. Move the AAA-esque UFL to spring. Your welcome.
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