David Carradine has died. He was found hanging in his hotel room in Bangkok. This gives me more grief than I can begin to say, for a few different reasons. First, this is the method my brother chose to commit suicide. Second, I actually have a really sweet memory from my childhood of the show Kung Fu. I watched it faithfully, never missing an episode. I have always loved the ideals of fairness and defense of right that the show portrayed. Those ideals are so desperately wanting in this world we live in. Somehow, losing the actor who portrayed the character I loved just makes me ache. I always have loved David Carradine. As a person, I know he was flawed, but he seemed to have at least tried to live like that character he had portrayed - to be good and peaceful and fair. I liked him as a person. He was not like all those Hollywood plastic figures that you see today. He was real. What you saw was what you got, for better or worse. I liked that.
So, as a farewell, I'm posting his Kung Fu series premiere. YouTube only allows 10 minute segments, so it comes in 8 segments. My apologies, but if you're patient, you'll be rewarded with a gem from the past. I think it will be worth your wait. Try buffering them all at the same time on pause, and then you'll be able to watch them all in a row, without interruption.
Farewell Mr. Carradine, Kwai Chang Caine. I hope you find the peace you have sought, that peace which has eluded you. Go with God.
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I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.
- Agatha Christie
- Agatha Christie
There is in every true woman's heart a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity; but which kindles up, and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity.
- Washington Irving
- Washington Irving
"Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars."
Larry King: What, though, Gordon, do you say to parishioners who say what do I do with my anger?
Gordon B.
The one resolution, which was in my mind long before it took the form of a resolution, is the key-note of my life. It is this, always to regard as mere impertinences of fate the handicaps which were placed upon my life almost at the beginning. I resolved that they should not crush or dwarf my soul, but rather be made to blossom, like Aaron's rod, with flowers.
- Helen Keller
- Helen Keller
Ask not for victory, ask for courage. For if you can endure you bring honor to us all, even more you bring honor to yourself.
- -- From the Decathlete
- -- From the Decathlete
Face your deficiencies and acknowledge them; but do not let them master you. Let them teach you patience, sweetness, insight.
- -- Helen Keller
- -- Helen Keller
Anger is a prelude to courage.
- Eric Hoffer
- Eric Hoffer
I am thankful for small mercies. I compared notes with one of my friends who expects everything of the universe, and is disappointed when anything is less than the best, and I found that I begin at the other extreme, expecting nothing, and am always full of thanks for moderate goods.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Ralph Waldo Emerson