Woodland Hills Dentist Payman Engheta Dies In Sunday Car Accident
Dr. Payman Engheta, a general dentist with offices in Woodland Hills inside the building behind Roy’s and Fleming’s, died in a single car accident in his Lamborghini on Sunday February 14th. My good friend Megan, who was one of his patients, says he was an excellent dentist and that she “loved that guy.” She is very saddened by this death. She adds, “he was a great dentist – friendly, compassionate – also cool as he loved Black Sabbath. I referred him to all my coworkers – he would help people that couldn’t afford dental work. Just a genuine good-hearted man.”
Melissa Gasca of The Signal writes:
A close friend of Payman Engheta said Monday that the deceased Stevenson Ranch husband and father touched many hearts.
Engheta, 47, died Sunday after he lost control of his Lamborghini convertible on Bouquet Canyon Road near Cavi at the Big Oaks Lodge, according to a California Highway Patrol report.
“We lost a beloved angel and dedicated father of two sons, a loving husband, a compassionate and devoted doctor,” said friend Nader Javadi as he read from a letter prepared by Engheta’s immediate family.
The CHP report said Engheta was driving at about 40 miles per hour on northbound Bouquet Canyon Road when he lost control of his vehicle on a right curve. The Lamborghini slid and rotated until its left side collided with a tree near Cavi at the Big Oaks, a restaurant almost four miles north of Lombardi Ranch.
CHP acting Sgt. Tony Getzelman said the measure of Engheta’s speed was based on preliminary investigation including witness reports of people at the restaurant. However, the collision is still under investigation, he said.
The speed limit in the area is 55 miles per hour, Getzelman said.
Los Angeles County Fire Department units responded to the collision, which occurred about noon on Sunday. Engheta was transported to Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills, where he endured eight hours in the operating room, Javadi said.
The local man suffered traumatic injuries to the head and a rib fracture, said Javadi, who is also a doctor and has known Engheta since middle school.
Engheta had a dentistry practice in Topanga, but his family has lived in Stevenson Ranch for seven or eight years, Javadi said.
Javadi also said that wife Homa Engheta was too distraught to speak and sons Babak and Behman – 6 and 10 years old – had not been told about their father’s death yet.
Engheta had just gone out for a ride Sunday morning and was supposed to return home for lunch with his family, Javadi said.
“We miss him so much,” Javadi read from the prepared letter. “His body is not with us anymore, but his loving memory will live in our heart forever.”
The CHP does not suspect alcohol or drugs were a factor, the report said.
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Knack’s Doug Fieger Dies Of Cancer
The Knack’s Doug Fieger died this past Sunday, as I’m sure many of you know since it was widely covered in the news. I know The Knack performed a couple of times (at least) at the Valley Cultural Center’s summer Concerts in the Park (2005 & 2008). Obviously Fieger cared about the community and will be missed. If any of you knew him, or knew more of his involvement with the Concerts in the Park program, please leave comments.
Doug Fieger, leader of the Los Angeles-based power pop band the Knack who co-wrote and sang on the 1979 No. 1 hit “My Sharona,” has died. He was 57.
Fieger’s sister, Beth Falkenstein, said he died Sunday at his home in Woodland Hills. He had cancer.
“My Sharona” was No. 1 for six weeks. Fieger said the song was inspired by a former girlfriend.
“He was an extraordinary lover of all things popular culture,” Falkenstein said of her brother. “He was an eternal pop teenager but highly intellectual and intense.”
Doug Lars Fieger was born Aug. 20, 1952, in Detroit and grew up in suburban Oak Park, Mich.
After graduating from high school, he went to England to record two albums with the group Sky, his sister said.
The group broke up after moving to Los Angeles. The Knack was formed in 1978 and soon was discovered on the L.A. club scene and signed with Capitol Records.
In its brief moment in the sun, the Knack put the phrase “power pop” into the musical lexicon for its compact, hook-filled, guitar-based rock songs that recalled the sound of the ’60s British Invasion bands, particularly the Beatles and the Kinks.
Their signature white shirts and skinny black ties and vests became a hallmark of the New Wave music scene, which distinguished itself from punk with catchier songs and less overt anger at the political and musical establishment.
Times pop music critic Robert Hilburn, writing in 1979, said the best songs on their debut album “Get the Knack” were “classics of their kind. They reflect perfectly the intense teen emotion that was at the heart of early rock.”
–Times Staff Reports
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Ady Gil Cashes In On Three Minutes Of Fame, Holds Saturday Fundraiser To Help Replace Boat
LA Times Image: Ady Gil basks in the warm glow of media attention.
As you might remember, Ady Gil is a Woodland Hills resident who donated money to an environmental organization named Sea Shepherd, who used it to build a boat, the eponymous Ady Gil. Said boat was seriously damaged last week in a collision with a Japanese whaling vessel.
Gil has some new found notoriety as hundreds of media outlets covered the incident and the video went mega-viral on YouTube.
With the snap of his fingers, entertainment industry executive Ady Gil can summon the artisans and technology to build stage facilities for Hollywood television productions and movie premieres.
On Saturday, they helped him again with an unusual and hastily called assignment: a fundraiser at his spacious Woodland Hills home to raise the $3 million to $5 million needed to replace a sleek anti-whaling trimaran that collided with a Japanese whaling ship last week.
Gil financed the purchase of the now-sunken vessel, later renamed after him, by the militant environmental group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society for its campaign to interfere with whaling, a saga at the center of Animal Planet’s “Whale Wars” reality series.
Will there be an Ady Gil II? That remains to be seen.
Steve Roest, chief executive officer of Sea Shepherd, said he welcomed Gil’s financial assistance, but “for legal and tax reasons, we have to leave our options open.”
Those options, he said, could include acquiring a vessel and naming it the Ady Gil II.
Please visit the LA Times site to read the article in its entirety. I’d like to note that while I believe that whaling is wrong, it should be duly noted that Sea Shepherd puts human lives at risk to save the lives of Whales. You be the judge on if you feel that is right. To each his own.
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Boat Named For Woodland Hills Businessman And Eco-Terrorism Supporter Ady Gil Wrecked In Whaling Clash
Well, I’m not sure exactly why this is news or not. Really it’s just a publicity stunt more than anything else. When you drive a boat in front of a ship, of course it will get wrecked. Apparently, a local wealthy businessman named Ady Gil donated the money for this boat to be built – to the tune of $1 million. And since it was destroyed today after only a few months in service, he basically paid for $1 million worth of publicity for the anti-whaling cause.
Read the full article in the Daily News, here’s a blurb:
SYDNEY — A conservation group’s boat had its bow sheared off and was taking on water Wednesday after it was struck by a Japanese whaling ship in the frigid waters off Antarctica, the group said.
The society said its vessel Ady Gil – a high-tech speedboat that resembles a stealth bomber and named after the Woodland Hills businessman who funded it – was hit by the Japanese ship the Shonan Maru near Commonwealth Bay and had about 10 feet (three meters) of its bow knocked off.
Locky Maclean, the first mate of the society’s lead ship, said one crewman from New Zealand appeared to have suffered two cracked ribs, but the others were uninjured. The crew members were safely transferred to the group’s third vessel, though the Ady Gil’s captain remained on board to see what could be salvaged, he said.
Japan’s whaling fleet left in November for its annual hunt in Antarctic waters. Uoya said that for security reasons, details of the fleet’s composition, the number of whales it hopes to take and the number of crew members are not being released to the public.
The Ady Gil is a 78-foot (24-meter) black-painted trimaran made of carbon fiber and Kevlar in a design meant to pierce waves. It was built to challenge the record for the quickest circumnavigation of the globe and can travel faster than 46 mph (75 kph).
Sea Shepherd unveiled the Ady Gil last October saying a California millionaire with the same name had donated most of the money for it. At the time, the group said the boat would be used to intercept and physically block Japanese harpoon vessels.
It should be noted that the article points out that the Ady Gil’s mothership is the “Bob Barker.” In reality I believe that the whaling is actually pretty insane – I just find it amusing when the environmental groups act as though they can’t believe some bad incident happened. That’s the reason they are there, isn’t it?
This is what $1 million of publicity looks like.
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