Good Mourning

There was a lot of death in the past week, actually, probably no more than usual. Just a lot of names we know, including a girl I went to high school with. Pretty freaky that a 31 year old could have a stroke, but I know of another girl that age that had a stroke. Never really think about anyone under the age of white hair, having a stroke.

The biggest name, by far, was Michael Jackson. It’s been said many times, and the first time I heard it was from my wife, but this is Elvis all over again. I mused on Facebook/Twitter that it wouldn’t be long till we heard rumors of an overdose, and those have surfaced. Shouldn’t really be a shock, the guy was in rehab like a year ago for an addiction to painkillers.

Michael Wilbourn, co-host of “Pardon the Interruption” said last week, that he was choosing to remember Jackson up through 1984, because after that, he just wasn’t the same guy. And I gotta say, I agree. I think it’s more than the molestation charges, before that all surfaced, he was already the living punch line. When I see the videos of him from pre-84, it really is someone completely different. He was a great entertainer, but just a bizarre guy. And I blame his father.

Papa Joe had this gem at the BET Awards over the weekend, “I have a lot of concerns…I don’t like what happened.” Really, your son dies and you don’t like what happened? Maybe blame yourself. The shit his father put him through as a child, I think, is why he never grew up and the source of everything else.

And then Sunday we get the tragic news, that icon Billy Mays also passed away. Well I’m not buying it, I smell foul play, and I think the ShamWow guy was behind this. If Infomercials had a VH1 of their own, we’d know about their on going beef. This was Tupac-Biggie. Adweek once claimed ShamWow Guy was, “the man that could beat Billy Mays at his own game.”

Mays upped the ante when he signed on to do his reality show, “Pitchmen.”

ShamWow guy, aka Vince Offer, has a violent streak. The former Jew turned Scientologist, was arrested in February of this year for felony battery when he roughed up a prostitute. The same month Mays challenged Offer to a “pitch-off.” Do you see how things spiraled out of control from there? Thanks, Wikipedia.