He's A Real Dead Mother

Popular wisdom (one of my favourite oxymorons) holds that celebrity deaths usually come in themed sets of three. Remember that; we'll come back to it in a few paragraphs.

I'll start with a look at Isaac Hayes. Yes, he was the man who wrote and sang the Shaft theme, and he was of course Chef on South Park, but to me he'll always be The Duke of New York! A-Number One! (This should be said in as deranged a voice as possible, à la Donald Pleasance holding a machine gun.)

CNN's initial report on his death (now taken offline, apparently) said that he was found "near a treadmill." There's a lesson here, kids. No good ever came from getting too close to a treadmill.

Another entertaining element in CNN's initial report - and the giveaway that the original report has been taken down and replaced with a gentler revision - was the inclusion of Matt Stone's hilarious takedown of Hayes for quitting South Park over their mocking Scientology: "He has no problem - and he's cashed plenty of cheques - with our show making fun of Christians."


Then we have poor old Bernie Mac.


Really, I've got nothing here. I have no opinion of Bernie Mac's work, never having seen any of it that I can remember, nor of his personal behaviour.

I'll just digress to say that it's almost extra-unfortunate that he died of "complications from pneumonia," if only because that used to be journalism-speak for AIDS. I'm pretty sure it's never used that way these days, if only because newspapers don't seem to report AIDS deaths anymore. Nobody famous enough is dying that way, I guess, so it's off the radar.

On a related note, for the few blissfully non-jaded souls who didn't already know it, whenever you see a report that a celebrity has entered any sort of care facility for "exhaustion", that means rehab. (Shattering innocence is what I do. You're welcome.) Exhaustion is treated by going home and taking a nap. A month in an undisclosed private facility means detox.


Now, as mentioned, celebrity deaths are supposed to come in themed sets of three. Given that two popular black entertainers have passed, it seems obvious to me that Morgan Freeman was not meant to survive the car accident. From this point on, his life will be like one of those Final Destination movies, only with far better scripts. He'll need to be very careful - the shower curtain will probably try to slither around his throat in the near future.

Apparently Morgan is also getting a divorce. This leaves open the possibility that his survival of the car crash means that his wife won't be paying the other half of the money to that mechanic who "adjusted the brakes".

I've never understood people getting divorced once they've reached a certain age (and at 71, Morgan has reached a certain age). If you and / or your spouse are in (or beyond) your seventies, doesn't there come a point where you just wait it out?


Enough rambling. Here's a picture of the stuff I got for Christmas, 2007.