Today is the first official day of autumn, so you celebrities out there can finally exhale: the seasonal orgy of death has come to a close. I’ll always remember summer ’09 for the days that Twitter taught me how to grieve: for David Carradine’s apparent Michael Hutchence impression, for Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson on the same day, for a 4th of July marred by Steve McNair’s murder.

Some people will tell you that there wasn’t a death trend, and you need to seek out those contrarians and hammer their gonads with a rubber mallet. Jezebel recently made the mistaken claim that because a couple people who were most famous in the ’70s and ’80s died, today’s writers — mostly in their 30s and 40s — waxed nostalgic and thus it was misdiagnosed as a trend.

In 2008, for example, we lost Studs Terkel, in his nineties, like Cronkite; Paul Newman at 83, like [Dominick] Dunne; Michael Crichton of cancer in his sixties, like Fawcett; Tim Russert of a heart attack in his late fifties, like Hughes and Carroll; Bernie Mac unexpectedly at age 50, like Jackson; not to mention Jeff Healey and Brad Renfro, respectively far too young and far, far too young. Beloved Golden Girl Bea Arthur died in 2009 — and beloved Golden Girl Estelle Getty died in 2008. So what’s the big deal about this year?

Oh, I’m sorry. Help me out. Which former All-Pro and NFL MVP was shot in the chest at age 36 by his mistress in 2008? Which badass actor died of autoerotic asphyxiation in Thailand in 2008? You’re telling me this was normal? You can blame a celeb-obsessed culture and Twitter all you want, but there’s no getting around the fact that a high number of celebrity deaths were grouped unusually tightly over the course of a season.

And now it’s over. I’m kind of nostalgic for it already.

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Billy Mays’s funeral was held over the weekend, and his pallbearers all wore what Mays called his “dress blues” — the trademark khaki pants paired with a denim button-down shirt .  And I don’t ordinarily call funerals “adorable,” but c’mon, this picture is pushing the same buttons as a puppy licking a baby duck.

However, I can’t say I’m pleased with the lack of uniformity in shades of color here.  All different kinds of blues in those shirts.  And the khakis!  You’ve got everything from stone to tan to beige to oatmeal to sand to ecru.  Yeah, that’s right, I broke out “ecru.”  I got more colors than a J. Crew catalogue.

And finally, Guy on the Left: dude, you gotta roll your sleeves up.  It’s like you didn’t even know Billy.

[full gallery at the Herald-Dispatch via BuzzFeed]

After TV Pitchman Billy Mays died suddenly this weekend, the immediate suspicion by everyone who knew nothing was that a rough landing on a flight the day before — in which the plane’s tire exploded — had caused him some head trauma that was ultimately fatal. But the doctors who performed the autopsy insist that their “science” suggests the cause of death was heart failure.

The autopsy done this morning reveals no evidence of head trauma or drug abuse, said Dr. Vernard Adams…

The autopsy showed he had hardening of the arteries, Adams said. He was taking pain medication after two recent hip surgeries, but there is no evidence that contributed to his death, Adams said.

Adams said Mays had no knowledge of his heart disease and was taking no medication for it. “By definition, sudden death can’t be predicted,” Adams said. “This was a total surprise.”

Hey Vern, you’re the doctor, I’m the writer.  Why don’t you stick to the science and I’ll take care of telling people what words mean.  You don’t see me coming down to the hospital to cut dead bodies open, do you?  I sure hope not.  I take extra precautions to dodge the morgue’s security cameras.

I think this “CSI: Miami” cartoon is making me addicted to celebrity death.  I joked about it on Saturday, but now it’s starting to get real.  I mean, I don’t actually want people to die-die, but I need more of this cartoon in my life.  And the celebrity deaths have all been so good that it’s hard not to enjoy the nostalgia of remembering their careers.  Plus, David Carradine went out in such awesome style that there HAD to be a CSI cartoon of it.

The trend I’m afraid of is that the deaths are getting younger.  Carradine and Ed McMahon were both crazy old, Farrah Fawcett was in her 60s, and Michael Jackson and Billy Mays were 50.  Who’s next?  The easy money’s on Lohan, but I like Mark-Paul Gosselaar as a longshot.  No offense, Mark-Paul.  Just a gut feeling.

Billy Mays, the exuberant television pitchman known for hawking products like OxiClean, Mighty Putty, and Orange Glo, was found dead in his Tampa home yesterday.  It remains unclear whether a rough landing on a flight the day prior — during which Mays, 50, was hit in the head — contributed to his death.  He is survived by his wife, Deborah.

There was a New York Times Magazine article last fall that aptly described Mays’s unique kind of fame: “Mays is a celebrity endorser whose celebrity is based entirely on having endorsed things.”  His sincerity, enthusiasm, and car horn of a voice led people to say things like:

• “Billy Mays came over to my house and sold me tap water from my sink.”
• “Billy sold me a crisp five-dollar bill for 4 easy payments of only $19.95 + shipping and handling!”
• “He was the only human that was allowed to speak entirely in CAPS LOCK.” [source]

Good Lord, this is getting out of hand. I’m going to have to stop doing individual obituaries and just do celebrity death link dumps.  “Here are today’s celebrity deaths…”  Can you imagine a plague that killed off all the famous people in the world?  Would it be worth losing supermodels and George Clooney to get rid of the cast of “The Hills”?  I’m willing to take that chance.

After the jump, some of my favorite Billy Mays mash-ups and re-dubs, plus his appearance on “The Tonight Show” last week.  Read the rest of this entry »