Celebrity deaths are a weekly or monthly event, and they seem to have taken on a life of their own. There are the careers of the celebrities in question, and then there are their deaths, which in many cases, are more worthy of a story than their original careers.
Pop culture rumors of celebrity deaths do not help either. For some reason, I seem to remember Ernest Borgnine dying three or four times, only to discover that he is still alive. A couple of years ago, I was not so shocked to learn of the heroin-induced death of Ronnie James Dio. The real shock came a few weeks 
later when I learned HE was still alive.
There is an entire list of these mistaken deaths up in my brain, I know, but I just can’t name all of them. This bothered me – The fact that I kept thinking that certain celebrities have met their demise when they are still alive and well. Then I had an epiphany of sorts one evening.
I had the television on and I was shaken by the loud voice of Billy Mays, who I know for sure is dead. He died a couple months ago at the age of 50 from a heart attack, and with the way he would scream and yell about anything, it is not a great shock. I was shocked to hear Billy, post death, going on and on about his wireless cell-phone adapter that operates via your car’s stereo tuner. During the course of the commercial one of Billy’s co-workers actually contacts him on the gadget asking about a meeting.
“I’ll be there,” Billy says, as if he would really show up.
He also mentions that, if we order today, Billy himself will “send you” some extra goody to make the sale even sweeter.
It doesn’t stop there, either. He’s on the television hawking all kinds of things, still. Just as lively as ever. He speaks in the present tense about his products as well. This ghost-in-the-machine sort of necromancy is something that just doesn’t sit right with me. Why not find a new spokesperson for Mays’ many inventions? I mean – just out of respect for the guy, but while they are at it, why create any confusion as to Billy Mays’ mortality? How many people, like me, are going to be confused in the future, thinking that Billy Mays is alive and well, inventing new gadgets to make our lives run a little smoother? It is just creepy.
This whole problem of letting the dead go seems to be an epidemic of sorts in our culture.
I was shocked to learn that Michael Jackson, six weeks after his untimely demise, had still not been buried! Good Lord! Do they have a special refrigerated casket in these cases? Is there some substance with even more preservative qualities than formaldehyde?
I also seem to remember James Brown’s carcass existing above ground for quite a chunk of time before being buried as well, and in the case of Anna Nicole Smith’s son – who can forget the tearful judge, finally, after weeks of dispute, determining that he should be buried with his mother… “sniff” – “In the Bahamas.”
Hell – Ronald Reagan had a country-wide tour before they finally laid him to rest. They actually could have printed up tens of thousands of black tee-shirts with Ronnie’s picture on the front and an itinerary of all the stops in white silk-screened ink on the back. Maybe with “Reagan: Tour De Force” as a header.
The list of celebrities that I keep in my head whose mortality remains a mystery to me, will be jostled again from time to time, and the fact that we just can’t let go of these people long after they have let go of this world serves only to further confuse this matter.