Home › Forums › Open Discussion › And then there were four:Billy Mays dies…
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June 28, 2009 at 5:53 pm #591370June 28, 2009 at 6:02 pm #670790
c@lbobMemberFour what?
June 28, 2009 at 6:05 pm #670791
JanSParticipantjust referring to 4 deaths of celebrities within a week, dear :)
June 28, 2009 at 6:14 pm #670792
cjboffoliParticipantProbably pushing it to use the term “celebrity” in this case. But I suppose that depends on how important Oxyclean is to you ;-)
June 28, 2009 at 6:20 pm #670793
JoBParticipantcjboffoli…
Bill Mays earned his 15 minutes of fame the hard way.. through hard work. You may not have appreciated him .. i admit i changed the channel.. but his energy was an inspiration to many.
If his death turns out to be related to the objects people stuff into overhead compartments that become lethal missiles when the overhead bins pop open.. he will have done a lot more for us than pitch oxyclean.
June 28, 2009 at 6:21 pm #670794
JanSParticipantI personally couldn’t stand the commercials, and of course he’s not MJ, so we won’t hear much, but I used the term celebrity because he’s been very visible on the telly. And he was only 50…and it’s someone who probably most of us recognize. Celebrity, in other words…
June 28, 2009 at 6:23 pm #670795
JanSParticipantJoB, very true. That overhead thing has been a topic of discussion for a long time.
June 28, 2009 at 6:25 pm #670796
cjboffoliParticipantNow I’m feeling kinda guilty and wondering if that voodoo doll I made may have anything to do with this guy’s untimely demise. I had all of the details right, down to the meticulously dyed hair and beard. But I didn’t think it would actually work.
June 28, 2009 at 6:29 pm #670797
JanSParticipantLet’s face it…if I had said that same thing right after MJ died, about him, I would have been lynched. This man was great at what he did, and his history is fascinating. Give the man his due…he just died.
June 28, 2009 at 6:29 pm #670798
JoBParticipantcjboffoli…
we dabble on the wild side at our own peril…
did you bash his head with anything?
June 28, 2009 at 7:43 pm #670799
ErikParticipantSky Saxon died this week too.
Frontman for The Seeds.
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Here they’re doing their 1965 song “Pushin’ Too Hard”:
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June 28, 2009 at 7:54 pm #670800
JiggersMemberDon’t forget David Carradine a few weeks ago. Not a good month for big names.
June 28, 2009 at 8:20 pm #670801
CaitParticipantJiggers is right – five all together this month. I’m hoping the “three” rule doesn’t apply because then we’d be in store for one more…
June 28, 2009 at 8:20 pm #670802
cjboffoliParticipantJanS: Are you serious? Fascinating? Really? Are we talking about the same person? To me this guy seemed like just another in a long line of snake oil salesmen, screaming his way through thin pitches for over-priced, spurious products of questionable effectiveness, manipulating the purchasing decisions of seniors and a certain demographic of people who would actually sit through infomercials such as his (most of whom were already paying an obscene amount of money for cable TV only to have dreck like that piped into their houses so they’d get sucked into spending more of their hard-earned money on more crap they didn’t need). For me this man and others of the same cohort represent perhaps one of the lowest forms of television programming.
I’m genuinely curious as to why you’d find this person fascinating. Was there something about him you found endearing? Was it just that he was on TV and was familiar because his face and persona were beamed into your house? I mean, ‘fascinating’ is a word one would use to describe people like Eva Perón, Charles Lindbergh or Muhammad Ali. But Billy Mays?
The comedian Billy Crystal wrote something once about the strangeness of fame. He said that if you put a random grapefruit on television and then put it in a window on 5th Avenue in New York, tourists would come and take pictures of the famous grapefruit that was on TV. I’m guessing the appeal of this guy must be related to that theory.
June 28, 2009 at 8:39 pm #670803
JanSParticipantI have read about the man, have seen interviews about his early life, how he got started, etc. Yes, I found his commercials abrasive, but his early years starting out on the boardwalk on Atlantic City, etc was quite a story. I grew up with those things, and, yes, listening to him talk about what it was like, how his life evolved into what it was in later years is simply that, fascinating – at least to me. No one else has to feel that way, but I don’t consider him a low life snake oil salesman either. I don’t judge him for how he made his money…he actually was a really nice guy, and even made fun of himself.
You shouldn’t judge him, nor the “seniors” (wow) who maybe bought things from infomercials – certainly pegs us older folks as fools, huh. Are ya sure it was just seniors? Really?
And walk through your super markets today, and see how many products have Oxy-clean in them now, from Tide, to different household cleaners, etc.
I think the point I was trying to make, Christopher, is…couldn’t you just wait 24 hours after his death to start making jokes? After this past week, and some really cruel jokes about MJ that appeared within minutes of his passing on some even “local” blogs, I guess I’m just totally surprised at the lack of respect that people show regarding someone who just lost their life. I’d like to think we would be better than that.
June 28, 2009 at 8:48 pm #670804
CaitParticipantAMEN, Jan.
June 28, 2009 at 9:26 pm #670805
alki_2008ParticipantHead injury, leading to death within a day? Remind anyone else of Natasha Richardson’s skiing accident?
A sad reminder that being hit in the head is no minor thing…whether it’s carry-on luggage or a backpack full of rocks. R.I.P. :(
June 28, 2009 at 10:08 pm #670806
bluebirdMemberWhy does death require us to have magical feelings about someone? To revere them suddenly?
I do understand when you know and admire someone prior to their death, but a pitchman is a just a character isn’t he?
And when Al Sharpton gave a press conference the other day, he mentioned that none of this “love” was being shown to MJ prior to his death.
Extreme example, but were we supposed to be kind and respectful when someone like Saddam died? Not meaning any of these people are in that category, just the point that if you didn’t like them before they died, does death alone, require you to honor them?
Many people truly believe MJ was a pedophile. And his death was justice for his victims. Are you considering that all the kind words said now, are insulting to them?
I realize MJ was acquitted, but many legal experts were shocked at that outcome based on the evidence presented. At the very least, by all accounts, even his family members admit excessive drug abuse. Where is the outrage over raising children under those circumstances, like there was over Mary Kay just having a drink? The same people who said they are all about the children, all the time, are now saying it’s all about the art, the music, the legacy. That doesn’t make sense to me.
I don’t know who is right. Didn’t know or live with any of these people, just think there may be more than one side.
June 28, 2009 at 10:20 pm #670807
SueParticipantI loved watching Billy Mays and similar hosts do infommercials. It’s like watching a train wreck – I could sit for hours and watch them hawking stuff that I have absolutely no need for, and yet sometimes still buy.
June 28, 2009 at 10:36 pm #670808
alki_2008ParticipantCait – the 6th could be Gale Storm, from TV in the 50’s. She died today as well.
bluebird – good point. Personally, I don’t believe that MJ molested kids…and the wishy-washy nature of the evidence from that boy and his mother was a big part of the acquittal (maybe a topic for another thread). There are those that believe MJ was a pedophile, and those that believe he was innocent. Each of those groups can honor his life or relish his death as they please, but there’s no reason that either group should shut down the other. IMHO.
I agree it’s odd to appreciate someone more in death than in life. Maybe all the recent ‘celebrity’ deaths will make people appreciate those close to them while they’re still alive, because death can strike without warning. :(
June 28, 2009 at 11:01 pm #670809
cjboffoliParticipantForgive me Jan. I don’t know Billy Mays and I didn’t figure that any of his loved ones read the West Seattle Blog. I suppose I was winding you up a bit. I guess I didn’t realize how much he clearly means to you. I also didn’t mean to associate you with any age group though the folks who respond to those infomercials do tend to skew heavily to the World War II generation. I could bore you for hours telling about all of the crap my 85 year-old granny buys off of TV, much of which requires her to eventually ask me to help her chase down refunds. A lot of it would make a $10 bag of broken glass shards look like a good buy.
Personally, it strikes me as odd that we’d revere such a person, and a complete stranger at that. What’s fascinating to me in this case is the bigger picture. Again, think about it: A person pays $75 bucks a month to have cable TV at their house. And that’s $75 of after tax income. As if that money is not enough a considerable portion of the programming on that paid television is advertising for commercial products that we could probably do just fine without. We’re paying through the teeth for programming that tells us to buy more. But instead of being annoyed and angry about the reality of the consumer culture that gets rammed down our throats, when the infomercial man dies we revere him and are sad about this death. Think about the opportunity cost of all that money and time wasted.
So yes, clearly Billy Mays represents the apogee of Western Civilization. I don’t know what I was thinking.
June 28, 2009 at 11:12 pm #670810
KevinParticipantcjboffoli…
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I feel the same as you about late night TV “infomercials” but I think you have to give Billy Mays credit for being an experienced pitchman. And his “style” was entertaining to a point.
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I mean, he really could make me believe that the Oxy Clean is going to get all the stains out of my clothes. Does it really work? I’m not sure… you would have to ask my wife. We currently have several containers in our laundry room right now.
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June 28, 2009 at 11:17 pm #670811
JanSParticipantdear christopher…sarcasm duly noted…enough..have at it. He was no Mark Sanford, though, was he?
June 28, 2009 at 11:36 pm #670812
JanSParticipantfwiw…”revere” and “respect”…two different things…not too many people I revere anywhere. And it seems that there are more and more still living that I’m losing respect for..oh, well.
I did not know this man personally, but I appreciated him before his death, and think it’s sad that he died at such an early age. I had ambivalent feelings about MJ, but didn’t slide into child molesting jokes, or jokes about his looks, or his lifestyle right after his death was announced. Maybe I’m just an old fart..lol..maybe there’s no maybe about it…at least I’ll admit it. :)
Sorry to hear about Gale Storm, too…I remember her show “My Little Margie”…seems like a lifetime ago…wait..it WAS a lifetime ago…
June 28, 2009 at 11:40 pm #670813
cjboffoliParticipantKevin: Having never endured more than 45 seconds of Mr. Mays maybe I’m not the best person qualified to determine if he deserves credit for being an entertaining and experienced pitchman. However, if you consider that his style causes a vast number of people to dive for the remote and change the channel I’d say his record is mixed (save for the demographic that would sit through his high volume (aural and otherwise) pitches).
JanS: Somehow I can’t see Billy Mays spending five days of his life crying in Argentina, so no he’s no Mark Sanford. But the comparison is adroit if you consider that both men were in professions that required a bit of showbusiness and a bit of ripping people off.
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