If you’ve read more than, say, three of my blog entries, then you’ll know I’m morbidly obsessed with celebrity deaths. So waking up yesterday morning, there was a special treat waiting for me on the CNN ticker. CNN, of course, considers itself far too classy to name the cause of death in this case. For that, I had to go searching the internet rumor mill. And I could scarcely believe what the early reports were claiming. Ever since the day Elvis was found dead on the toilet, I’ve been waiting for a major celebrity to find a way to depart this Earth in a more embarrassing way. And at last, pay dirt.

Somewhere out there, there has be somebody who put down David Carradine/Thailand/autoerotic asphyxiation on their celebrity dead pool and just hit the trifecta jackpot.

Now, it’s not like autoerotic asphyxiation is all that uncommon. Any coroner will tell you it happens all the time. But most people only know it as the ultimate fate of Fox Mulder. Fictional characters aside, this cause of death is frequently swept under the rug, even in official reports. Authorities often find it easier and less-shameful to label it suicide, figuring they’re sparing the deceased and their family the embarrassment of calling it what it is: death by tragic masturbation accident.

But for the first time ever, some respectable media outlets were quick to bluntly state the facts. That pleasantly surprised me, because I’m not a fan of euphemisms. Many called it as they saw it and drew the obvious conclusions from the circumstances surrounding Caradine’s death. Others, not so much. My favourites are the ones that referred to the rope found around his “neck and body.” For “body” read “penis.” Creepy as it may be to picture a 72-year-old man pleasuring himself with a combination of asphyxia and masturbation in a Thailand hotel closet, the dodging of the facts that’s been going on in some corners has only served to raise all sorts of unfounded questions concerning suicide or foul play. And I don’t know what’s accomplished by that, other than creating a completely unnecessary mystery over something that’s merely a tad tawdry.

Personally, I’ve only been left with one real question. Who the hell goes to Thailand to masturbate? You go to Thailand for the underage prostitutes. And if you really really need to get in a bit of autoerotic asphyxiation to relieve the monotony of sex with children, then you pay one of the underaged prostitutes a couple of bucks to keep an eye on you in case you start to choke.

Okay, fine. Carradine was in Thailand shooting a movie. It’s not like he was an Australian on a sex holiday or something. But you see how easy it is to start speculating a lot of weirdness when there are inconsistent reports in the media? I’ll swear here and now to knock that shit off. Let David’s memory only be tainted by the compromising position his body was found in, not by the innuendo and misleading statements of asshole bloggers. Or cable news channels.