Tragicomedy

I like to think that I am akin to a rich heady blend of tragicomedy; blessed, or un-blessed, with factors of both crap and positives upon my person.

There are bits of me I like; my beard is awesome, for example. There are bits I do not like (cue body graphic almost entirely shaded in). 

So I live in a Column A Column B world. At least, for me, not yet a fate like an unusual death.

I forget how I came to the wiki page for unusual deaths but, one article led to another and soon I was adrift in the peculiar world of those who had a particularly snazzy exit inducer to the hereafter. Some of these people were celebrities already but whose star was either dimmed or brightened by the asterix next to the cease date.

It was an illuminating jaunt, and many of those so afflicted, like me, had a tragicomic life. Kevin Whitrick, who hanged himself live via webcam had a rather horrid exit. Unable to cope with his demons he went out in horrific style. The article's reading made me physically sickened. 

Bad then it led me to Brandon Vedas. The man I think best represents the comedy and tragedy of an unusual death, but, I confess, errs more on the side of comedy. For me at least. 

Brandon kicked out live, also via webcam, to a drug fan website. As in fans of a particular substance currently illegal. Brandon consumed a vast quantity of drugs on camera, to the extent super enthusiasts were telling him to step it down, and eventually expired from the overdosing. The drugs being a mix of cannabis and various medications for claimed ailments.

He was, however, no idiot. In the event of his collapse on camera he'd arranged to provide enough information for people watching to call emergency services with so they could nip in and bring him back. 

Vedas gave instructions that if anything were to go wrong, that they should try to contact him by calling his cell phone, and if that did not work, they should call the local authorities and give them the license plate number of his car, which was parked in his driveway and could easily be seen from the street.

Alas the plan went awry. The viewers debated on various courses of action and what minimal action they took was not enough time to summon assistance.  His body was found by his mother later that afternoon. 

There are two things I took away from this. The fact that while Vedas had considered the need for help to be summoned that he presumed a bunch of paranoid drug freaks would put aside fears of 'bringing the heat' for reaching out to the authorities.

The other thing I got from this were Brandon's near-final words. I'll let his wiki take up the story.

During this process, Vedas maintained that this was "usual weekend behavior" for him and that he had consumed similar quantities of the same substances on previous occasions. "I told u I was hardcore" was one of the last things Vedas typed, and is often used sarcastically on internet message boards and discussion sites.

What an utter gift to the world he gave in his passing; 'I told u I was hardcore'. That this most awesome of word strings has now become on the interweb a stand in for an awesome sarcastic put down. That's up there for me with Cool Story, Bro.