Weird death news. It's in the news!!

These are the kinds of stories that I actually started this blog to talk about.  Before sex, drugs, rock n' roll, Tiger Woods and other fun things in life began to take over.

Anyhoo...first up.

Where in the world is James Brown?

When you're the Hardest Working Man In Show Business

you can't waste your time lying around in a casket.

According to LaRhonda Pettit, one of the vast army of the Godfather of Soul's illegitimate progeny, somebody took Soul Brother #1's rotting corpse and hid it away so an autopsy couldn't be performed.  Maybe JB is doing a USO tour in the underworld for zombie troops that are training for the apocalypse.  With Michael J. and Elvis joining him on the bill, of course.   LaRhonda, who I suspect may be a bit jealous that the Jackson family has been able to stretch Michael's death drama long past the time when any normal person is interested, is making noise that some nefarious prescription drug ring may have something to do with her daddy's demise.  She just wants to know so she can make them pay, dammit.  Preferably in cash, I would imagine.

Speaking of losing a body.

Every funeral director's nightmare is somehow not being able to account for somebody's loved one.    New York City funeral director, Paul DeNigris, had a body all boxed up for a ship out to Miami parked in the van outside his funeral home.  He even had a Funeral Director sign in his car window.  When he came out to head to the airport, uh oh!  No van, no body.  Towed away by New York's finest.  After a major panic attack and a trip to the tow yard, Paul gets his body back and on the plane.  The city even kindly waived the $185.00 tow fee but the $115.00 dollar parking ticket is still up for dispute.  DeNigris claims that funeral directors are exempt from parking regulations when transporting human remains.

Maybe so, but there's one small thing.  According to the story, the ticket was written at 9:22 AM and towed at 12:07 PM.  Hey Paul, that's almost three hours, dude.  The sign is supposed to be for removals and other official business.  No way should you leave a body unattended in a vehicle for three hours on a public street.  Hell, when I'm taking a body on a longer than normal journey I get nervous just doing a piss stop.

Maybe the cops would have more respect for 

licensed funeral director Paul DeNigris's van 

if licensed funeral director Paul DeNigris 

knew how to spell the word licensed. 

Mum?  I don't like going to the hospital to visit grandmama.  It smells in there.

Can somebody please get me to the mortuary?  

I think my funeral is tomorrow.

Of course it does, dear one.  That's because when people shed the mortal coil at Heartlands Hospital in Birmingham (UK) they just leave them in the bed so they can start decomposing.  There will be an investigation about why three deceased persons spent the day in bed on the ward in the inhospitable hospital.  Sarah Stevenson, one of the patients in the ward complained the corpses were causing a "tremendous stench".  That's because a lot of people like to leave a nice boom-boom before going off to heaven.   Besides, quit yer bitchin', Granny, or the National Health Service will send you to Haiti for your next recuperation so you can get a whiff of some real decomps.    

I'm not buying the hospital's story about the delay being caused by "the clinical condition of the deceased patient and the need for specialist equipment."  If they're too fat you get help and you move them.  If they've got AIDS or necrotizing fasciitis (flesh eating disease) you get them in a bag, slap a biohazard tag on them, and move them.  Anything else is just bullshit excuses.

This is government run health care and it blows.  End of story.

Your life or your gym bag...and you've only got a second to choose.

This one is really sad.  Not to mention horrible.  Rose Mary Mankos, 48, dropped her sports bag onto the New York City subway tracks and in one of those moments where instinct gives you exactly the wrong signal, Rose jumped onto the trackbed to retrieve it as the train barreled into the station.  As onlookers screamed for her to lay flat on the tracks, she tried in vain to climb back onto the platform.  Rose panicked, then froze, then got slammed by the train.  One horrified witness said, " It looked like she just gave up."

A man was killed in the same way in December going after his MP3 player and another got it in 2004 when he jumped down to get his cellphone.  I don't want to bring up the Darwin Awards, but people, please, it's just stuff.

Rose Mary Mankos.

Killed going after her LeSportsac bag. 

$78.00 on Amazon.

Man, what can you say?  A lot of people at that train stop will be having nightmares for a long time over the image of that poor woman.  I've had one train vs. person case.  All that was left was a body bag filled with chunks of human.  It was one of the worst things I've ever seen.  The only thing worse would be seeing it happen.