Crocodile Tears

Don't get the wrong idea. I'm not trying to turn this blog into the Dead People Server just because this is the fourth R.I.P. posting I've made in a row, but it just so happens that a lot of notable people have been dying lately. If I didn't post about famous deaths, I think the passings would slip under most people's radars. So now it's pretty much become my duty to report on the bucket-kickers since I have my finger on the pulse of dead people (albeit that pulse is registering zero beats per minute). For today's bad news, the grim reaper has come for Steve Irwin, "The Crocodile Hunter."

Steve Irwin

February 22, 1962 - September 4, 2006

Steve Irwin was killed earlier today during a deep-sea documentary shoot when he was impaled in the heart by a stingray barb. Now I'm no doctor, but my basic diagnosis would be "HOLY SWEET MARY MOTHER OF JESUS, THAT HAS REALLY, REALLY GOT TO SUCK." It's simultaneously a tragic, yet totally bad-ass way to go.

Despite his name, the Crocodile Hunter didn't actually stalk crocs, but instead he taunted death his entire career by sticking his face in future suitcases, wallets and pimp shoes as they lived in their natural habitat. That's pretty cool, and at least he wasn't altogether nutso strange-o like that Grizzly Man who totally annoyed bears into killing him. Irwin was just a dedicated naturalist who had Linda Evans hair and a true love for animals. The environmentalist community will have one less hero and the late-night talk show circuit will have one less last-minute guest. Looks like Jay Leno will have to resort to booking Carrot Top instead. HOLY SWEET MARY MOTHER OF JESUS, THAT HAS REALLY, REALLY GOT TO SUCK.

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UPDATE 9/4/06 8:00PM:
What I find interesting is that it's clear that the thing most daily gossip shows hate most is a celebrity death that happens on a three-day weekend. Instead of giving Steve Irwin a proper video send-off, shows like Extra and Entertainment Tonight spent more time hyping prepackaged bits like Katie Couric's upcoming debut on the nightly news.

So while Pat O'Brien was busy drunk-dialing Vanessa Minnillo from his backyard barbecue, some poor intern was spending his Labor Day combing through footage of a Hollywood Video copy of The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course on DVD to create a last-second memorial that would be squeezed in before Extra's latest update on the awkward Simpson-Lachey tension backstage at the MTV Video Music Awards. That's tension so thick you couldn't even cut it with the serrated barb of a... never mind.