2005-08-15 - 3:04 p.m.

Death Celebrity

This song is dedicated to Yutandey Price, the sister of Venus and Serena Williams, who was slain during a gang shoot out in Compton, Sunday September 14th, 2003. Rest in peace. Okay, what the hell is that song about?

I finally looked up the lyrics because I can�t understand them other than the shameless name dropping. I am not sure exactly how one holds up Martin Luther King Jr.�s I have a dream speech with the goal of boffing Mya, but then I am not a member of the G Unit, whose leader apparently considers himself a nympho. I admit, there�s a lot in this world I don�t understand.

Anyway, that song has been intriguing me because amidst the namedropping is a tally of dead celebrities, a popular culture affirmation. P Diddy�s capitalizing on the Notorious B.I.G. being the most obvious example, referencing the dead is a mainstay not only in rap culture but seemingly everywhere. The Magic�s song illustrates everything the movie Heathers portrayed, with death creating and enhancing celebrity.

Death is used as advertising (ie the movie The Crow and many a rap album), as a status symbol, as an association to someone/something/sometime thought of fondly since it had passed (Aaliyah, Tupac, Ronald Reagan). And then it is marketed. Memorilization is profitable: tee shirts, auto decals, the list goes on. It starts with celebrities and moves onto the masses.

The ubiquitous memorialization trend. I keep finding examples of it.

For instance, I present to you In Memory of decals on cars. The first time the hub and I saw In memory of ... on a car, we made up a story, as we�re wont to do, about how the car�s owner was able to buy that car with an inheritance and so they had a little memorial on their car. That sort of made sense, in our created little world where we normalize things for ourselves. Then that #3 Nascar guy died and people had all kinds of RIP in memory of stuff on their cars for him, which I guess kind of made tacky sense, cause it was a car reference.

However, now I am confused by the numerous �In Memory of ________� (usually with dates as well) on cars. Usually something done in memory has some relevance or is an action of some sort. What was it they did exactly? Had an auto decal made? It�s not like it�s a lasting monument or something, or even much of a sacrifice like the memorial tattoos that are also prevalent.

Still, memorial car decals are better than huge huge spoilers and auto balls, but not by much.*

*Also not good: lite brite cars, jesus fish, ribbon car decals, tricked out rims and stickers of anything peeing on anything. Also, this car.

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