Mind Your Own God Damn Business

"I loves it that way, I ain't jokin'. Grab my belt, and gets to chokin'." - David Carradine, 1994

It’s starting to look more and more like David Carradine died of Auto-Erotic Asphyxiation, a practice where you choke yourself while jacking off. If you time it right and  stop choking yourself right when you have an orgasm, it apparently feels fantastic. If something goes wrong and you keep choking, you obviously end up dead.

I’m always looking for an excuse to talk about “The hilarious killer”, and this is as good a reason as any.

It’s always tragic when someone dies, even if it’s in an incredibly comical way like this, but this is not the first time that something like this has happened; the estimated fatalities in the U.S. due to auto-erotic asphyxia fall somewhere between 250 – 1000 every year.

Every time someone dies this way, I find myself thinking one thing: I need to try auto-erotic asphyxiation, for one simple reason: It HAS to feel fantastic.

Think about it this way: Suppose that you’re sitting around in your living room and Satan suddenly appears in a puff of smoke, probably playing an electric guitar. You ask him what he’s doing there, and he says “I’m here to grant you one wish. Anything you want.”

It’s Satan, so obviously you’re all like “What’s the catch?”, and then he cackles and says “There’s a slim but measurable chance that instead of getting your wish, you’re going to choke to death, and when the cops show up, they’ll find you lying there with a belt around your neck with your pants around your ankles clutching your penis. There will be some pornography surrounding you and probably a few sex toys. There’s also a good chance that you will have crapped your pants.”

Now, if you do decide to go ahead and make that wish, it’s going to have to be for something pretty awesome, right? With risk like that, you’re not just going to ask for Satyr legs or to be able to shoot lightening out of your dick. You’re going to want to make an incredibly kickass wish, because it has to be awesome enough to offset the chance of dying in one of the least dignified ways possible, right?

EXACTLY.

I don’t know what it feels like to have an orgasm after choking myself. I’ve never done it. What I do know is this: People are doing a cost-benefit analysis between that feeling and a premature, feces-smeared, semen-crusted death, and after weighing the risks, they’re like “Get me a belt, some wine coolers and a couple of dildos. IT’S GAME TIME!”

It’s a little bit hard for me to understand. Getting caught masturbating sucks enough as it is. Getting caught masturbating and dead seems much worse to me. That’s the last memory people will have of you. I don’t know if I want ANYTHING badly enough to risk that, but these people have their pro/con sheet, “Humiliating death” is listed on the con side, and they’re STILL up for it!

Unfortunately, I think I’m too much of a pussy to ever find out. Normal auto-eroticism has been doing the job just fine for me, and even if it stops working as well, I think that I’m too afraid of dying to ever try spicing it up in a potentially lethal fashion.

Who knows, though? Maybe someday. Maybe someday.

I need some sippin’ whiskey and a belt.

P.S.: The new “Arsonists Get All The Girls” album hits hard. I would almost risk dying while masturbating to listen to it. Fortunately, I don’t have to.

P.P.S.: In the newest Bill Simmons mailbag, one of his readers makes an excellent point:

Q: If Michael Jackson’s memorial had ended with him jumping out of the casket and performing “Thriller,” would that have been the best moment in television history? I think so.
– Rick, New York

SG: Yes! One hundred times over, yes! I will go one step further: Once I found out his body would be at the ceremony, part of me was sitting there for two hours thinking, “He’s gonna jump out of the casket. He’s gonna jump out of the casket.” Can you name another celebrity in our lifetimes who would provoke this reaction? We are talking about a scenario in which A DEAD GUY WOULD HAVE JUMPED OUT OF A CASKET AND STARTED SINGING, and I wouldn’t have been totally surprised by this. Hell, I was a little disappointed when the ceremony ended. Crap. I guess he’s really dead.

(Ladies and gentlemen, the Michael Jackson era! We will never see anything quite like it again. And maybe that’s for the best.)

Have a good weekend, everybody.