Death of a Salesman

And wouldn't you know, scarcely had we completed yesterday's entry when we found on our Netflix streaming video queue episode 11 of "Harper's Island."  Suffice to say, the quality was what we have come to expect.  Sample line of dialogue: "If you have a clear shot at Wakefield, take it!  Even if I'm in the way!"  We must assume that "clear" has some heretofore unknown meaning on the little Isle of Harper.

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But that's not our topic du jour.  Instead, today, we turn our attention to the forgotten decedent in this last week's seemingly endless roll call of the doomed, Billy Mays.

Granted, Billy Mays' life was probably not as culturally significant as those of some of the other recently departed.  For one thing, he never posed in a nipple-revealing one-piece, a fact for which we are sufficiently grateful.  Nor for that matter did he ever have a number one single or a child-molestation indictment.  Arguably, though, he was at least as significant for the early 21st-century as Ed McMahon was for a good portion of the late 20th.  After all, both were essentially known for enthusiastic sycophancy.  Indeed, we propose the following question for the next SAT: Ed McMahon is to Publisher's Clearing House as Billy Mays is to Oxi-Clean.

Billy Mays' was a real, "only-in-America" success story.  Who else but our consumer-oriented society would celebrate someone whose main--scratch that, whose only claim to fame was selling stuff?  And apparently, he could sell.  Legend has it that, after his initial appearance on the St. Petersburg, FL, affiliate of the Home Shopping Network for Orange Glo International, sales of their products shot up.  Adding to his credibility, Mays consistently claimed to be a faithful user of any product he endorsed.   

So while we probably won't see huge crowds of mourners wearing fake beards staging mass launderings with Oxi-Clean on the Atlantic City boardwalk (where Mays learned his salesmanship), we still pause to remember a man who, in his own way, made a mark on society.  And a man who would no doubt have just the product to get that mark out of your favorite shirt.

RIP, Mr. Mays.

 

(Image from The Seattle Times)