Shout it Out!

When does a traveling salesman become a celebrity? Rarely, but Billy Mays managed it. His death on the 28^th did not go unremarked despite the world’s preoccupation with the passing of one of the largest pop culture icons in history.

According to a recent CNN article by Ashley Fanz, he was a man with a formula - a well-oiled, well-drilled ability to pitch, often very loudly, coupled with a sort of sincerity which was hard to disbelieve. In his own words, “I’m a pitchman, my business comes from the pitch, nothing else. My voice, my likeness is my livelihood. That’s it. I keep it simple. I pick good products.”

The article goes on to list the whys wherefores and monetary details of Mays’ success, but there is nothing to be had about the man himself. Was he a good father? For that matter, did he even have children? What were his pastimes, his hobbies? What views did Mr. Mays hold on the thousand and one topics we discuss every day?

Wikipedia isn’t much more informative, besides a more precise listing of names and dates in Mays’ business career. This is slightly depressing in that it leaves one flustered, waiting for something which will never come. What is the sum total of a man’s life, when all is said and done? Is it his work? The family he leaves behind? The business successes he had? The money in his will?

Perhaps he was deeply loved by those who were blessed to know him, or it could be his wife couldn’t stand him any longer and slipped him the dope the night before he died. No one will ever know, and it could be that these are questions that should not be answered, because we aren’t really asking them of Billy Mays, we’re asking them of ourselves. Faced with continuing proof of our own fragile mortality, sometimes we have few answers to our own questions.

Whatever the family puts on his gravestone, his epitaph, culturally at least, should read: “You shouted, and we believed.” Amen.