Dead or Alive

Sometimes I get some pretty messed up thoughts. Other times I get funny ones, or at least ones I think are funny. And occasionally these two wonderful areas intersect.

(Sorry about the blurry image. I made it in about 3 minutes on MS Paint at work.)

Anyway I was thinking about the death of Michael Jackson. This obviously not because I care, but because it is still ubiquitous in the news and pop culture scene.

That kind of got me thinking about how his death compares to Elvis's and Tupac's. I guess they're all kind of similar since their deaths were pretty sudden and unexpected and they seemed to have more to offer musically.

Now on a tangent that will connect soon enough, I've been on ESPN.com's Streak for the Cash and as a result have been looking at odds and prop bets to try to succeed (It hasn't worked. My best streak ever is a W6. Fail.).

So this got me thinking. A lot of people think Elvis/Tupac/MJ aren't actually dead and are either living regular lives somewhere wallowing in money or preparing to return. How many of these people would actually put money on it? And if they did, what would the odds look like comparing the likelihood of one star's return to the next?

Of course the chances of any of those happening are technically 0% since they're all actually dead (in my estimation at least, who knows), but that doesn't stop odds from being out there. Now I didn't actually actively look for (1 quick glance at the first page of a Google search) these odds, if they do exist, but I'd probably rank them like this (from most likely to be alive to most likely to be dead):

Tupac Shakur
Elvis Presley
Michael Jackson

There's a very simple explanation for my reasoning. In fact it is so simple, I will show you in pictures.


Now it is pretty clear from this first image here (henceforth "Exhibit A") why Tupac is the champion of the dead-but-maybe-not superstars. As you can see, only two of the suggestions even refer to him being dead with only one of those offering proof. A staggering eight suggestions of varying strength are about him being alive and even have dates (2008) and media outlets (cnn) attached along with the regular assertions of proof and facts. Not only that, there is even a negative assertion that he isn't dead, which is basically like saying he's alive. Actually that is what it's saying. Never mind. I don't know where I was going with that one.

Moving on from Exhibit A, Exhibit B clearly presents a weaker argument. There is not even suggetions of proof of Elvis's supposed survival. The questioning nature of a couple of those also are not as strong as the confident claims of Tupac. However, the King picks up some major bonus points. In the 4th item on that list, not only does it claim that Elvis is alive, but that he's also working at 7-11. That is the most specific statement yet which lends -- I don't want to say credence because that's not what I mean and it doesn't fit but I'll say it anyway -- credence to this Google search. Plus 7-11 is awesome and you can't fault that. And of course the last suggestion claims Elvis to be god, and while lowercased, I guess that's still better than anything Tupac or MJ put up. so there's that.

And finally Exhibit C. Obviously Michael Jackson is dead and even Google knows it. Only one suggestion hints at him being alive however another one says that he's going to die. So either he's dead or back but going to die. Doesn't sound too promising. Also, his Google search is connected to Islam which pales in comparison to Elvis's link to "god" and being Jewish. Not be racist or prejudiced, but the Jews do have Jesus on their side. Sort of. I mean He was a Jew. Anyway.

So based on careful research and mathematical calculations, Tupac appears to be about 3 times more likely to still be alive than Elvis and about 22.7 times more likely to be alive than Michael Jackson. But I guess that's not news. We all knew that anyway.

Not that his new releases gave it away or anything. For all we know, he might have written them a long time ago.