Did David Carradine do a Michael Hutchence?

Wow. According to the Associated Press, David Carradine was found dead in the closet of his room at a luxury hotel in Bangkok, with, accoding to Thai Police, a rope "tied around his penis and another around his neck."

Contrary to initial speculation, his death may not have been suicide. Rather, it may have been either accidental suffocation, presumably an unintended consequence of an auto-erotic sex act (ala Michael Hutchence), or due to a heart attack following an orgasm. Autopsy results pending. If his death was indeed accidental, in light of that fact that he was 72 years old, is that inglorious? Or is it "amazing," in a Kill Bill sort of way?

I met David Carradine once. As a teenager I was invited to a comic book distributors' meeting in Los Angeles that was held on an unremarkable saturday morning in the summer of 1988 in an undecorated warehouse. I also met Jack Kirby that day. To my utter amazement, at one point in walked David Carradine.

As a child in the 1970s, I had been a big fan of the TV show "Kung Fu." So I recognized him instantly, even though he looked pale and "tired" and had a bit of a paunch that wasn't well hidden by the open collared shirt and polyesther sweat pants he was wearing. And was that a glass of scotch or bourbon he was casually and un-selfconsciously carrying around in his right hand? At 11 AM? (And where did he get that? No one else was drinking.)

Nonetheless, he was the biggest star in the room that day. He knew it and so did everyone else. And while he may have been a shadow of his former self, he still radiated some star power. He wasn't very chatty (at least as far a I saw). But he was amiable, in a distant sort of way.

Above is a picture taken that day, with me as a teenager, Jack Kirby and David Carradine (and in the background, Jim Valentino, who years later would go on to co-found Image Comics).

Accidental death or no, I will try to remember the David Carradine in that photo, with a bourboun dangling listlessly from his hand, rather than the rope dangling from penis image that keeps forcing itself, unwanted, to the front of my mind as I write this.