Have you heard? Samuel L. Jackon is going to die. It's because of some cursed photograph that has already snuffed out singer Isaac Hayes and comedian Bernie Mac. This augury is supported by the ancient celebrity Rule of Three, which demands that once one famous person's blood has been shed, so too must two others'. To satisfy the gods of wrath, I guess. Or Harvey Weinstein. Seriously, people are pretty sold on this whole theory. But why? I know that we're partly deluding ourselves because it's fun, but there's got to be some deeper meaning to it all. Last week I wrote a post about the supposed curse of The Dark Knight that detailed the various tragedies and grim incidences that have befallen that blockbuster film's cast. It was a pretty popular post (though, "popular" is relative in these post-Montauk Monster times), attracting nearly thirty-five thousand pageviews and some 95 comments. Our Californian sibling site Defamer ran a post just a few minutes ago about a Billy Bob Thornton death curse, which conclusively proves that the Sling Blade French fried potater leaves Kali-like destruction is his wake whenever he passes through a movie set. Now the Soul men photograph jinx. These theories are everywhere! People really seem to love this stuff—because, I guess it means you wield some power over unfortunate events. Look, we can predict this and see the ties between all of these people and nod our heads gravely and say "ah yes, it is a pattern." Isn't that so much better than admitting to ourselves that the world is cruel at random and that we're most likely caught in a net of terrible things at this very moment but don't know it because we're not famous and our coworkers aren't famous and our neighbors and cab drivers and grocery cashiers are just plain old regular people that no one writes about and that Mario Lopez has never heard of? Some disgruntled (and humorless) commenters have implied that the Rule of Three and curse-detecting and all that has been pushed to the point where people are actually wishing bad things to happen to our most recognizable supernovas, so their thesis can have more evidence to support it, so they can feel smug and right and knowing (and a little crazy). And I don't know, maybe there's some of that. But really it's just kind of... not fun, but engaging. In a way that's both comforting and scary. We are, yes, splashing around in the death puddles a little bit, but we're also reverent. Reverent of the people who've passed and of the bigger mysteries of existence. These are mysteries that transcend wealth and celebrity. And maybe that's part of it too. Maybe all this curse and triple death talk helps us keep our fame fascination in check. If these rich, shiny folks weren't slaves to some grand death's design—or had some Devon Sawa-like ability to cheat it—then we'd probably worship them as gods. And that would just be silly. And, superstitious.

Taken from the late Isaac Hayes' website, this photo shows the soul singer with the late comedian Bernie Mac and actor Samuel L. Jackson. Both Mac and Hayes died this week. Is Jackson next? Celebrities always go in threes, the old gypsies who live in the attic tell me. The "Soul" part must be some sort of clue... [Isaac Hayes.com. Thanks tipster!]

Sadly, "monsters" can be found wherever the sea decides to cough up its detritus. What do you make of this... thing? A reader from Salem, Mass forwards these pictures to us of something that washed up on her shores in May. I say it's a damned witch. Just look at that grin! What do you say it is? More photos after the jump.

So you spend a good decade or so of your life contributing to the Times, making a name for yourself in the Styles section before leaving for greener pastures in 2000. Then you die, tragically young, of breast cancer. Will you get a Times obit? No. Will you even be mentioned in the paper? Nope! In fact, poor Monique Yazigi, who died last week at 45, got only a posthumous rejection letter. Which is about the most depressing thing we can think of. Sigh. That letter, from obituaries editor Bill McDonald, below.

Well, good for Luke Russert. The young son of the late Tim Russert, longtime NBC newsman, just got a job as a political correspondent with NBC. He'll be heading to the conventions to cover "youth issues." Which is shorthand for "bullshit." Seriously, the kid is BU BC class of 2008, his only media experience is looking composed on camera while discussing his father's tragic death and also hosting a satellite radio sports talk show with James Carville (guess how he got that gig!). So... maybe we're just being assholes about it but seriously, NBC, there are a thousand unemployed (or "freelancing!") reporters and journalists out there who might enjoy a cushy on-camera gig! Hell, isn't Gideon Yago available? There's your youth issues! No disrespect intended, of course. Except toward NBC News executives. (Obligatory "this is just like when the Bronx Zoo hired Bindi Irwin" comments commence... now!) [NYO, FishbowlDC. Photo: NYSD]

As you stumble home drunkenly this evening, trundling down Stuart St. in Boston, or off of some semi-major highway in the greater Chicagoland area, don't plan on getting your faux-Irish crapbag food fix the way you've gotten it for years. Tonight, everything goes away. After three hundred and twenty-two devoted years of deep frying sandwiches (seriously, one bite and you died... in a good way) Bennigan's Grill & Tavern, known to some as Not-Applebee's, is shuttering most of its locations. Though, if your local family feedbag is one of the independently owned franchises, it might stay open. (Especially in Indiana!) So enjoy that special Jameson barbecue menu for as long as you can. It might not be long, though. Because I remember? When the Ground Round went out of business? There was one near me that stayed open? But then it totally closed, like, only a few months later. Let's take a moment of fried silence.

There was a press conference scheduled at the beach in Queens yesterday, so a Congressman could talk about how he was getting much-needed funding for more lifeguards. But it had to be canceled, because a dead, drowned body washed up on the beach. That's not funny. [NYS]

Celebrated flyboy and action man Steve Fossett, who mysteriously disappeared flying over Nevada last September, really might have faked his own death, according to investigators from the U.S. military and Fossett's insurance carrier. "But now the official search spokeswoman, Lieutenant Colonel Cynthia Ryan of the US Civil Air Patrol, has told the News of the World she believes he may NOT have crashed. She said: 'Anything is possible. There are a lot of raised eyebrows- even more so now. I know very few people here, friends in law enforcement, that buy this story like the rest of the world has.'" The evidence, after the jump.

Aaron Eckhart and Maggie Gyllenhaal dropped by the Today Show this morning to shill a movie, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. Eckhart earnestly related to host Matt Lauer a story about their deceased costar Heath Ledger which he'd told Ledger's mother — namely, that friends were passing around Ledger's iPod as a form of remembrance:

Hiroaki "Rocky" Aoki, the wrestler and restaurateur who essentially introduced America to Japanese food with his Benihaha chain, died today in New York. He was 69. Aoki raised the money to start his first Benihana by driving an ice cream truck in Harlem, which is awesome. More recently, he's been known to New Yorkers through his children, model Devon and annoying scenester DJ Steve. He faced deportation in 2006, and you could do worse for an introduction to his colorful life than this New York story on that incident. It begins, ominously: "'My daughter Grace is telling me, Daddy, your wife is going to poison you to death. Be careful what you eat,' says Rocky Aoki with an odd, amused grin." [AP]

Most of the time people say an ad campaign is "good," they just mean that it's funny. Less often, it could be poignant, or provocative, or straight-out informative. But there's always the "incredibly morbid" tactic, too. It works! Making your audience shudder means they remember what you said. Or are permanently scarred by it. Same difference. After the jump, five ads that get their point across by evoking death, disfigurement, or sex crimes:

How the mighty are falling. The once proud Project Runway, winner of highly esteemed Peabody awards and beloved of many an affluent gay tastemaker, has been in a tailspin since the announcement was made that the show would be moving to Lifetime (television for Women). The fashion design competition show has but one short season left on Bravo, where it has helped shape and brand the once obscure network. And, hey, it starts next week! Did you know this? I certainly didn't. Where is the typical tsunami of press releases and meet-the-cast rosters and, um, internet advertising? TV writers won't even get a screener until Monday, two short days before the season premiere. What gives?

Precisely one good thing happened to America this July 4, the arbitrarily selected pretend "birthday" of our cursed nation: a vile bigot died at a very, very old age. While the country as a whole would've decidedly been better served by his having died many decades ago (we came so close!), it is at least some small comfort that former Senator Jesse Helms spent his last miserable years suffering from dementia alone in a nursing home. But don't take our word for it! The internet is alive with vitriol directed against the dead old bastard. Join us on a tour!

If you're an energy company trying to get the public to like you, there's only one way to go: cute polar bears. Forget about the energy crisis. Look at the polar bears! National Grid has wisely picked the salvation of polar bears as its charity of choice, and they have a sweet website full of sweet animated polar bears. Even better, they have a TV ad to fulfill every kid's dream: a nice cute polar bear pet! They're all so cuddly and friendly, we wuv them. Shortly after this commercial wrapped, four children were viciously mauled by polar bears (NOT REALLY). Below, the adorable ad that will make you visit the Arctic for a polar bear of your very own. Yay, energy companies!

NBC newsman Tim Russert died of a heart attack more than two weeks ago, but that doesn't mean that it's too late for desperate flacks to try piggybacking on the man's death in order to snatch a little media coverage for their most marginal clients. For example, here's a question you've probably been asking yourself since that fateful day: "COULD HOLISTIC MEDICINE HAVE SAVED TIM RUSSERT?" Holistic medicine pioneer and tasteless quack Raphael Kellman, MD says "YES!":

Even in America, most people know that the last 50 years have been a nightmare of war and death for much of the planet. Turns out, it was actually three times worse than most people thought! "Wars around the world have killed three times more people over the past half-century than previously estimated, a new study suggests. The finding supports the notion of armed conflict as a 'public health problem' whose instability leads not only to violent deaths, but to indirect deaths from infectious disease and other causes, experts add. 'War kills more people than we had previously thought,' said lead researcher Ziad Obermeyer, a research scientist at Brigham & Women's Hospital, in Boston. 'And that has to be taken into account when we're looking historically, and it's important for people and policy makers to know when they're looking at the consequences of the war. It's important that there's an awareness of how many people actually die.'"

So. As we noted this morning, blog mistress Arianna Huffington didn't weigh in on the unexpected death of departed Meet the Press host Tim Russert until well after everyone else, and once she did, she didn't have much to say. Because of the old axiom about how much one should say when one doesn't have anything nice to say. (HuffPo's regular feature "Russert Watch" has gone blank—technical glitch or archive-scrubbing?) As anyone who's read Arianna's media writing over the last couple years knows, she never liked Tim. And we only just recently wandered into the fray, when we learned that Russert's unappreciated lapdog Chris Matthews hated Huffington for her years spent bashing his idol. And why did she hate Tim? This book excerpt might explain it all!

You know the crazy BODIES exhibit that features plasticized dead bodies, like, playing soccer and blogging and stuff? (We have not seen it, so maybe we're making up the stuff they do.) Those bodies are totally from a shady supplier that buys "unclaimed" bodies from the Chinese Bureau of Police. Which, like, means disappeared people and political prisoners and stuff! Yay! Now New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is forcing the South Street Seaport to tell visitors to the exhibit that the bodies are all executed prisoners who may have been tortured. But it's "don't be too mean to China" week so the exhibit remains open. [Jaunted]

Former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is a slick, smooth, charming guy. He would've been a dangerous nominee, because he's TV-friendly and quick-witted in a folksy, unthreatening way. But he's actually a rar-right nutcase. And sometimes his jokes fall flat. As in the clip above. If you can't get a laugh from telling a "someone is going to shoot Barack Obama" joke in a talk at the NRA then your delivery needs work, we say. Oh, also we say: wtf.

How many times have you gazed out on the subway tracks during your daily commute, wishing only for the sweet release that hurling yourself upon them would provide? Plenty of times; you're reading this site, so we know your job sucks. Some people do throw themselves in front of trains, which represents not only a wasted life, but also a hugely inconvenient municipal clean-up job. So Washington, DC has ordered up some stuff to keep your mind occupied while you're on the platform—games like Hopscotch and "I Spy." The slogan on the games reads "Life is fun. Keep on living. Use caution around the tracks." Perhaps hopscotch was not the wisest choice, then? And let's be honest—the slogan of this campaign should really be, "Anything to Momentarily Distract You From Suicidal Thoughts." After the jump (ha), one of the "I Spy" games. This would only cure a very minimal level of depression: