If Michael Jackson meets David Carradine in heaven – as unlikely as that’d be – he should expect a great big hug.

Why? Because thanks to Michael Jackson’s death, the world has forgotten about David Carradine and how he died in a Bangkok hotel cupboard wearing a lady’s wig, a set of fishnet stockings and a shoelace that was somehow tied and his neck and penis at the same time. So that’s good.

But David Carradine is back in the news again – a private pathologist has stated that he probably died of asphyxia. Funny, we had money on the cause being embarrassment.

You know David Carradine, the actor and apparent auto-erotic asphyxiation fetishist who appears to have died during a bout of auto-erotic asphyxiation gone horribly wrong? Yeah, turns out that asphyxia probably killed him. We know! We were shocked when we found out, too! We had his death down as either swine flu or a shark attack. Some experts we turned out to be.

However, it seems like asphyxia really was the cause of David Carradine’s death, because the private pathologist hired by the Carradine family said so, as AP reports:

The private pathologist who examined David Carradine’s body says Thai authorities have determined the actor died of asphyxia and so far, he agrees. Dr. Michael Baden says his examination of the “Kung Fu” star’s body and the details he’s received from Bangkok are consistent with an asphyxiation death. He conducted a second autopsy on Carradine’s body at the family’s request.

But hold on a second – don’t think that the mystery has closed just because a pathologist has stated the painfully obvious. Although he died of asphyxiation, nobody can say for sure whether David Carradine’s death was accidental and self-inflicted or, yes, if it was down to that rival kung-fu gang we’ve been hearing so much about lately.

True, the hotel’s CCTV doesn’t appear to show anyone entering or leaving David Carradine’s room in the hours before or after his death, but this is a rival kung-fu gang we’re talking about here. They could have somersaulted in through the window or burst through the ceiling armed with wigs, stockings and a shoelace long enough to tie around someone’s genitals and neck simultaneously or something. They’re the worst kind of rival kung-fu gangs – the ones with long shoelaces and an alarming sense of visual aesthetic.

Of course, in the coming weeks as toxicology and forensic test results are completed, we’ll all get a much clearer picture about the circumstances of David Carradine’s death and put all this grubby business behind us. When we said ‘a clearer picture’ just now, by the way, we weren’t talking about an actual physical picture of David Carradine’s death scene that we can all look at, because – you know – ugh. And stuff.

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Masturbation, quite clearly. But that hasn’t stopped his family from putting forward the theory that he was killed. By a Kung Fu gang.

Think of the most embarrassing moment of your life. Think of it, relive it, be there right now.

Bad, huh? Now fast forward a bit and imagine your 72-year old body being found in a Bangkok hotel room closet, naked but for a shoelace tied around your shrivelled old winky.

Puts that bachelor’s party into perspective, doesn’t it?

So, no wonder that David Carradine‘s family are going with the “he was murdered” line. To be honest, if it was us we’d hope that our relatives had the decency to claim we had “drowned in a bathtub filled with tramp’s piss while cleaning the underside of Susan Boyle‘s breasts with their tongue and listening to Coldplay albums” rather than “okay, okay, they choked on the bit of string they’d been using to heighten their masturbatory experience in an Asian hotel wardrobe“.

But the family haven’t stopped at simply proposing an explanation which doesn’t involve autoerotic asphixiation. They’ve put some thought into this. Sadly, that thought was “Hmm, David liked martial arts. He starred in a TV series and a Quentin Tarantino film about them. Maybe we could say he was practising an ancient Shaolin meditation technique? No, that’s ridiculous. Aha: Kung Fu assassination squads!”

Dear Sydney Morning Herald, what could possibly be going on here?

“David Carradine was murdered by a secret kung fu sect, his family has claimed. Relatives of the Kill Bill star believe he was “assassinated” because he was trying to expose an underworld martial arts group. Speaking on the Larry King Live US talk show, attorney Mark Geragos said: ‘David was very interested in investigating and disclosing secret societies – absolutely.’

We’re no experts, but we just can’t buy this story. For a start, everyone knows ninjas kill people using knives, throwing-stars and slow-motion flying kicks. And for a finish, Carradine’s ex-wife filed for divorce partly on the grounds of his demands for:

“…deviant sexual behaviour which was potentially deadly”

Nice try. But let us at least hope that the world remembers David Carradine as the charming young star of stylish, action-packed blockbuster films.

And definitely not as a pensioner who died while tugging away at himself.

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David Carradine died exactly how he lived. That’s presuming, of course, that he lived naked in a cupboard with a shoelace tied around his willy.

Anyway, due to the circumstances of David Carradine’s death, dignity isn’t exactly in ready supply right now. It’s difficult to reflect sensibly on Carradine’s extensive body of work while knowing that he probably died during a bizarre wanking accident. Still, though, basic decency tells us that we should respect the dead however they died.

Alternatively, if you’re a Thai newspaper, you can just print pictures of David Carradine’s naked corpse. It’s sort of the same.

For the most part, the worst thing about the unexpected death of a celebrity is the speculation. Did Princess Diana die or was she murdered? Was Anna Nicole Smith offed by one of her entourage? Did Heath Ledger die because playing The Joker literally sent him mad? The lack of black and white facts in the immediate aftermath of the death tends to be a conspiracy theorist’s playground.

That’s happened a little bit in the wake of David Carradine’s unusual death last week – with sources variously claiming that it was a deliberate suicide bourne out of financial problems or a murder by, somewhat inexplicably, a rival kung-fu gang – but it’s by no means the worst part about his death. No, the worst part about David Carradine’s death was the fact that the body of a 72-year-old man was found swinging naked from a Bangkok hotel cupboard with a piece of string tied around his genitals – an upsetting, undignified way for anyone to die, let alone a genuine cultural icon.

And now even that’s not the worst thing about David Carradine’s death. Now the worst thing about David Carradine’s death is that a Thai newspaper has decided to print pictures of his naked corpse, as BBC News reports:

The family of Kill Bill star David Carradine has said it is “profoundly disturbed” after images of the actor’s body were printed in a Thai newspaper. The leaked pictures, which Thai police said are probably forensic photos, reportedly show the actor’s body in the Thai hotel room where he died. His half-brother, actor Keith Carradine, threatened legal action against any “invasions of privacy”.

Now, we’ve taken the decision not to publish or link to the photos of David Carradine purely on the basis that they’re photos of a dead old man in the nude, but it’s hard to see how the publication of the pictures benefits anyone at all. David Carradine’s family is furious, most of the public is bound to be a little unsettled and a newspaper can hardly expect to see a spike in circulation purely because it prints a photograph of a dead pensioner’s penis, can it?

Honestly, even though he was a man whose last major role involved dressing up like a horny Asian ganglord in a film where Jason Statham wears an electrified dog collar and shicks himself until he craps in his own underwear, this shows an absurd lack of respect to David Carradine. On the plus side, this has to be as bad as it gets now.

Unless, of course, it turns out that David Carradine picked The Greatest Hits Of Michael Bolton as his fatal masturbatory soundtrack. Because that really would be too much to take.

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