lightening up with black humor

i was watching "i love the 90's" last night, a show that recaps the pop culture events of a particular year. the year in question was 1997, the year in which 39 members of the heaven's gate cult killed themselves in an attempt to rendez-vous with the spaceship they believed was trailing the Hale Bopp comet. all the cult members were dressed alike when they were found, including identical pairs of black nike sneakers. trey parker was commenting on this on the tv show. trey parker is the co creator and everything-er of South Park. i met someone who was a friend of his in high school who told me that trey had been my neighbor when i lived on brook forest road in evergreen colorado as a kid. so i was predisposed to like him. but his comment about heaven's gate slayed me: "what's tragic about that? dying in the hospital with tubes sticking out of you? that's tragic. go out in sneaks thinking you're going up in a spaceship? genius."