When Graham Chapman, one of the members of the Monty Python group, died, the remaining members of the group got up at the funeral and sang a rousing rendition of "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life." John Cleese said that Graham would have wanted it that way.
There's actually some poor video footage of the eulogy and song
This got me thinking about my own funeral. The funerals I've been to have been boring, sad, and unpleasant affairs. I don't want to be remembered that way. Hell, my life is boring and unpleasant; there's no need for my death to be that way. A funeral is the ultimate egocentric party: everyone is there for you, everyone is looking at you, and at the end of the day, you have a good excuse for not getting laid. Why waste this opportunity? I have some cool new ideas for my funeral.
First off, I want to be creamated. It would prevent people from snickering at the large size of my coffin, and none of my pallbearers would tear a ligament trying to heft my weight. An urn is much tidier, and I can be a conversation starter at parties thrown by my kids:
"What's in the urn?"
"My dad's ashes. He said he'd rather die than come to a party with you."
I figure my kids will have my sense of humor.
Even if my urn isn't buried, I want to have a tombstone somewhere. I also want my tombstone to have something clever on it. "Here lies Justin" YAWN! Fuck that. I want to entertain from beyond the grave. How about something like, "How do you know you're not standing on my nuts?" Sure I'd be in an urn, but the gravediggers and other passersby wouldn't know that. Even something simple like, "Take it from me, it could be worse!" would be enough to elicit a chuckle from some pathetic future douchebag (and believe me, I'm sure there will be pathetic douchebags in the future as well - hell, my offspring will be there).
Also, I hope I die of something memorable. Not painful -- just memorable. A quiet heart attack while I'm on the toilet would do it. I'd love to stand in front of a large group of Mormons and yell, "MAY GOD STRIKE ME DEAD IF MORMONISM ISN'T THE TRUE CHURCH!" and then keel over, but I think I'd regret not seeing the looks on their faces. But I think the perfect way to go would be to die trying. I don't care what I'm trying to do, but I want to say that and have it be the outcome. "I'm going to buy a gold-plated dildo or die trying!!" I'll declare and then keel over on the way to my seedy destination.
Finally I want my funeral to be a celebration. Hell, most people will probably be celebrating anyway. When I'm old, I intend to be that crotchety old man who chases the kids off his lawn with a cane and then hoards their baseballs in his garage. But statistics figure that someone will miss me, so I want my loved ones to throw a big bash. The way I see it, if I make it through several more decades without getting shot or stabbed by some irate student or disgrunted blog reader, then that's cause for celebration!
6 comments:
You know, I'm an atheist, so thinking about my own funeral is particularly weird.
But I also want it to be a party. I'm going to specify that I want good drinks and appetizers, and I'm going to make them play classic funk music. Of course, they probably won't, but I can hardly stand the ridiculous droning of some preacher who didn't really know what the person was like in the first place.
All people really want to do is to remember that person's life anyway.
You are definately wise to burn yourself, because if your body was still in tact, you know it would be dug up and violated by many.
I think it says something about my friends that I can't be sure who wrote that.
There's one gazmo in particular that's likely, but there are a few contenders.
It's Joe, right?
I would give that the affirmative.
Um...TUE, if you're going to remove your name, you should probably remove your profile info, too. That's what pops up lots of times in a google search by the Big Bad.
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