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That does it. Miguel is a greeting card writer.

Miguel, I picture your tombstone festooned with flowers from broken-hearted admirers, with glasses of vintage port filled with tears. And on the stone, chiseled in immovable marble, these soul-wrenching words:

"JOE JACKSON RULES!"

Miguel, how about:

"HE WAS NEVER THERE"

(Except for Metatalk. He was all over that place)

I kid because I love.

Miguel Esteves Cardoso
19?? - 2???
Boulevardier, Bon Vivant, Lush

Unless you can write my epitaph on a wave in the ocean it won't happen, maybe a plaque somewhere. I would really like to go out Viking style. Put my body on a boat, then light it ablaze making me a roaring fire sailing into the sunset. Ashes to ashes, dust I don’t want to be, like JFK said back to the sea.

Very Keatsian of you, Thom.

I intend to be cremated. But considering the amount of alcohol in my system at any given time, it wouldn't be so much a cremation as a Corpse Flambee.

I intend to be cremated. But considering the amount of alcohol in my system at any given time, it wouldn't be so much a cremation as a Corpse Flambee.

Helte Skelter. Pooooost!

I personally would prefer to be cremated, although I don't think that my family would go for it. And I certainly don't want to be buried in Utah, but if I died right now, that's probably where they would put me. But in reality, the ones left behind are the ones who mourn. So whatever makes them happy.

I want everyone to line up at the wake and have sex with my corpse.

Except my mom, of course. That would be gross.

Would we have to kiss you?

It would be okay, I've kissed my share of inert bodies..bring it on.

I want my body to sliced up in very thin, playing card sized slices, laminated, and trading cards made of it.

post?

I've always told my wife that I want to be cremated, then mixed into a gallon of paint, and that paint be used to repaint our bedroom.

Just so's I could watch.

Y'know?

Sexy Sadie?

I want all the men at my funeral to sing "Dixie Chicken."

I too belong in the "Like I care? Whatever works for you" camp (although I have threatened to have the presence of a mariachi band and pole dancers as a requirement in my will.)

I've also made it clear that any family funeral that I have any say about will not have any sort of corpse viewing. Save that shit for Six Feet Under.

I used to be anti-corpse viewing, but now I think it's an important ritual for mourning. We have so few here in the U.S. People are expected to cry--but not too much, else others would start to feel "uncomfortable." Hey, guess what? Death isn't really comfortable anyway. I say let 'em scream, cry, rip clothing, dance, whatever. Get that emotion out there.

I also wonder why we have such a lack of language in dealing with death. I mean "I'm sorry" is such a stupid thing to say (obviously under most circumstances the death is not your fault) but there seem to be so few options in English.

I'm in the no corprse-viewing camp, or maybe the optional corpse-viewing camp. All I'm saying is that I'm in a camp, and there are corpses there. Whether you can see them or not is unclear at this time.

I have viewed corpses before, one of whom was killed ina horrendous car accident, and was clearly "reconstructed" facially. Not pleasant. I have also identified a body.

One of the best funerals I ever went to was for a guy who played the bass fiddle. He was cremated, and they just had his bass fiddle up at the front with a spotlight on it. Tasteful.

The most important thing is, by far, the obituary. Here in the Kentucky Post they do one "feature" obit each day, where they tell all the hobbies the person had and how many ribbons they won for pie baking, and quotes and anecdotes from their friends and all.

If I anyone more important than me dies the same day I do, hold my obit until I get the top spot. That's all I ask.

hold my obit until I get the top spot. That's all I ask.

For me, wondering who will show up and what will be said is the scary part...hear about folks dying and being found way later, how death fully lonely that would be. You're just a stiff whom no one visited.
PS any one read the orbits, at work use to be part of the goofing off/chatter before the internet.

I Would like to think my epitaph would read something like this:

U.F.
1967-20XX
Alone we are born
And die alone;
Yet see the red-gold cirrus
Over snow-mountain shine.
Upon the upland road
Ride easy, stranger:
Surrender to the sky
Your heart of anger.

Or even better:

U.F.
1967-20XX
No one likes the fellow who is all rogue, but we'll forgive him almost anything if there is warmth of human sympathy underneath his rogueries.

But most likely?

U.F.
1967-20XX
We told him to look both ways, but did he listen? Noooo, Mister Spartypants knew better, didn't he! Going around, cracking wise, flashy, flaunting authority - just look at him now!

in re obits: I want to be just succesful enough to warrant 2 column inches in the New York Times on my dying day. Four would be better? But I'll moulder smiling for two.

I happen to think that viewing the corpse is truly barbaric. Episcopalian funerals do it well...caskets are covered in a pall, to symbolize that all are equal in death.

Beyond that? I haven't given it much thought. Except having my epitaph read "Pull My Finger."

I also wonder why we have such a lack of language in dealing with death. I mean "I'm sorry" is such a stupid thing to say (obviously under most circumstances the death is not your fault) but there seem to be so few options in English.

"Sorry" here doesn't mean to connote fault, more a shortened version of "I'm sorrowful." Comiseration, not apology.

It may be inadequate, but it beats the hell out of "Glad it's not ME!" which is what most of us are thinking.

I want my body to found in a feild somewhere half decomposed with no ID. Least I can do is spawn a mystery.

Failing that I'd like to found dead of a heart attack during a threesome with an empty fifth of Rebel Yell beside me.

It's good to have goals.

I was thinking of something along the lines of:

...and so, Theodore Donald Karabotsos, in accordance with what we think your dying wishes might well have been, we commit your mortal remains to the bosom of the Pacific Ocean, which you loved so well. Goodnight, sweet prince.

I don't want to be cremated. As a matter of fact, I not only want an open casked funeral, but a glass coffin. And I don't want to be buried. I want to decompose in public, preferably in a shopping mall or on Universal City Walk, just because I hate shopping malls and Universal City Walk.

jon: pips must be so proud of you.

casket, of course, not casked...

I dunno. There might be something to be said for being put in a cask.

"Mmmm...this Cyrano vintage 20XX is just divine!"

Or in a cassock.

or a hassock. or even a nice ottoman.

Really, people can do whatever the hell they want with me after I'm gone. Life size pinata, anyone? Bask in the shower of my inner sweetmeats as they pour from...

[rest of comment redacted in interest of good taste}

what is this "good taste" you speak of, earth creature?

in a davenport in a frat sorority house

"Sorry" here doesn't mean to connote fault, more a shortened version of "I'm sorrowful." Comiseration, not apology.

Well of course it doesn't mean that--I was joking about the usually it's not your fault thing--but it springs to mind whenever I hear people say it.

But it did make me laugh in AHWOSG when he was talking about how he got so sick of people saying I'm sorry when they heard both his parents had died of cancer. He started saying "That's okay, it wasn't your fault . . . or was it?" just to see their faces.

Really, people can do whatever the hell they want with me after I'm gone.
I just hope they remember to push my knees up towards my chest before rigor mortis sets in, otherwise it will be tough to fit me down into the bin. And I'd hate to be all sticking up with the lid balanced on my head.

sorry. I have a tendency towards pontification.

Well, I do what the last thing I'll hear will be:

"Son, do you have any last words before we execute the sentence?"

No wonder this post of Migs is easy for me to think about, I was wonder about something similar tizzie said last night:
push my knees up towards my chest before rigor mortis sets in, ...was thinking if you died in an odd position how do they straighten you out, cut your ligaments in your joints, or just cut off your appendage and lay it next to the socket?

On the heels of having just read Stiff, and just getting in from a rather traditional funeral (the priest was giving me the hairy eyeball for not singing, the decedent's son-in-law grabbed me like a sixpack during the whole "peace-be-with-you" shmiel, and I ate too many carbs at the afterthingy), I am totally in the camp of donating every last bit of viscera and the remaining husk to science. I really don't care if they put my head on a pike and parade it around Mardi Gras.

Just get me to New Orleans and paint shadows on the pews.

On the other hand, if I *had* to have a service, I'd want this hymn performed, just 'cos I think it's eerie:

We shall sleep, but not forever;
There will be a glorious dawn.
We shall meet to part, no never,
On the resurrection morn.

yhbc: is not quite as clever as coldchef.

Or as morbidly curious as miguel, apparently.

I * heart the Commish*

bfubk me im drubk.

In my worst dreams, you say?

He missed most of what was
and all that will be.

I have been planning to make my own coffin for some time now; a traditionally shaped box with colourful Bosch-like paintings on the side, maybe featuring some happy dancing monkeys. Inside would be all red satin and comfy, with a few good books and a mini bar...
However, I imagine my epitaph will be 'She started a lot of things.'

Oh, and hello to all you folks I met at Siberia as my alter-ego Maggie. Such a good time!

Who needs an epitaph when they can carry the greenway with them into the great beyond?

I like the sentiment of this one. Subtle, classy, but rootsy. It's funny 'cause it's true: the race really is over.

dong_resin
1973-2003
"Christ, what an inconvenience."

Y'know, my Italian grandfather (now retired) made his living carving tombstones in Vermont. Some of suggested epitaphs would just have given him more evidence that Americans are nuts. But then again, he was for some reason which escapes me(mainly because my granddad's english is atrocious), he was also a devotee of Benny Hill and the Smothers Brothers. But he didn't like the snowblower we bought him, claiming it was "no naturale." He said the same thing about my gay cousin.

Jon, that's a sweet, touching post...and there are just SO many things I could say in reply that would be just wrong.

But hi Maggie/towerbrave!

Interesting movie news here.

Wonder who'll play the horse?

Thomas John Rufus Xavier Sasprilla C.
1973-2003
Killed by an invisible midget assassin clown.
He hated clowns.

three words: BUKKAKE FISHFUCKER FUNERAL.

be there or be circular.

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