Malcolm McLaren - still annoying! DEATH IS FOREVER

Maybe it's the oppressively hellish heat wave...but some of my blogger friends are pondering death lately.

There are many questions here...how soon some disease or terrorist might strike, what the odds are for an accident or heat stroke, or, well well, there was a fresh case of BUBONIC PLAGUE in California the other day! And Amanda Bynes could get out of lockdown and set fire to your house.

Death is rarely far from anyone's mind. That black guy coming towards you. Oh, no, don't racially profile him and wonder if he's got a gun. And those two Muslims...don't cross the street because you think they might have giant beheading knives under their girly-shawls. And that idiot walking the yappy dog and letting it yap yap yap and shit all over the place and tangle you in the fucking leash? DEATH! You're thinking how nice if that animal was taken in to be euthanized and the Vet killed the dog owner instead! Yes, Death IS on our minds more and more.

Well...aside from thinking about death, as an afterthought...I think about after death. Not an afterlife. That's not probable. But after death. Death, the time and place, may not be easy to plan, but...a decision has to be made on what happens after you've died! I mean, when someone shuffles off the mortal coil, what do you do with it? It's lying there, ugly and smelly.

The first impulse, as with foul clothes, is "BURN IT!" But then what? Scatter the ashes? Like the deceased didn't matter?

No, no, we can't sweep this (or you) under the rug. It's messy and not precise. Mel Brooks told the story of his co-star Howard Morris scattering his father's ashes. Tearfully, Howard flung the ashes to the wind, calling out loving words to his unforgettable Dad. And Dad, thanks to a change in the wind, ended up all over his son's overcoat. Howard then had to beat his father off him, still calling out kindly words of love and devotion.

So you have to be careful where these precious flakes fall. They fall to the ground, and some bunch of picnic jerks come over and sit on them while eating hot dogs and pie? This may have led to that expression "ashes to asses."

The other thing one does with ashes is put them in some kind of bowl. That's a tribute? You work in life and this is what you urn in death? Only to have somebody spill you? Unless you pay a cemetery to stow you on a shelf like a school rowing trophy? The latter, reminds me (parenthetically) of one of my favorite obit headlines. It was in the New York Times: "Clifford C. Goes, Noted Coxswain."

I guess the only thing more amusing would be "Mel B. Goes...Un-Noted Spice Girl."

But back then, people weren't referred to by initial. Goes was his last name, and Goes went. But the capper for me, was why he got an obit in the Times: "Noted Coxswain." Who the fuck EVER was noted for THAT? Not in the literal use of the word, at least.

What would've been a grand tribute...taking the noted Coxswain out in the middle of the river, tying a weight to his legs, and throwing him overboard. Burial at sea! And another Times headline: "Clifford-Goes-Plop."

But unfortunately, burial at sea is, these days, largely confined to people on Carnival Cruise vacations.

So forget burial at sea or cremation.

That leaves it to the old fashioned tombstone and burial plot. But the key here is to remember that DEATH IS FOREVER. Or, the closest thing to immortality or mortality. Something like that. Except that within 100 years, 200 at best (unless you're Napoleon or perhaps a character who might be fiction, and named Mohammed or Jesus) nobody will recall that you were even alive. BUT...the odds raise by another 1000 or 2000 years if you've got a tombstone or monument built. Granted, it will weather away (read "Ozymandias" by Mr. Shelley) but that does buy more time.

That leaves you to make good use with the time you have left...in picking out the appropriate words and art work. Which brings us, courtesy of a blogger friend, to a fine example, slightly re-done here...MALCOLM McCLAREN.

McClaren went to his death knowing that his grave would be on display for hundreds or thousands to see...barring an earthquake or a sudden frenzied dynamite attack from a berserk "sunshine music fan" blogger. And so he asked that a death mask image of himself, looking blissfully asleep, be put on his stone. Being a death mask, that blissful sleep may have been helped along by morphine. He also wrote an egotistic inscription for his stone, to further annoy the irritated, frustrated and over-heated people left behind. Watta guy!

So consider your tombstone...the art and the inscription.

Ponder how you'd like to annoy and irk the living...to the point where they literally piss on your grave (note the Bieber-stain on the stone, on the far right).

Thanks, Mal, for your fine idea on how to make life a little more like death for us all. As if we didn't feel slightly sick when you did that disco-version of the Three Stooges "Alphabet Song" under the title B-I-Bicki!