Paul Wilson: News of the Weak — Life After Death

deaddudeonmotorcyclePut the FUN in Funeral: Pose Your Loved One.

What’s the phrase, everything old is new again? Your well coiffed scribe is always in search of news that falls a little off the beaten path, and I sure found it this time! There’s been a new trend in funerals and wakes over the last couple years:

Having your loved one posed doing whatever their favorite activity was in life!

Apparently, this was done with some regularity in the Victorian era as a last family portrait, right after the star of the picture had achieved room temperature.

Add that to my hatred of doilies, gingerbread trim and all things Victorian.

With very little effort, Google gave me Mickey Easterling, a socialite who passed away at the age of 83. Posed on a couch, the flamboyant philanthropist wore a pink feather boa and held a glass of champagne.

Miriam Burbank sat in her living room with a Busch beer, cigarette and a disco ball flashing lights off the walls to make her last party, her funeral, memorable. Burbank’s daughters called it, “the perfect send-off for their vivacious mother.”

All I could hear in my head was Donna Summer’s, “Last Dance.”

deaddominosAguayo Collazo was shot dead in a drug related disagreement inside his mother’s bar in Puerto Rico, just days before his birthday. His mother wanted her son to “play” a game of dominoes and have a drink, one last time. So, they posed him in his tracksuit, wearing a gold chain and new white sneakers, sitting at his favorite table.

As you may well guess, this is not an easy process.

Without going into all the gory details, a mortician said it could take up to four times the normal effort to prepare one’s loved one for such a send off  – you know – actually embalming someone in the correct viewing position.

The more I read about this, the more I began asking myself the question all of us should when approaching a major life choices;

“WWPD?” What would Paul do?

lastdanceA number of scenes flashed past my mind’s eye. First, I thought, pose me at my favorite beach bar, Flounders, down at the beach. Just casual shorts and a T-shirt, but not a Pensacola shirt. That’s as tacky as wearing a Stones t shirt to a Stones concert.

You just don’t do that.

Then, since I have a Boots Motel Frequent Flyer card, in my old hometown of Carthage, and a standing reservation for the Presidential Suite, I thought I could be placed out front under the “No Vacancy – Radio in Every Room” sign. Sitting  by the fire at the fire pit. The light from the flames flickering across my smiling face.

Then it hit me. I want to be posed at the patio table with my dear friend Lowell Davis, in his front yard, out at Red Oak II. Put my pipe or cigar in my hand, my sunglasses on my face and let me enjoy that zen-like setting one more time!

Funerals and all that go along with them are really for those left behind.

I’ll have plenty of folks who just want to come to say one, last word to me. And, Lord knows, I will have it coming, whatever they want to share.  What a way to depart this mortal coil.

God bless ‘murica!

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36 Responses to Paul Wilson: News of the Weak — Life After Death

  1. chuck says:

    Funny stuff Paul.

    Errol Flynn claims to have taken John Barrymore out drinking for the night after John Barrymore shuffled off his mortal coil. Barrymore, always a lady’s man, was somewhat stiff that night and went home alone. He never recovered.

    Our attitudes towards death and the ceremony are far more whimsical these days. One of my dearest life long friends is in steep decline, home in hospice care with heart and lung problems and no hope of Christmas. His wake is tomorrow at 1PM at a watering hole on Wornall. Funniest guy you ever met, he thinks it will be a lark to enjoy getting hammered at his own wake. He promises to gut it out until 5 pm.

    Barrymore, Flynn and Fields would be proud. No gentle nights, my buddy K.O. will rage against the dying of the light and anything else in close proximity while he still can.

    What a stud.

    • miket. says:

      chuck, that story reminds me a movie that i recently watched called “Get Low.” didn’t know a thing about it, but it starred Robert Duvall and Bill Murray, so how bad could it be?

      Duvall plays a hermit with a past and a secret who realizes his time is near and wants to throw a ‘funeral party’ for people to come tell stories about him. Murray plays the undertaker in his perfect deadpan humor way.

      Good film.

    • paulwilsonkc says:

      Thank you, Chuck, as usual. One question – I was hoping the final comment, “What a stud,” was directed at me. I’m sure I’m wrong but I’m claiming it.

    • Stomper says:

      Chuck, sorry for the impending loss of your friend.

    • hou eaarley says:

      great article pauly…but it should about your idols…Donald/jeb/marcos/hucky
      and southy and chuckles…because they all hold the title of LIFE AFTER DEATH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
      Despite theirhigher education…theyir supposed prorper upbringing with
      butlers and maids…their money…and of course the bears dumbo
      comments about death and guys in their graves (when you hit 65you start paying
      attention to those dath payments for funerals on tv during jerry springer)…
      and not one positive statement.
      Well I guess one day when I hit the 65 year old birthdatei might start
      writing about dying…$50 a day payment in the hospital….funeral
      payments….how they prop up the dead…and maybe what to look
      foreard to in the afterlife.
      ad most importantly talk about the good old days of shoe resolers…and
      AArp discounts at IHOP.
      til them i’ll wait. I’ll let the old guys write about old shit.
      Your article was good…if it appeared in AARP news…readers digest with the
      big type or how to get more from your social security after 72.
      til then Ill laugh at your storiesas I job5 miles a day…take kickboxing classes…
      lift weights and even watch what I eat.
      what a freaking mess this has become………………………………………..
      hahahahahahaha!

  2. miket. says:

    i really don’t know where to start, paul. part of me says why the hell not? if you got the money to pay for 4 times the effort of a normal embalming process, the staging, etc., well then go for it.

    the other side of me thinks that having dead people in the room with you is a bit unsettling enough as it is, “Yes, you are my grandmother, they did a really good job making you look just like you always did, grandmother… but i know you are NOT sleeping — YOU’RE DEAD!!! ” so, to have had my grandmother staged sitting in her favorite chair watching Wheel! Of!! FORTUNE!!, would be a bit surreal.

    here’s what i suggest for you though… those all sound like nice places to be staged, but i think you should be at the wheel of your freshly polished mercedes, waving out of the window with a cigar in your hand and parked in front of Stanford’s Comedy Club… and not cordoned off.

    for more great fun, ask Craig to charge $5 each for a photo op with you, then have a trusted associate mail a new one every few weeks or so to Harley. ya know, just to make sure you maintain ownership of that spot in his brain he has for you.

    • paulwilsonkc says:

      Mike, I think you have a great idea! I’m kind of a big deal, at $5 a picture Craig could walk away with a cool $20-30 bucks!
      As usual, thanks!

    • admin says:

      Here’s my idea for “positioning” Paul after he checks out:

      I’d pose him sitting on a lawn chair in his backyard overlooking the above ground pool. Laptop on his lap; penning one last Sprint story – maybe Sprint’s obit – and with a look of consternation on his face as he contemplates what sort of mischief his old friend Haley has up his sleeve!

  3. Jim a.k.a. BWH says:

    I’m sure a fair amount of people would find this practice morbid, but I’m not one of them. I have attended my fair share of “standard” funerals that are sad, somber occasions. I much prefer the celebrations of life where the departed is remembered for who they were and not what they are now (i.e. DEAD). There are no rules for death. I say celebrate/remember your loved one however the hell you want. Kind of a “live and let live” attitude. Oh, wait, that doesn’t apply here. But, you get my gist.

    For me, it’s the giant char-broiler. Once sufficiently ash-i-fied, my friends and family know the rest. A little bit of me (or what was me) will be sprinkled in all the sand traps of the Ozark golf courses we’ve been playing for the last 35 years. Can you imagine the upskirt view I’ll have with all the lady golfers? Not a bad way to spend eternity. Beats the hell out of 6 foot deep bunker in a box.

    As always, good article PW.

    • miket. says:

      that was funny.

      but i couldn’t help thinking, jim, that after a while, all the duffers and their sand wedges will have stomped all over you, ground their spikes into you, and gouged large chunks out of you, sent flying in hundreds of directions.

    • paulwilsonkc says:

      Oh man, that’s GREAT, aka! I hate funerals and have more than a difficult time attending them. My grandfather was actually more of a dad to me than my real dad was. He was my male mentor in everything from business to life. When I lost him in 00′ my Mom started to ask me if I would deliver the message. I didn’t even let her get it out of her mouth until I delivered an emphatic NO! I told her I wouldn’t even have been able to introduce myself before I lost it. I hate the whole morbid vibe.
      Something tells me…this is a far more fun, light hearted way to go out.
      And whats the deal with a suit? Why is it you’re always buried in a suit? The only time I wear a suit any more is to an ultra high end client meeting, as so many are business causal these days, or…. a FUNERAL.
      In case no one else remembers this, please tell The Blonde, when I die, put me in my khaki shorts and pulls a Pensacola T shirt over my head, call it good. I want my Kate Spade flip flops, my Wayfares on… and start the party!

      • Jim a.k.a. BWH says:

        My older brother’s take on death is the most to-the-point and practical approach to death I’ve ever heard.

        His words: “Just throw my body over in the corner. I’m done with it.”

        • paulwilsonkc says:

          I always had the thought of having enough warning to be able to do my own message and play it via DVD and do my own funeral! What better way to have the last word? But I think I’d like your brother, that’s great.

          • hou eaarley says:

            would anyone come? Would you selltickets..
            and thank god you weren’t doing the speech…
            everyone would have wished they were dead!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  4. Frank says:

    Just as long as their favorite activity in life wasn’t porn

  5. uhou eaarley says:

    NOT ME BROS!!!!! WHEN I GO…I’M GOING WITH FORCING EVERYONE
    I KNOW TO SIT THRU ONE OF MY 40 MINUTE LONG DIATRIBES FROM ONE
    OF MY GREAT COMMENTS FROM KCC.
    just kidding Wilson….when your times come i’ll think of cobblers/large antennas/
    jewel thieves…..
    when glazes time comes i’ll think of hotties/the pu$$ I let get away…and the
    way you couldn’t pick awinner if your life depended on it.
    seriously though…I hope everyones in good health. Where else could I get
    such laughs and entertainment than from kcc.
    I know we jib an jab…but I could have abeer with any of you dudes!
    I’d evn buy wislon a big fat hooker transvestite for his final day (lol)
    take care…
    your pal
    Harley

  6. Stomper says:

    Nice piece, Paul. Interesting angle on a great topic. Jews don’t have open caskets at funerals so I was probably close 20 before I saw my first dead body. It’s overrated still.

    I have a few friends that have already written their own obituaries along with funeral ceremony complete with a variety of music. That seems a little much to me but I will admit to thinking about having a few of my favorite songs at my own funeral. Allman Brothers, Jessica is on my short list.

    • hou eaarley says:

      jews don’t have open caskets ….because if we had to listen to big winded
      know nothings who write for cillicothe news and who might talk
      about large antennas….stalkers….shoe dogs….we might just get up and
      shut the freaking casket so we wouldn’t have to listen to the b.s. guys
      like that talk about.
      NO sir stomper…to have bear do a eulogy is like committing suicide by
      the already dead person!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    • mt. says:

      i have always favored the doors’ “Break on Through”. unsure if should follow that with arthur brown’s “Fire” or winwood’s “Back in tne Highlife.”

    • paulwilsonkc says:

      Thanks, Stomper. I usually try to write something people don’t see everywhere. While our short bus contributor wants to claim he knows so much about me, I’m far more aware and invested in Jewish tradition and history than one might think. After the Great Divorce of 2000, I attended Temple B’nai Jehudah because of my admiration for Rabbi Zedek and considered converting for about a year.
      Appreciate your comments, as usual, if you agree or disagree…. Thanks!

      • hou eaarley says:

        rabbi Zedek was very very close to my family. He was
        controversial yet a very soothing voice in a hard world
        We were the charter members of another synagogue
        but loved rabbi zedek.
        FYI…we get buried in pine boxes with no nails. I don’t
        think that fits your style Wilson.

  7. Orphan of the Road says:

    I would find great solace if I ended up as bear scat. Recycling is important business.

    If folks think used car salesmen are slimy, wait till they deal with a funeral parlor.

    Give my feet to the footloose
    Careless, fancy free
    Give my knees to the needy
    Don’t pull that stuff on me
    Hand me down my walking cane
    It’s a sin to tell a lie
    Send my mouth way down south
    And kiss my ass goodbye

  8. chuck says:

    My buddy Kevin O’Hara passed today.

    He made it right through the party, and laughed his ass off at everything until the end.

    No more laughs for a while.

    • paulwilsonkc says:

      Oh man, Im so sorry, Chuck. But what a GREAT thing you guys did for him and what memories everyone will share. I’m sorry for your loss but take pride in the smiles and laughs caring friends put on his face. I can’t think of a better way to go out…. Prayers for you and the others.

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