Rituals
October 21st, 2007 by 
Rory Harper
First off, I’d like to apologize to all you Brainiacs for not meeting my posting commitment for the past month. I had a killer flu that lasted for more than three weeks. Work life was way beyond fast-paced, leaving me listless and stupefied by mid-afternoons. Then, last week I ramped up a monster ear infection, which caused frequent pain-bursts throughout the left side of my face. In case I haven’t mentioned it before – Vicodin is our buddy.
I feel much better now, so my thoughts have naturally turned, with assistance from some recent posts here, to one of my favorite subjects:
Death.
This isn’t morbidity on my part.
…..Well, okay, fine. Actually it is. I take my impending doom personally.
I’ve adopted the sensible attitude that dying should be viewed as a potentially curable medical condition. I figure I have about a 25% chance of living long enough for some of the good life-prolonging treatments to become available. If I can put off the not-inevitable for another 30 or 50 years, I hope to persist until lift-off of the Nanotech Singularity, with its promise of functional immortality. I’m up for stem-cell transplants, telomere replacement, mitochondrial rejuvenation, cellular-level repairs, and other unforeseeable scientific breakthroughs in support of my ambition to avoid Shuffling Off to
As a non-proselytizing atheist, though, I do still have to contemplate the fact that sometimes Bad Things Happen to Good Rories. However, I don’t have much mainstream cultural structure to fall back on to ease the transition from Me to Meat. Most religions give you, and your loved ones, hope of an afterlife, usually one that’s a big boring party where you don’t ever have to go back to work the next morning or worry about the cost of vehicle insurance.
I hate attending funerals, but I recognize that for most people, they’re rituals that allow you to say your (semi)-final farewells to people, until you get re-united inside the Giant Light Bulb. They also serve as ways of proclaiming greater meaning to people’s lives and deaths. I seem to be permanently mired in the Existential struggle, so the whole concept of funerals is damn cold comfort to me when I lose somebody, and useless as a concept if I personally check out of the Harper Hotel.
So, I’ve put some thought into what I’d like to happen, post-Rory.
:
:
No religious service, no churches, no preachers who never knew me, reciting vague optimistic homilies. No viewing of the dearly deceased. Ick.
If there’s time to visit or call or e-mail me before the Unthinkable happens, I’d really like for you to check in and apologize for all the wrongs you’ve done me in life. This is your last chance to balance the books. I’m on your side. I’ll forgive you at the Penultimate Moment.
Seriously – I’ve failed some people in their final months, and this is the source of my deepest personal guilt. I never got to say good-bye properly to either Geary Rachel or my mother, because I didn’t know what the hell to say, and was in deep fucked-up denial that it was actually about to happen. It haunts me. I’m trying here to save you from that.
If I’m going gradually, you need to bring me food that’s forbidden by my asshole doctors. Chocolate and ice-cream, especially. You don’t have to hang around me a lot, especially if your presence distracts from my enjoyment of huge doses of narcotics, and I don’t think I’ll want much comforting about what’s impending. I mean, you know, Shit Happens. I probably won’t secretly want to talk in detail about what’s killing me, so you’re off the hook on that dreary conversation.
But it would be good to not die alone, if that can be avoided. That’s the awful mistake I made with my mom. Her mind died before her body did, and I didn’t stick around for the final breath. I wish I could take that back, for my sake as well as hers.
If it’s sudden, if I lose focus at another crucial moment on my bike, I’d just as soon nobody close to me saw the remains for identification purposes. Mashed-up dead people are yucky, and I don’t want that final image in the head of anybody I care about. Remember me as I once was – young, laughing, reading a book, playing guitar with the stortion pedal cranked all the way up, and always contemplating how to get laid soon.
I haven’t yet made it official, but if there are salvageable parts, see if you can arrange to get them to somebody who needs them. She Who is Awesome has first dibs on my brain, to dissect, or keep on top of the computer, whichever way she wants it. If y’all can figure out a way to hook the brain up to the Internet, maybe via a USB cable or a FireWire port on Rach’s computer, I’d appreciate it.
Rach and I have talked about corpse disposal. She’s into having her body pushed out to sea on a Viking long-boat and set aflame. I could go for that. In more practical terms, I’m up for cremation in the cheapest container available. Then load the ash into some expensive fireworks and put on a show one moonlit night for everybody. This will honor my pyromania and love of Blowing Shit Up Good.
You don’t have to have a post-mortem party unless you want to, of course. But, if you do have a party, it’s okay if you’re sad a little. But only a little. I encourage you to feel secretly glad that, even though I’m dead, you aren’t. Yet.
No flowers or other crap. Give some money to some left-wing fringe political group or some eco-terrorist organization like GreenPeace, if you must do something in memorium.
You can post here about what a great guy I was, even though sometimes I could be an idiot.
Posting pictures of the brain floating in a jar on the computer would be cool. If you can hook up some lights that slowly change color, and have the liquid bubble merrily, I’d like that.
Afterwards – and this next part applies to only the few who may actually grieve my absence, rather than just be vaguely saddened — get on with it as quickly as possible. Love your loved ones. Read some good books. Catch the newest zombie movies. Play some rock ‘n roll too loud. Take a vacation to
If one of the cryogenic preservation companies manages to figure out a way to freeze tissue without cellular rupture, the plan changes. I want to hang onto my brain. If circumstances allow, I’ll arrange to have it chilled out at the appropriate instant. There goes a big chunk of Rachael’s inheritance. Oh, well.
But you can still have the fireworks show with all of the other body parts.
:
Incidentally, if any of you would like to post your desires on the subject of Final Disposition, here’s your segue to do so.
Especially if it involves me ending up with a spare brain or two hooked into my computer.
Posted in Daily Life, Personal History, Rachael is Awesome, Religion, Rory, Zombies | 
18 Comments »
October 21st, 2007 at 7:10 pm
I was thinking of this as THE Pro-Vicodin blog, but a Google search seems to understate its presence.
What music should not be played at the party? Or does it have to be all Early Clapton?
October 21st, 2007 at 8:11 pm
Hey, Rory, my Beloved Brother — How about we do something like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qa6zWEaXxz4
Every time someone says “Donny,” substitute “Rory.”
Every time someone says “bowling,” substitute “playing guitar.”
I’m being played by John Goodman. (Or maybe Jeff Bridges. I’m one of these guys, anyway.)
October 21st, 2007 at 8:14 pm
You’re right, Ken. I’m deeply offended by the paucity of results in that search. I’m gonna try to do something about it in a minute.
Regarding the party — I promise to not complain about any of the music that’s played at it. However, my preference would be to have Two-Headed Baby, or even Baby-Faced Nelson, do a live gig.
October 21st, 2007 at 8:17 pm
A buddy of mine favored the idea of having his corpse strapped to a crate of aging, oozing dynamite. All of his friends would be given rifles and the opportunity to open fire…
Me, I hope that by the time I die I’ve got enough money to make a freakish punitive will a possibility. I’d have myself stuffed and mounted in a coat-rack worthy pose — think Rodin’s John the Baptist. If you want a chunk of the money, you’ve got to put me in your front hall for part of the year, the rotation depending on how much of my stuff you get. My insides would be turned into tasty processed meat snacks and distributed at the wake. If the wake is worth a shit, there’ll be enough bad judgment by the end of the evening to guarantee consumption.
Frankly, I’m just jealous of whoever runs across the post-oafboy yard sale.
October 21st, 2007 at 9:46 pm
Bradley — Yeah! That scene works for me. If that was a big coffee can for the ashes, I’m especially enamored.
However, everybody I know is wayyyy more verbally facile than anybody in TBL.
…I suppose that, if we wanted to save money all around, y’all could just spirit the body away, place it at the foot of the Dark Tower, and let nature take its accustomed course…
October 21st, 2007 at 9:56 pm
Ever since I was a zoology grad student, I’ve wanted to be preserved and put on display. For a long time this was just a silly fantasy, but now it’s a real possibility.
When Maureen and I attended a Body Worlds exhibit I gathered up the brochures on body donation. I thought it would be pretty cool to be plastinated.
The catch is they don’t guarantee they will use your whole body. They might just need an organ or two. Or maybe you have a particularly interesting knee joint.
I can imagine Adam taking his children to an exhibit some time in the future and saying, “Look kids, I think that’s grandpa’s patella.”
October 21st, 2007 at 10:41 pm
Just say no to death.
October 22nd, 2007 at 9:16 am
Okay, this is just too freaking morbid for first thing Monday morning. (Yeah, I know you put it up last night. I’m slow okay. Slow, I tells ya.)
No one is dying on my watch. That’s the freaking rule. I mean it. I won’t have my friends dying first. I don’t like being alone and who the hell would I talk to in that circumstance?
I’m with Rachael here: Just Say, “No” to Death.
Besides, who would I torment for playing “Born Under A Bad Sign” in anything other than “G?” Nope, forget all this morbid dying shit. I mean it. Don’t make me come up there…
October 22nd, 2007 at 10:25 am
Not to change the morbid subject, but have aby of you guys actually read “Brainwaves and Death” by Willard Rich? The last 2 copies that I knew of, on Amazon, sold for $750.00 each. It is a real book with a colorful back story, but I have not found anyone who has actually read it. It was published in I think I gave The Dude a pintout of the cover. No one had ever heard about it until Jennet Conant mentioned it in her 2003 book “Tuxedo Park”. She writes:
It would be interesting to see if there is a suicidal thread in the novel, or was his suicide “assisted”.
I hope this isn’t too far off topic.
Bill
October 22nd, 2007 at 12:24 pm
After reading Bob’s post,I just realized that I’ve been both thoughtless and selfish.
If any of you Brainiacs want any of the other body parts, beside the brain, which is Rachael’s, we can probably work something out.
For a price….
October 22nd, 2007 at 12:43 pm
You’re so thoughtful, Rory.
October 22nd, 2007 at 1:17 pm
Thanks, Morgan! :0
I was thinkin’ that Steve and Laura might want to add to the family eyeball collection, for instance.
October 24th, 2007 at 9:03 am
Nah, the existing jars are taking up all the space in the fridge, dammit!
October 26th, 2007 at 9:48 am
You and I seem to agree on the big D – that’s the death D not the diet D. Don’t be hanging over my casket crying – if you love me now – tell me. THEN it is too late.
I hadn’t thought of the fireworks – good idea. Mick is taking my ashes to the beach and I will forever be warm.
October 30th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
Death itself doesn’t worry me. It’s death at the end of a long life of meaningless drudgery that makes me wax philosophical.
Quality > Quantity
And hello, cousin.
October 30th, 2007 at 8:15 pm
Hey, Scott!!! It’s been far too long… It’s good to to see your voice again. I hope you hang around here a bit. If you ever want to chat personally, drop me an e-mail at eatourbrains-at-gmail-dot-com, and I’ll send you my true, secret, hidden, highly confidential personal email address. ….Or you could just google for it…
And, yeah, as much as it’s a good thing to avoid death as hard as possible, it’s the meaning you give to your life that counts.
Of course, the longer I can manage to stick around, the better my chances of finding some meaning.
October 31st, 2007 at 2:35 pm
This is little slideshow about the funeral industry is right on target for this post.
October 31st, 2007 at 9:14 pm
Yeah, interesting stuff about the death industry. I’m okay about there being a class of people who specialize in handling our dead. Every culture has them and needs them, I think.
But I remember my sense of outrage, years ago, when I read that the morticians association had managed to bribe enough Texas legislators to get a law enacted forcing you to be cremated in a coffin that they sold you. WTF? Everything else aside, like the vast waste, and finding a way to fuck over family with extra unescessary expenses when they’re extremely vulnerable and suffering, I can only imagine how many times some coffins got sold and resold and not burned.
I have no idea if that law is still in effect, but I had the same reaction as John Goodman had with the $180 can. Inarticulate rage at the brazen greed of it.