I'm seeing trailers on TV for an animated film about a chameleon, starring the voice of Johnny Depp. If there's a bigger waste of resources than that, I'm not aware of it. No one needs the voice of Johnny Depp. Johnny Depp's voice is not what any of us are interested in. It all reminds me of how people sink huge money into elaborate caskets and then bury them six feet under. What's the point?
But that is what people do. People go to expensive lengths to pretty up something that is only attractive in an entirely different context (a maggot convention) and from an entirely different perspective (a maggot's). You can spend up to $65,000 for a casket, and thousands more for embalming and makeup, and shovel dirt over the whole business three days later. It's plumb odd. It's as useless as inner beauty, which I keep stashed near my spleen in case I need it, which no one ever does.
Embalming has been done in different ways and for different reasons over the years. Ancient Egyptians did it because they believed a person's soul might come back to re-inhabit the body and they didn't want it to be all run-down. That's just good citizenship. These days embalming is done to allow mourners to remember the deceased as he or she was when alive, even though that was only a couple days ago and hardly anyone's memory is that bad. The embalming compounds used can be any of several types, as long as worms and bacteria find them unappetizing. The fluids are injected into the circulatory system via a neck artery and the blood and whatnot is ejected out of a drainage vein in the neck on the other side, unless of course there are blockages, which is sometimes the scenario with your dead people, in which case additional injection sites are used. Then various organs are unburdened of their contents and re-stocked with embalming ingredients. It's a complicated procedure, but if done well, you end up with something that looks as lifelike as Joan Rivers, only with the mouth sewn shut.
But until someone develops a casket-cam app, this is all money down the drain. If we're really going to be serious about this, we should offer taxidermy as an option to embalming. If you really, really love your mom and dad, you could keep them up topside with you, mounted, or just holding hands.
But preserving the appearance of the recently deceased just so we can look at them for a few more days at great expense? Ridiculous. I'm willing to make an exception for Johnny Depp.
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Too true. I am all in favour of ecological burials in a casket designed to decompose (like its inhabitant) but the resistance to such movements is astonishing. And I don't want/need a granite angel above me either.
ReplyDeleteAs the Irishman said at the wake, "Stuff the corpse and keep the party going".
ReplyDelete$65,000 on a casket? Now, that's living!
And the rented tuxedo?
Tried to write into my will that I end my days in a cheap cardboard box. Sorry, not allowed. Might lead to ...what? No one could tell me.
ReplyDeleteBut in New York, just a few weeks ago, an old woman who lived in a cardboard box died one freezing night.
How is being buried in cardboard worse than living and dying in cardboard?
Mind you, for Johnny Depp ...ouch! smacks self hard.
My imagination carried me all the way through Rango. Imagination is a wonderful thing.
ReplyDeleteAdd to this ridiculousness cemeteries... acres and acres of wasted land, although I must admit I enjoy strolling through the older ones. But all this embalming stuff is simply poor planning. We need to be stuffed into a croaker sack and stuck in the ground. Afterall, now that the dinosaurs are gone, WE humans will become the oil for future generations.
ReplyDeleteAs much as I love reading your witty posts, I also enjoy reading your witty commenters. Must say, it is a bit intimidating to comment here so I will just say, thanks for the laugh and food for thought.
ReplyDelete"If you really, really love your mom and dad, you could keep them up topside with you, mounted, or just holding hands." Dammit! Coffee through the nose again!! You're killing me, Murr.
ReplyDeletePeople frequently point out to me that those handsome men might be idiots. I always reply, "I don't want to TALK to him."
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with Arkansas Patti, but this post made me laugh out loud. I think I will watch Chocolat when I get home from work (my fav Johnny Depp movie)
ReplyDeleteWell, nothing like reading a post first thing in the morning that is entirely unlike any of the others I am catching up on while drinking coffee! You've made me laugh, and told me some things I didn't know, and assured me I am not alone in my bafflement over certain burial practices. I've only attended a few open casket funerals, and believe me was more horrified by what was inside and outside the gilded box than whatever unsightly aspect of death it was they were trying to shield us from. Oh yeh - and any visual reference to Johnny Depp is always most welcome! Talk about a celebration of life! Many thanks, Murr.
ReplyDeleteYes, it's intimidating coming over here and trying to think of a witty response to a very entertaining and witty post by Murr Brewster. But I'm taking a chance because I have to say thank you for your wonderful post. I am still smiling at the Joan Rivers part... :-)
ReplyDeleteWorms and bacteria hate alcohol, so I'm going to begin the self-embalming process tonight over a slice of pizza.
ReplyDeleteJoan Rivers with her mouth sewn shut? Capital idea!
ReplyDeletePersonally, I'll take cremation, thank you. Seems much more ecologically and financially responsible. I don't relish the thought of becoming a larvae buffet while slowly mouldering 6 feet under in a $65K casket ... not that I would care ... but ... Really. Icky.
I'm going to patent a casket-cam. Thanks for the wonderful idea! I saw Rango too and it doesn't sound like Johnny at all. It was pretty entertaining for a kids movie (I have to sit through many with my two kidlets).
ReplyDeleteCremation for me through the Neptune Society.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the wasted land of cemeteries, I would add golf courses to that and suggest the acreage would be great homeless camps.
We had a lady round these parts who paid someone to dig up her sister and her husband because she missed them and was convinced they 'couldn't breathe underground'. This was discovered by an Area Agency on Aging caseworker, who the woman invited in to 'meet her sister', who was propped up on the couch. Not only was she not charged with a crime, when she had an above ground crypt built on her property that allowed her to visit her husband and sis whenever she felt like it, the bodies were returned to her.
ReplyDeleteI have to disagree about voices, though I confess I can't bring Johnny's to mind. He's not really my type. But spammers are wasting their time trying to sell me sildenafil citrate as long as I can call Lauren Bacall's voice to mind. "You know how to whistle, don't you?" That's all I need.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree--a complete waste of money and for what? I'd prefer to do what my grandparents did--cremation with a nice 8X10 photo at the front of the church during the ritual of funeral and visitation.
ReplyDeletetake out all the usable parts and then throw me in the furnace. i don't get expensive caskets either.
ReplyDeleteOf course there are some people who look as if they're embalmed already. Like David Cameron. And Arnold Schwarzenegger. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if they've actually been deceased for sometime.
ReplyDeleteMurr, I admit, I've never considered a maggot's perspective . . . you are hilarious!
ReplyDeleteHey, sometimes I'm intimidated by my own commenters too. One of these days if I need a break I'm just going to hang a question out there and let you all do the work.
ReplyDeleteI'm really hesitating about putting in one of those comment sections where you can reply to each person ad infinitum. I don't think I'd get anything done. But I love you all.
Dave (who could be reduced to mortal goo by Lauren Bacall, too) requests that we send him through a lime kiln "one more time." He worked way too hard for a living.
Just throw my earthly remains in the compost pit along with some wood chips and the daily barn cleanings and let me mulch an apple tree or a rose bush.
ReplyDeleteDrat, I thought this was about Johnny Depp, not funerals! lol...
ReplyDeleteI am far more enamored with taxidermy as a preservative method, AND the deceased can be positioned in life-like dioramas. I picture myself in my favorite flannel robe propped up in front of the computer with my hand on the mouse... you know, like my family will remember me.
ReplyDeleteDid you know that freeze-drying is also an option? Scary, but true. I suspect the end result still looks like Joan Rivers, though.
ReplyDeleteFor me? Cardboard box. Big bonfire. Beer afterwards.
Depp said he did this film for his children, who are apparently too young to see any of his other work. Traditional Jewish burial customs are quite different: plain pine box, closed casket, no cremation (non-desecration policy for bodies - dead or alive) to mention only a few. Elaine
ReplyDelete"It's as useless as inner beauty, which I keep stashed near my spleen in case I need it, which no one ever does."
ReplyDeleteThis line isn't just funny, it's profound.
Yep. I'd be gazing over your shoulder. Johnny Depp is interesting in that men like him as much as women do, I think.
ReplyDeleteMy husband had to go to the dermatologist last week to have a skin check and he texted me that everyone in the waiting room looked pretty normal, no plastic surgery reruns. A few minutes later, he wrote back: Forget what I said. Joan Rivers just walked in.
Lord, that is one scary picture you dug up. (Is that kind of a punny? )
I'd pay $65,000 for a casket if it came with Johnny Depp in it and we could both still be alive... Oh, sorry, did I just say that aloud?
ReplyDeleteI don't know what this post is about, because I haven't gotten past starring at Johnny's picture. Finally tore myself away long enough to thank you for posting it.
ReplyDelete'Course, on the way down to the comment form link, I did notice a picture of a casket and one of Joan Rivers...disconcerting, Murr. Just stick with the Johnny Depp pictures, okay? A whole post's worth? Pretty please. Gawd, I love that boy.
Embalming only makes sense if you start early and inject it straight into your face. Like Joan Rivers. When she finally passes, they'll only need to do a touch-up and she'll be ready to go. Economical, really. Like putting death on a lay-away plan and getting it out a little at a time.
ReplyDeleteLet me just say, Robert the Skeptic, I'm sure glad to see you're able to sit up and take soup. Dude. Of course, you're making taxidermy arrangements. Still, that takes stamina. Glad you're feeling better.
ReplyDeleteAnd thanks, Nance. When I'm really tired, I'll let the commenters write my post, and then I'll put in one with only Johnny Depp pictures. I might throw in some Liam Neeson and Colin Firth, too. That should hold y'all for a week.
We're burners in our family, with great aspirations to rising like phoenixes out of the ashes. (I've seen too many bad horror movies to want to be buried.) Mom wants to be "sprinkled" on my garden but I'm kind of drawing the line at that one. The ocean or a favourite lake, ok, but not my roses. She tried to haggle for the compost heap but I'm not doing that either.
ReplyDeleteMurr, you'd better throw on a heavier dark sweater. I can SEE your inner beauty.
ReplyDeleteMmmm...Johnny Depp...What were we talking about?
ReplyDeleteTotally agree on the coffin thing...my Grandpa was a farmer who died in a terrible car accident...some fool talked my grandma into a shiny aluminum coffin that looked like something you could fly to the moon! I shudder when I think what that thing might have cost...
When my mom died, my brother and I put her in the cheapest box they had, and had her cremated (as per her instructions). She wanted to be put in one of her own vases in my brother's back yard, but the funeral guy convinced us that it wouldn't be "sanitary", so we got a $600 fake marble box for her ashes instead (my brother really wanted it, so I didn't argue).
Thoughtful and funny post, Murr!
Wendy
You've got the wrong take on this Murr. Remember in 3rd grade the book everyone had titled "Reading Is Fun." Gods truth in college I was sitting across a library table from a serious looking dude who was STUDYING...Embalming Is Fun. Yes
ReplyDeleteI must be abnormal, but in that picture J.D. looks to me like just a guy with two-tone hair who has eye strain and a touch of depression.
ReplyDeleteRe using actors for their voices. Looking beyond the marketing folks, consider: Actors, if there's anything behind the face, are our experts in characterization, much of that with the voice--variations in timbre, timing, inflection, loudness, dialect, and all the tricks that can draw individual characters and their emotional pictures. I'm a fan of well-read audio books and "Symphony Space," a public radio program of top-drawer short stories read by fine actors. (Oregon Public Broadcasting, that's a recommendation.)
ReplyDeleteDefinitely agree about all of this. I've left specific instructions that I want to be stuffed into one of those burlap-and-tree-branch things and put some place where I can decay properly. I've spent a lot on good vitamins and decent food over the years and I want all that goodness recycled properly.
ReplyDeleteAs for Johnny Depp as a voice talent, what WERE they thinking? Whoever did the casting was on some weird, ethereal plane, not down here with the rest of us.
I say, feed my meat to the buzzards and grind my bones to dust for the garden.
ReplyDeleteSomeone told me Joan Rivers had already been embalmed!
ReplyDeleteI'll say this -- reading your posts the first thing in the morning sends my mind tumbling in all sorts of odd directions. And then the comments -- they just keep kicking my mind further along. You are a joy.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of natural burial, and it's legal in Florida, but I'm trying to find a way to cut the undertakers out completely. I don't like to subsidize scams.
ReplyDeleteCremation's the second choice, but contrary to popular belief, it's not especially eco-friendly. Lots of natural gas burnt, and lots of CO2 produced.
Sorry; not feeling especially funny at the moment -- well, a little bit funny, but I think that was the chili. Too much competition around here, anyway.
Have you ever seen 'Comic Book:The Movie'? A who's who of voice actors, led by Mark Hammill. Anyone in this cast should have been starring voices in big animation features.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever seen 'Comic Book:The Movie'? A who's who of voice actors, led by Mark Hammill. Anyone in this cast should have been starring voices in big animation features.
ReplyDeleteI'll say this -- reading your posts the first thing in the morning sends my mind tumbling in all sorts of odd directions. And then the comments -- they just keep kicking my mind further along. You are a joy.
ReplyDeleteYou've got the wrong take on this Murr. Remember in 3rd grade the book everyone had titled "Reading Is Fun." Gods truth in college I was sitting across a library table from a serious looking dude who was STUDYING...Embalming Is Fun. Yes
ReplyDeleteEmbalming only makes sense if you start early and inject it straight into your face. Like Joan Rivers. When she finally passes, they'll only need to do a touch-up and she'll be ready to go. Economical, really. Like putting death on a lay-away plan and getting it out a little at a time.
ReplyDeleteDepp said he did this film for his children, who are apparently too young to see any of his other work. Traditional Jewish burial customs are quite different: plain pine box, closed casket, no cremation (non-desecration policy for bodies - dead or alive) to mention only a few. Elaine
ReplyDeleteDid you know that freeze-drying is also an option? Scary, but true. I suspect the end result still looks like Joan Rivers, though.
ReplyDeleteFor me? Cardboard box. Big bonfire. Beer afterwards.
Of course there are some people who look as if they're embalmed already. Like David Cameron. And Arnold Schwarzenegger. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if they've actually been deceased for sometime.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree--a complete waste of money and for what? I'd prefer to do what my grandparents did--cremation with a nice 8X10 photo at the front of the church during the ritual of funeral and visitation.
ReplyDeleteCremation for me through the Neptune Society.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the wasted land of cemeteries, I would add golf courses to that and suggest the acreage would be great homeless camps.
Worms and bacteria hate alcohol, so I'm going to begin the self-embalming process tonight over a slice of pizza.
ReplyDeletePeople frequently point out to me that those handsome men might be idiots. I always reply, "I don't want to TALK to him."
ReplyDeleteAs much as I love reading your witty posts, I also enjoy reading your witty commenters. Must say, it is a bit intimidating to comment here so I will just say, thanks for the laugh and food for thought.
ReplyDeleteAs the Irishman said at the wake, "Stuff the corpse and keep the party going".
ReplyDelete$65,000 on a casket? Now, that's living!
And the rented tuxedo?