Joan Rivers is not the only person who wrote elaborate directions as to the style and content of her own funeral. I also have such instructions, but they differ a little from those of Ms. Rivers. I want my funeral to be full of the things I can’t stand now. I don’t want to enjoy anything about being dead — so here is how my send-off should go:
• All attendees must undergo security wanding and take their shoes and socks off.
• I want it to be a big showbiz affair with all the Hollywood personalities. The one-name celebrities (Cher, Madonna, Bono, Beyonce, et al) get to sit at the front.
• I want an open-casket ceremony, with tearful multitudes waiting in line to grasp my cold dead hand, as they think to themselves, “I didn’t know he looked this bad!”
• Speaking of cold dead hands, I want to be buried with my automatic rifle. Someone needs to go out and buy me one before the service.
• Put me in some flimsy polyester trousers that make it obvious which way I dress.
• Give me a clear-coat manicure. Or what the hell, any color, as long as it is very shiny.
• I want Neil Diamond to sing “Cracklin’ Rosie” and throw in an extra verse or two of bah-bup-uppah-dah. And if Mr. Diamond is not alive at the time of my funeral, I want all six-hundred attendees to bring iPods (which I also hate) and play “Cracklin’ Rosie” in unison, at full volume, through their earbuds.
• I want a famous Christian evangelist (Rick Warren will do, just as slippery as the rest) to proclaim to the crowd that I am in a better place now. He should also assert that I really did love Jesus, in my own way, and that God is now reading my blog.
• In the same vein, I want at least three people to walk up to the lectern and tell the attendees what I would have wanted, if I were still alive.
• I want John Boehner to speak. He’s good for a cry, and he will insult all my friends.
• I also want former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan to speak. I want her to say, in her typical pained, melodramatic fashion, how tragically misguided my political beliefs were. And I want her to say those very words — “tragically misguided.”
• For pallbearers, I select Vladimir Putin. By himself. With his shirt off.
• At the wake, I want the open bar to close down after fifteen minutes. No, make that ten. Why should I be the only one to suffer?
• Also at the wake, I want the server to go around and ask, “Beef Wellington or Pasta?” Except that I want the Beef Wellington to abruptly “run out” after the first five people.
In the end, people who attend my funeral will be really sorry that I died! As it should be.
An article in today’s New York Times begins:
“Under pressure to do more to confront the Ebola outbreak sweeping across West Africa, President Obama on Tuesday is to announce…”
Does it seem to you, as it does to me, that President Obama has been under pressure in all sorts of ways lately? I decided to ask Google.
Do we really have a reluctant leader — as David Brooks recently wrote — who must be pressured into action? Or is all this so-called pressure simply ginned up by the news media to create a sense of drama? Barack Obama could tell us, but we will probably have to wait for his memoir to find out. I’m sure he will be pressured to write one.