Gratuitous interactive television post + lack of proper tasteful reverence

[constance]

One of my favorite televisional pleasures -- I was going to say guilty pleasures, except that as I wrote the word, I realized I don't feel guilty in the least -- is "My Name Is Earl," you know, that little thing that started as a bizarrely appealing Jason Lee vehicle focused on a small-time hood who's changed his ways through an imperfect introduction to the idea of karma and who is now charging through a (literal) list of the wrongs he's committed, trying to make everything right; but which has now turned into kind of an astonishingly clever ensemble comedy. The basic concept of the show is actually the least of its pleasures, in my opinion, but the fact is that it works well on two levels; it is a silly comedy featuring a group of interconnected and hilariously trashy characters who get into crazy situations each week as Earl tries to bulldoze his way into grace, and it is also a smashing postmodernist effort, wherein most of modern American life is called into play and into question, and wherein the fourth wall is done away with so often and so subtly that really it's more of a curtain than a wall, quietly drawn back in these little throwaway moments, and the curtain's dropped back into place so quickly that if you're not paying attention, you're in danger of missing it.

Thursday night's episode was probably one of my favorites so far, which is saying something. Not only were the meta parts spot-on (TWOP, anyone? Thanks, Amelia, for reminding me about that tiny but apropos joke), but the bottom-line premise of the episode was also riveting for someone with my own affinity for morbid humor and John Waters. In it, John Waters plays a funeral home director whose sales gimmick is to stage the deceased in lifelike tableaux instead of in coffins, according to their interests in life. (Examples shown: guy in recliner with beer hat and bowl-o-popcorn in front of football game; guy in front of laptop computer, connected to the internet.)

(An aside: is there anyone more suited to play the funeral director's role than John Waters? I mean, honestly, this is why MNIE is so often entirely, surefootedly perfect.)

I have been thinking ever since that before I am cremated, I want to be memorialized in this way; specifically, I want to be curled up in my chintz rocking-chair, book in hand (I'm thinking Harry Potter or Jane Austen, now, but I reserve the right change my mind about that), pets on floor and in lap (make sure they don't eat me, okay?), an enormous tea and a laptop (so I can listen for email) sitting on a table beside me.

Forget all those top-five lists of music-I'd-want-played-at-my-funeral, man. Here's what I really want to know. What scenario would you want John Waters to fit you into, at your own lacking-in-proper-tasteful-reverence funeral service?

Comments

[imkalena.livejournal.com]

WHERE IS THIS THING?

Is this really on any channel that I want to afford?

I want to be in a giant tank of tropical fish with my snorkel on and my hair waving around in the water. Throw in a small black sand beach on the side with some palm trees, baby.

[klynie1.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen the show, but I love your description!

If I could have John Waters arrange my visitation, I think that I'd have him prop me up on my purple velvet cushy chair beside a fireplace with a merry little fire, a bottle of champagne and the best chocolates and sweetest strawberries that money could buy on a table next to me, Ella Fitzgerald in the background, and the works of John Donne or Basho in my hands.

Sounds like a plan for next weekend, actually - except for the dying part, of course. *g*

[tofty.livejournal.com]

The real beauty is that it's an NBC show (I don't have cable). It's on Thursday nights.

That is excellent! I would totally go to your funeral and raise a toast to your waterlogged corpse. :D

[tofty.livejournal.com]

*filches your strawberries*

Oh, very nice! Which Ella Fitzgerald, or does it matter? I am a total sucker for her Cole Porter Songbook.

Also, you have a purple velvet chair? Where does one even find such a thing?

[amelia-eve.livejournal.com]

The thing is, I don't want people to see me in squalid actual homelife -- my John Waters mortuary tableau would be my big opportunity to project the lifestyle I want people to remember me having, even if that memory is completely fabricated. Therefore, rather than posing in leopard-print flannel pajama pants on my ratty sofa glugging iced tea and surfing old movies, I want something that evokes the sophisticated, carefree persona I attempt to conjure on the internet.

I think I'd like to be seated at restaurant table with a bottle of really good Chianti Classico, a dungeness crab, and a loaf of sourdough walnut bread from Acme Bakery. I'll be wearing a Jean Harlow-ish bias-cut satin gown and the kind of high heels I'd fall off of while alive. Sparkly earrings and dress clips and red, red lipstick. Also, I'd like a weave for some luxurious thick hair with playful cherry highlights. My musical background will be Ella Fitzgerald singing The Cole Porter Songbook. I'd always thought it would be great for a wedding, but "From This Moment On" would work great at a funeral as well.

[amelia-eve.livejournal.com]

As happens so often, we are of one mind! Or at least one ear.

[laurelwood.livejournal.com]

I'm with amelia_eve in wanting something more than jammy pants and recliners in my tableau. I'd rather have one of my big wishes captured; a cool one would be me as the clarinet player in a klezmer band against the backdrop of a nice turn-of-the-century Polish shtetl wedding. I don't know how that would pan out logistically; maybe they could put me in cold storage till they can cobble together enough other people who have the same wish, and then pose us all together. :D

[tofty.livejournal.com]

:D:D:D:D:D:D

[klynie1.livejournal.com]

*offers chocolate & a flute of champagne*

Ella singing Cole, absolutely. *g*

Purple velvet chairs occur when a woman with questionable taste crosses paths with her late grandmother's cushy chair when it's in desperate need of re-upholstering. I feel like I've corrupted the poor thing.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Well, that's fair enough; I expect John Waters would be willing to be flexible, or we could just lie and say, Oh sure, Amelia was a committed wearer of satin and stiletto mules, absolutely. What flannel pajama pants?

I think that "From This Moment On" would be even better as a funeral song!

Ooh, and you've just reminded me of the olive sourdough at my favorite bakery back in NO, and suddenly I'm starving. I wonder if I could have it shipped to me. :-? Not in time for dinner, obviously, but still.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

LAUREL I WILL TOTALLY ARRANGE THIS FOR YOU. What I will do is hire a living klezmer band and set you up amongst them, and I think this will work really well, barring any squeamishness from your "fellow" band members. And we could require all mourners to dress as guests at a shtetl wedding, dress the room up as a little rural temple, etc.

I totally want you to realize your dream, and I want to be there to see it, because I think it is the best dream I've heard in a long time.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

PEE ESS NICE ICON USAGE

[tofty.livejournal.com]

EXCELLENT. Here's to corrupted chairs, man. *raises champagne flute*

[amelia-eve.livejournal.com]

ZOMG, you guys realize what we have all just described? The Ultimate Diorama

[imkalena.livejournal.com]

And, you know, in the end I could just, uh, feed the fishes. But that would be later, much later. :)

[tinderblast.livejournal.com]

Oh, gosh - I've only seen MNIE once, so I pray that I catch the ads for this particular show and watch the episode. John Waters! How fabulous.

Hmm. Funeral service. If there was some way of combining about ten different things at once, that would be awesome. Or maybe my body could shuttle back and forth between these things because I am, above all, kinda indecisive.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Satisfyingly ecological and everything! :D

[tofty.livejournal.com]

AHAHAHAHAHA I am perfectly willing to create a death-diorama if you are!

[tofty.livejournal.com]

We could have kiosks set up, maybe, and move you from kiosk to kiosk? I somehow picture you mostly interacting with the various young males you favor. :D

[miraminx.livejournal.com]

Can John Waters pose me as if I were at a show, if not actually have the visitation at a show? Maybe Five-Eight will be hard up enough for money at that point to agree to play a funeral home. I'd like to be wearing my black minidress with the leopardskin print collar and cuffs, please, and drinking a Newcastle.

[amelia-eve.livejournal.com]

I never even got around to making my Snape diorama, so I doubt that the depiction of my own demise will get any sort of timely attention at this rate. Anyway, I think we have been jossed.

I just got back from an Irish wake in the heart of New Jersey. The deceased with the father of former coworker -- he is an art director and his wife is a managing editor. His wife had scanned probably 100 family photos for several massive poster collages, and he had arranged dad comfortably in his casket with a rosary in one hand and the TV remote in the other. There was also a bottle of Amaretto close at hand. It was sweet.

[tinderblast.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I'm thinking that,if I absolutely had to choose right now, I'd like a replica of the Tenenbaum house, and I could be moved from room to room.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Man, I hate when I miss comments and only happen upon them much later. :/

I can think of any number of bands who'd be kind of pleased to host a wake/show. You send me a list and I'll be sure I get it taken care of for you.

Don't you love how it looks as though I am just assuming that I'll be the last of us to die? But really, I'm not -- I would want you guys to make the book/chair/tea thing happen, should I be the one to kick it first.