How To Behave At Funerals
Call me sadistic but I slightly enjoy going to funerals. I mean, I hate dressing up in my black suit, tucking my shirt in and being uncomfortable. Someone you know and/or love dying can kinda suck sometimes too, but the rest of the ordeal seems pretty sweet to me. After a few speeches and stories and crying and whatnot, you've got shitloads of free booze and food to get stuck into. If you've got cool relatives, you can't complain about spending quality time with the family, and if not, go get stuck into some of those grieving women.
Funerals conjure up genuine and unique emotions that are far less common at other events. Sadness is the obviously predominant emotion. The sadness we often feel is usually directed at ourselves; we are sad because we have fucked something up in our own lives and we therefore feel sorry for ourselves. The other, deeper, form of sorrow is the sadness
we feel for others, as in those who are dead or dying, or even just crippled. This is a more true but rarer form of the emotion that feeds on our individual humanity and kindness, and sometimes makes us cry.
Crying is a big part of funerals too. It seems like if you don't cry at a funeral there may be something wrong with you. I didn't cry at my mates dad's funeral because I wasn't sad. I felt sorry for my friend, but he didn't cry either. I think he was trying to hold it in in front of everybody – it was a long, pretty boring, crowded funeral. But at least there was good food and company to enjoy. It was held unfortunately early, which held the booze at bay until at least midday. This always plays a dramatic role in the overall quality of the funeral. People's moods and willingness to let there hair down happens to be quite dependent on its' existence, which was probably the reason why there wasn't many people crying. I do enjoy a good cry, when appropriate, but it rarely happens to me. Only at funerals usually, except my mates dad's funeral, which for some reason wasn't really that sad.
Irish funerals are the best, as far as I can tell. It's more about celebrating the life of the dead person by getting smashed and having a good laugh right afterwards. That's what I would prefer over the usual sombre, sentimental occasion. I want people falling off chairs and swinging off the chandeliers at my funeral.
Call me sadistic but I slightly enjoy going to funerals. I mean, I hate dressing up in my black suit, tucking my shirt in and being uncomfortable. Someone you know and/or love dying can kinda suck sometimes too, but the rest of the ordeal seems pretty sweet to me. After a few speeches and stories and crying and whatnot, you've got shitloads of free booze and food to get stuck into. If you've got cool relatives, you can't complain about spending quality time with the family, and if not, go get stuck into some of those grieving women.
Funerals conjure up genuine and unique emotions that are far less common at other events. Sadness is the obviously predominant emotion. The sadness we often feel is usually directed at ourselves; we are sad because we have fucked something up in our own lives and we therefore feel sorry for ourselves. The other, deeper, form of sorrow is the sadness
The best funeral I've ever been to was at a beach where everyone sat around listening to stories about this surfer dude who'd died in a helmetless motorbike accident when he was high off sniffing glue. As his mates recounted stories of their antics, everyone got high and stoned, and eventually the fire became the size of a Kombi van. By night time, women's shirts had been ripped off, and nude swims and surfs had gone down. People jumped and walked through the fire as we sent a huge flaming barge out into the blackening breakers. Yelling bullshit into the night, we watched the flames disappear for about an hour. And as we said goodbye the flames, we said goodbye our dead mate, before getting back on the booze and taking true advantage of the fact that we could now really talk about him behind his back.
Funerals can be a good place to go to clear your head. You may begin tearing up over your deceased great-grandma, and then end up realising how actually upset you really are over that bitch who broke it off with you last month, or that your housemate keeps stealing money/drugs/food/toilet paper. Last time I was at a sad funeral, not the semi-sad funeral of my mates dad, but the properly sad funeral of my dad's dad, my eyes welled up with tears when my young cousin tried to give a speech, but couldn't because he was crying so hard. This made us all cry, and it made me think about my grandad. I thought about him for a little while, reminiscing about how he used to steal food off my plate and how he used to tell awesome stories off the top of his head. Then I remembered how he was an abusive prick who kicked the shit out of me for blocking his toilet when I was 8.
I stopped balling like a baby at a Black Flag show, and began dreaming about all the booze and food I'd be able to get my mouth around once the priest had shut the hell up.
27TH SEPTEMBER 2012