When we were in Philadelphia last week, Mr. Never-Stops-Talking told an uplifting story about going to a “suicide funeral.” I guess the deceased had been married, had two kids in middle school, and seemed to be living the American suburban dream. Then one evening he walked out to his garage and shot himself in the head.
According to the storyteller there were no outward signs of trouble, and the whole thing was a mystery. But isn’t that the way those kinds of stories usually go? It’s more dramatic if there were no indications of a problem.
Anyway, the guy provided a couple of disturbing details, that I’m having a little trouble shaking.
He said they had an open casket, for one thing, and a baseball cap had been placed on the poor bastard’s head. And it wasn’t even straight, it was slightly askew, which made it worse somehow.
Also, during the ceremony the priest made reference to the suicide, in front of the kids and everybody, and reminded everyone that the man would be required to spend some time in hell. But, he assured the crowd, he would probably be able to earn his way out.
WTS?? Was that really necessary? Especially considering the setting? And what’s the deal with earning your way out of hell? I’ve never heard of such a thing. Please don’t tell me there’s brown-nosing in the afterlife, too? Oh, man.
Have you ever been to a suicide funeral? Or any unusual funerals, for that matter? Tell us about it. And what do you think of the priest and the baseball cap? Why can’t I get all that stuff out of my head??
Another questionable story I heard during Thanksgiving dinner: A friend of a friend is a school teacher, you see, in downtown Philly somewhere. And she had a student last year named La-a, pronounced Ladasha — the dash isn’t silent.
Heh. I don’t believe that one for a minute, it’s got urban legend written all over it, but it’s funny anyway. La-a.
What’s the most ridiculous first name you’ve ever heard? We worked with a man in Atlanta who had a daughter named Quintabitha, and that’s the best I can do right now. Do you have anything on this? Use the comments link below.
Toney is friends with the mother of the older Secret’s best friend. So, she and Toney constantly compare notes, and talk back and forth about all the latest middle school gossip, etc.
Over the weekend the woman (let’s call her Cindy) called Toney, and was upset at her son (we’ll call him Jesse), and the following conversation took place later in the day.
Toney: Cindy called today, all up in arms because she found another Playboy in Jesse’s room.
Me: Playboy? What is this, 1968? They still publish that?
Toney: I guess so.
Me: Huh. Well, you know (the older Secret) is looking at those magazines when he goes over there, right?
Toney: I don’t care.
Me: Yeah, I don’t either.
I remember kids getting caught with Playboy or Penthouse or Hustler Horny Dwarves #6 when I was a youngling, and their parents freaked out completely. They almost had their sons sent away to reeducation camps somewhere, to get their heads straight.
So, my reaction to all this is about 180 degrees out of phase from the parents of my youth. It makes me wonder (not really) if I’m doing something wrong. But come on… Those guys are almost fourteen years old. You might be able to confiscate their porn stash, but there’s no way to stop what’s going on inside their heads. All the disgraceful, disgraceful stuff…
Oh, I remember.
What do you think about this situation? Should “Cindy” be concerned about “Jesse’s” always-regenerating Playboy magazine? She keeps taking them away, and they almost instantly reappear… Ha!
Did you ever get caught with porn when you were a kid? Luckily, I made it through without experiencing that particular humiliation. What about you? Tell us about it, won’t you? And anything else you might have on this always-fun subject…
I need to call it a day now, and… go to work. (Hey, now I know where Drivin n Cryin got their name!)
We had a vendor come in once to install a new computer system and his name was Get. His name freaked out everyone in that south, south GA redneck town as much as his long ponytail and earrings did.
I went to high school with a girl named Precious Lilly and ex-husband liked to tell the story that he went to school with a guy named Jerry Cherry – but everyone just called him Buster.
Last name of a guy at work: Dikshit
http://www.snopes.com/racial/language/names.asp
All of these mentioned are urban legend names.
Worked for a German freight Company, one of our Directors was a Mr.Kuntz the first time I introduced myself he responded with a weary smile: It’s pronounced Koontz! Yeah Right!
Baseball cap was probably covering up stuff the family didnt need to see! The priest must have been a liberal because there is no get out of hell card in that outfit! Thats why I joined the Salvation Army we don’t take prisoners!!!!! Semper Fi!!
U2 have a great song called ‘Stuck in a Moment’ which reminds me of a few guys I knew who have killed themselves.
I don’t know about hell and brimstone and all that, but I hope that the ‘big man’ up there gives them a slap round the head with a wet fish for being so daft!
For strange/ stoopid names, Kal el Cage takes the cake for me! – oh Nicholas, what were you thinking?
I pleaded with my wife to give my son ‘danger’ as a middle name. Needless to say …..
Just late signing in, will have to go back to read other’s notes and come back.
Great questions today Jeff.
Attended a friends suicide funeral at age 22. She pulled herself away from everyone while she was dating a complete Fhead. Apparently she had her thinking she was fat (mmmm… Last I had seen her maybe 5’9 & 115 lbs). She had a baby from a different relationship too. Took drugs and called a nurse friend telling her she made a mistake, they got her to the hospital but her body was to weak to overcome it. Fhead showed his ugly head at the funeral. So terrible for everyone.
Funniest name I ever heard. I was on the bus and a family of maybe less fortunates kids were talking. One of them told the other that he thought he knew his brother ‘Dang’. I almost fell off my seat.
On porn – was at Pikes market in Seattle last year, in an antique store they had playboys going back to the late 1960’s so amusing!!! .
‘Brown nosing in the afterlife’, If that’s the case I’m glad I don’t think I’m getting one.
My dad subscribed to Penthouse ever since I could remember. He used to “hide” them in the bathroom on the top shelf of the linen closet under a pile of towels. I believe I found them at about 6 years old, so all my buddies got educated also.
Being raised Roman Catholic, I think that priest is a dick. Priests are supposed to be supportive, someone to make you feel good about yourself, someone to tell you that you are a good person and help you improve your weaknesses. Judging someone or throwing out a slanderous comment is most definitely poor taste. Furthermore, I would have cornered that priest after the funeral one on one and jumped his ass harshly.
The most recent “suicide funeral” I attended was of SPC Jacob Clements. He was my roommate, buddy, and the best fucking gunner I have ever had while we were in Iraq. Three months after we got back, he shot himself in the head. We made it through the shit, but he couldn’t handle coming back to what some would call “real life”. There may even be a picture of him on the smoking fish pics I sent from Baghdad. RIP Big guy.
No funny funeral stories – sorry!
However, I did go to high school with a guy named Dickson Hand. Imagine having that name around a buncha teen Beavis & Buttheads…
I work at a place where lots of middle aged ladies into yoga are renaming themselves exotic-sounding sanskrit “spiritual” names. I recently got an email informing everyone that Sally so-and-so is now to be known by her new spiritual name. Puh-leeze, you’re still just Sally to me!
Growing up, the dad across the street from me, who we all swore was gay, had a massive backlog of old Playboy magazines. They were piled in his closet and arranged by year in the basement where we played. Heh heh – for some reason they trusted us to innocently ignore the mags, but of course we didn’t. I’m sure he just had them for the sports articles…
That priest needs to be taken out back and have his teeth pulled out with a pair of vice grips. I don’t care what the metaphysics of your little cult dictates, you don’t need to use the occasion of a funeral, with the children present no less, to announce that the guy is in hell. This is doubly worse coming from a member of the Catholic clergy, an organization that has spent much of the last century (at least) aiding, abetting, and in many cases actively participating in the rape, torture, and systematic abuse of children. I might be being a tad unfair but I think that if you represent an organization that has essentially endorsed pedophilia you really don’t have much moral authority to question the behaviour of others.
A similar thing happened at my grandmother’s funeral 20 years ago. The minister spent much of the eulogy bemoaning the evils of homosexuality. While he is welcome to spew whatever bizarre theories wander into his head from the pulpit on Sundays, I hardly think the funeral of and 86 year old heterosexual grandmother is the time or the place. I told him so afterward right before I suggested he copulate his immediate female predecessor.
Playboy under the mattress? Seriously? Sounds like he’s leaving them there to distract mom from what he’s really into. Check his browser history and I’ll bet you find links to German fisting videos and Tijuana donkey shows.
I hid my porn in plain sight on the bookshelf in my room. Mom would look in all the usual places (mattress, bedside table, top shelf in closet), but it never occurred to her to just lift up that copy of NME and find the stack of porn underneath.
I went to school with a guy named Sherwood Forrest. Seriously.
No funny funeral stories – after the first one (my grandfather – who I loved dearly) I swore off of them. they’re for the living, not the dead and I’d rather remember the person as they were in life. I’ll never be able to get the sight of my grandfather in the casket out of my head when I think about him. Never.
Happy Tuesday, Surfers!
The Further Evidence link today!
hahahahahah I was promised flashbacks but I never had ONE. I feel cheated.
My favorite line is when he says “LSD is the BOMB!:
hahahahahahahahahaha aahhhhhhhhhhh love it.
That priest was a complete, utter jackass to say something like that. Just another reason to stay away from organized religion.
Shit, I’ve known a lot of people that have killed themselves, possibly more than the average person but then again I run in strange circles…most of the time I’ve sat out the actual funerals and opted to hoist a dozen beers in their memory. I did go to a memorial service for an ex-boss of mine who shot himself the weekend before Thanksgiving last year. His wife had left him and took everything in the divorce. The service was pretty goddamned depressing; one of his co-workers got up and talked and said something along the lines of “let’s face it, XXX wasn’t himself for the past year and there was really nothing we could do about it.” Kind of a weird thing to say so soon after the fact, almost as if he was better off dead.
When I shuffle off the mortal coil I’m getting cremated, no funeral showing, no embalming. Straight into the goddamned furnace. I just hope my friends throw a hell of a party and play some damned good music. And there won’t be any asshole priest present to say that I lived my life wrong or was going to hell.
Tyrosine: Nice rant — rational, reasonable, cogent and dead-on. Thanks.
Knucklehead: Avoid open-casket funerals; avoid closed-casket funerals. Stick to memorials and wakes, and share your memories of your loved one as he/she was. Besides, sometimes there’s a bar.
Don’t know which of us took the more psychodelics, but I still haven’t seen my Grandmother crawling up my leg with a knife in her teeth (see also, Dr. Hunter Thompson), nor anything I could classify as a flashback. Nearest I get is at the dentist’s office where I talk them into turning the nitrous oxide 5 clicks above the legal limit (legal limit is 50/50 N2O/O2) but if you gasp you can manage 55/45. Yeah, I have a cool dentist. It’s not like acid or mesc or peyote or opium or mushrooms, but there is a certain mindfuck that takes me back to the day. Ah, the day.
jtb
For the lord’s sake, give your offspring a freakin’ normal name. While the Bard had it right:
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”
Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)
…I wonder if the common name for Rosaceae Rosa had been shitmuffins or beaverpuke we’d still be enamored of the flower and its smell. I suppose so, because the Bard is almost always right. In any case, I’m saving Beaverpuke as the name for the next Priest who tells the family of a deceased gay friend of mine (a few of them will most likely die before me) that he went to hell.
“Hey, Lord Beaverpuke; don’t look now but you’re headed downtown for diddling altar boys. My friend is in heaven because he lived a decent life. Say hi to the popes and Jimmy Hoffa for me.”
I might be getting wound up. Better exit before I violate the guideline against discusing religion.
my best as always…jtb
Now playing on the Sony Discman: “Chelsea Hotel #2 by Leonard Cohen
Friend of a friend knew a family with 3 girls named Cotton, Paisley, and Denim ….
Check out the poor kids’ names at the end of this article …
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1230142/Pregnant-mother-13-says-I-having-babies-I-twins.html
Playboy: I agree with the “Cindy is making a cover story” conspiracy. Otherwise, let ’em have it with ONE caveat… make sure they know that not every woman looks or behaves like this; that it’s all done with smoke and mirrors.
Names: actual hospital patient Ima Fruit. I printed labels for a women’s club at work once, and recognized some of the names. Then saw one that I’ll never forget. Feej Flamepooper. I thought I was going to need an ambulance after I saw that one.
That priest at the funeral was a complete and utter ass-clown.I went to Catholic grade school and the priests and nuns were always making up wacky-assed shit.
I had a nun in second grade tell the class,”Unless you are Catholic, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” She felt pretty comfortable saying this as back in the day ( where I grew up) Catholics always married Catholics. Except for my parents!
I raised me hand and said, “My dad is Protestant, what will happen to him?” The nun was stunned and fumbled about trying to come up with some sort of explanation. “Ummm…your father will be in Purgatory, which is not a bad place, but one where the soul is not in the direct presence of God.”
Thus began my problems with the Catholic church.
On a porn/Catholic school related note… we had a gas station that butted up against our playground/parking lot. One day at recess, we noticed some piles of magazines set out behind the station on trash day. Upon further investigation, we found a treasure trove of porn! Guys were ripping out pages and stuffing them down their pants. A couple more brazen students ran around the playground holding open centerfolds above their heads.
The real hilarity ensued when the nuns caught wind of this and started chasing boys around the playground and confiscating the offending material. It was a regular Hawaii 5-0 crackdown.
Good times…
Strangest name I ever heard….actually more funny than strange.
Phoebe P. Peabody-Beebe
Say that 3 times fast. Funny shit. It’s somebody my sister in law worked with.
Met a girl named Usa. Guess her parents thought they were being patriotic.
And, JUANCHO, you sound Mexican. Ha-Ha-Ha. Does that make me a racist? I’ll cop to prejudice. Everybody is to some degree. But racist, I don’t think so. You might want to take the test.
Some of the names I hear & have heard no doubt led to job applicatins being stashed in file 13.
Might want to go with something a little more main stream or be satisfied with being up some other creek. And what’s with outragougs tattoos, pierced everything and hair from another planet. Why can’t I get a job??
I worked at a local University for a few years right out of college in the Admissions office. One girl who applied was “Spring Star Pillow”. I never got the chance to meet her, but I’m assuming mom and dad were hippies. There was also “Ima Goodwin”, which made me laugh just thinking about it.
Regarding the suicide funeral, I went to one about 10 years ago. I’m not catholic, so I don’t believe in the whole you have to stay here for a bit then you can go somewhere else. I was always raised that if you’re good you go to Heaven, and if not, you go to Hell. Anyway, this priest also talked about the suicide and we had to pray over and over for him to be entered into Heaven. When I asked what was going on, they told me they were “praying him into Heaven”.
I have a Swedish cousin named Anal Sphincterson. He’s ok but he’s kind of an asshole.
Jeff:
Please, I beg of you; send an update. I can’t take any more urban legend names. The suicide funeral stuff is OK and, for some at this site, offers a forum for venting and tossing off baggage. I’m all for that.
And the soft-core porn stuff is fine and fun.
But the names…please post so we can reset.
In memory of Phil Ochs and all the rest, let’s move on.
Now playing on the Sony Discman: “11:59” by Blondie
In the words of “The Beastie Boys” Mom threw away my best porno mag!
My mother has worked in the public school system here in So. Cal for over 25 years, so we’ve heard our share of names.
One girl’s last name was Land. So, naturally, her mother named her Candy. Candy Land. Heh.
Another kid’s last name was Eight. As in the number. Of course, the only appropriate first and middle name for this would Six Seven. Yes, a child is roaming the streets with the name Six Seven Eight.
Lastly, a poor Thai child in her school had the name Porn Phuq. The ‘Phuq’ is pronounced ‘Fuck’. So, this poor kid has the unfortunate name Porn Phuq. I wonder how many inappropriate jokes he’s heard.
I was never caught with porn. The kid, I mean. No, I really was never caught with any porn. Instead, my mother had the unfortunate luck of walking in on me banging my teenaged boyfriend when I was a mere 15 or 16. Yes, I was a bit of a sexual rebel in high school. Now (15 years later), she looks back at it all and chuckles, although talking too much about it makes her want to commit double homicide still….
Now Playing on iPhone: ‘The Cold Dish’ audiobook by Craig Johnson
Bob Loblaw – fictional, from Arrested Development
Fortunately, I’ve only had a couple of friends off themselves, and have been to only one suicide funeral. I felt like a complete douche, because all I could think of was that the fiancee was probably the cause, and how much I hated her for it. She was almost visibly enjoying all the attention & such she was getting. It turned my stomach. And, yeah, that priest needs his ass handed to him. Save that shit for a Sunday sermon; not the suicide’s funeral.
@Tammie I neeveer kneew that youuuu would maaake fuun of myy naaaame! Joost becauuuse wee speeek like daaat doeeeesnt meeen sweeeeedish peeeeeple are stuuuuuupid!
love anal
I worked with a man many years ago. His parents named him in an era when I guess you didn’t look for hidden meanings or juvenile sexual associations to words and names. His last name was Dover. First name: Benjamin.
Another guy I knew was a DJ at night & weekends for extra money. Drove around in a van full of records and stereo gear to birthdays, etc. His grandparents were the classic Slavic couple that had their last name shortened for them at the Ellis Island receiving center. You know, to make it easier for “real” Americans to pronounce it. Last name was Poproski, changed to Poprock. So, my friend Eddy Poprock is a DJ and constantly having to convince people “No, really, that’s my actual name. No, it’s not a stage name, let me tell you the story…….” He could’ve been a welder and it never would have come up.
la-a is not an urban legend my son goes to college with a girl named La -(dash)a
Famous pro basketball management failure Isiah Thomas wears his mother’s illiteracy on his sleeve every day of his life. If his name is pronounced “Eye-Zay-uh” it should be spelled “Isaiah”. His stupid mother obviously couldn’t spell that, so he ended up with a name spelled such that it should be pronounced “Eye-ZIGH-uh”.
The most ridiculous name? Sashay Latauche pronounced (sa-shae La-tosh)