...for me,its "I,VE GOT A LOVELY BUNCH OF COCONUTS"...as v is a fun person.

"dead man blues" "is that all there is?" "you're next"

i'm not having a funeral but i guess they can play "in a silent way" while they scatter the ashes.

i'm having my ashes scattered, too. my family has their ashes scattered around a big tree in the austin hill country. family history thing. but i want them drunk and dancing while they do it.

drunk and dancing while spreading ashes.... Add in some Jerry Springer shit and that would be the aftermath of Spunky and my wedding this weekend.

I want people to sing "How Can I Keep from Singing?" at my funeral. Not in a "ding dong the witch is dead" spirit, but in a spirit of celebration of lidw. That's my favorite hymn. I'd like "How Great Thou Art" to be sung at my wedding. That's also inappropriate for the occasion, but in the past year, there have been times when I've gone to church by myself and I've been so moved by the sermon or service that I've sung that hymn in the car on the way home. Of course, I was in Montana and the wildflowers were blooming, which no doubt contributed to my urge to burst into a song praising the wonders of creation, but at any rate, it's my go-to song to sing when I'm really, really happy. And I should hope that, should I ever decide to marry, I'd be feeling really, really happy as I walk out of the church (as opposed to, as I fear, feeling like I've just made a huge mistake). Hell, you can sing "How Great Thou Art" at my funeral, too.

Uh, whoa. Celebration of LIFE, up there in the first paragraph.

"pony" by ginuwine. sung barbershop quartet style.

Dang, why do I have to be serious?

I want my friends and loved ones to have a giant party on the beach and burn me, personally. Music wise, I think I'd plump for nice acappella action, the event being on a beach and all. Or maybe some rounds. Mainly I just want there to be a lot of alcohol and delicious food involved. I'm on Treasure Island getting ready for the SF MOMA Scavenger Hunt And I am very excited. We're also allegedly getting the keys to our new house today.

i'm serious.

i'm serious, too. in my perfect death fete i would have the dirty dozen brass band do the music. starting with "dead man blues" -what's that i hear twelve o'clock in the daytime, church bells? someone must be dead! -ain't nobody dead. somebody must be dead drunk! -no, i believe there's a funeral. i do believe i hear that tram-bone comin'! marianne faithful will sing "is that all there is". is that all there is? is that all there is? if that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing. let's break out the booze... lord buckley would do the eulogy. now, i look at all you cats and kitties out there a whippin' and a wailin' and a jumpin' up and down and suckin' up all that juice and pattin' each other on the back and a hippin' each other who the greatest cat in the world is. but I'm gonna put a cat on you was the coolest, grooviest, swingin'est, wailin'est, strongest, swingin'est cat that ever stomped on this jumpin' green sphere... and it will all end with "you're next".

My Daughter played Ozzy Osbourne music called "Mamma, I am coing home" for her Mother and her Brother, as well for her Step Father's funeral.

My dad went to a funeral in england a couple of years ago where they played, "Fat Bottomed Girls Make the Rockin' World Go Round." He called me afterwards and asked, "Have you ever heard of this 'Queen' group?"

My mother wants Oingo Boingo's Dead Mans Party at hers. She also wants to be stuffed and mounted and jokingly ? says its a condition of her will otherwise I get nothing. She hasn't got anything anyway. I wonder if I could sell her on eBay?

All right, then. You've got to play Zepplin's "In My Time of Dying" at my funeral and sing along with it and/or dance like you're in a cage. Especially at the "oh my Jesus" part, when the drums kick in. I want you to leave feeling like you've rocked.

CHRIST, v is very,very tempted to go for something by Queen,perhaps "I want to break free",,,just to shock the Preast,and I want a choir of Transvestites,in mini skirts.,and a Scottish Soldier,to play the bag pipes.,and a huge multi-million $$$$$ firework display.,and free beer for a year for any one that heard of me.

hayseed dixie does a nifty bluegrass version of "fat bottomed girls". should anyone die in the american south.

superfreak, by rick james.

maggotbrain. funkadelic. i wanna be floated down the east river on a pirate ship loaded with gunpowder and fireworks. the fifty caliber buddha will shoot a flaming arrow into the skullhead mast when floats by battery park and into the atlantic. when the fire licks it's way down to the deck, the ship will explode-- shooting my last missives over the skies of lower manhattan. EAT HOT FUCK! and then ARRIVEDERCI, MOTHERFUCKERS!!! chances are i'll just be unceremoniously dumped into a ditch by the susquehanna, but such is the life of swine. this is why i always keep a bottle rocket in my pants.

Long live Mr.Blindswine,long may you run. J is so glad to hear from you,hope your happy,I'm so happy too.I'm back from my son's wedding,I danced to "girls just wanna have fun" and I'm no girl.And it's raining babies for J,I'll be having a new grandaughter at the end of Oct.,and now I havent even told my daughters,but my son and his wife are expecting in 8 months. Swine is somebody suppose to say, "is that a bottle rocket in your pants or are you just happy to see me"?

I would want this played at my funeral, Uncle John's Band Well the first days are the hardest days, don't you worry any more, 'Cause when life looks like Easy Street, there is danger at your door. Think this through with me, let me know your mind, Wo, oh, what I want to know, is are you kind? It's a buck dancer's choice my friend; better take my advice. You know all the rules by now and the fire from the ice. Will you come with me? Won't you come with me? Wo, oh, what I want to know, will you come with me? Goddamn, well I declare, have you seen the like? Their wall are built of cannonballs, their motto is "Don't tread on me". Come hear Uncle John'n Band playing to the tide, Come with me, or go alone, he's come to take his children home. It's the same story the crow told me; it's the only one he knows. Like the morning sun you come and like the wind you go. Ain't no time to hate, barely time to wait, Wo, oh, what I want to know, where does the time go? I live in a silver mine and I call it Beggar's Tomb; I got me a violin and I beg you call the tune, anybody's choice, I can hear your voice. Wo, oh, what I want to know, how does the song go? Come hear Uncle John's Band by the riverside, Got some things to talk about, here beside the rising tide. Come hear Uncle John's Band playing to the tide, Come on along, or go alone, he's come to take his children home. Wo, oh, what I want to know, how does the song go. And then after that,"When God Made Me" by Neil Young on his Prarie Wind DVD,and maybe Amazing Grace with bagpipes,it always makes me cry.I guess I won't be crying though when I'm dead.

crying is good, J. it means you're still human- and still alive. and by the way-- that is a bottle rocket in my pants. and yes, i'm happy to see you. gotta go again. see ya next time.

* "Fearless" by Pink Floyd * "Every Rose has its Thorn" by Poison * "Baba O'Riley" by the Who * "Romeo and Juliet" by Dire Straits * "Dear God" by XTC * "Asleep" by the Smiths Those are the songs I'd want, off the top of my head. This is cool: http://www.efn.org/~hkrieger/church.htm

I like your choice J. When I was in college, a brother of my friend died, and they played Ripple at his funeral. I think I might like Ripple at mine. Amazing Grace is another great choice, along with Danny Boy -- two tunes that never fail to move me.

If I go to your funeral, Agatha, I promise to bawl when "Asleep" is played. That song kills me dead.

Me too! It's brutal.

i just got back from a smooth jazz concert at a healdsburg winery. i almost died. had i, it would have been horrible music played in honor of my death.

Dude. Spill.

oh, no. just sitting on a winery lawn listening to smooth jazz with a bunch of middle aged drunken white people. all the bad hair and the animal print blousery. i almost died. smooth jazz. what the hell.

And, you were there for what reason? It had to involve a woman.

or free wine. i thought it was going to be real jazz. white people ruin everything.

Nope,white people are good at most things,apart from Jazz and Blues,thats the domain of black men,they rule most times,and beat the shit out the whites.,when it comes to that kinda music.,bet droopy aggrees with v.

the funk is better, too. but i don't think it's just that white people ruined jazz. aside from a few exceptions, we've been doing that since the first whitey decided he could play jazz. it's just that nobody listens to "real" jazz anymore - exciting, challenging music. the only thing that's commercially viable anymore is smooth jazz. right now i'm listening to one of the few "real jazz" shows in my area - "sounds of jazz with james stapleton" from midnight to 4am. jazz has been marginalized. this generation of african-americans aren't even listening to it. how many people on these boards can even name a contemporary jazz player besides wynton marsalis? who here, at best, owns more than an couple of token miles davis (or whoever) albums that you listen to occasionally. i've never seen a jazz band sans singer on leno, letterman, etc.

I don't listen to a lot of jazz. I admit to owning a couple token Davis albums (Kind of Blue), but I also own albums like Agharta and On the Corner. I've got some Coltrane, too. My brother is the jazzman in our family - he's got probably around 1000 jazz albums and counting by now, but he's really into 1920s -1940s avant garde composers, like Percy Grainger. The most modern jazz I have is actually by white guys - Charlie Hunter and The Bad Plus. Of course, if you include other genres of music that are challenging and exciting, then I have a lot more "jazz".

it probably has more to do with middle aged white people in bad pants.

Nate,v went way fast foreward when I got to middle age,v found it no fun at all.

Are "smooth jazz" radio stations popular across the country? We have one here, CD-101.9. It's smoove, baby. No, actually it sucks. Elevator jazz, plus they throw in Whitney Houston, Sting, etc.

Mother Sky by Can as my pretty corpse is launched into space in a capsule

Dougie,In London we have "Magic F.M.",you can hear "Danceing Queen" by ABBA 10 times a day. :(

slacks. not pants. slacks! (it's on the eulogy list, you know)

slacks are bad pants. but, yes.

i rarely see my father more than once or twice in a decade (if i'm unlucky). but i can always count on one thing, if i do: bad slacks. his fashion sense never left the 70s. i remember him being at a pre-party (whatever you call it) for one of my sister's weddings dressed in bright red slacks. yesterday i went on a little shopping trip that managed to cost me a wheelchair tire yesterday and, as of this afternoon, my whole chair. but i managed to get a django reinhardt double cd and a sonny boy williamson "best of" out of it. the last song on the sonny boy album is "now way out" (you know, the allman brothers song: there's a man down there...might be your man, i don't know). turns out sonny boy and elmore james wrote that song. more songs for my funeral: "fattening frogs for snakes" (sonny boy) and any song as long as the ghosts of django reinhardt and stephane grapelli play it.

Bless me, droopy, for I have sinned. I...I think jazz is boring. THERE, I SAID IT. Jazz bores me. I'm very sure you have to be talented to be a good jazz musician, so I'm not slighting the genre or anything. I just don't like listening to it.

(Why can this board not handle Macs? I try to break my lines cleanly and it's all for naught.) Anyway, funeral music. If I decide to put everyone into a wailing-and-rending-of-garments kind of mood, I'm going to have Hans Zimmer's "Light" (from the s/t to "The Thin Red Line") play. The climax of that piece makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up, each and every time I hear it. I'd also like Blue Oyster Cult's "Burnin' for You." And I think I'm serious.

you just havent heard the right jazz dearest one.

pick up charles mingus "blues & roots" or masada (john zorn) "tet"

Well, frex, John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme" - I didn't get it. I'm sure some super-cool technique I don't understand was being employed, and that if I knew anything about jazz I'd think the guy was a genius, but on a purely audio-stimulatory level, it wasn't pretty. (Okay, granted, I listened to this maybe 10 years ago, so I don't know if I'd feel the same way if I heard it now.) But I didn't hear anything that made me shiver or gasp. Right now, I'm listening to "Le Gibet" from Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit, and I have to periodically pause what I'm doing and just stop and listen, it's so distractingly beautiful. Maybe you can't compare Ravel and Coltrane, but I'm saying Coltrane didn't have the same effect on me and therefore I'm not inclined to give it another listen. I did like Miles Davis' "Blue in Green" -- that's pretty.

Can you persuade me to pick those up? I don't mean that snottily....I mean to say, what would I be listening for? What is going on there that would make it worthwhile? See, this is what bugs about jazz -- most other music, you just listen and like. Jazz, you gotta, like, know stuff about before you can like.

v happens to like Jazz,old,modern,whatever,so if you dont like it,just piss off.....not that v hates Spider,right,but I will not take a direct insult to v or droopy regarding Jazz,if you dont understand it no problem,a lot of people dont,v and droopy do.Look,it took v 35 years to get in to Jazz,and v recalls its real cool when your in a live club,for Christs sake,try it...just do it,Dude.

i don't know stuff about shit. but those two albums i love. 'blues and roots' is just dirty and stinking and grunting and hollering. like the physical details of sex. and 'tet' is like the mental details of sex. that's all bullshit. but it makes sense to me. email me your address and i'll send you copies. there you go. case closed.

more on the not knowing shit, i don't know shit about classical composition, but i know what you mean about ravel. you could know more about what you're listening to, but you don't have to in order to enjoy it. what about billie holiday or sarah vaughan or ella? what about satchmo building a dream on a kiss? you telling me that song doesn't ilicit an emotional squeeze of quiver glands?

jazz takes some time. there's punk rock in jazz, or should i say jazz in punk rock. charlie parker's moose the mooch or scrapple from the apple is no different the television's marquee moon or wire's 12xU to name a few. love supreme is just there. it just is. he tells a fucking story with his fuckin horn before he ever says the words. what drew me to buy my first jazz album, dave brubecks time further out was that someone had told me that there were fucked up interesting people in jazz music just as their were in punk rock. charlie parker and chet baker shot up heroin and were fuckin cool just like darby crash and mike ness. like pot, it didnt get me high at first before, it was only when was past the age of 18,when i started playing drums, saw max roach live that jazz, GOOD jazz throws my shit for a loop when i hear it. why me toes tap, my fingers snap and miles davis trumpet can at times give me a hard on. jazz, id like to think, is a part of the reason my daughter has a very complex understanding of music (along with the good ear my family is blessed with) because i've played it for her since before she was born because they say complex music for babies is very stimulating in brain development (ergo all the Baby Bach product lines) fuck that. wanna get complex, throw on an eric dolphy or ornette coleman and talk to me about complex. not sure where im going with this, but spider, may i suggest you watch ken burns documentary on jazz, or better yet read great (auto)biography about parker or miles davis. otherwise keep listening, i swear to god it will come to you

youre too smart and sensitive to let jazz pass by and if im wrong about you in that realm, i'll take that risk.

(Off-topic: I'm trying to write a class paper at this moment, and I was getting seriously stressed out a moment ago, and it took me a moment to realize it was because my iTunes playlist had moved away from Ravel and to the Klezmatics. I was being "serenaded" by some frantic-assed klezmer music while trying in vain to compose my thoughts into a coherent phrase. Don't make that mistake. Now it's playing Debussy, and I'm serene again.) Let me get back to you on the jazz, guys. Like I said, I'm not that motivated to go exploring right now. (Maybe when I can contemplate the concept of leisure time again, after I finish this sldkfjsl paper.) But I appreciate your thoughts. BTW, Debussy's second movement (Lent) from "Images/ Oubliees" (1894) is chill-inducing at two places. I can play those bars on the piano, and I give *myself* chills -- that's how good they are. It's a phrase found first in a minor key and later echoed in major. Sudden menace in a field of flowers. GOD. Go find a recording!

Jeez, I didn't realize I repeated "moment" THREE TIMES in one sentence. This does not bode well for my paper.

spider, have you heard the ella fitzgerald/louis armstrong duets? one two these are jazz and they are wonderful. but i don't think one needs any special training to "get" them.

"how high the moon" from ella in berlin if i had to pick some mingus for spider, i would probably start her on the "mingus ah um" album. "better git it in your soul" never fails to cheer me up. even when, like today, my wheelchair got a flat tire and i had to roll my pathetic ass 7 blocks home on a pancake. other than that i really couldn't give a rat's ass if people do or don't like jazz. how the hell can anybody like tom waits and not like jazz?

ella in berlin, absolutely, that "mack the knife" is funny, too. i love ella in rome "midnight sun" --- sublime sarah vaughan at mr. kelly's has a hilarious version of "how high the moon" in which she forgets the words. i'd imagine you know it, droopy. agreed on mingus ah um. generally always what i recommend as first mingus. i am the same way with "better get it in your soul" -- just straight-out positive. i dig his straight-up sweaty grunting stuff, but i favor when he mixes it with ellingtonian grace in composition. killer combination. and, yeah, whatever anybody likes, whatever.

All the pretty colors! I have heard the Ella/Louis duets -- I love Ella. I have maybe six or seven Ella F. albums...my favorite is either "The Intimate Ella Fitzgerald," where she's accompanied only by a piano, or "Ella Swings Gently with Nelson," on which she sings a killer version of "Heart and Soul." Tom Waits, now. Tom Waits is a class unto himself. It's easy to like Tom Waits and not like jazz! You just can! He's a carnival in a man's body!

OK, if you're digging ella, you like jazz. i knew you'd like ella thanks for inspiring me to throw on some ella and louis, "a foggy day" is glorious

this is a poem that's close to my heart. it's by philip larkin and it's called "for sidney bechet" - a great clarinet/alto sax player who was a contemporary of louis armstrong. That note you hold, narrowing and rising, shakes Like New Orleans reflected on the water, And in all ears appropriate falsehood wakes, Building for some a legendary Quarter Of balconies, flower-baskets and quadrilles, Everyone making love and going shares-- Oh, play that thing! Mute glorious Storyvilles Others may license, grouping around their chairs Sporting-house girls like circus tigers (priced Far above rubies) to pretend their fads, While scholars manqués nod around unnoticed Wrapped up in personnels like old plaids. On me your voice falls as they say love should, Like an enormous yes. My Crescent City Is where your speech alone is understood, And greeted as the natural noise of good, Scattering long-haired grief and scored pity. those last two stanzas - "on me your voice falls..." - is what jazz means to me.

Hell, spider likes cop shoot cop. That's jazz of a sort. Maybe some of miles' far-out 70s freak out stuff would be better than the "pretty" stuff? I don't know.

jackie mclean's "'bout soul" album - crazy, far-out, atonal, avant garde jazz. the first track features the spoken-word "toneless" poem "soul" by barbara simmons. crazy cool stuff.

droopy,what you have to ask yor self is will that music define you as a person?,as your last music in the world,it has to be YOU.You have to think long and hard about that.,and you can change your mind if you want.

"is all there is?" and "fattening frogs for snakes" still stand as definitive of me.

obviously, "numanuma" and the theme from the "benny hill show" are definitive of v

I think V would do well with a retrospective of my songs at his funeral.

J.N....SORRY,lost track of you,,, your songs,if you will be so kind sir,can you re-post?

Well obviously V, I would choose Angel of the Morning, and Queen of Hearts, and Walking On Sunshine by Katrina and the Waves.

Jack,for the first time in months,you made me smile,v has not had to use smiles for such a long time my expressions have shut down,Jack,,thanks.....yeah,and no pissing around Jack,your o.k. ,takes v a while to trust a person.,right?

J.N.,,,Christ man,you got 2 of v.s best tunes in 1 hit,how do you do that,bro?...

J.N...YO BRO,GOT THE NAME OF THAT GIRL THAT SUNG LIVE WITH ELTON ,KIKI DEE.,RIGHT?... Still pisses v off, she was the image of v,s ex-wife.,and I still love her to fucking bits.

Here's hoping a choir of Transvestites,in mini skirts, boycotts v's funeral.

Jim.I just want a wild funeral,dont you?????,strangly enough Jim,v knows nothing of yours,but uh,if you arnt up for it,than v will shaft your ass,(in public) for the next 20 years or so...

....but v would expect you to enjoy that too much....so v will think of something even more evil... gimmi 48 hours...

Well let's see, v... since your neighbor W has been shafting half the fucking world's ass very publically for almost 7 years now, I can't see how such a threat would be a threat. 48 hours? To that I simply say, "Yo mama!"

Jim,if you refer to George W. Bush,I think he is a nice person,and if v was American I would vote for him.v will tell you something you must allready under stand,there is no such thing as a perfect President,is there?

why doesn't someone drop a house on v? I mean, technically he's a witch now, right?

Actually, I think he's Insanity Prawn Boy from the "On the Moon" web cartoons found at weebls.com. http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/On+The+Moon+ep.4/

Jim,sorry bro,but v gets a strong feeling you are not the original Jim,...now, no insult intended,Jim,v just makes observations,right?

Blindswine so happy to hear from you:)Come back and spend some time please. I was thinking about it and I don't want people crying at my funeral so I'm 86ing the bagpipes and going with Spirit in the Sky by Norman Greenbaum.I got a friend in Jesus.

there's only 2 people on this earth who can call me bro, and you, non-so-kind sir, are not one of them.

j,so you just changed sex?,,,you might have given v some advance warning!...v was just going to come over to your place with a truck load of Jack Daniels,shucks.

what the fuck?

I got one for my funeral -- Broken Toys by Jerry Jeff Walker. Love that song to death. "There's not much to say for what was mine today But when tomorrow comes, I'll make my way Had planned to build a dream or two today But everything I tried turned out mistakes Won't stay down long, tomorrow is my day"

it'd be funny to play gnarls barkley's "necromancer", "pink elephants on parade", 2pac's "stay true". i own one record that i bought new. thelonious monk with sonny rollins and frank foster. during the ice storms in early 2004, most of portland was shut down as we don't understand the cold or the ice. i couldn't stand to stay inside so i'd go for walks with my camera. all the shops and restaurants down the street were closed. the library was closed. the grocery store was closed. went to the coffee shop and it closed right as i stepped inside, too late to grab a cup. but the record store next door was open and warm. i purchased the thelonious monk record there and took it home, where i listened to bebop and drank hot chocolate the rest of the afternoon.

Gnarls Barkley is awesome!

That sounds pretty close to perfect day, Lapis.

jack, you don't always need to say what the rest of us are already thinking.

a response to diane lockward’s “my husband discovers poetry” sometimes, he would lay in the shadow of her hip and watch her rib cage lift and fall, the cool breath of the night shimmering the thin white curtains, the whole world breathing with her with him- and he would stroke her sleeping hair, kiss her sleeping head and draw the line backwards through time to the point where he was certain this all began. backwards to his boyhood- squatted in the missouri dirt, set back on the heels of his keds and beside the beaten steel toolbox, his father’s thick leather fingers gaining grease in the guts of a tractor. and this, a wordless education in the mystical art of listening for the animal heart in oiled gears and rusted carburetors, sparkplugs and pistons. soon his father deferred to him the care of the tractors and the trucks and the ’55 crown victoria, and soon his father shook his hand without a word passed the keys and stoic, stood and watched him go. two thousand miles in the crown vic, towards san francisco and the ocean, where he landed on the bottom rung of a cold garage in san rafael. he worked hard and with his head down, sent money home to the farm, and one day was put in the path of a girl with terrible mechanical luck and a puzzle that seemed cut for his pieces. she asked him (of course) a dinner she would prepare. he mumbled, “i don’t know,” she ignored him, “i will see you at seven,” and she scribbled her address on the back of an envelope. all through dinner, she talked and he listened; her words were like books and he, mesmerized- all through dinner, he watched her lips and her laughter; his blue eyes an audience intent, enraptured. in that quiet pause after their first kiss, eyes closed, noses close, her soft breath on his lips and the tick tock of the mantel clock fading from the room replaced by the tick tock beat of her heart or his own- he first saw her eyes closed softly, black lashes down, her rose glow cheek bones and the slightest smile that sent through him a shiver like prophesy, her brown eyes opened like a lighthouse coming to bear on his silent fog, and his body hummed as prophesy fulfilled and he accepted that he would devote himself, bone and blood, from this kiss until his death, to be her sanctuary. he remembers those nights now, silently awake and watching over and recalling every brick they laid in their love- he remembers these nights as he holds in his fist, this poem of hers he found in this chest while looking for an album pictures of their wedding to put in this frame, to give as a gift to celebrate forty-five years of marriage of children raised to fine adults of love and companionship and sanctuary. and now, in his fist, this poem of hers where she claims him one worse than a man unfit to be hers. and so, in his fist, this forty-four magnum colt anaconda cold and goodnight to end this devotion blood and bone, sanctuary from kiss until death.

nate

heather