I Hate Everyone...Starting With Me (6 page)

To be fair, it hasn’t been all roses for Betty; she hasn’t
shtupped
anybody since Allen Ludden died. The password is “dried out.”

I love the obituaries.
Every morning when I get up, the first thing I do is wax and read the paper. Well, not the first thing; the first thing I do is have my live-in plastic surgeon do a quick touch-up on my chin and neck and
then
I wax and read the paper. Okay, not the whole paper, just a couple of sections. I read the gossip section to see if any celebrity friends got caught up in a scandal that I can exploit and take advantage of, and then I read the obituaries because I want to start my day off right. To me, obituaries are just wedding announcements without the pictures. I read the obituaries carefully, the way Lindsay Lohan reads her Miranda rights.

The first thing I do is check out the Jews who died because Jewish funerals have the best catering, and if I just happen to be in the neighborhood when they’re doing the service, I figure why not pop in for a nosh?

I hate it when the obituary doesn’t tell you
how
the person died.
They make you guess. It’s early in the morning and my brain’s not firing on all cylinders yet. Would it kill them to just say, “Murray Weintraub, fifty-eight, mumps”?

Sometimes you can tell what happened by reading the “in lieu of flowers” portion of the obit. For example, if it says, “In lieu of flowers, please send money to the Painful Rectal Itch Foundation.” Now you not only know why he died but also why he couldn’t sit still in church.

You can also tell a lot about a person and their family by reading their obituary. And not just reading
what’s printed, but reading into what’s
not
printed, what they left out.

For example, if it says, “no immediate survivors” it means the deceased was gay and the family refuses to acknowledge his or her partner because they want all the money in the estate for themselves.

“Services will be private” means the deceased was a son of a bitch and had no friends, colleagues or passing acquaintances. Or he was a serial killer and had no friends, colleagues or passing acquaintances because he offed them.

I hate it when I read an obit that says, “Molly Fishman, 102, suddenly.” Excuse me? She’s 102! How sudden could it have been? She’s been old since the Truman administration. The woman’s been hunched over in her wheelchair, with her tongue on the footrest since 1992; shouldn’t someone have seen her demise coming???

I hate people who die of natural causes;
they just don’t understand the moment. It’s the grand finale, act three, the eleven o’clock number—make it count!

One of my friends called me and said, “My father-in-law died.” I tried to pretend I cared so I said, “Are you okay?” He said, “He was ninety-eight, of course I’m okay. He didn’t die bungee jumping, he just didn’t get up.”

When a seventy-three-year-old calls you and says, “My mother died,” don’t bother to say, “Of what.” You
know already that the answer won’t be pole-vaulting or mixed martial arts.

If you’re going to die, die interesting! Is there anything worse than a boring death? (Other than a Charlie Rose marathon on PBS?) I think not. When my time comes I’m going to go out in high style. I have no intention of being sick or lingering or dragging on and on and boring everyone I know. I have no intention of coughing and wheezing for months on end. One morning you’ll wake up and read a headline: J
OAN
R
IVERS
F
OUND
D
EAD
… O
N
G
EORGE
C
LOONEY’S
F
ACE
. C
LOONEY
W
AS
S
O
B
EREFT
A
LL
H
E
C
OULD
S
AY
W
AS
, “X
JFHFYRNEM
.”

I hate cancer. It’s a big snore.
Booorrrringggg!
Everyone’s got it these days. Lung cancer, bone cancer, brain cancer—it’s all the same, and the treatment’s always the same: chemo, radiation, whining and baldness (and not a good kind of baldness like Patrick Stewart or Ben Kingsley, but a “Gee, there’s no way to accessorize that” kind of baldness).

I hate my friends who are breast cancer survivors. They’re always whining, “I lost a breast, I lost a breast.” You lost ten pounds. Shut up, bitch, you’re down a size!

I find face cancer riveting. It’s like leprosy without the flaking. One day you’re smiling for all the world to see; the next day, you’re looking under the couch for your nose.

The actress Nancy Kulp, who played Miss Hathaway on the
Beverly Hillbillies
, died from a nasty case of face
cancer. Every day a little bit of Nancy fell away. Not that it was a huge loss; hers was not a pretty face. In fact, she was homely even by lesbian standards. But give her credit—she died interestingly. She’d lost half her face, her jaw, her tongue. She looked like Señor Wences’s fist but she kept on talking, God bless her.

I hate hospice nurses who provide “palliative care.”
Palliative care means “keep the old coot medicated so she dies in her sleep and I don’t have to smother her and then deal with the ‘angel of death’ inquiries that are sure to follow and mess up my nonrefundable week in Cabo.”

I love funerals! To me a funeral is just a red carpet show for dead people.
It’s a chance for mourners from all walks of life to accessorize basic black, and to make a fashion statement that is bold enough to draw attention away from the bereaved but subtle enough so that no one knows that it’s happening. And, it’s a great way to have quiet fun. For example, I love to write nasty things about the dead person in the condolence book and then sign their grandchildren’s names.

I hate people who try to make you feel better. Like the neighbor who says, “Don’t forget, the first part of ‘funeral’ is ‘fun’!” Or the minister who says, “He’s in a better place now.” I’m tempted to yell out, “No he’s not. He had a house in the Hamptons. What’s wrong with you?”

I went to one funeral and the rabbi said very movingly, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” and then he ruined it by adding, “and Sylvia to Saks.”

When I die (and yes, Melissa, that day will come; and yes, Melissa, everything’s in your name), I want my funeral to be a huge showbiz affair with lights, cameras, action.… I want Craft services, I want paparazzi and I want publicists making a scene! I want it to be Hollywood all the way. I don’t want some rabbi rambling on; I want Meryl Streep crying, in five different accents. I don’t want a eulogy; I want Bobby Vinton to pick up my head and sing “Mr. Lonely.” I want to look gorgeous, better dead than I do alive. I want to be buried in a Valentino gown and I want Harry Winston to make me a toe tag. And I want a wind machine so that even in the casket my hair is blowing just like Beyoncé’s.

I love the dead reel at the Oscars,
where they honor all of the people in Hollywood who died during the past year. A good dead reel can almost compensate for five hours of French actors trying to make adorable acceptance speeches. One of my favorite things to do is guess which one of the dead actors will get the most applause and who’s going to be surprisingly underappreciated. It’s tricky, you can’t always tell. Some years the most applause goes to whoever died young and tragically; other years it goes to the old and beloved. I really love it when the Academy accidentally leaves a deadie out of the reel and the error of omission becomes a huge cause célèbre. Remember a few years ago when they left Bea
Arthur out of the dead reel? Bea Arthur! How did they leave Bea Arthur out? She was in
Mame
; she was in
All in the Family
; she was in
Maude;
she was a Golden Girl, for God’s sake! Bea was not only one of Hollywood’s leading ladies, she was one of Hollywood’s leading men. There are still people talking about that horrible gaffe and to this day, in Beverly Hills, when that subject comes up, people say Bea Arthur’s name in a muffled whisper like people used to do when they said “cancer.”

As I get older, I’m going to a lot more funerals, and let me tell you something, it’s a great pick-up scene. A graveside funeral is like eHarmony for the bereaved. I went to my friend’s husband’s funeral a few weeks ago and some accountant from Queens kept hitting on her. He said things like, “So, you’re single?” And, “You know, black really brings out your eyes.” And, “I love the way you shovel… what are you doing after the kaddish?” My friend was horrified. Not so horrified she didn’t give him a hummer in the back of his Lexus, but still…

At funerals I like to play a little game called Watch the Widow. I can tell just by her demeanor if she loved him, if he left her anything, or if she’s happy that he’s finally gone. If she sobs uncontrollably, she knows he was cheating on her and down the road she might be implicated in his death. If she seems completely distracted she’s probably been having an affair, maybe with his brother or his doctor. And if she’s distracted and breathing heavily, she’s been having an affair with the undertaker and can’t decide whether to weep quietly or get a quickie in the toilet.

I hate planning funerals.
No one ever says “thank you.” I’ve planned a couple of funerals and not one person has ever come up to me afterward and said, “Joan, what a lovely spread. I hope someone else dies just so we can come back for the lovely
babka
and whitefish salad you put out.” And what about dressing the corpse, you think it’s easy? It’s a thankless job. You have to be conscious of both the mourners
and
the fashion. It’s the last time you’re going to see your friend Helen, so you’d better dress her right. I have one rule: Don’t listen to what her kids say; she’s not going down in pleats. No woman, not even Kate Moss, should be buried in pleats. They accentuate the hips.

I hate casket shopping.
No matter what you buy, you’re wrong. A simple pine box screams, “Cheapo.” And one of those huge, brightly colored metal things looks like a float in a Puerto Rican Day parade. If you put a Jewish star or a cross on top of the coffin someone always mutters under their breath, “He wasn’t that religious,” but if you don’t do it, you hear, “Jesus Christ, how much could it have been for a cross?”

I have a business idea: custom-designed caskets. This way nobody can whine or complain. Design a coffin that speaks specifically to the person who is going to be buried in it. Let’s say for example, that while the deceased was alive he liked to surf. Why not design a coffin filled with sand and with openings at the end so that his toes can stick out and hang ten! Get it?

When Victoria Beckham goes, put her in a giant shopping bag.

I knew a woman who spent most of her life on prescription drugs. How cool would it have been to put her in a casket filled with cotton and a childproof lid?

I’ve always wanted to design a coffin for a stripper. Why should anyone have to worry about whether Bubbles should have an open or closed casket? I’d design one that has a little window that goes up when the mourner puts in a quarter. Who says you can’t be sad and horny at the same time?

But when I die none of this is going to matter because I’m not really going anywhere. I’m not going to be buried because I don’t like damp and cold.

I think cremation is the way to go for some people, and for different reasons. I had one friend who had her husband cremated and put him in her douche bag so she could run him through one more time.

I had another friend whose husband’s will said that if she didn’t visit every day she wouldn’t get any money. So she had him cremated and sprinkled his ashes in Bergdorf Goodman, and hasn’t missed a day in twelve years. (On 9/11, in the horror of the moment she was so upset she managed to get there twice. Now that’s a widow!)

Then again, maybe when I go toes up I want to be stuffed and put on the living room couch, then when people come over Melissa can say, “Sit down and don’t mind Mom. She’s on vocal rest for her new play.”

Isadora went for a ride in the car but couldn’t decide if she should wear a scarf or a choker. Turns out she wore both.

For all the marauding, torture and trampling, the head Hun died from a nosebleed on his wedding night. Now that’s what I call rough sex.

I begged her to buy a car with extra headroom, but did she listen? No.

Rumors abound. One rumor is that she had a stroke while going to the bathroom. If this is true then you know why fiber is important. The conventional and far more fun story is that she died while having sex with a horse. The horse was being lowered onto her when the pulleys broke and down came Secretariat, turning Catherine the Great into Catherine the Smushed. You want irony? The horse’s favorite position was doggie style.

Honestly, I don’t think Catherine’s relationship with the horse would have worked, anyway. First of all, he didn’t know how to hold her. Secondly, every night when they went back to
the castle, all the horse wanted to do was watch
Seabiscuit
over and over and over. And finally, the horse wasn’t Jewish.

Two male prostitutes suffocated the Latin movie star to death with a lead dildo that was given to him forty-five years earlier by Rudolph Valentino. My question: Who keeps a dildo for forty-five years?

She kept complaining to hotel management that she was chilly because her room was drafty. Next time, she’ll learn to keep her mouth shut. Served her right.

After she drowned off the coast of Catalina Island all we kept hearing was “Natalie Wood hated water;” “Natalie Wood couldn’t swim.” Then why was she on a boat in the middle of the fucking night? I’m deathly afraid of Kirstie Alley; you don’t see me showing up at the Scientology Center at 2:00
A.M.
with a box of Twinkies.