What To Do

[Teresa]

Uncertain that "coroner" was the appropriate word for a recent blog, I visited the internet and read What To Do When Someone Dies At Home. 

 

While glancing at the front page of MSN I noticed Paul McCartney got married so I clicked on the photos which included one of Ringo Starr and Barbara Bach, and curious to see what how she's looking these days, I fished around and found an old Merv Griffin interview of the couple which was filmed after John Lennon was shot but before George Harrison died of lung cancer. 

 

I remembered how much I once loved the chubby Merv Griffin who seemed so real and easy on his guests, like my little snow-haired priest sans the Kermit the Frog voice, then unable to remember if he was dead I dug around again to find that Merv died of prostate cancer, then I learned that Mike Douglas had also died which led to a clip of John Davidson - still alive and cheesy as ever - interviewing Andy Gibb on his curved white couch, Victoria Principal beside the young singer not long before he died of an inflamed heart. 

 

There must have been an image of Truman Capote among the links of talk show hosts so I watched his rise and fall in still images and video, then decided that if you're going to be an asshole, even a funny, brilliant, articulate asshole, the public will not allow you to be an addict, at least not a short, depressed, girly-voiced, gay addict, especially if you write mean shit about your "friends".

 

Somewhere in all this was a cartoon of Steve Jobs in heaven, being introduced to Moses and given the task of upgrading the Ten Commandments tablets.  Then I remembered reading what Jobs said during the Stanford Commencement speech in 2005, "If today were the last day of your life, would you do what you're about to do today?"

[Bill Floyd]

I get trapped in this sort of pointless culture-cycling all the time (only with music instead of celebrities), and mostly regret it when I do.  "Random-living" is right.  Spending our lives in front of glowing screens is one thing, but one can be productive (writing; earning a living [strange phrase, no?]) or wasteful (the billions of hours I've spent reading Pitchfork or The Onion's AV Club).  You did a good job turning one to the other here.   

[Stephen Torelli]

Last day? We used to tap on the pipes to get our loved ones together, but today it's messaging and Skype.

[Kristine_ES]

'would you do what you're about to do today?'

get groceries, feed the family, buy a book at barnes & noble, read everyone's fine work here, write something, too....  yep... i'd do today over again.  

glad you posted it, teresa.  !!

[Mike Handley]

This describes my adventures on youtube. Post-modern channel surfing.

[Brittany]

i don't know if you have to live big but to live thoughtful. i think sex, saying i love you and giving green back to the earth with your own hands are pretty great ways to be thoughtful. Teresa, i think you live most days like you mean it. coffee conversation with you could never be dull. great, chaotic kind of post :-) we are all victims of the next click sometimes, great to see you capture that.

[Teresa]

I have to say here that this was an accidental posting.  I was browsing through about 120 unpublished sixes to see if a sentence here and there could be salvaged, used elsewhere, when all of a sudden some rogue finger hit god-knows-what button and voila.  It was so random it seemed useless but I saved it for sentences four and six.  Remember, I'm a hoarder.  Free associating is like this six and drowning in hyperlinks and you never know where it will lead.  It's fun and strange and mind numbing like reality TV.  So...

[Angela]

What would Faulkner do, given the random connections we stir up so easily now?  Caddy would lead to Arnold Palmer, who would lead to a drink of iced tea and lemonade, which would lead to a Florida citrus grower, and The Sound And The Fury would become The Mouse and the Click.

And no, if it were my last day, I surely would not do what I am doing right now - and I question anybody who says they would.

[Gita]

The Jobs quote, a variation on "live like there's no tomorrow," strikes me as the kind of thing only a fairly privileged person might say. For many of us, we have no choice but to put in a day's hard work to keep a roof overhead and food on the table and buy medicines for a family. If I knew that it was my last day on earth, I would tell the people I live that I love them (which I do anyway) and I would plant a tree for posterity, which I am doing this weekend, and angle for some sex on the sofa (which I also do anyway).  Very few people could make grandiose changes in their daily routine -- like fly to Tierra del Fuego to watch sunset and eat unpolluted seafood.