I’ve never been a big fan of funerals, or any other formal gatherings where you’re supposed to dress up and act a certain way. They’ve always just seemed like something to avoid to me. The first one that I got forced into going to was my grandmother’s and I was 30 years old. My thoughts at the time was that I had been ducking these things my whole life… I might as well check one out.
My grandmother was a pit bull of a woman. She had a aneurism one day, and the doctors informed my grandfather that she had approximately 72 hours to live.
Obviously they didn’t know my grandma and the persistence of her rugged Italian peasant genes. 72 hours turned into 12 difficult years before she finally succumbed to the long sleep. The family got together in New Jersey for what was an unusual funeral, in that although she was gone we had prepared for it for the last 12 years so there weren’t a lot of tears. It was almost a relief that she was finally at rest and no longer suffering.
The biggest tragedy was the funeral service itself. Although my family was never really religious, my grandparents were old school Italians, straight off the boat, so of course a Catholic funeral was a must. We all sat in a room facing the chemically preserved body of my grandmother stuffed into a fancy wooden box, and a man that none of us knew came into the room, dressed like a wizard to speak to us about my grandma, a woman he didn’t even know.
The first thing I thought right away was that the guy looked like a heavy drinker. He wore the unmistakeable mask of the defeated lush; a puffy, swollen face liberally decorated with gin blossoms and gray skin that looked like it had been slowly pickled.
“We are all here to mourn the loss of Geraldine DiGerlando…”
Only problem is, my grandmother’s name was Josephine. He said Geraldine 2 or 3 more times until someone finally corrected him.
He didn’t even apologize. He just said the new name with the same passion as he said the old name: Zero.
He wasn’t even nervous that he fucked up her name, and at the time that bothered me a lot. I don’t know why, but it really annoyed me.
A lot of Catholic priests have this attitude about them, like they’re above regular people in the God-to-human food chain. Years and years of having people grovel before them in superstitious tradition – listening silently and reverently to every boring word that comes out of their mouths has a lot of these douche bags convinced that they’re actually something special.
If I saw the same man today I think I would probably feel sorry for him. I’m sure I would think of him as what he must have been like when he was a baby, because that’s what I do to pretty much everyone now. I always used to look at people and think about them as how they are right now, but ever since my daughter was born whenever I meet someone that’s even a little bit odd I automatically start trying to figure out how they got to be that person.
This strange man standing before my grieving family, dressed like Harry Potter and confidently spouting ancient voodoo bullshit out of his bloated, swollen head was at one time a little baby himself. If I had to sit through the same service today, 11 years later I’m sure I would spend the next few hours in silence trying to ponder what the chain of events must have been to get this poor fuck to where he is now. Today I would feel sorry for the little boy he must have been at one time, but back then I wasn’t nearly as sympathetic. Back then all I could see was a drunk, fat-faced kid fucker that was saying my grandma’s name wrong.
My grandfather died a year after my grandmother in a classic case of a husband not wanting to live after his wife had passed on. I went to his funeral, and that was the last one I would see for the next 10 years until this Tuesday when I went to the memorial service for my friend Charles Lewis, one of the owners and co-creators of the Tapout clothing line.
Charles was a really positive guy, so in his honor I’m going to resist the urge to make fun of anything that I saw at the service.
I will say this, though; you really can learn a lot about people when you ask them to be sincere.
Some people spoke with touching honesty about Charles and the effect he had on their life. There were some really, really great speeches.
The preacher wasn’t as bad as the one at my grandmother’s funeral, but it becomes pretty obvious at a certain point that memorial services for them are just like a form of show business. Stir up the crowd, finish strong, and try to get some of the people to come back for the regular service.
It’s a gig. What was important about the event though, was that in the spirit of the thing everyone got together and celebrated their memories of a very unique man.
Charles was an incredibly focussed, ambitious guy that did an incredible amount of good for the sport of MMA.
He said one thing in the video that they played at the service that was particularly inspiring about his philosophy. He said, “I might not touch a million people, but I might touch one, and he might touch a million.”
That’s a powerful thought from a guy that effected a huge amount of people.`
I seriously miss not being able to make it, being that I’m in FL… it’s kind of far. But even little ol’ me, only met him twice at signings at Champs (Montreal for 83 & Gainesville, FL), the guy was so grounded, appreciative of his success, and happy to help others find their way. He actually remembered us, laughed w/ me, hugged me, thanked me. I know it’s cliche, but the world is a little dimmer now in his absence. You guys were definitely lucky to have him around often. He will be missed <– understatement.
Wow. I never checked out your blog before today. I’m not sure what I thought I’d find, but I was pleasantly surprised at the depth of thought and the quality of your posts. (Sorry if that sounds like a back-handed compliment — I don’t mean it as one.) Anyway, good job. I’ll definitely be back to read future posts.
Is it in your UFC contract that you’re not allowed to grow a ballsack?
http://mindpizza.blogspot.com/2009/04/drag-racing-will-make-you-tapout.html
Funerals have been a constant in my childhood, with me coming from a family in which my grandfather, and his two brothers married three sisters from the same family, and resulting in a high concentration of great aunts, uncles, and varying degrees of cousins. Unfortunately I attended my mom’s service as a young child, not knowing if that was really her because of the disfigurement of her remains,I felt like as someone was playing a joke. I have mixed feelings about the reasons to have these things. To me, I rather remember a person as their were when they were alive, than to have an last image of them laying flat on the back with sculpted facial expressions, and having some preacher talk about someone from a religious view. I choosed to not view a friend of mine’s body for the same reason, and remained in my seat for the viewing part of the service. I was at peace knowing that I knew him on a deeper level than most of the people who spoke about him at the service.
Btw… for all the heaven, and hell damnation that preachers spew, I have yet to attend a service when the pastor says that this person is going to hell. So if anybody has heard that let me know.
I have been to like 30 funerals in my life and the next one will be my own. I came here and signed up to thank you for posing for pics after your show last night at Kola Note. Great show but I figured it would be after watching your stuff on dvd’s and youtube. Ari may have caused me to tear some stomach muscles during his routine.
Anways Great show and thanks for taking that time for your fans. Tell Ari His balls have caused me to go ona hunger strike.
hey joe, found the blog through your twitter. good stuff. i especially liked the video of you and ari talking about twitter. spot on. i just wanted to say i found your comments about time and perspective and how we look at things differently over the years pretty interesting. one thing though — about your grandmother’s funeral and that priest — i agree, he fucked up big time not knowing her first name…and then not apologizing. that’s some fucked up shit right there. with that said, doesn’t it seem a bit presumptuous to assume he was someone who should be pitied or understood just because he was a priest? for all you know, he has spent years helping people and could be one of those priests who really live in the service of others. there are priests out there who are genuinely decent people…no matter what we may think about the catholic or organized religion voodoo. just saying, maybe there really isn’t anything about which you need to feel sorry for the guy.
on a lighter note — my kid, who’s 7, cracked me up a few weeks ago. he’s been doing martial arts since he’s 4 or so…and now they’re big into the mma at his school. grappling, sambo, sparring, karate, etc. we were watching a diego sanchez fight…he was fighting some brazilian jiu jitsu dude and winning, had the guy mounted, about to ground and pound. my kid looks over and tells me what the guy on his back needed to do to get diego off him. a second later, you said the exact same thing. he raised his hands and said “what did i tell you?” you got some competition in a few years. ok…that’s it, keep up the good work with the ufc and the comedy.
“I always used to look at people and think about them as how they are right now, but ever since my daughter was born whenever I meet someone that’s even a little bit odd I automatically start trying to figure out how they got to be that person.”
Thank you for this. My daughter is autistic. Not extremely, but still diagnosed by doctors and receiving extra help from specialists in school. As time as passed and she’s gotten more able to pass for not-quite-normal, I increasingly feel that a possible outcome for her is that she’ll be that weird, geeky girl who maybe unnerves people a little. I am thrilled that that’s a possible outcome for her, given all she’s had to overcome. THANK YOU for being someone who will think about the reasons for behavior and give the benefit of the doubt instead of automatically dismissing someone who’s a little “off.” That kind of attitude will make a world of difference for kids like my daughter when they have to fend for themselves.