Transition
Death is big business. Every single human has needs of the death industry. Cemeteries are little real estate opportunities and the need for more and more space to plant corpses is a indication of the success of our ability as a species to reproduce abundantly.
So as the sun rose on a chilly November 1st, Roman, Pete, Marta and myself were once again standing in a cemetery as we did every Day of the Dead. Marta had selected a small graveyard to clean which was no longer in use. No new graves since 1926. An old graveyard has a nostalgic tone while the commercial sites with noisy digging machines and plastic flowers seem more like construction zones.
Marta and I were scrubbing moss from a gentleman’s stone who had passed in 1914, over 100 years ago. His kids had long ago ended up in their own graves and there was no one to visit his final resting spot in a really long time. Actually none of the graves appeared to have welcomed visitors other than raccoons for decades.
Marta made conversation. She asked what The Residents were doing. I had to confess that I barely knew. More touring, more shows. More of what I no longer participated in. Marta asked if I did anything with The Residents at all. I thought about it and said, “I don’t think I do, too busy cleaning tombstones.” Marta laughed and the entire cemetery brightened just a bit. She pointed her phone at me and snapped a photo. “Instagram,” she mumbled.
The photograph was of an old man in coveralls wearing yellow rubber dishwashing gloves holding a bright green Brillo pad. On top of his head was a cap with an M on it. He stood just behind a weathered tombstone. The old man had already lived longer than the dead man in the hole under his feet.
Marta asked me what the M on my hat stood for. I told her, “Marta,” and again the overgrown plot of land brightened as she laughed. She knew I kidded, of course, but did not press me for an answer. I don’t know what it stood for. I had found the hat abandoned on the rocks next to the river years ago.
The hat was part of a display that someone had arranged for unknown purposes. There was the cap, a pair of broken sunglasses, a stack of coins adding up to 85 cents, an old leather wallet that was empty except for a lock of hair, and a keyring holding three keys. I immediately thought it was a puzzle. There was no other explanation that made any sense to me.
I put the hat on my head, the coins in my pocket, the glasses in the trash and took the keys and wallet home and put them in a drawer. The real puzzle to me is why anyone would want to leave trash laying around such a beautiful river.
So as the sun rose on a chilly November 1st, Roman, Pete, Marta and myself were once again standing in a cemetery as we did every Day of the Dead. Marta had selected a small graveyard to clean which was no longer in use. No new graves since 1926. An old graveyard has a nostalgic tone while the commercial sites with noisy digging machines and plastic flowers seem more like construction zones.
Marta and I were scrubbing moss from a gentleman’s stone who had passed in 1914, over 100 years ago. His kids had long ago ended up in their own graves and there was no one to visit his final resting spot in a really long time. Actually none of the graves appeared to have welcomed visitors other than raccoons for decades.
Marta made conversation. She asked what The Residents were doing. I had to confess that I barely knew. More touring, more shows. More of what I no longer participated in. Marta asked if I did anything with The Residents at all. I thought about it and said, “I don’t think I do, too busy cleaning tombstones.” Marta laughed and the entire cemetery brightened just a bit. She pointed her phone at me and snapped a photo. “Instagram,” she mumbled.
The photograph was of an old man in coveralls wearing yellow rubber dishwashing gloves holding a bright green Brillo pad. On top of his head was a cap with an M on it. He stood just behind a weathered tombstone. The old man had already lived longer than the dead man in the hole under his feet.
Marta asked me what the M on my hat stood for. I told her, “Marta,” and again the overgrown plot of land brightened as she laughed. She knew I kidded, of course, but did not press me for an answer. I don’t know what it stood for. I had found the hat abandoned on the rocks next to the river years ago.
The hat was part of a display that someone had arranged for unknown purposes. There was the cap, a pair of broken sunglasses, a stack of coins adding up to 85 cents, an old leather wallet that was empty except for a lock of hair, and a keyring holding three keys. I immediately thought it was a puzzle. There was no other explanation that made any sense to me.
I put the hat on my head, the coins in my pocket, the glasses in the trash and took the keys and wallet home and put them in a drawer. The real puzzle to me is why anyone would want to leave trash laying around such a beautiful river.