friends news

Too soon?

Nick: i need some scotch
gotta drink some for teddy
me: you’re supposed to pour it out
not drink it
although … that is wasteful
i’m having red wine. would he approve?
Nick: kennedy wouldn’t want it poured
yeah
me: that’s what i thought
Nick: also, if you could die in a river
he’s down with that
me: that would be helpful, i guess
too soon, nice
*nick
not nice
*nick
Nick: meh
me: i’m kidding, of course
on what planet would i give a fuck?
doesn’texististan
Nick: god, the nytimes obit is a blowjob
me: i’m sure
i think you’re required to be super nice when people keel because of brain cancer
it’s not like syphilis brought him down
Nick: they’ve had time to spend time on grandiose statements
me: haha
i wonder if they had a contest
intra-office
i like to think so
Nick: “He was a celebrity, sometimes a self-parody, a hearty friend, an implacable foe, a man of large faith and large flaws, a melancholy character who persevered, drank deeply and sang loudly. He was a Kennedy. ”
see, i would have ended that graf with “he was a pussyhound til the end”
me: “pussy hound” is two words
check the stylebook
Nick: will do

[Post-script: People who work in the news business are awful, awful people. Oh, don’t act so surprised.]

8 thoughts on “Too soon?”

  1. wow…at least you let your d’baggery free for the world to see. I didn’t even talk shit about Strom Thurmond until the day after he died.

  2. Not too soon.

    I could write my long, oft-trotted-out rant about celebrity death and how I can’t understand people being upset or acting like they knew the person or feeling like they’ve suffered a personal loss. But I think I just summed it up. Also, I defend public-figure death jokes b/c public figures are *constantly* joked about. Death is not a get-out-of-mockery-free card. Unless the celebrity was murdered. Then I say cool the comedy heels for like at least a month or something.

    Full disclosure: even a news-business-workin’, joke-crackin’ insensitive hosebeast like myself can sometimes feel emotion over the death of a celebrity. I was upset when David Foster Wallace died, I admit it.

    And I do have my limits. I think that celebrity-death-joking should be kept reasonably private. Like, your blog is an appropriate place. The comments section of a news story is not.

    Well, scratch what I said about how I “could” write my oft-trotted-out rant. Apparently I am going ahead and writing it. Apparently I also enjoy abusing the practice of using hyphens to combine words into multiple-words-that-are-supposed-to-be-read-as-one-word.

    I should shut up now. RIP Ded Kennedy.

  3. Wow, if I’ve offended Ed and made him call me a douchebag, then I’ve reached the end of the internet.

    At least Kerry has my back. “Ded Kennedy” — hoo boy, that is good. “Death is not a get-out-of-mockery-free card.” — word.

    I hope everyone understands that this chat is merely more evidence of our desensitized irreverence that comes as a result from routine info-overload and life growing up in the age of irony, where we don’t mean anything we say and we don’t say anything we mean.

  4. “where we don’t mean anything we say and we don’t say anything we mean.”

    What do you MEAN?!? What are you SAYING?!?!?

    But seriously. I was being serious.

    I should shut up again.

  5. Well, your points were well thought out and salient and I am too jittery on coffee to even begin to have a rational conversation.

    *drool*

  6. not offended. Feel free to make fun of anyone you want. Its a matter of taste really. Making fun of dead people isn’t really the problem I suppose. I guess it was my own baggage. I felt a twinge of sadness when I was reminded that regardless of how hard you try to do the right thing or fight the good fight, when you die the reaction will pretty much be, “yeah he’s that fat drunk who drowned a bitch that time”

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