Negro

Well,
Every once in a while I need to clarify why I use the term Negro the way I do.

Let me state at the outset: my use of the term Negro has no intention of offending a fellow race of Homo sapiens whose gene structure is such that the skin pigmentation is black. Uh-uh. No way. That would be racist, and in this life, who has the time for that? My usage of Negro is completely devoid of reference to race, but it does refer to a form of social outcast. I am getting ahead of myself here so hang for the explanation. It's coming. Those who have read for some time may have clued into this and understand. There maybe those who don't or cringe at the usage, so I want to explain my meaning.

Origins of Negro

It came about in the early 90s when my friend Doug and I were sitting around in the squalid little shithole where we lived in Tokyo, drinking beer and playing guitars. By this time we had a few years of living in Japan under our belts and we were at the breaking point of our ability to live there for all sorts of reasons: the job, the life, the inability to communicate, the shunning by our host country to treat us like human beings with real human values, issues, rights, and so on and so forth (and even if such rights are given de jure, de facto they really don't exist).

As the night wore on Doug said it was if we were migrant workers from Mexico, working the orchards and fields of California, who at night would gather together in their barriadas and drink wine, sing and try in some way to seek solace given the misery of living the life as an outsider.

So, we used the term "Negro" to encapsulate this sensibility of feeling like an outsider, oppressed by forces out of your control, powerless to do much about it, but somehow revelling in it through a faith and hope and a wink that well, hey, a gig's a gig (to quote the immortal Vernon). Actually, if you really reflect carefully here, you will recognize EVERYONE is a Negro in some form or another.

As like the term "gay", the adjective which once meant happy, keenly alive, excited, now for all intents and purposes refers exclusively to the noun form to represent homosexuals, we've added a new semantic meaning to the term "Negro".

So please append your Webster's with our new entry, which is listed as number 3 below:
Main Entry: Ne·gro Pronunciation: 'nE-(")grO Function: noun Inflected Form(s): plural Negroes Etymology: Spanish or Portuguese, from negro black, from Latin nigr-, niger Date: 1555 1 sometimes offensive : a member of the black race distinguished from members of other races by usually inherited physical and physiological characteristics without regard to language or culture; especially : a member of a people belonging to the African branch of the black race 2 sometimes offensive : a person of Negro descent 3 a member of any race or color who is a social outsider from the dominant hegemony.

There. Whew!
~~

Elvis died on the toilet, as we all know by now. At some point (Timmy take note) I'd love to do a video reenactment of this moment. There he is, the King on the throne in the Jungle Room at Graceland, with all the gaudy doo-dads and fixtures only he had the eye for.

We see him sitting in one of his sequined jump suits, pants down around his knees, a big tub of lard of a man, after finishing off 16 strawberry flavored yogurt cups he loved to eat, stoned on percodan, codeine, valium, and whatever other cocktail Dr. Nick gave him. He's groggy but, as always, he's humming away in that mushy mouthed way, occasionally jabbering to himself, joking, coaxing his bowel to move and all that. He feels a peristaltic contraction and ughs and grunts and groans. But it just won't come out. So he pushes harder and harder, the whole time humming and mumbling, his face going through all sorts of contortions, grimaces, joking and laughing and singing the whole time. He starts humming "My Way" and pushing, and the he starts singing sotto voce, and pushes more. This proceeds through the whole song and as he sits and sings, the effort he puts into moving his bowel is echoed by the crescendo of the song, until that one final fateful moment, when he reaches the high note at the end of the song, his face in that contortion he liked to do on stage, and simultaneously keels over, dead of a massive heart attack.

Cliff the Undertaker, a guy from York I met here on Ko Samui said that he receives a lot of people who die that way on the throne. In fact, he counted that as the number one way the octogenarians he's embalmed and put on display for the loved ones passed away.

When you hang out with an undertaker on holiday, of course your mind is filled with questions. I felt giddy thinking I was talking with a guy whose job it is was to make poor dead Uncle Ned look, well, undead, as if he were sleeping so all the folks can say, "Gee, doesn't he look like he does!"

Cliff has a great sense of humor, as you must for such an occupation, and a quirky sort in his own right. While I wanted to know stuff, you know, gory stuff, he matter of factly went through it all for me, but he said the hardest thing about the job was dealing with the families. Not so much because of the grieving, but some people are downright nasty when it comes to the funeral, and if things don't go exacty like they want, they throw temper tantrums. The worst one he said was when a woman wanted her 6 month old fetus embalmed and put on display for the funeral. He said the thing looked like a chocolate shrimp. He pleaded with the woman not to bother with the affair, but she wanted to see the thing for herself. He counseled her that it wasn't really a good idea, but she was insistent. So on the appointed day, she arrives at the funeral home with her 6 year old son and her mother. Before he let them see the chocolate shrimp, he said, "Look, I really think it's a bad idea and I advise you to forget about it." But no, she wantd to see it.

Meanwhile, the little boy is obnoxious and loud, the mother is screaming at the kid, and Cliff said, "OK, you go in there and have a look, but leave the boy and your mother outside."

When she went in and saw the thing, she started shreiking at the top of her voice. The litle boy started screaming, "I wanna see it, I wanna see it," and grandma was slapping the kid across the head screaming, "Shut up, you little bastard."

Now if that ain't a scene for a movie, I don't know what else is.

I asked Cliff if he had any of those things happen that we all hear about in urban mythology--like people sitting up, talking, weird sexy thought, what have you. He said once a bent up old guy passed and they couldn't straighten him out. So they put a weight bag on his legs to hold them down and placed him in the casket. When the open casket was on display, everything was fine until two young nephews went and touched poor Uncle, and the weightbags slipped and Uncle sat srang upright. Imagine seeing that.

He said air passes through the vocal chords when they move a dead body and it souunds like the guy is sighing. So in a way, the urban myths are true.

Other than that, Cliff is a regular guy--he like driving around in his 1963 Mini Van and watching Star Trek reruns.

One last thing: Cliff is an avid Meatloaf fan, and he had a great time fulfilling the request of one dead guy who wanted "Bat Out of Hell" played at the funeral, cranked to he max.

And the oddest musical request?--"My Way", only the Sid Vicious version.