Posted by Vale
‘Aren’t undertakers old, gray of complexion, gaunt and, well, creepy?’
It’s the opening question in a 2007 article in America’s Obit magazine and, of course, the answer is no – as evidenced by the photographs shown in a calendar displaying all that is best of American male mortician manhood.
The Calendars were for charity and the mortician who organised the shoot – Kenneth McKenzie who has a funeral home in Long Beach, California – sees them as a humorous way to dispel the notion that morticians “are gray-haired and hunchbacked with no personality.”
Have a look at the original article to check for yourselves:
http://www.obit-mag.com/articles/omg-men-of-mortuaries
But I think a gauntlet has been thrown down in the USA. Anyone want to pick it up? And does anyone want to nominate a likely candidate?
Great stuff! Love it. Thanks Vale.
Have been impressed by Obit Mag in general, one of the most interesting death sites out there.
Jon
I nominate David Albery of Exeter and District Funeral Service. Hunky. Hot.
I don’t mean to come over all curmudgeonly, but I think the trend for endlessly overdoing the WI’s groundbreaking calendar with all that it subverted about impossible sexual idealism, age and our notion of when a woman was attractive and when she became invisible shows a staggering unoriginality.
If I was in an organisation, and someone suggested doing one of these, then I would either immediately tender my resignation or resignedly beat the suggester until they were tender.
Wow, my wife has had an even bigger effect on me than I realised.
Now, I may be about to lose a lot of support here, but I would happily pose for one of these calendar’s in a post mortem condition. Perhaps hanging by a combination of artfully concealed wires and pre-positioned rigor mortisised limbs, pointing accusingly and haranguing my family, to them a familiar and much loved pose. (They’ll miss it when I’m gone.)
The massively underrated and consistently offensive artist Stewart Home, a bona fida genius, produced a card to be carried in the wallet which looked exactly like the organ donor card, but was called the Necrocard. It said that the bearer of the card supported sexual liberation and allowed his dead body to be used sexually. When the flamboyant Jago Eliot, earl and heir to the St German’s estate in Cornwall died tragically young and we were called on to do his funeral we were faced with an interesting dilemma. He did carry a necrocard which he flourished at every available opportunity, and he had also requested to us personally that a full body cast be made so he could journey to places he had failed to visit in life, a sort of naked, posable Jeremy Bentham with unlimited air miles who never said no. After much conversations with his glorious family, particularly thinking of his young children, we compromised by doing a deathmask instead.
Is it the things not done we regret, or the jail sentences avoided that we relish? You’ll have to ask Oscar Wilde that one.
So glad I checked back at the comments for this post.
“A sort of naked, posable Jeremy Bentham with unlimited air miles who never said no.” The image will never leave!
Having found out about it, I am compelled to post a Necrocard immediately to my blog to help them become more widely available.
Thanks Rupert.
Jon
Kudos for this post! Love it. I just had to share over here in the U.S. You get credit for it on The Family Plot Blog today. Here’s the short link: http://wp.me/pBD55-MZ
Thanks Jon, I was quite pleased with it for 10 30 in the morning.
On reflection, perhaps my reaction is due to fearing looking more like Adrian Mole in the showers than these thoroughly over buffed narcissists. At least the various UK ones, farmers, vets, binmen etc have the decency to look mildly embarrassed.