Why I Want To Play With A Dead Human Body
January 2, 2003
I only ever once got a chance to meet and get to know my only male first cousin, the closest thing I have to a brother. His name is Neil and he's even within a year of my own age. My impression of Neil, from that visit and all I've heard about him from family members, is that he is one dangerously intelligent and fucked up individual who plays with dead bodies for a living, parties ferociously and genuinely knows how to have a great time. I certainly had a great time when I met him and we took LSD and climbed around on ridiculously big bridges as the sun rose over the obscure Canadian landscape.
It soon became very evident that my cousin and I share an alarming obsession with death. He has it so bad that he actually fulfilled his morbid fantasies by becoming a licensed and practising mortician, and funeral director. From what I gather, he spends most of his time enbalming cadavers and would have no problem admitting, to anyone, that he does so for no reason other than his overwhelming fascination with death and dead human bodies. I love this guy, I mean we had so much fun that one night, he's so happy with what he does and he's, for the most part, a law abiding citizen who is not hurting anyone, not even himself.
So, I've recently been in contact with Neil via e-mail and telephone. I'll never forget the funny story he had about one of his clients who passed when the soda machine they were shaking actually fell. I think it's how excited he was about the story that I'll never forget. Regardless, the first curiosity that struck me in our correspondence was, "I wonder how one would go about legally obtaining the right's to a dead persons image on videotape for the purposes of distributing the image in all media, now known or hereafter devised, throughout the universe in perpetuity." What an embarassingly foolish curiosity, I mean, if there are living people delegated to decide whether the cadaver's perfectly good organs should be rendered useless by cremation, then certainly the same individuals should be able grant permission for videotape of the individual to be recorded for the purposes of a public service message.
Here's the plan, I want to sit in on one of these meetings with grieving family members when matters involving the handling of the dead body are being discussed. This will all be videotaped, but only with the permission of the grieving family members. I will explain to them that most of my demographic has never seen a dead body before and to get a positive message to stick with them I might need to freak them out with the reality of death. It's like a "Scare 'Em Straight" sort of public service announcement about the importance of avoiding intravenous drug use and unprotected sex. If we have trouble getting permission from these people, that's OK- because this is all Neil does professionally and we will simply proposition everyone who walks into his place of work until it happens.
When it happens, it won't be a bad thing because I'm sincerely all about being positive and making the world a better place by doing wildly innapropriate things that are within the boundaries of the law. I want the footage, ultimately, to be of Neil and I playing with a dead human body. I imagine we'll have gloves on and we'll be moving the corpse's lips around like a puppet as I say, in my funny dead body voice, "Hi kids, I'm here to tell you that you should stay away from used needles and unprotected sex because, if you don't, you'll wind up dead like me. Plus, look how fucked up your wiener will wind up looking!" By the way, my dead body voice is absolutely hysterical. Then Neil and I will reveal the genitals of the dead person and the skit will be over. Sounds fucked up, but if you want to get a positive message to stay with people, sometimes you gotta really freak them out.
I knew that the "dead body" thing would rock the boat. I'm glad that so many of you were strong enough to disagree, instead of post false comments in support of the idea. I realize it's a touchy-ass topic, that's why I was so stoked to address it. Now I'll tell what it's about. You know the old saying about life guaranteeing nothing but death and taxes? Horseshit. The two things we're sure about is that we're going to be dead and that death scares the shit out of us. That's fucked, to me, equatable to a very cruel joke on us. So, here's how I look at it, our purpose in life is to find a way to believe that it's OK to die. Is there any reason to have kids but to keep a part of you alive after you're gone? It's definitely not a mystery to me why I don't know of an organized religion that isn't based on believing that death is only cool if you obey your way into some wonderful heaven. The religion thing pisses me off, it's not about being good for the sake of goodness, it's about being motivated by nothing but making it to heaven. That's like expecting to be paid for making good decisions, and I think that sucks. The concept of heaven I was most impressed by was explained to me by a marine biologist who considered her legacy to be in the survival of coral reef. No matter what, the meaning of life is to get off your ass and pick one. I know for sure that I don't want to die figuring out that I accomplished nothing that meant shit. It sucks, but that's the deal. If you can't handle thinking about a dead body, then how the fuck are you going to deal with becoming one? When I say I want to be remembered forever, that's because I'm just as afraid of death as everyone else. If your not scared, then you simply aren't in love with life. If you are in love with life, it comes naturally to fear the idea of losing it. So, if I do this dead body skit, it's about how much life rules and loving it enough to give meaning to it, not pretending it will never end. Hurry up and live. Steve-O
THIS E-MAIL IS FROM SOMEONE THAT I FIRST EXPERIENCED AS A FAN WHO WENT ON TO MAKE ME BECOME A FAN OF HER (THANKS SARAH):
I see where you read everyone's responses to the whole dead bodies thing and so you will have noticed that I was the first one to say I dont like it. So I thought maybe I'd email you about the thing and clear up some things. About why I dont like it and maybe to understand better where you're coming from on the whole thing.
OK first, I could be wrong, but I'm sure Neil being a mortician will know...as far as I know, bodies begin to decompose as soon as they die. And so as soon as people die, they are embalmed and pumped full of fluids and stuff to slow down the decomposing process so family members can say their goodbyes etc and i know from personal experience that sometimes these bodies can leak and all kinds of processes go on internally and externally that would make "playing" with them virtually impossible. I am open to correction.
Second, does Neil work for himself? Cause if he doesn't..surely he's gonna lose his job if he starts propositioning clients about their deceased?
Number 3, anorexia, tattooing, self-harm, bodybuilding, bullimia. what do all these things have in common? the answer is that its all about having control. the body really is, (not to sound like a clichÈ or anything) a temple. and it is the ONLY thing in this whole entire world that every single human being has control over. Anorexia and tattooing have in common that its a way of displaying the control that one has over oneself. Even in death a person's body should still be sacred. Playing with a dead body is a violation of human rights and the only "proper" way of doing it would be by getting someone's permission BEFORE they die. Never mind what the family's think.
Ok, so I just wanted to share my thoughts with U. I remain your friend, I hope hehe. Im going now to check out flight reservations for birmingham-cannot wait! take care buddy!
sarah
HERE'S MY RESPONSE TO SARAH:
Sarah, you fuckin rule. Thank you. I didn't really know what I was up to when I was typing up my "dead body proposal", but I'm glad I did, because it led me to figure out some important shit. I'm here with my favorite motherfucker in the world, Ryan Simonetti. We have celebrating to do right now, because we just spent our evening deliberately deciding that we love how rad are futures are. I showed Ryan all of the dead body stuff and he said that, for all of the various responses, you were the only one to make any sense. I appreciate everyone's honesty about not liking the idea of being deliberately upsetting by fucking around with a dead body, but I also appreciate that they only don't like the idea because they're scared as fuck of death. You impressed me by making it clear that your adversity wasn't founded in a cowardly fear of death. Not to say that we're not all afraid to die, if we weren't we'd have already done it. You fuckin rule because your response was motivated by respect. Respect rules. You pointed out the one flaw with my plan, that aquiring permission only carries moral weight if it's from the individual before they die. You're so right it overwhelmingly rules. I wasn't going to follow up with the idea, but now I've figured out how to make it better. Now I want to go to a hospice (hospital's being where people get better, unlike hospices where people don't) and get to know a terminally ill individual on the verge of dying. Chances are, this person will have no idea how to deal with dying, for no reason other than having devoted his life to pretending he never would. I'll tell the individual that I'm no less likely to wind up dead than they are, so don't feel like they're alone in having something to bitch about. I'll go on to explain that, while it undeniably sucks that they will die, I'm trying to find a way to make something good come of it. I will be prepared to devote all of the time I can to doing this right. By "doing it right" I mean that I hope to inspire someone to come to terms with their crappy and immediate fate, maybe even feel good about making some good come from it. As for any adversity coming from their family members, I'd like for the dying person to feel good about his family members conceding that they'd rather have Steve-O pay for the coffin and funeral costs than voice concerns about Steve-O's moral agenda. If this goes down, everybody will win. Thank you Sarah, you helped me so much. You've helped humans. Love, Steve-O.
NEIL, ALL OF THAT SHIT GOT WRITTEN BEFORE I OPENED YOUR E-MAIL, READ WHAT YOU WROTE AGAIN:
Thanks for the compliments, I agree with the dangerously fucked up part, but im not to sure on the intelligent part. Glad to hear you appreciate my dead body stories, most of my friends are pretty sick of hearing about it, almost literally. As far as keeping in touch, yeah bro, once I get my internet set up in my office I ll send you my dead body digest. Back in Toronto I had an awesome job where I was working for a company that was hired by the police and coroners office to remove bodies. Fucking wicked! you would not belive the shit I saw in the 2 years I worked there. It was so messed as well cause evey other weekend was a true 48 hour shift and sometimes longer, so you would be all wacky on sleep deprivation, as well as on the blunts that everyone that worked there(including my boss) were firing up. All red eyed, four in the morning, scraping people off the highway, cutting them out of the trees, from under bridges, etc. My roommate at the time was a bicycle courier, and I got him a part time job, so he was my partner for most of the removals. Fuck we had a great time. So yeah, as far as filming anything, It would be pretty hard to appraoch a grieving family and attempt to get permission. Another way might be to approach people before they die. Maybe you have some fans who are in the hospital with some incurable disease or injury or something? Or maybe you could just get a whole bunch of jackass fans to sign some argeement? Anyways i gotta split, another body just wheeled through the door. -Neil
NEIL, I DON'T HAVE TO BE A BRAGGART TO AGREE WITH YOU THAT I HAVE LOTS OF FANS. I BELIEVE I MAY HAVE ENOUGH TO MAKE IT HARD TO FIND A TERMINAL ILLNESS WARD ANYWHERE WITHOUT ONE. MAYBE NOT. REGARDLESS, IT'S ON, PLEASE OBTAIN PERMISSION FROM WHATEVER FUNERAL HOME I WILL NEED TO FLY THIS FUCKING CORPSE TO FOR US TO SHOOT OUR FOOTAGE. I DON'T THINK JAPAN IS THE PLACE, LET ME KNOW WHEN YOU'LL BE BACK IN CANADA AND LET'S SPARE YOUR JOB OF JEOPARDY BY CARRYING OUT THE PLAN AT YOUR FORMER WORKPLACE. JACKASS IS NOT SO POPULAR IN CANADA, WHICH MAKES IT AN IDEAL LOCATION. NOBODY AT THAT CANADIAN FUNERAL HOME NEEDS TO KNOW THE WHOLE PLAN, THEY JUST NEED TO SIGN A "PREMISES PERMIT", WHICH GRANTS US PERMISSION TO FILM WHATEVER THE FUCK WE WANT IN THEIR PLACE OF BUSINESS. THERE'S NO LONGER ANY ASPECT OF THIS PLAN THAT HAVE ANY POTENTIAL (THAT I'M AWARE OF) TO BE ILLEGAL. IT'S ON. CAN'T WAIT TO SEE YOU BRO, WE'RE GOING TO HAVE A BLAST BE POSITIVE WHILE FIDDLING AROUND WITH A CORPSE. -STEVE-O
I've been thinking about the dead body thing alot. I've put it out in the media via my publicist, my website and personal e-mails from me to the Howard Stern show, president of development at MTV, MTVNEWS, Tommy Lee, Val Kilmer, Knoxville, Tremaine and everyone. The message board is on fire over it and I've decided to not move forward with the idea until a terminally ill person conacts me after they hear about the idea and decide they want to do it. That way I'll simply be carrying out the wishes of a dying person and, by no means disrespecting the dead. If it ever happens, I've got a feeling that it will result some of us finding respect for, and peace in, death.
