Milton C. Newman's Journal

1:42PM

One of the cemetery workers stopped by my grave today to admire my bloddy, fly-ridden lawn ornament.

"Well, how about that," he muttered, and stumbled off.

Maybe it's me, but if I saw the shredded remains of an animal laying atop a new grave, "how about that," wouldn't be coming from my mouth. A jet stream of vomit and horrified obsenities, perhaps. But I don't know I'd pass it off with the same curious but distant interest as seeing a shaving razor with three blades that lift and cut for the first time.

On the bright side, the yapping died down with the sunrise. I've been on hold with Afterlife, Inc.'s customer support for about three hours, though, 'cause I wanna ask them about it. The computerized voice just chimed in and said the estimated wait time if 29 hours. Normally I'd be pissed off but, eh. What the Hell else have I got to do?

11:28PM

I just heard a yap. A ghostly, disembodied yap.

Shit. Another one. Oh God, no. No ghost yappy dogs, please no!

11:05AM - The Hell?!

I'm layin' here, not hurtin' no one. Just readin' a browsin' some porn and listenin' to a radio feed, when that pigment-challenged disgrace of a teenager shows up with a carryin' kennell. First off, he could barely lift the thing - he drug it halfway here (and right over that loud asshole, Tomroy's grave - the fucker never stops singin' showtunes. I see why his wife killed him).

I sees him, and I just brace myself for the next stunnin' act in what should be shown in Vegas as the most astoundin' acts in stupidity. All he needs is some cute hoochie-gal in sparkly shreds of fabric to hand him items he can hurt himself with, and a couple a gay boys and a tiger, and hell, he'd be rolling in dough. People would come from miles around to watch this ninny harm himself in the grandest of ways. Pure family entertainment.

Anyways, he waits for a while, paces around and, y'know, pacin' is contagious. Someone paces around you, you get nervous to, and YOU wanna pace. Now, imagine that urge while you're stuck horizantal in a glorified shoe box. Don't make ya too hospitable. But eventually, a few of his pals show up, and to my shock, the first little jerk's the pick of the litter. I can only assume the clown look is in, because them little gals that showed up had so much makeup on their chalk white faces that they honestly shoulda shown up in a tiny car with about thirty more of Barnum's best.

So, it's the usual bullshit. Stand in a circle around Milton, chant, cut your hand and bleed on the old man's grave. But then the tallest of the lot, who apparently is the ring leader, addresses my special friend:

Alpha Moron:: Lord Timicus, you have truly found an appropriate vessel. The dark spirits from the next world speak to me. Yes, this shall be the one, they proclaim. This shall be the servant.

[other morons clatter excitedly]

First Asshole:: High Priest Ravencry, it is my pleasure to serve. I thank thee for your words, but I was merely a compass for our True Lord, whose mighty taloned hand led me to our place.

[more clattering]

Alpha Moron:: Very well. Let us now close the ceremony with the ritual. We will return in a week's time and, under these velvet night skies, see our seed rise and bear fruit. The dark gods demand a gift before they will give us our desire. They thirst for blood, and we have given them such. But now, they desire meat as well. So, we shall feed them, and our servant, with they essence of the night. The embodiment of the shadows. Lord Timicus, give to me the grimalkin!

[First Asshole opens kennell and pulls out a little yappy dog, the kind with the eyes that bulge out]

Alpha Moron:: [pissed] What the fuck is this?!

First Asshole: [sheepish] It's a pekingnese, man.

Alpha Moron:: [pissed] Tim, you fucking crackbaby! You were s'posed to bring a cat!

First Asshole: I couldn't find one!

Okay, I just wanna stop the story here to call a bullshit on this. There is NEVER a time you can't find a goddamn cat. All ya gotta do is put on a nice pair of black slacks and those fish-stinkin' little fuckers materialize from the ether just for the chance of rubbin' against your leg and leaving a trail of their hair.

And even if you don't wanna go to that much trouble, they're everywhere! Rippin' up garbage bags, nestin' in garages. And they aren't hard to catch. Just don't act like you're trying to. Leave food out for 'em, or catnip and shit. And scoop 'em up. Cats ain't bright (and don't you cat lovers start bitchin' at me about how smart your little tuna sucker is, and how much he loves you. There might be one or two bright ones, but the chances of your cat knowin' what the hell's goin' on around it are the same as it lovin' lasagna and sittin' around, drinkin' coffee and mullin' over how much it hates Mondays. And it don't love you, either. If you dropped dead today, the cat would shrug and search out its food. If it can't find none, it'll strip your bones for its own satisfaction. It ain't gonna wail and beat its chest over the loss of your companionship. Cats don't give a shit about companionship. They let you come near 'em because you give 'em food, and they figure it's the best way to string you along into keepin' it up. Anyway...

Alpha Moron:: I can't believe you! We've wasted an entire ritual now. We won't be able to do this again for two fucking years!

First Asshole: No, it's good. The gods won't mind. Really! I mean, think about it. One of our chief lords is Loki, right?

Alpha Moron:: Yeah, so?

First Asshole: Well, this dog is named Tricky! It's my aunt's! So, like, we're giving the Trickster of the Gods a tricky sacrifice, right?

Alpha Moron:: [unsure] Seems like a stretch.

First Asshole: And, like, dogs are always barking at shit at night, right? And waking people up? And our coven is called the Order of the Night Howlers, right?

Alpha Moron:: Okay, fine. We'll try the dog. But if this doesn't work, you're out of the coven and I'm not returning that Nitzer Ebb cd I borrowed. It's void in your heart will be your eternal reminder of the vacancy waiting for you in the afterlife for failing the Lord and Lady!

And then they KILLED THE DOG!

But, oh no, they didn't get that right, either. Y'see, Trickly wriggled free and they had to CHASE HIM DOWN! Only he was to fast. He was also too stupid, because he ran headfirst into my tombstone and cracked his little skull like a walnut and dropped dead.

The gaggle of freaks commenced to try to carve the pooch up in such a misguided fashion that I can only imagine the horror ahead for each of them as they try to carve Thanksgiving turkeys and lop of their own fingers instead. And then, and this is the best part, THEY SPREAD YAPPY DOG BITS ALL OVER MY GRAVE!

So, here I am. They've left. I've got a big blood spot on my tombstone and my grave is covered in the stinking, steaming entrails of a dog.

It is at this point in time I would like to recommend to all of you to enjoy the wonders of cremation when you die.

11:41AM - I Finally Got a Tombstone.

They finally put it on my grave. It reads:

After they set it, the manager of the cemetery pointed out that it was the wrong grave, to which one of his grunts replied, "I don't hear this guy complainin'." And then they had a good laugh.

That's right. Laugh it up, fat boy. I'm gonna find a way outta this box and kick your ass! And Molly, if you're readin' this: I'm so sorry you have such an unimaginative family. That damn epitath is on ALL the tombstones here! Can't they think of somethin' interestin' to put on it? Like, "Just As A Casino in Las Vegas, She Boasted the Loosest Slot in Town."

Yeah, I'm talkin' to you, Molly. Tell me you ain' that kinda gal, and then I hear you're over in the Matherson Crypt doin' four generations of their family! I hope you get a sexually transmitted scavenger worm!

2:41PM - Back Finally

Yeah, I ain't been around lately - well, I been around. Hard to go out when you're in a pine box six feet under dirt, but I ain't been able to connect. Seems when they were diggin' a hole for one of our new "friends" here at the cemetery, they went and damaged a cable which all our graves was hooked up to the net with. Lord, you think livin' people bitch when they can't get somethin' they want, imagine about 300 dead folks who got nothin' better to do than lay down and look at porn who just found out that now all they got to do is lay down.

I s'pose the worst thing is tech support. Yeah, we have to contact tech support just like you. Oh, and y'all who do tech support for a livin', guess what? If you're bad at it, when you die, you go to Hell. And guess what you do there? That's right. Tech support. Hell actually has contracts with some of the major companies, like AOL and Verizon. They do tech support for 'em. I guess they thought a future of eternal damnation and hellfire might make 'em work harder. Guess what. It don't.

Basically, my experience of callin' in was this:

Tech: Gutentag. I am Adolf, and I will be your tech support specialist. May I please have your name and phone number, starting with the area code and a "Heil, Hitler!"

Me: My name's Milton Newman, and the number's 817-[like I'd post my number to y'all]."

[pause]

Tech: Aren't you forgetting something?

Me: Oh, yeah. Some idiot done cut a cable and I lost-

Tech: NEIN!

Me: No, it was just one feller. We all yelled at him to stop but--

Tech: Dummkopf! You are not following the procedure which I have laid out before you! You shall salute me with a, "Heil, Hitler," and accept Verizon Online as the Master Cable Provider or we shall take your modem and inter it at our Cable Prodiver Camp!</font>

It went downhill after that.

But I'm back. I've got a few squirmin' tenants in my jacket pocket now, if ya know what I mean. And that weird kid keeps a'comin' by and bleedin' on my grave. He said I need to prepare, for next week's "the becomin'". Whatever that means. Shouldn't he be playin' video games, huntin' squirrels or tryin' to steal a look at his daddy's Playboys like a good, well-adjusted boy?

11:26AM - Another down side to being dead

Waking up to the sound of a lawn mower above you? Not fun.

Nothin' much else to say today. Still dead.

12:45PM - I want my tombstone!

Have I mentioned I don't have my tombstone yet? Well, I don't. And it's a little annoying.

Take what just happened, for instance. I'm layin' here, admirin' that nice Texas breeze before the hell that is Texas summer oozes in, and all the sudden I got malt liquor pourin' on my grave! I look up, and I see this punk dressed like he's from one of them rap videos on the tv, and he's "givin' props to his fallen brother!" Meanwhile, his buddy, who's across the way waitin' for his tombstone, is havin a hissy fit because I'm "stealin'" his respect!

If gettin' splashed in the face by bad alcohol is what passes for respect in that generation, no wonder all you kids are a bunch of fuckups!

10:15AM - The Seventh of the Colonel's Herbs and Spices

Would you like your daddy prepared regular, or extra-crispy?

It's funny cuz it ain't me.

and in other news...

What a Shock! He Lives in a Trailer Park.

Both of these stories were brought to you by the fine folks of Texas. Y'all come visit now, y'hear?

10:00AM - Don't Dirty My Grave!

That damn kid came back last night, just before midnight. I thought once I died, I wouldn't have to scream at kids to stop messin' around in my yard.

I think he's Pentacostal cuz he was talkin' in tongues or somethin' weird. Then again, it coulda been that God-awful music (I think it was music) he was playin' on his little radio. One of the songs kept sayin', "Bela Lugosi's dead." Wow - there's an update, asshole! Thanks for lettin' me know that so quickly. Jesus.

But here's the worst part. The kid starts chanting something about me risin', or gettin' a rise outta me or somethin', and then CUTS OPEN HIS HAND AND BLEEDS ALL OVER MY GRAVE! Yeah, that got a rise outta me! What in the hell? How is that polite? How is that sanitary? I don't want his blood on me! I'm dead but that don't mean I won't catch whatever bug he's got. Hell, dead people may can get HIV. How the hell do I know?

Apparently whatever he was tryin' to do didn't work (his words - I thought the goal was to make a dead man wanna stand up and kick him in the Happy Stick until some color flushed back into him, and I'd say that goal was reached!) so he said he'd come back later with friends (people like that have friends? there's multiples of his kind that are allowed to congregate unsupervised and unmedicated?)

Been gettin' to know my other neighbors. There's a hot little slab o' dead and sexy buried just to my north and I ain't seein' nothin' on that tombstone akin to the abbreviation, "Mrs." (and even if I did - hey, to death to us part, right?) She's a sweet young 71, too, and apparently back in her day, worked burlesque.

Rowr!

More later. I'm gonna go a-courtin'! Wish me luck.

9:57AM - I'm so bored, I'd die if I weren't already dead.

It just gets better and better.

The funeral was awful. It started late and still only lasted ten minutes. Then they slammed the lid on me - not set it down gently, they SLAMMED it! Then six clones of Shimp lifted the casket and attempted to put it in a hearse, droppin' me twice! I'm not a goddamn bowl of Chex mix that needs stirrin' up before servin', I'm a dead man!

Oh, but it gets better.

We get to the cemetery, and what do ya know? The plot I bought, the nice one under the weepin' willow shade? Gone! It's takin'! They planted that bitch-weed Martha Dingles in it when she died last April! I bought that goddamn plot in 1982! It was mine! I have the paperwork still! But, no, they decide "any place will do!"

Anyplace, as it turns out, is next to Jethro McGuiness. Jethro Fucking McGuiness.

I lived next door to this sad sack of second-rate sex chromosome byproduct for forty years. Forty forsaken years I woke, looked out a window and saw the filthpit this man lived in. His two trucks on blocks and rustin' in the back yard ("Them there's antiques," he claimed. "Gonna sell 'em when the appreciate a li'l more!" I didn't know there was such a market for rusted Ford trucks that were missing the entire rear portion of the vehicle). I tolerated his grease-stain of a wife busy-bodyin' herself around my house, findin' "reasons" she was in my back yard listenin' in my window. I graciously allowed the sick crossbread of yard gnomes and howler monkeys he affectionately referred to as his children to survive to adulthood, although mostly under protest.

And now I'm buried next to him.

And he talks more now than he did when he was alive. On a plus side, he smells better. He said his wife's ailin', so she may be joinin' us by year's end.

So I've been spendin' the past few days listenin' to him bitch that they're buryin' black people in this cemetery, too (I dunno which shocks me more - that he's currently decomposin', feeding a multitude of worms and stuck in a limbo between Heaven and Hell but still finds time to be racist, or that he is shocked people who aren't white die, too).

Oh, I forgot - last night I got a visitor. About midnight, this pasty skin kid in all black comes to my grave and puts a circle of candles around it. His parents must have been hippies cuz he said his name is Raven Hollowblood, and I refuse to believe that's the sort of name you intentionally have. Kept goin' on about some creed and forces of darkness and quotin' some fella named Crowley. Said he'd come back tonight to continue the ceremony.

So he's basically like a telemarketer - he shows up in your life and blathers - only I can't hang up on him.

Hell with it. I'm dead and got the time, might as well catch up on all the Internet porn I've gotten desperately behind on viewin'.

1:40PM - What the Hell?

Okay, my funeral should be starting soon? Where the HELL is everyone? I'm lookin' out there, and I see THREE people! THREE?! And one of them's an employee of the funeral home who's having his lunch break - aw, GEEZ! He didn't even wash his hands, either, I think.

Someone come to my funeral? PLEASE?!

10:01AM - You've Got to Be Kidding Me

My obituary as it appears in the Fort Worth Star Telegram today:
Milton Coy Newman

Milton Coy Newman, 84, a laborer, died Wednesday, May 14, 2003, at a Clifton care center.
Funeral: 2 p.m. Friday in Rutledge-Jones Funeral Home Chapel. Burial: Mitchell Cemetery near Iredell.

Milton Coy Newman was born Nov. 26, 1918, in Erath County.

Whooo! The fine people at the nursin' home spared no expense, did they? They just went all out. I'm shocked they sprung for that many syllables! Why not leave it at, "Milton Coy Newman's dead. We're burying him. Come see."

That is NOT the obituary I requested! I was VERY specific in what I wanted. I told the nurse I wanted mention of my thirty years of dedication to the fine art of ballet, as both a patron and a dancer. Do you see anything about ballet in that? DO YOU?! I sure as hell don't.

And let me tell you a little somethin' about the fine people here at Rutledge-Jones Funeral Home Chapel. Coldest fuckin' hands on earth. And rude! They're pumpin' me full of embalmin' fluid, and the little punk doin' it's havin' his lunch, see? HE RESTS HIS GODDAMN DORITOS ON MY CHEST! Do I look like a plate? Jesus!

More later. They're about to stuff me in the coffin for my big public appearance. I can only imagine the teeming throngs of masses who've been attracted to my farewell performance by the oh-so-lovely obituary.

Assholes. Even in death, I'm dealin' with assholes.

6:42PM - Well, That settles it.

I've started a livejournal because I think I'm going to have a lot more free time, seein' how I died yesterday and all. It wasn't that impressive, either. I'm sort of embarassed about it.

I always assumed I'd die doin' somethin' great, y'know? Like rescuin' an armload of babies from a burnin' hospital, or takin' a bullet for a swimsuit model so, as I leaked away my life blood, she could cradle me in her arms and gush about how she finally found the man she'd longed for, and now he was slippin' away. Then, I'd enter the ether through one final passionate kiss.

Instead I spent my last minutes of life demandin' I not be blamed for the fart Mr. Winstein let fly and blamed me for. Ain't that a bitch?

Oh, they're about to embalm me. More later.