MJ's funeral cost a mil

Michael Jackson's funeral cost one million dollars. His final outfit cost $35,000, and the flowers cost $16,000. Lord. Obviously I'm no MJ anyhow, but when I die, if there's a mil lying around? Feel free to bury me in nekkid dirt and use the rest to feed pie to starving kids.

• [Anonymous]

  Just rent a wood chipper and point me at a garden.

• [Xopher]

  I’m an organ donor. I understand that pretty much leaves no option but cremation. So much as I’d love my long bones to be made into flutes and given to selected* friends as mementos mori, potentially saving a life** is more important to me.

  IWood: To be clearer than Antinous seems willing to be, Teresa is no longer Community Manager here. She still posts from time to time, but has no formal role at BB.
  ____
  *Selected, in this case, for their ability to appreciate a bone flute made from a friend’s bone without freaking out. Select++ if they can actually play a block flute.
  **It’s hard to imagine any of my organs being transplantable, but it’s possible.

  • [Little John]

    I’m an organ donor. I understand that pretty much leaves no option but cremation.

    Huh? How d’ya figure?

    To be clearer than Antinous seems willing to be, Teresa is no longer Community Manager here.

    This was slightly easier to see before the (new) masthead was taken back off the individual post pages.

  • [apoxia]

    Chances are you will die old and no-one will want your organs. I think you pretty much have to be on life-support in a hospital in order for your organs to be harvested. If you die in a car wreck I’m guessing they can’t use anything. Anyone feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.

    Thanks for those links Antinous. I love that grisly stuff.

    • [Antinous / Moderator]

      Anyone feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.

      I once had a guy walk up to my desk and hand me two little specimen containers, each containing an eyeball on a gauze pad. They were labeled “13 year-old girl, bicycle accident.”

    • [Anonymous]

      I’m pretty sure traffic accident *are* the big source of donor organs. Motorcycle (“donorcycle”) accidents notoriously, but anything where brain injury is the cause of death. Obviously, this isn’t all fatal traffic accidents, and the severely brain-injured do end up on life support; you’re sort of right.

• [grimc]

  I wonder if that number includes what LA had to cough up for services. Probably not.

• [cstatman]

  YES YES YES YES Xeni, YES

  please! spend the money on kids. kids he did not try to f***. On kids who are hungry.

  a mil on a funeral? what an a55hole

  • [LB]

    Except he’s dead and isn’t capable of directing his funeral arrangements from beyond the grave…

    (They weren’t in his will.)

• [Talia]

  I’d bet good money he’d prefer the cash to go towards helping kids too.

  Despite all the slander, he’s never struck me as the sort to be egomaniacal.

• [evilpeacock]

  When my uncle died of a second stroke and wasn’t found for at least 45 minutes the coroner was still very excited because he was in his mid-fifties and his bone marrow was organ donor gold. So not everything has to be “fresh”.

  It was small consolation but I know we all were happy that something good would come of his passing.

• [mikerbaker]

  Now you’re just baiting the anti-pieists.

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    I’ll take sky burial. At least somebody gets a meal out of me. Wikipedia article

    WARNING: Do not, DO NOT, DO NOT click either link if you are faint of stomach!

    • [IWood]

      I’m for any burial ritual that involves sledgehammers.

    • [dculberson]

      AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

      But seriously, that was really interesting. I had no idea. I like the idea of having to coax the fat vultures to eat. Hmph. Ingrates! I’m tasty, I swear!

• [Brainspore]

  Clarification, please- use the rest of the money for pie or make pies from the edible portion of your corpse a-la “Sweeny Todd?”

• [InsertFingerHere]

  Being aroused at a funeral makes me feel so dirty.

  • [Anonymous]

    Not if you’re the one being buried. In that case, it should make you pissed that they’re rushing it.

    Oooh Poe. Buried alive.
    –adunaphel13

• [IWood]

  (Hey Antinous–totally off topic, but where’s Teresa these days? No comment on your mad mod skilz intended, just got curious when I realized I hadn’t seen her in quite awhile and noticed she’s not on the masthead.)

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    She’s been gone for ~ seven months. You can find her over at Making Light.