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Dead man propped on his beloved motorcycle for funeral

Mark Frauenfelder at 3:57 pm Thu, Apr 29, 2010

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This fellow was shot to death in Puerto Rico, but his loved ones gave him one last ride by propping his body onto his motorcycle for the wake.

Dead dude rides again

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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  • christina

    My first reaction to this was weird but after thinking about more I thought how much all of us would like to be remembered and have the send off doing something we all love. I think death is something that we fear but it is just a part of life and albeit too soon for this person his loved ones will have a lasting memory of him on the bike he loved. May he rest in peace now.

  • Leonard Low

    I’m kinda touched by the idea, but also kinda horrified by what it would take to achieve this. To pose a dead body involves breaking rigor mortis. To do that requires physically breaking sinew, tendon, and possibly bone. Yeargh.

    • porkchop

      Rigor goes away after a while.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigor_mortis

      • Felton

        According to the movie Return of the Living Dead, you can break out the rigor mortis manually by bending the joints.

      • godisafiction

        Which brings me to the question, is there such a thing as rigor vivis? if not, why do we always qualify rigor as applying to someone, quia mortuus est, as rigor mortis?

  • nanuq

    Great, zombies on wheels. George Romero’s next zombie film practically writes itself.

  • holtt

    I wonder how they took him to the graveyard. Maybe just tow him?

  • d3matt

    I thought I wanted to be cremated. Now I think this is what I want for a funeral!

  • ROSSINDETROIT

    At my grandfather’s funeral we over heard someone say ‘He looks so natural”. I joked to my siblings that ‘natural’ would be in his bathrobe and recliner, feet up and snoring. Cue giggling, snickering, lots of hostile glares and a fast exit from the room.

  • sergeirichard

    Was I the only one waiting for the guy to move?

  • YokoYoko

    Fantastic product placement coup for Honda/Repsol!

  • andigopow

    I’ve embalmed a few bodies in my day but I have NO idea how you’d get the body to hold that pose… Maybe inject a REALLY strong embalming fluid and once done, place him on the bike? I can’t imagine this was easy to do.

    But, holy cow, it’s awesome.

  • Jack Daniel

    Ride In Peace amigo, Ride In Peace.

  • Orky

    Oh, so there’s the Lazy Gun I’ve been searching for all this time!

  • Ranessin

    @23: Haha, “Against a Dark Background” was also the first thing that came to my mind when reading the headline.

  • angusm

    I hope this trend doesn’t catch on or when my turn comes they’ll have my dead body hunched over the keyboard of my Macbook.

    • oohvahvoo

      That’s the only way you’d find me hunched over a MacBook .. if I was dead.

  • hobomike

    I don’t want to think about what kind of meat armature they had to put in just to make him sit up and look forward. that’s wack.

  • Anonymous

    Just like in the UK movie Psychomania.

  • Anonymous

    haha when I read the headline I knew it would be in pr. The rest of the world is 200 years behind pr when it comes to funeral tech

  • Anonymous

    What, no helmet? Crazy kid’ll kill himself!

  • Elite Hacker

    Double you…tee…eff.

  • Bucket

    Only one word in the english language properly describes the depth and breadth of this:

    Classy.

  • UnnecessaryUmlaut

    They should check the suspension on that Honda. Looks like a stiff ride.

    *rim shot*

    Thank you, good night.

    • Anonymous

      That was disrespectful for this dude. But still pretty clever, i’ll give you that one lol

  • Anonymous

    Reminds me of those pics from the Victorian era they made of dead people (so they had a memory of them if they hadn’t take a pic of the person before). Pretty spooky stuff, but somehow, it’s also a nice idea that they pay a tribute to what was so important to that guy…

  • Noisecon

    Brought to you by the same people that prepped the dead man standing up http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZXY3Cip_FA

  • sixtwotwomayhem

    Looks like a toy motorbike I had when I was a kid. I wonder if he’ll also remain seated if I pushed/drove it down the stairs?

  • JIMWICh

    Am I the only one who thinks the only way to improve this to utter perfection would have been to display the bike up on its front wheel as though he was doing a ‘stoppie’?

  • Anonymous

    What a great send off. I’m sure if he was – would of been – or could of been looking down he’d be so proud of his family and friends. This shows a true act of love.

  • Brainspore

    Wait long enough and he’ll be a spitting image of the Ghost Rider.

  • Pantograph

    Well it had to happen.
    They finally made Weekend at Bernie’s III.