ALWAYS WEAR GLOVES

Tonight, I savour my last evening of a week away from work. Well not quite away; I live in a flat above one of our branches but since Sunday last, I've not concerned myself with anything that could pay the rent or trouble me in a professional sense. Instead, I've indulged my base and venereal impulses, with wine and women and other such trifles that cost more than my monthly budget would strictly allow. Bear with me, please. This week, I reconciled with my troubled girlfriend and then promptly dumped her again on the friday. We've had many ups and downs in our time together. In the end it was more downs than ups, often originating from the neccesity of me having to leave her whilst 'on call'. Of course, I could argue that her sense of abandonment stems from the acrimonious loss of her father at an early age, but having to leave our shared bed at all hours over a considerable period and neccesarily devoting so much of my time to my work has some impact. I've seen...

My life has a very tight schedule right now. Moving from my home that had all of my suits and shirts and socks and shoes neatly tucked away in my nice and tidy closet has not served me well. My roles are now fractionalized into little parts in much the same way. Where my clothes used to be all in the same place and seamlessly moved from one day to the next I now find my roles jumbled in the same way. Time and schedules are my life. I don't like it very much but this is what I have chosen and I shall persevere. When I was living in ________ I worked for a big university. My job was to receive, embalm , catalog, maintain and store the dead human remains of those who had donated their bodies to science. My other duty was to make these bodies ready and available for thousands of students to dissect and study. It went sort of like this: Being on call those days was simply wearing a pager and possessing a huge notebook filled with names. These names belonged to those who had successfully...

My Uncle died a few weeks ago. He was a funny old Paddy with his melodious patter and glinting eye. In accordance with Irish tradition, his send off was an alcohol fuelled affair. My considerably sized family came from far and wide; my own father and sister having travelled from Australia especially to see him before he went to that big betting shop in the sky. Interestingly, no blood was spilt at the wake. Certain members of my family have what the Americans colloquially call 'Issues'. The funeral itself gave me an opportunity to re-experience the occasion from the mourners point of view; an experience thankfully rare but sorely lacking amongst many of us in production line, corporate funeral care. My company didn't conduct the funeral, thank god. I must say however, the funeral was brilliant, but for all the wrong reasons. London has had a lovely spell of weather lately but on the day, It pissed down. Of course the Irish philosopy demanded that; ''Happy is the...

Sorry that is not very nice is it...oh well. I ran across this lovely video today and was reminded again of how much I dearly love the Melvins. One of my favorite shows was when they opened up for Nirvana in a college basketball stadium in my hometown of ___________. They tore the roof off the place. Nirvana then played and they proceeded to destroy the floor, foundation and 3 square blocks around the arena. It was beautiful. I guess I write this because sometimes when the walls around you are crumbling down upon your naked soul it can still be OK. We need death and disintegration to allow us to build again from scratch. I know that when I see families wrecked and ravaged from loss and sorrow that every once and awhile they come through the other side as much better people. Pain gives us strength if we can get though it. I think. My life as an undertaker has changed more in the last month than in the last 15 years I have been practicing the trade. I have become more engaged more pres...

This either has nothing to do with being a mortician or everything to do with being a mortician. I am not sure. i can't believe this video stayed up. this is me writing from 2022.

THIS PHOTO IS 13 YEARS NEWER THAN THIS POST Let's just say this, I am in a bit of a "state" right now. state n. 1. A condition or mode of being, as with regard to circumstances: a state of confusion. Big time. Ok. got it? For those of you that know me, forget it, throw that away, you do not. Not even close. I am A. Mortician, that is all you know. That being said, let me attempt at blathering on for awhile. I dodged a particularly tragic pair of deaths this week. Conflicting arrangement times prevented me from meeting with the family of a nightmarish tragedy. Counting myself lucky, I moved on into my week attacking various duties with great abandonment and beautiful hope for the future. Then, a few days ago, I was greeted with my comeuppance. A distraught and destroyed woman on the other end of a telephone telling me that she needed my help. Help with the kind of thing I know a bit about. This is, as they say, not my first rodeo. I listened, I cared, I used "th...

I am DeadCentre. I really wasn't sure what to write here. I'd been asked by this blogs host to make a contribution but I'd had no Xanadu moment; my muse had foraken me. I'd considered at first an introduction of sorts, a precis of my life in the funeral industry since the age of fourteen and subsequent descent into the production line world of corporate funeral care. It's not interesting though, not to me anyway. Tonight I had my Xanadu moment. Olivia Newton-John rollerskated down the stairs and into the toilets of the Old Cheshire Cheese pub on Fleet Street in London. In the form a a bit of graffiti penned onto the wall beside the cistern above the urinal she'd written; 'Lifes great irony; though the measure of our life goes forward, our understanding of it works in reverse', or words to that effect. I remembered what I wanted to do on this blog. I wanted to cause a fuss, be difficult and disagree with A. Mortician, and that's exactly what I intend...

I have nothing to do. There are no families to meet with. No bodies to make pretty. There are no projects to tackle. Well, there are ALWAYS projects to tackle at a funeral home but I have pretty much decided that those are not my jobs unless I am specifically asked to do something. I am being paid to be a mortician and not being paid to be a lawn-boy. We already have a lawn boy. Sometimes I am the IT guy. For instance, yesterday I hooked up a 47 inch flat screen TV to a computer with a wireless connection to the network. That was fun. Now on the weekends I have a new and wonderful place to watch streaming netflix . You better believe I do. The real reason that this monstrosity exists is because we have done away with our casket showroom and replaced it with this screen. Well at least we are getting closer to that dream anyway. Since we leveled the showroom we have been selling out of a picture book and it has been just fine . No one seems to care one bit . Funny huh? You might think t...

Folks, prepare yourselves. Morticianswax has a new accomplice. I am quite sure you will enjoy his presence here. Soon. My ability to keep up with this poor little blog is questionable at best. New blood is needed and I really do believe that with this injection of new ideas we might actually benefit from it. Or not. No big philosophical arguments today folks. Just a quick post to tell you that I really am going to keep up this time. I have had a lot on my mind this past year and most of it would not allow me to be a very good mortician. Now, as the smoke clears, I see myself finding third gear and pressing upon the gas pedal. It is time to rock folks. Shall we?

wow. sorry. I guess. poor little blog, so neglected... I am back. Really. If there is anyone out there that still gets a post feed for this thing well...hello again. Let's start at the beginning of the new beginning. I am still a mortician, that did not change. My out look on this profession has not changed much either, I think it is rife with corruption, misdirection and greed. I don't do that shit so it has little bearing on me and what I do so there is that I suppose. What has changed in my world of the dismal trade is that I don't care what others do. Doing this job as a zombie (which is another thing that I believe now, I think that if a zombie attack came on, undertakers would really be the only ones that could save the earth. remember that, we may be the only hope for all of humanity in that scenario) will only serve to mess up that individual. People have choices. They can choose to be free and open and truthful or they can choose to bury their heads in convention a...