Macaulay Culkin Will Never Die....
Every day, coffee in hand, I open my Kindle and read the New York Times, a ritual that should bring me knowledge and empowerment; instead, it sets me on edge all day: global warming, political instability, economic injustices, unsolvable crosswords. Trump. The Times is surely aware of its effect on its readers and compensates with calming, introspective book reviews, essays on art, historical figures, and obituaries.
The world only seems like it’s coming to an end, but worry not. If it were, would the New York Times bother to recommend a summertime reading list or suggest what legumes go best in a winter soup, or explain the intricacies of a conductor’s baton whirl, or appreciate the nuances of modern art, architecture, or the science of a toilet bowl swirl?
So relax!
It’s not that the Times is lulling us with fake news or distractive comfort; rather, the two sections (for convenience-sake: News and the Arts/Science) suggest a philosophical project. The headlines concern the business of life; the backpages are devoted to interests that make life worth living.
Or dying. You see, I’m kinda morbid, and, as much as I like learning about ballet and blackholes, my favorite section of the Times is the obituaries.
Statistically speaking, from what we know of the universe, life is rare; it’s also transient, and what we do day-to-day, or even decade-to-decade, is soon forgotten.
Except in an obituary, in which the only news worth reading takes a lifetime.
I’m reminded here of Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town. The bustles of daily life— jealousies, romances, status, paying the bills— are inconsequential to the dead, who, like a Greek chorus, watch the living with some sorrow.
EMILY: Mother Gibbs?
MRS. GIBBS: Yes, Emily?
EMILY: They [the living] don't understand, do they?
MRS. GIBBS: No, dear. They don't understand.
If all of our running amuck brings no understanding, no wisdom, then the news, absent of philosophy, is merely a timetable for a train that’s never leaving the station.
About 150,000 people die every day, that’s globally. Here in the States, the figure is 10,000—about the size of a small town—yet, on any given day, only 1 or 2 people get an NYT obit.
So, how did they select their... ummm... winners?
Do you need to be famous to make a Times obit? Yes! Though not always. Here are some recent NYT obits:
A scientist, a racing car driver, two journalists, and a businessman accused of fraud. I have no doubt that these people were interesting dinner table companions, but they were hardly mint-their-face-on-a-coin famous.
Indeed, an Times obituary sometimes has nothing to do with fame or even success. For example, just today, August 25, 2024…. (Yes, I try to give myself a buffer between composition and Substack publication) …. there was a great obit concerning a comedian you’ve never heard of— Mitzi McCall, who, with her husband had a go-nowhere comedy act.
Mitzi and Charlie, bombing to an audience of 73 million. Photo via Mark’s Autographs.
So why was she featured? Mitzi and her husband, Charlie, appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show on the very same night as the Beatles. 73 million people tuned in. Had Mitzi and Charlie been brilliant or even just passably funny, they would have been instant stars!
Only, they bombed.
“We just about wanted to kill ourselves,” Ms. McCall told The Washington Post in 2004.
Mr. Brill said in a phone interview. “We laid the biggest egg of all time.”
I’ve seen the tape. They were indeed execrable.
Daily Motion won’t let me embed the code but here is the link. Their act starts at the 58:11 mark.
Nonetheless, Mitzi McCall’s failure was enough to get an NYT obit. Go figure!
But when did the Times obit editor decide on Mitzi making the cut?
New York Times Staff Meeting, Monday, February 10, 1964.
“Did you see that group last night?”
“Ya, the Bugs.”
“Beatles.”
“Right. They were loud.”
“Should we mark them down for obits?”
“Naw, they’ll never last.”
“What about Mitzi McCall?”
“Man, did she stink up the joint!”
“People will be talking about that stinkaroo for years! She’ll never live it down…. Hey, I have an idea!”
Ya, picking Mitzi for obit was like kicking a dog when she’s down. Actually, it’s like kicking a dog that had been put down….
LSAT TEST PREP
“Flagitious”
Adjective.
(Of a person or their actions) criminal; villainous.
And now something still more flagitious…
Remember Macaulay Culkin, the childhood friend of Michael Jackson, and star of Home Alone (1990) and Home Alone II (1992)?
Macaulay Culkin, now age 43, is still a working actor, but hardly a star. I doubt many of us know what he looks like nowadays.
Maybe his biggest post-Home Alone credit is selling dog food on the Home Shopping Network. (Just made that up, though I did learn that he once starred in a Dr. Pepper commercial.)
So, is Culkin gonna get a NYT obit?
Probably!
Why?
Because so much journalism is unlikely to go to waste.
Every time Macaulay Culkin says anything at an awards show or shows up in some indie movie or is interviewed about working with director Sayit Aintso, or mentions a sleepover with Michael Jackson or gets married, divorced, has kids or gets arrested, vomits in public, donates a kidney, accidentally eats a cockroach, achieves enlightenment at a Zen monastery, supports Hezbollah, invests in a porn company, is sued for telling a fellow actor to “break a leg,” gets a vasectomy, curses the luck of the Irish, punches out a waiter at Chili’s, or is caught gerbilling Justin Trudeau, some NYT obituarist will have to add the scandalous and crapulous details to his file.
LSAT TEST PREP
“Crapulous”
Adjective.
Marked by intemperance especially in eating or drinking. 2 : sick from excessive indulgence in liquor.
But we will never read an obituary for Macaulay Culkin, because Macaulay Culkin is never going to die.
The year 2324. Nude York Times, Luna office.
Knock on the door.
“Come in.”
“You wanted to see me, They?”
“Don’t be so formal. Call me ‘they.’”
“It will take some getting used to, … ‘they.’”
“I have a new assignment for you: an obituary.”
“Who is it?”
“Macaulay Culkin.”
“Who?”
“Ya, about 300 years ago, he was in a movie called Home Alone.”
“What’s a movie?”
“They were before the holo-tocs. Some of them were two hours long.”
“Sweet Putin! Was it a punishment?”
“In any case, Macaulay Culkin was a star in one of them.”
“When did he die?”
“Well, that’s the odd thing. There’s no record of it. And here is the other thing…”
“Yes?”
“He had a son, but there's no record of his birth… or death either.”
“That is strange.”
“And look at this. His Trumps— they called them “dollars”—was passed to his son, and then great-grandson.”
“So?”
“Well, the son and grandson have no birth certificates and they seem to have disappeared as well, and the same thing happens to Culkin’s great-great-grandson, and so on. Here’s some images I found. They all look alike, exactly alike. It’s like the same kid just comes and goes, comes and comes. It’s a pattern.”
“Hmmm…. You don't say?”
“I smell a good story here!”
“Maybe it's nothing. The old Earther records are incomplete, what with the bot wars, the Martian invasion, and the…”
“Ya, we don't need a history lesson. I’m telling you, it’s odd, Adam-Driver odd.”
“That is odd.”
“I mean, 200 years ago, sure, records could get lost in the wars. But what about the last 100 years? Everything has been stable since we turned things over to the Beyondsee bot.”
“True.”
“So what happened to these kids, and why do they all look alike? Anyway, back to this Macauley Culkin. He disappears, some say he moves to Transylvania for a couple of years and…. You know, you look a lot like him.”
“Do I?”
“Yes, the weird lips, the same blond hair, and you’re about his height. Anderson, how old are you?”
“Me? I’m 10, and as you know, the A.I. implants have rendered childhood obsolete.”
“Sure, I'm only 13 myself. But you look just like him. Just look at this phot. You know what a phot is, right?”
“Yes, they, I do. And I believe they were called ‘photos.’”
“You’re the spitting image! Your lips. So weird, so red.”
Yes, I do see the resemblance.”
“Anyway, you will have to track his date of deceased and... your lips…. So red.”
“Yes, my lips. Look at my lips.”
“Just like Macaulay Culkin….”
“Bah! Do not use that cretin’s name. I am now and forever Count Dracula!”
“What’s happening? Your teeth! My god, you’re.…”
“Yes, I am, and don’t worry. ‘Macaulay Culkin’ won’t need an obituary for a long, long time. But you will.…”
* Don’t Bother Reading. Don’t Bother Reading is brought to you by No One Important, INC, stock symbol NOINC. It is headquartered in the state of Stupefaction and donates liberally to charities containing the phrase “flammable pumpkin pie.”
P.S. The Times recently ran a feature on one of its retiring obit writers, Bob McFadden:
his mission was not to write about people after they died, the usual sequence, but while those subjects still lived. He wrote their obituaries in advance, each deeply researched, thoroughly reported and fluidly written. Then he’d file them away, sometimes for years, until they were finally needed, when death came knocking. … He retired with more than 250 advance obituaries still in the pipeline, each awaiting its day.
“unsolvable crosswords” great!
This post is really funny. Good writing.