YOU CAN argue about whether it's better to live here or New York or San Francisco, but one thing is for sure: Los Angeles is the best place to die.
The rest of the country is still stuck in the somber, generic, sterile, 20th century funeral mind-set, the kind that's all focused on death. In the L.A. mortuary community, on the other hand, it's not even cool to use the word "funeral." Now it's an End of Life Celebration. And, at 35 years old, I was already a little late in planning mine.
Lisa Takeuchi Cullen, author of "Remember Me: A Lively Tour of the New American Way of Death," told me that if I wanted to have a decent video — a basic staple for any End of Life Celebration — I should start shooting now. When I asked Cullen if making my mourners watch a movie about me would come off as a little self-absorbed, she told me that I had wisdom to pass down and that I was stuck in a pre-YouTube mentality. "Nobody would find it strange if they went to your funeral and saw your giant face on a screen talking incessantly about yourself," she said. "In fact, they'd expect it."
To plan my party, Cullen sent me to Lynn Isenberg, who turned her novel, "The Funeral Planner," into Lights Out Enterprises — a kind of party planning service for dead people. Isenberg, who charges $1,000 per fiesta, has planned some sweet end-of-lifers. One includes a $75,000 video complete with animation and underwater photography; another established a fund so a guy could force his family to see the Detroit Red Wings every year. Though that was clever, I figured I could up the ante by making my family see every new Kevin Smith movie.
Isenberg sent me two long forms to fill out: one for me and one for my wife. After reviewing them, Isenberg impressed me with her can-do attitude. Regarding a question about whom I'd like to speak at my funeral, she wrote back: "As for Thomas Pynchon, I would try to contact now and see if there's something he'd like to write about you or say about you on audio/video so that you have it to show, assuming he precedes you in death."
We agreed on an end-of-life dinner at the sixth-highest Zagat-rated restaurant in L.A. I'd have a very small guest list because I don't care who gets mad for being left out, me being dead and all. They'll show my movie, and I'll pick four people to speak for four minutes each. Three if Pynchon comes through.
Like every event in L.A., I'd need a gift bag. Lash Fary, who runs the gift bag company Distinctive Assets, thought he could hook me up with two bags: one for any celebrities in attendance — which might be a problem because my one celebrity friend is Robert Goulet — and one for everyone else. Fary was pretty sure he could get chocolate-covered Altoids and some copies of the L.A. Times. And, if I mention the products in a posthumous column, probably Solstice sunglasses and a T-shirt with the Star of David in Swarovski crystals. Done and done.
For my cemetery, I decided on Hollywood Forever, right next to Paramount Studios. Not only do they show movies there in the summer, house lots of celebs and a tremendous amount of headstones with Russian faces etched in that '80s county-fair, computer-drawn T-shirt style, but they have a hot receptionist, road signs written in that "Addams Family" font and a general ironic-cool vibe that says: Sure I'm dead, but I get it.
I was leaning toward being cremated (everyone's doing it, Cullen assured me) and put into a compartment in these adorable, tiled, 5-foot-tall Thai stupas in the Buddhist garden. Then, on a tour, Jay Gianukos — who, for prices starting at $2,500, directs bio movies for the cemetery — told me about a new virtual plot up in Fernwood. They'll wrap your body in cloth, let you biodegrade into the ground and mark your body only by a GPS machine that will show your video when visitors arrive on the correct patch of land. Even more than a huge statue of myself, like Johnny Ramone has, an eco-burial seemed like the most effective way of telling everyone that I'm better than them.
Finally, because my wife, Cassandra, who is always looking to embarrass me, told Isenberg that before we go to sleep I say "Good night my sweet girl. Sweet dreams," Isenberg suggested that I record that so she can hear it for a little while after I'm gone. Because what could help you fall asleep better than a dead guy talking about your dreams? I might even put on a brown fedora and some metal finger extensions for it.
So I'm not going to do any of it, other than having my ashes scattered. Because all this is still nothing more than striving for immortality, and immortality is the foolish fantasy of weak egos. Everything is eventually forgotten anyway, and I'm OK with that. In fact, it might work in my favor.
J.K. Rowling, author of the world-wide best-selling Harry Potter series, met some of her American fans tonight and provided some surprising revelations about the fictional characters who a generation of children have come to regard as close friends.
In front of a full house of hardcore Potter fans at Carnegie Hall in New York, Rowling, sitting on the stage on a red velvet and carved wood throne, read from her seventh and final book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," then took questions. One fan asked whether Albus Dumbledore, the head of the famed Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft, had ever loved anyone. Rowling smiled. "Dumbledore is gay, actually," replied Rowling as the audience errupted in surprise. She added that, in her mind, Dumbledore had an unrequited love affair with Gellert Grindelwald, Voldemort's predecessor who appears in the seventh book. After several minutes of prolonged shouting and clapping from astonshed fans, Rowling added. "I would have told you earlier if I knew it would make you so happy."
In answer to the question "Did Hagrid marry?" Rowling replied that sadly, no. The half-giant had a flirtation with a giantess but she found him "a tad unsophisticated" and the relationship never went forward. In response to the audience's groans of dismay, Rowling said, jokingly, "O.K., I'll write another book." And when the audience continued to express disapproval added, "at least I didn't kill him."
Other minor characters, according to Rowling, came to happier ends. Neville Longbottom, Harry's meek and hapless classmate, married Hannah Abbott, another classmate.
It's been seven years and five insanely popular books since author J. K. Rowling last wowed American disciples with a live reading. That explains the Beatlemania-esque shrieks from 1,600 lucky Los Angeles teens and preteens who listened on Monday morning to Rowling read a bit of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," her seventh and final book in this best-selling series. Afterward she met with and signed copies of her book for each of the children, all of whom had competed in a Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) essay competition to win a coveted seat at today's event at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood.
When Rowling stepped onto the Kodak Theater stage, famous as the venue for the annual Academy Awards, she was greeted with a lengthy chorus of soprano screams more normally lavished upon pubescent boy bands than book writers. The kids were selected from 40 schools in the LAUSD. Glammed up, Rowling looked more like a Hollywood screen star than a children's author. "She's so pretty," gushed one 13-year old girl. "I want to be just like her one day; pretty and a great author." It was the first stop on Rowling's three-city Open Book Tour, sponsored by her U.S. publisher, Scholastic. She will give a repeat performance this Thursday in New Orleans at the Ernest N. Morial Auditorium in the Convention Center, and will end her U.S. engagement on Friday night at New York City's Carnegie Hall. Of the 1,600 children attending, 12 were singled out for their essays to ask questions of Rowling after the reading. "I wrote an essay about how Harry Potter changed the way I think about books," explained 11-year-old Ryan Garay from Edison Middle School, who showed up to the reading wearing a Harry Potter black cloak. "Harry Potter is more exciting than a video game. And I'd like to be a writer when I grow up and write books just like these." Rowling, whose latest book sold 8.3 million copies in its first 24 hours, seemed eager to answer the children's questions. She sat atop a gilded and red velvet Romanesque throne with oversized Potter books all around. On whether or not she had an imagination as a child: "Yes, I was a great day dreamer. And it was an ambition to be a writer that came from childhood and never left me." On support from her family as a young writer. "No one in my family thought writing was a sensible idea. Ironic, really, as it turned out." On her inspiration: "I had a really great English teacher, so a good English teacher is gold. But my daughter Jessica actually was the true inspiration, the person who gave me a sense of self worth."
Rowling also spoke briefly with reporters, though she seemed to enjoy her interaction with the school children much more. She pondered why some religious groups protest the Potter series for its wizardry. "I believe passionately in freedom of expression and of speech," she said. "I've always taken the banning of my books as a compliment, if you look at which other authors are on that list. In a way it's great advertising." She told the press that she would not retire and would continue to write, though not just yet. "I will always write but I do feel as if I'm on vacation. For the first time in 10 years, I don't have a deadline," she said, explaining that she didn't know which genre she would choose next. "I'm spending time with my kids and I'm really enjoying that."
