Death, and all that implies - Episode #31

Summary

The Musers The Podcast – Episode #31: “Death, and All That Implies”

Original Air Date: February 11, 2026
Hosts: George Dunham, Craig “Junior” Miller, Gordon Keith
Network: Cumulus Podcast Network

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Episode Overview

In this characteristically witty-yet-thoughtful episode, The Musers—George, Craig, and Gordon—dive deeply (and often hilariously) into the topic of death. They explore why celebrity deaths feel so personal, share poignant stories about the losses that affected them most, debate the logistics and philosophy of funerals and burials, and ponder their own preferences for the final sendoff. As always, the trio’s banter weaves absurdity with honest reflection, making for a rich and engaging discussion both comforting and provocative.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Power and Polarization of NFL Films (00:34–09:02)

• Letter from Listener: Lance writes in to reminisce about NFL Films’ Super Bowl specials, remembering classic moments and the magic of late '70s football media.
• Debate Ensues: Gordon challenges the legendary status of NFL Films, calling it corny and overly poetic—especially the famous “Autumn Wind” narration—while George and Craig defend its place in sports lore.
  • Gordon: “I thought that they were a little bit full of themselves when they started that poetry business of Autumn Wind as a pirate. I thought that was so stupid.” (04:00)
  • George: “For those of us who grew up in the 70s loving the NFL, NFL Films helped draw us into the magic of professional football.” (02:45)
• A Challenge: Gordon agrees, as a podcast favor, to revisit three NFL Films episodes selected by George, promising an unbiased review.

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Why Do Celebrity Deaths Hit Us So Hard? (12:50–44:20)

Personal Reactions to Celebrity Deaths

• Catalyst for Topic: George brings up the recent, sudden death of Catherine O’Hara and how it personally affected him—especially her “warmth” and “believability” as a mother in Home Alone.
  • George: “She was just a really warm person and a good mom. Even though she somehow engineered leaving her son at home…” (12:08)
• Craig and Gordon reflect: How sometimes the loss of a celebrity can feel more disturbing than the loss of distant relatives, tying the phenomenon to intense parasocial or cultural connections.

The Psychology of Grief for Public Figures

• Gordon: “It’s a strange, parasocial relationship that we get with celebrities, and we just somehow think that they’re one of the fixed stars in the universe, and that’s not going to dim.” (14:24)
• Craig’s Take: Often, you’ve spent more time consuming a celebrity’s art than being with your own relatives.
  • “They might have helped mold you or shape you or help create your pattern of thought...when you lose one, that’s like losing a limb.” (14:56)

The Power of Association and Identity

• George’s Stories: John Prine’s death symbolized the loss of his youth; Mickey Mantle’s death paralyzed a city.
• Craig’s Stories: The passing of basketball star Wayman Tisdale and chef Anthony Bourdain, whose resemblance he’d often been told he shared.
• Gordon’s Stories: First celebrity death impact was Peter Sellers; discussed the “shocking” deaths of Robin Williams, Norm MacDonald, and Phil Hartman, citing the sadness of seeing those who grappled with mortality finally cross that last threshold.
  • Gordon: “It’s the artist…that have always…struggled with death. And to know that they finally got the answer…that to me always gets me.” (31:32)

Notable Examples of Celebrity Deaths and Their Impact

• Global Shocks: John Lennon, Tupac Shakur, Steve Irwin, Jim Henson, Kurt Cobain.
  • George: “Kids went home because they were so upset [by Lennon’s death]…and that was 1980, which he was still a big solo artist…but still…” (24:01)
• Generational Divide: Recognition that deaths of some, like Paul McCartney or Bono, will create massive grieving across generations.

The Complex Ethics of Mourning Public Figures

• Making Jokes About Celebrity Deaths
  • George confesses discomfort with making light of celebrity deaths for humor, despite having done it on-air.
  • Craig contends that comedians might want jokes at their funerals as a form of tribute.
  • Gordon: “They're dehumanized because they’re celebrity. And that’s wrong.” (41:31)
  • George: “I still try to…I know we’re out for entertainment, but…it hasn’t gone well when…making jokes of Harry Carey doing a nosedive into a plate of spaghetti.” (41:35)

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Who Will Hit the Hardest? (33:05–44:58)

• Who’s On Each Host’s List?

  • Craig: Bono, Steve Martin, cyclist Greg Lemond, and NBA legend George Gervin—citing deep personal influence, family associations, or lifelong admiration.
  • George: Tom Landry, legendary Cowboys coach—so beloved George gave his son the middle name Landry; Roger Staubach; and he shares that Paul McCartney’s passing would devastate him.
  • Gordon: David Letterman, Norm MacDonald, and Paul McCartney, noting that the deaths of family members had recalibrated his sense of loss for celebrities.

• Athletes’ Deaths: Described as uniquely jarring since they seem “Superman-like”—when their mortality is made concrete, it's doubly shocking.

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Mortality, Funerals, and Plans for the End (44:58–63:11)

Final Wishes: To Plan or Not To Plan?

• Gordon: Advocates practical planning, highlighting how pre-paid arrangements eased his family’s grieving process: “If you love your loved ones...do all that planning ahead of time.” (47:30)
• Craig: Has never given it more than a second’s thought—“It’s completely up to my wife, my family, they can do whatever they want. You can cremate me, you can bury me, you can have a funeral, you don’t have a funeral. I don’t care. I’m gone.” (48:20)
• George: Recently started thinking about it, requesting cremation, and has even lined up musician Wade Bowen to perform “West Texas Ring” at his funeral. (57:07)
  • Craig teases: “You’re the one that has the most plans!” (57:47)
  • George: “I have told my family that, you know, I want to be cremated. I don’t want to be buried…[and] I have talked to an artist who has agreed to play my funeral.” (56:55)

The Rituals and Industry of Death

• Cremation’s Surge: They’re surprised to find that cremation now outpaces traditional burial 65% to 35%. (59:42)
• Cost and Real Estate: George and Gordon lament funeral industry expenses and the odd tradition of gravesites, while Craig notes cremation’s growing appeal due to cost and practicality.

The Philosophy of Being Remembered

• Physical Markers: George questions the necessity of grave markers, wondering how often future generations actually visit.
• Obliteration vs. Continuity: Gordon feels personally unsettled by burial but values ancestor graves for genealogy and history.
  • “As soon as you get past a generation, I want everybody buried. Like, I love it…that’s just cool to me. Whereas I wouldn’t have that sense of continuity if everyone was…burned up and dropped down somebody’s pant leg at Disney World.” (58:58)
• Comedic Take on Death: Gordon muses about hiring marionette operators to puppet his corpse into his own funeral with a final cymbal crash. (62:21)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• “It’s a strange, parasocial relationship that we get with celebrities, and we just somehow think that they’re one of the fixed stars in the universe.” – Gordon (14:24)
• “There can be such amazingly strong influences from celebrities…when you lose one of those people, for a lot of people, that’s like losing a limb.” – Craig (14:56)
• “It’s not just John Prine’s life. It’s part of your life that has died.” – Gordon (17:49)
• “Jim Henson…that was a weird one.” – Gordon (24:29)
• “Do comedians hit us differently…because they’re the ones who give us joy and happiness, and when that’s taken away…” – George (29:02)
• “I always love the fact we found Richard III’s skeleton…when you go into ancient past, I’m so thankful those people were buried.” – Gordon (55:24)
• “You can cremate me, you can bury me, you can have a funeral, you don’t have a funeral. I don’t care. I’m gone. It’s whatever they want. It’s not what I want.” – Craig (48:20)
• Comedy Highlight: Gordon’s funeral wish: being marionetted down the aisle for “one last joke.” (62:21)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:34–09:02 — NFL Films, sports nostalgia, and poetic sports media
• 12:50–44:20 — The psychology and emotion of celebrity deaths; stories from music, sports, entertainment
• 33:05–44:58 — The hosts’ “celebrity death lists” and the unique pain of specific losses
• 44:58–54:41 — Personal mortality, funeral planning, family vs. individual wishes
• 54:42–61:41 — The burial vs. cremation debate, visiting graves, and the business of death
• 62:21–63:11 — Gordon’s marionette funeral wish and comedic takes on saying goodbye

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Tone & Takeaways

The Musers manage to blend raw sentiment with their signature sardonic wit. The trio treat death and grief with respect, but never abandon their trademark banter—even as they probe uncomfortable questions about their own endings. Their honest vulnerability, coupled with classic Musers humor, gives this episode a moving yet unmistakably “Musers” flavor—a deft mix of nostalgia, seriousness, and never-ending bits.

For listeners, this episode offers permission to laugh at the dark, cherish the legacy of those we admire, and maybe—just maybe—start thinking about your own mortuary playlist (or marionette operator).

Transcript

[George]

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[Gordon]

Okay, it's time.

[George]

It is time.

[Gordon]

Cue George. Poke George with a stick.

[George]

Don't poke me.

[Gordon]

It's not a stick I'm poking with. Oh, yeah, that's hot. Welcome to the Musers the podcast. Here's episode 31, death and all that.

[George]

Implies it's the Musers the Podcast. Here we go with three friends. George, Gordon, Craig, back for another episode. I believe we're all the way up to episode 31. Okay, moving right along. And back from the Super Bowl. We went all the way to California to do our last podcast. We thought we would cover the super bowl for you. And along those lines, this brings us our letter of the week from Lance about the super bowl. And he says thanks for the talk about the super bowl and what you do to your bodies. You're welcome. He said for context, I'm a 68 year old. My early Super Bowls were in the era of three major networks and this was before Jerry Jones brought Fox into the picture and streaming was a part of our world. He said that world did not exist. But what I remember most about the super bowl and Super Bowl Sunday is that leading up to the game you had a marathon of NFL Films episodes about previous Super Bowls. I can close my eyes and see the one with Hank Stram and his rolled up play sheet as he's taking candy from a baby. And I can see the episode with the Joe Namath jets and being set to the version of Jack and the Beanstalk. And he goes on to talk about how awesome it was. The close ups of players, usually linebackers with breath vapor blowing through their face mask. The world was a better place with NFL Films instead of loud and ridiculous ex players and coaches seeing who can outshout each other while idiot fans make noise in the background.

[Gordon]

Well, so there's our wrong opinion of the week. Do you have the letter of the week? He.

[George]

He brings up something that's very divisive with the three of us. For some reason, NFL films never registered with Gordo. He never thought it was that great. He thought it was corny. But for those of us who grew up in the 70s loving the NFL, NFL Films helped draw us into the magic of professional football. And yes, the voice of John Fasinda was the greatest narrator voice in documentary documentary history. He added to it. It was so great. Now it's been a long time since they used to just roll NFL Films leading up to the Super Bowl. I will say this though, what I missed this year, do you ever watch it on Saturday night? ESPN would one of them, either ESPN2 or main channel even sometimes would roll those old super bowl highlight packages from about 10 o' clock at night until 6 o' clock the next morning. I think one year the NFL Network did that. I couldn't find that this year. And that does get me right for the Super Bowl. I understand that's not the thing to play now leading up to Super Bowl 60 and I'm with him that pregame shows can become shouting matches that become tiresome. But I appreciate someone who still remembers the greatness of NFL Films.

[Gordon]

All right, can I clarify the besmirchment that I've endured already here?

[George]

Okay, go ahead.

[Gordon]

By friendly Fire too. That's the thing that hurts. You're on my team.

[George]

Just today, earlier this day that we are talking, you were running down the great name of NFL Films.

[Gordon]

I don't think that NFL Films is stupid, sucks, and should have never been done. I just always thought you guys painfully overrated it. Overrated it. You just everything about it. Oh, it's so great. I mean, look at it. It's so great. I liked it when I was a kid, but I thought that they were a little bit full of themselves when they started that poetry business of Autumn Wind as a pirate. I thought that was so stupid. And just go over the game or the season and just tell us what happened. We don't need all this. The Autumn Wind was a pirate.

[George]

If you didn't love John Facindi, you had to at least enjoy the photography of it.

[Gordon]

The cinematography, it was neat the first time I saw it, but I don't need every single shot of the running back's eyes being real big as he's running. It's like, okay, we get it, we get it. Just show us the final score.

[Craig]

I think every sport needs that romanticism added to its story. And NFL Films did that for football. And it helped really launch football. Along with the super bowls in the 70s, it helped launch football into the stratosphere. And you know, Gordo, you and I always laugh about my favorite sport, pro cycling. And the way that the old networks used to really dress it up and, you know, talk about the suffering and the roads lying on the mountainside looking like discarded string, disguising the face of the devil.

[Gordon]

All bunch of overwritten stuff.

[George]

Yes.

[Gordon]

That's great. I loved all that because I can appreciate it ironically.

[Craig]

Well, this is part of. In the same vein, you know, they're doing that with football. They're building up these warriors and they're painting this gladiatorial picture. And I think all these sports, you know, baseball is so much about its romance and its past. And I think the sports that don't embrace that and don't have a promotional vehicle, I think they're missing out. And NFL Films is unique also in that speed and a half, or what was it, the slow motion, the half speed, the normal slow motion that they filmed in or that somewhere in between presented in. It was different looking. And so I loved NFL Films.

[Gordon]

So overly dramatic and. Okay, here's the thing.

[George]

A football flying through the air.

[Gordon]

How do they do that with a camera? It's very easy. We've been doing it since the beginning of photography.

[George]

Yeah.

[Gordon]

The thing about it that bugs me is like the cycling thing. It's like you laughed about it. You love cycling and you totally laugh about that. But I also know it's overwritten, but.

[Craig]

I also ate it up.

[George]

Yeah.

[Gordon]

To me, it's like believing wrestling, like believing in this stupid, like, oh, no, it's real, man. It's not real, but I can enjoy it as an entertainment product. But I think that the NFL Films viewer was taking it. I mean, they were like crying when the autumn win was a Pirates being read out.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Gordon]

As opposed to going, oh, this is so great. Look how overwritten it is. This is awesome, man.

[George]

I watched a few of them in the last month and it's still. It's not like wrestling because it's real. They're talking about a real competition.

[Gordon]

The autumn win is not a pirate.

[George]

And their interpretation of While the Steelers thought the super bowl was over, Roger Starbuck did not. If that doesn't fire you up as a Cowboy fan, 50 years later, I know what does. It still gets me. And it's yes, Roger wasn't done yet. He's going to throw it to Percy Howard right here. This is a four point game all of a sudden.

[Gordon]

All right, I, as a favor to the podcast, okay, I will go back and you pick me three NFL Films. I'll even give it your choice.

[George]

Okay.

[Gordon]

The Roger one may be one that you choose.

[George]

Super Bowl 10 is fantastic. Okay, so Super Bowl 5, so Super.

[Gordon]

Bowl 12, you give me three, I will review them and give you my honest take. And I won't go into it saying I'm determined to hate this. I'll try to watch it as unbiased with fresh eyes as possible.

[George]

Tom Landry was an engineer.

[Gordon]

What, what accent is that?

[George]

I don't know. He was from Philadelphia, but John Facinda was almost from London in a lot of way.

[Gordon]

That's just a strange accent. You know, I think Jim Croce, one of our my favorite singer songwriters, was from Philadelphia.

[George]

Really?

[Gordon]

I never understood that weird accent that he had. I thought he's from the hills down got his horse. Look bow, he got it. Something about Philadelphia just causes people to talk weird.

[George]

Make up their own accent, I guess. All right, well, thank you, Lance, for our letter of the week. Got us some some good conversation there a debate? Yeah.

[Gordon]

Almost broke up the podcast over in a stupid letter.

[George]

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[Gordon]

Your snack time crunch time hero.

[George]

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[Gordon]

It was unbelievable. She was always way too made up looking for a mother.

[George]

But I think she played that part well, though, and I just absolutely loved her, and it made me really sad. And it got us with the idea to investigate why we're so moved when celebrity's death. And by a celebrity death. Hers was recent. So was Robert Redford's back in September. That one really got me.

[Gordon]

Yeah, that one got me, too, because I loved his films, and I used to watch Electric Horseman on repeat over and over again. And yet here he is when he, like, 90 something when he died. It's not like this is going to be some big shock.

[George]

No.

[Gordon]

But yet you're always shocked when it happens.

[George]

Yeah.

[Gordon]

I don't understand it. And I know that a lot of people have that experience of a celebrity death affects them more than someone that's in their family that dies. You know, they can have, like an aunt that dies, but that's not as shocking to them as a celebrity dying 20 years older than their aunt.

[George]

Right.

[Gordon]

It's a strange, parasocial relationship that we get with celebrities, and we just somehow think that they're one of the fixed stars in the universe, and that's not going to dim.

[Craig]

Yeah. A lot of that probably has to do with you've consumed more of that celebrity's body of work than you have maybe been around your aunt.

[George]

Yeah.

[Gordon]

You know, that celebrity had no starring roles in movies.

[Craig]

Right. And maybe you weren't around her a ton, but that celebrity you may have consumed daily. If it was a music artist, you may have listened to their music all the time or you've seen all their movies or read all their books, and they make this, in a lot of ways, a greater impact than some of your family members because they might have helped mold you or shape you or help create your pattern of thought, or the way you. Your sense of humor. There just can be such amazingly strong influences from celebrities. And so when you lose one of those people, for a lot of people, that's like losing a limb. It's like losing part of you.

[George]

The ones that have affected me the most, and they fit into the category of celebrity, I think often we think, well, you're just talking about actors with me, people I did not know. But they were famous. Some of them, more than others, were from the music and sports world. You guys saw firsthand. Man, it wrecked me when John Prine passed away in 2020. Never knew him, but musically, as we've talked about several times on the podcast, that really tugs at my heartstrings. That, to me, is everything that I feel or felt as a kid. And when John Prine passed away in 2020. It represented my youth. It's what I listened to growing up. It told the story, that soundtrack thing that we often hear. I can mention a few others from music, but the other one was from the world of sports and athletes. Certainly when we first went on the air with our all sports station in Dallas, Mickey Mantle passed away. And do you remember the. It's like the. The city stood still for about a day or two. He was buried here in Dallas. And it was a. It was a big, big deal where grown men were crying who didn't know Mickey Mantle. But he represented the time. He represented their favorite player of all time from a long, long time ago. And that's the other thing to me is that not only what they did, but what they represent, whether it's an era or whether it's an era from. From your childhood or. Or your past.

[Gordon]

Yeah. And that's the main thing, is that it's part of you dying, is why those things affect you so much. You know, it was all those middle aged, balding men who were weeping because their boyhood was. That a part of their boyhood was finally dying. You know, that's what Mickey Mantle represented to them when he passed away. And the deaths that always affect me are always the ones that. That meant something to you tremendously during a particular time of your life. Like, there's no way, Giorgio, you're crying for just John Prine. It's also that John Prine, what that meant listening to your brother, listening to him in the other room and.

[George]

Absolutely.

[Gordon]

It's part of your life that has died.

[George]

Yeah.

[Gordon]

It's not just John Prine's life.

[George]

Right.

[Craig]

The two that hit me the hardest, one was from sports and one was from entertainment, I guess. But when Waymond Tisdale died, he was one of my favorite basketball players of all time. And when I was a kid, you know, high school, I got to know Waymond Tisdale, the player who was this spectacular scoring forward at Oklahoma. And I. You know, George, when we met in college, I was already a big Wayman fan. And I patterned my game after his. Yeah, like, I wanted to shoot turnaround jumpers like Wayman Tisdale. And so he was such a part of. Because we were playing basketball every day back then, pickup basketball and intramural basketball in college. And all I thought about was Wayman. When I was on the court and on my intramural jersey, I had Wayman on the back. That was my nickname then in our pro career, not basketball, but radio, we got to know Waymond because we had him on the show several times, and we met him down at the arena a few times. Such a nice guy. And then he was gone way too early, in his early 40s. Cancer got him. And I just remember when I found out that he had passed, I remember weeping. And to this day, I regret not going to his memorial in Tulsa. I could have taken the day off work and driven up there, and I wish I had, because he was such a huge part of my life, about as big as any athlete has ever been or had a place in my life. The other one, and this one surprisingly hit me when Anthony Bourdain died, when he took his own life a few years ago. And I think I determined that it hit me so hard. I mean, I felt down for a week, maybe even longer. And I think it's because that for so many years, five, six times a week, if I'm out walking around at the grocery store, somebody would come up to me and say, you look just like Anthony Bourdain. I got that more than anything celebrity look alike ever. I get you look like Brad Pitt a lot, too. But I got Bourdain more. And so many people had said that to me over the years, you look just like Anthony Bourdain. That when he died, it was like part of me died, and it was very strange. I had this weird sensation, like he and I were almost brothers because I had been told that I looked like him so many times. And I also watched his show religiously, and I thought he was just an incredibly beautiful writer. I read his books Kitchen Confidential, and I became a big fan of his even before people told me that we were doppelgangers. And I thought his show, especially the CNN version, was just one of the most beautifully written and edited and storytelling shows in the history of tv. So when he passed, it made a really surprisingly big impact. Those two have hit me way harder than any other celebrity deaths.

[George]

You know, that's the thing we identify with. Whether it's an actor or a musician or an announcer, an athlete, they've done something either on a field or on a screen that somehow resonates with us, or it inspires us or it makes us happy, or you go through the sadness with them. Your favorite athlete that doesn't quite win a title or a golf championship or whatever that might be, or they, in your case, Gordo, the comedians, I would think that made you laugh, you know, that you could identify that made you feel better. And that was my thing with Prine. He was someone who made me feel he Made me feel something. Either made me feel happy, or he wrote some of the saddest songs. And when I would go back and listen to him, I was, like, purposely making myself sad. I don't know what that is. Maybe that's something I need to work out. But I think a lot of people do that with music. It makes you feel something. And these are the people. What other. Whatever they did with performance, it made you feel something. Whether maybe that you could relate to them like you knew him, or at least you could relate to them. That. Yeah, the human experience that we're all a part of, and that's what gets you.

[Gordon]

The ones that I hear a lot of people talking about, that affected them tremendously. I hear Tupac a lot when he died, that affected a lot of people because they loved him so much. Another one that. That I've heard so many of my friends mention was Steve Irwin. The Crocodile Hunter really died.

[George]

Yeah, I remember that was disturbing because at the time I was watching his shows with my kids. And again, that's something that kids loved, so.

[Gordon]

And he was one of those guys that just seemed, you know, he was happy and he brought, you know, he was very light. He had. He brought light into the world, you know, kind of thing. And so when someone like that dies in that crazy manner in which he did.

[George]

Yeah.

[Gordon]

Just shocked people so much, and they just loved him.

[George]

I have another one from the world of music that really affected me, but I remember just being astounded how it affected the people around me. Going to school in December of 1980, and kids who, long after the Beatles had broken up, were just absolutely distraught that John Lennon was shot and killed.

[Gordon]

Yeah. My friend Ricky, his brother was a big Beatle guy. He said that he went and threw up. He heard that John Lennon died. He went and to the nearest toilet and immediately threw up.

[George]

And I was sad. And I remember. I think I shed a tear on the way to school. Maybe I'd found out during Monday Night Football when Howard Cosell told the Nation. Maybe I found out then and had to have a strange conversation with my dad about it, about, you know, he was probably doing a drug deal or something. And no, dad, I don't think he was.

[Gordon]

And your dad already deduced a lot of things about his death.

[George]

He had already had it figured out available. But I remember going to school the next day, and, I mean, kids went home because they were so upset. Mainly girls, I think, that asked if they could go home because they couldn't go on with school. And that was. That was 1980, which he was still a big solo artist, still a big celebrity, but still, you would think that was 20 years past, you know, the height of guess of Beatlemania.

[Gordon]

Yeah. And I was going to continue into the ones that affected me like those that affected a lot of my friends didn't affect me as much. It would surprise me, you know, when Steve Irwin dies young, or remember Jim Henson when he passed away? That was a weird one. But the first one I remember affecting me was when I was young. I was really young. And it was when I heard Peter Sellers died. Now that is because I watched all those movies. It was something that me and my dad and my brother and sister would hole up in that back TV room that we have and we would always watch those Pink Panther movies. So that was a movie from my youth. And so when he died at the age. And I think he died pretty young, he was older in the hills to me, but it was 50 something years old when Peter Sellers died. That's very, very young of a heart attack. It was the first time that I couldn't make sense of the fact because in my kid brain, hell, even in my adult brain right now, you still think this way. And I had this feeling with Catherine o'. Hara. It's like, well, she just died. I just saw her on my TV last night. She was just alive in my living room last night. And so, yeah, I remember hearing that on the playground that Peter Sellers died. And that really freaked me out. I was really young, but that freaked me out. And then you get into my age group, you know, Kurt Cobain was the first Gen X musical hero and then he dies kind of in the prime of his career in that manner. And that was very shocking. But it didn't affect me like it did my friends. I don't know why I was much more. I don't know. Weren't the signs all there? I mean, you guys, I don't know, it just doesn't seem that shocking to me. Yeah, it's weird that it happened, but.

[Craig]

He was.

[Gordon]

He was a pretty depressive kind of guy and he had problems. John Ritter affected me. Huge Threes Company fan since he made.

[George]

A lot of punchlines.

[Craig]

Yeah, I would love. I would not have guessed that for you because you've made fun of it so much since his passing.

[Gordon]

Made fun of it. And it's not only that he died, but he died in this really tragic way of terrible. I mean, he was another one that was like Steve Irwin. He was like beloved, kind of universally beloved figure.

[Craig]

Wasn't he on the set?

[Gordon]

Yeah, he was on the set, and he said he just didn't feel well. Something was going on in his chest, and he had that really disturbing aortic dissection thing. I'm not using the correct medical term, but Rupture. Yeah, rupture. It's just. Oh, and he was in his 50s, too. Yep. Phil Hartman. That was a gut punch to me, because I. In high school, and maybe even junior high, Phil Hartman was my guy on Saturday Night Live. Like, I loved him. And I remember it had that feeling of the underground band when everybody was distracted by Dana Carvey's and all of the stars of the show. I said, there's this one guy who seems to be in all these sketches, and every little character he plays is just great. He seems to be the best actor among them. He seems to always find some nugget. Even in the smallest role, he'll add something to it. And then I loved the fact that everyone grew to appreciate that about him. And he was known as the glue. And I just loved Phil Hartman. And I remember coming back to work and you guys were the ones that told me, like, I remember. Yeah. Because I'd been gone on vacation, wasn't tuned into the news. I get back, and you guys, I thought you were doing the prank of Guess who Died.

[George]

That's your bit. We don't do that bit.

[Gordon]

And you choose my favorite Saturday Night Live guy of all time.

[Craig]

Didn't his wife kill him?

[Gordon]

Yeah, Brie argument. And he fell asleep on the bed and she shot him through the head. Anyway, Merry Christmas there on that one. So Phil Hartman hit me big time. And then Robin Williams kind of hit a lot of people, so not just me, because I had just run into him and got my picture made with him, like, less than a year before. And, you know, Robin Williams was one of those guys who has always seemed to have so much life force, you couldn't imagine him dying in the manner in which he did which. Which was taking his own life.

[George]

So do comedians hit us differently, you think, because of that? They're the ones who give us joy and happiness. And when that's taken away so quickly.

[Gordon]

You know, not necessarily. There is one comedian that ranks higher than Robin Williams and maybe even above Phil Hartman, and that's Norm MacDonald. When I found out that Norm MacDonald died, that one hit me for a few reasons. One, love Norm MacDonald. I always thought he was so funny. Two, you didn't know he was sick. And three, the way he chose to not let anyone know he was sick. That he had been battling that well back into. He had had like stomach cancer, I think before he was even on Saturday Night Live. And he always kept it private, like he never made a thing about that stuff and didn't want sympathy. And he had a real sense of privacy, which I always really respected about him, that he didn't make his cancer, it wasn't for public consumption, and he just battled it privately. And there were so many times he could have made that excuse. I mean, even when he appeared on his YouTube channel and he's all puffy and you're going, wow, what happened to Norm MacDonald? And he would even make jokes about his appearance. You know, I just, I like eating chicken now, you know, fried chicken. I just give me that fried, fried chicken. You know, he'd make jokes about it. But looking back, okay, well, that's steroids. He's having to. This is part of his treatment of battling whatever he's battling. So Norm dying affected me a lot. And it wasn't because he was a comedian and just because he was funny. The ones that affect me the most. And this will happen with writers and I think this happens with like a John Prine is. It's the artist, whether they're comedians, writers or musicians, that have always. You've watched their whole life, them struggle with death. You've watched them battle the face of the infinite, right? Knowing their own mortality and they deal with death. And you know that this is an artist that has always thought about death. Norm MacDonald was a big one. You know, he was big into the Russian novelist and Russian writers, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. He was well read and versed in those guys, those existentialist writers. And to know that they finally got the answer, you know, or they finally face that thing that you would watch them fear their whole lives and that you had watched fuel their art their whole lives. That to me always gets me. When those artists who have had the specter of death be their primary mover.

[George]

You know, I think that's a really interesting choice for the celebrity, the well known person that makes that choice of. I want this to be private. I don't want people to know. I, I do admire that. The other side of it is, well, maybe I can be a spokesman for awareness and I can prevent. I don't think there's a right or wrong way. I just, I think it's a really interesting choice for people who are in that position.

[Gordon]

I mean, Norm MacDonald had it where his friends didn't even know, like they were Shocked with the news. I mean, he had just talked to him the week before and they didn't even know that he was sick.

[Craig]

That's hard to hide. Especially when you're losing weight or you're bloated or you're clearly not doing well to hide that from your friends. That's pretty amazing. I think also athletes hit us when they die because we have these Superman memories that they're Superman. They're these incredible physical specimens that do things that we can't. And you just think that they're all incredibly strong and they're going to live forever.

[George]

Right.

[Craig]

And so when they die, like when Michael Jordan passes, it's going to hit a lot of people hard.

[George]

Yes. Yeah. Kind of the Mickey Mantle thing. And plus such an extraordinary. Well, Mickey Mantle was too. He's an incredible athlete.

[Craig]

I've got four on my list that when they pass, I am not going to be able to handle it. I'm going to need a week off of work probably.

[George]

Okay.

[Craig]

One is Bono. Georgie and I are huge YouTube fans and there's not shut it down for.

[George]

A good week after that one.

[Craig]

There's not a musician, in this case a lead singer who has meant more to me in my life and just the lyrics that he wrote and the songs that he performed. I will not be able to handle it. If any of the members of YouTube pass away, it's going to hit me hard. But when Bono goes because he's the front man, that's going to be something I can't deal with.

[George]

And I know they've, they keep making records now, but I see him waving a surrender flag when he's in his 20s, you know, to me he's always, you know, right there.

[Craig]

Like when Gordo was talking about all the people and the reaction and YouTube, George mentioned this when John Lennon passed. That's going to be me with Bono. It's going to be the same kind of thing. The second one is Steve Martin, my all time comedic hero. I cannot tell you how into Steve Martin I was as a kid from getting his book Cruel Shoes to all of his first few albums. And I just listened to them over and over and over. And I patterned my comedy that I was working on in grade school, in high school on my friends. It was all Steve Martin stuff and I loved his movies and I loved everything about him. And I had an arrow through the head that I wore around the house and I would do shtick with my sister, you know, Steve Martin stuff. And so that I was known as the kid who was way obsessed with Steve Martin and I've just grown to love him so much over the years. The person that he is and his, the genius that he is and got to meet him finally when he came through Dallas 15 years ago and that was such a thrill when he goes, I, I need a week off work for that.

[George]

Yeah, I can understand that.

[Craig]

And two athletes. Greg Lamond, my all time sports hero. I'm a big bike racing fan and he was the first great American cyclist and won the Tour de France. And I mean every bike ride that I've taken in my life and there have been 20,000 of them, I've thought about him and the way he pedaled and the way he got out of the saddle and just all the thrills he gave me as a fan of that sport and of him following him from the time he was an amateur through his pro career and all the ups and downs and the gunshot accident and the comeback and have been able to meet him a few times and he's my number one sports idol. As much as Wayman meant to me, Lamond is at the top of that list. So I won't be able to handle that when he passes. And the other athlete who's right there with Wayman, when George the Iceman Gervin goes, that's going to be a really hard day for me. Because before Wayman, it was Gervin that I was just obsessed with because he and I had a similar built. We were skinny kids and we loved to score and he and I could both score in chunks.

[George]

Yeah, I know he could.

[Craig]

And I listened to his games growing up every single night on the radio because not many were on tv and I lived for the box score the next morning to see that he had 42 points against the Bucks. And like Wayman, we got to know him over the years through our radio show. And he's just such a sweet guy and he's funny and he's personable and we've had him on a bunch of times. And so those four, Bono, Steve Martin, Greg Lamond, George Gervin, those are the four I'm bracing for.

[George]

Yeah, and with some of these people, they are starting to get up there, you know, our childhood heroes. That makes sense because we're now later in our years and if we were kids and they were playing in the NFL or Major League Baseball stands, the reason they're probably pretty old. And that's why I think I, I could not go on the air because I had a really difficult time when Coach Landry Passed away in February of 2000. We did go to his. One of his public memorial. We went to. There was a private ceremony, and then there was one.

[Gordon]

And for those of who are just joining us now, who is Coach Landry? Who.

[George]

Who is that man? I guess I gotta explain. Tom Landry, the first head coach the Dallas Cowboys ever had for 29 years, led him to two championships, 20 consecutive winning seasons, a World War II pilot, part of New York Giants championships. He was a football genius. And off the field, he was. He made a huge impact. He was part of the fellowship of Christian athletes. His Christian faith was very out in front. And yeah, I had a really tough time with him to. As a tribute a month later when my youngest son was born. His middle name is Landry. And yeah, he just represented to me everything good about this world and just how you treat people and how you handle yourself. And I just love Tom Landry. And along those lines is Roger. Roger Staubach, who was his quarterback in those championship years of the 70s. I mean, Roger represented everything that we loved about the Cowboys, at least what I loved about sports. And. And we've gotten to know him. See, that's almost a hybrid like you and Wayman. And I didn't really know Landry well, but when I got started in radio, I worked for the flagship station of the Cowboys, and he used to screw up names all the time. And somehow within a few months, he knew my name. And I remember the one time when he called me George, I was like, oh, my gosh, Tom Landry knows my name. But I was thinking about this. I think he said two things to me. It all pretty much looks the same, doesn't it? When he saw me at training camp and I was looking at the practice field, just waiting for the afternoon session to start. And the other time he said, hey, George, hang on just a second. Let me get some clothes on. I think I was the last one to do a radio interview with him when he was the head coach of the Cowboys because Jerry fired him like a month later, and he wasn't doing radio interviews.

[Gordon]

You did the last nude interview that he did?

[George]

Well, he got on some clothes, but when I. When he opened the coach's dressing room, he was nude and, like, hanging nude. He had a towel around him.

[Gordon]

Okay.

[George]

But he said, let me get dressed. And he called me George. And I went, well, that's wild. I saw Tom Landry naked and he calls me George. He knows my name. So that's kind of a hybrid. You know, we kind of knew him But. But we still had him on that pedestal of just somebody that we always admired.

[Craig]

You mentioned Roger, though. When he goes, that will also be a very tough day. Yeah, very tough day.

[George]

Everything that. If. If you've never. We talked about NFL films. This is kind of a parallel to that. If you've never watched a football life, Gordo, watch the Roger Stall back. A Football Life. It involves some NFL footage, but it tells the story of Roger's life and his football life, and it's the best one of those. And I'm saying that as a huge Tom Landry fan, the Roger. It's a football life is absolutely the best.

[Gordon]

And, yeah, I'll be the judge of that.

[George]

I'm with you on Bono and Paul McCartney, which I may share with Gordo again, a guy that he constantly makes fun of, but you do the fake Paul voice all the time when that happens. Yeah, we may need a few days off.

[Gordon]

Yeah. Oh, that'll be a huge one. But that almost is like a huge one for people who are older than us, too, though.

[George]

Sure.

[Gordon]

Paul's a strange one because it's. You know, I. Beatles were long gone before I was around, so.

[George]

But you're very aware of them.

[Gordon]

And yes, oddly enough, they still have young people today that listen to the Beatles. It's crazy that their relevance is main. Has been maintained.

[George]

We're in a safe space here. Right. So I just wanted to bring up something. As we talk about celebrities, and it's the one thing that, as we've been doing our jobs for three decades, I'm very guilty of it. I laugh at the jokes, but I have to admit, it's bothered me through the years. Sometimes when we talk about someone's passing, and when we do, because they're a celebrity, you can throw a couple of jokes in there.

[Gordon]

They're dehumanized because they're celebrity. And that's. That's wrong.

[George]

And I still try to. I know we're out for entertainment, but it's something that's always just kind of stuck in my brain, and it hasn't gone well.

[Gordon]

When you're making jokes of Harry Carey doing a nosedive into a plate of spaghetti.

[George]

I was gonna bring that one up. You started that punchline and you made me repeat it a couple times. Continued it, but, yeah, that's wrong.

[Craig]

Can't you spin it, though? If that celebrity happened to be a comedian or comedic actor, you could say they would want you to honor their legacy by making jokes.

[Gordon]

That's how everyone spends everything. They would want you to have fun. My wife would want me to move on within a week.

[George]

Yeah, I guess eventually we all move on. Is that our way of moving on? Even if it's just hours after? See, I just think that's so wrong. Should we come up with a time period of 24 hours before we can make a joke?

[Gordon]

You can't because now we got Twitter and everyone's got to compete for the best punchline and get it out there the quickest.

[George]

Yeah, that still bothers me and I've got. I've. Again, I'm guilty of it.

[Craig]

I've.

[George]

Sure I've done that many times, but that one still bothers me. Okay.

[Gordon]

But. Okay.

[George]

Oh, go, go ahead.

[Gordon]

Sabrina Carpenter and Billie Eilish's other brother.

[George]

Okay.

[Craig]

Do you have any? Really? See, I was gonna guess Steve Perry would impact you greatly.

[Gordon]

I don't care about that.

[George]

He lost his voice. But yeah, when he loses his life, then that won't be.

[Gordon]

Look at them making jokes.

[George]

I know, bad.

[Gordon]

You know, I think that David Letterman is a, is a good one to push out there because that was, you know, when I was in junior high, I guess, and watching the old Dave Letterman show, I thought that was just the greatest thing ever.

[George]

We did too.

[Gordon]

I know. And so I think that one will affect me and I guess I'll never make good on my. I always wanted to sit down and do a long form interview with David Letterman and I guess that'll never happen. And we're both getting up in age because one of us is about to die, I'm sure sooner, later, and it's probably going to be me. But yeah, Dave Letterman's a good one. I'm trying to think of anyone else though.

[Craig]

Harrison Ford.

[Gordon]

Yeah, all these will affect me, but I'm trying to think of the one that will just be like really, really devastating. Like Harrison Ford. He's older now, so I'm somewhat prepared and I think that going through so much personal death in my own life and family, you know, it's kind of prepared me for. Oh yeah, people do actually die like that before your parents die. I don't think that, or someone close to you like that. You, you just, you know, death is still a rumor to you. You've heard it happen and you kind of seen it from afar, but you don't know that it's really going to happen.

[Craig]

So your parents paved the way for Harrison, for Harrison to pass away?

[Gordon]

Yeah, they, they, they walked so Harrison could run.

[George]

So you can make jokes about his passing.

[Gordon]

Yes, but Dave Letterman, I, you Know, I don't know. I think musically, what would it be? John Taylor, maybe my first bass hero or James McMurtry. An artist that I've always loved listening to, who always sung about life, death and everything in between. Yeah, you know, those will be affecting. But yeah, it's, it's, it's going to be somebody that's me dying. Right. Which is like a childhood hero, a Letterman or someone like that.

[George]

Yeah. And you are right about. After someone really close passes to you, the celebrity death, at least with me it does not hit nearly as hard as it does before you lose a parent or grandparent or whoever it is, a good friend.

[Gordon]

Yeah, man. After that. And of course my parents died pretty close together. And then after that I was like, okay, just. Who else? Just come on, just get it, get it all done, everyone. That's fine. Just one after the other. God, I forgot also, brutal road. I know because it was right during that time, I think we also lost a dog, a cat, a hamster. Everything around was dying. It was crazy. And so then I just got like, you know, I'm just going to turn off this organ that's in the middle of my chest that seems to be beating all the time. I'm just going to just make it to where it just doesn't feel anymore. You didn't start a business just to keep the lights on. You're here to sell more today than yesterday. You're here to win. Lucky for you, Shopify built the best converting checkout on the planet. Like the just one tapping ridiculously fast, acting sky high sales stacking champion at checkouts. That's the good stuff right there. So if your business is in it to win it, win with Shopify. Start your free trial [e-mail] win. My day kicks off with a refreshing Celsius energy drink.

[Craig]

Then straight to the gym, pre K.

[Gordon]

Pickup back home to meal prep.

[Craig]

Time for my fire station shift.

[George]

One more Celsius. Gotta keep the lights on when the three alarm hits.

[Craig]

I'm ready.

[Gordon]

Celsius live fit. Go grab a cold refreshing Celsius at.

[George]

Your local retailer or locate [e-mail]. okay, well, along those lines about our own mortality, I think Gordo may be the only one of the three of us who's actually made some sort of plan about when we pass, what's going to happen to us, how we're going to. We're going to be buried. We're going to be cremated. What sort of ceremony do you want? Do you want it in a church? Do you want it at, I don't know, a favorite family gathering place? Have you even thought about that? Have you told your loved ones this is what you want?

[Gordon]

God, you're really getting depressing. It's practical. It's very practical.

[George]

Trying to be practical. It's something I think you should do as you get. I don't know what you truly should.

[Gordon]

And having gone through that with my parents and even my grandmother who was living with us at the time that she passed, she had pre planned everything. Everything was paid for. And it makes it so much easier if you love your loved ones, which you, you need to do all that planning ahead of time to make it really easy for them. Yeah, really easy. Yes. And my grandmother had also done the set aside of the money. She had pre bought her whole arrangement. So it was. We didn't have to worry about all that kind of stuff. We could just focus on the grieving and not the, the practicalities of it. Now some people may like all that. Hey, give me a logistical project so I don't have to grieve yet. But, but yeah, the, the. You guys have not even like written your comments out or what you want your message from the grave to be or.

[Craig]

I can honestly say I have not given it more than one second of thought. Yeah, like I, and I've always told you guys this when it comes up on our radio show. I don't care. It is completely up to my wife, my family, they can do whatever they want. You can cremate me, you can bury me, you can have a funeral. You don't have a funeral. I don't care. I'm gone. It's whatever they want. It's not what I want.

[Gordon]

Well, you should write that down, you know, and say that. I know that you write that these are my wishes, but in your papers that say, you know, that that way there's no. When you die, there's no conflict about that. And say, you know, I leave it up to my wife because at that point your kid may be older and they say we need to do this and everything. And so you're you delegate who's going to make all those calls.

[George]

Even something like this. Do you want some sort of marker either at a columbarium or a cemetery that says you were here? I thought about that recently.

[Gordon]

Erase yourself from the earth.

[George]

Really?

[Gordon]

That would be my dream.

[Craig]

The earth is going to do it for you anyway. Was that philosopher I heard once, he said, there are the four Ds, there's decline and then there's Death. And then there's disappearance and deletion. We are all headed for the four Ds. We're already declining. We're all going to die, then we'll all disappear. You know, people talk about.

[Gordon]

Yeah, let's add a D in there. After hearing the list, there are a.

[Craig]

Few that will live on for a little while. The uber famous. But for the most part, you disappear the day after you die or the day after the funeral and then you will be deleted from the. The earth's record at some point.

[Gordon]

So hopefully, hopefully that browser history will be deleted and all the.

[George]

That's the delete we need.

[Gordon]

Ill advised tweets will be deleted.

[George]

Yeah, but I do think for the living there is something to being able to go to a grave site and I don't know, just have your time with them.

[Gordon]

Yeah, but how much is that worth?

[George]

I don't know. I don't think it's worth what they charge for a headstone. No, we've talked about that through the years. How much death cost your family?

[Gordon]

Yes.

[George]

Depending on what?

[Gordon]

From the obituary to tremendous wealth extraction tool.

[Craig]

So Gordo, if you've planned this out, what are your plans?

[Gordon]

I have not. He's talking about just the fact that there's a space that I have available if I choose to be buried there.

[George]

But you don't think you're going to use it? I don't.

[Gordon]

I don't think that I will. I mean.

[Craig]

So you haven't thought it out either? Cremation, burial, about what I prefer. Yeah. Or told your.

[Gordon]

I've gone back and forth on that. Over. I mean it just depends on the year, you ask me. So I don't trust me to write anything down to be definitive of it. I mean I have, I have, I do have a list of, you know, favorite songs. Hey, if you want to do anything that, that I would have liked, then these are the things. But I don't. It's up to whatever's the most helpful to the people who are attending. You know, I also have one of these and I don't know what this is. I made a joke about it earlier, you know, that deletion thing. But I kind of just don't want. I'm more of that Norm MacDonald type. And then I think I just kind of want people, nobody to even know that I died. Just kind of like you just disappear from the earth and it's just dying. Yeah.

[Craig]

And.

[George]

But what about for the people here that love you, that want to go.

[Gordon]

By and say there's nobody that loves me.

[George]

George, you are loved.

[Gordon]

There's no. There's not going to be an obituary. There's not going to be anything. It's just going to be.

[George]

I'm going to write your obituary.

[Gordon]

No, I do not trust. That was my. That's the only wish I have.

[George]

That's funny. That's the only wish I had forbidden, is that you were forbidden from talking at my service or writing anything about me.

[Gordon]

Hey, I do good services. I'm going to start going into business doing services.

[Craig]

See, this is why I'm not sure that we need to dictate what our families do for us when we die. Because what if we said no funeral, no ceremony, no nothing, but our family wanted to celebrate us? Aren't you cheating them out of closure? Aren't you cheating them out of that? Being able to say goodbye in the way they wanted to? And that's why I've always said, I don't care. You all do what you want to do because you're the ones that'll still be living.

[George]

I think that's fair. But I think you ought to tell them something. And if your answer is I don't care, buried or cremation, you shouldn't put that on them to go. Gosh. What do you think he really wanted, though, do you think?

[Gordon]

Right.

[George]

Yeah, I think you need to be explicit about it. Yeah. And if it's I don't care, then, yeah, that's fine.

[Craig]

He said he wanted to be stuffed and put over the fireplace, but can we really do this?

[Gordon]

I mean, it was his wish, so let's. Like, the best thing would probably be to donate yourself to science in some way.

[Craig]

Right?

[Gordon]

But then where do you draw the line of, what if your family's not comfortable with that? Which one do you default to?

[George]

I think your wish. Hey. Sorry. I think this is valuable to me, and this was my life and this is how I want it to end.

[Gordon]

But then, like Craig's talking about. But it's your family that you're trying to make it easy, make it as easy as possible. And they may not want you to be down there at that body farm in San Antonio where they study how fast people decay in the wild.

[George]

Are you at a biology class in St. Louis and your body's up there again?

[Craig]

I would default to the family. Family? Whatever the family wants. If that makes them uncomfortable, they can do whatever they want.

[George]

Yeah.

[Gordon]

What if you wanted your organs donated and they're saying, well, I don't want that.

[Craig]

Family gets last call.

[George]

Really?

[Gordon]

Surviving family strangers Die in order for.

[Craig]

Your family to be able to spin it that way.

[Gordon]

I don't know. It seems cooler if he's intact in there.

[George]

You know, what's always bothered me, and this is going back to when I was a kid, is the whole burial process. And I don't want to be buried. And I think that's because.

[Gordon]

Why? Because you are imagining your consciousness still in there.

[George]

My cartoon brain is that I'm underneath trying to get. But it bothered me as a kid, and I was so sad when my grandparents passed and just that we lowered them into the ground. And that, to me, was like the hardest thing of saying goodbye to them.

[Gordon]

And put a ton of dirt on top of them so they really can't escape.

[Craig]

It definitely is sadder and harder to take when you see the coffin going into the ground than if you knew that they had been incinerated.

[Gordon]

So here's my weird take on that, because I also get very troubled by the thought of burial. And when it was my parents, they both chose to be buried. And it freaked me out knowing that they were under that ground. And I remember the first night, it was about a. Seemed like it was about a week after my. I think it was my mother's death that there was a huge rainstorm. It was cold at. At night, as I said, after my father's. And I remember thinking, they're laying in that cold ground, see, in the water, soaking down through that ground. And it just. I could not sleep that whole night.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Gordon]

And it just freaked me out. So, like, when it comes to me personally and it comes to people that I know, I think I don't want any of those people buried. That's too creepy to have a body under the ground. But yet I always love the fact that we found Richard III's skeleton. And we've learned a lot from this, and we've. You know, when you go into ancient past, like, I'm so thankful that those people were buried because we learn so much from them.

[George]

Right.

[Gordon]

When we find their grave or we find the markings on the grave, we study the skeleton. Tutankhamun, you know, so I'm glad that those people weren't obliterated. But yet when it comes to people that I know, and for me, I kind of want that obliteration thing because the earthly remains is way, way too creepy.

[George]

Yeah. The ashes, too. That. That's not as creepy to me. If someone has wishes about ashes, either in an urn and you put them somewhere or, you know, you spread their ashes in their three favorite Places that. That to me makes some sense.

[Gordon]

Yeah. It seems so far removed from a body at that point.

[George]

Yeah.

[Gordon]

It's like. And you know me, I'm convinced that it's those crematorium people. They're just visiting their home fireplace and just saying.

[George]

Just gets. No, they're not.

[Craig]

I think so too.

[Gordon]

Whatever you want to.

[Craig]

I think he's right about that.

[George]

No, don't say that. Okay. You're going to laugh at this. I have told my family that, you know, I want to be cremated. I don't want to be buried.

[Gordon]

And you've imposed that on your family.

[George]

I've imposed that, yes, I've imposed that. But I've also. Tell me if this is creepy. I have talked to an artist who has agreed to play my funeral.

[Gordon]

A musician you've already hired the entertainment.

[George]

Yeah.

[Gordon]

I also have already hired the strippers that I'm going to have at my funeral.

[Craig]

Which artist?

[George]

Wade Bowen to play West Texas Ring.

[Gordon]

Okay.

[George]

It's a look up the song. It's a great song. And it just always really spoke to me. I'll play with it.

[Gordon]

And he and I had accompany him.

[George]

And he and I had way too much vodka together one night and I said, you know, this is gonna seem.

[Gordon]

Weird, but when I die.

[George]

When I die, like, I'm not here.

[Gordon]

Anymore to play the funeral.

[Craig]

So it was something that came out. Came out of a drunken night.

[Gordon]

Yeah.

[George]

No, but we've talked about it so before too. And he's agreed to do it. And he said, yeah, I'll be really sad to play that.

[Craig]

Wait a minute.

[George]

We'll do that for you.

[Craig]

Why were you saying that? Gordo is the only one that's thought about this, where Gordo and I ends up having thought about it. And you're the one that has the most plans.

[George]

I guess I was talking about, you know, with a graveside or something like that.

[Craig]

I've told him I'm going to be cremated. Way. Bowen singing I've got all this stuff.

[George]

Two things. That's it.

[Craig]

That's two more than we selected the.

[Gordon]

NFL films that we'll be playing in such an area.

[George]

Well, I'll say this. When you went through that whole very sad process and you were picking out burial plots, that did make me think, okay, I've got to do some planning. Yes. And I guess I just always figured growing up that we all. Everyone gets buried and you have a headstone. My parents weren't. My grandparents were. And sometimes I will make that trip to Gainesville, which is very out of the way. And I'll go buy their. Their grave sites.

[Gordon]

Yeah.

[George]

And if I'm ever in Missouri, I go by my other grandmothers and my grandfathers and my uncle and, you know, we'll pay my respects there. But how many people still do that? I think that within their own family.

[Gordon]

I think that cremation has been way on the rise. Like, I don't know what the figures are, but I bet you it's about, like, divorce. It's 50, 50 these days. I don't know that that's true.

[George]

I have no idea.

[Gordon]

My feeling on it. And back to that idea of burial. Yes. As soon as you get past a generation, I want everybody buried. Like, I love it. I've been to my great grandfather's grave. People I never met. Right. But my ancestors. Like, I think it's really cool that I know where they're all from and I've done my genealogy work and that I can go to a place in Scotland and stand right next and go, God, that is my great, great, great grandfather. I mean, that is just cool to me. Whereas I wouldn't have that sense of continuity of the human chain that I'm a part of the humanity that I'm from if everybody was buried and burned up and then dropped down somebody's pant leg at Disney World.

[Craig]

So this is surprising. 65% of people are cremated today, 35% buried.

[George]

Okay.

[Craig]

So it's heavily cremation.

[Gordon]

Yeah.

[George]

We're running out of real estate. That's what Rodney Dangerfield said in Caddy.

[Craig]

Back in the 90s. 20% cremated and 80% buried. It's flipped that much since the 90s.

[George]

Okay.

[Gordon]

And in fairness, I would not have bought a funeral plot had it not been for my dad. You know, it was shopping with him. And then there was this family area of the cemetery. And I thought that was a really weird moment. And I still have that picture of my dad that I snapped when we were out there touring that. And he was having to. Because my mom died first, eight months before my dad did, and he was picking out her. Where she was going to be buried. And so that's when bought the family plot, and he bought one for him. And I bought a few, too, at the same time in the same area. And I snapped this picture, my dad, as we were walking away, and he stopped and hung back behind me. And the guy who was the sales guy, you're gonna love this gravesite. Air blows cold, everything's got low miles. But, yeah, I turned around. Dad had lingered back behind that And I have a picture of him standing over there looking at the spot where he was going to be.

[Craig]

Wow.

[Gordon]

And eight months later, he was there.

[George]

Oh, gosh, man.

[Craig]

Well, so, because you have a spot, could you change your mind? Would you?

[Gordon]

Oh, I think I will change. I don't.

[George]

Cremated, yes.

[Gordon]

Because I don't think I've even. I mean, I bought the spot. I don't feel committed to.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Gordon]

Like, really and truly, I think I just want to bury some old junk down there.

[George]

Okay. Wait a minute.

[Craig]

Ago. Time capsule.

[Gordon]

Yeah.

[Craig]

How about that?

[Gordon]

There are a few of my favorite guitars.

[George]

Dig it up and in 50 years.

[Gordon]

Yeah. And see what surprises I left for you.

[Craig]

See who gets arrested digging that up in a cemetery. So if you want to think they're.

[George]

Digging up a grave, if you want to back out of that, can you sell it back to the cemetery who owns it?

[Gordon]

You probably could. And people sell grave sites all the time. Like you look in the classifieds. Classifieds is very up to date.

[George]

Craigslist or whatever advertising they don't want anymore.

[Gordon]

Absolutely. The ones they didn't use, they bought a few, but then someone chose to be buried somewhere else or they just don't need it. And so people sell grave sites all the time.

[George]

Well, if you do decide to have a casket, go ahead and go through your plans of the ceremony and what that's going to look like with the.

[Gordon]

What are you talking about?

[George]

Don't bail on me. Do your joke. We'll end on that.

[Gordon]

I may have changed my mind, but at one time, my funeral planning included taking my dead, deceased body and then tying some strings to it and rigging up a trust system to where I could be marionetted down the aisle. After everyone was seated in the church, I could marionette dancing down the aisle to the Muppets moving down the road.

[Craig]

Oh, that'd be so great.

[Gordon]

And be comically, you know, kind of. Kind of like the scarecrow in wizard of Oz. You know, the way he would go down the yellow brick road and so. And then get up to the casket and then hop in and flop up into the casket and then have a hand come up. My hand comes up and then pulls it closed, and then you hear a big cymbal crash sound when it closes.

[George]

You've made people laugh all these years. It's not a crazy idea.

[Gordon]

Could not do that to my own funeral.

[George]

Even your family, I think. Okay, there's one last joke there. He got the best of us. All right.

[Gordon]

Have you picked the officiant for your funeral? If you guys die before me. I can't. You're not gonna let me talk? I want to talk.

[George]

Oh, you are not.

[Gordon]

I demand air time. No, at your funeral.

[George]

Yes. I do have one.

[Gordon]

Is it Wade Bowen?

[George]

No, it's. No, it's not a musician. It's former pastor.

[Gordon]

Okay. Yeah. You're going the pastor route.

[George]

Yeah. Don't dismiss that.

[Gordon]

Anything outside the box. Think AM radio personality that you worked with for a lot of years.

[George]

What about you? Who wants. Who do you want to speak?

[Gordon]

Oh, I don't. I don't know. No one could do as good a job at me, so I'll just pre record it.

[George]

He.

[Craig]

He really thinks that way.

[George]

I bet he's going to start recording that today.

[Craig]

There's no question.

[George]

Big production elements in a video, you.

[Gordon]

Know, now it's going to get to be where you guys will probably speak at your own funerals. They'll AI voice it. Your family will AI voice it and they'll have, you know.

[George]

What would George say?

[Gordon]

We fed in all his data into this AI to what he felt about his life and we'll see what it spits out.

[George]

You are right about that. When's that going to be offered now by the funeral home?

[Gordon]

Next Thursday.

[George]

Okay, well, we ended on a high. We didn't. We ended on a funny moment. Right. We didn't end on this. Depression.

[Gordon]

I think I feel kind of depressed.

[George]

Well, if you have an idea for us or if you have a comment, you can email [e-mail] thanks to Peter Welton for putting up with us for another week producing the Musers the podcast.

[Gordon]

Question, would you be interested in Muser's merch, t shirt, hat, etc. Would love to hear your ideas and your interest. Send it to the same email George mentioned. Themuserspodmail.com thanks again for listening. The the podcast is a tired head production. Whoa. This isn't your average podcast.

[Craig]

Do you like party?

[Gordon]

I do like a huge chug of tequila.

[George]

The howler head whiskey bottle chug in front of Dana White.

[Gordon]

That was the first time we ever went to la. We somehow got into a diddy party. What's the Elon Musk house party look like?

[George]

My party's generally a very high production value.

[Gordon]

This is full send. I do want to do a lot more pranks. Bunch of different pranks.

[Craig]

Join the party.

[Gordon]

Jack Doherty in the house. Feeling good, man. What are we going to talk about with Will Smith?

[George]

I know what you're going to say.

[Gordon]

Shout out to Tiovon.

[George]

It's been entertaining.

[Craig]

Dude.

[Gordon]

The full send podcast.

[Craig]

Grab the boys, grab the beers.

[George]

Let's do it.

[Gordon]

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