Category: death

Do It All Dad had a bit in his old standup comedy act called Wise Black Grandma, where he’d say, “If I could do it again, I would’ve subbed my no-show whiny Jewish grandma for a wise black grandma, to fill in her place at my wedding, instead. Post an ad on Craigslist: ‘Wise Black Grandma need for a wedding in Woodstock. Tyler Perry impersonators are welcome. Must be comfortable performing in front of white audiences only.’”  

            Growing up, Do It All Dad grew a fondness, teetering on full blown love, for his substitute Grandpa Ed, who exuded the furry-browed, warm-hearted, wiser glint you’d expect from a retired Jewish estate tax lawyer from Queens in his button-up, neatly woven sweaters and whiff of well-put-together aftershave.

            Becoming a grandpa doesn’t make you into Santa Claus, yet Grandpa Ed (his substitute Grandpa, whom his Jewish Grandma Ethel had remarried soon after the death of her first husband Murray) would shell out an always-neat, crisp five-dollar bill for the grandkid who found the Afikoman (which is the half-broken piece of matzah that little Jewish kids go looking for after dinner for Passover.

            It was a nice, cheer-filled touch to celebrate the Jewish people’s liberation from slavery in honor of God’s hardcore divine intervention years on the behalf of his chosen people. Who were meant to become cosmic perfectionist lovers of TV, who lived to complain in restaurants about unrecognized, immediate service.

            Now, Grandpa Ed had a grandson from his first marriage, yet you didn’t get that distinct impression, based on the eulogy he delivered on his grandpa’s behalf, and Roger was billed as the really smart one because he played chess and wore plenty of turtlenecks (which gives you ten extra IQ points, easy). 

            Grandpa Ed was dead now, and Roger (who later went to Harvard) was supposed to be giving a heartfelt eulogy in honor of his biological grandfather (not his rebound one). This involved merely reading some boring letter that his original wife wrote to Grandpa Ed, devoid of any juicy details such as their sweaty sex period after World War II, when she used to lick ice cream bonbons off his bellybutton during those brutally hot summer Queens nights before Grandpa passed the bar, became a family estate tax lawyer, and they could afford an AC unit of their own.

            This failed to bring back any semblance of a real-deal connective feeling, either.

            Eulogies really do separate the men from the ungrateful twats such as Roger, who couldn’t muster up a single original, expressive remembrance of his dead biological grandfather, who’d treated him like the second coming of Bobby Fisher.  Eulogies would also reveal if Grandpa had raised a cunt-for-brains daughter, too.

            Now, there’s a good kind of gall and a bad kind of gall. Faye, Roger’s clammy, insincere, peppy, patronizing, style-free, a tad stumpy mother, showcased the worst kind of gall when, during her eulogy, she went for the kishkes (meaning the intestines, in Yiddish) by openly declaring permanent f-you season on Do It All Dad’s grandma when she said, with what felt like manufactured, dialed-up invective, “I’m just glad that now Dad can join Mom in heaven,” which was a low blow on par with Mini Me trying to gnaw off Austin’s Power’s nuts in The Spy That Shagged Me.  

            Now, in the limo ride to the gravesite, Faye asks Do It All Dad, a 20-year-old college junior at the time, “You didn’t write your eulogy did, you?”            He says, “No, my mom wrote it for me, Faye.”           Faye almost stutters and says, “Well, I just thought.”  

            The twenty-year-old Do It All Dad adds, “You thought what, Faye? That I hired a eulogy ghostwriter with the bus boy tip money I earned this summer in Cape Cod?

            “My eulogy was well received by the Rabbi because it sprang from my heart, Faye. Regardless if Grandpa Ed was my rebound grandpa or not, he still treated me like I was his own grandson, worthy of his wisdom and love. I recall him telling me how to place my feet when using a 7-iron once, which is more than my own dad ever taught me (besides a half-formed hook shot).

            “Wasn’t there anything Roger could’ve mentioned to honor his legacy, outside of reading an old letter that his first wife wrote? Reality is, your son Roger, the genius, is the one guilty of plagiarizing, by stealing the memories contained in an old letter your mom wrote to fill in the lapse of having any soul serenade sermon to deliver on his own.

            “And where do you get the gall to disrespect my grandmother at her dead husband’s funeral, regardless if you feel that her endlessly manic bi-polar art buying spree of southwest American Indian art was responsible for draining his will to live one second more, either.

            “Also, Jews focus on more Mitzvah and doing good for the sake of doing good here on Earth without the intention of sole financial gain or promised hooked-up afterlife in Heaven, where all sins are cleared even if Grandpa Ed asked Jesus to forgive him for raising such a cunt-for-brains like yourself.

            “Do I have way with words or what? But I’m positive Roger will make an excellent food coloring chemist for Johnson and Johnson to overcompensate for his color-free personality, which he could thank you for inheriting at your funeral, too.”

Michael Kornbluth