I just returned from the memorial event for a long-time friend and colleague who died, suddenly, two months ago. We were not very close, and I had not seen or spoken to him in in over a decade, but we had done a lot of projects together (he was a pianist), and as Yogi Berra said, “If you don’t go to your friends’ funerals, they won’t come to yours.” The deceased was a really lovely human being, unusually so, and I felt privileged to have known him. So I went.
As I expected, I knew almost no one there, just a couple of theater community members and another musician who had played with my friend in a production I directed. Do provide name tags for such events. If you don’t they begin with a lot of wandering around and anxiety.
Another missing element today: there was no pre-announced end time. There was a program, but without any set times and vague entries like “Remembrances and stories” an attendee faces the theoretical possibility that the event will go on forever. And indeed, as the afternoon dragged on, I found myself wondering, “Am I going to die here?”
Because there were many musicians among the celebrants, we were treated to five musical selections by 1) a professional baritone singing “The Impossible Dream,”2) a passable tenor singing a song from an unproduced musical written by the deceased’s common law ex-wife (and making it clear why the musical remains unproduced), 3) another song, this one a duet, from that same source, 4) a very long Polish Christmas carol sung by a very old soprano and accompanied by a violin played by an even older violinist, then 5) the very old soprano sang “You’ll Never Walk Alone” from “Carousel.”
The quality of the performances went down-hill from “The Impossible Dream,” but the main problem was that five unconnected musical performances is a revue, not a memorial service. This was the beginning of my fear that I was in an endless time loop. But there was more! A screen was pulled down and we were treated to an amateur video of my dead friend sight-reading an interminable medley of songs on the piano. This feature all by itself took more than a half an hour. Videos in such situations are like your grandfather showing home movies to dinner guests. If you have to include them at all, make them short and to the point. But no, after my friend’s shaky piano performance, complete with crude special effects like animated hearts leaping off the keys, the video shifted to an empty church with my friend accompanying a large baritone as he sang a fatuous musical prayer that may have been composed by Barney. (“I bless you, you bless me…”) The guy could sing, I’ll grant that, and he was at the memorial, so he could have sung live. I guess the idea was that the video had the loved one playing, but the video was also echo-y, in drab surroundings, of a drab song.
Ethics Alarms 
I’m sorry you had to go through this, Jack. But I suspect that you also know that this story, as told, is side-splittingly hilarious (and nicely packaged as such).
I doubt I’ve met anyone who actually likes going to funerals and/or memorial services (with billions of people in the world, I’m sure there are such folks – but at least they’re not obvious about it). Is it really to much to ask that those organizing such an event recognize that fact, and works to optimize the flow?
Apparently it is. Clueless people sometimes take special occasions as opportunities to stage-manage disaster, in pursuit of ego-boosting perfection. The best analog I can give was the wedding of one of my cousins, which began with a prelude by the World’s Smallest String Quartet (only three of ’em showed up, and beyond the prelude they played incidental music for the rest of it. String quartets REALLY need that cello, especially if the viola player is shaky). As if that were insufficient bad music, there was a mid-event performance by a singer-songwriter friend of the Happy Couple, who debuted a bespoke paean to them roughly equivalent in length to the first two movements of Yes’s Tales from Topgraphic Oceans. Oh, and for good measure, the service included a full Mass, which was particularly curious in that just about everyone in attendance, including the the bride and groom, were Episcopalian.
So I guess I answer my own question. No, clueless people will NEVER optimize the flow, because they don’t understand the first thing about it, and they’ll feature idiots who don’t understand that the event isn’t about themselves in the first place. Thus, such people will continue to dish out agonizing events without ever understanding that they were disasters, and all that we can hope for is that 1) we never have to attend one of their productions again, and 2) they never have the opportunity to produce one in our honor.
At least my cousin’s wedding had open bars featuring 1) top-shelf booze and 2) non-stop, shucked-to-order local shellfish. That made up for a lot. Take it from me: continuous champagne and all-you-can-eat oysters-on-the-half can do a lot to wash away prior boredom and insult, especially when surround by compatriots who were equally bored and insulted, and who wish to crack wise about it. The day proved wonderful indeed. I presume that you weren’t afforded similar compensation.
But good on you for going to your colleague’s service. It was the right thing to do.
Thanks. I was on a Zoom memorial during the pandemic, and one of the people on it just monopolized the session, talking about eternity and love and loyalty and then after boring everyone stiff, said he had never personally met the deceased!!!! It reminded me of that gag in “Mean Girls,” where a female student gives an impassioned speech about the importance of getting along, then admits that she doesn’t even go to school there.
This is the first EA post that would make a great short story. Particularly the George Sand and Franz Liszt part. But I have to ask, if she is George Sand, shouldn’t the husband have been Frederic Chopin? Hilarious.
“I had been sitting for more than two hours.”
The mind can embrace only as much as the seat can endure.
PWS
I was tabbed to be one of the people to eulogize my best friend at his funeral service in an Episcopal church in Connecticut. Everyone was given a strict three-minute time limit. Which caused me to scribble out the text of what I wanted to say, which I had, foolishly, intended to ad lib. I read my bit, like everyone else, observing the three-minute time limit, and all was well.
I help people plan funerals. They are given guidlines:
Eulogy by one person, duration 5-7 minutes
No bawdy stories
Picture momentos limited to ten
Video limited to a single 10 minute loop.
Use of the parish hall two hours
Bring the flowers and momentos home