DFH Eulogy

All right, I don’t fully grok what a DFH is in political terms.  I only learned what those letters actually meant around 5 months ago.

But still.

No offense to anyone, but all the “do _____ to make Teddy proud!” touched something off in me.

I have to laugh (in sort of a double-entendre-like fashion) to think of what folks would tell others to do in my memory if I kicked the bucket.  All this talk about Ted put me in a Tom Sawyer’s funeral kind of mood, you see.

Ok, want to read something insufferably pompous to a DFH like me?

Ted Kennedy was a flawed human being.

Well, who gets to judge that?  The human being who has no flaws?  And who might that be?

Sure wouldn’t be me.  Can’t touch that, as MC Hammer once said.

Really.  Fuck that shit.  Seriously.

Me, I’d be happy for someone like … oh, Peter Guralnick, who wrote a two-volume biography of Elvis Presley — to write about Ted Kennedy’s life without that shit about being a flawed human being and moralizing.

His bio of Elvis was the kind of bio where you don’t judge at all because you’re so amazed by the story itself, and Guralnick doesn’t get in the way of that.

Anyway, barring some really talented biographer who actually knows the craft of biography, I’m not going to judge Ted Kennedy’s morality or personal life.

Not that I’m not curious … I’m as susceptible to gossip as anyone.  Heh.

What a brilliant screen he was, though, for a certain generation of us to project our highest aspirations and watch them turn into mandalas of golden light.

(“Did you get a hit?”)

Maybe this isn’t a DFH eulogy, maybe it’s my attempt as a female to do a gonzo eulogy.  Now that would be a laugh.

So the Irish have wakes, I believe, where folks laugh and cry and remember and have a unique soulful celebration and I can see Ted having something like that.

The man had style and came of age during an extremely stylish time, with lots of glamour and prosperity and post-WWII confidence and coolitude.

I think I had better quit while I’m ahead.

Condolences.