Death: The Final Taboo (podcast episode)

Shortly before his death in February 2024, Samuel Glass, Jr. (Black Bear Voice) suggested this as a podcast episode for the “Taboo Truths and Tales” podcast series. He provided the episode title and original music.

Transcript:

Announcer: From Las Vegas, Nevada. Episode one from season eight of the “Taboo Truths and Tales” podcast series.

Narrator: Not expecting anything unusual. Dying is what happens to you when you are making other plans. I am the narrator. I am the poet. I am the spokesperson. I am the dead guy. Yeah. You heard me — the dead guy. Shut the fuck up. Just listen. Okay?

This is the taboo truths and tales podcast series coming to you from Las Vegas, Nevada This is season eight episode one. The title of this podcast is: “Death — the final taboo.” The final taboo. What the fuck does that mean I asked you to just listen. Okay? Just fucking listen to me. The dead guy, the poet, the narrator, the spokesperson, blah blah blah blah.

A February night in 2024. That was all she wrote. My heart failed. Fucking failed. That means–for those of you who are not medical doctors–that means the patient, the patient died, stopped breathing checked out, left this mortal coil; all that shit. Just died, gone without a warning.

Just fucking gone. So maybe I sound just a little tiny bit angry. You think? You expect me to be happy and upbeat and singing a Rogers and Hammer tune maybe? Uh okay then Rogers and Hammerstein. No tune. Just lyrics. Sit down.

Here we go:
“Poor Judd is dead. Poor Judd Fry is dead. I’ll gather around his coffin now and cry. He had a heart of gold and he wasn’t very old. Oh why did such a feller have to die? Poor Judd is dead. Poor Judd is dead. He’s looking also peaceful and serene.” From Oklahoma, not the state, the musical, you idiot, the musical. Wait. It was the first musical from Rogers and Hammerstein—Oklahoma. Poor Judd is dead. The song is called “Poor Judd is Dead,” My first real awareness of what death meant. From a fucking Broadway musical number.

Anyway, I am now replacing poor Judd. That means–for those of you who aren’t medical doctors–this means this is not about not about Judd This is about me I am the dead guy. I am gone now This was recorded for playback in this dimension. Coming to you from Las Vegas, Nevada where anything is possible. Even dead guys can have a voice. Just shut the fuck up and listen to me or I will really, really get mad.

I was in home hospice. What does that mean? It means you are in your own home. It means nurses come to your home clean up your shit because you soiled yourself man, you shit in your own bed. Ever wanna see a grown man cry? He sobs like a little, tiny baby. It happens when he shits his own bed. Shits his own bed. He cries after that. Sobs and sobs some more.

Anyway, home hospice, talking about home hospice, they send a nurse to come by. A male nurse is what they sent for me. He cleaned up my shit. He rolled me over. He cleaned my shit In my bed. He was just doing his job. He cleaned up my shit. The first time, man, the first time I was stunned. That male nurse, he cleaned up my shit. After more additional instances of the aforementioned shitting my own bed, well.

Well, it becomes routine. Fucking routine. Just another day in paradise. Another different male nurse this time. He cleans up my shit. Wow! How can anyone work in a profession, a career a job like nursing? Home hospice is as depressing as you can imagine. Yeah, it really is fucking awful. It’s all about what can only be rightfully called the final days, the end of the end as McCartney would say. Your final days.

Home hospice is not fun. Maybe you don’t want home hospice care. Maybe just maybe. Better options are out there? I don’t know, I’m just a dead guy in Las Vegas, gone now. What you’re hearing right now are only echoes, not the real man’s voice. Dead men tell no tales. You heard that phrase before, right? It’s a hundred and ten percent accurate. Let me tell you. Let me assure you, true. It is not fake news. It is the truth. Dead guys have no voices, except perhaps in surreal taboo podcast episodes from Las Vegas–where anything you can imagine can actually fucking happen. Yeah, of course. Of course.

A taboo truth. Or is it a taboo tale of fiction? Don’t ask. Dead guys keep their secrets, man. They really do. So totally true, man. I had little chance of surviving for more than a month after I was released from intensive care at a hospital. Little chance at all. I ended up in rehab. They tried to make me go to rehab. But I said no, no, no. Actually I had no say in that at all. Amy Winehouse could not save me. So after I spent time in rehab–and it was not rehab for drug abusers–I was merely a very ill man who was not long for this life. So they let me out of rehab. I got to go home. My own bed. My own place. Home. And then, I was in home hospice care. It’s a signal that you’re on your way on the road to nowhere, on your way to being dead. That’s what happened to me, the dead guy.

Me being poetic now. Dead men are not poets. Dead men are not spokespersons. Who are dead men gonna speak on behalf of anyway? The home hospice care industry? I fucking think not, baby. No fucking way am I gonna be a spokesperson for home hospice care.

But as they say all things must pass. So that’s what went down. No more life. No more breathing. No more shit in my own bed. I was set free. I was liberated. I was dead. No pain when you’re dead. You’re just dead. I can tell you that much. Yes, I can.

You wanna know if there’s a life after death? Not something I can help you with here. I don’t know what to tell you about life after death. Don’t have a clue. No answers for you today. Sorry.

The taboo–what is the taboo here? Death. The final taboo. The title of this podcast episode. What the fuck. What does that title mean anyway? Well, for all who can hear the sound of my voice the final taboo is–drum roll please–the final taboo is death. Nobody wants to talk about talk. Too taboo a subject. Nobody wants to talk about home hospice care. Too taboo a subject. Nobody wants to talk about the final days of a sick person’s life. Too taboo a subject.

So what do most people do instead? You already know. You already know, don’t you. They do not talk about death, the taboo subject nobody dares talk about or plan for. The final taboo. That’s what death is. The final taboo. You don’t talk about it. So you know what? Death sneaks up on you. Boom! One day, it arrives without a warning. Nobody has to hear the doorbell at your home to know that death is coming in. Coming in to take you away, to set you free, to liberate you. No more pain. No more suffering. Death sets you free from all that, but death is a taboo subject. So few people wanna plan for what happens after they have died. That not talking about death in advance can cause a lot of shitty problems for your family. The funeral industry. The funeral industry. What a dark side of life. It’s called the death care industry but what a fucking inappropriate phrase, right? Death and care are words that go together well.

Well. So just rely upon, just cling to your taboo about death. Don’t make plans. Don’t think about unpleasant stuff like stopping breathing. Don’t think at all. Then it just happens. Then it is just over and done with.

That’s my message. From this poet, this narrator, this spokesperson. This, the dead guy from Las Vegas. Have a nice life.

Announcer: You have been listening to “Death: The Final Taboo” from Las Vegas, Nevada. Episode one from season eight of the Taboo Truths and Tales” podcast series.