She So Funny

One of my favorite comics, Joey Gay, did something kind of really brilliant last night; he had his own funeral. I received a Facebook message from him a few days prior that read, "This Thursday I'm having a FUNeral. 9PM, Brooklyn." Best Facebook message I've read since my mom asked me if I was high in all the photos I was tagged in.

No expense was spared in making it authentic. The guests, adorned in black clothing, arrived at The Bourgeois Pig in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn for drinks, after which we walked next door to a creepy but beautiful but eerie funeral home. This was the second time I had ever stepped foot in such a place. Death is fascinating to me and I certainly have a healthy phobia of it. To attend a comedy show at a funeral home is one of the most confusing, so-wrong/so-right things I've done. They had Joey's name on the plaque and when we reached the top of the steps to the space where the FUNeral was to take place, the room was set up exactly Iike the last time I was in a funeral home (aside from the DJ booth... that was new). Rows of chairs in an ornate room leading up to an casket and an easel with pictures of Joey from a young age. Instead of a body, the casket had a wooden sign in it that said "NOT YET MOTHERFUCKERS."

Maddog Mattern hosted an exceptional line-up of comics: Mike Bocchetti, Lloyd Floyd, Dave Wait, and of course, Joey Gay popping out of a casket and giving his own eulogy. The audience was roaring the whole sho, it was an amazing, provoking evening. One of those nights you'll talk about for a long time. "Hey remember when that dude had his own funeral?" I will say when I'm 70 to my friend who came with me. Look up these comics and follow them, they are all gold.

I asked Joey why the hell he decided to do this.

"Life is the ultimate joke, you're born a premise, spend 70 to 80 years doing the set-up, and the punch line is that you're dead and gone. I had a FUNeral to look forward and to look back. I heckled life and it's the only heckling I recommend. I do recommend it, it is a way to do somewhat of a kind introspection. That's what the thinking man in me says. The mook in me sums it up this way: What The Fuck?"

He added that this was the first time he has ever been in a casket, saying it was "truly a rush of emotions. The silliness of it overwhelmed me at one point and I giggled. Then I made a call to the DJ so he could introduce me. I also, for a moment, thought about the inevitability of me actually needing one one day. Of course, butterflies for the show as well."

You can follow Joey on twitter @JoeyGay for upcoming dates and further hilarity.