FanUse,
I think that was Phil’s point. It wasn’t anyone’s there Father’s funeral. It was a celeberity. He was just reacting to someone saying “They Didn’t deserve to die.”
I guess I will let Phil answer that himself, I jsut wanted to put my two cents in.
pat
My quote was “But emotional hyperbole doesn’t give you carte blanche to act like an asshole.” and this came after your “I can now play golf better than Payne Stewart and outrun Walter Payton” quote which was ommited from your post above and, IMO, was very asshole-ish.
To summarize:
-Your first post was tactless. I responded with a “If you don’t have anything nice to say about Walter Payton, then don’t post on this thread. Start a new one in the BBQ Pit.”
-Instead of doing this, you decided to post something on the same thread that was very sarcastic and aimed at “celebrity worship”. If this wasn’t aimed specifically at people posting to that thread, then it belonged either on a different thread or different forum.
-You then accuse me and others of greiving over “a complete stranger simply because he was famous”. I pointed out that that’s not what I was doing.
-You respond by quoting Satan from a post that he later revised if not rescinded. Strawman.
-Omniscient’s post takes somes personal swipes at you. You feel that this justifies making a tasteless joke and claim that we’re acting like “our dad died”. If you’re aiming this at society and not SDMBers, then please be more explicit as that is not the impression I came away with.
Can you not understand why I found your posts callous?
In light of the fact that I inlcluded my own posts, please point out exactly where I say nobody should be grieving.
Do you not get that I was specifically commenting on the statements regarding who does and does not “deserve to die”? Do you need the facilitator also?
This man was not your father; he was a famous athlete. Do you not see the difference?
“Argue with what I said, not what you think or hope I said.” - Me
Pat,
As always, I appreciate your 2 cents, but I don’t think that it’s appropriate to say those kind of things at a eulogy, online or not, or for a celeb or not.
BTW, at least one of the people that posted to that thread DID personally know Walter Payton and for all you, Phil, or I know, other people lurking might have known him. What if some of his family read the SDMB?..is that too far fetched to believe?
And which, I mentioned, was a swipe from a standup comedian, a famous one whose name I can’t recognize. Lesson #2 in How Celebrities Are Better: If someone who makes $20,000 a show says it, it is funny. It isn’t my fault you people can’t laugh at death.
Here’s an example from my own life. When Kurt Cobain killed himself, I thought it really sucked. I like Nirvana a lot, I had seen them in concert, I admired his songwriting skill and in general thought he was talented.
When I first heard the news, my first thought was that I wasn’t terribly surprised. My second was, “What a frigging waste.”
At the time, a friend and I were doing a college radio show on Thursday nights. That week, I brought my guitar, we wrote some parody lyrics about Kurt’s suicide and autopsy to the tune of Nirvana’s “Lithium,” and sang it on the air.
Death is inevitable, therefore I laugh at it.
I disagree that it was tactless. I asked who did deserve to die if Payton and Stewart did not. That’s all I asked.
It was aimed, and I would surmise that it hit the right ones. They all yelped, didn’t they?
It sure seemed that way to me, and still does.
Obviously the point still stood regardless of whether Satan agreed with his own words. Why do you think Omniscient went to such great pains to defend how great celebrities are, and how hard they work, and what superior people they are?
Some?
“Argue with what I said, not what you think or hope I said.” - Me
“Argue with what I said, not what you think or hope I said.” - Me
Phil, by your own admission earlier in this very thread, you said things that were snotty and sarcastic in reference to Payton.
It pissed people off…duh…people don’t appreciate the kind of comments that you made at a eulogy. Please reread this paragraph as many times as it takes to sink in.
I can when its funny, not simply stupid. I found the “six under” joke funny. If you’re going to swipe material from someone, at least swipe good stuff. Accusing me of being a Pauly Shore fan because I didn’t laugh at your stupid joke is pretty low, even for the BBQ Pit.
Fucking Gallagher fan 
Gallagher fan? Oh, man, you guys wish you were Pauly Shore fans!!
Oh, and Fantastic Martyred Contestant #73? First off, you can’t be “at” a eulogy. It isn’t a place, it’s a speech. Second, don’t speak for “people,” when clearly some of them shared my opinion. It just makes you look, well, dumb. Well, dumber, anyway.
“Argue with what I said, not what you think or hope I said.” - Me
I was calling you the Gallagher fan. I know you were think and hoping otherwise.
Well, then now you’re just being mean.
Carrot Top fan.
“Argue with what I said, not what you think or hope I said.” - Me
"Well, then now you’re just being mean.
Carrot Top fan."
Hold it! This may be the pit and all, but accusing someone of being a Carrot Top fan is crossing the line of decency. Please try and control yourself better. 
Why you…Ray Stevens…
I’m sorry. It’s too hard to type with the tears streaming down my face.
Phil said:
Here’s an example from my own life. When Kurt Cobain killed himself, I thought it really sucked. I like Nirvana a lot, I had seen them in concert, I admired his songwriting skill and in general thought he was talented.
When I first heard the news, my first thought was that I wasn’t terribly surprised. My second was, “What a frigging waste.”
At the time, a friend and I were doing a college radio show on Thursday nights. That week, I brought my guitar, we wrote some parody lyrics about Kurt’s suicide and autopsy to the tune of Nirvana’s “Lithium,” and sang it on the air.
Death is inevitable, therefore I laugh at it.>>>
And maybe that’s what the rub is. (That was a terrible sentence!) I mean, people can’t treat death humorously.
There are those who find “celebrity death” humor tasteless, but I think its part of what goes along with being a public figure.
Here in Chicago, Walter is on a pedestal, but it didn’t take long for jokes about Payne Stewart, or JFK Jr., etc to circulate.
And yet, there are those who can’t handle that at all. I have a brother-in-law who is witty and sarcastic, a biting sense of humor, who makes light of not only public figures, but folks in our own family, often tastelessly and unmercifully. But if someone dies, you can’t make fun of them anymore, its “tasteless,” or “crude.”
I don’t get it. If anything, it should be the opposite. Once someone’s gone, they can’t be offended by your humor anymore. But where do we get off ripping folks in life, and then suddenly treat them saintly when they die? Is this part of the celebrity culture?
SoxFan59
“Its fiction, but all the facts are true!”
Welcome to the online world, Phil, where you get to interact with all kinds of people, including the dense, the tense, the paranoid, the uptight and the just plain stupid.
Goes with the territory…
Phil says:
Yet he denies any accusations of being a troll.
Thats all I needed to see to give up on any concept of rational discussion.
Get back to me when you have a working concept of the English language, Sunny Jim.
pldennison – we’ve had a few rows on other threads but that doesn’t mean I attack everything you say just because we ONCE fought. In fact, I’ve only fought with you over I think two issues. I really don’t hate or like you. I don’t KNOW you so it’s hard to say. As a regular poster I realize that sometimes I fight with folks and then agree with them later in another thread. That’s the nature of opinions. I try really hard not to let past stuff get in the way with what is being said NOW. Anywho…
I’ve gotten into my own fight on what you brought up about death/celebrity. I was struck by the outpouring during Princess Di’s death and then I got into it with some people that Mother Teresa (sp?) died shortly there after yet there wasn’t that same, “Oh my God! How sad! How tragic! She didn’t deserve it!”.
I’m not knocking Di but I think Mom did a hell of a lot more than the princess ever did. But still, neither of those deaths meant a whole lot to me because I DON’T KNOW THEM! As I said in another thread, I can understand feeling something when a person you admire but don’t know dies. But it doesn’t even come close to how it feels when it’s your mom, your dad, your sister or brother. NO ONE is worth anymore than anyone else. IMHO it’s absurd to feel the death of (insert celebrity name here) is more tragic than the death of the man at the corner store.
If YOU died tomorrow and I found out via the board, yes, I would feel something, perhaps sadness or a feeling of loss. But it wouldn’t be the profound grief I would feel at the loss I suffered over my brother. I’m amazed at how people take the deaths of celebrities as their OWN personal loss.
I sympathize with Phil and Stoidela. Seems to me that we think we know famous people, whether they be sports stars or movie actors or musicians or politicians. I mean, how often is it that someone in our families or one of our close friends dies? Rarely. The last time it happened to me was 1993, when my grandmother died. I imagine that most of us only experience death personally rarely. So then, deaths of famous people who we think we know, rather than having just listened to their songs or seen their movies or watched them play a sport, strike us hard. Those famous people were part of our family and we knew them…yet they weren’t and we didn’t.
Hey Phil, You and I disagree about many things but I think your thread is a GREAT one. I get tired of the same thing myself. Nice work!
Yours,
The Phade
ps, when you said sunny jim I shit myself!
Oops, bad language, that’s kinda aloud down here isn’t it?
Great Thread!
That which a man had rather were true he more readily believes.