Perceived and Posted by Jerry Schwartz

Forget science and statistics. Obituary pages of The New York Times are evidence that people clearly are living longer. Rarely a day goes by that prominent people buried on those pages aren’t regularly, if not commonly, in their 80s and 90s.

Many, in fact, are people we thought had already died years ago. A movie star, sports great, pious politician or celebrity executive out of the headlines for so long, they go unnoticed by TMZ. Perhaps it’s considerate, or vain, of them to have hidden so well that we remember them the way they were. . . at their peak of popularity. Incredibly, invisibility is their final publicity stunt.

A client, a prominent trusts and estates attorney, offered that one reason people populating the Times Obit page seem to kick the bucket at riper older ages is that most are successful enough to live their lives better and longer and die better and slower. The rich are different – they can afford to take care of themselves and take healthcare for themselves in a way that others can’t. Good food, good exercise, good resorts and spas . . . good doctors and publicists, too. “Accidents happen” is an epitaph.

Like the widely anticipated annual Academy Awards tribute to film industry’s luminaries lost in the last year, newspapers long ago recognized the attraction of death to sell subscriptions. Whether on the front page or in a dedicated section, obits are the first thing spouses fight over reading each morning. And, like the decline in classifieds, the Internet is killing obits. “In Memoriam” ads are terminal. The situation is grave.

Social networking speeds social mourning. And global mourning is as much a phenomenon as global warming, as word of an important death spreads as instantly as everything else online. Wherever they are (or were) and you are, news of someone’s demise reaches everyone equally with the intensity of an election won, record broken or overlord overthrown. Digital deaths stoke our deepest information needs faster than old-fashion gossip, rumor or any other word-of-mouth. As defunct Life magazine said, “Consider the alternative,” referring to its main competitor, Look magazine, also gone.

The intensity of online all-the-time has changed relationships forever. Tough for séances, the rich, famous and powerful feel close even when they are not. Nobody mourned a princess like the world mourned Diana or – 15 years later and a Tweet faster – a prince like Michael. Year after year, innovation after innovation, shiva after shiva, the dead are increasingly bereaved by strangers as though they were family and friends. As a result, some, like Elvis and Marilyn, are wanted more dead than alive. Forbes ranks them high on the list of biggest deceased earners. At auctions for their effects, it’s not morbid to bid more.

Year-end media reviews endlessly everywhere in the final weeks of December and first weeks of January always focus on those who departed during months past. We cry over ‘em. We sigh over their promotional photos in faux leather wallets and cheap picture frames. Whether for 15 minutes of fame or 15 years, this year’s hit list seems unique and large (perhaps no more than other years). “Omigosh, I forgot,” we’ll all think as we recall Soupy Sales, Budd Schulberg and Gertrude Berg. “Didn’t so-and-so die long ago?” No, only minutes ago.

Facebook lets us know strangers faster and better than flesh and blood. Life’s little details and death’s, too. Everything posted. The feeling is intimate. The experience is intense. The information is overload. Like love, actually. And their departure is equally painful. Worse than a cancelled column or TV show. If you can “friend” someone, you can grieve a virtual void. Rest in peace.

Watching the 25th Anniversary of Rock & Roll Hall of Fame show on HBO, recently, I was reminded of a time before MTV and MP3. Vivid images of rockers in rockers. Now more than cultural clichés, they are old family and friends, some with comfy names like mommas and poppas. And not just old, they are dying. With no Internet or safety net, groups like Crosby, Stills & Nash are no longer Young. The Bee Gees are down to two Gees. The Four Tops are three. As The New York Times said in a recent editorial, “Stayin’ alive [are] kinda dumb words to live by . . .” We don’t invite third-parties into our lives, we “engage” them. And we’re devastated by their deletion.

Boys in silver balloons float by and crash. White House gatecrashers enter and float by. They are only Tweets and IMs filling a virtual vacuum. Faster, wider and deeper than any news fit to print. For an instant, a YouTube video virtually vaults some unknown to fame and just as quickly they’re gone. No memorial. Not even a screen ghost. Millions of impressions, no lasting impression. A unique visitor’s unique visit. Web sites become gravesites. Digg it.

We mark time by deaths as we do by births and other milestones. Long ago, Hallmark discovered this and created cards for all of life’s anniversaries. My dad passed away 30 years ago. At 61, I’ve outlived him. I’ve now been without him longer than I was with him. Still feels like yesterday. Will he leave a message in my inbox? No, but he lives on as my password for Flickr. I press enter and remember only good times.

We also mark time by our peers and, for a large chunk of us, our peers are baby boomers, too. Wildly unthinkable, at 50, many of us are only half-way through our lives. As centenarians increase faster than septuagenarians, we need bloggers and tweeters to remind us of our mortality. Somehow, the over-publicized untimely deaths of Farah Fawcett at 62 and Patrick Swayze at 57 are shocking until we Google the finales of, say, Gary Cooper at 60 and Clark Gable at 59. Lines for their funerals ringed blocks. For Diana and Michael, lines ringed the globe.

There’s a very poignant Billy Crystal movie, “Memories of Me,” where his father, played by comedian Alan King, is a hack movie extra, whose lack of celebrity and success upsets and embarrasses the son. And when the father dies, at the end of the film, every real nameless extra you’ve ever seen lines up at the funeral to celebrate their peer and memorialize a good friend. Paraphrasing an old scriptwriter, life is a stage, so make sure you get a good seat.

Unstaged British scientist Jerry Morris was the first to show – 60 years ago – that exercise extends life. Never heard of Jerry? You can email him a birthday wish when he turns 100 next May. There’s a ghost of a chance he’ll make it.

Death, taxes and the Internet.

Harding Place

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December 30, 2009

Death and Deletion

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