"I'm Bitter? Who's Drunk and Yelling at a Dead Woman."

I find it terribly sad that this is the last season of Six Feet Under. Everyone has something they consider special to them, whether it be a certain record, or movie or whatever. Six Feet Under is special to me. I was talking to Tim about the show one night while we were playing Halo 2 co-op when it dawned on me what made it so special. It celebrates life in a way that only something about death can. Celebrating life is a major theme of art, or it should be. And only when looking at the negative aspects of life (death) can it be shown for the beautiful thing it is.

*******

The most surreal moment of my life happened a week and a day before Tim and I sat in my room playing Halo 2 co-op. For nearly fifty yards I carried a casket to a gravesite. The person inside the casket was my granddad. His death wasn’t a surprise. A week before I carried the casket, I made myself go see him at the nursing home. What I saw lying in this hospital bed wasn’t a person. It was a shell of someone I used to know. I have known people who have died. I have seen dead bodies before. But I had never seen anyone who was dieing.

My grandfather wasn’t nice to people in life. In many ways one could say he wasn’t nice to people in death. Only fifteen people showed up at the service including family. No flowers were sent. Three of the people who carried the casket had never met the man, but did so out of their own good will. And I thank them for it. No receiving of friends. Only a service held on the grassy hill of a cemetery. I learned two important lessons at the cemetery. The first is, you reap what you sow in the time you spend here. And the second tries hard to negate the first but; if forgiveness doesn’t exist at least in death, then forgiveness doesn’t exist.

*******

I almost put down Grim Fandango before I really even started the game. I couldn’t grasp that you controlled the game with the keyboard instead of the mouse, which says a lot about my idiosyncrasies with games. I don’t know why I picked the game back up when Will gave me a PC controller but I did, and it just so happened that my next stop was the Land of the Living section.

A lot of people (a writer at Gamespy) say they always point to ICO or Rez when people ask them about artistic achievements in games. I can’t say I blame them. Both games have artistic merits. I on the other hand will forever point out Grim, but more specifically the brief Land of the Living section. As Mr. Calavera, you arrive at what looks like some form of 50’s hamburger joint (or maybe café?) dressed as the grim reaper looking to carry away someone to the Land of the Dead. Everything is distorted. The color takes a washed out look. The living take the form of a Picasso portrait, all angular and disfigured. I was taken with the game from that point on.

Everyone who has played Grim Fandango will talk about the many funny sequences of the game. Tonight I was sitting at a bar telling a friend that I consider my inability to do anything right as part of my charm, except it isn’t charming in any form. Me attempting to “review” Grim Fandango is no different. The game made me laugh, a lot. But the humor isn’t what makes the game memorable. It is the underlying sadness. I am not going to go into the plot details, but what did Manny do in life to not even be able to arrive at the final resting place at all? I mean, the entirety of the game isn’t getting yourself there, but to make sure poor Meche gets there because she deserves it. How could someone who seems so considerate of others in death, do something so bad in life to have to stick around the Land of the Dead so he could sell travel packages?

Thank God the game never answers that question. I don’t want to know. I just know that Manny is in love with Meche. And I know that you can laugh about love, and put yourself in some silly situations because of love, but love is a real human emotion. Love makes us alive. It can give us a sense of purpose. It can hurt, and make us feel sad as well. I like to think of Grim not as a Tim Shaffer game but as a Wes Anderson movie. Something funny and sweet, but complicated with an underlying sadness.

And Grim is an artistic achievement because you play someone who is dead, looking for someone else who is dead. And in my time with the game I felt alive, because one day I am going to be a shell of a person someone used to know. I will have regrets, and I will have cherished memories and these make me into the person I am right now, and into the person I will become. And this realization gives me comfort because I understand no matter how sad and lonely I get, I have something to celebrate. All of this comes from the art I relate with to enrich my life. I need these reminders from time to time. I need to be reminded that each day I have is a gift, and something as small as seeing an old friend is significant, and although awkward, it is beautiful. Six Feet Under serves as a reminder. So does Grim Fandango.

*******

Because I was a pallbearer, when we arrived at the cemetery, I had to split up with my family. I was so nervous I was shaking as I took my spot beside the Hearst. The director opened up the back and slid the casket outside. I took a hold of the handle and turned and to be honest I don’t remember a whole lot about the fifty yard walk except for one thing. My grand father excepted Christ before he died, which according to a specific book I believe in means I know he didn’t meet Manny Calavera when he passed away. But as I was walking very carefully so I wouldn’t step on someone else’s grave I kept wondering what kind of travel package my grandfather qualified for. And when I sat the casket down at the grave site I smiled, because helping someone get to their final resting place was the most honorable thing I have ever done in my life.

wes

(A quick apology to nobody in particular. I meant this to be so much better, but on the same hand I can't bring myself to delete it. It is hard, and it sucks, but I am going to have to let this stand as it is.)