I'm A Little Embarassed To Tell You This About Myself....

Okay, today I’m going to let you in on a little “hobby” of mine. Being from the Midwest and living in California, I have a little bit of an obsession with celebrities. My wife is from L.A. and grew up around the Hollywood industry, so celebrity means nothing to her. When I first moved to L.A., I would look intently at every limo that drove by, certain that it contained an “A” list star. Of course, anyone that has lived in L.A. for any period of time will tell you that 99% of the limos DO NOT contain movie stars.

And as we left L.A. and moved to the Central Coast of California, the celebrity sightings dropped dramatically, but we still see them from time to time. I have had Alex Trebec, Josh Brolin and Diane Lane in my store on a regular basis, and we have also spotted Steve Martin and Mel Gibson (they have both filmed movies locally), Sandra Bullock, and even Oprah herself has vacationed in the area. My wife even once had the great Sandy Koufax in her store.

So what is my hobby? Well, in addition to my celebrity obsession (okay, obsession is probably too strong of a word), I also have a pretty morbid curiosity about death. I blame that on my Mom, who goes to the obituaries the way some people go to the sports pages and check out the box scores. Come to think of it, I guess she’s checking box scores too, in a way.

So one of the first things I do when I open up the L.A. Times is go to the obituaries, and see which famous people died. Then , about seven years ago I got the brilliant idea: Why not attend the funeral of some of these famous people. You would be surprised how easy this is to do. Oh, you’re never going to get close to the funeral of a big star, but you’d be surprised how easy it is to attend the funeral of a “minor” star, especially if that star has been out of the public eye for a while.

While it’s possible to attend these funerals almost daily – depending on how willing you are to stretch the definition of “star” – I have chosen to attend funerals based on A) my work schedule, and B) if there is any connection that I have to this star.

In the past I have been able to attend the funerals of John Vernon, the man who played Dean Wormer in the classic Animal House. I also attended the funeral of Jonathon Harris, Dr. Smith from T.V. Lost in Space, and Keith Knudson, longtime drummer for The Doobie Brothers. One of my favorites was Howie Morris, who played the immortal Ernest T. Bass on the old Andy Griffith Show. At that funeral I had the opportunity to shake hands with both Andy Griffith and Don Knotts.

However, this week I attended a funeral that has me rethinking my hobby. This was not a funeral that I would normally attend, but I was already in L.A. for the UCLA/Oregon game, so I thought, “what the heck”. This week I attended the funeral of Larry LaPrise. Who, you may ask, is Larry LaPrise? Larry is a songwriter who did a great deal of work in television in the early years, but he is most remembered for a novelty song early in his career that subsequently defined him – "The Hokey Pokey".

That’s right, I attended the funeral of the man that wrote “The Hokey Pokey”. And it was excruciating. Why? Well, there was both a church service AND a graveside service, as there often is. The church service was fine. It was very nice, and maybe about 20 minutes long. But the graveside service, oh my God. Believe it or not, it was over four hours long. Why? They put his left leg in, they took his left leg out, they put his left leg in……..

Wow! See what happens when I can’t come up with a topic? Hopefully THAT will never happen again.