I'm gone, man. Solid gone.

This may be a morbid post but what the hell. I've been working on a list of songs that I'd like played at my funeral. I'm still young and (hopefully) that day is far, far away but I think it's a good idea to do something like that while one is young and lucid. Or as lucid as I can get.

At one point this list grew to over a hundred songs. Unless the funeral turns out to be an all day affair that's obviously way too many tunes. I think 20 is a nice number. That's roughly an hour of music.

One way of thinking that really helped narrow it down was to pull out songs that I had on the list because I simply liked and keep the songs that more told a story about me. In that sense the songs run from my childhood until now. This is sort of the soundtrack of my life.

I would love to see you guys take a stab at your own soundtrack. Let me know if you do.

1) "The Bear Necessities," Phil Harris - The earliest song I remember loving. I had a toy record player and this on a 45 and I would play this, sing along and dance around my room for hours. My parents must of loved that.

2) "I Don't Want To Be The Lone Ranger", unknown - I have no idea where we got this song but my mom dressed my brother and me up like the Lone Ranger and Tonto and we lip-synced this tune for a talent show.

3) "Star Wars," John Williams - My folks rented a van and took me and my friends to wait an hour and a half in line to see the first Star Wars movie. From the moment this theme started and the title march scrolled it was an out-of-body experience that led to a lifetime love of film.

4) "Star Trek," Alexander Courage - I would watch reruns of this show when I got home from school. It burned into my psyche.

5) "Every Little Thing She Do Is Magic," The Police - In my grade school class everybody had a favorite band. Mine was The Police. I liked the reggae/ punk fusion and Sting's raspy voice.

6) "Great Balls of Fire," Jerry Lee Lewis - I started to appreciate that there was cool older music. This song stuck out because I remember loving to sing the part that goes "kiss me baby, Mmmmmmm, feels good."

7) "The Last Time," The Rolling Stones - So many great Stones tunes but this older one is one of my favorites.

8) "Goonies R' Good Enough," Cindy Lauper - I'm not going to apologize for this song. This movie has a soft spot in my heart then and now.

9) "Raider's March," John Williams - Friends dragged me to see this film. It looked way to commercial for me. I wound up loving it.

10) "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me," Culture Club - I don't even like this song but when I hear it I have flashbacks to making out with some pretty girl in my old VW Rabbit.

11) "El Shaddai," Amy Grant - Laugh if you want but for a time I had serious intentions of being a priest. I think being in love with Amy Grant might have had something to do with it. Teenagers aren't known for their clarity of thought.

12) "Pachabel's Canon," Pachabel - If there's a more perfect piece of music I haven't heard it.

13) "We Got The Beat," Go Gos - Loved the Go Gos and loved dancing to the Go Gos.

14) "Mighty Oregon," unknown - University of Oregon was probably the best time of my life.

15) "Otis Redding Live At Montrey Pops Festival," Otis Redding - Technically more than one song so sue me. I vividly remember listening to this in a college dorm room the first time I smoked a blunt.

16) "No Woman, No Cry," Bob Marley - The first time I heard this song I took it to mean if you don't have a woman in your life you won't be shedding any tears. Only later did I realize he was trying to comfort his wife in the song. I like my interpretation better.

17) "Groovy Kind Of Love," Phil Collins - Our song so shut up. :-)

18) "La Valse D'Amelie," Yann Tiersen - This movie is too wonderful to describe. You either live your life alone or you share your life with others.

19) "Mosh," Eminem - I really thought we the kids would save us from Bush in 2004. They did. Just a couple of years later is all.

20) "Everlong," Foo Fighters - The acoustic version of this song gets to what it means to love someone. "Breathe out, so I can breathe you in. Hold you in."

When joyful, when joyful for highly vocal drunkenness. But joyful is how I hope you'll remember him. Not stuck in a box in a church.

What is it with conservatives and funerals?

First there was the memorial to Paul Wellstone which conservatives cynically morphed what was actually a joyous celebration of a political man into some sort of anti-Republican Nuremburg rally. Al Franken, who led the charge in refuting that nonsense writes about it here.

Then there was the funeral of Coretta Scott King in which conservatives jumped all over the remarks of former President Jimmy Carter regarding wiretapping as somehow disrespectful to President Bush who was sitting behind him.

Now we have the spectacle of Republican Congressmen interrupting a service to recently passed congressman Tom Lantos on the House Floor in order to try and stop the looming contempt vote later in the day on Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten. In other words they had ants in their pants to cover Bush's ass.

Conservatives seem to be either telling others what is or is not the appropriate manner to celebrate the passing of their loved ones, or acting in a manner wholly disrespectful on their own during funeral services. In either case they're obviously completely unclear on the concept. (Whether this disrespect born of willfulness or ignorance seems an unnecessary distinction although I suspect they just ultimately just don't give a rat's ass.)

People are free to celebrate the lives of their loved ones in the manner of which they want and they think appropriate without interruption by bloviating busybodies. Someday we'd hope they'd learn this. I won't be holding my breath for that day.