Heaven can wait – Dying was so much fun – good bye Art Buchwald
Today I am not going to be bothered with critics of DDT who charge that DDT sometimes strays into matters not connected with taxation. The world’s greatest humourist Art Buchwald bid farewell to the world in grand style and DDT may be excused for straying.
His wry humour in short pieces had enlightened readers for more than half a century across the globe.
Buchwald was also known for the case Buchwald v. Paramount, which he filed against Paramount Pictures in 1988 in a controversy over the Eddie Murphy motion picture “Coming to America”.
In February 2006, he checked into a Washington hospital for kidney failure but refused to go for dialysis. Doctors had given him a few weeks, but his kidneys failed to fail and he wondered “what went wrong?”. His leg was amputated but he made it Martha's Vineyard for a vacation and even completed a book, “Too Soon to Say Goodbye”.
Some quotes from the irrepressible Buchwald
++ Now, I could have said something very profound today, but you would have forgotten it in ten minutes; so I chose to give this kind of speech instead so that in twenty years from now when your children ask you what you did on graduation day, you can proudly say, ‘I laughed.’” (Ending his convocation address in a Law School)
++ What is the patriotic consumer to do? I went into a shopping mall the other day to purchase a Star-Spangled Banner Sweat Suit. The salesman said they had some from Hong Kong for $10, some from Taiwan for $15 and a few from Pakistan for $4. `Don't you have any that were made in America? No. The only American-made items we have are these Buddhist robes.
++ I am known in the hospice as `The Man Who Would Not Die.' How long they allow me to stay here is another problem. I don't know where I'd go now, or if people would still want to see me if I weren't in a hospice. But in case you're wondering, I'm having a swell time - the best time of my life. Dying isn't hard. Getting paid by Medicare is. (From his book "Too Soon to Say Goodbye")
++ In the good old days, smokers could be counted on to die far before their time, and therefore did not use up their Social Security benefits or health plan credits. Nonsmokers, on the other hand, live too long and to this day are a tremendous drain on the country's finances. We're talking about hundreds of billions of dollars. So, every time we turn a smoker into a nonsmoker we're destroying the entire pension system of the United States. - From "Long Live Smokers!"
++ President Bush keeps referring to the discovery of Iraq's missiles as `the tip of the iceberg.' There are some, not many, who feel that if weapons are the tip of the iceberg, then Mr. Bush is the captain of the Titanic.'
++ Every two years I put out a new book and then make a tour of the talk shows plugging it. I can't do it any more because this year it's impossible for someone who is not really weird to get on TV."
I know it's very egocentric to believe that someone is put on earth for a reason. In my case, I like to think I was. And after this column appears in the paper following my passing, I would like to think it will either wind up on a cereal box top or be repeated every Thanksgiving Day.
From his last column, "Goodbye, My Friends" written for publication after his death