NOBODY DOES DEAD BETTER

Dead People’s Opinions Matter More

Gary Chapin’s Dead Granny Mary is interrupting her dead time to help you

Why do I love Gary Chapin’s advice column, Granny Mary? Sit down. Have a cuppa. I’m taking you the long way around.

I’m always quoting my dead father. Am I quoting him correctly? Did he really say those things? I don’t know. I can’t ask him. He’s dead, god bless’m. Loved that guy more than anything.

I have never put a stupid quote in my father’s mouth to make a point. He deserves better. He wasn’t a cocky guy. He had a wicked sense of humor. He’d be okay with my fabricating his advice if I were using it to hold up a mirror to the world’s big stupid hypocritical face.

Don’t worry I’ll get to Gary Chapin’s Granny Mary, who also pulls no punches. Gary or his granny.

I have a grandma who lived well into her nineties and I remember her quotes verbatim. I loved her too but her quotes came from the 50s housewife book of shaming.

If I were chewing gum, she’d sing this tune.

A gum-chewing girl and a cud-chewing cow are somewhat alike but different somehow —

Oh! (say this part with great enthusiasm — like you just realized it and you don’t say it every time someone is chewing gum) —

I see it now!

It’s the thoughtful look on the face of the cow.

I don’t hate cows. Their pies have inspired Midwestern pastoral artwork and famous deserts that bring children great joy and cavities. Cartoonists have depicted cows standing on two legs while having conversations when people are not around.

Cows feed our creative juices and ask us, ‘who are cows when humans cannot see them?’ They produce milk that is either delicious or gives you gas. Their own flatulence is killing the planet faster than cars.

We can not make them electric no matter what we plug them into. They are edible unless we refuse to eat them. They are inedible when left unslaughtered and uncooked.

But do cows maintain a thoughtful expression? Seems like a stretch.

Cows do, however, cause writers to stray just thinking about their thoughtful expressions. My intention was to write about Granny Mary, Gary Chapin’s dead grandmother. That’s what this whole article is paying homage to and I wandered off into a field of cowpie-ponderances.

“Gary Chapin?” You ask. “Did you say Chapin!? Chapin Chapin?”

Let me stop you there. No, Gary Chapin is not related to Harry Chapin even if their names rhyme. I mean really rhyme. No more than I am related to a sea-gull.

On the flip side, Gary Chapin is a secretive intellectual. It is possible Harry Chapin, the folk-rock composer and performer did not die in a car crash in 1981.

But, in truth, Harry Chapin became Gary Chapin, faking his own death and picking up an accordion — fooling us all by changing one letter and one instrument, daring us to ask him. Et Tu, Chapin? Did you not fall?

Is Gary Chapin, Harry Chapin? Yes. That is also not true.

But this is not about Harry Gary Chapin. This is about Granny Mary, Harry Gary Chapin’s dead grandmother, who writes an advice column on MuddyUm. Have you read it? Oh, you poor thing. I’ll wait. Go on.

Don’t be jealous. I know you wish you wrote an advice column too. Who doesn’t? You’re probably thinking this equity shit has gone too far. Dead grandmas are getting jobs you only dreamed of getting.

Who doesn’t want to write an advice column, am I right, Granny Mary? Ha ha. That’s a good one old gal.

So, readers and seekers of knowledge — you want some honest-to-fucking excellent advice that nobody but Granny Mary has the living balls to share with you?

Harry Gary Chapin went all the way into the underworld to retrieve it, so don’t be shy. Read every column she’s written. Don’t waste unsolicited advice from the dead, you cocky living above-ground meat flesh. You don’t know nothing yet, but ya could.

Wouldn’t you rather by laughing? Follow MuddyUm, Amy Sea, and Gary Chapin