WOW! WE’VE DONE THIS 300 TIMES!!! | FFFW 300
Wait, what? We actually did this 300 times? That’s actually wild. According to my calculations, that’s 5.7 years worth of Fridays!!! That’s insane.
And this gets way cooler. I just looked it up. We first launched the FFFW launched exclusively as an email the first friday of september 2020.
Then, we fully launched the FFFW with issue #4 being released on connectingdirectors.com on September 25th 2020.
So, not only is today our 300th issue, but it’s the exact 6 year anniversary of the FFFW being a full blown CD email AND article. That’s kind of crazy to me!
HOLIDAY TRACKER!
5 Fridays until Halloween
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TOP 3 THINGS THE FFFW DID THEN QUIT DOING
Listen, here at the FFFW we do things. Sometimes we dothings for a long and then phase them out, other times we do things and then forget that we were doing them and just start doing other stuff. But on this 6 year anniversary and 300th issue, I wanna take a look at a few of the GREAT moments of FFFW history.
1) COMICS
Yep, for a while we ran weekly or “weekly when we could” funeral profession themed comics. I still wanna get these all printed into a collectors magazine to have as a conversation piece.
Shout-out to Tiso (writer) and Jozie (graphic designer) that worked on these. I’m truly so happy looking back.
Enjoy this classic.
2) FAKE SPONSORSHIPS
We’ve had some amazing partners here at the FFFW and of course we love Foveo!
But, before our heros at Foveo came in and made this a legitimate newsletter again- we had an array of “fake sponsors.”
I’m a HUGE fan of SNL and have always loved their fake commercials and product parodies. So, this was my chance to try my hand at a few. HEre’s an example:
SPONSORED BY “CHAIRS IN THE BACK”
Do you need chairs that aren’t comfortable, have a lot of scuffs, and squeak every time you unfold them? Grab the “Chairs in the back” they’ll get the job done and nothing else.
3) YOU OTTER BE PROUD
Now, this was the longest-running segment of the FFFW it was a way to close the article with good news about the funeral profession and show an epic GIF of an otter.
So today- because it’s the 300th issue AAAAND the 6-year anniversary of the FFFW- we’re bringing back: here’s that adorable otter playing basketball in a pool.
ASK THE FUNERAL DUDE!
Dear Funeral Dude, the FFFW just hit 300 issues. I’ve read every one. Should I be proud or disappointed. -Mr.LikesGifs
Dear Mr. LikesGifs,
Proud? Disappointed? Buddy, those are emotions for people who haven’t spent six years reading fake funeral news.
You’ve read all 300 issues of the FFFW. That means you’ve voluntarily opened hundreds of emails about funeral directors, caskets, cremation, cemetery geese, questionable industry innovations, and whatever other nonsense we decided counted as journalism that Friday.
At this point, you’re not a reader. You’re an accomplice.
Think about everything you could have done with that time. Learned Spanish. Taken up woodworking. Called your mother. Read literally one actual newspaper.
Instead, you chose us.
So should you be proud? Absolutely not.
Should you be disappointed? Probably.
But after 300 issues, we’re way past judgment.
We’re family now.
With dignity,
The Funeral Dude
A RARE MOMENT OF SINCERITY
Guys, I’ve been smiling the whole time writing this. It kinda surprised me. Six years? 300 issues?
To understand why this hits me so hard, you need to know a little bit about me. My name’s Eli Gable, I’m 27 years old, and my full-time job is being a Nashville-based singer-songwriter.
When I started this, I was 21 years old. I had just moved to Nashville, and the whole world was fighting through this thing called “COVID.” I’ve moved to three different houses in that time, been through a couple of cars, and I should be using a new laptop, but I refuse to let go of my sticker-covered 13-inch 2020 MacBook (yep, it’s also hitting its six-year anniversary lol).
In some ways, it feels like I just started this yesterday. In other ways, it feels like I’ve been doing this forever. I’ve written this article from my bedroom, hotel lobbies, tour buses, airport lobbies, and hotspot-fueled car rides. Many of my peers in the music world use this article as my introduction. But they normally butcher it: “Hey, did you know Eli writes a comic book for a funeral home?”
This article is a part of me, and it’s been around my whole adult life.
The past six years have been full of so much change for me, as they have for many others. Once again, when I started writing this, I was a 21-year-old bachelor. Now I’m a 27-year-old bachelor (but I’m about to propose to my girlfriend. She won’t read this, so I think it’s okay to add this. Feel free to support the honeymoon fund. Venmo: @eli-gable).
And yeah. I guess I’m just nostalgic and thankful for the blast it is to write this EVERY WEEK!
So, thank you for reading and supporting.
Thank you to Foveo for sponsoring.
And a BIG thank you to Ryan Thogmartin, the guy I’ll call my boss till I die, who is also a friend and mentor and was crazy enough to pay me to write funeral home satire for six years!
