Filed under: Frozen Dead Guy Days | Tags: Frozen Dead Guy Days, funeral directors, Funeral Films
At Frozen Dead Guy Days, I met the youngest licensed female funeral director in Colorado. Marika McMeans, at 22 years old, is a fresh face in the funeral business with wonderful insights.
She went to mortuary school at Arapaho Community College in Littleton, Colorado. She started working with Carroll-Lewellen Funeral Home in Longmont last summer.
One of Carroll-Lewellen’s interesting community outreach activities is they’ve held scary funeral movie nights at the funeral home. They’ve done this on the past few Friday the 13th dates. Unfortunately, there aren’t that many Friday the 13th dates on the calendar. They may do some fun funeral films in the future.
If you are open to watching funeral themed movies at a funeral home, families are welcome to attend! Check with Carroll-Lewellen Funeral Home for their next film event by calling 303-776-4477.
Here’s a brief interview I did with Marika McMeans about her work in the funeral business.
Filed under: Frozen Dead Guy Days | Tags: Frozen Dead Guy Days, The Newly-Dead Game
There was a big winter storm in Colorado today, and bad roads prevented me from getting to Nederland from Boulder for Frozen Dead Guy Days. But the movie went on, and I’ll be there on Sunday with The Newly-Dead Game.
The great folks at the Black Forest Restaurant did get the movie going, showing the hour-long “Grandpa’s Still in the TUFF SHED” documentary. I had the original 25-minute “Grandpa’s in the TUFF SHED” in my bag with me, stuck at a lower elevation.
I tried twice to get up Boulder Canyon, once starting at 7:30 a.m. – the road was closed after I went up – and I had to turn around and come back down by 9:00 a.m. I’ve got a front wheel drive rental that just couldn’t cut the snowy, icy inclines. Went about seven miles up, with eleven more to go blocked by accidents and skidded out vehicles.
There was plenty of company. I tried going up a second time around noon after the road was reopened and got one mile further. If only I didn’t have to stop for the other folks who got stuck, perhaps I could have made it. The Colorado Department of Transportation closed the road again at 3:00 p.m. due to accidents.
Here’s hoping they clear and sand the road well tonight. I’ll do The Newly-Dead Game at 1:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. at the Black Forest Restaurant on Sunday. The polar plunge and parade of hearses have been pushed back to Sunday as well.
Nederland roundabout before the snow.
Grandpa’s Blue Ball, the kick-off party at Frozen Dead Guy Days last night, filled the Black Forest Restaurant in Nederland, Colorado with ghostly freezing cowboys and cowgirls. The theme was “The Good, The Bad and The Frozen,” hence the predominance of cowboy gear in the costumes.
Here are some fun photos of the festivities!
Poster for FDGD Grandpa’s Blue Ball
FDGD 2013 Cake!
Gail Rubin with the Mayor of Nederland, Joe Gierlach
Look out, it’s time for Frozen Dead Guy Days 2013!
This weekend is the third time I bring The Newly-Dead Game® to this wild and wacky celebration of all things dead and frozen.
It’s the perfect place to laugh in the face of death and help start funeral planning conversations. The event starts Friday night with Grandpa’s Blue Ball (freezing cold costumes encouraged) and runs Saturday and Sunday with music, drinking, a parade of hearses, coffin races, polar plunges and other freezing fun events.
Futurama – fast forward 1,000 years!
This year, in addition to showing the documentary “Grandpa’s in the Tuff Shed” all weekend at the Black Forest Restaurant, I’m bringing a couple of cryogenic film clips.
Anyone remember Futurama, a Matt Groening cartoon about a pizza delivery boy who stumbles into a cryogenic capsule and wakes up a thousand years in the future?
I’m showing that scene, along with a clip from Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (where Han Solo is frozen – remember? The Princess says, “I love you.” and he says, “I know.”)
Woody Allen wakes up in Sleeper
We also have a funny scene from Woody Allen’s Sleeper, when he comes out of his 200-year-long hibernation.
Attendees can also sign up for a drawing featuring fun Frozen Dead Guy Days stuff!
The weather forecast predicts snow this weekend. Come in from the cold for some funny films and The Newly-Dead Game.
It’s a great way to spend part of the Frozen Dead Guy Day festivities in Nederland.
Couples Kill Doubts Playing The Newly-Dead Game®
Third Time’s the Charm at Frozen Dead Guy Days 2013
The Newly-Dead Game®– based on elements of “The Newlywed Game” TV show — tests how well couples know their partner’s last wishes. Three or four couples can compete against each other. Couples answer questions about their spouse or partner such as:
- What song would he or she want played at their funeral?
- What is his/her mother’s maiden name?
- Where was s/he born?
- What method of disposition would s/he prefer – Earth, Air, Fire or Water?
- What is his/her most prized possession, and who would s/he want to leave it to?
Couples who have played this game often come away with a fresh appreciation of how much they still need to know about each other when it comes to funeral planning. Plus, it’s a lot of fun. More info about The Newly-Dead Game.
The Newly-Dead Game debuted at the 2011 Frozen Dead Guy Days festival in Nederland, Colorado, returned in 2012 and now 2013. Couples can sign up to play at 1:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. on Saturday and 2:00 p.m. on Sunday at the Black Forest Restaurant. Here’s video from one of last year’s games.
More information at the Frozen Dead Guy Days website.
Who says you can’t make news when you’re dead? Bredo Morstoel, the body at the center of the Frozen Dead Guy Days festival, has been in the headlines this past week.
Bredo, who’s been preserved in a Tuff Shed that houses his crypt of dry ice, has been there since 1993. It was the grand scheme of his grandson Trygve Bauge to put the 89-year-old in a deep freeze after he died of a heart condition in 1989. He’s been paying Bo “The Iceman” Shaffer to deliver and install the dry ice for nearly 20 years. Bauge, who is preserving his grandfather’s body in the hopes of reanimation through future science, was deported to his native Norway in 1994.
Now, because of a contract dispute with Shaffer, Bauge is threatening to move Grandpa to the Cryonics Institute, a membership-based non-profit located in Clinton Township, Michigan. The institute currently holds more than 100 patients in a state of “cryonic suspension,” stopping tissue decay by cooling their bodies to the temperature of liquid nitrogen in hopes that future technology will allow for revival and restoration.
Shaffer’s been asking for a raise for over two years, and Bauge’s been refusing. Bauge tells a slightly different story, citing communications problems and saying Shaffer has not been adding enough dry ice to the freezer holding his grandfather’s sarcophagus.
Morstoel was aware of his grandson’s interest in cryonics, Bauge says, but did not know that he himself would be frozen — “though he once expressed a gut feeling” that he wouldn’t be getting a regular burial, Bauge wrote in an email to reporters.
Freeze The Day for Frozen Dead Guy Days!
The 12th annual Frozen Dead Guy Days, scheduled for March 8-10 in Nederland, includes live music, coffin racing, ice turkey bowling, a parade of hearses and more. Organizers say the festival can live on without him, but unless Bauge and Schaeffer resolve their differences, Frozen Dead Guy Days may lose its star attraction.
Nonetheless, it may not happen until 2015. I participated in 2011 and 2012, bringing The Newly-Dead Game™ there as part of the festivities. More info about The Newly-Dead Game!
Here are some of the top stories:
Boulder Daily Camera (the original story on September 25): Grandson looking to move Nederland’s Frozen Dead Guy to Michigan
CBS News (national): Frozen Dead Guy May Move To Michigan
Michigan Live: Famous ‘frozen dead guy’ may be headed to Michigan, but festival will stay in Colorado
Huffington Post: Colorado “Frozen Dead Guy” Festival To Go On With Or Without Corpse
NY Daily News: Colorado ‘Frozen Dead Guy’ festival to go on with or without corpse
Here’s video from one of the installments of The Newly-Dead Game at Frozen Dead Guy Days 2012:
The Newly-Dead Game gets underway!
Grandpa may not be in the Tuff Shed much longer. What will happen to the Frozen Dead Guy Days festival?
News from the Boulder Daily Camera: Nederland’s most famous frozen resident could be on his way out of the small mountain town he helped put on the map.
Trygve Bauge, the grandson of the late “Grandpa” Bredo Morstoel — Nederland’s famous Frozen Dead Guy — said he is considering moving the frozen corpse from the Tuff Shed where he has been since 1993 to the Cryonics Institute in Michigan by 2015….
“It’s this just really crazy story,” said Amanda MacDonald, who purchased the festival from the Nederland Chamber of Commerce after helping to organize it for several years.
MacDonald said that while she would like “Grandpa” Bredo to stay, she still believes Frozen Dead Guy Days will survive without the aforementioned frozen dead guy. She said dates for the 2013 festival have already been announced as March 8-10.
I brought The Newly-Dead Game™ there two years ago, and we had a lot of freezing fun. It was so much better hanging out in the Black Forest Restaurant this year than being in a wind-blown tent in 2011. I hope the festival goes on, with or without Grandpa in the vicinity.
What great experiences we had at Frozen Dead Guy Days this year!
In between showings of the documentary “Grandpa’s in the Tuff Shed,” I introduced myself and invited people to enter a drawing for all sorts of fun skull stuff. Little did I know I had a fan of this blog in the audience!
Stephanie Arnett, an aspiring young funeral director in Independence, Missouri came up to say “hi” to me while I was in the Garden Room of the Black Forest Restaurant. (that’s her in the pink shirt)
What a thrill to meet a fan in person! Thank you, Stephanie, for coming over and introducing yourself.
And these hip old hearses were on the scene at the coffin races on Sunday! It’s going to take a big of editing to string the actual races together – they’re only about a minute and a half each. Look for that in the near future. Live long and prosper!
Filed under: Frozen Dead Guy Days | Tags: Frozen Dead Guy Days, funeral planning, The Newly-Dead Game
Three couples played The Newly-Dead Game on Sunday at Frozen Dead Guy Days 2012. Here’s the video. It was tied early on and neck and neck up to the end.
Thanks to all the couples who played the game!
Filed under: Frozen Dead Guy Days | Tags: Frozen Dead Guy Days, funeral planning, The Newly-Dead Game
This is video of Saturday’s 1:00 p.m. version of The Newly-Dead Game at Frozen Dead Guy Days 2012. I admit, I goofed on some of the emceeing in this go-round. My banter during the 5:00 game was much better.
Many thanks to the couples who played and to the good folks at the Black Forest Restaurant for hosting us with the game and the funny films for funeral planning!
Filed under: Frozen Dead Guy Days | Tags: Frozen Dead Guy Days, The Newly-Dead Game
The wind blew wickedly through Nederland today, playing havoc with the outdoor Frozen Dead Guy Day events. The parade of hearses took place, but the polar plunge and the coffin races have been postponed to tomorrow. The wind tore through the two big tents where the music was taking place.
Thank goodness we were inside the Black Forest Restaurant showing the Grandpa’s in the Tuff Shed documentary and playing two rounds of The Newly-Dead Game! Here is video of the second go-round at 5:00 p.m.
Many thanks to the couples who played!
