Crowe has an ordinary fear of an ordinary funeral

Once upon a time, when I was a boy, it was easy: you were either Robert Menzies (in which case you did get a state funeral) or you weren't (in which case you didn't). I'd all but written off the chance of a state funeral, at least until I entered parliament. Then came the 70s, with its anti-authority vibe and its "if it feels good, do it!" attitude. Standards slipped. Community values passed into the void. Those plucky diggers, marching every year, got fewer and fewer and slipped away, like drinkers disappearing when the free bar has run out. Fame stopped being the trappings of the great and the good and started being handed out by the magazine mavens and the tabloiderazzi.

The next thing I knew, state funerals were being doled out to all and sundry: soap stars, ‘captains of industry', television presenters, rugby league players, people who happened to have been attacked by sharks. You name it. No longer was a grand occasion, the recognition of the nation, limited to those who had lived their lives in public service or – quite reasonably – Oscar-winning actors who had conquered the world with their rugged good looks, powerful singing voice and sheer talent. No, no – the floodgates were opened.  

The backlash was only a matter of time. As soon as state funerals started to get too common, the utterly predictable happened: people didn't value them any more. And then, to make it worse, things got a bit crowded. I mean, one minute getting a state funeral means riding in the same coach as Billy Snedden; the next you're waiting on the roster, stuck between the ex-Chancellor of Armidale Uni and some loser who got a bronze in shot-put in Seoul in 1988. Big deal.  

Now we've come full circle – if you really want to stand out from the crowd, it's the done thing to refuse a state funeral. Take Steve Irwin's family for example: they wouldn't have a bar of it. Without missing a beat, his dad described the world-famous millionaire in the stupid shoes as an "ordinary bloke" and that he would not have wanted "a big fuss" made over his final arrangements. (Because, as we all know, people who struggle for years to break into the cut-throat world of television work, well, they're mostly modest folk, aren't they? Check your ego at the door, that sort of thing. Certainly that's my experience).  

Now it's no secret that I thought Steve Irwin was a hell of a great guy – in fact, once he was dead I discovered that I loved him like a brother – but I think that's just taking things too far. Modesty is one thing but refusing a state funeral? Jeez Louise, what the hell were they thinking? 

So it turns out that nowadays, if you want to cement your legacy, you're meant to pretend that you don't dig the fame; that you did it all for the love of your profession, or the game (or whatever). What a futile denial of our natural place as celebrities in the cosmic order ... I mean, what a joke! Seeking public virtue, prevented by false modesty from accepting the honour because – after all – nothing could be more tiresome than a state funeral! I mean, what a hassle, eh? 

What could possibly be more of an imposition than the tawdry indignity of mere fame when one is doing one's best to give your passing a bit of class? Who would want their life's ending to be besmirched with something so naively populist as a massive procession with Armed Forces pall-bearers, a military band, twenty-one gun salutes and all the gubbins? "Not me, mate," intone our po-faced mid-level celebrities, "when I go, I just want a pine box and a quiet word from the pastor to send me on my way." 

Well I say (if you'll excuse the profanity): Fuck that.  

I want a state funeral. A stonking big one, with weeping school-children remembering where they were when they got the news, garlands of flowers grown specially for the occasion and then left to rot by the roadside and billions of taxpayers' dollars flown by square-jawed Navy pilots screaming supersonically overhead in a neat ‘V' formation with that nifty thing they do with the coloured smoke. I want every community centre in the country to hold a special service. I want a memorial foundation set up in my name that people donate money to and they don't even have a clue what it's going to do with the money. (And I want you to be able to make a donation at any Commonwealth Bank – what the hell is that about?). I want the country to fly every flag at half-mast, for at least a year. 

But most importantly, I want you ungrateful sods to mourn. Not, like, a few minutes' silence: I'm talking months when nothing really seems worth doing, and you don't really have the effort to do much more than look up at a picture of me and, perhaps, sigh and look out the window. I'm talking real, straight-up, woe-is-us grief. None of this light-touch, will-I-or-won't-I garbage: I want you all to keen with grief. Girls can kind of, weep, quietly or else just stand around looking wistful. And would it be too much to ask that at least three or four of you give that weird Middle Eastern ululating thing a go? C'mon, people! 

For men, things can be done in a bit more of a masculine vibe, with lots of strength-in-adversity and injured pride. Blokes may, I concede, begin with understated tears, but before long I'd like to see a bit of barely controlled heaving, and then – and I'm not mucking about here – I want the full body-wracked-with-the-horror-of-it-all sobs, while you get consoled by a mate.  

I just thought you'd appreciate my being clear on this. If I were to pass suddenly, my family are at serious risk of rising to the occasion, and I would hate for their sense of decorum to intrude on what would be, let's face it, probably my last real chance at squeezing a bit more the good stuff from the audience who love me so much. Besides, I would hate for my final wishes not to be respected. 

But most of all, it's because I want to give something back.  

See you on the other side, 

Russ