Personal essays and reflections

Step away from the mortician's table and explore standalone pieces on youth, growth, and modern technology. These personal essays offer an unfiltered look into my evolving voice as an author, inviting you to laugh, reflect, and connect with whatever emotion surfaces along the way.

ESSAY #1

SIDE A: COMEDY—SIDE B: CHAOS

It was a late afternoon in 1978, and unbeknownst to this comedy-loving teenager, a full-blown chase scene was occurring in my own bedroom. Decades before Bill Cosby became an infamous public scoundrel, and years before he was “America’s Dad” on television, he was releasing phenomenally successful comedy albums on vinyl. Recorded live, they were masterclasses in storytelling—and I owned them all.

With titles like, “I Started Out as a Child”, “Why Is There Air?”, and “The Chicken Heart That Ate New York”, I listened over and over again. In his heyday, Cosby was renowned for creating vivid imagery with nothing but words. And as the proud new owner of a slightly used, pea-soup-green Volkswagen Rabbit, complete with a bitchin’ cassette deck, I wanted to take my comedy idol on the road.

My solution: transfer the vinyl albums onto blank cassette tapes. My method was… less than sophisticated. I set up my old portable Panasonic cassette recorder, plugged in a microphone, and positioned it next to my equally ancient record player, microphone positioned strategically in front of the built-in speakers. Sure, I could’ve purchased the cassette versions at a record store, but this was cheaper. And it had worked before.

On this particular afternoon, I hit record, dropped the needle, and left the house to run errands, confident both machines would shut themselves off when finished. Simple, right?

Two hours later, I returned home to an empty house, my parents, who had been talking in the family room when I left, now gone. The house itself held that quiet, slightly stale stillness of a Southern California afternoon; sun-warmed carpet, a hint of my mother’s lingering perfume, and just a whisper of whatever had been cooking earlier. Perfect timing. My custom-recorded comedy tape was ready. I popped it into my car stereo, backed out of the driveway, and hit play. Ten seconds into track four, “Dogs and Cats” from Cosby’s "200 MPH" album… I heard it. Something was wrong.

Strange noises. Mechanical glitches? No… voices. Familiar voices. My parents. And they were arguing. Loudly. There, layered perfectly, both beneath and on top of Cosby’s routine, was a full-volume domestic dispute. My bedroom, it turned out, had served as the acoustic landfill of their argument.

Then... BAM!

A door opened and slammed. My mother’s voice: “Don’t you walk away from me!” My father’s reply: “Leave me alone… just leave me alone!” Another door slam. What followed can positively be described as a track-and-field event fueled by marital frustration. As these two combative athletes circled the house, again and again, they passed through my bedroom no fewer than four times. Yes, I counted.

Each lap brought a crescendo of footsteps, shouting, and door-slamming, followed by a gradual fade as they moved away, only to return, louder than before, in full monaural glory through my car speakers. I could feel the chaos; doors flung open, air rushing, the house itself recoiling.

It was horrifying. It was embarrassing. And it was absolutely hilarious. At some point during their laps inside the house, a bottle of Lysol took a hit. When I returned home, the place reeked to high heaven. Thanks to the laughter and applause from the live audience on the album, I never did figure out what they were arguing about. But as the record side ended, the tape continued for a few more minutes, capturing faint, distant bickering, likely from the living room, until the cassette finally ran out.

A week later, resolved to upgrade my recording process, I got my parents’ permission, and partial financial assistance from my father, to purchase a proper stereo system from the Federated Group in Pasadena. Price tag: $800. In 1978, that was a small fortune for a teenage paycheck. But oh, was it worth it.

A full Pioneer setup: direct-drive turntable, dual cassette decks, towering speakers, knobs and switches everywhere. When I turned the volume to just three out of ten, the bass rattled my bedroom windows. I was the bomb. Goodbye, worn-out Panasonic. Hello, earth-shaking Pioneer. That stereo system became my pride and joy. And when my parents weren’t home?

Blast off!

Still, that house in Temple City, my last adolescent home, held more than just music. It was a tense time. Within weeks of my accidental “hidden mic recording,” my father filed for divorce. Back then, I wasn’t about to share my parents’ moment of squabbling infamy. But years later, when I finally told them this story, each of them—individually—lit up with laugher.

ESSAY #2

THE WORDMAN

There are moments in life when you can look back and see exactly when the feeling felt real. This is a story about determination, friendship, humanitarianism—and, unexpectedly, the development of a writer. It began in the middle of a crisis, in an unlikely place: Facebook, during a pandemic, while watching a singer croon songs from the Great American Songbook.

In March 2020, I was not a writer. At least, I didn’t think of myself as one. Five years earlier, in 2015, I had begun writing my mortuary memoir, Dead Body Guy. I was somewhere around the halfway point of my first draft. Then the world suddenly stopped.

I was simply a guy who loved music and had discovered singer, songwriter and pianist Tony DeSare a few years earlier. Tony had built a career around his smooth voice, phenomenal piano playing, and obvious affection for the great songs of the past. Then COVID-19 brought live entertainment to a screeching halt.

On March 17, 2020, Tony was on tour when his concert schedule was canceled. Like countless other performers, he suddenly found himself with nowhere to perform. So he did what musicians do. He performed.

A few days later, Tony began making performance videos from the basement of his home and posting them on Facebook and Instagram. In his downstairs music studio, he secured his cell phone to a tripod beside his piano. Then he sheepishly approached the camera, leaning sideways from his piano bench, and began to speak.

“Hi everyone,” he said, with a glimmer in his eye. “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but everything’s been cancelled. Even my current tour. I got home a few days ago, and I asked myself: ‘What can I do in this situation?’”

Before singing his first song, Tony explained that he wanted to help people who were suddenly stuck at home. He wanted to “bring some peace and comfort to people’s lives” by making little “diaries” of himself singing, playing piano, and sharing how the pandemic was affecting his own life.

He called them his Quarantine Diaries.

I can still remember scrolling through Facebook on my iPhone and discovering Tony’s debut video. His first song was “Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams,” originally written in 1931. The title seemed almost too perfect for the moment. Millions of people were suddenly trapped at home, worried about their jobs, their families, their health—and their futures.

Ironically, the first song of Tony’s that found its way into my heart wasn’t one of his lively jazz standards or a song wrapped in the warmth of his voice. It was “Prelude,” a hauntingly beautiful original piano instrumental. The piece is characterized by its gentle melodies and reflective mood, making it a soothing listening experience.

Tony initially committed to posting 100 songs in 100 days, seven days a week. No weekends off. No excuses. Just Tony, his piano, his phone, and a basement full of music. Eventually, the Diaries grew to nearly 400 performances. When the world began opening up again and Tony returned to touring, initially wearing a singer’s mask to protect his audience and band, he continued making the videos. The name eventually changed from “Quarantine Diaries” to “The Song Diaries”. Tony gave us music. I started giving him words.

At first, I felt a little shy about commenting publicly on a celebrity’s Facebook page. But eventually I took the plunge. My first comments were nothing particularly special. I was simply trying to come up with something more interesting than “Great song, Tony!” or “Love this!” So I began experimenting. I played with descriptions, observations, little turns of phrase and whatever else popped into my head while listening. I was practicing. Purposefully. Intently.

Each time Tony posted another song, I tried to find a different way to respond. I played with words. I tried humor. I tried imagery. I tried making people see what I was hearing. And something unexpected happened. People started noticing.

Tony’s Facebook followers began recognizing my comments. My little paragraphs occasionally received likes and responses of their own. After enough comments beneath enough songs, one follower finally asked me: “Are you a writer?” That question stopped me. Somewhere along the way, without realizing it, I had begun developing a reputation among Tony’s followers as someone who had a way with words. Eventually, someone gave me a nickname.

The Wordman. I liked it. Strike that... I loved it!!

There was something wonderfully ridiculous about being called The Wordman on a Facebook page devoted to a professional singer while I sat at home typing comments beneath songs recorded decades before I was born. But the nickname stuck. More importantly, something else was happening. I was getting better.

I was learning that words could create pictures. That a sentence could have rhythm. That humor worked best when you didn’t force it. That sometimes the simplest observation could become the most interesting one if you found the right way to say it. The follower who had asked if I was a writer eventually became part of something else I helped create: a limited-membership Quarantine Diaries fan club for Tony’s most enthusiastic followers.

We called ourselves The DeSare Obsessed. Yes, I came up with the name. Who else? I thought it was particularly clever because DeSare and Obsessed are both two-syllable words. I know, genius, right? There were thirteen of us in the fan club, and we eventually started holding regular Zoom meetings. Every once in a while, Tony himself would join us for a get-together, which naturally made being DeSare Obsessed feel entirely justified.

During the winter of 2020, Tony selected fifteen of his basement-recorded performances and put them on a CD called “Song Diaries Volume 1: Songs of Comfort. I purchased five copies online. When they arrived, Tony had signed one of them for me. But he didn’t simply write his name.

He wrote:

“To Scott ‘The Wordman’ Taylor.”

I still have that CD. I suspect that, at the time, neither Tony nor I could have known how significant that little nickname would eventually become. Six and a half years later, the world has changed. The pandemic that temporarily brought Tony’s touring career to a halt is now history. Tony DeSare is back on the road, doing what he was doing before the world shut down: singing, playing piano and entertaining audiences.

And me? Well, I’m still playing with words. Only now, instead of practicing in the comment section of Tony DeSare’s Facebook page, I have a finished 74,000-plus-word mortuary memoir sitting behind me.

It’s called Dead Body Guy: A Grave Undertaking. Sometimes I think about the strange path that brought me here. A pandemic canceled Tony DeSare’s concerts. Tony responded by singing from home. I responded by writing about his songs. About his voice. About his musicianship. About his humanitarianism.

His fans called me The Wordman. And The Wordman kept writing. Six and a half years ago, I was simply trying to find the right words for a Facebook comment. Maybe that’s how writing careers begin. Not with a declaration that you’re a writer. Not with a book deal. Not even with a manuscript. Sometimes they begin with a song from 1931, a pandemic, a Facebook comment, and a lot of practice. And sometimes, if you’re lucky, someone notices your words.

A Few Words from The Wordman

Here are a few of the comments that helped earn me my unofficial title.

Tony’s performance of “Five Foot Two”:

“Take a good whiff and smell the steam comin’ from those keys! Sounds more like two or three pianos. A tall order of thanks for ‘Five Foot Two!’”

Tony’s original song, “The Glory of Love”:

“Gulp… ahhh! Intoxicating! Like an after-dinner cocktail, Glory went down easy! Thank you, bartender!”

Tony’s fourteen-minute performance of “Rhapsody in Blue”:

“How you are able to recall, align and perform the arrangement intricacies of Gershwin’s epic tour de force is a mystery to me. Outstanding!”

ESSAY #3

I WRITE GREAT STORIES. GOOGLE ME.

The inspiration for this story came from football coach Curt Cignetti’s famously confident December 2023 declaration: “I win. Google me.” His message was simple: don’t tell people what you can do, let your accomplishments speak for themselves.

I write great stories. Google me! Seriously. I’ll wait.

I’m not saying that because I have an oversized ego, I’m saying it because I’ve spent much of my life accumulating material, and I finally figured out what to do with it. I didn’t grow up believing I would become a writer. I was an introverted kid who loved movies, make believe, and the magic of images on the screen. Movies made sense to me. Real life sometimes didn’t.

My own family history could have supplied material for a few screenplays. There were difficult years, complicated relationships, disappointments, and the emotional bruises families sometimes leave behind. My childhood wasn’t exactly a Norman Rockwell painting. I fell behind in school. My parents marital relationship was toxic. There were experiences I once wanted to forget that, with enough distance, became part of the person I am today.

Then there was the drive-in theater. My first real job was at a drive-in—working concessions and ushering. At the time, I was simply a young guy working around popcorn, teenagers and couple’s who believed that darkness plus a giant movie screen constituted complete privacy. It was a pretty good place to learn about people.

I just didn’t know yet that people were going to become my subject. Soon, a coworker unlocked the door for me into the mortuary business. That’s where things got interesting.

For nearly twenty years, I worked around death in Los Angeles as a mortuary driver. I eventually became a contracted removal driver for the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner. My job was to transport people who had died. I did this from hospitals, homes, accident scenes, and crime scenes. Places where families were grieving. Places where nobody wanted to be.

I encountered celebrities and non celebrities. I moved bodies that were extraordinarily difficult to move. I walked into rooms filled with grief and rooms filled with circumstances so bizarre they would sound unbelievable if I hadn’t actually been there.

And I discovered something important: Dead people make great stories. Not because the dead are interesting, but because the living are. Every body I picked up had a story attached to it. Every family had a story. Every strange circumstance had a story. For almost twenty years, I was standing in the middle of them. And through it all, I didn’t know I was gathering material for a book.

Eventually, I left the mortuary business and later found my way into public transportation. But the stories stayed with me. So I finally did something that still surprises me. I wrote them down. A created a book. A real book.

Dead Body Guy: A Grave Undertaking is a 74,000+ word memoir about my journey from an introverted kid to a man who spent nearly two decades working in the death business. It is gruesome. It is funny. It is occasionally heartbreaking. It is sometimes completely ridiculous. And I believe it is unlike most memoirs you’ll ever read.

Along the way, I discovered that my earlier life had prepared me for writing it. The difficult family history taught me about people. The drive-in taught me to watch them. The mortuary business taught me to listen to them. And all those years of soaking it all up gave me something worth writing about.

Becoming a writer was the next challenge. I took memoir and life-writing classes. I read books about writing. I learned how to turn memories into scenes and experiences into stories. I rewrote, cut, rewrote again, and eventually learned something important: I can write. Not just put words on a page. I can tell a story.

I’ve submitted Dead Body Guy to traditional publishers, entered writing contests, published personal essays, and launched my own newsletter. I’ve received rejection letters, but I keep submitting because rejection doesn’t mean you aren’t a writer. It means somebody hasn’t said yes yet. So, yes, I write great stories. Google me. You might find the Dead Body Guy. You might find stories about celebrities, families, accidents, crematories, mortuaries, and the bizarre unwritten rules of the death business. You might find my website: deadbodyguyscott.com

You might find a guy who worked at a drive-in theater before spending nearly twenty years picking up dead people. Now I’m telling the stories. I’m Scott Taylor. I’m the Dead Body Guy. I’m an author. And I write great stories. Google me.

First… you might find Chuck Lamb, a guy who portrays dead body’s in movies and television, but then, you’ll find me! Remember—that’s deadbodyguyscott.com. Is this shameless self-promotion? You bet it is!