Day 47: Upon My Death. . . .

It seems that celebrity grieving has become a national pastime. Every time someone who achieves even the slightest bit of notoriety meets his or her demise, seemingly every monkey with an opinion climbs down from the tree to publicly wax poetic about how much Mr. or Mrs.  Showbiz or Billboard or Baseball Field or Reality Show meant to their lives and how “I’ve been a fan of so and so since the age of dawn.” Whatever.  

Thus, today, I’m going to take a somewhat morbid but positive, proactive approach to my upcoming death—one that I hope will save a lot of people a lot of otherwise wasted time.

In the highly unlikely chance that I should become a celebrity in the near future and my untimely or tragic or unexpected death should soon follow, the following are my publicly stated instructions for all my would-be devoted fans, distractors, and curious lookie loos to follow: 

• Feel free to spend exactly one minute grieving or detailing, reflecting upon, or sizing up my life 
•  Immediately get back to living your own

The fact is, I’ll be dead, and anything you say about me, positive or negative, won’t matter one flippin’ bit to me anyway—unless I’m immediately reincarnated as myself, in which case I’m going to be so pissed off at the universe, I still won’t give two shakes what you have to say about me anyway.

If you choose to disobey my wishes (and what kind of fan are you, anyway?) and spend your valuable time discussing such things as where I rate all time compared to my contemporaries, how I wasted my God-given talent, how my fame wasn’t deserved, or there will never be another like me, you’re an idiot. Let the family and friends and acquaintances who actually had access to me and all the good and bad that encompasses pass judgment. 

Sure, I’m touched that you’ll be touched that I’ll no longer be walking the earth, but really, if you have nothing better to do than engage in endless discourse about how I didn’t write my own music or that I was only famous because I slept with my manager or that I could have been a contender if my prowess for snorting blow hadn’t gotten the better of me, that’s sad on you.

Look, I understand the need to grieve and share that grief—if it’s genuine. I even understand grieving celebrities to a certain degree. When Jerry Garcia and Johnny Cash died, I shed tears. When Bob Dylan dies, I’ll probably take a vacation day and curl up in bed for 24 hours. But overall, I’ve grown more than little tired of false tributes from false fans who could and should be busy carving out their own bits of history and their own life’s worth if not so preoccupied with being occupied by someone’s else’s lives. You know who are, so stop it. I beg you.