D.C. Pierson's Blog, page 4

bigmoneyla:THIS SHOW IS FREE. THAT IS INSANE.Also, it’s...

bigmoneyla:

THIS SHOW IS FREE. THAT IS INSANE.

Also, it’s Eliza’s birthday.

YOU SHOULD DEFINITELY COME.

Giant Corporations Disclose REAL Top Five Regrets Of People Who Are Dying

You may have seen an article that’s been floating around recently about the top five regrets of people who are dying. I read it and, like you, I was touched. 

As a moderately successful author alternative comedian, most of my friends and acquaintances are the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. I mentioned this article to one of these friends, who shall remain nameless but let’s just say he runs a little operation whose name rhymes with “Fie-zer,” and he shared with me a study he and his other CEO buds generously funded out of their own pockets to rebut the findings of this article people have been passing around. He wanted me to share it with you guys because, in his words, “You just put anything on that Internet and it like, goes around, right?”

Anyway, here it is.

I wish I’d had the courage to work more.

People regretted surrendering to the immense societal and familial pressure to work less. “My boss was always pressuring me to take paid maternity leave or otherwise strike a work-life balance,” one woman said. “He once threatened to fire me if I didn’t leave work on a Friday afternoon to see my daughter’s school play. I wish I’d had the guts to say, ‘fire me if you must, but I’m staying right where I am, and producing at optimum efficiency. If you let me go, I can always find another job. Actually, you know what? I’ll find another job even if I’m still at this job. I’ll find several. I deserve to earn less money at more jobs.’ I just wish I’d said that. And honestly? The school play ended up being bad.”  

 

2. I wish I’d shunned people who didn’t spend as much money as me.

“My grammy was right when she said ‘peer groups are the most powerful decision influencers in the personal sphere,‘ and I regret not using that powerful influence on people I considered friends to motivate them to use more of their discretionary income on clothes and gadgets,” said one woman on her deathbed. “Looking back on it, it’s like, what kind of friend was I, calling people up to say ‘How’s everything going, can I help you when anything?’ when I should have been saying, ‘What phone are you talking to me on right now, and if it’s not the most recent iPhone, why am I even talking to you?”

3. I wish I’d taken the advice of TV and billboards.

“I should’ve seen that advertisements were my real friends, my real… can I say it? Family,” one man said. “They were the ones with the consistent message. Your friends and family, they want one thing from you one minute and then the next minute it’s totally different. My wife, before we got married, she was all, ‘You have a drinking problem, you need to take care of that before I can even consider a long term commitment,’ and then the next minute she was like, ‘Great, you’ve been sober for a year now, let’s get engaged.’ It’s like, make up your mind. TV and billboards were always consistent with their messaging, because teams of paid professionals were making sure they were that way. I should’ve tweeted more hashtags they put up in the lower third of TV screens during shows. I should’ve liked Bank Of America on Facebook. I should’ve seen a lot more movies whose posters had been focus-grouped to have maximum impactfulness. On opening weekend. I’ll never get those opening weekends back now. I’ll never get back those hashtag-less tweets.”

4. I wish I’d reported the ineffeciencies and underperformance of co-workers.

Whether major infractions of company policy or the sorts of tiny oversights which can add up to major lost productivity, dying people overwhelmingly reported wishing they’d spent more of their limited time on Earth telling their employer about bad things their co-workers were doing. “One time, I actually stormed into my boss’ office and I demanded a raise because… Oh God, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but… I felt I brought intangible personal skills to the job that were being undervalued. How embarrassing is that? I actually felt like I, a person, had some kind of ‘unique value.’” 

Here the woman broke down into a fit of laughter, and when she recovered, continued: “Oh, it’s good to laugh. It’s the best medicine there is, besides name-brand, non-generic pharmaceuticals. Side note, I should’ve laughed more, by watching situation comedies at their original air times, without the interference of a DVR device so I could view all the commercials. But — anyway, so I went into my boss’ office. And it was the biggest mistake I ever made, not just because of what I said, but because I now realize what I should’ve said was ‘Suzanne in the cube across from me sometimes plays Candy Crush Saga on Facebook.’ Hell for me wouldn’t be the kind with fire and brimstone. Hell for me would be coming face-to-face with all those poor innocent man-hours I let be slaughtered because I didn’t have the guts to speak up for them.”

5. I wished I’d given in earlier to the notion that human life is total war of all against all.

“I was always asking the big questions,” one patient remarked. “What am I doing here? What’s life all about? What should my real priorities be? All of this to beat back the feeling I would sometimes get when I was particularly depressed or overwhelmed, this paranoid, jagged feeling, this suspicion that you couldn’t trust anybody and should only ever be out for yourself in life. What I now know that it was at those moments that I was my most wise. The world is deeply scary, any other person will cut your throat in a second if given the chance, so you should view them with the same naked contempt. If somebody’s on strike because they want to be treated fairly, you should take their job if you can. So what if we could all achieve something greater if we could just hold off on cashing in for just a moment? Some asshole would fuck it up by surrendering to greed, so I may as well be the asshole to fuck it up so I get the payoff. The real competition in life is who can put up with the most bullshit, the most headaches, be treated the worst. Life is a pageant and Miss Least Personal Dignity always wins. And after a point the only true innovation is coming up with the most audacious swindle. It’s not about coming up with something truly new, it’s about being the first person who’s willing to do something the previous generation would’ve considered ethically abhorrent. Honor is for suckers and you should only be decent when there’s a percentage in it. But now… but now I feel the life leaving me. It’s really finally going this time, so you, you gotta convey this message to my grandkids. If I could offer them one piece of advice from a man who’s lived ninety-two years in this crazy world, it’s this…”

A cataclysmic coughing fit racked the old man’s body. Then he settled back, and a glimmer of childlike wonder entered his eyes, and he spoke again.

“Like Bank Of America on Facebook.”

"I want to jump up on the table and scream, ‘Do you know how lucky we are to be doing this? Do..."

““I want to jump up on the table and scream, ‘Do you know how lucky we are to be doing this? Do you understand that the only way to repay that karmic debt is to make something good, is to make something ambitious, something beautiful, something memorable?’ But I didn’t do that. I just sat there, and I smiled.””

- Steven Soderbergh (AKA God), in his State Of Cinema address at the San Francisco International Film Festival, which you can and should read in its entirety here.

Tomorrow night in Norman, Oklahoma. Be there if you live in...

Tomorrow night in Norman, Oklahoma. Be there if you live in Norman, Oklahoma.

My grandma wrote me an e-mail yesterday

And it started like this:

Hi my sweetheart,

Just wanted you to know that you and I are still alive, I think.

And then later in the e-mail:

We have two new baby chicks.  They are so cute but I won’t send you pictures.

 

I wish there was an American Bureau of Immortality I could forward this e-mail to, lobbying them to grant her infinite spins around the sun.

Me @ LA Times Festival Of Books Tomorrow! (April 21st)

Los Angeles: are you coming to the LA Times Festival Of Books tomorrow? I’ll be in the mix! Come get a book signed, come hear me talk on a panel. The event is huge and FREE!

SIGNING!

11 AM - 11:30 @ Penguin booth

12:30 PM - 1 PM @ Mysterious Galaxy booth

PANEL!

1:30 PM - 2:30 PM  - “Guffaws & Giggles” moderated by Aaron Hartzler

w/ Sean Beaudoin, Elizabeth Eulberg, Amy Spalding & ME!

More details about the LA Times Festival Of Books HERE: http://events.latimes.com/festivalofb...

Great song called “Back To Boston" by the great Jason...

Great song called “Back To Boston" by the great Jason Anderson. 

"in the sweet arms of the Northeast, in the sweet arms of my friends / you can find me alive and in love with it all"

Great song called “Back To Boston” by the great...

Great song called “Back To Boston” by the great Jason Anderson. 

“in the sweet arms of the Northeast, in the sweet arms of my friends / you can find me alive and in love with it all”

DC Pierson Squirrel Memes, Vol 2: “This Squirrel Is...

DC Pierson Squirrel Memes, Vol 2: “This Squirrel Is Retired”

Vol. 1: “What’s Your Name, Skittle Squirrel” 

DC Pierson makes a pep-rally mixtape for lonely pop-culture obsessives

DC Pierson makes a pep-rally mixtape for lonely pop-culture obsessives:

Super-duper proud of this. The great Tasha Robinson interviewed me for the AV Club’s “I Made You A Mixtape” feature. Details the struggle of being a cynical nerd and trying to de-cynicism yourself with the aide of, and sometimes in spite of, music and movies and making out. Features Kanye, Springsteen, Joni Mitchell, Jason Anderson, A New Found Glory, Good Luck, Gin Blossoms, Girlfrendo, Karl Hendricks Trio, Weston, Ne-Yo,  The Mountain Goats, Belle & Sebastian, and Jimmy Eat World.