“And I said that I was sorry about that line
I only wrote it cause it rhymed”

‘Last year’ I wrote for the first time in detail about my last suicide attempt. ‘Last’ as in ‘previous’, it takes a mighty pair of brass balls to confidently predict you’ll never attempt suicide in the future, no matter who you are. I wrote it because I was in a good place mentally and didn’t like feeling that it was this uncomfortable skeleton hanging in my closet, awkwardly swinging after a laughably failed attempt at hanging itself. Remember, I’m allowed to make those jokes, not you. Maybe you’ve read it, because it was the most viewed post ever on this blog, because you’re all sickos. Honestly, I really do hope another post overtakes it soon, as currently the example of what musters the absolute most traffic to my website is failed suicide bids. What if I felt I needed to repeat its success?? How do you even plan a failed suicide bid? I can’t very well jump off the bottom step of the stairs and then claim I’ve survived another suicide bid, can I? Well, maybe I could once, but after the fourth or fifth time I’d likely start losing the trust of readers. And that’s what’s most important to me, dear readers, your trust. Or just another random person visiting the site to assure me the clicks, I really couldn’t give a fuck. You’re all cattle to me.

What I’d really need to do is wait until I’m at the very delicate mental point where I kinda wanna kill myself, but would happily accept increased traffic to my website as a trade off should I fail. That would ensure legitimate intent, and considering that according to the American Association of Suicidology, there are twenty five suicidal failures for every one success (!) so however I try next time, it’d more than likely to fail anyway. Kerching! I joke, I joke, I know that part of the reason that post was the most successful ever was because I actually reached out to people with it, and it’s the only post of my blog that almost all of my ‘friends’ have even read, because they don’t give a shit about the beautiful art that I create! Thanks a bunch, jerks! Next time I fail to commit suicide, I’m definitely naming you all in the note as a deciding factor! Is that what you want?? Hmmm??? Actually, maybe it is…

The confession was placed in my ‘review’ of St Vincent’s latest. I honestly can’t remember why I’d decided to place it there. I almost definitely reverse-engineered it. I had decided to be far more honest in my blog posts, and had been looking for a while for an album that would afford me to set the record straight on my ‘accident’ (I guess the fact I survived it actually does make it accidental). I decided to hook it onto the line ‘How could anybody love you and leave/And not lose their mind?’ from Los Ageless, and frame it around me resenting my ex wife, Samantha, for taking credit for my suicide. Cool, I thought, that kind of works as an excuse to exorcise a few demons. I was already at no. 23 and rapidly running out of time to do so: I actually had things to say about many of the following albums! Smash smash smash with the keyboards, click click click on the ‘publish’ button, bask bask bask in the detoxification.

However, I was soon faced with another odd occurrence of the nonsense I write in this gloriously artificial fake online world actually having real world effects. This, however, was far more uncomfortable than Hejjy reaching out of my computer screen like the girl from Ringu .Only Chinese, not Japanese, so it’s not racist. And a computer screen rather than a TV screen. Shut up, it totally works. Samantha, the ex wife I was making hay out of stating was claiming the reason for my suicide, had somehow read the post, and was now trying to make contact with me for the first time in more than five years.

I never, never, never, never believed my ex-wife would ever read the post. She had up until that point made a laudably comprehensive effort to completely remove me from her life, and I didn’t even believe (at that point) that she was still even in contact with any of our shared associates. Or that I still shared association with anyone she was still in contact with. Or that she associated with anyone I contacted. And so forth. If I honestly believed there was any chance she’d read it, I would have been a lot nicer. Or a lot crueller. I would have definitely gone more to one extreme.

She said that she didn’t think she was responsible for my suicide attempt. She said that she broke off all contact with me “because remaining friends with you was incompatible with moving on with my life in the way that I wanted and needed – a decision I had come to before asking you for a divorce and based on the fact that our marriage was still causing me a lot of pain”. Maybe it was me who had an overinflated opinion of myself, thinking that I was the big reason behind something, when actually it was… well… still me, but just another equally off putting and repellent facet of my past failures other than my suicide attempt. I can definitely accept that anyone who knew me in my 20s has at least 7’650 reasons to never want to see me again, so that part of the story definitely checks out.

So, that was her take on it, and after allowing her the right to her response to my feelings, I managed to counter her assertions by…

Wait, twenty five failed suicides for every success?? In America?? They’ve got guns in that country! A failed suicide in America is definitely an #EpicFail

Anyway, I countered by immediately conceding. I said I ‘only wrote it because it rhymes’, and that I would happily take the post down if she didn’t like it. Yeah, that’s right, it was the quickest ever surrender to outside pressure over contentious artistic contest. Imagine if Andres Serrano showed such lack of strength in the conviction of his art? We’d never have Piss Christ.

Here’s the thing though, Samantha didn’t angrily seek me out in order to demand that I quit besmirching her good name. She didn’t seethe how emblematic the post was of my toxic narcissism and dangerous lack of awareness. She didn’t make unflattering comparisons of my penis to that of her current husband. She was worried that I still held a grudge all these years later. It was a completely friendly and positive attempt to clear up what she considered misapprehensions. She only ever mentioned my tiny penis in affectionate terms. She didn’t want to think that I resented her. I never wanted her to read the post, and certainly didn’t want her to think that I still resented her. I’m sure, in turn, that she didn’t want to think that I thought that she thought I resented her. I certainly didn’t want her to think that I thought that she thought that I thought that she thought that I resented her. Wait, was that too many ‘thoughts’?

She didn’t even want me to take down or change the post, only to have her say. And I think it should be the last say. I don’t want to argue more about what some people thought or didn’t think five years ago. Certainly less people would be hurt, less people would feel like they’re causing other people to be hurt, if we just accepted Samantha’s version of events. We’re both in happier places now, and there’s next to no chance she’ll be mentioned in the blog post about my next failed attempt.

I’m not deleting the post though. Fuck no! Most views ever, brah!

38 minutes

‘HTSAMF’ is an amazingly satisfying and complete proper rock album, one of the year’s most dang likeable records that marries perfect pop rock tunes with some movingly incendiary lyrics. It’s pushed over the line into ‘essential’ by the vocals of Georgia Maq, absolutely one of the greatest rock vocalists I’ve heard in a very, very long time. The album has been described in some quarters as the ‘sound of #MeToo‘, which really undersells it’s timeless quality. #MeToo is an important and long awaited movement, but Georgia Maq sings songs that are both too personal and too universal to be pigeonholed into a single contemporary news piece. Sure, there are astonishingly moving songs that deal with sexual assault, but I’m pretty sure that existed before #MeToo, and some lyrics manage to resonate even with fat, middle aged white guys.

“I wasn’t the one who was unfaithful
That I could see why people thought I was
Sometimes making love is the only time I ever feel loved”

Stella Donnelly: Thrush Metal

Funny story… Well, not funny, but a story. And you can’t prove it didn’t happen. One of my volunteers said she was going to a festival, and I of course immediately wanted to impress her by recommending loads of really cool artists she should see. I looked at the line-up and said she should see one, two… three…? Horrifyingly, there weren’t that many bands at the festival that I’d heard of! In terror, I saw the amazing album cover that accompanied Ms Donnelly and said she should go and see her. After the volunteer left, I realised that I really should probably hear the album. One to look out for, even if this debut release can’t quite repeat the achievement of one of the year’s greatest songs. 

https://campcope.bandcamp.com/