Tell me why I shouldn't fucking kill myself right now

To spite the world.

Well yes, there's that, but for me it's becoming more and more like "to fight the world." I am old and tired and sick of fighting. So damned sick of it. I just want some peace of mind.

I can't think of anything else. Maybe things will get better, just as likely they'll stay about the same... what about yr writing for Uncut/The Wire? Is that going ok?

Uncut yes, Wire no. And I don't think Paul L's long for Uncut so that'll be that finished before long as well, I daresay.

--> there is always more to write.
--> you can find a new job.
--> you are cool and life is cool and death suXoRs

I think the Blogger thing will sort itself out. I've had archives vanish before and then come back.

Because to end it at Christmas would be such a horrible cliche, darling. Plus we re-arranged the Glasgow FAP so it would be convenient for you to come to it. Plus all the usual sensible reasons which you know, really, when you think about it in a rational kind of way.

To Geeta:

1. What's the good of writing if no one else can read it?

2. Getting more difficult by the day.

3. No I'm not; prove it; it might suck but it would be less painful than being kicked over and over again every time you try to get up.

Blogger - it's like an ant painfully trying to climb to the top of an anthill, and just as they are about to reach the top some twat flicks their finger at them, sends them hurtling back down to the bottom and they have to start all over again. There are only so many times I can "start all over again." Fed up with having to keep doing it.

Whoopee! I've just checked my Hotmail inbox and there's some twat being sarcastic about my lists. So there's another reason for wanting to be out of the whole thing.

You know, if you haven't got anything positive to say to me, please don't bother emailing me.

you can salvage at least some, if not all, of your blog by looking at google caches.

i want to kill myself, but i always have another party, and btw suicide requires ambition.

Are there people who'd be terribly saddened if you died? Not a positive reason to live, but a good one I think.

Marcello, think very carefully. You are an interesting and worthwhile person, and valuable because of this. I've not met you yet but would like the chance to. These are obviously external reasons, over which your personal ones have precedence, but if the fact that people evidently enjoy communicating with you should give you some hope and reasons for living.

About Blogger: I've just been eavesdropping on the users Yahoo group message board, and what do you know the same problem gets fixed in an hour if you pay $35 for a Blogger Pro update. So fuck your apartheid, Blogger, I will take my words somewhere else (like to the grave).

anthony I have no parties to go to and I do have the required ambition.

Andrew T: to be frank, no. Everyone would say oh what a shame well it wasn't a surprise etc. for about six seconds and then move on. The only person to whom it would have made a difference predeceased me.

Liz: thank you, but it's the mechanics of day-to-day living with which I cannot cope. For everyone here and elsewhere who "enjoy communicating" with me, there are a hundred whose ambition seems to be to make my life as difficult and miserable as possible. And unfortunately the latter outnumber the former.

Why live?

New records keep coming out, and some of them will touch you in ways you haven't even conceived of being possible, and if you're dead you don't get to hear them.

There are other nouns to substitute for "records", but you can count on music more than you can some of those other nouns.

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

it's an interesting question; one that i can only answer selfishly; i can't show you the grain of life that will make it all worthwhile; i can only say stupid things, like so you can hear new rekkids and new books and try new things but in the end it all amounts to the same thing, "you can't TAKE THEM WITH YOU"; the only real answer i can think of if i ask that question of myself is that i'm scared of the black beyond but that's irrational because; i'm scared of the event but it can be painless; i can only give you selfish reasons:

...

so you can find new love, in whatever form, seems to be the pathetic answer i might grasp. whatever. i'm not help. sorry.

oh yeh, so you can read MY book; see, selfish reasons. imagine the fun you could have as well.

Marcello, have you considered another blogging programme? there're free scripts like Greymatter that're hosted on your site's own server space so your site doesn't get screwed around every time Blogger have a re-design.

Well, like I said on CoM today, I want to transfer the whole lot over, and Pitas doesn't seem very competent, so I might have a look at Greymatter after the New Year (though transferring will obviously take some time).

Liz: the journalist Kenneth Allsop was found dead of a barbiturate overdose in the '70s, clutching a copy of The Collected Dorothy Parker with the passages "There is nothing good that is not taken away" and "She could find no other means to deal with her pain" underlined.

Also you're not stupid, Marcello, and you haven't come close to exhausting the set of possibilities. Of course, the set of possibilities do tend to get obscure when you're disappointed, sad, and stressed. You clearly do need some sort of break, but eternity is simply too fucking long. Pack a bag and go somewhere sunny where you don't speak the language.

Marcello, I wish I could think of something to say to make you feel better. All I’ve come up with so far I’ve deleted coz it’s boring pointless clichés about thinking how much worse it could be and look at all you do have blah blah blah. I have all these clichés buzzing around in my head just now coz this isn’t exactly my happiest Christmas and people keep spouting them at me, they don’t help. All I can say is that it will get better, you’ll find your own way to get through. For what it’s worth, my thoughts are with you, I hope you feel more positive soon.

don't go somewhere you don't speak the language: it is the loneliest I've ever felt in my life, and I was WITH someone.

but that's maybe just me and my over-reliance on language (sorry colin)

I do have a bag packed. I am away to Glasgow for two weeks as of tomorrow. It won't solve anything but it stops me for now. It's the horror to which I will have to come back afterwards which fills me with dread.

Moving back to Glasgow is definitely not an option. I considered it in the summer and concluded that it would be unhelpful - for both personal and professional reasons.

I can't make you feel better Marcello, sorry. But I can tell you one thing, if you have just one member of your family that you care about, or even one friend that you care about then doing what you are contemplating is selfish in the extreme, and will cause probably far more anguish that you are feeling right now. And failing that, think of the poor bastard that has to find you.

"There is nothing good that is not taken away" is a lame truism -- there is nothing that is not taken away. So?

"She could find no other means to deal with her pain" -- again, I doubt the the set of possibilities was exhausted, just the person trying to come up with them. No shame in that, but a nap or six months abroad on the bum are infitely preferable breaks (in that they are not infinite) to suicide.

David: Depends on what you want. Marcello seems to me to be frustrated with the very idea of attempting communication and with dealing with idiocy and mediocrity, and it's mixed up in ugly ways with loneliness and grief -- take the language away and the first set of stuff disappears, so that you can focus (or not) on the second batch.

Well it would cause me death, which would make all other considerations irrelevant, no?

Suicide is about caring what others think. Caring is not a one-way street; what's the good of caring about people when they fundamentally do not care about you?

D Parker of course went on into her seventies.

I don't agree with napping or travelling for six months; that is relocating the problem rather than solving it. I know what I want to do but am being prevented from doing it.

If you're asking the question, you think there is an answer. Hence the search for said answer is enough reason, and when the answer presents itself you'll have it.

(You could alternatively attempt to prove the opposite - but if you suceed then youse in trouble).

Who is preventing you? Is this all in the hands of others?

And you know what? I was actually in quite a good mood when I got up this morning; looking forward to travelling up to Glasgow tomorrow, looking forward to posting the last CoM post. And then all this comes upon me at once. It's like Tantalus; as soon as he gets a sniff of the food, it is sadistically whipped away from him.

Come to the Glasgow FAP, you can be miserable and depressed all night, you and I can sit in a corner like Statler and Waldorf, moan and whinge and be generally bad mannered. It might not help you any but it'll make me feel better!

"Dorothy Parker died January 7, 1967, in New York. She had suggested that her tombstone inscription read, "This is on me," but she was cremated, and her ashes remained in her attorney's filing cabinet until the late 1980s."

This is a HOOT. Also, yes, Dotty didn't commit suicide (although she attempted it 4 times), but lived to be a crabby old lady, like I'm planning on doing.

I hope you have a grebt time in Glasgae, Marcello, and also that things seem somewhat (little acorns) more positive when you get back to reality.

I do not feel as though I have any control over my life. I feel as though I am losing what fragile hold I had left on life.

I am expected to pay $35 (which being British I cannot) for the privilege of being able to read my writing, or else I lose the whole lot. I remain dependent on "day jobs" which can be whisked away from you if someone doesn't like the look of your face. I remain in grief and nobody seems to have the remotest clue on how to deal with it, least of all me.

4.) Because we would miss you terribly, Marcello. Like I said: We won't ALLOW you to walk away from life. You need to find out that tomorrow will bring good things. Yes, it could bring bad things, but you have to realize you can overcome this. You can live with it.
You also need to hear those CDs I WILL copy for ya. :-)

Blogger: you need to re-publish the archives. this happened to me as well (on numerous occasions). But as I stated in my email: I can try to set up a subdomain and establish a blog for you there.

I know this year has been extremely bad for you, but then you HAVE made advances as well. You are touching people with your writing. As much as that doesn't seem to come back to you - readers don't really write "Oh Marcello I liked what you wrote" as much as "Damn that review sucked chunks!" - you are making a difference. If only because Uncut is a lot kooler. ;-) Marcello, hey, if you weren't here, I would miss you. You're a great friend and I want you HERE.

Okay fuck it, no matter what you decide I am gonna try 'n' find a friend who establishes a blog for you. email me okay?

Because killing yourself isn't the solution to those problems, but it's your right and I won't question that. Anyway, you'd miss 2003, but if that's any worse than 2002 then you might have a point.

nath i have just emailed you.

love you lots :-)

I'm really sorry about all this. It's just been a terrible and confusing morning and it's provoked all this to come out into the open. It happens every now and then. It flattens you completely and always in the same way.

I won't do it, of course. Not while my mum's here. Not while Nathalie and Mark and everyone else are still here. I just need to be reminded of that every now and then - that's the way I am, unfortunately!

"I don't agree with napping or travelling for six months; that is relocating the problem rather than solving it."

Do you think every problem can be solved though? I think that's unrealistic. I don't know if you'll think this is hippy claptrap but it's always made sense to me - you change the things you can and accept the things you can't.

It's Christmas and you're still grieving (unchangeable) but everything else can be sorted out - from what others say CoM isn't lost (and hang on, you might feel indignant at paying $35 but that's twenty quid for all your work - seems like a bargain to me) and you will find another job (because people do). You might need to put in a bit of effort to get these things but the more panicky you get over collapsing archives and unemployment the less effective you'll be at finding solutions to things that are solvable.

Yeah this has happened to I Hate Music about 8 times, it is a real pain in the arse - I also won't go over to Blogger Pro because they haven't implemented the only thing which would make a real difference to NYLPM (team editing). That said it's a free service, most popular ever, etc etc. and blogspot is your basic Happy Meal option - you need to republish the archives somewhere else that you have direct FTP access to, like Nathalie said - I think there's a lot of people here who'd give up that space for a couple of weeks.

I appreciate that it's all a huge soul-crushing hassle right now so the best thing to do is give someone you trust - Nathalie maybe - editing privileges on CoM for a while and delegate sorting the whole mess out to them. That somebody could also sort out a proper index for CoM too so it comes back even stronger.

I have an idea how to get yr writing back Marcello (without paying $35, of course)...

http://cookham.blogspot.com/cookham_archive.html is the faulty link, so I suggest (IIRC) changing it to

http://cookham.blogspot.com/[year]_[month]_[day]_cookham_archive.html

both [month] and [day] are two-digit values, just whack in a date you know you published something, or if that fails the first of a month you know you pub. in on and it should work...

note I haven't used blogger fer ages, but looking at other blogs suggests that this will work

Yes, I'd certainly be happy with that if Nathalie is happy to take that on. I agree that an index is urgently needed for CoM - links and graphics also! Nath is much more computer-smart than me so I would really appreciate her help.

Thanks for the tip DG, I'll have a go and see if that works.

IT WORKS! I've got the page up beginning 27th october!

now the 20th!

"I don't agree with napping or travelling for six months; that is relocating the problem rather than solving it."

No, it's neither -- it's getting yourself away so that you can get into shape to actually solve the problem. You can't think about your financial problems when you're on the phone with bill collectors -- you have to be calm, and if you're not, you have to GET calm.

I mean, hell, you barely have time even to grieve properly -- how can you be expected to deal with morons in customer service?

You're right DG it does work! Sadly 18-22 November remains incommunicado, but everything else has come back. Cheers DG! :-)))

This if nothing else indicates how important the need is for a proper CoM index!

Colin, the problem is, if you go away for six months and don't deal with morons in customer service, you return to find that the bailiffs have stripped the place bare - and then you really have no option but to start again! It's all so bloody interdependent; though mind you I often think it might be better if the bailiffs did come - it would force me into living a new and better life.

s'OK, happy to help

I blame the internet

(DG = Komputer GOd!)

haha pH34r m3 ;-)

That's kind of what I'm saying, Marcello -- get away from the daily bullshit long enough to be able to think again, then ask yourself what you'd do if the bailiffs came -- then consider if it's worth doing anyway, irrespective of the fucking bailiffs.

Marcello, if your money/bills problems are really bad I have the name of a non-profit making company who can help. Depends on how bad things are though, email me if you want more info.

NO NO SMEE I was just running with Colin's, uh, metaphor. No problems on that score at the moment - what I'm saying is, if I went away for six months and didn't do some kind of work, I WOULD be in danger of falling into that situation as sadly I do not have a £500,000 family trust fund off which I can live and there are rent and bills to be paid which unfortunately will not similarly go on a "sabbatical."

Here's the thing about vacations: you don't take them only to get away from your life, you take them to change your perspective on what you come back from them to. Among other things, quite a few narratives of depression I've read that were written after the end of the depression end "...and then one time I went to insert-name-of-pleasant-place, and I was taking a little stroll, and FOOM, all of a sudden it lifted and everything was basically okay."

Also: always wise to make sure any piece of information you care about exists in at least two independent places. That way, when the idiots come to try to mess you up, you can say "ha-HAAAA, bastards, you didn't reckon with my AWESOME ARCHIVING POWERS!"

marcello carlin rox.

so you can read "How To Arrive Late At A Party: A Year's 27 Best Dead Media" which should be up on sha!zam by monday evening.

Hmmm. I spent a long weekend two weeks ago taking strolls around formerly pleasant places and it was horrible. I am not sure that it works, anyway. It didn't work after last Xmas, that's for certain.

Nevertheless...I cannot promise to be at the Glasgow FAP but I will do my best. Theoretically there is no reason why I shouldn't be there, but in reality I'm uncomfortable with getting blootered if I know I have to be on the move the next morning. I would prefer doing it without that pressure (which is why Monday 30th would have been ideal for me). However I'll see how things go.

Running with one of my metaphors is more dangerous than running with scissors. To avoid confusion: the metaphorical parts of my advice are: bill collectors, bailiffs, the figure of six months; the actual bits: getting the hell out of where you are and physically moving your body to some entirely new and unfamiliar place for an undetermined amount of time in order to get relaxed and more able to think and feel.

The old pleasant places won't work -- you need new ones before you could possibly enjoy the old ones again.

No no no. Not "formerly pleasant places," or places with which you have mental baggage associated. Someplace new, where you have nothing to do but explore.

Marcello, don't apologise; if what got posted on this thread did ANYTHING to cheer you up, at all, then any worry on our parts is no big deal. You were saying sorry earlier, etc.

No, I can't see it myself. What I need is to feel "at home." Going somewhere unfamiliar isn't going to give me that or recharge my batteries - Milan is just a warmer equivalent of Streatham. And anyway, going away for any amount of time, however indeterminate, costs money - money which I don't have. And wherever I go, unless I choose to live as a vagrant, I have to earn my way; I do not currently have the financial resources to sit and do nothing for six days, let alone six months. At present I do not feel I belong anywhere, or with anyone, and that is what is bothering me.

The alternative is to try to build a "home" where I am, somewhere which would attract people - be it physical or metaphorical.

Vagrancy might be a better choice than suicide, don't you think? Should all else fail.

Andrew = OTM.

Forgive my saying this, Marcello, but going somewhere that's not immediately "home"-like sounds like exactly what you need. Not like a war zone or anything--just somewhere hospitable you've not been to before. Exploring new things = survival instinct kicking in at its most basic level: "where do I go to eat? is there a good record store around here? how about a bookshop? what is the architecture like?" The closer to "home" you are the more you tend to dwell on your close-to-home problems; even if you're still thinking about yr problems (and why shouldn't you? problems are for solving, right?) the change of scenery tends to do excellent things for your perspective, as others have noted.

As far as not having any money for such things (which based on the impending job losses you've mentioned is probably a foremost consideration here), I don't know anyone who knows every facet of the town where they live. I'm visiting Minneapolis, where I spent 24 years before moving to Seattle and then New York; walking around certain areas I realized that I'd barely ever been to them before. There are ENORMOUS sections here I'm unaware of. Even if it's not terrifically exotic, seeing a part of--you're in London, right?--that you're not experienced with can be pretty eye-opening. Try it; if nothing else, it's some exercise. And good luck.

I got here too late for saying anything of any use, as if I would have anyway. But I will repeat that I'm very impressed with how well you have dealt with the most horrible circumstances, Marcello. My 23 year marriage ended under a year and a half ago, and while I'm surprised at how well I've coped, you've achieved more from a far worse starting place - the fact that you are building a real place in music journalism, as well as writing great stuff, is an achievement to be proud of at any time, but at a time like this it's far more impressive. It's things like this that make me optimistic that you have it in you to continue building a new life. And given your gifts, your intelligence, how interesting you are, and so on, there's plenty of scope for it to be a very good life.

I do understand that despair though, the way something bad happening makes you feel as if all your efforts and strength have been wasted, and there is no point in going on. I had a similar spell a few days ago, kicked off by a huge and sudden falling out with one of my oldest and best friends, but I just about held it together, and we are getting over it. I kind of think that just struggling through days like that is the best I can do.

hey martin, you take care, too.

Thanks - but I'm doing okay now. I'm seeing the friend tomorrow, then I'm spending the next several days celebrating Christmas with my wonderful girlfriend, so I'm more than fine!

A couple of things about Blogger:

If your archives vanish, edit your archive template and then republish them all - has always fixed them for me.

Get yourself somewhere that you can ftp to and in Blogger Settings put in the ftp details (and republish all again, of course) so your blogging is somewhere other than on blogspot. Then you can ftp them down from where ever you published to onto your own machine and then *you* own and hold all your stuff.

If it's on other people's servers (e.g. blogspot) then it's kind of up to them what they do with it. They're free and they owe their users nothing. I wouldn't leave something precious there and not back it up on my own machine.