Bonus Entry for a Meat Head

For as long as I can remember, my private nickname for Henry Rollins has been "Mr. Meat Head". I think this blog of his will probably help you understand why. It isn't just his failure to understand that a suicidally depressed person may think they're doing their loved ones a favour by committing suicide, it's the lack of thought and consistency permeating the piece. Behold the reversal in these two paragraphs:

When someone negates their existence, they cancel themselves out in my mind. I have many records, books and films featuring people who have taken their own lives, and I regard them all with a bit of disdain. When someone commits this act, he or she is out of my analog world. I know they existed, yet they have nullified their existence because they willfully removed themselves from life. They were real but now they are not.

I no longer take this person seriously. I may be able to appreciate what he or she did artistically but it’s impossible to feel bad for them. Their life wasn’t cut short — it was purposely abandoned. It’s hard to feel bad when the person did what they wanted to. It sucks they are gone, of course, but it’s the decision they made. I have to respect it and move on.

You regard them with disdain but you respect their decision? Maybe too much "Raw Power" makes it hard to see nuances as subtle as the difference between night and day.

For all the people who walked from the grocery store back to their house, only to be met by a robber who shot them in the head for nothing — you gotta hang in there.

Why? Isn't it possible that two people may be leading completely different lives? Did Hunter S. Thompson deciding he didn't want to put up with a life of constant pain insult someone who was murdered while leading a relatively comfortable and happy life? How?

I remember I really started to hate Rollins when his critique of Morrissey was founded on the argument that English artists should leave England. It doesn't surprise me that the man who couldn't imagine some people don't have the luxury of travelling the world at a whim would also not understand suicide.

Still, none of this is as stupid as his adolescent wank poetry.