Somewhere in a distance a male voice managed to get through to Brian with the question of all questions in the world of psychotherapy…when did it all start? Or, come to think of it, the mother of all therapeutic questions was of course about childhood trauma, when did it happen, what actually happened and, in case of denial, why the defensiveness? Over the years he had heard it all, but still he kept coming back, to different therapists, to unlock the secret, find out how to turn his urge to kill himself into a major artistic achievement. In short, Brian wanted to be respected by serious music critics and adored by millions of fans, like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Ian Curtis, Amy Winehouse, Kurt Cobain and all these other suicidal motherfuckers before him. He wanted to stare down the abyss ‘Keith Richards style’ and report back on it, tell everyone it was a truly interesting experience and but now it was time to record a groundbreaking album. Motherfuckers!

His new shrink was supposed to be the expert, the Pablo Picasso of suicide therapy, a genius indirectly responsible for many a great album, a producer, a producer of the soul. And now…what the fuck…why all these questions about his youth, where it all came from, and when it had started. Brian tried to lift himself from the couch but couldn’t really, managed just enough to have a look at the shrink’s footwear. Birkenstocks. Comes with the profession. The therapist’s equivalent of a Stratocaster. He probably had a notepad too, and meticulously sculpted facial hair. Brian tried to smile at his own (newfound?) irony. Tried, vomited on the floor instead, returned to his catatonic state.

Barely conscious, surrounded by the rancid smell of fresh vomit, Brian mumbled something about the Ancient Mariner, Colonel Kurtz, Moby Dick’s Ishmael, doomed characters, heroes (without quotation marks). Like in that Clash song: ‘I fought the law, but the law won‘, even if it was law of nature, law of necessity, law of diminishing returns…(law of gravity?). It’s the fighting that counts, the burden these heroes carry on behalf of everyone else, modern day saviours, redemption at the end of a long and very dark tunnel. We are the people! So…if some of my colleagues, like-minded spirits, take action and kill themselves, in broad daylight or covered up as overdose, I can’t blame them, I understand, but such is not my style. Why put another body in Hell’s furnace if I can also try to understand myself, work through my issues or, worst case, still do it if I don’t like the results.

That sounded good, like the beginning of a song cycle, a concept album. maybe. Almost too good to be true.