In 2021 a friend of mine, PL, who was pretty much family, told me that she had some people who wanted to meet me and could help me with my musical career.  I was dubious.  I’ve heard this all before.  This was different though.  This was coming from PL.  PL and I were tight.  We likely still would be if I didn’t set fire to our relationship.  More on that later.

My girlfriend at the time, Edie, and I went to meet with PL with her “friends” at a bar on Locke Street in Hamilton.  The name of the place escapes me.  It was there we met Thadius and Vincent.  They were both independently wealthy real estate moguls, or at least that was my understanding.  Vincent was actually an aspiring songwriter himself.  That night we had drinks with the exception of Edie.  Edie was the wheelman.  I NEEDED the drinks for my anxiety.

Nothing was really accomplished that night.  If anything it was all very awkward.  But it was my understanding they wanted to put some money behind me.

The next day I was informed that Vincent was cut out of whatever perceived deal we would have going on.  Allegedly, Vincent thought he and I were going to collaborate and share 50/50.  Thadeus was going to assume the role as the sole moneyman.

The whole thing was strange but my solid relationship with PL was good enough of a reason to at least continue the conversation.  I would have followed PL to the ends of the earth.

Thadeus, PL, and I ended up meeting again in Niagara Falls (where I lived) to have another meeting.  It was very much like the first meeting but a little more loose.  I found Vincent’s silence a little unnerving in the first meeting.

In a nutshell, Thadeus was going to put up money for anything I needed to help further my career.  Initially, I thought a guitar was a bad idea.  Many of you can attest I tend to be a little heavy handed.  That aside, the whole thing seemed like a bad idea.  I’m not successful today because I’ve made bad decision after bad decision in my musical career.  I’ve burned bridges.  I walked away from massive opportunities.  I discontinued a record of mine that was printing money because I have a ridiculous habit of gatekeeping my music.  I have over 100 songs.  But I was unreliable.  I was a meme.  Hell, I’m STILL a meme.

But I arrogantly thought that I could get my shit together.  I’ve heard tell of people who don’t care if people don’t like them.   But with me I went through a great deal of trouble to ensure people didn’t like me.  I was 48 at the time of these meetings.  Sure I was on the reform but I spent 40 years of my life up to that point setting the world on fire and laughing while it burned.

That shit alone will get you hated.  There were/are people who won’t even give my art the time of the day based on the fact – well – they just didn’t/don’t like me.  And rightly so.

But I was greedy and seduced into the idea of getting state-of-the art equipment.  Of course I could make it work.  I knew I could write a great song.  My songs have been covered by notable artists on a respectable scale.  Other credentials included a song that appeared on a Green Jelly record.  If there is one thing other than fucking that I can do really well, it’s write a song.  Call me someone’s golden goose.  Give me a genre.  Give me the technology.  Maybe with this money behind me it would be the catalyst I really needed.

Logically I thought if I were going to make money right away it definitely wouldn’t be with my own material.  I’d have to learn covers.  But I would make them my own.  I already had a couple in my repertoire that weren’t Brown Eyed Girl or Wonderwall.

So the first thing on my list of requests was a Bose L1 mini.  It’s a little classy PA that’s extremely versatile and easy to lug around.

Then it happened.

Disassociation.  Black depression.  My creativity had gone rogue again.  According to reports from Edie I was engaged in the following antics.

– acting like a frightened 12 year old
– going for long walks in my socks
– throwing garbage on our front lawn and shrieking maniacally for the whole block to hear
– running and hiding under the blankets every time she came downstairs to check on me
– stacking cans of food as high as possible
– built a fort in the living room
– had a fit because I wasn’t allowed to eat soup in my fort

I’ll bet Edie could add five more things to that list.  But when I disassociate you best I believe I disassociate.

There was instant regret.  The paranoia came back.  What if I fuck it all up and get killed for failing?  I was 48.  Soon I would be decrepit and people wouldn’t care about me.  How could I be successful musically when I was a colossal fuck up?  My Facebook became a quagmire of nonsensical prose.

When reality reared it’s ugly head I was somehow on the mend.  Edie, weary of my hijinks, had been nursing me back to health with anti-psychotics.  Edie was the best in that capacity.  She’s the only girl to ever love me and champion me to acclaim.  It didn’t matter how crazy I got, not a single person in her family judged me and our younglings were very supportive and understanding.

After my vacation from reality the conversation of a guitar came up.  Now I was back to my normal asshole self.  Edie and I stalked every guitar store in the Niagara region.  We found precisely dick.  If I was getting a free guitar it had to be something better than everyone else’s.  I had an ego after all.

Finally we arranged a liaison with a guitar store.  The guitar store would be Long And McQuade in Hamilton.  The day of however, I was a collage of panic attacks.  I wasn’t quite ready to deal with the ugly reality of having to feel sunlight, and talk to people.  I raided Edie’s Lorazepam and took more than I should have.

The trip itself was a blur.  But I remember thinking I wanted the most expensive guitar in the store.  I was doubtful the money man was going to float that much.

Well he did.

So now I had a 5000 dollar Gibson Hummingbird.  Now all I had to do was become a star and restitution could be made.

None of us in team Doug Hell knew how to proceed.  We all had an impossible task of making me a star.  Ben Rispin and I kept meaning to have coffee so I could pick his brain but the meetings just never happened.  I was unreliable and he was probably stoned.

We all thought the next step was making a record.  My friend, Trole, was my first choice but he was in St. Thomas.  We couldn’t figure out lodging.

Edie recommended doing it with my Green Jelly family member, Eddie Van Jello.  He was close.  He was great at what he did.

The recording experience took place over three weeks and it was a mess.  It became abundantly clear to me that Derek’s consummate likability was more important to me than getting the job done.   We hung out more than we actually got anything done.  My effort was half-assed.  It’s a miracle EJVH got the record to sound as good as it did.  The whole recording process I scoffed about the moneyman being delusional if he thought putting money behind someone was just going to give them a career.  There was no gratitude on my end.  Just thankless insolence.

I hated the record.  I still do.  It’s no fault of EJVH although I did a pretty stellar job of tearing him apart during an embarrassingly insecure moment.  I just wasn’t present enough.  But that onus is on me.  On another day I’ll get into the nightmare that was supposed to be my hit record.  Thankfully, EVJH was waiting on the bridge with a fire truck he probably stole while being really high.  It was his nobility and grace that saved the bridge.

Because of my derision for the record it sat around for over a year before finally releasing it.  All the while I publicly shit all over it with the moneyman watching.  I behaved like a petulant little jaded diva.

Ok so to make a long story even longer, I got the call the other day.  PL informed me that Thadeus wanted the guitar back and equipment back.  This was while I was homeless so it wasn’t the greatest timing.  I didn’t resist and just surrendered the equipment.

There are a lot more nuances to this.

In a nutshell, I didn’t deserve that guitar.  I didn’t even love the guitar or respect it.  The guitar was a flex, nothing more.  I preferred my fascist killing machine guitar.  It felt better and didn’t require the maddening upkeep of the Gibson Hummingbird.  I didn’t live in fear of it getting smacked around a little and I didn’t play it like I had jazz hands.

I didn’t deserve a guitar that carried that much majesty.  Losing the Hummingbird was not a loss.  It was a blessing.  It was also a lesson in humility that I deserved.  Humility has been the one thing that hasn’t run from me because of bad behaviour and abject lunacy.

This is not me being weepy.  This is not me being needlessly hard on myself.  I was smug about the guitar.  I was cocky thinking I was good enough to invest in.  But I’m humble knowing that my despicable attitude toward life will always keep me living alone in rooms and jumping from sinking ship to sinking ship probably until I die.  I’ve accepted that and am at peace with being a monster.

So the big bad unfair people didn’t take my guitar away.  If that’s how it looks on the surface, don’t be fooled.  This is MY failure.  I am pretty sure I was candid about my accountability in in losing it in my initial post.  But I guess I wasn’t fair in the comments but the pain was still fresh.  The perceived betrayal was still real.  Again, there are a lot more nuances to this but this is the Coles Notes version.  I know I tend to rant and get sidetracked but I’m just desperately trying to paint a picture.

Wow.  To think this is the watered down version.

Ok fink, you know what to do.  Also, get fucked in the process and delete me.