Originally published on my other blog, blahblahblah.pyradraculea.com
I like chocolate
I don’t like tea
I like the junkies
And the junkies get fucking obsessed with me
Goddamn.
When I was in the music biz a few years back, I had a running joke with my best friend: any time a guy went out of his way to be nice to me and do me favors, that meant he used to love his heroin.
Because it always turned out to be true.
Hey, I get it. I have a prickly personality, so I guess I remind them of their favorite needles.
Alcoholics often barely tolerated me. Cokeheads could go either way. But heroin addicts turned into Charlie Brown looking at the little red haired girl.
Which is fine. Some of my favorite artists and closest blood relatives, yadda yadda yadda.
And my sample is slanted because Vancouver’s music scene has long been an opium den, maybe even more so than LA or NYC’s, at least on a per capita basis.
But goddamn it, there are junkies and then there are junkies. And I don’t mean even in terms of the habit, but the underlying emotional neediness, the big black hole they tried to fill with opiates.
Reminds me of a longer time ago when I was doing some BDSM stuff, not pro dominatrix but amateur. Some of the masochists were like that (like the junkies, I mean) too: very clingy swapping to very combative. And I recall one of them, who was more self-aware and well-adjusted, Chris, telling me the secret to dealing with his kind was never to throw a punch in anger. “That’s what we want. So if you lash out, you’re rewarding bad behavior. Masochists piss you off, shun them for a week or two. No calls, no visits, no emails, nothing. That’s the only way they’ll learn.”
In related news, one of my ex-junkie pals (not a music industry one, though) is pushing his luck again. Because I only want to be friends. I might be his type but it’s not mutual, as I have tried to make gently but abundantly clear on many occasions.
And he knows I have my eye on someone who’s much more to my liking.
And so of course he’s trying to push my buttons, maybe even pick a fight. “I have everything.”
No one ever has “everything.” It’s impossible. What is possible is to have everything a given person wants. But you’d best be damn certain you actually do have everything on their checklist.
Especially the things she’s explicitly said she wants.
And when you know someone else does have that everything, maybe don’t make an ass of yourself trying slag guys like that someone else.
“You have flaws too. You want a musician.”
I have many flaws. Knowing what I want ain’t one of them.
Also, when you try to tell me I shouldn’t like what I like, shouldn’t be attracted to the kinds of guys I’ve always gotten wet for, you show yourself to be a manipulative and controlling asshole with absolutely no regard for my opinion on my own life.
And that is far more repulsive than any mere lack of musical talent could ever be.
Well, I’ve been hearing Chris’s words from 20 years ago in the back of my head and it’s time to heed them.
Not that I expect any lesson to be learned from it.
