Letter to Erin 20150608

In the name of Allah, most Gracious, most Merciful.

Oh, you're mad at me?  You are not amused?  Well, you may be pleased to know that I was immediately punished for my act of posting a photo of hairy cat balls on the Internet.  The morning after I blogged, Bobby was strutting around the compound with his chest puffed up and peeing on everything.  Oh wait, he always does that.  Then he picked a fight with his brother.  Then ---- went back in heat, and was screaming all morning.  Then while I was cleaning my mother's bedroom, someone dumped a whole pot of cooking oil on my kitchen floor.  It was covered, and I thought it was stable enough, but apparently it wasn't.  I suspect it was a certain someone wanting revenge for not allowing her to spawn at will.

I was never much of a Joy Division fan.  I had all their music on cd a couple of decades ago, and it made me drowsy.  I get drowsy anyway listening to music I like and my own music, but I wasn't all that interested in Joy Division.  Then a few days ago, I saw a video of them live on BBC's "Something Else".  I was totally blown away.  The live mix was powerful, and that lead singer was SCARY.  Joy Division has been long associated with gothic music, but they didn't look like any goth I had ever known, and I've known quite a few.  They looked more like civil servants.  You know, the type of people you would meet if you were applying for a business license.  The hair, shoes, shirts, neatly creased pants, and no jackets.  To me, they were definitely more of a live band than a studio band.  I wish I had produced their studio albums, I would have given them a more aggressive sound.

It turns out that Ian Curtis was a full time civil servant before he was a rock star, working with the unemployed and the disabled.  When I watched the interviews with his wife and closest friends, I got the impression that he was a resilient, secretive and stubborn man, rather than the whimpering ninny which was his portrayal in the movie "Control".  He could have overcome his illness and other problems if it had been his intention.  I observe that he wasn't born with epilepsy: he acquired the disease.  Which means he was subjected to brain damage, substance abuse, and overwork.  I rule out bacterial infection because no other illnesses were mentioned.  It could be that he studied the motions of epileptic fits so precisely, that his "Epileptic Dance" was equivalent to a first seizure.  And once one has a first seizure, it becomes easier to get more and habitual seizures.  If that be correct, it could be that epileptic fits can be doctored with an "out-of-phase" epileptic dance, like a sine wave is neutralized by another sine wave which is out of phase.

Anyway, it seems to me that Ian Curtis was a calculated man with a secret agenda.  His sickness became part of his public image as a rock star.  It could be that financial success for Joy Division or anybody else associated with Joy Division was never his intention.  He probably understood music and mass media well enough to know that Joy Division would have a tremendous influence because of his death.  And even when things spun out of control, he stuck with the plan.  I see a distinct possibility of a secret agenda of becoming some sort of martyr for the sick, whether his intention was noble or selfish.  They could always have dressed up as goths or punk rockers instead of civil servants.  But not just that.  If this is the case, then his suicide is an injustice.  Because the rock star most qualified to champion the sick was murdered by Ian Curtis.

Oh dearest, I'm spewing out a whole lot of crap when I should be saying, "I love you."  Erin, please take sweet loving care of yourself.  I love you, and I need you.