My son makes the observation that there are no balconies in Las Vegas hotels. We’ve got a room on the 24th floor of Bellagio, overlooking the fountains, which allows me to visually scan other hotels up and down the strip, and by god I think the boy is right. Am I the only person who didn’t know that? Of course it makes perfect sense once someone points it out. The Vegas mindset requires that a disproportionate amount of attention be directed to winners . . . lights flashing, bells ringing, people screaming with glee . . . meanwhile, 99 other people are silently losing their ass. Clearly it’s going to put a damper on things to have the losers flinging themselves off the balconies of high-rise hotels. Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Suicide
A Personal Reflection on Current Events
My best friend in college hanged himself. He wasn’t gay. It broke my heart, but nobody famous took any notice. We’re all against bullying of course, but it’s a fact of life. Everyone gets targeted for whatever it is that makes them different, and if you’re absolutely normal in all respects, you’ll be targeted for being too perfect. I put my son in tae kwon do classes at an early age. I said it was for fitness and confidence and all the usual stuff, but really it was so that any needlessly cruel behavior directed toward him could be addressed via a kick in the teeth. Sometimes you have to beat someone’s ass to teach him how to get along with the rest of the human race . . . Read more →
Microblog: 2009-05-02
RT @postsecret: #SaturdaySecrets http://ad.vu/4i4f (ReTweet for 1(800)SUICIDE Fundraiser) # Read more →
Chivalry is Dead
A man has died after catching his girlfriend as she jumped from the seventh floor of an apartment block in China. The young Chinese man, identified only by the surname Wang, held out his arms to break the woman’s fall as she plummeted from their apartment in Quanzhou in south-eastern China. Mr Wang was killed by the impact of his girlfriend landing on top of him, while the woman suffered bone fractures and other serious injuries but was not in critical condition. — PerthNow Read more →
Suicide Bombers Have a Union?
Two More Reasons I Won’t Go on a Cruise
Captured by pirates, you are given a choice between walking the plank or joining the crew. The crew are all Yankees fans. When your luxury cruise ship, featuring Las Vegas–style live entertainment, sinks in midocean, you find yourself adrift in a lifeboat with a tiger, a chimp, and an Herbalife salesman. On the second day, the tiger and the chimp commit suicide. — Susan Schorn, “Worse Things Happen at Sea” Read more →
Heath Ledger, 1979-2008
NEW YORK — Actor Heath Ledger was found dead Tuesday of a possible drug overdose in a Lower Manhattan apartment, the New York Police Department said. — CNN.com Possible drug overdose, possible suicide! Oh dear . . . another blow to the theory that being rich and/or famous is the ticket to happiness. I think most famous actors — not all, obviously — are convinced that they can do things that nobody else can do, that they’re not cardboard people who are adored for no reason. Tom Cruise, for example, I don’t think will ever commit suicide. Oh well . . . Read more →
I’ve Been in a Room
I’ve never been lonely. I’ve been in a room — I’ve felt suicidal. I’ve been depressed. I’ve felt awful — awful beyond all — but I’ve never felt that one other person could enter that room and cure what was bothering me . . . or that any number of people could. . . . — Charles Bukowski Read more →
The Peanuts Kids: Where Are They Now?
ANAHEIM — Authorities say a woman apparently jumped off an Anaheim freeway overpass Thursday and died. The Orange County Register reports that 50-year-old Sally Brown plunged to her death just after 11 a.m. from the East La Palma Avenue overpass onto the westbound 91 Freeway. Read more →
50 Years Ago Today
According to the Los Angeles Times: Red Sanders decided to stay on as football coach at UCLA instead of pursuing the football coach/athletic director job at Texas A&M, a job recently vacated by Paul (Bear) Bryant. (Sanders would have a heart attack and die before the start of the 1958 football season anyway.) A father of three killed himself in front of his wife after losing his job on Christmas Eve. Silent-screen star Norma Talmadge died in Las Vegas. The Times gave her age as 60; according to IMDB, she was actually 62. Read more →
My Retirement Plan is a .45
Over Thanksgiving dinner, my dad is explaining how he’s trying to count up all his assets and figure out if he’s got enough to retire. “But,” he says, “you know what’s missing from all this retirement planning? The one thing you really need to know but you don’t know?” Read more →
Free Advice . . .
. . . for anyone thinking of handcuffing themselves to a tree: If you handcuff yourself to a tree you would die fairly quickly but maybe not as quickly as you would like. Read more →
Hunter Thompson’s High-Caliber Doldrum-Buster
Rolling Stone magazine has published Hunter Thompson’s suicide note, which he titled “Football Season is Over.” Thompson wrote the note last February, four days before fatally shooting himself in his kitchen. Douglas Brinkley, Thompson’s official biographer, writes, February was always the cruelest month for Hunter S. Thompson. An avid NFL fan, Hunter traditionally embraced the Super Bowl in January as the high-water mark of his year. February, by contrast, was doldrums time. I don’t understand “avid” sports fans — they depress and frighten me — but I’d certainly encourage other sports enthusiasts to consider Thompson’s high-caliber doldrum-buster . . . Read more →
HW’s True Hollywood Stories
Florence Lawrence: The First Movie Star Interesting fact: Prior to 1910, movies did not list the names of the cast members! Actors were just nameless faces on the screen . . . Read more →
What I’m Reading
When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in confederacy against him. — Jonathan Swift I’m reading a great, very funny book called A Confederacy of Dunces, written by John Kennedy Toole in 1963. Unfortunately, Toole could not find anyone willing to publish the book and subsequently killed himself in 1969 at the age of 31. Read more →
Nice Try, Kid
Depression occurs in up to 10 percent of youth, and 1,883 10- to 19-year-olds killed themselves in 2001. Some 1.8 million teenagers attempted suicide that year, a quarter of them requiring medical attention, according to Columbia University scientists . . . — CNN.com, “FDA issues suicide caution for antidepressants” Out of 1.8 million attempts, only 1,883 successes?! What methods are they employing to get a success rate of 1 in 1,000? That’s not very good . . . Read more →
Less Than Zero
More whittling away at logic and critical thinking . . . WASHINGTON (AP) — Patients on some popular antidepressants should be closely monitored for warning signs of suicide, the government warned Monday in asking the makers of 10 drugs to add the caution to their labels. — CNN.com, “FDA issues suicide caution for antidepressants” Read more →
Lewis vs. Clark
My son is doing a 5th grade research paper on William Clark, of Lewis and Clark fame. “Clark was a much better man than Lewis,” he says. “Why do you say that?” I ask. Read more →
Alan Turing
A colleague at work asked me, “Do you know how Alan Turing died?” “He ate a poisoned apple.” “His mom always maintained that he did that by accident.” “Does his mom also maintain that he just never found the right girl?” Read more →
HW’s True Hollywood Stories
Clara “Auntie Em” Blandick Clara Blandick was born June 4, 1880, aboard an American ship in the harbor off Hong Kong. She appeared in over 100 films, most notably as Auntie Em in The Wizard of Oz (1939). In later years, she suffered from severe arthritis and failing eyesight. Read more →