HOW TO WRITE AN EFFECTIVE SUICIDE NOTE :: Simply Jimmy D :: Breakin' News or Breakin' Balls: It's all the same to me!

jimmyd _writes "I don't usually expect to receive email from a notable journalist. But hey! Anything's possible. You would think professionals like Cali Ruchala have more important stuff to ponder-an-pen than something that ends up on a jiz-biz news site. But I guess even the intellectual class needs mindless diversions at times. And what's more mindless than reading or writing for simplyjimmyd.com?

Just so you know, this isn't the first time Cali's written to me. Apprently, there's a couple of legit journalists in the world who find me mildly amusing. "Hey! Do I look like a clown to you? I make you laugh how? How do I make you laugh?" ((c) Martin Scorsese). But anyway, it is the first time Cali's written something to post on this site. As I would expect, it's thoughtful, intuitive, and way beyond my mindlessly diverting writing skills.

Cali writes: Jimmy D, your thoughtful critique of Bryan Sullivan's kook-laden rantings reminds me of the poor quality of some of the suicide letters I've seen over the years.

You're in the porn industry, so there's a pretty good chance that someone reading this is considering adding another part to their haircut right now. I think we need to help them go out with a bang, so to speak...

1. The intro

Most suicide letters are addressed to an unreasonably wide audience, suffering the same defect as many Digital Playground videos. "Dear World," "Dear Miserable, Motherfucking World," "Dear World Which Made Fun of Me When I Ate Paste and Collected Dead Earwigs in My Monkeys' Lunchbox in the Third Grade" - these are common introductions which set unreal expectations. Does the world care if you pop yourself off? No, not unless you've somehow managed to make millions of dollars screeching out teen-angst anthems. You're setting your threshold too high. If your whole life has been a failure, it really is tacky to set yourself up for the biggest one of all at the very end.

One could follow the path of Kurt Cobain and address one's final testament to an imaginary friend. The genius in personalizing your suicide note is that the recipient will not be the only reader anyway. This stylistic device adds intimacy to the final product. When I read a suicide letter, I want it to speak to *me*, not to one of six billion people. Often when I get letters like this, I just throw them away with the insurance ads and Penney's catalogs.

2. The opening sentence

It's hard to argue with "I am killing myself because... " as a catchy, up-front opening. However, don't beat around the bush: you've got their attention, now go for it. "Start with the drums, end with the dynamite," as noted perv Henry Miller said. Nobody wants to know if you lost your favourite pencil or broke a heel today. More specific to the porn biz - who cares if the final straw was Max Hardcore failing to treat you with the proper respect when he probed your chocolatey nether regions with his gynocologists' toolbelt? Tell them straight out about the pattern of abuse, dependency and recurring failure that has dogged you since your third birthday - or, in this case, since Ed Powers emptied his first condom of spunk on your rosy aereola. Directness is key if you want to keep your reader hanging on your every word until the very end.

3. Assigning blame

This is probably where most suicide letters fail to have the right impact on the audience. Of course you're killing yourself because of other people! The canned "Don't blame yourself, it's too late for me" line has become an appalling cliche in the genre. State plainly who is at fault for your decision to end it all. Name names - what are they going to do, haunt you from the grave? That's your job now!

Alternately, if there really is no one to blame for your decision to end all of the pain, pick out someone you really dislike as a suitable target for your friends' anger and his own everlasting guilt. Perhaps his guilt will be so great, he'll be haunted into doing the second-most dirty deed themselves. You've turned your back on money and fame - the best you can hope for is to have an influence on your peers.

All in all, this is the most important document you'll write in your life, so don't scrimp on the planning! And as noted suicide enthusiast Milk Puppy noted in the zine YIP - "After all, it's your suicide letter, so you should have some fun with it."

Still breathing,

Cali

If you'd like to read more of Cali's stuff--stuff that truly matters, I might add--you should check out Cali's website at Diacritica.com.

Trust me, it will improve your awareness of what's going on in the world. Who knows? You might even get smarter reading that kind of stuff.

"


	Search


WARNING · Extreme Adult Content Discretion Advised