Whelp, that's a great way to kick off the new year - another death amongst the Dallas music scene. The medical examiner has ruled it a suicide, but I don't know more than that; I suspect that 'battling demons' continues to be quasi-code for a fair chunk of drug problems. Why do us artist sorts have such problems with substances?! A rhetorical question, that... I fully understand the why of it, having been there and done that. But it makes me nervous - it's the second death amongst my generation of Dallasites in the past calendar year. Now I'm concerned as to whom the third will be. My brother comes to mind - he also has his demons to battle, and he lets himself be held back in that. At least I can take comfort in the fact he's currently incarcerated; I suspect he's less likely to die behind bars than out on his own speed.

Sigh.

I didn't know this kid very well to at all, though he was apparently a regular at my parent's house and very good friends with my brother. Mom reports that James even performed with Spector 45 on occasion, though I'd want citation on that from the wider Ellum world. But it doesn't matter that I might've nodded to him once in passing - I always suffer when my home world becomes that much smaller. For being such a huge city (third largest in Texas, ninth largest in the US with a population of 1.3 million), it's incredibly intimate and insular. Or perhaps, with us having such a large and gregarious family (even introverted little me back in the day), it just gives us an unfair advantage on knowing who is who, and bringing them into our lives.

Whatever the case, this was just one too many. And while I'm usually rather meh-to-numb about death (or incredibly annoyed to have my space spammed up with memorial for people I didn't know - sorry Padra, I thought the sign thing was really, incredibly tacky and trite. Like doing something or the sake of doing something, not as actual memorial. Though I didn't think you getting shoe-horned into the last book was appropriate either; there have been other, and honestly, more tragic deaths in the fandom.), maybe this gets to me because that could've been me. I never gave into drugs and depression enough to ever consider ending it (hooray modicum of self-control, I guess?), or maybe, it's just that there's been too many needless deaths of this sort in recent times. Ah well Virginia, childhood has to end sometime, right? And I guess I should more be counting my blessings that I made it so long with so few deaths, or... something something. Still, as I read down his wall, I smile at the genuine, honest memorials - Damn it, Frankie, I'm so mad at you... says it all, really.

Gah, my child keeps laughing at me - I guess I'm not going to get to mope much today. *chuckles* But it's not that, as horrible as it is. I've also got one of the other admins at the radio station trying to force rearrangement, and I'm not in the head space for it. I'm aware and agree that things need to be done to get our collective show back on the road, but between broken computer (which is fixed now, but we're waiting for Rob to deliver) and broken head, I don't want to have to think about such things, and am not particularly capable of it. I don't think he relies that I am this close *marks a space a hairsbreadth wide* from retiring from the station completely. Not because of any sort of lulzdrama (though he'll read it that way, 'cause he's King Drama-Llama Queen), but because my chain of keeping myself together and interested is: adminning keeps me caring enough to keep DJing. DJing keeps me caring enough to remember to pop into KoL once in awhile. I do love KoL and its people, but with the whole kid and whatnot thing, I don't really have a lot of time and energy to put into, well... anything, really. But this particular person doesn't realize that his bullying puts people off sticking around, so.. *shrugs*

My thoughts keep scattering, so I'll scatter myself. Meh.

<3