OK so a guy commits suicide and people start arguing in a thread about it ...

Personally, I've never come across anyone on this forum mentioning Elliot Smith before, maybe I've been looking in the wrong places. I was told about this by a guy in my uni. Although I heard the name I hadn't heard the music.

It just makes me think that essentially musicians are artists. Creative genious often comes hand in hand with emotional problems. Also when that creativity can no longer be produced it later becomes more popular (how many people hear have grace or pink moon?) just like painters.

Although I wasn't that aware of Elliots Smith's work, I still feel sad because the world has lost some of its creativity.

BTW homeless cop, if he killed himself he probably isn't a "pyscho." Look up the work pyschotic. Depression is a serious neurotic illness and its very difficult to live with. Even if you are rich, good-looking, popular and talented you can still suffer from depression. Yes you can be unhappier than someone that has NONE of these.

And saying suicide is a coward's way out is a matter of opinion - I can't argue with anyone either way and I don't know myself. But unless you've been down that road and know what that person is going through I don't think you can judge them.

http://www.radiomute.com/t5173.html

Ah well, touche. I didn't say there wasn't any, only I hadn't seen one. Although you did say "I did a search for Elliott on these forums but there was hardly a mention."

Yeah, I know. I'm surprised so many people are mentioning that they liked his music now. I didn't think many people had heard of him.

I'll hold my hands up and admit I'd never really checked him out before, but I have spent the afternoon downloading his songs ...

Well it's pretty obvious why people are suddenly listening to his music and knowing who he is now...it's because the radio stations will talk about his death and then play his music. I'm sure his songs are getting a major boost in air time since his death compared to before.

More listeners = more fans.

hello. i am back from beyond to reinstate my opinion on this and suicide. mainly to homeless cop, who seems to me to have a few metaphorical screws loose and a little bit too much hypocrisy in him for his own good.

first off; i find it novel how even though i didn't know elliott and never claimed to, you try to slam me about being upset about his death (which is a perfectly fine thing to be) and defending his way out, when you don't know me and are yet forming your own thoughts, opinions and e-emotions over me.

i'm no stranger to suicide. i think before you start trying to tell me what what the loved ones of suicide vicitms are left feeling, you should get your facts straight.

you call me narrowminded where as you use my country as your defense? holy shit man, i can honestly say that's a first. you think america's the only one with problems? that's very american of you, mate. how do you like them cookies? i find your posts in this thread laughable and unbased; new zealand may not be the most down-trodden country in the world but we aren't exactly a metropolis--i know the population of my own country and i know what goes on here. so maybe, just maybe, you should be the one taking a leaf out of your own book and visiting my country before you start making wild accusations about new zealand's economic and social basis. just because the population in your city is larger doesn't necessarily mean that your city's problems are the do-all and end-all of personal troubles. for all you know, new zealand's problems could be more concentrated than your city's. just because the place is larger, doesn't mean the poverty is on a larger scale. i would like you to say that to an ethiopian child. new zealand is actually something like the third highest country in the world for youth suicide. stop acting like you know everything until you at least know something.

so... you're comparing the people of your city to elliott as if you... no... wait for it! as if you know the man! e-gads! do yourself a favour and shut up. have you ever thought that that particular bum might not be particularly depressed about his life? there are homeless people in new zealand too, you know, and this may be strange to you but we do have criminals, too.

i am defending suicide purely on the grounds that suicide is a personal thing. are you going to tell me that if you go out tomorrow and see that bum with rotting teeth and no talent hanging off a tree that he's automatically a coward? you keep ranting and raving about the streets of chicago as if it's hell on earth. you can't compare those people to those who commit suicide simply because those people aren't the one that have committed suicide. can you see that now? suicide is a personal thing, to compare it to a different person would be like saying that nobody else insures their ass like j-lo but there are plenty of other nice butts out there. if the other nice butts want to be insured, then they'll be insured. if they don't, it doesn't make them any less or anymore a good or bad backside.

just because i didn't know elliott, doesn't mean i'm automatically barred from forming an opinion and reacting emotionally to his death. i don't think this makes me an emotional hippy, but i do think it means you should get off your high horse and look at it from someone else's point of view. brace yourself, dude, your opinion isn't the only opinion, and it sure as hell isn't the only right one.

social standards and emotions are different things. how can you compare the two? i've heard of plenty of people in the slums doing away with themselves; are they cowards? what about people who have terminal illnesses or people who have had a bad accident that has left them in terrible pain and ask for euthanasia? is van gogh a coward? sylvia plath? just because i wasn't "privvy" to smith's emotions doesn't mean he didn't have them, and they were his and he has dealt with them in the way that he saw fit. that doesn't make him cowardly.

oh, hey. did you know elliott? oh, right. so he lived in a beautiful mansion and was comfortable and rich and clean and those materialistic things made him so happy and chirpy and everything in his life was just peachy until he decided that was all getting a little boring so to get attention he killed himself? WELL you must know elliott if you know he led a comfortable, materialistic lifestyle.

no offense intended to the relatives here, but you're compassionate about an older male that killed himself out of clinical depression but not elliott? for all you know, he may well have been depressed. don't bother using the "may, we'll never know" line on me. this thread is full of hypothetical situations and things we can only assume, but i find that a little backwards. maybe it's because you're american?

i find this all rather amusing, in the end, when you're the one parading around with a quote from kurt cobain in your avatar.

I'm shakin' in my boots!!!! Oh, wait....somebody wants to defend the cowardly " art of suicide" Yay!!!!!!




No, I didn't....I said he was a coward for killing himself, anybody that kills themself is not only a coward, but also selfish not to consider the feelings of those they leave behind.....



People use the internet to learn and communicate. Those little buttons with letters are pushed to form words, those words can evoke thought and emotion to the viewer. Get it? See, ....I get to form my own thoughts, opinions and emotions based on what I read. I'll re-act however I want to. You are forming an opinion of me right now as you read this, and that's okay if you hate me, I hate you too!





You even though you've experienced all the sadness that the suicide victim leaves behind, ....suicide is a "personal thing"...How fu*kin' selfish is that? So, your own reasons for killing yourself outweighs the grief that your family and friends will endure? SELFISH!!!



Obviously America isn't the only country with problems..but I made the comparison to show that you are somewhat narrow minded. My country is bigger. We have more people. MORE PEOPLE=MORE PROBLEMS.....GET IT? MY COUNTRY IS EVIL!!! Other countries like China have way more people, but as far as cultures go, they'll (even though communist) keep themselves in check more. Americans manufacture violence, sex, greed, prejudice, weath, and poverty on a daily basis. My country is the greatest and the worst country at the same time.




So what? I don't like you either!



I didn't. I simply made the comparison to show that whatever problems your counrty deals with, there's certainly more of it here in just my city. You can't argue with population.....




HA!!! OF COURSE IT DOES!!! What the Fu*k do you not understand about MORE PEOPLE=MORE PROBLEMS? Here's several examples of not only poverty but crime as well. These totals were only from the 1st 6 months of last year in Chicago. They include:
Homicide.....277
Criminal Sexual Assult.....914
Robbery.....8,165
Aggravated Assault / Battery.....12,008
Burglary......11,343
Theft.....43,478
Motor Vehicle Theft.....12,150
Arson......524
Total Violent Index Crimes.....21,364
Total Property Index Crimes......67,495
Total Index Crimes..........................................88 ,859!!!
Remember, that's only half the year.....the totals for the year are almost 180,000....Divide by days of the year (365) , and you've got hundreds and hundreds of crimes happening per day. Oh, and there's millions of people in my city that are below the poverty line. I know that Chicago's poor is richer than Ethopia's poor, but poor is poor, and I'm sure Ethopia does not have as much violent crime cause' they don't have the population or nearly as many guns......I'm just pointing this out, compairing my city to your country to show that you're narrow minded in that you can't possible see so much evil in the world when my city has more than your whole counrty. My country IS evil!!!



Homeless people aren't depressed? BULL$HIT!!!!


Chicago has about 3 million, and your country has a population of almost 4.....so I guess you could say that the homeless problem of your entire country you have there isn't anything compaired to just one city in mine.....



Oooooo, sarcastic! Yeah, every country in the fu*kin' world has criminals, only the good ol' USA has more (guns, murders, crime,etc).....More of everything, see a theme here?



Like I said before, if you can't see that your suicide might leave family and friends in pain, and your decision to do it anyway isn't selfish,....then you're a real dumb-a$$....



Yes....Anyone that kills themselves is a selfish coward. I'm not sayin' that people can't have thoughts of killing themselves, and I know that there's some horrible things that happen to people and they think they can't go on. I'm not even sayin' that I know what their situation is, or that they can get helped out in some way by someone.....I'm just sayin' that the descision to kill yourself means that you've given up, and if you give up, you're a selfish coward! Somebody has to find the body...what about the traumatic effects they'll face? Fu*k them, right? It's "your personal thing".....Bull$hit.....



It is for millions of people...and your country only has a few million more total people than the homeless population of chicago.....




AND JUST BECAUSE I WASN'T A BIG FAN OF HIS MUSIC, DOESN'T MEAN I'M AUTOMATICALLY BARRED FROM FORMING AN OPINION AND REACTING EMOTIONALLY TO HIS DEATH BY SAYIN' HE WAS A COWARD TO KILL HIMSELF!!!





I read alot. They way you were typing, with all those "man's" like: "hey, man"...you sounded like a hippy. Hippies talk like that. Do you shave? Do you wear patchouli? Wanna play hacky sac?




The thing is, I just don't agree with you....high horse or not. I think your point of view is stupid. And I'm sure you feel the same way, so......




Yeah, ok "dude"- but it's my opinion......I get to have one. I don't have to like yours and you don't have to like mine. Suicide is cowardly, selfish, and stupid, and you think it's okay........




Huh? that dosen't make any sense?



Yes


I feel bad for those people.....hopefully we'll come up with a cure for that $hit. I think that's not at all the same thing as suicide, so you've failed to make a valid point once again.....


Do you think those people had family and friends? Do you think that they had lots of happy memories about the suicide?



I think you're a little backwards, and I'm actually proud to be an American, so you can go fu*k a Tazmanian devil........




I find this more stupid than amusing. I was gonna reply to this $hit by making another thread, but I just wanted to post up here to put you back in your place. Oh, and Kurt was a coward too....
Maybe from this point on we should just agree to disagree and leave this thread for people who are sad about Elliot Smith's death..........

i am sad about elliott's death. hence the reason i made the thread. but you had come in and start shit, and i'm not going to sit back and not have my own say.

i would like to ask you this now: have you ever thought that thinking that suicide is a cowardly and selfish act, is a cowardly and selfish thought for you to have? i mean, the only reason you're against it is because of the pain it may inflict upon those left behind. what about the pain that is inflicted on the one who would be the victim? isn't willing them to live so you can't feel pain at their passing, when all they want to do is die, an incredibly selfish thing to do as well?

don't flatter yourself, mate. i don't hate you. i wouldn't be so insecure and petty as to "hate" someone over the internet, no less, that has a differing and somewhat radical opinion to what my own was. like mr. soul said somewhere else in this thread, pull your head outta your ass.

yes, i have experienced the effects of suicide first hand, on more than one occasion. i understand why the victim ended it; i didn't gripe and moan about how selfish it was--it's their life, and as i said earlier, it would've been selfish of me to want them to live in constant pain. would you have liked me to be unhappy that my cousin killed herself because her step-father physically, emotionally and sexually abused her every chance he got? oh yeah, sure, she lived a damn fine life, who was SHE to take it into her own hands and end it?

instead of ranting about how it's a selfish and cowardly thing, perhaps you should go out and help folk like that. listen to them, stand beside them. you have to face the fact that some people just aren't all that strong, it's not in their character.

just because i live in a small country does not mean i am foreign to pain and suffering. so what if america is a whirling cesspool of hate and anger? we still experience that here in new zealand, even if it isn't to the extent of america, i concede. the fact of the matter is we still get it. we're not a utopian society, and we're not all hapy happy joy joy, contrary to popular belief. and you're missing the point of my main idea from that paragraph. you're using my country as your defense, saying that because i live in a smaller population i can't possibly know what pain and suffering is. THAT is narrowmindedness at it's height. and anyway, who's to say that i'm not from america, now living in new zealand? that would've bummed you out if that was the case. think before you type.

in new zealand we have homeless people. they're not depressed. they have been quoted in documentaries that they like "living under the stars". who's to say that your bum isn't in the same boat? they have the same amount of personal possessions and the same facilities supplied for them (shelters, etc). here, i state that i don't know your bum but you can't generalise and say that just because some people are homeless and poor means they are all depressed.

what about those who mutilate themselves as an escape from the pain? those that takes knives, pins, sharp edges or fire in an attempt to block out the pain? they're most often borderline suicide, they're calling out for help on the precipice and there's a very strong gust of wind coming. are they cowards too? are they selfish? what about the people that read the signs but do shit all to help? maybe we shouldn't be focusing on suicide victims here, we should be focusing on those who ignore them.

oh, you're an expert in sociology now? hippies aren't the only ones to use the word "man". i do believe surfers may be prone to use it, and stoners, and punks, and friends, and normal people too. just because i use a word because i don't know your name and i'm not overly fond of explicitives like "dipshit" and "****face" doesn't make me a hippie. it doesn't automatically slot me into a nice little clique where everything is routine and fixed. oh, and i read too, mr. intellectual.

excuse me. euthanasia by request is a form of suicide. if someone does it for you without a need, simply because you asked them to, it's murder. euthanasia isn't legal, but it can happen. a few years back a woman here was sent to jail after giving her mother the needle because her mother was in such pain she asked her daughter to kill her. if the mother could've done it herself, she would've. THAT would've been suicide. how can that not be a point? what presents such strong a difference between physical and emotional pain, that could change what suicide essentially is?

i see you bit like a big fish to my jingoism down there. i was playing your own game when i referred to your country in a demeaning and arrogant way. i am proud to be a new zealander, so "go **** a black bear". btw, in case you didn't know, TASmania isn't in any way related to new zealand; it's australian.

good day to you, sir.

Yeah it is, Tasmanian's are all inbreds too!

Sorry, couldn't resist!