You’ll notice a woman’s voice here before and after I sing the song.  This woman didn’t know I was about to record this song on the minidisc.  So I accidently recorded her talking to me and talking on the phone.  I figured you should know what she’s talking about.  Her son is almost 43 years old and has been struggling with alcohol and drug addiction for almost his entire life.  He can’t hold a job.  He can’t deal with day to day life anymore.  He doesn’t want to live anymore.  You are listening to the stress laden voice of  a single mother whose been trying to help for over 25 years and will never give up on him.  It’s uncanny that I wrote this song way before this recording and the events that happen in the background developed.  The content of the song seems so appropriate to the context of its recording. As you can hear in my voice in the beginning of the recording, I’m a little detached.  I’ve become a little despondent about this guy.  I just don’t know what to do anymore so the only thing I do is try to stay cool and not be affected by it.  But listening back I hear things from a new perspective.  

    I can’t help but see a problem here.  Somebody stole his wallet.  It was Mandy Moore.  Or rather what she represents.  The quick fix. The sparkling, polished dream of instant success.  So appealing and so promising and beautiful and yet so vapid, so lacking in spirit that she sucks you into an abyss of blackness.  She’s a dirty drug that you invest your money in only to later find out you’ve got a load of crap.  And the best she’ll offer is your money back* (in jest, of course)  But you want your soul back.  That’s her game though.  Anything to distract you from the fact that you always had your soul.  And there is nothing she has for you that’s better than having your soul.

    You know it.  I know it.  Her “success” is like a tunnel underground.  It’s a place that someone gets to by ignoring the hardship and reality that’s all around them.  They sneak past it.  They crawl underneath.  But reality is always there.  We all have to face it bravely.  She gives you and I an excuse to pretend that this is not true.  Just follow her right down the tunnel and you can avoid all that.  Ignore the tough issues and latch onto a good thing you’ll be successful.  Well, you know what’s at the other end of that tunnel?  Hell!  And that’s where this mother’s son is.  And he still believes the bullshit.  He proceeds further and further towards the beckoning hand.  And the very things that have brought him to this point are the things that cloud his mind and make the truth unclear.  Drugs and Alcohol seem to be the only answer when devils haunt your dreams and taunt you with the shame of your own existence.  

    This mother says, “You know, Eathan, when you’re in a bad space I swear to God you just fucking simply attract more and more shit!”  And that is why nobody wants to have anything to do with this guy.  You try to help and you feel like your only getting sucked into that space that attracts more and more shit.  That’s how pity works.  You pity someone else and then it makes it easier to pity yourself.  And then you are on your way.  But there’s many better ways to help: through hope, truth, love, strength and community support.  That’s what the mother knows and that’s why she keeps fighting past the pity.  She knows if she didn’t share her belief in those things that she’d be just another Mandy Moore.  The world is filled with people hiding the truth to “get ahead.”  Imagine trying to survive in a world where everyone is like that.  They are hiding the truth and in so doing, helping to lure you down the tunnel to hell.  How could anyone survive?  There are addicts but there are also those that live off the addictions of others.  There can’t be one without the other.

    I’m collecting money to help pay for a quality treatment program for this guy.  The basic costs are going to be somewhere between $10,000 and $18,000!  He is motivated and has secured a scholarship for $2000 on his own by submitting an essay to the treatment center. If you’d like to help please click the link below and give as much as you can.  Thank you!