Saturday, November 17, 2007

3 shows left

cooming to the end of a long tour. had two shows last night, but the emcee was one of these fatherless boys that like to get back at them by making my life miserable. didnt give him the satisfaction of knowing it pissed me off. Hhe used to live in vancouver but coldnt make it there, so he ha to come home and live withh his mom. So Im happy to be me. Tthe last few days o a ong toour are often the mostly challenging. On the bright side, lots o friends anxious to have me home. love to all

Friday, November 16, 2007

heading home

well, got my ticket booked. backk to van on tuesday. five more shows here.the club is awesome, and ive killed again and again. Breslin said if I keeping doing sshows like that, there is no stopping me.

Meawhile I have pretty much staved of my brothers attempts at sabotage, by reading Richard Lewis book - the other great depression.

sorry, i m writing on a vending maachine coomputer with a metal key boarrd. thhe guy im stayying with is in Ottawa this weeked ad took his computer, so doing this at Coffee Time on King and Bathurst.

thought id give some closure to the last fww blogs. I posted my brothers letter just so my readers could have a view of what i have to deal with, and how little support i get from my family, and how common that is.(And also to prevent my brother from sending any more. As much as I try to rise above or put aside these malevolant concoctions, it still bothers me, so maybe publishing it will get him to leave me alone.) So many artists find the harshest judgement and least love and support from their families. Just ask Richard Lewis.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

what a douchebag

Not surprisingly, my brother decided that the week before my big shows in Toronto, it's time to deal with MY problems. As you can see, his idea of love is different than, say, a human beings. How I got stuck with such a douchbag (to quote Shane Ogden) for a brother is beyond me. But, I have learned to handle these attcaks without allowing them to cause too much damage , and throw me off my game. Looks like another Christmas without them. More time for my real family. Not blood, but treat me like a real brother or sister would. Anyway, dear readers, as you know, I hold nothing back from you, so here's what I'm dealing with. Nice eh?

my brother's letter.

Hi Rick

It was difficult to respond to you on the telephone last week or even over coffee in August. I am therefore doing so by email. I am glad your work is going well and certainly a tour of 40 shows "validates" you as a comedian. You complain your family let you down in your time of need. This is not how we see it. I hope you can acknowledge that more than one interpretation can be reasonable. The objective of the family withdrawing from you was that we feel that the family has been enabling you to continue a destructive life style and we dont want to do that anylonger. We had hoped that you would get the message and get help.

What we did not want was for you to crash again and over the next several years return to our former level of functioning without addressing any of your underlying issues.

Irrespective of what had been hoped for it appears that you are recoverng on your own in the manner that you have in the past.You do look healtheir now than you did last December but in my opinion you could go further. I still dont think it can be done on your own and your shrink is of limited value.

Incidentally I read your blogs on myspace. You did not want me to ask you last August how you were making a living. You have the right to with hold information from me but if you dont want it to be known publishing it on the web is not the best approach.

You are very angry at Leane.
Rick the details are unimportant. Even the sex bit. The point is that she left you but the point you dont seem to understand was that you chased her away. Infidelity is just a means of escape it is not the cause of relationship breakdown.

In a similar way you chased your family away. Your blogs don't mention Reide calling the police in Camrose and your expulsion from your home town. I was not there but clearly you terrified your nephew and that explains your anger towards him when I mentioned his plans for the ministry.

You state that you are sensitive and creative and therefore were damaged in your upbringing in a way that the rest of us were not. Everyone grows up in a different family and I dont know if there was some synster event in your life which you have kept secret. Certainly you are creative, a trait that is held by many in the family. But for sure I dont think you are sensitive. I would note the Ballad to Bobby Picton combines insensitivity and creativity.

I do believe that you misinterpret the world and you have a difficulty learning from your mistakes. Thus the 10 years cycle of life crises on your part.

I am not a psychiatrist but I am a doctor and did study psychiatry. You state that even without drugs and alcohol you have the same feelings. This is not surprizing. Drugs and alcohol are not your primary problem they are just self medication on your part for your underlying problem. But unfortunately they are not effective.

ALthough I am not qualified to make a diagnosis it is well known that creativity and the schizophrenic trait go together. This is true of other thought disorders as well.

I agree with you on one point. Our parents did make a mistake concerning our upbringing. . Mom and Dad felt that the Lett family was immune from everything bad in the world. We did not and should not have the problems that others did.

That meant when you were a kid in grade 3 with serious behavioural problems it was not taken seriously. It was actually a joke or you were being bad and deserved punishment . No one entertained the idea that you had a thought disorder. Certainly I did not.

In summary I think are highly creative but have a thought disorder which results in you misinterpreting your experience and means that you are not capable of learning from that experience. You are approaching 50 but with your danish genes could well just be at the midpoint of your life. So dont stop on your road to recovery , you are not there yet. I am in Canada for another week and we could talk again if you wish. Let me know. Otherwise lets meet in early March.

Why am I doing this. Because you are my brother and I care about you. If i can try and help all of Africa it should be possible to offer to help my only brother. So dont be angry just think about what I have said.

your loving brother
Ron