People who are unfamiliar with mental, or even MEN-TELL, health think that “not” being depressed, stressed and even suicidal is easy. They believe we all can float away by just imagining things. They also apparently have the ability to defy all study of human psychology and when told “Don’t think of a pink elephant”, they are able to think of anything but a pink elephant.

When addressing the issues of mental health (or any pathetic weakling who may just be a little bit blue and in need of a good talking to) they have a terrible habit of using metaphors to cover their own ignorance with a veneer of pseudo intellectualism and saccharined charm. They think of soft furnishings and view everyone as a set of drapes, telling you to pull yourself together. As one expert explained to me, soft furnishings can be an issue as people slip quietly and silently under the smothering duvet of clinical depression. It’s all ever so slow and even comfortable, as you drift into it like sleep. Many have no idea what happened until they are deep in the nightmares, with no escape. Try twelve months of that, and you are forced to build a functioning life around your new (ab)normal.

One thing I am aware of is that there is a massive issue and elephant in the room that needs to be dealt with. Men and women “are” different and one way this shows up most starkly is the suicide rate, where men are 4 or even 5 times more likely to commit suicide than women. The disparity is growing not decreasing. The feminist demands that all men and women are 100% equal, and all “vanilla,” is an old meme that has had it’s day. Science keeps proving the feminists wrong, but they are still playing catch up using STEM. They do need to shut up until they are old enough to graduate and do some real-world real science afterwards.

Spare me the excuses and justifications, the pontificating and the crap, badly sourced and ignorant analyses. The issue is people dying, not your inability to actually use Google to find relevant materials, studies and to be able to handle cold hard facts. When a ship is sinking, you can bleat out all you like about life boat drills, but when that strategy fails you have to get inventive very fast to keep people afloat whilst help is still over the horizon.

I’m impressed by simple acts of advocacy. Many believe that to make change you have to do big things. You need to corral and control the media: make them your voice. Decades ago, a little guy dressed in some home-made cloth showed that view is rubbish. The media followed him because he had the right thing to say. They didn’t follow immediately, he did have to keep on saying the right things, but eventually people listened and then he had a global voice! You may have heard of him. He’s best known as Gandhi. He walked to the sea, made salt and destroyed a taxation system. One man making free salt was not an issue, but when millions did the same, a simple act of advocacy multiplied, was unstoppable.

Here at AVfM there is one guy who does it so well, he’s a genius. That’s Dan “Dannyboy” Perrins. From standing quietly whilst being screamed at by the likes of “Big Red,” to dying his beard red to highlight that hair colour is not permission to abuse or to just walking with a message, Dan Perrins takes simple acts of advocacy and shakes other people’s worlds – shakes their ignorance – he highlights the inequalities and the needs people have. And then, he’s also a major contributor here at AVfM. He loves to FTSU “Facting Their Shit Up,” illuminating ignorance so that it can self combust in indignation. Dan, the advocacy-o-matic has got the message, and every day he’s acting as advocate for change. Dan is such a natural, many forget how hard others find it to find simple ways to advocate for change everyday.

I keep wondering how simple acts of advocacy can change the world. A tweet – a simple act of advocacy – plus one too many tequila – and I’m wondering about Pink Elephants and how to slay them. Why not collect together the “Music That Guys Have Hung On To,” so that every tweet is an act of simple advocacy, giving guys permission to just be Human Beings and not Doings: to rebuild themselves with music that they make their own.

Every tweet is a bullet aimed at pink elephants.

Every tweet a message to others that they too may find powerful.

Every tweet advocating change and support.

Forgive me for being stupid and having an imagination! I’ve no doubt that some loons in search of fossilised pachyderm poop (var Futrellii and Valentii) will wish to twist matters. It is after all how they make a living and peddle their own inanity . They will claim that I’m advocating for men to not have help, just an out of tune twitter feed! I’m not advocating any such thing. Just the creation of a place where “Music That Guys Have Hung On To” can be collected together for people to look at and use. If it should prevent one suicide, “Job’s a good’un”! If it should achieve more, those are bridges to cross at a later date. I’m opening a door, not acting like a demented real-estate agent selling an un-built house off some crazed floor plan. If some want to do that, they are welcome to their own deluded castles in the air! I’ll have fun charging them rent.

My Personal Top Ten Tunes are easy, and often surprising to others. Who would have thought at my age that I’m a “Drum & Base” freak. There are many songs I love but can’t go back to, and so I’ve found new versions that take their place. Others are music that I’ve discovered and grown to love. They are not fixed in stone and can change.

If anyone wants to psychoanalyse that lot for significance, please be my guest. I find on-line amateur psychologists some of the most amusing “Social Justice Worriers”™ on the planet, and all in need of as much support as possible.

And….. This video of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana (Oh Fortuna) is a god send And comes with a nappy warning. Believe it or not I first sang Carmina Burana age 8, as one of the “Raggazi Chorus”, making comments, in Latin, on middle-aged ladies virginity! Who ever said that classical music is boring or stayed! If you can watch this without laughing uncontrollably, you’re a better guy than I, Gunga Din.

Simple everyday acts of advocacy can, as Gandhi knew, turn into an unstoppable force. So I’ve been looking at how to do that with some music, and make it easy for others to advocate. I’ve set up:

A Twitter account – tweet your music choices

A YouTube channel to hold play lists,

A Google+ stream

A Spotify account

A Facebook account

A Pinterest account

A Tumblr account

It’s simple and accessible to everyone on-line. It’s just a set of places so that I can collect together “Music That Guys Have Hung On To”.

All anyone has to do is tweet the details of the music and I’ll do the rest. If you have a link to the music, all the better. I’ll try and source free content for inclusion.

You can also tag tweets and other social media with #ManTube – it’s a word I submitted to the Calm Zone #ManDictionary . It seems they don’t want it, but I still think it has legs as an idea.

ManTube n. A YouTube channel filled with music that guys have hung on to! #mandictionary https://t.co/KQrdjncJXC @thecalmzone — Isaac T. Quill (@TicklishQuill) April 14, 2015

Anyone who wants to can graze over the “Music That Guys Have Hung On To,” and find what makes a difference to them. It’s not a panacea, and it probably won’t shake the establishment to the foundations. It just allows people to advocate for change by remembering music and how guys are holding on! It even gives the opportunity to find people of a like mind.

There is no right or wrong music – no styles that are not welcome – no composers that are barred – If a parrot, tap dancing on a Stratocaster is your tune, that’s the right music for you and maybe others. It’s not about music criticism or who has the best or worst musical tastes, or even the biggest speakers. It’s simply “Music That Guys Have Hung On To”.

The only important thing is “Music That Guys Have Hung On To”…. PERIOD.

People don’t have to say “why” they hung onto it, or even “who” hung onto it, all that is important is that one guy did and the music made a difference to him. You never know the difference it can make to another guy someday!

If some want to wade in and call me sexist please do, and you can then get off your ass and set up “Music That Gals Have Hung On To”, or “Music That one-legged non-binary oppressed minority individuals Have Hung On To.” It will be interesting to compare music profiles. This is not a contact sport for the oppression Olympics. If you want to play silly buggers, as referee I’ll send you in for an early cold shower. I’ll also send you to bed without any supper. It’s what happens to naughty attention seeking children, twattering inanely in the guise of “Social Justice Worrier”™.

You can be anywhere on the planet when you find music that changes lives, and by a simple tweet you can be an everyday advocate for the need for change so that fewer guys are forced to hold on, with too many falling. Again, this is not about giving guys a cyber venue as the only option, it’s about maybe helping them hold on until a real option comes along.

Now I do hate busy bodies, and those who think they can change you. I hate people sending me stuff and telling me stories about how it helped others. Unsolicited sympathy under the guise of help and advise is just not appreciated. But occasionally it can be a good thing … in moderation… in very tiny, tiny, tiny doses. I mean micron size doses. I’m really not interested in people who want to love bomb others with ill-considered re-tweets.

I remember this piece of music, because the first time I heard it it came with a message. Someone told me that their father had recently died of cancer. All through his treatment and chemo he was as sick as a dog, and then some. Each time he was too ill to talk or communicate, he put on his head phones and listened to some music. He never let anyone know what he was listening too. After he died they found out that this mountain of a brick layer who had been a Hells Angel in his earlier years had listened to this:

Music is the strongest form of magic. Marilyn Manson.

When you are told to not think of pink elephants, you think of them. I Just wish that Guys Holding On Were Pink Elephants and not real.

I hope that people will say that sharing “Music That Guys Have Hung On To” is a waste of time, because every-time I’ve heard the subject of male suicide dissed and thrown under the bus, that elephant just gets bigger and harder to ignore. But each time you acknowledge that elephant it can’t hide, and you can make it dance to your tune!

I Hope You Dance. Pick a tune.

EAOE – my fingers and eyes are buggered, so if you want to bitch over typos, please tweet them to @IDontGiveAFlyingF or @RetentiveAnus

Artwork By Tomascastelazo (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons