I’ve actually never told anybody about this, but my dad reached out to me a few days before he died. I had been trying to contact him for a while to get him to stop making those videos, and then I just sort of peaced out on him and peaced out on the country, but three or four days before he died—you know, like, three or four days before I got on the flight back to L.A. to see my mom and Bob—I got this crazy message from him in my in-box. I didn’t really think much of it at the time, because, like, he didn’t even say anything on it, but I guess it must’ve been some sort of cry for help, or like, maybe even some kind of suicide note, because he didn’t leave anything behind when he shot himself. Looking back on it now, I guess this message he left in my in-box was like, his version of saying good-bye or his version of saying fuck you, and it was crazy, because, like, it’s not even like he called me on the phone and tried to actually talk to me. Like, he didn’t want me to actually be able to respond to him. He just like, recorded something on his phone and emailed it to me from his official Content Bucket email address, and I was supposed to open it up and sit with it and figure out what the fuck to do with it for the rest of my life. And all it was was this very dark, very grungy acoustic guitar cover of that first song I wrote with Deez—the one that sort of started all this shit—with my dad singing the main lyrics. It was literally just my dad and his guitar, and he played through the whole song. And I didn’t respond to it or anything because at the time, I was just sort of like: What the fuck is this? But I have to say, like, the way he was singing that song was actually kind of next-level. I mean, literally no one’s ever heard it before—I haven’t even told my mom about it—but like, it was kind of the best work my dad had done in years. Maybe if I ever release that covers album of the stuff we recorded back at the radio station in St. James, I’ll include this thing my dad sent me as like, the last track, because I think it would really freak people out, you know? Like, how deep of a move would that be? To just drop that shit at the end?

But, you know, it was really fucked up of my dad to do it when he did it, because literally three days after he died, my mom gave birth to Lenny, and so Lenny’s birth was overshadowed by all this horrible darkness. Here was this day that was supposed to be all about joy—you know, my mom’s joy and Bob’s joy and just generally, like, the joy of life—and instead it became all about anger and resentment and death. I was coming out of the hospital, going down the street to go pick up coffee for my mom and Bob, and like, the reporters outside were just asking me about my dad’s suicide, and it’s like: Guys, I’m at the hospital to watch my MOM give BIRTH to my BROTHER, you know? Even when I was literally, like, wheeling my mom out of the hospital with Bob and the baby, people are shouting shit at my mom and me about my dad, and I was just like: GUYS! Time out! Please!