My Life Before I Decided To Commit Suicide: A Love Story
Prologue
I hung myself on September 11, 1978. The same day I was brought into this world twenty-four years earlier. This specific date had nothing to do with anything. I didn’t wake up knowing I was going to be dangling from an attic rafter of a house I had never been in before. It wasn’t a planned hanging. It wasn’t any different from any other self-imposed hanging that had taken place over millennia, except I was working on a construction site with my dad building a dormer on the back of a house in Eastwood, NY. I used 12 gauge electrical wiring shielded in a rubber casing as a noose.
Hanging myself fucking hurt I can tell you that. But once you kick the ladder out from under you there isn’t much you can do. I regretted it immediately. I fought to find something to stand on, kicking my feet like the near-lifeless idiot I’d now become. I couldn’t really see anything because my neck was jammed backward and I was choking to death. I tried to grab onto the wiring and pull myself up to relieve the tension of my weight from the noose, but 12 gauge wiring doesn’t bend like a nice rope would have, and it was slippery besides. Rubber-coated wire and sweaty, trembling hands don’t make for a happy ending. This was my life’s final choice? Goddammit!
After a half-minute or so I realized I was done. There was no sense running in midair anymore or trying to cry for help. It was exhausting for one, and two, there were no sounds escaping from my collapsing throat. When you’re in this state of proposed happiness and you do finally give up, you begin to think back on what the hell it was that led you here in the first place. What was it that was so fricking bad you killed yourself rather than killing someone else? Why would I take my own life? Son of a bitch! This is stupid. Goddammit!
And just so you know, you don’t die instantly when you hang yourself. It’s extremely uncomfortable. No one hangs there thinking how great it is to be hanging. To comfort you in this time of desperation while the blood is slowly being cut off from your brain, your brain works feverishly trying to figure out how to save itself. It relaxes your body and hustles back to its time of conception in your squishy little head and reviews everything that might have caused you to end up doing such a dumb thing. After the review, in my case, my brain might come to the conclusion that I was right with my decision and continue with the hanging. I was a useless, skinny little messed up piece of shit kid and deserved to die, end of story ..... choke, cough, gasp, done. But my brain was also wishing that my body could die by myself and leave it the hell alone because my brain was having a great time sorting through all of my daily bullshit and now it wouldn’t have anything to do......
Let’s see now ...
My latest release. A very enjoyable collection of poems.
Poetry from a Road Scholar is a select collection of 86 poems and song lyrics written mostly during the 1970s and 80s. It was a lot of fun studying the pieces I had penned so long ago. I was able to revisit many of my travels and experience the time periods and the people I was involved with during these times. While I had a lot of friends, I was in essence, a loner and a recluse, as I am even today. I'm not sure where this behavior comes from. When I perform my music I am as free as I can be. I'm not a bad conversationalist, but I'm not one to just jump in the middle of a group of strangers, introduce myself and bingo!, I'm the life of the party. No, that's not me. But I was able to write in my solidarity and I am pleased with the results. I hope you enjoy it as well.
Once I had cataloged when the text was written and I actually studied the text, I realized that I was just a teenager and in my early twenties when the great majority of these works had been penned. I was pleasantly surprised by the somber words woven together that spoke the truth in every phrase. Writing, whether we’d like it to be or not, is all about the truth. Poetry from a Road Scholar points to a repeated history of human yearning. The wanting need to be with someone, the sincere beginnings followed by the attempts at reconciliation and the angry pissedoffidness that follows each failed attempt. Some works are humorous, some are sprinkled with sexual overtones, some are deep and perhaps even philosophical. Most are in plain English written by a young man from Upstate New York. To see When My Poems Were Written, click here.
Forward by Mary Jo Melby: Past President, National Society of Arts and Letters, El Paso Chapter
James Robert (Jim) Murphy is a Renaissance Man. The term “Renaissance Man” has been defined as a person with many talents or areas of knowledge. Jim certainly epitomizes this description. He is a poet, yes, but also a songwriter, a painter, has authored five books, plays guitar and sings - solo and with a variety of musical groupings.
But what makes a true Renaissance Man goes way beyond just possessing the aforementioned talents. It takes tenacity - putting your assets into action. Jim does this. He jumps into life at the moment of inspiration and just paints or sings or writes. While many talented people think about creating, Jim creates.
Coming from a youth filled with adventure and sometimes even danger, Jim writes from the heart and experiences. I believe that many of us would agree that it’s when we are in those formative young years that emotions are felt so deeply. Because Jim kept journals during much of his life he is able to recall so many of his feelings in a very real way.
Poetry from a Road Scholar reminds us of the close way in which all of the arts are connected. We see the conductor leading his orchestra while visualizing different colors and the artist painting to the inspiration of his favorite music. Magical!!
Sit back and join in the fun as Jim Murphy takes us to places only a poet such as he can travel.
A quote from my friend Katherine Brennand - Ahhh….youthful innocence and naiveté! How intriguing to discover these notes and songs from one’s teen-age and most vulnerable years and be able to share them decades later. They provide a fun and poignant read. Reading Jim Murphy’s words brings a nostalgia I haven’t felt in a while…. smiles, too. These poems are reminiscent of lyrics to so many songs that we all know and love. Bravo, Jim! Katherine Brennand, Educator and Community Activist
A MOST EXCITING ADVENTURE NOVEL
BLBM Publishing, 2017
When coincidental fate brings together Richard Callahan, a brilliant scientist working on a top-secret government project inside the Franklin Mountains in far west Texas, and the lonely, complex Lester Winton, whose exhaustingly fearful world discovers an improbable observation that opens the door to turning back the hands of time, and the self-indulged artist John Andersen, who hangs over his backyard arroyo on his hand-crafted “Jesus Cross” to better understand the suffering Jesus experienced, more than a few sparks fly on the third Tuesday of April 2016.
Our main character, John Andersen, remembers back to when he was a teenager in Syracuse, NY. There was this black man who, with a rope draped around his shoulders and chest, would haul a wooden skiff loaded with rock up West Seneca Turnpike. John Andersen thought maybe he was the Black Jesus. One day John pulled over and asked the man who he was suffering for. The man answered, “His people.” John knew right then and there he wasn’t the Black Jesus because Jesus would be suffering for all of mankind. For forty years John carried the Black Jesus in his thoughts until it was time for John to act. John Andersen ordered a giant eucalyptus tree trunk (a tree common during Jesus’ day) from the homeland of Jesus and had it delivered to his Park North home in El Puente, TX. He proceeded to carve a beautiful, magical cross from the trunk so he could hang over his backyard arroyo tied to the cross and suffer for his people, the Irish and Ukraine, like the Black Jesus did. As you may have guessed, things do not go quite as planned.
Lester Winton, character #2, lived down the hill from John Andersen. Lester was a computer geek and dove into the world of computers as soon as they were available. He had a stockpile of PCs and Macs, and all of the necessary paraphernalia to go along with them. Both John and Lester were musicians and performed in the same band together for years. Lester was never on time for any gig they ever had. In fact, Lester was never on time for anything. This drove John Andersen nuts. One day while hiking up in the Franklin Mountains, Lester fell asleep inside an abandoned silver mine. In his dream, he envisioned Steve Jobs and Bill Gates visiting him, and together they shared a vision. It was decided that if they began to delete everything they had ever typed, backward from the very last document, word by word, line by line until they reached the very first document they ever typed, they would incrementally delete years from their aging lives. From this point forward Lester could focus on nothing else. This didn’t turn out too well either.
Richard Callahan, John Andersen’s drinking buddy, and close neighbor was working on a secret government project inside the hollowed-out North and South Franklin Mountains. He and his team of scientists were duplicating the beginning of the universe. Once invited to view the grounds by Richard “the giant” Callahan, it was the most beautiful exposé John Andersen had ever seen in his entire life. Continuing for more than a decade, the government decides to shut down the project. This didn’t go too well either. Coincidental fate has its fleeting moment in time and the world learns a forgotten lesson.
MY FAVORITE EL PASOANS: PAST AND PRESENT
Murphy's second scheduled book was also for Arcadia Publishing, but after eight months of work, they rejected it. It was called, Legendary Locals of El Paso. Not to be defeated, Murphy changed the title to, My Favorite El Pasoans: Past and Present, rearranged the entire book and added several new characters. A book that the publisher turned down has become his largest seller to date. My Favorite El Pasoans is about famous El Pasoans. Not only movie stars like Debbie Reynolds, Marlon Brando, actress Lydia Cornell, and Granny from the Beverly Hillbillies, who each was born in or near El Paso, but regular, hometown heroes as well. Like Tom Ogle who in the 1970s created a new type of carburetor that got 100 miles to the gallon. Once the auto industry found out about it, Tom was mysteriously shot and soon died. How about Eugene Anchondo. He was the first musician to own an electric guitar in El Paso way back in the 50s. Famous folk singer Phil Ochs is from El Paso as well. There are nearly 200 impressive people in this book.
THE RIGHT TO KILL, a 2016 release, is right in tune with today's political madness going on in the United States.
It follows the lives of six young boys in the 1950s and 60s—a time when the United States was still rather innocent, and working-class families were poor, uneducated citizens. The boys make a blood-bound pact to “clean up the neighborhood” at all costs. As time goes by their concept of what is morally acceptable expands and their once simple adventures escalate.
Book critic Tom Ridell's review:
Jim Murphy’s latest book, The Right To Kill, made me cringe. It begins as a dark, grisly, and graphic tale that had me a bit nauseous but then a quick twist in the plot, surprisingly had me cheering on the six misguided and murderous youngsters.
Even though this is a work of fiction, the author took me on a chillingly deadly and dark adventure that had me rethinking the human condition and prompted me to re-examine what our true human nature really is composed of. One of the most ironic, intriguing and haunting aspects of this story is how timely it is given the current political climate. The United States, in this fictional version, is much different than the country that we know but it is eerily close to where we could be if the “right” or “wrong” leader took the reins of our country. It really is up to us to decide.
This is not a book for young readers or the easily offended but it is a book worth reading. The author’s tongue is placed firmly in cheek in this one and the bits of sexual humor will have you laughing hard but have no doubt, the premise of this tale will stick in your mind and have you thinking well after the last page is read.
This one has the legs that could take it to the bestseller list.
I give The Right To Kill 5 stars.