Missing Merz

Sometimes when reading a blog continuously over a period of time it almost feels as if you begin to know the writer of the blog personally (even though in reality they are a complete stranger to you). I guess in a way that makes sense because reading someone’s posts are a little like peeking into their private diary (with permission). As someone who is always in search of new music I’m a big follower of music blogs. I visit a handful of them on a consistent basis and others I only skim once in a while. One music blog I found myself returning to nearly every day was called "Mars Needs Guitars" (MNG, for short).

In the beginning I would visit the MNG blog simply because the blogger and I seemed to have the same taste in music. I have to admit I would often ignore his posts about the artists and merely grab the free downloadable music he so generously supplied. Then one day I read, really read, what the blogger had to say and noticed he wasn’t really writing much about the music. He was more often than not writing about his life and there was something in his words and tone that caught my interest. He seemed to me like the saddest person in the world and it touched me. After reading his profile stats (late 40s, divorced, male, went by the name Merz, lived in Melbourne, FL, etc) I felt by his writing that he seemed to be a man spiraling downward and possibly out of control. From that point on I frequented his music blog more for words than for music.

Merz (as I thought of him now) continued to write bits about the music he loved but mostly he wrote about struggling with his depression and a lack of motivation and direction in life. He would talk about days at a time where he could barely pull himself out of bed in the morning. He would talk about how hard it was just to be and write and in his writing he made the reader (myself for one anyway) feel what he felt, like what was the point of it all, what were we all doing, where were we going, and why. Comments left from other readers were mostly sympathetic to his plight. They thanked him for his great music blog. Some even offered suggestions or ways they thought could help but nothing seemed to lift Merz up. Once I tried myself to offer positive words but failed with no response. I don’t know anything about the life of this man, what he did/does for a living; I’m not sure he did anything at all, but some times days and weeks would go by when he would stop doing what I knew him to do. He would stop posting music, he would stop writing words, he would as far as his readers knew simply disappear. And then eventually he would return and in a new post mildly apologize for his long absence. It seemed he was apologizing for being sick, to strangers, and that to me seemed the saddest thing of all. The “Mars Needs Guitars” blog doesn’t exist any more and I’m not sure why. Merz shut it down a year or so ago. Maybe he grew tired of confiding in strangers or perhaps even grew tired of the music. Every once in a while I’ll still search for his blog in hopes that it’s back up and his mental health has improved. But after clicking the old link today and seeing his message I'm sad to say I don't believe that's so. http://www.marsneedsguitars.com/