Regretless B – Part 4
Regretless B is me. Barbara Doduk. This is the one where I tell you about how I ended up making this website about the Cancelled Career and MeToo of Matthew Good. Then how it evolved into a deep dive into my own vices.
B Understanding of Regret.
I regret May 2000.
My choices then that ended with me near bankrupt six years later and mentally on the verge by April 2006. I regret not listening to the warnings. I regret a lot of my choices but even though I felt trapped in that relationship with K, and fearful of what would happen if I tried to leave…
Nothing happened when I finally did.
It is sad that I had to hit rock bottom before I was able to do a last grasp for my life.
K‘s mental illness (and yes he was ill at that time) doesn’t excuse everything he did or said. My anxiety and guilt doesn’t excuse me either. Nor does his illness excuse my reactions to his actions at that time.
Hurt people hurt people.
The fault is with me. I had hurt people. I made the choice to stay in May 2000 and suffer for my sins. I literally could have left so many times – but I didn’t. I have to live with that. I have to live with my choices. I have forgiven myself. I understand if K hasn’t forgiven me.
You see, when I left in April 2006 – K believed I left him for Matthew Good.
It had been 6 years since I had seen Matt. I had wanted to leave K for years, it was just bizarre timing that Matthew was ending his marriage with Jenny Beth at the exact same time. It was just bizarre that we lived a few minutes walk away from one another for those 3 years in the downtown Vancouver.
Yes, Matt and I were secretively communicating by that time, messages and emails started in late 2005. He wanted me to meet him in the park beside my place, while on a walk with the dogs. I refused. Matt offered to get us a room at The Fairmont for old time sake in Feb or early March 2006 before he was going to do some shows. I declined.
There was so much going on then, and I didn’t know what to trust or believe. Neither did Matt. There were so many outside parties involved – Danny Sather was telling K things. Blair Dobson was writing shit on his blog. Jay Slye was saying things. I remember Matt suggesting that this was all a set up for K to finally beat the shit out of him.
Meanwhile I was utterly alone with no one to talk to. That’s that drama, that’s the insanity of it all – that bizarre love triangle. I wish we could say we were young and stupid, but we were in our 30’s by this time.
And I felt responsible for it all.
B the Joke After April Fools
Yes, Matthew Good and I talked quite A LOT during those following months of April and May of 2006.
Through chats, emails and on the phone, late into the night. I have the receipts of it all. Each of us searching for a familiar place to let our emotions rage with someone we felt rage against but not enough to care if we ever bothered again. It was to be a release.
Matt kept asking me to come see him. We planned to meet a few times but it never worked out. I didn’t have a car – I had lost mine during the K years. Matthew offered to rent one for me. I declined. He was having breakdowns. I was having breakdowns. The Opus Hotel, didn’t work out, then he cancelled last minute. Then I cancelled last minute.
Then finally I did see him- just once – at his place on Bute Street, on May 11, 2006 – in the apartment home, where he and Jenny lived. They were separated by then and he was blasting her online. Their dogs were there.
It didn’t feel right. Both of us were a fucking mess.
We kept in touch afterward, into the summer of 2006 but Matthew was spiralling into a massive mental breakdown.
Incidentally this is when he began seeing a lot of the women that came forward to accuse him of abuse. This is when it all really spiralled out of his control.
I found myself, one evening, sitting in 604 Records talking personal shit to Jonathan Simkin, MG’s lawyer, in Simkin’s freezing cold office in front of the fan, on a hot summer day – during that odd conversation – I realized I had all ready decided I just wanted to heal and get on with my life.
So I got on with my life. And for the record, I met Jonathan through MySpace conversations, not to do with Matthew.
I had the summer of Exes 2006
I started seeing Rod Black again that summer, and he even offered to have me tag along on his Sonic City tour as a back up singer. I declined. He hung out with my family at the big house, in the hot tub, having dinners.
I reconnected platonically with Max Murphy, the saxophone player I had lived with at 19. I met a few new people including his then girlfriend Astra. And enjoyed Five Alarm Funk band shows. I even briefly dated my ex-husband David Doll, and we considered trying again. Double D’s friend Jolayne, set me up with DJ Robby LuvDub and we went out on few dates but I didn’t see it happening.
I was just too damaged.
I called Matt here and there, to check on Matt’s mental state, like when Daniel Regelbrugge told me Matt was suicidal on his birthday in 2006. But I just wanted normalcy back in my life. I was living at my family’s home in White Rock, swimming in the pool, soaking in the hot tub. Reconnecting with family, with old friends and making new. Fellow bloggers mostly. My niece broke my heart when she told me she never knew she had an aunt. I felt awful.
Regret is a heavy burden. I was healing.
BUGGER BUGGER BUGGER
Then way before I was healed in any deep way, in September 2006 at an Andy Collins show – I met my future daughter’s dad at The Railway Club.
Paul Gibbons, this quirky fiery Brit. Turned out he was another musician of course. I didn’t know he was one when he was chatting me up using Star Trek (my weakness) to get my attention.
Paul Gibbons and I started dating and I was very much head over heels for him right away. I blogged about it a lot. I was honest about the MG / K situation with Paul (not the entire details but enough) and in November 2006 I told Matt over the phone I was in a relationship.
I had moved into an apartment, back to the same building on Thurlow, that I had lived with K. A giant mistake, but the lady that owned it welcomed me back.
Frankly my father and I had always butted heads, and me living with them was not working out for my dad. My father also never fully understood why I couldn’t just get on with my life, and didn’t get how broken I was in 2006.
It took nearly 40 years but eventually I mended my relationship with my father. But it did hurt that he could just put me out like that after all I had just been through. Some people only think of money. My dad has changed some since then.
Falling From A Tree
At the same time, the requests for sex from Matt and rejections from me kept on coming. On the 19th of February 2007 my boyfriend Paul Gibbons emailed Matt and asked him to stop sending me sexual email requests.
There was a lovely reply from Matt. Emgee dismissed me rather heartlessly as is his way – as a stalker and whore. And Matt offered to fight my boyfriend Paul if he had a problem with it. What is it with guys wanting to fight each other?
I know the date of the emails, not only because I still have the emails, but because it became a very important date in my life.
February 19th is my brother’s birthday. That evening in 2007 while my brother was at the strip club, my dad fell. Off a ladder. Out of a tree. On to his head. Knocked himself out. He managed to get up after he gained his wits and put away the ladder. Went into the house. Tried to feel better, but realized he had hurt himself. So instead of calling the ambulance, called my brother. My brother went home, and took my dad to the ER.
My dad broke his neck. And his wrist. He spent a long time in Royal Columbian Hospital, and it was weird to be there visiting him, since I had spent 2 months there in 1992 after my car accident.
Life goes on. Little things become even smaller in the grand scheme of things.
So the emails between PG and MG earlier that day – were quickly forgotten.
Later on that year – Matthew Good had a misunderstanding about some blog comments, we were all bloggers back then. It was regarding Jenny Beth still using the last name “Good” – and it lead to Matthew threatening me with legal action in a long wordy email from him ranting on April 3, 2007.
I explained his mistake, objected to him calling me names, again, and I threatened Matt back with my family’s lawyer. Matt backed down immediately and apologized. We said all was forgiven.
After that we vaguely chatted casually via email a bit that year and the next couple, but then, we went merrily on with our lives. As people do. Another day, a week, the mall.
Years later, he married Rae, Jenny Beth‘s friend, and had some kids.
It didn’t last.
Years later I had a kid with Paul.
It didn’t last.
I have begun to believe nothing lasts for monsters like me.
My Matthew Good story in 5 parts spanning from 1998 to 2022 explaining our history.
- Part 1: Died for You
- Part 2: Regretless Bee – MGB Days 98-99
- Part 3: Regretless Bee – Bizarre Love Triangle
- Part 4: Regretless Bee – Life is a Bugger
- Part 5: Regretless Bee – B Groupie
Updated October 14th, 2023 Originally uploaded December 31, 2021