By Richard Strawhatter

The undulation of the tides couldn’t surpass the rhythmic empathy of Kirby Docket, considered to be one of the premier musicians in the melancholy yet soothing genre known as sadcore. Born in Sacramento, California in 1970, Kirby spent his youth attempting to not be homeless. His parents were drug-addled food vendors living in a trailer downtown situated behind their failing business, The Donut Hole. This became an oceanic stage for the spiny, bloodstained barbs of the puffer fish of his musical career. His childhood was rich with the makings of a misfit, including a speech impediment, secretly figuring out how to utilize his father’s bong by the age of 8, and somehow getting hit by cars all the time. Finally, his luck turned (if only briefly) after being discovered by Ari Steinbloom, who was Kirby’s only friend, ever. Steinbloom died only minutes after meeting Kirby, suffering a heart attack and gasping his last breaths as Kirby held him, crying and kissing his cheeks. Before he passed away, Steinbloom signed his entire record company over to Kirby in desperation, remembering he hadn’t drawn up a will yet and didn’t want the company to go to charity.

Kirby practiced his instrument like a baby bird attempts to fly out of the nest, only to fail, spiral haphazardly down to the pavement and then get squashed by a bicycle. For this reason, his musical style devolved into something people could identify with. In 1990, Kirby rocketed onto the music scene with the single I’m on the Moon. The song describes his relationship with one Judy Holiday, who Kirby believed he was dating after placing several love letters in her mailbox, only to find out that she was leaving Sacramento to become an astronaut. An interview with Ms. Holiday conducted by Sing! Magazine describes their relationship in harrowing, posthumous hopelessness.

Sing!: You were one of the driving g-forces, if you will, in Kirby’s career. How does that make you feel?

Judy: Well, there’s no feeling like being in space, let me tell ya. Being shot up amongst the stars is the most prolific, spiritual feeling in the world. Looking down at the earth from the stars, halfway to the moon… it’s breathtaking. But anyway, uh, Kirby? I didn’t know him at all. I think I met him in a bar and he started going on about how annoying it was to sift through garbage cans and find nothing but Chicken in a Biskit crackers. I was interested in meeting a fellow astronaut, see, and the chicken in Chicken in a Biskit crackers is very dehydrated. Anyone who doesn’t like dehydrated food could never be an astronaut like me.

Sing!: So you left him to become an astronaut?

Judy: I didn’t leave him. I only talked for maybe five minutes of my entire life. I only remember him because he tracked me down, dressed up in a bulbous sun costume, and stood outside my window, singing me a song about goats or something. Then he pulled a ripcord and his sun costume exploded into confetti and candy, and he stood there yelling “Look at how much electricity my heart produced for you, just like the sun!” completely naked for about a half hour until I called the police. They came and tasered him.

Sing!: What do you think of his song about you?

Judy: Honestly, I haven’t even heard it. I’m an astronaut. I only listen to Phil Collins.

The masterfully written lyrics to I’m on the Moon are as follows, complete with a complimentary recording:

Sometimes I feel like a distant star
When my stellar plan doesn’t get very far
I don’t like you and I don’t like your face
Your presence here sends me into space

I’m on the moon because of you
I’m on the moon because I hate you
My space shuttle has come unglued
I’m on the moon because I hate you

Small step for man, giant leap for mankind
Into a black hole of pickle brine
When you are here I can’t feel fine
When you are gone I’ll be drinkin’ Martian wine

Martian Wine!
Martian Wine!
Martian Wine!
Martian Wine!

I’m on the moon because of you
I’m on the moon because I hate you
My space shuttle has come unglued
I’m on the moon because I hate you

Your love brought me up to the moon
But now you broke my heart and I’m stuck here!
Stuck here, stuck here, stuck here, stuck here, stuck here

After the I’m on the Moon single, Kirby released his debut LP, also titled I’m on the Moon. Record reviewers raved and praised, propelling Kirby into the sunny spotlight of stardom. Track titles for I’m on the Moon included “Comet Heading for My Brain,” “I’m a Kuiper Belt Object,” “I May as Well be an Alien,” and “Billions of Stars, Billions of Lies.” A year later, Kirby would collaborate with Nine Inch Nails to produce a rare remix album of I’m on the Moon called Re-entry, with remixes of “I’m on the Moon” (“I’m on the Moon (Cold),” “I’m on the Moon (Science),” “I’m on the Moon (Gravity)”) and other tracks such as “Comet Hitting My Brain,” “Coming back Down,” and “Martian Wine (Drunk).”

After the success of I’m on the Moon, Kirby ejected from the spaceship themed odyssey and began to explore other frontiers. Most unfortunately, something had changed within Kirby: his metabolism – or so he thought.

If psychiatrists would have been able to diagnose Kirby in 1992, they would have immediately discovered his affliction with a debilitating mental illness called Fauxbesity. Kirby was beginning to believe he weighed much more than he actually did. Nowadays, thanks to Kirby bringing this disease out in the open, (although Fauxbesity is extremely rare) it is usually recognized immediately and patients are treated by wearing a 200 pound fat suit, feeling what it’s really like to be fat, and then shedding it a few weeks later, realizing that they aren’t obese after all. Kirby weighed a mere 130 pounds. He hardly ate anything as a young man because he hated those Chicken in a Biskit crackers. It is thought that because of his actual ability to afford food after the success of I’m on the Moon, Kirby scared himself into thinking he would become fat, leading to the disease. It was apparent on his next series of albums that Fauxbesity was taking a hefty toll.

In 1995, Mr. Docket believed he weighed a whopping 400 pounds. He released Sponge Bath and put his album’s thematic center of gravity on living a sad and friendless life as an overweight person as opposed to living his sad and friendless life as a thin, healthy person. Sales of the album were poor compared to I’m on the Moon, although it was critically acclaimed by reviewers and won a Twinkie Award from FLAB (Food Lovers Against Bad-tastes) for bringing hope to obese people all over America. Sponge Bath’s single was named “Eat My Pain Away:”

Eat my pain away, baby
Tell me everything is ok
What will it taste like?
Sausages? Hamburgers? Mustard? Fries?
Chicken fried steak?
Your dirty lies?

All these flavors
Help me feed
Save me from my lustful greed
Savor the moment, baste the day
Help me eat my pain away

Eat my pain away, baby
Got so much flub I can only lay
Work me off in the gym
Cardio, Pilates, yoga, running
Exercise bike
This isn’t funny

All these flavors
Help me feed
Save me from my lustful greed
Savor the moment, baste the day
Help me eat my pain away

Ladies, gentlemen, people of the world
Glare at me with rage unfurled
When my feelings start to invade their kitchen
Forklift me out before they start bitchin’
I’d munch their buffet all night and all day
Help me eat my pain away

Savor the moment, baste the day
Help me eat my pain away

With the increased depressive repercussions from the flop of Sponge Bath, Kirby became completely overcome with the illness. Now claiming his weight to be over 700 pounds, he traveled around on a motorized cart, periodically checking himself into hospitals to make sure he wasn’t going to die. Everyone who saw him asked him why he thought he weighed 700 pounds; he was so thin! They didn’t understand, and they only made it worse because Kirby thought they were merely attempting to make him feel better about his “enormous girth.” The interview Kirby conducted with Sing! Magazine in 1997 outlines his state of misery.

Sing!: Mr. Docket, we just don’t understand. You’re 27 years old, you weigh 145 pounds. You’ve even seen the scale flashing “145” with your own eyes. What’s wrong?

Kirby: The scale was broken! They always break when I step on top of them with my humongous elephant feet.

Sing!: Your latest album includes tracks with titles like “Growing Pains,” “Mask of Flubber,” and “Eat the Hand that Feeds.” Would you like to indulge us with the details of your sorrow?

Kirby: They won’t even let me park in the handicap spots so I can get into the stores more easily. Stupid government! Girls don’t like me, I’m just a blob. I’m on an extreme diet, but no matter what I do, I can’t stop gaining weight. I used to get hit by cars a lot as a child; now I don’t get hit at all because people can see me from a mile away. I used to be trapped in a cage of sadness. Now my body’s trapped in a cage of lard. And sadness, as well. A cage of sadness and lard.

Sing!: I’m sorry to hear that. Anyway, what are your upcoming projects? We were excited to hear about your FLUB award, congratulations.

Kirby: I will continue to wallow in my self pity and write songs about it like I always do. I feel like I can hardly hold a guitar anymore, there’s a huge roll of fat that I have to lay it on. Sometimes I feel like I’m going to have a heart attack in the sweaty spotlights of the stage. The only thing left to do is cry. I’m so sorry, everybody! Blewwwww-hew-hew-hew-hewblughegh!

Kirby then took a nationwide tour, demanding a yellow sign on his tour bus that warned “OVERSIZED LOAD.” He now purposely made his voice sound like an obese person’s, creamy and low. On stage, he frequently broke down and cried, jiggling his body and blubbering like an overweight nerd who dropped his copy of the Star Wars Insider in a puddle. Kirby then returned to his childhood with his 1998 album, Drowning in Donuts. It was naturally his most inspired yet miserable work yet. Docket presented a story of his parental abuse, being forced to eat donuts every day, and living as a loser in general, explaining their contributions to the fact that he was now a fatty. The album flopped miserably because everyone had figured out he wasn’t actually fat. His public believed he was just a sellout looking for an easy way to make a buck. The only decent song on it was a b-side from the Sponge Bath era called “Kirby Docket wants a Hot Pocket.”

The end was neigh for Kirby. In 1999, he was contacted by an up and coming children’s music label, M is for Many Words Starting with M, but only because of a miscommunication between the label’s creator, Nicholas Bix, and a friend while discussing a possible Santa Claus look-alike to travel around singing carols to increase the label’s popularity. Nicholas believed his friend was genuinely recommending Kirby for the Santa Claus role, even though he was only joking about his Fauxbesity. Kirby agreed to write songs for an album which he would name Sad-ta Claus in 2000. The songs were obviously depressing and were not tailored to the child demographic. The closest Kirby came to ever writing a children’s song was a sort of parody on Raffi’s “Baby Beluga,” which was titled “Fatty Plethora.” Nicholas Bix gave the go-ahead to produce the album before he even heard it, but was furious upon listening and fired Kirby immediately. Surprisingly, the album sold fairly well amongst the religious crowd, mainly comprised of overweight old people. The album’s centerpiece was the song sharing the same name as the album title, “Sad-ta Claus.”

Santa was delivering gifts
In his heart he had one wish
To eat, and eat, and eat some more
Cookies from the grocery store

Santa had devised a myth
To fill his belly up with shit
“Set cookies out for me, or no presents!” Santa bellowed with a roar
Frightening the children of yore

He ate too much and now he’s sad
He’s stuck in the chimney with his bag
He rotted there and turned to bones
Now the Christmas Spirit cries alone

Kirby died on April 1st, 2002. A fan of his earlier work, disgruntled by the lack of quality songs Kirby was producing, used a CD labeler to make CD-rewritables look like donuts and smugly shoved them in Docket’s mailbox as an April Fool’s joke. Kirby opened the box, saw that someone mocked him by putting what he thought were donuts inside, and went absolutely insane — running around wildly on the street, doing somersaults, and trampling Mrs. Barburry’s flowerbed. He wasn’t even sure how he had that much energy. Finally, he stopped and asked, “How about I just eat myself to death?!” Ironically, that’s exactly what he did. He wolfed down the CD-rewritables which he thought were donuts, slicing his insides up like a blender. Kirby died doing what he thought he loved: eating.

Kirby Docket led a sad life, but we can learn from his faults. How? I’m not sure, but I’ll leave it up to you to figure it out. Thanks to him we know about the detrimental effects of Fauxbesity and can cure it. Kirby is up in the sky now with the moon, KERNL, and heaven. If he cries as much as he did in life, there’s sure to be a particularly bad monsoon season.

-justin “No E” milligan