Robin Whetstone

From 2012 "If I'm hanging out in that bathroom to get my jollies, I'm going to be disappointed. All you can see are shoes." WTH? Athens: When You Gotta Go .

There comes a moment in every person’s life when they realize that their only recourse is to stow away on the tour bus of a moderately famous thrash-rock/hip hop band and see what happens next. For me, that moment came weeks after I’d been let go from the Guardian and was at the leading edge of what would turn out to be one of the darkest periods of my life. Looking back on it now, with a better understanding of the unreliable chemistry that governs my moods and impulses, I realize that the lethargy and creeping hopelessness I was starting to feel are the classic heralds of depression. But back then, I thought that the problem was simply that I was out of a job. I was still writing and intended to keep writing. But to whom? That was the problem. Our plan to start our own magazine had met with some initial success. It looked like Margot Kidder, who had come to Russia to film an adaptation of Crime and Punishment, would turn out to be our superwoman. Our intern at the Guardian had in...