Billy Corgan has not lost his mind. While it’s debatable that he ever had a sane mind, I contend that all he’s lost is common sense. This is fine with me. Pop stars do not have to have common sense. Common sense does not allow for Iggy Pop to stab himself with glass, David Bowie to adopt a sexually ambiguous alien persona and Tupac Shakur to release seven full-length albums after death. I do not want Mr. Corgan to develop common sense. Rather, I would like Mr. Corgan to fire his publicist, manager and handlers. A shock of reality is fine; a full-blown intervention will create a shell of a man that is likely to end up playing classic alternative rock to accountants that remember when they had hair past their shoulders.

Fans of the Smashing Pumpkins know that Mr. Corgan has always been a little crazy. He wore bells around his neck on the back of “Gish.” CRAZY!?! Bells? Why he must have made noise everywhere he walked! But that’s not all! There are more exclamation marks to come!

Once on a major label Mr. Corgan decided to drive the other members of the band insane while working on their second album, “Siamese Dream,” in the studio for nearly a year. Then he sort of deleted all the parts James (the Asian guy (this is a great time to write The Machine saying that we’re racist because we identified Mr. Iha as ‘the Asian guy’ and not ‘guitarist’)) and D’arcy (the women (this is a great time to write The Machine saying that D’arcy was identified as a woman instead of an incompetent bass player because the writer, me, is a male) played. Jimmy’s parts got to stay because he’s the best at heroin and being the best in heroin in a band is like being the best defender in basketball; he might not get the spotlight but everyone on the team knows he’s the glue.

After Chamberlin was let go during the “Mellon Collie” tour a few years later, Mr. Corgan tried to become an adult by making “Adore.” “Adore” didn’t sell a lot of records. “MACHINA” came next and that sold even less. Rather than step back for a while and see what went wrong, Mr. Corgan wore a chef’s uniform. The bands ‘last’ show at the United Center started with him in a white get-up and ended in a black chef’s coat. The ‘last’ Metro show featured a silver one. Though it was honorable to see a band named after a food dress like they worked in the food service industry, the Pumpkins ended their first run and not much was heard from any of the members for a few years. Then came Zwan.

Before the “Mary Star of the Sea” album came out Corgan kept fans interested by offering an interactive animated series based on the fictional band that Pumpkins portrayed on “MACHINA” and “MACHINA 2.” The story on the album doesn’t make sense and the three episodes of the animated series make even less sense. The only good decision Corgan made in this period was to scrap the animated series before anyone saw it. However, now, thanks to You Tube, anyone interested in what it’s like to be a rock star who hears god through static in the radio in a future era similar to ‘1984’ can now see what it’s really like.

Then came the super group. Turning his back on the suburban kids that helped line his pockets for so many years, Corgan and drummer Chamberlin decided to go ‘indie’ and recruit Matt Sweeney from Chavez (and many more respectable indie rock bands) and David Pajo from Slint (and many more respectable indie rock bands) to play guitar in his new group. The group’s only album, “Mary Star of the Sea,” was similar to the Pumpkins in that all the lyrics were atrocious and there were lots of solos. While solos can be fun, these were not. It just didn’t work.

Rather than accept the failure, Corgan decided that Zwan was actually two different bands, the True Poets of Zwan (loud and electric) and Djali Zwan (quiet and acoustic). To gain more indie cred Corgan played a lot of acoustic sets at the Hideout and kind of kept his mouth shut. Then the band broke up. Then Corgan said that he hated everyone in the band, except Chamberlin, and that they were all dishonest and on heroin and blah blah blah.

Two years after the Zwan failure Corgan decided he wanted to have a failure in his own name and released a solo album. Through it wasn’t horrible as Zwan, the buying public did not have an appetite for songs about poets in the late 19th century behind a recycled New Order beat. Once again, dead set on staying in the spotlight, Corgan decided to take out ads in all major Chicago daily publications declaring that the Smashing Pumpkins would reunite.

In the years since the Pumpkins glory days (let’s say the day Cobain offed himself to the day before “Adore” was released), not many bands have cited the Pumpkins as an influence. There’s good reason for this. They were never punk and they were never metal. Corgan’s voice is too odd for karaoke. His lyrics are painfully sincere but not as awful as most industrial stuff. Until My Chemical Romance decided to embrace their influences, it looked like the Pumpkins would be the one band from the alternative era that no one imitated.

Lucky for Corgan, a highly successful band with legions of fans decided to take their cue from the Pumpkin King (I can’t believe I wrote this much without having to use that nickname, good for me). In order for Billy Corgan to remain in the spotlight, or at least one that’s not shared with Courtney Love, he simply needs to follow my sane advice.

1. Do not grant interviews to the mainstream press
No talking to newspapers, magazines, well-read Internet sites, etc. Grant interviews to fanzines and fans who contact you through Myspace. If the kids (12-15 year-olds) feel connected, you’ll be relevant again.

2. Do try to get James and D’arcy back
I know that you’ve probably tried to do this and it failed. Try again. Even if it’s for one show, it’ll show people that you seem to actually care about these people and that’s a good thing. If you ignore the elephant in the room Chamberlain will OD again. Trust me, I have a feeling about this one.

3. Do not release a concept album and if you do, don’t tell anyone it’s a concept album.
The internets say that the sixth official Smashing Pumpkins album will be released on July 7 2007 and will be called “Zeitgeist”. This is a bad title for a rock album. You want to know what’s a good album title? “The Black Parade”. Kids like to think they feel sad. Kids don’t like to translate German. Anyways, if you’re writing as a “character,” don’t tell the world. People were turned off once they heard that the last two Pumpkins albums were about a band that was an amalgamation of David Bowie’s Spiders From Mars and the Smashing Pumpkins. I’m not sure why. Maybe because your core audience doesn’t give a shit about glam rock and just wants to hear guitar solos like you did on “Zero” and hear about how they’re depressed, like the lyrics in “Zero.”

4. Do write another song like “Zero”
See #4.

5. Do not keep helping shitty ‘metal’ bands
In the past few years you’ve written songs for Taproot and Breaking Benjamin. Unless this was for drug money, you suck.

6. Do keep helping Courtney Love
Everyone loves Courtney Love. She’s like Jackie O but shitty at grieving; a female Pete Doherty with successful singles in America. By helping her with her new album you appear to be the stable one, something most fans would never think.

7. Do not release any more writings
Poetry books suck (this is a great time to write The Machine and tell us we hate ‘art’). Autobiographies released on Myspace prove that 1. No one wanted to release your autobiography after your poetry book was released 2. You didn’t have an editor. You need an editor.

8. Do tour with My Chemical Romance
Your last album sold 69,000 copies. My Chemical Romance sold 240,000 copies of the most recent album in the first week of release. Though you may not want to admit it, you need them more than they need you

9. Do not dress like a chef

10. Do play electric guitar
People seem to like this. They don’t like when you fiddle with keyboards.

Mr. Corgan, if you follow these simple steps you will once again be able to sleep on a large pile of money. I’m sure you sleep on a big pile of money now, but the pile has the potential to be much bigger. If you’re not careful, your public mistakes will no longer be so well-known. Just look at Limp Bizkit. Fred Durst was once making more money than you. Now he’s posting depressing diatribes on his Myspace page about getting the band back together. Sound familiar?