I edited the guy's writing to make it readable.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/baby_boomerang/2003/04/02/Wednesday, April 2nd, 2003
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10:04p - gimme danger
So here is what happened. We went to a movie on Sunset Boulevard, on the corner where Schwab's drugstore once stood. Throughout the movie (DOWN AND OUT WITH THE DOLLS) I found myself delighted with the badass, unsympathetic bitch character who fucks her friend's unrequited love.
When we walked out, the first elevator going down to the parking garage was full. As we stood in a small crowd waiting for the next one, I noticed Axl Rose standing and waiting among us.
My brain began to buzz and I'm told I turned bright red. "Hey," I whispered to Fran*, "You see that guy with the braids? Remember him later."
He got off on the first floor and when the elevator doors opened on the second floor there was a big portrait of him painted on the wall. When i excitedly told Fran that the guy with the braids was Axl Rose she said -- basically-- "so what." and looked at me as if I was some starstruck idiot.*
A few minutes later I tried to explain it to her:
"In 1991, I got up at 4 a.m. to go wait in line for Guns N' Roses tickets. I think APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION was the best record released in the '80s. It was playing when I smoked my first cigarette and when I got drunk with my best friend*. I know every phrase, every guitar lick on that record. I could sing it to you in its entirety right now."
Once again i'm delighted with the unsympathetic bitch character. I like everyone else in the whole world think Axl Rose is a wife-beating idiot (at his worst) but it does not diminish my love for the music he did with Guns N' Roses, the whole aura and all the myths surrounding that band, and the period of time during which the whole music world worshipped him. For those reasons, it's a big fucking deal for me to be two feet away from him.
So I've been thinking about this for the last few days, as I am prone to thinking too much and overintellectualizing rock n' roll*. Tell me why after i've outgrown my cure records and my babes in toyland records, which I loved beyond description at one point, APPETITE is still in constant rotation on my stereo (I even have it in all three formats)?
Is it because it reminds me of the sunny georgia summer of 1987 during which both of my visiting brothers would not stop playing it no matter how much I told them I hated "it's so easy"? Is it because it was the soundtrack of my innocence and the time I sincerely believed in the sex/drugs/rock cliche? Is it because I can remember listening to it in my darkened suburban bedroom dreaming of a life less BORING than my own, or because I can remember listening to it in the car on the way to or from some lame club with kathleen and cracking her up by singing it like carol channing? Is it because to this day when i listen to it I want to go drink whiskey, have one-night stands and Fuck Shit Up?
Is it because it's just an excellent record in a way that surpasses DISINTEGRATION or FONTANELLE (both excellent records but in their ways flawed)?
Is it because that record has something that no record since has had-- glamour drugs rock n' roll sex innocence corruption sweetness cruelty?
Let me tell you, though: one night about a year ago I was piled into a taxi with six other people when "sweet child o' mine" came on the radio*. All of us immediately began singing along and a few of us even did the long part at the end. I think if "Smells Like Teen Spirit," the song that rock critics like to point to as the end of the GNR era, had been on none of us would have noticed-- I know I wouldn't have. even if it had been "ask" by the smiths or something really cheesy like "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" by Poison, I don't think we all would have sung along.
No matter how pathetic GNR became at the end or how weird* and reclusive they are now, APPETITE is one of those records that will always be relevant and exciting, like the best Rolling Stones songs.
Furthermore, Axl Rose in 1988 had what no rock star in recent times has had: talent, danger, and expressive hips. Think about it. since then we have had all these ironic stars, who were sexy in their unsexiness-- like Jarvis Cocker*, eh? The sexiest among contemporary musicians often do not play the best music and are about as dangerous as kittens.
If part of the point of rock music is its theatricality-- and I think it is-- then I think the fantasies should at least be good ones. Mick Jagger isn't a rock star because he sang the blues like a bluesman; he's a rock star because he sang the blues like an oversexed, naughty white boy. There has been such a total lack of that sex in contemporary pop and I miss it.
In pop music often the singer is the song-- half of the music is the people themselves. THAT's why i turn bright red when I'm standing two feet away from Axl Rose. In the public eye (before he turned into what rolling stone called "rock's howard hughes") he personified the dirty white boy and he did it damn well. He was my Mick Jagger. It's only appropriate to blush.
*having just had a discussion with her & k. the day before during which she said she never sees famous people
*which i am not, damnit, i just happen to notice famous people when i see them, it doesn't mean i freak out or anything
*any given night from 1991 to present
*after all, it's a lot more fun than thinking about the war
*i could die happy never hearing this song again, by the way, but it's still a good song and fun to sing along with
*weird: Axl appears to have no eyebrows or eyelashes and looks overly moisturized.
*who is still dead sexy; there's room for everyone, ok??
Down and Out with the Dolls was released in the US on March 21, 2003 - so this guy's story checks out.
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