It's a really great book. Well written and interesting. I haven't finished it yet, but it got me thinking.
I can distinctly remember when I bought Appetite for Destruction. We were in Florida on vacation, and I made my mom take me to a mall in Orlando. I believe it was to a Peaches store. And I got the cassette. Or, rather, I had to get my mother to buy the cassette since it had the Parental Advisory sticker on it.
I kept it face down until after she paid so she wouldn't see the cover. I knew she probably wouldn't agree if she saw that cross with skulls logo. And I was in bliss. I listened to that thing pretty much nonstop for the rest of the trip.
Of course, I was totally unaware of what most of the lyrics meant. Sure, I knew that there was that whole sex, drugs and rock n roll thing, but I wasn't clued in to what it all really meant.
It was summer of '88, right before my freshman year started. I started school that year with my braces off, and with really big hair. Hair that was sort of an odd orange color thanks to some Sun-In. And I was a glam band girl. My best friend and I went to the Def Leppard concert, then stayed up all might as we drove with her family to vacation in Gulf Shores. Looking back, it's a wonder her parents let us play GnR. The cassette player was in the front with them, and we were in the very back seats of their mini-van. I remember her stepfather freaking out, thinking Axl's screech at the beginning of Welcome to the Jungle was a police siren, that he was getting pulled over. Heh. Good times.
Motley Crue. Poison. Bon Jovi. Def Leppard. GnR. Those were the big ones. And there were others ... LA Guns, Faster Pussycat, Danger Danger, White Lion
All lusted after with innocence to the reality of the world. I always said that if I had been 20 and in college instead of 15 and in junior high, I would have totally been a groupie for those bands. And I meant that. Band whore - yep, sign me up. Said with the innocence of youth.
Then I read the Motley Crue book, The Dirt. And The Heroin Diaries by Nikki Sixx. And now this book. What an eye opener. And I can honestly say that no, I would not have been a groupie. One look at the total lack of hygiene these guys possessed, and that would have been a deal breaker. Not to mention the rampant alcohol and drug abuse. And the STDs that flew through the bands like mad. Pass on that. I'd like to think that not even the lure of a rock star would overshadow, well, bathing. And clean sheets. Preferably not on a mattress on the floor. Even teenage me had standards. I just didn't realize the reality of the situation.
The fact that half these guys are still walking around with functioning brain cells is pretty amazing. The fact that more people weren't aware of the level of their depravity is even more so. But I guess that was the times. No Internet. No cell phones. Easier to cover stuff up. Quietly. Ah, the good old days. Before people accidentally outed themselves doing stupid and illegal stuff on Twitter or Facebook.
When I started this, I thought I had a point. Now I have no idea where I was going with it ...
I guess it's just that looking back, I see myself in those days and it makes me laugh. At how innocent I was. Singing along with the words to Mr. Brownstone ... I thought that was a person. Granted, there's really no way to NOT know what the lyrics to Anything Goes are about. But there was a child-like glee at the naughtiness of singing those words.
I would never have imagined, looking at those pictures in the magazines, that the guys from Motley were so strung out the photographer put sunglasses on them to hide their eyes, and the fact that a couple kept nodding out during the shoot.
I never knew exactly how crazy and out of control the backstage parties really were. How girls and drugs and liquor passed from guy to guy with no thoughts to excess or safety. Or that the majority of the time, most of them were barely coherent on stage - the fact that they were even upright was impressive ... being able to actually perform was pretty much a small miracle. It's a wonder more of them didn't die.
I guess my point is that I am glad that I didn't know then what I know now. I am glad that I got to see them as sexy rock stars. Maybe a little wild, and a little dangerous, but never as the dark and lost and messed up guys they really were. I'm glad that it took me years to really know what Mr. Brownstone was about. And I'm glad I never lined up to be one of a thousand in the back of the tour bus.
I had big hair. I smoked. I wore a leather biker jacket that I bought myself at the Harley store. I swore like a sailer. And I dated guys that were bad for me in a lot of ways. I was, by all outward appearances, the bad girl of the group. And that was cool. But I never really drank. I never tried drugs. I was an A student in honors classes and the band. I really had the best of both worlds. I got to play the bad girl, while staying a good girl on the inside. But it sure was fun to pretend.
