filthy

I bought a book. Okay, I bought two. I know, you're shocked, "how uncharacteristic," you mutter to yourself. Whatever, I am the proud new owner of The Dirt: Confessions of the World`s Most Notorious Rock Band by Motley Crue with Neil Strauss and More Good News: Real Solutions to the Global Eco-Crisis by David Suzuki and Holly Dressel. The former is intended to disgust me and make me reflect on the wasteful nature of human beings while the latter is meant to inspire me and get me thinking about positive change and ways of living consciously.

First up... The Dirt.

“I had angst dripping out of my pores. I wore skin tight red pants that laced up the front, Capezios, and makeup. Even when I tried to fit in, I couldn`t. One day my cousin Ricky was kicking a ball around the yard with some friends, and I tried to join them. I just couldn`t do it: I didn`t remember how to kick or throw or stand or anything. I kept trying to motivate them to do something fun, like find some alcohol, run away, rob a bank, anything. I wanted to talk to somebody about why Brian Connolly of the Sweet had bangs that curled under, and I didn`t. They just looked at me like I was from another planet. Then Ricky asked, “Are you wearing makeup?”

“Yeah,” I told him.

“Men don’t wear makeup,” he replied firmly, like it was a law, with his friends backing him up like a jury of the normal.”’

“We opened the door, and there was this little troll standing outside with black hair down to his ass and high-stacked platform shoes with practically a whole roll of duct tape wrapped around them to hold them together. He looked like a flat-broke, painfully shy, freaky-looking relative of Cousin Itt. I was laughing so hard, I called to Nikki, “Come here! You gotta check this dude out!” When Nikki and him were standing there face-to-face, it was like the Addams Family meets Scooby Doo. Nikki pulled me aside, excited. “I can’t believe it!” he said. “Here is another one like us!”’

“Mick, our merciless overseer of quality control, bent over the microphone and announced to the assembled mass of businesspeople and dispensers of checks, per diems, and advances: “Perhaps we could play these songs for you if Nikki hadn’t been up all night doing heroin.” I got so pissed off that I threw my bass to the ground, walked over to his microphone, and snapped the stand in half. Mick was already at the door by then, but I chased him down the country lane, both of us in high heels like two hookers in a catfight.”

“The day after I returned from Tommy’s wedding, there was a hand-delivered letter from our accountant, Chuck Shapiro, waiting for me in the mailbox. “You have been spending five thousand dollars a day,” he wrote. “Five thousand dollars times seven is thirty-five thousand dollars a week. Per month, that’s one-hundred forty thousand dollars. In exactly eleven months, you will be completely broke, if not dead.”’

“Alcohol would bring out sides of my personality that I never even knew existed. I was moldy one night at the Lexington Queen in Japan, and the owner happened to have a Godzilla mask. I put it on, hopped on the dance floor, and started doing what we call crack-dancing - shaking my ass with my butt crack hanging out of my pants (we used to do a lot of crack bowling, too). I suddenly got inspired to leave the bar with the Godzilla mask on and terrorize unsuspecting Japanese civilians, maybe crush some office buildings, too. I pulled my pants down to my ankles, and walked up and down the street barking and snapping at people with my Godzilla mask on. The rest of the guys were chasing after me laughing, because they’d never seen me behave like that before. Someone had told me that it’s legal in Japan for a man to stop anywhere and pee on the side of the road. So I decided to see if that was true.”

I am choosing to share the funnier stuff with you because the dirtier stuff would have my blog shutdown by the blog police in under thirty seconds. Honest.

My photos.