“Even the best chicks can only last a couple of hours.”
I was years away from my first sexual experience when I
first read that quote from David Lee Roth. Yet despite my inability to
truly comprehend what he was saying, something about that comment resonated
with me. That comment and the ability to come up with it seemed to embody
everything I wanted to be. In my pre-pubescent brain, it was quite
possibly the coolest thing to say. It oozed with confidence and dripped a
sexual overtone that came with being a rock God. That was before he
became a caricature or a punch line to some lame 80’s rock joke. No
sir. This was Diamond Dave in all his high kicking, spandex sporting Rock
God glory. And everything I wanted to be.
As much as I found myself in awe of the bands I saw in Hit
Parader and MTV, I was never star struck. What I felt was more like
desperate separation. Like “If these guys only knew me, we’d be
best friends. I’d be the one dorky teenager they’d want to hang out
with.” I longed to be part of something out of my reach and I was
frustrated. I saw my surroundings as something I couldn’t put behind me
quick enough. I was a boy out of place. An rock n roll astronaut
stuck on earth. A devil in the church.
I looked at rocker’s like Diamond Dave and dreamed of what it would be like to
be them.
But that’s just it isn’t it? When you’re 15, rock
stars seem ageless. Old enough to do all the cool shit but not old like
your stupid parents. Parents are lame. They eat three meals a day
and go to church every Sunday. Fuck that. Do you think David Lee
Roth is worried about the 4 food groups? There’s no way Gene Simmons has
ever gone to church. He was born evil. Right? Or so I thought anyway.
I'll clean your chimney after this song |
Ok so not all of them were healthy eating monogamous
phonies but plenty of them are. And I find it interesting the way our rockers age.
You can tell how successful a musician was and how relevant they still
are by the way they look. If you ran into Chuck Billy and James Hetfield
at a San Francisco bar in 1988, you wouldn’t see the stark difference in
appearance you do now. Chuck Billy looks like he ate himself while Mr.
Hetfield has on a pair of jeans and a t shirt that combined probably cost more
than Chuck’s monthly rent on his apartment.
Chuck Billy. Living the Dream |
Alas we all age. Some better than others. But
Rock Gods are supposed to stay golden. Finding out they don’t is like
discovering the whole Santa Claus cover up.
The
silver lining of course is that when it mattered to me, the illusion
worked. When I was popping pimples and jerking off 7 times a day, it all
seemed so real. So awesome. So cool. Right around the time I
realized most of the musicians I inspired to be were either horribly boring or
just horrible people, I no longer cared. And for some reason, I didn’t
feel betrayed. I look back with fondness at the way dreaming of Rock
Stardom made me feel. And while it can never be the same I miss it.
There is a small window of time where horror movies are something you can watch
and find scary. And if you never watch horror movies during that time you
will never know that feeling. That same sentiment is why I don’t feel like
I was lied to. The feeling I had was real. And that is what really matters.
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