Ever seen Axl backstage with a needle hanging out of his arm and some groupie trying to get on his jock? Ever woken up with your head on the pillow your drummer used to mute his bass-drum? With your head inside his bass-drum? We drank for the carbs, we ate raw meat in front of the hippy festival crowd. I ate peyote years later to come down, to find something besides the illusion I had become.

There is no truth. I should be dead. A lot of us could say that. A lot of us are, many who did less stupid things than I. Passing out and vomiting in the wrong order. Literally blowing up amplifiers. Fighting with audiences. Trying to get Janes Fucking Addiction to let us have a reasonable sound check. If it sounds like a fantasy, it wasn't. It was a nightmare. Selfish asshole prima donnas vs. the mob. Nice fantasy! I never made more than a grand an hour but I think that's sick enough. My self-abuse these days is so tame. Then again, I'm so old. It's nice to be alive and it's nice to have my spoiled little artistic vision that will never be on MTV. Fuck crass commercialism. Been there, done that, less proud of it than amazed at my survival. I know my luck ran out. Spirit took good care of me, doesn't need me dead yet.

Most of this happened in Tucson, AZ. Is that some kind of a joke? Naw, we were the big fish of that small, small pond. Big acts came through, we opened. We went through enough managers. Scum bags, junkies, rich hippies. And our roadies. Volunteer army. Groupies? I never really had the hang. I'm sure polyamory is a default human mind-set or behavior but I have always been too much the sensitive philosopher type. -How would I feel about that? Pheh, all too well do I know. Karma and dharma are very different kiddies, very different indeed. Perhaps the price for my existence is the ironic punishments I endure. More than once I've been told it's because I'm not romantic enough. Vicious cycles of behavior, serious dysfunctions... but here I go waxing philosophic when you wanted to hear about sex and drugs. Well what I was getting at is the sex was tame. Well, not tame but serially monogomastic. Mostly. I don't have the attention span for polyamory anyway. Yeah, I guess I had groupies, but I never did anything except frustrate them. I had my future wife (to become ex-wife) to care about. And maybe I was just too damn drunk.
Some things never change. I want all women. They get mad at me for that. Some do anyway. Others just won't let me have them in the first place. But I digress. Do I really? Didna we all join bands to get laid? O yeah, that all important self-expression, I know ya got something to say bucko. OTOH there is Bjork. So what, what are we doing really? Well, we have to do something. So I'm pretty sure I'm still drinking too much, wake up drunk a couple of times a week, grossly offend people I'm devastatingly attracted to, so? I'm not creating a deafeining roar anymore.
What did we have on Mt. lemmon, a couple of kilowatts? And SXSW? Maybe the same. Tucson Gardens? Imagine. Rumble. My bass was the voice of god. I didn't have to play especially well to sound powerful. Which was good because not only am I a drunk but odds are good I was stoned too.