Madi > Recent Status Updates

cont...
Don’t get me wrong. I get why the term is used and I was myself easily smitten with rock stars as a little kid—I was mesmerized by the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin. Over the years, though, I have had the distinct honor of meeting some of the artists who occupied my classroom daydreams and have been pleasantly surprised at the regular-dude quality of these older rock musicians.

The Clash's Bassist Paul Simonon “We are all in this together! There is no such thing as a rock star, just musicians and listeners”

I also have a strong dislike for the term rock star because I do actually know some people in the biz who refer to themselves as rock stars. These people really think they’re better than their fans. I, for one, find that kind of behavior embarrassing.

And so, for the first time in much too long. Axl and I finally met again face-to-face. Any doubts I had about what might happen melted instantly.
We hugged.

“Look, we know the industry is changing,” Scott said, “but we don’t want to work with people like that.”
The guy took the bait: “No way, I treat my artists like family. That would never happen with me.”
Then Scott dropped the bomb: “That friend was this guy here,” he said, pointing to me, “and you’re the asshole who didn’t have the decency to make the courtesy call. Get the fuck out of here."

Then Scott asked him to talk more about the way he would personally take an interest in the project. Scott listened thoughtfully and then started talking—seemingly off-the-cuff—about a friend who had been dropped one time without a call from the label.

At long last, I felt ready for this. Those dark hours and days and weeks and years fell by the wayside there in Hawaii as Susan and I discussed our next move. We would be a team, come hell or high water, and it was going to kick some serious ass.
Confidence is knowing you can do something even before you try it.

(in response to being called the F word at a Red Hot Chili Peppers show with Axl)

If someone thinks you’re gay or is dumb enough to think that calling you gay is an insult, who cares?

(in response to being called the F word at a Red Hot Chili Peppers show with Axl)

If someone thinks you’re gay or is dumb enough to think that calling you gay is an insult, who cares?

I was terrified at the prospect of playing sober.
Of course, a few years earlier I had witnessed how Iggy could still flip a switch in the studio or onstage even after he got sober—he blew me away with his ability to reach that special place with no substances at all.

Axl was definitely behind the idea, but I never set up any kind of meeting. Somehow it was already too late. This was right around the time the movie Interview with the Vampire came out, featuring a cover of the Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” credited to Guns N’ Roses. Guitar work by Paul Huge, Axl’s childhood friend, had been added to the track and Slash was more furious now than ever.

The space between the covers of these books became my place of solitude. Reading continues to represent a meditative haven for me to this day. At the end of every day, whether on tour or at home with my family, I always take time alone at night to read.

“Izzy, Axl, Slash—and Duff,” she said. “What kind of names are those?”
“Well, there is a guy named Steven."

During those first rehearsals, the five of us started working up a new song together based on some lyrics I had brought with me in a notebook from Seattle. The song became “Paradise City,” and it started to gel in those few days before our Troubadour show and the trip up to Seattle.

Slash was inclined to try it out because Guns seemed more where he wanted to go musically than Black Sheep. His interest in that job was primarily mercenary: it was a place to be plucked from to fill a gap in an established band—the way Ozzy plucked Randy Rhoads from Quiet Riot. But rather than wait around in Black Sheep [...], Slash liked the idea of joining a band with the intention of making its own mark.

Axl met me outside the rehearsal space to talk about my reservations.
“You have to be part of this,” he said. “Give it another chance.”

One thing I soon learned about Axl: if he saw something in a person, he would do everything possible to ensure that person remained part of his vision.

( ... )
I laughed and said of course, no problem. The whole thing sounded like a low-rent art project or something—I mean, who made cartoons for adults? Little did I know that the show would become The Simpsons and that within a few years I would start to see Duff beer glasses and gear everywhere we toured.

When Guns N’ Roses began to break into the public consciousness, I was known as a big drinker. In 1988, MTV aired a concert in which Axl introduced me—as usual—as Duff “the King of Beers” McKagan. Soon after this, a production company working on a new animated series called me to ask if they could use the name “Duff” for a brand of beer in the show.
( ... )

We knew so little back then, and have learned so much since, that I couldn’t possibly write the same story today. I know now that the mythic monster I created was largely a fiction.

- Peter Benchley on Jaws

[…] that good books are desirable and that good writers, even if they show every variety of human depravity, are still good human beings.

‘This great book', 'this worthless book’, the same book […]. Praise and blame alike mean nothing. No, delightful as the pastime of measuring may be, it is the most futile of all occupations, and to submit to the decrees of the measurers the most servile of attitudes. So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say.

“ Doubtless Elizabethan literature would have been very different from what it is if the woman's movement had begun in the sixteenth century and not in the nineteenth. “

“If a woman wrote, she would have to write in the common sitting-room.
And, as Miss Nightingale was so vehemently to complain, - women never have an half hour ... that they can call their own' - she was always interrupted.”

Girl…interrupted.

Holy run-on sentences Batman

“All these facts lie somewhere, presumably, in parish registers and account books; the life of the average Elizabethan woman must be scattered about somewhere, could one collect it and make a book of it.”

In fact such books do exist now! I read one earlier this year.

“Why is the sky blue?”—A fair enough question, and one I have learned the answer to several times. Yet every time I try to explain it to someone or remember it to myself, it eludes me. Now I like to remember the question alone, as it reminds me that my mind is essentially a sieve, that I am mortal.”

"Don't confuse shame with guilt," he said eventually. "Shame says, 'I am the mistake, while guilt says, 'I made a mistake! You made a mistake, but you are not a mistake."

Drunks in a barroom.

Jesus wept.

Only I’m not a drunk, and although I’m a blue-state American
now, I was raised a red one, and I’ve spent my life with at least half of one
foot still in that camp. It gives me a certain perspective. It also allows me
to own my handguns — I have three — with a clear conscience.

I had friends in high school — including a girlfriend who stood up for me when I needed standing-up for, [...] and I possessed a certain sophomoric wit that gained me respect (also a few detentions, which were a very acceptable trade-off). Those things got me through. Even so, I couldn’t wait to put high school behind me and meet people who did not consider giving wedgies to losers a valid part of social interaction.

“The violent actions and emotions portrayed in Rage were drawn directly from the high school life I was living five days a week, nine months of the year. The book told unpleasant truths, and anyone who doesn’t feel a qualm of regret at throwing a blanket over the truth is an asshole with no conscience.”

“To put it lightly, I don’t enjoy showering.
Being clean, yes. The act of being in the shower, also yes. But everything about having to brush out my tangled hair beforehand, stepping out onto a ratty bath mat or tile floors, getting dry, combing my hair out again—I hate all of that, which means I’m a three-shower-a-week person to Alex’s one to two showers a day.”