High and Wide

Without You

The first thing I read this morning was something about Mary Gaitskill’s new short story, “Don’t Cry.” High culture maven that I am, I immediately thought of the Guns N Roses song of the same name (don’t laugh that off—I read an essay years ago about Gaitskill’s crush on Axl Rose, so I would bet that it was somewhere in her mind, as well). Anyway, I immediately went to go watch “Don’t Cry” on youtube, and, of course, if you watch “Don’t Cry”, you must also watch “November Rain”, the far superior first act in the Use Your Illusion video trilogy (the third video is the unbearably wack “Estranged”, which I will like not speak about further, lest I taint my blog)(okay, one thing about “Estranged”: it should be like the entire textbook and coursework if there is ever a college class on when artists get too bloated and drunk on their own self-importance to make art anymore)(yes, I just called GNR art, and also I meant emotionally bloated, that was not a knock at how physically bloated Axl has gotten).

They were still playing “November Rain” on MTV all the time when I became old enough to watch it, and I thought watching it initiated you into a kind of cultural mystery that we just don’t have anymore in the internet era, where urban legends are debunked with a quick trip to Wikipedia and thus made completely unfun: how did Stephanie Seymour die? Did Axl do it? Why doesn’t Slash ever have to wear a shirt, not even in church? Who the fuck is “Del James”? All of these questions made the video spooky, a spookiness it still carries for me today—I’ve been watching this video all day, and now that it’s night and everyone is asleep, I do feel a little…creeped out. I think the creep out factor is only enhanced by the fact that GNR themselves are now something of a Victorian ghost story, with Axl playing the role of a spooky Mrs. Crawford/ Miss Havisham mash-up, going ever madder in collective cultural attic.

But! After saying all that, I am going to ruin all of those mysteries for you with final definitive evidence I detectived up for you today!

The short story mentioned at the video’s end, “Without You”, is from a short story collection called “The Language of Fear”, by Del James, a heavy metal journalist who worked closely with Rose. The story, which I remember looking with no success for in my public library system around 1995, can be found here: http://www.geocities.com/zsniper51/WithoutYou

For those of you not so inclined: in the story, a rock star (a sideman turned frontman, to get specific) gets self-destructive remembering a failed relationship with a woman who later shot herself. I read the story this afternoon and while it is a bit cheesy, its well-polished for a genre piece—certainly no worse than anythng Joe Hill is putting out nowadays.

So …Stephanie Seymour shot herself (in the video, not in real life, yo)(duh). After reading that and watching the video again, I felt wack for not having known that, considering Axl walks by an enormous sign that says “GUNS” at one point in the video for no reason, and during Stephanie’s funeral, she has an enormous piece of mirror held over the middle of her face, propped up by the coffin, which would appear to be being used to cover up some extensive head trauma on the other side (see Exhibit A, at the bottom of this entry). Heavy-handed, sure, but do teenagers understand anything that isn’t?

Mystery solved! How boring! But what remains interesting to me is the song itself and its relationship to the story. In the story “Without You”, “Without You” is the title of a song about romantic ambiguity writte by the protagonist, which eventually drives his girlfriend to suicide. Lyrically, I think “November Rain” is supposed to kind of be the song in the story, with the video depicting the story of the story. I dig that—its like when people make up their own chapters in the Necronomicon, you know?

Stay tuned for next time, when I explain how the part in “Don’t Cry” where Slash drives off the highway is actually an allusion to James Joyce!

They Tried to Make Me Go to Birthday, I Said "No, No, No"

Guess what, guys? It’s my birthday week (okay, plus or minus a few days, but essentially)! That means you have to listen to this story about how I went to the nail salon. You have to do it as a birthday gift to me (but you also have to buy me something that cost money, f.y.i.).

Anyway, I got a fancy pedicure for myself for my birthday, because due to my fondness of punishingly high heels and my hatred of socks at any time of the year (my relationship with socks is like a frat boy’s relationship with condoms: it just feel better without it, bro!):

1. All of my shoes smell horrifying, and

2. I have the gnarled, mangled foot-hooves of an aging forest troll (by which I mean, my feet are typically way busted).

Anyway, they rubbed my feet with all these different, like, essences and earth salts and acids and whatever. I understood the seriousness of my foot callus situation when I looked up from my copy of US Weekly and noticed that they were literally cutting off chunks of my big toe with a little foot razor thing and I hadn’t even felt anything. So I guess I didn’t need those chunks, right?

Also, there were all of these posters of hands and feet being rubbed and massaged and painted hung up above the pedicure stations; most of them were just sexy hands getting sexy lotion rubbed into them by other sexier hands, but one poster depicted a hand covered in vaseline, making the two-fingered “giving a girl an h.j.” gesture. It kind of reminded me of Matthew Barney, though I doubt that was the goal.

Anyway, this story is really gross and doesn’t go anywhere, but at the end (now), I do have very nice finger and toe nails as a birthday present to myself. Which brings me back to my original thought, which was I have no dea what to do for my birthday. Turning 26 is just like getting my calluses cut off—I barely even notice! So anyway, if you have any ideas, let me know. Also, if you want to get me anything for my birthday, please get me money, fancy wine, or something completely surprising. This incoherent blog entry is my other birthday present to myself. Good night, everybody!

An Open Letter to Lord of the Rings Pinball

Dear Lord of the Rings pinball,

You are the fucking worst. Anyone who knows me can tell you, I will play any pinball game, regardless of the source material (see: the time last fall that I played Pirates of the Carribbean 2 pinball). I like to suport the softly dying art of pinball anyway I possibly can. Also, I am pretty good—I mean, not amazing, but I can keep a triple ball going for a good enough time, and I got 12,000,000 points on Sopranos pinball last fall (Sopranos pinball isn’t amazing, but it is fun enough to play, and also it swears at you like every time you score). BUT! I do not support Lord of the Rings pinball. From your boring game-within-a-game options to the way your machine goes almost completely dark at key moments in the game, I pronounce you 100% a bullshit failure as a piece of amusement that is supposed to distract me from my existential nausea.

Also, let’s talk about the lights. At key moments, the machine goes dark, for dramatic effect, leaving only a few tiny spaces lit. Whic would dramatic and cool if I were playing somewhere really brightly lit like oh I don’t know THE EMERGENCY ROOM OF A HOSPITAL MAYBE? But if you’re playing in a dimly lit bar or arcade, as every player (who is not an eccentric billionaire playing pinball in the ER) is, it sucks and totally causes you to lose balls, since the flippers are already shitty and weak and oh also, if you lose a ball within the first few seconds of game play, it doesn’t give you a courtesy ball like any reasonable pinball machine (see: Family Guy pinball), it just counts it as a regular ball and totals all your points from that round on the screen in a really mocking way, like “Frodo Magic Dancing Bonus: 2 points”. Also everything makes the ball get lost, and when you’re not losing the ball, there is nothing to do but hit it at Balrog, which is also totally boring.

In conclusion, Lord of the Rings pinball is worse than “Living Lohan” and “Denise Richards: It’s Complicated” and “My Super Sweet Sixteen” and “True Life: I am a Lord of the Rings pinball machine” combined, and I strongly advise you not to play it if at all possible.

Don't Stop Me Now