This is an excerpt of an upcoming book of short stories about coming-of-age as a Gen Xer
Curse #1
I know I’m getting more mature but I’m not quite willing to part with my long-held pastime of playing with legos just yet. They’re not as good as Penthouse, which I adore, but I can still play with legos in my parent’s living room while watching my parent’s TV. Presently, my hands fumble and compress random bricks together as I await the return of my beloved MTV. That stupid Noxema girl keeps getting in the way and she’s not even that hot. I don’t see what the big stupid deal is. Play a stupid video already.
But what to build that’s not stupid? So bored of toddler relics like cars or planes or space ships. Lego should make a motorcycle. That could be cool. Or they could make a Terminator set with all the robots. That would be cool. Or a guitar. Yeah! Like a full-size lego guitar with strings and pickups and everything!? That would definitely be… though that would take forever to build and probably wouldn’t sound good anyway. I wonder if you could even play it? Would the string tension cause it to break?
Hrm… I don’t have enough pieces for a guitar of any sort… but something related… a mini drum kit maybe? Nah, I don’t have enough flats. Flats… Hrm… Oh, I could build like a concert scene! I’ll start with the stage! I bet I can make it look satanic if I use only red and black bricks. That would be really cool!
I locate a few red narrows along with a pair of black wings. If I lay the narrows sideways, it creates the flat stage platform. Then, if the wings go upright on the ends, and a single narrow across the top to hold it together – could be the lighting rig – it’s practically the stage from Donnington!
Fortuitously, MTV returns from its payday break with the spritely bristle of the ringing power chords that open Paradise City. I look up from the plastic bricks to see the familiar black-and-white pan across the anticipatory stadium; the boys on stage for their sound checks; the stadium floor scantily clad with a small group of conspirators. Axl snaking around the stage in his purest white leathers, strawberry feathers wisping in the breeze.
Just an urchin living under the street, a hard case that’s tough to beat
Paradise City was their second video, coming out not long after the first had so dramatically changed my life. When I heard Welcome to the Jungle for the first time, I was staggered and astounded and immediately questioned everything I thought I knew about life. I’d never even conceived music could express vitriol and anger and aggression like that. To that point I’d only engaged with comparatively mushy fare like Huey Lewis or Mister Mister. But those are lame in Paradise City.
The opening echo of Jungle forebodes violence and tumult and darkness, warning us of a traveler approaching on the road from a distant land. The riff drops us into the fever dream of a dense street corner, inhabited by tough guys and drug dealers and hookers and all the city dirt. The chorus shoves us down onto the pavement, like a bully exacting tribute, then tramples us with an urban rumpus.
Rags to riches, or so they say, gotta keep pushing for the fortune and fame
And then Paradise City brings it back around to make it a rockin’ party spot again, bright with warm weather and pretty babes. So I’m rapt now, watching the stadium throng, packed with the kids, eyes slightly glazed and heads banging back and forth like proper true believers.
What must it be like to be at a show like that?? So many people, so much energy, such chaos… What is a concert anyway? Is the band merely providing the soundtrack for this decadence? The backing track to these party animals ravaging the feed box? What of the beers and bodies and boobies flopping all over? The mosh pit moves like a school of fish in a breeding orgy, rubbing and grinding – are people having sex somewhere in that crowd?? They totally could! What else could be going on??!?
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
Attending any sort of hard rock or metal concert for the first time – considered the most hardcore option among my middle school buddies – was one of our rites of passage, right up there with kissing a girl, learning to drive. smoking a cigarette, chugging a beer, and getting a tattoo. Everything a budding hard rock acolyte needs. Prom is for the squares.
“Oh won’t you please take me hooooooooooo-argh“, Axl moves into the frenzy.
Shirshhh! A pile of lego splashes onto the glass from my brother’s hands as he kneels next to the table, “hey”.
“Oh hey what’s up?”, I didn’t notice him come in.
“You talk to mom?”, he asks, surveying the plastic stock, a couple bricks already in hand.
“When? Since we got home? No?”
“You forgot to clean the litter box again.”
“I told her I’d do it when we got home. I’m still home, right?” For at least an hour now.
“Yeah sure, you should tell her that. She’s in her office now. I think maybe she’s P-O’ed.” He’s already got a race car chassis built. My stage stands empty and is clearly too small for the figurines. Maybe it’s a stage for They Might Not Be Giants.
“Eh, I’ll just go do it now so when she asks I can say it’s done”
I start to stand up to clean the cat toilet as the song closes out when I hear the MTV News intro,
whooooooooosh-duh-duh-duh-duh-stomp-N-stomp-E-stomp-W-stomp-S-whuuuuushhh
and Kurt Loder comes on. Kurt Loder is exactly who Peter Jennings would be if he wore all black and people actually offered him drugs at parties. Or street corners.
“In a surprise to no one, a warrant has been issued for the arrest of Guns ‘n’ Roses front-man Axl Rose. Rose has been accused of inciting a riot after leaping into the crowd during a show last week at Riverport Amphitheatre outside St. Louis.”
The riot was old news – standard rock star roleplay – but the warrant was new.
“The band’s management has maintained Rose’s innocence, while the county sheriff who filed for the warrant has stated that, ‘lawless rock stars will not get away’. Rose himself has stated the sheriff is trying to score publicity points in an attempt to arrest the singer unlawfully.”
Of course the sheriff was trying to score points. He’s the man.
“However, presumably to evade arrest, management has announced the band will reschedule the international leg of the Use Your Illusions tour, and Rose, already in Tokyo, will be in Asia for the next three months. Attorneys for the band say…”
Three months? But MY ticket is for next month? Does that mean they’re not coming then? The concert is cancelled?? They’re not coming??!? I’m not going to the show!!?! Oh no the SHOW IS CANCELLED!!?! OH NO I’M NOT GOING!!!!!
“Mom?!”
“Mom?!!”
“MOM!!!”
“What!? Did you clean the litter box yet?”
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