160. The Empire Is Melting Like Ice Cream

Dreaming -
I awake
screaming

at images
of bodies
burning

of God-size
buildings
crumpling

of my
people
flying

or maybe
they’re
falling

yes,
they’re
falling

and flailing
and
bouncing

helpless
weightless
screaming

dust
clouds
spiralling

street map
city lines
looming

brown
sky line
darkening;

sweating
heart
pounding

reaching for
the Xanax
sipping

some water
slowly, then
gulping

tight
temples
throbbing

I turn
on the
TV

and see
my
country

bleeding
broken
already mourning

the loss
of an
irretrievable past

lamenting
grieving
wondering

how
and
why

and all
of a
sudden

the creation
of a
masterpiece

doesn’t
seem
that important.

The pressure
lifts,
the tension

in my
temples
like

an
ice-cream
headache

abates and
I can think
clearly

for the
first time
in years.

I treat
myself
to a

long
early morning
walk

and for
the first time
in a decade

America
looks beautiful
in turmoil;

So
clearly
vulnerable,

(its many
transgressions
laid bare)

I fall
in love
with LA

all
over
again.

159. Sculpture Of A Star

The rock star cast in marble
torso taut and biceps pumped
abdominals rippling, arms intact,
limbs not yet decapitated by time.

Genitalia ambiguously rounded
and unthreatening atop sturdy thighs;
hip confidently cocked like
Michelangelo’s boy David;

bare feet planted to a plinth
that announces nothing but
the presence of an Olympiad
demi-God of the modern arena.

(He himself prefers The Winged Victory that
he saw in the Louvre, Nike of Samothrace
headless, her back arched to the heavens,
wings poised dramatically, anticipating flight).

Byzantine in stature, his silence
speaks unwritten volumes -
an iconoclastic warning to
challengers, his form fills the room

and inspires gasps of awe, wonder
devotion and puzzlement, transcending
myth and concept to become a reality
in ways the real rock star never could.

158. People Who’ve Been In This Fucking Band

Well now.
Lemme see
there was…

Izzy Stradlin
Duff MacKagen
Slash and
Steven Adler

That bit is easy.
Then details get
kinda fuzzy…

Tracii Guns
Gilby Clarke
Dizzy Reed
Matt Sorum
Robin Finck
Tommy Stinson
(he was in The Replacements,
who pretty much ruled)
Ole Beich
Rob Gardner
Brian ‘Brain’ Mantia

Um...

Chris Pitman
Ron Thal
Richard Fortus
Josh Freese
that dude Buckethead
Ron ‘Bumblefoot’ Thal
Sebastian Bach, kinda
Paul Tobias
Frank Ferrer
Teddy ‘Zig Zag’ Andreadis
and some other guys

Oh and me, Axl
- it’s my fucking band.

I bought the rights.

157. Exit Buckethead

All this goes on without Axl.
I mean, the guy’s just not around.
He only shows up when he knows
he doesn’t have to deal with musicians
which is weird because he’s in a band
but whatever, I can be pretty wacky
myself, so, you know, people are people.

But then he shows up all pissed about
the “vibe” that my porn is having on
the album and he even tries to get
into the chicken coop. The dude crossed
a line, basically. Everyone in the camp
knew no-one goes in Bucket’s coop
so that was when things broke down.

Plus there was these puppies running
around the studio and one of them
took a dump in my coop and I was like
Ooh, I love the smell of dog poop, and
refused to let anyone come in the coop
to clean it up. It was my little world
and they – he - needed to respect that.

So Axl took me outside where it didn’t
smell of dog poop and had a word with
me, and I had had a few words back with
him, some of which may have included
“get” and “fucked” and not long after that
I packed up my straw and my porn and I
was, like, OK, thanks, my work here is done.

156. A Guitarist Called Buckethead

My mom’s a hen
my dad’s a rooster
I was raised in a
chicken coop;
consequently it’s
the only place
I feel comfortable.

So naturally when
you’re dealing with
the creative process
you gotta be at ease
you gotta be in your
comfort zone for
optimum creativity.

So I tell all this to
Tom Zutaut, who
they brought back
in to put the squeeze
on Axl and do
whatever it takes
to get the album done.

Zoot doesn’t laugh
he just makes some
notes, makes some
calls and two days
later I’m shredding in
a chicken coop happy
as a pig in a pig shed.

To his credit he did
a neat job of it: chicken
wire, chicken parts,
rubber chickens hanging
from the ceiling and a
DVD player for my porn.
Awesome. Just awesome.

155. 1998...1999....2000...2001

Not much
happens.

154. The Reclusive Years

Daylight becomes the enemy
the room becomes a womb

silence is the reward for a
decade’s toil in combat.

Koons and Rothko on the wall
magnums of Dom on immortal ice

the lighting tempered just so
the weft of the carpet just right.

Yet riches and trinkets mean nothing
to the man who wanted everything;

that silence craved is only found
between the hours of 4 and 5am

and even then the sirens fill the sky
sounds to remind of riots gone by

curtains tacked to the walls to
kill the encroaching light that

fights its way through gaps and cracks
turning corners; enemy of the night.

They laughed at Jacko, wept for The King
now hermetically-sealed he idly wonders

what the future might bring. Death
or glory – or maybe the madhouse

trussed up, whacked-out and terminally
neutered, babbling riddles of gold discs

so beautiful and the women – the women! –
oh man, you should have seen them

but I guess you had to be there.
Is this what my destiny holds?

A padded cell and a nurse looming large:
“It’s time for your medication, Mr Rose.”

153. Sightings 1997 - 1999

Marrakech:
Axl in repose in the souk, hookah pipe in mouth.

New York:
Axl in the Guggenheim, considering a frieze.

Mecca:
Axl barefoot on a prayer mat, brow to the floor.

Laos:
Axl throwing fistfuls of rice at puzzled children.

Dublin:
Axl and Bono arm-in-arm, singing ‘Danny Boy’.

Athens:
Axl amongst the antiquities; Axl at the Parthenon.

Nassau:
Axl swimming with dolphins, microphone in hand.

Moscow:
Axl in Red Square, drunk on vodka.

Peru:
Axl in the Andes with poncho and pan-pipes.

Pakistan:
Axl dangling from the North Face of K2.

San Francisco:
Axl in a bath-house; Axl lost in the steam.

Buenos Aries:
Axl on the beach in Bermuda shorts, signing autographs.

Anchorage:
Axl in a cabin in Alaska; Axl fishing a snow-hole.

Tijuana:
Axl in a knife fight in a bar.

Jerusalem:
Axl in yarmelke at the wailing wall.

LA:
Axl in detox; Axl in Malibu, Axl in the studio.

Beijing:
Axl in China, Axl taking notes.

152. The Rock 'N' Roll President

When the
baby-boom
president
is talking

about his
weed-smoking
days and
getting as

many hot
blow-jobs
as the rock
stars are

you just know that
the world is
more fucked
up than ever.

But then I
guess you
knew that
already.

151. One Last Word From Steven Adler

A couple of years after I left this, friend of mine calls me up and
goes, ‘Dude, there’s all these old clips of you all over the internet,
you should check them out’ and I’m like, ‘First of all, what in the
hell is the internet and secondly, where can I score some?”

150. Duff’s Pancreas Explodes

May 10 1994.

The doc tells me
that at the time
of the explosion
my pancreas had
the texture of
a gin-soaked
coke-seasoned
foie gras and
that I should
probably never
even so much
as look at
another drink
again if I want to
live to see

May 11 1994.

149. RIP Kurt

He wasn’t such a bad kid, I guess.
I guess he just wasn’t born to cut it.

I guess maybe things got on top of him.
Shit though, I won’t late fame change me.

If you see me bitching or slacking
you have permission to shoot me too.

148. November 1993: 'The Spaghetti Incident'

Slash: It wasn’t my idea.
Duff: It wasn’t my idea.
Dizzy: It wasn’t my idea.
Sorum: It wasn’t my idea.
Axl: It’s easily our greatest work.

147. 'Look At Your Game, Girl'

I think of Manson locked away,
an American idle who
said “no sense
makes sense”.

I think of the way
those kids must have had to
scoop up Sharon Tate’s blood
to do that writing

and what it must
have felt like when
the fork slid into
Leno LaBianca’s swollen belly.

I think of this when
I do the vocals for
our version of his
meandering poetry

I think of Manson
and I think:
that could
have been me.

146. Somewhere Over The Atlantic, Slash Has A Moment

So that’s it.
We’re done.

26 months
27 countries
192 shows
7,000,000 fans.

I hope I didn’t
leave the gas on.

145. Copenhagen, Denmark

“Let's see if I know where I am:
Am I in Sweden?”
[NO!]
“Am I in Holland?”
[NO!]
“Am I in Copenhagen?”
[YEAH!]
“Well, do you know where the fuck you are?
You’re in the jungle, baby…”

144. Tel Aviv

“Hello Israel
we are
Guns N’ Moses!”