101. Tour Prep (May 1991)

Slash calls me up
freaking out yelling
something about blood
something about goblins
incoherent, the ramblings
of a feral man who suddenly
finds he has no reason to
leave the house.

In the background I can
hear what sounds like
a girl laughing or maybe
she’s screaming
or maybe he’s just
playing a porno
on his new widescreen
home cinema.

It’s funny that Slash
has a home cinema
because he doesn’t
have a bed and he
doesn’t have a fridge,
just dozens of snakes.
He keeps his drinks and
frozen mice in an ice bucket.

But I’m done laughing
at Slash’s antics right now
so I dish it to him straight:
Dude, you have to clean up your act
the tour starts in three days
that’s just enough time to detox
the kids have paid good money -
yada yada, the usual spiel.

I really give it to him actually:
you wanna end up like Johnny,
washed-up and strung out to dry
at twenty-five? You wanna be like
Janis, Jimi and Jim man, another
H-wood r ‘n’ r victim, “Fuck yeah,”
he gurgles. “Totally!” then I hear
what sounds like breaking glass

I’m sitting there thinking maybe
an intervention is the only way,
how it won’t be the first time one of us
is dragged kicking and screaming to rehab
in readiness for a stint on the road
when I notice it’s all gone quiet.
I figure maybe Slash has fallen through
his coffee table or something.

I figure there’s no point trying to
talk someone down when they’re reaching
the zenith of a five-day weekend
so I call up management and tell them
that our guitarist needs patching up
and of course they say “which one?”
and I say “the one with the hat – the one
they’re calling the best of his generation”

and the girl who works over there,
the girl who answers the phones
she says to me – get this – she says
wait a second, who’s calling please?
and I say: It’s Axl, sweetie
and she’s like, Oh, OK…Axl who?
and I’m like, it’s Axl Foley from Beverley Hills Cop
who the fuck you think it is?

And while all this is going on
at home Slash is rolling around in shards of glass
laughing and gurgling and trying to get his
zippo to work so he can fire up another pipe
and though I’d dearly love to fire his ass
the fucker has a habit of bouncing back
from these drug jags and either way
another world tour starts in seventy-two hours.

90. Slash and Duff Get Very Drunk At The American Music Awards

So we’re slamming the
free drinks and we’re feeling
pretty damn good with
vodka, whisky and big gins
warming our bellies
All the greats are there:

Bobby Brown
Milli Vanilli
New Kids
Abdul
Hammer
Arsenio hosting

and suddenly they’re calling
out our names:
“…And the Favorite Heavy Metal/Hard Rock Artist
Awards goes to…Guns N Roses!”
and the sea of bodies parts and
and we’re walking on jelly legs

up to the stage
holding hands
high as kites
drunks as lords
chuckling like school kids
feeling like the dorks

that crashed the prom night
and suddenly everyone
is looking at us
and Slash, God bless him,
is rocking the mic, like
“God we didn’t even expect this

Hey, come down and
hang out at the show…
and shit!” and we’re
drinking champagne
and then we’re getting
called back up again

“…and the Favorite Heavy Metal/Hard Rock Albums
Awards goes to Guns N Roses
for Appetite For Destruction”
and now we’re feeling cocky
and full of love so we’re thanking
people from the heart and

when you speak from the heart
you don’t censor yourself
so we’re liberal with our curse words
but in a nice friendly warm way
and we’re wrestling over the mic
because we’re real

and it’s funny
and we’re high
and we’re G n R
and afterwards it’s some big deal
on the news and shit
and those fuckers

never broadcast live again.
It was as funny as shit
and obviously the record
keeps selling and selling
and selling
and selling.

68. Snakes. Snakes Everywhere.

Things definitely got out of control for a while.
Overnight wealth can do that if you’re an idiot.

One time I was so whacked on amazing blow I
thought I could see snakes crawling up my wall,

dozens of them, freaking me out so much I had
to go hide in the closet and do some China White

to bring me down. Finally after a couple of hours
I started to cool out enough to peek through the

slats in the closet door. Fuck! They were still there.
Wired, I called one of my drug buddies, String-Vest.

“String-Vest,” I said. “There’s fucking snakes all
over the place and I’m freaking out here buddy.”

“That’s because you own dozens of fucking snakes
dude. They’re real. You’re not tripping. Be cool.”

And the crazy thing was, String-Vest, who happens
to be an even bigger drug fiend than me, was right:

there were snakes all over the place, but they were
my pets and I fucking loved those little fuckers.

All’s that happened was I had had some sort of
blackout. Forgot who I was. Forgot where I lived.

Forgot that I owned a tonne of serpents, forgot I was
famous for it, a regular Hollywood Doolittle, y’know?

The funny thing was, I called String-Vest up the
next three nights saying the exact same thing until

finally he came over and helped me finish off the
mountain of blow, if only to shut me up about those

goddamn snakes. But, y’know, it was the late 80s
Drugs and snakes were just part of it all, y’know?

41. Finally...

Sometimes you cannot describe the indescribable -
no poet, critic or therapist can come close

things just happen; chemical compounds mix
with a hiss and a puff a little magic occurs

maybe it’s the universe aligning itself, maybe
it’s the benevolent Gods looking down

maybe it’s karma or kismet or happenstance,
destiny or the proverbial carpe diem

maybe it’s dark magick, voodoo or mojo,
the relinquishing of souls at 3am

maybe it’s astrology or astronomy or
something to do with mystical crystals

maybe it’s the black dog, the muse
or the moment, the realization

that this second will never pass again
maybe it music, maybe it’s magic

Or maybe things just happen…