At around one-fifteen in the morning he gets up and goes over to the window. Those same old ugly buildings laugh at him every morning. Why he ever decided to live in the city was beyond him. He hadn�t left the room in five days. It smelled like old milk and stale nicotine all over his clothing. She said she was going to just go get something to drink for them, some juice or something. That was five days ago. On the television Dionne Warwick tells a woman that she feels that her mother was a great woman before she died, and that she will most likely follow her in her footsteps.

�David Lee Roth�

I was on a jury at one point. There was a young woman on trial for driving under the influence. I think she was nineteen years old, and had run her Plymouth through the window of a downtown bakery one Friday night after partying at some bar on the water. Me, seven other men, and four women held this woman�s fate in our hands. Quite a power trip that is. I walked in there saying, �this chick is as guilty as sin, look at her� She got off somehow. The next night while getting a pack of cigarettes I ran into her. She recognized me. Chatted about the snow. A week later we were in her living room listening to the Doors high on Crystal Meth while some guy named �Seth� rubbed her back. I didn�t fuck her that night, the next night though.

�Ronnie James Dio�

An old friend I knew in high school named Edward Valentini. Fucking Ed. He was always going off about this �damn unicorn�. He claimed he was seeing unicorns all the time, or this one unicorn. I don�t remember really. I remember his face exhausted and damp crying to me one night. They haunted him. Last week I saw Ed putting gas in his mini-van, and I pulled the brim down while I watched the fuel add up on the pump. Grabbed my sunglasses out of my jacket and avoided eye contact.

�Paul Stanley�

First time on the rooftop with a bottle of red wine. The city looks so small from here that I feel like a giant. Let me tell you how I felt a million years ago. Let me tell you how I felt, a million years ago. And how I formed my opinion of, rich girls like yourself. I wonder where I was, back then a burglar, stealing looks.

�Ian Gillan�

We put the car in overdrive and went over the thousandth mountain of the afternoon. She looks so beautiful in the Virginia sunlight. The way the sunlight hits her sunglasses in the passenger side makes me always melt in the seat. Her black hair dancing all over her forehead. We are one person when we are driving like this. We are together for the long haul. Once you�ve done one-thousand miles with a partner, you�re in for the long haul. If you can get them to look as stunning as my girl does in Virginia that�s another story.

�Steven Tyler�

She kissed him in the car for ten seconds and said she had to go. She always pulled him in like this. It seemed like every week he experienced that dreadful drive home. That drive home that reminded him of that drive home from the hospital that time when they told him his mother was dying. That was longest, most painful drive he ever had. He just wanted one good drive home for once in his life. He was a nice guy as far as he could tell. Not bad looking,. He probably heard the �you�re too nice� speech more times than he cared to remember, and here he was again with her in the car. She had no clue what she did to his last hour before bed, after they would say goodbye for the night. He got home that night and called a suicide prevention hotline and talked to �Susan� well into the morning.

�James Hetfield�

They killed five men one night. The worst thing was, all of these men they killed had children. Eleven children between the five of them. They killed them for one reason, the nine headed �Snake of Tiptheria�

�Dicky Betts�

They bought the best heroin off this one guy downtown. The guy was a cop, but he sold heroin to teenagers to make ends meet. On more than one occasion he found himself in bed with a friends daughter. One night, this girl got so fucked up at his apartment that he had to knock her out and drive her down to a park and leave her there. There was no way he could get caught doing something like this. He drove her down to the park, and gave her his Pittsburgh Steelers jacket he never wore so she wouldn�t get cold.

�Bon Scott�

They got together every once in a while and drank until they threw up. They would sit around and make out, and drink, she would go home and throw up, he would stay up and watch Letterman, jerk off, and go to bed. She stopped coming over when she found out that he once blew some guy for a pair of stereo speakers.

�Geoff Tate�

Early in the morning she walks by with that little strut of hers. Early in the day she shows up. Okay, now I don�t have to go home now. I can stay in here all day. My work suffers. My fingers don�t type. I look out the window and wait for a couple hours later. Water the plant maybe, talk on the phone. Drop my eyes when she walks by. There�s your three seconds sir. We�ll see you tomorrow bright eyed and bushy tailed. Shit, I wonder if she has a date for Thanksgiving.

�Robert Plant�

Say hey mama, gonna make you throw up. Say hey mama, gonna make you burn gonna make you throw up. Say hey mama, you go the time for me. Say hey mama, I have places to go and people to see. Say hey mama, you gonna be around late night? Say hey mama, you think I look okay in this jacket? Say hey mama, you thinkk you can help me with this zipper. Say hey mama, is it okay to kiss you now? Say hey mama, you think you own the world don�t you?

�Ronnie Van Zant�

Winter is here again. I always need more strength in the winter. I haven�t been sick in five years now. The last time I had a cold was in January of 1995 or something like that. I�ve come up with some exercises that keep me strong in the winter for whatever reason. The number one is cold showers on the cold mornings. You have to step right in, not gradually work your way in. Give yourself twenty minutes under the icy cold water. If anything, it makes you feel alive in the winter. Everyone looks so dead during this season. I feel awake. I feel like I could take anything on and defeat it.

�Joey Belladonna�

In junior high school this guy took my sleeves and tied me to a door in the auditorium. Tied me up and left me there, until some other kids came and set me free. Years later I was working at a super market. There was a girl there, quite possibly the ugliest girl I�ve ever seen in my life. Anyone would agree. This guy that tied me to the doors was married to her. The bad guys always win. He gets to be married to the ugliest girl in the world, meanwhile I�m looking through the instruction book of this handgun trying to figure out the best part of my head to hold it up to.

�Glenn Danzig�

We fucked in the cemetery last night. Right on top of a person named �Marilyn Mazetti�

�Buck Dharma�

My girlfriend knows me more than anyone knows me. My girlfriend, her name is Susan, and she knows me better than anyone in the world. You should see her walk. She walks like she knows she�s slaying every man in sight. She�s like Godzilla. Walking over cars and weak men, anyone in her path is a victim. With me though, she knows what I want. She knows how cold I want the soup to be, she knows how much of an impact she has had on my life. I can�t believe I ever feared her. I can�t believe I can look over at her now and say �hun, what time is it?� and she will tell me.

�Nigel Tufnel�

He liked me and looked at me with those eyes. I wasn�t having it, so I waited outside for him. Me and my friends, we waited outside for him. Shaved heads, red boots with yellow laces. Dumb jokes about blondes. We waited until this man came out of the record store. Followed him down the street and finally he turned around. I was first, I nailed him square in the mouth and he flew backwards, his bag falling to the ground. Two Barbara Streisand CD�s and Vogue magazine slid across the dark sidewalk. We surrounded him and kicked. Like a soccer ball he was, like a pinata that fell down, but hadn�t opened yet. As we walked away his crying masked our conversation about what we should go drink Guiness, or Budweiser.

�Tom Araya�

She ain�t really the devil, she just talks like that. I look into her eyes, and I see big dark red valleys. Fire and blood, and red and steam and demons and fire and red and blood and valleys full of demons and steam and smoke and fire and red and her eyes and blood and the valley the demons the red blood in the valley the smoke coming out of the demon. She comes to me every night. She comes to me and tells me which of my hands is the �devil hand�. I am to not use this hand until I am instructed to do so. I will obey her and her army of demons.

�David Crosby�

Sloped on the stiff motel bed I flipped through five horrible local television channels and turned the sound off. It took me about ten minutes, but I did it I dialed her number. I knew it was a bad idea. I knew a big reason why the trip was such a success. I needed to get away, and I needed to be away from her, for her benefit more than mine. I had given her a letter before I left, written in my favorite font and everything. I should have left it alone though, but I called her. The conversation was as lonely as the parking lot of the motel I was in. I looked at the map and checked off when I would be able to call her again. Halfway between Knoxville and Chapel Hill.

�Rick Derringer�

The thought now of me standing there, filled with whiskey and sperm is a funny one indeed. Tongue hanging out. Thinking I�m about to get a gift of sorts. Some sort of new attention I haven�t received in months. I drove home with James Brown and a coffee with way too much sugar in it instead.

�Dave Mustaine�

He was a little drunk when he arrived at the party. He found his friends quickly and told three of them they had to go with him, quick. They got into his shiny white Jetta and drove on down the road. The road was a rough road, long and desolate. Trees lined it like great green and walls with frosting on the top. It was the dead of winter, and the snow packed on the road didn�t help the drive. He pushed fifty-five miles an hour. He would not tell them what happened, or where they were going. He was playing a CD of some techno music and would turn it up anytime one would ask where they were going. The last time he went to turn the radio up he realized he would not make the curve. His friend next to him noticed immediately as they smashed through the little wood fence and over an embankment. The car landed on ice on the lake, and the front of the car went down first. The car went under water within ten seconds. The next morning an old local, driving by in his truck stopped at the broken fence and put the broken pieces in the back of his truck. He went back home and remade new posts and went back and fixed it. By this time a new sheet of thick ice had formed over the hole made from the shiny white Jetta, and the tire tracks were filled with snow again. A week later a warrant for his arrest was issued after his girlfriend was found dead in his apartment of an apparent �malicious overdose� whatever that meant.

�Geddy Lee�

Her and I visited the big stone lion statues a few times. I never had the guts to kiss her though. Those lions stared at me and told me to make the move. It took me four Southern Comfort on the rocks� to finally do it though.

�Philip Lynott�

It�s easy to tell the liars from the honest people. The liars will lie about anything, regardless of it helping them or not. The honest people will do anything if it means it�s going to help them out somehow. The honest people seem selfish to me. I don�t lie anymore though, does this now mean I�ll be full of shit? I haven�t lied since the summer. I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

�David Coverdale�

We crossed the line a couple of times. We crossed over into territory not regularly seen by either of us. The people will talk I�m sure of it. It�s funny that nobody knows the slightest thing about it and they all know us. Some day, unless she broke her promise, people will know and either laugh at us or tell us they thought it was going to happen at some point anyway.

�Chris Squire�

I�m at that point right now where I feel like I could settle down and rest out in the woods or something. I�ve talked about taking off with myself and a box of books and records and never turning around to see what�s in my trail. Now that I feel like I can have a decent conversation with folks, and not judge and pick and pry, I will stay. I will take a hand when I feel like it�s that time.

�Sammy Hagar�

We drove around in my car all night sometimes. Talking about music, books, film, boys, girls, all that good stuff. I do better around women. I have way more women friends than guy ones. Men are boring. This is what men talk about when they are together with other men: guitar equipment/and or computer equipment/video games, sports, the �sick fuckin� special effects in that flick�, getting laid. Her and I thought, we would talk all sorts of shit. Childhood�s with sexual abuse, alcoholism, divorce, our sex lives, our families, everything. We could open up. I can�t picture ever talking with her about computers or anything like that. It�s like a special event when I hang out with her. Nowadays, it�s rare, and good when I do. Someday I wonder if we�ll talk about our wives and husbands.

�Chris Robinson�

This guy Jake Allesandro I knew. One time her was driving through South Boston late at night and saw some guy beating up his girlfriend. Jake got out to help, and the woman stabbed him. Jake was a good drummer, and looked like he lost a fair amount of weight last time I saw him.

�Brian Johnson�

Big fat Debbie dancing with a Michelob bottle in a garage lip-synching the AC/DC chestnut �You Shook Me All Night Long�

�Rick Neilsen�

When I was a little kid, my parents took me to see Kiss at the Los Angeles Forum, I was about seven years old, and they were recording for what would later become �Kiss-Alive II�. Cheap Trick opened, but we came in late and saw �Goodnight� and they left the stage. At one point in the concert I caught a guitar pick from Paul Stanley. The next day I brought it into school and showed it to some kids. This black kid took the pick, so I yelled at him and then called him �the N-word� We both got sent to the office, and I had to apologize to him, as I had no idea how bad of a word it was. After that, him and I became good friends. At one point, we both had our first �childhood-homosexual-episode� together. Wait, hasn�t everyone had that?

�John Tardy�

Sheila was always joking around, playing tricks on guys. One night she took this Obituary tape out of John Fleming�s tape deck and replaced it with a rap tape. Well you should have seen John�s face when he put the car on and these guys started talking about �my bitchez�, and �bustin� a cap in yo ass� He flipped. He knew it was Sheila. Thankfully, she had the Obituary tape in her bag the whole time, as she handed it back to him. John said he would chop her in half if she did that again.

�Art Garfunkel�

Her and I woke up one morning and decided to make breakfast. I hadn�t cooked for her in quite a while. I loved Sunday mornings with her. The winter mornings, looking out at the back yard, and the snow and trees and bare clothesline. She came over to me as I inhaled the steam coming off the hot coffee, and put her arms around my neck. The next Sunday I was in my own bed until three in the afternoon, while she fed the birds with a new pair of shoes.

�Jim Morrison�

We drank tequila, me for the first time. We stayed out all night, until she brought up the subject of poetry. �You�re a writer, do you write poetry?�, �I�m sorry, do I look gay?� I asked her back. �I�m kidding. Yeah, I guess you could call it poetry� �Cool, I have some poems, let me read you one�, �sure�. She gets this little notebook out of her bag, and begins to read, �You bring out the night. You bring the night. You are the gypsy man.� �that�s it?�

What a long fucking weekend it�s been. I went to New York on Saturday afternoon after work, saw a show, drove home, saw some snow, and went to work in the morning. I am now numb to any feelings I had a week ago, or two weeks ago. My overall feeling has been melancholy, so what�s the point? I feed of this shit I guess. Getting shit on by women, getting the run around, all of that. So why do I write all these words in here about not trusting people, not caring about peoples feelings and that kind of thing? Because every fucking week it proves itself again. Girls, women, whatever you want to call them talking out of their asses and that kind of thing. I couldn�t care less about feelings of others still, how�s that? Why? Because I�m tired. Because I�ll say whatever the fuck I want to say, it�s my dime. Because it�s about me, every person that writes in here, it�s about them. Why would I want to read someone�s diary if they�re talking about someone else all the time. I want to know how people make other people feel. I want to know if it�s just me that always feels like this. I want to know if it�s just me that talks like this from time to time. I want to write down how people make me feel day to day. I want to talk about how people let me down all the time. Good happy Monday morning reading material for a bored robot somewhere. Listening to some stranger complain and make a fool of himself sounds like entertainment to me. I wonder if I get sleep I�ll feel better tomorrow? I wonder if people will stop fucking with me then. I wonder if Christmas will come sooner than it most likely will. The winter stretch. See you all on the other side some day.

before & after