I like Jack Daniels. I also like beer. This isn’t the alcoholic in me, this is simply a fact. Part of my problem is that in my mind, I am Nikki Sixx, Tommy Lee, Slash or some other 80s band member. Its too bad I lack any and all musical talent.
Its the total debauchery that intrigues me. I’m reading two books right now, The Dirt and The Heroine Diaries. These books chronicle the lives of Motley Crue and Nikki Sixx respectively. When I read them I get somewhat absorbed in their lifestyle. The drugs, the alcohol, the girls and the total lack of anything socially acceptable.
I have lived a very socially acceptable life. In fact, I would say the only real risks I have taken were my recent business risks which, have hurt me financially but again have left me more or less normal.
I have kids a wonderful wife and a wonderful home. The only stress I have is the stress of trying to walk the road between family, work, and household. In fact I think I try to make conflict where there is none. I just only see myself as the rockstar that never was. The closest I get to being a rockstar is playing Guitar Hero late at night standing in front of the TV with a beer on the table and my feet wide apart the rock and roll grimace spread around my face.
Its probably the knowledge that I could have chosen a life like that. Not that I would have been a rock star, but the sensationalized idea of a life of debauchery. I, like many people my age, feel trapped in a self created prison and whine about it to anyone who will listen. Not all people do well in this prison. Therefore we live in a world with a 50% divorce rate and huge percentage of cheating husbands and wives. Still more are permanently attached to their TV in the hope that following the tragic or terribly fictitious lives of others will take them away from their own. Maybe its why dozens of camera wielding leeches follow around the next latest and greatest sob story hoping to sell their pictures to an audience that can’t wait for the next teen star to self destruct publicly. Maybe its just that high school never really ends. (Love the song too.)
I don’t think I’m going to age well. In fact I am sure that age will have to sneak up on me, because I intent do become old kicking and screaming. I am going to continue to engage in body piercing, tattoos, etc... until I’m either out of places or dead. I figure if I can’t get control over my own life and career, I simply find a way to keep it from catching up with me. Or worse, I’ll just get so wrapped up with my kids that I won’t notice age creeping up. I already think thats happening. I looked in the mirror this morning and didn’t recognize myself. My face is puffier than ever and my eyes, which I used to believe were piercing are more vacant and surrounded by skin with deep creases making them look weathered and torn. I feel myself sinking into my feet, and I feel myself more and more trying to compel my body to do what it would do willingly just a few years before. I can’t get it totally into focus, but more and more, I see myself as a caricature of someone else, as the real me drifts farther and farther away from my idealized version.
