It will always be 1989

I have two comments on my picture of the Rock and Roll Express last night. The first is that between this picture and what I learned by reading Bret “The Hitman” Hart’s autobiography it is clear that pretty much every person I watched wrestle in the 80’s was on cocaine. Second is that while that picture shows two of the dorkiest guys you could ever imagine they were easily the most popular people in wrestling at the time. Women went nuts for them. If they wrestled today they would be laughed out of the building but back in the 80’s they were the biggest thing going.

(Yes, I read my yearly pro wrestling autobiography. Bret Hart detailed his career over more than 500 pages. Yes, someone could write that many words about a sport in which everything is pre-determined. However, if you ever want to know what really goes on backstage as well as read up on one of the most dysfunctional families ever it is a great book. At times tragic and other times funny, a very memorable read.)

In celebrity news this week, Michael Jackson claimed that he was too sick to travel to a court date. He declined to define the term “sick” though. Was he physically ill, suffering from a malady, or is just so batshit insane that he cannot physically climb into a metal box to be transported to the courthouse? I’m not sure if anyone in pop culture history has imploded in such a fascinating way as Michael Jackson. We give Brittney a lot of crap for shaving off her hair but that is nothing compared to Michael. Her hair grew back. He looks absolutely nothing like he did twenty years ago and is so meaningless from a pop culture perspective that he has become his own parody. Weird Al looks at him and goes “Why bother?”

On that same wavelength we do have the release of the new Guns N Roses album. Yes, Chinese Democracy is finally going to be upon us after a good decade of waiting. I still remember in college having a discussion as to whose career would you rather manage: Michael Jackson’s or Guns N Roses’. At the time they were both the biggest acts on the planet. In the end you would want neither of them. Pearl Jam would have been a decent alternative (they always made a good living touring, though not massively successful).

Now I was never really a metal guy but I am wondering who this new GNR album is for. Just from a marketing perspective it seems like an odd sell. Is it for people in their 30s and 40s who listened to the band in high school and college? Don’t you outgrow that music? I can’t see a teenager wanting it. “Yeah, let’s get that disc from that strange old man yelling into the microphone.” Remember, most people now know Bret Michaels from Rock of Love than from Poison. I’m certain people will buy it out of curiosity but I don’t think anyone really wants to listen to it. They might want to hear it; but not really listen to it.

I’ll end with one last pop culture tidbit and a joke that I am borrowing from another website. So PETA assaulted My Beloved Lindsay outside of a club over the weekend. Apparently, they are upset over her wearing fur. In defense of My Beloved, if God didn’t want us to wear fur he wouldn’t have made animals so warm and defenseless. Anyway, the protest involved throwing a white powder on Lindsay as she entered the club. Her reaction?

“Cool! They cover you with blow as you walk in! This club rocks!”

Sigh. One day she’ll realize that I am the only man for her. I’ve got to be moving up the depth chart.