Look At Your Game, Girl

It could've been in November 1994. I just had bought the cassette. I put it in the recorder of the Jetta. Dunno exactly why or who, but John & Yoko were looking for someone in the streets, and they had left us inside the car. Ringo and George were making some silly jokes, or so. Probably they were excited for the video game they'd just bought. Probably it was another one of the style of that Flintstone's video game they'd played for entire weeks in the summer. 

In the same store they'd bought the video game, I'd bought The Spaghetti Incident?, the eight or nine cassette I'd bought in the same store in the last months. I was crazy about Guns N' Roses. I'd heard them for the first time in the last summer. On TV, they frequently showed the videos of “Estranged”, “The Garden”, “Live And Let Die”, “Don't Cry”, “November Rain” and “Since I Don't Have You”. I was almost 14 years old, a nobody, a teenager, and 'the most dangerous band in the world' blew my mind.

With their fifth studio album in my hands, I had their entire discography –in record time!, two-three months!

It was cold, dark and windy. 

Slash's guitar riff came out from the tiny music speakers of the Jetta. It gave me the chills. 

Dunno knew anything about the album or that song in particular. 

As the song progressed and my brothers made silly jokes, I just watched the photographs and read the lines in the booklet of the cassette. They were photos of the awesome logo of the band, of Duff, of Slash, of Matt... of the famous Axl's white & red Converse... and a sentence: 

A great song can be found anywhere. Do yourself a favor and go find out the originals.

Or something like that.

Then, after drums and bass and some sort of weird synthesizer's sounds, Axl's voice appeared. It sounded so soft, so warm and so sad. A thousand miles different from the ferocious screams of “Welcome To The Jungle”. 

The song made me think of 60's rock n' roll, and I liked it. The next song was a lot more punk rock. I guessed it was from the early 70's, or so. 

It was titled “New Rose” and it started with a little bit to understand words of Duff McKagan. Milliseconds later appeared the drums and then the guitar. Duff sang that awesome song. 

I was so excited! I was about to discover some old cool songs! 

Then John & Yoko got back to the car. 

John looked at me, he sighed, smiled and lowered down the volume of the cassette recorder. Then he turn on the Jetta's engine machine and drove us home. I took back the cassette from the recorder and put it in my walkman –I carried it everywhere– and then I put on my headphones and listened to the album all the way back home.

I should have heard it a thousand times.

Now, almost 30 years later from that first-time experience –the album was released on November 23, 1993–, I am listening The Spaghetti Incident?, again. And, again, I have headphones on. And I would like to write about many things –the origin of the album's title, the addiction issues of Steven Adler, how fun it is to play Slash's guitar riff of the Skyliners' song, how fun it is to play “New Rose” on guitar, how weird and cool and creepy it is to listen to the hidden track with that Charles Manson' song at the end of the album–, but I can't get you out of my mind. 

I got the flu and I am a little bit tired. For two-three days, I hadn't been able to sleep, but I finally could, and I woke up from this dream In which YOU appeared. It was so intense that it pulled me out of bed.

Then I wanted to read but I turn on the Mac, started to write in this blog –my wife & cats are asleep– and put The Spaghetti Incident? on Amazon Music –I miss so much those times in which we were not forced to pay any rent per month to streaming platforms– and put my headphones on, and, as music and words and hours elapsed, I couldn't get you out of my head. 

In my dream, we were so young and we were inside a bus. It was a sunny day. As the bus moved thru the streets, I couldn't stop looking at you. You were enigmatic and beautiful. Perhaps you were some sort of Frankenstein of all the women I have felt attracted to. Also, there was some sort of chemistry between us. I wanted so bad to ask you out. Our eyes met, and finally I asked you out. You smiled and I felt so attracted to you. You said Yes!, and, in an old-fashioned love movie style, we got closer and closer, seconds were like eons, and then we kissed. 

It was so intense! It seemed so real! It was so vivid!

I even have the feeling that my chemical senses are overloaded.

It is cold, dark and windy. I woke up like an hour ago, but I'm still some sort of dizzy.

Dunno know who you are. Nor why did you appear in my dream. But you made me feel I was 14 years old again.

Seems To Me Time Was, Little Bit As Complicated Then

«Yes, it's him», she said. And she was sitting in her chair, in front of her computer, in the office that both of you shared at that time, a thousand years ago, before the storm, before the earthquake, before the apocalypse..., when you were ill and tired of dealing with your health issues. 

She looked at you, and you listened up and you thought what kind of life was her life, and what kind of life was your life. You really hated your life. Everyday was an inner war for you. And she used to be happy, her husband was still alive and they were a pretty happy couple, and she was smart, strong and absolutely amazing at his job.

And her eyes were like almonds and her face was white and pink, and her hair was long and it had a strange shiny color, between black and brown. You sort of had a crush on her. While she spoke –«Yes, it's him»–, you couldn't stop feeling attracted to her lips, and you wanted to kiss them and to devour her tongue, and you desired to touch her face and her hair, and to hold her hands –to loss your mind in the brief glimpse of her nails–, and to look at her almond eyes forever.

She referred to another researcher and one of the undergrads of this researcher. Three or four antibodies had been lost and the lab had run out of budget. 

Suddenly, she shut up. This researcher entered the office. And it was awkward. 

And this happened a thousand years ago, but you remember it right now 'cause she appeared out of nowhere in your dream. You were inside a van, someone drove you up to an academic event. Apparently, both of you had been invited to give a conference. You didn't know what the hell would you speak about, but you didn't care.

She had a guitar and she said that she admired Izzy Stradlin, and you started to teach her how to play “Seems To Me”, her guitar was not a left-handed guitar, so it was not easy for you.

Then she said that Izzy was the brain of Guns N' Roses, and you felt so impressed. You agreed with her, and you felt so happy. At last, both of you had something in common!

And it is Saturday, and it's Izzy's birthday and it's also the 29th anniversary of the discovery of Kurt Cobain's corpse in the Green House of his mansion in Lake Washington, and you don't know why did she appear in your dream. And you write about it. 

And you are a moron and you wait for her to read what you just wrote in this blog.

 

One In A Million

Twelve years ago, I was at my first SfN meeting in Chicago. It was really a big thing. It was quite impressive to see millions of researchers and students from all the world, sharing scientific knowledge. One day, I was waiting for a coffee in a Starbucks, inside the McCormick Place, and then Eric Kandel came close to me and asked me if I knew where could he pick up this badge and all the stuff. 

I told him where to go and he walked away. I couldn't believe it. Although it was for the wrong reasons, a Nobel Prize and I spoke in my first meeting of SfN! What was the probability...? 

I was so naive, foolish, and romantic that I thought that talking to Eric Kandel was a sign for me to stop pursuing my dream of becoming a non fiction writer and to focus 24/7 on science. Twelve years later I have twelve published papers in peer review journals, but a week ago the head of department told me that they will not renew my contract and I wonder what have I done with my life.

I Try And Feel The Sunshine, You Bring The Rain

I remember myself playing with soccer action figures ripped away from several birthday cakes, on a blanket on which I had drawn a soccer field with an indelible marker, while this song sounded in the boombox that my younger brother had bought with his savings a few weeks earlier. Perhaps the sound was so loud that it provoked the windows cracked. 

I was on my knees beside my bed, feeling ashamed of behaving like a kid. The door was locked and the boombox was playing Use Your Illusion II.

I didn't want to be disturbed nor to be discovered. I felt so guilty. I felt divided in two personalities: a playful kid, attracted to silly toys, and a rebel teenager, attracted to the tough world of rock n' roll music. 

While Izzi's voice sang something about what seemed to be his teenager life, I was focused in recreating a soccer match with these soccer action figures I had started to collect in junior high school. 

Since my brothers were born in the same month of different years, sometimes my parents celebrated their birthdays in the same day. A few years before I discovered Guns N' Roses on TV, they did so. 

By that time, it happened that I'd just begun to play in the soccer team of elementary school and I'd just begun to watch soccer matches on TV, so I had a soccer fever. 

That birthday my parents gave in to my whims –my brothers didn't complain at all– and they bought a soccer birthday cake. From then I'd asked my dad almost once per month to take me to the cake shop and to buy me some other soccer action figures. Once in a while my dad had accepted. He must have bought me around forty action figures without a cake. Now, it makes me feel we were some sort of partners in crime. He always did the what he thought it would be the best he could do for me. 

I'd discovered this dangerous band one day I was so bored from having nothing to do on summer holidays that I decided to turn on the TV. Boredom coincided with a music video called “Estranged”.

It was an incredibly crazy video. It included clips of a rock n' roll band concert in the old Munich Olympic Stadium and tattooed tough guys walking thru the streets, smoking with fantastic women in bars, descending from an enormous airplane, playing a terrific guitar solo in the middle of a storm in the ocean, jumping from a big fishing ship and swimming with a dolphin*. 

This eccentric video lasted almost ten minutes and it was supposed to tell a chaotic story of a troubled man named Axl Rose, who, apparently, tried to hide from police in the closet of a mansion and also tried to overcome the rejection of a woman he loved desperately. 

While “14 Years” sounded, I made a pause from my silly entertainment and begun to pay attention to the lyrics and to the music. It was raining outside. It must be one of the last days of summer. It must be Sunday. I'm pretty sure that the next day it would be my first day in senior high school. I was so excited. 

I was about to celebrate my fourteenth birthday on December. I wanted to quit my childhood, but it was so comfortable. A few hours earlier, my dad had drove us my brother and myself to the record store of the neighborhood. 

At the record store, I had looked desperately for the section of the Guns N' Roses albums' and, particularly, for the album on which “Estranged” appeared. I was obsessed with the song. It had transmitted me feelings I had never experienced with music. 

Finally, I had found the album and I had bought it on cassette. It was 1994 and I guess compact discs were rare. I'm not even sure if they were available by then. Vinyls, as nowadays, were so expensive. 

While it was raining outside and I was locked in the bedroom I shared with my brother, I was listening to it for the first time. It was a rad experience. Though my interest was to listen “Estranged” with high quality –I was so obsessed with the song, that I had recorded it several times from the music video directly from TV, and the sound totally sucked 'cause the boombox had also recorded the environmental hissings and the sounds of the living room–, this song caught my attention.  

I thought it told a story of a guy like me, trying to leave behind his childhood and trying to fake he was a man. I was so innocent. 

This morning, as I wrote this post, I just read on the internet what fans around the world think this song is about. They seem to be convinced that Izzi Stradlin tells the story of Guns N' Roses. Apparently, it took them fourteen years to become the biggest band they became right after Appetite For Destruction was released on July 21st, 1987. Other fans are convinced that Izzi tells the story of his fourteen-year friendship with Axl. 

Regardless of what they speculate, as I listen “14 Years” for a countless time –a few weeks earlier, I started to play it on guitar and I was so surprised that the chords are not a pain in the neck–, I prefer to believe it is about what I thought it was about, when I was about to have my first day in senior high school and when I was about to celebrate my fourteenth birthday. 

Up To My Neck In Sorrow

_________

*Ironically, by the time “Estranged” was filmed, Izzi had quit the band.

Your Purple Prose Just Gives You Away

I just hate sickness. For the last two years and a half,  I've been constantly medicated. Almost eighteen months ago, on May 17th, 2015, I smoke my last cigarrette. On April 20th, 2016, I drank my last beer in a Guns N' Roses show. I have a balanced diet -meat, fruits and vegetables included- on a daily basis. I don't drink soda nor sweet beverages. I avoid palatable food and desserts. If I eat something so crazy -as Chop Suey, or regular cheese, or a small slice of a chocolate cake!-, I feel immediately ill. 

I start to suffocate with my saliva and with deleterious vapours coming from the upper part of my esophagous. It really sucks. Just my wife seems to imagine how I feel. 
People often underestimate my health problem. They always seem to believe that I am being dramatic -that I just experienced a silly transient stomach pain-, but it really is annoying and weakening. If I really had been overreacting, physicians would not had proceeded with a surgery. 

No matter what, I feel sick almost all the time. A week ago, I was recovering from a pharyngotonsillitis. Now, I've got the flu. Of course I went to the physician both times. When I'm not sick in this way, I feel nauseating.

What else can I do? 

I wish I could be healthy, as I was when I was a teenager.  When I got sick, I didn't even need to take drugs. All I mattered about was idleness, music, literature and girls. I miss the comfort in being healthy. I don't even remember how it was.  

I am nostalgic about the first years of highschool. Rappers were trendy, and there was a band called EMF. They had a song called Unbelievable. They sounded rapper and rocker at the same time, and I liked them. I had a crush on a girl that liked NKOTB, and I always thought of her when I heard EMF. She could be my girlfriend, but I never asked her on a formal date. 

I remember how simple it was to go to the movies. When Tim Burton's Batman came out, my parents took me to the movie theater. I was completely amazed by the darkness and beauty of the film. It was a little violent, too. And cryptic. Now, I have to leave the cinema when I feel about to threw up. 

You don't know the boundaries of normality until your not a normal guy. 


Unbelievable

You're A Shooting Star

I had just finished packing my luggage. I was exhausted, and indescribably sad, ready to go to the O'Hare Airport and then to return to Mexico City. My labmates were slept, and I just watched them as I kinda thought of my life. It was a dismal environment, almost sickening. 

I started to listen One In A Million thru my headphones. The song put me nostalgic. It had been my first time in USA. The annual meeting for the Society for Neurosciences had been amazing. Never thought it would be as big an intense, as it actually was. Lab colleagues had warned me about it, but I just thought they had been dramatic. I even spoke to Eric Kandel, or, more precisely, he asked me if I knew where could he check in and pick up his bag and his badge. He came closer to me, as I was about to buy some tea in a Starbucks in the McCormick Place, when he did it. When I told him what to do, pronouncing my best english, and he said "Thanks" and walked away, people watched me, as if they were thinking "Why did Kandel talked to him?", or "Why he didn't asked him for a photograph?" I knew my advisor would kill for that opportunity.

For a while, I interpreted the presence of Kandel in my life, in that precise moment, as a reminder of my compromise with science. Sometimes during my postgraduate studies, I realized that maybe I wasn't too smart, or too commited with science, to become a real 24/7 scientist. I didn't like all the topics in neurosciences -even though I assumed I had to learn and comprehend the basics-, and many times I preferred to read a novel or to write a short story rather than read or write a scientific paper.

Under the dismal atmosphere on that Hilton room, as one of my labmates snored over and over again, I thought it had been an exciting trip, but anyway I felt alone and dumb. Close my eyes and tried to focus on the lyrics of that Guns N' Roses' song, and then I felt I was kinda an immigrant and a fagot at the same time, while waiting for a Greyhound to travel to LA and hoping that the travel induced a great change in my life. As that annual meeting progressed, I started to consider that my poster -the resume of my academic work until then- was insignificant, as compared to the standard posters of other postgraduate students, obviously supported for first world science. I wanted to cry. It was frustrating.   

Day after day, I woke up early, took a shower, had breakfast in a nice restaurant called The Bakery Shop, and then I took the official bus to the McCormick Place. I attended the meeting from 8 am to 17 or 18 pm and I returned to the Hilton hotel, everyday, while I was on Chicago. The day it was my poster session, I stayed there the whole period, almost 4 hours, or so. I met asian, european and african scientists and, obviously, US residents and scientists. Japanese seemed interested in my poster, but as I asked them if they wanted me to explain it to them, they just ran away. "We do not tell english well", said one of them. 

Women were beautiful. They were from all over the world. I was only married a year, or so. Maybe less than it. Definitely I will always like women, and I felt kind of guilty when I was looking at those gorgeous women from all over the world, considering what would I do if I had the opportunity to have an affair with one of them. 

As we walked to the subway and took almost an hour to get to the airport, I watched the suburbs of Chicago and thought of the crimes of Al Capone and the italian mobs.  

I was excited for the experience, but sad. I couldn't even meet the Aragon Ballroom nor the Metro. Chicago seemed a beautiful and great city to me, but I just ran that very last day, early in the morning, to meet the Soldier Field. 

I found out that my work was meaningless. I guess I never recovered from that impression. 

One In A Million