Duff McKagan's Blog
April 18, 2012
Cleveland Will Rock: It's Always Been About the Songs
I have a mishmash of topics that I thought should be discussed among ourselves here. We love books here-- that has become very evident. Sports? Well, some of you can get on board. There's also a happening in Cleveland this weekend. Let's start at the top:
Baseball! Optimism!
Hey, Seattle! Check out our Mariners in the AL West Standings today . . . QUICKLY! We are above .500, and this truly may be a rare occasion to witness this season (unless, of course . . . we overachieve on a rather large scale).
The team IS fun right now. It seems that we can produce some runs, at least so far. Last year was of course abysmal in that respect. Chone Figgins is getting on base as our new lead-off guy, Ichiro seems comfy batting third, Kyle Seager has some potential, and Justin Smoak has apparently got a bit of his promise showing. King Felix and Vargas could be a great one-two punch as our aces, and Justin Ackley is gaining ground in the "bigs."
Of course, we are in a division that touts the enormous and overwhelming strength of the LA Angels and Texas Rangers, but we here in Seattle CAN dream. We have the potential to win some unexpected games, and we have been quoted by sports experts as perhaps being the "new Tampa Bay Rays"--a team that has built strength through its farm-system and pure will.
I'M JUST EXCITED THAT BASEBALL SEASON IS HERE. John Roderick, Ben Gibbard, and I (yes, I AM namedropping) may be seen together at some games . . . and no, those are NOT crosswords and sudokus that we are working on at those games . . . we are keeping score, like the baseball geeks that we are.
Good Reads!
Finn (John Clinch): A Cormac McCarthy-esque look at a fella named Finn, a bedraggled and alcoholic man who fathers a son with a runaway slave in 1850s Illinois. This son has the name Huckleberry. Yes, this is the backstory, through Clinch's eyes, of Mark Twain's epic novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. A very genius-if-not-dark take of what happened in Huckleberry Finn's early life. Recommended!
King (Upton Sinclair): Again, Upton takes a deep and eye-opening look into industry and exposes all the wrongs and class warfare between the "haves" and "have-nots." No one author has ever done so much to exert pressure and change our modern view of work conditions and inequalities. And all VERY dang page-turning. Another Sinclair classic!
Cleveland Will Rock!
I'm on a plane to Cleveland for a performance tomorrow night of my musical book-reading for It's So Easy. These things make me extremely nervous, as reading in front of people has turned out to be one of those things I just don't feel too comfortable with. I think a lot of people are coming because my band, GNR, will be inducted into the so-fancy Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
And on THAT night, I will honor not myself or the chicken dinner they will most surely provide, but I will be honoring all those people who call themselves the fans of our group called Guns N' Roses.
Adversity has followed this band since its inception. I get it. That seems to be my sort of "lot" in life . . . and I think that maybe through this whole sort of rub and honesty that GNR portrayed in a very real way in those early records indeed may have helped countless others overcome varying adversities in their own lives. It's a wonderful and poignant thing to hear from different fans from around this globe. I hope that I can do you all proud.
In the end, it's not about who does or doesn't show up from the original band, and I back whatever reason this guy or that has for not coming. It's all good. The songs are the important bit here . . . and the message they most certainly still must carry.
Baseball! Optimism!
Hey, Seattle! Check out our Mariners in the AL West Standings today . . . QUICKLY! We are above .500, and this truly may be a rare occasion to witness this season (unless, of course . . . we overachieve on a rather large scale).
The team IS fun right now. It seems that we can produce some runs, at least so far. Last year was of course abysmal in that respect. Chone Figgins is getting on base as our new lead-off guy, Ichiro seems comfy batting third, Kyle Seager has some potential, and Justin Smoak has apparently got a bit of his promise showing. King Felix and Vargas could be a great one-two punch as our aces, and Justin Ackley is gaining ground in the "bigs."
Of course, we are in a division that touts the enormous and overwhelming strength of the LA Angels and Texas Rangers, but we here in Seattle CAN dream. We have the potential to win some unexpected games, and we have been quoted by sports experts as perhaps being the "new Tampa Bay Rays"--a team that has built strength through its farm-system and pure will.
I'M JUST EXCITED THAT BASEBALL SEASON IS HERE. John Roderick, Ben Gibbard, and I (yes, I AM namedropping) may be seen together at some games . . . and no, those are NOT crosswords and sudokus that we are working on at those games . . . we are keeping score, like the baseball geeks that we are.
Good Reads!
Finn (John Clinch): A Cormac McCarthy-esque look at a fella named Finn, a bedraggled and alcoholic man who fathers a son with a runaway slave in 1850s Illinois. This son has the name Huckleberry. Yes, this is the backstory, through Clinch's eyes, of Mark Twain's epic novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. A very genius-if-not-dark take of what happened in Huckleberry Finn's early life. Recommended!
King (Upton Sinclair): Again, Upton takes a deep and eye-opening look into industry and exposes all the wrongs and class warfare between the "haves" and "have-nots." No one author has ever done so much to exert pressure and change our modern view of work conditions and inequalities. And all VERY dang page-turning. Another Sinclair classic!
Cleveland Will Rock!
I'm on a plane to Cleveland for a performance tomorrow night of my musical book-reading for It's So Easy. These things make me extremely nervous, as reading in front of people has turned out to be one of those things I just don't feel too comfortable with. I think a lot of people are coming because my band, GNR, will be inducted into the so-fancy Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
And on THAT night, I will honor not myself or the chicken dinner they will most surely provide, but I will be honoring all those people who call themselves the fans of our group called Guns N' Roses.
Adversity has followed this band since its inception. I get it. That seems to be my sort of "lot" in life . . . and I think that maybe through this whole sort of rub and honesty that GNR portrayed in a very real way in those early records indeed may have helped countless others overcome varying adversities in their own lives. It's a wonderful and poignant thing to hear from different fans from around this globe. I hope that I can do you all proud.
In the end, it's not about who does or doesn't show up from the original band, and I back whatever reason this guy or that has for not coming. It's all good. The songs are the important bit here . . . and the message they most certainly still must carry.
March 3, 2012
War's Storytellers, and Why I Can't Turn Away
This column today is dedicated in memory of Lynn D. "Buck" Compton. I first read about Buck and the World War II exploits of his Easy Company in Stephen Ambrose's Band of Brothers.
Buck Compton died this week at the age of 90...at his home in Burlington, Washington.
-----------
If you were a tot during the Vietnam War like I was, then perhaps you too have some of those black-and-white TV images still seared into your mind's eye. Ever since I was a kid -- and maybe it was those images that did it -- the subject of war has had a hold on me.
These days, war and violence are readily shown on the news 24 hours a day, and I fear we have become numb to war's atrocities. This kind of thing happens. It's like when a boxer gets used to getting hit in the head; they just don't really feel it anymore because they are so conditioned to it.
Growing up in the Vietnam era was to grow up with the first ever "TV war." Every night at 6 p.m., we all would gather around the TV to see what Walter Cronkite had for us. What happened today over there?
Having two brothers in Vietnam also heightened my awareness. I remember asking my mom why my brother Mark had to go to war, and the answer she gave me then still holds true until this day. She told me that "two men who are leaders can't seem to agree on something; so they then go gather all of their young men to settle their differences in a big field...with guns and bombs."
All of these early inputs in my life have made me a somewhat ardent student of war, both historically and in the current.
I just finished Sebastian Junger's latest book, War, a written account of his time spent at a forward fire-base (Restrepo) in Afghanistan. If you have yet to see the documentary Restrepo, made by Junger and photo journalist Tim Hetherington, it is a must (if you don't mind blood, truth, and the conflicting feelings of futility and pride). Where the documentary simply lets the film tell the story, Junger's book fills in the gaps. The gaps that time away from the front, and loss of friends there, can lend a hand in coloring.
Junger has become a master storyteller, both in researched topics (Perfect Storm, A Death in Belmont), and in his first-hand accounts of war.
War is no less masterful. It fills in the reader from the get-go about what it's like to be on the front line as a 19-year-old with no human affection except from your fellow soldiers. Junger surmises that a gun, danger, and violence can -- and does -- supplant sex in this arena, and when there is a lull in the fighting, aggression toward each other will take its place.
The line between journalist and combatant has fully been blurred with the advent of IEDs (roadside bombs). Whereas a journalist can be snarky and full of politics in the rear somewhere, the front-line journo like Junger seems to have a much more human and non-political directive. The motto seems to be: "Survive Today and Write the Truth Without Doing Harm to Those Who Protect You That Day."
Junger did a very honorable job here. Neither pro- nor antiwar; just a day-to-day account of some young men in extreme danger.
Infidel, by Tim Hetherington, is the still-photo companion to War, made so much more poignant as it was released just as Hetherington himself was killed by a mortar in Libya while covering the conflict there.
The subject of war may be too old, boring, violent, or repetitive for some. But with a closer look, the human story inside of the bigger arena has always had me hooked.
(Via SeattleWeekly: http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb... )
Buck Compton died this week at the age of 90...at his home in Burlington, Washington.
-----------
If you were a tot during the Vietnam War like I was, then perhaps you too have some of those black-and-white TV images still seared into your mind's eye. Ever since I was a kid -- and maybe it was those images that did it -- the subject of war has had a hold on me.
These days, war and violence are readily shown on the news 24 hours a day, and I fear we have become numb to war's atrocities. This kind of thing happens. It's like when a boxer gets used to getting hit in the head; they just don't really feel it anymore because they are so conditioned to it.
Growing up in the Vietnam era was to grow up with the first ever "TV war." Every night at 6 p.m., we all would gather around the TV to see what Walter Cronkite had for us. What happened today over there?
Having two brothers in Vietnam also heightened my awareness. I remember asking my mom why my brother Mark had to go to war, and the answer she gave me then still holds true until this day. She told me that "two men who are leaders can't seem to agree on something; so they then go gather all of their young men to settle their differences in a big field...with guns and bombs."
All of these early inputs in my life have made me a somewhat ardent student of war, both historically and in the current.
I just finished Sebastian Junger's latest book, War, a written account of his time spent at a forward fire-base (Restrepo) in Afghanistan. If you have yet to see the documentary Restrepo, made by Junger and photo journalist Tim Hetherington, it is a must (if you don't mind blood, truth, and the conflicting feelings of futility and pride). Where the documentary simply lets the film tell the story, Junger's book fills in the gaps. The gaps that time away from the front, and loss of friends there, can lend a hand in coloring.
Junger has become a master storyteller, both in researched topics (Perfect Storm, A Death in Belmont), and in his first-hand accounts of war.
War is no less masterful. It fills in the reader from the get-go about what it's like to be on the front line as a 19-year-old with no human affection except from your fellow soldiers. Junger surmises that a gun, danger, and violence can -- and does -- supplant sex in this arena, and when there is a lull in the fighting, aggression toward each other will take its place.
The line between journalist and combatant has fully been blurred with the advent of IEDs (roadside bombs). Whereas a journalist can be snarky and full of politics in the rear somewhere, the front-line journo like Junger seems to have a much more human and non-political directive. The motto seems to be: "Survive Today and Write the Truth Without Doing Harm to Those Who Protect You That Day."
Junger did a very honorable job here. Neither pro- nor antiwar; just a day-to-day account of some young men in extreme danger.
Infidel, by Tim Hetherington, is the still-photo companion to War, made so much more poignant as it was released just as Hetherington himself was killed by a mortar in Libya while covering the conflict there.
The subject of war may be too old, boring, violent, or repetitive for some. But with a closer look, the human story inside of the bigger arena has always had me hooked.
(Via SeattleWeekly: http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb... )
