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thirty four // chapter five / foo
people ask me all the time why i like rock music.
it's usually black people who ask - black girls really
first cuz i love the people. love.
second cuz some things are in your soul.Third cuz 98% of the best rock music is not played on the radio or heard on KROQ or shown on MTV or even pressed onto more than 15,000 records or cds - they come to you like a kiss on the cheek from a girl at an X party who can't stop smiling and can't stop holding her best friend's hand.
foo fighters played the other night, i didnt want to rent a car again and these two hot babes took me and rene and the show was great and so was the company.
dave grohl totally gets it about rock music the same way good moms get it about love. dressed in long black pants and a long black shirt, if you didnt know that he was once in the finest rock band on Earth, you probably might have picked up on it somewhere through the show.
he smiled, spit, chewed gum, played guitar, ran around a lot, jumped around a lot, even ran over to the second drum kit high above the main one and
jammed out with his band on a few numbers. all to thunderous applause from the sold-out Universal Amphitheater.
Grohl reminded me of a kid who entered Heaven and St. Peter asked, "what would you like to do?" and Dave said, "I want to play drums for a great band," and St. Peter said, "ok, go. you're great." and Dave played and then said, "no, wait, I want to play guitar now - and sing - and write the songs, " and St. Peter said, "fine, go, you're great," and Dave played and sang and said, "now I want to play a Gibson SG, now I want a Rickenbacher, now I want an Explorer". And St. Peter said, "dumbshit, this is Heaven - just go for it."
When you watch Dave Grohl play you also get that he gets it about being a dude. The music is rock. There are the pretty little songs, but there are also the rockers and it is both sides of masculinity that Kurdt was certainly in touch with - minus the manic depression - and also minus the suicidally overwhelming genius... Which isn't to say writing three albums of quality rock isn't an achievement - it's an accomplishment that not too many full-on guitar players have ever reached. But there isn't the eye of the hurricane passionate maelstrom that was Nirvahnah. But the Foo Fighters dont pretend to be, either. No one will ever call one of these records "important".
Whatever, fucker rocks and there was magic in the house and it wasn't because of any bands this guy used to be in it was because of the band that he has made and remade and rock groups need to pay attention to this man. He's on to something.
Funny men Tenacious D opened and were hilarious and swore on about every verse and drew in the crowd despite being just two fat guys with acoustic guitars.
We had good seats that I scored off eBay and this hot chick asked me for my ticket stub so she could bring down her girlfriend, I didnt care so I gave her my stub. She asked this guy next to me too. He obliged. Minutes later she brought down like 4-5 people. There was plenty of room, apparently three rows were bought by a corporation and most of them were in the adjacent Universal City Walk drinking designer beers and being old so there was room around us. One of her friends sparked the fatty and offered it to me in thanks for the stub.
"No, thanks," I said, trying to impress the hotties who drove us to the show. They were two Mormon girls straight outta BYU Law and I knew they'd be offended."No, really. You really want some of this, I'm telling you," the guy said holding out the big thick cigar stuffed with smelly greenbud.
"Nah," I said, "but thanks, anyway, it's very kind of you."
"It's the Chronic." He said, so I smoked it.
"Yeah, that's what I thought, bro." he said. I took a good long toke the way you should, I understand, if you want to be polite, and gave it back to him. "Naw naw, get another one. Allow me to thank you for these choice seats." He said. So another drag I took and I exhaled and it wasn't the Chronic, but it was obviously a distant relative with an antiseptically dirty aftertaste probably homegrown, maybe even natural sunlight.
I had met a new friend.