Jon Bon Jovi Rocked My Face And, If You’re Not Careful, He’ll Rock Yours Too

“I’ve seen a million faces — and I’ve rocked them all!”

- JBJ

He came at me out of nowhere, leaping from his steel horse, flowing locks flying in the breeze and, with a shout of ‘I’m a cowboy!’, proceeded to rock my face without consent — expressed, written or otherwise.

Now, I was minding my own business, going about my day as I saw fit, moseying down the street, keeping to the sidewalk and making as little eye contact as possible with my fellow pedestrians. I was thinking about stuff. You know, life and my place therein, what I might have for supper and how I would really hate to see Jon Bon Jovi right about now. And bam! On cue, there he is hurtling headlong towards me. I freeze. Petrified. Maybe I’m not his target, maybe there’s some poor soul behind me that has tickled his fancy instead. Maybe I’m just hallucinating again.

But no, I’m his intended and this is as real as it gets.

I have since banished the ordeal to the nether regions of my brain where, someday, it might be leeched out by deep-probing, regressive psychotherapy type stuff, but I know it must have been a horrible affront to good taste in a maelstrom of denim, leather and hair care products. Just look at the guy, would you really want to be on the receiving end of a face rocking from the likes of him? He’s rocked well over a million faces at this point. Disgusting. I mean, there’s sloppy seconds, but this is outrageous! He makes Wilt Chamberlain look positively Franciscan.

Women, ages 35-60, and gay men: I don’t wanna hear it.

And just like that, it was over.

I was left feeling violated, ashamed. I mean, I don’t even like Bon Jovi, not even Slippery When Wet. Sure, I might have been involved in an air band rendition of ‘Livin On A Prayer’ when I was twelve years old, but that wasn’t even my idea (nor was ‘Girls, Girls, Girls’ — but that’s another story). At that age, you’ll use any excuse to make a plywood guitar, even though I didn’t even end up playing it; I was relegated to fake drum duty while Billy MacLennan got to throw guitar hero moves and mug to the crowd, doing his best Richie Sambora with my misshapen axe. Oh the injustice of youth!

But I digress.

Now, where was I? Ah yes, standing in a daze following an unwarranted face-rocking at the hands of Jon Bon Jovi. I quickly reclaimed my bearings, checked my pockets (wallet and keys intact), blew my nose and wiped my eyes free of any residual rock, all the while gaining a gradual awareness of the muffled screams coming from down the street. I slowly turned, bracing myself for the horror.

Sheer face-rocked carnage.

Women and children. Dogs and cats. Even a couple of ferrets. Babies in strollers, quadriplegics in wheelchairs. Renters, home-owners and homeless alike.

All of them bearing the hurt and confusion of a sudden, unwanted face rocking. And he was still at it, jumping from face to face all the way to the end of the block, tossing his victims aside like rag dolls. Then he crossed the street and face-rocked his way back to where his trusty steel steed stood waiting to whisk him away in a blaze of post-rockal glory.

‘I’m a cowboy!’ he screamed, setting off in search of more face.

How many faces are enough, Jon Bon Jovi? Will you ever sate your hunger for face? You had already rocked a million faces by the late eighties. How much face is enough?

These are the things I wanted to ask him, but it was too late. He was out of earshot.

I felt bad. Still do, in fact.

Why didn’t I do anything and was there anything I could have done? These are the questions I ask myself everyday as I look in the mirror at the well rocked face of a person I feel I no longer know. Oh sure, you laugh, but an experience like that changes a man, makes him question the very point of existence. Endlessly.

And I’ve come up with an answer.

Jon Bon Jovi MUST BE STOPPED!

Italics Always Swing To The Right

Most people seem to draw inspiration from their surroundings, from the world, from their friends and acquaintances, but not I. I receive stimuli, but they hardly qualify as inspiration. In fact, going online and reading boneheaded drivel (which has become unavoidable these days on the so-called ‘net’) tends to put me in a bleak mood. Instantly. I try to avoid public forums, Youtube comments, and (most) blogs like the plague, but every once in a while I give in to my constant masochistic urges and, rather than self-flagellate with my homemade cat o’ nine, I browse away. These are the only times when I consider all-out nuclear holocaustic oblivion or indiscriminate genocide against the stupid as a potentially positive development for the human race. Reading the comments of the average ignorant, lazy, selfish, hateful piece of shit internet denizen makes me realize how meaningless opinions have become. As such, I can only conclude that everyone on this shit-hole planet is seventeen years-old. But god forbid if you deny someone their opinion. ‘It’s my OPINION, maaaan!’ Well big deal, asshole. Opinions are about as useful as the logic which informs their naissance (see, I’m like smart or something because I know more than one language and therefor my opinion, unlike yours, matters) and most peoples’ grasp of logic and the art of argument seems to extend no further than that of the average grade-school pupil. But perhaps I’m being too hard on the children. I have faith in the young. Well, I did before 75% of them became riddled with pharmaceuticals because their parents are too fucking lazy (or, in all fairness, overworked) to properly, uh, parent them. But Jesus Christ, let’s defend our wonderful culture until we’re blue in the face or low on ammunition — which ever happens first. I mean, who cares if we’re all hooked on legal drugs… look how cheap flat-screen TVs have become.

I’m successful. Don’t begrudge me my success. I love it. I have nice stuff in my nice house. I have a nice car. I have nice sex toys that I slick up with nice lubricant ordered online through successful businesses which assure me my anonymity, thus maintaining my facade of upstanding Conservative-party-contributing morality.

On my way across town, I cross paths with more than one acquaintance, but I have no time for these people anymore. I avert eye contact, I turn my back to them as I pass; dead to me, every last one of them. Who needs friends? The weak of mind and porous of body. And that’s not me. All I require is alcohol and professional sports — the true drugs of any right thinking conformist; like any good man of the age, I’m a shining example of humanity’s progress towards the evolutionary black hole of success.

I haven’t had a meaningful conversation with anyone other than myself since I was ten years old and I’ve never felt the pangs of love or the eventual heartbreak. I count myself lucky, but luck has nothing to do with it.

Sometimes, when I’m feeling saucy, I imagine my Lexus to be an Aston-Martin Virage. Oh, the fun I have. I sneer at pedestrians, flip them off, mouth ‘fuck you’ against the glass of my climate-controlled bubble and imagine what it would be like to shoot them all in the head with a gold-plated Desert Eagle and watch their brain matter atomize in a flume of glorious red and gray against a backdrop of golden morning sun. These are truly life’s little moments that we should all cherish.

What it comes down to is my simple hatred for mankind. Yet, I’m torn: the things I hate about humanity are the very same things that have allowed me to so easily and readily exploit my fellow bipeds. Sloth, stupidity, selfishness — and those are just the S’s. But I could go on all day about the worthlessness of the average human being and where’s the money in that? Nowhere to be found without an army of politico underlings to do my bidding and where’s the fun in that?

The trick is to accept this simple fact about the species (or, as I prefer, the speces – clever, no?) and move on, avoiding disease and filth as best one can. But learn what you can whilst among the rabble, among the poor. They’re so quaint, aren’t they? With their accents and their Wal-Mart footwear. Some of them weren’t even born here. Crazy world.

But it takes all kinds, and I take from all kinds.

Don’t begrudge me my success. That’d be mighty white of you… fuckface.

Dust - Part I

Author’s note: I’m not entirely sure what this is. The makings of a short story? Self-indulgent crap? You be the judge.

‘I’m sick of all these hipsters - indie kids, or whatever the hell they call themselves these days.’

He huddles further into his green surplus parka, an array of obscure third and fourth wave anarcho-hippy hardcore buttons flashing in the moonlight as he hunches his shoulders and runs a tattooed hand across the four-day stubble of his chin. He takes a drag off the cigarette wedged between his calloused, yellow fingers nestled in their fingerless gloves, inhales deeply and looks up at me, trying to gage my mood. He must like what he sees.

‘Tryin desperately to forget about that once-cherished Matchbox 20 album by dancing to undanceable music, wearing unwearable clothes. Bunch of posers. Thinking they’re so goddam individualistic. Thinking they’re so smart, so ahead of the curve. So clever. Well guess what? Most people are dyed-in-the-wool sheep and this infestation of would-be nouveau new-wavers are no different, just doing what they’re told by the mass media. Doing what’s expected of them.’

He exhales violently for effect, smoke and vapour shooting from his mouth and nose like a cranial blow-off valve pushed beyond its capacity for disgust. A flick of his wrist sends the cigarette butt bouncing off the opposing wall, up into the swirling wind currents of the alley. It’s January, but we’re brave and inside it was worse.

‘Aw, give them a break, they’re just kids. How do you know what they’re thinking and honestly, why would you care in the first place?’

But he’s on a roll.

‘Oh I care. It’s like year zero for these little amoebas. They’ve consumed and regurgitated the signs of my scene thus stripping them of all meaning outside of an iPod commercial or an American Eagle ad. They need to learn and I’m more than willing to teach. The other day I was wearing my Lizzy shirt and one of these scarf and blazer-wearing motherfuckers comes up to me and complements me on it, all snickers and shit-eating grin — he thinks I’m being ironic. “Oh, you like the Lizzy” says I, “You appreciate the subtle genius of Phillip Parris Lynott?” Nothing. Same stupid grin. “You revel in the twin guitar pyrotechnics of Scott Gorham and Brian “Robbo” Robertson? Gary Moore?” Still nothing. “Ok, fine. Eric Bell?” He’s just staring at me like I’m speaking Latin. So I smack him on the side of the head - open fist, understand - just a warning shot. And off he runs. Absolutely terrified.’

This tale seems to warm him to the core, but I’m getting cold. Despite any and all of the hot air being expelled on this most festive of Thursday nights, it’s still January.

‘So let me get this straight, being a bully and a Thin Lizzy fan are the only prerequisites to achieving this fantastically idealized notion of individuality that you hold so dear? Lets go back in.’

He sneers at me like a Sid Vicious poster and pushes off from the wall, heading back towards the door. He always denies it, but he loves Sid - I’ve caught him practicing the sneer on more than one occasion. He’ll go on and on about how poor old Sid was the embodiment of everything that went wrong with the second and third wave of British punk, a self-mutilating drug casualty cliche of little worth and questionable moral fiber. But he doesn’t really mean it.

We cross the threshold, sucked back into the dark red heat of the club and my brow is instantly glazed with a film of dank airborne sweat, getting in my eyes, blurring my vision. It’s the weekly indie dance night, which is fine by me, but admittedly more dangerous than most other theme nights. This is not due to any elevated threat of violence although there is always a more than passing chance of that with my doppelganger in tow. Our current problem is scarves: we’re neck deep in them at every turn, offering ourselves up, laying ourselves open with each step like a pair of unwitting human maypoles forging ahead in the face of textile burns and stubbed toes. One hand in front of me and the other mopping my face, we emerge unscathed into a small clearing against a wall nearest the secondary beer bar. An oasis if ever I’ve seen one.

He settles in and continues, surveying the crowd with sneer intact.

‘I’m no bully, but yeah. Those are the prerequisites. Plus, you have to lose your name. Only through anonymity can one truly and finally assert their individuality, free from the shackles of inherited traits and familial conditioning.’

He’s reading this last part from a tattoo on the palm of his right hand. This empty phrase is his mantra. I never let on that I know he’s reading; it is much more fun to watch him squirm, keeping his hand out of sight as best he can. The ubiquitous cigarette usually did the trick, but indoors is a different game since the smoking ban. At first it didn’t faze him, but eventually the bouncers stepped in.

‘Ok, granted - anonymity is a pretty hardcore move, Mr. Nobody -

‘Don’t call me that. Do not assign any sort of nomenclature to my person. Understand? And really, a “fantastically idealized notion of individuality” - take a deep breath, son, and keep that Gilmore Girls shit away from me.’

‘Or what?’

‘Or maybe I’ll teach you something when I’m done with these scarves.’

‘Fuck off. I’m getting a beer.’