Bonus Material Alert!
I just got up and was going to post today's item, and I had an email that ties in with the topic!
Subject: Vince Neil
Hey,
I just read your article about a Vince Neil show you attended in 2002.
I'm curious about the basis for the obvious personal hostility towards Vince.
Thanks
Hostility! I had no idea. When I think of Rocksnobs hostility, I think of The Darkness. Oh, well. Below is the answer that I sent.
I don't know if I would call it hostility exactly, but it actually stems from that concert.
First off, I always tried to cut Vince some slack. From reading The Dirt I know that he is still troubled by the car accident with Razzle. Then on top of that, his daughter died. The man has every right to be mental. He has got real problems.
But I don't think it's very respectful for him to go on stage so sloppy drunk that he can't remember the words to songs and then stops singing to take drinks from the crowd.
I think that if he is going to go out on tour he should at least be able to pull himself together enough to show some respect to his fans and put on a good show. He has twenty-two other hours in the day in which to be drunk, I don't think going onstage drunk is necessary.
You know, at that concert he proved that every rumor was true and that also is when he became fair game. Just because he can go to work drunk doesn't mean he should.
And now, today's feature.
The long awaited Vince Neil concert is tonight, and as of this posting I don't know if I'm going to be able to go. Ridiculous! LCG and me have been looking forward to this for weeks but are now experiencing what is known as a scheduling conflict. We are partially to blame, but so is Vince Neil.
For once we actually made plans in advance. I took the night off work as soon as I knew Vince was coming to town, even before I learned my lesson at the Primus show. Last time Vince was here he was supposed to go on at 11:30 and actually started right before midnight so obviously I couldn't be going to work at midnight.
The next step was tougher, and that was finding a sobercab. Vince is playing at the hellhole where I saw Cinderella, which is in a northern suburb of St. Paul. To get back to either Minneapolis area home base by taxi would be really expensive so I had to call on my friends. Well, the one who would accept such a bad task. Joejung!
Unfortunately, he will be drunk at a block party that night. Every year I get drunken Joejung phone calls from the block party starting at about six or seven in the evening so he will be needing his own sobercab by midnight. Next choice, my Crabby Friend! I asked him if he wanted to do something stupid, told him what it was, and he said, "Yeah, okay." Sweet! All we had to do was bide our time.
Then last week LCG called me up and said, "We are going to have a full cultural experience next Friday!" Turns out we have both comedy and tragedy on the menu because he had realized that Dave Chappelle is the same night as Vince Neil. We have had our Dave Chappelle tickets for ages. It is possible we had them before we found out about Vince Neil, but we hadn't noticed they were on the same night.
But we might have a chance to do both. Last time we saw Dave Chappelle he went on at eight and did forty-five minutes. It may have been fifty minutes, I don't know for sure. I just remember we divided the ticket price by the amount of time he spent on stage and realized he was making ninety cents a minute off every audience member. Not too shabby. Oh, I also remember that part where he was stoned out of his mind. I think that is what made us do the how much did he just earn? math in the first place.
But if Dave Chappelle is done even by nine-thirty, there is still plenty of time to get to Vince Neil. We just decided to have CF pick us up downtown, which might be more convenient for all involved.
However, within the next couple of days we received more plan-altering information. It seems that CEB found out that Vince isn't going on last that night. He is still the headliner but for some reason he has to get out of town early and wants an earlier time slot. I just looked it up, he is in Montana the following day. Are they driving? Because I don't think that leaving an hour earlier is going to help all that much. So LCG broke the news and I got a new plan.
Me: New plan!
LCG: Oh, we don't have to worry about that now.
Me: NEW. PLAN.
LCG: Okay, what is it?
Me: I won't drink.
LCG: Now...
Me: Just in case CF isn't exactly on time. You can drink if you want. After Chappelle we'll take off in a rush.
LCG: Okay...
Me: I can wait until I get home if I want a drink. It'll only be like two in the morning. My bedtime is at nine, I could care less if I start late. Or...we could take a road trip.
LCG: If it's anyplace other than Mankato, no.
(Mankato is an hour away. An hour and a half if I'm driving. The speed limit exists for a reason.)
Me: Is he coming to Mankato?
LCG: I don't know.
Me: Then get ready to go to Sheboygan, Wisconsin!
LCG: I'm not going to Sheboygan to see Vince Neil.
Neither would I, under ordinary circumstances. But I had just found out that Vince Neil will be in Sheboygan for Johnsonville Brat Days. Vince, who is looking more and more like a sausage product these days, will be at a festival celebrating a sausage product! Where else can you find a Brat Eating Contest, polka bands, inflatable bouncy castles, and Vince Neil in the same day? No place but Sheboygan, Wisconsin.