Shut Up and Give Me the Mic

Description

Sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll.People never seem to get tired of hearing about it. I guess that’s the great promise (or failure) of rock ’n’ roll. Not for me, but for most people. If that’s the only thing you’re interested in, this ain’t the book for you. Anger, violence, love, and rock ’n’ roll is more like it.If the only things that float your boat are journals from drug-addled, ex-junkie, sex-addicted rockers, forget it. Those books are bullshit anyway. Have you ever known a junkie? They can’t remember what they did thirty minutes ago, let alone thirty years ago. They kept a journal? And you believe them? Real heroin addicts can’t hold their own dicks; forget about a pen or pencil. And who isn’t addicted to sex? What a scam.I’m the guy that gave it all to beat the odds, left everything he had on the stage each night, didn’t screw around on his woman, took care of his kids, and was sober enough to remember it all and write about it . . . himself. The only things clouding my memory are the years and a storyteller’s natural tendency to embellish for the better enjoyment of the reader. But no lies.This is a true story of childish dreams, great struggle, Job-like perseverance, ascension to dazzling heights, megalomaniacal obsession, and a mind-numbing, brutal fall from grace. It’s also about an undying love and dedication between a man and a woman that—though sorely tried—withstood it all. It’s Rocky I, II, III, IV, and the first half of V all rolled into one.From the vantage point of reinvention and reclamation of my former status, it’s almost hard to believe I was ever that far down. Almost. The physical and emotional scars of my life-wreck remind me just how truly catastrophic my epic failure was . . . and how I never want to do that again. Hell, if a video of my fall were available on YouTube, it would have like a billion hits. My story should inspire and be a cautionary tale at the same time. I hope.Though I am best known for being the front man for the seminal eighties hair band Twisted Sister, since my return to grace I have done movies, television, radio, and Broadway, been the national spokesperson for a major charitable organization, and even had a town named after me. No mean feat for a two-hit wonder (sorry to disagree with you, VH1) who had been written off as dead and buried by 1987. I know some people out there are still scratching their heads at my even being around. And writing a book? Ha! Trust me, I’m self-aware. I’m not sitting here all puffed up on my “amazing” achievements. I don’t put much importance in what I’ve done, but hopefully something is to be learned from how I did it or didn’t do it. And I do know there are three sides to every story. That’s right, three. Yours, theirs . . . and the truth.This story is mine.The one thing that has surprised and confused me though is my unlikely transformation into a “beloved public figure.” How did the unpopular kid who grew up to be the angry young man, who became the eighties poster boy for the evils of rock ’n’ roll, arrested for profanity and assault, and boycotted by parents and religious groups, become the likable mensch he is today? Alice Cooper—a man who has experienced this same strange phenomenon—says that people just got used to us. “If you stay around long enough, you become a part of Americana,” he once told me. “People just expect us to be there.” Kind of like Norm from Cheers, I guess. (Everyone in the bar yells, “Dee!”) Any way you explain it, after years of rejection, final acceptance, then wholesale abandonment, it did take a bit of getting used to. But I have.