Last summer while we were on the Minneapolis leg of the Vosstag World Tour (with special guest "Batman"), I was looking through a t-shirt store for some new hilarious shirts to wear. An "Appetite For Destruction"-era GNR shirt caught my eye, and I picked it up with the intent of purchasing it.
Well, Glypha was hysterical over the prospect of me buying this shirt. His bemused hatred for Guns N Roses is well-documented on this site and elsewhere, and he always tries to convince us that we ought to hate them too.
Personally, I dig any pre-Spaghetti Incident GNR. My buddy Continental believes they have only 2 albums: Appetite For Destruction, and a single-disc version of Use Your Illusion (because the two-disc UYI is proof of their excess and symptomatic of their demise). Dick Herculanuum agrees they have just 2 albums: "Appetite For Destruction" and "Not Appetite For Destruction". Gilby is partial to GNR Live Era and The Spaghetti Incident, for obvious reasons.
"I know you're not gonna buy that shirt."
"Actually, I was going to."
"If you buy that, you're endorsing crap!"
I was buying the shirt, and I was wearing it that night -- straight from the rack to my torso, no wash cycle interrupting the awesomeness! Alas, two minutes later, Glypha returned.
"Still considering buying that, huh?
"No consideration needed. I've already made up my mind that it's awesome."
"But GNR sucks now, you're giving money to Buckethead!, or Bumblefoot, or whoever their guitarist of the month is now!"
Upset at his lack of power to convince me against buying the GNR shirt, Glypha returns a couple of moments later, armed with both outside opinions AND the Big Boy Voice.
"Continental says you're wasting your money on that shirt."
"Continental said that?"
At this point the $22 price had swung the vote in favor of "no" anyway, but if Continental thought it was a bad buy, that sealed it. I did not buy the shirt.
Later that day, I found out he said no such thing. On the contrary, he thought the shirt was awesome. "So where's your sweet GNR shirt?"
"I didn't buy it."
"What do you mean you didn't buy it?"
"Glypha talked me out of it."
"So you're taking fashion advice from Glypha now? If he hates something, that should be your first clue that its actually sweet."
Grr. Well, last week I found a GNR shirt for $9 at a local t-shirt shop -- its not Appetite For Destruction, but it is a 1992-93 Use Your Illusion Tour shirt, so its still pretty dominant. Wore it to a party Saturday night just to see if Glypha would comment.
An hour after he and his wife showed up, he'd said nothing, so I broached the subject. "Check out the shirt!"
"I saw that. Was going to say something about how bad it is, but I bit my tongue."
Nice.
--
This has been unusually harsh to Glypha today, so its time to spread the burn around.
Later in the night, I was sitting talking to Glypha when a person I'd never met came up and said, "So are you really a Guns N Roses fan, or are you just wearing that to be ironic?" Sadly, it was not a lady. On second thought, its probably a good thing it wasn't a lady, for two reasons. One, any female who likes GNR enough to spot a half-concealed t-shirt from 150 feet away could probably kick my ass, and Two, said female should probably not be classified as a "lady". Because of the "kicking my ass" thing.
Anyway, at this turn of events, Glypha laughed derisively and walked off. Hilarious.
Which is too bad, because he missed out on the argument to end all arguments, which I commenced at the first dull moment in conversation with Random GNR Fan Dude (which came two topics after I learned that the guy frequents GNR message boards, and one topic before I contemplated "pulling an Axl" and devising a hairbrained excuse to bolt). The question of debate: who invented the Robot Dance? I maintained vehemently it was my boy Michael Jackson. I'm serious.
Funny thing is, the dude arguing with me wasn't sure who invented it, just that it wasn't Jacko. Well, Wikipedia says...
"The dance was made by The Jackson 5's Michael Jackson, who devised a routine for their 1974 single, "Dancing Machine." Jackson first performed the dance while singing "Dancing Machine" with the Jackson 5 on an episode of Soul Train."
Ha! I was wrong about Beer Pong/Beirut yesterday, but today I am right! Michael Jackson did invent the Robot! S.O.A.B., that's awesome.
You bet.
Leave a comment