I Hated This Book... *REVISED*
*This is a rant.
THE DIRT - I finally finished this book, and thank god, because I was one day away from throwing it out the window. What a fucking downer. Seriously. It wasn't funny or cool or enjoyable in any way. I wasn't kidding in my last post, this book really is the literary equivalent to cutting. It's like spending all your free time with people you can't stand. The only reason I didn't throw it out was because I knew I was going to come here and trash it, so it only seemed fair to read the entire thing.
I got the book because a few people had told me it was good - but it wasn't good, it was infuriating. I'm not a huge Motley Crue fan to begin with, I liked them okay when I was a kid, and they certainly had a few good songs, but I don't own any of their albums. So there was no hero-worship bullshit blurring my reactions to the book. I knew the big scandals via MTV: Vince Neil's infamous car accident, Nikki Sixx OD'ing (then writing a song called 'Kickstart My Heart', which I always found hilarious), and Tommy Lee marrying Heather Locklear and Pamela Anderson and then going to jail for hitting the latter. I expected your typical band story -- start as friends, big break, fame, drugs, fights, big show, more fights, more drugs, arrests, horrible show, big fight, break up, rehab -- which it was, because all band stories are essentially the same. The big twist with The Dirt is that it's written by the band members themselves, in their own words, and not some outside biographer. Which is kind of genius.
Mostly because they're all functionally retarded. I'm not kidding. They seem blissfully unaware of how awful they are. And they are awful. I don't get it, people actually read this book and liked the stories? Which was their favorite? When Nikki Sixx said that he 'probably' raped a girl when he had her wasted in a closet and kept bringing in different guys to have sex with her and pretend they were him? Or Tommy Lee punching his ex-girlfriend so hard that her teeth went flying everywhere? Maybe it was when Nikki hit a random passenger on a Japanese train with a bottle of Jack Daniels and split the poor guy's head open for no reason? Or was it Vince Neil's story about the drunk driving accident that led to the death of his friend and two innocent people getting permanent brain damage? Nice, right? Great stories. And the level of remorse for these acts (and many others) was ZERO. Even now - telling the stories years later - they barely acknowledge the victims they left. Did Vince Neil take even a moment to talk about his friend that died - what kind if guy he was, who his band was, or how they even knew each other - ANY feelings that weren't about himself? - NO. Did he go into anything about the two innocent people whose lives were ruined by his actions? - NOPE. It was all about him, and how he dealt (or didn't) with being hated in the press and worrying about jail. How he hated the court ordered rehab and therapy because he just wanted to 'move on'. How his managers had to bribe him to stay sober during his pre-trial with a diamond Rolex, and that he really wanted that Rolex. Ugh. People DIED, asshole.
It could have been amusing to read the scribblings of self-obsessed rock stars - laughing at how ridiculous they are to be proud of senseless violence and gluttonous drug use, or marveling at how deluded they were/are that the whole world revolved around them and never seeing that they were just degenerate assholes. That aspect of it could have been fun - like ripping on Gwyneth Paltrow for being clueless and awful - but sadly, they are such complete dicks that you can't even enjoy their navel-gazing for longer than a minute. And since they aren't a fun band in any way, it's just black misery from beginning to end. Lighten the fuck up, Motley Crue.
The thing that bothered me the most was the way they talked about women - so dismissive and demeaning, like they were garbage. And trust me, I'm not squeamish about chick talk. But almost all of the women mentioned - girlfriends and wives included - were portrayed as either whores, bitches, gold-diggers or cheats. (Meanwhile, the entire band reveled in telling stories of how they constantly cheated on their significant others, didn't really care about them, or just dated them for cars or money.) It was really off-putting to read that kind of disrespect for women on EVERY FUCKING PAGE. They based their involvements on the superficial, and then were surprised to find that the women did too.
I'm shocked that their relationships didn't work out for them.
It was funny to hear Tommy Lee try to turn the Pamela Anderson incident around so he seemed like the calm one (he just wanted his wife to pay attention to him!) - while also admitting that he kicked her in the ass and then pushed her into a blackboard easel while she was holding their youngest son. And in front of their other son, who was screaming. His explanation was that in the middle of his psycho tantrum that had upset the entire family, he decided that he really wanted to take the screaming kid for a walk and Pamela wouldn't let him. So they were tug-o-warring the kid into trauma-ville (as you do) and somehow she got pushed. But he was just trying to be a GOOD DAD. Um, okay, dude. Great job! Then he says that she made too much of it because all she did was break a nail. DICK - she was holding your kid! If she'd fallen a different way and that kid cracked his head, would she be making too much of it then? Ugh. The whole book was like that. How WRONGED they were at every turn.
Like I said, functionally retarded. The best parts of the book were when someone else got a chapter - one of the managers or producers - who would openly say what self-centered pricks the guys were and how they were basically disgusting and horrible people, and how the best day of their lives was when they stopped working with them. AMEN.
The amount of drugs and senseless violence is ridiculous - but they had ISSUES, you know? Nikki Sixx had childhood demons that he uses as an excuse for being a huge jerk for most of the book, and we're supposed to feel something when he finally works them out? Screw you and your childhood issues. Your issues were the same ones half the goddamn population has, but they don't go around being an evil creep for forty years. Sorry I helped rape you, but my Mommy was mean. Sorry I cracked your head open for no reason, but my Daddy left.
Fuck you, Nikki Sixx.
For the record, Nikki Sixx's childhood was a freaking fairy paradise compared to the shit I experienced as a kid - and I still managed to have actual feelings, physically harm no one, and not lose myself in hard drugs. He wasn't damaged - he was a weak fucking idiot. You want to fuck yourself up - fine. But when you include other people in your little self-destruction dance, at least have the decency to FEEL FUCKING BAD ABOUT IT when your shit is finally together. And don't talk about it like you're above it and it meant nothing to you in a fucking book. I'm sure that guy whose head you bashed open loved having a cameo in your 'wild adventures', douchebag. For all his soul-searching, Nikki is still a self-centered jackass trying to look cool. It's all about him. It made me sick.
I'm all for people redeeming themselves, but getting off drugs is not redeeming yourself or your behavior - it's just getting off drugs. Apparently, they were all somewhat sober when they wrote this - so for them to seem almost proud of the bullshit they wrought is just gross. I mean, fuck those guys. Instead of making me care about any of them or their 'struggles' - I loathed them more and more with every page.
Except Mick Mars. He seemed like the only halfway likable one - maybe because he was older than the other guys, or maybe because he was the only one with any sense of shame or dignity. He's certainly got his own issues, but nothing he said made me want to kick him in the balls repeatedly, and I can't say that about any of the other members. The section about the death of Vince Neil's daughter was heartbreaking, but by that time I was so turned off by Vince Neil in general that the only sympathy I felt was for a sick little girl who died way too young. (Oh, and I forgot to mention that when his daughter died, not one of the other guys in the band even bothered to call him. Great guys!)
I will never recommend this book to anyone. It's horrible. I'm pissed off that I read it. I recently met Nikki Sixx, and now I'm completely grossed out.
I am not a Motley Crue fan.
(I edited this because I wrote it in a post-traumatic snit immediately after finishing the book, but I'm calm and over it now. But trust me when I say, they're horrible.)
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