They Grow Up So Fast

Lifestyle hint to cancer survivors: don’t you dare grow up too fast.  Keeping a little whimsical edge in your life is just what the doctor ordered, or should have.  This is why I ended up at a Motley Crue concert last week.  I normally only go with the ole ball and chain but he was off saving the world, as heroic firemen are wont to do, so I went with people from work. 

For the record, a Motley Crue concert is just about the only place I know that you can see 50-year-old pudgy accountants dressed head to toe in black leather and strutting around confidently in six-inch spiked heels. 

And that’s just the men. 

It’s a dirty free for all that covers everyone from the 20 year old punks to the 65 year old sons of real anarchy.   After having beat cancer, that means I was in good company.  Ah, I thought, as what I took to be an impossibly blond hooker strutted by clad nothing more that the most illegally short micro-mini open mesh skirt, my people.  

I get a little smug at Motley Crue concerts because I have the distinction of being one of the ‘lucky’ women that lead bassist Nikki Sixx spit fake blood up on a few years ago.  Not realizing how sound traveled (I was next to the stage), I proceed to give him a piece of my mind not realizing he could hear everything I was saying.  I was impressed that he continued to play, ear splitting as it was.  And my boyfriend spent months telling all his friends that Nikki liked his girlfriend. 

“There was nobody else cute sitting close enough to spit on,” I pointed out to my beau.

“You’re cute,” Bob said, using a tone that told me it was not meant as a complement. 

“The other girl he spit fake blood on cried,” I reminded Bob.  

Whatever.  I have since been devising ways to dismantle a giant water gun and reassemble it after I pass security at one of these concerts.  I want to pummel Sixx with some horrible liquid, SPLAT, maybe not fake blood, but eau de skunk or well, on second thought, he would probably like that.

I'll think of something. 

But I better do it fast because these guys have been rocking out for 30 long years.  Mick Mars, the member of the band that I actually go to hear play, has to be 600 years old or something.   In rock years, I mean.  In reality, he’s in his 70s or nearly so.  There is something to be said for longevity and not reinventing yourself like Madonna or Lady Gaga seem to do every ten seconds.  Mars seems to keep the same gig working for him, right down to the vampiric top hat he’s been sporting for decades now.   

I noticed that Sixx looked impressively healthier this tour around meaning he’s sober and probably 50 pounds heavier than the last time I saw him play.  I was secretly pleased; he’s a tall guy and thus really needs to weigh more than 67 pounds on any given day.  Mars, as always, weighs as much as the average malnourished 4-year-old from a third world country and must be packing away a whole 12 calories a day.  He is what all super models aspire to; beyond emaciated. I want to leap onto the stage and force feed the guy pasta but he looks too fragile to eat it. 

And then there is the baby of the group, Tommy Lee, not yet 50 by my unofficial count and still as raucous and obnoxious as ever.  Some things never change though he has taken to having his drum set placed on a track and flipping himself and the set 360-degrees in the air while he plays.  I envy his lack of motion sickness.  And finally, Vince Neil the lead singer who he tugs at my heart because he lost a child to cancer.  I can’t even imagine the depths of his personal pain and I’ve fought and beat the deadly Big C.  He still has the pipes to hit the high notes.  

I like these guys because in reality, they never change.  They tour, write and produce new songs but the act is pretty much the same.  Overtly sexist, irreverent, rebellious, dark and tacky…the sum total of motley if you will.

The Crue also sums up the polar opposite of me, former Catholic school girl, bows on her socks and always following the rules.  Which, come to think on it, didn’t serve me very well when it came to cancer.  I ate right, taught fitness classes, never smoked, drank only lightly but I got cancer anyway.  So, Motley Crue  appeals to the darker side of my nature, when I get really mad at the randomness of life and just want to light something on fire.  Sixx has been known to do that to himself on stage.  Nowadays, the anti-Christ, a.k.a., mean and awful insurance people, have taken over so even the Crue had to wear fire retardant jumpsuits over their clothes for the fireworks finale.  I can only imagine Sixx’s reaction to hearing that for the first time.  I bet it took some serious ‘discussions’ with those hardcore rockers to convince them to don the jumpsuits and I bet they were all livid.  Plus, Sixx dons more sequins and uses up more mascara in one night than I do in a year; always an interesting fashion statement and it was a pity not to see that all spark during the finale.  I am sure the Crue feels the same way. 

So, don’t grow up too fast, hold on to the corner of yourself that’s just a little bit…motley.  After all, those guys are still playing to sell out crowds and rocking. 

‘If you wanna live life, on your own terms
You gotta be willing to crash and burn’

-- Lyrics From the Song Primal Scream by Motley Crue