Rhetorical Rock Questions Answered

Q: Is this love that I’m feeling?

A: No, you are feeling the psychoactive effects of THC, the main chemical compound in cannabis, and not just tonight Bob — on your Indian rug, the ten blurry Gods of your toes staring you down, three open Red Stripes forgotten to room temperature, and probably bowl of hummus off to your right — but over the course of many habit forming dreadlock-inducing years. This is what you, and all of your permanently spaced fans, are “feeling,” a notion used as casually as the thing you attribute it to. But good times, just be sure to stay 10 miles within a small liberal town built around a university, or 10 ft. from a bond fire. I, however, am feeling that I need to leave this organic co-op or something cafe now. The small animal-esque armpit hair of our Barista here looks like some domesticated pet, its owner clicking away at the iPod to which the speakers are connected, and she’s putting the album on loop. By the way, you repeat “is this love” four times every time you ask it. I guess THC and OCD have found their poster boy.

Q: Do you know where you are?

A: Yes, we are in the jungle, which you quickly answered for us before we could say “um, we’re in the jungle, and we’re gonna die…” The thing is, Axl, I am not in the jungle, but watching MTV’s Top Twenty Countdown circa 1988 with a bag of Cheetos, sucking down the teat of each orange finger in some unresolved Freudian oral stage. It may be worth mentioning that my pants are off; or rather, my 12-year-old genitals have been freely excised into my parents’ “master bedroom,” for the purposes of attending to the preceding video made by one of your peers/competitors, in which a lovely Midwestern girl, unhappy with the meatloaf and finger-dumb boys at home, moved to the jungle and became a stripper — so this jungle motif of yours is a little hackneyed, I guess. Do you know where you are, Axl? You are inside my parents’ Sony TV, embedded in the bands with which your semblance is conveyed, looking like a pissed off version of Carrot Top. You are also going to die.

Q: How do we dance when our earth is turning?

A: It is important to remember that the earth’s apparent rotation is only relative to the sun, sentimentally and erroneously referred to as a “true solar day,” that in a cosmic void (i.e. this goddamn universe) without an absolute center, it is merely an unqualifiable speck hovering in infinite space. Let’s not even get into the axial tilt (or, “obliquity”) of the earth, and the grander spacial implications of its centric vs. objective rotation(s), the latter arguably null. So basically, dear somewhat angry bald guy, since the earth isn’t actually turning beyond the trite perceived parameters of our solar system, we will dance the only way this sad world has taught us: until the bar closes; until that final person, lit red by the last flickering candle, equally lonely and torn open, ventures a cringe-worthy gaze through our eyes and into our skulls, that dangerous interior mixed with vodka and gin, a hollow place laid to rest on their pillow, anyone’s pillow, by two considerate hands cupped into a prayer, maybe an hour later.

Q: How do I get you alone?

A: Lose 35-40 lbs. pounds ma’am, see a psychiatrist who will prescribe you the necessary mood stabilizers, and get over your codependency issues. You need to understand when a relationship is over, or that one simply never began. There’s a popular book He’s Just Not That Into You (Simon & Schuster, 2004) which you may find illuminating. Basically, if you find yourself alone, there’s a greater chance that there’s something inherently wrong with you, than some rectifiable miscommunication between you and your non-partner. Movies, songs, novels, cruelly, often have us believing otherwise. Your suitor, whose absence has been so eloquently invoked, appreciates your talent, sensitivity, “heart,” and all that jazz — but if jazz is to be our metaphor, he wants a saxophone, not a tuba. This world is shallow and unfair, I know. Perhaps even evil. But no man wants to walk into a Lane Bryant store, so take that logic and apply it to your closet.

Q: Should I stay or should I go?

A: You should, before anything, gently put down that bass and not smash it. It makes for a grand cover photo, but the kids today (b. 1990–ongoing) don’t know the value of a hard-earned American dollar. You smash a bass to pieces and CBS replaces it faster than you can say per diem, sweet. Some kid in Ohio smashes a bass and his earnest step-father working for love goes overtime at 1.5x/hr in order to buy a new one, coming home at 8:00pm on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, during which time our The Clash fan here gets into “heavier stuff” (e.g. Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, Notorious B.I.G.), an inception met with the use of recreational drugs and/or creative sniffing techniques. He ends up getting a Robitussin® hangover 870 on the SAT, goes to community college, and drastically truncates his future; his step-dad get’s an ulcer, hernia, and divorce, while you tell the concierge at a 5-star hotel the minimum thread count you demand in your soon-to-be splooged sheets. Punk is dead, bros. So go.