Life’s kinda getting’ out of control. I think. I don’t know if you agree, will you hand me that ashtray? So, man, the other day I decided I might as well pull out that Vince Neil autobiography. I was a big Mötley Crüe fan when I was a teenager and got tired of Elton John, Boston, and Ted Nugent. They were cutting edge back then. The Crüe, that is… at least, that’s what I thought. What did I care, they fuckin’ rocked, they looked cool, and the chicks used to come out in droves for them. What more could a horny male teenager ask for? What’s that? I don’t know… shit! I dropped my coffee in my lap. Fuckin’ cat!

It’s like, what it is, it’s like… I know you’ve heard the phrase a thousand times, but it’s a rat race. So, where were we? Oh yeah. Mötley Crüe, Vince Neil. His autobiography, Tattoos & Tequila: To Hell and Back with One of Rock’s Most Notorious Frontmen, which came out a few months back. Unlike my fellow MetalSucks brethren, I actually used to like Vince Neil. [Uh... actually, we did, too, which is part of the reason we now give him so much shit! - Ed.] Hell, I even dressed up like him for a lip-synching contest way back in ’83. Even posted it here as one of my most embarrassing life moments. Lost to some teenyboppers singing Cyndi Lauper. “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun…” What a crock! Should’ve gone with “Looks That Kill” instead of “Piece of Your Action.” My bad. Used to love going to Fast Times in Pasadena, Texas, where they had those contests. Teens trying to act like adults. Lots of hot chicks, bad hairstyles, and people who hated heavy metal. Losers.

Anyway, my mom got pissed at me in high school because I had a Crüe shrine in my bedroom. She was freaked out because I was always the straight-A student, high school football captain, class president, All-American boy. I don’t think she understood why I would adorn my walls with four skanky looking dudes who really looked like tramps with scary ass make-up. Went to college with my Shout at the Devil gatefold sleeve LP signed on the inside by Tommy, Nikki, Vince, and Mick. On the back of the album, too. Man, there used to be so many hot chicks into this band. I don’t care what most hard dudes say, Mötley Crüe was the fucking shit. At least up until SATD. Couldn’t really stand them after they pussed out with that “Home Sweet Home” crap. But up until Shout, they could do no wrong. Hell, they even made the cowbell cool. Double hell, I even saw a pre-Philip H. Anselmo Pantera cover Mötley Crüe songs in a little club in Houston called Cardi’s, and they kicked fuckin’ ass. Good enough for Dime, good enough for me!

You know, I went through the contortions of hell. I have alcoholic seizures. What? Vince’s book? Oh, fuck. I almost forgot. Sorry, some random chick was giving me a blowjob and I’m trying to keep my wife from finding out. Ah, who am I kidding? She’d just want to join in anyway. Or, I’d simply beg her to forgive me. Of course, she will. I’m loaded with cash, own over thirty specialty cars, and can fly her anywhere in the world. Hell, I’m good at marriage. I’m already on my fourth one.

Wind up in the hospital, you know. Now I’m sick. Like a leaf. I was like silly putty. Right. Tattoos & Tequila is Vince Neil’s attempt at getting into the post-The Dirt autobiographical game already explored by fellow Crüe mates Nikki Sixx (The Heroin Diaries) and Tommy Lee (Tommyland), co-authored with some cat named Mike Sager. Of course, co-authored is a bit ridiculous. It seems more like Sager hooked up with Vince at one of his new Feelgoods rock joints, plied him with alcohol (even though Vince is reputedly sober as of 2007, so maybe it was coke – ah, not cool to make assumptions, but c’mon, it sure seems like it!), and turned on the tape recorder. What happens next is a long, rambling, oft-times incoherent mess of Vince Neil’s shady recollection of his life from a poor white kid growing up in a pre-Rodney King South Central Los Angeles to the frontman of one of metal (used to be) and rock’s biggest bands. All of the usual suspects are in place: drugs, alcohol, pussy, tragedy, music, roaddoggery, and general over-all scumbaggery as were seemingly perfected by Neil and his brothers in the Crüe. Unfortunately, the tape recorder method tends to leave all of the bruises and warts in place. Literally, all of the “umms” and “ahhs” and “you knows” and whatnot are intact making for a very sloppy read.

Squirrel!!

They threw him in the car and beat him in the paddy wagon and they beat him to death. Hey, how’s it going? Duuuddddeeeee!!!!! Rock on! Okay, back to what we were talking about. What were we talking about? Hey, you’ve got a nice rack! Care if I plunder your mineshaft? Huh? Oh, sorry. So yeah, back to this book thing. Reading is hard. But, I like the fact the fact that those warts and bruises and all also allow a peek into a hugely successful, albeit seemingly clueless mega-millionaire rock star whom seems oblivious to the pain and suffering he has caused. There’s the obvious death of Razzle, the drummer from Hanoi Rocks, a band I totally fucking dug. I had the “Up Around the Bend” 7-inch vinyl back in the day. Mike Monroe was prettier than most chicks back in the day. Did that get him laid? Or were the girls pissed because he was hotter than they were? Hmmmm… and what about those sax solos of his? Oh well, at least Vince’s book is better than HR’s Andy McCoy’s book that I eviscerated here last year. But, yeah. Douchebag Vince wiped out his Pantera (there we go again) with Razzle in it on the way back from a liquor store and also permanently injured two, basically, kids. Did he spend hard time in the pokey? Nah. Cough up a few million in cash, get sentenced to thirty days in jail, only do fifteen, and get hammered and laid while behind bars. Great lesson, huh?! Fucking rock stars.

I hit one of those and I hit the wheel off into outer space and I kinda got angry myself. What day is it? Where are my fucking pills? I cannot function unless I have my fucking pills! C’mon, Axl! I expect better treatment here at the goddamn MetalSucks mansion! What kind of three-dollar whore operation are you running here?! Oh yeah, but Vince has a greeeaaatttttt personality. No, seriously. He does. At least he says he does. I mean he treats the women in his life very well. All thousands of them. And he made that heart-warming sex tape in Hawaii with that porn star Janine whosawhatsits and some other chick that I’m sure most of you have seen. I think I caught something similar at the mansion that featured Axl, Gary Suarez, and one of those goddamn monkeys. Fucking stink. But they’re pretty funny. Hey, is this thing on?

And I said, heh! heh!, have a lot of guns!

It’s pretty cool that Mike Sager went out and talked to some other folks involved in Vince’s life to paint a less-than-stellar picture of the man. Some of it is pretty harsh, especially from his ex-wives. But then they all seem to think he is a sad little boy who never likes to be alone and they just simply want to cuddle him, and pet him, and comfort him, all the while he’s out man-whoring it up with a bunch of groupie skanks across the globe. And hey! Where are the interviews with Mick and Tommy? Sure, there’s a tiny one with Nikki, but that doesn’t come until literally at the end. Huh, huh, he said “cum.” I like these other viewpoints. Sadly, they tend to portray Vince as a sad little 50-year-old man-child who is completely clueless to the world around him and someone with as much depth as Sarah Palin’s reading list.

I like salad. I just ate a nice salad. Baked potato, some cream cheese, and chives. You know, I just, I like to eat a salad when you have something in mind.

If you can handle whiplash-like ramblings that jump from this to that to those over there, you will love this book. If you are a die-hard Crüe fanatic, you will ask for more salad. If you are on the fence about Crüe or Vince Neil, this will probably not win you over to his side, and if you are a fan of the English language, you will despise this book. So that about covers all of the bases for those of you who may or may not read.

Umlauts are funny.

(3 out of 5 horns)

With apologies to Exodus… and my wife.

-CM

P.S. — One signed copy of my latest book, Savage Son, to the first person who can tell me who spoke the infamous “Deranged” passages on Exodus’s Pleasures of the Flesh. Be honest, because I don’t know the answer. I’d like to know.

Corey is a best-selling author of several true crime books.

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