Putting the “Axl” in Axhole

I am so over defending Axl Rose.

He officially ended speculation this week about whether he’d bother to make it to the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame induction ceremony when he released a statement declining the honor. He followed that with a list of complaints about his former bandmates—all of whom he screwed out of financial participation in the catalog of music they created together—and how they are all out to get him.

And not just his feckless ex-band members, either. Even the Hall itself, in proposing to honor him, is clearly in on the whole ugly travesty.

He then went on to warn them not to honor him in absentia, or give his trophy to anyone else to deliver to him.

I don’t think he has anything to worry about on that count.

The text of his statement reads like a break-up email from a petulant teenager, which I guess makes sense. Back in the ’90s, his act was the emotionally unstable man-child… well, back then I thought it was an act, anyhow. Developments in the decades since then tend to suggest, as usual, I may have been too generous with my idols.

Axl Rose is an exemplar of the “what’s sexy at 25 is just crazy and sad at 50” rule.

Have you ever listened to “Chinese Democracy,” the years-in-the-making follow-up to 1992’s twin “Use Your Illusion” behemoths? Man, it’s awful. It’s I-don’t-know-how-many-minutes of densely packed sonic sludge. I’m listening to it again as I write, to see if it has perhaps improved with age, but no, it’s just irritating. I keep forgetting why I’m listening to it and almost changing it. It’s like 175 song ideas distributed randomly between the album’s 14 plodding, schizophrenic tracks.

The absence of Izzy Stradlin’s songwriting and Slash’s feral, lanky guitar prowess is acutely felt. With nobody around to challenge Rose in the studio, he’s allowed to do things like take almost fifteen years to produce this unlistenable mess.

It also underscores the ex-Gunners’ contributions to the band’s success, and the merit of their claim to the Hall’s honors, even in the absence of their volatile former frontman. The fact that they were able to achieve what they did back in their heyday in spite of Rose’s counter-productive antics makes their accomplishment even more impressive.

The Rock Hall ceremony was Rose’s best chance to pull his head out of his ass and begin to rehabilitate his image from a place of credibility and respect. Instead, like the sulky, self-destructive teen he still is emotionally, he set fire to the bridge he was standing on then took a whiz off the side while he waited for the authorities to show up and pay attention to him.

His would be sad behavior from the latest starry-eyed ingénue off the bus; for a guy about to receive a welcome letter from the AARP this year, it’s pathetic.