I think I read Catcher in the Rye for the first time in...crap, I have no idea when, it was a long time ago. Ever since, I've remembered Holden referring to his roommate's 'mossy teeth' in this quote. And every time I use this descriptor, no one knows what I'm talking about. So, if we're ever talking and I bring up mossy teeth, this is what I'm referring to:

He started cleaning his goddam fingernails with the end of a match. He was always cleaning his fingernails. It was funny, in a way. His teeth were always mossy-looking, and his ears were always dirty as hell, but he was always cleaning his fingernails. I guess he thought that made him a very neat guy. He took another look at my hat while he was cleaning them. "Up home we wear a hat like that to shoot deer in, for Chrissake," he said. "That's a deer shooting hat."
"Like hell it is." I took it off and looked at it. I sort of closed one eye, like I was taking aim at it. "This is a people shooting hat," I said. "I shoot people in this hat."

Also, I didn't know Chinese Democracy had a song called Catcher in the Rye, did you?

Who else to review Chinese Democracy, but Chuck Klosterman. Not sure how I missed this in November, but here it is and it's excellent. Makes me want to listen to the album.

Reviewing Chinese Democracy is not like reviewing music. It's more like reviewing a unicorn. Should I primarily be blown away that it exists at all? Am I supposed to compare it to conventional horses? To a rhinoceros? Does its pre-existing mythology impact its actual value, or must it be examined inside a cultural vacuum, as if this creature is no more (or less) special than the remainder of the animal kingdom?

That's just how it is.
or
When Obama wins Chinese Democracy will finally come out!

I can't imagine it's any good, but that's not really what this is about. This is about wondering where Izzy Stradlin is and whatever happened to Steven Adler? I found out Duff McKagan has an Official Fanclub and an unofficial one (incidentally called LAMF, 10 points in the comments if you know what it means and what its significance was. I also cared what Matt Sorum was up to, because of Use Your Illusion I and II, but not so much Gilby Clarke.

My two best Guns n' Roses stories...
Use Your Illusion I and II came out on either Rosh Hashan or Yom Kipper and my dad drove me down Route 9 to get them in between services at the Strawberries that's now the Legal Seafood. Remember how CDs used to come in long boxes?

Chanukah 1991. I was a pretty big Guns N' Roses fan in 7th Grade. Listening to Use Your Illusion II ALL the time. My brother got me the best present anyone has ever given me - tickets for us to see Gn'R. If someone gave me Gn'R tickets now, well, that'd be nice, but it wouldn't be the best present ever. It was a perfect combination of the right gift at the right time. Imagine the biggest thing in your life and someone gives you a gift that enhances that, that was these tickets in 1991. He's lucky that Chanukah came early that year (December 2nd) otherwise he would have had to just give me tickets. The show was that Friday, December 6, 1991 at the Worcester Centrum with Soundgarden opening up. I remember buzzing the whole week. I remember Soundgarden playing louder than anything I'd ever heard. I remember a LONG time in between Soundgarden and Guns n' Roses during which time the camera men scanned the crowd, focusing on women, who would then be jeered by the crowd into lifting their shirts. Then Axl finally finished some temper tantrum or other and they start playing my head exploded. I remember them playing Wild Horses, which I had heard on another bootleg, and Duff (who was my favorite anyway) signing lead on a Misfits cover and swearing a TON.

Woo. Good times. Thanks for letting me share.