Dear Wigleaf (c/o Sunset Music Management),

So I was thirteen, and I took my lawn-mowing money and bought your first album, your best album, the one with the all-black cover, and I ran home from K-Mart and slapped it down on the turntable and cranked all nine tracks at Vol/Max, until my dad pounded on my bedroom door and yelled Turn That Shit Off, at which point I plugged in my headphones and pretended I was you, in that rainbow afro and kabuki make-up, lead singer of my own band, singular focus of sold-out-stadium-fulls. I pretended I was your drummer, Rocco, destined to drown in a shallow pond of my own vomit. I pretended I was just your nameless dumb-ass roadie, happily feasting on a steady diet of your groupie leftovers.

So what happened to you? KISS came along and stole your vibe, and you did what, nothing? You just quit fighting, and you got fat, and now I sit here at my kitchen table reading some human-interest garbage about you coming to town on the Retro Heroes Tour, opening for Foghat and Blue Oyster Cult (this Saturday, one night only, Lucky’s Backstage, seating capacity eighty-five). What do you expect me to say? That I’ll be there, all nostalgic and shit? Go to hell. You remind me of my own disintegration. You turn me into my dad.

Yours (once, ago, why?),

Joe





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Read JK's story, "Sleepless #3."

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