It’s tough to part ways with a partner at any stage of a relationship, even in the early days. But if you go through a breakup after ten years together, it can come with a new set of difficulties. First of all, “a breakup after having been together for around a decade is a substantial change,” Lauren Cook, MMFT, a clinician practicing emotionally-focused therapy, tells us. “Not only is it a loss of a romantic relationship, but a friendship, partnership, and general sense of comfortability.”
By the ten-year mark, you’re way past the honeymoon stage, which Cook says can last for up to two years, and well into the committed, companionship stage. You aren’t just dating anymore, but have truly become a solid part of each other’s lives — with a shared routine and shared goals for the future — making it more difficult to adjust to a new life.
There’s also the fact that the longer you’re in a relationship, the closer and more interconnected you become as partners, Dr. Carla Marie Manly, clinical psychologist, and relationship expert, tells us. “On an emotional level, one key factor is that couples who are together longer are more likely to have experienced significant life events together — whether it be job changes, moving, illnesses, family issues, etc.”
Going through these things together forms bonds that become key elements within your psyches and the relationship itself, Manly says. You don’t just know each other, you really know each other, so the idea of no longer having that connection can be incredibly painful and disorienting.
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To add to this, there’s all the growing you did as individuals, as well as a couple during this time. You’ve not only gone through a lot together but are entirely different people from who you were when you first met. “Even more so than five years, a decade is a transformative period of time,” Cook says. “Chances are, your life looks considerably different than it did 10 years ago and if you have a partner who has seen you through all of those seasons, it is a tremendous change.”
Maybe you grew up together, and went through a lot of firsts, like new jobs and big moves. Or maybe you helped each other overcome obstacles, in order to learn more about yourselves. While all of that is still true, and it still happened, it can be tough to look back on the time spent together. In many ways, when a breakup occurs, it might even feel like you’re losing all your memories, Manly says, and all that history.
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To untangle your lives at this point can also be tough logistically. “Often, your finances have become merged, you may have shared a living situation, and your other relationships with friends and family are intermingled even more so than in a shorter-term relationship,” Cook says. “Rewiring all of this takes time and processing.” It may be a while before you settle into a groove again, or figure out how to move through life without each other.
Of course, it’s always possible to amicably part ways and feels ready to move on, no matter how long you’ve been together. But many times, “recovering from a breakup of a long-term relationship can take quite a lot of time, particularly if the breakup was sudden,” Manly says. “If one or both partners are resistant to the breakup or shocked by a toxic issue (e.g., infidelity), the adjustment andhealing time may be significant.”
Whatever the case may be, if your relationship is ending after ten years, it’s possible to make it easier on yourself, usually by quite literally taking it easy. “Part of the recovery process includes adjusting to a new normal, which means knowing that things will not feel normal for quite some time,” Cook says. “The important thing is to engage in self-care strategies, including spending time with family and friends, picking up a hobby, and getting enough sleep, exercise, and proper nutrition.”
It may even help to chat with a therapist, as they can be “incredibly helpful in addressing underlying issues such as anger, sadness, and grief,” Manly says. You can also talk with friends and mentors about your emotions and progress, she says, and any sense of “stuckness” you may be feeling.
Breaking up after only a few years together can be extremely difficult, but make it to that ten-year mark and you may find that it’s even trickier to part ways, and find your footing again. Since the process will likely be different, be sure to take your time, talk about it, process your feelings, and you will eventually be able to adjust.
You’re not going to believe this, but I didn’t buy this album. I heard the song, Pink on MTV but wasn’t thrilled, and thought Fallin’ In Love (Is hard on the knees) was a good song, but overall this is not a good record. But America is still coming in droves. Literally still lining up to date my once beloved. I feel like we broke up years ago. I’ve heard this record in its entirety, and it’s just not worth it.
Woodbury, NJ – 2001
Divorced. New girlfriend. She’s crazy. I’m making more money than ever, but I’m miserable. I didn’t buy this record either.
Still working in finance. Bigger house. More money. More cars. More problems. Kicked my crazy girlfriend out. Child support is killing me. Love my daughter.
Not a bad blues record because all rock came from the blues. Saw the band on this tour and it was wonderful to see the boys alive and well. But it’s still a blues record. Nothing remarkable here. It’s about over for these guys creatively and artistically.
Philadelphia, PA – 2020
I was writing and editing my book, Angel with a Broken Wing that summer and decided to listen to every Aerosmith album in order while I was doing it. It was a fun ride that took a couple of days. I only listened to the classic Aero from the ’70s on occasion. But had never heard this album. Their final studio LP.
The song Lover Alot sounds like a classic Aerosmith song, but other than that the album is weak. Carrie Underwood cameo? Really guys? Anything by Joe Perry on this album is just trash.
So that’s it. My lovely lion has gone out like a lamb. It’s okay. Everybody hates the Star Wars prequels and we love Star Wars. It’s the same thing. We can’t all be the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, or Led Zeppelin. In the end, we’re all just a bunch of old guys who had a load of fun in our youth, and Aerosmith and others gave us a solid soundtrack to dance through life to. But we all grow up and you have to know when to retire your toys to the attic of your memories. But… you can go up there and listen to your records any time you want and relive all of those wonderful feelings again. You can’t go back, but you can always wrap yourself up in those songs like a warm familiar blanket and smile.
Thanks for the ride guys! I will always love you!
Okay, one last bit here. If my sister makes fun of Ozzy Osbourne, it’s not cool, because she doesn’t own every Black Sabbath record ever made. But I can because I love Sabbath! I can make fun of my idols because there’s so much love there. So, as I did on their first album cover let’s take a look at these grandpops now.
Brad Whitford looks like he just stepped out of a card game with Wyatt Earp. Joe Perry with his Bonnie Raitt two-tone hair looks like an old bone daddy biker. Joey Kramer looks like an activist at the NYC Gay Pride parade. Tom Hamilton looks like that twice-divorced, used to be hot, lady neighbor with the ’78 Camaro. Steven Tyler looks like the cool aunt who would buy you and your friends beer when you all came over to your friend’s house in the ’70s. Or, he just came from his audition for the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie.
LOVE YOU!
I long for these days…
Here are my favorite Aerosmith albums in order:
Rocks
Toys in the Attic
Aerosmith
Night in the Ruts
Rock In A Hard Place
Done With Mirrors
Get Your Wings
Draw The Line
Honorable mention: The Joe Perry Project – Let the Music Do the Talking
There you have it. I hope you’ve enjoyed this series as much as I have writing it. If you liked it, hit me up in the comments or email me about some other bands I could write about!
P.S. “If you’re ever feeling sad and beaten down by the world and life, please do this: Go home, put on your favorite record and crank it up loud. Lean into the music and feel the joy that it’s always brought you. Just know that all the darkness in the world can NEVER take a single note of that away from you.”
This Oct. 6, 2019 photo shows actress Jane Seymour posing at The Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles to promote her role in “The Kominsky Method.” (Photo by Rebecca Cabage/Invision/AP)
Jane Seymour was in her mid-60s when her husband of 20 years decided it was over. The actress was floored.
“I had a long marriage and never thought it was going to end,” the 68-year-old said recently while promoting the second season of Netflix’s “The Kominsky Method,” co-starring Michael Douglas and Alan Arkin.
“I’m going, ‘I what? I date? What? Are you crazy? How does this work?’” Seymour said. “And then my kids would say, ‘Mom, there’s this thing called Tinder.’ And I’m like, ‘No, that’s not going to happen.’”
But similar to her character in “The Kominsky Method” who runs into an old flame, fate intervened, and Seymour stumbled upon a new romance. She has been with boyfriend and British film director David Green since 2014, about a year after her divorce from filmmaker James Keach, who directed “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,” Seymour’s iconic role.
“Accidentally I ran into somebody I knew 38 years earlier who had been in a long marriage and his marriage ended,” she said. “It wasn’t his choice and my marriage ended, it wasn’t my choice. And we randomly met accidentally 38 years later and realized we were free, and we’ve been together ever since. So I do not have to date.”
Her experience drew Seymour to “The Kominsky Method,” in which she plays Madelyn, who reconnects with Arkin’s character (Norman) at a funeral following the deaths of their spouses.
“I do get this whole thing of having a relationship with someone that’s contemporary, you know?” Seymour said. “We’re both dealing with older children, exes, and our future … how long will we live? How can we stay healthy? How can we tick off our bucket list? Do we still want to work or do we feel like we’ve only just started, which is the case with me and David?”
The Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning actress has four children and two stepchildren from her four marriages.
On top of acting and a busy family life, Seymour designs furniture and jewelry. Seymour recently had a one-woman art show in Washington, D.C., she writes books, runs a nonprofit, and produces movies.
“I do what I do because I love it,” she said. “I don’t think of it ever as a job … It’s called living. So I don’t see retiring. You don’t retire from life.”
In fact, Seymour said her own children have a tough time keeping up with her.
“Inside of me, I’m 20. OK? I hang out with my 23-year-old boys, and the other day I was with them running around Europe and they said, ‘Mom, can you slow down?’” she said. “I went, ‘No, this is the pace at which I go and you are a third of my age, so you better just catch up with Mama.’ I just love life.”
With age, she said, has come “more of a freedom in kind of accepting who I am and what I look like and how I feel now than I did when I was younger when I was trying maybe too hard to be something.”
Seymour first caught the eye of audiences when she played Bond girl Solitaire in 1973’s “Live and Let Die.” Asked what it’s like to be a sex symbol for nearly five decades and well into her 60s, Seymour scoffed.
“I’ve never thought of it that way,” she said, noting that she and her Bond character were both virgins. “So hardly a sex symbol. I didn’t know what sex was.”
Since then, Seymour has posed in “Playboy” three times, in 1973, 1987, and last year, when the magazine said the actress “is more of a sex symbol now than when she played a Bond girl.”
To Seymour, sexy means being comfortable in your own skin at every age. That’s why she hasn’t had plastic surgery, the actress said.
“I made a choice a long time ago not to do all the things that other people do because I’m not trying to look like me when I’m 20 or 30. It’s kind of pointless,” she said. “So, I just thought, let’s put on a gray wig and have some wrinkles and actually play characters.”
Seymour said she’s one of the lucky actresses who’ve landed great roles after 40.
“Hollywood’s been pretty good to me, actually,” she said. “Back in the day, they used to say if you’re a woman and you’re 40, you’re done. Well, when I was 40, I got ‘Dr. Quinn.’ So that’s when I started. And to be honest, right now I feel like this is my moment because there are all these amazing characters that I can now play without having to worry about whether I look like a leading lady.
Her eyes glimmered: “And I can still play it like a leading lady if I put my hair and makeup together.”
When you’re in school and there’s a threat of a snowstorm, it’s a joyous occasion. Nowadays, they’ll close the school for some flurries and a little bit of ice. But back in the 60s and 70s, you needed at least 6 inches for them to close the schools.
I’d be home watching TV the night before and I would head downstairs every hour or so to look out the front porch windows. I’d look up at the street lights to see if any flurries were starting to fall. If they had begun then there was a good chance the snow was on, but more times than not, it didn’t. We’d go to bed and hope for the best.
The next morning I’d wake up and look out my bedroom window. I couldn’t see much because I slept in the middle room of our house. All I could see was the house next door. So, I’d flip on the radio just like I did every morning to listen to music to start my day.
Listening to music on the radio is where we got most of our music back then. Two stations. WMMR and WYSP. It was all rock and it’s where I found about whatever was popular at the time. I remember hearing the song, Roxanne by a new band called The Police back in 1978. We Will Rock You, and We Are The Champions by Queen were also a pair of firsts on the radio one morning.
But today I would flip the switch on my clock radio to AM from FM to get the local news. KYW News Radio 1060 was the go-to station for all local and national news. Normally on a snow day, they would list all of the schools and state-run buildings that were closed that day. The announcer would read through a list of dozens and dozens of school numbers to say which ones would be closing due to the inclement weather.
But the one thing we wanted to hear was this statement: “All public and parochial schools are closed.”
When you heard those words, you went from a sleepyhead kid who didn’t want to go to school, to a completely energized youngster with sudden boundless energy and excitement.
We all usually played outside as kids, but when it snowed, it was as if our neighborhood was briefly transformed into a day with endless possibilities and fun.
I’d call my friends and we’d make our plans for the day. The schools were closed to keep children safe and off the streets during inclement weather. But we did the exact opposite.
I’d get dressed and come downstairs to have breakfast with my sisters. Captain Crunch cereal, bacon, toast, and a small glass of orange juice to start the day, all courtesy of mom.
After breakfast, it was time to suit up for the day ahead. Heavy coat, hat, boots, and gloves.
Within an hour I’d meet up with my friend Michael and we’d head down to Rising Sun Avenue. Trudging through the snow with our snow shovels. We’d inquire inside a couple of small businesses and ask to shovel their sidewalks. It was an easy gig because there were no steps or driveways to shovel. Quick and efficient, we’d make between $5 and $10 each. Then we’d stop at the little corner store on the corner of Rising Sun and Gilliam Streets, called Kushners. We’d buy some cigarettes and candy. Cigs back then were $0.60 a pack. $0.51 at Rite Aid! Super cheap!
Once we were finished shoveling a couple of walks we’d head back home and drop off the shovels with no thought of doing our own steps or driveways. I’d go into the garage and grab my sled.
I had recently gotten it for Christmas and it was a beautiful Flexible Flyer. An elegant vehicle you could steer that was sturdy and swift. To add to its ability to dash down a snow-covered hill, I’d take an old candle and rub it along the blades of the sled. This made it even slicker and faster.
My little sisters would be out in the driveway, completely bundled up and they would ride their little sleds up and down the driveway. But the older kids knew of a place where the real fun lived on a snowy day.
My friends and I would walk south on Hasbrook Avenue to Levick Street. We’d walk west until we reached the crest of the hill that bordered Cheltenham. Across the bridge, over the railroad tracks, and around the cyclone fence that led into the Melrose golf course. It was obviously closed this time of year because the whole place was buried under a blanket of snow. I’d only seen it once before not covered in snow.
When we got there it was already full of kids and families from all over who also knew about our secret. The whole course was somehow built on an enormous series of hills. Easily a quarter mile to the bottom down to Tookany Creek. I don’t know about other parts of the country, but I’ve never seen a better place to go sledding in my life. The hills were enormous and steep!
The cool thing was, you saw everybody who knew about this place from around your neighborhood. There were no bullies, no victims, no school rivalries. Just kids all playing together with one goal in mind. Have the best day ever in this winter wonderland made just for us.
Folks were sledding down the slopes on everything imaginable. Mostly standard sleds, but there were some people going down the hills six-strong, on toboggans. The crazy brave on their plastic or metal disks, flying over the moguls sometimes backward!
I even saw some kids all piling onto an old car hood flying down the hill to certain disaster. It was insane!
Think of the exercise we were getting back then as kids. Sledding down huge hills and then dragging our sleds back up the steep hills to do it again and again. All-day long!
We’d immediately get down to the business of having a great snow day. There were several different hills of varying sizes, so there was something for everyone there. Technically it was private property but in all the years we went there, we never had any problems. We’d start off with some of the smaller, less busy hills and then move over to the one main area where most kids were playing. It was an amazing hill. It began with a steep decline so you’d build up speed rather quickly. Midway through the folks who had to build the course had cut a road horizontally through it for the golf carts to navigate along. So this road created the first jump, so to speak.
So when you hit it at high speed, you’d literally become airborne for a few seconds. You had to hold on tight.
Then the descent became even steeper and you flew down the final few lengths. Near the bottom was a couple of inverted moguls in your path. So, basically, you could go around them or be bold and run right through them. The spot was so famous it became known as The Nutcracker. Because if you hit those dips at high speed you dipped into the first one and then became airborne only to land in the second one with a bang. Hence the name coined by the boys in the area.
It was a large course so we were always looking for new hills to sled down. On one trip we happened upon a spot south where you could sled along the golf cart road they had cut through the hill. It zig-zagged down the hill diagonally and then continued on a sharp curve just as it came to a flat wooden bridge for the golf carts to cross over a small brook. The brook led down into Tookany Creek that ran north and south a quarter of a mile west of where we were.
The hill hadn’t been done before because there weren’t any footprints or sled tracks in the area. So we would be first that day. Me being the cautious one was apprehensive about traversing unknown and potentially dangerous obstacles. But fortune favors the bold and my fearless friend Michael on his tiny, lightning-fast sled said he’d go first. God bless him!
It was a small sled, and he had to lie on his belly, bending his knees, curl his legs back towards him. Not only did he have the guts to go first, but he also got a running start. Holding his tiny sled in his hands he dashed towards the edge of the slope. He threw it down, leaped upon it, and began his rapid descent down this uncharted hill.
We all cheered him on as he flew down the hill, zigging and zagging along in perfect formation. We watched in amazement as he perfectly navigated what seemed like a very tricky hill. He got smaller and smaller as his distance increased from the hopeful onlookers.
His ride was brilliant and we all couldn’t wait to take our turn.
That is until Michael reached the flat wooden bridge. You see, the thing about bridges is they are free-standing structures. The rain, snow, and wind whistle around them and they are not only colder in temperature than the surface of the land, they usually freeze.
So, Mike hits the bridge, and instead of going across it, the moment he exits the curve and his tiny sled hits the frozen surface, he flew right off the side of the bridge and disappeared.
It was a terrifying moment as we all ran down the hill to see what had happened to our brave companion. When we finally reached the bridge, there was Michael climbing up the other side of the embankment. He was a little banged up but no worse for wear. He had flown off the side of the icy bridge, didn’t hit the water, but was going so fast, crashed into the opposite side of the embankment. A brilliant “Evel Knievel” moment. We all helped pull him back up to safety.
The world needs kids like Michael. Those in the tribe who are willing to risk life and limb and leap forward to explore new ground. But the world also needs people like me, to stay behind in case something happens to him. I can live another day, to spin the tale of the great Michael around the fire to the surviving tribal members.
We’d stay on those hills and sled most of the day. Sometimes staying out in the cold for more than six hours. You started to know when it was time to go home. Your whole body hurt from being battered on the slopes, and your speech became slurred because your face was so cold. (Either that or we were in the early stages of hyperthermia!)
We’d all trudge home and go to our respective houses to dry out and rest. I’d lie on the floor and put my stocking feet against the radiator in the living room. My feet actually started to itch from the blood and nerves returning to my frigid limbs.
But it was all worth it. A day off from school to spend with my friends going on a snowy adventure. Satisfied, I’d quietly reflect on the day and sip a mug of hot cocoa provided by my mom.
I miss Michael. He was a good friend.
Thank you for reading my blog. Please read, like, comment, and most of all follow Phicklephilly. I publish every day.
Are you attracted to a girl but don’t know how to get her interested in you? Use these 10 ways on how to make a girl want you sexually to do just that.
Here’s a piece sent to me by one of my readers. It seems interesting and worth running on the blog today. You can always learn something new.
Thanks, Blane!
Girls may get drawn to a guy for his personality.
But even if you’re a guy with a great personality, it’s easy to end up becoming just a friend instead of a lover. If you want to make a girl fall in love with you, read these.
But if you want to make a girl want you and desire you sexually, read on.
Girls love great guys who are a lot of fun to be with. But then, there are a lot of great guys all around. And when you’re attracted to a girl who is drop-dead gorgeous and can get the attention of any guy she wants, it’s not easy to make her desire you sexually.
But there are ways, really easy ways.
Most guys are too afraid to make a move on a girl who’s very good-looking because they’re afraid to get spurned.
Don’t be one of those guys.
But when you’re trying to impress a girl you know, don’t make it obvious that you like her too soon either. If she doesn’t like you yet, she may end up distancing herself from you to avoid any awkward moments.
Instead, behave like a friend.
10 steps to making a girl want you
If you find yourself getting really attracted to a friend who’s getting a lot of attention already, you can definitely make her desire you and want you. All you need to do is play it safe and slow by using these steps to turn her on and make her want you.
#1 Be a good friend. Sometimes, behaving like a friend can be the easiest way to a girl’s heart. But there’s a very thin line between being a friend that she’s attracted to and being a friend she considers a brother.
If you want her to want you, be a good friend who’s there for her, but don’t always be there for her. Speak to her when she’s around, but make sure she sees you flirting with other girls now and then too. Don’t be the friend who’s going to give a shoulder to lean on. Instead, be the friend who talks about current events and fun things.
She’s got to love your company to start with, but she should never feel like you’re an indispensable friend. If you go wrong here, you may just end up getting into her friend zone and lose all hope of sleeping with her.
#2 Flirt with her. Try to spend time with her when she’s alone. If her other friends are with her, you can avoid her or just wave a hello and move on after a quick chat. The more you hang out with her as just a friend, the lesser the chances of you ever making her desire you.
Spend time with her only when she’s all by herself. That’ll give you enough time to date talk to her and discreetly flirt with her. Flirt with her, make her feel warm and awkwardly nice while hanging out with you. And treat her just like you would treat your girlfriend, but don’t ever call her your girlfriend though.
#3 Don’t be possessive. You may like her a lot and hate all the other guys that flirt with her. But you know what, you don’t own her. And she’s not your girlfriend. So never behave possessively or prevent her from meeting or talking to other guys. You’ll end up losing her because you’ll become a creepy guy.
Instead, have your own life, but give her your time when you bump into her or have some alone time together. Don’t be stuck at her hip. She’ll never fall for you and you’ll end up becoming her doormat.
#4 Be her secret life. As I said earlier, spend a lot of time with her and flirt with her, but do that only when she’s by herself. Create a secret relationship that no one knows about other than the both of you. By doing this, you’ll make the relationship more exciting and thrilling. Become a part of her life, text her often at night when you know she’s alone, talk about personal issues, and indulge in everything a couple would do. But keep the relationship a secret.
#5 Make her miss you. Now, this is tricky but also a lot of fun. Once both of you are closer and like spending time with each other, call her every night for a week or so. And then, don’t call her one day. If she meets you or texts you the next day asking why you didn’t call, she obviously missed you and wanted to speak with you!
Flirt with her and charmingly ask her if she missed you because you didn’t call. Use different ways to make her miss your company and constantly create scenarios where you force her to realize that she actually likes you and misses you when you aren’t around.
#6 Confession time. Confessions are the best way to open a girl up. Of course, she won’t start confessing about her sexual escapades to you just yet. You need to warm her up to it. During one of your late-night calls, tell her that you bumped into one of your exes who was a horny wild cat.
The girl you like will obviously be curious and would want to know more about your ex. Use this excuse to go into the details of your sex life. Be patient and start funny, and get more descriptive and add explicit horny details as the conversation goes on. If you play this game carefully, speak softly and make sure you describe the events like an erotic story, she can’t help but visualize you naked. And chances are, she’ll also be wet down there just listening to you!
#7 Talk sex. If you’ve pulled off your sexual confession without a hitch and she liked what you had to say, she’s definitely turned on now. Ask her about a horny experience from her past. She may hesitate at first, but pester her just a bit. If she’s horny, she definitely wouldn’t mind getting into details. And as she tells her stories, gasp and talk like you’re imagining the whole thing. It’d be a huge turn-on for both of you.
#8 Get her to talk dirty with you. You may wonder if all these steps are even possible, but you won’t believe how easy it is to get a girl talking dirty in a nighttime conversation until you’ve tried it. Trust me, it’s really easy, as long as you’ve warmed her up with your horny stories. Now that you’ve got her confessing all her dirty deeds to you, it’s time you get yourself into the picture.
Compliment her for being such a naughty girlfriend, and discreetly tell her how awesome it would have been if you were her boyfriend. Saying that will definitely spark a fire of lust because she’ll know exactly where you’re going with the conversation. Speak softly, don’t get overexcited, and don’t stop with the dirty questions.
#9 Have phone sex. If you’ve used the list of dirty questions while talking to her, chances are, both of you are already really horny. Now start creating imaginary situations to turn her on even more. Tell her something like “I wish I was there right now, there’s so much I would want to do…” And when she whispers back softly and asks you what you’d do, you’ve hit jackpot.
Describe what you’d do to her in detail, starting off from kissing her neck to taking her top off to whatever else you have in mind. Avoid talking about kissing her on the lips straight away though, it’s too personal and straightforward for a few girls. And before you know it, both of you would be talking dirty and having phone sex with each other!
#10 Ask her out. Well, so now you’ve made her want you and crave for you sexually. But what’s next? You just had phone sex with her. You’re on a high, but don’t end it right there. Ask her if she’d like to meet you, or go out on a date with you the next day. She’d be too horny to resist.
And when both of you meet up on a date, it’ll probably end with both of you having sex or falling in passionate love. Either way, you’ve got the girl of your dreams wanting you and craving for you sexually. Could you ask for anything more?
If you want to know how to make a girl want you and think of you sexually, use these 10 steps I’ve mentioned. If you play it calmly and safely, you could be in bed with the girl of your fantasies in a couple of weeks!
It is said that the golden age of deranged rock stars is over. Gone are the TV-throwing, groupie-loving, drug-abusing stars that our parents idolized and subsequently forsook when parenthood came. In many ways, the legendary anecdotes about these rock stars’ antics were inseparable from the music and won them legions of adoring fans. Most of today’s stars tiptoe around controversy and focus more on informing their social media followers about the banal events of their daily lives. The worst crimes modern musicians are guilty of are tempestuous love lives. But is the near-extinction of crazy rock stars to be lamented?
You can make your own mind up as you peruse this list of history’s 20 craziest rock stars. Here, we will look at the lives and crimes of some of the 20th century’s biggest stars. But though this list contains some of the usual suspects – John Bonham, Keith Moon, Ozzy Osbourne – it is truly a connoisseur’s collection, and doubtless, you will not have heard of a few musicians whose obscurity should not detract from the decadence and eccentricity of their behavior. So dig out your dad’s dusty old vinyl, pour yourself a stiff Jack Daniels and coke, and enjoy!
Lemmy, with his signature Rickenbacker bass, performing in France, 2011. The Verge
1. Lemmy was kicked out of his first band for his excessive drug use but didn’t let up
Lemmy Kilmister rose to fame as the bassist for the acid-drenched space rock band, Hawkwind, but was kicked out for taking too many drugs. Lemmy’s iconic band, Motörhead, was named after the nickname Hawkwind gave him for his overindulgence in amphetamine and cocaine. A hard drinker and drug user for most of his life, as long ago as 1980 Lemmy was refused a blood transfusion on the grounds that ‘I had become so toxic, mostly from all the speed and alcohol, that fresh blood would have killed me’. He also bedded over 1000 women over his miraculously long life.
Lemmy was known as much for his appetite for sex, drugs, and alcohol as for Motörhead, but his relentless daily diet of 40-Marlboro-Red and a bottle of Jack Daniels actually helped to hone his distinctive, gravelly singing voice. He did make one concession to old age, however. Diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in 2011, he swapped Jack Daniels and coke for vodka and orange. Despite his great fame, Lemmy remained a down-to-earth man, unlike some of the other prima donnas on this list. His death on Christmas Eve 2015 forever ruined the holiday season for millions around the world.
Jerry Lee Lewis’s mugshot from his arrest at Graceland, Memphis, November 1976. Pinterest
2. Jerry Lee Lewis was arrested at Graceland with a loaded gun
It is a miracle that ‘The Killer’ is still knocking around at the age of 82. His dynamic stage presence, and general mistreatment of the piano, were echoed by a tempestuous private life enjoyed in fifth gear. Jerry developed an addiction to prescription pills in the early sixties, and at its peak would quite literally take pills by the fistful. He washed these down with gallons of whiskey, and this diet helped to fuel his violent and arresting stage show. Simultaneously, he developed a worrying love of firearms, and took pistols and machine guns both on tour and on stage!
Drugs, alcohol, and guns don’t mix, and The Killer almost lived up to his nickname when he accidentally shot his own bassist with a .357 Magnum. Some still believe that he murdered his fifth wife in 1983, which he strongly denies. In 1976, he was also arrested outside Elvis’s mansion, Graceland, outrageously drunk on champagne and wielding a firearm. He still maintains that Elvis had requested his presence. Most controversially, he almost hijacked his own career when he married his 13-year-old cousin in the late 1950s. As of 2018, The Killer has been married 7 times and still performs live.
John Bonham performing at Madison Square Garden, New York, May 1977. Pinterest
3. John Bonham rode a motorcycle through a hotel lobby… twice
John Bonham’s legendary status as a hell-raiser is such that including him on this list seems almost lazy. However, it would be remiss to exclude the lynchpin of Led Zeppelin, the band that invented the hotel-trashing tradition and defiled a groupie with a red snapper (yes, the fish). A talented and powerful drummer, Bonham’s antics included riding a motorcycle through a hotel lobby twice, numerous drink-fueled assaults, and sleeping with countless fans. Even his decadent bandmates struggled to deal with an inebriated Bonham. Oddly, he also purchased a 100-acre farm in England, which bred award-winning Herefordshire Cattle. Go figure.
Where Led Zeppelin’s guitarist, Jimmy Page, dabbled in strange, esoteric practices (including buying the Satanist Aleister Crowley’s old house by Loch Ness), Bonham’s excesses were more straightforward rock’n’roll debauchery. Unfortunately, his capacity for alcohol finally failed him in 1980 when, at the age of 32, he died after one mammoth drinking session too many. The coroner’s report revealed that Bonham had sunk the equivalent of 40 shots of vodka over a day, and choked on his own vomit. Bonham’s importance to Led Zeppelin was such that they disbanded immediately after his death, only reforming for a one-off show in 2007.
Keith Moon (left) performing with The Who at the Isle of Wight Festival, 1969. Pinterest
4. Keith Moon: they didn’t call him ‘Moon the Loon’ for nothing!
Drummers are proverbially crazy, and Bonham’s close friend, Keith Moon of The Who, certainly lived up to the reputation. Nicknamed ‘Moon the Loon’, Moon’s energetic style was crucial to the band’s legendary sound. He loved explosives, and used them not only in his own performances but would hide M-80s in friends’ drum kits. As well as destroying his own equipment on stage, he once responded to being booed off stage in Saskatchewan by chopping up all the furniture in his hotel room with an axe he brought with him: ‘just trying to keep myself out of trouble, mate’, he explained.
Beyond wanton vandalism, Moon’s main indulgence was pills. Pills fuelled both Moon’s onstage performances and personal life, which included such memorable moments as knocking his own front teeth out whilst naked at his 21st birthday party in Flint, Michigan. The Who were politely asked never to return to Flint. Alcohol was another indulgence, and through the 1970s Moon quaffed two bottles of champagne and two bottles of brandy on quiet days around the house. His love of groupies was also to cost him dearly when he returned from a US tour and gave his long-suffering wife the clap.
Moon’s love of practical jokes was legendary. He had a public broadcast system installed on his Rolls Royce and would drive around London’s suburbs making convincing and terrifying public service announcements. Bands touring with The Who could expect to encounter exploding toilets, have their equipment tampered with, and Moon filling their beds with realistic toy spiders. Unfortunately, the drink, drugs, and reckless regard for personal safety caught up with the self-proclaimed ‘world’s greatest Keith Moon-type drummer’ in 1978. On 7th September, Moon died after overdosing on pills ironically prescribed to help him sober up. Like Bonham, he was just 32.
Jim Morrison, Copenhagen, 1968. Pinterest
5. Jim Morrison was arrested multiple times for indecency
Jim Morrison’s erotic stage presence, controversial lyrics, and beguiling persona made The Doors one of the biggest bands in the world. Unfortunately, his long hair, promiscuity, and substance abuse often brought him into conflict with the conservative establishment. In 1967, Morrison was maced by a New Haven police officer after being found with a girl before a performance, and his tirade against the force in that evening’s show saw him arrested for public obscenity. In 1969, he was again arrested for encouraging his audience to strip naked and allegedly exposing himself in Miami (he was posthumously pardoned in 2010).
Like many in the sixties, Morrison experimented with drugs, but like many of his musical peers, he also wildly overindulged. Morrison alternated between heavy drinking and dropping LSD, which he believed helped his creative powers, and also indulged in speed. Unfortunately, far from helping him, these habits actually curtailed his career. According to a psychopathology journal article, ‘Jim Morrison is an exemplary case showing that heavy drinking and the abuse of LSD, mescaline, and amphetamines damages the capacity to realize creative motivation’. Reclusive, overweight, and bearded, the former ‘Lizard King’ died in Paris at the age of 27.
6. Captain Beefheart ran his band like the Manson Family
Captain Beefheart was the even cooler, less-famous, drug-taking version of his childhood friend, Frank Zappa. Although he never achieved mainstream success, Beefheart’s magnum opus, Trout Mask Replica, is a staple of ‘greatest albums ever’ lists. To prepare for the challenging and boundary-pushing release, Beefheart ran his band like a religious cult, exercising terrifying levels of control over their emotions and creative input, and feeding them a cup of soybeans a day for eight months of solid rehearsing. Although Beefheart maintained that he did not take drugs, listening to Trout Mask Replica and interviews with his surviving bandmates suggests otherwise.
Drummer John French recalled how he was ‘screamed at, beaten up, drugged, ridiculed, humiliated, arrested, starved, stolen from, and thrown down a half-flight of stairs’ by Beefheart. The Captain also drank heavily, which may lie behind some of his unusual methods of band management. His eccentricity will never be equaled: he had a four-octave range, and thousands of record company executives thirsting to sign him, but Beefheart marched to the beat of his own drum, and instead released baffling songs like ‘Neon Meate Dream of an Octafish’. After releasing Ice Cream for Crow in 1982, Beefheart became a reclusive painter.
Don’t do drugs, kids… Keith Richards, New York, 2015. Billboard
7. Keith Richards snorted his dead father’s ashes
Over his miraculously long life, Keith Richards has been busted for drug possession on numerous occasions, and in 1977 police raided his London home found heroin, marijuana, Mandrax tablets, a rifle, a handgun, and 110 rounds of ammunition. He was cleared of all 25 charges against him, thanks to a wonderful lawyer. In 1966, he was tripping so hard on acid during a party at his Sussex mansion that he thought the police raiding his house were ‘blue dwarves’.
On the Stones’ 1975 US tour, Richards snorted cocaine after every song, and around the same time he survived smoking cannabis laced with strychnine. In 2002, aged 59, he snorted his dead dad’s ashes: ‘he was cremated, and I couldn’t resist, he explained. In the late 1980s, he stayed awake for nine days straight, then fell asleep standing up. Only recently has Richards showed any sign of slowing down. Aged 74, he is finally sober because ‘drugs are so bland these days… anyway, I’ve done ’em all. But fear not: ‘I’m not saying I’m definitely off all of this stuff.
Ozzy Osbourne (right) with Black Sabbath, England, 1970. Wikimedia Commons
8. Ozzy Osbourne bit the heads off doves and a bat
Where to start with Ozzy Osbourne? Whole books deal with the man’s excesses since he first shuffled onto the stage with Black Sabbath in 1968. One year, he took acid every day, ‘to see what would happen. Nikki Sixx of Mötley Crüe (see below) once saw him snort an entire line of ants by a swimming pool. Whilst in Black Sabbath, he developed such a penchant for cocaine that he and his bandmates had the stuff flown in by private plane. Eventually, even the easy-going, stoned hippies in Sabbath got sick of Ozzy’s drug habit and sacked him in 1978.
Unsurprisingly, Ozzy can’t remember many of the following incidents. Promoting his debut solo album, Blizzard of Ozz, an inebriated Ozzy bit the heads off two live doves in a publicity stunt gone wrong. He topped this by biting the head off a live bat on stage, albeit mistaking it for a toy. Most notoriously, his long-suffering wife, Sharon, took to hiding his clothes to stop him sneaking out and partying every night on tour in 1982. Undaunted, Ozzy simply donned her evening gown, got unbelievably wasted, and was arrested at 9 am the next morning whilst urinating on the Alamo Cenotaph.
Again promoting Blizzard of Ozz in 1980, Ozzy was having dinner with CBS Records executives in Germany when he grew bored. Climbing on the table, Ozzy began a sultry striptease, goose-stepped naked across the table, urinated in the wine carafe, kissed the chief executive on the lips, and then dangled his testicles in the receptacle for good measure. Despite Black Sabbath’s (unwanted) association with Satanism, Ozzy is actually a committed Christian, but this didn’t stop him accidentally drugging a vicar who ate a slice of cake laced with Afghan hashish. The confused vicar woke up three days later.
Steven Tyler, London, 1976. Morrison Hotel Gallery
9. Steven Tyler spent $6 million on drugs
Steven Tyler and bandmate Joe Perry were known as the ‘Toxic Twins’ during their drug-fueled 1970s heyday. One night their band, Aerosmith, was so high on cocaine and heroin that they managed only three songs before one member lost consciousness: details are inevitably hazy. Aerosmith even played the same song twice by accident in the same show several times. In his autobiography, Tyler estimates that he has spent over $6 million on drugs: ‘I snorted my plane, I snorted my house’, he poetically muses. Incredibly, Perry once ran up $80,000 of room service partying with the band – in 1979.
Perry has also confirmed rumors that the band employed a ‘cocaine roadie’ to keep them supplied during shows. Things got so bad that, when they reformed in the 1980s, Aerosmith couldn’t remember their own songs, and Tyler even suggested that they cover some hits he liked. These were, in fact, Aerosmith songs. Tyler and Aerosmith also indulged heavily in sex, and the ‘Toxic Twins’ both ended up with crabs from an ill-advised group sex session. But does Tyler regret his hell-raising days? ‘If it wasn’t for Peruvian marching powder, we wouldn’t have been able to do what we did’.
10. Al Jourgensen was addicted to heroin for 20 years
Al Jourgensen is the frontman of pioneering industrial metal band, Ministry. Ministry emerged just as Aerosmith was cleaning up their act, and more than made up for the global reduction in drug-addicted musicians. When Warner Brothers gave the band $750, 000 to make the album Psalm 69, Jourgensen said it disappeared ‘up our arms and … up our noses’. Such heavy drug use has produced some legendary anecdotes, including the time Jourgensen blew up Ministry’s tour bus with them on it with a firework. He also beat up R Kelly for ‘freaking out’ his daughter and urinating on his piano.
Unfortunately, not all of Jourgensen’s stories about drug addiction are so entertaining. He contracted Hepatitis C from using a contaminated needle, narrowly survived overdoses on several occasions, and had a gangrenous toe amputated after a needle wound became infected. He was once only a stone’s throw from losing an arm to a spider bite suffered whilst napping on a dealer’s couch. After 20 years of heroin addiction, Jourgensen finally said goodbye to drugs forever when an ulcer in his gastrointestinal tract exploded and he lost 65% of his blood. Jourgensen now contents himself with political protest and extensive body art.
Nikki Sixx, California, 1983. Pinterest
11. Nikki Sixx died and came back to life… then overdosed again
Nikki Sixx was the bassist and main songwriter for Mötley Crüe, one of the biggest rock bands of the 1980s. In the early days on Sunset Strip, Mötley Crüe became one of the most dangerous groups to see live, with concerts often ending in fights, and the parties at the band’s shared house rarely stopped until the early hours. Money and fame simply meant more drugs, strippers, and alcohol – and Sixx developed a heroin addiction that nearly killed him. In fact, it did, clinically, for two minutes. After a shot of adrenalin directly to the heart, Sixx immediately overdosed again.
Not unlike the dynamic (drugged up) duo from Aerosmith, Sixx had a partner in crime, Tommy Lee. The pair, known as the ‘Terror Twins’, would egg one another on to push themselves to wilder and wilder extremes, and on one tour of Europe, they would smash bottles over each other’s heads and swallow light bulbs whole for fun. Heroin addiction and abuse every other drug under the sun also brought many crippling low points: ‘there is something about spending Christmas alone, naked, sitting by a Christmas tree gripping a shotgun, that lets you know your life is spinning dangerously out of control’, he mused.
Vince Neil (left), Donington, UK, 1984. Kiwi
12. Vince Neil killed his friend while driving while drunk – to go get more booze
With the wildly infamous antics of Nikki Sixx and Tommy Lee, Mötley Crüe frontman Vince Neil is often forgotten. Neil’s main rock star passions were drugs, alcohol, and sex. And lots of it. Neil recalls one particular highlight in his life: ‘looking down on it from the helicopter, with a bottle of Jack in my left hand, a bag of pills in my right hand, and a blond head bobbing up and down in my lap, I felt like the king of the world’. Neil’s philandering ways saw him sleep with the most beautiful and iconic women of the 1980s.
In 1984, Mötley Crüe hosted yet another party, when the alcohol ran out. Both terribly intoxicated, Neil and Razzle, the drummer of Finnish glam metal band Hanoi Rocks, went to replenish supplies at a liquor store. Perhaps inevitably, Neil’s Pantera collided with an oncoming car, killing Razzle and leaving the occupants of the other vehicle with severe brain damage. A distraught Neil was given 30 days in jail, 5 years’ probation, 200 hours of community service, and ordered to pay a $2.6 million compensation bill. The episode still haunts Neil, and he believes that his sentence should have been harsher.
Mötley Crüe fans will be shocked that we’ve got this far without telling the infamous ‘egg burrito’ story. Well, here it is. In their heyday, Mötley Crüe struggled to balance having sex with fans and maintaining relationships with long-term girlfriends. Their solution? Continuing their infidelity, and hiding the olfactory evidence of having sex with dozens of women a week by rubbing their intimate parts with egg burritos, in order to mask the scent. ‘We would tell our girlfriends, “Oh, we dropped the burritos in our laps”. The girlfriends thought we were a bunch of clumsy slobs’, chuckles Neil. Yuck.
Marilyn Manson gets friendly with a security guard, an act for which he was later arrested and sued, Detroit, 2001. cities
13. Marilyn Manson smoked drugs laced with human remains
Marilyn Manson was the undisputed public enemy number one throughout the 1990s. Aligning himself with Charles Manson, becoming an ordained minister of the Church of Satan, and naming an album Antichrist Superstar shocked millions of conservative Americans, who picketed his concerts and petitioned for a blanket ban on Manson’s albums. Early concerts saw a mixture of blasphemy and violence against himself, bandmates, and audience alike, and Manson often received fellatio on stage. Recording Antichrist Superstar in New Orleans, Manson and his band found old bones poking out of the ground in a graveyard near their studio… and smoked them.
Manson is a complicated figure, by equal parts an intelligent and articulate man yet also a drug addict who has made some questionable decisions and been arrested on numerous occasions (see above). An appearance on the Phil Donahue show in 1995 illustrates this. In full androgynous make-up and stage gear, Manson told an appalled, conservative audience some home truths: ‘I think parents should raise their kids better or someone like Marilyn Manson is going to’. In 1999, Manson was unjustly blamed for the Columbine Shooting. His intelligent and thought-provoking response, in Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine, is worth seeking out.
Dead (second left) with Mayhem, Norway, 1991. William Pinfold
14. ‘Dead’ of Mayhem used to inhale the scent of death from a crow in a bag
You probably haven’t heard of Per Yngve ‘Dead’ Ohlin, but you sure won’t forget him in a hurry. Dead was the frontman of the pioneering Norwegian black metal band, Mayhem, for three years between 1988 and 1991. Though he would have hated being labeled a rock star, Dead’s concert performances fit the bill. The band wore scary make-up like others before them, which they called ‘corpse paint’. Dead cut himself on stage, and prepared for performances by burying his clothes for days to smell of rot and inhaling the fumes of a dead crow he kept in a bin bag.
This bizarre ritual allowed Dead to perform shows ‘with the stench of death in his nostrils. In 1991, Dead lived up to his stage name and committed suicide by shooting himself in the head with a shotgun. His Monty Python-esque suicide note simply read: ‘Sorry about the mess’. Finding Dead’s body, his bandmates removed fragments of the skull to make necklaces, made lumps of gore into a broth that they ate, and took photographs of the carnage. One of these bloody images became the cover art for a bootleg live album, Dawn of the Black Hearts. It’s what Dead would have wanted.
A bloodied Iggy Pop, on stage with The Stooges, Los Angeles, 1974. FFW
15. Iggy Pop once defecated on stage and cut himself at every show
Iggy Pop today is a perennially shirtless, leathery, reptilian icon of a bygone age. But in his pomp, Iggy was one of the most dangerous and self-destructive performers in the world. Iggy’s on-stage antics – picking fights with the crowd, cutting and exposing himself – made his first band, The Stooges, irresistible to teenagers wishing to rebel. The band, and most of all Iggy, had serious drug problems to go with the legal issues arising from their live performances and disbanded several times. On one occasion in 1973, a bikini-clad Iggy defecated behind an amplifier then threw the excrement at the crowd.
All that cocaine, heroin, and pills made Iggy utterly fearless. He is widely credited with inventing the stage dive. In 1977, he responded to being heckled by bikers in Warren, Michigan, by performing a 45-minute version of Louie, Louie with improvised lyrics that insulted the leather-clad gang, then challenging them all to a fight, single-handed. He lost. If you want to get a sense of Iggy’s drug problem and wacky sense of humor, there are numerous bemusing interviews on YouTube. Now sober, Iggy had aged incredibly well and spends his days practicing Qigong. He still performs, and frequently records new music.
Axl Rose performs at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, London, 1992. GQ
16. Axl Rose incited numerous riots and spent $13 million and 15 years recording a dreadful album
Although he has done his fair share of drugs, and much of his strange behavior can be attributed to an alcohol problem, Axl is chiefly on this list for his diva-like personality. Axl frequently turns up late to Guns’n’Roses shows, to the fury of his long-suffering fans, for spurious reasons, including once because he was leisurely finishing a roast dinner. Over the years, Axl’s poor timekeeping has frequently kept fans waiting several hours, and even when he finally makes an appearance there is no guarantee that he will play more than a few songs. It depends on what mood he’s in.
Axl certainly likes doing things his own way. In the early 1990s, he killed a moth with a shotgun instead of a swatter like a normal person. He has been arrested numerous times after reacting badly to everything from having his baggage checked at airports and objecting to having his photo taken at concerts. In 1993, Guns’n’Roses set about recording Chinese Democracy. $13 million and 15 years (during which the other members of Guns’n’Roses were either fired or quit because of Axl’s erratic behavior) later, the prize turkey that is Chinese Democracy was finally released to a changed and underwhelmed world.
Ray (left) and Dave Davies, England, 1964. Pinterest
17. Dave Davies’s temper got The Kinks banned from America
Dave Davies found fame in his late teens as the lead guitarist of The Kinks, the English band who is sometimes credited with inventing heavy metal (on the song, ‘You Really Got Me’). Despite their great success, The Kinks were a wildly dysfunctional band, with Davies constantly fighting his older brother, Ray, the band’s lead singer. Where Ray responded to fame by settling down with his childhood sweetheart, Dave, who had been expelled from school at the age of 15 for being caught having underage sex, responded by racking up a significant drug habit and a litany of sexual conquests.
Dave was extremely volatile. On stage in 1965, he started a fight with the band’s drummer, Mick Avory, who responded by knocking the cocky guitarist out with a cymbal stand. Such common incidents, and brawling with staff from the Dick Clark show, got The Kinks banned from America for four years and prevented them from achieving global stardom. Ray was no shrinking violet, either, and once sprinted 6 miles across London to punch his agent. Dave and Ray still hate each other: whilst Dave recovered from a major stroke at Ray’s house in 2004, they argued so much that Dave left.
Courtney Love with Kurt Cobain and daughter Frances Bean, Los Angeles, 1993. Spin
18. Courtney Love existed on drugs and sugar
Courtney Love can lay claim to the title of ‘most controversial woman in rock’. From her troubled teenage years as a drug user and stripper, she rose to mega-stardom as Kurt Cobain’s wife and lead singer of the band Hole. Hole concerts were chaotic and peppered with inebriated rants, Love flashing the audience, and fighting. She first used heroin at Charlie Sheen’s house in the early 1990s, and her addiction was so bad that she continued to shoot up during her pregnancy. Owing to her erratic persona, and no small amount of jealousy, conspiracy theorists have accused her of murdering Cobain.
Love has been arrested numerous times. Long-haul flights, in particular, seem to bring out the worst in her. She was arrested for intimidating stewards in 1995 after refusing to take her feet off the window. In 2003, her violent confrontation with a stewardess grounded a plane until she was arrested. The same year, she was arrested outside her manager’s house after breaking windows and threatening to burn them down. Sadly, her life is still a battle against addiction. In a restraining order filed in 2009, her daughter alleged that Love existed on ‘Xanax, Adderall, Sonata and Abilify, sugar, and cigarettes.
Rick James at the 2004 BET Awards, shortly before his death, Los Angeles, 2004. Blogspot
19. Rick James spent $7,000 a week on cocaine and kidnapped two women
Rick James slapped his bass to funk stardom in the 1970s, but his love of music was in constant competition with his other great loves: drugs and sex. He developed early in both respects, losing his virginity at 9 and taking heroin and marijuana in his mid-teens. These two passions landed him in legal difficulties, which for a long time prevented him from reaching the heights of his hated rivals, George Clinton and Prince. But when his star finally did rise, so too did his use of cocaine and the number of broken hearts he left in his strutting wake.
Throughout the 1980s, James covered the windows of his Beverley Hills mansion with tinfoil to smoke crack in peace. Over a 5-year period, James spent $7, 000-a-week on cocaine. His increasing dependency resulted in some harrowing and strange incidents. In 1991, he and his future wife were arrested for kidnapping and sexually assaulting a woman during a, particularly heavy cocaine binge. Whilst on bail for the crime, the pair kidnapped and beat another woman for 20 hours. James was convicted of both kidnappings and spent 2 years in Folsom Prison. He died in 2004, obviously with cocaine in his blood.
GG Allin performing in 1992, location unknown. Revolver
20. GG Allin ate his own feces and attacked his fans
Rick James certainly took things way too far, but in this, he is surely outdone by GG Allin. Born to religious parents, GG’s real name was actually Jesus Christ Allin, because his father was convinced that the boy was the son of God. Instead, he grew up to be the most disgusting and mentally disturbed rock star in history. Allin’s concerts with his bands, the Texas Nazis and the Murder Junkies, usually involved him stripping naked, defecating, then smearing himself with (or eating) his own feculence and attacking the audience. He also cut himself and inserted things into his rectum.
You will not be surprised to hear that Allin was arrested 52 times, for his antics both on and off stage, and suffered from a serious addiction to heroin and alcohol. After numerous threats to commit suicide on stage, Allin finally died in 1993. That day, he had been chased from his final concert, naked and covered with blood and feces, through the streets of Manhattan, before attending a party where he overdosed on heroin. Allin called himself ‘the last true rock and roller’, but we are surely all relieved that no one has since tried to take his crown.
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No matter what your Sun sign is, we can all agree that dating is hard. It’s even more challenging when you realize that one of your quirks (which you can blame on astrology, of course) is annoying your crush—without even noticing. The first step to fixing our bad dating habits is realizing what they are. Then, we can hopefully change the vibe on our next date (fingers crossed). BTW, we apologize in advance for the astrological dragging.
ARIES
Your fiery nature makes your emotions erratic. In the course of one date, you can act super into your boo and then quickly turn standoffish. This yo-yo can make them unsure of how you ~really~ feel. Try meditating before going on your date so you’re de-stressed and chilled out.
TAURUS
You can get a little too flirty with people other than your date (while out with your date!), even though you’re just being your sweet self. However, this means you can sometimes be seen as though you’re not into your potential boo, even if you are. Try to focus on the one you’re with—you can still make a mental note to chat up the cute delivery driver the next time you order in solo.
GEMINI
Face facts, Gemini: You love to express yourself! But this can be an issue when you turn into a constant texter. The nonstop communication can make your crush feel overwhelmed. Word of advice: Put down the phone for a sec and save some stories to talk about on your date.
CANCER
Here’s the tea: You can get too wrapped up in your emotions, which makes you want to stay in your shell rather than face the real world. Translation: You flake on dates if you’re in a mood, making them think you’re not into them.
LEO
Real talk: You tend to one-up your date, creating a competitive vibe. If they tell you a story about drama from high school, don’t immediately tell them an even more dramatic story from your high school days. Let them own their narrative and just listen.
VIRGO
You’re super intellectual and you have a lil bit of a snobby side—which can make your date feel like they don’t measure up. We all know you’re super smart, but you don’t have to quote Sartre on a date. Try to find common interests with your boo-to-be instead.
LIBRA
The problem with your dating style, Libra, is that you always have someone on the back burner—and your date can tell you’re not all in. So don’t make a backup plan. Be optimistic before hanging out and give them your undivided time and attention.
SCORPIO
At times, you can be a tad obsessive about your exes, even if you’re sooo over them—which means you sometimes talk about them too much with your potential boo. This will either annoy your date or make them think you’re not ready to commit to a future.
SAGITTARIUS
You can’t keep yourself from crushing on two or three people at a time, which results in an overbooked schedule. Committing to one person is hard, especially when the world is one big party—but you can start by making definite plans for one date.
CAPRICORN
You want to date only those who are ~on your level~, so you can be a bit hard on the people you go out with. Try focusing on how much fun you have with them rather than quizzing them about their past GPA.
AQUARIUS
When you’re not feeling a person, you cut them off without explanation—and if your crush says something wrong, you’ll go cold in the middle of a date. This can result in confusion from your boo, who’s having a rad time. You’d rather not waste time engaging with people you’re not into, and that’s fair—but if it was a minor slip-up, try giving them a second chance.
PISCES
Before you meet up in person, you do an internet deep dive to suss out their vibe…which means that when you’re on your date, you’ve already heard all their stories because you saw five years’ worth of their tweets. Oops. Try to limit your sleuthing to a quick Google so you’re able to get to know them IRL.
Married Juliana Stewart, from London, sparked a lively debate online
She ran a poll on whether women think it’s ‘sexier for their partner to be the financial breadwinner, or split the bills with them
The results showed 63 percent of women out of the 4,000 asked preferred a ‘man who provides’
A woman has sparked a lively debate online after running a poll on whether women think it’s ‘sexier for their partner to be the financial breadwinner, or split the bills with them.
Juliana Stewart, from London, who has been married for a year, took to her Twitter account @JulianaStewart_ to ask other women whether they preferred a traditional or modern approach to relationships.
She wrote: ‘Ladies, what’s sexier?
‘A 50/50 relationship is when you split the bills, date nights, holidays, living arrangements, everything. A man who provides means you can work if you want to but don’t have to, he knows how to hold it down.’
Married Juliana Stewart, from London, sparked a lively debate online after running a poll on whether women think it’s ‘sexier for their partner to be the financial breadwinner, or split the bills with them
And while followers replied with mixed responses, the surprising poll results showed that 63 percent of women out of the 4,000 asked preferred a ‘man who provides’
And while followers replied with mixed responses, the surprising poll results showed that 63 percent of women out of the 4,000 asked preferred a ‘man who provides’.
Meanwhile, just under 37 percent voted for a more modern ’50/50′ relationship online.
Slamming the concept of sharing bills, one Twitter user wrote: ‘Honestly, I could never do 50/50. It just doesn’t make me see him as a leader or a husband in any sense.
Agreeing, another said: ‘The women actually picked the first choice? In what world.’
‘Definitely, a man that provides!’ one woman tweeted, while another wrote: ‘If you want kids and to raise them yourself it is definitely more appealing to have a man who is financially capable and generous.
Juliana who has been married to her husband (seen) for a year, took to her Twitter account @JulianaStewart_ to ask other women whether they preferred a traditional or modern approach to relationships
Slamming the concept of sharing bills, one Twitter user wrote: ‘Honestly, I could never do 50/50. It just doesn’t make me see him as a leader or a husband in any sense’
‘I made more money than my husband but still able to SAH (sic). His willingness to take that on was super sexy and I couldn’t wait to have babies with him.’
But others reasoned that it depends on the circumstances, with one man saying: ‘Depends on if you’re raising my kids and taking care of the home.’
Another husband added: ‘It’s a strange split. In any relationship you want to feel the other is contributing, however, it depends on the couple. I provide for my wife so she can stay home with the kids, homeschool them, cook, clean, etc. I tend to all the fixing of things, hard labor, etc.’
And some women were against the idea, arguing for equality.
One woman wrote: ‘I can provide for myself and I expect the same from my man. I’m happy to contribute to what we have/do together because I see us as a team in that respect.’
Another said: ‘When things are provided for me I tend to grow bored and then I create chaos or something that needs care. I need to generate my own life with my creations.’
Elsewhere a man argued: ‘That’s sad. But what do they bring to the table? Hopefully more than an exterior. Glad I’ve already met my soulmate cause dating poll doesn’t look good.’
And one husband claimed: ‘That arrangement only works if the woman provides something as well. Otherwise, she is just leeching off the man. The woman must be the homemaker and sexual partner if she expects the man to provide. Everything costs something and no one deserves a free ride’.
One woman wrote: ‘I can provide for myself and I expect the same from my man. I’m happy to contribute to what we have/do together because I see us as a team in that respect.’
I’m working as a Branch Manager at the Avalon branch of Midlantic Bank. I’m doing well. I have my own apartment, and I have a steady girlfriend. I’ve joined the ranks of all the other working stiffs in America. I was more mature and responsible now. So was Aerosmith. Sober and working on their craft. They had gotten a second chance and took it. I was happy for them and new success in their miraculous second wave.
This is a great record that you can really tell the band busted their butts to make. The work, songwriting, and production are all firmly in place on this record. This is what an older, wiser Aerosmith sounds like. The masses came in droves. They no longer belonged to me. We no longer had an exclusive one-on-one relationship. Aerosmith was dating everybody in the world now.
Hits: Love in an Elevator. (This felt like a sequel to Walk this Way. The guy wasn’t in high school anymore, and now plying his trade in department stores and office buildings) Jaime’s Got A Gun (Massive hit about child abuse. Huge success. But don’t get me started on Steven Tyler’s history with underage girls.)
My favorites: Young Lust, and F.I.N.E (These are the two songs that harken back to the Aerosmith songs that I liked. But, we were all getting older, and sadly for life to go forward, people have to grow and change. *sigh…
But Joe is looking virile!
Woodbury, NJ – 1993
I’m married and a homeowner by now. I’ve accepted the responsibility of grinding domesticity. I’ve stopped dreaming and settled into a life of frustrating mediocrity. Sadly, so has my favorite band.
Hits: Livin’ on the Edge, Amazing, Crazy, and Crying. (Goddamn it guys. Did you not think we’d notice that Amazing, Crazy, and Crying all sound like the same song?)
My favorites: Eat The Rich. (This is a kick-ass song that sounds like the band I was once deeply in love with.) Livin’ on the Edge (Solid song.) Other than that, I could care less about this album. I would listen to Eat the Rich and then turn it off and go listen to something else. So sad.
The band is selling more albums now than they ever have before in the history of the band. They’ve officially sold out at this point. But I can’t blame them. I’ll always love them.
But by now I’ve already moved on to bands like Alice in Chains and Soundgarden.
Because it happens to all of us. I’ve suffered from anxiety and depression most of my life. But as I’ve gotten older I learned to rewire my brain and spank those demons and make them pay.
And you can too.
No one is immune to feeling anxious at least on occasion. And no matter who or what it is that sparks your pending eruption, knowing how to calm down the anxiety and anger you feeling when you’re seriously this close to losing it can save you and those around you a lot of collateral damage.
Life happens, and a simple chain of events can slowly stoke a fire within you. Then all it takes is one “he said/she said” or “they did/they didn’t” to push you across the threshold into this close-to-losing-it territory.
Once you’ve learned some effective grounding techniques and coping skills for calming anxiety, calling upon them can be far more empowering than impulsively unleashing your fury ever will be.
Here are seven tips on how to calm down when you’re feeling anxious using simple grounding techniques and positive coping skills.
1. Excuse yourself, gracefully
Leave the room, the situation, the area, or park the car, but get yourself to a safe place. That can even mean staying right where you are until the heat of it subsides.
It may be a big test of your inner strength not to storm out of a situation while huffing, puffing, slamming chairs and doors, but do it with grace anyway.
Depending on the circumstance, leaving may not be possible or ideal. Take a deep breath before asking for a time out (or simply informing them that you are taking one), and be sure to do so in a calm and controlled way — even if you have to fake it.
Graceful exits may also mean hitting pause by drinking a glass of water and feeling it dampen your fire. If no water is handy, you can imagine it.
Leaving in a civilized way, either literally or virtually through a pause, versus going into full throttle bulldozer mode can be the step that helps quell your eruption from spewing.
2. Put pen to paper
Intense anxiety or anger can be vanquished by saying what you feel you have to say on paper rather than directly to the object of your frustration.
Kick it old school by handwriting everything that is on your mind so you can vent about this current situation.
The benefits of handwriting as opposed to typing it into a text message or email are twofold:
You can’t accidentally click send and unleash your unfiltered thoughts, feeling, and words into someone’s inbox
When you finish venting, you can shred the pages with your bare hands (another bonus), leaving no digital trace that may inadvertently be found later
Handwriting has been proven more cathartic than typing, and as well as to help improve critical thinking and problem-solving skills. And being this close to losing it needs solving.
And as explained by Eric Grunwald of MIT’s Global Studies and Languages Department, “Freewriting, a writing strategy developed by Peter Elbow in 1973, is similar to brainstorming but is written in sentence and paragraph form without stopping. Thus, it [increases[ the flow of ideas and reduces the chance that you’ll accidentally censor a good idea,” which can add another level of efficacy in reducing your angst.
3. Visualize the old heave-ho
Fantasizing about flipping the desk over, clearing the table in one swipe, or playing Frisbee with your laptop. It feels good and satisfying, doesn’t it?!
Visualization, also known as imagery, has been a tool employed by Olympians and other elite athletes for decades, and there is much evidence backing its efficacy for putting desired outcomes into motion without ever leaving the room.
How far can you imagine your laptop will actually fly? How well does it bounce?
Keeping your action-packed fantasy in your head allows you to see the action, feel your muscles contracting, hear the thud of your desk, taste and smell the scene in excruciating detail, without leaving an unpleasant mess to clean up afterward.
When you are this close to losing it, you are so wrapped up in the instant gratification of the moment that you don’t see the final scene — the one where you have to pick up the pieces and clean up the debris, all while shrouded in regret, remorse, guilt, and shame for literally following through with your actions.
4. Get tactile
When you are in overdrive and your foot is fully depressed on the accelerator on the thisclose freeway, take the off-ramp by redirecting some resources from that feeling and shifting them to a tactile action like counting your toes.
With the bulk of your attention invested in your current state, very little of you is connected to the physical.
Whether you are standing or sitting, wiggle your toes and notice how many you can feel. Press each individual toe into your shoe and count them, one toe and one foot at a time. Repeat and repeat again.
By counting your toes, you begin to re-ground yourself. You can go further by scanning your body and noticing how your shoe feels or how the fabrics you are wearing feel against your body or what the chair you are sitting in feels like.
This is especially effective when you are in a situation you cannot dismiss yourself from. Tuning into your body helps to calm the mind, and therefore, your emotions.
5. Catch your breath
When in a high emotional state, your breathing becomes rapid and shallow, which in turn moves you closer to losing it because it’s like fanning the flames of a fire to burn bigger.
Box breathing or four-square breathing is a grounding technique used by Navy SEALs you can put into action no matter where you are and is a highly effective way to get back into control of yourself when things are reeling out of control.
Inhale slowly to the count of five
Hold for a count of five
Exhale slowly to the count of five
Hold for a count of five
Repeat
As Healthline reports: “According to the Mayo Clinic, there’s sufficient evidence that intentional deep breathing can actually calm and regulate the autonomic nervous system (ANS). This system regulates involuntary body functions such as temperature. It can lower blood pressure and provide an almost immediate sense of calm.”
Deep breathing also delivers more oxygen to the muscles you are clenching as they begin to release with each cycle you repeat, essentially disarming the cortisol accumulation simultaneously.
6. Get physical
Dropping down and doing ten push-ups to burn off your anxious or angry energy may not be appropriate at the time, but taking yourself out for a brisk walk can help.
Being in nature helps calm the sympathetic nervous system (your “fight, flight or freeze” response), and putting your pent-up energy into your pace can help to return you to calm.
Even when you can’t get outside to commune with nature, you can use the power of your mind to take you wherever you decompress best.
Maybe your happy place is a white sandy beach where the ocean waves wash all your stresses away. Or perhaps it’s riding down the open highway on your motorcycle, sitting under a tree, or climbing a mountain.
Creating or recalling an image that brings life back into perspective is only a thought away.
7. Grab onto gratitude
Chances are, in a moment when you are trying to figure out how to calm down, you are as far away from feeling grateful as you can get.
However, you always have the power of choice, and flexing your gratitude muscle may effectively diffuse the situation.
Bring to mind someone who you are wholly grateful for, or think of ten things you are grateful for in your life. Feel that gratitude infuse your body and mind.
We cannot feel fully grateful or fully enraged at the same time, so go with the positive feelings gratitude evokes.
Most importantly, you can think about how grateful you will feel for not losing it when you don’t, as well as how proud you are of yourself for keeping it together in this volatile moment in time. Remind yourself that feeling this close to losing it is temporary, and gratitude is the long game.
Keeping a gratitude journal and choosing to be intentionally grateful for the people and things that add value to your life helps sustain you in times like this.
Gratitude acts as an antidote to stress. The benefits of giving thanks in our life are endless, especially helping us to build our resilience overall.
Be aware that not any one of these tips is guaranteed to work for you every single time you need to calm yourself down.
You need to find your combination of tools to get you on the other side of losing it, and all are most effective when sampled and practiced before you need them.
Regardless of how few or how many you need to use these techniques and skills, it’s worth the effort, in the end, to find what works best for you.
Phicklephilly 