Western parts of Europe and a holiday at the beach.

IFOCS is great, instrumentally. I can live with Dover's vocals.

Slash had moments in VR. Like Slither, Fall to Pieces, Messages and Psycho Killer (the last one clicked performance-wise, obviously). To me, VR was an immense disappointment as a whole, giving the combined songwriting potential.

Max is doubly-blessed by being a lifetime member of the E Street Band and gaining personal fame as Conan's second. Hell, Conan even arranged Max to go on tour with the Boss, which itself cut down some of Max's Tonight Show appearances. Going with Leno would go against the principles which Max has seemingly adopted in the past years and would make the drum stool a bittersweet hot-seat.

Time wiill tell, but it would be very low for Max to do it now, given he already got the experience (even if it was short-lived), so there's nothing new there. Not to mention the public support Conan's been receiving; Max could easily be painted as a Judas Iscariot by joining forces with the Evil One, which is Leno.

Slash has a bigger problem with Axl than he generally admits. I remember the ICP members telling about how he came to record a solo for The Great Milenko. This was soon after the GNR split had been made official and Slash had major issues in coping with all that. GNR had been his band for ten years straight and he'd gotten used to being in it and occasionally going out to do solo work / guest appearances. When GNR was pulled from underneath his feet, he was obviously adrift for a while. Combine that his alcohol problems at the time and you'll realize he wasn't a very happy person back then.

The press, the music industry and most of the fans give him the victim blanket, as in 'Evil Axl ruined the band'. Obviously, he doesn't have a problem with it, and taking the moral high ground is a whole lot easier when the general opinion falls in your favor. Whatever the truth, Slash never gets called out for playing a part in the disbanding of the UYI lineup, or the old band in general. Axl always takes the heat, whether he's truly the sole culprit or not. Axl's blame isn't the point in this, rather than the assumption that others were just fiddling around as the all-around benevolent group of characters with no ego.

But Slash felt very strongly about it on an emotional level, make no qualms about that. To say he's a saint by his own right is pretty deluded. Axl's Axl and has behaved how most people expect him to. His behavior shouldn't be used as a measuring stick for Slash and to erase or justify the manner by which Slash himself has danced around various issues, including the visit to Axl's house. Slash publically denied it and shrugged it off, as in 'Even the visit never happened'. Finally, he admitted it did happen. He could've told the story as it was represented in his book since Day 1 if he was such a straight-shooter.

Same with VR, really. Weiland's trouble (most of that to himself) and certainly made stupid things in his VR days. That enabled people to side with the (then) poor Vicodin addict who shunned his fellow band member completely when the going got rough. This may sound harsh (and probably is), but my point is, the dude's not exactly a saint even if some other people might've well acted like assholes.

Having said that, a great guitar player and it's nice to see him out there, still doing his thing after all these years.

The triggers are pain, really.

I still have the occassional dream of lighting up. Always surrounded by old mates, cheering me into it. Always feel a bit perplexed about actually doing it, but end up doing it regardless. Have stayed succesfully out since New Year, which is now over three months and counting. But summer's coming with all those temptations, there's going to be some action in the parks and otherwise...

It's going to be difficult, I make no bones about that. It's mainly about whether I'd still consider myself to get a kick out of it, which, last I checked, didn't happen anymore. My tolerance has by now reached an all-time low and I would likely get fired up with minimum effort. If I do that, I may end up considering it's not a bad thing after all and the old cycle would repeat itself eventually.

You can't be a little bit pregnant. EIther you're using or not.

I personally need to keep on choosing not to.