copperye wrote:

... Mrs Lebeis' personal conduct in online conversations with the fans - reacting only to negative comments - leaves a lot to be desired and sends shivers down my spine...

Well as I said this is all a bit tacky imo but, if that was your mom, which it seems like she's kind of become a surrogate mom/elder sister whatever, and nothing wrong with that, how would your mom react if she kept seeing you attacked in the most outrageous and distorted ways?

Mine would be far more likely to attack right back, she wouldn't so much send shivers down your spine as rip it out and feed it to you (and I mean hypothetocal GnR hater online, not you personally ) anyway it's a much more honest and from-the-heart reaction, and blessedly free of spin and buttkissing to the fans.

I have little interest to be honest, but I;ve been reading this thread, so yeah... I personally presume that the guy (axl) who didn't cave to band member's pressures in the old GnR, to the pressures of addictions to hardcore stuff like heroin that caught up so many contemporaries in their heyday, to label pressures recently or to fan pressures EVER (not even to go onstage in a timely manner/at all lol!) isn't... exactly an easy person to get "under the thumb."

I'm smelling misogyny - not @ you, Coppereye, just the whole anti-Mrs L thing I've read elsewhere from time to time. Reeks a tiny bit of the notion that we want our rock stars to live tragic lives, and god forbid they might find contentment and some vestige of a family, and stability -_ rocker's wives are notoriously unpopular with the fans after all.

If she was an elder male manager figure, one with a track record as some kind of rock royalty maybe, I doubt she'd be anything like as demonised, I also suspect her ethnicity (with its implications for many in the US as second-class citizen etc) and her initial role in his life as a nanny is what's riling a lot of people up - the servants are getting uppity, etc etc nauseating BS.

just my rant - I realise I;ve now become part of the problem so to speak discussing the private lives of private individuals, but hey the internet'll do that to ya every time. 

At the end of the day, if she's making Axl's life better i bless her for it, the same as I would if he was my next-door neighbour or some random guy who collects my trash, we all have a right to find people we care about and on the slim off-chance he'd have been more unhappy day in and day out of his one and only life without her, but we'd have had - oooh, an album or two extra, meh - that's not a trade anyone should consider worthwhile.

This isn't like some defence, just my feelings, not knowing any of the people involved etc etc, I;m just wishing them all well. there's more important things in life than buying some new CD.

(annnndddd.... 'pologies for all the typos, finished working an all-nighter had a few beers! )