kind of a chicken/egg situation. has beta's craziness made things worse for axl or did axl's craziness make things worse for beta? perhaps we'll never know. i will say this, i learned a lot during those bizarre conversations with her. always been good at reading people, which is why i was able to get the songs to begin with. beta's decision making seemed to be based on fear, desperation, and paranoia. definitely seemed to act without thinking. the fact that she went on the message boards to get my phone number so she could call me to yell at me was strange enough in and of itself. i doubt i got in more than a few words in any of the convos, including the one that was a few hours long. just a total stream of conciousness rant on her part telling me ten years of gnr's dirty laundry. who the fuck does that? why would you tell a total stranger so much of the band's business, especially a total stranger you're apparantly furious at for discovering new material?

with everything that was going on, and according to her, axl being very concerned that i was about to leak the whole album, i really was baffled by the topics of the conversation, most of which had nothing to do with leaks. 99% of what was said was about slash and this intense jealousy axl/beta seem to have with how slash is portrayed in the media. beta explained that slash is an asshole, but knows how to charm the press and axl has always struggled with staying on the presses good side, so the press unfairly paints him as the bad guy in the split. she insisted it was true that slash showed up at axl's house to try to rejoin the band and then lied to the press about it to save his ass. she went on and on about how slash will continually apologize in private for being such an asshole and won't leave axl alone, but publically, it's a different story.

definite mindset of the fans are the enemy. on one of the calls i could have sworn i heard axl telling her stuff to say to me, but i can't be sure it was him coaching her call. "axl doesn't owe the fans anything. they need to leave him alone. they've ruined his life." etc. etc. lots of stuff like that. lots of intense anger with the fanbase expecting too much, not understanding "axl's process" and what not. "the fans need to get a life. the album will come out when it comes out."

lots of venom for merck as well. beta/axl/gnr were convinced he was ultimately responsible for the leaks and claimed there was something about the versions of the songs i had that could be traced back to a disc only given to merck for the purposes of playing it for the record company. something about merck needing to meet with the label while gnr was doing the hammerstein stint and being given a disc with certain mixes and those were the mixes i had. she explained the whole process of how nobody in the band can take home recordings and every CD ever made is tracked and CDs are only made when absolutely necessary.

the funniest part about dealing with gnr was that i was 100% honest with them at all times and bent over backwards to try to help them, but the bureaucracy made it nearly impossible to help them and they wasted precious time arguing amongst themselves about what to do with me. beta claimed universal wanted to come after me and axl was trying to stop them because if universal got involved, gnr would never get my help. many weeks went by before i ultimately was able to send them the information they wanted due to nobody in the camp being able to make a decision.

in the end, they really didn't keep their word on anything and maybe as time goes by, i won't be as willing to keep mine.

which reminds me, apparantly axl was very determined to keep the fans in the know for now on, but the negative reaction to his letter hurt his feelings so bad that beta said he couldn't read the boards anymore and changed his mind about being so open. the fact that it will soon be 2008 and we still won't have any word on what is going on makes me wonder what they will do when people who are holding stuff back give up and release.

having had my lawyer look over my agreement before i posted this, i realize now that gnr breached almost every single aspect of the deal. i really hadn't looked at the thing in a while.