I wonder if W. Axl Rose is a baker.

It’s a delightfully idiosyncratic thought: sitting down to a slice of sponge prepared by the lead singer of Gunners. You know it would be perfect. He’s a massive perfectionist. I can relate.

Wonder what his house is like. Is it a man-cave drug den like Jesse’s pad in Breaking Bad or does he have designer décor and mid-century modern furniture? Again, the latter thought amuses.

Last of the Giants by Mick Wall was a great read. I enjoy a good rock biog and I have read an embarrassing amount of them. From that Sugarman Doors romp (required reading when I was in high school), the whole encyclopedia of England’s Dreaming (don’t bother, yawn! No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs is waaay better), The Dirt (a winner), Lemmy, Viv Albertine, Steven Tyler (disappointing due to lack of dirt), Kim Gordon, Slash, and many others along the way.

Giants didn’t delve into the home stylings of the band but it did cover a lot of what I wanted to know. However it also didn’t explain what happened to turn Axl, this mysterious, capricious, troubled genius figure*, from grumpy recluse to diligent performer in his 50s. That said, I’m all for hearing about people finding themselves in later life and I think it often does take that long.

When I was baking my first New York Cheesecake this week (I enjoy baking but this was my first NYC, I also made a more-disastrous cheesecake for Xmas day, which we won’t speak of) the thought just popped into my head about Axl. I mean we’ve all watched Bake Off and thoroughly enjoyed that. And the level of detail required, but the almost-instant payoff you get: it’s right on that skill-satisfaction spectrum to a perfectionist type. Especially a hedonist perfectionist. Again, I can relate.

A bit like sand sculptures, you make it as well as you can but it’s for a good time not a long time. And you’re already getting ideas for the next one while you do it. Hello Chinese Democracy?

Anyway, I’m sure I can look this up and I’ll feel peeved but excited if I see Axl’s got a whole cake decorating show on HBO or something that I never knew about (I would’ve heard right?) While Nikki Sixx is doing motorbikes, recovery and tattoos, maybe Axl’s making sugar swirls and meringue? Or perhaps he’s more of a souffle man. Now that takes precision.

As a slapdash hedonistic perfectionist, this where I converge from Axl.

Perhaps that’s why he’s a millionaire, multiplatinum-album selling artist and I still haven’t completed my novel.

[* Of course Axl, and unfortunately most of the male rock stars I admire/d, have almost to a man been accused multiple times of sexual assault and domestic violence which I 100% do not condone and in fact hate. See Roxanne Gay’s Bad Feminist for a far more articulate explanation of how/why I’m still into them. I should say that I have no sexual assault accusations against me, so in this respect, I’m winning – I’d like to write at some point about the notion of the tortured artist vs. the normal person and maybe that’s why I’m not mega successful (or don’t see myself as such) and can we please have better templates and stereotypes for ‘true artists’ because surely you don’t have to be a monster and sacrifice all to achieve your art, but that’s a whole different piece.]

Here’s to 2024, more creativity and getting as close to perfect as possible but still getting it DONE and moving forward. Cheers Axl, hope you’re having a good one.

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Photo: my husband and I as Slash & Axl at our New Years Eve party 20 years ago. The first and only time I’ve ever worn white jeans.