Stairway to You-Know-Where

I know I'm really late to this, but I just saw the documentary Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, which is pretty compelling and entertaining, I have to admit, and you should see it whether or not you're a fan of Metallica. (Guess what? I'm not.)

You may know that the film shows the band recording a particularly forced and uninspired album, while utilizing the services of a shrink to help them work through all their fighting, bickering and tantrums. It's good stuff.

Here's the thing I wanted to mention: There's this guy named Dave Mustaine (Who, I leaned from the movie, is in this other successful band called Megadeth) and I guess he was a guitar player in Metallica, but they allegedly unceremoniously kicked him out like 20 years ago because he was an alcoholic or something.

So there's one scene where he comes to a session with the band and their shrink, and he bitterly confronts them about throwing him out of the band without having given him a chance to clean up his act. He tells them that he's widely ridiculed for this, and he says that people routinely yell, "Metallica," at him on the street to demean him. He says this really gets to him and it's apparent that it really does.

But what I was thinking, is that the people who yell, "Metallica," have no idea who he is or that he was ever actually IN Metallica. I think they're just assholes who are yelling, "Metallica," at him simply because he has long hair, and he's merely one of the millions of long-haired men who have "Metallica," routinely yelled at them by assholes.

I hope someone will suggest this to that poor Dave Mustaine fellow at some point so that he can have some peace.