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5 hours ago, starlight said:

Axl was an asshole for cheating on Erin,she really loved him :facepalm:

I think though Axl was always pretty up front with the ladies that he was not going to be faithful.  I don't know if he held that double standard with them in return, and if he did, that sucks.  But truthfully, that's what you get when you date a rock star 91/2 times out of ten.

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11 minutes ago, Blackstar said:

What you said kinda reminded me of an Izzy quote: "And this guy, he’s not a Harvard graduate, Axl. He’s just a guy, just a little guy, who sings, is talented."

Yes, education is a factor, but not a major one imo. Slash and Duff were high-school dropouts as well, but they didn't believe in such things. In Axl's case, it was more the social environment he was brought up in and that believing this kind of stuff was a refuge for him, given his problems.

No, I'm not saying it is a major factor but one to be considered from the big pool of factors that may have led him to believe the loonies.

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4 hours ago, Lumikki said:


 To get off the subject, you look really nice today, you get prettier & prettier every day.

 the girls are pretty (I still think you cuter than any of the girls there) 

This all letter is gold!! 14 years old, omg, what a nice kid he was :wub:

These parts hit me. How cuteeee, really I'm dying, my heart can't take it :hug:

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Just now, tiutso said:

Wasn't that the same age when he and his girlfriend drugged her mother to fuck in peace? :rofl-lol:

Yeah probably... Dude lost his virginity at 10, I will say again 10!!! , at 10 I was playing with my barbies, he was precocious for sure :facepalm: Anyways, the heart was pure haha

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9 hours ago, killuridols said:

I think that surgery is pretty common among children but this is from 1992 so we don't know if he had them removed. Maybe he didn't want to have them removed for fear of it affecting his voice. He's a professional singer, he can't afford to fuck up his throat. Again, we know nothing about it since then.

Yeah, I think psychosomatic illnesses do exist but they are not entirely a result of stress. It's like what @tiutso said before... you are depressed and you become more vulnerable to diseases, probably because when you are depressed you dont take care of yourself. It happens to me a lot, you know how I'm oftenly :unsure: and because of that sometimes I go out and catch the flu because I'm wearing a tshirt on winter and I dont realize it is cold outside, I'm supposed to wear sweaters and boots but I don't do it because I don't care, because I live in cloud 9 or am too much into my own world.

You mentioned "contact with tons of different people" and that reminded me of him getting laid with all these women who are not Erin <_<... So yeah, being promiscous gives you tons of diseases, so deal with it Axl, blame it on the parents but he won't blame his own lack of care in the sexual aspect.

Hmm I know parents who have chastised their kids until kids were teenagers so it is not so crazy what he is saying but at the same time, I find it hard to believe because he was already rebellious and I know any kid would rebel against his father or mother if they tried to beat them up. Some kids have murdered their own parents in self-defense, so I dont know. Maybe he was talking in a figurative sense? like the parents not supporting him with what he wanted to express.

Yeah, I know, I just thought that maybe he still has his tonsils because like you said, he still seems to suffer from respiratory problems a lot and that might explain it.

And lol, I wasn't even specifically thinking about being promiscous actually, just being surrounded by lots of random people with all kinds of germs on them in general (fans, crew, media people, hotel staff etc), but yeah, that certainly doesn't help either :P

And yeah, maybe he was speaking in a figurative sense. I'd prefer to believe that at least. But I'm not sure if his rebelliousness would necessarily have protected him. The one case I do know of where a father was violent towards his teenage son ended with the son basically fighting back and also attacking/hitting his father each time he tried to do that. But somehow that never stopped the guy from being violent. The son had to move in with somebody else before he finally found peace from that old bastard. Also we don't know what Axl's step father looks like and how tall/strong the guy is. With Axl being a tiny guy (and even skinnier as a kid), I guess it's possible that the stepfather might have had the upperhand strength-wise and could have physically overpowered him or something :unsure:

 

10 hours ago, stella said:

I think that there are a lot of different types of intelligence - someone who is intellectually gifted, for instance, might not be socially intelligent. There are all those super-smart people who seem to have absolutely no social or emotional intelligence whatsoever (read some of the accounts of Mensa gatherings sometimes, for instance...they actually had to develop a "dot system" because there were so many people at their annual gatherings who were invading others' personal space and hugging others without their consent. You'd think someone who was smart enough to be in Mensa would be smart enough to know that you don't just go up to a stranger and put your hands on them, but that wasn't the case.

And it has also been said that a lot of people who fall into cults are very intelligent. Again, you'd think they'd be able to question what they're being told and come to a conclusion that it's harmful, but no. Like that Heaven's Gate cult who were all computer genuises, and committed suicide because they thought they were going to hitch a ride on a comet.

So I think that being intelligent doesn't always equate with being smart, savvy or able to parse the bullshit from the truth.

I think with Axl, one of the issues is that he was raised in a system where he was not allowed to question things. He had to accept what he was told as fact - stuff that was not readily verifiable - and it was hammered into his head in a very authoritative way. He was beaten and punished for speaking his mind or disagreeing, and he was thrown out of his house for it. I think on some level that sticks with someone, even if they do the work later on. And that was a very sheltered life as well, probably - if you've ever met a kid from a very religious household, they don't have a lot of street savvy.

And I think another issue is that he's very emotionally vulnerable, and really wants to fix what he feels is wrong, and he's searching desperately for solutions, and that leads to trouble and getting taken in a lot of the time.

With the tonsils, yeah, it sounds like they need to go. I also had issues with my tonsils, and when they were gone, I felt so much better. I've heard it's one of those surgeries where unfortunately the pendulum has swung from one extreme to the other - back in the day they used to grab kids' tonsils at the slightest provocation, and now they're so conservative about it that they wait too long and refuse to operate even when people really do need tonsillectomies.

Yeah, you're right, there are different kinds of intelligence. That's what I meant by "At least in that regard." I can see he's quite bright and gifted in some ways, but I guess just for me on a personal level, a lack of common sense/that levely of gullibility/naivity is more disturbing than a lack of intelligence/knowledge in other areas for some reason.

Also thank for you bringing up the influence of the very religious, dogmatic and sheltered way he was raised in. I absolutely agree, but I always forget about that aspect. Probably because that is the complete opposite of the way I (and most other people I know) were raised and I have no real personal experience with that. It's funny, my entire country is officially Catholic and it's the state religion, but hardly anyone actually believes in any of that stuff or takes it seriously (at least not among people under 60), or lives a life that is in any way significantly influenced by religion or the bible. It's a country full of atheists/agnostics that are only Catholic on paper :rolleyes::facepalm: People being so concerned about leading "godly lifes" and living their life according to the bible and all that broohaha about sin and evil and modesty and whatever else these people constantly go on about is something I only know from (US American) TV and people like Axl talking about it, to be honest.

 

10 hours ago, tiutso said:

Do people ever explain what made his intelligence obvious to them? Or is it just generalized?

No, they never really explain, much to my annoyance :P The closest it gets is like what @Blackstar described from Slash's book. I guess it's just that when people keep calling him things such as "super-intelligent", or highly/extremely intelligent etc., I would kind of like to see some concrete examples of that.

I can think of a ton of people who have called Axl intelligent, most notably Slash, Duff, Izzy, Marc Canter, Gina Siler, etc. (Oh yeah and that psychologist or whoever that was that declared him "psychotic, but extremely intelligent" when he was 16 :rolleyes:) So that's mostly people who know/knew him extremely well. Meaning they should know what they're talking about. But they never go into detail explaining what exactly they mean by that.

Imo he's quite gifted musically, but that's not really the same as being intelligent. He's also quite visionary sometimes, but with very hit or miss results.

What else... He seems to be very curious about the world, seems to know about a lot of things going on and he reads a lot. Not necessarily a sign of intelligence either, but all of that is good obviously, and maybe these things impress the people around him? And his teachers have said he was a bright child, so I guess school work- related / academic type things come easily to him. Can't really think of anything else right now though.

 

@Blackstar Thank you for posting that! I've never heard about that Shelley woman before or read any of this. I will have to take a closer look at that tomorrow (I should go to sleep now), but I guess she's person #3 then who's described Axl as naive (besides himself. And Slash, if you count song lyrics lol). 

Being a cynical, skeptical person raised in the age of the internet it's a bit hard to imagine for me I guess, but maybe there really was a surprising amount of naivity inside of him that accounts for a lot of his more eyebrow-raising behavior and decisions. Kinda reminds me of the Better lyrics. "No one ever told me when I was alone, they just thought I'd know better..." Maybe people assumed he'd know better about a lot of things when in fact he didn't.

 

@dgnr Yeah, I think these parts were really sweet as well. :wub: He does come across like a really nice kid in that letter.

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15 minutes ago, Kira said:

I think though Axl was always pretty up front with the ladies that he was not going to be faithful.  I don't know if he held that double standard with them in return, and if he did, that sucks.  But truthfully, that's what you get when you date a rock star 91/2 times out of ten.

This. There's the interview in Rolling Stone where he says straight up that he can't really do relationships if the other person is going to expect monogamy. And that was around the time he would have been with Erin, 1989.

IMHO if both people are aware that there's no monogamy and it's an open relationship, there shouldn't be an issue. It's not something for everyone, but at least nobody's lying to anyone else. I think the trouble comes if one person is cheating behind the other's back. if that's what happened with Stephanie, it might have been the reason he was upset.

And yeah, I hate to say it but nine times out of ten, if you're married to any guy who is on the road a lot - an athlete, a musician, etc. - there's probably a chance they're going to be fucking around on you, unless you decide to go with them and watch them every second. I suppose in the marriages that last, they figure out a way to handle that.

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1 hour ago, killuridols said:

This is true. I am one of those types who excelled at school but a disaster with social skills :unsure:

There's something else about Axl that I'm not sure if you guys are taking into consideration. He is described as extremely intelligent and talented for music, his singing, songwriting, etc. but the guy didn't receive a lot of education. He dropped high school, so even when you're super intelligent and smart, if you don't study, if you don't read, your potential just goes wasted.

It's not like you are born with a high IQ and you don't need to study because of that. You're not born a genius knowing it all. Like with everything, you need to put some effort. And I think lack of formal education plays a big part in people not being able to distinguish right from wrong and believing the kind of things Axl believes in.

I always thought Axl would be skeptical kind but if he didn't question authority then he's not there. When you're skeptical (i am extremely skeptical) you don't believe in what people tell you until you can collect a bunch of clues or information that you find satisfactory enough to believe in something.

Sounds like any looney could tell him something was the way it was and he would believe it, taking the word of that person as sacred word. Like the time he wanted that guy who "could move the planets" or I dont know what BS that guy was supposed to do :facepalm: and he was fascinated with it...

 

Thinking about this...I think maybe one thing with Axl was that he was raised with such a strong belief system that he searched for things to replace that. Other spiritual paths, so to speak. And he might have been drawn to the New Age kooky stuff because it's so different than the organized religion he grew up in. The similarity is in not questioning authority; just trusting that the authority figures are right and that their beliefs are beyond reproach.

There are still shards of that old belief system here and there: all the crosses he wears, the one in his house, even the AfD logo/tattoo. Even though he's not a conservative Christian evangelical now he still has those touchpoints.

And on intelligence and education, absolutely. Some of the parts of IQ tests usually draw on a person's educational background. It's a good point that a lot of people who really excelled in life didn't go to school or had bad experiences there - there's the old thing about how some of Einstein's teachers didn't like him. And there are a lot of really amazing, intelligent people who didn't go to college or didn't finish - Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are two of those, I think. On the other hand all of those people educated themselves outside of school. it's also true that a good education can give you a solid foundation on which to question and consider what you encounter. I think what school does, if it's a GOOD school, is help you to maximize your intellect by learning to think critically and analytically. And it also provides you with enough information to have a knowledge based you can draw upon if you need it.
 

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9 minutes ago, stella said:

This. There's the interview in Rolling Stone where he says straight up that he can't really do relationships if the other person is going to expect monogamy. And that was around the time he would have been with Erin, 1989.

IMHO if both people are aware that there's no monogamy and it's an open relationship, there shouldn't be an issue. It's not something for everyone, but at least nobody's lying to anyone else. I think the trouble comes if one person is cheating behind the other's back. if that's what happened with Stephanie, it might have been the reason he was upset.

And yeah, I hate to say it but nine times out of ten, if you're married to any guy who is on the road a lot - an athlete, a musician, etc. - there's probably a chance they're going to be fucking around on you, unless you decide to go with them and watch them every second. I suppose in the marriages that last, they figure out a way to handle that.

He told this to Erin in one of the letters he wrote to her (part of the auction) but we also have to remember Erin was a young girl and when you are young and unexperienced in relationships it's hard to understand and handle some things. He was her first love.

Plus, I think she was really in love with Axl. Deeply in love with him, so much that she knew he was screwing around other women but she stayed with him because she loved him. Maybe in her naive and innocent heart of a young girl she thought she could change him. Or that he was going to change once they had a baby.

It didn't happen :(

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7 minutes ago, stella said:

Thinking about this...I think maybe one thing with Axl was that he was raised with such a strong belief system that he searched for things to replace that. Other spiritual paths, so to speak. And he might have been drawn to the New Age kooky stuff because it's so different than the organized religion he grew up in. The similarity is in not questioning authority; just trusting that the authority figures are right and that their beliefs are beyond reproach.

There are still shards of that old belief system here and there: all the crosses he wears, the one in his house, even the AfD logo/tattoo. Even though he's not a conservative Christian evangelical now he still has those touchpoints.

And on intelligence and education, absolutely. Some of the parts of IQ tests usually draw on a person's educational background. It's a good point that a lot of people who really excelled in life didn't go to school or had bad experiences there - there's the old thing about how some of Einstein's teachers didn't like him. And there are a lot of really amazing, intelligent people who didn't go to college or didn't finish - Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are two of those, I think. On the other hand all of those people educated themselves outside of school. it's also true that a good education can give you a solid foundation on which to question and consider what you encounter. I think what school does, if it's a GOOD school, is help you to maximize your intellect by learning to think critically and analytically. And it also provides you with enough information to have a knowledge based you can draw upon if you need it.

I'm thinking too... hehe... hmm.. I guess he kind of.... did question the whole religious thing because he spoke about it on the interviews. I mean, he said "I was forced to read the bible, go to mise every day of the week, etc". He also said how he was punished for watching a woman in bikini on TV or checking out women on magazines.

He knew that system was fucked up because everything he wanted to do he said it was wrong in the eyes of his father, so to me, it's hard to understand how come he wasn't questioning all of that, when in fact he was, but at the same time, as you say, keeping some of it to him, like the crosses and I'd add the shirts with Jesus face he would also wear in shows.

On the "Don't Cry" video he's wearing a shirt with the image of the Guadalupe Virgin, which is the patron saint of México.... I'm not sure if he ever explained why he was wearing those kind of shirts. I always took it as a rebellious thing, as something he would do to make fun of it, but now I'm doubting that thought because I really don't know why he was wearing them. :shrugs:

So basically, I'm confused about it. Like @Lumikki said before, my country is Catholic AF (lol) too and well, the Pope is argentine as you know :rolleyes:, but every time more and more people stop believing, especially young people do not believe at all and are not really practising catholicism as they should be. I was raised Catholic, of course, but I jumped off that boat like 20 years ago and I didn't go looking for a new religion because I think all religions suck, so I'm an atheist now and I can't imagine myself joining a religion in the future or starting to believe in anything that cannot be explained rationally. This is why I don't understand Axl... why does he need any of that if he knows those shits make you a slave and he was supposed to look for freedom, at least, that's what he wrote he wanted :shrugs:

Totally agree with what you wrote in the last paragraph. Higher education really gives you the tools to maximize your intellect and learn to think critically and analytically. I guess it is not a coincidence that when I was inmersed in college it was the time when I finally got rid of all the religion ties and decided to not pay attention to it ever again. The more I read philosophy, psychology and sociology, the more skeptical I became about everything to finally ditch anything that didn't have a rational, scientific explanation.

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I should be working, but I felt like commenting on this topic. I think Axl's so called intelligence doesn't actually exist or is severely overstated at least.

Maybe Axl just cultivated the "genius tortured artist" image through his behavior and has gotten most people to buy into that, despite the fact that he doesn't actually seem to be particularly intelligent.

And let's face it, on average 80s rock musicians/hair metal dudes just aren't the most intelligent bunch in general. It's easy for someone mildy clever, opinionated and articulate like Axl to stand out and appear intelligent when the competition you're dealing with are the likes of Poison, WASP, Motley Crue, Sebastian Bach, Steven Adler and so forth.

The only thing that gives me pause is when people that I actually consider to be quite smart and educated -like Duff for example- call Axl intelligent. I'd like to know what they base that on as well.

As for Axl cheating on Erin and Steph, yeah well, he did what most rock stars did. The only problem I see here is the inequality of the relationships. If the girls had been free to do as they pleased as well I don't really see a problem with his behavior. But as the Paris crisis shows, he expected them to stay faithful to him, while he got to screw around behind their backs. And I'm scared to think of what he would have done to Erin if he'd caught her cheating on him. He's a giant fucking hypocrite.

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1 hour ago, Lumikki said:

I can think of a ton of people who have called Axl intelligent, most notably Slash, Duff, Izzy, Marc Canter, Gina Siler, etc. (Oh yeah and that psychologist or whoever that was that declared him "psychotic, but extremely intelligent" when he was 16 :rolleyes:) So that's mostly people who know/knew him extremely well. Meaning they should know what they're talking about. But they never go into detail explaining what exactly they mean by that.

Imo he's quite gifted musically, but that's not really the same as being intelligent. He's also quite visionary sometimes, but with very hit or miss results.

What else... He seems to be very curious about the world, seems to know about a lot of things going on and he reads a lot. Not necessarily a sign of intelligence either, but all of that is good obviously, and maybe these things impress the people around him? And his teachers have said he was a bright child, so I guess school work- related / academic type things come easily to him. Can't really think of anything else right now though.

I tried typing out a response but it got too fucking long; that pissed me off. Very summarized version:

1. Not gonna care about his psychologist's words unless I find out where this psychologist was practising and whether it was a psychologist at all, because don't get me started on school counsellors; and whether it was just an evaluation of the impression he was giving off or an actual testing of his cognitive abilities. It's not horribly difficult for a broody intense teenager to bullshit his way through a brief relationship with one of these people if we're talking a shitty area and they demonstrate some insight into the general inner workings of their social context and some intention to optimize it. God knows, I wish I didn't have a reminder that some people can make their way into the psychological field when they really shouldn't have living right next to me.

2. Verbal intelligence. Is often the most obvious giveaway in children with unusual intellectual development. Regardless of their social skills or ability to enter actual verbal interactions easily. Demonstrates skills in operating language and language-based reasoning. If doesn't show up in person's output, whether lyrics, speech, or interaction with linguistic material, person probably not 'super-intelligent'.

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Well Axl doesn't do relationships any more. Hes obviously is totally incapable, for one reason or another. 

I do not think he's any more intelligent than the average human being. He's more talented though.

I have to read back tomo, or whenever cos I've got a sickness bug and feel really ill. :( 

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20 minutes ago, Frey said:

I should be working, but I felt like commenting on this topic. I think Axl's so called intelligence doesn't actually exist or is severely overstated at least.

Maybe Axl just cultivated the "genius tortured artist" image through his behavior and has gotten most people to buy into that, despite the fact that he doesn't actually seem to be particularly intelligent.

And let's face it, on average 80s rock musicians/hair metal dudes just aren't the most intelligent bunch in general. It's easy for someone mildy clever, opinionated and articulate like Axl to stand out and appear intelligent when the competition you're dealing with are the likes of Poison, WASP, Motley Crue, Sebastian Bach, Steven Adler and so forth.

The only thing that gives me pause is when people that I actually consider to be quite smart and educated -like Duff for example- call Axl intelligent. I'd like to know what they base that on as well.

Dude, that's so unfair. I'm not sure if intelligence is the word, but Axl is a cultivated man. And let's face it, looking at the environment he grown up, that's really incredible. It means he was some kind of autodidact, he had to learn, to read, to seek for things that weren't given to him per se.

You don't need to go to school or college to have this kind of 'intelligence'. My dad for example left school and had  to work at a really young age (that's how things were in Portugal during the dictatorship) but he's like one of the most intelligent people I know. He learned lots of shit from reading, from watching documentaries, from always seeking for knowledge, from being interested in what's happening in the world. The fact of being educated doesn't mean shit. 

Culture is something you learn throughout your life, if you want or if you're open to it, and it's even by yourself or by someone that passes it to you. School doesn't give you that.

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42 minutes ago, Frey said:

I should be working, but I felt like commenting on this topic. I think Axl's so called intelligence doesn't actually exist or is severely overstated at least.

Maybe Axl just cultivated the "genius tortured artist" image through his behavior and has gotten most people to buy into that, despite the fact that he doesn't actually seem to be particularly intelligent.

And let's face it, on average 80s rock musicians/hair metal dudes just aren't the most intelligent bunch in general. It's easy for someone mildy clever, opinionated and articulate like Axl to stand out and appear intelligent when the competition you're dealing with are the likes of Poison, WASP, Motley Crue, Sebastian Bach, Steven Adler and so forth.

The only thing that gives me pause is when people that I actually consider to be quite smart and educated -like Duff for example- call Axl intelligent. I'd like to know what they base that on as well.

Why do you consider Duff smart and not Axl? What have you seen in Duff that you can't see in Axl, given the fact that you don't know either of them personally?

I think it is impossible for us to determine what level of intelligence Axl has or to say he's dumb. We cannot call him dumb and we cannot call him particularly intelligent either, since we have no elements to judge him.

Besides, first we would have to agree on what is Intelligence and that's gonna be a tough one, since it seems the academic people can't even agree themselves on how to define intelligence :shrugs:
 

Quote

 

Einstein said, "The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination." Socrates said, "I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing." For centuries, philosophers have tried to pinpoint the true measure of intelligence. More recently, neuroscientists have entered the debate, searching for answers about intelligence from a scientific perspective: What makes some brains smarter than others? Are intelligent people better at storing and retrieving memories? Or perhaps their neurons have more connections allowing them to creatively combine dissimilar ideas? (...)

(...) there isn't even a consensus as to what constitutes intelligence in the first place. It is widely accepted that there are different types of intelligence—analytic, linguistic, emotional, to name a few—but psychologists and neuroscientists disagree over whether these intelligences are linked or whether they exist independently from one another.

The 20th century produced three major theories on intelligence. The first, proposed by Charles Spearman in 1904, acknowledged that there are different types of intelligence but argued that they are all correlated—if people tend do well on some sections of an IQ test, they tend to do well on all of them, and vice versa. So Spearman argued for a general intelligence factor called "g," which remains controversial to this day. Decades later, Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner revised this notion with his Theory of Multiple Intelligences, which set forth eight distinct types of intelligence and claimed that there need be no correlation among them; a person could possess strong emotional intelligence without being gifted analytically. Later in 1985, Robert Sternberg, the former dean of Tufts, put forward his Triarchic Theory of Intelligence, which argued that previous definitions of intelligence are too narrow because they are based solely on intelligences that can be assessed in IQ test. Instead, Sternberg believes types of intelligence are broken down into three subsets: analytic, creative, and practical. 

 

Keep reading: http://bigthink.com/going-mental/what-is-intelligence-2

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48 minutes ago, killuridols said:

I'm thinking too... hehe... hmm.. I guess he kind of.... did question the whole religious thing because he spoke about it on the interviews. I mean, he said "I was forced to read the bible, go to mise every day of the week, etc". He also said how he was punished for watching a woman in bikini on TV or checking out women on magazines.

He knew that system was fucked up because everything he wanted to do he said it was wrong in the eyes of his father, so to me, it's hard to understand how come he wasn't questioning all of that, when in fact he was, but at the same time, as you say, keeping some of it to him, like the crosses and I'd add the shirts with Jesus face he would also wear in shows.

On the "Don't Cry" video he's wearing a shirt with the image of the Guadalupe Virgin, which is the patron saint of México.... I'm not sure if he ever explained why he was wearing those kind of shirts. I always took it as a rebellious thing, as something he would do to make fun of it, but now I'm doubting that thought because I really don't know why he was wearing them. :shrugs:

So basically, I'm confused about it. Like @Lumikki said before, my country is Catholic AF (lol) too and well, the Pope is argentine as you know :rolleyes:, but every time more and more people stop believing, especially young people do not believe at all and are not really practising catholicism as they should be. I was raised Catholic, of course, but I jumped off that boat like 20 years ago and I didn't go looking for a new religion because I think all religions suck, so I'm an atheist now and I can't imagine myself joining a religion in the future or starting to believe in anything that cannot be explained rationally. This is why I don't understand Axl... why does he need any of that if he knows those shits make you a slave and he was supposed to look for freedom, at least, that's what he wrote he wanted :shrugs:

Totally agree with what you wrote in the last paragraph. Higher education really gives you the tools to maximize your intellect and learn to think critically and analytically. I guess it is not a coincidence that when I was inmersed in college it was the time when I finally got rid of all the religion ties and decided to not pay attention to it ever again. The more I read philosophy, psychology and sociology, the more skeptical I became about everything to finally ditch anything that didn't have a rational, scientific explanation.

Oh yeah. I don't always understand it when people are raised in uber-religious households. Most people I know are pretty much like what you're describing - they take or leave religion. I was baptized and that was pretty much it. I do believe in a higher power, but I don't consider myself to be part of that denomination now, and I'm not a fan of organized religions either. There are a fair number of people in this country who are VERY religious, though -the minority, but a very vocal one, I think.

I think the thing is, even if he didn't like it and felt forced to be there, it was still the backbone of his upbringing, and that has influence. He actually taught Bible classes at one point, so he knew the religion well enough to teach it to others. Like a kid who grows up in an abusive household - they know it's something they don't like and don't think is right, but that's what influenced their formative years and they can have trauma for the rest of their lives from it. I think growing up in that kind of environment where you're expected to believe what you're told and live according to a very strict code dictated by someone else definitely sticks with a person and is very, very hard to shake.

For the religious symbols - I think they mean something to him; it's not necessarily religious. Maybe more cultural. And I think that is how it is for a lot of people. Dia del los Muertos is really big in some parts of the USA and people who aren't Catholic at all will make altars. It's a big thing. For the Our Lady of Guadalupe shirt, if it's associated with Mexico, that could be an LA nod, because LA has a very strong Mexican heritage.

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I actually think Axl is very intelligent - the way he speaks and expresses himself show that, I think. And then there are the mental/emotional issues with him that also influence things. Having a high intellect doesn't necessarily mean one always makes the right choices...a hell of a lot of very intelligent people end up in very bad situations, and as mentioned before, end up in cults, end up supporting bad leaders, etc.

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2 hours ago, killuridols said:

No, I'm not saying it is a major factor but one to be considered from the big pool of factors that may have led him to believe the loonies.

I remember reading in a 1991 article that Axl was fascinated by The Doors film (it had come out that year) and had watched it 3-4 times already. He probably identified himself a lot with Jim Morrison as he was depicted in the movie having memories from his early childhood and visions of an Indian shaman whom he had supposedly seen during a trip in the desert with his parents. In the 60s with the hippies and all that, this kind of spiritual inquiry was part of the counterculture and many educated people (Morrison was highly educated, formally and informally) were into it. Of course the so called "new age movement" and all the "alternative" crap is a caricature of that aspect of the hippie movement.

Btw, I wonder if Duff, before he left the band, had ever suggested to Axl to go to that martial arts teacher of his. Duff's problem was different and less complicated, but this thing could have helped Axl to an extent and it involved some kind of spirituality (which had nothing to do with the new age frauds).

1 hour ago, Lumikki said:

Imo he's quite gifted musically, but that's not really the same as being intelligent. He's also quite visionary sometimes, but with very hit or miss results.

What else... He seems to be very curious about the world, seems to know about a lot of things going on and he reads a lot. Not necessarily a sign of intelligence either, but all of that is good obviously, and maybe these things impress the people around him? And his teachers have said he was a bright child, so I guess school work- related / academic type things come easily to him. Can't really think of anything else right now though.

I agree with the second paragraph. As for the first, I think Axl is intelligent and very talented, and he could have done much more than he did, but he has some flaws, mainly perfectionism (in the negative sense) and tendency to excess, which are part of his personality along with an (inexplicable to me) insecurity about his abilities. For example, while he considered himself the most important in the band, he thought that outside the band or without it he would be nothing; I remember him saying that he took the band name to save himself, because otherwise he could at best find a job as a hired singer.

59 minutes ago, Frey said:

And let's face it, on average 80s rock musicians/hair metal dudes just aren't the most intelligent bunch in general. It's easy for someone mildy clever, opinionated and articulate like Axl to stand out and appear intelligent when the competition you're dealing with are the likes of Poison, WASP, Motley Crue, Sebastian Bach, Steven Adler and so forth.

I wouldn't put Axl in the same category with all these.

There's a book by Chuck Klosterman (Fargo Rock City: A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakota). I read some pages of it in the google books preview, and I find it very interesting. I intend to buy it. 

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Edited by Blackstar
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20 minutes ago, dgnr said:

Dude, that's so unfair. I'm not sure if intelligence is the word, but Axl is a cultivated man. And let's face it, looking at the environment he grown up, that's really incredible. It means he was some kind of autodidact, he had to learn, to read, to seek for things that weren't given to him per se.

You don't need to go to school or college to have this kind of 'intelligence'. My dad for example left school and had  to work at a really young age (that's how things were in Portugal during the dictatorship) but he's like one of the most intelligent people I know. He learned lots of shit from reading, from watching documentaries, from always seeking for knowledge, from being interested in what's happening in the world. The fact of being educated doesn't mean shit. 

Culture is something you learn throughout your life, if you want or if you're open to it, and it's even by yourself or by someone that passes it to you. School doesn't give you that.

I think you are mixing up concepts here. Culture and education are not the same thing. Everybody has a culture because it is inevitable, you are born into one and you don't get to choose your culture. Also, school and college don't give you any type of intelligence. You are born with a level of intelligence, this one can be improved by your environment and education, but it is what it is. It comes with you from the womb.

Education is important and like @stella pointed out before, a good school or college will give you tools to understand your environment better, if you have the right teachers who motivate you, help you and guide you, it is for sure something very valuable to have and a experience that cannot be replaced by reading magazines or fictional books.

There is a classroom instance that cannot be replaced by the solitary act of reading. I guess this is why I'm not particularly fond of the "learning at a distance" programs. You miss the experience of being in a classroom with all kind of people debating ideas and learning from others.

9 minutes ago, stella said:

I think the thing is, even if he didn't like it and felt forced to be there, it was still the backbone of his upbringing, and that has influence. He actually taught Bible classes at one point, so he knew the religion well enough to teach it to others. Like a kid who grows up in an abusive household - they know it's something they don't like and don't think is right, but that's what influenced their formative years and they can have trauma for the rest of their lives from it. I think growing up in that kind of environment where you're expected to believe what you're told and live according to a very strict code dictated by someone else definitely sticks with a person and is very, very hard to shake.

For the religious symbols - I think they mean something to him; it's not necessarily religious. Maybe more cultural. And I think that is how it is for a lot of people. Dia del los Muertos is really big in some parts of the USA and people who aren't Catholic at all will make altars. It's a big thing. For the Our Lady of Guadalupe shirt, if it's associated with Mexico, that could be an LA nod, because LA has a very strong Mexican heritage.

Yes, you're right.

The trauma also must come from the fact that religion was imposed to him instead of being taught with "love" and "patience". I don't think I was taught religion in that way, by being slapped in the face if I did something wrong or contrary to the religious beliefs so I don't think I've gotten a trauma from it, like Axl did.

Would love to have Axl explaining why he likes those symbols. For example, I pretty dislike the crosses, they have a negative meaning to me. I can see a person being crucified there, someone who is being abused and tortured so I don't want to have that in my chest.... No way, it's sick, in my opinion.

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25 minutes ago, Blackstar said:

There's a book by Chuck Klosterman (Fargo Rock City: A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakota). I read some pages of it in the google books preview, and I find it very interesting. I intend to buy it. 

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this is great :unsure:

i can relate so much to this :unsure:

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3 minutes ago, killuridols said:

I think you are mixing up concepts here. Culture and education are not the same thing. Everybody has a culture because it is inevitable, you are born into one and you don't get to choose your culture. Also, school and college don't give you any type of intelligence. You are born with a level of intelligence, this one can be improved by your environment and education, but it is what it is. It comes with you from the womb.

Education is important and like @stella pointed out before, a good school or college will give you tools to understand your environment better, if you have the right teachers who motivate you, help you and guide you, it is for sure something very valuable to have and a experience that cannot be replaced by reading magazines or fictional books.

There is a classroom instance that cannot be replaced by the solitary act of reading. I guess this is why I'm not particularly fond of the "learning at a distance" programs. You miss the experience of being in a classroom with all kind of people debating ideas and learning from others.

I don't think I expressed myself very well then (damn you english...I'm thinking in portuguese and my bad english maybe didn't help haha). 

I agree with you that culture and education are not the same thing, I'm trying to say that. But I'm not talking about culture as a culture, but as something you learn in your life by reading, by searching for things and not necessarily at school. Like, I don't know, things that happened in History, some science fact, know who invented some random thing - basically things you use in a Trivia game for example. Maybe there's a better word for this that I'm calling 'culture' in english, but I'm not getting there - general knowledge maybe.

These are the kind of things that you 'absorb' or learn by yourself, school will maybe help you with that or maybe not. Most of time it's your curiosity, you don't learn everything at school. It helps, ( sometimes, I would say - I'm sure you already meet someone who has very good grades, who learns very well, but at the end of the day doesn't know shit about the world he's living in ) but that's not all.

What I was trying to say is that Axl has this knowledge, this kind of inteligence if we can say this way, and you don't need to be educated to have that or you born with that. It's a thing that you adquire and develop by yourself.

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59 minutes ago, killuridols said:

I think you are mixing up concepts here. Culture and education are not the same thing. Everybody has a culture because it is inevitable, you are born into one and you don't get to choose your culture. Also, school and college don't give you any type of intelligence. You are born with a level of intelligence, this one can be improved by your environment and education, but it is what it is. It comes with you from the womb.

Education is important and like @stella pointed out before, a good school or college will give you tools to understand your environment better, if you have the right teachers who motivate you, help you and guide you, it is for sure something very valuable to have and a experience that cannot be replaced by reading magazines or fictional books.

There is a classroom instance that cannot be replaced by the solitary act of reading. I guess this is why I'm not particularly fond of the "learning at a distance" programs. You miss the experience of being in a classroom with all kind of people debating ideas and learning from others.

Yes, you're right.

The trauma also must come from the fact that religion was imposed to him instead of being taught with "love" and "patience". I don't think I was taught religion in that way, by being slapped in the face if I did something wrong or contrary to the religious beliefs so I don't think I've gotten a trauma from it, like Axl did.

Would love to have Axl explaining why he likes those symbols. For example, I pretty dislike the crosses, they have a negative meaning to me. I can see a person being crucified there, someone who is being abused and tortured so I don't want to have that in my chest.... No way, it's sick, in my opinion.

I think distance or solitary learning can be great for certain types of people. There are those who really love the classroom interaction and then there are others who do better if they quietly absorb what they're reading or learning. Like I hate, hate, hate, going to museums with other people or tours. I don't want someone to tell me what the painting means; I want look at it, make my own conclusions about it and read the museum's analysis. On the other hand there are certain things that really work better in a classroom. Like learning another language is weird if you never have conversation.

And I agree, I think that a lot of the trauma has to come from being forced into that belief system. For a lot of people from really religious homes, that's all they know - he said he was at church eight times a week. Those kinds of evangelical denominations so often run on fear - it's a good thing to say you're "God fearing." If you don't do what they say you get punished, shunned and told you're going to Hell. It's got to be hard living with that when you're a kid, trying to learn about the world and form opinions.

I may have mentioned this before but I actually know some people who grew up mega religious -and in their 20s and 30s they're still dealing with the fallout. And don't get me wrong, I totally and completely respect people's rights to practice whatever religion they choose, but I really don't like it when they don't give their kids a choice if they want to follow their faith.

I'd love to hear Axl talk about his reasons for liking those symbols too. What's also weird is that he seems to love crucifixes but those don't usually appear in Protestant churches like the one Axl grew up in. Protestants generally use plain crosses. I asked about this once and was told it's because the crucifix shows Jesus dead, and the whole point is that Jesus was resurrected and didn't stay dead. Makes sense, and those plain crosses look better to me, personally. Some of the crucifixes I've seen are just gruesome, and I can't imagine feeling comfortable with that hanging in my living room. He seems to have borrowed a bunch of Catholic symbols, actually...the crucifixes, Our Lady, and he's also worn rosaries. Lots of folks do that now, but not so much 20 years ago. And during the Farm Aid performance he actually did a correct Sign of the Cross. I almost wonder if he's had an interest in Catholicism or at least the symbolism with it.

Stained glass on the other hand is so beautiful - I could totally understand it if someone collected stained glass from churches because that's just amazing work.

 

 

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