Click to go to YouTube playlist of Dry County live performances, starting with the very first in 1993
You never know if something is the beginning or the end of something, don’t you?
With relationships, I think many of us have thought we were at the beginning of something.
A thing that, in retrospect, never quite started but was held together by a desire for a lover, for a friend, for a career.
It was a Fata Morgana from our desire to belong, that did not exist in reality.
Once we took our eyes off it, just for a moment, it evaporated. When we looked back, all we could see was hot vibrating air over desert sand.
And in all likeliness, that’s all there ever was.
But the opposite happens as well. That you do not wish, don’t want nor will it to life yet year after year? That friendship is still going strong.
That lover is still your number one.
You still work for pleasure, the good experiences just layer on top of each other, and you have to pinch yourself time after time.
Is this real?
I am someone who does not count on anything to be there in the morning; And as a result, I frequently get happily surprised. Often I believe that something is so good, so outstanding, it can never last forever. Or, like I had with the 2019 Bon Jovi concert; I KNOW, it’s not forever.
It’s 2,5 hours, and then you have to wait for years. And if you add a Covid pandemic, you may have to wait for years times twice, before Bon Jovi plays Nijmegen, The Netherlands again.
Yet little did I know that the 2019 Bon Jovi concert I had been looking out for and preparing for for half a year; Would not bring about an apocalypse of being a fan, where it would all come crashing down in a violent post-concert rebound.
No.
The concert had been just the beginning.
I had not even scratched the surface of what being a Bon Jovi fan was going to bring me.
My journey into fandom, into Bon Jovi, and probably also the journey into me, had just started.
I know so much more about Bon Jovi, since then. And one of the songs that keeps unraveling and revealing its secrets, is Dry County.
Although of course it doesn’t;
No matter how often you listen to it, you can never fully understand it.
No matter how often you take your gaze off it;
No matter how many years go by;
No matter how often you listen to it, or alternatively regardless of how little attention you pay to it;
Dry County is the well that has always more to give.
video: the latest addition to the expanding collection of memorable Dry County performances. An extremely rare rendition of Dry County, sung in the original key.
In 2004 Bon Jovi created a 4-cd (1 dvd) box set with unreleased work, called“100.000.000 Bon Jovi fans can’t be wrong”. In this series I discuss all of the 50 songs.
I m still early in this series, yet this post may end up being my favorite one.
This video from Miss Fourth of July live, is one of the “one-song videos” from the full concert Bargota, Atlantic City 2004, that is still available.
The full concert, where Jon gave the song an introduction [ Bon Jovi, Atlantic City 2004 ] is no longer online. Luckily, I had already written out Jon’s introduction to the song, below.
Miss Fourth of July
26 November 2020
Jon Bon Jovi revealed in this interview he drinks a fishbowl full of coffee. And that he’s a great flirt.
There will be times in this Box Set series, where I supply you with a fascinating origin story of the song, hail it for its profound meaning, or conduct science experiments how few sentences it took before Jon had us crying like babies;
And then there will be times when I will diligently write out, an entire speech or full verse or chorus, because I think it should be swallowed whole and that we should not be picking it apart in an effort to understand it.
Or the third option, which is my personal favorite;
I write about why the song is about sex.
And then!
Then there is apparently the one in a 100.000.000 Bon Jovi fans can’t be wrong– chance that I just might be able to deliver all three of them!
Because after hearing Jon’s elaborate explanation on how bad he was doing when he wrote “Miss Fourth of July” and how deep his crisis, and I then read along three verses, three repetitions of the chorus, and the outro I thought:
“This is about sex and you tried to slip it by us.”
So either, you can read along and overthink it with me.
New rare video footage to support my vision will be delivered!
OR you can just take Jon’s word for it and keep it at that, and look for a video on YouTube called: Bon Jovi – Live at Borgata Events Center | Full Concert In Video | Atlantic City 2004 { this is the concert that is no longer available, unfortunately, 2022 }
And start at 29 minutes 5 seconds.
This was the introduction from Jon Bon Jovi to Miss Fourth of July on the Borgota concert:
Jon introduces Miss Fourth of July, as follows: “This is a little something I wrote back in ’91 and a period I now refer to as the grey period. It was cloudy for about two years of my life.
It was a very interesting time because we were trying to figure out who the hell we were, as people.
The twenties were now behind me, the thirties were just coming on strong. Innocence seemed to have all be gone. But fortunately for us we got over that hump
[…]
But this is written during that period that if we didn’t get over this hump at that time we would have in fact been another one of those casualties that you hear about on “Where are the now?”.
[…]
So if you can just imagine I am in this little teeny eight by eight bedroom in Malibu California, probably either drunk or hung over, with a rented piano, and I happen to like the song more now because it doesn’t hurt as bad.
Check out the lyric, it is called The Fourth of July.”
Now, if at this point, you’re shaking your head at me.
“How can you possibly see this song as being about sex?”
Then I m going to cut you short because I too didn’t see it as being about that at this point.
Just like you, I docilely listened to the acoustic song with Jon and Richie on guitar and David Bryan on accordion.
And wept with them over losing their youth, as the price they paid for growing up touring pretty much back to back, from 1985 to 1990.
No wonder they were in crisis.
Yet there was probably already a sign that they would make it. Because contrary to other, I would almost say contrary to “most”, hardrock bands in the 80s, the Bon Jovi members were not addicted to heroin.
The band Bon Jovi started in the early 80s, with Jon Bon Jovi delivering enough material for an entire record all by himself, before (after launching the single Runaway) they pulled together a band.
With their self-titled album (1984), their second album 7800 Fahrenheit (1985), their biggie Slippery When Wet (1986), and the absolutely brilliant shockingly good successor to that New Jersey (1988), under their belt and non.stop.touring.
– New Jersey was in fact even often “excused for” not being that good because they didn’t have time to properly innovate their music, while also touring –
that when that final tour finally ended early 1990;
Of course they were beat.
Of course they were stressed out.
Of course there was going to be a massive withdrawal from touring for years on end, that would pull each and everyone of the members into their personal versions of hell.
Of course it was going to be a time of staring into the heart of darkness. Alone.
But! This did not mean that fans from Jon Bon Jovi, would have to miss out.
Early 1990, he joined the cast of Young Guns 2 on location, and started writing for the soundtrack. The script and emotions it provided for him, gave him not just a sense of direction on what the music should be about; It also gave him a mask.
He was not Jon Bon Jovi the singer who had probably lost his entire band and himself;
He was writing music to fit the script. He later said he had put a lot of himself in that album Blaze of Glory, but at the time he hid behind the cowboy hat and leather clothes.
So there I was (current day me, not 1990 Jon) listening to Miss Fourth of July and reading the lyrics.
And I stumble upon a lyric that makes me think that he did not have real sex, but only watched (a stripper, or a couple, or two women, something along those lines), and yet someone (I think his wife) was upset with him anyway.
This was the lyric, it is in the first verse: “For a night I just watched and you walked out of here”
I don’t consider myself a knowledgeable Bon Jovi fan.
Just last Sunday I mixed up the intros from It’s My Life and Livin’ On A Prayer. So I will never even remotely suggest you should take me seriously, as far as facts about the band go. I m not a typing encyclopedia, and often even fail to Google things. But there is one area I am an expert at: Sex.
And with Jon Bon Jovi, this usually means that I have a knack for when he’s talking about cheating. And even when I later find he was doing it “in character”, like in Always which was originally for a movie so it’s not his own story, I can’t imagine that he did not pour from his own experience when he wrote that. But this is not about Always. This is about Miss Fourth of July, that we are supposed to take at face value about being about an entirely sexless coming of age, or maybe coming of fame is more accurate, theme of a rock star finally returning home with almost Odysseus like pathos, suddenly realizing is he no longer the man who left, filled with hopes and dreams.
“For a night I just watched and you walked out of here” This “baby-level” Bon Jovi fan, who cannot tell the difference between It’s my Life and Livin’on a Prayer intros, thinks Jon Bon Jovi tried to stay faithful within limits, yet got in an argument with his wife about it anyway.
That’s the baseline I got when I started this blogpost. I had honestly not thought any further. Until I started typing out that entire speech, which was a lot of work, I think I easily spent an hour on it. And in that hour, the tiny bedroom in Malibu remark started to look very familiar. Even though Jon was referring to a two year period, I was suddenly certain this referred to the mansion he had rented, which he called “Disgraceland” and where he stayed when he recorded the Blaze of Glory record. It is also the location where my favorite Jon Bon Jovi interview was located:
An MTV interview with Julie Brown, which was supposed to air on Independence Day.
(if you’re currently shouting “But that’s on the fourth of July!”; That is correct!)
To mark the occasion Julie was dressed in America’s independence colors red and blue. “Now I see where the white is,” Jon says as he lifts her skirt.
As soon as I saw this interview, which was early 2019, I knew for a fact that we had watched a genuine sexual attraction between Jon and Julie. That it was both staged, and real. Julie and Jon were hiding in plain sight.
click the photo to go to the playlist of this interview
The only problem this presents, now that I know that Miss Fourth Of July was written in the backlash of a one-night stand, or encounter, with someone special yet you can’t make it work, was that I no longer understood the sentence: “For a night I just watched and you walked out of here” I no longer know what that sentence means.
Yet Jon being messed up after Julie left, does explain many other lyrics. “Don’t say we never tried” “I ain’t too proud to let you see tears fall from these eyes” “Just look me in the eyes and say it meant nothing at all” “Nothing but a heavy hit of heartbreak ;
A handful of blues”
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I immediately noticed something was missing when I clicked on what looked like a YouTube upload of the dvd Live From London. At 1 hour and 24 minutes, it was about right, although I remembered the dvd to be 90 minutes. But hey! Why would someone sneakily cut six minutes out of a Bon Jovi concert right?
And yet, the moment I watched the intro I knew Jon taking the stage was missing.
That you don’t start a dvd with Jon having magically appeared out of thin air at the mike, in his stone washed New Jersey jacket, black blouse with white stripes, chest hair luscious in a way we would never see again after it was taken off less than a year later for his movie role in The Leading Man;
Wearing his black bandana with white design tied around the head in the wide yet sturdy fold and wrap technique, only he and Axl Rose ever seemed to have mastered;
And the first words of this Magically Appearing Front Man being;
“Tommy used to work on the docks!”
That’s now how it works.
There is a “before”.
There is a leading up to.
There is anticipation.
In the previous chapter I referred to the long audience shots clapping in “We Will Rock You”-style.
And you don’t let the viewer wait, watching a sea of clapping hands, only to then cut to-
Oh.
Wait.
He’s already there.
So I knew the 1 hour 24 minute concert version I had found on YouTube was not the real dvd; It had been tampered with.
And I was right.
Both a YouTube clip of “Livin’ On A Prayer” from that concert, which I have included at the top of this post,
as well as the full 90 minute show Live In London which is available on Vimeo, and which I have included at the bottom of this post,
show the full intro of Livin’ On A Prayer.
We see Tico Torres standing behind his drums in a white vest, clapping with the crowd.
And then the camera shot from over the crowd, retreats back into the darkness of the side of the stage, we’re looking into the sun.
We see the silhouette of a tall, rangy man, walking up to the edge of the stage.
Sharp cut to a close shot at eye level:
It’s Ritchie Sambora!
He takes a bow, rising back up, his small round sunglasses mirror the Wembley stadium and the clear blue sky. Long dark mane, and long black coat adding to a rough cowboy-like look. He gives the crowd a battle cry; “Yeah!” Fist pumping in the air.
There is tangible concentration when the musicians set up the almost monotone, slow moving base sound with Tico Torres using a mark tree, a percussion instrument that consists of a set of hanging metal-like pipes. Until after a few seconds that moment we have all been waiting for when Richie folds his mouth over the talk box, and gives us the signature sound that will become Livin’ On A Prayer.
Richie’s almost synthesizer like tones join the auspicious baseline that the other instruments have set up.
The sounds from the talk box moves fluently up and down, as if gently caressing us.
Until we here the thin sound of a drumstick to the cymbals:
“Tick tick tick”
[….]
“Tick tick tick”
The Livin’ On A Prayer drums take over, a drum roll if ever there was any!
And a sound that I can only describe in a way that does not do justice to what many consider the best song of the best rock n roll band since the 80s: – in my defense; English is not my first language! – but here we go:
Oompa oompa oomp!
(repeat endlessly)
(keep it going)
(trust me on this)
And it is there! On the sounds of Oompa oompa oomp! that the man of the hour, the rock legend Jon Bon Jovi takes the stage with a run that goes into an energetic jumping up and down, legs wide, two feet jumping in the air again and again.
A wide grin over-viewing the stadium and just like Richie he has his fist in the air!
He stands with the microphone and in his talking voice, he delivers us the intro that we all know from the thousands and thousands of times we’ve heard this song: “Once upon a time.
Not so long ago.”
All this (I m now pointing and waving at the past paragraphs describing the epic rock star beginnings of this show ) was not included in the dvd upload I found on YouTube, and with that one of the biggest takeaways from this show was lost; How to make an entrance.
How to consciously, and conscientiously, show up.
I once attended a yoga workshop from an internationally acclaimed yoga star slash yoga guru, which I ended up hating and considered a waste of my time and money. And yet the lesson he taught in his first five minutes is one I will never forget: What is the basis for every relationship?
The answer was: You show up.
It is THAT choice, where you make the first commitment.
Either you give away your power, if you show up for things you don’t want.
Or you use it to show up for the things that you do want.
Show up for your yoga, was what this teacher hinted at. But it goes for every area of life; Are you showing up for it? Are you even THERE for the thing or the person or the hobby or the business or the audience or the 80.000 fans, to have a relationship with you?
And then, if you ve got that, if you know and decide that from now on “Hell Yes! I m gonna show the f up for my art, for my family, for my dreams, for my fans, for my LIFE!” Then this opening sequence of Bon Jovi in Wembley 1995 uplevels that for you.
Make your showing up as deliberate, as epic, as full of intent; As layered, as exciting, as full of bouncing, pounding energy, as Bon Jovi starting their Wembley show, and you really are living aright.
You’re living with Oompa oompa oomp.
Repeat endlessly.
Keep it going.
Trust me on this.
. ~Suzanne Rock Star Writer
new: LIVE FROM LONDON
Just. Show. Up. { Prayer Intro }
is the second chapter from “Live from London Take the stage, rock your life and rule the world”
Click on “Live from London” to read all chapters.
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In 2004 Bon Jovi created a 4-cd (1 dvd) box set with unreleased work. In this series I discuss all of the 50 songs.
video: Just like the previous song on the Box Set, Someday I’ll Be Saturday Night, might have gotten its most phenomenal speech in Osaka, Japan.
Check at the 4 minute marker.
click the photo for a live version (video) of Someday I’ll Be Saturday Night, recorded in Argentina
“I’m feeling like a Monday, But someday I’ll be Saturday night.”
Someday I ll Be Saturday Night was released on the 1994 “best of” album, Cross Road.
An album I didn’t own, until recently.
I had also heard the song almost every time I listened to a 1995 concert to make a video for my YouTube channel.
And yet; I didn’t really “get” Someday I’ll Be Saturday Night until I started what I would qualify as “hoarding”, different versions of the song.
Ultimately I decided on limiting it to ten years.
That will also give you my channel, to subscribe for my upcoming 1995-1996 Bon Jovi reviews.
The Box Set’s demo of I’ll Be Saturday Night had been the first version of a song that would be performed live, over and over and over again.
Thematically it was comparable to Livin’ On A Prayer, meaning pushing through adversity and believing in a better future. But it was way, way more subtle
Which might also explain why I “managed to miss it” as an absolute gem, in particular in the live legacy of Bon Jovi.
At the 3,5 to 4 minute marker of these live songs, Jon Bon Jovi improvises. Sometimes “just” going through all the days of the week, and how hard they are. But sometimes, like in the above audio I included of Osaka, it was a straight up motivational speech.
It’s so unreal to think that live version in Osaka was recorded twenty years ago, and here I am in 2020. It’s a Thursday night. I just taught an online yoga class to friends, which I had not done in a very long time. By accident, I streamed it from one of my public pages.
Now it wasn’t nude yoga or anything, but during the class I had been very conscious of my body, and of what I will just call the “weirdness” of yoga; Something you usually do not have to deal with, until you start including “puppy pose” in your classes in the park, or into your YouTube videos.
Or until you find out you accidentally streamed a private yoga class on your public page.
Those are the moments when Jon’s words in Osaka, really hit home.
“I feel like that sometimes. It’s true. But when I do, I say; “Self?”
The beat picks up, Jon’s voice strengthens;
“You gotta just dust yourself off.”
And I say: “Self; You gotta put on the gloves, jump in the ring and go in there for one more fight.”
And I say: “Self, we ain’t gonna back down this time! Ain’t nobody is gonna come and throw the towel in this time! Ain’t nobody is gonna tell me they’re gonna save my ass this time!
NO!!”
And then the chorus comes in. And this time the words really hit home, and there is no way you’re gonna ever forget it again!
“HEY! MAN! I’M ALIVE!
I m taking each day and night at a time.
Yes I’m down But I know I ll get by.
Hey, hey, hey, hey! Man, I m gonna live my life. I’m gonna pick up all the pieces of what’s left of my pride I’m feeling like a Monday but -“
“Japan always seems to be getting the best shows. As if the deal was sealed, by that enthusiastic response on that very first world tour.”
video: The Radio Saved My Life Tonight, performed in Osaka (Japan!) with a speech at 3 minutes 10 seconds, about how Jon Bon Jovi (then still without band) started his career.
In 2004 Bon Jovi created a 4-cd (1 dvd) box set with unreleased work. In this series I discuss all of the 50 songs.
Today I’m doing two songs.
Song number 3, Taking It Back. And the second song on the first disc, a song they played many times on the tour that followed the Box Set release;
THE RADIO SAVED MY LIFE TONIGHT
What is immediately apparent listening to this second song on disc one of The Box Set, is that the song is a finished, polished recording. It was obviously not dropped until the very final stages of Keep the Faith (1992)
It’s one of Bon Jovi’s lighter songs, less heavy on the guitar and drums, and that always makes it a tough cookie when it comes to winning my love. This song is no exception.
But nevertheless: If you were in a position as a band, that you could drop catchy songs like this for your record?
Even I understand the level you were playing at. The very highest.
TAKING IT BACK
What do you get if you mix AC/DC with Bon Jovi? Taking It Back One of the many amazing 90s songs that were released in 2004, on the box set 100.000.000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong.
But the song that closest resembles “Taking it back” is one of their own. On the album 7800 Fahrenheit (1985) there is the song “Tokyo Road”.
7800 Fahrenheit was the album right before their biggie Slippery When Wet (1986).
It “should have” been the big break for the band and then wasn’t. And the reason expectations were so high, is related to Tokyo Road.
The first self-titled Bon Jovi album, Bon Jovi-Bon Jovi (1984) had not brought them “world fame” but nevertheless; It had done exceptionally well. Not just in sales, but the band had also toured the world. Just check this site which still contains a list of all the continents and places the then relatively unknown band from New Jersey toured with just one album under their belt; http://www.bonjovi-archives.com/01_BonJovi/Live.html
Especially in Japan, Bon Jovi had been hugely popular. They had been kind of shook by the attention, but (of course) also flattered.
Japan 1985
With a debut album like that, expectations for their second album were high. Ultimately their second album wasn’t the big breakthrough they all had been expecting based upon (among other things) their popularity in Japan. But Tokyo Road on that second album 7800 Fahrenheit, was a reminder of how far they were on their way. They had already toured the world!
And seven years later “Take me Baaaack, baaaacck, back; Tokyo Road!” would echo in the song called “Taking it Back” (1992/ Box Set 2004) A song about which Jon Bon Jovi said; “We knew that we had to take control of our own destiny and songs like ‘Taking It Back’ were sung from the point of view of that chip’s back on my shoulder and I’m ready to launch into phase two of the band’s career.”
With regard to the topic (one night stand from Tokyo Road versus the fighter’s mentality of Taking It Back) the two songs Tokyo Road (Take me back) from the Fahrenheit album, and Taking It Back, the unreleased song from 1992, might seem worlds apart.
But they are brothers in arms. Both were written at a time when Bon Jovi wanted to prove they belonged at the top. And both songs were ultimately largely forgotten.
And yet: Their presence had been prophetic.
Bon Jovi kept coming back to Japan, every world tour. And from what I think I see – Japan always seems to be getting the best shows. As if the deal was sealed, by that enthusiastic response on that very first world tour.
And Bon Jovi did raise the bar with their Keep The Faith album; They did take back, what was rightfully theirs.
The place at the top.
~Suzanne
Rock Star Writer
.
new: BOX SET SERIES
Taking it Back (and Tokyo Road) & The Radio Saved My Life Tonight
is the third post in The Box Set Series
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“If you don’t have Bon Jovi there with you in the room, and want to build a party?
My suggestion is you just bring out the big guns and press play on;
“Why Aren’t You Dead”
video: The only Bon Jovi concert that included songs from the box set. “Why Aren’t You Dead” opens the show.
In 2004 Bon Jovi created a 4-cd (1 dvd) box set with unreleased work. In this series I discuss all of the 50 songs.
“Why Aren’t You Dead” is the first track, and it opens the concert they gave with a selection of the songs: Jump on the table and sing along!
Jon Bon Jovi says about “Why Aren’t You Dead” which had originally been written for Keep the Faith:
“It (the song) wasn’t where we were going, it was more about where we had been, and for that reason alone it didn’t make the record. We had grown out of this stage of writing those kind of fun clichés and moved on.”
Makes sense! And an upbeat song that makes you want to dance on the tables, and that contains the words “six feet under” “dead” “bed”? We DO know that Bon Jovi song!
And we know it VERY well because it is one of the highlights of a Bon Jovi show TO THIS VERY DAY!
That song is “Sleep when I’m Dead”.
.
But do you know the catch? Sleep when I’m Dead is from that very same album, Keep the Faith!
It was written around the same time as Why Aren’t You Dead.
.
Two similar songs;
One, Sleep When I’m Dead, which made it to the Keep the Faith record, became a single, a huge hit, and ultimately got played at nearly every show for decades to come.
One, Why Aren’t You Dead, which didn’t make it to the record until the box set came out in 2004, and which got played once.
In Atlantic City 2004.
What was the difference?
.
I think to this day the choice remains arbitrary; On one hand, yes Jon is right.
Why Aren’t You Dead is a straight up rock song, and they had been rocking for years. Sleep When I m Dead is more bluesy I think. I feel my knowledge of music falls short to accurately name it, but I can see why – from an originality perspective, Sleep When I’m Dead got in and Why Aren’t You Dead didn’t.
.
But do you know what strikes me, if I listen to the single (non-live) version of Sleep When I m Dead, versus the single/song Why Aren’t You Dead? Why Aren’t You Dead ROCKS. It moves. It breathes. It’s ALIVE!
.
Whereas Sleep When I’m Dead? I’m not feeling it Jon. It becomes clear to me, that it is the band Bon Jovi that MAKES Sleep When I’m Dead come alive, on stage. They’re the ones breathing life into it, at that very moment! And they do it well. Very well.
.
When played live the twin song to Why Aren’t You Dead, which is Sleep When I m Dead, comes alive! It might be the strongest live song they have ever written…
I don’t know a song that would be more of a party anthem, than Sleep When I’m Dead, performed live. Richie dials up on the guitars, Tico beats the shit out of them drums and Jon Bon Jovi just pushes and pushes and pushes until we are dancing on the bar, covered in beer and loving it!
But if you don’t have Bon Jovi there with you in the room, and want to build a party?
My suggestion is you just bring out the big guns and press play on; “Why Aren’t You Dead”
“Jon Bon Jovi’s growling, grunting voice is so incredibly sexy
it will have Jim Morrison cheering from the heavens”
.
Today I started listening (doing yoga) to my long awaited Bon Jovi box set:
100.000.000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong
A collection of songs, most dated to the nineties, which resulted in a 5 disc set:
4 audio, and 1 dvd with background material..
There’s also a Japanese version, which has a fifth audio cd, with amazing songs on it.
Among which
“Let’s Make It Baby”
That could easily count as the most sexy Bon Jovi song ever written.
Fortunately “Let’s Make It Baby” was not just released on the rare 5th disc of a Japanese Box Set, but also (in two versions) on the Deluxe edition of New Jersey album and on a European Special Edition bonus disc of These Days.
I m not really sure which one it is (the New Jersey version or the These Days version) but I think that the person who created this seductive Jon Bon Jovi collage, thought that was beyond the point.
By the way, the song The End, is also on this mysterious 5th disc.
That song was not included on other sets, but famous YouTube channel hAnD90 did use it for a video, so we do have a beautiful video of (promise to shut about it after this) a song we’re not going to do: Bon Jovi – The End (by hAnD90) .
The footage hAnD90 used is from the dvd Live From London, a project that I started last week, on this blog.
I was on THE VERGE of writing a part deux to a Dutch post I wrote yesterday.
You see, unlike anything anybody expected to get out of this quarantine situation, our national health service thingy – the one which makes all the recommendations about what to do about the C. crisis – very unexpectedly gave us singles ONE sex buddy each!
It was almost like that joke, where the patient asks his doctor if he can play piano after his fingers were broken.
And the doctor says yes, and he answers:
“Cool! I could never do that before!”
Because we never had sex buddies.
And most singles do not have sex at all, right?
Even most people in relationships and/or married don’t have flourishing sex lives, but at least they have some options and chances- someone to focus their efforts on. And then out of the clear blue sky; Bam! We get a free gift!
1-0 for Dutch singles! After two-and-a-half month of quarantine we take the lead, by unexpectedly getting a One sex buddy each – voucher, during lockdown.
When technically, up until that moment, singles didn’t even exist below the belt.
And this goes in particular for the females! The only time we are allowed to have sex is when it happens because we feel “safe” and “special”.
READ: If we are somehow tricked into thinking he’ll have a relationship with us, then we might have sex somewhere surrounding a dating situation.
And maybe he’ll come back and make a decent woman out of us, by dating us for a longer period of time.
Or, alternatively, he doesn’t and then we automatically were “wrong” or “too soon”.
Health, exercise and mental health, are all talked about and treated and so on, far more extensively than 50 years ago. But the refusal to see that this goes hand in hand with A – privilege Of money, time, and freedom. And B. – sexuality is still present. We like talking about health when it means we can tell people off for eating unhealthy and giving them meal plans and exercise schedules. We do not like talking about women who make their marriages toxic by being obsessed with clogged up arteries and wining about their husbands’ drinking, eating and sitting on their ass watching tv all day, numbing the noise out; When HE would be wide awake enjoying life if he had kept chasing the ladies and taking care of his body after his wedding day; And she would be a blushing, fun, woman hitting the gym and all the hot guys half her age, if she had given herself permission to just go for it and enjoy life.
We have very limited ideas about where we want our health and happiness to come from, and sexuality – with its massively disruptive effects and unpredictable behavior because – hey! it really does take two!- sexuality is our least favorite tool.
If a sex doctor could tell us we would add an extra twenty years to our lives if we would give up on the idea of regiment and limitations, and surrender to what our senses bring us? Say yes to adventure, to uncertainty; Let ourselves be tempted?
We wouldn’t do it.
We would rather die underused and RIGHT; Accepted, boring but reliable; Than to die having broken all the written and unwritten rules, and add twenty years of fun and adventure to our name.
So, considering how strict married people are to themselves, judging their own extramarital sexuality so harshly, it will come as no surprise that it is not supported in singles either.
Anyway, I feel I m drifting off but just interpret the previous paragraphs of proof of how much time I had already spent studying this, and coming to accept that it was all just so rotten and hopeless, I was not going to see the day we would normalize sex. Because it makes it relatable as to HOW THRILLED I was with this government organisation, unexpectedly, giving us the green light to go have sex! Like I said with the piano comparison; So cool! Because we never had that before.
24 Hours after that announcement, and after my blog which by the way I did not intend to write (I usually don’t write in Dutch, just about yoga or cartoons).
24 Hours after I wrote about this great news for The Netherlands, and since The Guardian wrote about our sex buddy as well, you could probably say great news for the world as a whole; They pulled it back.
The government organization. As a friend of mine would say: “They pulled back their turd.”
God damn it. I knew it!
I was so angry.
The blog had been for nothing. The joy had been for nothing. And we were back to the same patriarchal misogynistic residual Christian bullshit society we had been living in for 2000 years.
And although this Saturday was supposed to be spent buying a new vacuum cleaner and preparing for my new Bon Jovi video for tonight I SWORE I had to write a part deux for the Dutch blogpost! And it was going to be FULL-ON! I was going to destroy everything…
I was going to strike back by letting everyone know what I had already been vowing in silence at the beginning of this crisis, when I had gotten absolutely sick of the compliant, fearful, nature of the Dutch when lockdown measures were taken (suffice to say I understood why it took the Germans less than 48 hours to take this country); That I was going to rebel for the rest of my life to make up for the miserable, fearful months, in which I was domesticated by law. I was going to sleep with every married man, I set my eyes on. As a principle. Revenge. The remaining part of my life would serve as a very big fuck you to a society that had behaved like chickenshits, and that had used a virus to force its restrictive unhealthy views on sexuality down everybody’s throat, by allowing only the married couples to have sex.
I could see myself go to sleep with the taste of blood in my mouth every night, of all the marriages I would cut the arteries of. Just for fun.
I would kill for pleasure.
So, that was the dark, depressed, deplorable mental state I was in, when within 24 hours the government just snatched their gift of the sex buddy back. And I could not let this go.
I really thought there was no turning back. I was determined to go over to the Dark Side.
And then something happened. It seemed insignificant at first. I noticed a new Bon Jovi fan, who was having lively interaction with some of the accounts I follow.
I checked his timeline first. I certainly didn’t need any more negativity since I was carrying enough toxins within me, to poison an entire fanbase.
I didn’t need anybody else’s.
But he checked out.
And I sent him a tweet, and soon the happy replies were mine to receive. I answered but in silence I still thought: “I will stay angry with the world!” But he won.
And The Most Hateful Post where I declared war on married people, Dutch government, and all those not in favor of sex buddies for everybody, evaporated.
It is gone.
Entirely.
What were my favorite Bon Jovi songs? he asked. And my least favorite? And did I know this song? And that song?
And tweet by tweet my anger just fully and thoroughly melted away. And I knew that whomever he was, he was obviously here to keep me from spreading hate. Heal me from being angry. And ultimately, to have a conversation about which Bon Jovi songs were the sexiest.
And so we did.
So maybe that is the big lesson, the take away here:
You can’t plan these things. Not the good, nor the bad.
You can’t plan on having sex buddies anymore than you can plan on not having them. Love and sex cannot be planned nor approved by government or by anybody else – they just happen when they do.
And usually when you least expect it.
~Suzanne
Top 5 Sexiest Bon Jovi Songs
And the lyrics that prove it.
5. Diamond Ring (These Days, 1995)
“When you’re hungry, I will fill you up When you’re thirsty, drink out of my loving cup”
This song probably has the strangest history out of all Bon Jovi songs.
Written for New Jersey (1988) it didn’t make the cut. Neither did it for Keep for Faith (1992).
But it has been performed live from the late 80s onward.
By the time it was released on record, they had been performing Diamond Ring on stage for years. Letting hundreds of thousands of fans drink out of their loving cup.
4. River of Love (Richie Sambora solo, 1991)
“Take you down real slow And then your body will quiver And the river will flow”
When Howard Stern inducted a reunited Bon Jovi to The Rock n Roll Hall of Fame, he made jokes which referred to the sexual appetite of Richie Sambora, and I don’t think any fan has any doubt which one of the two front men possessed the “raw, untamed power”, as Star Wars put it.
Yet, it actually took me until a couple of failed attempts of searching for super sexual songs or lyrics, for a variety of art projects, to realize how non-explicit Bon Jovi songs really were.
There are no sexual words in there.
But having said that, comparing the solo records from Jon and Richie, will give you an indication of which one of the two… well. You do the math.
3. Amen (what About now,2013)
“Honeysuckle on her lips Sweeter than a man deserves to taste Mercy, mercy, what else can I say?”
Much to my surprise, this – in my opinion – extremely intimate song, has been played live all the way up to their most recent tour in 2019. Hail to Jon. Amen.
2. I’m Your Man (Burning Bridges,2015)
“When your heart is hungry When you want a secret you can keep You know that you can call me Anytime for anything you need”
This is my personal favorite! Not just because this song describes my perfect relationship, but it’s so upbeat and fun! The odd-one-out Burning Bridges album (2015) is worth its weight in gold for many reasons, but just having that album to have I m your Man blowing from your speakers and waking up the neighborhood, would probably already suffice.
As sort of a super important PS on this song!!
This is NOT the Leonard Cohen cover song I’m Your Man, which Bon Jovi has performed several times, and which is also very sexual, but in a more…. scripted way.
It’s used as a little play, between Jon Bon Jovi and his female audience.
You can find a video of that I m Your Man cover version, with crowd interaction, at the bottom of this post.
So if you Google I m Your Man Bon Jovi – live, you will find that cover version.
But the happy, upbeat I’m Your Man as it was released on the Burning Bridges album, has never been performed live.
Making it one of the most underappreciated Bon Jovi tracks ever.
1. Let’s Make It Baby (both versions)
version 1 Let’s Make It Baby- New Jersey Deluxe 1988 (demo)
version 2: released in 1996 on a 2-disc These Days album
“I want to play doctor. It keeps getting harder, harder, harder to keep me away I want to taste the sweat that’s runnin’ off of your body. Get the sheets all wet, I wanna make you feel naughty”
If “Amen” was a tribute to Leonard’s Cohen, Hallelujah; Let’s Make it Baby, is a haunting trip all the way back to the psychedelic organ-led music of The Doors. Including Jon Bon Jovi diving so deep into the purest and strongest of desires. Bon Jovi’s most erotic song, will probably stay unknown forever.
Hidden, on the Dark Side.
~Suzanne
Update
In June 2020, I renamed this site from Rock Star Yoga to Rock Star Writer.
I ll update all blogposts (there are 46) and will get my fingers into the YouTube channel soon, including retrieving content I had to take down in January because of technicalities.
These blog posts will go out randomly, as topics reveal themselves.
You can find the subscription button on this page, probably somewhere on the right.
* sadly enough all referrals/ links to the Rock Star “Yoga” page on Facebook (url), have become invalid. I intend to start curating this blog, and update the links.
With the unpredictable cycle of starting business plans and cancelling them;
Rebooting video and letting it fall flat on its face;
Dangling between video and writing
and the impossible choice between two languages.
But also:
The unexpectedly soothing and satisfying experience of becoming a yoga teacher again:
I finally understood what the underlying common demeanor was.
What they key element was, of what it is I DO.
And it’s not either or.
Not even either the work I do under this name, versus the pen name;
An alias account (on Fb since 2010) where I basically stopped writing after C crisis.
With my entire sexuality falling flat on its face, and probably staying there for months if not years to come,
there were no aspects of my life that were even remotely secretive or exciting enough to be written about under a pen name.
But it was not an either or, of any of those things.
As tempting as it is, to simplify life to ONE thing you’re doing, ONE thing you’re selling;
For some of us, that’s not the way we roll.
We don’t know what we’ll be doing the moment our feet hit the floor in the morning, let alone what business we’ll build for years to come.
But I did find the one thing I, and perhaps any other soul who has been wondering how to survive this crisis sanely,
can do to not just get out of this intact.
But to be so engaged in something else that you stop caring about whether or not you do get out.
Something that is so profoundly spiritual, yet so engaging, addictive, COMPELLING! that if they tap you on the shoulder after C. you’ll furiously snap:
“I m busy!!”
And that thing that will save you (if you have it in you, if you are this) that thing is CREATION
It is only in creation and our creativity, that life makes sense. Not because we understand every little detail, but because we’re creating new things.
Like God created the earth;
We too become the creators of our own lives.
The statue on the picture is Shiva:
Creator of Worlds.
But he is also the destroyer of worlds.
Whether Shiva creates more than he destroys?
No one knows.
Maybe the other Gods pitch in, to make up for the damage.
I wrote about Shiva because I have this statue at my studio.
And it wasn’t until later that I heard the story of a studio burning to the ground for no apparent reason,
and its owners “blaming” it to Shiva;
Although I m sure they were smart enough to understand that something else was created.
And that the brick and mortar yoga studio was no longer nessecary to contain it.
Maybe the thriving but fixed business, was standing in the way of the new work the teachers would now start doing.
The moment you stand still and resist change you are like ice:
You can only hope that you won’t melt.
But the moment you become creative, you start your dance with Shiva, in the ring of fire.
You breathe life into life.
You bring unexpected death and destruction.
And people will never know what to expect because you will be ever changing.
As soon as you start creating, you will become Life itself.
.
~Suzanne
The Fire Inside is a Bon Jovi song from the 4-5 disc box set 100 million Bon Jovi Fans Can’t be Wrong
You can find the song at the bottom of this post.
Update
In June 2020, I renamed this site from Rock Star Yoga to Rock Star Writer.
I ll update all blogposts (there are 46) and will get my fingers into the YouTube channel soon, including retrieving content I had to take down in January because of technicalities.
These blog posts will go out randomly, as topics reveal themselves.
You can find the subscription button on this page, probably somewhere on the right.
* sadly enough all referrals/ links to the Rock Star “Yoga” page on Facebook (url), have become invalid. I intend to start curating this blog, and update the links.
This is not an easy blog post, and I give you full permission to not read it.
I created an upbeat 8 minute video, today. So I certainly do not intend to make Rock Star Yoga all doom and gloom! And knowing myself, I may actually “snap out of this”! I may suddenly see the light, and move forward in a way like never before. So you’re very welcome to wait until that day, because I appreciate your presence and I am very selective with what I read myself:
If you are here for the days that IT ROCKS!
I send you all the love, and permission to skip, fully granted ❤
.
But for me, nor the massive breakthroughs nor the sudden cancellations, happen overnight. A lot of thinking and processing happens before that, and today is such a day.
.
In the 8 months Rock Star Yoga exists, I have not doubt it so strongly as today.
And I want to share with you what haunts me.
Why I feel unsure if there is still a place for Rock Star Yoga, in this world.
If there is still a place for me, the truest part of me, as an individual.
I’m sure the toned-down, responsible version of me can make a contribution.
But that’s not the real me.
.
Tonight I wrote a post for the Facebook page.
And what was intended to be a short goodnight post, turned into a detailed description of why I suddenly doubt my mission, my purpose, in light of the C crisis.
Why I really have no idea what my purpose is and if Rock Star Yoga did not belong in a world that is now lost.
In one of the many earlier videos of Rock Star Yoga, which I had to delete because YouTube had unedited my 400+ videodatabase, I talked about the difference between creators or creatives versus builders or sustainers. And that although the world is fascinated with creators/creatives, little is understood of our nature. That you can’t educate us, or train us, or ask of us to behave in a different, more constructive way, without damaging the essence of who we are.
Just like a builder/sustainer will never come with something truly creative;
A creator/creative will never come with something truly sustainable.
We, creatives, create and we destroy. That is the nature of who we are. You could say: That is our purpose.
In retrospect, the post I wrote for Facebook, and I will include it exactly the way I wrote it there, is about that difference.
I guess what has been haunting me is:
In a world that became for builders and sustainers, overnight,
do we still create?
Sometimes I feel every update in the last month cries for this particular Gif:
Jon Bon Jovi in the eighties.
I believe it’s from the Wanted Dead Or Alive video.
I could, should maybe one day will, write a blog post on the complexity of ALL of the emotions going on in this three second clip!
But not tonight.
.
Because tonight I really do feel like Jon there.
.
As if it never ends.
.
Like all of us I suppose, I feel confronted with difficult choices every day.
Can I go out? Should I ALWAYS stay indoors?
Can I NEVER see a friend or family member without having to be deeply ashamed of my wildly irresponsible behavior?
.
And for how long?
Until there is a vaccine every interaction is going to be scrutinized?
.
Despite Dutch government explicitly saying the virus will become a common factor in our daily lives, and that the only reason we are putting a stop on social interactions is because otherwise the hospitals will collapse,
I keep reading comments that imply all citizens should behave as if they are in total lock-down.
Even though government deliberately did not go for a lock-down because it does not believe the virus can ultimately be stopped.
.
But on social people who go outside are shamed.
Even though our Dutch regulations say you can go outside, and even meet a friend as long as you are healthy and don’t touch each other.
.
So it seems at least to me, that somewhere something doesn’t add up.
Social distance for strangers seems to have been confused with friends and family; And working from home and avoiding crowds was confused with measures instructing a total lockdown.
.
Some of you may remember a video I shot two weeks ago, and I m not going to include the link because that’s making it more important than it is, but I have a social phobia.
And it’s taking its toll.
.
I, and I can only imagine other people with social phobias as well, do not hear the reasons on which you judge other people.
We hear that you judge.
And we interpret it as:
“If I want this person to be my friend, I need to behave just like he or she insists is the only right way, or I have to be prepared to discuss it.”
.
I understand it’s fear.
I understand you’re worried.
I understand you’re probably projecting accusations on things and behaviors you’ve seen that do not have anything to do with me, onto me.
But all that doesn’t make it easier.
.
And I wonder how long we are going to look at each other to “be careful” in order to protect ourselves and our loved ones?
.
This could take 18 months, before we have a vaccine.
.
Are we going to forbid healthy people to go out, for 18 months?
Are we going to prohibit children from playing outside, for 18 months?
Are we going to keep banners on our Facebook profiles “Stay inside” for 18 months?
.
And I have a social phobia: Nothing scares me more than the idea that I behave in a way that you will judge me for.
I will stay inside for 18 months, don’t worry.
.
So it would surprise me if you would see me change things.
If I would have that conversation on how much time we are prepared to stay in hiding.
I ll hide forever.
.
Not because I m afraid of the virus but of your judgement.
.
Some of us destroy others, others destroy themselves.
.
Two days ago, I destroyed my pen name.
I didn’t want to be the artist I was for 14 years, because she could not breathe in this world.
So I rescued her, and brought her to 1995.
Where she can take solace, for as long as it is needed.
.
But Rock Star Yoga?
Man… I don’t know.
.
I feel that either I have to pretend Rock Star Yoga is a bonding, unifying practice; vanilla and sweet.
And safe.
In other worlds, I would have to pretend it’s normal yoga.
.
Or admit that Rock Star Yoga is rebellious way of doing life, because it ultimately stands for individual freedom.
In a time when everybody is so relieved that we have finally found our collective, that is an unbearable message…
.
And that therefor, just like my pen name, I may have to stop Rock Star Yoga.
Because we have enough that disrupts society already.
..
Rock Star Yoga was to create awareness that you are a lot more free than you think.
That morals are worth fighting.
I was 15 when I said groups and collective thinking were evil.
I never fitted into groups, I was afraid of them and I found them dangerous. By calling it a social phobia I m taking all the blame ( “Oh it’s me!”) but that’s me being agreeable.
I think it’s very threatening that we are not thinking about our own boundaries and so easily adapt the Your Body Is A Weapon Of Mass Destruction That Should Be Hidden Indoors vision.
.
So dead or alive?
.
I really, honestly, don’t know.
.
~Suzanne .
Update
In June 2020, I renamed this site from Rock Star Yoga to Rock Star Writer.
I ll update all blogposts (there are 46) and will get my fingers into the YouTube channel soon, including retrieving content I had to take down in January because of technicalities.
These blog posts will go out randomly, as topics reveal themselves.
You can find the subscription button on this page, probably somewhere on the right.
* sadly enough all referrals/ links to the Rock Star “Yoga” page on Facebook (url), have become invalid. I intend to start curating this blog, and update the links.
And yet, the moment I watched the intro I knew Jon taking the stage was missing.
I was on THE VERGE of writing a part deux to a Dutch post I wrote yesterday.
With the unpredictable cycle of starting business plans and cancelling them; 
This is not an easy blog post, and I give you full permission to not read it.
Sometimes I feel every update in the last month cries for this particular Gif:
Rock Star Writer 