Show Me The Real You

From the book signing tonight in Washington DC...
(That's not me in the photo. I don't know who that is. I took this photo, I don't feature in it.)

Nikki Sixx has amazing eyes. He looks up at you, at every person who passes by his table, and if you look back, they're suddenly all you can see. You almost expect to start hearing him in your head like the voice of Galadriel in Lord of the Rings, only with far less formal motherfucking use of the goddamn language, so to speak. But the comparison is otherwise not too far off -- Nikki looks younger than his 52 years, especially from a distance. He has a swiftness to him, how he moves, how he speaks, how he thinks. He smiles easily and often, and in spite of the scars his face sometimes seem to light up with boyish energy and boundless enthusiasm. But most of all, when you look back into those eyes, one thing becomes instantly and perhaps unsettlingly clear -- Nikki Sixx is not looking at you. He's looking for you.

It's a sensation most of us aren't used to. In our normal, everyday lives, we may look people in the eye as a habitual means of trying to communicate the sincerity of our accompanying words or actions, but rarely are those glances particularly penetrating, or truthful. We don't really want to see what's in there, and we sure as hell don't want anyone to see us. Almost all of us wear a perpetual mask against anyone getting too close to us through that metaphorical window to the soul. But so rare is it that any of us would DARE to try it on someone else, it's almost equally rare for anyone else to try it on us, and just as a musician's hands grow soft if he stops playing, our masks get more and more transparent with disuse.

It might be startling for a lot of people to suddenly find themselves being looked for that way. It's frightening for us to come out of our shells. But Nikki means it with that look and with the words in his new book, This Is Gonna Hurt, when he philosophizes, rants, and waxes poetic about his desire to see beyond our habitual hiddenness.

During the 3-hour wait I had in line, I read through the first 100 pages of the book, and was particularly struck by a selection in which Nikki serves up a venomous exposition on how he detests middle-of-the-road opinions and understatements of people's real thoughts. Don't ever tell me you "like" Motley or Sixx:A.M., he says, and for God's sake either fucking hate my photography or love it but don't sit on the fence. I have come too far not to evoke some kind of emotion from you. You deserve rage as much as you do love.

In spite of my shyness and my devotion to my masks, you don't refuse when Nikki Sixx orders you to cut the bullshit, let yourself feel, and let him see how. I wasn't able to speak to him for very long, but I did pull all my resolve into cutting the bullshit and saying EXACTLY what I felt without holding back -- figuring after all, if I do make a complete fucking fool of myself, when exactly the hell am I ever going to see or speak to this guy again? If you don't like what I have to say or how I say it, Nikki, that's your problem for inviting it.

But no... there's never a "calm the fuck down and dial it back, creeper" vibe from him. He responds to enthusiasm and real emotions like Pavlov's dog responded to that bell. He's hungry for them. And so am I.

Speaking with Nikki Sixx without the masks on was the most genuine and personal conversation I've had with anyone in a very, very long time.

This Is Gonna Hurt... The part that hurts is getting cut open. Nikki will stick tubes into you with no anesthetic. After that, you won't even notice that you're bleeding, while the machine that is Sixx:A.M. cleans your blood and pumps it right back into you, all the better for having been in their hands for a while.

Come into focus
Step out of the shadows
It's a losing bet
There's no need to be ashamed

Cause they don't even know you
All they see is scars
They don't see the angel
Living in your heart

Let them find the real you
Buried deep within
Let them know with all you've got
That you are not your skin

--from "Skin" by Sixx:A.M.
This Is Gonna Hurt