Axl Stole My Braids

In 2003, Offspring lead singer Dexter Holland vowed to steal Axl Rose's proposed title of the new Guns 'N Roses - Chinese Democracy - for his own band's next album. Holland was quoted in the Los Angeles times as saying "Axl stole my braids so I stole his album title." Immediately upon reading this, I wrote the following poem:


Dexter makes his grand entrance
To the House on the Rock
He says "Is this place for real?"
The tour guide tells a story
Of a man with a wife and a fetish
But all Dexter can think is
"Axl stole my braids"

Dexter remembers his mother's reminder
That milk is for cookies and cookies for girls
"But Mom it doesn't matter
Because rock and roll lives on
And shadows make the sun
I don't blame the victim but
Axl stole my braids"

The next day Dexter visits John Ashcroft
And asks him what he thinks
About the future of punk
Ashcroft says "No good punk"
Dexter says "You're right
But did you see, did you hear, did you know
While you were rounding up immigrants
Like in my most famous song
While you were pissing on the constitution
Like in my second most famous song
While you were bemoaning that Carnahan's plane went down
Costing you the election
Axl stole my braids"

Then, a knock on the door
The man from the House on the Rock says
"Frank Lloyd Wright never built his own grave
Doesn't that make you gentleman think?"
Ashcroft runs into traffic
Dexter says "See you in hell, motherfucking patrician!"
Stephen Malkmus appears on the scene, wincing
"Did someone call my name?"
Dexter thinks "Shit, these guys out-talent me
But they'll never outwork me
Axl stole my braids"

On the plane back to John Wayne
Don Henley introduces himself
Dexter says "Eagle, I remember when
You signed your letters to the editor
With three cities after your name"
Henley adjusts his toupee and says
"Ah yes. Santa Monica, Santa Fe,
And I don't remember the third"
"Aspen and Axl stole my braids"

Back home, Dexter takes a day trip
To go see the master, Lindsey Buckingham
Over stale Turkish coffee, Lindsey says
"Man, you had some hooks
But you got stuck in all that rage"
Dexter laughs
Lindsey says "It's not that funny"
Dexter says "Isn't it?"
Lindsey shakes his head, sending spirals of stringy hair
Into what's left of Dexter's Turkish
Dexter cries, runs out of the compound
Into the Malibu half-dusk
He screams, to the coyotes
To the mountain lions
To the heathens and the architects
"Axl!
Stole!
My!
Braids!"

(postscript: The Offspring, perhaps reacting to Rose's cease-and-desist order called their next album Splinter. Guns N Roses' Chinese Democracy has never been released)