"Everybody loves our Town" book he said;
"I got home to California, and after that's when it really began (his drug use). Because I couldn't forget about losing my band. It was everything to me, and it broke my heart, so I started shooting again
Mike Starr 🔥
@rottingangelic
thank you so much for sending me this stuff stripped-to-the-bone >.< it makes my heart so happy.
goddamn it. reading this just breaks my fucking heart. 😢 mike is such a beautiful soul bruh. people seriously undermine what he went through.
RANT INCOMING!!
bout to explain how i feel about mike's struggles, and this will include my problem with alice in chains.
ahh, where do i even begin.
i just don't understand how people can undermine his struggles and treat him as just a druggie. he was tough as nails.
when the band kicked him out, they crushed his dreams. let's be real. they forcibly stole his passion away from him. he'd been dreaming about that since he was a kid. it ruined his life. not only did they take that away from him, but it wasn't for fair reasons at all. the whole situation was extremely weird, suspicious and off. he didn't deserve it.
it wasn't just something simple like, it was the drug problem or he was selling backstage passes. if it was the drug problem, then why was layne still there and why was layne's addiction only worse and worse after that with no open talk about that? not to mention how the other two admitted to struggling with addiction themselves. if it was the backstage passes... come on it's just dumb, it doesn't make sense. in the rock star world of the music industry, that's just not something you get kicked for. it's way too tame. it's something you can easily pull someone aside and reprimand them for, and get onto them for doing it. either of these "excuses" in any case demonstrate an attitude of replaceability. if they're really kicking mike for those reasons, it shows that they see him as expendable. and this just doesn't add up when taking into consideration the close brotherhood and chemistry of the band. it doesn't add up unless certain band members did start to see him that way, despite aforementioned friendship.
before we go on, i will clarify that when i'm talking about alice, i'm specifically referring to and placing the blame on sean and jerry. the situation is a bit more complicated with layne, and i wont pretend to know the intricacies of layne and mike's relationship or layne and the band's relationship. but i do know them kicking mike made things tense between layne and the others, and i know that layne actually stayed friends with mike throughout this whole situation. he didn't abandon him. therefore i do not see layne as culpable.
the band and management has since used those range of excuses and reasoning for why mike got kicked, but just as i mentioned, it seems flimsy. it seems like not the full story. if mike had done something actually problematic, which is usually the only reason rock stars get booted from their own bands, then it is obvious layne wouldn't have stayed friends with him.
what seems more likely, is the band used drugs as the excuse to kick him. when really it was a bunch of factors, that weren't really related to things that were actually mike's fault. factors that made once-friends start to see mike as someone replaceable.
to explain: why would they do the mike inez gag? first off, why would anyone in any circumstance do that in general? 😐 but secondly, why would your so-called friends, who you are apparently leaving on good terms, suddenly shove in your face this "joke" about 'oh! we'll just replace you with a guy who has the same hair, same name, smokes the same cigarettes hahaha xD'
it seems like just a joke in real fucking shitty taste, but it was anything but. not only were they doing that shit for real, but they were laughing about it like it was cute. 😨yikes. imagine being mike and seeing that shit, just as you're grappling with the fact that your dreams are gone forever. gross, disrespectful, hurtful doesn't even begin to describe it. those are supposed to be your friends, your brothers. and all of a sudden they're treating you like your part in the band didn't matter, that you were just a tool and all that mattered about you was the way you looked.
it was an absolutely disgusting decision and i don't even understand where their head was at with that. 1. not only are they labeling mike as a tool with that action, but they are also stripping mike inez or whoever the potential bassist could have been of their own identity as a bassist in the band. now their job is to compare to and pose as the original, and live forever in their shadow. 2. was this really some trick to hope the fans wouldn't notice, or that it would somehow soften the blow? do you really think your own fans are dumb enough to not realize an entire piece of what originally made the band what it was is missing? do you think they're not gonna feel weirded out by your treating of said important piece and person, as if all they were was just some means to an end? a tool to churn out bass lines? how do they not realize how gross and hurtful and just... fucking weird they sound acting like that and making that decision. it's dehumanizing. 3. and especially when you try to think about how that person was their friend before. is that how you treat your friends? how do you not stop to think about how mike is gonna feel? how does that not cross your mind if you give a shit about him at all? it feels super fucking off.
even if they weren't friends with him anymore. there's still such a thing as respect and decency. unless they had a real reason to treat him like shit, which they must not have because layne stayed friends with him, then the whole thing just speaks either, 'i don't like you,' or 'i don't care about you or consider your feelings,' which, in either situation is jarring because again, this was supposed to be someone that was your friend.
of course mike would get home and start to spiral badly into addiction. this is all like a big fucking stab to the back, to the heart. from your buddies. not only is it all this completely off vibes, it's your literal dreams and passion and purpose ripped away from you.
and on top of that, he thought it was his fault!! they painted it like his fault, and he accepted it. even if he didn't agree.
so he was blaming himself.
i wanna take a pause to mention how the magic and the sound of the band deteriorated after mike left. mike was the spark of the band and without him the sound was not the same at all. when you look at those old bootleg videos, they're amazing. but after early 93, when mike was kicked, layne starts visibly getting worse. even in the old shitty film quality, you can see how utterly sick he was. he wasn't doing well, and it kept snowballing. layne no longer had his brother with him on tour, supporting him through the harsh realities of tour life on those shitty tour buses.
mike didn't have layne either. they were very close. and on top of everything just mentioned, mike was now at a sudden and very considerable distance from layne, even though they stayed friends.
this exacerbated both of their diseases.
i can't reiterate enough how this was mike's dream, since he was a kid. it was his purpose, his way of expressing his soul. this is all undoubtedly a traumatic situation! :( and he's blaming himself for it, internalizing the belief that he deserved such pain.
let's stop for a moment and mention the fact that the band and their fame controls his ENTIRE public image. after he was kicked and discreetly shamed and blamed over the years, he had no way of controlling how the public viewed him, and no way of defending himself or sharing his own point of view. social media back then wasn't like it was nowadays. you couldn't just get out there and speak your truth. this means the people around him, and himself, are gonna be spoon-fed this narrative that isn't true.
since people treat the more famous and successful people as "credible" and "in the right," mike undoubtedly was told and given the reaffirmation that he was the one in the wrong. that he deserved it and therefore he should get over his own mistake.
he never got to speak his truth and have control over his own narrative, and he was constantly re-internalizing that same belief of others that it was his own fault, his own mistake, and that he should just get over it. this leaves absolutely no room for acknowledging the extremely deep wound and finding a path towards healing. all this does is shove it down and pretend it doesn't exist.
it's time to dive into... celebrity rehab 😃. this fucking cursed ass show. there's a reason it's been deleted from the face of the earth, and it's not just because 10 people died after the "treatment." this show was extremely exploitative, and dr. drew just wanted to erase his wrongdoings from history. he is a fucking horrible person, but we'll get more into that later. not only did this show prey on mike at his most vulnerable, use him for ratings, and paint him simply as some washed up, wanna-be rockstar. but they didn't actually do anything in the way of REAL and lasting treatment. all they did was help him achieve the physical act of quitting the drugs, and supported him during withdrawal. (an extremely difficult task, was nigh impossible. mike was going completely cold turkey off a range of substances, and this highly hindered his ability to make it through. he was still experiencing symptoms for MONTHS after the initial diagnosed recovery) i will say that mike fucking took that shit and ran with it. not only did he tough it out through the most difficult withdrawals one could have, but he took the tools and help they gave him and he stayed sober. he kept sober for an entire year. he took that shit seriously.
the problem was, they were too busy caring about their show to actually give a fuck about him. sure, they got a couple emotional moments in there, with layne's mom. but that was a talk he and her needed to have. they just happened to have a space where they could instigate it. in reality, they were just another group invalidating his pain. when they initially took mike in for treatment and asked him what was wrong, he told them straight up, "i miss the band. they kicked me out. it broke my heart."
MIND YOU: this was the first time in OVER A DECADE that mike actually got to speak out and share his part of the narrative, his side of the story.
and you know what they did? they just twisted it and edited it to make him look like a sad, whiny wanna-be. they didn't try to dive deeper into that, didn't go hmm this is something that's been bothering you for over a decade, maybe we should explore that a bit more and understand why it seems to be your first answer when asked about your addiction. no, they simply said "damn that's crazy... get over it 😃" and treated him like he 'wasn't being a man' and was being a dramatic baby about it.
they did not get into the emotional root at ALL. in fact, they actively invalidated his pain! his first time being vulnerable and sharing his side of the story with the public! so not only were they complete snakes to him, but they didn't even really help him. they only treated the physical aspect of his addiction. WHEN YOU TREAT THE SYMPTOM, AND NOT THE CAUSE, YOU ARE NOT HELPING THE PROBLEM.
and "doctor" drew? 🤢 there are no words. he called up mike one day to 'check in on him' or rather it was mike's sister, melinda, who called drew and was curious about next steps they could take to help secure mike's sobriety. then drew called mike, to check on him, and proceeded to invite mike on a radio show interview. drew didn't even remember enough to tell the difference between mike's dad and mike's sister. i doubt he actually cared beyond wanting to show off this shiny new ex-rockstar he "fixed" on his precious little show. I DO NOT FUCKING RECOMMEND listening to that fucking radio show. the whole premise of the show is that random strangers call up on the telephones, and share very personal, graphic details about their sexual lives, asking for advice from so-called 'doctor.' there were even a couple minors on there at one point?? all i kept thinking the whole time was holy shit, why is there no rules or regulations? why don't you control who calls and what they're allowed to talk about? even if that's you're usual shtick, if you're bringing a guest on to interview them in the radio show, the least respectful thing you could do is close out those weird ass personal calls and only take requests for questions about the guest. bro, in the entire hour and a half timespan, mike MAYBE talks for 5-10 mins.
what's fucked up is drew is acting like his friend the whole time, and what's even more fucked up is mike seems to see him as a good friend. how bad were mike's friends that he sees that predator as a good friend??? jesus christ.
mike was such a sweet and forgiving person. even when in the interview, drew asked if any of the members from alice had reached out to congratulate him in his sobriety. mike immediately waved it off and was like "nah, but it's alright. don't wanna spread any hate or negativity, so let's just leave that stuff alone." :(
ahh... i can't imagine how much it hurt, that on top of everything they did, they didn't even reach out to support him in his sobriety. they never lifted a finger when they knew he was spiraling and going on a dangerous path with his addiction, and needed support. and they weren't even there to offer a small congratulations for his sobriety. but then somehow, when he died, all of a sudden they care?? 😐😡😡
no. they do not have any right to put "LSMS" on their drum set bro.
alice doesn't have that same magic for me. i can't even watch or listen to the stuff without mike in it cause it just makes me sad and angry. i used to be into it but i can't support them anymore. i just can't not feel just bitterness and sickness. and also mike is what gave them that extra kick/spice to take them to the next level and make them sound really good. sure you can argue that they still made some good stuff after that. but it only makes sense, with a billion-dollar company throwing producers their way. still, the sound stayed a replica of what they once were, the power and grit they once had. and when it wasn't that, it was a dark and sad sound, that steadily got darker and sadder, reflecting layne's state of being.
now they're still churning out live shows, but they're just killing the legacy man. the magic is gone. all that's left is the nostalgia. the nostalgia of the magic that once was.
it's not fair to mike, and it's not fair to layne.
aghh... this is why i'll still like and reblog pics of the band, but ONLY with him still there. and only because i like being able to see his face when he still had that happiness...
mike deserved way better, way way better. and it only makes sense, with all of this invalidation of his trauma and the complexity of what he went through taken into account, that he fought so, so hard but ultimately lost his battle against his disease... :(
i feel like people don't talk nearly enough about this shit... mike never got a voice and he deserves one.
