I went to Ranalli's for the birthday dinner they were giving me last night. I seriously love those guys,. Seriously. I hung out there for a few hours and witnessed the worst attempt at a rap and a cock-block the eventually ran two young ladies out of the place.
I woke up this morning to hear Howard Stern lamenting the death of Dimebag Darrell. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. They were playing the Alrosa Villa, a place I've been to many times. Ministry was playing about 2 miles down the street at the Newport Music Hall. I had the weird feeling it was going to make for a long morning.
As I suspected my email was full of personal messages about it. What a tragic incident. A lot of people were very upset. I never got to know the guy. I met him once when I was with Type O Negative but a lot of my friends and staff, past and present were very close to him. Everything I heard about him made me want to meet him more and more. The email I got was from all over the country. I spoke to Mike J who was very upset and emailed Vanessa down in Indy who I knew was having one of the worst days in her life because of this. I think of all my friends she is surely taking it the hardest. Everything I ever heard about the guy was great. He was a KISS fan who had an Ace Frehley tattoo, he loved women and whiskey and above all loved his fans.
I cannot help but wonder if a fanatic who read that headline on Blabbermouth.net last week may have been the shooter. I do not know of 1 single personality in Metal who has any respect for what they report. The rumors and the gossip and posting stories that are not true and unconfirmed. That is not journalism,it's lower than the creeps at the Star or World Weekly News. But to pick up a line out of an interview and make that the headline to the story is a load of crap. When I read that headline "So and So (I will not name who) say's Dimebag Darrell should be shot and killed" I was so appalled I refused to read the body of the interview. Seriously we say shot like that everyday and don't mean it. But all it takes is one idiot fanatic to read that and they do something so drastic in order to impress someone that it's tragic. It's just a therory and we'll see what develops as the truth to why this had to hapen unravells.
My best goes out to his brother Vinnnie Paul. Hang in there man. And to all you fans, keep his memory and his music close to your hearts. His lived for rock n roll and he lived for his fans. His legacy shall live on.
Posted by Alex Zander at December 9, 2004 02:12 PM