Nurse the Hate: Hate Keith Richards

I am about to utter the ultimate rock and roll blasphemy...Keith Richards is a blowhard. There it is. It's out there. Now, before you lose your mind and dare ask how I defile the original rock n roll diety, let me explain.

About a month ago I read an article in GQ about Keith Richards. It was a piece that was seemingly placed with the sole ambition of promoting Keith's new sponsorship deal with Louis Vuitton luggage. (God knows he must need that promo money. Quick, what's more leathery? Keith or the $5000 bag? Ohhh...cheap shot!) In that article, there was the usual free pass that Mr. Richards enjoys in the press. Every article goes like this..."Keith, can you still party like you did in 1972?", asks the breathless interviewer. Keith answers vaguely, "Argh, Mate! You know, it's rock n' roll! Heh Heh Heh..." Uh, what? Follow up question: "So, what's it like being a dangerous man?" Keith then pulls out some knife or something, "I just gut anyone that gets in me way!".

As far as I know, Keith Richards has never actually gotten into a real fight with anyone except that hapless kid that got belted with Keith's guitar in the back of the head when he ran onstage towards Mick in 1981 in Hampton. Yet, he somehow has started to believe this press about him being some kind of pirate, and he thinks he's going to cut people up with his knife. C'mon...you're a 64 year old kazillionaire that hasn't so much as wiped his own ass since the early 1960s. Even that flimsy story about him pulling a gun on a local in St Tropez during the Exile sessions doesn't hold up under the light, and he really was out of control then. By the way, that was thirty six (36) years ago.

Anyone read that "interview" where Keith preens in front of Jack White and Hollywood's #1 starfucker Johnny Depp in Rolling Stone a few weeks back? Johnny has apparently latched onto Keith as New Father He Never Had #2, since Hunter S. Thompson inconveniently died leaving him orphaned. "I couldn't have pretended I was a pirate unless I saw Keith pretend he was a pirate first!" Then Keith responds with "Argh Me Matey!" Really heady stuff...

Anyway, that's all fine by me. The guy has definitely earned a pretty wide berth. Wrote some good songs, and so on. Did a few noteworthy things. Lived a very interesting life. However, I pick up an issue of Blender in a waiting room yesterday and see this stuff...

"Keith Richards still carries a knife for self-defense. The 64-year-old Rolling Stones' guitarist keeps a knife with a six-inch blade tucked in his pants.

According to Richards, he learnt how to use the knife while he was in Jamaica. As he told Blender magazine, "The actual cut doesn't hurt. All the blood comes down, and then you kick the f**ker in the balls. It's a very efficient way of dealing with problems. I learned it in Jamaica. I've always carried one."


You know how big that tough guy is? He's 5-10 and 138 lbs. I've taken bigger shits than him. You're telling me that this millionaire musician and his posse of pale Brits were getting in knife fights with Kingston street thugs when the Stones recorded there in the 70s? Uh, I don't think so... Those Kingston guys shot Marley and Tosh. You think they're going to give some 138 lb English drug addict a pass? "Quick back into the ghetto! That little leathery guy just knifed Toots! " Enough already...Keith, the stories swirling around you are good enough. Don't be like the 75 year old at the VFW Hall and start embellishing your war record. We know you were there. You don't have to impress us. You already did that years ago. Sometimes you say the most when you say the least. You don't hear Jimmy Page talking shit about conjuring up demons, do you? No way. Dude keeps that nice and private.