Terry Bozzio is one of the three or four most likable rock ’n’ roll musicians I’ve ever met, and the only one with his own recipe for pesto sauce. And I’d give my unborn son...well, the contents of my wallet...to be able to drum as he does. So I hate to say it. But it’s Eleganza’s job to say it, so say it I must, and will. No rock ’n’ roll performer—not Bobby Rydell, Jerry Garcia nor any member of such sensationally hideous groups as Molly Hatchet, Canned Heat, .38 Special, the Pretty Things, Motorhead, no one—has ever looked worse, be it on TV or cinema screen, album cover, single sleeve, or videotape than Dale Bozzio looks in Missing Persons’ video of “Give.”

But on to more pleasant subjects. I’ve said before and I’ll say again that I’m much more inclined to celebrate this column’s readers than to ridicule the likes of poor Dale Bozzio and other top faves of the MTV age. But I can’t do it unless you’ll send me photos of your notably attired self or your favorite group.

As you know, Gail Warnings of Rochester, New York, did recently, and now the whole country is talking about her and her favorite group, the Chesterfield Kings, who make Gail so happy that she weeps with joy every time she attends one of their performances.

Truth be told, they make Eleganza pretty happy too, by virtue of the fact of how vividly they evoke that glorious, innocent age when clothing retailers, realizing that American kids wouldn’t only be caught dead in clothes like those the Beatles and Rolling Stones wore, but were in fact terribly eager to buy same, put same for sale in a special Mod Corner of every department store in the land.

At any rate, since Eleganza started plugging them every other issue, the Kings have become the toast of the nation. All the major record companies have dispatched assholes with miniature gold spoons dangl: ing in their chest hair to offer them record deals, and Duran Duran albums gather dust in drafty warehouses while the teenage girls of America save their record-buying money for Greg, Rick, Doug, Andy, and Ori’s first major label release, which they’ll entitle Meet The Chesterfield Kings if they’ve got their wits about them. As their wide wale corduroy hip-huggers, Flagg Bros. Beatle boots and Brian Jones hair make very, very clear that they do.

On to less pleasant subjects. Every time Eleganza calls for the advent of the heavy metal good boy to counter the pernicious effects of such self-styled heavy metal bad boys as those ludicrous little nitwits Motley Crue, countless dozens of severly troubled readers across the length and breadth of the land write in, as Stephen R. Griggs of Evansville, Indiana (or, as Steverino himself prefers it, Evil E’ville), recently did to say something along the lines of, “I wish you a pleasant afterlife in Hell. May eternal flames engulf your feeble person and may the Grand Subjugator, Satan, ingest your miniscule gray matter upon your every awakening.”

“You, my friend,” adds the even more troubled—and vociferous^Lt. Gen. ‘Kamikaze’ Doc Hoffmenstat, address unknown, “are an ignoramus. You’re an asshole, fag-hagger, Geritol junkie...You have put your life in your own hands. You’ve cut down my favorite group, Scorpions.

“I write better stories about people I can’t stand in my school newspaper. I don’t know how assholes like you get a job cutting down our music. If you were right here in front of me, I’d don my rumble gear (chains, Crue headband, armband and Crue gloves, spiked studded and bejewled wristbands, my lucky collar, purple parachute pants, slashed Marine shirt and leather leg wraps) and beat you until you couldn’t see. Then I’d kick your ribs in with my checkered high-top Vans. In other words, you’d die, after I beat your brains out with my Fender bass. (I’d need a new bass, but who gives a fuck? After all, I wouldn’t have to waste my money on your writing.)

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“Now you cut my second favorite group, The Crue. I dress like them and I could beat your fat vitamin-drugged ass when wasted. And what’s more, good boys don’t want to play HM because they like whatever their Mommy likes.. .Next time, John, do a story on someone you can identify with—Michael Jackson or Boy George, both fags like you.”

As though to make even more blindingly manifest just how bad and depraved he is, Lt. Gen. Hoffmenstat—who I’m sure cuts a real terrifying figure in real life in his checkered high-top Vans—decorated the bottom of his letter with ballpoint pen drawings of demonic symbols.

Let me just say a few words about heavy metal homophobia. I took some psychology in college, and sociology too, and I know that some of the most virulent anti-Semites in history have been Jewish. My guess is that the likes of Lt. Gen. Hoffmenstat vilify gays as cruelly as they do because of a deep-seated terror that they may be capable of responding sexually to another guy themselves. I’m not saying that he secretly yearns to fondle Boy George’s creamy buttocks, assuming Boy George has buttocks. But if a heavy metal female impersonator like Motley Crue’s lead singer were to come down offstage in all his slutty make-up and bleached hair and high heels and chains and sit down on his lap, I suspect that Lt. Gen. Hoffmenstat—who can’t get that much otherwise, not in his undoubtedly idiotic-looking checkered high-top Vans—might find himself hotter and more bothered than he’d ever admit.

Listen carefully now, kids—if this sort of thing continues, you’ll leave Eleganza no recourse but to forward xerox copies of your letters to your moms, junior high school boys’ vice-principals, and clergymen. You can’t tell a man that he’s the readers’ ninth—ninth, just barely ahead of Sylvie Simmons, for God’s sake!—favorite contributor to the magazine and then expect him to sit still for the amount of abuse I’ve sat still for. Do you want Lisa Robinson back or something? (And please note that after 14 months of working out on Nautilus equipment while the worst possible pop music plays on the radio, the Eleganza body is 171 pounds of solid heavy-metal-hating steel. Except for the soft fleshy parts.)

Emotionally troubled little asshole though Lt. Gen. Hoffmenstat clearly is, I won’t deny that I’m grateful to him for his wonderful suggestion of a story about Michael Jackson. About a year ago, while Thriller’s sales were still finite, 1 espied Michael Jackson dining at a vegetarian restaurant on 3rd Street in Los Angeles, and you can take it from me that when he isn’t accepting awards, shooting videos, or performing in soft drink commercials, he’s apt to cut something less than all that dashing a figure.

On this particular occasion, in fact, Michael Jackson looked rather a dud. He wore brown jeans with gold stitching, a pastel plaid sportshirt of the sort you often see on sale at K-mart, but never buy, and a pink cardigan sweater of the sort you’d expect to see, oh, Bob Hope in, except that it had a gigantic crown applique J on the breast, and not an H. Tres corny! The most striking thing about him was the vast amount of eyeliner and rouge he was wearing—the former on both sides of the lash, just like Adam Ant, except Adam only applies it to the inside.

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