We Can't Be Stopped

Damn, the gauntlet has been thrown down. When I started to think about the best album covers, this was the 1st to come to mind. Annie Leibovitz doesn't take photos this good in her dreams.

For the uninitiated (you really should know this but whatever) this picture was taken after Bushwick Bill's girlfriend refused to shoot him so he did the logical thing which was to shoot himself in the eye. Even if he did this strictly for the album cover, it does not lessen my awe of the greatest dwarf MC of all time (Fuck that dead little white dude that was down with Kid Rock). And he's on the Zack Morris, early 90's cellie! While Scarface and Willie D are wheeling him down the hallway! Holding his cane! And you know he left AMA.

The two of us could surely write pages about Bushwick Bill, but that's not what this is about. We Can't Be Fucking Stopped! You think Marshall would ever have the balls to ask Kim to shoot him in his hot topic - dyed dome? You think 50 would ever shoot himself in the fucking eye?! No, because they don't understand art like the Houston trio. Who in their right mind would even dare to step in the way of the Geto Boys of 1991? As real as it gets.

The Greatest Album Cover in the History of Life Itself

There you go, Brendan. Let it soak in for a moment.

If I was Max in 'Collateral', that's the shit I'd have on the back of my visor. Diamond Dave at the apex of his existence.

Now, I could have gone for something easier, like London Calling, or Sgt. Pepper's, or kept it a little more up to date, like Fear of a Black Planet or Nevermind or something to that effect, but a few months ago I figured out that this IS the greatest bit of album art I will ever see, and it will never be topped. The thing is, whether artistic or in the moment, no picture will ever perfectly sum up 'being-on-the-top-of-the-whole-fucking-world' like this. Think about it - this is Roth, still in Van Halen at the time, releasing an EP of covers for godsake, and he was arguably the biggest rock frontman smack in the middle of the decade of BIG. He probably didn't even remember this point in time until someone asked him to approve it for the cover art. That's probably not even a beach to the left, just a big pile of coke someone trucked over there to try and get on his good side.

But really, LOOK AT IT. We will NEVER stand in water so green and pure. If we even came close to it, there'd probably be about 200+ other tourists ruining it with their boogie boards, bootleg Crocs and un-Speedo worthy bodies, with some asshole's iPod repeating Sublime's greatest hits ad nauseum while a bunch of fratboys were trying to talk some high school girls to meet up with them at Hard Bodies later for Jell-O shooters "'Cause your spring break SUCKS if you don't do some body shots with me & my bros!" But for one shining moment, David proves that one man can be an island - he is alone, under a perfect sky, standing in virgin waters, as if the universe conjured all of it up just to say, "Hey Dave, this is what being the greatest human on the face of planet deserves. No need to thank me. You EARNED it." There's probably an army of ridiculous swimwear models and runners-up to that year's Miss Universe pageant waiting on the beach for him, but even they knew that this moment in time was for one person, and one person only.

The way I see it, most peoples' greatest life moment is something like when their child is born, or their wedding day, or the time they got to tell their boss to fuck off once and for all. That's all good, and I'm setting my sights on something in that range. But let's not kid ourselves, there are millions of births and weddings every year, and most people who quit the job they loathe can't muster up anything ballsy to say on their way out the door. But David trumps all of those stacked together ten miles high. One fraction of a second captured perfectly on film. He is alone, on top of the world. As he blows a kiss to that day's unseen muse (or muses), and a photographer who figured this was the greatest assignment he'd ever have closed the shutter, a small voice in the back of David Lee Roth's brain must've said, "Wow, today I am a fucking GOD."

Let me sum this up in the most nerdly of ways. In "The Resturant at the End of the Universe", Zaphod Beeblebrox finds himself stranded on Frogstar World B, being informed by Gargravarr that he must step into the Total Perspective Vortex. It's basically a closet-sized torture device that destroys one's mind by showing them how infinitally small they are compared to the actual size of the universe itself. Zaphod steps in, comes back out alive, and tells Gargravarr that it showed him that he was the single most important thing in the universe. In the end it winds up he was in a virtual universe where he WAS the most important thing, and that's the only reason he didn't die. But I digress.

That was in a book. And sure, the Diamond Dave crest rode strong for some years after he went solo, but this is his T.P.V. moment. He looked into the abyss, and the abyss stared back for a few moments before it said, "Alright Dave, you win."

Top that shit.