Ah, spring. That first easy breath of air, flowers blooming, bare skin revealed from the long sleeves of this impending winter. It's no wonder spring is the time for love.
So when our inside, highly confidential and ultra-reliable sources told us everybody's favorite suicidal musician GG Allin was engaged earlier this year, we figured it was just another rash of spring fever. After all, the possibility of GG getting married was as far flung as the idea of finding someone willing to marry him.
But true it was, and off we set on an adventure in long distance telephone communications to someone in southeastern Michigan who wanted only to be known as "Leslie: the woman who asked GG Allin to marry her."
"I'd been into his music for a long time," Leslie told Boston Rock, of the failed union between herself and Allin. Allin fans - which include several jaded New York rock critics [Gee, wish someone would call me that - ed.] - see something in their man that is not apparent to the rest of us. It's unknown to whose advantage that lies, but the tattooed, slobbering, walking-screaming Turret's Syndrome poster boy has also made his share of enemies (not the least of which includes Boston bar owners, who have banned his appearances).
Leslie works in a classy restaurant, where the cook turned her on to GG via the kitchen boom-box. "I remember cruising through the kitchen and I said, 'this is the man I'm going to marry.'" Leslie was joking then, but when she attended her first GG Allin gig in Detroit early this year she popped the question. "I had no preconceived idea of what he might be like," she says. "I think somebody who goes out and does what he does for that amount of time deserves some sort of respect."
Just how much respect one cares to lavish on a performer who has made a name out of defecating, urinating and generally making a mess on stage is entirely subjective. Iggy Pop and Sid Vicious are "kid's stuff" next to Allin. But Leslie says when you get past all that, "I'm sure he's a brilliant individual." Leslie thinks GG Allin confronts his audience with the truth. "I knew there had to be some drive behind it. That's really what led to my curiosity of wanting to meet him."
At that show in Detroit, Leslie "put herself in front of him" and told GG Allin she wanted to marry him. Looking back on the incident, she says she is surprised that no thoughts of fear entered her mind. After all, this is someone who appears to be rather violent. But in the end she was overcome with "an instinct" to propose. "If he had been horrible, I probably would have spit on him and walked away," she says. Instead, Allin said yes.
Leslie and GG went their separate ways after that night, but she says she was unable to get him out of her head (who could?). She wrote him a letter asking if he remembered her, and if he still intended to honor his word, He replied with a phone call asserting he did.
"We both know it's really fucked up," she said. "We'll get married first and then get to know each other...It's like neither one of us has any expectations." Leslie admitted some of her friends have given her "a lot of shit" for her actions. But at 24, it appears she has already given up on marrying for love and says marrying GG Allin "is the best fucking shot I've got - to marry someone who doesn't know me."
It's tempting to stop right here and give Leslie a good pep talk on self esteem, but there's more to her story. "I believe that everybody has their own threshold of understanding," she adds. "I've always believed mine is a lot higher. I see myself as a highly righteous individual. I don't choose to get that intimate with my friends. I have a lot of perceptions - I don't know if that's a give or a burden." As for her motives, Leslie asserts she is no gold-digging groupie.
"I'm not doing this because he is some sort of rock star," she stated. "I hold myself in pretty high esteem." Leslie was sparing about wedding details, such as what she plans to wear ("I guess I'll wake up that morning and decide") and where the event would be held. She deferred most of these questions to GG, who could not be reached for comment (but has a pretty cool answering machine).
If Leslie's reputation has been tarnished in any way by the news that she planned to marry GG Allin, it would be even more unfair for us to let our readers believe the event is still scheduled to take place. We later learned - from the same highly confidential and ultra-reliable source - the arrangement had been called off. No other details (at least printable ones) were given.
We can only hope that Leslie believes she got the better end of that deal.
Beth Fertig
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