In honor of our impending nuptials, we've decided to highlight some of our more interesting guests who will honor us with their presence.  Over the next few months, we'll profile some rather fascinating individuals included on our guest list.

Amazing Ben has an older half-brother.  This dude never ceases to amuse me.  I've only met him once, but holy crap, was it unforgettable.  He has lived the ultimate rock n' roll lifestyle, without having actually ever been a real rock-star.  John is 40 and lives in his grandparents' basement (ed: my grandparents are both over ninety and are unable to live on their own).  That part sounds kind of loser-y, but it actually ends up being amusing later on.  I should also mention here that he has longer hair than I do, wears leather pants almost all the time and has a bunch of totally hardcore tattoos.  He also plays in a quasi-well-known GNR tribute band.  Below, we've compiled some of our favorite John stories.

I grew up pretty much idolizing John.  He's what every teenager worth his uncontrollable acne aspires to be.  He played kickass bass for a couple of popular local rock/hair metal bands that cut records and opened for groups like Aerosmith, Def Leppard, Slash's Snakepit, AC/DC and even Marilyn Manson.  He had cool tattoos, a healthy respect for Jack Lambert and the "Steel Curtain" Steelers, an awesome 80s Corvette and seriously INSANE numbers of hot groupies.  Oh, and he can outdrink just about anyone.  His life has more or less been what every kid hopes for from the first time he picks up a guitar and tries to learn the solo from "Sweet Child O' Mine".  The last step to superstardom always seemed to be just out of his grasp, but for all intents and purposes my older brother has been a professional rock star for as long as I can remember.  In some small way I'm envious of him for his courage to get out there and make a living doing something that he loves.

As you would expect, he's lived an interesting life so far and has many tales to tell.  It has only been relatively recently that he's felt comfortable opening up to me about this, but I have to tell you that he has seen some crazy shit.  Here are some of the best.

Duff McKagan, John's GNR counterpart.

During my fateful trip to Virginia with 'Mazin' B, I was blessed enough to ride in a car with John to and from this little tiny hamlet, some cardinal direction away from Richmond;  a round-trip of roughly an hour and a half, two hours.  He spent the entire round trip drinking some form of alcoholic beverage out of a travel mug.  I suspect it was beer on the way down and some kind of hunch punch on the way back.  Anyway, it was during our close proximity in the back seat that he told me of the time that his former band was apparently a rival band of Warrant's.

Somehow or other, John's former band Ragdoll (a glam-rock 80s hair band in its own right) managed to get on the wrong side of Warrant. The details I'm a little hazy on.  To hear John tell it, prior to the break-up of Ragdoll, they were really on the door-step of mega-huge hair band success... it was a fight to the death:  Ragdoll or Warrant.  Of course, we know how the story ends.  But what you don't know is:  John's a vindictive slut of a man (and I say that with the utmost respect, actually).  He used the last tool at his disposal:  his incredible sexual prowess.  Right around the time that famed bad-boy rocker (and glammed-out) Warrant-frontman John Lane's relationship with former model Bobbie Brown was getting rocky, Brown evidently decided to reach out and touch someone.  Anyone who knows their 80s hair band trivia knows that Bobbie Brown, muse to many a rock star, (her resume includes Lane, Tommy Lee and others), was perhaps most notably the inspiration for Lane's rock ballad "Cherry Pie".  I'm still not 100% certain how events transpired on that fateful day.  What I do know is that Lane and John were likely posturing and trying to out-glam each other one day and John decided to piss on whatever was left of Lane's tiny little ego.  John let Lane in on the fact that he "fucked the holy living god out" of Brown, at least once.  His parting words to Lane were (and I swear this is true), "Guess she's my 'cherry pie' now, bitch."

Somehow the conversation during that fateful and hilarious car ride turned to the topic of being arrested and as would be expected, my brother had one of the best arrest stories I think I have ever heard.

Ragdoll was playing a show at a rock club one night when the effects of the presumably-excessive alcohol consumption caught up to John.  He was playing his wireless bass at the time, when for some reason he decided it would be a good idea to go outside and get some fresh air.  He hopped off the stage into the crowd and pushed his way out the front door, playing the bass and trying not to spill his beer.  Once he got outside, he ran out to the street and sat down on the hood of a car that was stopped at a red light there.  John leaned back on the front of the car, taking care to set his beer down on the hood.  At this point the car begins honking, but John is so caught up in the fervor of rocking out that he doesn't even give a crap.  Another car comes up from the other direction and John reaches into the other lane with his leg and puts his foot up on the other car's hood.  Now both cars are honking at the crazy 6'4" tall guy with long purple hair standing up with one foot on each car's hood wailing on the bass with a cigarette in his mouth and a beer in his pocket.  In response to this, several of the audience members who have migrated outside begin cheering.  John pulls his pants down.

The police arrive.

John notices the flashing lights, pulls his pants back up, chugs the rest of his beer, throws the bottle down on the curb and hops off the cars.  John runs inside the club, which erupts in cheering when the patrons notice police officers in close pursuit.  John manages to make it back onstage, and the cops are nice enough to allow him to finish playing his set before arresting him for public intoxication and lewd & lascivious behavior.  According to John, "it was a good show.  The fans really got a kick out of it, you know?  I didn't get me an extra cut of the door money though, which was BARELY enough to cover my tickets."  Andrea remarked that it was the first time she had heard of a rock star pulling his pants down off-stage while performing a show.  John replied, "Yeah, it was a real crowd-pleaser."

All the great ones get arrested at shows.

Sometime after the break up of Ragdoll, our hero John fell on hard times.  He wound up taking a job in an Exxon market as a cashier/night attendant.  This was not going to stop John's Ultimate Hardcore Rock-Star existence, however.  I will never understand how he managed it, but this dude had strippers hanging out at the Exxon with him all night on more than one occasion.  The best of these adventures saw John hanging out at Exxon at 2am with at least one stripper behind the counter with him.  I can just imagine what lewd acts the two of them were engaged in when suddenly, a police officer came for a late-night cup of coffee.  Fast-thinking John, like most rock stars, has an abject terror of law enforcement officials.  He has the stripper duck under the counter so the cop can't see her.  Evidently, the stripper wasn't fazed by this either.  So as John is making small-talk with the cop, the stripper is going to town, blowing him till Kingdom Come, presumably.  How the hell John managed to stay coherent, I will never know.  In my experience, men get a little dazed while that's happening and don't manage to carry on conversations real well.  But hey, I guess you never know.  I digress.  The cop finishes making his coffee and starts heading toward the counter to pay for his cup o' joe. John wisely decides to comp this cup (and not let the cop anywhere near his presumably half-naked stripper), calling out to the officer, "Now you have a nice night, officer. And thank you for shopping at Exxon!"

I seem to recall another stripper story wherein John felt compelled to put two of them into the walk-in beer/beverage cooler when confronted with customers who may or may not have been police officers, but I don't recall the details of that one.  Let that image settle in though.  Interesting.

Once upon a time, two skeezy-looking teenagers come into John's Exxon, poking around and looking at the gas station beer collection.  Now according to John, you don't have to work at a place like that too long before you realize who's going to try the snatch-and-grab and who's not, and it was obvious these guys were going to try to bolt with some beer.  John wasn't about to let that happen.  The way he explained it to us was, "now I don't give a shit whether Exxon loses a couple bucks worth of beer or not.  Shit, it's not even like I was going to get in trouble if they made off with it anyways.  It was more like it was a personal affront to me that these little fuckers thought they could rob me, so I wanted to make sure they didn't get away with it."

The kids reach into the cooler and grab a couple of twelve packs.  Slowly, they make their way to the counter as if they in fact intend to pay.  They get as close as they can to the counter before one yells "now!" to the other and the two of them tear ass towards the store's only exit door.

Now I should take this time to mention that many gas stations have a button behind the counter that automatically locks all the doors in the store.  This is generally installed for the safety of the cashier (locking angry customers out of the store) and to keep robbers from escaping with the register money (the cashier is inside a bulletproof chamber behind the counter).  Well it just so happens that this button is also rather effective at keeping young punks from making off with stolen beer.

The second before these asshole kids reached the door to freedom, it clicked.  What followed was a flurry of limbs and beer bottles, as both guys slammed into the plate glass at a dead run.  With an enormous crash, the floor of Exxon was littered with broken glass, beer and semi-conscious teenagers.

John had the good sense to lock himself in the bulletproof chamber before the kids came to their senses and began frantically clawing at the door in a futile effort to escape.  At this point, John flipped on the all-store intercom and addressed the teens in a very calm, level voice.

"Attention Exxon shoppers.  Attempting to steal beer from me was a mistake.  Soon the police will be here to take your stupid asses to jail.  Hope it was worth it, you dumb motherfuckers."

John was written up by Exxon for being "excessively and unnecessarily violent".

As promised, here's where the fact that John lives in his grandparents' basement gets highly entertaining.  Our final day in Richmond, we were all sitting around the grandparents' house, waiting for the onslaught of relatives to come over to say goodbye.  John finally "wakes up" and comes upstairs from his room in the basement.  He's pacing around nervously and he keeps going to the kitchen to look out the back window of the house.  Then he would go back to the basement.  Upstairs, back window, basement.  Upstairs, back window, basement.  Meanwhile, his grandmother is saying what a shame it is that John's girlfriend Laurie couldn't make it over to meet the family.  She's such a nice girl, blah blah blah.  It has become painfully clear to the rest of us, however, that Laurie (or another girl) is in the basement and John wants her to leave via the backdoor.  John even goes so far as to return to the basement and give his grandmother a card, from Laurie.  Huh.  How did that get there??  Amazing Ben and I are watching the side of the house as closely as we can.  We HAVE to get a glimpse of this woman who John so lovingly refers to as his "main girlfriend at this time."  Finally, after at least ten excruciating minutes of watching John pace and storm around the house, our vigilance pays off.  Here comes Laurie, around the side of the house.  Man, was she slutty.  I cannot emphasize this enough.  She reminded me strongly of Robbie Hart's first girlfriend from The Wedding Singer.  She sneaks around to the driveway on the side of the house and unceremoniously hops into John's truck.  After John visually confirms her presence in his truck (red, of course), he announces that he has to leave for work.  This may be the one time I don't see him in leather pants.  I believe he was in acid-washed ripped jeans.  ROCK the FUCK ON!

John and his "main girlfriend at this time" drive away into the daylight.  And man, I can't wait to see him again come October!  I can only imagine the stories that will come to light this time.  And somewhat sadistically, I look forward to watching him tell these stories to my yuppie family members who will be absolutely horrified.  John:  always inappropriate, always hilarious.

Bobbie Brown.
She's the girl from the "Cherry Pie" video.