I sent this message to Beta, hoping she might show it to him, because it's really personal and I opened my heart to say how much Axl means to me. But fuck it. Here it is, I hope he reads this...
Dear Axl. Hi. My name is Rafael Tavares, I'm 24 years old and I live in Rio de Janeiro. I would like to congratulate you on your 50th birthday and say that over these years you have been a major (if not THE MAJOR) influence in my life. More than family members and close friends. When I was young and discovered GNR back in '93 (yes, I discovered and became fan of the band because of "I Don't are About You" by the time I was 6 years old...no sweet child here!haha) a new world had opened for me. A few years later, when I was 11, I decided to look for the translations of your songs, since I didn't know how to speak English...and I ended up translating ALL the GNR's songs to portuguese, and I would listen to the records over and over again reading the book of translations I made. When I realized I was 18 years old, fluent in English and working as a translator to, guess who? SEBASTIAN BACH! Now I teach English and I'm graduating in Languages...all because some day I wanted to know what you were singing about.
You gave me a career. But that's not it. You gave me life as well.
You see, in 2008 I was under a very strong state of depression that went up until 2009/2010...I tried to kill myself a few times during that time. But when the whole fuzz about CHIDEM and Dr. Peper started to pop out, something was telling me the album would be released that year...and this gave me the strenght I needed to try to stay around for a couple of more months. I still remember the day I bought Chinese and listened to it. I cried like there was no tomorrow...and songs like Catcher in the rye, There Was a Time, Scraped, This I love, Prostitute and specially Madagascar helped me to get over my depression. I don't know how you managed to do it, but you did. Chinese Democracy got me over my depression and my will of killing myself. So thank you for that!
Later on I was diagnosed as Bipolar, so I still suffer from these depressive states, and when I'm like this I put your songs on, because it's like they're speaking to my soul and taking away all my problems. Coma, Estranged, Catcher and Madagascar are an amazing combo for when I'm down in the gutter...
What I'm trying to say is that you didn't give me a reason to live just once...everyday you give me a reason to focus, to go through, face whatever I have to face and, most of all: not to take shit from ANYBODY, and BE TRUE to what I believe it's right. So thank you for that too.
You've really changed my life, and you still do even not knowing me. But I love you as a member of my family, and I'd like to wish you a very happy birthday, that all your dreams come true and that you keep on rocking for other decades, because you're the only rocker with balls remaining in the scene...and we need guys like you. You're a genius, and you still have a lot to give.
Hope to have the privilege to meet you someday. Then I can die happy, because I'd had met GOD. You are my god, and GNR is my religion.
Take good care, my friend!
And I also made a video, uploaded late for obvious reasons!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqL5drpYH4U&list=UU0Vpo-TpIASDtiILeCy-Rxg&index=1&feature=plcp
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