I have often thought it would be neat to be famous, but when I see what they’re doing to Mr. Van Halen, I come to believe that it might not be my bag after all.

The man takes one hideous picture, and that’s the one the wires pick, the one that makes him look strung out. This man entertained and delighted me for hours and hours through my years as a teenager. I used to put on the Van Halen on a boom box and listen—usually to Fair Warning or Women and Children First—whilst I raked leaves every weekend. It made a shitty chore passable. I feel like for that, for being one of the reasons that music is magic, for that, the man should be offered a bit more respect than snarky snarky photo editing. The editors who purposely went with a shitty picture of Eddie Van Halen should be canned.