How Europe became your shield against adversity.

OK, this is a tough one...

I have read with attention all that you wrote, Guess… it’s such an amazing story! Thank you to share, particularly because we all know you as a very reserved person – as I am also most of the times – so I understand that to share all this for you must have been because you really feel there’s some strength in it to communicate to the others and values to be pushed forward!
I felt your authenticity in the things you told us and I appreciated to learn from you!

Even if I am not ready to share my personal experience in getting to know Europe the band, who in any case I consider a kind of a savior also in my case – maybe because it’s just too obvious or nothing to really teach or offer to others in the end – I do recognize in your story what makes this band so important in your life. Each experience is something so unique that it’s difficult to transmit what’s magic in certain things, well, you have succeeded in doing this.

It happened to me. I was also along a path where other elements contributed, for sure Europe has represented a parallel universe that gave me so many ideas to bring into my own world. I don’t hide the fact that, from the very beginning, I have recognized many similarities with my own character, in the ways and attitudes this band moved on. Particularly because of Joey’s personality. You all know I am struggling every day not to make a god out of him, but it’s true that I did recognize some traits of him that were deeply buried and sculptured inside myself too: when you do something you must do it at the highest possible level, you must chase perfection, never tell something that you will not honor, push for being a winner but don’t hide your sad or introspective inclination anyway, because this is what makes you a real and complete human being. There are many things that Europe and Joey learned along their way as I did too: to look for the best compromise in human relationships, to learn by their previous experiences, to accept themselves even when they did it wrong. Very common human experiences, but each of us has to discover all this in his/her own way…

I analyzed a lot of my whole life through their experience as a band and we are living in quite different environments though… But I think it’s important to take inspiration from other worlds than our own one and we can discover sometimes better parts of ourselves.
In my personal experience, I have walked down a path with Joey… I am so grateful to him in particular, that you cannot believe how much. I’ve also found - by now just a few - question marks and points of divergence. The fact is that we are different persons at the end. We can’t force the fact that he should be and act exactly like we are or we would like him to… that’s just what I said to me whenever those question marks came up.
There are many lyrics, I think, discussing this topic. The “youngest” attitude is in Stormwind: “if you want to change my world, stay out of my life!” Then other lyrics came where you can hear “I take the blame…and I have lost your heart”.

I have gone through the entire JT life in a few months and what really impressed me has been to recognize the struggles he has had, the fights to survive, the difficult times he has gone through and some few photos of him show all this – do believe me! – and nevertheless, at the end he found a way, he found his own way.
We can discuss whether it’s all gold in this, for sure not, I keep repeating myself he is not a god! But what it’s extraordinary methink, it’s the concentration on his values and targets that he keeps these days. Have you ever seen him misbehaving in his real life? I mean after the show is done… I think that everybody who has been there and has seen him with his/her own eyes can answer “no”. Then we can discuss about his character on stage. He was the perfect and good boy in the past – who could set all the girls’ imagination off for sure – but he didn’t act himself in any bad manner on stage (the most “terrible” things in this respect were just a few pelvic movements…but Elvis had already occurred anyway!). Probably his real life was a completely different story, he only knows, but he asked to be forgiven at a certain point of his life… From the reunion on, he kept getting the more and more provocative on stage, but with coded gestures, nothing that he then replicates in real life…and this can be interpreted like a sort of “vent valve”, d’you know what I mean? Nobody is that perfect. I have a colleague of mine, very feminine and gentle, who after the birth of her first daughter started to talk like a longshoreman in the office…and d’you know why? Because there are pressures that you need to overpass and sometimes it’s better to do that way rather than going back home frustrated after an entire day’s work! That’s why I understand Joey’s turn into being more “coarse” on stage today than what he was in the past… He probably could live his life with more degrees of freedom in the past, now he is and he wants to be coherent with his values and these - sometimes - are hard to stand with…you need to find a way to have your “other self”, that always exist in you and live with you, released a bit! And let’s not forget that what he does on stage is very coherent anyway with the rock ‘n roll world and it’s just a minimum part of what Ralph from that support Mustasch band is capable to do…

That’s why all I want to say is “I feel very close to him, we are different persons anyway, but still this man has contributed to my own life much more than any closer relative or so-called friends!”. Hats off to him and the suffering he must have experienced and however overpassed, behind those grateful eyes that he shows at the end of their concerts!
This makes me think of the very famous sunglasses... and you know what? My daughter keeps saying that she noticed he removed the sunglasses while talking to her and her brothers…also to her it looked like a sign of respect from Joey. But I don’t really think Joey is un-respectful when he wears them. Have you got an idea of how a person can feel when unknown people in front of you are looking at you as they have full rights to put their hands on you and asking whatever they like at that moment? The sunglasses are meant to defend him somehow from his own self to be split in millions parts and sent out to the wolves! Then we can discuss… does he want to appear even sexier than he is? I don’t think he needs that trick. We all agree his eyes are even better than his sunglasses. Maybe he wants to hide the wrinkles? This is possible, but then why don’t we allow him to show his eyes just when he feels to? I really don’t think he wears sunglasses to give himself importance… All this said, I am literally dying to watch him right straight in his eyes…be sure of that!

I think that in a way we are all out looking for someone “who stands in the crowd” and we can finally feel as we have found out our twin soul. Maybe it’s just we are meant to walk a path together and then take different roads. It may last a couple of years with the burn of passion, maybe it’s longer than that through a solid friendship, maybe we take different paths before recognizing it was meant to be for the entire life, maybe we resume, maybe not. Sometimes it’s even deeper than this. Sometimes it really WORKS. Hats off to that!

Sometimes we lose the one in the crowd at a certain point. Maybe it was not meant to be anymore, or we just needed to take different paths. This doesn’t cancel what happened before, the good in it and the positive feelings. We must be ready for it. At this stage of my life the only thing I can tell about that man is that in his relationship with people he is the most correct man I have ever seen and a wife could dream of, under the greatest temptations a man can experience… so what really matters in the end? Don’t like to mention her, but Lisa can be really so proud of this man! To whom I am so gratefully thankful myself, just to have been out there, the way he is, at the right time for me...
Thank you Joey .