Dear Axl,

I've been noticing you out and about more and more lately. It's almost as if you really might actually release that ten-year-old album you've been threatening us with off and on for...ten years. A couple of gigs, lots of parties, confrontations with clothing magnates and acoustic sets for nubile young actors. Yep, you seem to be working the circuit again after years in the cave.

Which is fine. You were once the most intriguing person in pop culture--fifteen years ago. You can have your comeback album. I won't deny you that.

But please don't say it's a "Guns N' Roses" album. We all know this isn't true. It's an Axl Rose album.

We all know the story about how you blackmailed your fellow bandmates into giving up claim on the band name so you would keep touring. We know you will sue anyone who wants to use the name Guns N' Roses to promote anything you aren't associated with. You say you do this for the integrity of that once great rock n' roll band.

So give up the ghost, Axl. This isn't a band. You aren't Guns N' Roses. How about you put an injunction on yourself for trying to promote yourself as such. The conglomeration of musical mercenaries is of your own invention, and not the band we all think of when we hear the name Guns N' Roses.

What most people think of when they hear that name is the band that shot out of L.A. in 1987 with Appetite For Destruction. There were five guys in that band, and they all put their particular stamp on what it meant to be Guns N' Roses. And if there were more than five members, then one of them was certainly named Jack Daniels.

I have friends who will say Appetite is the only true Guns N' Roses album. I'm not so pig-headed about it. GN'R Lies is a favorite of mine (even with "One In A Million," which is an interesting time capsule of thought from the late 80s). I was standing in line to buy the Use Your Illusion CDs at midnight the date they came out. I got through most of both before my dorm roommate told me he really had to get to sleep that night.

But that's when it all started coming apart as a band, didn't it? Izzy took off. Scores of rhythm guitarists came and went. The band became a circus of nearly fifteen people on stage. You were going for Vegas before you'd even become Queen.

By the mid-90s, it was all over. Everyone had been kicked out or just plain left the band. And, even through all of this, you swore Chinese Democracy would come out soon.

I saw you guys open for Aerosmith in the summer of 1988, the day you were told Appetite had hit number one for the first time. An erratic, if not electrifying at times, set. Bulldozing through some songs, you (Axl) leaving stage for long chunks of time while the band riffed on loud blues and over in less than 45 minutes. It was raw and not necessarily awe-inspiring. But you were opening and had been on the road for close to a year. Staring into the setting sun the whole time probably didn't help much either.

Which brings me to another thing you need to fix: your work ethic. This is a job, right? Greatest job in the world, some might say (I'd take it if given the chance). So show up every night. Play those sold out gigs. You've had years of seclusion in the Sedona desert, so get out and show us you've haven't become Michael Jackson. You can find out who wins whatever sports game you're concerned with after the show is over. Who are you, Woody Allen?

But we know you aren't Guns N' Roses (I have to repeat this, because it should be emphasized). You are, by yourself, Axl Rose. Release the album under your name. Or make up something to go along with it. Axl Rose & the Young Guns (okay, maybe not that). Axl Rose Goes to the Circus. Axl Rose & the Mercenaries. & the Hired Hands. & His Lackeys. You pick the name. Or just Axl Rose. We all know who you are. We all know you wrote these songs. We all know you've been working on these songs for ten years. We all know the other guys in the "new" Guns N' Roses aren't getting much in the way of publishing rights or royalties (so don't talk to me about democracy in terms of your band). And we all know Slash and Izzy and Duff are not involved.

As for the drummer, well, we also know Stephen Adler can't play (he's had strokes from drugs and can barely talk), so I won't get all specific about who hits the skins. I've always had an affinity to Adler over Sorum, but that's not my point.

My point is, whenever you get the core of Guns N' Roses back together, you can use the name. Reunion tour. Comeback album. VH-1 special. Hundred dollar tickets so all of us can remember for a few hours what it was like when we were 17. But don't get too close up on the video screens. We don't want to know how time-ravaged everyone really is. We want to remember your skinny, drunken, drug-addled asses from the "Paradise City" video.

But, what you're doing now? What you are promising will be released later in the year? Don't call it Guns N' Roses. Because we all know it's just Axl Rose. The Guns have left the building.

Matt Worley impersonated Axl Rose in a high school lip-synch contest in 1989. He and his friends (filling out the rest of the original band) came in second with their miming of "Welcome To The Jungle."