David Lee Roth's Cartoon Side Hustle

Diamond David Lee, who now goes by David Roth or David El Roth has become a cartoonist. Some would say everything he's done up til now has been preparing him for this moment. But reading about his new side hustle in the Q&A in this weeks NYT, I actually understood the frequently misunderstood former frontman for Van Halen. He had a bleep-ton of swagger when he was VH's lead singer, in too many pictures vamping a 5 thousand watt seemingly disingenuous smile, wears ridiculous outfits (what he refers to as tactical spandex) and blathers too much on stage but in this article, I get what he's gone through. It's worth the read, I think you can read it for free if you haven't exceeded the Times' paywall. He's lost his job (opening for KISS on tour) so he's fallen back of one of his two 'day jobs'. Or is singing his day job? IDK!!! But Dave explains that he 'studied' in Japan for several years to learn Japanese calligraphy, few years earlier he'd trained to become an EMT and actually anwered calls in NYC. But now fills his time drawing frogs and social commentary. And you've probably heard the other point from this interview, that after 5 years of not touring, it'd be pretty hard at their ages for VH to recovene, so he doesn't think it will happen. Also, that he grew up in the Peace & Love 60's, the Jewish kid in a mostly Black and Hispanic neighborhood and was in color guard by day, hoisting the flag at high school, then smoking weed with buds after school. Such is the life of the guy who identified once as "Just A Gigolo" in the pandemic age.


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