The Dirt (35 page)

When I heard they were thinking about getting rid of their guitar player, I started showing up for every single gig, arriving early and sticking around afterward, even though my back was so bad I couldn’t help them pack up their equipment. After half a year of complete devotion, they finally said, “Okay, you got it. You got the gig.”

I moved out of my parents’ shack and into a cockroach-infested apartment in Hollywood with the drummer and keyboard player in White Horse. I slept on the floor in my sleeping bag, which murdered my back, and built a wall of music equipment around myself to keep the roaches and rats from crawling on my face. I spent seven years on and off playing with White Horse, and in that time the pain spread: First it fanned out to my knees, ankles, and wrists. Then it worked up to my shoulders and between my shoulder blades until every joint was hurting and I could no longer sleep flat on my back or stomach. I had to start sleeping propped up in a half-sitting position.

I tried to use my influence on White Horse to get them to play originals, but the guys were always chasing a quick buck. Finally, the singer told me that I should quit, because the rest of the band was about to fire me. I decided to wait it out, and two days later the keyboardist cleaned house. He dumped the singer, the bass player, and me, and turned White Horse into a disco band. Because I couldn’t afford rent, I was kicked out of the house as well and went back to drifting again: squats in North Hollywood, park benches, even my ex-sister-in-law’s house. I found a job at a motorcycle factory, though I was often in so much pain that I was useless at work.

And then, one night, my new girlfriend, Marcia (who I had met after a White Horse show at Pier 11), came over with the vague smile that I had seen on another woman’s face before and broke the news to me that had been broken so many times before: “I’m pregnant.” Of course, she wanted to keep the baby. Life had gone full circle and dropped me back in the quicksand. It felt like my dream was slipping out of my hands again, though I was actually closer to it than I knew.

I made the first step in the right direction by not getting married again. Then I drifted through bands like Vendetta, which included two ex–White Horse members, and moved to Alaska to make some quick money playing Top 40 music. When I placed the ad in
The Recycler
that Tommy and Nikki responded to, I expected to find myself in just another cover band fighting over ego and money. But once Vince joined, I knew my search—almost three decades since I first saw Skeeter Bond, three decades of hitchhiking through bands, drugs, sofas, and relationships—was over. This was where I was supposed to be.

But the more successful we became, the harder it was to enjoy the rewards. New ankylosing spondylitis symptoms kept appearing: Something called “iritis” set in, producing bolts of pain in my eyes whenever I looked into bright lights, like I did onstage every night. And my lower spine seized up and froze completely solid, causing scoliosis in my back and squashing me further down and forward until I was a full three inches shorter than I was in high school. That’s why I never take off my platform boots. I don’t want to be a pygmy.

The disease finds any open spot between or inside bones—ribs, joints, ligaments—and grows there. If you try to operate and remove it, it just sprouts back like a cut-off fingernail. When I die, I figure my skeleton will be rock solid. If they display it in a medical class, they won’t even need wires to hold it up.

The worst part of the disease however, isn’t the pain or the slouching. It’s walking onstage, seeing all the people out there excited, and not being able to do anything about it. So many times onstage, I’ve wanted to walk down to the bass bins, but I know that if I make it there, there’s no way I can get back onstage unless Vince or Nikki pull me back up. And if, God forbid, a fan dragged me into the audience, I’d be hospitalized. I get so upset every night watching the way that Nikki and Vince run all over the stage. All I can do is plod around and, when a fan in front starts cheering, muster a smile, say hey, or try to throw them a pick.

I watched myself on film the other day, and I looked like a statue whose hands have somehow come to life. When I tried to move, it looked so fucking stupid. It looks better if I just stand still. Sometimes when I’m playing, the guitar strap will bother my neck until it feels like a charley horse and the muscles start spasming from the bottom of my spine to midway up my back. When that happens, I can’t even turn my head to acknowledge a fan for the rest of the show. It’s so fucked up. People think that I’m shy or strange or mean because they see me like that onstage. They think that I’ve purposely cultivated an image of distance and aloofness. But the truth is that I’m a prisoner in my own body.

Eventually, during the
Girls, Girls, Girls
tour, I became so frustrated and weary of the pain that chronic depression set in. Psychologists gave me antidepressants and pain-management counselors fed me anesthetics, but nothing worked. So I decided to try my own medicine: alcohol. Nikki was strung out on heroin again, Tommy was unconscious for half the tour, and Vince was drinking himself into a stupor and everybody knew it. Me, I preferred to keep my problems a secret. But the problem with secrets is that nobody can help you if nobody knows what’s wrong. And a lot was wrong on that tour.

W
e had a huge-ass jet, we had endless cash, and we could do whatever the fuck we wanted.
Girls, Girls, Girls
was the raddest time I ever had in my life, or at least I think it was, because nothing stands out but a blur of fucking insanity. We partied like clockwork, bro. You could check the clock in whatever time zone we were in and figure out exactly what kind of shit we were into.

For a while, we even had this drug kingpin following the tour bus in an exotic Excalibur with a license plate that said
DEALER
. Whenever we got out of the bus, he would suddenly appear with his diamond-packed Rolex, gold chains, and a token couple of bitches on each arm, throwing bindles of coke to everyone in the band and crew. He was the pimpest fucking drug dealer ever and he always had his party hat on. But the record company flipped out and told us he had to go because he was a magnet for cops and trouble. We were sorry to see him leave, but fucking dealers and pimps and partied-out freaks were a dime a dozen on that tour.

Every day was a battle between a band bent on destruction and a record company determined to keep us in check. And we may have won the battle, but we lost the war. It was the last tour of its kind for us. And, to paraphrase Stephen Wright, it didn’t go something like this. It went exactly like this:

17:00–18:30:
Phone rings. Wake up. Remember nothing. Answer phone. Struggle through interview with radio disc jockey or newspaper reporter. If alone in bed, fine. If not alone in bed, that’s fine, too. If necessary to puke during interview, cover receiver with hand and puke on floor. If there are people passed out on floor, try not to get any on them.

If interview is longer than fifteen minutes, roll over and piss off the edge of the bed closest to the corner of the room. Continue interview.

During second interview, open door for room service (ordered by road manager). Eat unless too sick to eat. Throw up again. Finish interview.

18:30–18:45:
Baggage call. Knock on door. Bellboy retrieves suitcases, which have not been opened since bellboy last dropped them off in room. Put on clothes from previous night. Spend ten minutes searching for sunglasses.

18:45–19:00:
Wander out of room. Find lobby. See band. Say: “Hey, dude, how about last night?” “That was fucking fun.” “Yeah.” Find van or limo transportation to gig.

19:00–20:00:
Arrive at venue. Sound check. Nurse hangover backstage. Submit dinner order. Get massage to remove some toxins from system. Drink. Listen to music. Hang out. Come back to life. Meet record and radio creeps. Listen to them ask, “Don’t you remember pissing on that cop car?” Answer honestly: “Um, no.”

20:00–21:00:
Opening act performs. Find wardrobe case. Peel off street clothes: black leather pants and black T-shirt. Change into stage clothes: black leather pants and black T-shirt. Make fun of Vince for being the only one in band to shower. Sit on drum stool in front of mirror and open up cosmetics box. Smear on eyeliner, rouge, and makeup. Consider shaving.

21:00–21:15:
Drink or snort cocaine with opening act when they come offstage.

21:15–21:20:
Production manager gives five-minute call. Lift weights backstage to get pumped up and sweat out toxins. Production manager yells, “Showtime!”

21:20–22:00:
Try to get into the groove onstage. Play “All in the Name of,” “Live Wire,” and “Dancing on Glass.”

22:00–23:00:
Blood begins to flow. Adrenaline kicks in. Play “Looks That Kill,” “Ten Seconds to Love,” “Red Hot,” “Home Sweet Home,” and “Wild Side,” and play them well. Split fifth of whiskey with Nikki during bass and drum solo. Backstage, Vince washes sleeping pill down with beer; Mick drinks glass full of straight vodka and smiles because he thinks he has rest of band fooled into believing it’s plain water.

23:00–23:15:
Finish show with “Helter Skelter” and “Girls, Girls, Girls.” Walk offstage comatose and hyperventilating. Grab oxygen mask. Stare at untouched dinner.

23:15–23:45:
Wait for someone to ask: “Anybody got a line?” Cut up drugs. Snort drugs. Change from sweaty stage leathers back into sweaty street leathers. Find hospitality room. Meet fans. Watch rest of band hunt for human entertainment. Consider partaking. Go to production office. Call Heather.

23:45–24:00:
Ask management for permission to stay in city. Beg management for permission to stay in city. Accuse them of purposely making band travel to next town during the only hours when bars and strip clubs are open. Attempt to punch them when they confirm accusation. Get in van or limo for airport.

24:00–03:00:
Arrive at airport. Wait for Vince to finish with girl in airport bathroom. Meet drug dealers on tarmac. Board Gulfstream One plane with black leather interior. Find designated seat. Make sure stewardess has laid out correct drugs and drinks on each meal tray ahead of time. For Nikki, white wine and zombie dust.
¹
For Vince, sleeping pill. For Mick, vodka. For me, cocktail and zombie dust.

03:00–04:00:
Arrive in new city. If city laws allow establishments to serve alcohol until 4
A.M.
, ask local record company representative distance to nearest strip club. Groan when he says, “Forty-five minutes.” Ask if record company planned it that way. Threaten violence when he confirms accusation. Tell limo driver to take band there anyway.

04:00–09:00:
Arrive at hotel. Look for drugs and alcohol in lobby. If none, tell road manager to bring drugs and alcohol to room. Drink. Do drugs. Go on rampage in room, on roof, or in parking lot. Get caught. Get locked in room or handcuffed to bed by road manager. Yell. Scream. Threaten jobs. Shoot up heroin alone.
²

09:00–17:00:
Pass out.

17:00–18:30:
Phone rings. Wake up. Remember nothing. Repeat cycle.