Torment Saint: The Life of Elliott Smith (46 page)

Also on the set list was the gorgeous “Let’s Get Lost,” another love dirge. This time he’s invited in, but he goes missing, burns bridges, pursues “some beautiful place” to get lost, his lifelong default setting. True love, when it comes, he makes die. She says please stay, he pushes her away. It’s
interesting, because in an earlier version of the song he’s a bit more hopeful. Rather than getting lost, he imagines sticking around at all costs, coming forward again. “Let’s Get Lost” unpacks a core script. He wants to belong but can’t. He wants love but the price is steep. He’s too sad to be all there, he says.

There was vanishing little life left, its force leaking out, but still it had to be lived, or the pretense of living, the pretense of caring whether he lived or died, had to be sustained, for now at least, because that’s what those around him wanted, and the better part of what he wanted too. Some time in 2001 Elliott moved from Sutherland Street, with the dedicated Deerin in tow. Not far away in Los Feliz, although some called it Silver Lake, there was a cluster of eight dwellings named the Snow White cottages or Seven Dwarfs cottages by locals, purchased by Sylvia Helfert in 1976. Elliott took the first one on the right, in the 2900 block of Griffith Park Boulevard, before moving later to a different unit. Ben Sherwood had designed the properties in the early 1930s; they were used by Disney animators, the studios just around the corner, and they likely served as the inspiration for the seven dwarf dwellings in the Disney film. The roofs seemed built by “drunken elves.” Workers deliberately broke the shingles, singed the edges, and placed them in random patterns. Inside, each unit ran to around seven hundred square feet, with one bedroom; some, like Elliott’s, featured wood-burning fireplaces, others faux fireplaces with gas burners. At one point Helfert cut a hole in the unit Elliott occupied, installed circular stairs and finishing the attic, “replete with toilet, pedestal sink, and monstrous claw-foot bathtub.”
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Apparently Elliott wrote a lot of songs in that upper space, according to a tenant who replaced him. By all appearances it was a charming, almost literally storybook setup. Elliott settled in and did what he could to approximate a regular existence. Deerin was not able to stay continuously; because of visa requirements she needed, now and again, to return to Europe for months at a time before being allowed re-entry into the U.S. So for stretches Elliott was on his own, although Ashley was around too (later, in 2001), and also Chiba, whom Elliott would reconnect with whenever Deerin took off, much to Deerin’s displeasure. When he spoke to Chiba about Deerin, he described her as someone who had more or less “barged into” his life. Chiba naturally wondered why he didn’t simply break up with
her, if that’s how he felt. But he believed if he did, it would destroy her. She was too into him; in some ways, he felt, her existence depended on being into him. He therefore took the path of least resistance, the easy way out, his life a disorganized, noncommittal back-and-forth between Deerin, Chiba, and Joanna, whom he still secretly hoped he’d get back with, although with the move to L.A., her presence became scarcer, as did the presence of most of his Portland friends, and others from the New York days. On this point Dorien Garry is adamant. “When Val and Elliott were dating, the days at the Disney cottages, that was the only time I had no contact with him. He wouldn’t answer an e-mail, he wouldn’t return calls. I feel like Valerie was 100 percent responsible for that.” She seemed to have figured that the only way to keep him was to keep him from others who might take him away or in some fashion undermine the exclusivity of their bond. Then again, Deerin wasn’t always around, her control occasional, intermittent. When she was gone, Elliott was free to do as he pleased, to see whom he pleased.

Another ten-year resident of the cottages was Barb Martinez, whom Elliott slowly grew close to. She had worked as a personal assistant for Henry Rollins and Taj Mahal, her partner a film editor. She and Elliott called him her “imaginary husband”—a bit like Deerin, he was gone as much as he was around. Just after Elliott moved in Martinez threw a brunch in the courtyard area and invited all the residents to come. Elliott was hesitant but he did finally show up. To smooth the way for conversation, Martinez asked everyone to wear name tags, which Elliott found amusing. “He wasn’t a celebrity to us,” Martinez explains. “He had to wear a name tag just like everyone else!” Early in the proceedings a friend came to pick him up, Elliott declaring with mock outrage, “But I’ve got a name tag!”
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Martinez owned an old saloon-style upright piano, always slightly out of tune, which Elliott dropped by to noodle with after the two had become more familiar. Occasionally impromptu jam sessions erupted with Russell Pollard, who played with Sebadoh and the Folk Implosion. They took to calling these events “unexpected parties,” everyone drinking and hammering out Flying Burrito Brothers tunes, Martinez pitching in with guitar and harp. Together they sometimes planned excursions to McCabe’s guitar shop
in Santa Monica, where Elliott purchased a harmonium. He also borrowed a celeste from one of Martinez’s friends, intrigued by the bell sound it emitted. It looked just like an upright piano, but with a tone resembling a glockenspiel. Silver Lake Guitar was another hangout. Once while there they came across a Paul Williams poster—the diminutive ’70s singer/songwriter. Someone had ostentatiously signed it—not, apparently, Williams himself—and they laughed long and hard. Something about its fake grandiosity struck them both as insanely funny. As always Elliott now and then spent entire days listening to a single tune, for instance “Guitar Man” by Bread. But he had his musical pet peeves too. “If you wanted to piss him off,” Martinez said, “you played ‘Sound of Silence.’ ”
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What Martinez gradually became was a sort of surrogate parent; she played that role with a lot of people. Even Elliott’s true parents called her to check in when they could not reach him (at this point, indications are that they knew nothing about his addiction). In person she met Gary Smith and Bunny, finding them “nice” and “sweet,” respectively.

One of the Disney cottages Elliott lived in, first on the right in a set of units. (Photograph by Henry Love.)

For food Barb and Elliott favored a nearby Trader Joe’s. To carry their stuff she brought along a red wagon that Elliott liked to pull down the sidewalk, joking that it was like commandeering a parade float. “It looked pretty stupid on the way there,” she recalled, “because it was empty.” Elliott’s prized item at the time was dulce le leche caramel ice cream. It’s the one thing he always bought. “He was big on that,” Martinez remembered.

Having spent her life working with stars, Martinez knew better than to pry. She stayed well away from difficult subjects, an attitude Elliott no doubt appreciated. She never asked probing questions, feeling more comfortable “talking about mundane things.” What she was struck by, however, especially in retrospect, was that Elliott “never seemed compromised.” He was not “running back and forth doing drugs,” so far as she knew, although she adds, “I could have been in complete denial.” “I loved him very much, and I never noticed anything and I’m not that easily fooled.” She figures she “would have seen it” had there been any serious heroin usage; on the other hand, “if he was doing that,” she says, “he was pretty skilled at concealing it from me.” Given Elliott’s predilections at the time, the latter possibility seems most likely. As mentioned, he could function passably well on heroin; he did not present like the textbook junkie. He held it together admirably, at least in its initial stages, before it began destroying him.

If the life force was slowly leaking out over the span of the year, the songs were too, in their always relentless fashion. Heroin was temporary (or so Elliott thought). It could be beaten. It could be left behind. As it came, it could go, given the necessary commitment to getting clean. But the music was permanent. It couldn’t be beaten. It was inherent from day one. Scattered songs kept making their way out, some from back in the
Figure 8
years, some totally fresh. There was always a question of the next album, addiction aside, and Elliott’s initial instinct, a very good one, was to work with Jon Brion again. Brion was on a roll. In 1999 he had composed the score for the film
Magnolia
(he was nominated for a Grammy). He’d produced the three stellar Aimee Mann records,
Whatever
,
I’m With Stupid
, and 2000’s
Bachelor #2
. Mann had become a critical darling. The new-wave chanteuse for ’Til Tuesday transmogrified, with Brion’s assistance, into a bona fide pop star, her songwriting chops undeniable. It could have been, had things gone smoothly, an incredibly satisfying, productive collaboration, two virtuosos working side by side, bringing out the best in each other, crafting first-class pop. And at first it worked, or it seemed to. They managed, even in Elliott’s beat-up state, to get through a number of tunes: “True Love,” “Twilight”—the “Somebody’s Baby” song Elliott had played for Shon Sullivan—“Fond Farewell, “Passing Feeling,” “Don’t Go Down,” “Confusion,” and “Shooting Star.” By April Elliott was playing tracks from these
Brion sessions for friends. Things were coming together. “Don’t Go Down” and “Confusion,” in particular, were subject to many long lyrical revisions. The first, a sort of plea, explores the dangers of succumbing, a lure Elliott knew too well. Initially the words were “don’t
look
down”—don’t descend, avert the eyes, resist. When evil talks to you, Elliott wrote, just keep good and quiet; you can’t get out once you’re in. There is a strength to the words, refusal still possible. Look at me, he says, I’m going to stay. “Confusion” is the most post-Beatles John Lennon song Elliott ever wrote. It sails along winningly, happy and poppy. It’s a bit “Crippled Inside,” a bit “Oh Yoko!” In draft lyrics he pictures himself in a cave, dying looking up, living looking down, always looking down. As early as May 2000 he played the song in Austin.

As for the process of recording these new tunes, the Brion sessions were not the first. As far back as 2000 Elliott had laid down acoustic versions on his own. He sent cassettes to friends, including Dorien Garry and Ashley. In the car he played early versions of “Strung Out Again,” “Passing Feeling,” even “King’s Crossing,” which itself went through countless lyrical revisions, just like “Don’t Go Down.” To some degree Elliott had gone into the work with Brion reluctantly. He didn’t exactly want help. It wasn’t something he felt he needed; he was perfectly capable on his own. Some feel Elliott believed he was doing Brion a favor—Brion wanted to work with him, Elliott let it happen. The songs themselves were a different matter, however. About them Elliott was adamant. With acute presentiment he took to telling friends, “If I die, make sure this record comes out. I don’t care how.” The songs weren’t dismissable. He wanted them to be heard, no matter what. He also, as Shon Sullivan recalled, “wanted one name and one name only on the record.” From the beginning it was to be all him, Elliott Smith, a kind of emphatic self-redefinition, real, uncompromising, utterly authentic.

Perhaps predictably in light of Elliott’s condition and his uncertainty about whether he really wanted help, the Brion experiment ended badly. Unlike others in Elliott’s life, the “sycophant banditos”—as friend Nelson Gary, the poet and writer, called them—Brion rejected addiction. He was confrontational. He called Elliott out. Unaccustomed to such directness, never a fan of open conflict, Elliott blanched. Brion had problems with the
drug use; Elliott had problems with Brion’s honesty. Brion had seen both sides, and he wanted no part in encouraging the self-destructive one. “Any of us who knew him when he was on, long before he sunk,” Brion said, “had a kind of love for him that you reserve for very few people in your life. He generated that kind of feeling … It was usually spontaneous and heavy. And it didn’t take some bad events.” On the other hand, the sense shared by many, especially from 2001 on, was: If you are going to care about this person, prepare yourself for the strong possibility that he may not make it. “We all knew it was a possibility,” Brion noted.
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There came a point, Brion says, “where I knew. I remember the conversation. I remember his inability to speak coherently. I remember realizing he had gone too far … It felt like the person I loved wasn’t home anymore. And the filter that normally exists between the soul and the rest of the world was so mangled.” To Brion, Elliott was living “a nightmarish life with ghosts in the closet coming to get him.”

“The friendship kind of fell apart all of a sudden one day,” Elliott told
Under the Radar
. “Those weren’t happy days.” He found himself so depressed he couldn’t even hear the songs. “It just made it kind of awkward being alone in the car listening.” Money also entered the picture. Brion sent DreamWorks a bill, claiming Elliott owed him cash. To Elliott he had merely been helping him “record some stuff”; there had never been any sort of pay arrangement. Meetings were held, but they proved fruitless. Nothing definite got accomplished. It was back to square one. The work hadn’t come to nothing, but it left in its wake dispiriting feelings, a patina of failure. The label, of course, was concerned, about the music and about the client. In a state of desperation, Elliott resorted to disturbed strategies, telling Dream-Works to release him or else. Or else what? Or else, Elliott apparently suggested to label overseers, he might kill himself. He’d always talked about suicide; in fact, increasingly so. Now he was using the possibility as a threat. This was a relatively new gambit—anguish as a manipulative tool.