Hats off to one of my childhood idols Nikki Sixx of Motley Crue on a truly outstanding book called The Heroin Diaries. This book is an absolute sick read and must be picked up by anyway who was into Motley Crue like me and most of my friends. The book is exactly what the title says. Over the course of a year of journal writings which started in December of 1987 and went through December of 1988 Nikki Sixx tells his readers all about the highest of the highs and lowest of the lows associated with being one of the biggest rock stars in the world.
The idea for the book came when Nikki was cleaning out a storage bin and came across an old box with the journals and scraps of paper containing the details of what went on that year. After going through the books not even remembering that he wrote Nikki couldn't believe what he wrote. The first thing anybody asks when they read the book is, "How the hell is this guy alive?" the second thing that goes through every body's mind is, "How the hell is this guy not dead?"
The thing that is crazy about this book is that I remember we used to think that these guys had the world by the balls and all they cared about was having a good time. However after reading the book I came to learn that not only were Motley Crue pretty arrogant pricks, but Nikki Sixx was nothing more than a lonely depressed broken down heroin addict. Instead of being out at the clubs and roaming topless bars most time Sixx ended up in his closet naked with a shotgun and having cocaine induced hallucinations all the while having his veins collapse and being forced to shoot heroin into his neck and dick. I really do have to give Sixx credit though, Nikki could have went through and censored some of the stories, but instead he really let it all hang out. The other cool thing the book does and get the different perspectives from the people that Nikki talks about in the book. They range everywhere from his mother to band mates to Vanity who is now a Born-A.gain Christan.
Anyway the book is a great read and go pick it up!
2 comments:
Our culture praises partying over smarts to the point that the two generations after Nikki Sixx's heyday are mostly morons.
Of course, the degrees of experiences vary, but there is a profound difference between getting high with friends and feeling under the shirt tittie for the first compared to the designer drugs and the 4th grade classroom sex that occurs today.
The former being part of a coming of age ritual, while the later are actions done because of soul-less desensitized ignorance.
Nikki Sixx, and even more so, the people who don't survive herion addiction are sort of martyrs to our youth culture. In other words, we all party and most of us get by un-scathe, but there is a portion of the group that gets pushed over the edge, be it because they have no control or because they don't understand the chemistry behind addiction.
We shouldn't thank them or admire these martyrs but we should observe them because everytime we brag about how wasted we got or how cool it is to get messed up we are in a sense tipping our cap to their existence.
Their horrible stories or deaths give us an opportunity to reflect and realize that addiction is not cool nor is it a viable way to escape from the underlying pain or depression
I agree, it is funny how our idea of heroes evolves as we get older.
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