I walk into his office at 3:00 p.m. on a Monday in 1986, introduce myself, and tell him I’m in trouble. (I sit in a big leather chair because the couch is taken up by Mr. D, who thinks this is all about him.) I start seeing Stein twice a week, and I acquaint him with everything I have ever done, fantasized, wished, feared, believed. I am finally so ready to deal with this crap that I open up and dive in headfirst. I understand that pouring everything out to this man is nonnegotiable. My sanity is at stake, as well as my family’s survival.
Stein’s the only person on the face of the planet who I tell everything to: the light and the dark, the triumphs and the train wrecks, the righteous and the reprehensible. He doesn’t try to fix me; he just listens, and now that I’m facing my shit I spiral down even further. The Darkness is loving it. But I’m scared, because I came to Stein to feel better, not worse. I tell him I don’t need to pay $300 an hour to feel like shit—I can do that to myself for free. He says I must go in and face the “shadow” (his term for the Darkness) and that only by facing it will I begin any kind of healing. I ask him, “Will I have to confront Darth Vader, too?” I don’t think he gets the joke. Stein’s office feels more like a professor’s study. He is intelligent and soulful and he’s been through the fire himself, so I feel that my sanity is in good hands—although he tells me that my sanity is in my hands! That may be so, but I often feel like I’m the kid doing the math problem and he’s the math teacher who already knows the answer but won’t tell me because I have to work it out for myself. I continue downward. Life goes on.
Barbara is pregnant again. It’s the only good news in our world at the moment, and it draws us together. Our relationship has been struggling as well, under the barrage of my flip-flopping moods, our being new parents, and the general surreal fishbowl we find ourselves in every time we go out somewhere. Then, eight weeks into her first trimester we go to see our obstetrician, who runs a sonogram but says nothing. He wipes the gel off my girl’s belly and tells us that there is no baby, it’s just a bunch of cells. I think, “Isn’t that what a baby is anyway—just a bunch of cells?” But he means something altogether different. There is no heartbeat. No life. We lose this one, and we’re devastated. We wonder where the little spirit went.
Late at night, I hear B crying next to me in our bed and I hold her. She says she feels like she’s failed. We have that in common, she and I. And everything around us continues to implode. I’m gradually withdrawing from the world. The term “househusband” runs through my mind, and Stein remarks one day that I look like a homeless guy, given my unwashed hair, unkempt beard growth, and ill-fitting clothes. He urges me to go deeper into the shadows and be okay with it. I’m not okay with it, but I know I must confront my fear or the Darkness will win.
My new family and my mental and spiritual state become my only focus, so with the throttle still wide open on my career, I hit the kill switch. I’ve been seeing Stein for only four months when I make this decision, but I’ve probably known it was coming for much longer. I call up my manager, Joe, who has only ever wanted the best for me, and I tell him that I’m leaving him and retiring. Others in my “camp” start calling, “Is everything okay, Rick? Do you need anything, buddy?” What they mean is, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing? You’re our cash cow, bitch!”
I have a lawyer and a business manager who are bloodsuckers of the first order. The lawyer, who is a “friend,” has regularly called me up to ask me about my family and chitchat for a while, and, I suspect, bill me for the call. My business manager is an accountant who got his start by having the words “Business Manager” painted on his office door one day. We are “buddies” as well, but when we go out to dinner (which is once a week) and the check comes, he sits back in his chair, folds his arms across his chest, and smiles at me. I always pick it up.
And because we’re “friends,” I guess he feels he can confide in me. He tells me one day that Stephen Stills (whose money he also handles) has come after him with a baseball bat because Stills has a professional beef with him. I’m sitting with him another time when a young singer in a band, who’s just had a big hit and whose money he is also supposed to be protecting, calls him up and asks if it’s okay for her to buy herself a Corvette: “Sure, go ahead,” he answers. He hangs up the phone, turns to me, and laughs, “She can’t afford that.”
Maybe I’m not smart enough at this point to notice the flashing red lights and warning bells that are trying to tell me this guy is a frigging moron and definitely should not be managing my family’s and my financial future. Meanwhile, as I’m struggling to get my life in order (and am not working or making money in any way), real estate markets around the world begin to implode and collapse. A huge apartment complex in Phoenix that I own starts to go belly-up, only no one clues me in until it is too late. So just as I’m taking a breather from the world and my career, trying to pull myself together, I begin bleeding money like a hemophiliac with a straight razor. For the next two years, as I put my life on hold to work with Robert Stein, my business manager continues to mismanage my finances and I allow myself to remain ignorant. And perhaps the one area of my life that was sound—my finances—slides from solid to nearly insolvent.
There are no real “eureka” moments in this deep therapy I am undergoing, just a gradual, growing awareness of the ways in which demons drive me. There’s Numero Uno, Mr. D himself, still taking up most of the couch. He likes being the center of attention, the little shit. It’s a long, intensive, and arduous process as Stein and I discuss old fears and current ones, my depression and my sexual demons, my lack of faith and my lack of faithfulness. As I go deeper into therapy, I get to the point where I really cannot see myself going back to that world I left: music, life on the road, the pursuit of happiness and healing through achievement. This is not what I was hoping for. I was, again, looking to be “cured,” this time by the magic of therapy rather than the magic of success. I was expecting to eventually pick up my life exactly where I left off. But that isn’t going to happen, and I start to get scared for my future as a musician, father, provider, and flesh-and-blood mortal.
I tell Stein I think that maybe my career has stagnated and I now have nothing but loathing for myself. He leads me to the conclusion that my self-worth has been based solely on how successful I perceived my career to be and that if this career is not constantly rising and breaking new ground or giving me something fresh to feel good about, then I must eventually start to feel worthless. The Darkness over on the couch sneers, “He is worthless.” I understand, fully now, that in and of itself, fame is not a metamorphosis. I am in here battling my sexual demons as well. Marriage and a baby haven’t eased this in me, and I feel like I’m one come-hither look away from diving right back in. I know Barbara senses this, too.
Stein suggests that I connect to whatever it is that makes me feel good about myself, away from all the public acclaim and “mountaineering.” I know right away what that is: first, songwriting! I get joy from the act and connection to my muse that has nothing to do with the outside world or anyone else. And second, my family, who warm and nurture my spirit. So I decide to write about my family. It’s difficult for me to begin. I feel like an accident victim learning to walk again. It’s false and strange at first to sit in my music room waiting for inspiration to come. Am I still a songwriter, or am I now just pretending?
One of the first lines I write, “Well, I pick up my guitar, I tune up, I look in the mirror. It’s like a stranger in my hands …” issues directly from this turmoil. Most of the songs I begin to write come from the same place, and I feel that at least I can still be an honest songwriter, if nothing else. It creates a small well of self-esteem in me. My relationship with Barbara has suffered from all this time I’ve spent delving into my psyche, and she has an underlying mistrust of me, now that she’s aware of some of my sexual issues and adulterous behavior. I feel damned if I do and damned if I don’t.
Visitors to our home see none of this, of course
, and we’ve gotten pretty good at the “social face,” but this underlying and unresolved battle causes tempers to flare like ignited phosphorus at any moment, and our romantic love takes the hit of its short life. “Honeymoon in Beirut” is the song I write about all of this, and it is nothing if not candid. Using the once-beautiful city of Beirut—at this point torn apart by a war—as a metaphor, it chronicles the contrast between our “great life” without and the breakup within.
Strategy and maneuvers have replaced any love that was here,
We have dinner in silence, and bullets with beer,
I kidnapped and held for ransom the one in me that you love
We wait for the fall and put emotional bullet holes in the wall
And we keep sending signals all is well, wish you were here.
It’s Keith Olsen’s favorite song, probably because he’s going through a similar thing at his home, and his battle ends in the divorce that I hope to avoid in mine. Bizarre though this seems, “Honeymoon in Beirut” becomes a big club hit in the city of Beirut.
My best songs come from misery, and at least my Darkness is providing a lot of that. Other songs that start to come are about my newborn son and the rip in my space-time continuum that he has caused. I’m also feeling small and lost because my father is dead and now I am the father. Dads are supposed to have it all together, be the strong ones their children can lean on. I don’t feel I am that. In one fell swoop I have become the person that life’s buck stops at, with no experienced father to back me up, help me, talk me through it. It’s a sudden advancement in roles that I was neither ready for nor expecting.
And so, with Stein, I look at last into the sad death of my sweet old man and the spiritual loss that has followed. I face the anger I still have over losing him so early, the guilt I have over the years I spent away that were his last on this earth, my rejection of the God that gave my mum no time to smell the roses with her man, and my sorrow that I couldn’t save him. That he went before I could offer up any solid proof to validate his long-held faith in me. That he died so young, with so much unsaid between us. That I ran from facing the end with him. That I had no time to tell him, he in his well-earned old age and me in my middle years, exactly what he meant to me growing up, feeling sheltered by his strong and loving hand. My sweet and gentle-hearted prince. Throughout the first two years of seeing Stein, I seesaw back and forth between ignorance and awareness of my monsters, demons, and angels, all under the guidance of this man.
B and I then discover that she is pregnant for the third time, and the spirit we thought might have been “lost in transit” is about to come back to us. This is a signal to me. I see that life must go on, even while I’m fighting this depression in private. I can’t remain a recluse and expect my marriage, my career, and my life to remain on permanent hold and unchanged. I have to return to the real world and start a healthier pursuit of my needs and desires, despite the fact that where Mr. D and my self-worth are concerned, there is still no cure, remission, or even sullen standoff.
I begin to look at making a brand-new record, so I go find myself a brand-new manager. It’s difficult to push myself out of the house after living all this time away from the general populace, but now it’s not just all about me anymore: I have a family. And I am the dad. I sign with Ron Weisner, who has just come from co-managing Michael Jackson and Madonna. I think this is a good move. What I don’t know is that Ron, who has just lost his wife, Rose, to cancer, is dealing with life-changing issues of his own. I learn a practical way to meditate through TM but keep falling asleep during my meditations. What am I trying so hard to stop myself from seeing during these sessions? It’s truly amazing how my mind works to trip me up and confuse me. It will be a long time before I understand why the Darkness keeps making me go unconscious when I settle down to meditate. But it will make sense to me when I do.
Stein encourages me to stay with the meditation process. He also urges me to keep going with our sessions, even though I’m slowly turning back to my life. Through the writing of these new songs, I realize that songwriting has been the only thing that’s made me feel valuable without any outside acclaim. The process and the outcome of writing validates itself. Recording is a 24/7 process for me, and I commit myself again. I end the sessions with Stein to concentrate fully on making this new album. I call Keith Olsen to ask if he wants to co-produce the record with me. Keith has been fighting his own devils while I’ve been away, cleaning up a bad coke habit, and we are an especially good fit at this point in both our lives. I do feel I’ve gained some clarity in my sessions with Stein, and these songs are all about what I’ve been finding in there with him.
But when I get back on the treadmill I jumped off a few years before, I find it’s just more of the same: distraction, busywork, and ego boosting. I do love the process of recording, but my mental state is still fragile and my sexual shit is not fully under control. During the recording, sex rears its head (so to speak) and I fall again. I need a bigger diversion, so we head to the Bahamas to complete the lead vocals once all the tracks are done. Both the families go, kids and all, and it’s an incredible break for Barbara and me. I come back from the trip reenergized and truly ready to get back to my life.
Rock of Life is the name of the album, and also of the song that distills much of what I’ve been going through with Stein. The single “Rock of Life” becomes a hit, and I go to Europe to do TV and radio. I’m anxious about going on the road again for fear of falling back into old sexual habits, so I’m relieved when I make it home with my integrity intact and my foot bullet hole free. The album is struggling slowly up the charts in the U.S. despite the hit single, so I plan a tour and put a new band together. We jump into rehearsals.
I love machines. Especially machines that go really fast and put my life in danger. I’ve broken ribs when my Paraplane (a type of ultralight aircraft) crashed on takeoff, and I’ve broken them again and sustained some pretty bad cuts and bruises on dirt bikes and on my three-wheeled ATV. “All-terrain vehicle” is the name given to the off-road motorcycles that trash the delicate ecosystem, and I’ve been an avid rider for about six years. I even tool around my neighborhood with my young son, Liam, sitting astride the gas tank. And it is while I am raping the fragile desert in Palmdale one morning, between rehearsals, that my bike flips and the fragile desert hits back.
I go down at sixty miles per hour and pull the heavy bike on top of me, knocking myself unconscious, breaking six ribs, shattering my collarbone, and stripping tendons from my left leg and left shoulder. And I sustain all this damage to my body despite the fact that I look like a fey and fruity gladiator with all the colorful off-road armor I’m wearing. In the ambulance on the way back to Los Angeles I finally get a shot of Demerol and slip into the state I will be in and out of for the next six weeks. My clavicle is so shattered, the doctor will pick pieces of bone out of me for two of the three hours of surgery I undergo to install a permanent titanium brace where the living bone used to be. The morphine drip in my arm is my only comfort.
Needless to say, the tour is cancelled. It will be five months before I can even hang a guitar off my damaged left shoulder. So down, down I go again. The Darkness is still standing.
My business manager is full of good news as well. He finally tells me that the apartment complex in Arizona that has been the beneficiary of a shitload of my money is toast. We have to walk away and kiss all the money he has squandered on it good-bye. But the good news is that my lawyer has a big publishing deal he’s working on for me … no, wait … that’s toast, too. Oh, and by the way, you’d better move out of that expensive house of yours before it’s too late as well. See ya.
I am torn and miserable about confiding in B, especially because she is carrying our baby, but I know I must. She is the only safe place for me to turn. She cries when I tell her, then toughens up and goes looking for a house for us to rent so we have a place to bring our new baby home to, while I wallow in defeat. Mel Gibson and his wife Roby
n come to the rescue and buy our home, but I am broken to have to sell it. I’ve failed myself and, much worse, I’ve failed my family. Dad has blown it at his first time at bat.
I’m more like a frightened kid when I go running back to Stein. He helps me to a degree with this unfolding nightmare, and I try my best not to appear like a loser for Barbara’s sake, as the added stress could hurt the new baby she’s carrying, but I know she’s scared, too. She does her best to stay calm for all our sakes, and I’m grateful for her courage and strength. We do nonetheless manage to get into a couple of blowout arguments. Then Jose Menendez, the president of my label, RCA, and a man I have come to know and like, is shotgunned to death, along with his wife Kitty, by their own two sons. (Suddenly my family life doesn’t seem so bad.) And while I’m still in shock over that, a new regime moves into RCA. I’m pissed at what I believe is their cavalier treatment of my Rock of Life album, so I leave the label. My family and I move into a rental down the street from where we used to be home owners. If it’s true that my self-worth is based on how well I’m doing, then you can probably guess where this move is on the list of “The Top Ten Reasons Why I Suck.”
I blame my depression for pulling me out of my career midflight and causing all this resulting mayhem. “Gotcha, you little fucker,” says the Darkness.
See, I’m right.
Then on the day that we move into this makeshift home, I get a phone call informing me that Bobby Brooks, my sweet Woody Allen of an agent, has just been killed in a helicopter crash along with Stevie Ray Vaughan. At his service I start crying uncontrollably, to the point where people are looking uncomfortably at me. It’s for more than Bobby that I cry. He was there on the road with me when I started this journey. In the bus, at the first gigs, cheering as we climbed higher and higher. Saying good-bye to him feels like I’m also saying good-bye to those times, forever.
Late, Late at Night Page 25
