by Vince Neil
When I was little, I loved baseball. I played Little League in Carson. I was good. I remember I was on the Dodgers. I remember getting my first uniform and I wanted to wear it, like, all the time. I didn’t want to take it off. You know how you feel when you’re that age? That jersey just felt so good. And smelled so good. It had this smell to it, this new-uniform smell. It’s the smell of promise, I guess. The smell of a little boy’s dreams.
Clois Odell “Odie” Wharton Vince’s Dad
My dad’s folks were part Indian; they were from Oklahoma. He was orphaned at a young age. I think the people who kind of raised him were living in Oklahoma; they were just across the border between Texas and Oklahoma, with the Red River there in between. My dad became a sharecropper in Texas. My mom was from Tupelo, Mississippi. I was born in Paris, Texas. It was just a little hole-in-the-wall—actually my birth certificate says Lamar County, because we were out in the rural area, on the farm. The doctor had to come to the house to deliver me. My mom said he was pretty drunk when he got there.
We lived in just a little shack. It didn’t even have a bedroom; it was all just one room. And I remember during the wetter weather we had tar paper up; the boards the house was made of didn’t fit together real good; the wind used to whistle through the cracks when it rained. We had to put pots and pans down to catch all the water where it was dripping through the roof. And of course we didn’t have any indoor plumbing or electricity or anything like that. We used to listen to a battery-operated radio.
I left there when I was five years old. I remember when we moved we had an old truck. We loaded what belongings we had and took off from Texas to come out to California. My sister and I were lying in the back of the truck. We had a mattress back there; we lay on the mattress the whole trip. This was in 1941, kind of right after the Depression. Back in the Dust Bowl there were a lot of Okies and Texans and Arkies who moved out to California. My dad’s sister had gone to Los Angeles; my dad and mom decided to move out there; we stayed with my aunt until my dad got a job as a housepainter for the University of Southern California—he always wore white and had paint speckled in his hair. Later he worked at a packinghouse. My mom worked at a shoe factory for a while.
The first night I met Shirley, she was with her friend Tootsie, who had a brand-new Ford T-bird. It was a sweet little car. They cruised through the drive-in. The guy I was with knew them, so we met. A little while after that, our car club had a picnic at Griffith Park. Shirley was there. I was sitting at the table and had a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. When Shirley walked by, I flipped the cigarette out, and then I grabbed her and pulled her over and gave her a big smooch. I guess it was the beer talking. We dated a little bit, and then I quit high school in the eleventh grade and went into the army in 1956. They sent me to Germany. I was lucky; it was in between Korea and Vietnam. While I was over there, she’d write me letters and send me photographs of her. We rotated back to Fort Hood, Texas, in January of ’58. While I was there, Elvis Presley was, too; he was doing his basic training.
When I got let out of the army in August of ’58, I came home. Shirley and I dated for a few months. In November of ’58 we got married. We’re still together today, fifty-two years and counting.
I remember when Vince was six weeks old I had to leave town to go on a job. I was working as a fiberglass laminator. They sent me along with a crew up to Moab, Utah. We were lining these great big huge steel tanks with fiberglass lining—I think the process it was used for was called uranium reduction. We expected to get back home in just a couple weeks or so, but they liked our work so much they gave us more tanks to do. So I called Shirley and told her that I was going to have to stay much longer than I anticipated.
After her six-week checkup, she hopped on the bus and come on up to Moab. We got us our own motel room there. Vince was just a tiny baby; in the motel room we made him a bed in the suitcase—we put the blankets down there and everything. And he just slept in the suitcase.
I was working so many hours. We were trying to finish the job and get back home. I was working fourteen, sixteen hours a day and then I’d come back to the motel room and, wouldn’t you know it, as soon as I’d get there, he’d start screaming his head off. He was fine all day until I got there. I told Shirley, “God, could you keep him quiet? I got to get some sleep, I’m working all these hours.” I was like, “If you don’t shut up the screaming I’m going to close the lid of the suitcase!” Of course I was just kidding.
When he was fifteen I bought him an old ’53 Chevy pickup. It was all primered and had big black wheels; it had a split six; the manifold had the exhaust running out beneath the running boards on each side. He didn’t have a driver’s license yet. But we saw this truck and I liked it even myself. I only paid like seven hundred dollars for it. I figured by the time we had it all fixed up, he’d have his license. I even cut the top out and put in a sunroof; the wife made little curtains for the back window—it was what they called a five-window.
Vince had this friend of his who said he had a driver’s license; I took him at his word. The two of them used to take the truck out. Come to find out his friend didn’t have no license, either. So they were just driving around illegally. Then Vince hit something and smashed the rear fender on the thing.
I kept that truck for a while and then I sold it to a neighbor down the street for a hundred dollars. They came and picked it up and drove it away and I haven’t seen it since. It was a nice little truck. I remember Vince had the surfboard rack in the back—I remember that guy who tried to take it from him or something. Vince was a young kid. Probably a freshman. He had the long hair and he was interested in music. I guess this other guy was a football jock, a senior. He started picking on Vince because of the hair and because he was a freshman—he was an easy target, I guess. Anyway, one day, I don’t know what happened, something with the surf rack, but the guy was picking on Vince and I guess Vince had enough of it. Vince hauled off and smacked him right in the mouth. And the guy had braces, so it cut the kid’s mouth all to shreds.
I ended up having to go to court—his parents sued us for I think five hundred dollars or something like that. So I ended up having to pay that. Even though the guy might’ve been picking on him with words, Vince had no call to haul off and hit him. That’s the only trouble that I really can recall with Vince as a youngster.
One thing I’ll never forget. At some point, when Mötley Crüe was starting to get pretty well known, Vince sent a limo over to our house to pick us up and take us to the concert. It was a big black stretch limo. It was the first time I’d ever even been in a limo. And I told Vince, “You know I’ve never been in a limo in my whole life?”
He looked at me and smiled real proud. He said, “Well, Dad, you better get used to it.”
That was one of the shining moments. I never in my wildest dreams thought Vince would get as far as he has gotten. There are so many talented people out there that just never get a break, so many people who never get famous. But I guess Vince was in the right place at the right time and had enough talent. Like I say, I’m real proud—you know I bought him his first guitar, right?
By the time I was in third or fourth grade, Compton started to change. You could see the beginnings of what would later happen. By then, it was becoming predominantly black and lower class. Gang activity was everywhere. The ruling gangs in my neighborhood were the Crips and the AC Deuceys. The brother of my best friend, Paul, was one of the leaders of the Crips, so I didn’t get beat up as much as I could have. A bunch of Crips lived directly across the street in this apartment; they used it like a clubhouse. Guys in the AC Deuceys lived about five houses down the street. And then some other Crips lived around the corner. So I was right in the middle of it. The Crips and the AC Deuceys were always at war. There were shootings and drive-bys; this was way before the crack epidemic brought the gang problems into the spotlight. This was just plain old gang warfare, Sharks and Jets stuff, all about turf and pride, something
that men have done for centuries, protect and defend their families and their ’hoods.
One day, I was walking home from school and I saw four kids take down this well-dressed, preppy-looking guy. They shot him, took his sneakers, and left him lying in the street. There was blood gurgling out of his mouth. Somebody called 911. It was a horrible sight to see, this guy spitting up blood. He couldn’t even talk. I was only a little kid.
After that it seemed like a lever had been thrown. A few days later I was waiting in front of my house for the ice-cream man, like I’d done a hundred times before. The same four gangbangers who had shot the kid for his sneakers came out of the Crips’ apartment. Even though I knew there was no way my sneakers were ever going to fit any of those huge guys, I was still pretty nervous as I watched them cross the street coming directly toward me. My only thought was like, Jeez, you know, I hope they’re getting in line for ice cream, too.
The tallest among them, walking on the left side of the group, wore a black T-shirt. He had raised red lines running down his arms, like tribal scars. As they were coming toward me, he kept staring at me the whole time. My throat went dry and my knees got weak. I was maybe ten, eleven years old.
Before I really knew what was happening, the tall guy separated from the others. He grabbed me and spun me around like they do with hostages in the movies, so that he was standing behind me, holding my arms. Then he stuck his hands in my pockets and rummaged around my pockets. I only had fifteen cents for ice cream. Then I felt this, like, pressure across my throat. It was quick; it didn’t feel like there was a lot of weight or force behind it. For a moment there was no pain. But then my neurons began to scream; I could feel wetness flowing down my neck. I’d been cut with a knife or razor. They say you never feel the slash of a sharp knife, only the pain after. There’s this weird delayed response, like your body doesn’t even realize for a moment it’s been hurt.
Even though the attack came in broad daylight, not one neighbor lifted a finger to help. It’s tough in gang territory because everybody is so afraid. People want to be good neighbors, I guess, but why risk your own life to save somebody else? Somehow I picked myself up, and I must have gone back inside my house. I don’t remember what happened next. Someone—my mom? my neighbor?—took me to the hospital. I got stitches. I don’t remember how many, but the cut was on the side of my face and on my chin. The doctors told me the knife missed my jugular vein by only an inch. That’s fate, huh? I could have died that day. At the hospital the nurses all doted on me. I ended that day with all the ice cream I could eat.
When I returned to school, Mrs. Anderson, my teacher, was effusive. She was a former Playboy playmate. She had long, straight brown hair and a figure like Jessica Rabbit—bada bing! I still have her pinup in a Playboy anthology edition somewhere, probably in one of my garages. I think it’s fair to say that Mrs. Anderson switched on the light for me. Beginning with her, my eyes opened to what has probably been the guiding revelation of my entire life: I love women. And when I see a beautiful one I’m like a child. I’ve got one instinct—gimme.
Being in Mrs. Anderson’s class, in her proximity, I had this warm and gooey feeling. I didn’t know what sex was yet, though I knew all the associated vocabulary words. Yet somehow I grokked that what I felt for Mrs. Anderson was what a man feels for women. It was like the first hit of crack: a rushing sensation I’ve been chasing ever since.
In Mrs. Anderson’s class, if you behaved well and folded your hands on your desk, or read well or answered the questions she asked, Mrs. Anderson would give you the honor of walking in the front of the line to lunch and recess… while holding her hand! I can’t ever remember being selected for that honor by virtue of my classroom participation—more on that later. Of course I wanted badly to lead the line, to hold her hand. But that day I came back to school all bandaged up, she singled me out. I got to walk in the front of the line. I know to this day she had no idea the kinds of things that were going through my mind. In her mind, I’m sure, she was playing nursemaid to this traumatized little boy. But when I was with her I didn’t feel things a little boy feels. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be her lover or her son—but I felt like I sure wanted something. On parents’ night, when I introduced her to my mom and dad, I said, “This is my mother, Mrs. Anderson.” Talk about a Freudian slip! I wanted to dig a hole and hide.
After that, the genie was pretty much out of the bottle. Within a year’s time I found myself experimenting with a neighborhood girl named Tina, sticking my hands up her skirt, feeling around up there for the first time, getting an idea, so to speak, of the lay of the land. I didn’t know what I was doing or why or what came next. I only knew I felt compelled to keep touching…. What is it about females that makes you just want to feel them all the time?
Shirley Ortiz Wharton Vince’s Mom
My mom was raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico, one of five kids. She and my dad moved to Inglewood when we were kids. My dad went to work as a machinist. After he died of cancer at forty-two, we moved to a smaller house. I think he had some life insurance—I don’t ever remember my mom going to work. There were six of us. I graduated high school in 1965. My mom lived there pretty much the rest of her life. We used to visit her in the little house—I remember during the Watts riots we all went to my mom’s. Vince was like four years old. The sky was orange. He was fascinated with the National Guard troops.
After high school I became a hairstylist. I went to cosmetology school in Hollywood and junior college in Del Amo, California. That’s where they always parked the big Goodyear blimp. I met Odie one night while I was out with some girlfriends. He was in this car club called the Shifters. He had the great DA hairdo, all combed back slick, and he wore a green and white Shifters jacket—he had a green and white Chevy, too. I was put together pretty nice; I was a blonde but not by birth—you know, it’s cosmetic. Being a beauty school girl, I liked to experiment. I met him at a drive-in, actually. Everybody went at night, it was in the neighborhood, down there on Manchester. Odie’s dad was a housepainter, but he was pretty much retired when I came around. They said he was part Indian.
I remember moving to Carson, to the house on Dimondale Drive. Odie and I had the two kids by now. They were only sixteen months apart. Just to set the record straight, it was not a ghetto. It was a nice development when we moved in. Vincent took ice-skating lessons with his sister when he was little. It all started with Valerie. She was a pretty good skater and he went to see her at a show once, and after that he said, “I want to do that, too.” So I gave him lessons and he did a solo. He was very, very good. He will die when he reads this—he hates for me to talk about it. But I’ve got pictures of him in the whole skating outfit and everything. I still have his ice skates. He took dancing lessons, too, and he played the guitar. He was very much an extrovert on the stage. But by himself, no. With people he was very shy. He would never get up and sing in front of you unless there was a stage.
Later I remember he started lip-synching. He’d do Rod Stewart songs like “Hot Legs.” He was a little bit of a ham. He liked to be up in front. Girls chased him. Starting in junior high he would bring them over to the house. We always told him, “You can’t go into the bedroom and close the door.” It was hard to supervise him all the time because I worked. When the kids were real young, when we lived in Carson, my husband worked during the day and I worked at night. I worked at Max Factor. I packaged lipsticks and makeups and stuff to ship all over the United States. It was a fun job. After we moved to Glendora, I worked at Ormco. We manufactured orthodontics. I was in charge of getting orders out to the doctors all over the world. Believe it or not, they even made braces for dogs.
I don’t remember Vince being a bad student. He never got in trouble at school. His grades were average. He turned out good, but he went through a lot with his—you know, I didn’t realize that he was smoking marijuana when he was young. I had no clue. Valerie told me that he used to do it, but she was no angel, either. They both used to
sneak in through the bedroom window if they came in too late. Vince would close the window on Valerie so she couldn’t get in. They were just typical kids I guess. Sometimes, when we were asleep, they would take the car… well, Valerie would. Vince would tell on her.
He started bringing Tami around. She was older than him. She was seventeen and he was sixteen. An absolute sweetheart. She’s my favorite to this day. I don’t remember if it was Vince or Tami who told me about the pregnancy. She was just crazy about Vince. But Vince was seeing another girl named Shani. So it was hard. We felt so bad for Tami. Because we really liked her. I said, “Tami, don’t chase him. He doesn’t need to be chased. Don’t do that to yourself.” After she had Neil, Vince was just too young. We moved her in for a while, and Vince moved out. But he held Neil; he brought him gifts—a little tricycle and everything. But he really wasn’t around for him like he should’ve been. Me and Odie made sure that Neil went to a lot of concerts and saw his dad whenever he could.
I guess everybody always tells the famous story about Rockandi’s big party at our house. It wasn’t a secret. We weren’t away. We knew all about it. The only thing we didn’t know was that Vince was going to advertise it on telephone poles throughout the city. We had a swimming pool in the back, and an enclosed patio, all screened in. The band was set up in there—the party was going to be inside and outside, just a regular house party, from what we knew. Vincent said it would be fifty or sixty kids at most.
Before things even started, Odie goes to a couple of the neighbors and says, you know, “Why don’t we go down to this local place and shoot some pool while the kids are having this little party.” So we all left before anybody had even gotten to the house yet.
