Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind (27 page)

“I don’t think anybody’s necessarily ready for death,” Depp reflected. “You can only hope that when it approaches, you feel like you’ve said what you wanted to say. Nobody wants to go out in mid-sentence.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T
hank you to everyone who helped with this book, or who just made the world a better place during those interludes when I came up for air. When you’re on an overcaffeinated book-writing odyssey, you want excellent people to be in the boat with you, in case it takes ten years to get back to Ithaca.

I am extremely lucky to be working with the brilliant editor Carrie Thornton, who is filled with wisdom and talent the way a Russian nesting doll is filled with more nesting dolls. Thanks to all her fellow superstars at It Books, especially Kevin Callahan (whose enthusiasm made this book possible), Brittany Hamblin, Heidi Lewis, Julia Meltzer, Trina Hunn, Elissa Cohen, Shannon Plunkett, Cal Morgan, and Lynn Grady. Thanks also to Laura Wyss and Martin Karlow. And a special salute to Amanda Kain, who designed the beautiful cover of this book before I finished writing it. On more than one late night, the cover was highly motivating: I wanted to write a book that would live up to it.

My agent, Daniel Greenberg, routinely brings keen intelligence, good humor, and elite ninja skills to bear on my behalf: a thousand thank-yous to him and his associates at Levine Greenberg, especially Monika Verma and Tim Wojcik.

In the Venn diagram with two circles, one of which is “awesome people” and the other is “my friends,” I am extremely fortunate that they have such a huge overlapping area. I am particularly in the debt of four people who read this book when it was just a raw manuscript; all provided sage counsel and useful reality checks. Bill Tipper is the guy you want by your side when you’re on top of a mountain (and not just because he brings snacks). Steve Crystal is formerly my roommate, currently a Hollywood power player, and always a mensch. Nina Blackwood is a VJ goddess and one of the kindest people I know. Rob Sheffield is my friend, my inspiration, and a man who can lead a crowd of strangers in a sing-along version of “Build Me Up Buttercup.”

Thank you, Julie Farman, for your essential assistance in locating celebrities and their publicists. Thank you, Molly Ker Hawn, for your invaluable genealogy skills. Thank you, Abby Royle, for crackerjack transcription. Thank you, Tim Atkinson, for letting me drag you out to the Viper Room when you were in town to hang with Lemmy. Thank you, Marjorie Ingall, for timely
Sassy
help. Thank you, Katie Hollander, for your talented navigation of the art world.

Thank you for your help, guidance, and courtesy, Jennifer Keishin Armstrong, Diedrich Bader, Rob Brunner, Steve Crystal, Flea, Stacey Grenrock-Woods, Sal Jenco, Melissa Maerz, Morgan Neville, Eddie Schmidt, John Vlautin, Marc Weidenbaum, Hillary Wendroff, and Moon Zappa. And an extra-special thanks to Sebastian Bach.

I am full of gratitude to everyone who consented to an interview with me, some in recent months, some years before I knew I was going to write this book: Richmond Arquette, Gus Brandt, Kim Buie, Johnny Depp, Joe Dolce, John Frusciante, Ethan Hawke, Rose McGowan, Frank Meyer, Heart Phoenix, William Richert, Ione Skye, George Sluizer, and anonymous sources.

I spent most of the nineties working at
Details,
which proved to be the best possible training ground I could have hoped for. This book has let me revisit that era, so I want to salute all my twelfth-floor coworkers who inspired me, then and now, especially James Truman, David Keeps, Joe Levy, Joe Dolce, Michael Caruso, John Leland, Pat Blashill, Caren Myers, Michael Dolan, Jeanie Pyun, Tommy Dunne, Ilsa Enomoto, Lisa Steinmeyer, B. W. Honeycutt, Lisa Murray, Markus Kiersztan, Francesca Castagnoli, Rob Tannenbaum, William Shaw, Mim Udovitch, and Chris Heath.

My
Rolling Stone
colleagues are basically the Avengers of the magazine world, and I’m always psyched to get into the quinjet with them. I am in awe of the superpowers of Will Dana, Nathan Brackett, Sean Woods, Jonathan Ringen, Peter Travers, Simon Vozick-Levinson, Christian Hoard, Andy Greene, Alison Weinflash, Coco McPherson, Jodi Peckman, Jason Fine, and the god of thunder, Jann Wenner.

In New York, I salute James Hannaham, Brendan Moroney, Brian Smith-Sweeney, Sabrina Smith-Sweeney, Emily Nussbaum, Clive Thompson, Chris Kalb, Ben Smith, and Chris Molanphy; in Los Angeles, David Handelman, Syd Sidner, Leah Lehmbeck, Jason Lehmbeck, Nettie Neville, Philip Farha, Meryl Emmerton, Christine Street Gregg, David Gregg, Martha Quinn, Julie Heimark, Peter Heimark, Hillary Seitz, Brenna Sanchez, and Travis Barker; in Evanston, Megan Kashner, Trina Whittaker, Zane Kashner, and Tessa Kashner.

Much love to my far-flung family, especially my parents, my brothers Julian and Nick, my Aunt Lis, and my cool Texas in-laws, Alex and Cynthia and Big Al. And even more love to my sons, Strummer and Dashiell, who are too young to read this book now, but who may pull it off the shelf someday. And infinite amounts of love to my wonderful wife, Jen Sudul Edwards, who offered trenchant commentary on my early drafts, provided emotional support when I was wrestling with the manuscript, kept the household running when I was wandering around pulling out my hair, and, as always, inspired me to achieve things that I didn’t know I was capable of doing.

Finally, thanks to River Phoenix for all the cool things he did; I’m sorry I never got to meet him. “Love conquers all,” River said once. “Even the assholes that don’t want it.”

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