Scar Tissue (67 page)

Maybe you can see from these pictures why I fell like a ton of bricks for Carmen Jeanette Hawk. This was somewhere between 1989 and 1990, and we would run like rabbits in love until around ’91. God bless this incredible pixie.

I’m a lucky guy. Jaime Rishar loved me with all her heart, and I loved her right back. Here we are reflecting some sunlight in Papa’s backyard garden. What a blessed feeling to be held by such an angel. Damn. Somewhere in the mid ’90s.

Back in the early years we would come up with absurd and unthinkable concepts for our live performances. On this day for a show at the Whiskey, we dressed and went in character as rabbis. Cliff, our drummer, who is not pictured here, thought that was cool, but chose instead to dress as a top-hatted piece of poop. What a genius. Oh yeah, the guy on the left is legendary musician and producer Al Kooper.
Freaky Styley
era.

Beneath our kayaks here are the brackish waters of an Alaskan fjord called Endicott Arm. Historically my friends and I would drop whatever nonsense we had going on in the city and head for the great outdoors. This particular trip to Alaska was called the “Kevin Seven.” Three of the fabled seven are pictured here, left to right—Marty Goldberg aka Hal Negro, Michael Peter Balzary aka Mike B. aka Flea, and me.

Two club-kid lovebirds in profile. I imagine this was at a club called Power Tools in downtown L.A. Jennifer Bruce was the hottest go-go dancer this side of the East River. She out–Gwen Stefanied Gwen Stefani before there even was a Gwen Stefani. That’s a compliment to both girls. Circa 1985.

My first roommate, Donde Bastone, had a pretty cool little Hollywood bungalow backhouse. I moved in when I was sixteen and made good use of his record collection, his weed supply, his refrigerator, but maybe not his full-length mirror. Can somebody please undo the top button? Wilcox Avenue. 1979.

This is the rare Siamese ostrich plant that can be found posing amongst the shrubs of the Hollywood Hills. Jennifer was really on a no-holds-barred roll when she dressed me up on this night. Not exactly the Ramones uniform. 1987. (Photo credit: Gary Leonard)

I met Ione on her sixteenth birthday. We fell in love and stayed together for about three years. This was taken about a year and a half into it, and I often think I would have died without her care. We did have lots of fun playing house together.

The Dalai Lama was unbelievably sweet and down to earth when I met him in Dharamsala, India. Notice how he’s holding my hand, which he did for the entire length of our chat (about ten minutes). The guy’s not a bad dresser either.

Here’s the old man on a dope-dealing weekend in San Francisco. Could be the height of his outlaw lifestyle, as I was about to move in with him a year later and put just a hint of a crimp into his gangster way of livin’. Notice his perfectly adjusted nutsack trouser package. Very ’70s.