This Is Gonna Hurt: Music, Photography and Life Through the Distorted Lens of Nikki Sixx (14 page)

That day Nancy taught me transcendental meditation (TM).

I can tell you how important that day was a hundred thousand times over, but unless you experience what I’m about to explain, it won’t make complete sense. So I will simplify.

You have noise, it’s in your head, and your system is breaking down from it. I see it as poison darts stabbing into your nervous system. They feed on your anxiety, they thrive on your inability to sit still, and they get fat like rats on your rotting soul.

To “simplify” your life into a mantra is to call in the noise patrol. Meditation is simple. We think our lives cannot be. They can if you call on the noise patrol.

Simply said, simplify.

It’s so easy to get overwhelmed daily. I don’t need to tell you about your daily overdose of traffic, cell phones, e-mails, kids, texting overload, work, bills, and the five, six, seven, eight, and nine o’clock news. And somewhere, sometime, maybe a doctor screams out to the patient (you and me), “Give that guy some Zoloft. Better yet, a double shot of Wellbutrin with a Prozac back.”

Western medicine has its place. I use it (I was on Prozac and then Zoloft for years, too), but this is for your soul and there is no medical procedure for your soul that I know of.

Since that day I use TM daily. Like a meditation junkie I need my fix. (Man, life sure is a roller coaster of changes, isn’t it?) Unbelievably, it both rests and reignites you at the same time. You will feel like you have slept a full night with just twenty minutes of meditation. You will
not
be required to sit in a Buddha-like position, arms extended, om sounds coming from your chest. I’m not making fun of this. I am only trying to explain to you that transcendental meditation is different. You can do it anywhere, anytime. I have done it on planes, dressing rooms, backstage, in the middle of recording and photo sessions, and even in a crowded, crazy subway station.

I won’t go on and on about TM (like I usually do). I only share this because of how important it has been in all aspects of my life. I notice a closer relationship to my family and friends thanks to TM. I see a difference in how I handle all the crazy-makers and emotional terrorists who come with the life I have chosen.

Nancy called me today and asked if I would pop over for some tea. I smiled and simply said, “Yes.”

The Devil Goes to Washington, D.C.
(Goddamnation)

A day doesn’t go by that someone doesn’t curse me to hell. Damn me, so to speak. The dictionary tells me that if I am damned, then I am doomed.

And so it begins, another day being condemned by my neighbors for living life out loud and damned by the international metal community for not making
Shout at the Devil
eight times in a row. Or cursed and thrown under the nearest bus for selling too many albums of
Dr. Feelgood.
Thrashed for having too many tattoos, then ragged on ’cause I’ve become conservative based on the success of
Heroin Diaries.
I am a sellout for standing in front of Congress in Washington, D.C., and a has-been for even being. Such is life.

Oh, did I forget to tell you about the time I was sitting with Patrick Kennedy in the halls of Congress?

Doe-eyed and smart as a fox, he actually considered my proposal, I believe, as I sit here today. He also considered his job, his family’s reputation, and our country. I sat there patiently, straight razor in boot, impatiently praying, “Dear God, if I may have just one kill, one free pass, can it be this one?”

As usual, God takes his dear sweet time. With my foot tapping in time with my escalating heartbeat, and my eyes darting back and forth, I tried to keep my focus. Watching his eyes, his mouth, even listening to his breath for some kind of sign. I knew it was a long shot, a Hail Mary pass. Behind his head was a wonderful picture of his uncle, John F. Kennedy, being sworn in as our president, Jackie Kennedy by his side, and the most beautiful American flag tilting toward us from behind his desk. It’s like the flag was in on the decision and, to be honest, I am sure it was. I had an agenda to get something done for Americans, and I’m sure, like the number of stars and stripes, there were different ways to see what my plan would or wouldn’t do for our great country.

Just as the problem with gun laws aren’t the guns, it’s the people who do stupid shit with guns…

DEPRESSION
fig.d631

…the problem with letting a rock star into Congress is, well…You get the point and so did Patrick Kennedy.

Intuition was slowing my heart rate. He reached for my book and like a great man, looking me square in the eye, he said, “You know, Nikki, you’re 100 percent right, but my job is not
this
job. We agree with you, but we can’t help you. If you go on this journey, you must go it alone.”

I knew he was right. I knew it all along. He has other jobs in Washington to do, people to motivate, bills to pass.

This whole thing started as a meeting for us to work together to pass something called the Parity Bill, which would have forced health insurance companies to recognize mental illness and addiction in a similar way as physical illness. Until then, people wouldn’t be able to get coverage from their insurance companies for a wide variety of mental health services and/or rehab, and this legislation sought to rectify that.

The meeting somehow turned into me wanting to call the president of the United States of America an alcoholic. Wow, some days I even surprise myself at the sheer size of my own balls.

Of course, the answer was no and rightfully so. But goddamn it…this is my goddamn nation, too.

Too Fast for Love?

We were young and we didn’t know what we were doing.

We wanted it all, but we didn’t know what it all was.

The good and the bad and the price tag that came with it would take us years to understand.

We had been blessed with resilience. We were the cockroaches that wouldn’t die.

But we weren’t Too Fast for Love because we were
in
love, or at least in love with anarchy.

Too Fast to Settle for Mediocrity
wouldn’t have sounded nearly as good as the actual title of Mötley Crüe’s first album,
Too Fast for Love,
so there you have it.

What I do know is that back then I used to hang around a prop house in Hollywood. I was intrigued by how sets were built and even more by the small pyrotechnics division in back. I wanted to steal the props, but I was scared if they caught me I couldn’t come back.

From time to time they would shout out, “Hey, kid, come over here; wanna see something cool?”

I was on a mission to learn how to blow up a stage, and I needed weapons. In my life, I always put education first, of course.

That day they showed me multicolored pyro powders.

I asked if I could hold some as it burned, and they laughed. They said if I put it into something and cupped it in my hand, I could. So I did. The smoke filled the air for as far as I could see. I was amazed and knew I had to get my hands on some of this for a photo shoot for the album.

Looking back on the
Too Fast for Love
photo sessions with me holding that pyro powder, smoke billowing from my outstretched hand, I laugh. We were loving living fast—too fast. And the moment passed, but history reminds me as I remind you:

Live in the moment. Moments make history.

I Was a Homeless Teenage Arsonist (Sorta)

Somewhere else in this book I told you about the time I accidentally burned down the house where I was living in L.A. I was a self-indulgent teenage arsonist or, more accurately, an irresponsible, candle-loving pyromaniac, and thanks to that, basically without a place to live.

I guess we are all just one blazing curtain away from being homeless. Sometimes mishaps flatten us and, with no backup plan, you land on the street.

I didn’t end up homeless that day, but I was on a slippery slope. After running away from my mother’s home in Seattle, I did sleep in the park and in abandoned cars. I was spared a permanent residence on the streets only by friends and eventually by my grandparents, who sent me a Greyhound ticket to Idaho.

That little taste of homelessness was a bitter enough flavor to stick with me till this day.

I know there are different scenarios on how kids become homeless. But once they end up on the street, they usually fall prey to prostitution, drug addiction, gangs, violence, and the slow, torturous, downward spiral into hell. I remember being in Boston years ago and looking down a long alley, seeing two kids maybe nine and twelve years old digging through an overstuffed Dumpster. I looked around for parents and there wasn’t a soul in sight. I walked down and asked what they were doing, to which they replied, “Looking for something to eat.” I gave them some money and asked where their parents were. They told me, “In jail,” and nothing more.

Eventually the younger homeless kids will get picked up by authorities and placed into some kind of system, maybe juvenile detention or foster care. As much as that seems like a blessing, it’s only a Band-Aid, as they have to address the bigger problems they developed early in their lives. After foster care, the system really breaks down, as these poorly prepared and helpless kids age out and end up on their own. They are released (if they last that long) when they are eighteen with little education, no job skills, and no family support.

When I was writing
Heroin Diaries,
I wanted someplace to send the proceeds. We checked into a lot of programs, but Covenant House completely blew me away.

The organization not only houses kids with no place to go, it has a system in place to help better them. There are many pieces to a puzzle, and Covenant House figured that out. Its staff has organized a way to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

First they use an outreach program to find homeless kids and get them food and shelter.

Once in touch, they have a medical facility, a program to educate the kids on addiction and recovery, even a graduation and job placement. Most of the people I’ve met through Covenant House are healthy, balanced, and ready to succeed in their lives. They even give back and help others less fortunate than they are now. Covenant House is a lifesaver for these kids. It gives them hope and the chance to turn their lives around.

For me, music was a huge part of avoiding homelessness. Having burned most of my bridges, with no real education (other than in rebellion), I was destined for a very unstable life. Music saved me. It gave me a reason to wake up, an outlet for my creativity, a shot at financial stability.

So it was an easy decision to help create Covenant House’s music/arts program.

I met with executive director George Lozano and we devised a program for kids living in the Covenant House Crisis Shelter. They love it. The program gives them a chance to explore their musical talents, have fun, feel good about themselves, and express themselves in ways that other therapeutic services couldn’t do. I helped them build a music studio and got them basic instruments, amplifiers, and software. We hired instructors to teach the kids to play their instruments, record, edit, and even entertain.

With added support from music companies and personal donations, we have been able to give hope through music to these kids. We’re just getting started—there are a lot of kids still on the streets and a lot of music to be made.

The program is called “Running Wild in the Night” after a lyric I wrote for a song of the same title. It ended up being used in another song, “Save our Souls”:

Black angels laughing in the city streets
Street toys scream in pain and clench their teeth

The moonlight spotlights all the city crime

Got no religion, Laugh while they fight.

Funny, growing up, I never thought I would.

The Resurrection of Nikki Sixx

Along my journey, I’ve seen so much: birth, death, those who cherish life and those who cherish death even more.

Point being, I create some version of reality that others see as fantasy. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe there’s a monkey on my back, or maybe there’s a dented halo floating somewhere above my disheveled head. Maybe I don’t even know, but I have to give everything I have in whatever I do, or there’s a torturous, gnawing fear that tears at me. I always ask myself this simple question: “Did I do my best?”

It all started, like so many things, in a book I read that pretty much changed my life. This particular one was titled
The Four Agreements,
by Don Miguel Ruiz. In photography, like life, there are four agreements. I try to use them as my daily mantras, my all-purpose rules (or some say nonrules).

Ruiz’s four principles to live by (as interpreted by me) are as follows.