Copyright
Copyright © 2019 by C.M. Kushins
Cover design by Alex Camlin
Cover image George Gruel
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First Edition: May 2019
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Kushins, C.M. author.
Title: Nothing’s bad luck : the lives of Warren Zevon / C.M. Kushins.
Description: First edition. | New York, NY : Da Capo Press, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018057389| ISBN 9780306921483 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780306921476 (ebook : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Zevon, Warren. | Rock musicians--United States--Biography.
Classification: LCC ML420.Z475 K87 2019 | DDC 782.42166092 [B]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018057389
ISBNs: 978-0-306-92148-3 (hardcover), 978-0-306-92147-6 (ebook)
E3-20190328-JV-NF-ORI
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Overature
PART ONE: SONG NOIR
Chapter One (1903–1966)
Chapter Two (1966–1970)
Chapter Three (1970–1976)
Chapter Four (1977–1979)
Chapter Five (1979–1980)
Chapter Six (1980–1983)
PART TWO: HEAVY METAL FOLK
Chapter Seven (1983)
Chapter Eight (1984–1987)
Chapter Nine (1988–1990)
Chapter Ten (1990–1995)
PART THREE: ADULT CONTEMPORARY
Chapter Eleven (1995–2002)
PART FOUR: THE LAST TEMPTATION OF WARREN WILLIAM ZEVON
Chapter Twelve (2002–2003)
Chapter Thirteen A Leaf in the Wind
Coda
Discography
Sources
Photos
Acknowledgments
Discover More
Index
For M
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An old man told his grandson, “My boy, there is a battle between two wolves inside us all. The first one is Evil. He is anger, jealousy, greed, resentment, inferiority, lies, and ego. The second is Good. He is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy, and truth.”
The boy thought about this for a moment, then asked, “Grandfather, which wolf wins?”
The old man replied, “The one you feed.”
—TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY AMERICAN FOLK TALE
Ah-Hoooooooooooo!!!
—WARREN ZEVON
OVERATURE
SUMMER, 1978
THE ROAR OF THE REVOLVER WOKE HIM.
It had been a dream, yet an awful, familiar one. The echo of the hand cannon resounded in his ears. Warren’s eyes stared at the ceiling and he labored to think back through the hangover, scanning the details of the night. It had been the third time the recurring dream had taken hold of him—and with it, fevered shakes throughout his body.
He had awoken in the dream, too, blurring the line between reality and alcohol-soaked slumber. There, as in waking life, he had slowly picked himself up and out of bed, trying his hardest not to rattle the heavy head on his body. Everything ached, every muscle. The throbbing in his temples pulsated with each small move. He trembled in the dark.
Still waking up in the mornings with shaking hands.
As if by instinct—or was it the skilled muscle memory of a piano player?—Warren reached out in the darkness, to his left, and found the heavy weapon in its usual place on the nightstand. The gun rested beside his eyeglasses, pills, and a cocktail glass—empty but for the languid millimeter of melted ice. He pulled the gun to his body and his hand brushed against the warm glass. At least he had used one, he thought, instead of just chugging straight from the bottle. And ice? Warren never usually cared that late at night.
The lucidity forced Warren to pause and sit up on the edge of the bed. He reconsidered the reality of the moment, the now. Was he awake, or was this the same old familiar dream starting again like a Möbius strip?
Gun in hand, he stumbled up and out of the bed, cautious not to wake Crystal. She had finally gotten to sleep, too, and rested silently in a fetal position. He watched her body rise and fall. By the window, Ariel’s bassinet was bathed in moonlight.
The combination of hangover and darkness left Warren fumbling toward the door on the legs of a toddler taking its first steps. He was bare-chested but had passed out wearing a pair of denims. He extended his free hand out to find the bedroom door and his toes side-stepped the books, pages of sheet music, empty bottles, and baby toys littered around the carpet. The weight of the .44 Magnum pulled his left hand straight toward the floor. The gun always felt heavier than he remembered.
He made his way down the stairs and felt for the broken section of bannister near the bottom. He let the splintered cavity guide him to the front door, then lumbered across the front yard. The cool air parted like a soft curtain. Warren breathed in slowly through his nostrils to calm his stomach muscles, trying not to vomit. Not quite dawn, the night was dark as the bedroom. He could just make out the shapes of palm trees swaying in the distance, tall and vague. They danced, silhouetted aberrations against the blue-black of the sky.
He would later write, “Don’t the trees look like crucified thieves?” And they did.
Clutching the heavy gun, Warren walked down the driveway and angled his body toward the road. His head wobbled atop his six-foot-tall, wiry frame, and his trademark wavy blond hair—worn long to his shoulders—was matted to the side of his face. Despite the Santa Barbara breeze, he was caked with sweat. He wiped the wrist of his gun hand across his forehead and let the moonlight lead him. The Magnum hung at his side and he imagined he was James Bond. Warren smirked as he mimicked the debonair strut of the secret agent walking within the iconic gun barrel of an unseen enemy’s scope—ready to turn and fire first.
Paul would certainly approve of the cinematic image. He’d have to share that with him, next time in New York.
Warren found a worthy spot just beside the mailbox. There, he slowly took to one knee, careful not to topple over on his side. He brought the gun up to eye level, a perfect military stance. His left hand, still shaky with the weight, cradled his right. Warren brushed his hair back with his shoulder. He took aim at nothing, just the abysmal darkness of the road. Although scarce at this hour of night, a car would be sure t
o pass at some point.
Featherhill Road, located in the heart of Montecito, ran roughly half a mile from east to west, its most eastern section becoming a straight line before merging into a sharp curve south for the rest of the road’s length. Facing both sides, Warren felt the perspiration dripping down his brow as his arms grew tired. He swallowed hard, his mouth dry and with the staleness of an ashtray coated in whiskey.
Any minute now, a license to kill.
Ahead and to the left, the opaque rows of valley oaks and manzanitas that lined the road were beginning to lighten. The diffuse lights of an oncoming car leaked across the branches like a stain. The car slowly snaked down Romero Canyon Road from the east. Warren knew it was just around the bend. He readied himself and felt his arms and legs stiffen. A Smith & Wesson Model 29 .44 Magnum, truly as Dirty Harry claimed—the most powerful handgun in the world. It was worth the extra effort to cradle and aim. With the barrel over eight inches long in front of his face, he could barely make out a clear shot. The illuminated trees continued to reveal about fifty yards in front, allowing Warren’s eyes to quickly adapt and sharpen behind his glasses. And no matter who was driving the oncoming car—man, woman, or child—a moving target was a moving target.
Finally, the white dots of the headlights rose above the curve. Warren’s heart beat faster, his hand shaking but his aim true. He watched intently as a black sedan smoothly curved up and straightened in his direction. Only seconds away. The shape of an anonymous figure began to grow clearer behind the windshield as the sedan gained momentum. Warren squinted into the growing high beams and took a deep breath. He felt his eyes tighten, the driver nearly distinguishable. From the height above the steering wheel, it was a man. His finger tightened on the trigger.
In the flash of an instant, the face behind the wheel became clear in the murky moonglow. The halo of shoulder-length blond hair was the first tell, then the finite glint of a bespectacled face.
It was him. Driving the car, it was Warren himself.
Without hesitation, Warren sucked in a deep breath and fired. The discharge filled his vision with white light. He felt his body give out and was thrown backwards with the kickback.
Then, he awoke, the shot’s roar still echoing in his head.
It took a few seconds in the silence for Warren to be sure it had all been a dream. He kept his eyes shut tight. He counted to ten. Out of habit, he reached to his left to find the gun, ready to check the chamber for a missing round. Instead, Warren’s arm bumped into a wall. Then, it all came back. He wasn’t home. He wasn’t in his bedroom or camped out on Jorge’s couch or in Phil’s guest house. Any sense of relief was instantly replaced with one of defeated misery. Just as he had for the past two weeks, Warren slowly opened his eyes to the sterile white walls of a private hospital room.
The kill mission may have been a dream, but nonetheless, Warren Zevon awoke to a very real nightmare. He knew what today was. The reality of it made him shiver. What did the doctors call it? Intervention therapy. Well, if it was good enough for Billy Martin…
After the last bender in New York, Crystal had finally reached her wit’s end. She had called Paul, desperately pleading with him for help. He, in turn, had called Jackson, desperately pleading with him for help. Without all hands on deck, they knew Warren would be dead within the year. Two quarts of vodka a day—plus all the drugs. What was he trying to prove? The album was selling so well this time. Eight years of blood, sweat, and tears and he finally had scored a genuine hit. What was he so unhappy about, anyway?
With a little research and a few phone calls, Crystal had found Pinecrest Rehabilitation Center. It was the only place in California, one of the first in the entire country, that offered the experimental therapy that Warren was about to receive. Under doctoral guidance, every person dear to Warren would gather together at the hospital, each clutching a laundry list of infractions that he had caused in their lives. Then, in order, they would read it aloud. Every detail and every wound—one by one. The drinking, the drugs—the lawyers, the guns, the money. The ego and the self-loathing. And Warren would to be forced to listen. To understand. To accept.
It was, by definition, a last-ditch effort to save Warren Zevon from himself.
He had been feeding the wolf for a long time.
Part One
SONG NOIR
CHAPTER ONE
(1903–1966)
WARREN WILLIAM ZEVON WAS BORN ON FRIDAY, JANUARY 24, 1947, in Chicago, Illinois.
It was the city that his father had long considered a spiritual home. As a professional gambler with ties to organized crime, many of William Zevon’s closest associates and business contacts were based there. Although his much younger bride, Beverly, would have preferred to stay near her family in Fresno, California, she had abided by her husband’s wishes. The move was just one of many facets of their relationship that enraged her parents, strict Mormons who had always tried to instill in their daughter the same devout faith and moral dogma by which they lived. Ellsworth and Helen Simmons made no secret of their disapproval in their daughter’s choice of a suitor. But while much of the Mormon doctrine had sunk in, Beverly just couldn’t be persuaded.
In later years, if Warren Zevon displayed signs of duality in both his life and music, one need not look much further for explanation than in the “opposites attract” dichotomy of his parents.
When William was only two years old, his father, Ruven Zivotovsky, had uprooted the family from their home in Kiev for a new start in America. Hopeful at the prosperity that the journey promised, Ruven also sought an escape from the rampant anti-Semitism that plagued the Ukraine. For nearly a century, the Judaic community remained the target of widespread pogroms—bloody riots primarily enacted as retribution for the 1821 death of Greek Orthodox patriarch Gregory V. Many Ukrainians continued to resent the Jews for forcibly carrying out Gregory’s execution, and by the time Ruven could transport his family to America in 1905, there had been over two hundred such riots throughout the country. Although his family would still be poor upon arrival, the New World would, at least, guarantee them their religious freedom. Upon arriving in New York, Ruven attempted to westernize his family as best he could, changing his own name to the less ethnic Rubin and the family’s surname to the more palatable Zevon. They settled in Brooklyn only to find that, while they had successfully escaped the bloodshed of Kiev, their new home presented the obstacles of severe poverty and social indifference.
Violence and desperation would follow the Zevon family for generations, later becoming major recurring themes in Warren Zevon’s music. When Warren was still a child, his father pulled him aside and reminded him of the stigma attached to their family’s humble roots. “You are a Jew,” he told the boy. “Don’t ever forget that.”
In Brooklyn, Rubin Zevon had six mouths to feed: his wife, Sadie, and sons William, Murray, Al, Lou, and Hymie. By his own admission, William Zevon and his family endured the typical immigrant experience—a life of squalor that he would later succinctly deem as “shit.” The five boys shared the same bed, each sleeping along the mattress’s width. William later admitted that his best memory as a child was receiving a cucumber for his birthday.
“Their father—my grandfather, Rubin—was a tough guy,” remembered Murray’s son, Sandford Zevon. “And Uncle Willie was also a tough guy, a pugnacious guy. They called him ‘Stumpy’ because of his height, but he would protect my father if there were any problems in the neighborhood. He worked at the reputation.”
To further his image as a young man not to be trifled with, William countered his small physical stature by taking up boxing. He also made no secret of his aim to escape the poverty in which his family lived. Seeking prosperity elsewhere, he and his brother Hymie left home while still in their teens. They headed to Chicago, where it didn’t take long for the brothers to become enamored with the danger and glamor that the city offered. It was, after all, the home of Al Capone’s criminal empire. Known to law enforcement as the �
�Chicago Outfit,” Capone’s underground conglomerate included bootlegging, prostitution, gambling, and other nefarious activities. Upon arriving in Chicago, William Zevon befriended two up-and-comers within that network—Mickey Cohen and Sam Giancana.
According to Sandford Zevon, it was Giancana who put the ambitious Zevon boys to work running numbers for the mob. “They both became involved with [Giancana], the mafia boss in Chicago,” he recalled. “Uncle Willie told me much later, when I visited him, that they were so young at the time, Giancana said they could work for him, but ‘no guns.’ They could only do book-working and running kinds of stuff, but only because they were still just kids.”
During World War II, William and Hymie headed to California. In the eyes of the American public, Hollywood was a glamorous juxtaposition to the war abroad. Much like movie moguls, underworld leaders played into the public’s romantic visions of flashbulbs, colorful stucco homes, palm trees, and cool desert winds. The numerous gangsters who had set up camp out west acted as prospectors to an opening market, albeit a criminal one. Arriving in Los Angeles, William reconnected with old friend Mickey Cohen, who was then working under Las Vegas founder Bugsy Siegel. Often portrayed by the media as a sort of criminal “matinee idol,” Cohen’s picture ran in the Los Angeles society pages almost as often as the celebrity glitterati. He soon put William to work running numbers and collecting gambling debts. Over time, the two became close, and when Cohen got married in 1940, William served as his best man. In his jailhouse memoir written years later, the mobster even recalled assigning William the task of keeping his dog, Toughie, at bay during the midnight wedding ceremony.
William and Hymie opened carpet stores in various western towns, including in Arizona and Fresno, California. At one point, Mickey Cohen’s former bodyguard Sam Farkas owned a stake in their Wilshire Boulevard location, fueling rumors of underground dealings happening behind the storefront. Eventually, the brothers had a falling out, leaving William as the chain’s sole owner.
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