by Dave Navarro
We actually ran into Adria that night, and said hi to her. You were really nervous, so you didn’t say much the whole time. And I was pretty nervous, but you know what I do when I’m nervous: I talk too much. So, you did a lot of listening to me.
CARMEN: My friends came along too. We only stayed at the club a little while.
DAVE: I remember after Cherry, I wanted to move it to another location, so I go, “Uhh, how would you like to go get some tea?” And you just looked at me and said, “I don’t like tea.” So I said, “Oh, okay. ‘Bye.” And we just went home.
CARMEN: But you were so sweet: you had forgotten to say ‘bye to one of my friends, so you ran across the street to say ‘bye to her. You were such a gentleman. That was a good sign. I knew everything was going to be okay.
DAVE: What did your friends say afterward?
CARMEN: They said, “Oh my God; I think he really likes you.” They were talking to you all night trying to get information from you, and then telling me.
DAVE: I was like, “Dude, I’m totally into her.” You were nothing like I thought. Not that I had a bad idea of you—I just didn’t know. It was intense.
CARMEN: You assumed that I wanted a guy who was partying and wild, probably the way you were a few years ago. So you were thinking that you weren’t exciting enough. And I was thinking the same thing. I didn’t think I’d be exciting enough for you because of where I was at. I had been through so much with Dennis and now I had calmed down. I didn’t want to be with someone who was drinking or someone who wanted to go out all the time. I wanted to have a normal healthy relationship.
THE FIRST KISS
CARMEN: I couldn’t stop thinking about you after the date. And you were so sweet: you called the next day.
DAVE: I couldn’t stop thinking about you either. My friends were like, ‘You should wait to call her.” And I’m like, “For what? What if I get hit by a bus today? I want to talk to her.” So we made a date to go see a movie.
CARMEN: Remember, we went to the Ivy for lunch before the movie? You picked me up. I’m the kind of girl who loves to have music on all the time. I thought, “Hey, he’s the rock guy. He’ll play loud music in the car, and that will help get rid of the uncomfortable silence that happens when you get to know someone.” And no—there was no music. None at all. You wanted to be the interesting, let’s-talk guy.
DAVE: Well, first of all I wanted to get to know you, and it’s hard to talk with music bumping. But at the same time, I felt like I would have to do this on personality. I just wanted to get in your heart. And I didn’t think I could do that with Jay-Z cranked up to 9. Whenever you picked me up in your car after that, there was always hip-hop on—loud.
CARMEN: And then you took me to the Ivy, which was the last place I wanted to go.
DAVE: Well, it’s better to go to the Ivy than the IV. And I thought taking you to the Ivy was a classy move. I just thought it was a cute little spot on Robertson with good shrimp. But then I came to learn that for you, it’s too Hollywood. And it’s a paparazzi hangout, which was a bad idea for like our second date.
CARMEN: I think that lunch was one of our most uncomfortable moments. We talked about Three’s Company.
DAVE: Afterward, we went to see Requiem for a Dream, which is about a topic I know a little something about. But the truth is that I was so excited and nervous about who was sitting next to me that it could have been any movie. And thank God I was feeling like that: maybe a movie about drug addiction would have been hard to watch otherwise.
CARMEN: It was the perfect film for me, because those are the kind of movies that I like—edgy, documentary style.
DAVE: Your favorite movie is Gummo.
CARMEN: Well, it’s one of them. I was raised not too far from Zenia, Ohio, where it took place.
DAVE: I was so surprised by Carmen’s likes and dislikes and interests. We’re both into weird, dark, edgy stuff. But during the movie, my focus was elsewhere. Do I make the move? Do I put the arm around her? Do I hold her hand? And I didn’t.
CARMEN: I thought we did hold hands a little bit.
DAVE: We did? I was so paranoid I didn’t know what we were doing. Somewhere in the back of my head I was still worried about the friend issue. You know, I didn’t want to be the big brother or the friend. But at the same time I didn’t push it. I wasn’t like, “So do you want to come up to the house and see my Basquiat?” I’m not that guy.
CARMEN: So the next thing was, you leaned right in for a kiss.
DAVE: This was in the car, when I was dropping you off.
CARMEN: And I was so happy.
DAVE: It was amazing, and I knew right then and there that this is probably the one. I don’t know how to explain it because every first kiss with someone you are into is great. But somehow this one was different. It was scary too. I just said, “Fuck it. What have I got to lose? Let’s just give this a chance. Maybe there is something to this love thing.”
TROUBLE IN PARADISE
DAVE: How about the Hawaiian shirt story you told me? I found it terrifying.
CARMEN: Did I tell the Hawaiian shirt story on our second date?
DAVE: I think it was on the second or third date.
CARMEN: During the time I was single, I went on a date with a very handsome guy with great hair. He was funny and sweet, and I was extremely attracted to him.
DAVE: Everything you could want in a guy, right?
CARMEN: It was summertime and he invited me to a barbecue. He came to pick me up, and he was wearing a Hawaiian shirt, he had cut off all his hair, and he was wearing flip-flops. And that was it: I was done.
DAVE: When you told me that story, I was thinking, “I have to get my personality across, because what if I wear something strange or cut my hair funny?”
CARMEN: Like when you broke out and you had a zit on the end of your nose (laughs).
DAVE: That was almost the end for us. That was the one time when things almost didn’t work out.
CARMEN: What happened was we continued to go on a few dates, and everything was great. I had fallen head over heels. I was trying not to, because I was so afraid. But I couldn’t control it. One night, we were sitting at the Whiskey Bar having a drink and this girl runs up, yelling at you, “How could you do this to me?”
I told you, “You need to go outside and talk to her.” She was freaking.
DAVE: This was one of the girls that I kind of had a thing with, but she wasn’t a girlfriend.
CARMEN: When the girl started yelling at you, I thought, “Okay, now I get it. I see what’s really going on here.” I was hurt, so I just changed my whole way of thinking. I became really distant and closed up a lot.
DAVE: It turned out that this girl was drunk and, whatever. Everything has been fine since then. We’ve all said hi. But right after that, I got a zit right on the end of my nose, and there was nothing I could do. I would still try and call you, but I wouldn’t go see you or ask you out. So you were probably thinking, “Oh great, he’s got all these girls out there in Hollywood.”
CARMEN: I figured, “He’s a player, and he’s out doing his thing.”
So there was someone at the time who had been wanting to go out with me. And I would run into him in different restaurants and clubs. We had a mutual friend who was also trying to hook us up. And there was this big party in New York around Christmastime, and I knew this person was going to be there. I thought he was a nice guy, though my heart was still with you. So, purely out of pain, I decided to go to New York and go to the party. Then, I think it was the night before I was leaving.
DAVE: It was actually the night you were leaving.
CARMEN: It was? No, you called the night before and said, “Is there an elephant?”
DAVE: An elephant is therapy talk for a huge issue that two people aren’t bringing up. It’s a metaphor for miscommunication.
CARMEN: I was thinking, “He has nerve to call and ask me if there’s an elephant when he’s got the Crier out th
ere.”
DAVE: We have nicknames for everybody.
CARMEN: You have the Crier and I have the Hawaiian shirt guy. Whatever.
DAVE: I also have the Bulimic Fish.
CARMEN: We also call her the Grouper because she looks like a fish.
DAVE: I don’t see it. She doesn’t look like a fish to me.
CARMEN: The Crier was beautiful.
DAVE: I know some Ostriches.
CARMEN: I do too. I even had a brief fling with a Rhinoceros. So anyway, I did go to New York, and right when I was about to leave for the airport, you show up. You called and said, “I have a Christmas present for you.” And I didn’t even get you a Christmas present because I honestly thought it wasn’t working out between the two of us. So you showed up with a heart-shaped chocolate cookie, handcuffs, and a whip from Agent Provocateur. I got all confused. Maybe you were telling the truth: after all, now that I thought about it, you did say in the beginning that there were a couple of girls you were dating.
DAVE: There were three girls that I was dating, not even seriously. When we met, I called each one of them and said, “I met someone that I’m really serious about and pursuing.”
And I had called that girl, but we met her on a night when she had been drinking and it blew up into this big dramatic thing.
CARMEN: So I go to New York to try to forget about you. But after you dropped by, I couldn’t get you off my mind. I was only there one night. I didn’t even want to go to this party. I was so overwhelmed thinking about you. So I flew right back, and we started seeing each other again.
DAVE: But then I got a taste of my own medicine because you went to the party.
CARMEN: I actually didn’t.
DAVE: Didn’t you go somewhere? Because Conrad called me and said, “Dude, I’m really sorry about the Carmen thing not working out.” And I go, “What do you mean?”
CARMEN: I went out with a couple of his friends, so he joined us for dinner. But it was so uncomfortable. It was awful. I just kept thinking about you.
DAVE: Well, Conrad heard that you were seen with some other guy. So when I saw you after you came back from New York and learned that everything was on the up and up, I decided to go for it. I had been through the drugs; I’d been through the rock and the touring; I had been through the wild sleepless party nights; I had been through losing loved ones to drugs; I had been through enough relationships. And I didn’t want to deal with any of that anymore.
THE MUSHY STUFF
DAVE: We have a real good understanding of where each other comes from and what makes us tick and what makes us insecure and what makes us feel strong. You know everything I’ve done and everything I’m ashamed of and everything I’m proud of. I just knew it back then. There’s nobody out there who is better for me. I honestly haven’t looked back since.
CARMEN: When I found out your insecurities and certain things you had a problem with, I couldn’t believe it. When I look at you, I see the most handsome man in the world—well maybe not right now. But in general you’re so sexy and you’ve got an incredible body and you play guitar and you’re talented, and you’re so smart and funny. I couldn’t believe that you didn’t think all of those things also. It tripped me out.
DAVE: Do you think having such a public relationship and marriage has made it more challenging for us?
CARMEN: It’s been great. It’s like night and day compared to my last situation, and I think that’s because we love each other and we even love each other’s flaws. I think in our TV show people can see that, and it gives hope that you can find love—and that you can change your life and be a better person and be inspired by people you love.
DAVE: Even though I resisted the idea when MTV first pitched it to me, I loved doing that show. It wasn’t intrusive. I think it gives a lot of hope, and it’s nice to have something public that is positive.
As for the marriage itself, I never thought it would happen. But we really took our time with it. We dated for a year before we got engaged, and we remained engaged for almost two years.
CARMEN: By that time, you pretty much know it’s right. I loved the invitations to our bachelor party.
DAVE: We had a joint bachelor/bachelorette party, and we had strippers and porn stars doing shows and things. And they were only into you. There was a bowling alley room at the party, and I was just in there bowling. I got no play.
CARMEN: I can laugh at that now. I used to be the kind of girl who was like, "Show me a sign. Let me know that he’s cheating, or lying, or doing something." I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop …
DAVE: I was like that too. But after hanging in there with each other, I’m not looking for that other shoe. Are you?
CARMEN: No, I’m not.
part IV TEN REASONS NOT TO TIE OFF
“When I was growing up and reading fucked-up druggie novels like Junkie and Less Than Zero, I never got the message. Those books should have been red flags for me, but they weren’t. I had the mind of an addict. So, in case you missed the subtext, consider this your red flag.”
1. Because you don’t want to deteriorate into a hairless, liverless green sack of pock-marks and bones. This is actually worse than just dying, which in itself is bad enough.
2. Because you think you’re being productive, but you never accomplish any of your goals. You end up just chasing your own tail.
3. Because self-destruction is a magnet for negative energy, not just from yourself but also from others.
4. Because it’s a financial disaster. You spend money not just on drugs but also on all kinds of other crap that doesn’t enrich your life at all—whether it’s hotel rooms or weird items off QVC.
5. Because it’s a prison sentence: you have no option each day except to drag around the ball and chain of your habit.
6. Because you become a source of pain for your family and the people you care about.
7. Because life passes you by and you cease to have experiences, other than the dull, dark, lonely, paranoid monotony of addiction.
8. Because by removing yourself from the ability to contribute to things, it’s very difficult to find a sense of self and purpose.
9. Because you lose the gift of laughter when the joke’s on you.
10. Because of pages 1 to 231.
part V A FINAL IMAGE
I think about all that Navarro has learned in the past five years—the lessons he’s been able to apply, the huge life changes he’s made, the fully functioning human being he’s become today. Tonight, he is performing with one of his bands, Camp Freddy, a Los Angeles super-group of sorts that also includes members of Guns N’ Roses and the Cult. A cavalcade of the rock elite is scheduled to get onstage and sing with the group.
But unfortunately, I will not be able to attend. As I type this in the kitchen of my Hollywood home, I am trying not to make too much noise: I don’t want to wake up my houseguest. Her name is Courtney Love. She has fallen on hard times financially and has temporarily moved in with me.
Courtney said she would perform a song with Camp Freddy tonight, but I was unable to get her out of the house (not unlike when Navarro missed the Manson show he wanted to perform at). While Dave has changed so much, it seems the only lesson I have learned is to have the rock star come to me. It saves on gas money—and, if I want to “lie down with my eyes closed,” as Dave said in January, I can do it on my own bed.
The next morning, I receive an e-mail from Dave letting me know what I missed in the real world: “Last night I rocked with Chad Smith,” he writes. “Adria was there as a friend and in support. Even Dennis Rodman, Carmen’s ex-husband, made an appearance. It’s all good. Everything is good when you have faith in your life.”
Now, if only Courtney and I can get a van up to Dave’s house to pick up that photo booth.
2. According to the
the process of getting out of the cave is:
A. Disorienting, painful, frightening, gradual.
B. Clear, plea
sant, fun, quick.
C. Something each individual must do completely alone, in isolation.
D. An act that curious humans do quite naturally.
—Question from a test in “The Examined Life,” devised by Wadsworth/Thompson Learning
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THANKS TO JILL BERLINER, EMILY HAY, SARAH LAZIN, SUNJA PARK, JEREMIE RUBY-STRAUSS, IRA SILVERBERG, DANA ALBARELLA, ALIZA FOGELSON, JUDITH REGAN, LARISSA FRIEND, AND THE NAVARRO FAMILY.
SPECIAL THANKS TO JASON BRODY, FOR HIS TIRELESS TRANSCRIPTIONS OF INCOHERENT LATE-NIGHT SHENANIGANS, AND TO MARILYN MANSON, IN WHOSE BEDROOM THIS BOOK WAS CONCEIVED.
THIS BOOK IS ALSO DEDICATED TO ALL THOSE WHO VISITED THE HOUSE DURING THE YEAR, AND TO ALL THOSE WHO STAYED AWAY.
Copyright
Some of the photographs in this book have been moved out of sequence so as not to incriminate anyone pictured. Thus, just because a subject’s photograph appears next to a particular section of text does not mean that the person was involved in the events described therein. In addition, some names and identifying characteristics have been changed to protect the innocent.
Photographs on page 238 courtesy of David LaChappelle; pages 239, 243, 244, and 253 by Robin Layton; page 240 courtesy of Tynan Hutchins; page 241 (top) courtesy of Kevin Mazur/WireImage; page 241 (bottom) courtesy of Michael Caulfield/WireImage; page 248 by Robert Erdmann/Icon International. All other photographs courtesy of Dave Navarro.
don’t try this at home
Copyright © 2004 by Dave Navarro and Neil Strauss. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.