Warren’s mother and Ariel—Crystal and Warren sent plane tickets and insisted that Warren’s mother and grandmother (Nam) meet their granddaughter. They stayed for an awkward two hours and never came again.
BARBARA BRELSFORD: Warren would come out and give us reports, and finally, thirteen hours later, he came out and said it was going to have to be a Caesarean because it was dangerous for the baby to wait any longer. Warren waited right outside the door while they performed the surgery.
CRYSTAL ZEVON: Our daughter, Ariel Erin Zevon, was delivered on August 4th, 1976, at Cedars-Sinai in Beverly Hills by Dr. Malcolm Margolin. While I was in the labor room, something astonishing happened. I’d been in hard labor for hours, and suddenly, Warren knelt by my bed—tears were streaming down his face—and he told me he’d gone to the hospital chapel and promised God that if the baby and I came out of it okay, he’d stop drinking vodka for a month.
The day after Ariel was born, Robert Hilburn wrote a rave feature story about Warren in the L.A. Times Calendar section. Flowers and telegrams flooded my room at Cedars-Sinai Hospital, and Warren arrived—glowing from a bourbon drunk. He kept his promise. He didn’t drink vodka for a month.
PART TWO
Lawyers, Guns and Money
ONE
TENDERNESS ON THE BLOCK
Daddy, don’t you ask her when she’s coming in
And when she’s home don’t ask her where she’s been
She was wide-eyed
Now she’s street-wise
To the lies
And the jive talk
She’ll find true love
And tenderness on the block
CRYSTAL ZEVON: In November of 1976, Jackson asked Warren to open for him on a nine-country European tour. Jackson decided to take all the wives and kids of the musicians along, and so, with our four-month-old daughter in tow, Warren and I had our first opportunity to try out family life on the road.
ERIC DETERDING: Warren was Jackson’s opening act. We had a real entourage. David Lindley; his wife, Joanie, and daughter, Roseanne; Jackson’s son, Ethan, and his Bolivian nanny, Elizabeth; Mark Jordan, the piano player, and his wife, Cheryl, and their little girl, Dixie; and Pepper and Brian Garafolo with their two boys, Gianni and Gus. And the drummer, John Masseri. Armando, a gay black guy, was the tour manager, and Howard Burke was road manager.
Bottom row (L to R): Gianni Garafalo, Brian Garafalo, Dixie Jordan, Pepper Garafalo, Elizabeth Reynolds, Jackson Browne, Ethan Browne, John Masseri, child (unknown), David Mason. Top row (L to R): (unknown), Armando, Roseanne Lindley, Joannie Lindley, David Lindley behind Crystal and Ariel, Warren Zevon, (unknown), (unknown), Mark Hammerman.
Warren used part of Jackson’s band for his set. They would warm up and Warren would come out and do seven songs. There was always a full house everywhere we went.
MARK HAMMERMAN, manager: That tour was memorable in many ways, most of them shocking. It was such a strain on everybody. Jackson screaming at Howard Burke and firing everybody.
For Jackson, it was the strain he was under, personally, after his wife died. Both Jackson and I agreed it would be better for him to go out on the road and work than to sit at home and think about it. But, once he was out there, he felt that he never should have gone anywhere. With Warren, it was something else.
ERIC DETERDING: Warren had a traveling bar with a bottle of Stoli and some glasses. He’d get upset if it wasn’t cold, but we didn’t have any way to keep it cold. You couldn’t always get Stoli when he wanted to have a drink, say, standing in line at the airport, and he expected us to always have his Stoli when he wanted it.
MARK HAMMERMAN: The memories I have of Warren are mainly trying to get him from one place to another without him falling over. Also, being amazed how, as loaded as he might have been, he pretty much performed his whole set without falling facedown into the piano. After any show was over, it was very hard to move him from one spot to another, but onstage, he somehow functioned.
CRYSTAL ZEVON: At the end of the tour Warren was going to fly to Casablanca. He was on a Bogart kick, and he felt like he had to go to Casablanca. So, he was going to do whatever he had to do in Casablanca, then meet Jackson, Ethan, Ariel, and me in Tangiers. In the end, we missed our plane because Jackson insisted that we stop to get extra diapers because they wouldn’t have disposable diapers in Morocco.
We stood around at Heathrow watching the board that announces flights click over as our plane left. We hung around for over an hour trying to figure out where else we could go since there wasn’t another flight to Morocco until the next day. Finally, Jackson decided to take Ethan home, and Warren and I ended up going to Marbella, Spain, where Lindy and Lisa were living.
On our flight from London to Malaga, we were seated across the aisle from Sean Connery. Warren was ecstatic. We eavesdropped as Connery was showing some kid sitting next to him some gimmicky thing the special effects people had given him.
In Marbella, Warren and Lindy were out on the town from minute one. I hung out with Lindy’s wife, Lisa, and their two sons. On Christmas Eve, Warren and Lindy were carousing in the local bars while Lisa, the children, and I went to midnight mass. I had come down with pneumonia again, the baby was sick, and Warren returned to the hotel in a drunken stupor. When I asked him to be quiet so the baby could sleep, he flew into the worst rage I had ever seen him in.
He hit me, knocking me to the floor, and then he kicked me while I was crouched in the corner. He ordered me to get the baby and get out of his hotel room. It was two A.M. on Christmas morning. It was freezing cold and I was on the streets of Marbella with our five-month-old daughter, no money, and nowhere to go. I finally found a taxi and ended up on Lindy and Lisa’s doorstep. The next day, Warren took a plane to Casablanca. I returned to the hotel—all our money had been stolen and he hadn’t paid the bill.
After a series of hideous and hysterical phone calls, Jackson and Elektra/ Asylum made emergency arrangements for Ariel and me to fly home. Jackson and Ethan met us at the airport and he insisted that we move into his house until we got our bearings. A week later, I went home, determined not to take Warren back this time.
I don’t think I was inside the door for more than an hour when the phone rang. It was Warren calling from Morocco. He was crying, broke, and alone. He had no recollection of how he had gotten there or what he’d been doing since his arrival. He’d been in a blackout for over a week. He begged me to take him back…he’d written a song for me…he’d bought a doll for Ariel…I thought, no one could ever love me more than Warren does, and I told him to come home.
Jackson went back into the studio to finish The Pretender. Warren wasn’t officially involved with Jackson’s album, but he often hung out in the studio. Jon Landau was producing, and while Jackson and Waddy were already slated to produce Warren’s next recording, he was hoping to convince Jon to produce the album that would follow.
Drawing Warren did after a dream that rats were in the baby’s crib.
JON LANDAU: The most memorable thing about Warren as I spent all that time with Jackson working on The Pretender was, unfortunately, just how terrible his condition really was. I remember being in the studio at eleven in the morning and Warren being in horrible shape. We were trying to work, never knowing what to expect out of Warren. He was certainly not drunk all the time, and he was lucid a tremendous amount of the time. He was lucid even when he was drunk. He’d learned how to do both. But, he could also get to the point where he couldn’t speak. He was a big fan of Bruce’s, obviously, and when Bruce came out to visit, he’d be around…visiting us at the studio. He was in rough shape.
ROY MARINELL: I remember going out to breakfast one morning and him having a glass of vodka and ice like people have orange juice for breakfast. He astonished me.
Warren was furiously trying to come up with enough material to complete his next record for Asylum. The songs on his first album had been years in the making, and he felt the pressure of being in competition with
himself to deliver a second album that would equal the first in its lyrical, musical, and literary impact.
Warren liked collaborating, particularly with Jorge Calderon.
YVONNE CALDERON: The creative part of it was wonderful. When Warren and Jorge wrote songs together, they were happy and on top of it. They were high from the natural creative energy that came from completing each other’s thoughts. That was wonderful. But, honestly, some of it was ugly and hurtful.
I think Warren chose Jorge because of his natural temperament and the way he can put up with a lot—really, a lot. He’s a very, very patient man. And when Warren was his crazy, self-serving self, Jorge knew how to put up with him.
JORGE CALDERON: We were invited over one time and Waddy was there. Warren had this whole story from Lindy about the switching yard. The guy who did the switching of the trains was a junkie, so he had the line “get it out on the main line, listen to the train passing by.” I kept saying we should put something more descriptive, but the disco era was happening and the objective was to have a good, danceable track. I said, “It should have some syncopated thing going dot da dot da dot da dot.” Warren was on the floor with that.
CRYSTAL ZEVON: Warren’s drinking was escalating dramatically. In the past, I’d been drinking right alongside him, but with Ariel’s birth, my priorities changed. Warren was also about to have his thirtieth birthday, and the significance of that, coupled with morning-to-night drinking, turned his moods from dark to way past midnight. Waddy was trying to get him in shape to record, and we talked about how to bring him out of his funk. We decided on a surprise birthday party. I’d get a babysitter and pretend we were going to an intimate dinner for two at Robaire’s, our favorite French restaurant.
At the time we were supposed to be leaving, Waddy, Jimmy, J. D., and Roy would show up at the door, playing a cassette of the Beatles’ “Birthday,” and we’d have a limo waiting outside. Jackson was flying in from New York to meet us at the Palm. So, the babysitter arrived, and Warren was drunk and refusing to come out of his studio. I finally went to the corner where the guys were waiting in the limo and told them he wasn’t dressed. They said they were coming in ten minutes, even if he was naked.
When I got back, Warren was in our bedroom, furious because he thought I’d gone out without him on his birthday. He decided to take a shower, and when Waddy knocked on the door, he answered it in a towel. Fortunately, he was appropriately surprised and the night was a success. After dinner, we went over to Jimmy’s, where Jimmy gave Warren a papier-mâché duck mask which Warren would wear to answer the door for years to come.
Jackson invited Warren to join him on the bill of a “Save the Whales” benefit tour in Japan. Warren had no political commitment to the cause (nor any other cause, for that matter), but he’d been reading Hunter S. Thompson’s pieces for years. He had always had journalistic aspirations, so he decided that if Jann Wenner would let him cover the event for Rolling Stone, he would go. Warren assumed his wife and daughter would accompany him; their presence helped keep him in check and he knew it. When Jackson explained that, because it was a benefit, wives and children weren’t included, Warren was outraged. Jackson was taking his son and his nanny; the fact that they were coming at Jackson’s personal expense made no difference to Warren.
CRYSTAL ZEVON: Warren and I went to Robaire’s, both as a bon voyage dinner and to show off my first pair of contact lenses. Coincidentally, Don Henley was there, so after dinner, we all had dessert and cognac together. Driving home, everything seemed grand. I was driving because, of course, Warren had had too much to drink. We started arguing because I had defended Jackson’s position about not taking wives to Japan in front of Don.
What happened next happened so quickly I didn’t know what hit me, literally, but, Warren punched me in the face. Hard. I pulled the car over and he hit me again, then he flung the door open and stormed into our house. I didn’t want the babysitter to see me—my eye was already swollen shut with my new contact lens still in place. At the same time, I was terrified to leave Warren with the baby, so I went in.
He was completely composed—paying the sitter. I made a beeline for the bedroom. He followed me, raging again. Then he stormed out to his studio. I knew I had to get out of there, but first I had to get the contact lens out of my eye and I couldn’t see to do it. I felt like anyone I might call was somehow connected with Warren’s career, plus I was ashamed and humiliated.
Then, Warren came back inside. I told him I couldn’t get the contact lens out of my eye. This was so amazing. He took my face in his hands, cradling it with the tenderness of a mother with her newborn. He opened my swollen eye and plucked the lens out. His hands were steadier than a surgeon’s. He kissed me and said, “See? That wasn’t so bad.” And he passed out cold on the bed.
My resolve about leaving wavered until I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. My whole face was black and blue and I couldn’t even see out of one eye. I was sure he was going to wake up, so I didn’t dare pack anything. Finally, I called Sam and Annie Sutherland. Sam worked for E/A [Elektra/ Asylum], but I was pretty sure I could count on their discretion. Plus, Warren would never figure out where I’d gone. They said to come over, so I grabbed Ariel from her crib, took a diaper bag and my purse, and fled.
I decided that Warren should see what I looked like. They were leaving for Japan that afternoon, and Annie had the baby, so I went to our house. The front door was wide open, and there were empty vodka bottles and beer bottles on the front lawn. Warren was in the bedroom, passed out cold. I shook him awake. He was groggy but sober enough to get a good look at my battered face.
I told him I was leaving him, but I wanted him to see why I was going. He stared at me for a long time before he said, “Are you so evil that you’re going to try to make me believe I did that? I would never do that. Get out of here.” And, I did.
When Warren returned from Japan, he stayed in San Francisco with a woman Rolling Stone had sent along to assist him in writing his article. He did write an article, but it was never published.
I brought Ariel home. I had no money, and no matter how much I begged, his manager, Jerry Cohen, wasn’t releasing any of Warren’s money to me. My parents sent me a few hundred dollars, but I couldn’t bear to tell them the truth about what was going on, so it wasn’t enough to cover expenses. I was too ashamed to talk to anyone.
One day I was feeding Ariel, sobbing and spooning food into her mouth, and Jackson’s song, sung by Bonnie Raitt, about “…there’s a train every day, leaving either way. There’s a world, you know, there’s a place to go…” came on the radio and it sent me over the edge, emotionally. At exactly that moment, I turned around and there was Jackson, holding a little gift box from Tiffany.
He and Ethan had come out to give Ariel a silver spoon with her name engraved on it. He’d had no idea what was going on, but as he did many times, he helped me find “a place to go.” He suggested that first I take a trip and think things over, then when I came back, he’d help me get a business started. So, I took Ariel to visit my sister in Montana.
By the time Warren reached me and begged me to come home, I was dying to go. He said he was at the Hyatt House, and he’d be waiting for me. I was on the next plane. I arrived late at night and the first thing I did was call the Hyatt House. J. D. Souther answered the phone and I could hear the party in the background. I asked to speak to Warren, but J. D. wouldn’t put him on the phone. I told him I’d come back because Warren asked me to, and all J. D. said was, “You don’t want to talk to him right now.”
In the morning, there was no answer and so I packed Ariel in the car and drove into Hollywood. I showed my I.D. as Warren’s wife and the desk gave me a key. I knocked, but no one answered, so I used my key. I walked into a scene I wish I could erase from my memory: Warren, Tule, Martine, and Paul Getty were all tangled up together on one bed. Warren picked up his things saying, “Oh, shit. Oh, shit.” That was all he could say. But, he left with me. We got t
he number of a marriage counselor. His office was on Hollywood Boulevard, so right away Warren decided he couldn’t be any good because he had a bad address. He brought up the drinking, which Warren had no intention of talking about. We left and decided to go to a Trader Vic’s. We drank mai tais and concluded that what we needed was a Hawaiian vacation. The next day we took a vacation to Kauai as a family. It was a great trip, and one more time, we vowed we would never separate.
Not long after we got home, we fought, and he left again. He rented an apartment across the street from the Hyatt House, and with Jackson’s help, Waddy’s girlfriend, Swifty (Linda) Saffel, and I started a business making guitar straps. We got several music stores to carry them, plus we were taking custom orders.
JORGE CALDERON: The worst I ever saw Warren was when he moved into that dump on Sunset. He was hanging out with the kid who was heir to the Getty fortune…He called me up and said, “Come over. We’re going to go to Jackson’s concert.” I went over and the place was so smoky—pot and cigarette smoke and just a weird scene.
Paul Getty was there and Warren was all dressed up in his suit. Then, he showed me this gun that Paul had. It had a huge, long barrel. A .357 Magnum. Oh, yeah, great. So, we’re driving to Universal Amphitheater. He was drinking in the car and pretty high. I used to smoke a lot of pot, but I had stopped. I couldn’t keep going the way he was going. So, I’m driving down the freeway and he’s being loud and crazy—all of a sudden, he takes out the gun. I didn’t know he had taken the gun, but he’s like, “Yeah, we’re going to see Jackson Browne.”
He starts screaming out the window, “Jackson Browne, shot ’em down, shot ’em down, Jackson Browne…” I’m going, “Warren, get back in here. Put that away…We’re on the freeway.” “Jackson Browne, shot ’em down…” Whatever the song was that he was creating. We finally got to the Universal Amphitheater, and we saw this one guy, the roadie. He came over and said, “Hi. How’re you doing?” Warren raised his eyebrow, then he opened up his jacket just enough so the gun shows and says, “We’re doing fine. We’re here to see Jackson Browne.” The guy takes a look at him and goes, “What’re you doing?” Warren growls and the guy says, “We’ve got to put this away.” Warren’s like, “No, no.” And this guy gets right up in Warren’s face and he says, “You’re not going to take one more step in with that. Give me the gun and we’re going to put it in the trunk of my car.” It was a little two-door sporty Mercedes, and it turned out to be Joni Mitchell’s car. So, the gun ends up in Joni Mitchell’s trunk.
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