But Seriously

by John McEnroe

  My kids—along with Patty—are the best thing that’s ever happened to me outside tennis, no question, but I admit that I’m really looking forward to being an empty-nester, whereas Patty’s got mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, she likes the idea of us being able to go on vacation on our own together, but on the other, she thinks it’s going to be a tough adjustment. Plus, as she’s always reminding me, she’s gonna have to put up with me the whole time.

  Of course she will get the occasional day of respite, for instance when I’m off playing golf with Roger Waters. Golf is a game a lot of tennis players tend to get into later in life. It’s a good way to catch up with someone you don’t see a lot. You have three or four hours to talk, and that’s part of what I like about it—you can’t do that with tennis, because you’re on opposite sides of the net, running around.

  There have been long periods when I haven’t played at all. For example, when I initially had kids, it seemed like that wasn’t cool, to go off and play golf—“Hey, honey, I’ll be back in six hours, take care of the kids.” But over time I realized that’s actually why some people do it—to get away from their wives and kids. And by the way, sometimes the wives and kids are happy with that arrangement too.

  It’s not like that now, obviously. I’d never want Patty to be a golf widow, and she wouldn’t stand for it even if I did. But you don’t have to be around each other 24/7, and it’s not a bad thing to play a little golf. I’m not usually a gambler, but as a general rule I’ll play golf for money—even if it’s only five bucks a hole. For some reason, I’ve never played for money with Roger Waters. Maybe he’d have strong views on that, the same way he does about everything else.

  I’d always been really into Pink Floyd—I’d seen them doing The Wall the original time at Earls Court in 1981, when I was over for Wimbledon, which was great. I was only in my early twenties the first time I met Roger, so I was still pretty angry at the time, but I remember thinking, “Man, this guy’s really angry—I’m nothing compared to him.”

  We didn’t see too much of each other for a while, until he married a girl from the Hamptons, about fifteen years ago—he’s divorced her now, but when they first got together he bought a place out there literally half a mile from ours. So I think there was a sense of, “We should get together,” and we started to meet up for dinner here and there. I’m not going to pretend it was a lot, but we got along well.

  The first time we ever played golf together was at this charity event Mats Wilander used to put on. He got Roger to play, and we auctioned off eighteen holes with Roger and me. Yeah, I know… the second prize was thirty-six holes.

  Since then we’ve played together a number of times, and I really enjoy it. Of course, I’m so bad at golf that I start to get pissed—and I have a feeling that if I got better at it, I’d get even worse. Because when you finish a round, it’s not like you’re sweaty and you feel like you did something. OK, maybe you’ve been for a walk, but most of the time we don’t even do that—we take the cart. At least when you play tennis, even if you lose you’ve had a workout. But I still find golf quite addictive. You hit two or three bad shots and you’re starting to get in a terrible mood and you want to quit the game, then you get one lucky bounce and you’re like, “Oh yeah! I’m back!”

  Roger loves to talk shit about his old bandmate David Gilmour, who played in New York recently. At first I was going to attend that concert, but then out of loyalty to Roger, I decided not to. I don’t know why, because Roger didn’t ask me not to go, and Gilmour’s an incredible singer and guitarist. So I definitely missed out on that one. Yeah, he played some new material, but it’s worth sitting through that for “Wish You Were Here” and “Shine On You Crazy Diamond,” among other classics.

  At least when Roger does The Wall, he’s just playing The Wall, and he can get other people to sing and play David Gilmour’s parts (which are about 85 percent of it!).

  Last time I saw Roger do that show it was great—the guy who played the “Comfortably Numb” guitar solo duplicated it pretty much note for note, close enough to the point where you’d think, “Yeah, I can hear that over and over—if I closed my eyes I could be back at Earls Court.”

  It is funny when Roger and I play golf together, but he has mellowed a bit over the years and now he even laughs occasionally. I’ll tell him, “Look, Roger, life’s not that bad. I mean, just try to look on the bright side.” Obviously it’s ironic, for me to be the one telling him that, but it’s nice to have found someone I can play that role for.

  Life’s not going to be all smooth sailing when you’ve got six kids—any time you think you’re in the clear, you’re never more than one phone call away from a crisis. On top of that, times were tough for my dad in health terms over the past few years, but he never lost the power to surprise. Like the time when, at the start of Donald Trump’s campaign to get the Republican nomination for the 2016 presidential election, my dad sent him a letter of support asking if there was anything he could do to help.

  Of course at that point, no one thought Trump had a chance of winning. But whatever you think about Donald Trump’s politics, you can’t deny he’s a very good salesman and he can come across well in person. I’ve known Donald a little over the years, and at least he didn’t bear a grudge (good salesmen never do) when I turned down his offer—in Trumpian terms, an “unbelievable” offer—of a million dollars to play one of the Williams sisters.

  Trump has had a box right next to the broadcasters’ booth at the US Open ever since the Arthur Ashe Stadium opened. Even before he became President, you didn’t see him there as much as he used to be—it’s a sign of tennis losing popularity that Donald’s not around to get his mug on TV. But at the 2015 tournament he was very much in attendance and Mike Tirico, one of the best play-by-play guys on ESPN before he moved to NBC, said, “You know Trump, right? Let’s go over and say hello,” because he wanted to meet him.

  Patty and Ava were with me, and they were telling me, “Don’t you dare go over there. He’s a misogynist and a blowhard, among other things—it could hurt your reputation.” But I said, “Hey, come on, it’s no big deal.” So I took Mike over, and sure enough ESPN showed it on TV—me hugging Donald like we were long-lost brothers or something. Trump did seem more pleased to see me than he usually would be, and I only realized why when he started saying, “John, thank you so much for the letter you wrote. I’ve already got it up on the wall in my office!” I hoped this was fake news, because I didn’t want everyone who went into Donald Trump’s office during the election thinking I was his number one fan. Thanks, Dad. I owe you one. Now that Donald has been elected President of the United States, there might be an ambassadorship in this for me.

  24

  “The art world is like tennis on steroids”

  John McEnroe

  Maybe the most exciting art purchase I ever made was over twenty years ago, when I bought the Lucian Freud that is still on the wall at the foot of our stairs. Apart from how beautiful the painting itself is, and the fact that I’d been eager to get a Freud for a long time, what made this acquisition particularly satisfying was snatching this artistic masterpiece out from under the noses of the British. That was money well spent. OK, it was a lot of money, but sometimes a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.

  My old friend Bill Acquavella, one of the greatest art dealers ever and one of the few guys I trust in the art world to this day, had originally promised the painting to a London museum—I’m not sure which one—but the deal was they had to raise half of the cost in public donations. I was sitting with him in his office one day and he asked me, “Do you want this piece?” I said, “Hell, yeah.” So he said, “If the museum can’t get the funds together in six months, then you can buy it.” I don’t know if it was a bad time for the UK economy in 1996, but either way, thanks very much, England. You had your chance and you blew it.

  One of the things I did at my gallery that I was proudest of was the first show I ever put on,
which was War Murals by a guy named Bruno Fonseca, who I thought was a really good artist but who sadly got AIDS and ended up passing away at thirty-five. He was in pretty bad shape by the time we put it on, but his parents wanted to do something for him, and I was glad that I was able to bring a bit of light to a dark time for them, as well as showing some great work which had never previously been seen. That show packed a real emotional punch.

  I’ve always loved work that inspires a strong response, and some of the work I’ve collected over the years by outsider artists certainly fits that bill. Outsider artists are the guys who exist outside of the gallery system and even society itself. A lot of them seem to be in and out of insane asylums, and the ones who aren’t are often out on the streets making art from any materials they can get their hands on.

  James Castle is a good example. He was a deaf guy from Idaho, who used soot, saliva, pieces of old chewing-gum wrapper—literally anything he could find—to create these amazing artworks. Martín Ramírez would be probably another of the top five names in outsider art at the moment. He was a Mexican schizophrenic who had a fixation with trains, and his paintings are simple—childlike, would be one description—but so real they’re awesome.

  The African-American artist Bill Traylor is—in my opinion—another of the real greats. The first piece of outsider art we bought was one of his, because Patty liked him—it was her idea. Bill Traylor was born a slave, and didn’t start doing the work he’s known for until he was in his eighties, when he took up a pencil and a scrap of cardboard and spent the last three or four years of his life doing these amazing drawings on the streets of Montgomery, Alabama. I often wonder what he could’ve achieved if he’d been given the chance earlier in life.

  If you looked at the critical hierarchy of outsider art in tennis terms, Henry Darger would be Andy Murray to Traylor’s Djokovic at the moment—they’re definitely the two at the top of their game. I’ve got two Henry Dargers. To me, that is unbelievable art. The guy wrote a 15,000-page book about a kind of War of the Worlds situation where these six little girls were like the superheroes, and then he did about three hundred illustrations. One of my favorite things about them is that they’re double-sided, so you get two artworks for the wall-space of one. Some of them are pretty hard-core, but the one that’s hanging on the wall over our bed isn’t as pervy as some of the others.

  If you were going to try and analyze why I’m drawn to these guys and their work, you might think it’s because I identify with their outsider status, but I don’t think it is that. First and foremost, Patty liked them. Plus, I suppose some of the bad experiences I’ve had in the art world have led me to see that these guys have been short-changed and deserve a bit more respect. They’re actually way better artists than a lot of the household names who maybe do a better job of promoting themselves. At least you can be sure it’s more about the art than it is about the business with them, which is what matters most to me.

  Their work doesn’t tend to be the kind of investment you’d get a huge return on. Darger’s stuff has gotten more respect from the art world over the years—a piece sold for a record price in France recently, which would lead you to believe that his art, and outsider art in general, has broken out beyond the US and it’s going to become a multimillion-dollar enterprise. In general, I believe the prices will creep up over time and you’ll do OK if you buy wisely, but that’s not all it’s about.

  One of the most interesting pieces of contemporary art that I own is by an artist named Fred Tomaselli. His unique way of constructing a portrait is by asking you to fill out a six-page questionnaire detailing all the drugs you’ve ever taken in your life. Talk about getting up close and personal! He then takes that information and uses it as the basis for a kind of solar system where the planets represent all the different substances you have ingested—medicines, painkillers, cortisone, sleeping tablets, tea and coffee, alcohol, everything—with size varying proportionately according to consumption. It’s a real conversation piece.

  There’s nothing that would really surprise anyone on mine, although maybe caffeine should be less of a moon and more of a sun these days. But I’d be willing to bet there are a few professional tennis players whose chemical profiles would be eye-openers. When I say—as I have been known to—“the art world is like tennis on steroids,” that doesn’t mean I think performance-enhancing drugs are unknown in my sport. Far from it.

  Let me be clear, I still think tennis is one of the cleanest top-line sports, and I hope to God no one playing it is on any type of illegal drug. I’d never heard of Meldonium which was what Sharapova failed a drug test for. That was kind of legal on one level but at the same time not. It’s a medication which she’d been taking for ten years. Even though it’s not FDA approved, the Russians clearly thought it helped them, as 250 of their athletes were using it, and it was only made illegal in tennis at the start of last year.

  Maria didn’t do herself any favors by having two different excuses. On the one hand her people were saying they weren’t sure how long it takes to leave your system, and it could still show up for sixty days, which would only matter if she’d stopped by the end of December. But then on the other she was saying, “I take full responsibility, I didn’t know it was on the list,” which would mean she had taken it after January 1, right? Either one of those explanations could sound plausible—well, not to me, but maybe to someone—but they didn’t work together. I think that’s why she ended up with a fifteen-month ban.

  With some of these super strait-laced tennis players who never seem to do anything to wind down in terms of a beer or even a glass of wine every now and again, I can’t help feeling they must be doing something else. Because the highs of playing are so high, you feel like Superman. There’s got to be something to soften your landing when you come back down to earth. That’s the only way I think you can survive, emotionally—if you can occasionally tell yourself, “Oh thank God! I’ll have a beer.” Or whatever else your thing is, right? Chocolate, fried chicken—something.

  Maybe I think that because I wasn’t the kind of person who could give up everything. I mean, obviously that’s my fault, and I believe it cost me in terms of my career, but for me to have completely given up alcohol and a little marijuana when I was playing would’ve been like, “Whoa, man, this is rough.” Even though I wasn’t as disciplined as I could or even should have been, I was still way more disciplined than a lot of people—than most human beings, even. I tried to find a balance between sometimes burning both ends of the candle, but also getting the best out of my body on the court. What I was looking for was a middle ground between someone like Vitas, who really liked to party, and a fitness machine like Lendl. But when you look at things on an elite sports level and you see how these guys live now… jeez, they sacrifice a lot, even if the financial rewards are greater than ever.

  Nowadays when I’m in the UK, for example, I love to drink Carlsberg Special Brew. It may be my favorite beer, even though it’s very strong and has a bit of a stigma attached because apparently a lot of street-drinkers used to favor it. I managed to shock Chrissie Hynde once—which takes some doing—by stopping the car at a liquor store on my way into London from the airport to stock up on Special Brew. I should add that I wasn’t doing this at the height of my playing career—it’s a more recent thing, over the past twenty years.

  There are so many gray areas between the dependencies that are tolerated and even encouraged and the ones that aren’t. For instance, for me, competing, performing and getting applause for what I do will probably always be the ultimate drug. I know very few pro athletes are lucky enough to be able to continue enjoying that for as long as I have, and leaving behind that disciplined structure of professional sports can cause problems—problems to do with finding substitute highs and replacement ways to feel good about themselves that can lead to all sorts of bad decisions that have terrible outcomes.

  As I’ve gotten older, I hope I’ve done a pretty good job at weaning myself
off the applause drug because I’m mature enough to realize and accept that one day the supply will stop. But in the early days after I left the tour in the early nineties I did try to fill the space by smoking more marijuana than I care to admit. “Hey, I’m not a professional athlete anymore. I’m not trying to win Wimbledon now, and I’m going through a painful divorce. Why shouldn’t I have a smoke if I want to?”

  Obviously that wasn’t the smartest move I’ve ever made—for reasons I’m about to explain—but the funny thing was, if you look at the art I was buying over that period of a couple of years, I was totally acing it, man! Maybe that was just a coincidence that I’m sort of talking my way into, but I do feel there was a connection. Either way, Patty used to say, “How about taking some time off the weed every now and again?” But I wasn’t having it.

  The thing that finally got me to stop was having to take tests for the court, because in the custody battle over my kids which was going on at that point, my ex-wife Tatum was accusing me of being a drug addict. In addition to that, my kids—who were in their early teens at the time—had started stealing grass off me. I probably wouldn’t have noticed if Patty hadn’t brought it to my attention.

  When I found out, I was understandably angry, but the aggressive way I acted toward my older kids over this reminded me of a football player who had bullied me when I was in college, and that made me feel bad. It probably didn’t help them in the long run either. Obviously this was not the right way to handle things, and at that point I knew it was time to call it a day on being stoned. As it happened, stopping turned out to be a lot easier than I expected. I’d thought it would be tough, but basically I gave up and that was it.