I woke up early the next morning, at approximately 4:30 am, to find Vinnie still wandering around the house drinking wine. Shit! Here he was having the time of his life, living every moment to it’s fullest, and I was sleeping. I was not going to let this moment pass by. I joined in on the fun and cracked another bottle of wine. Before we knew it, we were outside on the back patio, in the hot tub, with the stereo cranked and listening to 80’s rock on satellite radio. We downed the first bottle of wine while we reminisced about our past. A second bottle of wine was opened and consumed as the ominous grey glow of the early morning hour began to slowly light up the sky. There has been a change in the wind! Vinnie and I laughed as the sky slowly lit up, and the sun rose ending the evening and introduced the morning.
The morning sunrise use to be the worst time for us! The early morning gray glow always signified the end of our fun... but now in the fall of 2009, our view has changed. Maybe, just maybe, we have also changed just enough to appreciate the finer things in life. We welcomed the sunlight, we welcomed the new day, knowing how fortunate we are to be here to share a small portion of unforgettable moments with you. Cheers!
Finished
MY SACRED LIFE - Vinnie Vegas
It’s all over now. It’s been over 20 years since we moved to LA on that summer day. I had so many good times, and it’s always fun to get together with Cupkake and remember those crazy times. We always end up splitting a gut laughing our asses off at the stories we remember. Anytime we bring up Leon, the hilarity ensues and we literally end up on the floor in stitches. We marvel at the things that occurred, and are always amazed that these stories actually happened and are not made up. Indeed, that was the motivation for writing this book because we realized that if we hadn’t seen these things happen with our own eyes, then we might not believe it. There is no fiction that can surpass the reality that we lived. Truth is stranger than fiction, and in our case, it was a whole lot more fun. It’s also amazing how things can come full circle after 20 years. Just last month, Cupkake and I were hanging out backstage at a Great White show in Lake Elsinore. They were set up in the middle of a baseball stadium like the Beatles in New York. Cupkake lives about two blocks away from the drummer Audie Desbrow and they have become fast friends lately. So there we were, behind the stage looking at a scene that I hadn’t seen in years. The stage looks completely different from that angle, you see the backs of the amps with all the speaker cables spilling down and all the players are silhouettes in the lights. You see bugs flying around in the lights and the drummer looks a lot more human than he does from the front. But most importantly, you plainly see the faces of the fans looking up with huge smiles having the times of their lives. To see that again unlocked a flood of memories that I will always cherish.
Outdoor gigs have always been my favorite, whether I was playing the Del Mar Fair or watching Ted Nugent in Arizona on a warm summer night. Something about that really gets me going, I don’t know what it is. And here I was with Cupkake getting that same feeling all over again. The weird part is that Warrant was on the bill as well, who played with a 16 year old
Cupkake in 1986 on one of his first big shows with Street Angel in San Diego. Full circle. I always thought that I’d be completely different in twenty years, and while I have changed, some things haven’t. I like to think that those are the good parts. I love to laugh, I love to travel, and I love my friends. Cupkake recently had a son, and I thought for sure that having a child would change him completely, but it turns out that he is the same guy too. I was there when they brought little Dylan home for the first time from the hospital and the first thing he did was to plop him down in his carrier directly in front of the stereo speaker and crank the tunes. Dylan didn’t flinch, he slept contentedly through the whole day while we whooped it up and yelled at the Chargers game. Most parents turn their house into a quiet mausoleum as to not disturb the baby, but Dylan is never off alone in another room in his crib. He spends every hour with his new family in the thick of it all and is one of the most happiest kids I’ve seen in a long time. Well done!
So how did it all end? That’s a good question. It’s not that I don’t know the answer, it’s just that it’s a question that’s natural to ask after reading all this. Unfortunately, there is not a good story that sums up what became of that innocent time in the sun. Sometimes that first summer seems like yesterday, and sometimes it seems like 40 years ago. Most of the time, it seems just like 20 years ago, like it really is. For Cupkake and I, there was no climatic finale, we both left our bands to start our own called Suicide Kings. With this band, we recorded, toured and did all the stuff that a real band is supposed to do. We wrote songs and worked out harmonies and produced our own music. For me, this was artistic heaven and allowed me to satisfy a need that had been there all along. I often look back at my days with Hooligan Stew and it always brings a smile. They say ignorance is bliss, and when your only responsibility is to play rhythm, look good and get chicks, it makes for a carefree and fun existence. How I survived the 80’s is probably the better question.
With all the alcohol abuse and always trying to one-up the next guy with something more outrageous, it really could’ve been a recipe for disaster. I did some really stupid things back then and I really have to thank my lucky Vegas stars that I’m all in one piece. I know the cliche question is: “If you had to do it all over again, would you?” That’s easy because I never did anything that I truly regret, and if I was crazy enough to do those things the first time around, what makes you think I’d be any wiser later? I consider myself lucky, after all, how many people can say that they lived the life of a rock star? Now that you’ve read our story, you can see how that was possible. A rock star that had to steal spaghetti from his neighbors is a story that I’m sure you haven’t read before. Living and playing in Hollywood was something that I always wanted to do, and for me, my dream came true. To walk down the streets of Hollywood, CA, and have people know you by name is something that went way beyond my wildest dreams. To go from that lonely boy in San Diego staring at the city lights, to being Vinnie Vegas, is a memory that I will cherish forever. Hollywood was everything that I thought it might be and even more. I don’t know what I would’ve done had I not moved there in 1988. That feeling of not knowing what might have been would have haunted me forever.
Finished
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Hollywood: Rock Of Ages Page 44