Red Hot Addiction

Rocker Dave Navarro comes clean on his habit, in print.

If you don't know who Dave Navarro is, you're not alone. Even that noted animated connoisseur of rock music known as Butt-Head responded with a "Who?" when colleague Beavis was heard to utter the phrase "Well, I'll be damned, it's Dave Navarro." Beavis' subsequent explanation, that Navarro was some guy who played guitar in some band and then joined the Red Hot Chili Peppers, sufficed at the time. But after one reasonably successful but aesthetically disappointing outing with the L.A. funksters, Navarro left the band, reunited with his previous colleagues on the Jane's Addiction "Relapse" tour (so called because it was sort of but not quite a reunion, not having all the original members intact), then vanished into the Hollywood Hills to finish a long-in-the-making solo project he had started during his downtime from the Chili Peppers' gig.

Actually, it's not entirely clear that Dave Navarro knows who Dave Navarro is, as demonstrated by his brand-new literary collaboration Don't Try This at Home (previously titled Spread, the name of one of his earlier solo projects, and Trust No One, and, who knows, possibly even to be retitled again by the time you read this), cowritten with Rolling Stone writer Neil Strauss, who also ghostwrote Marilyn Manson's official autobiography, The Long Hard Road Out of Hell. Unlike the Manson book, however, this is no straightforward autobiography. It's more like conceptual art: Strauss, with Navarro's cooperation, sets out to document a year (June 1998 to June 1999) in the life of the ex-Jane's and Chili Peppers guitarist, based entirely upon what goes on at Dave's Hollywood Hills pad. Dave has recently purchased a photo booth, with which he captures the images of everyone who sets foot inside the place, and many of these photo strips accompany the text in the book. Desiring to turn his house into a modern-day version of Andy Warhol's Factory, and expressing the very strong possibility that his fiendish drug habit may relieve him of his life by year's end (like Tom Sawyer, he obsessively imagines his own funeral), Navarro sets out to finish his album. Strauss watches and writes, trying hard to keep pace with the frantic life of a rock star.

Also different from the Manson collaboration is this book's disjointed format. Rather than the typical star/ ghostwriter setup, some chapters feature Strauss' byline; others Navarro's. Some are direct transcriptions of conversations between Navarro and various guests, while one is attributed to a girl named Monet, who appears to be the closest thing Navarro has to a true love, at least for a moment. The result is to give the reader the feeling of having a very short attention span, which should boost the tome's appeal among MTV kids who actually do have very short attention spans. Since Navarro always seems to be busy doing something or other (usually something not especially constructive), the style probably reflects his mind-set quite well.

What the book doesn't give the reader is any sense of who Navarro was prior to the events depicted in the book -- his history, biography, how he met up with bandmate Perry Farrell and so forth. Die-hard admirers will know all these things, but casual fans may not know that, for instance, at the age of 15, Dave lost his mother at the hands of a vengeful ex-boyfriend. The incident is referred to several times in the book, but as almost a throwaway, assuming the reader already knows the gruesome details. Navarro's drug problem appears strongly connected to his inability to come to terms with the murder.

Which doesn't mean that Don't Try This at Home is a strictly-for-the-fans affair, any more than Permanent Midnight was only for fans of Jerry Stahl's previous books. It's a good, inside look at the pitfalls of fame, and actually manages the impressive feat of making a life spent frequently banging hookers and strippers seem absolutely undesirable. The title Trust No One seems more appropriate, given the overriding themes of paranoia and the shallowness of so-called friends in Los Angeles (it still remains the title of Navarro's forthcoming CD), but the book company probably forced the disclaimer-esque title onto the book, unsettled by the lack of didacticism within. As if the chapter in which Navarro starts to turn yellow and lose all his hair somehow doesn't send enough of a message that smack ain't cool.

The book isn't all darkness, though. A chapter detailing a visit from living blow-up doll Angelyne is a hilarious affair, as the billboard queen who very dubiously claims to be in her early 30s proves to be every bit as out to lunch as you might imagine ("If you think of the universe as a bubble, like a salt shaker, you can come out of the tiny little holes in the top"). The notoriously camera-shy bimbette even appears in some photo-booth pics with Navarro. There's also some dark humor in Dave's interpretation of the 12-step program ("nowhere in the Twelve Steps does it say anything about abstinence. The only requirement is a desire to stop using"), which he counters with 12 ways to tie off while shooting up ("I've actually gone so far as to reach in the back of the car, grab an empty Coke can, rip it in half, turn it upside down so the little indentation on the bottom becomes its own spoon, and cook the heroin in it. Then I suck it up with a syringe and tie myself off with my shoulder strap, all while driving").

Flakiness and all, Angelyne seems to be one of the most upfront and friendly people in Navarro's life (age aside, at least she is what she appears to be), as much of his writing turns to betrayal by women, by the Chili Peppers, by the world. Ultimately, as he starts to fight the addiction, he accepts responsibility for losing friends, and there will certainly be readers who respond to the laments about shallow Angelenos with a resounding "Duh!" Still, as those of us looking fruitlessly for love in this town can relate, the knowledge that many people are shallow doesn't immunize us from the heartbreak when they turn out to be predictably so yet again, and the book captures the resulting combination of resentment and continued yearning quite well.

Needless to say, there is a happy ending: Dave Navarro is still with us, and his new album comes out this month.