The Harder They Fall (42 page)

It wasn’t acid that made me enemies, it was alcohol. Without alcohol, I’d be richer by the two million dollars that I paid in legal fees over my squabble with Marty Balin. I wouldn’t have had an outburst that got him so mad. He wouldn’t have said publicly in an interview, “Grace? Did I sleep with her? I wouldn’t even let her give me head.” I don’t even know what offensive behavior of mine he was reacting to. Because of the alcohol, I can’t remember. Without alcohol, I’d be richer by two million dollars that went to pay lawyer’s fees.

So drugs were still working at that point. When they don’t work and you don’t realize it, or at least I didn’t, you’re in trouble. Marty did. When Janis died, he stopped. He went off drugs completely, but I didn’t. I thought, “Well, that’s them … Jimi, Jim,—Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and Janis Joplin. All these people close to me started dropping off and I thought, “Well, that’s heroin.” To an extent, it was the heroin that killed them. I believe the reason why is that heroin is so small.

Once we were on tour with The Doors. We played several cities in Europe and were performing in Amsterdam with The Doors. We used to alternate who went on first and who closed the show. This particular night they opened for us. They went onstage and we were backstage waiting to go, doing some amyl nitrate and whatever other drugs there were around. During that day, both bands, The Doors and The Jefferson Airplane, had gone into the shopping area of Amsterdam to hang out, buy stuff, and look around. The kids knew who we were so they were all giving us drugs as we
walked along. Sometimes you’d say, “No thank you.” Other times you’d say, “Thanks” and put it in your pocket. Jim Morrison did up whatever they handed him, on the spot. And I remember thinking, “My God, how’s he going to play tonight?”

And so that night when Jim came on stage, he looked like some kind of windmill that was ready to fly apart. Arms, hands, and legs flying all over the place. It was just insane! They finally took him offstage, and someone had to take him to a hospital because he was full of so many drugs.

Even our band—and we were known as the acid freaks—went, “Wow! How can he do so many drugs and even move?” Jim used himself as a guinea pig. Lots of kids we knew would sign up in college for drug-testing programs. Clinical trials. Jim used himself to find out what can you do to the human brain, how far can you go? Jim wasn’t a nihilist, although he was close. He had the point of view that you come on the planet, you see there is stuff to do, and let’s take it as far as it will go. We were all about that … to a point. But the reason I’m alive is that I’m somewhat chicken, and conservative as far as my body goes. If my body hurts, I pull back for a while. Being a periodic alcoholic, I’d get real sick and then decide, “I can’t stand that for another month or year.” I’d go all the way out though. I’d drink everything there was to drink to see how far I could go with it. I took a lot of acid and got real strange. I never flipped out, or wanted to kill myself, or saw anything that wasn’t there. We were all looking for different realities, and Jim had either more stupidity or balls, because he would take it as far as you possibly could. It’s amazing he lived as long as he did. It was only when lots of friends died we realized we were mortal.

With alcohol, though, it’s a long slow process, unless you have a car accident or something. With heroin, it’s so small that if you take just a little bit more, then you die. You have to have a microscope to measure out a little more and not die. That’s the reason I disliked it. Heroin was too tricky. You have to tie off. It takes going to a dealer and getting the paraphernalia, and then you get sick and go into a coma. Why would a person want to repeat an experience like that? Heroin can’t be a social drug, and it was too spooky for me. Also, there’s a slightly different psychology between heroin users and alcoholics. Alcoholics are generally a little more outgoing.
Even though they turn into shits. Like me, obnoxious, yelling at cops, pulling shotguns, and stabbing each other, because it is a very abrasive drug. What eventually got me was in the mid-seventies. I was stopped three different times—never in a car—for drunk driving.

It’s really ironic that I’ve been arrested for three DWIs and always was outside the car. When you start doing shit like driving drunk, it’s an indication it’s no longer party time. A DWI is not like getting arrested at a protest march or with the rest of the band. This was all by myself being an asshole. They weren’t as harsh then. Now is better, I’m glad they’re harsh. When the police first said I had to go to these meetings, I said, “No, you don’t understand, I can afford my dinner.” And they said, “No, you don’t understand!”

Let me give you one example. I had this black Chevy pickup truck, and I was way the hell out in the middle of nowhere in Marin County with a book and some wine. I was just going to sit out there and read. So I got out of the truck and sat down on the ground with my back leaned up against a tree, reading. I had some wine. I ate some food. Then a cop came by, stopped, and said, “You’re not supposed to be here.” So I said, “What does it look like I’m doing?” And he said, “You shouldn’t be here.” And I said, “Well, why not?” “Because I’m going to arrest you for being drunk in public.” “Public!” I yelled. “You got fucking squirrels and deer and trees. You call this public? The only public is you, you fucking asshole.” So I go directly to jail. You see?

So I was arrested repeatedly for drunk driving, when I was not driving a car. It was drunk mouth! But there is no number for that. It’s not a 502, and it’s not assault. So it’s just plain drunk mouth.

I can’t claim I was, like, being in a peace march or anything. I got arrested for being an asshole all by myself. It didn’t dawn on me that it was related to my drinking. I thought it was my usual mouth—that blunt, jerk, sarcasm thing. I thought, “Hey, that’s just me. That’s how I am and it’s amplified by alcohol.” Eventually the highway patrol and their ilk told me, “Here, you got to go to these meetings.” And I said, “You don’t understand. I can afford my own dinner.” I thought recovery meetings were something where you got a free meal and a lecture from a priest. I didn’t know what they were.
So, around 1976, I started going to meetings. I thought they were fabulous, because all the religions I’d been aware of had guys with funny outfits on and you had to pay them a lot of money. And one person was holier than everybody else. He was up in front. But in these recovery meetings, everybody was equal. Nobody owned anything either. I thought, “Okay, this is spiritual. The rest of that stuff was phony. This reminds me of early Christianity.” So I liked the context, but that didn’t mean I wanted to stop drinking. I was even a coffee maker, and I’d put a little rum into my coffee, and you got yours regular. Or I’d stay sober ’cause it was easy for me to do for a long period of time, being a periodic. I didn’t realize that anybody can stop. The problem for me was definitely staying sober, but that didn’t occur to me at the time. Also, I didn’t realize they were talking about all mind-altering chemicals. I would not drink alcohol but would use lots of cocaine or whatever. I’d jump around from drug to drug. So I’d stay sober for a while, then I’d go out and get drunk again. Then I’d come back to the program and start over again. People would tell me, “You’re gonna die,” and I’d say, “No, I’m not.” Oddly enough, I didn’t, but that isn’t because I’m so smart.

The band cleaned up individually at various times and for their own reasons. Three members of Airplane are in recovery. All during the eighties, I was sober. During the time of Starship. Then I got bored and went back out again. Then stayed sober for another couple of years, then went out again. Now, my daughter and I got sober in 1996. I have eight years sober again. I’m certainly not the image or the beacon to follow. My pattern or path has been to do what I want to do for my own reasons. I do hope I stay sober though. As I grow older, it’s harder and harder to handle alcohol. It’s particularly rough on your body, because if you don’t die, everything rots.

My mind is still functioning, but I’m lugging around this rotting body, this rotting meat. That’s not too pleasant, but apart from that, it’s all good.

The friends I have today are all alcoholics who are sober. Alcoholics, I’ve found, have very interesting lives. That’s a bizarre thing to say, and it sounds like I’m saying it to the exclusion of other people, but it’s probably true. I don’t want to be around people who have held back. I like being around alcoholics, thank you very much. Also, the deal that you’re as good as your spiritual program is a strong one.

In 1970, when I became pregnant with China, I wasn’t conscious of addiction. My life was all just sex, drugs, and rock and roll. But I’m not a moron, so I knew that what you put into your face goes into your body, and part of your body is what’s living in there—the child. So I didn’t do drugs when I was pregnant. And most of the time, I didn’t use when she was around. The times it happened, I’m sure it made her nuts, but I wasn’t self-aware about it until much later. You do a lot of stupid shit on drugs, but life goes on, you make amends, you don’t live in that. When China started getting goofy, she knew what addiction was, what to look for, since she’d been going to recovery meetings with me from the age of five.

Life now is fine. My daughter is sober. China came in a couple of weeks after me. Into the same rehab. My sponsor was amused. She had never seen a mother-daughter combination in the same rehab. Because I had rehabbed before, there was none of this mother-daughter filial nonsense. I just let China do whatever she needed to do and didn’t get into that.

China called me once when she was fifteen and said, “Mom, I think I’m an alcoholic ’cause tonight I was making out with my best friend’s boyfriend, and I’ve been drinking cooking sherry.” And I thought, “Wow, that would have been nothing to me.” But she knew early on that things were not working right. So she’s ahead of me. China’s thirty-three and has seven years of sobriety.

So what stops me from drinking now is that the drugs and alcohol don’t work anymore. Alcohol makes me a jerk, pot makes me paranoid, and I’m already wired to the tits, so I can’t use cocaine. The idea of starting that process of being interested in drugs is a big waste of time, too boring. What I’m doing now is more interesting than sitting around thinking where a dealer might be.

I can paint or write songs drunk or sober. Some of what I create is good, some isn’t. Alcohol doesn’t make any difference with my art, unlike for some people. It makes a big difference, though, with relationships, because I’m a real asshole. When you’re drawing, who are you going to be an asshole to? There’s none of that contention going on. I’m a jerk as far as relationships go. I think that’s true for a lot of alcoholics who are artists,
writers, and musicians. For others, it will hammer what they’re doing, but many of us seem to plow right through. Ernest Hemingway is one example of thousands. Alexander the Great conquered the known world before the age of thirty-three, and he was a practicing alcoholic. It doesn’t get in the way of what you’re doing, but your relationships are crazy.

I’m way nicer now. Say a friend walks into the room with a new sweater she thinks is fabulous and you think is god awful. Usually you say, “That’s interesting,” or nothing at all. Like Thumper’s mother said, if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. But when I’m drunk, I say whatever is in my mind. It doesn’t make any difference who you are or when you are. But it’s rude half the time what I’m thinking, and I need to censor my thoughts. I still think the same but don’t say it because it’s pointless to make people miserable. All the relationship stuff improves for me sober. I’m also better living alone sober, and I should not have lived with anybody—though I enjoyed it. I would have been a better mistress than wife—screw our brains out and then Monday return to work—because I only do one thing at a time. I like to pay attention to people when they’re here, but I can’t do that day after day. And I can’t draw when others are around me. I’m very singly focused. The work takes precedent. Now I’m able to make a better time frame of being with people, and it’s a whole lot easier to frame it out sober. When I was singing for a living, being high wasn’t a detriment. I was far more interested in that than doing my relationships well. What I’m doing now is more interesting than being drunk. In fact, it keeps me from the realm of drink. Being drunk removes a lot of brain cells, and I need them all for what I’m doing now. I draw all day and pretty much all night. I do my laundry and will go to a movie with friends, but if I’m here in this house, I’m drawing constantly. I erase and correct, erase and correct. Then I’ll put the paint on and do the backgrounds. I’ve just finished a drawing of Janis looking really joyful with her arms up in the air, and it makes me happy to look at it. Then again, I look at the other drawing here next to it, of Miles Davis. He has a hat on, and what’s going to be in back of him is what has happened often in the jazz world: a person who’s a heroin addict in the city, with an extreme amount of passion and talent. The look on Miles’ face is different.

To some extent, LSD opened me to my own psychic ability. I used to get very quiet, and unconscious thoughts came up. I wrote some songs that predicted my own life. “Lawman” came true. Twenty years after I wrote it, I picked up a shotgun that had never been fired, just like in the song. A cop did a football roll into me and knocked me down. He got an award, as well he should. Nobody got shot. It was a mix-up where the cops came to my house to protect me, because my boyfriend called 911, but I thought they might be fake cops. In another song, it says something will slide down on you like brakes in bad weather, and that happened too. It scares me now to write lyrics. There’s a cosmic thing, as though everything is happening at once, and it could be we’re all conscious of that to varying degrees. When you’re really concentrating on what you’re feeling, you come out with some of that stuff. LSD tells your mind there’s more than one reality, so your mind is open to appreciate various forms of spiritual life, consciousness, and intuition.

I always felt very close to the story of
Alice in Wonderland
for a real good reason. If you remember what happened to her, she came from a very straight-laced Episcopalian Republican background, and at some point between twelve and twenty-four—mine at about eighteen or so—you go down the rabbit hole. Something leads you down there. In my case, it was a combination of Lenny Bruce and the suggestion to come back to San Francisco from my girlfriend. Some rabbit comes along. Everybody’s rabbit is different, but it comes along and you follow it. You know, life is short. I believe you follow that rabbit. What else can you do?