“I am Iron Man! Duh duh duh duh duh duh.” Okay, I thought. That one’s a little better.
“Rock of ages … Still rollin’ … Rock ’n’ rollin’!” This was fun. I was glad to have found something productive to do during this charade. Then, just as I began to groove to my mental jukebox, he walked in. His presence was enough to zoom me back to attention. He was my idol. In my mind, he was the greatest musical genius of all time. My whole life, up to this point, down to the brand of cigarettes I smoked, was based on him. I was in the presence of slender white royalty. When I was a kid I would sing along to his albums. I had posters of him all over my bedroom walls and here he was, in this little recording studio, breathing the same air as me.
“I tried to kill myself a few weeks ago,” he stated with matter-of-fact English reserve. “This struggle with drugs had me at my wit’s end. I didn’t know what else to do but to swallow some pills, wash them down with some wine, and then walk into the sea off Malibu. Rather dramatic, I know.”
The room fell silent. Always the consummate showman, he laughed and said that this was all inspired by the 1954 musical version of the movie A Star Is Born.
He flashed his famous smile, which was both vulpine and warm. “I felt just like James Mason as Norman Maine, but the water was too cold.” He laughed. “And there was no Judy Garland waiting for me when I walked back to shore.” While the other members of the group laughed and nodded, I was torn. On the one hand, I thought, If this guy, with all his success and talent, has that kind of struggle with addiction, there’s absolutely no hope for me. On the other hand, I thought, A Judy Garland movie? Are you fucking kidding me? That’s totally lame. I stayed and politely listened to everybody’s stories, and I went back the next Wednesday night and the Wednesday after that, and it became a habit. It was entertaining, and now that I was staying clean, there wasn’t much else to do. I never shared during the meetings. I just listened. Timmins was a big proponent of the idea that celebrities needed to be protected. They couldn’t just mingle with ordinary civilians at open-to-all twelve-step meetings. He had created the equivalent of a club’s VIP area for recovering addicts and alcoholics. This clan was tight-lipped and stuck together. It was private and invitation-only. And these people needed these meetings. Although I couldn’t see the disease in myself, I could sure see it in them. It was obvious that drugs had taken their toll and these artists had all lost something big. It was clear to see in their shaky hands and nervous tics. The group members were older than I was, so I kind of assumed the role of the new recruit. I made friends with some of them and we’d meet for coffee and superficial talk outside of these meetings, but I could already feel the pull of my old way of life and it seemed inevitable to me that I’d go back to it soon. I was bored with sobriety. The twelve steps may have been ready for me, but I wasn’t ready for them. But I liked the exclusivity of the Timmins group.
It was a weakness of mine. I’d always had an attraction to groups and places that were difficult to get into. And if drugs and alcohol were readily available, all the better. Timmins’s meetings always reminded me of a drug-free 01 Gallery, or the Zero One, as everyone called it. In 1981, it was the toughest after-hours place in L.A.’s fashionable Melrose District to get past the doormen. For all its hip exclusivity, the price at the Zero One was right. Ten dollars was the cover, and for that, you could drink your fill and do whatever else you wanted. The doors opened at two A.M. and stayed that way until sunrise, weekends only. The catch was that you had to know a trusted regular to cross the threshold. Even then, that was no guarantee that you’d get in. But, if you did, it was all drinking, drugging, and fucking. I had only managed to gain entrance because I worked there. I was a jack-of-all-trades. I walked drinks to the patrons, cleaned up, and sold speed to a chosen few. The place was owned by a hip art dealer named John Pochna who opened the upstairs area of his gallery as a sort of anything-goes haunt for Hollywood celebrities who didn’t want to be bothered by civilian gawkers when they felt the need to get loose. The first time I walked through the doors and up the narrow staircase to the second floor, I felt like I had stepped into an update of what I imagined Andy Warhol’s Factory had been like: a space dominated by art, the latest music pumped through a first-class sound system, and lots of pretty women. The walls were decorated with works by Robert Williams, a master of chromelike gleam; punk rock godfather Tomata du Plenty; and other Los Angeles artists. This was a late-night crowd, full of punk rockers, ghostly-pale black-clad artists in pointy shoes and shades, and A-list celebrities. It felt special to work there. It was a hidden, cool world that the rank and file didn’t know existed. At the bar sat a burly, talkative guy. Oh, my God, I thought. That’s John Belushi! On the bar were
