What changed his mind? Tollett told me it was all thanks to a Hollywood actress. Rosanna Arquette, another one of that crowd who loved the music scene and musicians—she had a long-term relationship with Toto keyboardist Steve Porcaro and was friends with a lot of music-biz people—knew about what had happened with Goldenvoice through her friendship with Paul. She liked the record and kept talking it up to Goldberg. She had been relentless, and eventually, Danny gave me a fair shot. Never underestimate the persuasive powers of a pretty woman.
But the constant arguments with Josh started to wear me down. My own words seemed to come back to haunt me.
I’ve made my bed now
I’m gonna lay in it
—“Hurt,” the Bicycle Thief
Another one of my bands had just taken its first step toward a premature end.
THE EDUCATION OF BOB FORREST
A hard lesson I’ve learned over the years is that I don’t always work well with others. Ask anyone who’s ever worked with me. Especially in the music business. It’s a tough gig and it plays with your mind. It can also do strange things to your ego. From the time I was a kid, I always thought that I was right about everything. Maybe it sprang from being spoiled and indulged as a child. Maybe I was just a born egomaniac. The Bicycle Thief had blown up and was “on hiatus.” I broke up with Max. It was a repeat from the Thelonious Monster days: I was a difficult asshole. During my doper days, I could blame my behavior on an addict’s typical selfishness, but sober, I had to face facts and try to work at humility a little harder. However, in my defense, when I write songs based on my life and my view of the world, I put myself out there on display. If someone doesn’t like it, it’s as if they’ve said they don’t like me. It’s a painful thing when that happens—it stings—and I react poorly. I react way out of proportion. It doesn’t always lead to harmony or long-lasting musical partnerships, but as a songwriter, I’ve never really been anybody’s partner.
So, on the one hand, I didn’t have a band anymore and I was angry and frustrated. On the other hand, I had made a considerable amount of money from the Bicycle Thief and didn’t have the immediate need to get back to work as a dishwasher or a messenger, the two jobs that had kept me grounded before my second ride on the music business merry-go-round. So what did I do? I sat in my house and did nothing. I pouted. I watched a lot of television. I ordered take-out food. I stopped attending recovery groups. I shut down communication with my friends and hid from the world to an even greater degree than I had when I took the dishwasher job at Millie’s Cafe. I could see a pattern developing, but I didn’t do anything about it. I just stayed inside like I was Norma Desmond from the movie Sunset Boulevard. Anthony Kiedis came by to offer some blunt wisdom.
“I don’t know if I like this new Bob,” he said as he studied me like I was some new species of virus under his high-powered mental microscope.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, and tried to sound outraged even though I pretty much knew where he would go with this.
“You were a much better person when you were just a regular guy,” he said. That stunned me like a slap to the face. “You worked and you helped people. Now …” He looked around at the place I refused to leave.
He was right. I was aimless here and it didn’t serve me at all.
“What should I do?” I asked. I felt helpless. Lost.
“I don’t know, man, but you need to do something. You’re miserable like this. You have no purpose.”
He was right, but I didn’t want to believe him. I stayed home, but Anthony wouldn’t let it go. He kept after me for weeks. “Why don’t you go to MAP?” he said. MAP was the Musicians Assistance Program, a junkie collective where addicts helped other addicts. John Frusciante had gone there and it had helped him to clean up, something I would have thought impossible back in the early nineties, but now, when I’d run into him, he looked at the world through clear eyes. Oh, he was still John, but he wasn’t Junkie John anymore.
“What am I going to do there?” I asked.
“See if they need anybody to help out around there.”
It hit me: That’s actually a really good idea. Anthony’s a really smart dude sometimes.
It had always made me feel good to help people. And kindness and a supportive hand offered to others are always good things to extend in this world, so I always tried—even when I was practically incapable—to assist where I could, although it could be a cruel and devastating thing when my advice was refused or ignored and something bad happened. Rob Ritter, a gander-necked wraith with a Tennessee waterfall of a rockabilly pompadour, was a great friend of mine who played bass for a time with Thelonious Monster under his stage name Rob Graves. He also was a serious and reckless fellow traveler on the drug path. While I didn’t set the best example in those years, I tried repeatedly to get him to cool the more destructive elements of his habit,
