Crash and Burn (12 page)

There were more than a few times when I think I OD’d before I even left the house on Friday. I gave myself these seizures a few times that I can’t accurately describe because all I know is that I blacked out and then came to a few minutes later. I was a doctor without a degree: I’d tally up all the hours I had to be gone from my stash and then dose myself as I saw fit. At the time I was doing one-nighters in theaters instead of two-nighters in a club. And thank God I was, because I’d be dead right now otherwise. I’m not kidding; if I’d been doing clubs at that point in my life I would have either been arrested or I would have died. Most likely I’d have been arrested for trying to take drugs on a plane. And then I’d probably have died.

The
Stern Show
was my priority, and I kept it that way until the very end, when I was so far gone that I did miss work and it was glaringly obvious that something was very wrong with me. Up until then, I was fine. But I’m still not sure how. There were weekends where I had those ministrokes before I even left my house and was still so banged up by the time I got to the gig that my body would hit some sort of wall. Can you blame it? I was hardly in the best shape to begin with. I’d get off work at, say, eleven and have to fly at four, and would spend those three hours before my flight to St. Louis doing as many lines of heroin and popping as many pills as I could manage. I’d arrive, go right to bed, and then wake up the next day and fulfill my obligations. There were times when I’d sleep a full day, do what I had to do, and go right back to my dark hotel room to sleep until the flight home. There were times where I didn’t shower for three or four days while on the road, slept in my clothes, got home, and slept in my clothes again for a few hours, then went right into work at the
Stern Show
. I wasn’t capable of showering until I was high enough to function.

Listen, I didn’t
look
good because I was heavy, but if you listen to those shows I was always funny, and I always showed up. The times I didn’t show up on
Stern
became very famous because they blow everything out of proportion on that show. If it happened as much as it seemed like it did, I’d have never kept that job as long as I did, and that’s the truth.

I was tired and my road schedule was crazy and that’s what I told them, and they had no real reason to believe otherwise. I would say the
Stern Show
knew I had a real problem only in the last few months I was there—the fall of ’09. And that’s when Howard came to me aggressively with his agent and suggested that I stop the stand-up schedule. Their plan didn’t work out, mostly because I was making 100 grand a weekend, and why would I even think of stopping that? I had money coming in hand over fist, I was juggling people getting
me off drugs and bringing me drugs—what else could I want? It was the kind of action that I found exciting.

I was successfully able to keep what I was doing in my private life away from the
Stern Show
because I showed up there and was proficient at my job. The rest of my life, however, was chaos on a level I can’t even describe. I had to keep all of that as far away from the
Stern
universe as I could. And I did, successfully—until the fall of ’09, that is.

In late 2007,
I remet someone whom
Stern
fans will remember from my final days on the show, a guy known to me and mine and them as well as Helicopter Mike. I don’t know how much any of you believe in fate, but there have been too many coincidences in my life for me to ignore the possibility that fate is fake, and this guy is one of the biggest reasons for that. I have no recollection of meeting Mike the first time, but when I heard the facts, enough of them lined up to make a believer out of me. I’ve got a strange type of memory, by which I mean if you mention a date to me, whether it’s last month or twelve years ago, there’s a ninety-percent chance that I’ll immediately remember exactly where I was that day without needing to check a calendar or date book. If I played a gig on the day in question, most likely I’ll remember the venue, as well as the promoter and who opened for me if anyone did. If any major-league play-off events took place on that day (excluding basketball), I’ll probably also be able to tell whether I placed bets that day and whether my team won. My recall is basically prejudiced because those facts and a few others are consistently the only things I’ve retained. It’s a window into my soul that very close friends, bookies, drug dealers, hookers, and ex-girlfriends are the characters that most densely populate my memory lane, and that’s only because they are the ones who were there when
my favorite activities occurred. I can’t help it, and it often offends me on behalf of those who should occupy more space in my mental scrapbook, but what can I say? My lopsided mind chooses to retain most clearly memories of the activities that involve the action my nature loves best. I hope everyone else understands and hopefully realizes I do care . . . I’ve just got my priorities.

I meet a lot of people in my line of work, and back when I was all Partie Lange (which, by the way, will be my on-air name if I’m ever forced at gunpoint to become a “morning zookeeper” on Z100) I spent a lot of time whiling the night away with strangers. I loved every minute of it; I just don’t remember much about it. So right now, once and for all, I’d like to apologize to all those people I’ve hung out with after a gig or at wherever the party has taken me over the years because I probably don’t remember shit about you. All of you strangers who became fast friends, please don’t be hurt; I know we may have figured out the cure for cancer and the meaning of life that night all before the sun came up. I mean you no offense, but don’t be surprised if I look at you in terror when we meet again, as if you’re my own personal Mark David Chapman.

Since getting sober, the limitations of my biased recall have become crystal clear to me, and I’ve got no choice but to embrace them and acknowledge their existence. I have to work with them or else they’ll be a huge problem. I did this begrudgingly at first, like a government admitting a budget deficit or a KKK Grand Dragon admitting that we have a black president. But eventually I did admit the truth to myself in the only way I know how—by finding the humor in it. Here’s an example from a few months ago that says it all. I was in Midtown Manhattan, walking to work from the parking garage at about seven p.m., going to the studio where my radio show on DirecTV/Sirius is recorded. I was almost there when a kid stopped me to say hi, like my fans usually do. He started telling me about how we’d met at a rest stop just outside of Portland a few years back, where I was heading to do a show.

“Man, that sounds great, but it couldn’t have been me,” I said, laughing, thinking the kid should have done a little homework before coming up with this ruse to get a photo and my autograph. “Must have been a different fat, homeless-looking guy, buddy; I’ve never been to Portland.”

“Yeah, you have, Artie, I swear to God,” he said. “It was totally you. We shot the shit for about twenty minutes. Here, I’ll show you.”

He pulled out his phone and proceeded to show me a picture of the two of us standing under a sign, at a rest stop, that said
WELCOME TO PORTLAND
.

“You don’t say,” I said.

That moment was more sobering than half the AA meetings I’ve attended. Not only did I not remember the kid—like at all—but I didn’t even recall one thing about being in the city. Nothing about playing it, nothing about the hotel, the motel, or the Holiday Inn—I’m talking, I drew a complete blank! I had to have spent at least a full day there plus the day I did the gig, so it was crazy to me that it was all a black hole. It made me think and wonder just how many more moments of my life I’ve lived through in complete blackouts, and I’ve come to accept the fact that the number is quite high. Now that I’ve pledged to do my best each day to keep myself on the other side of that void, I see every reminder like this one—as uncomfortable as they are—as a welcome reminder. Which is good, because in my case they’re going to be plentiful. In fact, those of you who see me again, do me a favor and tell me where we may have met, because I could use a clue. Just watch my expression when you do, so that we’ll both know it if my memory dice are coming up snake eyes again.

Anyway, the first time I met Helicopter Mike is an event occupying space in one of my blackouts—from the sound of it, one of my better ones. The following will be my version of a
Law & Order
recreation, because the facts were all gathered from the eyewitnesses there, me not being one of them, though I was playing myself.

The season: winter. The location: the Patchogue Theatre, Patchogue, Long Island, which is a great, intimate performance space that holds about fifteen hundred people. I’d headlined there a few times before and I’ve always found the great people of Long Island to be nothing but a welcoming and wonderful audience, so I was pretty excited for this show. I was even more excited because it is striking distance from my apartment in Hoboken, aka the Arthur Lange Resort and Spa, where I would be able to adhere to my proper health regime, take my constitutional, and get large doses of that all-important cure-all, “rest,” that I was so fond of at the time.

Teddy was still my assistant and road manager then, and I believe J.D. was still attempting to make a documentary about my life on the road. Completing the
Stern
revue that night we had Long Island native Sal the Stockbroker opening up as well as Reverend Bob Levy. Long Island is definitely
Stern
country, so we had Brian Phelan, all the Howard TV people, Sal’s parents, you name it, plus every die-hard
Stern
fan who could be there in the house that night. The backstage area was packed to say the least because Sal and Levy alone invited their entire extended families, each with plus-threes.

We were pushing the limits, but the theater and promoter really took care of us: all the dressing rooms were stocked with booze and sandwiches. There were people smoking weed nonstop in every greenroom. I was partaking heavily at the time, so I helped myself to everything, and I loved everybody I saw (though I remember none of you) because with all the weed and whiskey flowing it was a fucking good party. I was pretty buzzed as showtime approached, though, so I knew I had to take it down a little and find someplace to relax.

It was a freezing cold night in January so there was no way I could slip outside to escape the circus. I was going to have to figure something else out. On my way into the artist’s entrance I remembered seeing a bus parked out back. It was a huge, real comfortable-looking, well-worn but upscale tour bus: just the kind of ride where a ’70s rock fan would love to spark a doober. When Teddy saw me
getting shifty he knew I needed some privacy. I sent him off to ask around about the bus.

“Art, that bus belongs to Lynyrd Skynyrd, and it’s here because they’re playing the theater later this week,” he said when he returned a few minutes later. “Their tour manager is here tonight, though, and he said that if you want to chill out there, it’s cool with him.”

Usually I turn down shit like that because I don’t like owing anyone anything; for better or for worse I’m more comfortable with people owing me things, but that night Skynyrd’s bus was just what I needed. Plus I was dying to see the inside of it. I didn’t even care what incarnation the band was currently in and how few of the original members were in it, Skynyrd is an institution and I had to know how they rolled. In 1977, hanging out on their bus would have been cooler than doing blow with Ryan O’Neal at Studio 54, and I knew it. At this time, in 2007, it was more morbid curiosity, but fuck it, I needed someone to give me three steps toward the door leading away from the chaos backstage, and who better to do that than Lynyrd Skynyrd?

Me, Teddy, and J.D. went onto the bus, where we met Mike, who wasn’t familiar to me at all, beyond seeming like the kind of really nice Long Island guy I had met a million times. We got comfortable on the bus and I was grateful for that; I lit up a cigarette and Mike told us a bit about himself. He said he’d been in the army and had spent five years serving in the Gulf War under the first George Bush, then came back and served fifteen years as a cop for the NYPD. He’d since retired and now did security for bands, currently Skynyrd. I was so thankful for that little bit of peace before having to perform that I asked Mike if it was okay for me to pass out in the back lounge for a half hour or so, and he said yes, so that’s what I did.

When Teddy came and woke me up he was beyond chipper, just oddly excited. Usually he was pretty drab and openly resentful about having to wake me up or do anything at all for me, so there had to be something going on, I just didn’t know what it was.

“Art, you’re not gonna believe this,” he said, grinning.

“Probably not, Teddy. And I’m not sure I even want to hear about it.”

“Just come out here.”

I got up, rubbed my eyes, and walked down the hallway into the main lounge of the bus.

“What is it, Teddy? You’re acting like a horny dude on prom night.”

“Look at this guy,” Teddy said, pointing at Mike. “Look at him. Does he look familiar to you at all?”

“I’m looking, Ted,” I said. “I just met him when we got on the bus, so yeah, he’s familiar.”

“You’ve never met him before?”

What the fuck is this?
I thought to myself. “I’m looking at him, Ted, and no, I haven’t seen him before,” I said. “Mike, I’m a little fried, so if we’ve met before I’m sorry, but your face isn’t ringing a bell.”

“You’ve definitely met him before,” Teddy said.

“That’s great, Ted, and thanks for letting me know. Let me ask you something—are you my assistant or do I pay you to make me look like a dick?”

“You’ve met him, I’m not lying, and this is the craziest story I’ve ever heard, so it has to be true.”

“No offense, Mike, but Jesus Christ, Teddy, are we really doing this? All right, let’s hear it.” To his credit, Teddy wasn’t lying, this story is one for the books, even for this one.