Blythe - Dark Days: a Memoir

Copyright 2015 by D. Randall Blythe

All photographs and journal entries by D. Randall Blythe.

Illustration on page 174 courtesy of Ganbold.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address Da Capo Press, 44 Farnsworth Street, Third Floor, Boston, MA 02210.

Set in 11 point Giovanni

Cataloging-in-Publication data for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN: 978-0-306-82315-2 (e-book)

First Da Capo Press edition 2015

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This book is dedicated to anyone who tries to do the right thing. There are those who talk a lot of talk, and then there are those who walk the walk. To the ones who still put in the hard yards, even when its scary: I salute you.

This is also for anyone struggling with alcohol or drug addiction. There is a better way, trust meyou dont have to live that way anymore if you dont want to.

Contents

chapter one

U ntil the handcuffs snapped around my wrists, I still thought I might be dreaming. Ratchet-arm teeth clicking into a receiving pawl make a very distinct sound. Like a pump-action twelve gauge being racked outside your back door, or a tree limb cracking beneath your weight, it is a sound that swiftly wakes you up to the reality of your situation. It is a sound that says:

Youre screwed.

This was not the first time Id heard that particular noise, but it was the first time in my forty-one years that I had ever been truly scared by it. The rest were mere speed bumps on the way to my next drink. Laughing with a bunch of filthy punk rockers as we were hauled out of a squat into the rainy San Francisco night, a fine spray of mace shutting us up as it filled the back of the paddy wagon on the way to the station. Dropping my scooter in front of a police station then slurring insults at an officer as he cuffed me three blocks from my house, my jacket full of punctured cans spraying cheap lager like a human beer fountain. Good-natured ribbing with a cop as he waited for my girlfriend to return with a carton of Marlboros before taking me off to Richmond City Jail after failing to do sixty-five community service hours for taking a leak in an alley.

A night or two in jail, then back to the bar with a colorful story to tell and a little more street cred to hang on my spiked leather jacket. Another load of 100 percent pure uncut punk rock John Wayne horseshit.

Taking three boxes of over-the-counter sleeping pills and drinking a bottle of cheap wedding champagne in an ill-informed attempt to kill myself after the girlfriend had left me for another man yet again. Waking up insanely wasted because I didnt know over-the-counter pills wont do the trick, then stacking all the furniture in the house on the stove and catching the house on fire. Laughing maniacally and swinging from a tree in the back yard like a clumsy chimp as the house billowed smoke and the police and fire department arrived. Spitting in the cops face and calling him a pig as he slams me onto the brick sidewalk and starts in on me with the stick before my neighbor runs out and stops him. Laughing and laughing and laughing on the way to the mental ward to have my stomach pumped because I knew the joke was on himhe couldnt hurt a dead man.

Laughter and hate and pure joy when your booze-and-drug-addled brain is convinced you are finally leaving this terrible life. Free at last, free at last; no more of this bullshit world with its bullshit people who make you drink so much. Click, click, click. Off you go to the cell or the loony bin, but you are too wasted to care. Sometimes its really funny. Sometimes its a relief.

This time was very, very different than those others. This was scary. I was almost two years sober, far from depressed, and I certainly wasnt laughing or even cursing. Cussing out the officer cuffing me would have been futile. He didnt speak English. I wasnt even on my home continent.

Our plane had touched down at Prague Ruzyne International Airport about five minutes before the cuffs encircled my wrists, and I was positively ebullient. It was the rare time when my band and crew did not pile into the tour bus for yet another long, cramped driveinstead we had flown to the Czech Republic from Norway. This meant we had what was left of the day to roam Prague, a rare luxury I planned on making the most of. Touring bands grinding out the European summer festival circuit dont see much except for one muddy backstage parking lot after the other. The rest of the time is spent driving from one country to the next, making mostly futile mental notes to come back one day and actually visit some of the beautiful countryside thats glimpsed through the dust-coated windows of a rented night liner as it ferries you to the next show. Being a tourist doesnt pay too well, but you can make decent scratch driving through all that gorgeous scenery if theres a 40,000-person gig at the end of the days road. European travel for most professional bands isnt full of sight seeing, its full of actual travel. Overnight drives, gigs during the day, and on days off, really long drives. There are worse ways to make a living though, and every now and then, like this particular day, you luck out and get to actually explore a bit.

As is the custom on the continent, before the plane had even come to a complete stop overhead bins were opened and people were grabbing their bags. Passengers poured over each other and into the aisles to begin the rugby-like skirmish that is European plane deboarding. No matter how many times I fly in Europe, this ridiculous display of self-important savagery never fails to piss me off, and often my bandmates, crew members, and myself will bring the stampeding herd to a complete and extremely aggravated stop. Ignoring what is undoubtedly furious, unintelligible cursing from the people behind us, one or more of us will strike a linebackers pose, blocking the aisle while we politely defer to the elderly people, children, pregnant women, and anyone else who wishes to get off the plane unmolested and needs help with their baggage. Call me provincial, an uncultured American, or even a redneck, but Southern manners were a big part of my upbringing.

But today, June 27, 2012, I didnt care. Let them pummel each other to death in their senseless rush for the door. The long tour was just four days from being over, and a real day off awaited. As I gathered my things, I took the opportunity to snap a photo of our monitor tech, Brian, asleep across the aisle from me with his mouth wide open. I put my camera away and entered the fray. When an overweight balding Italian man nearly knocked me over in his charge down the aisle for the door, I just laughed.