Read Online Slash by Slash, Anthony Bozza - Free Book Online

slightest.



4
Education High
    Institutional hallways are all the same, they’re just different colors. I’ve seen the inside of several rehab centers, some more upscale than others, but the clinical sobriety of their walls was identical. All of them were predominantly white and plastered with optimistic slogans like “It’s a journey, not a destination” and “One day at a time.” I found that last one ironic considering the road that Mackenzie Phillips has been down. The rooms were generic backdrops engineered to inspire hope in people from every walk of life, because, as those who have been there know, rehab is a more accurate cross section of society than jury duty. I never learned much from “group”; I didn’t really make any new buddies in rehab and I didn’t take advantage of multiple opportunities to make new drug connections either. After I’d spent days in bed with my body in purgatorial knots, unable to eat, speak, or think, I wasn’t up for small talk. To me, the communal aspect of rehab was forced—just like high school. And just like high school, I didn’t fit in. Neither institution taught me their intended lessons, but I learned something important from each of them. On my way back down their hallways toward the exit, I was confident that I left knowing exactly who I was.
     
    I entered Fairfax High in 1979. It was an average American public high school—linoleum floors, rows of lockers, a courtyard, a few around-back spots where kids have snuck cigarettes and done drugs for years. It was painted a very institutionally neutral light gray color. There was a good spot to get high out by the football field, there was also a continuation school on the other side of campus called Walt Whitman, where all the real fuck-ups went, because they had to. That seemed like the end of the line, so although it was more interesting, even from afar, than the normal campus, I tried to stay away from that place as much as possible.
    My best friend, Steven Adler, was shipped back to the Valley for high school, which was as far off as Spain in my mind. I did visit him out there a few times and it never failed to disappoint: it was flat, dry, hotter than it was at home, and exactly like a sitcom neighborhood. Everyone there seemed to cherish their identical lawns and identical lives. Even at a young age, I knew something was wrong with that place; beneath the normalcy, I could sense that those people were more fucked up than anyone in Hollywood. I felt bad for Steven, and once he was gone, I retreated further into my guitar world. I went to school, always registering as if I were there every day, but on average I’d attend my first three classes and spend the rest of my time on the bleachers playing guitar.
    There was only one class that meant anything to me in high school; consequently, it’s also the only one in which I earned an A. It was a music theory course that I took freshman year called Harmony, taught by a guy named Dr. Hummel. The class reduced the elements of musical composition to their roots, defining the fundamentals in mathematical terms. I learned to write time signatures, chords, and chord structures, all by analyzing the underlying logic that binds them. We never played an instrument: our teacher used a piano as a tool to illustrate the theories, but that was all; the class was purely a study of theory. While I was terrible at math, I was good at this, so it was the one class I never missed. Every time I showed up, I felt like I already knew the lessons we learned. I never consciously applied any of it to the guitar, but I can’t help but think the knowledge of notation thatI picked up seeped into my mind and aided my playing somehow. There was a cast of characters in this class: among others there was Sam, the piano virtuoso, a Jewish guy with tight curly hair, and Randy, who was a long-haired, Chinese, metal guy. Randy always wore a satin Aerosmith jacket and was of the opinion that Keith