![]() When was the last time I saw Sid? I think it was the Music Machine-Siouxsie & the Banshees. (That would bode particularly badly for Pete Farndon.) He was looked up to, and with admiration came the inevitable aspirations to emulate him. However, apart from the usual junkie characteristics of lying, stealing, cheating and going missing for days, he had a sweet nature that even the drug could not fully compromise. ![]() He’d been all set to play professional baseball but got waylaid by rock and roll, and yet, metaphorically speaking, was still spending most of his time in the dugout. Article content She could fit a length of rubber tubing, spoon, zippo lighter and box of handy wipes up her flue This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. He had the look in spades too, the erstwhile angel with bloodstained sleeves, the cowboy saddlebags slung over his delicate shoulders and dark doleful eyes that said, “Feed me.” “Johnny, c’mon-you must remember ‘Pipeline’!” I would prompt him to dig into his bag of tricks (being the same age and having grown up listening to all the same radio) and he held the room enthralled as he reeled off the AM charts like a card shark dealing hands. He was already idolized-nobody at the squat had known virtuosity before-and, to their ears, the American catalogue was untapped. Johnny Thunders showed up with his guitar and his habit. The moment smack arrived it took approximately three weeks for the whole scene to stall and grind to a halt. I wasn’t that desperate-or at least I didn’t think I was. There was nothing you couldn’t ingest by smoking or swallowing-shooting up was just the cheaper way of doing things. I didn’t share a fascination for needles, and regarded them as one addiction I could do without. ![]() The squat wasn’t a crash pad for me, more of a place to hang out and eventually watch the others shoot speed. Hanging around the Vicious household with the two lovebirds was not for the fainthearted, and we left young Sidney, his spiked hair grotesquely thick with Vicks VapoRub, to Nancy, who seemed greedily relieved to have her sex slave back so they could resume the all-consuming pastime of perching on the can, constipated or retching, smack’s flowers of romance. To show the solidarity of newly forged friendship, both of the boys cut their arms in some kind of weirdo ritual, becoming “blood brothers.” Any excuse to get the blade out, the flesh open. The pair of bass-player junkies were more evenly matched than Sid and his American honeypot, but then few men could match that kind of abuse. I resumed normal protocol and made the introductions. My French friend stood temporarily arrested by the greeting by knife, blood now trickling down his neck, but by the same token he was impressed by someone even more off the scale than himself. Article content No one was particularly surprised to hear Sid had inserted a blade into exhibit “N.” We were only surprised that he’d stuck it out as long as he had Manage Print Subscription / Tax Receipt.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |