Makeup to breakup

Another reason I cheated was that Lydia and I didn’t really click in bed. She had no real experience; she had only gone out with two other guys before me. And the sex was never enough for me. I always had to have more, and on the road I could have one-nighters every night.

I know now that if you really love someone, that’s just not acceptable. But at that time I was young and wild and hungry for everything.

By April, Michael had left Lips and gone to work at a bank. I started hanging at Stan’s East Village pad, and that was a huge mistake. He had been selling pot, but then he started getting into heroin and speedballs. Stan was a very manipulative guy, and he could talk anybody into anything. My dream was shattering once again, and I was ripe for an escape. So when Stan asked me if I wanted to try skin-popping smack, I said, “Why not?”

It didn’t seem dangerous when Stan was doing it. He didn’t pass out on the floor. It was more like, “We’ll shoot a little dope and then we’ll write some more songs.” It was exciting, too.

Shooting dope is definitely taboo. And it did nullify the pain. After shooting up, I didn’t feel any nagging doubts about whether I’d ever make it in music, no feelings that I was getting too old, no sense that my marriage was in a rut. Everything felt perfect for those few hours with him.

Everything we wrote sounded genius, everything we did was great, everything we talked about was just right. We were living in a fantasy world. Then I felt guilty and was afraid that I would get hooked on heroin, so I confessed to Lydia that I had been shooting up. She freaked out and I stopped.

But I kept going over to Stan’s place to write. And he kept dealing smack. One day we were sitting up there working, and somebody buzzed from downstairs. We snuck down the stairs to see who it was and saw four tall, skinny black guys waiting by the elevator. They looked like you didn’t want to fuck with them. So we ran back upstairs and bolted the door. Stan grabbed a rifle and I picked up his wife’s knife. The guys came off the elevator and started pounding on the door and attempted to break in. They were after his drugs. I thought, I’m in the wrong place at the wrong time and I’m going to die over a shoebox of heroin. Finally they gave up and split. I was shaking like a leaf and wondering what this had to do with music. That was the last time I hung out at Stan’s place.

Around that time I got a call from my old bandmate Joey Lucenti. He had a new band called Infiniti, his drummer had broken his leg, and he wanted to know if I’d fill in. They were playing every weekend at the King’s Lounge, that Mob joint in Williamsburg. I had just left a band that was associated with giants like John Cale and Lou Merenstein. I had a brief taste of what it was like to be a real artist, creating new songs, and then I’d be back in a Mob bar playing fucking jukebox music. But Lydia was on my case to work, so I took the gig. I went there my first night and I came in with skintight gold-lamé pants, a scarf, nail polish, and New York Dolls makeup on.

I was a star, at least in my mind. Joey and the other guys were bald and fat by then, in front singing, “Louie, Louie, whoa, we gotta go,” and I was in the back crashing and booming away at my drums because I was so fucking mad at the world.

I was drinking a lot and fucking every single chick who walked into that room on the weekends, and then I’d go home to Lydia. It was intolerable. But at least it got me away from