Mötley Crüe`s

N EW Y ORK T IMES B EST S ELLER
Mötley Crüe’s
THE DIRT
With Neil Strauss
CHAPTER 1
∏
PART 1:
THE MÖTLEY HOUSE
-VINCE NEIL
Her name was Bullwinkle. We called her that
because she had a face like a moose. But
Tommy, even though he could get any girl he
wanted on the Sunset Strip, would not break
up with her. He loved her and wanted to
marry her, he kept telling us, because she
could spray her cum across the room.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t just cum she sent
flying around the house. It was dishes,
clothes, chairs, fists—basically anything
within reach of her temper. Up until then,
and I’d lived in Compton, I’d never seen
anyone get that violent. One wrong word or
look would cause her to explode in a jealous
rage. One night, Tommy tried to keep her
away by jamming the door to the house shut
—the lock was long since broken from being
repeatedly kicked in by the police—and she
grabbed a fire extinguisher and
threw it through the plate-glass window to get inside. The
police returned later that night and drew their guns on
Tommy while Nikki and I hid in the bathroom. I’m not sure
which we were more scared of: Bullwinkle or the cops.
inside. We couldn’t afford pesticides, so to exterminate the
roaches on the walls we would take hair spray, hold a lighter
to the nozzle, and torch the bastards. Of course, we could
afford (or afford to steal) important things like hair spray,
because you had to have your hair jacked up if you wanted to
make the rounds at the clubs.
We never repaired the window. That would have been too
much work. People would pour into the house, located near
the Whisky A Go-Go, for after-hours parties, either through
the broken window or the warped, rotting brown front door,
which would only stay closed if we folded a piece of
cardboard and wedged it underneath. I shared a room with
Tommy while Nikki, that fucker, got the big room to himself.
When we moved in, we agreed to rotate and every month a
different person would get the solo room. But it never
happened. It was too much work.
The kitchen was smaller than a bathroom, and just as putrid.
In the fridge there’d usually be some old tuna fish, beer,
Oscar Mayer bologna, expired mayonnaise, and maybe hot
dogs if it was the beginning of the week and we’d either
stolen them from the liquor store downstairs or bought them
with spare money. Usually, though, Big Bill, a 450-pound
biker and bouncer from the Troubadour (who died a year
later from a cocaine overdose), would come over and eat all
the hot dogs. We’d be too scared to tell him it was all we had.
It was 1981, and we were broke, with one thousand seveninch singles that our manager had pressed for us and a few
decimated possessions to our name. In the front room sat one
leather couch and a stereo that Tommy’s parents had given
him for Christmas. The ceiling was covered with small round
dents because every time the neighbors complained about the
noise, we’d retaliate by pounding on the ceiling with broom
handles and guitar necks. The carpet was filthy with alcohol,
blood, and cigarette burns, and the walls were scorched
black.
There was a couple who lived down the street and felt sorry
for us, so every now and then they’d bring over a big bowl of
spaghetti. When we were really hard up, Nikki and I would
date girls who worked in grocery stores just for the free food.
But we always bought our own booze. It was a matter of
pride.
In the kitchen sink festered the only dishes we owned: two
drinking glasses and one plate, which we’d rinse off now and
then. Sometimes there was enough crud caked on the plate to
scrape a full meal from, and Tommy wasn’t above doing that.
Whenever the trash piled up, we’d open the small sliding
door in the kitchen and throw it onto the patio. In theory, the
The place was crawling with vermin. If we ever wanted to
use the oven, we had to leave it on high for a good ten
minutes to kill the regiments of roaches crawling around
2
patio would have been a nice place, the size of a barbecue
and a chair, but instead there were bags of beer cans and
booze bottles piled up so high that we’d have to hold back
the trash to keep it from spilling into the house every time we
opened the door. The neighbors complained about the smell
and the rats that had started swarming all over our patio, but
there was no way we were touching it, even after the Los
Angeles Department of Health Services showed up at our
door with legal papers requiring us to clean the
environmental disaster we had created.
sheet that had turned the color of squashed roach. But we
thought we were pretty suave because we had a mirrored
door on our closet. Or we did. One night, David Lee Roth
came over and was sitting on the floor with a big pile of blow,
keeping it all to himself as usual, when the door fell off the
hinges and cracked across the back of his head. Dave halted
his monologue for a half-second, and then continued. He
didn’t seem to be aware that anything out of the ordinary had
happened—and he didn’t lose a single flake of his drugs.
Nikki had a TV in his room, and a set of doors that opened
into the living room. But he had nailed them shut for some
reason. He’d sit there on the floor, writing “Shout at the
Devil” while everyone was partying around him. Every night
after we played the Whisky, half the crowd would come back
to our house and drink and do blow, smack, Percodan,
quaaludes, and whatever else we could get for free. I was the
only one shooting up back then because a spoiled-rich,
bisexual, ménage-à-trois-loving, 280Zowning blonde named
Lovey had taught me how to inject coke.
Our bathroom made the kitchen look immaculate in
comparison. In the nine or so months we lived there, we
never once cleaned the toilet. Tommy and I were still
teenagers: We didn’t know how. There would be tampons in
the shower from girls the night before, and the sink and
mirror were black with Nikki’s hair dye. We couldn’t afford
—or were too lazy to afford—toilet paper, so there’d be shitstained socks, band flyers, and pages from magazines
scattered across the floor. On the back of the door was a
poster of Slim Whitman. I’m not sure why.
There would be members of punk-scene remnants like 45
Grave and the Circle Jerks coming to our almost nightly
parties while guys in metal newborns like Ratt and W.A.S.P.
spilled out into the courtyard and the street. Girls would
arrive in shifts. One would be climbing out the window while
another was coming in the door. Me and Tommy had our
window, and Nikki had his. All we’d have to say is,
“Somebody’s here. You have to go.” And they’d go—
Outside the bathroom, a hallway led to two bedrooms. The
hall carpet was spotted with charred footprints because we’d
rehearse for our live shows by setting Nikki on fire, and the
lighter fluid always ended up running down his legs.
The bedroom Tommy and I shared was to the left of the
hallway, full of empty bottles and dirty clothes. We each slept
on a mattress on the floor draped with one formerly white
3
although sometimes they’d only go as far as the room across
the hall. One chick who used to come over was an
obnoxiously overweight red-head who couldn’t even fit
through the window. But she had a Jaguar XJS, which was
Tommy’s favorite car. He wanted to drive that car more than
anything. Finally, she told him that if he fucked her she’d let
him drive the Jaguar. That night, Nikki and I walked into
the house to find Tommy with his spindly legs flat on the
floor and this big naked quivering mass bouncing mercilessly
up and down on top of him. We just stepped over him,
grabbed a rum and Coke, and sat on our decimated couch to
watch the spectacle: they looked like a red Volkswagen with
four whitewall tires sticking out the bottom and getting
flatter by the second. The second Tommy finished, he
buttoned up his pants and looked at us.
about getting a deal. But I guess he was wrong. That place
gave birth to Mötley Crüe, and like a pack of mad dogs, we
abandoned the bitch, leaving with enough reckless,
aggravated testosterone to spawn a million bastard embryo
metal bands.
“I gotta go, man.” He beamed, proud. “I’m gonna drive her
car.”
Then he was off—through the living room crud, out the
busted front door, past the cinder blocks, and in the car,
pleased with himself. It would not be the last time we found
those two embraced in the devil’s bargain.
Excerpt From: Vince Neil. “The Dirt.” iBooks. https://
itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewBook?
id=8D9B6517E891DE3F8FC8351399540E5C
We lived “in that pigsty as long as a child stays in the womb
before scattering to move in with girls we had met. The
whole time we lived there all we wanted was a record deal.
But all we ended up with was booze, drugs, chicks, squalor,
and court orders. Mick, who was living with his girlfriend in
Manhattan Beach, kept telling us that was no way to go
4
PART 5:
SAVE OUR SÖULS
-MICK MARS
Have you ever had anyone call the police or
security or your landlord on you for playing
your music too loud? How can such a
beautiful thing be pissed on so much? If
you’re at home playing a good album, and
some nosy-ass neighbor claims he can’t hear
his TV, why does your music have to suffer
so he can watch his TV? I say, “Too bad for
the neighbor.”
Music is censored as it is: You can’t say “shit”
or “piss” or “fuck” or “cock-a-doodle dipshit”
on your records if you want them on the
radio and in Wal-Mart. It’s not allowed. And
if you want your video on TV, you can’t wear
certain clothes and you can’t have images of
guns or body bags. Is music that dangerous?
More dangerous than the death, murder,
suicide, and rape I see on TV and in the
movies all the time? Yet write a little old
5
love song about the same topics, and no one will play it on
the radio. And you can’t crank it on your home stereo,
because then it’s too fucking loud for your neighbors. It’s
pretty powerful stuff, that music, but I wouldn’t have it any
other way. People suck; music doesn’t.
anyway. How gross is that? That is worse than Ozzy
snorting ants. What’s wrong with these women?
Vince and his wife, Beth, had moved into a house near The
Thing and me in Manhattan Beach. The Thing was friends
with Beth and, together, the two were the toughest broads
you’ve ever seen. The Thing was the type that punched first
and asked questions later, and Beth was more the nagging
kind, very sensitive about cleanliness and paranoid about
germs. I don’t know how Vince got away with all the shit he
did. He would go to the Tropicana, a strip club with a ring
where women wrestled in baby oil, and he’d come home after
two in the morning. When Beth would ask why he was
covered with oil, Vince would just say, “Oh, I was at
Benihana and the cook at the table got carried away.” And
that would be it. I never went to those places. No interest.
What’s the use of looking if you can’t touch?
When I was home in Manhattan Beach with The Thing, all I
wanted to do was play my stereo or bang on my guitar, but
I’d get shut down because of dumb-ass neighbors trying to
watch murder and teenage sex on television. However, they
never seemed to complain or interfere when The Thing was
bitching me out and beating the shit out of me. That was
okay. Maybe they thought I deserved it for playing my music
too loud.
I was taught as a kid never to hit a lady, even if she hits you
first. So when The Thing had her tantrums, I never slugged
her back. In fact, I moved in with her. I felt so old that I
didn’t think it would be possible for me to get another
decent-looking woman.
After returning from the last Shout shows in England, Vince
threw a party at his house to celebrate the start of our next
album. A day or two into Vince’s party, The Thing walked
into our living room with her sleeves rolled up. I was sitting
on the couch, fucked up as usual, and watching an episode of
Nova about mathematical theories. I’d taken a couple of
quaaludes and was drinking Jack and bellars. A bellar was
something my friend Stick and I invented: It was a mix of
Kahlúa and brandy, named after the way old ladies at the bar
would bellar at us.
I’ve never really understood women anyway. On the
Monsters of Rock tour in Sweden, one of the guys from AC/
DC brought a girl back to the hotel bar. He was really drunk
and puked all over her. A hotel security guard brought him
up to his room, but he was back in fifteen minutes, pounding
on the bar for more beer. After drinking enough to make
himself sick again, he asked the girl to come up to his room
with him. She was still stained with his puke, but she said yes
6
The Thing knocked me upside the head and demanded to be taken to Vince and Beth’s. I didn’t really want to leave the couch
but I figured going was easier than staying home all day and fighting. So we went to Vince’s place and ended up in a fight
anyway. It was so pointless. There was no way to win with her. And I was miserable and sick of being abused. It just wasn’t
worth the trouble, especially since her friends had been telling me that she was fucking some jock behind my back. I think she
thought that he had more money than I did.
I was so aggravated that I walked out of Vince’s house and onto the beach. My head kept ringing: “Do yourself in, do yourself
in.” I didn’t really want to end it all. I’d been through worse. I just wanted peace and quiet. So I waded into the ocean with a
bellar in my hand. The waves were cold and kept smacking my clothes, higher and higher, until they knocked my drink out of
my hand. Soon, my hair was wet and sticking to the back of my neck. Then I blacked out.”
Excerpt From: Mick Mars “The Dirt.” iBooks. https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewBook?
id=8D9B6517E891DE3F8FC8351399540E5C
7
cops and trouble. We were
sorry to see him leave, but
fucking dealers and pimps
and partied-out freaks were
a dime a dozen on that tour.
Every day was a battle
between a band bent on
destruction and a record
company determined to
keep us in check. And we
may have won the battle,
but we lost the war. It was
the last tour of its kind for
us. And, to paraphrase
Stephen Wright, it didn’t go
something like this. It went
exactly like this:
PART 5:
SOME OF OUR BEST FRIENDS
ARE DRÜG DEALERS
-TOMMY LEE
We had a huge-ass jet, we had endless cash,
and we could do whatever the fuck we
wanted. Girls, Girls, Girls was the raddest
time I ever had in my life, or at least I think it
was, because nothing stands out but a blur of
fucking insanity. We partied like clockwork,
bro. You could check the clock in whatever
time zone we were in and figure out exactly
what kind of shit we were into.
For a while, we even had this drug kingpin
following the tour bus in an exotic Excalibur
with a license plate that said DEALER.
Whenever we got out of the bus, he would
suddenly appear with his diamond-packed
Rolex, gold chains, and a token couple of
bitches on each arm, throwing bindles of
coke to everyone in the band and crew. He
was the pimpest fucking drug dealer ever
and he always had his party hat on. But the
record company flipped out and told us he
had to go to because he was a magnet for
17:00–18:30: Phone rings.
Wake up. Remember
nothing. Answer phone.
Struggle through interview
with radio disc jockey or newspaper reporter. If alone in bed, fine. If
not alone in bed, that’s fine, too. If necessary to puke during interview,
cover receiver with hand and puke on floor. If there are people passed
out on floor, try not to get any on them.
If interview is longer than fifteen minutes, roll over and piss off the
edge of the bed closest to the corner of the room. Continue interview.
8
During second interview, open door for room service
(ordered by road manager). Eat unless too sick to eat. Throw
up again. Finish interview.
21:15–21:20: Production manager gives five-minute call. Lift
weights backstage to get pumped up and sweat out toxins.
Production manager yells, “Showtime!”
18:30–18:45: Baggage call. Knock on door. Bellboy retrieves
suitcases, which have not been opened since bellboy last
dropped them off in room. Put on clothes from previous
night. Spend ten minutes searching for sunglasses.
21:20–22:00: Try to get into the groove onstage. Play “All in
the Name of,” “Live Wire,” and “Dancing on Glass.”
22:00–23:00: Blood begins to flow. Adrenaline kicks in. Play
“Looks That Kill,” “Ten Seconds to Love,” “Red Hot,”
“Home Sweet Home,” and “Wild Side,” and play them well.
Split fifth of whiskey with Nikki during bass and drum solo.
Backstage, Vince washes sleeping pill down with beer; Mick
drinks glass full of straight vodka and smiles because he
thinks he has rest of band fooled into believing it’s plain
water.
18:45–19:00: Wander out of room. Find lobby. See band.
Say: “Hey, dude, how about last night?” “That was fucking
fun.” “Yeah.” Find van or limo transportation to gig.
19:00–20:00: Arrive at venue. Sound check. Nurse hangover
backstage. Submit dinner order. Get massage to remove
some toxins from system. Drink. Listen to music. Hang out.
Come back to life. Meet record and radio creeps. Listen to
them ask, “Don’t you remember pissing on that cop car?”
Answer honestly: “Um, no.”
23:00–23:15: Blood begins to flow. Adrenaline kicks in. Play
“Looks That Kill,” “Ten Seconds to Love,” “Red Hot,”
“Home Sweet Home,” and “Wild Side,” and play them well.
Split fifth of whiskey with Nikki during bass and drum solo.
Backstage, Vince washes sleeping pill down with beer; Mick
drinks glass full of straight vodka and smiles because he
thinks he has rest of band fooled into believing it’s plain
water.
20:00–21:00: Opening act performs. Find wardrobe case.
Peel off street clothes: black leather pants and black T-shirt.
Change into stage clothes: black leather pants and black Tshirt. Make fun of Vince for being the only one in band to
shower. Sit on drum stool in front of mirror and open up
cosmetics box. Smear on eyeliner, rouge, and makeup.
Consider shaving.
23:00–23:15: Finish show with “Helter Skelter” and “Girls,
Girls, Girls.” Walk offstage comatose and hyperventilating.
Grab oxygen mask. Stare at untouched dinner.
21:00–21:15: Drink or snort cocaine with opening act when
they come offstage.
23:15–23:45: Wait for someone to ask: “Anybody got a line?”
Cut up drugs. Snort drugs. Change from sweaty stage
9
leathers back into sweaty street leathers. Find hospitality
room. Meet fans. Watch rest of band hunt for human
entertainment. Consider partaking. Go to production office.
Call Heather.
or in parking lot. Get caught. Get locked in room or
handcuffed to bed by road manager. Yell. Scream. Threaten
jobs. Shoot up heroin alone.2
09:00–17:00: Pass out.
23:45–24:00: Ask management for permission to stay in city.
Beg management for permission to stay in city. Accuse them
of purposely making band travel to next town during the
only hours when bars and strip clubs are open. Attempt to
punch them when they confirm accusation. Get in van or
limo for airport.
17:00–18:30: Phone rings. Wake up. Remember nothing.
Repeat cycle.
24:00–03:00: Arrive at airport. Wait for Vince to finish with
girl in airport bathroom. Meet drug dealers on tarmac. Board
Gulfstream One plane with black leather interior. Find
designated seat. Make sure stewardess has laid out correct
drugs and drinks on each meal tray ahead of time. For Nikki,
white wine and zombie dust.1 For Vince, sleeping pill. For
Mick, vodka. For me, cocktail and zombie dust.
“03:00–04:00: Arrive in new city. If city laws allow
establishments to serve alcohol until 4 A.M., ask local record
company representative distance to nearest strip club. Groan
when he says, “Forty-five minutes.” Ask if record company
planned it that way. Threaten violence when he confirms
accusation. Tell limo driver to take band there anyway.
Excerpt From: Tommy Lee. “The Dirt.” iBooks. https://
itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewBook?
id=8D9B6517E891DE3F8FC8351399540E5C
04:00–09:00: Arrive at hotel. Look for drugs and alcohol in
lobby. If none, tell road manager to bring drugs and alcohol
to room. Drink. Do drugs. Go on rampage in room, on roof,
10
AND SO OUR HEROES ENDED
THEIR TWO-DECADE ODYSSEY OF
UNISON AND ANIMALISTIC
ADVENTURING, HAVING LEARNED
LESSONS GREAT, SMALL, AND NONE
AT ALL. WE SHALL LEAVE THEM
NOW, TO CARRY ON THEIR MÖTLEY
WAYS : TO GROW MORE WISE, TO
LOVE THEIR WIVES, AND TO PAY
ALIMONY ALL THEIR LIVES; TO
READ THEIR CHILDREN THIS
STORY, TO PLAY FOR CROWDS IN
GLORY, AND TO RETURN, TIME AND
TIME AGAIN, TO THE FEDERAL
REFORMATORY. DEAR READER,
TURN AROUND TO GAZE ON THEIR
BACKS ONCE MORE AND YOU
SHALL SEE THEM FADE FROM VIEW,
GALLOPING INTO THE WANING SUN
TO CONQUER NEW LANDS, SINGING
A NEW TUNE THAT SHALL ALWAYS
BE THE SAME TUNE.
Movie 1.1
In this video interview with Nikki Sixx, he discusses his
thoughts on his past songs with the band, and how he hopes this
book “the dirt” will someday become a movie.
-NEIL STRAUSS
11
CHAPTER 2
∏
Working with the iBook Author
application for the first time opened my eyes
to a new electronic medium I never knew
existed. I’ve always heard of iBook’s &
eBook’s, but I have never really seen one, or
understood how they function until now.
Having created my own, I now have a
better understanding of how this electronic
medium works. This electronic medium has
many similarities when compared to the
print medium that it was originally created
from, such as having the same story with
the same text, however there are many
innovative features within iBook that
provide interactivity for the reader. Not to
mention the most crucial difference between
the two, physical and electronically
facsimile.
When using the published book ‘The
Dirt’ for my iBook project, I was able to
customize and modify the text from the
book, and create my own interactive
features throughout the story.
Instead of having to read the same traditional column on
each page when reading from print, I had capability to create
one, two or three columns within each page. I also had the
ability to choose from landscape and portrait orientation, so
all in all there are many different ways you can make the
reader read the text. There are many different font styles to
chose from that can be modified, whether they are to be
resized, given a color or background color.
and interactive feature that makes the iBook withholds. Next
to the video I included the last paragraph of the book by the
author Neil Strauss. I was debating on whether or not to use
one of their songs, particularly with the 2nd chapter I
included, but I wasn’t sure if that would be a copyright issue,
considering I don’t have the rights to their songs.
One dramatic change I would had made to my iBook
was expressing my thoughts and opinions on each chapter,
and providing a brief biography of who exactly we are
reading about, especially Neil Strauss, the actual Author. At
first I started to include my commentary, but the layout on
each page became quickly unorganized, and it was very easy
to lose direction of where the text was going, so I scraped
that idea. Without having said commentary, I can easily
imagine someone getting lost when reading through my
iBook, and questions such as “How many author’s are there”,
“How come these chapters don’t follow one another” would
arise. If I ever do create another iBook, I will make sure I
give a brief description, maybe on its on page in its own
section prior to the first section/page, so that the viewer will
immediately know what to expect.
Being able to create my own cover for the book was
very fun and somewhat empowering. By creating my own
cover I was able to display my feelings towards the impact I
had from the book itself. I chose the background image of a
blue and orange flame, sort of like a good vs. evil portrayal.
By doing so, I am able give the viewer a small glimpse of
what exactly this book entails. Because I had to use creative
common pictures from the web, I wasn’t fully satisfied with
the layout outcome of the cover, as well as some of the
pictures I used in some of the pages. Since we were assigned
to have only 8-12 pages from our own writing or the writing
others, I had to pull 3 of the shortest chapters out of the
book. Each chapter was about a different member of the
band, and I thought it would be best to provide an image to
the right of the first paragraph, to give the reader a visual
description of whose life they are reading. Since I only had
room for 3 out of 4 members, I included a widget consisting
of a YouTube video from the missing boy in the band. This
video, or form of multimedia demonstrates another unique
Even though this electronic medium provides an
immense amount of new features for users to interact with, I
will forever use print for reading. Print mediums are very
inexpensive and each physical copy is unique to its owner.
They can be handed down from generation to generation,
given as gifts, exchanged for free between friends and family,
13
or even groups in the community, or even used as a doorstop.
Not to mention there are historical pieces of print that have
been around for hundreds of thousands of years. Whereas
with an iBook, you have to own a laptop or tablet, which can
cost hundreds to thousands of dollars, and that doesn’t
include the cost of each iBook you purchase. I’m sure that
these forms of electronic mediums will someday replace print
mediums so we can conserve paper, keep our trees and
prevent global warming, but once that happens, the new
generation wont experience the feelings you can only get
from print mediums; physical nostalgia.
- Dustin Speer
14
Tommy Lee
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor
incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis
nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Related Glossary Terms
Drag related terms here
Index
Find Term
Chapter 1 - Chapter One