Devils & Blue Dresses: My Wild Ride as a Rock and Roll Legend

Author’s Note
     
    T HIS BOOK IS ABOUT TWO THINGS I share with most other adult humans on this planet. The first is my struggle to make a living in a job that will provide for myself and my family while I attempt to rise to the top of my profession. The second is my struggle to recognize who I am and, where necessary, change that person for the better.
    We all play out these tasks within the environment we find ourselves. Some of us settle for less. Some of us demand more. Our choice is the result of the mental, physical, spiritual, financial, and political condition of the adults we are exposed to as children.
    In these two struggles my life is no different from most of my fellow humans. We sometimes succeed. We sometimes fail. In our democratic system in America the odds of success are against most of us––unless we mysteriously overcome class separation and, in addition, fight a system of law that demands that justice go to the highest bidder. The end result is that corporate business is protected from real accountability.
    The lower- and middle-classes barely resemble what many of us would have hoped for as a family. The parents, the parent, or in many cases, the caregivers to our children, struggle to finance an ideal that is no longer a reality. We leave the education, fate, and needs of our children in the hands of day-care keepers, the street, teachers, and whatever little time we can give the children after a hard day of labor. When you bring into the mix dysfunctional caregivers and parents, absent relatives, then add television, you begin to get a picture of the future for children exposed to these different formulas.
    Stress plays itself out in so many ways because there are so many different levels of consciousness within the above-mentioned groups. The undeniable fact, however, is that stress has a negative impact on everyone who is connected to the family.
    My favorite observation about free enterprise and its effects on our children is about health care. We are the only civilized nation in the world that does not supplyhealth care to all of its citizens, big or small. There is no corporate health care hospital system, pharmaceutical company, or corporate health insurance company that can justify such a shameful state of being.
    Greed. You want the easy answer? There it is.
    The only thing that makes me different from you is a bizarre twist of fate. I found fame in America. Fame is a twisted concept that garners such odd reaction from the public that it borders on insanity. Did fame make me a better person than you? You read this book and tell me. Did fame solve any of my problems or make my life easier? Hell no. Fame only did one important thing for me. It gave me a goal to overcome, or die trying.
    There is comfort in pain. I discovered this while learning why my life was different from many of the happier faces I’ve looked at (in bewildered fashion) as they floated past my aging, weary eyes. One of the biggest reasons we have such an enormous addiction to drugs, legal and otherwise, is the need to escape the reality of our situation. People, myself included, will try anything in excess––with the exception of money, which is the province of the wealthy. Still, the pain will not go away. We are smart enough to understand the problem, but powerless to effect any meaningful change. People lie to us and we lie to people. It is endless. I used to believe that only junkies lied to get what they want, but now I see it’s a cultural phenomenon.
    What a grand future we have given to our children. They believe money and “stuff” will save them from ill will. I think a society that prioritizes material gain as identification to your personal worth is a crime.
    As for me, fame has allowed me to pass, if you will, because it is an exclusive achievement. But my God, look at what it has cost me. My fame cannot be taken away. The accomplishments are well documented, but so are the prices. At the end of the day all I have left has nothing to do with fame, and everything to do with how I conducted my life as a fellow human being. In this way my autobiography, while honestly discussing my life in music, also reaches out to you for understanding and compassion from one human to another. Bob Dylan once said, “Even the president must sometimes stand naked.”
    In the beginning of my career I was too young to comprehend and include in my search of meaning those things necessary to the achievement of a