My vision was very carnival-sideshow but mixed in with a bit of androgyny. I shot her in a way that brought out her beauty and the scars equally. She could either be a transsexual, a Russian circus performer, or just a beautiful girl who had been doused in battery acid. Disclaimer: I only took the shots…the story is in your head (well, there was a story in mine, too). But I must leave you with these parting words from Ekaterina, who told me, “Thank you, Nikki. I have never felt so beautiful in my whole life.” I smiled that smile I get when I want to say, “I told you so.”
CRIPPLED CHILDHOOD fig.Cc43
One of the first big shoots I did at Funny Farm was the “You Will Not Grow” session.
I like to say that all things start off innocently enough before taking on a life of their own, and this was no different. I called up graphic designer Paul Brown and explained the idea. I needed a set built to look like a dilapidated, decaying, postnuclear children’s classroom. For models, I needed a female midget and a male at least seven feet tall. I also needed a master at lighting, a prosthetic makeup artist, and someone to help me get the set, clothes, and vision down on paper first.
Paul took it all in casually and said, “Benny Haber is the best assistant in the business and a master at lighting. Ralis is the best there is for makeup, prosthetics, set design, and all around demented visions.” That’s all I needed to know as I was basically foaming at the mouth at this point.
The idea of the photo was about being held back. The midget teacher was a small, angry dictator abusing her authoritarian role. The giant student was a meek, overgrown schoolboy. You could see, not only on his face, but in the hate drooling out his screaming mouth and down his chin, that he was frustrated to the verge of becoming something monstrous…
My part in all this, you ask?
Well, I have been held back for moments, sometimes brief, sometimes longer (my bad for giving my power away to abusive assholes). I wanted to convey the absurdity of someone so small telling a person, “You will not grow.” The giant student could easily destroy his teacher but he has been brainwashed and mind-fucked, and he follows the rules even though the rules can’t cage him. “You Will Not Grow” is his reality until he decides to change it.
My photography is one huge purge. Like everything else—all the music and lyrics, the videos, and now the photographic images—they all boil down to a single moment of creation: me sitting here alone at Funny Farm, writing to you from my heart, trying as I always have, since I was a kid, to say, “Look how beautiful that is.” I remember hearing many times,
“Don’t point at people less fortunate than yourself,” to which I exclaimed, “But they’re beautiful!”
I turned myself into the person everyone pointed at. All the scars and markings of a life seen through the eyes of a dreamer. Dreaming of better things, honest things.
Beautiful things…like the ones in this book.
I am not angry any longer, I am grateful. I am able to see my life through photography because of these experiences.
Life is weird living in a cage. It’s sometimes weirder being let out.
That’s where creativity has stepped in time after time and saved my life.
Creativity in its purest form is when you’re willing to stand erect, eyes slammed shut, and let yourself fall. Whether it’s backward toward a cement floor or forward off a thirteen-story building, you have to believe that somehow, someway, you’re not going to crack your head on the floor or hit the street below. Unlike the overblown ad campaign for the newest cologne, or the equally horrible-smelling commercial featuring the diamond ring that signifies a love that lasts “forever,” this journey is not one that has a safety net waiting to catch you softly in its arms but, I hope, one that is more like laying your head upon a bed of nails. And, if you’re lucky, piercing your heart in the process and reminding you how to feel. I live and love and make music and make pictures in this place and, like I said, I don’t know what I’m doing or why I do it, but I do know this: I love it, and I hope it moves you like it moves me.
###
I WILL NOT GROW fig.Ng291
CIRCLE OF LIFE fig.f9.d
Interlude
LIFE’S NOT ALWAYS BEAUTIFUL
I was young and remember everything was beautiful. I am told I used to pick flowers and give them to my mother. I would smell the air and sigh “I love you” to whomever was near by. I was told I loved all animals (even dead ones ) and was sweet as apple pie. I was told I used to mutter the words “God is good.” That’s where the story gets muddled and murky and, to be honest, I only remember going to church and being told to kneel before and confess to God. I do believe in God, but not the god that’s forced down the throats of innocent “god-fearing” pedestrians. I won’t remember that part of my childhood as “blessed.” Some say I am cursed, demons in my scrunched-up fists, calling out to those who will listen (I got you right now).
I am confused about a few things but not this. The Bible, the book of lies, the spoliation of my industry, the lies of fame, the narcissism of neurotic behavior, victim saints and soul-sucking whores, say it now, I say, bloody rosary in hand; fuck you for the memories. I am not my past but my past is me. Pain is a beautiful reminder of what I try to forget.
I am the outcast come home to roost and the eggs of tomorrow are incubating in my fame. You hate me, you love me, you made me, and now I am in you. I am like that disease brewing in your loins and I think you like it…
I once wrote a song for Mötley Crüe called “Poison Apples”:
Poison Apples
Mötley Crüe
TOOK A GREYHOUND BUS DOWN TO HEART ATTACK
AND VINE WITH A FISTFUL OF DREAMS AND DIMES.
SO FAR OUT I DIDN’T KNOW THAT I WAS IN.
HAD A TASTE FOR A LIFE OF SLIME.
WHEN PUSH CAME TO SHOVE, MUSIC WAS THE
DRUG AND THE BAND ALWAYS GOT TO PLAY.
SEX, SMACK, ROCK, ROLL, MAINLINE, OVERDOSE.
MAN, WE LIVED IT NIGHT AND DAY.
WE LOVED OUR MOTT THE HOOPLE,
IT KEPT US ALL SO ENRAGED.
AND YOU LOVED US, AND YOU LOVED US,
AND YOU LOVED US.
WE’RE SO FUCKING BEAUTIFUL!
PRETTY LITTLE POISON APPLES, SEE THE SCARS
TATTOOED ON OUR FACE.
IT’S YOUR DISGRACE.
PRETTY LITTLE POISON APPLES, MAMA SAID,
“NOW DON’T YOU WALK THIS WAY,
JUST FIND SOME FAITH.”
TABLOID SLEEZE JUST MAGGOTS ON THEIR
KNEES DIGGIN’ IN THE DIRT FOR SLAG.
MOONSHINE, STRYCHNINE,
SPEEDBALL, SHOOTIN’ LINES.
ANYTHING TO PUSH THEIR RAGS.
STILL WE LOVE OUR MOTT THE HOOPLE,
IT KEEPS US ALL SO ENRAGED.
AND YOU LOVE US AND YOU HATE US
AND YOU LOVE US.
WE’RE SO FUCKING BEAUTIFUL!
PRETTY LITTLE POISON APPLES,
SEE THE SCARS TATTOOED ON OUR FACE.
IT'S YOUR DISGRACE.
PRETTY PRETTY POISON APPLES, MAMA SAID,
“NOW DON’T YOU WALK THIS WAY, JUST FIND
SOME FAITH.”
BLUEPRINTS FOR DISASTER.
YOU BETTER NOT PUSH ME
’CAUSE I’LL BRING YOU TO YOUR KNEES,
TO YOUR KNEES.
BLUEPRINTS FOR DISASTER.
YOU BETTER NOT LOVE ME
’CAUSE I’LL BRING YOU TO YOUR KNEES,
MAMA, TO YOUR KNEES.
PRETTY LITTLE POISON APPLES, MAMA SAID,
“NOW DON’T YOU WALK THIS WAY,
JUST FIND SOME FAITH, FAITH, FAITH, YEAH.”
PRETTY LITTLE POISON APPLES.
This Is Gonna Hurt
Sixx:A.M.
Feels like your life is over
Feels like all hope is gone
You kiss it all away
Maybe maybe
This is a second coming
This is a call to arms
> Your finest hour won’t be wasted wasted
Hey hey hell is what you make make
Rise against your fate fate
Nothing’s gonna keep you down
Even if it’s killing you
Because you know the truth
Chorus
Listen up listen up
There’s a devil in the church
Got a bullet in the chamber
And this is gonna hurt
Let it out let it out
You can scream and you can shout
Keep your secrets in the shadows and you’ll be sorry
Everybody’s getting numb
Everybody’s on the run
Listen up listen up
There’s a devil in the church
Got a bullet in the chamber
And this is gonna hurt
You got your hell together
You know it could be worse
A self-inflicted murder
Maybe maybe
You say it’s all a crisis
You say it’s all a blur
There comes a time you’ve gotta
face it face it
Hey hey hell is what you make make
Rise against your fate fate
Nothing’s gonna keep you down
Even if it’s killing you
Because you know the truth
HIGH SCHOOL SEATTLE
FATHER & SON
NONA
MOTHER & SON
SELF-PORTRAIT, HELSINKI HOTEL 3 A.M. fig.h35
I was speaking sarcastically of growing up and having the sword of judgment always waving above my head…I was laughing at you for laughing at me by saying, “We’re so fucking beautiful.”
I was making fun of you…again…It was revenge through pen and paper. I don’t see how this could be any plainer than the poison on the end of my tongue. But at that time I couldn’t see it. I could feel it for sure, but that’s a whole different thing…I am not angry, or defiant, anymore. (Well, maybe a bit here and there.) I am more aware now that we’re all on a journey, and mine is not only to be different but to “show” and help others to “see” the beauty in difference.
I rant and rave, I push and shove you with these words to make you feel. To make you see all that is before us is maybe not the truth. I push myself to ask questions and engage; why would I not do the same to you?
Right now, as we speak we’re on the same page, but maybe not in agreement and that too is OK.
Some things sticky don’t always stick.
I was driving my ’32 Ford hot rod today, windows down, roar of the motor in my half-deaf ears, Starbucks in hand, and as I slowed to a stoplight I noticed the pedestrian ahead of me reading Autobiography of a Yogi as the Santa Ana winds were kicking up. I went into one of those stop-motion moments where it seems your life is flashing before your eyes.
I remembered reading that book when I was seventeen living in Glendale, California. My grandmother Nona had sent it to me. I thought it was the weirdest thing to send an elephant-tranquilizer-snorting, whiskey-drinking, speed-taking teenager. I sat it on the table and probably cut lines off it or used it for a doorstop. One day it ended up in my angry, sweaty (speed’s such a wonderful drug) hands. It stuck with me for weeks, sticky in its content. I couldn’t put it down. Mesmerized and then forgotten. So there I was thirtysome years later and remembering how at ease it made me feel. I wasn’t ready for the journey of peace; I wanted war and I got what I went after.
Isn’t it wonderful how life tugs and tugs on your heartstrings, sometimes gently, sometime not? This was a gentle reminder that I am a different man now. The part of me I “see” clearly is the beauty in the honesty of just being yourself. When I photograph you, I hope to see it in you…Only the honest stand before me now.
CHILDHOOD fig.37c
II
GHOSTS INSIDE ME
New Anthony, New Mexico, doesn’t seem so long ago or far away. I remember being nine years old, walking down a dirt road toward the gas station that sold my favorite penny candy. I remember how impermanent I felt even then.
Bouncing back and forth between my mother, who moved every few months, and my grandparents, who also roamed, I really never felt like I fit in anywhere. I realize now the damage that was done, but at the time I just felt like I could evaporate at any moment and wake up in a new city, with a new life and a new school, only to be unhinged again in the blink of an eye. It was the beginning of the disconnection that has always made me feel like a ghost…
I am constantly rummaging in my past, trying to find me, and sometimes I stumble upon memories that spawn even more digging. It’s not always such a happy thing. But I am so lucky to have all these skeletons rattling around in my closet. Through them my awareness grows, and thanks to that I feel inspired to make music, do photography, and even write these words.
As I explore this paranormal fantasy of my life, it becomes obvious that it isn’t a fantasy at all. My father abandoning me at such a young age left a ghost in his place, a huge hole that I tried filling with a million toxic concoctions. My mother, vacant and ghostly in her own way, was living the high life of the sixties and seventies and wouldn’t realize the hurt she was causing me until it was too late. I have had to learn to forgive to move forward.
And there was at least one more spirit I had to face.
Flash forward. I was sitting in my mansion. Married with kids and all the trimmings. Proud to be sober, not only off alcohol but cocaine and heroin, too. Mötley Crüe had just finished the Dr. Feelgood tour and we were rolling in success. Ferraris lined the driveway, custom Harleys overflowed the eight-car garage. Years of hard touring and smart business decisions had paid off.
It wasn’t enough.
Being off drugs isn’t always a cure-all. Once the numbness lifts, the original pain is still there. I don’t think that it was all my mother’s fault. But at that moment I couldn’t find a better target for my anger. I told myself that I was trying to be a good son by reaching out to her from time to time. And maybe I was. But now I see I also had something else in mind.
I picked up the phone and invited her to come down and stay with me awhile. Maybe if she saw the material success, the financial brilliance, the stable family man, she would have to recognize that I was right all along and she was wrong. Maybe then she would have to say, “I am sorry, son, I wasn’t there for you. I wasn’t a great mother.” And then all this anger would melt away. I felt that my misery needed to be shifted and lifted off me onto her.
Looking back, I think my head was big but my heart was crumbling.
Mom arrived at the house and we did all the usual stuff families do. I showed her to the guest room and she settled in. It’s weird sitting across the table from your mother when you two don’t really know each other. I was trying, really trying to connect, but that damn pang in my gut, the one that always got me in trouble, just wouldn’t leave things alone even for a minute, and suddenly there it was, bam, right between the fucking eyes…
“Mom, where is Lisa?”
Okay, there goes that happy moment.
Lisa Feranna was my sister, born about two years after me. I don’t remember seeing her, ever. All I remember is my mom telling me Lisa was in an institution somewhere, and it upset Lisa too much for us to visit her. She was comfortable there, with people who cared for her, and seeing us would ruin everything. I didn’t have a clear idea what any of it meant. I didn’t even know if she was handicapped or retarded or mentally ill. Once, someone in a club in Hollywood called me retarded, and I knocked the guy out—not because of the insult (I have heard worse), but because it somehow connected to my sister. To the unknowing, to the secret.
Whenever I would ask my half sister, Ceci, she told me the same things my mother had said. But how would Ceci know any more than I did? All we had was Mom’s word.
I can smell a rat a mile away, and that day at my house my intuition was on high alert. So I asked my mother and then waited to hea
r what she would say.
Again she told me Lisa was with a nice family who loved her very much. “They have always taken care of her, Nikki, and she is better with them than if I had raised her.” It was the ’60s, my mom said, and things were different back then. She had no way of caring for a child with the problems Lisa had.
I have always felt guilty that I didn’t think of Lisa very often when I was growing up. I went through life just accepting the situation: Lisa was not present in my childhood. I’ve never even seen a picture of her, much less one of us together. In my early years, moving around with my mother and grandparents, I felt like a tumbleweed blowing in the wind, only stopping when I got tangled up in something. Like barbed wire. No wonder I seemed to have forgotten Lisa. It feels like she was erased in all that moving back and forth. God, it’s confusing when this stuff bubbles up, and it fucking hurts.