THE DIRTY LIFE AND TIMES OF WARREN ZEVON (Crystal is his ex-wife)
Finished Fr 8/8/14
The book is a collections of reminiscences, parts of interviews, and random observations by nearly all of the important people in Warren Zevon's life. He comes across as a very deeply flawed individual who acted even worse under the influence. And, he was nearly always 'under the influence'.
When he finally stopped alcohol he found that his AA sponsor had used heroin while in the program. He was told that the program was 'divine', but that the individuals involved it were deeply flawed. He never attended another AA meeting, yet continued to abstain for another seventeen years.
He was always abrasive and belligerent with the people in his life and he seemed to feel that if he didn't 'push it', they would take advantage of him. Once the David Letterman program tried to get him to fly coach to appear on the show. He became enraged and said that the coach section of a plane had recycled air, and he would only arrive sick. By saving a couple of hundred bucks, they would undermine a multimillion dollar television program. Someone overheard his comment about 'recycled air', and he admitted that he just made it up. He claimed that it wasn't about 'making sense', but if you ever let them put you in coach, just once, you'd be in coach for the rest of your life.
Friends with many writers including Mitch Albom, Carl Hiaasen, and Steven King.
He was able to write and score music and was the musical director for The Everly Brothers during the 70's.
He was musically competent and could play piano at the classically trained level.
Developed lung cancer (Mesothelioma)
When he was diagnosed he went back to drinking and drugging. Billy Bob Thornton saw him drinking a five hundred dollar bottle of scotch in which he was mixing liquid morphine.
Zevon found it ironic that when he was found to have cancer, doctors would force upon him drugs that he previously had to resort to intricate illegal means to acquire. Maybe he felt that the legal system involving drugs was just as flawed as AA, and this is a reason why he 'non-complied'.
Ryan Rayston was the woman who was with him when he died. Although they did not have a sexual relationship, she was able to tolerate is extremely aberrant behavior-both with drugs and alcohol, but also his sexual escapades.
March 19, 1986- Last drink and beginning of his 'clean up' which lasted until the diagnosis (December, 2002). However his extreme OCD continued to the very end.
Would insist on the color gray for almost everything. He collected hundreds and hundreds of gray, Calvin Klein tee shirts. After his death, they were distributed to his friends and family as keepsakes.
Link to an article about the book that was published in The Guardian-
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/aug/01/warren-zevon-werewolves-of-london-demons
His entry at wikipedia-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Zevon
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