Don't Try This at Home

Summary

One day, Dave Navarro decided to open the doors of his house in the Hollywood hills to the chaos of the valley below. The only rule was, ?You come in the house, you get in the photo booth'. The result is a diary, a sociology experiment, a documentary of Hollywood, and an exercise in exhibitionism: strippers, Kurt Loder, Marilyn Manson, pizza delivery boys, Rose McGowan, Keanu Reeves, record executives, Scott Ian, Billy Corgan, hookers, Flea, Billy Zane, drug dealers, Angelyne, Leonardo DiCaprio, the cleaning lady, Leif Garrett, Natalie Imbruglia, and everyone else who came into the house are all caught on film - whether zany, inebriated, naked, hamming it up, looking beautiful, or looking ugly, the photo booth tells no lies. Accompanying the strips are hilarious stories, musings, tell-all anecdotes, and other glimpses into the lifestyle of one of the most decadent rock stars of our time. This chronicle of a year in Navarro's life is also a gritty portrait of his descent into drug use and self-destructiveness, and his struggle to find meaning. Designed by the mad genius who produced Manson's, Motley Crue's, and Mankind's books, Don't Try This at Home is a visual masterpiece, a celebrity exposE, and a shocking, hilarious and irresistible read.

Author Biography

Dave Navarro racked up four platinum records and three Grammy nominations as the guitarist of Jane's Addiction and the Red Hot Chili Peppers

June
The Concept	p. 2
This is How I Do it	p. 12
How The Record Industry Is Like a Unicorn	p. 14
Stalked	p. 18
July
The First Person Dave's Paid to Come Over to His House Who Has Actually Kept Her Clothes on	p. 22
Love in L.A.: Christmas for Grown-Ups?	p. 35
She's Such a Great ...	p. 42
An Image	p. 53
Spiritual Guidance	p. 54
August
The Rhetoric of Dave	p. 58
The Great Chili Peppers Debate: "Bringing it on Yourself"	p. 64
The Great Steve Vai Debate: "Speak Only for Yourself"	p. 74
September
How to Get off Drugs without Really Trying	p. 84
Ten Ways to Tie Off	p. 101
On Dave's Dick	p. 108
October
Dear Diary	p. 113
About a Girl	p. 118
Crystal Koalas, Pet Rocks, and the Tennis Mom Theory	p. 130
The Mystery of Mr. Young	p. 136
Invaded at Home	p. 138
The March of the Baby Unicorns	p. 142
November
It's Too Bad Dave Can Only Die Once; He's Got So Many Ideas	p. 146
Show and Hell	p. 148
Close Calls	p. 152
Good Omens/Bad Omens	p. 154
It's Too Bad Dave Can Only Die Once ...	p. 158
December
The First Time (with Sound Effects)	p. 162
Cuckoo or Cuckold?	p. 164
Love in L.A. II: The Myth of Counting on One Hand	p. 166
One Hot Visit	p. 168
Dear Dad	p. 170
Psychobabble	p. 172
Closer Calls	p. 174
January
The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle: A Watched Object Changes Its Course of Motion	p. 178
February
Navarro Hypothesis #9	p. 184
A Temporary Reprieve from Darkness	p. 186
Dear Adria	p. 188
Love in L.A. III: Intimacy and Communication	p. 190
Running on Empty, Scene One	p. 192
Running on Empty, Scene Two	p. 193
Running on Empty, Scene Three	p. 194
March
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the C: A Journey into The Mind of a Girl Considering Prostitution	p. 198
Cracking Up in The City that Never Sleeps	p. 204
A Series of Answering Machine Messages	p. 206
April
The Sweep	p. 210
The Note	p. 212
The Confession	p. 214
May
A Not-So-Triumphant Return	p. 218
Tori's Story	p. 220
A Triumphant Return	p. 228
The Outpatient	p. 230
June 2000
"What Was I Thinking?"	p. 234
Postscript: June 2004
Good-Bye to Hollywood	p. 240
Love in L.A. IV: Love Doesn't Have to Crush Your Heart Like a Coke Can	p. 243
This is How We Did It	p. 245
Ten Reasons Not to Tie Off	p. 252
A Final Image	p. 253
Acknowledgments	p. 255
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

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Excerpts

Don't Try This at Home
A Year in the Life of Dave Navarro

Chapter One

The Concept

"Do you know what to do when somebody shoots up too much?"

That's the first question Dave Navarro asked as we began this collaboration on June 1, 1998, making it clear that I had more than a life story on my hands; I had a life. Not a series of past events filtered through the dirty grate of memory, but a heart that was still beating. To document the beating of that heart was the goal, and if the past was relevant at all, it was only as the blood that coursed through that heart and gave it a reason to beat. Or to not beat. Because at times, that heart didn't want to beat.

That night, Navarro showed me what he called his Spread movie. It began with a phone call to a rehab center. Navarro told the operator that he was in trouble and needed help badly; the operator said she'd call back later. The rest of the movie was a series of scenes he had filmed to the accompaniment of his music. It centered around three images: a spoon in a bowl of Jell-O, symbolizing the nourishment of his past; a spoon with a rock of cocaine, symbolizing the nourishment of his present; and a picture of his mother, the bond that connected both spoons. In the movie, he shoots up with a picture of his mother in the background, an image all the more disturbing if you consider that Navarro's mother was murdered by an ex-boyfriend, a man Navarro had grown to trust. Occasionally, that camera would pan to a computer screen, which displayed the phone number of his lawyer and directions on how to find a certain song in his CD changer.

The movie seemed disgusting not because of the images, but because Navarro's eagerness to exploit a tragedy for the sake of a self-aggrandizing art film. At least, that's what I thought until Navarro said it wasn't an art film. It was his will. The song in the CD changer, which he wanted played over and over at his funeral, was "This Is How We Do It" by Montell Jordan ...

Don't Try This at Home
A Year in the Life of Dave Navarro. Copyright © by Dave Navarro. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

Excerpted from Don't Try This at Home: A Year in the Life of Dave Navarro by Dave Navarro, Neil Strauss
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.