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#Post#: 180--------------------------------------------------
Scar Tissue - Anthony Kiedis
By: Chip Date: July 21, 2011, 9:04 pm
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[CENTER]Scar Tissue (2004)
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After reading Scar Tissue, to say that Anthony Kiedis is a
womanizing douche-bag is only putting it mildly. Hey, he would
agree with my assessment here. Hell, he even says as much in the
book. Before I tear into my review of this book, a little
background about my take on Red Hot Chili Peppers. I'm not what
you would call a die hard Peppers fan in the sense that I would
know everything about their personal lives or even the history
of the band itself prior to reading Scar Tissue.
I only have two of their albums: Mother's Milk and Blood Sugar
Sex Magik. Since then, I have only "followed" them by way of
whatever new song came on the radio or the latest music video of
theirs. That's it. That's as far as I would go when describing
myself in relation the the band. So there are a ton of things
that I didn't know about until I read Scar Tissue. I was
definitely in for an eye opening experience here.
This book is a riveting look into the life of Mr. Kiedis. Now I
was aware of his troubled past regarding drugs. I just wasn't
aware of just how bad it had gotten and how early he had started
his downward spiral. After reading this book, there is no way in
hell he should still be alive. The stuff that he subjected
himself is just insane...as well as assinine.
Having been on a recent tear of Rock Biographies lately, I
figured this was just going to be more of the same: Sex, Drugs
and Rock and Roll. But this one takes it to a whole other place.
So much so, that by the end of the book I seriously needed to
take a shower. I felt dirty by the end. Blah!
Kiedis does a great job of painting a picture describing
everything in detail when it comes to his non-drug moments,
especially the first 3/4th's of the book. He creates the
environment that seems to bring him a lot of joy, that
unfortunately is punctuated with a drug binge at the end. By the
tail end of book, these "paintings" cease to exist and we are
left with nothing but "I fell off the wagon and then got fucked
up. Then I went to rehab, did my time, got out and got fucked up
some more". For awhile the joyous moments in his life were
completely gone. All we get are his drug runs. This really
became too much to read at the end and is the sole reason why it
doesn't get a perfect 5 star rating from me.
After awhile, I was just pissed at him in how he kept going back
and doing the same shit over and over. It was like being
bludgeoned over the head in "how many dumb ways can he think of
to purposely fuck his life over". By the end I just didn't care
anymore. Thus my need to shower and get rid of this filthy
feeling. What is definitely missing here is some humor (ala I Am
Ozzy) to lighten the heavy load of drug binges littered
throughout this book.
His drug spiral is only half of what makes up this book. The
other half is his womanizing ways. Kiedis clearly suffers from
narcissistic personality in leading on every woman he comes in
contact with. I don't know anyone that can fall in "love" as
much as he does and keep a straight face in the process. It's
insane that he didn't get his dick cut off by at least one of
his "true loves" that ends up getting jilted at the end. He
clearly believes that since he is "in love", this makes
everything alright to him because I never really saw any remorse
in the carnage he was leaving behind in his wake.
There are a ton of stories that you will find fascinating here
from Cher to Ione Skye to the genesis of RHCP. It's all here,
warts and all.
I can recommend this to anyone looking for a good book to read
in how not to go about living a fucked up existence.
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