Jada Yuan‘s Vulture profile of Stevie Nicks reminded me that my ex-wife and I lived next to her in ’87 and early ’88. Our homes were way up in the hills on Franklin Avenue, and I presume this was during one of her coke periods because I remember she used to sing late at night, and with a heavily amplified system that was loud enough to disturb our slumber. One night it was so loud that I said “eff it” and walked over and knocked on her door. It was something like 1:30 am, and as I approached her home I was thinking of a phrase that some rock journalist had used to describe Nicks: “The epitome of the pampered hippie princess.”
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A pretty boy in a white T-shirt and jean cutoffs came to the door and I explained the deal. “It’s a little late, man…you know? Up until midnight, cool, but not at 1:30 am…okay?” He didn’t argue and went “uh-huh” and “yeah, I hear you” and that was it. She never shattered neighborhood glass with her sonic waves again.
From Yuan’s piece: “One rarely finds a role model who snorted so much cocaine she tore a permanent hole in her nose. Nicks has made no secret of her years on blow — complemented with alcohol and pot, and fostered by long hours, stage fright, stress over her relationship with Buckingham, sudden immense wealth, and fatigue from the Epstein-Barr virus she’d contracted following complications from leaking silicone breast implants — an addiction that she kicked at Betty Ford in 1986. Or of her eight years on Klonopin, the benzo she’d been prescribed to make sure she wouldn’t go back on coke, for which she checked herself into a hospital for 47 days in 1993.”
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