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By Root 1078 0

he had laid out photos of a 1951 Sunbeam SX he was putting together from parts. The bike had been in Martin’s family from the day he was born in the south of England. For a time it was his family’s lone mode of transportation. Or so the story went. Martin’s dad had shipped the old family bike in pieces to Martin in Seattle, and by trial and many errors, he eventually fixed the broken bits and put that ’Beam back in working order. Martin’s studio was in the heart of the Wallingford section of Seattle, and the area was a crossroads for bikers. Each year, come springtime—which in Seattle meant anytime the thermometer topped forty and it wasn’t raining—I’d see other friends who’d gotten their bikes out of their garages, fired them up, and were gallivanting around town, too. Eventually I started to ask myself why I wasn’t riding now that I was sober, and I decided to buy my own bike. I realized now, on tour in 2007, that the timing had been perfect.

The other way I maintained my sanity on that second VR tour was by taking online college courses. For a long time I had remained steadfastly unwilling to finish my degree anyplace but Seattle U. I had worked so hard to get into that school. I had the family connection to that school. I had learned to learn at that school. But I had to concede that I would no longer be able to attend a full slate of classes in Seattle with ongoing band obligations and with Grace and Mae happily ensconced in their school in L.A. Eventually I decided to fill in missing credits with online courses.

A number of the online courses involved group projects, and I got to know people in my class—via computer. The students came from disparate backgrounds and from all over the country; for one class, my project team included an army sergeant, a woman who managed the office of a construction company, and a bank executive. Touring with VR allowed me to meet some of my classmates in person. I would put them on the guest list or meet them for coffee—I remember the office manager came to our show in Minneapolis. Somewhat surprisingly, the workload for these courses proved every bit as rigorous as at Seattle University, and the teachers often had distinguished backgrounds. One of my first online professors had taught at Berkeley for years. Even so, I still had mixed feelings about having to transfer my credits from Seattle U to an online university. I just had to hope Seattle would let me transfer the credits back and allow me to fulfill my dream of hanging a diploma on my wall to match my uncle’s and to honor my mom’s memory.

While I was maintaining my sanity by riding and studying, Slash, Matt, and Dave were getting more and more upset about Scott. We held a band meeting—without Scott—just before heading out on the last leg of the tour, which started in Dubai and then hit Europe and the UK. Our conclusion: there really was no other choice than to fire Scott at the end of the run. A funny thing happened. Once we came to this conclusion, it was as if a huge weight had been lifted from our shoulders. We went onstage every night on time, whether Scott was in the building or not. Once this started happening, Scott began to show up on time. With everything resolved, the band played better than it ever had, and we just plain forgot that Scott was even there. His drug-induced antics no longer had any impact on us, and we blazed right through any garbled rant that we might earlier have given him time to indulge. By the last gig, in Amsterdam, we were bordering on giddy about ridding ourselves of Scott. I wished him luck and I think he knows that he can always reach out to me. But I was happy to be done with the drama.

I arrived home to find my daughters starting to act almost like teenagers. Suddenly Grace couldn’t wait to drive, to have an apartment and a job, to go off to college and not be walked to school in the morning by her mom and dad. Naturally Mae wanted to be just like her older sibling. When I suggested to them that they should enjoy their youth and not rush everything, they gave me a look like I was the oldest