Straight Life - Art Pepper [53]
One time we were at a place and I bought him a pizza and then I wanted to take a bite. He wouldn't let me have any! Hahahaha! What would you call that? That was selfishness. And then, of course, he would have a student, a guy named Joe Martin, and the student would drive him everywhere and do things for him. The Master! We must serve the master! That type of thing. Art used it to the hilt.
Art had considerable charm. Intelligence, a very natural ability to understand things. He was a very handsome man. A great natural talent. These are attractive qualities. His humor tended to burlesque. It could be vicious. Mimicking people. And often very accurately, very perceptively, with the intelligence working. But mostly, it was burlesque. Sometimes playing hillbilly music he'd shout, "Tarnation!" and "Shit fire and save matches!" Hahahaha!
Art is sensitive even though at times the sensitivity is largely an expression of selfishness. He's sensitive to such a degree about himself. A person can be like this and be insensitive to other people at times. Not always. Often he could be very warm and very friendly, and you could talk to him. At times his concern for other people would be expressed as sentimentality: "I really love you, man." Even histrionics. Being stoned and being emotional. But I question whether at any time the concern with the self was ever put aside.
I saw a definite change in Art when he started using heroin. It was rather dramatic. The change, I think, consisted essentially in the intensification and exacerbation of traits that were already there: indulgence in the self, a desire to escape the external world, reality, to sink into the self almost entirely. To be passive. As a musician ... In the case of Art, the musician is a person who expresses himself and does send something out, but even this could be passive at times. It showed in feelings of intimidation in the presence of another strong musician, a reluctance to blow out if there was somebody around, another strong player, or in one of these very sticky social scenes in jazz, tribal games, "Who's number one?" Heroin intensified Art's tendencies to withdraw, not to fight, not to assert. And that was the easiest thing to do at the moment, although it made his life more difficult in the long run.
I was able to use heroin from time to time just for fun. I think we all have a predisposition in our systems for certain types of behavior and certain drugs. With some people, you know, booze is really their messiah, their mission, their destiny; they're just going to be soaked! I didn't have the need for heroin. I don't know why. I got off scot-free. At times I had the need to get stoned, whacked, and I thought of taking heroin for that purpose, but it was never the heroin itself. It was never love. Deep, natural, flowing love.
Art said to me once that all of his life all he'd really ever wanted was to get high. And the first time he stuck that needle in his arm he said, "I finally got high."
6
On the Road with
Stan Kenton's Band
1946-1952
AFTER I SNIFFED IT that morning in Chicago, I bought up a whole bunch of heroin, got a sackful of caps. We traveled back to Los Angeles. I guess it took us three months to get back, playing all the stops in between, and at this time we had a little vacation from Stan, about a month before we had to go out again. I told Patti I had sniffed a little bit, but it was okay, it was alright. She felt bad but she went along with it. Then I ran out. I got totally depressed and my stomach hurt. My nose hurt something awful, terrible headaches; my nose started bleeding. I was getting chills. I was vomiting. And the joints in my legs hurt.