Eddie Van Halen was a genius who not only reinvented how electric guitars could be played, but also reinvented the electric guitar itself with his hand-built one-of-a-kind instruments. Like Jimi Hendrix and Michael Hedges, Van Halen completely redefined what the guitar was and what it could do, made it new in a superhuman, god-like way, forever influencing every player who will come after him. He was also notoriously difficult to work with in the middle part of his career, but was known in his later life for his remarkable humility about his gifts and contributions to rock history and his great generosity in sharing his techniques with younger players. His death is, indeed, a terrible loss, as everyone said upon hearing the news. "What a shame!" I read repeatedly yesterday, and "How sad!" But Eddie's passing doesn't make me sad, just angry. Van Halen's death at age 65 just pisses me off, because it is such a fucking waste.
Eddie -- like Gary Richrath and Gerry Rafferty, whom I wrote about in this space on 18 September -- was a chronic alcoholic. By his own account, he started drinking at age 12, and soon "needed alcohol to function." He got drunk in the morning before he went to his high school classes, had "dry heaves every morning for years," and was a self-described "very angry drunk." He used cocaine to stay awake and alcohol to lower his inhibitions, a combination he credited with some of his greatness on the guitar, saying "I’m sure there were musical things I would not have attempted were I not in that mental state."
There: there is the deadly, stupid romanticizing of drug and alcohol abuse that is so rampant among musicians and tolerated if not supported by their hangers-on. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll, of course. It's a self-serving lie that has claimed far too many of the brightest lights, and it's a patient fucker, too. As I said about Richrath and Rafferty, it may be the lucky ones who die young.
Van Halen got sober in 2008, but he died yesterday of esophageal cancer, which is one of the classic, horrible ways that older alcoholics die, even those who have been sober for a long time. Eddie Money, who gave us "Two Tickets to Paradise," "Take Me Home Tonight," and "Baby, Hold On to Me," was another notorious rock and roll alcoholic. Money got sober in 2003, only to die 16 years later of esophageal cancer. And Gary, one of the wise old men in my recovery group, died last year of esophageal cancer after being sober for 35 years. It doesn't seem fair, and it doesn't seem right.
A very smart person in my 12 Step program once told me that anger is almost always fear coming out sideways -- fear that I am going to lose something I value or not get something I think I deserve. I have learned over the years that there is a lot of truth to this assertion. So I recognize that part of my anger here is simply that I am afraid, afraid that what happened to Eddie, Eddie, and Gary might happen to me, too. I have been sober a long time now, and I hate to think that I might die because of things I did so very long ago, back when I was young and stupid and troubled and flailing, back when getting obliviously drunk and stoned every night was the best solution I could come up with, the very height of my coping abilities.