Moderate Debauchery, Part I

When I was fifteen my friend 'Riff' and I started our very own garage band, and for the first year we truly stank, but I've always been a dedicated man. I pushed Riff, and we quickly got better, soon started writing songs of our own, got a drummer, 'Bomber,' and bassist, Caplan, folks were downloading our songs to their phones. Soon we attracted big league attention, and at twenty I signed us to a deal, our album sold big, our downloads bigger, all of our rock star dreams become real. It was at this time I sat and thought of the musicians who had gone before, the mistakes and pitfalls that had dogged them, and would be the end of many bands more. I had no desire to exit this world, as had the great Bonham and Mercury, made myself a goal, even wrote it out, I would moderate my debauchery. This was no easy thing for a young man now living the celebrity life, it's not like I didn't sleep with groupies, hell one of them would become my wife! But I tried to avoid the easier ones, which is a difficult thing to do, could you turn away a smoking hot girl wearing just a smile and tattoo? But more often than not my will won out, an I always used good protection, no use throwing all your health away in the name of temporary fun. And it isn't like I did not drink, I have always enjoyed a cold beer, but I'd get drunk no more than once a week, and hired drivers to assuage our fears. It's also fair to say that I smoke some pot, though honestly, it was never my thing, but I used it to draw a hard line, because the hard stuff was damn frightening. The result was that I managed to keep my head despite all the money and fame, unfortunately I just kind of assumed that all my band-mates would think the same way. I guess that's a common human mistake, as Caplan's problems soon would attest, he wasn't satisfied with Mary Jane, and was soon fond of heroin and meth. He missed interviews, he even missed shows, even woke up naked in Central Park, whenever he was called out about it he'd say,”Guys, I'm just having a lark!” But it got so bad that Caplan was fired, on him we could no longer rely, a year later he overdosed at home, only twenty-seven and he died... CONTINUES IN PART II