Everyone Loves You When You're Dead. Neil Strauss
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MADONNA: I only tried Vicodin once. I was in a lot of pain, and nothing killed the pain. Not even morphine, to tell you the truth. And everyone kept telling me to try Vicodin, but they kept saying, “Be careful. It’s so amazing. But if you take it for more than ten days, you’re going to get addicted to it.” So I called five people to get advice before I took it, and they all told me I was going to love it. Whatever.
So I took it.
SHAVAWN: She went on a walk with me, and it was really scary.
MADONNA: Drugs have a weird effect on me. They do the opposite with me. I just chewed the entire inside of my mouth. I bitched at everybody. And I was in more pain. It was terrible: the worst experience of my life.
At least you didn’t get addicted.
MADONNA: I’m happy to say that none of my pharmaceuticals—and I’ve had a plethora of them given to me—have influenced me.
I don’t like pills anyway. It’s a control thing.
MADONNA: I just like the idea of pills. I like to collect them but not actually take them—just in case. When I fell off my horse, I got tons of stuff: Demerol and Vicodin and Xanax and Valium and OxyContin, which is supposed to be like heroin. And I’m really quite scared to take them. I’m a control freak too. And any time I’ve taken anything in my life, as soon as I take it, I’m like, “Okay, I want it out of my body.” I just start guzzling water. I want to flush it out, fast.
Do you ever think about—
MADONNA: Do I think about dying? Is that what you were thinking about asking?
No, but that’s a better question than what I was going to ask.
MADONNA: Real death is disconnecting, but the death where your physical body is no longer functioning, that’s not real death.
What is it then?
MADONNA: Death is when you disconnect from God—or when you disconnect from the universe, because God is the universe. I think anyone who’s disconnected is living in a serious hell. They can medicate themselves or live in serious denial to convince themselves they’re not in hell, but sooner or later it’s going to catch up to you.
[Continued . . .]
There are some interviews that you look back on after the artist has died, and they bring tears to your eyes. Tears that, like Johnny Cash’s life and music, are both joyful and tragic.
I notice that when you sing about sin, it’s usually followed by guilt and redemption. Do you think that’s how it always works?
JOHNNY CASH: I see that in my life a whole lot stronger than I guess a lot of people do, because I’ve been through so much—and I walked lightly and poetically on the dark side often throughout my life. But the redeeming love and the grace of God was there, you know, to pull me through. And that’s where I am right now. Redeemed.
That’s a big—
CASH: But I don’t close the door on that dark past or ignore it, because there is that beast there in me. And I got to keep him caged (knowing laugh) or he’ll eat me alive.
A lot of times people think that the idea of the man in black is nihilistic, but there’s a positive side to it as well.
CASH: That’s the whole thing. I’ve not been obsessed with death. I’ve been obsessed with living. It’s the battle against the dark one, which is what my life is about, and a clinging to the right one. But, you know, I’ve, uh, in ’88, when I had bypass surgery, I was as close to death as you could get. I mean, the doctors were saying they were losing me. And I was going, and there was that wonderful light that I was going into. It was awesome, indescribable—beauty and peace, love and joy—and then all of a sudden there I was again, all in pain and awake. I was so disappointed.
Disappointed?
CASH: I realized a day or so later what point I had been to, and then I started thanking God for life. You know, I used to think only of life, but when I was that close to losing it, I realized it wasn’t anything to worry about when that does happen.
So did you always believe that when you die you go somewhere else?
CASH: Yeah, but I didn’t know it was going to be that beautiful. I mean, it’s indescribably wonderful, whatever there is at the end of this life.
[Continued . . .]
Sometimes, if you listen closely, a neighborhood can have just as much of a personality as an individual. I used to live in New York’s East Village, but before it was cool and trendy—when it was just dangerous. One night, I heard a guy being held up at gunpoint outside my window. Another night, three guys kicked the shit out of me just for fun. Those experiences, along with the following things I overheard in the area at the time, contributed to my decision to save up and move to a neighborhood with a more stable personality.
Overheard on Avenue B, two men talking:
“Just because I killed someone doesn’t mean I’m an expert.”
Overheard on the same block, a man talking to a woman:
“I’m not a jealous guy, I’m just violent.”
Overheard on East Seventh Street, a man talking to a lamppost:
“I’m gonna break your face, sucker.”
Overheard at the Odessa Restaurant near Tompkins Square Park, the owner talking to an anarchist squatter:
“I think you guys should go start another riot for me. I need the business.”
Overheard on Avenue A, two well-dressed white men talking:
“I’m not a racist or anything, but have you ever beaten up an African-American?”
Overheard at the bar 7B, two women talking:
“He’s a total fox, so I love him. But he completely has no personality and doesn’t speak a word of English.”
Overheard on a building stoop on East Sixth Street, a man talking to the apartment supervisor:
“You can’t always go calling the coroner ten hours afterward.”
Overheard in Tompkins Square Park, two homeless men talking:
“What’s the point in pretending like I’m sane anymore?”
Overheard on Avenue D, two men talking, and I don’t know what this means but it’s scary as fuck:
“I don’t take a life, I bury a soul.”
By the time I realized the situation I was in, it was too late because we were already on the highway in my cheap, well-dented Pontiac. The situation was this: Sixteen months ago, Tupac Shakur was killed in a drive-by shooting while in the