Me, Alice: The Autobiography of Alice Cooper

Neal showed up one day on Beethoven Street with a snare drum and three drumsticks. He set up his lone snare next to John Speer’s gleaming drum set and left it there. He hadn’t changed a bit. He insisted on not playing Speer’s drums, out of some ridiculous musician’s code, and auditioned for us on his snare drum.

I don’t know where our minds were at, letting a drummer audition on one drum, but compared to John Speer’s messianic, military drumming it sounded fine. As a matter of fact, the monotony of the snare created an interesting musical pattern. By the time John Speer got back to the house he was out of the group. The line-up was set for good. Me, Mike Bruce, Glen Buxton, Dennis and Neal Smith.

Christmas was depressing. We tried to laugh about how poor we were. Time was going too slow. Time was going to fast. Nothing was happening. No recording contract. No managers. Merry Cornwall pushing hard for us to sign a contract with her. The Cheetah gig got repetitious and crowds less interested. It got to a point with Merry that we were being rude to her and we knew we had to get out. She threw us out, eventually, but I guess we deserved it. I brought a spaced-out groupie back to the house for a quick blow job and with typical groupie couth she left a used tampon under the bathroom sink. It was there for a month before Glen walked into the living room one night holding it by the string. We were instantly grossed out. It was disgusting. Naturally we put it under Merry’s pillow.

She came home with a bass player that night and while he was shoveling it in her he stuck his hand under the pillow and came up with the tampon. Merry was in the living room in ten second, full of sweat, wrapping an Indian print robe around her.

“How could you do this to me? We’re supposed to be a family! Don’t you guys see? How is all this going to work if you do things like this to me? Get hip!”

We got out.

CHAPTER 5

DIRECT FROM HOLLYWOOD — BACK IN THEIR HOME TOWN — THE NAZZ!!

Phoenix. Five-hundred-dollar-a-night gigs in high school and clubs. Home. My own bed. Nickie, Mom and Dad. Instead of being comfortable in Phoenix I was miserable. As long as we were in Los Angeles we were fighting, even if we were destitute. Going home to Phoenix was admitting we were licked, not good enough to make it in the majors. But there were more reasons than Money or Merry Cornwall that we were back In Phoenix. One by one we were getting little greetings from George Buckley and the draft board. The battle of Cortez was not yet over! Dennis and I were even called for our physicals on the same day by some miraculous coincidence considering we were a year apart in age and had totally different birthdays. Neal Smith’s physical was scheduled a week later, and Mike Bruce was already fighting the draft out in court.

When we went to deal with the army clowns at the induction center, Dennis was a nervous wreck. I wasn’t the least bit worried. How could they possibly want to draft me? I only weighed ninety-eight pounds and I had bleach-blond hair. I thought it was funny. The first time I went down there I even wore a pair of my dad’s baggy underwear. Dennis was finished in a few minutes, awarded a 4F because of his slow heartbeat. They measured me, examined me, poked in my ears and up my nose and ass. They classified me 1A. Me, 1A, I couldn’t believe it. No matter who I met after that, the first thing I said was “I’m 1A, you know, I have to represent this country at war,” and people would look at me and laugh.

The group was forced to stay in Phoenix while I had four more physicals. I drank a bottle of whiskey at five in the morning before every physical and every time they took my blood I passed out, but nothing seemed to satisfy them. And if I appealed to the draft board I had to appeal to Mr. Buckley. After two months of petitioning, I was finally allowed to see the psychiatrist.

The shrink asked me what I did and I told him I was an entertainer. He aksed me what I wanted to accomplish.

I told him I wanted to put an audience in a concert hall, bolt and lock the dorrs, shut the lights and shock them with electricity, lower the spiders on them, surround the audience with speakers blasting my voice and plant accomplices in the audience to have heart attacks and fits.

Then, when everything was the most intense, you let monkey semen out of the ventilation system. I told him that I had read somewhere that the smell of monkey semen makes people horny.

Then you blind everyone with the flash of quartz lamps. At that point you suggest an action. For instance, “fuck” or “dance.” Mass hypnotism.

My eyes were wide and I had really gotten myself off on the fantasy. The letter he wrote said I was a homocidal transvestite capable of mass murder. A megalomaniac. He sent it to the draft board and Mr. Buckley. I have a copy framed, hanging in my bathroom of my house in LA.