I was always playing the hard-bitten drunk.
If I hadn't become a celebrity, I'd probably be an alcoholic.
I was kind of wild. I enjoyed myself as a young man. I was moving 100 miles per hour - on and off the field.
There's always going to be the market for people who are known to have led wild and crazy lives.
I've always thought of Las Vegas as Los Angeles on its day off. There's not any hierarchy of taste, and that's what L.A. always was to me: It's not really a town of culture - it's a town of entertainment.
Part of it went on gambling, and part of it went on women. The rest I spent foolishly.
I had seen my buddies crash and burn. Keith Moon died, and I always thought that was the way he wanted to go. John Belushi was a dear friend. A lot of the guys that I ran with were ending up dead, and I saw myself right on schedule to do that. I had some moments of clarity - once in a while.
I found popularity through self-destruction, and that can be quite addictive.
When you are thrown onto the stage at 17 in such an enormous way, it becomes living on the edge because every step you take, every word you speak, every action you do becomes headline news. And it became, for me, life or death.
I live by 'Earnin' and burnin'.' Meaning, I like to make money and spend it before I even have it. That's the way I live my life.
Pirates did not store all their treasures in treasure chests, then bury them and draw maps to them. That's a movie invention. In reality, pirates spent their money as fast as they could steal it because they knew they were living on borrowed time. They didn't want to wait around to enjoy the money.
I never thought I was wasted, but I probably was.
In the early to mid-'90s, everywhere I turned, someone had died. It wasn't just people in bands. It was the people I was hanging out with. At some point, I thought, 'I may be heading down that road.'
I spent a good part of the nineties roaming the Earth writing about conflict. It was very grueling. I was beginning to find this way of life was, wow, addictive and deeply meaningful.
I didn't much like Las Vegas. The noise of the place and the whole 24-hour, 'let's play the slot machines all night' culture of the place just left me cold.
Rock and Roll has certainly tried to take its toll on me. I'd rather not talk about my past excesses here, although some hardcore rockers might argue that those excesses were responsible for some great records, but I know which side I came out on.
I was living a dangerous life before I started boxing.
If I'd been a rock star, I'd probably now be dead.
I was very famous as a young man and I celebrated both the good and bad times with drinking.
In Beverly Hills, the faster you climb, the harder you fall.
I think my body went through a lot, went through the wringer. In terms of being inside the ring, getting hit, but also outside the ring, living a crazy life.
I came to Vegas because I work 20 days a month here; I couldn't live anywhere else.
My cousin got wrapped up in the NBA lifestyle and threw parties at my house all the time. So I got wrapped up in it, too.
I never wanted to just glamorize the playa lifestyle and not touch on the down side. I wanted everyone who's in a desperate situation to know that, if they wanna choose that kinda lifestyle, they gotta be aware of everything that comes with it! It's not just about the cars, the ladies and the money.
