Don't Try This at Home: A Year in the Life of Dave Navarro - Hardcover

Navarro, Dave; Strauss, Neil

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060393688 ISBN 13: 9780060393687

Publisher: It Books, 2004

Synopsis

One day, Dave Navarro decided to open the doors of his house in the Hollywood hills to the chaos of the valley below. The only rule was, "come in the house, you get in the photo booth." The result is a diary, a sociology experiment, a documentary of Hollywood, and an exercise in exhibitionism: strippers, Kurt Loder, Marilyn Manson, pizza delivery boys, Rose McGowan, Keanu Reeves, record executives, Scott Ian, Billy Corgan, hookers, Flea, Billy Zane, drug dealers, Angelyne, Leonardo DiCaprio, the cleaning lady, Leif Garrett, Natalie Imbruglia, and everyone else who came into the house are all caught on film—whether zany, inebriated, naked, hamming it up, looking beautiful, or looking ugly, the photo booth tells no lies.

Accompanying the strips are hilarious stories, musings, tell-all anecdotes, and other glimpses into the lifestyle of one of the most decadent rock stars of our time. This chronicle of a year in Navarro's life is also a gritty portrait of his descent into drug use and self-destructiveness, and his struggle to find meaning. Designed by the mad genius who produced Manson's, Motley Crue's and Mankind's books, Don't Try This at Home is a visual masterpiece, a celebrity exposé, and a shocking, hilarious and irresistible read.

About this title

Review:

Andy Warhol was so enamored with Polaroids that he made special arrangements with the company to purchase all the overstock film of a discontinued model of camera. A similar photographic fetish is the organizing principle of Don't Try This at Home. For kicks, rocker and author Dave Navarro installed a carnival-grade photo booth in his L.A. home. The book documents a year's worth of visitors to Navarro's pad who all stepped into the booth to get their mug shots snapped.

The resulting dispatch from Hell is as hard to draw one's eyes from as a twelve car pile-up. Intermingled with a parade of rock stars, models, prostitutes, drug dealers, pizza delivery guys, and housecleaners are a series of observations and interviews with Dave and his co-author Neil Strauss. Strauss, co-author of other tomes for Jenna Jameson, Marilyn Manson, and Motley Crue, operates less as an editor than as a ringmaster to this debauched thing rock stars call a lifestyle.

Don't Try This At Home is one rollicking contact high of a memoir. Just set it on the coffee table at your home and watch how quickly it snares its readers. -–Ryan Boudinot

About the Author:

Dave Navarro racked up four platinum records and three Grammy nominations as the guitarist of Jane's Addiction and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. His 2003 marriage to Carmen Electra was captured in MTV's popular reality series, 'Til Death Do Us Part: Carmen and Dave.

Neil Strauss is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Game, Rules of the Game, Emergency, and Everyone Loves You When You’re Dead. He is also the co-author of three other New York Times bestsellers - Jenna Jameson's How to Make Love Like a Porn Star, Mötley Crüe's The Dirt and Marilyn Manson's The Long Hard Road out of Hell. A writer for Rolling Stone, Strauss lives in Los Angeles.

About this edition

• Publisher: It Books
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0060393688
• ISBN 13: 9780060393687
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256