{ “Susie” refers to me, Suzanne. I am not the Susie from the book The First 21. } 

The new Nikki Sixx book, The First 21, is one of those books where just like a movie, you get sucked in.
You think you’re going to read it with kind of a helicopter view, because you find the topic interesting or, what used to be the case when I actually read, when you find the writer interesting.
Since me having a thing for male writers ended 7 years ago, I wasn’t really expecting it. And maybe me reading Nikki Sixx is indeed not a part of that.
The writers I used to read were Dutch, they were my age or younger, and none of them were rock stars. 

So for the first time since 2014, I m reading with heart and soul, I’m totally into this.
But the deeper I get into this book, the more I realize that my relationship to Nikki Sixx is rooted in something.
That this is more than a book, a writer, a rock star of even a man I have a crush on.
Looking back, I can see how I’ve been leaning into his topics, into his work, from a very young age. It’s like an invisible thread, going through my life. And from that perspective, this infatuation with his latest book, cannot be called a surprise.

Maybe this is the right place to drop a truth bomb about something I meant to discuss sooner, and I probably will get back to it in future work;
But I think there is one MAJOR factor that Nikki Sixx’ lyrics as well as Bon Jovi lyrics have in common, and that explains why certain people will feel drawn to them. Yet I ve not heard anyone speaking about this.
But they’re Catholic.
The lyrics about God, devil, salvation, praying on the knees, water, redemption, sinning, confessions and- need I go on?
Or point taken?
It’s music that will speak to you if you, your parents, or your grandparents were Catholic.
Maybe protestant, but I think I know enough to determine this as Catholic symbolism.

But aside from that symbolism that resonates with me, there were more signs.
More things I managed to miss, where I now think:
“This thing for Nikki? This has been going on for a very long time….”

And I thought it was a good idea to I share that.
In particular if I m ever going to write about his book The First 21- that you know I did not step in at:
“Oh yes! Nikki Sixx…. he was in Mötley Crüe.”
Since I intend to stick around both as a writer and as a YouTuber, this needs to be cleared up.
This personal, recent and ancient, history of me and Nikki Sixx, needs explaining so that you understand why I am horribly biased.

So. It all “started” in 2019, when after a period of 25 years, I became a Bon Jovi fan again and I met a lot of other fans who were not just into Bon Jovi, but also into Nikki Sixx.
In female fandom, the combination of being into Jon Bon Jovi and Nikki Sixx was actually a pretty common one, and that’s how I came into contact with Nikki Sixx too, in particular with his writing.

I said “started” in 2019, with quotation marks, because then I m not counting me writing out Nikki Sixx’ name in my agenda in the 80s, and me drawing him in pen.
I’m not counting Mötley Crüe practically being spoon fed in the 80s to anyone tuning in to MTV’s Headbangers Ball (which I was), and listening to a Dutch radio show called Vara’s Vuurwerk (which I also was).
In the Netherlands Mötley Crüe never made it big mainstream, but at the same time they were so much part of metal and rock that it was absolutely impossible to miss them if that was your genre (which it was).

I also noticed on Nikki Sixx’s photos as a teen, in The First 21, that he and my first boyfriend had looked alike. A lot. And that boyfriend too, was a bass player.
And in that book The First 21, Nikki Sixx says his first girlfriend’s name was Susie.
They were very shy with each other, and didn’t really know how to make it work or let it evolve. Exactly how my first boyfriend and me, were.
So in the 80s I, Suzanne or “Susie” to some, was dating a guy who played bass and looked like Nikki Sixx. But again, something I did not realize until October 2021, so that does not count either.

Which is why- not counting those Mötley Crüe and Nikki Sixx moments – “it”, the conscious part, started first half of 2019.
After the introduction to Nikki Sixx by other Bon Jovi fans, I started listening to an audio recording of the book The Heroin Diaries, based on his 80s diary.
Nikki Sixx’ The Heroin Diaries, is a book from 2007, that made it mainstream, against all expectations.
For the audio book Nikki Sixx reads it, with actors playing the parts other people have contributed, such as friends, family members, the band and people who toured with the band.
Slash, for example, is a good friend of Nikki, and he is one of the people who contributed to The Heroin Diaries.

The Heroin Diaries has as a subtitle: “A year in the life of a shattered rock star”
And it is based on Nikki’s original diary, from December 1986 to December 1987, when he was addicted to heroin.
It was for the first time since the 80s I was reading something like this, the topic had completely dropped off my radar.
It brought back memories of the 80s, when the topic of heroin addiction was something I read about.

I must have been about 13 or 14 years old.
The first was a German book Christiane F., which has been translated worldwide under different titles but the original one was;
Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo (1978)
And the second book, also on teen drug addiction, was a Dutch one, Het Verrotte Leven van Floortje Bloem – Yvonne Keuls (1982)

Next to that I was either personally fascinated with musicians who died of drugs, but I also remember that it was a topic that was covered in our music classes in school. But by then I already knew enough to actually save my mark for a test I had otherwise done poorly.
Our teacher was so impressed with the paragraph I had written on the final question, about rock stars who had died prematurely, where I could even name rock stars that had not been mentioned in the book and I remember I wrote about the context of fame and drug use (probably uncalled for), and he gave me a higher grade.
So obviously, I was already studying this topic, and did not learn about drug use by rock stars, just in school.
But it was definitely “a phase”, as they call it. It was as if I wanted, or even needed, to study it, to understand what it was. Or maybe to protect myself. I was also raised in the “Just Say No” time period, but aside from one Punky Brewster episode I cannot remember that ever hitting mainstream in the Netherlands.
We didn’t have very prominent or explicit drug education in the Netherlands, and soft-drugs are legal here. We only had a campaign to not start smoking as a teen but that was it.
Heroin addiction felt far away.

I think one of the reasons listening to the Heroin Diaries in 2019, made a totally different impression than studying the topic in the 80s, is because now that I am so much older, and can feel how much it costs, how much you need to regulate and be conscious about, in order to be functional;
I am absolutely baffled by the idea of touring, and then drinking and doing drugs too.
But at the time, in the 80s?
The idea of rock stars doing drugs was just as normal as, I don’t know, as professional athletes training.
Or ballet dancers working out 8 hours a day.
All this to illustrate that me studying hard drugs had little to do with me trying to understand the world I was living in, and everything with me being fascinated by a world I was absolutely not living in.
It must have been my way to align with it, or feel if it was something I wanted to pursue.

When now I think, how in the world do you DO all that, the traveling, the touring, the everything, and NOT take excellent care of your health?
Listening to The Heroin Diaries audio in 2019, should have been a wake up call for me, and for anyone struggling career-wise-
that considering the fact that Mötley Crüe, including an addicted to heroin Nikki Sixx, actually TOURED?
We’ve all been called out as underachievers.
That’s how I see it.

But The Heroin Diaries was more than that. In particular the audio.
Because Nikki Sixx is not just a very pleasant narrator, with a beautiful speaking voice, doing a better job recording that book than anyone could have done for him;
But Nikki Sixx is most of all a thinker. And it’s relational.
So the books you read are all about relationships with people, but also relationships to a wide array of topics and situations.
And about HOW he relates.

The writer Nikki Sixx, is first and foremost – and I am sure there is a word for this but since I stopped reading in 2014 don’t ask me! – but he’s what I will call for now, he’s a thinker about relationships.
About whom and what he relates to, and how he relates to them. Or how they relate to each other.

And to then listen to Nikki Sixx, with your headphones, to this 11 hour recording, reading The Heroin Diaries, going through his own rough and ready diary from what may have been the toughest year in his life;
then reading the chapters he wrote around them, putting them in perspective.
Oh man…. you’re gonna fall for Nikki Sixx.

If you listen to Nikki Sixx reading The Heroin Diaries, your entire idea of who he is will change.

On Google Play:
The Heroin Diaries: Ten Year Anniversary Edition: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star

So in 2019 already, I considered myself a fan of his work. Oh – I m skipping the band Sixx AM, but I absolutely adore their music, I left it out for clarity’s sake.
But check them out as well! Sixx A.M. on YouTube

However, what I’ve covered so far, the Catholic roots, studying hard drugs and rock stars at a young age, getting Motley Crue spoon fed, the boyfriend bass player who looked like him, and writing “Nikki Sixx” in my agenda because I thought the name was magical;
Are all futile compared to the biggie.
The one where I realized:
“Fuck.”

Because of circumstances I do not want to get into (and I will not!) Nikki Sixx has become part of my sexual language, my sexuality identity, desires, experiences. All I can say, is that it does not have anything to do with him.
Not with The Heroin Diaries.
Not with The First 21.
Not with Sixx AM.

But that, yeah, like I said, a combination of circumstances, some of choice and some coincidental, his name, became synonymous for sex.

Although the part I did by choice?
Considering the preferences of other female Bon Jovi fans, considering my personal history, and my “thinking, relational” obsession; Considering all those things, maybe me adopting Nikki Sixx as the personification of sex was not so much of a choice.

But an inevitability.

~Suzanne
Rock Star Writer
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booktrailer for The First 21 by Nikki Sixx

Intro.
Voice over, snippet from the first words of Livin’ On A Prayer:
Narrator (Jon Bon Jovi): “Once upon a time, not so long ago”
* insert first tweet Oct 22nd, illustrating Suzanne’s waning faith she’s welcome in Bon Jovi fandom*
(clicking the play icon on the gif pays off)

One of the things I still want to do, is go through my old 80s school agendas and look for what I know is there: Two, maybe more, references to Nikki Sixx.

At least one of them is me “just” writing out his name.
Even as a teen, I understood there was something magical about it.
Where a name usually has some meaning, either to ourselves if we chose it, or to our parents when they gave it;
Calling yourself Nikki Sixx?
Was a whole different ballgame.

The name Nikki Sixx is a work of art in itself. 

This week Nikki Sixx released his fourth book, called The First 21, and it’s about the first 21 years of his life when his name was not yet Nikki Sixx. When he had not yet chosen his name.
You can shop for The First 21 by Nikki Sixx, as well as for the album from his second band Sixx A.M. that was released simultaneously.
“Second band”, yes.
You have until the end of this post, to answer the question what Nikki Sixx’ first band is.

The Sixx A.M. HITS playlist can also be found at the bottom of this post,
and to purchase the book you may also want to check out
this tweet where I already looked up the direct links to buy the book, for four different countries.

News interviews, podcasts, YouTube interviews, zoom connections, studio interviews;
For the past few days there has been an avalanche of Nikki Sixx on my timeline.
Which may explain why I was starting to feel a familiar yet unwelcome restlessness, in my lower belly.
A restlessness that I recognized in the movies Venom (2018) and part 2 (2021).

“Venom”, from the title, is an extraterrestrial entity that has a symbiotic relationship to a human, Eddie Brock. Venom is the wild one, the uncontrolled one. But Venom is also the fascinating one, the unapologetic one, and definitely the funniest of the two.
Everything Venom says is a one liner, he’s a talk show host’s wet dream.

But he is also of course, entirely uncivilized. And a bigger problem than that; His species need nutrients that can only be found in brains. 
If Venom would comply with his host Eddie, and stop biting people’s head off, he, Venom, would become severely malnutritioned and die.
And with that Eddie too, because they inhabit the same body. 

Venom is the stronger one, the enigmatic one, the superhero of the two, and ever since Venom has started living in Eddie’s body and the two started their symbiotic relationship, Eddie’s life has improved in terms of excitement and adventure.
And women absolutely adore him both as Eddie and as Venom.
Since Eddie has Venom in him, he has not had a dull moment, and yet Venom 2 Let There Be Carnage, largely revolves around Eddie’s attempts to get rid of Venom.
And not just because he bites people’s head off, and it requires a lot of effort to limit Venom’s foraging habits to only eating the bad guys, but also because Venom is an extremely disruptive force to live with.

story continues below the trailer, that illustrated how difficult it is to live with Venom:

My inner Venom too, is a disruptive force to live with.
It gets me kicked out of groups.
It gets me slut shamed.
It gets me talked about behind my back.
It gets me blocked on Twitter.
Ghosted.
And yet, of course, it is this feral, untamed side of me, my inner-Venom, that is going to make the biggest contribution. That is going to leave her mark. 

I ve known from the start that my plan to make Bon Jovi yoga videos, was not accommodating her. There was not even a small corner, a small percentage of poorly lit videos “we” would shoot when I was feeling so badly, a normal video would not come out anyway;
Not even that.

My inner Venom was not to interfere when I was making Bon Jovi yoga videos. The name Bon Jovi, associated with inclusive, family appropriate, uplifting music, would be honored.
It would be kept clean.

But since it’s almost three months since I posted my announcement for Bon Jovi yoga, you can see how that is working out.
It isn’t.
And the reason it is not, is because my Venom wants a part.

The “overall inappropriate” part of me, to quote the most explicit complaint I received about that side of me, wants in.
No, let me rephrase:
It wants THE FUCK in. 

But just like Eddie Brock, I wanted to be loved for being the real me, the nice me, and not for this part that felt so entirely over the top.
I fully understood why my inner Venom was too much in particular in mixed, friendly communities like Bon Jovi fandom.
I GOT that.
And I respected them for being clear on their boundaries and keeping the community safe.

It’s just that, well, that side of me is “all” I have to offer.
Without my inner Venom, I am not just plain, but I would also be thoroughly unhappy. Just like Eddie Brock.
Venom is my life force. She makes me come alive, gives me blushes on my cheeks, and turns me into this funny, sexual, and yes inappropriate, woman.
Without my Venom, and without giving her what she needs, I will not just perish and come to nothing.
I will die.

Thinking I could turn myself into a friendly, goodhearted, Bon Jovi yoga teacher was as unrealistic as it was unhealthy and, frankly, undesirable.
If someone else can do that, go for it.
It’s not my path, that much is sure.

So me and my inner-Venom, have made amends and decided we are going to do it together.
We’ll be making Bon Jovi yoga videos where we will make many inappropriate jokes.
And trust me when I say that yoga offers ample opportunity for those.

But next to that, “we”, my inner Venom and me, are going to make Nikki Sixx yoga videos, where my most sexual, most out-there part of my personality, can really shine.
Where my inner Venom gets to take the stage and the leash comes off.
So the most unadulterated, honest, raw, yoga videos will be named after the most unadulterated, honest, raw rock star of them all.
Nikki Sixx.

Ten hours after the tweet where I said that although I am a Bon Jovi fan, but sometimes feel more LA, and less New Jersey, and wanted to be loved for the Venom part of me too;
I made another tweet.

This tweet said:
[On] Oct. 22 @SixxAM released their best of called HITS
This album is THE best way to get acquainted with this second band from Nikki Sixx, est 2007

Mild spanking if you don’t know what his first band is.

Oh no, a little harder than that.

The first band from Nikki Sixx is Mötley Crüe.
Bon Jovi yoga will begin this week, on my YouTube
And my first yoga lesson to you, is to never hide who you really are.

The world needs your Venom.
Just like the world needs Nikki Sixx.

Oh no.
A little harder than that.

.
~Suzanne
Rock Star Writer
Paypalme

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