With my thoughts often turning to mortality these days, I sometimes contemplate the afterlife and, inevitably, Nikki Sixx.
Everyone has different views on what happens after you die—reincarnation, heaven, nothingness. Some people who have had near-death experiences report seeing a bright light and having a sense of peace. Presumably that means something good is going to happen. When I was a junior in high school, our French class had a visiting mime, bien sûr, and I remember that he told us—when he wasn’t in mime mode, obviously—that one of his projects involved a documentary about people who didn’t see a bright light during a near-death experience. They felt something dark and terrible and saw something akin to writhing demons. His job in the project was to writhe.
This alternative concerned me. What brings me some comfort, however, is the story of Nikki Sixx that inspired the Mötley Crüe song, “Kickstart My Heart.” According the Mötley Crüe autobiography The Dirt (I haven’t read Sixx’s The Heroin Diaries), when the bassist overdosed on heroin in 1987 and was declared legally dead for two minutes before he was revived, he saw his body on the gurney as he left it and he saw a bright light. He lived a life of rock star debauchery and saw a bright light!
Since then, when I wonder if I’ll see a bright light or writhing demons, I think to myself that as long as I’ve lived a life more virtuous than that of Nikki Sixx, I’ll be OK. Still, I don’t know him, so it’s hard to compare. What if rock stars are judged on a giant curve? What if bassists get special dispensations? (I took bass lessons a long time ago, but I’m no Sixx.) What if God loves “Shout at the Devil?” (Who wouldn’t? It’s a great song.)
I saw Sixx speak at a David Bowie event in December, but I was too shy to even sneak a photo, let alone ask him what he thinks happens when you die. Do we all get our own custom paradise? I feel like he would have a fun one, but maybe with all the debauchery on Earth, he’s content with the simple pleasures of a rose garden for eternity. Whenever I picture trying to have a good time, though, I picture a Mötley Crüe video. It’s how I feel as if I should spend my limited time, but, of course, cancer doesn’t allow for debauchery, and I don’t think that’s probably what I would actually do to live life to the fullest.
It’s one of those things I think about when I should be spending more time thinking about useful things.