Take Another Little Piece of My Heart: A Groupie Grows Up (30 page)

When I finally screwed up the nerve to call Dennis, he wasn’t home.
His answering machine had my hero Bob Dylan announcing: “The rules of the game have been lodged—it’s only people’s games that you have to dodge.” Leave your message at the beep. Too, too cool.

Eventually he called back, and I could finally tell Michael that I had a date of my own. I don’t think he believed me. I don’t think he wanted to. He stayed home with Nick while I checked out Dennis Hopper’s art collection. Come up and see my etchings, baby.

Did I really want to start an affair with the infamous genius freak from
Easy Rider?
He lived in the wilds of Venice, in the thick of gang shoot-outs and serious danger, behind some pretty thick concrete walls among several classic hunks of arts. Yes, he did show me his incredible art collection, one piece of which cast a certain shadow on the wall that resembled his very own profile. He made gallant, off-kilter chatter, poured me a cup of herbal tea, and we kissed a few times. It felt very strange to kiss someone other than my husband of many years. Then he sat down in front of me on the floor, crotch level, and gave me the best line I’ve ever heard from any man. “I want to worship your pussy,” he said to me. Was it just a statement? Some sort of offer? A simple request? Hmmm. Wasn’t it happening a little too fast? What kind of guy was he, anyway? He knew I was a married woman, so I suppose he was just getting right down to it. I hemmed and hawed, and we made out for a couple hours. While I drove through the Venice war zone on my way back home, I spoke aloud to myself, wondering what I was doing. Could I possibly play the Dating Game? My insides were still raw and bruised, I was trying to flaunt myself too soon, forcing the issue, needing male attention. I was scared shitless but hoping for some passionate heart-rage, just to know I was still capable of feeling it.

I saw Dennis and his famous art collection a few more times, and we almost did the deed, but not quite. I visited him on the set of
Colors
, and got all agitated and excited about the whole thing for awhile, but then it petered out, and now we nod and say “Hi, how’re you doing,” whenever we see each other at a function or a restaurant on the beach. He’s got his gorgeous young dancer wife now, and I’m sure he worships her pussy appropriately.

Michael and I decided an open marriage was a bunch of shit anyway. The idea of it hurt too bad—like something had soured beyond repair, failed, just too hard to live with. His romance with the model went underground, and I concentrated on the new career I had carved out.

My old friend Danny Sugerman called to tell me he saw
I’m with the Band
in a big pile at Book Soup, a very trendy, eclectic store on the Sunset Strip. Danny’s book about Jim Morrison,
No One Here Gets Out Alive
, had gone all the way to number one, and I thought it was significant that he was the person to tell me this sublime news. I hadn’t been expecting it to hit the stands for another month and I was giddy with anticipation. I drove straight to town, parked in the red, and ran in. There it was—
right
next to
Glory Days
, a book about Bruce Springsteen, with one about Paul McCartney on the other side, and another on the King himself right above me! There I was, in a heap among the grandest of rock’s goofballs. I pulled the Polaroid out of my purse and snapped away, announcing to all the people in the store, “Look! My book is out! Can you believe it?!?” I asked the person behind the cash register if he had sold any copies. “Sure, I’ve sold quite a few,” he said. “Congratulations.” I just stood there gawking at the stack of books with my teenage face on the cover, reeling inside. A lady came through the door, headed right for it, and started rummaging through the pages to get to the pictures of me twisting with my big, gorgeous Daddy, hanging tight to Keith Moon, standing with Mr. Zappa and the GTO’s in the recording studio. It was one of life’s finest, funnest fairy-tale moments. Pamela Ann Miller Des Barres from Reseda, California, was a published author. People were calling my agent for interviews, and the ball was about to start rolling.

The publicity blitz hit in the next few weeks. It had been twenty years since the Summer of Love, and
People
magazine did a massive spread on the flower-power generation, incuding a full-page shot of the GTO’s out in the wild garden at Frank Zappa’s log cabin. There I was, my hair in frenzied ringlets full of flowers, my hand over my heart, gazing into the air with poignant aching hope. An expression that is still found on my face on occasion. Ha! Since I had written about love-ins and the Sunset Strip, was I about to become some sort of flagrant spokesperson for my generation? Someone who lived to tell the tale? Uh-oh.

MTV called and wanted to interview me on the grand old days of groupiedom, so I sat in a booth at the Whisky a Go Go, reminiscing about Jim Morrison shoving a microphone down his filthy, black leather trousers right on the very stage in front of me twenty years earlier. In fact, I told many delightful Whiskey stories, but the one they wound up showing at least a hundred times (you can still catch it late at night if you’re lucky! Ha!) was the one about stripping Jimmy Page of his dripping wet chiffon shirt after a gig, pressing the damp fabric into my face, and breathing deep.

The rock radio stations were chasing me! It seemed there was some real interest out there and the book might actually sell a few copies. Something I hadn’t even allowed myself to think about, even though it was number two on my psychic want list. Some of the more macho-dog DJs had been condescending, intimating I was a groupie-pig-loose-babe trying to make a buck by dropping Jimmy Page’s name along with my underpants. And I could always tell if they had actually
read
the book by the questions they asked. Real quick, I got the hang of defending myself while staying carefree and effervescent. When I wasn’t remorseful about my sordid past—which, of course, I never saw as sordid—I found it really pissed them off. I enjoyed throwing uptight moral value judgments back in people’s faces, listening to them sputter with frigid indignation. I took a lot of callers on the air, answering and evading all kinds of questions, which prepared me for the vitriolic onslaught I would encounter out on the road. The specter of AIDS had just taken hold of everybody’s mental genitals and put the fear of death into their bedrooms. “How can you talk about your sexual exploits when this god-awful disease is raging?” First of all, my sexual exploits are only a small part of this book, and hey, man, it was the sixties when all you could get was the clap! And I was looking for love—L-O-V-E—with all those magnificent musicians! Statements like these irked the plugged-up
women who wore their panties up around their necks. They thought I should be weighed down with regret and remorse for my wanton ways. My only true regret was that I had been too stoned at times to remember every exquisite detail.

The television talk shows wanted me! Along with Diana Faust at Morrow, I got my very own publicist, Mitch Schneider, who booked me for three whole weeks on TV shows across the country! Yippeeki-yay-ki-yo!

Just as I was gearing up for the book tour my friend Joyce Hyser called to tell me Warren Beatty was considering buying my book as a property for her to produce. Elated, I went to the bright top of Mullholland Drive a few different times to meet with Joycie and Warren, but even though he seemed to be very intrigued by the idea, it never quite manifested. Warren was wild about Joyce, but he still held a powerful, rapt gaze whenever he spoke to me—the gaze that made many strong women fall into horny, quivering heaps. The way he listened was also magic, as if he crawled into my eyes to get the full picture the way I saw it. I know it’s a cliche at this point, but he really does have a cosmically beguiling way with the ladies. He even included Joyce when he gave me a compliment; “Pamela has pretty legs, doesn’t she, Joyce?” At one of the final meetings, during a healthy-salady lunch in his spotless chrome kitchen, after studying me like the clue to the universe was locked within my nearsighted blue eyes, Warren said to Joyce, “Pammie looks just like my sister, doesn’t she?” People have always told me I look a lot like Shirley MacLaine, and I think it’s a great compliment. I hope I can kick as high as she can when I’m fifty-five. And I would really like to join her waaaay out on that precarious limb someday. I admire her because she brought the massive message to the masses.

Soon after this complimentary incident Joycie had a little party at a cool soul-food joint on Pico, and she told me Bob Dylan was going to be there. I had met him once before at the Troubador, the night I threw daisies at Waylon Jennings’s feet. I guess it was about 1970. Willie Nelson introduced us and Bob gave me that wet-fish handshake while I gazed at his Ray Bans in the dark. I stood there hopefully in my garter belt for a few lonely moments while he looked off into the murky distance, but I suppose he
didn’t feel like chatting. I had finally met Bob Dylan, and he didn’t give a shit.

So Joycie invited Bob to her bash and I found myself in his presence once again. I’ve gotten over just about everybody. I’ve met almost everyone I wanted to meet except for Stephen King and Prince. It has taken me a long time, but I finally realized all my heroes are silly, insecure human goofballs just like me! What a relief. Still, no one on the planet ever inspired me the way Bob Dylan has, so I was happy to be in the same room with him again. When we were introduced, I got a handful of damp fish once more and assumed that the wimpy pompano was a form of protection from getting too many people in his face. Since it was more like good-bye than hello, I started dancing to some Motown, and when I dance I lose my mind. It’s my form of meditation, and I go O-U-T, so imagine my surprise when I came back down to earth and Bob Dylan was standing in front of me, watching. “Do you want to dance?” I asked before I could think about it too hard. He grinned from inside his shades and encircled me from behind, where he hung on for thirty minutes. It took a couple songs by the Temptations and one by the Four Tops before I got adjusted to his sense of rhythm, which was as jarring and jangling as his lyrics. Yes, dolls, time stopped, but because I had recently become friends with his girlfriend, Carole, I didn’t even have the old flirtation temptation. He did say one of the best things that’s ever been said to me, however. He asked what I did for a living, I told him I was a writer, and he said, “What else do you do? I can think of twenty or thirty things I’d like to do with you.” (Twenty or thirty? OhmyGod!!) He stepped back and studied me. “Yes, you could take you anywhere.” Wow. What a compliment.

It seemed like all the cute young actresses were interested in playing the teenage me on the big screen, but Ally Sheedy was serious about it. I had met her a few times at various show-biz functions and saw something shining in her eyes that I recognized. Despite her brat-pack, youthful yuppie image, she was definitely leaning over the edge, peeking wildly into the abyss. Over lunch she told me she was enthralled with the sixties and had just started a rocky relationship with Richie Sambora from Bon Jovi. The whole music world was eating her up. I think she was also looking to break free of the cutesie image that had her trapped in long skirts and high necklines. And since she had just started her own production company, Nice to Mice, she was interested in producing. Ally bought the screen rights and started “taking meetings.” I packed my bags and hit the road.

My very first big-deal TV interview was for the
Today
show. I wore a black leather jacket and told the world what Mick Jagger was really like (fun-loving, self-confident, hot). My mom’s reaction to the book. (She was mortified at first, having to relive my tumultuous past, then proud of me.) What did my son think? (He’s too young to care about what I did in 1969; he may
never
care about what I did in 1969.) How did my husband deal with it? (He was happy I finally wrote the damn thing after talking about it for so many years.) I got through that one—gigantic national TV. How many millions? Those pounding bright lights making me break out in a leather-sweat, seven fun-filled minutes over in a blink, wink of an eye. Michael sent me a telegram:
CONGRATULATIONS YOU WERE WONDERFUL, RELAXED AND BEAUTIFUL.
I didn’t remember an instant of it. I had to fly straight from New York to Washington, D.C. for
Larry King Live
on CNN. I was on the second half of the show and found I had to follow Jesse Jackson. The big man got up, shook my hand, and I sat down in his place. From the sublime to the ridiculous, or was it the other way around? Larry King was very fatherly and gentle with me. I took calls about Led Zeppelin, Don Johnson, Mr.
Miami Vice
. Did I
really
cross-dress with Keith Moon of the Who? one irate lady who probably never had an orgasm raged at me from Middle America. Poor thing.

On some of the local talk shows I had to fill an entire hour by myself. Did Don Johnson
really
have a huge you-know-what? How huge was the thing, anyway? Did Jimmy Page use his whips on you? Why not? Was Mick Jagger a good kisser? Just how big were those things, anyway? Once in awhile I even got to go deep, explaining how girls from my generation felt caught between the fifties and sixties, confused as to which way to go. I popped the Pill on the Sunset Strip and searched for my identity through rock and roll—a women’s libber in my own right. As brave, new, liberated females, we were supposed to go out and claim what we wanted, right? What I wanted was to take care of a man who played music, someone who might even be able to yank out
my
lurking creativity.

June 18
—
Paul McCartney’s Birthday
—
Oh me oh my, I’m reliving my past four or five times every day. It’s so outrageous to be divulging my personal stuff on national TV. Strangers are coming up to me telling me they love the book, can’t put it down—for all the right reasons
. Rolling
Stone
gave me a rave, but heavy on the sleazy tidbits. Out of context they sound horrific. Oh well. Almost all of the interviews have been positive so far. I love being alive every second of every single day
.