by Seka
We were told after the show to pack a bag for a couple of days, leave the rest of the stuff at the hotel, as we were going on vacation to a beautiful little island called Cat Cay right outside of Florida. It sounded like fun, but this was where reality started to set in.
He suddenly demanded, “Put my stuff in a bag.” I didn’t like being spoken to like that, but let it roll off my back, figuring he was springing for everything. Besides, he just wore a t-shirt, sweat pants, tennis shoes, an overcoat, and a hat anyway. It wasn’t like there was a lot of packing to do.
As we headed out, I noticed everyone was getting a little edgy because they couldn’t bring their stash, since Cat Cay was technically outside the U.S. But knowing that everyone was going to want their drugs, and having big boobs like I do, I put about fifty Quaaludes under one breast, and about a half ounce of cocaine under the other. Nobody knew I had it, but I figured they’d want it and I was doing them a favor.
I put on a tiny little bikini to distract the agents. It worked like a charm. We got on the boat with no problem.
The island was small and quaint, with the natives quite friendly. There was one restaurant and the only transportation was little golf carts. I thought it would be a very relaxing couple of days.
I couldn’t have been more wrong. When we got in the room, Sam was already going, “God damn it, nobody’s holding!”
I said, “Hold on a minute, Sam.”
I lifted up my top and out dropped the drugs.
He just went wild. “Oh my God, how did you do it?”
“It’s easy when you have boobs like this.”
All was right in the world.
We went to the restaurant and they had this local cocktail that was just amazing, and we were flat out wasted from it. We asked them to make us up a batch of it. They made up eight or nine half-gallon milk jugs filled with this stuff, which I called the Cat Cay Kitty.
After dinner, we all grabbed our jugs, hopped on our golf carts, and went crazy zipping around the island. We decided to go skinny dipping, swimming nude at night with absolutely no fear. Who knew there were sharks there?
Crashing several carts in the jungle area, we basically wrecked and abandoned them. We ended up lying on the beach naked, which wasn’t a pretty sight for most involved.
Over the rest of our vacation we slept, partied, and even squeezed in some deep sea fishing. It was quite a couple of days.
It seemed to me we had become boyfriend and girlfriend, since he asked me to come to his next gig in Vancouver. “I really want you to come. You don’t have to worry about anything. You don’t have to pay for anything. I haven’t liked anyone like you for a long time. It would make my day if you came along.” In spite of his religious background, he loved the fact I was an adult star. He had seen a lot of my movies and was a fan.
On the way to Sam’s next gig, our limo was driven to a private Learjet. That was the preferred mode of transportation for Sam, as it was the least amount of hassle. It couldn’t have been planned better, with the door of the limo opening almost simultaneously with the jet’s door. I was like, “Wow,” and not a lot of things impress me.
Sam did his show in a 12,000-seat venue and we were right back to partying like rock stars. Lines of cocaine on every coffee table in the suite. And Quaaludes. It was like those were the snacks. I was surprised there weren’t butlers with silver trays passing them around. We had a line of cocaine, half a Quaalude, and a cocktail just to start the evening, which we called a “rocktail.” I have to admit, it was fun.
After Vancouver we were told to pack a day bag. But getting Sam out of bed was an absolute chore. He was not a very willing participant. I rolled him over and said, “Get your ass out of bed and get dressed now!” I had to lay his clothes out for him like a kid, but that wasn’t too difficult since he always wore the same thing. I was told Sam had become my responsibility as far as getting him dressed and ready.
We piled into another limo and were taken to this absolutely drop dead gorgeous yacht. We were going boating for the afternoon. There were fifteen or twenty people there. I thought they had rented it, but the actual owners were there. I was talking to a pleasant gentleman about music. This was around when “We Are the World” was out. I told him an Earth, Wind, and Fire tune I loved was much better and would be a more appropriate anthem. Interrupting the conversation, I asked him, “Do you happen to know where the lady’s room is?” He gave me directions and I walked into this huge private state room. It was comparable to a beautiful hotel suite. The entire back of the bed was lined with Grammy awards.
I’m not normally a nosey person, but I looked at them, and they were all made out to Earth, Wind, and Fire. He didn’t tell me he was Maurice White, the founder and leader of the band. When I came back out I laughed and said to him, “Are you amused with yourself?”
He said, “That was probably the nicest compliment I’ve ever heard.”
Sam loved Baileys on the rocks and Saki. Back at the hotel, Sam was downing a ton of Saki. We were all partying again and I knew we had to go to Seattle the next day. We partied until the wee hours of the morning, but I was trying simultaneously to pack. We had new hundred dollar bills for each line of cocaine we were doing. God forbid we should use the same one.
I went around the room afterwards, picking up hundred dollar bills, wiping the cocaine off, and straightening them out. There had to be four or five thousand dollars in my hand. I walked over to Sam and he said, “Are you fucking crazy?”
“What do you mean?”
He said, “Keep it.”
“But it’s your money…”
“Just keep it.”
He didn’t have to ask me again.
Sam woke up in a gnarly mood. We went from limos, jets, and yachts to a beat-up old station wagon for a short ride to Seattle. But getting him up was a nightmare.
“Leave me alone. I want to sleep.”
I got all the bags together and set them outside the room. “Sam, come on. We’ve got to go. You can sleep in the car.” He put a pillow on my lap and slept the whole ride down.
We didn’t have to leave the hotel to get to the venue. There was a servant’s area that led backstage. But it was about five minutes before show time and he was still sleeping. This was becoming a real job. Well paid, but a pain in the butt. When you’re in two hotels a day and partying like a rock star, people are going to be grumpy. But when Sam got vicious, he’d curse like nobody’s business. “What the fuck’s wrong with you, bitch; can’t you see I’m sleeping?”
Not very nice.
I felt obligated to everyone else to get him where he had to go, but I was pissed off because he was ungrateful I was actually helping him keep his career on track. I finally got him up, dressed, and had him brush his teeth. Everybody was looking at me. They were all nervous and sweating. It was literally thirty seconds before the show and the place was packed. He pulled himself together, walked out, and brought the house down.
Standing there next to Elliot, I said, “I want to quit now.”
“It is taxing, isn’t it?” he said, laughing in relief.
I said, “My tenure is done.”
All of a sudden in the middle of the show I heard Sam calling me out. He was standing in the middle of the stage waiting for me.
“Elliot, I don’t want to do this.”
But I wasn’t going to humiliate Sam by leaving him just standing there. So we do this little back and forth off the cuff, and I’m holding my own with him. The fans liked me, too, and people were standing up screaming my name. I think Sam was jealous because I had popped the crowd and they kept screaming for me even after I left the stage. So he started yelling back at the crowd, “Shut up! The bitch is gone.” He wasn’t a happy camper that I had stolen his spotlight.
We were going back to L.A. right after the show on another private jet. He was still grumpy, sleepy, and of course had done too much drugs and alcohol. Not too many words were exchanged between us because he was pis
sed off. We were flying into John Wayne Airport. He kept asking me for cocaine and Quaaludes and I didn’t have any. Hell, we had used them all up. He had a bottle of Baileys in one hand and a cup of ice in another. I didn’t like his attitude so I just tried to get some sleep and ignore him.
When we got off the plane, Sam suddenly started screaming at me. He was yelling in Sam Kinison fashion how I had woken him up and there were no more drugs. He was coming down, and coming down from drugs is a terrifying experience and not a pretty picture.
I grabbed my suitcase and was trying to get it over to the side where I could call a taxi just to get away from the whole scene. But he kept dragging one of my bags and pulling it away from me. Meanwhile, he had me cornered next to a pay phone, screaming in my face, “You ungrateful bitch!”
Fed up, I looked at him and said, “Eat shit and die, Sam.”
He grabbed the suitcase and told me he was keeping it.
“I just want to get away from you. Keep it.”
I got a cab and went to my friend’s house to try to regroup and figure out how to get my other suitcase. I was so exhausted I probably slept for two days.
When I finally reached Sam, he told me to come to his house and get the bag. Now he seemed to be in a perfectly good mood. Billy Idol and his girlfriend were there and obviously Sam had gotten his “medication.” He apologized for being an asshole and I said, “Look Sam, I’m staying with friends and I need to go back to Chicago.”
He sounded like a little kid when he asked, “But will you see me again?”
I said, “Yes, if you behave yourself.”
I didn’t hear from him for a month or so.
Sam had been on Saturday Night Live and they went ballistic because he didn’t stick to the script. But he got such a great response from the fans that they wanted him back. I got a call from Elliot and he asked me, “How would you like to be on Saturday Night Live with Sam?”
Sam had demanded me or else he wasn’t going to do the show. I think it was his way of apologizing. They must have wanted him badly enough because it was a go.
Everybody was very nice and extremely pleased with me because I did exactly what they wanted. I acted like a total professional, getting there on time and seizing the opportunity. My part was to feed Sam grapes along with the Church Lady. I was in a sexy nightgown and they obviously wanted to exploit my popularity. The audience found the contrast between me and Dana Carvey in drag hilarious. It was a great moment. I also came out at the end with the entire cast. I was shocked to hear Don Pardo announce, “We had another wonderful show having Sam Kinison back, but the best part of the show was having Seka on.”
I didn’t hear from Sam after that. I guess it was too big a blow to his ego.
The Sam Kinison roller coaster was too scary for me to ride. I genuinely loved Sam and cared for him. It was fun, it was exciting, and an experience most people will never have in their life. Plus, I got a lot of publicity out of it.
When I heard Sam died, I was truly sad. I tried to reach Elliot to find out what had happened but couldn’t get in touch with anyone. Basically I knew what the public knew. I heard he had cleaned up his act, which made it even more tragic.
He was one of the greats, right up there with Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor. And an unforgettable part of my life.
With my boyfriend of the time, Sam Kinison, hosting SNL 3-15-86.
Classic Sam.
Lolling around Cat Cay in a boat with Sam Kinison, in between “rocktails.”
36. Patrick
Patrick was a very talented blues harmonica player who also fancied himself a photographer. He was about five foot seven with long, red, wavy hair that went down to the middle of his back, which he always wore in a French braid. He was very Irish looking with a fair complexion, freckles, and really, really pretty soft milky brown eyes. I was an inch or two taller than him, but the height difference never bothered me. For whatever reason, I usually dated men who were shorter than me.
We met at Kingston Mines, a blues club in Chicago. It was a jam session. He knew who I was, but I had never seen him before. I thought he was really cool because he played harmonica, had that long braid, a great laugh, and was very popular. It seemed that everybody in the club knew him. What was there not to like?
We started hanging out, partying, and soon enough, dating. It was the same old sex, drugs, and rock and roll, only with a steadier partner. I thought he was a serious artist because he kept saying he had an album deal coming soon. He envisioned himself a Bruce Hornsby type.
I had to go to L.A. for a photo shoot and he wanted to come along. He had some friends there and also had golfing on his brain. While I was working he golfed and socialized. And out of nowhere one night he asked me to marry him. And he kept asking. He was in love.
In a drug induced haze, I said, “Sure, why not?” It seemed like a well thought out decision at the time. Besides, I just wanted to go to sleep and shut him up.
Unbeknownst to me, while I was at the photo shoot, he arranged for a minister, a marriage license, the whole nine yards. I have a friend who still lives in L.A., and Patrick asked if we could have the wedding in his backyard.
I got back from the shoot and he told me, “We’re getting married tomorrow.”
Now, I liked him well enough. But was I in love with him? Not quite.
I woke up in a stupor, barely realizing I was about to be married again. With all the partying, I’d had maybe five hours’ sleep in three or four days. I stood in front of the minister in a fog. When he asked, “Do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?” I didn’t even absorb it. I felt several people poke me, abruptly jolting me back to reality. It was then I uttered the incredibly romantic words, “Yeah, I guess so.”
That should have given me a clue right there.
After the “I guess so’s” were pronounced, we had what you might call a reception, with lunch served to the eight or nine people present, including my make-up artist, hairdresser, and a couple of other friends. As they ate, I went into the bedroom and slept through the whole darn thing.
When I woke up hours later, most everyone was gone. A dream wedding this wasn’t.
I had a couple of other things to do in L.A., so Patrick headed back to Chicago, where he said he’d move his things in while I was out of town. When I got back to Chicago, I was horrified to find my whole house rearranged. There were all kinds of shady-looking people in and out of there at all hours of day and night. It didn’t take me long to figure out my musician/photographer husband was actually a drug dealer. That’s why everybody in that club knew him. Was I ever pissed he was dealing from my house! I was terrified of losing my home. Despite rumors, I’d only been married once before, and Frank sold pot, so here I was again, reliving the worst parts of my life on an endless loop.
When Patrick referred to it as “our house,” I corrected him, firmly. Things went downhill awfully fast. I wasn’t too polite to anyone who walked through the door, which was not doing his business much good. Ultimately, I would get disgusted and pick myself up and leave my own place.
One day, I looked at him and simply said, “I want a divorce.”
I went to my lawyer and told him what I’d done and he said, “Oh my God, what’s wrong with you?”
I replied, “I’m crazy; what do you want from me?”
Patrick truly thought he was in love and told me he’d contest the divorce. He was using a lot and was in just as bad a condition as I was, for my partying had gotten way out of control, although I never had a desire to deal. Too dangerous. Soon after, Patrick was summoned to my lawyer’s office, where I had all the papers ready to be signed. But he said, “I’m not signing them.”
I lost it. I angrily stormed over to him, picked him up, and literally threw him against the wall. When I’m angry, it gives me crazy strength.
“Sign the papers or I’m going to break your fucking legs!”
He said, “You’re threatening me. You’re threatening
me and we’re in front of lawyers.”
“They’re my lawyers, dumb ass, and I’m paying them. Do you think they’re going to squeal on me?”
So he signed.
And just like that the marriage was over. The whole thing lasted six weeks and we were in each other’s company for about three.
It was one of the things that made me realize I needed to get straight, and fast. The next time I saw him, we bumped into each other on the street and he had grown a beard, gained about fifty pounds, and just looked terrible. I barely recognized my ex-husband.
37. Careful… They May Screw You
I’d left XXX films, I did the stripping thing for a while, I still did the Club magazine work and the mail order business, but funds were dwindling. My opulent lifestyle was eating up all my cash, but I didn’t want to give it up without a fight.
The film business never stopped calling me. My videos were still the rage. Other, younger stars had come along, but my name continued to bring in audiences and sales. Instead of just saying no, I kept up my game of asking for far too much money, as well as so many other conditions, in order to make them hang up the phone. But while AIDS lingered as a concern, other factors kept teasing me to come back. Sure, money was number one, but other things, such as creative control, played in my head. So long as they still knew I could make them money, the industry seemed willing to give me a wide berth if I ever wanted back in.
I decided to make my own movie. It was a challenge. It was almost like giving birth.
In that era, I can’t remember any woman but Gail Palmer raising money, writing, directing, editing, and getting a distribution deal before the first inch of film was shot. But it was something I needed to — and somehow knew I could do.
I started writing Careful, He May Be Watching while I was traveling quite a bit with Barbara. She knew the lawyers to go to in order to draw up the agreements, and the people we needed to raise money from.