Take Another Little Piece of My Heart: A Groupie Grows Up

by Des Barres, Pamela

  So many women my age are either adoring, diminished do-gooders, slavishly devoted to the men and children in their lives, putting themselves at the very end of the list, and rotting with boiling resentment or hard-bitten gals determined to wear the slacks and hold the reins. Their lips become slits of fierce, hard-won independence, and it’s not very cute. I’ve always avoided the grown-up middle ground, but for the last couple of years I’ve been on a big search for this elusive pathway: take care of my man by taking care of myself. The goal sounds simple enough, but I’ve had to wade through reams of conditioning and blind rebellion, trying not to lose sight of the joyous, exciting day-to-day gift of life. I’m working on being independent—on trusting and respecting my wacky self—but not to get so serious that I get wrinkles on my forehead and trample on the things that thrill and delight me. It’s definitely an adventure, and I’ll always expect illuminating, mesmerizing moments to come along and clog up my day.

  And thank God they do. I had a heart-stopping split second not too very long ago. Bob Dylan was playing the Greek Theatre, one of my fave venues in L.A., and I had backstage passes. What else is new? There are very few concerts I go to anymore without some sort of badge or sticker. Call me a snot, but I’ve been doing this shit for so long, I deserve an award, much less some sort of stupid innersanctum sticker. I have to say, though, that a pass for Bob Dylan thrilled and delighted me. Oh yes. I went rolling back in time, when I spent hours and ages in my rock-and-roll room in Reseda, listening to Bob break and enter. He busted into my confused-teen bouffant with an atomic wand and made me question every single thing in the universe. I wanted to yell “Chaaaaarge!!” and tackle all the hypocrisy and bullshit on the planet all by myself! So, twenty-five years later, when I pushed that backstage door open and Bob spread out his arms and said, “Pamela!! There you are! I just finished reading your book, cover to cover, and you’re a really good writer,” not only did time stand still for me, but I felt like popping open with pride. When I get inspired, I feel it right down into my fingertips, my pumping arteries, marrow, flushed cheeks, tear ducts, clitoris. I felt truly excited and awe inspired that night. People were all around, buzzing, humming like bees, congratulating Bob on his mighty performance. Hearty congratulations for the mysterious man with too many answers. He held a tumbler full of some bourbon-colored booze; grizzled, frizzy, black leather vest; smiling, mumbling thank-yous, shaking hands. His guitars in the corner, gleaming, his girlfriend Carole and her dressy friends melding into the team of onlookers. Jack Nicholson, Anjelica Huston, Harry Dean Stanton, David Crosby. I had had my sparkling moment. Another backstage scene in which I revolved around the star player like a fringe planet around the sun. But it’s okay. I’m one of those people who adore. It feels so good to be able to adore someone, doesn’t it? That brief moment seemed the same as those sparkling drops in the ancient days of groupie yore, but this time I was getting back some of the outrageous output of adoration, appreciation energy. One of my main heroes appreciated my work. What a fucking thrill.

  Yet another killer drop in the bucket of life took place at a dinner party held by my main doll-girl, Patti D’Arbanville, where the elusive Mr. Dylan put in an unexpected appearance. I arrived late, and he was the first person to greet me. “Pam, I missed you on Oprah,” he called out, and I stopped dead in my tracks. Now, I don’t let just anybody call me Pam, except for my aunties, who just refuse to admit I grew out of “Pam” when I bought my first package of tampons at Thrifty drugstore, but I just couldn’t correct Bob Dylan.

  Pam, I missed you on Oprah.

  IV

  I hope that life will continue to thrill me until I cease to be. If I ever feel myself sliding into that woe-is-me shit, it doesn’t take much to jolt me back out of the pit. I rush off to a Salvation Army thrift store and poke through a bunch of old crap in hopes of finding an overlooked treasure. Some fabulous old brocaded jacket with peace-sign pendant attached, maybe. It’s always a possibility. I can cruise the bookstores for a signed Kerouac or the latest in codependence literature to keep myself from falling under some sexy snake charmer’s spell, or I can grab my kid and go down to Little Tokyo and rent some unruly Japanese animation that Nick can translate for me while we sip cans of that amazing sweet, creamy “milky-tea.” While I’m at it, I can also purchase some of those screwy, contorted, nameless Oriental vegetables with roots coming out of both ends and figure out how to eat them. I can pull out some Gram Parsons records and melt into yesterday’s thick promises, or listen to an outrageous new band trying to knock back some walls. That usually straightens me right out. I can also whip up a cool dish for my boyfriend that tastes better than a billion-dollar meal served on the roof of some fancy revolving restaurant, or take a few deep breaths, spin inward, merge with the cosmos, and see that radiant silver cord that hooks us all together. The possibilities for avoiding that pity pit are endless.

  I truly believe every one of us has a story to tell. We all rage and weep, laugh and mourn, have a lot of sex or not enough, fall in and out of love. We work hard, struggle, beg, plead, and play, and it’s all very important. We’re the stuff that dreams and nightmares are made of. It’s all in the telling, dolls, and I’m going to tell you about the last fifteen years of my life, most of which were spent with the man I thought I would be with forever. But that fuddy-duddy fossilized cliche “Life is full of surprises” is one of those big, fat inescapable truths. It can work for you, or it can creep up and kick you in the ass. I think the trick is to have eyes in the back of your head. Expect the worst. Expect the best. Expect a fucking miracle. It’s always Anything Can Happen Day.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I

  When I’m with the Band came out, my husband of twelve and a half years, Michael, and I were on the verge of separating. I had such mixed-up, sad, and final feelings. I had accomplished so much by writing reams of cathartic madness, clearing away so many pentup questions that still lurked in my heart like lonely apparitions. Writing about my loony, beloved past was like cleansing my soul with a heart-shaped metal scrub brush. Painful, bittersweet good-byes. I could finally let go of the magical Fab Four and Paul McCartney’s dreamy thighs, Jimmy Page’s ebony, velvet curls, Gram Parson’s haunting anguished sob, Mick Jagger’s haughty, prancing majesty, the wild and free utopian love-ins, the Sunset Strip, shredding crushed velvet and rotting silk flowers, my rose-colored, Mr. Tambourine Man sunglasses, hazy, stoned-out moments with people long gone: Keith Moon, John Bonham, Gram, Brandon De Wilde, Jim Morrison, Miss Christine . . . and now I had to let go of my forever-darling, Michael.

  My book party in L.A. was held at an itsy underground club in Venice called the Pink. Originally it had been a lesbian bar, hence the colorful name. Risqué chic from top to bottom. All my friends were there, the pinkest champagne was festively flowing, and I had finally accomplished something of my own that made me proud. My KISS pal, Gene Simmons, was looking at me with his businessman eyes, dollar-sign pupils. Justine Bateman arrived on a shiny Harley D., scanning for Leif Garrett. My ex-lost love Donnie Johnson sent a bouquet from Miami that was almost embarrassing, taking up an entire corner of the crowded, bzzzz-ing room. Congratulations, Sweetheart. There was a gooey cake with plastic Beatle dolls on top, forever in mid-song, representing Chapter One. Girlfriends from high school said, “So you made something out of that loony life of yours, after all.” Bravo. Or is it brava?

  I had been to a zillion psychics; they had all told me I was a “late bloomer” and my success would come “later in life.” That’s something you’re not too thrilled to hear when you’re barely eighteen, but that sweet day at the Pink, it seemed that “later in life” had finally arrived. My book was stacked up all over the mini-cavern, the scent of hundreds of roses making me feel giddy and tipsy. Loud sixties memory-music had everybody shouting out instead of just speaking up. The day had come. It was finally my turn to curtsy, and Michael’s turn to bow out gracefully. Ouch.

  I was wearing a white, dragging-the-groun
d, frothy ripped-up lace number, high spiked diamanté heels, and red, red lips; looking madly elegant but feeling like an emotional moron. Veering from wacko gleeful to overwhelmingly melancholy, I felt like I was walking a shredded, golden tightrope. Holding hands with friends, kissing cheeks. Happy/sad. Michael made a poignant, inspired toast with sparkling apple cider about love and regrets, his dark, dark eyes shining with unshed tears. Champagne glasses were held high as he praised my budding talent to the giant skies, cracking up everybody with spot-on one-liners. I was beginning a rock novel called Blush, and with his glass in the air, Michael closed his disarming, charming Pamela pitch by saying, “Her first book made you shiver. Her new one will make you—blush.” Applause, applause. Even when his life was collapsing around him, he could send people reeling with his wit and hysterical charm. Laugh, laugh—I thought I would die. All his clothes were still in the closet, tapes in the tape deck, photos on the walls, Opium colognes and body lotions lining the cupboards, his index finger still jammed tight into my solar plexus, but I missed him already.

  II

  I grew up believing that true love lasts forever. It’s still an ideal that I aspire to, even though I’ve been squashed flat and hung out to dry in the ice-cold, harsh-assed, whipping wind of reality. It’s such an age-old story of betrayal and pain that I hardly know how to tell it. Michael and I have been apart four years now, and it’s true that our old and trusted pal Mr. Time has healed the open, oozing wound. But nothing will ever take away those days, weeks, and months when suffering, angst, and terror were the rules of the game. It can’t be any other way when your life flies apart like the biggest bully in the world has stamped your flawlessly concocted dollhouse to smithereens.

  And an amazing little dollhouse of dreams it was. I never would have believed for a split second that the California earthquake might come along behind the naughty bully and make sure it was well and truly crushed flat. Michael and I had worked up a pretty lively life scenario for ourselves. Never had any idea what was around the corner of any God-given moment—who might walk through our door and stay awhile, what borderline-renown personality would call and invite us to some sort of spectacular event. Our dinner parties and yard sales were attended by the coolest of the cool. Madonna dug into my heart-shaped carrot cake before it was cut, Billy Idol wore Michael’s old boots down the street. Life was a tempting dessert full of surprises. Our little boy had a gigantic IQ and a heart-stopping smile. It was assumed all around that Michael and I were the Perfect Couple—a match made where it counts. Surrounding our tantalizing yet cozy-wozy love next was the unwieldy, gold-spattered world of show biz and all its come-hither, half-assed promises. But I’m leaping ahead of myself here, so let’s go back, let’s go waaay back—to the days before the Sex Pistols, when David Bowie was still androgynous, when John Lennon was still very much alive. When Pamela Des Barres was still Pamela Miller from Reseda, California, looking real hard for love.

  III

  Michael and I met on a movie set in Manhattan. My ex-passion and old friend Keith Moon didn’t show up to play the part of the debauched, mongrel rock star, so the director of Arizonaslim, Chuck Wein, had to comb the gutters and agencies of New York City, seeking an impossible overnight replacement for the reckless, feckless drummer of the Who. He came up with the lead singer of a glam band called Silverhead, and I was ever so curious to see who I was going to adore on screen. I arrived at the location, an upscale pad in the West Village, in costume. It was three below zero and I was decked out in turquoise Betsey Johnson knitted short-shorts—Miss Casual, together, star-of-the-movie. In my mind’s third eye I can still recall the exact instant I set eyes on Michael Philip Des Barres.

  It was his twenty-sixth birthday, which in retrospect is pretty propitious. The birthday boy was scroonched up on the couch alongside one of the bit players, a flitty-eyed girl with a shag-do who was attempting to engage him in conversation. He came out of the void as I made my noisy entrance, and stared at my chill-bumped ass with crazy blue-black eyes. Encouraging, to say the least. The degenerate rock star and I had quite a few scenes together that day, so I yanked out my script in hopes of some rehearsal. Wearing silver lame cut down to the belly button, a fake, tatty leopard coat, ladies’ white patent flats and with a chiseled face full of yesterday’s makeup, Michael watched me walk toward him with a lion’s den grin full of chipped British teeth. (What’s wrong with the dentists over there, anyway?) He obviously lived an audacious and irresponsible life; just the kind of person who has always been intriguing to me, much to my dear mother’s dismay.

  Michael and I hunkered down to rehearse and wound up snorting piles of coke together. I had tried to stop taking all drugs a couple of times before and almost overcame the urge entirely after going on a two-week papaya fast. I felt so whistle clean and gunk-free; like all my insides were just born. I floated around in a natural sprouted-wheat celestial state for a few days afterward, determined to stay pure. In the early days of zoning out on pot and psychedelics, I considered it some kind of inner soul search, but now I knew better, and besides feeling my liver shudder, I knew that Jesus, Buddha, and Paramahansa Yogananda were shaking their heads in shame and sorrow for the goofy chick who kept slipping off the path. So Michael and I did our scenes together—high as kites—the first of which involved lounging in the back of a limo, discussing Elvis Presley, one of our many, as it turned out, mutual heroes. Since a portion of my heart belonged to an unavailable Southern hunk back home, I wasn’t instantly smitten with Michael, so was able to be myself, and he was mesmerized. He told me he loved my all-girl band, the GTO’s (Girls Together Outrageously), and had harbored a secret desire to meet me after seeing my picture in Melody Maker. Was that the one where I stretched out across the conference table?

  Michael and I worked hard all day on the low-budget disaster, and by night-crash I was a twitching wretch, wringing my hands in cokedout despair. Debonair Michael, obviously a drug pro, dug up a couple of Valiums from the flitty-eyed extra, graciously placed them in my sweaty palm, and disappeared into the mad night. I was surprised he hadn’t attempted to woo my ass, but of course it made him all the more provocative.

  I slept like sixteen tons and met up with him the next evening where we were filming the backstage scene with his glitter band Silverhead. I perched on his lap, because it was in the script—ha ha—and he casually stroked my thigh while wailing with a gigantic, raspy voice, rehearsing the raunchy set. KISS was the opening act, and I could hear the thump-thump of Peter Criss’s bass drum through my sling-backs, while Chuck filmed the whole scene. Something was certainly going on inside my lacy undergarments as I wriggled on his scrawny lap, why deny it? He came back to the Beekman Tower with me and tossed my costume across the room in a brazen heap, plowing into me with his lips until I screeched him to a halt. How much can you take? We couldn’t do the full deed because Michael had caught some unmentionable infection in Japan and was chivalrous enough not to plant it inside me. A true gentleman. I suppose that’s why he hadn’t tried to win me over on the first night. “It’s just as well,” I burbled to myself. “Do I really need this rumpled, stoned-out smart-ass in my life? He’s a rock guy who lives across the ocean, and I’ve had enough of that shit.” We went shopping the next day, and he spent an entire week’s per diem on little trinkets for me, red velvet pumps for himself, and a fancy, romantic dinner at the famous Luchow’s, where we drank fine wine from chilled crystal goblets. White-haired violinists came to our table, playing Strauss waltzes while Michael and I drilled lust holes into each other and ate great buttery lumps of rich food. I think I stuffed down an entire duck crammed full of bing cherries. Poor little quacker.

  As the antique music waltzed around us, Michael told me he came from a long, long line of blue-blooded French aristocrats; he was titled and would one day be the Marquis Des Barres. At present he was but a mere Count. He grabbed hold of my hand and announced that I would make a ravishing countess. “I think we shall be married one day,” h
e said matter-of-factly, right in my eyes. And here I thought I was just having a little fun.

  It was no laughing matter, even though there was a lot of laughter involved. Michael pursued me, got in the way of my Southern romance, and trampled it right down on his way to my front door. My mom’s eyebrows were raised; she hoped it wasn’t serious. Silverhead came to Los Angeles and took the underage groupie crowd by storm, but even though the baby bumpers made themselves mightily available, I was the one hanging onto the lead singer’s tatty leopard coat. We made intrinsic love in his crumpled bed at the Hyatt House, musky, tangy bonding all night long. Michael ripped up the Whisky a Go Go in a last attempt at original raunch. The band put out two racy records that not enough people bought. Silverhead should have made it massive, but when they got back to England they busted up instead.