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

by Des Barres, Pamela

  More than two months passed before Michael was finally summoned to Malibu by Peter Grant. We allowed ourselves to get edgily excited, hoping the ambiguous Mr. Page was ready to produce the Detective record. Michael had arrived home one morning at 3 A.M., having stayed too long at some drug geek’s house in Laurel Canyon, bombed and complaining that he needed one more song for the album. I had been so relieved to see him but pissed off at the same time, so scrawled out a song called “Recognition” in about ten minutes, just to prove it could be done. Michael loved the lyrics and had them in his pocket when he leapt confidently into the Zeppelin limo.

  As I paced around praying the meeting was going well, day turned to night and night to day again. It was the first of uncountable nights I would spend alone while my husband was out rampaging through town. The phone sat mute. He didn’t even call. Was he celebrating without me? Snorting reams of coke? Swallowing handfuls of various multicolored capsules? Swigging Jack straight out of the bottle? The fear inside me was alive. I could see his liver disintegrating, his heart stopping, ka-bump, ka——bump, ka— The sun was fully up when he staggered in, and in one instant I knew all was not right with the world. His eyes spun black in their deep sockets, he twitched, he sniffled, he looked crazed-high, but I was afraid to confront him because the wacked-out look on his face broadcasted bad news. Before he crashed out for the next day and a half, he told me how a forlorn Peter sat him down, pointed to Jimmy, who was nodding out in a corner, and told him Pagey wasn’t able to produce the record because of his heroin problem. Poor Jimmy, poor Peter, poor Michael. Poor ME!!! When Michael came out of his self-induced stupor twenty hours later, I lured him back to the world with Nutty Orange Marmalade Chicken and a fabulously healthy salad topped with toasted sunflower seeds and golden raisins. He washed it down with half a dozen bottles of Chablis.

  IV

  With Mr. Page backing out of the picture for heart-cracking personal reasons, Danny finally found a replacement to produce the Detective project. Since the new producer’s first name was also Jimmy, when the album came out everybody thought it was Mr. Pagey being cagey, and Michael let them think what they wanted.

  Detective’s sound was big and bold, thunderous and blatant. Michael wrote the lyrics, guitarist Michael Monarch wrote the screaming licks that strained to be melodies. The deafening volume hurt your ears real good, but Michael’s arteries popped halfway out of his throat, smarting to be heard. He woed to me that he felt like a heavy metal puppet in a hellhound lip-sync parade. The greedy bastards. It’s a holy roller miracle he doesn’t have to wear double hearing aids like Pete Townshend.

  Detective was on the final edge of megaton metal and had a raucous, loyal following; local gigs were packed full of raving metal dogs and spandex-clad girls with ratted, dyed black hair who gazed up at Michael wantonly, tongues lolling. Half-disrobed tarty babes hit on him as if I were invisible— “What are you doing later, Michael? Want to get together?” He acted as if he had never seen the teased beauties before, brushing them aside like annoying wasps. I was always with my man, hanging on tight, my eyes blazing at those naughty girls with lingering glances. I even elbowed one of the most brazen right in her billowing mammaries, but as far as I could tell, Michael didn’t even notice these rampant females, and I believed he was devoted to me, body and soul, so when Detective played San Francisco, that loopy city where everybody seemed anesthetized, I stayed home to paint the kitchen pink.

  A few days later I went out to get the mail, and there was a letter addressed to Michael that the record company had kindly forwarded to El Cerrito Place. I examined the obvious girly handwriting with big, fat, loopy vowels, and before I could even hand it over to Michael he grabbed it and dashed down the back stairs. My heart screamed. I stood there, stuck in the kitchen, staring at the dirty dishes until he reappeared, musing out loud, “Isn’t that odd, the envelope was empty.” Mr. Innocence shrugged, and I pushed the rising rancor deep down inside and tamped it flat. I studied his face for a fib and couldn’t admit I saw one.

  We were a unit. Joined at the hip. Hand in glove. Two hearts beating as one, forevermore. I was sewn into his flesh like a brand-new body part, a human IV giving him a fresh, new, squeaky-clean lease on life. My entire well-being was reliant on the look in his eyes.

  I had finally started to face the only time bomb that stood between us: his addiction, which of course had a long, warped stem leading back to his alien childhood. But what could I do about it? Begging and pleading only drove him out of the house, so I tried to hold my nagging tongue while he told me disconcerting tales of boy-woe like he was reciting the alphabet. One Christmas he had been left alone in a crummy hotel room the entire day, and when his parents finally returned, his mom bitterly cut apart her gift to Philip, a carton of cigarettes, with a pair of tiny nail scissors and threw the little pieces in his face, cursing him long and hard. Seven-year-old Michael got nothing. It was rare that his parents were together, and a lot of nights the young Michael slept next to Irene while she frolicked with black jazz musicians, the smell of hash filling the small flat as he tried in vain to fall asleep. On El Cerrito Place he still had insane bouts with the relentless monster insomnia, which I tried to tackle with massage, herbs, spiritual advice, and a lot of pleading to Jesus for some blessed zzz’s for my man.

  V

  Despite my over-devotion to Michael, I stayed close with my parents, being their adored only child, and watching my daddy fall prisoner to his failing lungs was a poison dart in my already lacerated side. Due to a constant, lung-chewing cough diagnosed as black lung from slaving in the Kentucky coal mines, Daddy had to quit his job. He still drank eight or ten beers a day and played poker with his cronies but was otherwise a frustrated, bottled-up he-man with nowhere to flaunt his fading energy. He kept coming up with different projects that filled the house, the first of which was a poster of a lovely lake and mountain scene that took up an entire wall. He got dressed in his finest bell-bottomed leisure suit and made Mom take stacks of Polaroids of him with his fishing rod in the backyard until they got the right size photo so he could glue himself onto the massive mural. Whenever anybody came to visit, he would make them study the wall scene until they spotted him sitting on a log, holding his fishing rod over the lake. He roared with laughter every single time, like it was the most clever idea ever dreamed up. Eventually he got a gigantic replica kit of his navy ship that was blown in half during a battle in World War II and spent a couple of years painstakingly putting it together, even though his hands were being wickedly assaulted by arthritis. It was a grand day when he finally attached it to the wall-lake where it floated for a dozen years without being bombed.

  The first Detective record sold enough copies that Swan Song requested another. This one would be produced by a brilliant but stoned-out young British producer, Andy Johns. Why did everyone who worked with Michael have to be so drug oriented? In between taking care of my increasingly bombed fiance and trying to help out my parents, I decided to be brave and slog back into the acting world. I had already ditched Freda Granite, signing with a family agency called Barskin, and the first job I went out for I snagged; the part of a hippie girl called Apple on a local soap. In 1977 hippies existed only on faraway farfetched farms, but I was playing one right here in Hollywood! I wore long shapeless dresses and acted up a blizzard with a Charles Manson–type guy who wore a pasted-on beard. He was trying to get a tender, nubile Genie Francis to join his mind-controlling commune, and Lady Apple was caught in the middle. Luke eventually came to Laura’s rescue, and all was well at General Hospital. They seemed to love my work and hinted about a regular spot on the soap, but it never manifested. I did a day’s shoot on a lifelike half-hour show called Emergency!, where I got to languish in a freezing cold hot tub in a skimpy bathing suit, screaming, yelling, and hollering to save my goose-bumped skin. I forget why I couldn’t just climb out of the tub, but I think it had something to do with a stunt dog and a chewed-up live wire.

  My bizz
y-dizzy schedule got crazier because our lard-ass landlord liked the way we fixed up our beautiful bungalow and wanted to move in himself, so I had to tromp all over Hollywood, looking for an appropriate pad in our up-and-down, hand-to-mouth price range. I found a renovated, revised, slick apartment off Fountain Avenue, and after a big yard sale in which we sold all of our cool bamboo, antique lamps, and forties collectibles, Michael and I moved in with a bunch of new modern crap, thinking we would be a couple of contemporary, up-to-the-minute urbanites. Leaving all taste behind, we shopped for massive, tweedy “playpen” couches, Lucite-and-glass end tables, those god-awful chrome lamps that bend all over the place, and large, arty, modern prints in silver and gold frames. I don’t know what got into me.

  Our moderne pad became a second home to Danny Goldberg, who had gotten fed up with the unprofessional and chaotic Zeppelin regime and left his difficult position as Swan Song VP. The three of us got ascloseasthis, and on those long nights when Michael got lost Danny became a spiritual partner, consoling me, praying with me, and holding my hand. He had recently started managing a cosmogirl-singer called Mirabai who trilled nirvanic, chanting melodies for Hilda at those rally-type spiritual meetings in New York. She had just surged out on her own in hopes of spreading the message to the masses but wound up in the arms of Michael’s newest wunderkind producer, Andy Johns, having scary sex and reeling around on large quantities of various illegal substances. It was as if she was trying to do all kinds of really gross earthly things to make up for the lost time she had spent on the heavenly plane. She and I had become sisterlike, so when she tossed Danny and me to the winds like worn-out holy mantras, our hearts splintered together, and we had many mutual commiseration sessions.

  I continued taking classes to perfect my art. I scrubbed disgusting floors and removed globs of germy gum in exchange for private lessons with some nobody slob who couldn’t seem to see my brilliance. The pompous, smelly underdog coach had me stifled in the pit of Pinter and wimping around in The Seagull until the sweaty afternoon when I finally threw down my stubby broom and stalked out, my heart as dry as a sun-bleached bone. He told me I would never make it as a true ACTRESS. Just like he never made it as a true ACTOR. Ha ha ha. Sob sob sob. I wept openly in the hard daylight on the corner of Spaulding and Sunset until some nice old lady hobbled by and tried to comfort me. I got into my VW and drove back home to the playpen couches and god-awful lamps that bend all over the place.

  VI

  Oh, my Hero in Heaven, was housekeeping my destiny? Could a normal-formal nine-to-five existence lie ahead? Despite the fact I had my stoned-out rock-and-roll man and a burgeoning acting career, I started a bad slide into semi-normalcy. I wanted to be a creative force, let my talent pour forth, but I was living half of Michael’s life for him, which left only half for me. Since the wild boy never learned to drive in England, I did all the driving in L.A., taking him to meetings, rehearsals, gigs. I took care of our checking account and paid the bills. I cleaned the house, bought the food and cooked it—even lamb chops with mint sauce, though I didn’t believe in eating babies and hadn’t had a bite of meat in five years. (When I was a little girl, I always asked my mom if what was on my plate was a baby or a grown-up. But now I was a devoted wife-to-be, so I blessed the little baa-baas and plopped them in the pan.) I was in love and felt no resentments whatsoever. It just seemed natural—my obligation as a female to do, do, DO it all for my man.

  It was strange and impossible for the women of my generation to figure out our place within the confines of a romantic relationship. My mom gave up any creative aspirations she had to take care of my daddy because she believed she had no other choice. (She did work before they were married, however.) It was the way of the world, the American Way. In the sixties the feminist movement shoved choice down our delicate throats, and a girl with any brains at all was forced to ponder the many frightening new potential options. I had scary visions of defiant, liberated women marching en masse down the street, while I watched my sweet mom pressing Daddy’s Budweiser work shirts, little drops of sweat forming on her furrowed brow. To give her credit, as soon as polyester hit the market, Margaret Ruth Hayes Miller threw away the ironing board in a liberating act of protest, which forced Daddy to get into leisure suits in a big way.

  I just kept doing what I thought was expected of me. My much desired role of good little wifey included waving good-bye on nights when Michael went out to rip up the town. With the TV spewing, I lay in bed affirming that his addiction would cease, but it was desperation affirmation, out of control, adverse hope in vain. Not calm, cool, and collected prayer but an emotional, jagged fear of his habit and my own cold-sweat response. Staying home was a form of masochism because I knew he would take a ton of drugs when I wasn’t around, but subconsciously I couldn’t bear to see him squash and squelch himself due to my peering, peeking oppressive presence. Very kinky, indeed. Most peculiar, mama.

  I wrote sporadically in my journal, attempting to sort it all out:

  April 8—Michael is asleep next to me, having spent until noon with Rod Stewart. We went out to a Todd Rundgren party, and I see why I don’t miss going out. Yuck! Everyone except Todd around was snorting coke . . . SO fashionable, not my idea of a good time. I came home by myself.

  April 15—Just finished painting my nails, all alone. Michael is out seeing Iggy Pop. Went to see Dolly Parton at the Roxy last night and met David Bowie. So what. I still can’t get into being out and about. Very odd considering that’s just about all I used to do. I’m more comfortable with my cats. I’m an old woman, I guess.

  June 4—New York. Do I have reason to worry or what? I think I’m being paranoid, and then I get here to see Detective play and it’s just as crazed as I imagined. I really asked for this one—I pleaded with the Gods for a pop star, and here I am, knee-deep at almost thirty. Everyone is so stoned, and the scene is as small as a pinhead, but I have to realize it’s Michael’s career. He loves the nightlife and clubs, always seeks a reaction, thriving on feedback. God, he’s as insecure as I am.

  I spent so many nights alone in our unrumpled bed that I came to expect lots of long, sad, stretched-out days while Michael recovered from his mystery dawn-busters. I started writing sobby songs about the sorrows of solitude. In fact I called one of the Tammy Wynette tear-drippers “Sleeping Alone”:

  She wakes up every hour

  And looks at the clock by the bed

  She reaches out and touches

  The pillow where her man lays his head

  He’s been out all night

  And the sun has been shining since the dawn

  Thank God the night is over

  ’Cause nothing’s worse than sleeping alone

  The sun usually starts shining at dawn, doesn’t it?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I

  At least Michael’s revels were bringing in some money—enough so we could make a pilgrimage/vacation to Las Vegas to see the treasured, obese King at the International Hilton. We checked into a grand, tacky suite with a bed the size of Nebraska, ate high on the turkey, lost twenty dollars playing blackjack—it was Splurge City! There were concessions all over the lobby overflowing with gaudy Elvis trinkets: cheap, highly flammable scarves, big, fake rings, TCB necklaces, color shots of the sweaty King spreading his white sequined tent wide like tarnished angel’s wings. The nasty, smirk-lipped bad boy with black penciled eyebrows had been swallowed up in rolls of blubber and acres of polyester, but we loved him still. We love you, Elvis, oh yes we do, we couldn’t love anyone as much as you.

  The book by his Judas bodyguards had just hit the stands, and Michael and I lay in our mammoth bed, staring at the ceiling, knowing Elvis was twenty floors above us doing unmentionable things. We could just picture him up there, contemplating his vast array of “medication,” deciding which combo of pills would do the trick tonight. Did he really inject himself in the groin with Dilaudid? We decked out hard, cruised through the cacophonous gambling din, and handed our ticket
s to the smug, smarmy seating dude, who promptly sat us in the back row. Wait a minute! Unfair! Michael leaned over to me and whispered, “Maybe I should give him a twenty?” We were sickeningly naive about Vegas slim-slam protocol, I suppose. “Do you think it might help?” I whispered back. It did. The creep moved us halfway down, giving us an oily smirk. As we sat through a macho, rotten-mouthed comedian, Michael leaned toward me again. “If I had given him twenty more, we’d be in the orchestra pit!” The lights dimmed and rose—Elvis in front of us! A lot of Elvis in front of us. But the voice had never been better. Enthralled speechless, we grabbed each other’s hands, ecstatic. We were right in the middle of one of our forevermoments, and we knew it. Elvis rubbed off layers of sweat, tossed the sopping scarves to beehived middle-agers, but even though I reached, I wasn’t close enough to rejoice in the King’s secretions. As he left the stage to don yet another sparkling tent, Michael laughed, “If I had given that bum a fifty, we’d be swinging on Elvis’s TCB pendant!”