Then I flew off to Aspen to don a wedding frock.
IV
Melanie had had yet another bout with cocaine—her final one. I had been worried about her in New York, but she always half-assedly hid her addiction from me, so it was difficult to help. After Working Girl wrapped, she checked herself into rehab and called her first husband, Donnie, Mr. Clean and Sober, for moral support. They spent hours and hours on the phone while she fought her scary battle, rediscovering each other, and ah, romantic corn—surprise! surprise!—falling back in love. I felt real bad for Barbra, because I knew from experience that Donnie was addictive, but it was obviously the right heartfelt move. And now Melanie was pregnant, and I would be her matron of honor.
People didn’t understand, but Don adored the idea of keeping company with his former gal-pals. There was a definite harem feel to the situation that he reveled in, but it was really more like an extended family. We just loved each other.
Donnie flew Patti, Michael, and me to the ranch in Aspen a couple days in advance to prepare for the divine wedding festivities. Everything was blooming and blossoming, wildflowers in abundance covering the glorious green mountains. Lots of birds were chirping, horses braying, doggies yapping, blond children romping; it was almost too delightful. Melanie needed Patti and me to tend to her excited, emotional state, and we did so with love, giggles, and aplomb. When her dress arrived, we oohed, aahed and got teary-faced, huggyhuggy. It was Romeo/Juliet empire style to make room for her burgeoning baby tummy and looked so frothy and exquisite. Oh boy, you’re getting married tomorrow! Baby’s breath for her hair, a luscious bouquet to toss. Who would be the lucky bitch to grab it out of the air?
Patti brought a certain lovely dress to wear but wasn’t satisfied, so we tromped through the cobbled streets of Aspen on a search for something billowing and blue at almost the last minute. My dress was tres flowery and colorful, matching the hills that were alive with the sound of wedding bells.
Dismayingly, the rags got wind of the wedding day and started circling the ranch, their rot-rag helicopters sput-sput-sputtering throughout the morning. Don’s temples pounded. Enraged, he called all the proper authorities, and they tried to intervene, but it was too late. Then Donnie changed the time of the actual ceremony, and the worms just missed it—hooray—but not before shooting photos of Michael, Patti, and me cavorting up on the balcony. Patti, flirtatious nymph that she is, raised her white cotton nightie, flashing the attractive gardeners hoeing below, and the rags erroneously reported that it was Melanie flashing Don before the wedding. They never get it right. D.J., Patti, and a few other enterprising souls decided a little skeet shooting might be just the thing, and the flustered helicopters were kept at bay like squalling goblins, returning only after the vows were taken. Patti looked real cute taking aim with that gigantic rifle in her shiny satin ball gown. At least nobody drifted down from the skies with a camera in their helmet like they did at Liz and Larry’s wedding. There’s always something to be grateful for.
Michael spent the moments before the wedding with Donnie, putting the flower in his lapel, communing Iron John-style. I wish I could have been in on their husband-to-be, husband-that-was conversation. Mmm-mmm. All of our strange, healed love-triangles somehow lifted us up, made us happy together.
A beautiful, woodsy spot behind the main house, under big, hanging trees had been chosen. I followed Jesse and little Alexander, carrying the rings, down the pathway and stood next to Melanie, all trembly-chinned. I was so happy to be maid (matron?) of honor, since I had been there from the sizzling second they met even though it had been ferocious for me. Short and sweet, man and wife one more time. Tears, laughter, joy, a three-tiered yummy cake, all the stunning trimmings when two become one (for the second time, with a third on the way). There was a massive festive gala following the nuptials and there was a free-for-all when Melanie tossed the wedding bouquet—a lace-and-satin wrestling match with Patti tumbling around in the grass with another sprightly girl. It was Patti, of course, who snatched up the shredded prize, raising the crushed bunch of flowers over her head like gold-plated ill-gotten gains. The next bride! The bouquet charm would take a little while to work, but now she’s about to strut down the aisle again herself. So I guess the tumble was worth it.
V
I came back home to the godsend good news that Ariana, the psychic healer who mended my wrist, was planning a trip to California. Ariana lives in Las Vegas, surrounded by slot machines and big-buck losers, arid desert all around. She’s past fifty, living mostly under the stars with her flower-fairy backpacking, gnomelike boyfriend with endless eyes. They have the same dreams at night, meet there on purpose, and discuss it in the morning. Her tempest-tossed life has been very hard. Married off at thirteen by her Southern parents, she has experienced all kinds of horrendous physical and mental abuse. Her first husband won’t let her see her only son and has turned him against her for fictitious reasons. She takes care of her ailing religious mother, who believes Ariana has sided with the red guy and his pitchfork. So, even though her gift is otherworldly, she very much understands the ways of this seemingly cruel and orderless world. She sees everyone as being in their perfect place, learning their needed lessons. People put themselves in our lives, we put ourselves in theirs on purpose, as Ariana says, “to see the unfinished part of ourselves,” the stuff we need to work on. In her sessions with people, part of what she does is to help speed up their karma by taking them back to previous lives at the point where a belief system was formed, where something got stuck, a negative pattern that keeps being repeated over and over. By freeing up all this old crap, we can move forward on our ever-expanding, never-ending journey. Whew! It’s a lot to take in.
I offered her my bedroom for her readings, and she accepted. I thought it would be great for Nick, who was feeling increasingly distraught, and I so hoped Ariana’s presence in the house might help him see his true, blameless spirit. All my openhearted friends poured through the bedroom door, needy and ready for info. The vibe in my house shook the bed at night.
Several of my friends glommed onto Ariana like she was a life raft and still see her whenever she comes to town. Others took what they needed, or what they could stand, and kept going. I have sessions with her whenever I can. I get them down on tape, but I haven’t forgotten any of them. Ariana no longer has to tell me what she sees. I see it all myself with her guidance. It’s just like going to a soulmovie, and sometimes the scenes hurt real bad.
“I’m an old, graying man, ragged, in a damp stone cell. One window very high, out of reach. My eyes always have tears, my face haunted, I hold my ears as not to hear the screams.” Ariana had me go back. How did I wind up in the cell? “I did something against the king. I betrayed him, and now I will forever have to hear the screams.” Go back, go back. “The king had me round up little boys, telling them about a carnival or party, bring them to the castle, where he took them down dark stairs, never to be seen again. I didn’t question this. I worked for my king. One night I heard stifled screams and stealthily made my way down the stairs to witness the horror of my king assaulting a young boy, sodomizing him, killing him. My guilt became my hell. I had brought these children to this madman. The trusting face of a small boy constantly haunts me, his eyes looking into mine. He smiles at me as he goes down the stairs to his torture and death. A sweet smile with just a hint of a question forming. Why are we being taken down these stairs? Where’s the party? I did not know! I did not know!!!”
I could feel tears pouring out of me, Ariana comforting me. I was shaking; she held me. “When the king asked me to gather some more small boys for a festive occasion, I went off as I usually did to bring the boys back to him but hid myself instead, unable to do what he asked. I, of course, was found and put into this cell. The cell is under the castle, down those same stairs. I am forced to listen to the agonized screams of young boys as they die. I cannot live any longer.” At this point I was uncontrollable, seeing myself as this old tortured
man, banging my head to a bloody pulp on the dirty iron bars as high-pitched screams pierced the dank air until I was no longer there. I was a dead thing on a cold foor. Ariana held me until I came back to myself, confused, sobbed-out, and sad.
At the end of a session Ariana asks if we recognize any of the people we saw in the former lifetime and what we learned that we will never have to repeat. I thought and thought about the castle vision, but no one came to my weary mind. Ariana gently suggested that perhaps Nicky had been there with me. In a scary flash of recognition, I saw my son in the trusting face of that doomed boy and felt the guilt still set in my bone-structure but not set in stone. Here, Nicky, honey, here’s more, more, more! Take it, take another little piece of my heart and another Sega game—maybe it will ease my ancient guilt. I’ve been working on getting rid of it ever since. Who knows how many hundreds of years I’ve been dragging that around?
Insights were blasting me from every direction. Around this time I also had a painful experience with a man that taught me a lot, even though it seemed to be just another boy-girl mistake. It’s way too easy to say, “Oh, come on, everyone makes mistakes.” There are no mistakes. I let this guy in too fast. I opened up too far. I emptied my entire bag of delights, leaving nothing new and exciting under wraps for him to discover later. Too much too soon. He got petrified of the sweet, pink flood, turned around, and fled. It was only a six-week situation, and even though I exposed myself like I was under an X-ray machine, I forced myself to look at the cringing behavior, becoming the “observer” and the “observed” all at once, like Krishnamurti had taught me. While I flopped around in that bluesy unrequited fog, I watched myself, and learned.
August 10—Agony and ecstasy, why can’t I grow up? What does it mean? What kind of importance could this incident inspire? I’m still a romantic slave, but it all feels like an illusion to me. I went to church, and it gives me strength. My emotions are rampant, and I am working on dealing with them—ordering them. It’s all just a flash—an instant of life—a split-flaming second. I watched myself flounder, so interesting if you can detach. I had an insightful talk with Frederick. It’s all a big learn-o-rama. It appears that men can just hack the heart out of the process, and as Alice Cooper once said, “only women bleed”—continuously and profusely, or so it seems. But I learned two big lessons in a short period of time: Don’t hand myself over to the first bidder in the blinding glaze of infatuation, and don’t allow myself to wallow in the torpid drop-dead aftermath. We are each on our path, doing exactly what we are supposed to do, and I have to learn to let go. I’ve been of two minds lately: the standing-up-for-myself-proud woman versus The-cosmic-acceptance-of-everything-in-its-proper-place. I know I can no longer present myself on a silver platter to anybody, but I refuse to play the fucking game, and I’m interested in drawing someone to me who has no interest in playing it either.
I was going to have to wait awhile on that one.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I
Growth spurt aside, I got a bitter-blow phone call from my agent Mel in NYC. It had been awhile since I had turned in the beginning of my novel, but I was keeping paranoia at bay, praying Jane and Jim had been too backed up with loads of work to read it. I was hanging on the meat hook but trying not to notice. I could tell from Mel’s tone of voice that all was not well in Fantasyland. He didn’t sugarcoat the facts or spare the rod. “Jane and Jim had a lot of trouble with the manuscript,” he said sadly. “They thought it was full of gratuitous sex and wasn’t going anywhere. To be honest with you, they hated it.” Hated it? Jane was a wee bit gentler. “It’s a whole different experience to write a novel,” Jane said. “You made a valiant first effort. It’s a very difficult thing to undertake.” Until Nick’s bus dropped him off from school, I sat in a fog of black despair, where he found me, almost stiff on the couch. “Mom! What’s wrong?” He sat down next to me, and I uttered the rotten truth. Nick had watched me slave over the computer; we often took turns with it, since he had recently jumped up a step to the world of IBM role-playing games. “Oh, Mom, I’m so sorry.” He put his head on my shoulder and told me it would all work out—things happen for a reason, etc. All the sincere platitudes I had presented to him during his own spates of difficulty. My caring, wonderful son. I fixed him a grilled cheese and pulled out some pages from Blush, reading a chunk at random:
On the way back to our room, Davy and I ran into the bass player, Ian Stone, with a beautiful sobbing girl in the hallway. “Sweetheart, the fact is, I got married when I was eighteen,” I heard him croon to the anguished, trembling temporary replacement. He was giving her the wedding-band brush-off. While Davy unlocked our door, I imagined lan’s dumpy little British wife folding diapers in Brighton while he caressed this stunning doll-girl in Dallas. Did wifey wonder if hubby was faithful to her? Before I could ponder this too hard, Davy tied my hands behind my back, pushed me down to the bed, and straddled me. Unzipping his corduroy trousers, he caressed his stiff cock, stroking my cheek with it and rubbing the tip across my lips. I gobbled at it like a starving alley cat, watching it sway above me, getting Real Real Red with my Revlon lipstick. He rolled me over onto my stomach and spanked me, “You’ve been extremely naughty, Blush, and a bad, bad girl like you needs to be severely punished.” My hands were tied, I couldn’t see him, I was trapped like an endangered species, loving it, but so scared—smack, smack, smack, stinging my bare ass. “I’m so hot for you, darlin’, I wish I could suck my own dick.”
What did they mean, gratuitous sex? Ha ha. I was all alone with nobody to cuddle my cares away, and my novel had been tossed in the dumpster. Woe woe.
After a brief period of mourning I reread a whole lot of Science of Mind reminders, re-remembering how I was supposed to face a seeming nightmare head-on, and see it as a challenge—another good old learning experience. I had just turned forty-one. Could I actually be growing up? One suspenseful night, I even wiggled out of my body to work things out:
February 21, 1990—I floated downstream, and these words came to me: “I don’t have to sacrifice my genius—my genius is my God.” I felt it all so deeply that we are all out of touch with our center, and our center (God) is our genius. It was all so clear, but what can I do with this snippet of knowledge, and I hang onto it? “Lives full of challenges met, to be channeled into this one.” I came out the top of my head, swirly-twirly, I can leave if I want to, oh yes.
II
I had flubbed my first attempt at fiction, but my questionable notoriety was getting me some interesting writing jobs. I was doing the music news on a cornball Playboy Channel show called The Hot List, reading teen poetry and passages from the book at Michael’s eclectic “poetry nights” at various local haunts, and writing a column called “Yakety Yak” for a rock mag. I found myself in small conference rooms with L.A. Guns, Mary’s Danish, Dramarama; eating handfuls of sushi with XYZ, plates of pasta with Lions and Ghosts, the Sea Hags, sipping frothy cups of cappucino with the dashing Adam Ant, Zakk Wylde, Bryan Adams; hanging on the telephone with various members of Faith No More, Bad English, Corey Hart, Dave Edmunds, the exquisite rock grande dame Marianne Faithful. But I think my fave interview was the one I did with Dwight Yoakam, that lanky golden-throated cow-punk with the billion-word vocabulary. I had to wait in the lobby while he finished up a conversation, and I discovered I had actual nerves. Dwight had been one of my pet faves for a long time because he had the guts to tackle the stiff country music scene and speak his prolific mind. Not to mention his incredibly long, lean legs and tight little butt. Finally ushered into his office, I got into such a turbulent conversation with Dwight about the insensitive treatment he’d received from the L.A. press and the backwards goons in Nashville, that the phone was ringing back home as I walked through my door.
“One more thing,” Dwight launched into a thought he hadn’t been able to finish at the office as I scribbled wildly. “Remember, I grew up watching Elvis and Mick Jagger, so what I do with country music isn’t calculat
ed. For them to say it’s inappropriate is a blatant example of cultural prejudice, trying to keep me down on the farm with some straw in my mouth going, ‘Aw shucks.’ It destroys their comfortable perception of what is tolerable from a country artist—figuratively asking the country musician to perform in blackface in a colloquial sense. I engage in it because of my love for the form, and I’ll do as much or as little of it as I see fit.” Go on, Dwight. Gosh, I was starting to feel like a real journalist, and I was about to be proven right.
I met a true mentor at my dear friend Allee Willis’s famous fifties pajama party, Annie Flanders, the inimitable founder of Details magazine. While Annie and I rambled on, Joni Mitchell sat by the pool in her fuzzy robe, dourly surveying the other nightie-clad ladies. Teri Garr had on a shortie fluff-job, Cyndi Lauper had on an indescribable sweeping sleepy number, Sandra Bernhard wore a leopard-print getup. I waved to her, blushing, and she called out, “Hello, sweetheart, how have you been?” Sweetheart. Did she call everybody that? Girl games went on all night. The best prize was a date with fiftiesthrobber, Fabian. Boo-hoo, I didn’t win.
Annie Flanders had an instant, unswerving faith in me, and I promised to confirm her good taste. She wanted me to do articles on anybody I thought was cool enough. She even wanted me to appear in photographs with my pet subjects. Wow! My first piece was on Hunt and Tony Sales, my old pals and new members of David Bowie’s Tin Machine, and I got Randee St. Nicholas to take the arty, charcoaland-chalk shots with me in the middle. What fun! Then Annie flew me to New York for a piece on Michael Hutchence from INXS, and I spent an entire, brilliant fall day with him in Manhattan, discussing the Higher Power and posing for hours of hands-on photos in a vast, vacant loft. This was the perfect job for me! I could flirt like a she-devil, but having to remain a professional journalist, couldn’t get into any trouble. “I believe you and I are kindred spirits, darling,” Michael said to me, so I called the article “Kindred Spirits.” I did my first cover story on the legendary Iggy Pop, photographs taken by bigshot Greg Gorman, and I really felt on my way! Annie let me write about my favorite unknowns, review hip movies, and travel around the country with my trusty tape recorder. She even shipped me off to London for tea with one of my ultimate inspirations and old-days crushes, Ray Davies, founder of the Kinks. Diary jottings:
Take Another Little Piece of My Heart: A Groupie Grows Up Page 29