Take Another Little Piece of My Heart: A Groupie Grows Up (47 page)

Eventually, he was happily placed at Linden Center, a progressive school in Beverly Hills, the very same site where Michael went to his first AA meeting. He’s been there for a year and a half and he’s doing well. He’s finally reaching the age and stage when he can enjoy his individuality. He’s developing a social network of his own. Just last week I dropped him off on Melrose with his girlfriend, Carina,
and watched him walk into the crowd of trippy-hippy, trendoid types, laughing and amused with his life, and I felt so damn choked up and happy. He’s a teenager, he walks around on Melrose, he goes to concerts, he speaks Japanese, he still has his spiritual altar, he comes home from school smiling (most of the time).

There isn’t anything Nick and I can’t talk about and crack up over. Just a few days ago we laughed so hard about a goofy expression on the face of a ceramic poodle that we collapsed in a heap of spasms in front of several concerned swap-meet sellers. He calls me into his room to enjoy the cock-eyed commercials running through his Japanese videos, and we roll on the floor, hysterical with glee. When he was asked to bring a sample of his favorite music to share at school, he listened to all the rap bands and Marky Mark stuff before slapping Captain Beefheart in the cassette machine. “Fast and bulbous, the mascara snake, fast and bulbous.” Jimmy bought me the complete set of Jack Kerouac’s recordings, and Nick has been on a nonstop listening binge, astonished and laughing, then writing zany stacks of his own poetry. My fave is entitled “The Red SlipSlide of Old Bones.” The Linden Center just brought in a teacher to work on a screenplay with the kids. He asked them to suggest their favorite character to be incorporated into the plot, and Nick wanted the baby from the early David Lynch film,
Eraserhead
. What can I say? Nick is a true artist, a step ahead, a step apart. He’s the kind of guy who would have inspired me to scrawl his name all over my notebook in junior high, but he’s my son and a friend for life.

Nick’s dad spends more time with him than ever, and he remains a sweet soulmate for me. When Michael reached ten years sobriety, he invited me to the AA meeting to give him a cake. From the podium, where he usually makes everyone laugh, he brought people to tears by “making amends” to me in front of the sober bunch. “I put her through Hell and I’m truly sorry.” Apology accepted, Mikie.

He has been working his butt off on TV and in the movies. At one point he was appearing in
Roseanne, MacGyver
, and
The New WKRP in Cincinnati
all at once. He just stared down Tommy Lee Jones on the Big Screen, and has just landed another humding role in a MMP (major motion picture)! He sees Ariana on a regular basis, and has done so much work on himself that honesty is starting to dribble out of his sun-tanned pores. He pumps a lot of iron and has a pretty actress girlfriend, verging on serious fame, who hugs me whenever she sees me. Very sweet. She bought a jacket from Jimmy at one of our yard sales—one of those fabulous patchwork sixties numbers. It looked really cute on her.

Still, Michael and I go to lunch and dinner, he buys me little gifts, and sometimes big ones. We talk on the phone three times a day, we seek advice from each other, we continue our meetings with Tony, Nick’s therapist—the guy Nick feared and now adores. Michael took Nick and me to Roseanne and Tom Arnold’s wedding, and it was so sweet and perfect—buckets of love being dumped on everyone. We go to swap meets, The Renaissance Faire, I go to his wrap parties, he comes to my dinner parties. We will always be there for each other, and it’s a relief and a reward.

I appreciate my friends more every day. There’s a lot of hand-holding and intense phone-consulting in my life. It’s so great to know I can count on my precious pals to pull me out of a stuck and sputtering state of mind with just a few words. Patti lives in a big house on Long Island now and I miss her so much. We sat together chomping pasta in an old New York eatery recently, and we both burst into drizzling tears in the middle of our girl-chat. She and her almost-hubby just had their second child, Liam, a brother for year-old Emmelyn, the cutest kid since Nick was a toddler. Melanie and Donnie are always away. The last time I saw them was on TV. Sad but true. I miss them madly. My dear Catherine married a divine Englishman, Stephen Blacknell, and I was the maid/matron of honor once again. Dee Dee and Tony Kaye broke up, and she just moved to Santa Monica, yay! A girlfriend neighbor! I’m working on my next book with my oldest friend, Iva. We went through grade school, junior high, high school, and the Sunset Strip school of learning together—and now we’re writing partners! Ariana visits us many times a year and all of her clients troop through the house in varying degrees of spiritual evolvement. Some have to sit on the couch for awhile after a reading and all kinds of other worldly conversation takes place. Fascinating chit-chat. Ariana always reminds me about important stuff. “The sure way not to heal and grow,” she says sweetly, “is not to forgive.” “Get out of that reactive swamp,” she smiles, “You’re reacting instead of living.” Ariana is here right now, and Moon Zappa just left, feeling a whole lot better. She tells me her daddy, Frank, is doing okay. He’s been very ill and I pray for him daily.

I’ve lost some friends. Miss Lucy died of AIDS last year, leaving behind a young son who is HIV positive and a teenager who lives in Reno. She was so full of her giant love for life, I can’t imagine her not cavorting somewhere on the planet. Miss Sandra died of cancer a few months ago, and I’m sure her four kids are full of sorrow. When she was pregnant with her first daughter, Raven, she painted
a big star on her bare tummy and went out dancing—so proud of her impending earth-motherhood. That leaves four GTO’s. Sparkie is still a big exec at Disney. She and I just went to our twenty-fifth high-school reunion (so scary) where we twisted the night away with guys who wouldn’t look at us in those blasted Cleveland halls. Everyone had read my book and looked at me like I was Pamela Des Barres from another planet and not Pam Miller from Reseda, California. I finally spoke to Cynderella after many, many years and found that she is now Cynderella Sincere, having been married to a fellow named Alphonse for four years. She’s taking writing courses in college, working on a novel, and tending a vegetable garden. Thank God she’s alive. Mercy got married a few months ago to a guy named Leonard who looks just like Ike Turner. I had the wedding party at my house, and Mercy was all dolled up, gold and silver tinsel sprouting from her head in abundance, and when Jimmy told her how fetching she looked, she announced, “All the Mexicans love me.” The newlyweds fed each other cake, they accepted the congratulations and gifts, then slipped out into the night. God, I hope they’re happy.

My dear Victor had his first “aboveground” art show here in Santa Monica at the Robert Berman Gallery, and many delightful people came to pay him homage and buy his bright and mysterious “acid primitive” paintings. I have two on my wall and they mesmerize all of my visitors and change the patterns in their brains if they gaze at them for just a little too long. He recently snagged an Absolut Vodka campaign, and pretty soon the rest of the world will glom onto his way-over-on-the-other-side alternative viewpoint. Vic always chooses the scenic route over the ugly mainstream, and reminds me to do the same.

But I’m still plowing through that blasted mainstream, hoping to meet up with the movie company brave enough to take on
I’m with the Band
and get it on the big screen. I’ve had so many handshake almosts with hotshots verging (but not quite) on hipness. “Yeah, baby, I’ll make your movie,” then I never hear from them again. I finally got a cool manager, Eric Gardner, who manages my pal Cassandra “Elvira” Peterson, that edged-out Todd Rundgren, the Stone who stands alone, Bill Wyman, Dr. Timothy Leary, and Paul Shaffer, among other eclectic standouts. We’ll see. I’m optimistic as usual. Drew Barrymore has reached the nubile age of seventeen and wants to play me. Christina Applegate has expressed interest. We even got a few calls from the cream-crop agent of that baby-doll Oscar nominee,
Juliet Lewis. I’ve always wanted Moon Zappa to play one of the GTO’s.

I am now managing Jimmy Thrill Quill’s band, Big Rig Jackknife, a hopalong, fever-pitch, country-raunch band thrashing with soul. They’ve been in the studio doing demos with Niko Bolas, a swell guy who thinks he’s just discovered an entire troop of Elvises, circa 1957. Several sniffing-around A and R guys (no gals, unfortunately) have been in and out of the studio trying to remain cool. I’ve booked gigs for the band, I rounded up a tour, I’ve called out the music biz dogs on a few occasions, and the whole thing is always fraught with sky-hopes and an any-minute overnight success story. We went down to Nashville to play a club, and when Jimmy took off his shirt, the proper ladies gasped and the string-tied industry shook to the core.

So dolls, I’m still hanging tight to the rock and roll lifeline, merging it with country-love like good old Gram Parsons tried to do many moons ago. God, I’m so happy to be alive. Jimmy’s drummer, Josh, played a one-off gig with the Rock Bottom Remainders at the gigantic book convention in the glory city of Anaheim, and guess who played guitar and sang some old fifties tunes with demented newly written lyrics? An incredibly prolific inspiration of mine, one of the people I’ve always wanted to meet—Stephen King. And I shook his hand. He even dragged his look-alike wife, Tabitha, over to meet me. He called me Pam Des Barres, but there were layers of people all around and I didn’t get the chance to correct him. Fun things continue to happen at a rapid pace. Hooray Hoorah! In fact, one of my top-ten experiences took place just the other night. I was interviewing the fabulous Helena for my first piece in
Premiere
magazine—we had just settled down in front of some giant bowls of Greek garlic pasta, and I was ready to click on the recorder when she said, “Oh, wasn’t that the gate?” A moment later I looked up and Marlon Brando was standing in front of me. “Who’s this, Helena, she’s very pretty.” I realized I was actually growing up when I extended my hand and said, “Nice to meet you,” pretty as you please, instead of mewling like an out-of-control nutbag. I wondered briefly if I should mention those many pleading messages I left on his machine twenty years earlier, or how he gave me that astute advice, “Look to yourself for the answers,” instead of complying with my wishes and inviting me over in the middle of the night. I decided not to. He sat down and gabbed away with us for almost an hour. I was wearing a Jack Kerouac T-shirt which led into a conversation about all types of literature. We discovered we had a mutual favorite, Toni Morrison, and raved
back and forth about
Beloved
, one of my all-time A-1 books. Friendly, warm, whip-sharp, hysterically perceptive, and extremely curious, he made me feel relaxed and jazzed-up all at once.

So, when I say life continues to be grand,
grand
, GRAND, I can’t even begin to tell you what an understatement that is. Being a late bloomer isn’t so bad after all.

Now that I’m finished with this book, I’m sitting here wondering why I felt I had to dip deep down, shred and expose myself, like a gutted doe strapped across somebody’s headlights. And I recall that beautiful cosmic movie,
Starman
, the one in which Jeff Bridges (oh well, perhaps someday) plays that sweet, innocent soul from another planet. Remember, when he saw the dead deer strapped to a hunter’s car and, with otherwordly compassion, raised it from the dead and watched it trot back into the forest? The reborn doe, recapturing her life. That’s sort of the way I feel.

Well, dolls and dears, I’m back in my trailer in between writing projects and feel I should give you a little update on my tumultuous lifeline. I’ve finally decided on my next project, which is a mighty topic, and a lot of studying is required. I’ve been poking around in ancient tomes and reams of modern revelatory madness to bring my main character to life. He’s somebody who’s been living inside me for eons already, so I hope to unwind the saga like a sparkling spool of thread.

I just finished working on a rock-and-roll cookbook for the National Music Foundation. (They’re creating a rest home for musicians along the lines of the Motion Picture Rest Home—it’s hard to believe that some of these ageless rockers are pushing 60!) Dick and Dee Dee (The Mountain’s High) thought the whole thing up, and had gotten stacks of recipes from the goldie oldies—(Dion’s Trail Mix, Brian Hyland’s Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Peppers and Zucchini, James Brown’s SO Good, So Good Creamed Corn) and I was brought in to round up Pearl Jam and INXS, Nirvana, Devo, Mr. Zappa, Iggy Pop, etc. (Iggy told us to put a croissant in the toaster oven and pour a cup of black coffee!) It’s been a blast, and such a good cause! I got to sing soulful oldies with Dick while we hung on the phone with various managers, publicists, wives, girlfriends, and superstars. We even got Michael Jackson, and would you believe his recipe has a pound of butter in it!

My darling son is about to come home from school, and then we’re off to see Tony the therapist. Nick has been going to Westview, his newest place of learning for a semester and a half, where he was the big award-winner a couple of months ago. Besides claiming seven trophies
for being amazingly artistic, zany, and too-unique-for-words, he got a giant plaque for having the highest grade average in his entire junior high (3.9!). He never compromised for anybody and is now reaping the rewards (awards
and
rewards!) for his hard-won angst-lashed fortitude. At Open House, one kid came up to tell me that the only reason he came to school every day was to see what Nick would be wearing! He’s almost fluent in Japanese now, his favorite band is Shonen Knife, and he’s looking forward to our long-planned trip—we want to drive across this grand country of ours, hitting all the coffee shops and thrift stores from here to Bangor, Maine. (Maybe we’ll take a peek at Stephen King’s wrought-iron spider fence.) He’ll be taking Driver’s Ed next semester and it freaks me out almost as much as his overnight-new deep, rumbly voice. Nick continues to write, and was actually proud of his first “F”, gotten for an “inappropriate” story he turned in called “Li’l Potion’s Rapturous Journey.” Here’s a sample: “As the superdamaged Li’l Potion sauntered home in her newly acquired spongelike orange bustier/panty combo, she came across a large Asian woman, outfitted with a see-through pink lame suit, wielding a rusty syringe filled with a tight, long liquid. She wore three pounds of bone-white facial makeup, and her garish bursting lips were a startling shade of ochre. She looked very important.” Like mother like son? Yikes.