Take Another Little Piece of My Heart: A Groupie Grows Up (31 page)

Sometimes there were excited yelling matches with the ladies who wore polyester pantsuits, then I would continue on into the day and do two or three live radio shows, a couple of newspapers, and a magazine or two—pin-eyed with exhaustion, get some dead-to-the-world, hard-won sleep, then back up at the crrraaack of dawn, starting the whole thing over in another city.

The week I got to Boston, bedraggled but in high spirits, I was greeted with the best review ever: Under the headline
WHAM BAM THANK YOU, PAM,
the
Boston Phoenix
spewed a full page of glory: “As a chronicle of the 60’s and 70’s L.A. rock scene, an unofficial history of female fandom, a sexual memoir of a girl coming of age at the height of 60’s Love-Power, and the voice of a misunderstood and maligned rock subculture,
I’m with the Band
is one of the most important, revealing and unabashedly honest books about rock ever written.”

After devouring a lobster and a huge slug of Boston cream pie, I climbed under the heavy brocade bed covers, comatose with fatigued accomplishment and ripe with gratitude, and slept for thirteen hours.

When I was whizzing through New York I found that my very first dream-doll, Dion, was performing with the Belmonts at Radio City Music Hall. What could possibly have kept me out of the building?

When I had been a mere colt-girl of thirteen, my itsy-bitsy breasts blooming and budding under one of those growing bras that allowed for many inches of expanding promise, Dion DiMucci crooned directly to my barely teenage heart, making it spill over with sapling desire. His first solo album was called
Alone with Dion
, and as if the steamy look on his face wasn’t enough, a pair of arms wearing long, pink gloves encircled his body tenderly, causing a near-riot in the lush pit of my pubescence. I wanted to put my arms around Dion, I wanted Dion to put his arms around me—sigh—but he lived far, far away on the exotic, dangerous East Coast, and even in that pulsating state I realized I was much too young for Mr. DiMucci. Besides,
Sixteen
magazine told me that he went and married his longtime
love-button, Sue Butterfield. This big news caused so much baby-girl grief that it put a big, fat lid on the dewy incandescence of my near-perfect (or so I thought at the time) adolescence. Oh well, these things happen.

It took me twenty-seven years to get to this point, but where there’s a will, there’s a wangle, an angle, a WAY. After checking into the situation, I found that Dion’s manager, Zach Glickman, used to work with Herbie Cohen and Frank Zappa in the old Bizarre-Straight days, so I called my agent, who called someone else, who called another guy, who put me in touch with Zach. We reminisced, I told him about the book and how I had written about my adoration for Dion in the first few pages, and he invited me down to the show to
meet
his client, Mr. DiMucci. Oh boy.

After sitting in a formidable threesome on the
Geraldo
show with Roxanne Pulitzer and a torch-haired sixty-year-old lady who had romped in the hay with JFK and Elvis, I sat seventh row center at Radio City Music Hall, surrounded by bouffants and quiffs, double-swooning while Dion did all his hits. As the audience swayed, singing all the words to “Runaround Sue,” I clutched the book I had brought for my teen hero, rapturous tears in my eyes, anticipating the moment when I might be Alone With Dion, minus the pink gloves. It was one of those peak rock-and-roll experiences that make me want to shout loud and hard with the sheer joy of being on the planet the same time as Dion, Elvis, John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Etta James, Jimi Hendrix, Gram Parsons, Frank Zappa, Janis Joplin, Pete Town-send, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Prince.

After Dion’s show I waited in the outer-inner sanctum until Zach took me by the hand and led me over to a cute, fluffy-haired lady and introduced me to Sue Butterfield DiMucci. Real live Runaround Sue! I showed her all the Dion parts in the book and regaled her with ridiculous anecdotes about my teen-angst obsession with her husband. “Dion had groupies, you know,” she said in an adorably humble way, “only they had a less flattering name for the girls back then.” My peaking interest shot through the ceiling. What, what, WHAT were my brave predecessors called? “TFFs,” she whispered, looking around to make sure no one was listening, “Top Forty Fuckers.” Top Forty Fuckers. It was almost too much.

The twenty-seven years were up and it was time to meet Dion. Zach led me through the crowded corridors, full of an incredible number of Italian relatives that Dion probably hadn’t seen in a dozen years, and into the inner-INNER sanctum, where he was perched
on top of a desk, rhapsodizing about a huge mound of mozzarella cheese someone had just given him. While I sat on the couch, Zach tried to get the room cleared for my private moment with Dion, and as I gazed at the man who had made life in 1960 worth living, I felt like I was about to meet all four Beatles.

Introductions were made, handshakes, smiles. I tried to be cool and casual, but I blathered and stammered as I handed him the book, pointing out the photo of me wearing a locket that said,
DION FOREVER
, showing him the passages where he was adored and idolized. I knew he was born again and I hoped he didn’t think I was a brash, breathless piglet. I just wanted him to know he had inspired me beyond the breaking point of no return. Zach brought in a photographer, Dion put his arms around me, and the flashbulbs popped. If someone had told me when I was that gangly colt-girl of thirteen that when I reached the magic age of thirty-nine, Dion would put his arms around me, I would have marked off the days on my calendar. Time stopped and the flashbulbs popped. Oh yes.

June 20
—
Several cities later in Detroit, and majorly pooped out
—
revved up at the same time
—
can hardly believe I met Dion! I called Mom to tell her, and we talked about the times I dribbled all over the TV set when he was on
American Bandstand.
It’s all swell out here. Philadelphia was a great city, but the travel aspects are sooo tiring
. USA Today
came out today, a big L.A
. Times
”Calendar” piece on Sunday. As my dear, sweet Shelly would say, “It’s all happening!!” I hope she knows what’s going on, watching over me from the happy hunting ground. Hard work, wacky gut-spilling
—
struggle with suitcases
—
but have met some cool people. I don’t know what will happen, I’m waiting for sky-rocketing sales!

In between all this madcap hullabaloo, the day came that I was invited to Bob Dylan’s birthday party. I felt like I had won first prize on the planet. What could be more divine than helping my hero celebrate his day of birth? What do you get Bob Dylan for his birthday, anyway? What becomes a legend most? Another black leather vest? I spent two entire days traipsing all around town, attempting to procure the perfect trinket and wound up with an antique copper ashtray painted with real berries and grasses and hand-beaten by an entire tribe of Indians. That’s what the très chic salesperson told me. She was wearing some sort of authentic-looking buckskin getup with
several old Indian-head nickels down the front, so who knows? They wrapped the important artifact in unbleached muslin and tied it with raffia. I wrote something on the card about lifelong inspiration, trying real hard not to kiss his ass too profoundly. You can tell he’s real sick of it.

Precious Patti was also among the chosen few to cruise down to Malibu that warm Gemini afternoon, and to say our spirits were high would be the world’s most laid-back understatement. Some of that scary old peering-through-the binocular mentality threatened to rear its wicked head, but I admonished it into submission. Get lost, you lame negative thought pattern! I did the old one-two with my cosmic inner fists. Out, out, damn spot!

We got to Bob’s house on time and the roosters scattered and the dust flew. It was so ramshackle on the outside, it must have been designed to keep out prying eyes, but after wading through the chicken coops, yakking ducks, heaps of old wood, cages, rubbish, it was like pulling back the Technicolor curtain to the land of Oz. Lush green all around a gigantic glass-and-wood abode, with the shimmering ocean as a backdrop; children frolicking, music playing, dogs yapping. The first person I ran into was Roy Orbison, all in black with serious sunglasses on. Hmm, there’s Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, Debra Winger, Joycie, Carole, various cool musicians, hip record-business types, George Harrison . . . GEORGE HARRISON!!! Fab Four flashbacks stung my head like blazing confetti; bobbing-head Beatle dolls, goopy teen Fab Four mush stories, a gently weeping guitar, “I’d be quite prepared for
that
eventuality.” So Bob calls Patti and me over to embrace us, and we sit down with him under a big umbrella. Dogs woof, children laugh, the sun glints and sparkles on the sea, it’s Bob’s birthday and it’s all too perfect. He introduces us to George; we are pink-cheeked and starry-eyed. “Oh, we’ve met a couple of times, haven’t we?” George said to me. Did he remember me sinking into the blacktop at A&M Records back in ’69? The brief moment in the recording studio with that nutty friend of mine a couple years ago? “Bob, have you read that wonderful book of Pamela’s? I’m not in it . . . unfortunately.” He laughed and told Patti that she was a legend, and she said, “Look who’s talking!” It was a bit overwhelming, all very charming and tra-la. The way George said “unfortunately” was exactly how he said the word “eventuality” in
A Hard Day’s Night
. I was still trying to get over the fact that one of the Beatles had read my book when the Beatle in question introduced me to his mechanic. I suppose he takes the man everywhere.
George said to me, “This is so-and-so, he works with engines the way you and I work with words.” YOU AND I! He was comparing himself to me as a creative creature, and I was overcome with rapture. I shook the mechanic’s hand and grinned a whole lot. Bob leaned over to me and said, “Maybe we could work together on a screenplay or something.” I grinned the whole rest of the day and well into the star-filled Malibu night, dancing to cool old songs on the cool old jukebox that George, Jeff, and Tom had gotten Bob for his birthday. None of the brilliant, creative souls at the party could figure out how to hook the thing up at first. Bob stood by watching with his arms crossed saying, “Don’t look at me,” but Tom Petty finally plugged it in, and everybody cheered. As I rocked out to “Runaround Sue,” George called me over to him and whispered, “You’re really cute, you know that?” Beyond wow. Being called “cute” at forty by one of the Beatles is a truly glorious thing.

Bob seemed to enjoy his jukebox, but I didn’t get to see him open the other gifts, so I don’t know how the hand-beaten, berry-stained ashtray went over. I hope he liked it.

The book went into a second printing, and then a third, and so after a brief dollop of duty at home, Morrow put me back out on the road. This time I got to go to Chicago, where I hung out in dingy, frantic rock clubs with my old friend, Cynthia Plaster-Caster. She is still casting semifamous rock penises, or is it peni? She was invited to come on
Oprah
with me to describe her seemingly sordid past and present but declined out of shyness. Besides, Cynthia’s poor mom still has no idea that she’s the legendary dick-mistress.

So I had to share the
Oprah
stage with Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley along with Jackie Collins, who had just written a no-dimensional novel called
Rock Star
. Paul and Gene were telling horny, amusing anecdotes about groupies, Jackie was regaling the angry audience with trumped-up tales about her rock friends, and I was ticked off because I had read her “rock novel” but couldn’t express my opinion because a pal in publishing had smuggled the early galleys to me. Kind of a cloak-and-dagger thing. A smoke and Jagger thing. Ha ha. The audience was unamused when Gene said he had sex with two thousand women. (It’s actually close to three thousand, but he didn’t think they could handle it.) The would-be libbers booed and jeered when he stood up and grabbed his crotch, and started hump-hump-humping
the air. He ate it up with a sticky spoon. Jackie was alone in her upper-crust world of hype, and I was there to represent the real thing: the groupie girl. Groupie woman? (Actually the
former
groupie girl/woman. I always have to remind people of that fact.) I didn’t get two words in edgewise.

In place of Cynthia P.C., the
Oprah
show had dug up the “butter queen” to spew a few outrageous vulgarities from in between two pent-up polyester matrons-before-their-time. Oprah asked her
exactly
what she did with her trademark cube of butter, and the matrons sputtered indignantly while she described her cholesterol-laden antics. I always felt bad about being lumped in with girls like the butter queen, God bless her. I like to think of myself as a romantic soul who happens to love rock and roll. I became established in that world before the notion of “favors” came into being. There were no passes, stickers, or laminates that guaranteed access to that hallowed ground, where true acceptance can never be bought and paid for. After
Oprah
I went down to Miami, where everyone wanted to know all about Sonny Crockett’s massive member. It seemed I was surrounded by dicks but living like a celibate.

It was at this time that I suffered the rotten lowlight of my entire publicity glare. I had rushed from one coast to the other on a tiny moment’s notice for
The Late Show
, just to be lambasted by the chilly charmer, Suzanne Somers, who asked me how many times I had gotten the clap, right on national TV. “How did you meet these guys?” She asked through a smudged veil of sweetness, “Did you stand around on street corners?” Yeah, right, smartie-pumps. Mick, Keith, Elvis, and Jimmy Page just happened to be wandering by while I stood there on the corner of Sunset and Vine. Where was Joan Rivers when I needed her? As I made a mad dash for the plane, the producers apologized, all pink-faced, and told me how well I handled myself. Thanks a lot, guys. I had been in the smoggy City of Angels and hadn’t even been able to see Nick. Later on that night, too pooped to peep, back in my room in Miami, my mom called to tell me she wanted to wring Suzanne Somers’s neck, and how could she get to her?