I'm With the Band: Confessions of a Groupie

by Pamela Des Barres

I lost some good friends who were growing up and going steady and planning their lives after high school. They left me behind with my Beatles lunch box and bobbing-head dolls, practicing my Liverpudlian accent. And guess what? They’re probably still in Reseda with a gaggle of goony kids to kowtow to, being forced to listen to Motley Crue by their very own burgeoning teenagers, and it serves them right.

That cracks me up considering my first groupie memoirs was dirty rocker boys

Vito’s exquisite little puppet child, Godot, fell through a skylight during a wacky photo session on the roof and died at age three and a half. I was beside myself with sorrow, but Vito and Szou insisted on continuing with our plans for the evening. We went out dancing, and when people asked where little Godot was, Vito said, “He died today.”

My jaw is literally hanging open

In the living room were about six or seven funky sheetless mattresses and a couple of ripped-up chairs, and people were lolling around, dressed in those hand-painted Indian bedspreads that should have been on the bare beds.

Cackling

and he responded by rolling around the scrungy floor with me, to my joyous amazement.

Literally?

The whole setup instantly changed my mind about domesticity: You could be a rebel, a profound thinker, and a rock and roll maniac and still eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner, have a baby, and drink a nice cup of tea with your friends.

It was then that they introduced me to my pony partner, an eleven-year-old boy. The GTOs hung around with an eleven-year-old beauty, Bart Baker, and though I had never been intimate with him, a couple of the girls confessed to heavy petting with the beautiful blond prepubescent.

Jfc

When I met her she had already taken a thousand acid trips and her mind was on the endangeredspecies list.

Lmaooooo

She had a funny, deep, musical voice, and I liked to hear her talk; besides, she openly admitted to being a liar and it was fun figuring out which concoction might be true. At seventeen she was the youngest GTO, but I guess she could have been thirty.

The Whiskey a Go Go was unfamiliar with sobbing men in Nudie suits, but I wallowed in his tortured Southern soul, swaying back and forth on the dance floor like a weeping-willow tree.

Kind of sickening, eh? I was determined to fit the mold I imagined he had hammered out, bending and folding myself into the shape of woman I hoped he required.

I couldn’t take much more of dear Brandon anyway; he only slept two and a half hours a night, and needed constant adoring care. His blind eyes were wild with a need that no one could fulfill,

He put on the work of devotion and it embodied his inner being. The next time I saw the glorious item, Michael Clarke was wearing it at the Whiskey a Go Go, and he told me the amusing little story of how Chris had lost it to him in a poker game. Ha ha ha!!! Sadness enveloped me once again,

Oh you poor girl

I’m amazed at his sadistic tendencies; they’re such a part of him that I doubt if he’ll ever stop. It was really frightening, he changed into another person, but all he did was chew me and slap me a little.

Marty was angry that he had to be true to me. He loved me a lot, and the swell part of him intended to be faithful, but the rotten-to-the-core part wanted to spread venereal diseases throughout the entire country of England.

The way she says things is so funny

God always does this for me. When I lost Nick, Noel came ‘round. When I lost Chris, Brandon was right there. When I lost Jimmy, Marty was sitting in my lap, and now, Sandy. I feel as if God has blessed this life I’m living for some divine reason.

Doesnt know how to be alone

My creativity was spent adoring him, and I started to feel like a weed in the garden of life.

At least I had come far enough not to subject myself to being a plate of steaming leftovers . . . even if the man of my dreams would have been the one holding the knife and fork.

We went to a bash at Roman Polanski’s pad once, and I gave him my phone number. He was definitely not normal. He called several times and I finally told him he scared the shit out of me. He laughed like a hyena and never called again.

Bruh bullet dodged

Lane wouldn’t come near me when I had my period, and Michael turned into Dracula. The difference between Lane and Michael was like night and Des Barres.