Des Barres - Im with the band: confessions of a groupie

Heartfelt thank yous to my sweet mom for having the love and patience of a saint, and for not squelching my soul; and to my dear departed daddy for inspiring me always to dig for the gold.

Intense appreciation goes out to Michael Des Barres, C. Thomas (my Cleveland High School creative writing teacher), Don Van Vliet, Vita Paulekas, Bob Dylan, The Fab Four, the late Gram Parsons, the late Brandon de Wilde, Frank and Gail Zappa, and Chuck Weinfor altering my priorities.

Adoration abounds for my divine girlfriends who hold me up and calm me down: Melanie Griffith, Joyce Hyser, Catherine James, Denise Kaye, Rona Levitan, Mercy, Sheri Rivera, Iva Turner, and the ever-present Mrs. Zappa.

Merci beaucoup to my darling Patti DArbanville for the perfect title.

Special love to Michele Meyer.

Beyond space and timeDanny Goldberg.

Thank you, Stephen Davis, for the encouragement; and thanks to Ron Bernstein, Bill Dana, Ben Edmonds, and Mel Berger.

A massive and abundant thankyouthankyouthankyou to Jim Landis and Jane Meara for being here now.

XXX
OOO

I, Pamela Ann Miller, a resident of Reseda, state of California, declare this to be my last will and testament, and revoke all former wills.

First: I direct that my just debts (I owe Linda sixty-eight cents. I owe my mother three dollars for the purse, I owe Knit Togs eleven dollars and fifty-six cents. I owe the public library a dollar fifty-seven) and funeral expenses be paid.

Second: I declare that I am not married, but I am going steady with Robert Jasper Martine, a resident of Farmingdale, Long Island, New York.

Third: I give, devise, and bequeath my rollers, my Beatle albums, scrapbooks, magazines, pictures, cards, my Hollywood Bowl pictures, souvenirs, my pictures of Jesus and the big one in my room, My bible and one third of my clothes to Linda Lee Oaks, a resident of Reseda, California.

I give all my other records (except Rolling Stones) to Iva L. Turner, one third of my clothes, my bras, my bed, and all furniture in my room, my phonograph-radio combination, my jewelry, all books, papers, notebooks, and everything having to do with school, my stuffed animals and my dolls, my hair bows, ribbons and makeup, and for her to tell my boyfriend, Bob, of my death.

I give my Rolling Stones records, one third of my clothes, the possesion of one William Hall, British pen pal, paints, charcoals, art paper and brushes, all information, pamphlets, maps, and booklets on Great Britain, my nylons, my Ten-O-Six lotion, my Phisohex, my shampoos and hair rinses to Linda of Northridge, California.

Above all, I give Robert Martine anything of mine that he wants, plus my never-dying love and my car (a 1959 Chevy Impala convertible).

I give Victor Haydon anything having to do with the Stones, any information on them that Ive acquired, plus a lot of love that he never knew about.

I also leave my parents anything of mine they want to keep plus the love and respect they deserve. I appoint as exutrix of my will my mother, Margaret Ruth Miller. In the event she is unable to serve, my father, Oren Coy Miller, shall be appointed as executor. This will and testament is subscribed by me on the twenty-fifth day of May in Reseda, California.

I get shivers whenever I see those old black-and-white films of Elvis getting shorn for Uncle Sam. When he rubs his hand over the stubs of his former blue-black mane, I get a twinge in my temples. In the glorious year of 1960, I was at the Reseda Theater with my parents, and I saw the famous army footage before the onslaught of Psycho. I dont know which was more horrifying. I hung on to my daddys neck and inhaled the comforting familiarity of his drugstore aftershave and peeked through my fingers as Norman Bates did his dirty work, and the army barber did his. I tried to believe that Elvis was doing his duty as an AMERICAN, but even at eleven years old, I realized his raunch had been considerably diminished. I tacked my five-and-dime calendar onto the dining-room wall and drew big Xs as each day passed, knowing he would let his hair grow long when he came home from Germany. Being an adored only child, my mom let me keep the eyesore on the wall for two years. I was always allowed to carry out my fantasies to the tingling end, and I somehow survived several bouts of temporary omnipotence.

All my girlfriends had siblings they had to share with, and since I had two rooms of my own, my house was where everyone wanted to bring their Barbie dolls. I ruled the neighborhood until I entered Northridge Junior High. It turned out to be the real world, and was I surprised! My lack of breasts took precedence over my grades, and actual real-live boys loomed before me, loping around, too tall for their own good. I wanted to make my parents happy and get an A in Home Economics, but boys and rock and roll had altered my priorities.

I was always in awe of my big, gorgeous daddy. He looked just like Clark Gable, and disappeared on weekends to dig for gold way down deep in Mexico. He had always wanted to strike it rich, so right before I was born, he and my mom left Pond Creek, Kentucky, heading for gold country, which allowed me to come into the world as a California native. We lived right off Sunset and Vine, in a dinky little hut on Selma Avenue, and after a series of unilluminating vacuum-salesman-type jobs, my daddy made his way farther west into the wild shrubbery of the San Fernando Valley suburbs, to seek his meager fortune bottling Budweiser. He splurged out and bought his very own cream-colored Cadillac that he paid for in seventy-two monthly installments, and we lived in the same split-level for twelve years, so I felt very secure. I had two parents, a dog, a cat, a parakeet named Buttons, and three good meals a day. In my early years, my sweet mom made sure that my wild daddy came across as a tame, devoted father-figure, but no matter how much she buffered and suffered, it couldnt alter the fact that he was from the Old South, and I was from the New West.

* * *

Two incidents occurred when I was fourteen that had a profound effect on my life. The first was when my dad relented and let me remove the wisps of hair from my very thin legs (he did not, however, let me place the Lady Schick above the knee), and I had a moment of independence alone in the pink-tiled bathroom that will never be equalled for as long as I live, squirting a pool of Jergens into my palm and slathering it all over my hairless, shining Barbie-doll calves. Compared to getting my period, the first shave initiated me into the elementary stage of womanhood with a much more exciting sense of adventure... going forth into the world with no hair on my calvesLife, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness! The second incident involved a stolen car, a bad boy, and the song Hes a Rebel. Dennis MacCorkell was the slump-shouldered, shuffling, cigarette-dangling, pit-faced bad boy found in most junior high schools in 1962. He would shout to me whenever we passed in the hall, Hey! No Underwear!! I took it as an endearment and blushed appropriately. He had the same seat in his homeroom that I had in Biology I, and one Friday morning I found No Underwear carved into the table. I hoped it was a secret message of adoration, even though he was going steady with a tough Chicano girl named Jackie. Over the weekend, Dennis and two other bad boys from another school stole a car and smashed it to pieces and they all went straight to Teen Angel heaven. Jackie came directly to school so we could all see her suffer. She was wearing a black tulle veil, and her friends held her up all day as she staggered from class to class. She broke down during Nutrition, and every girl in school secretly wished that Dennis MacCorkell had been her boyfriend. Hes a Rebel became associated with Dennis, and rebellion turned into infamy in my teenage mind. Twenty years later, my mom was cleaning out her drawers and came across a little box with a dead rose tucked inside, and a slip of paper cut out of my 1962 yearbook: Hey, No Underwear, good luck with the boys, Dennis MacCorkell.