Let's Spend the Night Together: Backstage Secrets of Rock Muses and Supergroupies (8 page)

A Groupie Lament

By Cherry Vanilla

Love at First Sight

enny Bruce, the poster punk for fearless rule-breakers, C succumbed to heroin addiction exacerbated by much courtappointed ballbusting in August 1966. I was almost seventeen when I threw on Grandma's velvet finery and headed to Lenny's final resting place to pay my fledgling respects. After joining the colorful fray traipsing 'round the cemetery, I found myself at a tragically cool eulogy held in some hipster's backyard in Woodland Hills. I sat cross-legged on the ground along with many somber-faced groovers, while Lenny's peers paid him furious homage. I listened intently to Phil Spector, who insisted that Lenny had died "from an overdose of police." I tried to focus on the proceedings, but bright colorful splotches from another corner of the yard kept commandeering my attention.

Quietly frolicking on the kiddie swing set was the rock master of unrepentant irony, Frank Zappa, wearing outlandish flowered bell-bottoms, accompanied by a lissome, wide-eyed doll. She was model-pretty, and obviously entranced with him, but plainly holding her own. Although it was a thrill to see the leader of the Mothers of Invention, live, in person, and on a swing, I was curious about the girl perched on his knee.

The wives and girlfriends of my musical heroes were my heroines. I was too young to have appreciated Paul McCartney's freckle-faced actress lovebird, Jane Asher, and unsecretly hoped she would drown in the Thames, but I later revered the Rolling Stones' muses: Mick's cherubic Marianne Faithfull and Keith's wicked Anita Pallenberg, a disheveled dame who had settled on the guitar player after dallying with Mick and Brian Jones. Those cheeky dolly birds were in the center of all that mad music, proudly floating beside their satin-clad counterparts, privy to succulent secrets locked behind hotel room doors all over the world. I envied them ferociously.

It was a couple months after Lenny's eulogy that I laid my Twiggified eyes on Frank Zappa once again. My childhood best friend Iva Turner and I were among the hippies and freaks milling around the corner of Sunset and Crescent Heights, protesting the closing of our beloved club, Pandora's Box. Imminent danger wafted through the incensed air, but just before a hundred batonwielding cops trooped in formation toward us, I spied Frank Zappa in the kaleidoscopic throng. Instinctively, I reached out and touched his rowdy mop of hair, then turned to Iva and marveled, "It's soft . . ." My next Zappa sighting happened at the Cheetah Club, and I actually rolled around on the floor with Frank before being formally introduced to the glorious rock icon.

I frequently danced at various Hollywood functions with an assortment of rambunctious girls called the Laurel Canyon Ballet Company. One of the dolls, Christine, worked as "governess" for Frank and his wife, Gail, taking care of their six-month-old daughter, Moon Unit. When she told Frank about her gaggle of newfound cronies, the ever-curious Mr. Zappa invited the five of us over for tea.

Decked out to impress the maestro, we arrived en masse at the infamous log cabin in Laurel Canyon, which was once owned by 1920s Hollywood cowboy Tom Mix. His beloved four-legged costar Tony the Wonder Horse was supposedly buried under the bowling alley in the basement. Upstairs, there was a fireplace the size of a movie star's closet, and Frank sat nearby at his piano, creating works of cryptic splendor.

We giggled and danced and showed off shamelessly for Mr. Zappa, but I kept sneaking peeks at Gail, who was busy making tea and snacks for her goofy guests, while Christine bounced baby Moon on her scrawny hip. Even when pie-eyed Miss Mercy stamped into the kitchen and gobbled up a stick of butter, Gail was gracious about the peculiar intrusion. She's got it all, I thought dreamily: a genius rock star husband, a house full of wild musicians, and her own little bundle of baby-joy cooing along with Daddy's brilliant jingles. How had she done it? With all the femmes on the prowl, how had she captured this coveted rock god?

I have been friends with Gail Zappa for thirty-eight years now and have long known the answer to my ardent teenage question. She quickly became my confidant, guidance counselor, and mentor as I went through my endless groupie travails. Her distinctly droll point of view helped me to deal with my lamentable romantic foibles, and I still go to her for advice of all kinds. She's somehow able to cut through the dross and get right to the heartbeat of the matter. She has raised four superb people, Moon, Dweezil, Ahmet, and Diva, and is now Grandma Gail to Moon's baby daughter Mathilda. She also adored, protected, and tended to one of our most prolific, awe-inspiring musical masterminds, until his untimely death in 1993. I truly believe that Frank Zappa should, and will be, revered in the same way that Beethoven and Mozart are one day. Not only did Mr. Zappa compose astonishing music, he also wrote hysterically astute lyrics!