Somebody to Love? Read online

  If you purchase this book without a cover you should be aware that this book may have been stolen property and reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher. In such case neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  WARNER BOOKS EDITION

  Copyright © 1998 by Grace Slick

  All right reserved.

  Cover design by Rachel McClain

  Book design and composition by L&G McRee

  Warner Books, Inc., Hachette Book Group, 237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

  Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

  First eBook Edition: December 1999

  ISBN: 978-0-446-55442-8

  Copyright Acknowledgments

  The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge permission to reprint the following material:

  Lyrics from “Philadelphia Freedom,” by Elton John and Bernie Taupin. Copyright © 1975 Big Pig Music Ltd. All Rights for U.S. administered by Warner/Chappell Music, Inc. Canadian Rights administered by Chappell Music Canada Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission. Warner Bros. Publications U.S., Inc., Miami, FL 33014

  Lyrics from “Somebody to Love,” by Darby Slick. Copyright © Irving Music. Used by Permission.

  Lyrics from “White Rabbit,” by Grace Slick. Copyright © Irving Music. Used by Permission.

  Lyrics from “Lather,” by Grace Slick. Copyright © Icebag Corp. Used by Permission.

  Lyrics from “Triad,” by David Crosby. Copyright © Stay Straight. Used by Permission.

  Lyrics from “Ride the Tiger,” by Paul Kantner. Copyright © Ronin Music. Used by Permission.

  Lyrics from “Comin' Back to Me,” by Marty Balin. Copyright © Icebag Corp. Used by Permission.

  Lyrics from “Third Week in the Chelsea,” by Jorma Kaukonen. Copyright © Icebag Corp. Used by Permission.

  Lyrics from “Starship,” by Paul Kantner, Grace Slick, Marty Balin, and Gary Blackman. Copyright © God Tunes. Used by Permission.

  Lyrics from “Manhole,” by Grace Slick. Copyright © Mole Music. Used by Permission.

  Lyrics from “Do It the Hard Way,” by Grace Slick. Copyright © Ronin Music. Used by Permission.

  Lyrics from “Hyperdrive,” by Grace Slick. Copyright © Ronin Music. Used by Permission.

  Lyrics from “Panda,” by Grace Slick. Copyright © Helmets Without Heads. Used by Permission.

  Contents

  Dedication

  Preface

  Author's Note

  Part One

  1: The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend

  2: I Love L.A.

  3: Geisha Grace

  4: 1798 or 1998?

  5: Grouser

  6: Toodles

  7: Fat

  8: Blue Balls

  9: What to Do with a Finger Bowl

  10: “Old” Men

  11: Convulsive Decision

  12: Stupid Jobs

  13: Grace Cathedral

  14: Use It

  15: Peyote, Sweet Potatoes, and LSD

  16: The Scene

  17: Initiation Rites

  18: Knobs and Dials and Wires

  19: Lather

  20: Jailbirds

  21: Monterey Pop

  22: Woodstock

  23: Altamont

  24: Ladies (and Gentlemen) of the Canyon

  25: Reruns

  26: Strawberry Fuck

  27: The Big House

  28: And the Winner Is …

  Part Two

  29: Dosing Tricky Dick

  30: Small Busts

  31: China

  32: The Chrome Nun

  33: Fanatics and Fans

  34: Silver Cup

  Part Three

  35: Seacliff

  36: Jefferson Starship

  37: The Brandy Twins

  38: All-Access Pass

  39: Firing Myself

  40: TUIs

  41: Immoderation

  42: Working Solo

  43: An Easy Ride

  44: Exits

  45: Panda

  46: The Political Pie

  47: The Cold Shoulder

  48: The Gamut

  49: On the Road Again

  Part Four

  50: Rising with the Sun

  51: Fire and Passion

  52: Rock and Roll and Aging

  53: Dropping the Body

  54: A Few Closing Words

  Discography 1966–1995

  The World According to Grace

  “I've enjoyed the accommodations offered by police departments from Florida to Hawaii. Any time I saw a badge, something in me would snap.”

  “The wiser you get on the inside, the uglier you get on the outside. The world's great gurus have beautiful things to say but they generally look like shit.”

  “Jim Morrison was a well-built boy, larger than average, and young enough to maintain the engorged silent connection right through the residue of chemicals.”

  “In Germany I ingested the entire contents of the hotel minibar before a show and stuck my fingers in this guy's nostrils because I thought they would fit.”

  “The first words I ever heard the alcohol rehab counselor say were ‘Good morning, assholes!’ With that, I liked him right away.”

  “IT'S HARD NOT TO ADMIRE HER VERVE AND SASS.”

  —New York Times Book Review

  “Provides fascinating backstage glimpses into the halcyon days of hippiedom.”

  —People

  “Gracefully outrageous … a treasure trove of backstage gossip and psychedelic philosophy.”

  —San Francisco Examiner

  “A fascinating journey … as outrageous and shocking as the days when she used to lift her top to flash a crowd.”

  —Atlanta Journal-Constitution

  “A fun, emblematic trip.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Slick tells her story with unflinching candor and humor.”

  —Washington Post Book World

  “An enjoyable psychedelic pastry, a look back at rock's game of musical beds, and a report on the life's ups and downs (and other drugs).”

  —Jerry Hopkins, coauthor of No One Here Gets Out Alive

  “An absurdly readable page-turning blitz. … A delicious, chaotic, splendid hurtle down the rabbit hole—a trip you'll never forget.”

  —Pamela Des Barres, author of I'm with the Band

  “I always loved Grace Slick's talent. Until I read this book I didn't know I loved her wisdom and humor as well.”

  —Olivia Goldsmith, author of The First Wives Club

  “Slick can't help being somebody to love—she's smart, sarcastic as ever, and ceaselessly funny … [with] a load of wonderfully colorful stories to tell. … A page-turner throughout.”

  —Discoveries

  “A primer for hipsters with irreverent humor, levelheaded wisdom, persistent defiance, and—yes—sprightly grace.”

  —BAM (Pleasant Hill, CA)

  “Frank … highly entertaining. … The era of free love has never been better chronicled.”

  —Library Journal

  “Finally, the last great rock-and-roll story … a smart, well-written tale, told as if it's been shot out of a cannon.”

  —Steven Gaines, coauthor of The Love You Make: An Insider's Story of the Beatles

  “Quite entertaining … Slick's language is so strong it might even make Kenneth Starr blush.”

  —Anniston Star

  “Bawdy, boisterous … the unvarnished gospel from a woman guided by passion and freedom of expression.”

  —Alanna Nash, music reviewer for Entertainment Weekly

  Love to All

  THANK YOU TO ALL WHO HELPE
D ME WITH THIS BOOK

  Skip Johnson, my friend always

  China Kantner, for being exactly who she is

  Mom and Dad, for giving me so much more than existence

  Chris Wing, for seeing with a child's eyes

  Paul Kantner, for humor and invaluable help with my arbitrary memory

  Andrea Cagan, for her friendship, her open heart, and her open mind

  Brian Rohan, for introducing me to my agent

  Maureen Regan, my agent, for talking me into doing this book and getting the “big bucks,” respectively—and for her boundless energy in both personal and business situations

  Rick Horgan, my editor, for his suggestions and for letting me play

  The Great Society, Airplane, and Starship groups and all associates, for their talent and support

  Sister Pat Monahan, for Bucky and for her ability to listen

  Vincent Marino, for damn near unconditional love

  Ron Neiman, for beautifying the outside and putting up with the inside of my head

  Justin Davis, for his unique self and his photograph

  And of course, to all the people who've followed our music through the years

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  In writing this book, my cowriter, Andrea, and I first attempted to proceed by having her ask me questions, after which she'd go to her computer, armed with notes, and construct a scenario around a sentence or paragraph taken from our conversations. The results were sounding disjointed, so we tried a different tack.

  The second, ultimately successful method involved Andrea's giving me a foundation for each chapter by providing a list of topics she'd heard me discuss, at which point I'd write down my recollection or interpretation of that aspect of my life. Andrea (being the pro) then organized my thoughts and my horrendous punctuation. I can construct an interesting scene and create plausible dialogue, but distinguishing between colons and semicolons has always struck me as something akin to gastrointestinal surgery.

  Yup, these are my words, with the help of the runway, the mechanic, and the control tower.

  By the way, several of the names in this story have been changed to protect the guilty.

  PART

  One

  1

  The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend

  It's Chicago, 1973. Jefferson Airplane is tuning up and I'm standing onstage getting ready to sing. Some guy in the audience stands up and shouts, “Hey, Gracie—take off your chastity belt.”

  I look directly at him and say, “Hey—I don't even wear underpants.” I pull my skirt up over my head for a beaver shot, and the audience explodes with laughter. I can hear the guys in the band behind me muttering, “Oh, Jesus.”

  My response to that particular heckle was actually pleasant compared to what I did in Germany, four or five years later, when I was so drunk, I went up to a guy sitting in the front row and picked his nose. It was the night before I left the band for the first time. To be more accurate, I fired myself. Fed up for a variety of reasons I'll discuss later, having ingested the entire contents of the minibar in my hotel room before I arrived at the venue for the show, I stuck my fingers in this guy's nostrils just because I thought they'd probably fit. Luckily, the majority of that particular German audience had never seen us before, so they must have figured we were some kind of punk band and just let it go.

  Why did Grace Wing, a well-educated, contented girl who grew up in a Leave It to Beaver household, ultimately embrace such a maverick persona?

  Well, sarcasm was always a family trait, but the real reason for my tendency toward raucous behavior can best be explained by a 1949 film that I watched when I was a young girl. I recently saw a rerun, and it was all right up there on the screen: a combination of humor and fantasy that was especially appealing to a young child looking for a Technicolor reality.

  TV Guide listing in May 1997:

  11:40 (DIS) movie, Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend—comedy (1949) 1:35 Betty Grable.

  Love the title.

  When I was between the ages of five and nine, the soldiers of the Second World War wanted to have Betty Grable, but I wanted to be Betty Grable. She was the epitome of an alluring woman; she had it all as far as I was concerned.

  My mother told me, “She's got caps on her teeth, bleached blonde hair, and no talent.” Mom, being a natural blonde with a mouth full of perfectly straight teeth, was feeling some resentment. But Miss Grable could have been head-to-toe Styrofoam for all I cared. Whatever it was, it worked for me. When I saw that movie, I figured I had all the information I needed to ride through life like an armored blonde goddess.

  The opening shot of The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend takes place in 1895 in a small western town. Betty's in jail, still in the fabulous outfit she was wearing for her evening's saloon singing. She's only slightly put out by being in the slammer, and a friend tells her, “Don't worry, you'll be out in minutes. Nobody liked the guy you shot, anyway.”

  After a rousing evening of performing for assorted drunken cowboys in a saloon and shooting a rabble-rouser, she shows up for her trial the next morning, where she speaks out of order and then winds up shooting the judge in the ass.

  A comedy.

  The point is, what nine-year-old Grace saw was a woman who looked like a princess, behaving in a primarily offensive, often masculine way and producing slapstick results. No heavy feminist stuff, no serious reprimands. Just a series of entertaining events, showcasing the character's comedic qualities and instinct for following her whims.

  In scene two, Betty's character, as a little girl, is being coached in sharpshooting by her grandfather.

  “Can I go play with my dolls now?” she asks.

  “Young lady, the frontier is a wild place,” says her grandfather. “Nobody's gonna take care of you; you gotta take care of yourself—and nobody argues with a gun. You get good enough with that piece, you won't find no trouble you can't get out of.”

  Little Betty blows ten bottles off the wall from twenty paces, and says, “Can I go play with my dolls now?”

  “Okay,” says Gramps, mumbling under his breath, “Boy, she's an amazing shot.”

  In the following scenes, Betty's adult character continuously lets fly with sarcastic remarks, takes no guff from children and adults alike, and lets her various suitors know she's charmed by their attention but not available. A class A gunfighter, she hikes up her skirts and plows into the fray with John Wayne–style resolve. When she falls in love with Cesar Romero, she has to save him—both from winding up on the losing end of a gunfight and from his own confused thinking.

  Significantly, she takes it all on with no whining or lobbying against sexist attitudes. She just tackles one problem at a time, always with a sense of humor, always self-possessed, always unruffled. At the end of the film, when she discovers that Romero has a woman on the side, she dumps him with a few well-chosen remarks and shoots the same judge in the ass again—this time hitting both cheeks.

  “Feminist comedy,” practically an oxymoron, had a couple of good years after WWII. Chalk it up to the forced female autonomy that occurred during wartime, when Rosie the Riveter went to work in the factories, constructing the Allies' war machines while taking charge of the finances, the home, and the children. Those movies gave little girls in the audience the green light for self-reliant, admittedly-leaning-toward-violent behavior. No preaching, no bra burning, just facing and enjoying the humor of life as it was, wherever you were, whatever was going on.

  All those images on celluloid filled out a picture of how I wanted to be.

  Even though the fifties seemed to regress into the pocket of a fluffy Doris Day apron, I clearly was influenced by the do-it-yourself heroines I'd watched as a child. They took it all on without viewing “it” as something that needed a great deal of support to handle. Consequently, in the early sixties, when women started telling me I should join “the Cause,” that we should stand up for each other, march in D.C. and so forth, I thought that was abo
ut as interesting as joining the Daughters of the American Revolution. It seemed like a new slant on an old Tupperware party.

  By the time I was old enough to consider how I wanted to live my life, I'd read about and heard of Golda Meir; Indira Gandhi; Babe Zaharias; Clare Boothe Luce; Eleanor Roosevelt; Marie Curie; Cassandra of Troy; Cleopatra; Elizabeth Taylor; Melina Mercouri; Anna Pavlova; Moira Shearer; Isadora Duncan; Maria Tallchief; Mary, Queen of Scots; Queen Isabella and Queen Victoria; Mary Shelley; Louisa May Alcott; Betsy Ross; Susan B. Anthony; Marian Anderson; Ella Fitzgerald; Carmen Miranda; Tokyo Rose; Sarah Bernhardt; Georgia O'Keeffe; Gertrude Stein; Annie Oakley; Amelia Earhart; Joan of Arc; Mother Teresa and Guru Ma; Julia Child; Pamela Harriman; Catherine the Great; Evita Peron; and Snow White.

  The above-listed women collectively represented every attitude and occupation, so I figured my field of possibilities was wide open. I assumed that women who lived for the home front—housewives, homemakers, whatever the euphemism was—chose to do that; otherwise, they'd be doing something else. I couldn't imagine anybody doing something they didn't want to do.

  Apart from rectal examinations and dental visits, why do something you don't like?

  Financial circumstances might have demanded certain unpleasant activities, but if you did decide to specialize in the homemaking arts, I thought it should be because you were fulfilling a dream, not bowing to societal pressure.

  At the time, that wasn't the accepted way of thinking, but since adults had made the Betty Grable films, I figured some people somewhere knew it was possible to experience life on a grand scale. They knew you didn't have to acquiesce, didn't have to be drab.

  For years, I've followed the Grable credo: say what you mean, mean what you say, and throw a joke and a song in the mix now and then.

  2

  I Love L.A.

  “If I didn't get straight A's on my report card, my mother would beat on my rear end about twenty times with the wooden side of a hairbrush. We wore so many petticoats under our dresses in those days, the spankings didn't hurt as much as she thought they did. I'd try not to laugh out loud when she'd go at it so hard, all the hairpins would come flying out of her head in every direction, ruining that big doughnut-shaped hairdo that was stylish then. By the time she got through running after me, tripping on the hem of her long dress, and working on my butt, she looked like she was the one who'd been punished.”