Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Leftsnet's podcast. My
Speaker 1: guest today is the one and only bb Bule. He'd
Speaker 1: be good to have you on the podcast.
Speaker 2: Hey, I'm honored to be here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Okay, explain the derivation of your name, Bibi.
Speaker 2: Well, I was born on Bastiel Day. My father was
Speaker 2: in Korea and my mother didn't want to give me
Speaker 2: a name until he got back. I didn't meet him
Speaker 2: till I was three weeks old, and the nurses called
Speaker 2: me Bebe because it meant baby in French, and because
Speaker 2: I was born on Bastiele Day, they thought it was
Speaker 2: all very French, so I sort of stuck. And then
Speaker 2: my mother wanted to name me Courtney, and my father liked.
Speaker 2: My mother didn't like the spelling, so she made it
Speaker 2: just Beverly with an E. And my middle name is Lawrence,
Speaker 2: which is after my grandmother, who is Florence. But my
Speaker 2: mother didn't like the name Florence, so she dropped the F,
Speaker 2: so I'm Lawrence is my middle name. And then Buell.
Speaker 2: This is my father's name.
Speaker 1: Okay, this is your stepfather, your birth father.
Speaker 2: My birth father, But you say it.
Speaker 1: You say in your book that you never really knew
Speaker 1: your father.
Speaker 2: No, I didn't. And it's funny because I never felt
Speaker 2: that I didn't know him. I just felt like he
Speaker 2: didn't want to be part of my life. Is basically
Speaker 2: the way I saw it as a child, and so
Speaker 2: I think I was always looking for ways to want
Speaker 2: to be part of his life, but it just didn't
Speaker 2: work out that way.
Speaker 1: Okay, So subsequent to your birth, did he and your
Speaker 1: mother ever live together?
Speaker 2: Yes? They did. They divorced when I was two years old.
Speaker 1: So how much contact did you actually have with him?
Speaker 2: Not much at all. And the last time I saw
Speaker 2: him was on my fifth birthday, and it was a
Speaker 2: really interesting thing because they my parents had an argument
Speaker 2: of some kind and as my father was leaving, this
Speaker 2: dish hit the wall. My mother had thrown something at him,
Speaker 2: and I just remember running to the elevator and he
Speaker 2: got on the elevator and he was dressed, very dashing,
Speaker 2: and I tried to pull the elevator doors open with
Speaker 2: my little five year old hands. I didn't want him
Speaker 2: to leave, and I never saw him again until I
Speaker 2: was about seven or eight months pregnant with live.
Speaker 1: And what were the circumstances there. Why did you suddenly
Speaker 1: see him?
Speaker 2: Because Todd felt that Todd was pretty certain we were
Speaker 2: going to have a boy, and I was pretty certain
Speaker 2: that I was pregnant with a female energy. I sort
Speaker 2: of knew that and I felt it. But he sort
Speaker 2: of felt that I had a lot of unfinished stuff
Speaker 2: with my dad, and he felt that it would be
Speaker 2: very healthy for me to see my father again before
Speaker 2: I had a child, even though I was all of
Speaker 2: twenty three years old, and so Todd had a show
Speaker 2: in Tallahassee, where my father was living, and I went
Speaker 2: to that show, uber pregnant, saw my father again for
Speaker 2: the first time since I was five, and it was interesting,
Speaker 2: to say the least. I didn't feel unattached to him,
Speaker 2: and I felt very much like his daughter. We both
Speaker 2: had the steel blue eyes, and he's tall, and I
Speaker 2: saw myself, but I didn't really bond with him. And
Speaker 2: then I didn't see him again until two thousand and eight.
Speaker 2: I think it was there's a lot of years. My
Speaker 2: daughters met him once.
Speaker 1: Okay, why did you meet him again in two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight.
Speaker 2: Because I believe it or not, he called me after
Speaker 2: his wife, Mollie the woman that he married. After he
Speaker 2: and my mom divorced, he called me and he said
Speaker 2: that he wanted to see me, and that he said
Speaker 2: that Mollie's wish was that we would see each other again.
Speaker 2: And did you I certainly did. Absolutely. I went right
Speaker 2: to him, and I'm really glad that I did. I
Speaker 2: got to know him for the last five years of
Speaker 2: his life. He was almost ninety five when he died,
Speaker 2: and he was an incredibly great man. I there's a
Speaker 2: lot about him that I don't identify with, but there's
Speaker 2: a a lot about him that I do identify with.
Speaker 2: And he was a heroic pilot. You can read about
Speaker 2: my father. He wrote a book called Dauntless Hell Divers
Speaker 2: about being a hell diver pilot in World War Two.
Speaker 2: He did unbelievable things. And the only pictures I ever
Speaker 2: saw of him, he was all dressed up in his regalia.
Speaker 2: And people wonder why I'm drawn to people that are
Speaker 2: sort of regal in their stance or spiffy in their dress,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: So when you connected with him, yeah, you know, like
Speaker 1: people you read all about these people, they share genes,
Speaker 1: but they never knew each other, but they get together
Speaker 1: and they see similarities. Did you see similarities?
Speaker 2: Oh my god, it was incredible, It was incredible. We
Speaker 2: have the same laugh and he even has a little
Speaker 2: lisp like I do. But mine I tried to control
Speaker 2: most my life. But his height, his he had very
Speaker 2: long legs and he was lanky, and yeah, and I
Speaker 2: just I felt like I was meeting somebody that I
Speaker 2: should know better. But what do you do about that?
Speaker 2: You really can't change what your destiny is. It was
Speaker 2: my destiny to have this kind of dynamic. I was,
Speaker 2: you know, obviously there's a lesson for me in this life,
Speaker 2: and it has a lot to do with men and
Speaker 2: father and the importance of acceptance and and wanting to
Speaker 2: be loved.
Speaker 1: Okay, just before we get there, do you have any
Speaker 1: step siblings?
Speaker 2: Well, I sort of have a step sibling when my
Speaker 2: father remarried Mollie, who I adored by the way she
Speaker 2: was like him. They were free thinkers, very artistic. My
Speaker 2: father wrote, he wrote two books, and she was an
Speaker 2: artist and she could draw, and they were very bohemian.
Speaker 2: They had their martinis at six and you know the
Speaker 2: whole bit.
Speaker 1: And until Molly came with a child, Yes.
Speaker 2: She came with two. She came with Cheryl and a
Speaker 2: son who had of all names Happy. His name was
Speaker 2: Happy and they called him Hap And I just remember thinking,
Speaker 2: you know, names come in all sizes, like mine was
Speaker 2: an unusual name. Growing up, people thought Bibie was a
Speaker 2: weird name. I never went by Beverly, so yes, she
Speaker 2: came so I happy. I never really got to know Cheryl,
Speaker 2: only a little bit.
Speaker 1: But okay, let's talk about your relationship with men, because
Speaker 1: on some level you're famous because of your relationships with
Speaker 1: all this high sight. Tell me more about how you
Speaker 1: feel relative to men, not particular individual, but one sex
Speaker 1: via the other.
Speaker 2: Well, I think as I've gotten older and I've experienced
Speaker 2: healthy relationships, you know, I've been married to my husband.
Speaker 2: We're getting ready to have our twenty first wedding anniversary
Speaker 2: and we've been together for twenty four years. Once I
Speaker 2: actually experienced commitment and healthy exchanges and where things didn't
Speaker 2: all just revolve around the other person. I was very
Speaker 2: much a product of the sixties and the seventies because
Speaker 2: as much as women were burning their bras and people
Speaker 2: were burning their draft cards, there was still a suppression.
Speaker 2: There was still a stigma that went with burning that
Speaker 2: bra or having more than one boyfriend, or having a
Speaker 2: child out of wedlock that was still not one hundred
Speaker 2: percent accepted as it is today. And the choices I
Speaker 2: made when I was young, I think were based on
Speaker 2: parental some kind of parental baggage I was carrying from
Speaker 2: my childhood. I'm really not sure, because I didn't really
Speaker 2: ponder it. I wasn't a self destructive person, and I
Speaker 2: wasn't an angry person. I was just a person that
Speaker 2: was sort of like swirling around like Alice in Wonderland,
Speaker 2: jumping from mushroom to mushroom. It like sort of like
Speaker 2: Forrest Gump, but with a higher IQ. I just sort
Speaker 2: of fell into situations that I think I was obviously
Speaker 2: meant to experience. And whatever notoriety or recognition I got
Speaker 2: from relationships, I also got a lot on my own
Speaker 2: and my input in those relationships, if that means much.
Speaker 2: I wasn't Sharon Osborne, and I wasn't, you know, a
Speaker 2: Mamager type person. But I was a very artistic young girl,
Speaker 2: and I think I craved that around me. It was
Speaker 2: sort of my fuel, as well as the men that
Speaker 2: I enjoyed being around.
Speaker 1: What kind of kid were you like growing up. Were
Speaker 1: you the life of the party, Were you the lone artist?
Speaker 1: Were you a good student? Bad student? Friends not friends?
Speaker 2: Well, I was dyslexic and ad HD and all the
Speaker 2: other things that come with a lot of creative energy.
Speaker 2: But I had a really, really loving mother that sort
Speaker 2: of understood that I was. Same with me. With my
Speaker 2: daughter live, I knew she was. She was, you know,
Speaker 2: a little special as well. And my mother allowed all
Speaker 2: the art. She never told me to turn my music down.
Speaker 2: When she saw that I was interested in drawing, she
Speaker 2: bought me an easel, and she never tried to stifle
Speaker 2: my love of any kind of craft. I was always
Speaker 2: very infatuated with art period. I just would sit for
Speaker 2: hours and look at art books. And that's how I
Speaker 2: fell in love with Oscar Wilde and just through books,
Speaker 2: you know, just through looking at lots of pictures and
Speaker 2: deciding what I identified with.
Speaker 1: And okay, so were you into music before the Beatles?
Speaker 1: Were the Beatles really a transcendent moment for you?
Speaker 2: Well, the physicality of the Beatles absolutely. Seeing him on
Speaker 2: the Ed Sullivan Show was a mind blowing experience. I
Speaker 2: feel bad for anybody that didn't get to experience is that.
Speaker 2: It was really incredible. It was probably one of the
Speaker 2: greatest moments of my life. That and the Rolling Stones.
Speaker 2: But before that, yes, my mother had She liked Patsy Kleine,
Speaker 2: and she liked Frank Sinatra, and and she liked Hank Williams,
Speaker 2: and she really loved Eddie Arnold, and so we had
Speaker 2: There was music in the house a lot. And my
Speaker 2: mother liked the radio. So when we were in the car,
Speaker 2: when we had cars with radios, she would let me
Speaker 2: listen to whatever station I wanted. And I enjoyed listening
Speaker 2: to a little bit of everything. I sort of had
Speaker 2: a Shmorgas board. I loved the Everly Brothers and that
Speaker 2: you know that and that song by Roy Orbison crying
Speaker 2: that just crat you know. I would just go around
Speaker 2: the house like a maniac singing that song. And I
Speaker 2: was very affected by Gypsy rose Lee. Let me entertain,
Speaker 2: you know. I would get in the shower and sing
Speaker 2: at the top of my lungs. And so what kind
Speaker 2: of child was I? I was sort of an entertainer
Speaker 2: from a very young age, but I didn't there was
Speaker 2: something missing. I think that's because of the situation with
Speaker 2: my dad. I never felt like I was enough. I
Speaker 2: never felt as pretty as the other girls or but
Speaker 2: of course it was not like that. It's just it's
Speaker 2: how I felt. So And did I get good grades, No,
Speaker 2: because I had attention deficit. But there was one subject
Speaker 2: I was good in, and that was English literature. So
Speaker 2: any story telling, anything I could read about the Renaissance period,
Speaker 2: or anything that attracted me in that arena, Greek mythology, romany, astrology, metaphysics,
Speaker 2: Madame Blovowski, you know, things like that. It really resonated
Speaker 2: with me. So my mother kind of knew that I
Speaker 2: didn't have that headspace for wanting to go and go
Speaker 2: to college, that I was going to sort of learn.
Speaker 2: I was going to get my education the old fashioned way,
Speaker 2: kick them in the deep end and see if they swim.
Speaker 2: And she sent my high school graduation picture to the
Speaker 2: biggest agent in the world. My mother always fought big
Speaker 2: and she still does, and I never thought I would
Speaker 2: get a response, But within three days we were on
Speaker 2: an airplane to New York City because Eileen Ford had
Speaker 2: summoned me and that was it.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go do a little backfill here. So you
Speaker 1: were ten when the Beatles came out that was a
Speaker 1: big thing. Music was everything, and then you were entering
Speaker 1: ju You're high. Were you a popular girl, did you
Speaker 1: go on dates? Did you suddenly go wild or were
Speaker 1: you more separate? What were you like?
Speaker 2: Well? I was in Catholic boarding school for sixth, seventh,
Speaker 2: and eighth grade. I went to Villa Maria Academy, which
Speaker 2: was a I came home for holidays in summer. And
Speaker 2: then in ninth grade, my stepfather got stationed in Newport,
Speaker 2: Rhode Island, so I went to Saint Catherine's Academy and
Speaker 2: on Bellevue Avenue. And it was when I was in
Speaker 2: ninth grade at a school dance that I met Paul
Speaker 2: Calcil from the group the Colcils. But at the time
Speaker 2: he was not in the band. He was the one
Speaker 2: brother besides his other brother Richard, that weren't in the
Speaker 2: band because the dad just decided they weren't in the band. So,
Speaker 2: I mean, Paul was kind of a jock, you know.
Speaker 2: He hung out with my friend Charlie and they liked basketball.
Speaker 2: So that was my first big fourteen going on fifteen,
Speaker 2: when I met Paul, and I remember my first slow
Speaker 2: dance with him. It was the last dance of the
Speaker 2: Night and Paul Castle comes to me and he asked
Speaker 2: me if I wanted to dance, and of course I
Speaker 2: said yes. He was so handsome. They were the most
Speaker 2: beautiful children. They were just all gorgeous. And so he
Speaker 2: was about seventeen at the time, and his family was
Speaker 2: becoming huge. The band was getting big, big, big big.
Speaker 2: But see I didn't know any of this at the
Speaker 2: time because I was a rock I listened to rock music.
Speaker 2: I wasn't really familiar with the Cowciles until hair and
Speaker 2: then I really knew who they were. And of course
Speaker 2: the rained to park and other things, so that sort
Speaker 2: of started the dynamic of my first kiss. My first
Speaker 2: crush was somebody that went off to the circus. Suddenly
Speaker 2: Paul's dad decided he was going to be in the band,
Speaker 2: so Paul was in the Castiles. He was the keyboard players.
Speaker 2: So no more school dances. Oh. The slow song was
Speaker 2: blue Velvet, my first Blue Velve. You know, it's incredible.
Speaker 2: So yeah, so of course we had to sneak off
Speaker 2: to kiss each other in the backseat of a car.
Speaker 2: It was all very innocent. There was nothing advanced. There
Speaker 2: was no third base or fourth base, back then, it
Speaker 2: was first base and second base, at least in my world.
Speaker 2: I'm sure other worlds were different, but in my world,
Speaker 2: and Paul always had the fear of his father looming
Speaker 2: over him. He had this incredibly strict father. He wasn't
Speaker 2: allowed to date, he wasn't allowed to go in cars,
Speaker 2: he wasn't allowed to do any of that stuff. He
Speaker 2: might as well have been Mormon. I mean, it was crazy,
Speaker 2: but anyway, they moved to California, and I finished my
Speaker 2: soft more year in new Portwood Island, and then my
Speaker 2: family got transferred to Campla June, North Carolina, and that's
Speaker 2: where I did my junior and my senior year. So
Speaker 2: finally I was going to normal, a normal public school.
Speaker 2: I went to campblu June High School. I graduated from there,
Speaker 2: and was I popular. I was always described I'm going
Speaker 2: to go buy my yearbook as an individualist and artistic,
Speaker 2: artistic girl was the so I guess, I guess it.
Speaker 2: Just it followed me. Was I effervescent, the entertainer, and
Speaker 2: me had not come out yet as far as being
Speaker 2: able to stand in front of people and actually own it,
Speaker 2: you know, that had not happened yet. I was still,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to use the word shy. I just
Speaker 2: didn't know yet how to present myself as a confident
Speaker 2: human that hadn't really hadn't really eluded me yet. So
Speaker 2: I always had a sense of wonderment. But was I popular?
Speaker 2: I guess was some kids, the cool kids, kids that
Speaker 2: liked rock and roll, kids that knew who Blue Cheer were,
Speaker 2: you know, I I.
Speaker 1: Oh, okay, So you talk about those bands, yeah, you
Speaker 1: know in your book, and that, you know, was the
Speaker 1: reason we're doing this podcast, Rebel Soul. You talk about
Speaker 1: seeing the Rolling Stones on one of their first tours.
Speaker 1: So to what degree were you owning records? To what
Speaker 1: degree were you going to concerts when you were in
Speaker 1: high school?
Speaker 2: In high school, Oh, well, I didn't go to a
Speaker 2: whole lot of concerts, that's for sure, And it wasn't
Speaker 2: until I was a senior. But I did see the
Speaker 2: Rolling Stones. But I was only twelve when that happened.
Speaker 2: That was July fourth, nineteen sixty six, at the Virginia
Speaker 2: Beach Dome B Shepherd Convention Center. My best friend since
Speaker 2: fifth grade, Joni Gross, and I went and it changed
Speaker 2: my life. You know. I was the kid that got
Speaker 2: into the newspaper for walking up to the stage with
Speaker 2: my instematic camera to take some pictures, and I got
Speaker 2: pushed by the stage was lined with cops. And that
Speaker 2: was my first taste at twelve going on thirteen. In
Speaker 2: ten days I would turn thirteen. What a baptism of
Speaker 2: Keith Richards actually coming to the edge of the stage
Speaker 2: and telling the cop to leave me alone. He sort
Speaker 2: of took his foot and nudged him. He didn't do
Speaker 2: a full on Keith, but he did a little nudge,
Speaker 2: not a kick, but a nudge, you know, to let
Speaker 2: the police officer know that I could take my picture.
Speaker 2: And boy did I never forget that, you know. So
Speaker 2: I was the kid that after I started clicking, I
Speaker 2: got a picture of Brian Jones playing Harmonica in his
Speaker 2: print pinstripe suit. Once I did that, the rest of
Speaker 2: the kids were able to push up a little bit
Speaker 2: more and it became a lot more fun. But so
Speaker 2: at that moment, I felt very connected to the spirit
Speaker 2: of what I was indulging. I felt very confident when
Speaker 2: I went up there to take my picture, and I
Speaker 2: wasn't going to let anybody stop me. And so after that,
Speaker 2: I think I went to a couple of those kind
Speaker 2: of gigs where they would have multiple people on the gig,
Speaker 2: you know, like Hermit's Hermit's and Sonny and Cher and
Speaker 2: Gary and the Pacemakers or something like that, and everybody
Speaker 2: would play like ten or fifteen minutes. And I know
Speaker 2: that Jamie Hendricks opened for the Monkeys when I lived
Speaker 2: in Newport and which was a strange tour for Hendrix
Speaker 2: to be on, But I didn't go to that. But
Speaker 2: in high school, I mean I would always go to
Speaker 2: the school dances and you know, we would always go
Speaker 2: to the canteen and we would always dance and all
Speaker 2: the you know, local bands and stuff. So when I
Speaker 2: was a senior in high school, that's when I met
Speaker 2: my first became friends with a local band that was
Speaker 2: big enough to open for Johnny Winter. So so my big,
Speaker 2: my first big concert where I got to be backstage
Speaker 2: and and s see a band like Johnny Winter, and
Speaker 2: which was so amazing when Rick Darringer was in the band,
Speaker 2: and I'm talking about the lineup after Zanga, after Rick's
Speaker 2: brother Randy had left, when it was just the trio,
Speaker 2: Oh my god, and you know, you know, I got
Speaker 2: it just it was a chain reaction. It just sort
Speaker 2: of started after that, but most of the concerts I
Speaker 2: went to that all started. I think I saw the
Speaker 2: James Gang when I was in and they were great.
Speaker 2: It's funny that Ted Nugent the and boy Duke's played
Speaker 2: with the James Gang, and I never liked Isn't it funny?
Speaker 2: Never liked Ted NuGen There was just something about that
Speaker 2: guy that creeped me out from the very beginning. I
Speaker 2: don't know if it was my Catholic schoolgirl radar or
Speaker 2: what it was, but he just creeped me out. I
Speaker 2: remember telling Dale Peters from the James Gang, he was
Speaker 2: the bass player, that that guy, that guy is so weird.
Speaker 2: You know. I was young, so I didn't know what
Speaker 2: other names to call him. I didn't know it was
Speaker 2: going to be like, you know, all the things I
Speaker 2: could say. But it's interesting I had even a little
Speaker 2: bit of a radar even then. I was blessed with
Speaker 2: some kind of protective thing. God only knows how I
Speaker 2: made it out alive some of the situations I got
Speaker 2: myself into in life, and I just feel, whatever it is,
Speaker 2: you roll with it.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back. Your mother writes a letter to
Speaker 1: Eileen Ford, Did you want to be a model or
Speaker 1: did your mother want you to be a model?
Speaker 2: I wanted to get to New York City. I wanted
Speaker 2: to meet Andy Warhol. I wanted to look at I
Speaker 2: wanted to meet the people I saw in Vogue magazine.
Speaker 2: And I wanted to be around that was my tribe.
Speaker 2: To me, that was my sole tribe. And I wanted
Speaker 2: to be where they where that was. And I always
Speaker 2: told my friends this too. I'm still my best friend
Speaker 2: from high school, Tim Sullivan, he lives in the Chelsea Hotel.
Speaker 2: He's one of the people that's been there for thirty years,
Speaker 2: so they couldn't get him to leave even when they
Speaker 2: rent oed. But he I wasn't surprised at all with
Speaker 2: the way my life went because I told him that,
Speaker 2: you know, I was going to get to New York.
Speaker 2: I thought I was going to be a singer. I
Speaker 2: thought I was going to be like Nico or something.
Speaker 2: I thought I was going to or Marianne Faithful. I
Speaker 2: sort of wanted to be a chantoose. But I was
Speaker 2: a little too rocking. There was like that my body language,
Speaker 2: my aura, everything about me was not as delicate, you know.
Speaker 2: I just I guess the term rock chick. I guess
Speaker 2: it's just in my pedigree and my DNA or whatever
Speaker 2: it is. But I just wanted to get to New York.
Speaker 2: And I'll be honest, I didn't even know what would
Speaker 2: happen when my mom sent those pictures and when Eileen's responded,
Speaker 2: my mother tried to explain to me, look, if you're
Speaker 2: not going to go to college, you really have to
Speaker 2: have a good job to work. And I thought, Okay,
Speaker 2: I get it. Maybe this will be fun. And you know,
Speaker 2: I loved fashion magazines and I loved all the great supermodels,
Speaker 2: and I loved Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton and Patty Boyd
Speaker 2: and Jane Asher and it was all on my radar.
Speaker 2: So I wanted to be more like that, like Jane Barkin.
Speaker 2: I wanted to be more so. Of course, Eileen she
Speaker 2: signed me immediately. I was signed him for it in
Speaker 2: ten minutes. It happened very fast, and they put me
Speaker 2: in Saint Mary's Woman's Residence. I was very used to
Speaker 2: being around nuns, but I wasn't able to keep my curfew.
Speaker 2: You had to be in by midnight when you were
Speaker 2: in Saint Mary's and I was starting to meet friends,
Speaker 2: and we used to go dancing at this place called
Speaker 2: hip hopon him. And then when I met Todd, I
Speaker 2: met Todd, and then the whole.
Speaker 1: A little bit slower when you went to New York.
Speaker 1: When you went to New York, you were going to
Speaker 1: the mecca. Were you convinced you were going to meet
Speaker 1: all these people? Were you driven? Did you say I'm
Speaker 1: gonna make it? Or were you just blindly bumping into things?
Speaker 2: It was blind? I you know, I try to take
Speaker 2: more credit for this fabulous life that I've been given,
Speaker 2: but actually I can't because all I did was manifest
Speaker 2: whatever my dreams were, and I would just do what
Speaker 2: I was taught. Be kind to people, be respectful, have
Speaker 2: good manners, and be honest and be direct. And so
Speaker 2: I just sort of I allowed whatever that inner voice
Speaker 2: is to sort of take me left or right.
Speaker 1: Okay, But there were other models staying at Saint Mary's.
Speaker 1: How did you meet people? And you go out dancing.
Speaker 1: You're a single attractive model in New York. You know
Speaker 1: a lot of people are going to be interested in
Speaker 1: talking to you.
Speaker 2: Right, I met, I mean I met I remember I
Speaker 2: met the DJ Frankie Crucker, because he would go and dance,
Speaker 2: and he loved to dance with all the pretty girls
Speaker 2: and he would. But you know, that was back when
Speaker 2: it was not so much about picking up. You would
Speaker 2: go to these dance clubs to actually dance. It was
Speaker 2: kind of interesting. It wasn't like I mean, I'm sure
Speaker 2: some people picked each other up, but I never gave
Speaker 2: off that. I was never hunting, you know, I was
Speaker 2: never looking for boyfriends. As a matter of fact, I
Speaker 2: didn't have any boyfriends until I met Todd. He was
Speaker 2: my first boyfriend.
Speaker 1: Okay, but were you sexually experienced when you met Todd?
Speaker 2: Not as much as some seventeen eight ten year old girls. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean I kind of was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, how'd you meet Todd?
Speaker 2: Well? That was that was what changed my life. I
Speaker 2: was hanging out with this guy that Aileen Ford approved
Speaker 2: of because she thought he was gay, but he wasn't.
Speaker 2: And he started actually dating one of the biggest models
Speaker 2: in New York and right under Eileen's nose, but she
Speaker 2: let all the girls go out dancing with him. His
Speaker 2: name was Richard, and he was really nice and he
Speaker 2: he asked me what I wanted to do, and I said,
Speaker 2: you know, Let's go see man. I had gone to
Speaker 2: see Man of La Mancha with my mother when I
Speaker 2: was a little girl in New York, and I wanted
Speaker 2: to go relive that moment, so I said, let's go
Speaker 2: see Man of La Mancha. So he took me to
Speaker 2: see Man of La Mancha. But on the way, Richard
Speaker 2: says to me, we have to make a stop on
Speaker 2: East thirteenth Street. I have to drop these tapes off
Speaker 2: to Todd Runggren. And he said, do you know who
Speaker 2: that is? And I was like, no, who's that? And
Speaker 2: he said, have you ever heard the song Hello? It's me?
Speaker 2: And I was like, uh, yeah, yeah, And he goes
Speaker 2: that guy he's going, he's gone solo. And he started
Speaker 2: to tell me about this famous manager named Albert Grossman
Speaker 2: was managing him and he's going to be a big star,
Speaker 2: and that he had these tapes that he had done
Speaker 2: over at this place called Secret Sound with Moogie Klingman
Speaker 2: or something, and that he needed to drop them off
Speaker 2: to Todd. So we pull up in front of two
Speaker 2: oh six East thirteenth Street, the same block that that
Speaker 2: scene in Taxi Driver where Jody leans up against the
Speaker 2: building when she's out to get a hooker or two
Speaker 2: or whatever. So he pulls the car up, but it
Speaker 2: was really a scary neighborhood in those days. He told
Speaker 2: me to stay in the car, and I was like,
Speaker 2: I'm not staying in the car, you know. So he
Speaker 2: had to throw a penny up to Todd's window because
Speaker 2: Todd didn't have a doorbell, and so he threw a
Speaker 2: coin up to Todd's window. And this guy looked out
Speaker 2: the window, this guy, this multi colored hair. He looked like,
Speaker 2: you know that toy, my little pony. He sort of
Speaker 2: looked like my little pony. He was like a horse
Speaker 2: with rainbow hair, but a beautiful, a good looking horse,
Speaker 2: you know, a stallion. So but he so he came
Speaker 2: running down the stairs to get the tapes, and the
Speaker 2: exchange was made, and that's when I met him. Todd said, oh,
Speaker 2: who's your friend, Richard? And you know, Richie said, oh,
Speaker 2: that's my friend baby. She's moved here from Virginia. You know,
Speaker 2: she's she's a model, she's with the four modeling agency,
Speaker 2: blah blah blah. And it's just you know, like he goes,
Speaker 2: oh great. You know, he was just wanting the tapes
Speaker 2: and he was going to go up and do his thing.
Speaker 2: So I met him, and I, you know, I of
Speaker 2: course was immediately drawn to him. I think we were
Speaker 2: drawn to each other. I think it was just some
Speaker 2: kind of written in the heavens. I don't know how
Speaker 2: healthy the whole thing was, but I think we had
Speaker 2: to go through it, whatever it was.
Speaker 1: But yeah, okay, so what are you living on? Are
Speaker 1: you going? You know, there's a lot of looks see
Speaker 1: are you getting booked? Are you working a little bit?
Speaker 2: Yes? I was doing a lot of testing. You know,
Speaker 2: you have to get a portfolio really really together, locked in.
Speaker 2: So Eileen was sending me off to meet photographers, but
Speaker 2: they would like me. So I was doing bookings for
Speaker 2: my Bride's magazine. That was my first big booking, and
Speaker 2: I would do Butterick and McCalls patterns, you know, I
Speaker 2: was doing some catalog. Eileen felt that I needed a
Speaker 2: little a little experience in front of the camera. But
Speaker 2: it was it was photographers that that saw that I
Speaker 2: had an edge that really enjoyed working with me. So
Speaker 2: I started to really make I started to get momentum.
Speaker 2: But then when I met Todd, that moved very quickly
Speaker 2: and I moved in with Todd and before I Oh.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, let's park that for a second. You had
Speaker 1: the time before Todd. If we looked solely at your
Speaker 1: modeling career, how much modeling did you actually do in
Speaker 1: your life?
Speaker 2: In my life, yeah, or in those months before I
Speaker 2: went in my life, I think if you were going
Speaker 2: to put it into I think my best years where
Speaker 2: I really worked the most, were between seventy four and
Speaker 2: seventy eight, So as far as professional modeling, those were
Speaker 2: the best years.
Speaker 1: Okay. And were you doing well full time? I know
Speaker 1: we were with Todd at that point, but that was
Speaker 1: the beginning of the era of the supermodel.
Speaker 2: Well, that started in the eighties, and I had already
Speaker 2: stopped modeling, but I still was photographed heavily. Even when
Speaker 2: I wasn't modeling for income people were I was photographed
Speaker 2: quite a lot. I was the subject of mini photographers.
Speaker 1: Okay, there are end pictures, but modeling takes a lot
Speaker 1: of effort and it's a lot of work. Did you
Speaker 1: actually enjoy doing it?
Speaker 2: No, of course I didn't. Only time I did was
Speaker 2: when I was in London. That was when I really
Speaker 2: buckled under and I lived the life of a very
Speaker 2: very busy, hard working model where I would go to
Speaker 2: bed every night, not party. I mean there were times
Speaker 2: when Mick Jagger would call and say let's go to
Speaker 2: tramp and I would be like, not tonight, Mick, I've
Speaker 2: got a big booking tomorrow and I have to get
Speaker 2: some sleep. Oh darling, I'll have you back. And I
Speaker 2: was like, no, no, you don't understand. This is really important.
Speaker 2: I really want this client, you know. So I was
Speaker 2: being very disciplined. And then the photographer, ironically, when you
Speaker 2: hear his last name, it's kind of funny. The photographer
Speaker 2: that really legitimized me and got me on the pages
Speaker 2: of Vogue was named Clive Arrowsmith and this was in
Speaker 2: seventy six. And it was in the fall of seventy
Speaker 2: six that Stephen Tyler from Aerosmith became the father of
Speaker 2: my child. Well, he didn't become. He impregnated me, as
Speaker 2: I we impregnated each other. So it's funny. I look
Speaker 2: at some of the synchronicities and some of the abstract occurrences,
Speaker 2: and no, I from seventy two to like seventy I
Speaker 2: did Playboy in seventy four, and you know, I made
Speaker 2: some money for that, but I would do a gig
Speaker 2: now and then, just to make some money so that
Speaker 2: I could just be whatever. I didn't even know who
Speaker 2: I was. I didn't know what I wanted to be.
Speaker 2: All I knew was that music was my passion, and
Speaker 2: I kept my little notebooks with all my lyrics, and
Speaker 2: I just didn't know how to I didn't know how
Speaker 2: to get there. I didn't know how to do it.
Speaker 1: Okay, when you were in Playboy. There have been some
Speaker 1: famous people in the fifties. Once you hit the sixties
Speaker 1: and seventies, they tended to be unknown. You were not
Speaker 1: completely unknown. Of course, as time went on, a lot
Speaker 1: of known people ended up doing it, But when you
Speaker 1: were doing doing it, most people were relatively faceless in
Speaker 1: terms of impact in the culture. How did you decide
Speaker 1: to do it and what was the result of doing it?
Speaker 2: Oh, my goodness, it's it's just such a it's a
Speaker 2: crazy story. Uh. Todd was friends with a photographer named
Speaker 2: Lynn Goldsmith, and she wanted to photograph me, and I
Speaker 2: said sure. So she came over to our townhouse and
Speaker 2: Todd was in the studio, and we had a lot
Speaker 2: of props because Todd had all these fantastic jackets and
Speaker 2: hats and you know, all kinds of fun things top
Speaker 2: hats that I love. And she is a little by little,
Speaker 2: the picture started getting less and less clothed, and before
Speaker 2: I knew it, Lynn Goldsmith was photographing me nude with
Speaker 2: feathers around my neck. So I was eighteen years old,
Speaker 2: nineteen years old, and no wait when this happened, I
Speaker 2: was nineteen and going on twenty. And so she took
Speaker 2: the first nude photos of me, and they were really
Speaker 2: good and in classic Lynn style, she wanted you know,
Speaker 2: them to be published somewhere. I mean, they were good enough.
Speaker 2: She was really good photographer. So she showed them to Playboy.
Speaker 2: She showed them to Penthouse, which I objected to. I
Speaker 2: did not like that magazine at all. But Playboy was
Speaker 2: something that, as my friend Patty Smith called it at
Speaker 2: the time, very American pie, very American, very uh pepsi cola,
Speaker 2: very you know, Mickey Mouse, part of the culture. And
Speaker 2: there were some iconic people like Bridget Bardoux and even
Speaker 2: Linda Evans, and you know a lot of very beautiful
Speaker 2: women of the times, Betty Paye, you know, a lot
Speaker 2: of girls had done it. The Barde bread I remember
Speaker 2: seeing there were these pictures of she and Jane Barkin.
Speaker 2: But anyway, Todd had a girlfriend before me. Let's see,
Speaker 2: I think Patty Smith. He was dating Patty Smith and
Speaker 2: he had this another girlfriend, and but she broke his heart.
Speaker 2: She was like the girl that broke his heart. But
Speaker 2: he sort of always carried a torch for her, or
Speaker 2: at least I thought he did. And there was talk
Speaker 2: that she she was going to be a Playboy centerfold.
Speaker 2: And when I heard that, I said to Lynn, what
Speaker 2: did played? You know, Let's show those pictures the Playboy.
Speaker 2: So Lynn showed the pictures the Playboy, and yeah, they
Speaker 2: bit right away, and they me to Chicago. That's when
Speaker 2: everything happened in Chicago. That's when Hefner lived in the
Speaker 2: Chicago mansion. And I went and I did a test
Speaker 2: test shoots for two days, and my test shots ended
Speaker 2: up being the pictorial ended up being the whole thing,
Speaker 2: except for the centerfold that was shot in New York
Speaker 2: City on one of those cameras as I forget what
Speaker 2: they're called, but they're prehistoric now. But it's the one
Speaker 2: you have to slide the thing in and out of,
Speaker 2: and the plate and the whole bit and you can't move,
Speaker 2: You like, have to stay in the position you're in
Speaker 2: until they say and you can't breathe. You can't do anything. People.
Speaker 2: If anybody thinks it's sexy, it's it's not. It's it's
Speaker 2: it's hard work. It's it's not glamorous shooting these pictorials.
Speaker 2: I know people think it is, but it's not. And
Speaker 2: it's just like doing a modeling job, except you're just
Speaker 2: not promoting clothes. You're promoting something else. I'm not even
Speaker 2: sure what, because I didn't really have much on my mind,
Speaker 2: if you want to know the truth, except that I
Speaker 2: wanted the pictures to be good. I wanted them to
Speaker 2: be okay. That was, you know, basically the way I
Speaker 2: was thinking. But I also wanted when I found out okay.
Speaker 2: So then I found out this girlfriend was going to
Speaker 2: be Miss April, so I thought Miss April. So I
Speaker 2: actually went out and bought myself a shamrock necklace because
Speaker 2: I thought if I wore a shamrock that I might
Speaker 2: be Miss March, so that I would maybe beat her
Speaker 2: to the punch. I mean, you used to make su
Speaker 2: your brain do crazy things. But it turns out I
Speaker 2: became Miss November. So she came out before I did.
Speaker 1: But you wanted to be a shame woman who had
Speaker 1: dated Todd previously.
Speaker 2: Yes, her name was Marlene, and he even wrote a
Speaker 2: song about.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah Marlene Marlene, Yes, yea.
Speaker 2: And she she was that girl, beautiful and she and
Speaker 2: I actually became really good friends. Where's she today, Well today,
Speaker 2: I'm not really sure. I think she had some tragedies
Speaker 2: in her life, and I think she even later in life,
Speaker 2: became homeless and things, and I think she had some problems.
Speaker 2: But at that time she was young and vivacious and
Speaker 2: beautiful and a friend. You know, I actually liked her.
Speaker 2: I took my first trip to London and actually stayed
Speaker 2: with her. And this was can you believe it? But
Speaker 2: I liked her. But she was madly in love with
Speaker 2: Don Arden's son, one of the Arden boys. I think
Speaker 2: I can't remember which one. But she wasn't interested in Todd.
Speaker 2: And this was what was so sad about it, because
Speaker 2: here I was thinking that his heart belonged to her,
Speaker 2: but she didn't love him, you know, it was just
Speaker 2: it was just she wanted a businessman. She wanted a
Speaker 2: successful man with lots of money. Little did she know
Speaker 2: Todd became very, very wealthy after that. But I don't know,
Speaker 2: it's just so I never became Miss Marched. So here
Speaker 2: I am this Miss November with a shamrock around my neck.
Speaker 2: So everybody thought, for sure, I must be irish, But
Speaker 2: it just it was just a moment. It was a
Speaker 2: whim but it changed my life drastically in the sense
Speaker 2: that there was no more fashion career for me. In America,
Speaker 2: it was very taboo for a fashion model of my
Speaker 2: status to become a Playboy centerfold, let alone pose in
Speaker 2: the magazine. And as you know, in the eighties, John
Speaker 2: Costablanca turned that around and every supermodel and their dog
Speaker 2: wanted to be in Playboy, and so the mystique was
Speaker 2: still very heavy when I did it. So I carried
Speaker 2: the weight of that around and it was very hard
Speaker 2: for me. I got booked with Cosmopolitan or Viva, you know,
Speaker 2: the women's magazines that were kind of sexy. But it
Speaker 2: wasn't until I went to Europe in seventy five seventy
Speaker 2: six that I did all my most beautiful, legitimate work.
Speaker 2: They just didn't care about nudity. In Europe. It was like, okay,
Speaker 2: so what you've been in Playboy who Cares?
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're missed November. Yeah, the magazine at the
Speaker 1: time was selling millions of copies. Young boys were infatuated
Speaker 1: with the playmates. But you were living in a relatively
Speaker 1: insular model rock and roll world. Were people recognizing you
Speaker 1: on the street. Did you get fan mail any of that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you do get fan mail, but it all goes
Speaker 2: to Playboy and then they give you, like a couple
Speaker 2: times a year, a big envelope with your fan mail.
Speaker 2: But I actually had boxes of it. They they called
Speaker 2: me and they said, we can't send you an envelope.
Speaker 2: We've got six boxes for you. So when you know,
Speaker 2: I had when Todd was touring, I had them pick
Speaker 2: up the boxes for me, the crew on one of
Speaker 2: the tours, so that I could read the fan mail.
Speaker 2: And I still have some of it. I kept some
Speaker 2: of it because it was They would make drawings, maybe
Speaker 2: beautiful letters, and it was very sweet, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so yeah, you do get recognized a little bit. But
Speaker 2: in the world that I was living in, it was
Speaker 2: all about the rock star, you know. I you know,
Speaker 2: maybe maybe I was looked upon as an embellishment, who knows,
Speaker 2: but I do know that it changed the way people
Speaker 2: reacted to me. I think men especially thought that I
Speaker 2: must be this wild beast in bed, or that I
Speaker 2: must be a sexual, you know, an inphomaniac or something.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Posing nude conjures up a lot of stuff,
Speaker 2: and and and people treat you differently, they really do.
Speaker 2: They sort of take for granted that you're you're a
Speaker 2: sexual being and that you're there for the sexual aspect.
Speaker 2: So it's it's, yeah, you know you are. We're all
Speaker 2: sexual beings. But at the time, I was so confused
Speaker 2: about everything in my life that sex was really not
Speaker 2: the most important thing on my mind, and I was
Speaker 2: just trying to find my way.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's one other thing about models. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of publicity about how models have to stay ultra thin,
Speaker 1: they can't eat anything, there's pressure on looks. To what
Speaker 1: degree did you feel that then, and to what degree
Speaker 1: do you still feel it?
Speaker 2: Well? I didn't even I didn't abide by it. I
Speaker 2: was never a skinny, skinny girl. I've never my daughter's
Speaker 2: never been a skinny, skinny girl. I never adhered to
Speaker 2: that demand, and quite frankly, I'll be honest, it was
Speaker 2: never demanded of me. Nobody ever said to me, oh,
Speaker 2: you need to go lose one hundred pounds. I mean
Speaker 2: one time I did one booking when I was three
Speaker 2: months pregnant with my daughter, where they asked me, you know,
Speaker 2: if I wanted to do some paternity dresses for their
Speaker 2: you know, for the paternity catalog.
Speaker 1: And I remember it being maternity. I think you mean maternity.
Speaker 2: Did I say paternity? I like that.
Speaker 1: That's interesting.
Speaker 2: Well, you know what, that was the subject of my
Speaker 2: entire life at that point. So yeah, that was the
Speaker 2: paternity issue. But no, thank you for correcting that. It's
Speaker 2: like prescription and subscription, you know, and it was just.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back to Todd now. So you have
Speaker 1: this exchange of glances, then you go uptown with Richard.
Speaker 1: When did you next see Todd?
Speaker 2: What? What? What did you say?
Speaker 1: You say that you met Todd when your friend Richard
Speaker 1: was tapes, But really you and Richard were going up town.
Speaker 2: Yeah wait, no, I think where we were going was
Speaker 2: wherever Man of La Mancha was playing.
Speaker 1: Okay, well on Broadway. So in any event, uptown from
Speaker 1: where Todd was. When did you next make contact with Todd?
Speaker 2: It was about two days later, he invited He's He
Speaker 2: told Richard that he was having some friends over to
Speaker 2: his to his place. They were, you know, just smoke
Speaker 2: some weed and you know, just to hang out. And
Speaker 2: he was living with his friend Paul Fishkin. And I
Speaker 2: mean there was another incident before that, but Todd hates
Speaker 2: it when I tell it. So I'm just gonna blet.
Speaker 1: Just because I'm injured. You don't have to tell. Why
Speaker 1: does Todd hate it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, he hates it because he doesn't like to admit
Speaker 2: that he ever did something so romantic. But he did.
Speaker 1: Okay, we won't make it tell it, so, okay, there's
Speaker 1: that other incident.
Speaker 2: But anyway, there was there was the incident where I
Speaker 2: ran into him and his dog because he was very
Speaker 2: near my modeling agency. I'll word it like that. He
Speaker 2: just happened to be sitting on the steps of where
Speaker 2: Ford Models is on fifty ninth Street, and he lives
Speaker 2: on thirteenth Street, so God only knows why he was there.
Speaker 2: He had facetiously Okay, No, I mean he said he
Speaker 2: was bringing his dog, Puppet, who was pregnant, to the vet.
Speaker 2: Now that's very possible because Puppet was pregnant and she
Speaker 2: did give birth to Furberger, who became my dog. But yes,
Speaker 2: but anyway, I just thought that was all very sweet
Speaker 2: and interesting. And then Richard calls me at the woman's
Speaker 2: residence and says, oh, I got a call from Todd
Speaker 2: and he's invited us over, invited me over, and he
Speaker 2: told me I could bring that friend of mine again
Speaker 2: if I wanted. So I remember that Richard at the
Speaker 2: last minute didn't want to go. He goes, I'm not
Speaker 2: gonna go. You go ahead and go, though they're you know,
Speaker 2: they're expecting you. So I got there and I did
Speaker 2: the thing where you throw the penny, and Todd didn't
Speaker 2: look out the window. Paul Fishkin did and I had
Speaker 2: not met Paul yet, so he looked out the window
Speaker 2: and he goes, oh, babe, I'll come right down, and
Speaker 2: you know, lets me in. And I walk in and
Speaker 2: it's just Paul and two girls that seemed very very nice,
Speaker 2: you know. They were one of them looked like she
Speaker 2: might work at a record company. That was. They were
Speaker 2: just hanging out rolling joints, doing the stuff we did
Speaker 2: back then, and Todd had just gotten a new Sony
Speaker 2: trena Tron colored TV, so everybody was having fun with
Speaker 2: the rabbit ears and the whole bit, and then about
Speaker 2: five minutes after that, Todd comes in and that was that.
Speaker 2: I don't we didn't spend a day apart after that.
Speaker 2: That was that? Was it? Hot?
Speaker 1: Long after that? Did you move in with him?
Speaker 2: Did I move in? I would say it happened about
Speaker 2: three weeks. I think he was going on the road
Speaker 2: as well, and Puppet was pregnant, and there was a
Speaker 2: girl that he had staying there, but he didn't want
Speaker 2: her to stay there anymore because he didn't want her
Speaker 2: to think they had a relationship. And so he said, look,
Speaker 2: you know, the nuns were giving me a hard time
Speaker 2: about curfew, and my mother was calling all the time,
Speaker 2: and Eileen Ford was losing her mind and very angry
Speaker 2: at me because I was sleeping instead of going on
Speaker 2: go sees, and I was being naughty. Let's face it,
Speaker 2: I was being a rebel, and so he said, why
Speaker 2: don't you just come stay here? And that's how it
Speaker 2: sort of happened. I got to the apartment and it
Speaker 2: obviously needed to be cleaned, it obviously needed to be organized,
Speaker 2: and Paul was never there. His room and his cat
Speaker 2: was in the back and Todd's whole world was in
Speaker 2: the front, and then there was a kitchen and a bathroom.
Speaker 2: It was a typical dog bone a New York City apartment,
Speaker 2: but with beautiful high ceilings and gilded gold. It was
Speaker 2: really beautiful, a pre war building, but it was, you know,
Speaker 2: it was small, and it was old, and the rent
Speaker 2: was something like three hundred dollars a month. And so
Speaker 2: Todd went on the road. I stayed Ferberger was born.
Speaker 1: Do you happen to remember what year?
Speaker 2: This is nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 1: Okay, so something anything has been released and he's on
Speaker 1: tour supporting That.
Speaker 2: First night, the first night I stayed with Todd. I
Speaker 2: it's a funny story because this pot was so strong,
Speaker 2: and he had bush Mill's Irish whiskey, and I drank
Speaker 2: a little of that before I knew it. It was
Speaker 2: the next morning. I literally put my head on his
Speaker 2: lap and did not wake up until eight o'clock the
Speaker 2: next morning. And it was really funny because we just
Speaker 2: sort of fell as he fell asleep sitting up and
Speaker 2: I fell asleep on his lap. But I woke up
Speaker 2: and he went to play me. He said he wanted
Speaker 2: to play me a song off his new album, and
Speaker 2: it was Black Mariah. He wanted to play me Black Mariah,
Speaker 2: and his stereo blew up some kind it was really weird.
Speaker 2: Some kind of weird technical thing happened. But of course
Speaker 2: he got back there and he tinkered and he fiddled
Speaker 2: and he did all of his genius stuff that he
Speaker 2: always did. I don't know if it was real, if
Speaker 2: he was just trying to impress me, because I was
Speaker 2: very impressed. I thought, boy, my friend is Albert Einstein.
Speaker 2: You know, he he knew exactly what to do and
Speaker 2: what tubes and what things to press. And before I
Speaker 2: knew it, the music is coming out of the speakers,
Speaker 2: and you know, he plays me the album. And I
Speaker 2: remember when I heard the song Marlene. I wanted to
Speaker 2: know all about it, I said, And I said, who's Marlene?
Speaker 2: He said, Oh, she's a girl that I, you know,
Speaker 2: really loved and and but we're not together and blah
Speaker 2: blah blah. And and his best friend at the time
Speaker 2: was Patti Smith, and it was important to him that
Speaker 2: I met her. He wanted her opinion of me, and
Speaker 2: then I became Then I became fast friends with Patty.
Speaker 2: I just hit it off with her, like a house
Speaker 2: on fire because she got it that I wrote in
Speaker 2: my poetry books, and she got my stupid poems. She
Speaker 2: liked them. I wrote this poem, this poem one time
Speaker 2: that it goes you needle, you pen, you prick, And
Speaker 2: she loved that. She said, that's three lines. That's real poetry, Beatie,
Speaker 2: that's real. Keep going, keep going. And she was very encouraging,
Speaker 2: you know, to that side of me, whereas Todd would
Speaker 2: listen and he would say, oh, that's good, Yeah, that's
Speaker 2: really good or something like that, but he would never
Speaker 2: say like, oh, keep it up, or you know, he
Speaker 2: was never like, I don't know. I don't know how
Speaker 2: to explain what it's like to live with somebody of
Speaker 2: that magnitude of genius, because basically all they think about
Speaker 2: all day is the next genius move. They're like chess players,
Speaker 2: which way are we going to move the rourk? You know,
Speaker 2: which way are we going to move the king? It's
Speaker 2: like their brains are always looking at the next challenge.
Speaker 1: Well, did you end up feeling outside? I mean, you
Speaker 1: had boyfriends before. Do you feel like I'm with him
Speaker 1: but really he's in his own world.
Speaker 2: Well, I think anybody that knew Todd felt that way
Speaker 2: because Todd was constantly, constantly in front of a screen.
Speaker 2: He had a computer before anybody on earth had a computer.
Speaker 2: He had a computer before Bill Gates had a computer.
Speaker 2: He had computers, he had animation, He had all of
Speaker 2: these very complicated technical stuff, you know, way before anybody.
Speaker 2: And he was very obsessed with it. You know, he
Speaker 2: would spend literally hours doing his stuff. But yeah, he
Speaker 2: would go to Maxis, he would go to concerts, he
Speaker 2: would hang out, he would get dressed up. I was
Speaker 2: this social director. I called it. It was funny because
Speaker 2: I would say, Todd, You've got to get up for
Speaker 2: a minute. You've got to go out. You've got to
Speaker 2: say hi to people. Alice keeps asking about you and
Speaker 2: wondering when we're gonna all hang out again. You know.
Speaker 2: It was stuff like that. You know, we would go
Speaker 2: see really great shows. We would go see Alice Cooper
Speaker 2: at Madison Square Garden or Peter Gabriel Gabriel at the
Speaker 2: Felt Forum, or my favorite show still to this day,
Speaker 2: this is the best lineup ever. Was First, we start
Speaker 2: with lou Reed and this is during the period where
Speaker 2: he had the white bleached terre and he simulated simulated
Speaker 2: shooting up on stage. Then Hall and Oates came on
Speaker 2: after that. You can imagine that, Dinas right, and then
Speaker 2: Al Green closed out the night. That was like one
Speaker 2: of the best triples I ever. You know, got got
Speaker 2: to and and Todd. Todd was at that and we
Speaker 2: went backstage, and I remember Mick was there too, and
Speaker 2: it was quite a night. But yeah, you meet everybody
Speaker 2: through that whole social circle. So everybody I met was
Speaker 2: somebody that I met socially at a party, at a gathering,
Speaker 2: but most of us gathered and met at Max's. That
Speaker 2: was sort of our living room, Max's, Kansas City. But Todd,
Speaker 2: I'll be honest, he loved women, and women loved him,
Speaker 2: and he was a bit of a womanizer when he
Speaker 2: was on the road. But that was not his image.
Speaker 2: That was not what people thought of him at all.
Speaker 2: People thought of the Todd that was always buried with
Speaker 2: his face in a computer or in some kind of
Speaker 2: musical environment.
Speaker 1: He was he faithful? Was he faithful when he was home?
Speaker 2: I'm not positive, you know, I'll be honest. We were
Speaker 2: all so young and everybody was running around like like
Speaker 2: kind of KOOKI I remember Leonard Cohen would call, and
Speaker 2: Todd would always know it was going to be Leonard,
Speaker 2: and he would go, if you want to answer it,
Speaker 2: it's crazy Leonard, because Leonard would want to come over
Speaker 2: and he would get extremely drunk. But see, I hadn't
Speaker 2: put together who Leonard Cohen was yet. I was too young,
Speaker 2: but Todd got it, and I just remember Leonard came
Speaker 2: over one night and he was super drunk, but he
Speaker 2: was super charming. And Todd went off to go fiddle
Speaker 2: with some electronic device because he and I was left
Speaker 2: sitting there with Leonard Cohen, and I remember he picked
Speaker 2: up one of Todd's guitars and he said, I'm not
Speaker 2: a very good guitar player, he goes, but I'm a
Speaker 2: great writer. And so I said okay, and he started
Speaker 2: singing and I almost fainted. It was like it was
Speaker 2: bordered on a religious experience. It was very profound. But
Speaker 2: he was such a handful, oh, such a handful, and
Speaker 2: I sort of felt sorry for him. I didn't realize,
Speaker 2: you know, the degree of his Leonard cohenness, if that
Speaker 2: makes any sense. He was just crazy Leonard to me,
Speaker 2: because that's what Todd called him. But I, you know,
Speaker 2: I liked him. I thought he was a little kookie.
Speaker 2: So I would let He would call and he'd say,
Speaker 2: where are you going tonight? And I was, I'm going
Speaker 2: to go to the plaza, or I'm going to go
Speaker 2: to I'm going to go to the tiki bar at
Speaker 2: the plaza, or I'm going to go here or there.
Speaker 2: Can I come, you know? And I would say sure,
Speaker 2: and he would come along, and usually he would get
Speaker 2: so drunk that, you know, somebody would have to end
Speaker 2: up taking him home in a cab or something. You know,
Speaker 2: we never we never dated, you know, we were just buds.
Speaker 2: I know that sounds weird. And I remember one of
Speaker 2: the it left such an impact on me. One of
Speaker 2: the sweetest things anybody that's ever said to me was
Speaker 2: was Leonard Cohen. And you know, I just said to him,
Speaker 2: I said, I don't know what you're expecting from our friendship,
Speaker 2: you know, I I don't know if you I know
Speaker 2: you have plenty of girlfriends, because he did. He was
Speaker 2: always talking about the women in his life and about Greece,
Speaker 2: and you know, he was always talking about all kinds
Speaker 2: of dilemmas and drama and and and he said, you know,
Speaker 2: I just really really really enjoy being around you. He goes,
Speaker 2: I just enjoy your company. I enjoy our discussions. And
Speaker 2: he said, my favorite are the alien discussions. And so
Speaker 2: we would talk about aliens. And so that was my
Speaker 2: Leonard Cohen. But you know, one day I never never
Speaker 2: heard from Leonard again, none of us did. He obviously
Speaker 2: left New York, but he didn't tell anybody where he
Speaker 2: was going or say goodbye to anybody. Just one day,
Speaker 2: Leonard wasn't there anymore.
Speaker 1: To what degree did you know Albert and Sally Grossman?
Speaker 2: Oh? I knew them very well, Albert, especially Albert, and
Speaker 2: I I got along with Albert. You know, I've watched
Speaker 2: some of the greatest managers in the world up close
Speaker 2: and personally, and you know, watching people like Albert Grossman,
Speaker 2: Peter Grant, watching these people in action, it's it's unbelievable.
Speaker 2: It's like Albert was apples and oranges to a Peter Grant.
Speaker 2: But Albert, when Todd got the house up in a
Speaker 2: Lake Hill or Bearsville, Woodstock area, we were always over
Speaker 2: at Albert's house. I remember little intimate dinners. I remember
Speaker 2: one night it was me, Todd, Albert, and Paul Butterfield
Speaker 2: and you know, the boys were talking and I sort
Speaker 2: of felt like, well, why am I here? Because but
Speaker 2: it was always my go to whenever I wanted to
Speaker 2: get anybody's attention and get the topic off whatever deal
Speaker 2: they were talking about. We'd start talking about aliens and
Speaker 2: that brought Butterfield right in. Oh my god, yeah, Butterfield
Speaker 2: wanted Oh he was all on it. He was like,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, let's talk about it. You know, it was
Speaker 2: it was my go to, so whenever I wanted to
Speaker 2: really jab a conversation, I even used that trick when
Speaker 2: I was at tea with Savador Dolli. You know, they
Speaker 2: were all talking about a lot of stuff. I remember
Speaker 2: being in the room with an Ocelot, his wife Gala,
Speaker 2: Truman Capoti, and a Mendelier And this was just from
Speaker 2: him inviting me to tea because I met him at
Speaker 2: the Saint Regis newsstand. We would go to the foreign
Speaker 2: news stand there at the Saint Regis to see our
Speaker 2: modeling pictures from Europe because it was one of the
Speaker 2: foreign news stands and he was living there. So that's
Speaker 2: how I met Savador Dolli. So when I say it
Speaker 2: about the Forrest Gump stuff, I mean it in the
Speaker 2: sense that, for some weird reason written in the Evans,
Speaker 2: for some I was meant to cross the paths of
Speaker 2: certain people whose paths that I crossed.
Speaker 1: Okay, you mentioned Peter Grant along with Albert Roseman. He said,
Speaker 1: you learned about management? What did you learn seeing them
Speaker 1: up close?
Speaker 2: Well, Peter Grant was ruthless. He was a very, very
Speaker 2: very large man, as you know. But you know that
Speaker 2: that organization used a lot of violence in their dealings
Speaker 2: with people that annoyed them, which was the opposite with Albert.
Speaker 2: Albert liked to get together and celebrate through food and gathering.
Speaker 2: He even had tps on his property, you know, tpiece
Speaker 2: that you could go sit in and meditate and smoke cash.
Speaker 2: And it's different worlds. When you were around Peter Grant
Speaker 2: or around that zeppelin, it was like hanging out with
Speaker 2: a bunch of gangsters. You know the van were you
Speaker 2: know De Niro and Pacino and you know they were
Speaker 2: the it it's hard to put into words. When you
Speaker 2: hung around with Albert, it was like being at the
Speaker 2: king's castle. You would go hang out at his world
Speaker 2: and his compound, at his beautiful house, and beautiful food
Speaker 2: would be served.
Speaker 1: And how about did you see any of his negotiation
Speaker 1: business techniques?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean I would see the way he treated
Speaker 2: his artists, and I remember, did I ever see him
Speaker 2: actually negotiate deals or anything? Oh?
Speaker 1: You know, you see these people in action, they talk business.
Speaker 1: Did you learn any lessons from Albert?
Speaker 2: What I learned from Albert is is he had a
Speaker 2: baritone kind of voice, and he spoke very softly. But
Speaker 2: when Albert wanted to make a point, and when Albert
Speaker 2: wanted to really get his Albert and this out there,
Speaker 2: suddenly the voice would become like that and it would
Speaker 2: get very strong and powerful. I mean, just to show
Speaker 2: you the kind of manager he was. I was pregnant
Speaker 2: with live and I was in one of our vehicles,
Speaker 2: I think the jeep. It had snowed, and I Todd
Speaker 2: was on the road as usual, and I was driving
Speaker 2: down mean Collo Road with my friend Jean, and suddenly
Speaker 2: another car came from the other direction, driving way too
Speaker 2: fast and to be in the snow. Thank god, I
Speaker 2: was more in my lane, even though it was a
Speaker 2: narrow road. But of course we hit and they had
Speaker 2: their kid in the back of the car with no
Speaker 2: seat belt. Nothing but that was before anybody wore seat
Speaker 2: belts anyway, And I just remember getting out of the
Speaker 2: car and I was pretty shook up. Everybody was, you know,
Speaker 2: Jean was especially worried about me because I was pregnant,
Speaker 2: but I was okay. Everybody was okay, but the cars
Speaker 2: were really fucked up, and I just remember having my
Speaker 2: wits about me, and I just went to the first house,
Speaker 2: which was right there, and I called Albert. Because we
Speaker 2: didn't have cell phones and stuff, then I had to
Speaker 2: like get on somebody's landline and call him. And I
Speaker 2: told him, Albert, I've just had an accident on mean Collo.
Speaker 2: He was there so quickly like that, and he had
Speaker 2: me hustled off and I said, Albert, he goes, just
Speaker 2: go home. I'll handle everything. And he had a big
Speaker 2: pile of money and he had somebody take me and
Speaker 2: my girlfriend off in another car. And that's the last
Speaker 2: I ever saw of that accident. Wow.
Speaker 1: So in any event, let's you know, you're Todd at
Speaker 1: the time is working a lot. He's putting out a
Speaker 1: lot of albums, and he's also producing a lot of
Speaker 1: albums successfully. To what degree was he telling you about them,
Speaker 1: and did you have input or did he keep that
Speaker 1: totally separate from you?
Speaker 2: Oh? No, No, We always talked about his music because see,
Speaker 2: I loved it. When he played me the stuff he
Speaker 2: was coming up with for Wizard or True Star, everybody
Speaker 2: hated it, and they were giving him a lot of shit,
Speaker 2: and they were telling him that it was too much
Speaker 2: and that it was going over everybody's head and that
Speaker 2: it was not the right kind of follow up to
Speaker 2: something anything. But when he would play me the stuff,
Speaker 2: I thought it was incredible. I loved it. So he
Speaker 2: wasn't getting any shit from me. I loved utopia. And
Speaker 2: when he took me to see that Sphinx and that
Speaker 2: hangar in Kingston, New York, it was so big it
Speaker 2: had to be an an airplane hangar. And he used
Speaker 2: to fly off that thing every night, upside down with
Speaker 2: a with no harness, just raw. And so I supported it.
Speaker 2: Even though it people thought I enabled it. Instead of
Speaker 2: that I supported it, they thought I enabled it. See
Speaker 2: that you people that are making money off of you
Speaker 2: always want to have somebody to blame if the money
Speaker 2: isn't going to go the way they they they hope
Speaker 2: it goes because of a change in direction. And with Todd.
Speaker 2: This was an extreme change in direction from what he
Speaker 2: had been doing previously, you know, as as the Todd
Speaker 2: Rungren solo records, and and then suddenly to come back
Speaker 2: with a Wizard or True Star and then to form Utopia.
Speaker 2: It was it was a lot of pressure, a lot
Speaker 2: of pressure for him. He went through a lot, but
Speaker 2: he was producing big records, so he was making money.
Speaker 2: You know, he was producing Grand Funk Railroad, he was
Speaker 2: producing Hall and Oates, he was producing records. He produced Fanny.
Speaker 2: I remember that was fun. I remember when he produced Fanny.
Speaker 2: But you know, he was really in demand as a producer,
Speaker 2: so he had the money and the freedom, you know,
Speaker 2: to have a nice townhouse on Horatio Street, which we had,
Speaker 2: and a home up in the Woodstock area.
Speaker 1: Did you ever go to the studio Did he discuss
Speaker 1: any of the projects when he was recording other people?
Speaker 2: Yes, I always did, always, and I would sometimes even
Speaker 2: fall asleep under the council and you know, I'd had
Speaker 2: pillows and blankets. Yeah. Todd had a studio house where
Speaker 2: the drums were downstairs, but the control room was upstairs.
Speaker 2: So when he recorded by himself, he would have to
Speaker 2: go down and play the drums and run back upstairs
Speaker 2: because he didn't have an engineer there. So at one
Speaker 2: point he taught me how to stop and start the
Speaker 2: tape machine so that he didn't have to keep running
Speaker 2: up there. So there were times when he would, you know,
Speaker 2: have me do that, that would be my duty. Like
Speaker 2: he would do a track and I would have the
Speaker 2: headphones on and he would tell me hit the button,
Speaker 2: hit the button. So yeah, I mean I was definitely
Speaker 2: around for I saw a lot. Absolutely, I saw a lot.
Speaker 2: I was around for a lot of conceptual stuff. I
Speaker 2: was definitely around for a lot of the makeup and
Speaker 2: the costumes and some of the crazy stuff Nicky Nichols
Speaker 2: came up with. Yeah, I was. I was a part
Speaker 2: of a part of it all.
Speaker 1: So how did it end?
Speaker 2: Not? Well, well, I don't even I don't want to
Speaker 2: be so general, just from a lack of complete clarity.
Speaker 2: I mean, we just didn't really communicate with each other properly.
Speaker 2: We were so young, and we were both very unfaithful,
Speaker 2: and I think my reasons for being unfaithful were very
Speaker 2: different from his. But he met somebody that he fell
Speaker 2: in love with, and then I and I met somebody
Speaker 2: that I fell in love with and it we drifted apart.
Speaker 2: And but yet the person that I fell in love
Speaker 2: with was just crazy off the rails. It was to
Speaker 2: the point where I couldn't handle it. It was too
Speaker 2: much of the white pro moving and marching powder. It
Speaker 2: was just too many drugs, too much, too much, too
Speaker 2: much that lifestyle, that Aerosmith lifestyle at that point in history.
Speaker 2: I've never seen anything like it. And people say, well,
Speaker 2: what about the Rolling Stones, And I'll say, you know,
Speaker 2: it was very different because I always knew. Notice that
Speaker 2: the boys and the Stones they sort of had their
Speaker 2: They knew when to stop. Maybe not Keith, but Mick
Speaker 2: certainly did. Mick was always very smart about when to
Speaker 2: make an exit, about when not to do that next line,
Speaker 2: about when not to do that shot. You know, Mick
Speaker 2: was very always practical. There was no practicality within the
Speaker 2: Aerosmith camp at that point. So I was very scared.
Speaker 2: And at this point, Todd had really become the father,
Speaker 2: the father figure. That's why I called him the Todd Father.
Speaker 2: And he took me back. I know he wants to
Speaker 2: blame me for that, but.
Speaker 1: But wait, wait, literally, how did he take you back?
Speaker 1: You were living in a different place.
Speaker 2: Well not really. I hadn't moved out. My stuff was
Speaker 2: all still in our houses. I wasn't we weren't separated
Speaker 2: yet or anything like that. He basically, you know I
Speaker 2: I had lived, went back to Woodstock with him. He
Speaker 2: we got rid of the house on Horatio Street, and
Speaker 2: he pretty much told me. He told me about about Karen,
Speaker 2: about Karen Darvin, the girl that was the girl he
Speaker 2: had fallen in love with. It was Bruce Springsteen's former girlfriend,
Speaker 2: and he had met her in Dallas, and he told
Speaker 2: me about her, and it just it just became extremely
Speaker 2: difficult because it felt to me like, well, if you
Speaker 2: had fallen in love with this woman while I was pregnant,
Speaker 2: why didn't we pursue any doubts about paternity? There's that
Speaker 2: word again, before all these grand decisions were made. I
Speaker 2: gave him the opportunity when I was seven months pregnant.
Speaker 2: I said, I'm very concerned that this is going to
Speaker 2: be a decision that you're gonna that's going to become
Speaker 2: a problem. I was concerned, and he seemed to want
Speaker 2: to take on this mammoth responsibility. He nobody ever tried
Speaker 2: to fool him or tell him that Live was his baby.
Speaker 2: Nobody ever did that that. I don't know how that
Speaker 2: rumor got started or why people say that, but nobody
Speaker 2: lied to him and said, Todd, you know it's your child.
Speaker 2: That That's not how it happened. He knew where I
Speaker 2: was for two months, he knew I was with Steven.
Speaker 2: He knew that. So when I came home scared to
Speaker 2: death and he took me back, he knew all of that.
Speaker 2: So chronologically it's really impossible for him to have been
Speaker 2: the father. Does that make any sense? And what happened
Speaker 2: was I think whatever reasons he had for wanting to
Speaker 2: take that step, I don't know if it was for control.
Speaker 2: I don't know if he was really concerned about Live's
Speaker 2: well being. I don't know if he still loved me.
Speaker 2: There's probably a variety of reasons, and probably a little
Speaker 2: bit of all of the above. But as soon as
Speaker 2: Live was born, it it was obvious this wasn't going
Speaker 2: to work, and it was obvious that he loved somebody else,
Speaker 2: and it was very very obvious that and he had
Speaker 2: He got me an apartment. Patty Smith, of all people,
Speaker 2: helped him pick it out because he wanted her guidance,
Speaker 2: what do you think Bobe would like and what would
Speaker 2: be a good apartment to raise a baby in, you know,
Speaker 2: and found me an apartment on fifty eighth Street. He
Speaker 2: certainly wanted to get me out of that downtown, didn't he.
Speaker 2: So there I was on fifty eighth Street suddenly, and
Speaker 2: Karen was living with him. I mean, it really did
Speaker 2: happen that fast, and Live was being raised as his child.
Speaker 2: And believe me, Stephen and I made very many feeble
Speaker 2: attempts at trying to, you know, fix it or just
Speaker 2: get it all down, you know what I mean, to
Speaker 2: at least confirm paternity, even a simple blood test anything.
Speaker 2: You know. He had his blood drawn and I had
Speaker 2: my blood drawn. But this is way before fancy DNA tests.
Speaker 2: She has my blood type, so there was you know,
Speaker 2: we couldn't say, oh, well, this solves the problem. In
Speaker 2: my eyes, there was no problem. I knew, everybody knew,
Speaker 2: and everybody was living in this kind of fantasy. And
Speaker 2: I'm not judging, and I'm not saying obviously, everything happens
Speaker 2: for a reason. And whatever happened, look how Live turned out.
Speaker 2: She's an amazing, self sufficient, beautiful human being. And she
Speaker 2: is Stephen Tyler's child, but she's also in some ways
Speaker 2: Todd's child physically. I don't think you could dispute that
Speaker 2: either one of them could possibly be her daddy. And
Speaker 2: that's fine. That's her spiritual journey, that's her karmic voyage
Speaker 2: with those two people that she loves dearly. They're both
Speaker 2: her beloved father's that's the way she looks at it.
Speaker 1: Okay, so they gave you this apartment, what are you
Speaker 1: living on?
Speaker 2: Well, of course he was. He was giving me money,
Speaker 2: you know he was. He was giving me an allowance,
Speaker 2: he was paying the rent, and I picked up a
Speaker 2: little modeling again. I started to I did my first
Speaker 2: modeling job when when I was six weeks old.
Speaker 1: And uh, how long did he how long did he
Speaker 1: continue to fit the bill?
Speaker 2: Well, if you put the bill that apartment. My my
Speaker 2: mother came and cleared me out of that apartment because
Speaker 2: she just felt that I was not that I needed
Speaker 2: some stability. I mean, my my family was very supportive
Speaker 2: and loving. I have a very very loving family. I'm
Speaker 2: very lucky in that respect. So we closed down that
Speaker 2: apartment and I moved up to my family's cottage and Maine.
Speaker 2: So odd. What he was paying for was at that
Speaker 2: point it was really I didn't have nanny's you know,
Speaker 2: I didn't have any big expenses at that point. But
Speaker 2: he always helped, you know, he was never I have
Speaker 2: to say, he was never stingy. He was never mean
Speaker 2: about it. You know, he was helpful, he was sweet,
Speaker 2: He wanted the best for live.
Speaker 1: Okay, But she gets older by the minute, and it's years.
Speaker 1: She's in high school, she's about to graduate from high school.
Speaker 1: Is he still helping?
Speaker 2: No, not at this point by the time, by the
Speaker 2: time she was I'm trying to get the timeline straight here.
Speaker 2: The paternity thing became finalized when she was fourteen, So is.
Speaker 1: That the line of demarques He paid before then and
Speaker 1: didn't pay after, That's correct, But he did did Steven
Speaker 1: pay after?
Speaker 2: Yes? Yes, And Stephen also paid for her private schooling
Speaker 2: for that last year before anything was confirmed. Stephen picked
Speaker 2: up that. But yes, no, Todd. For about a year
Speaker 2: before everything was public and confirmed, Todd had stopped paying
Speaker 2: for anything. And then Stephen, Yes, Stephen did pick up
Speaker 2: the ball very willingly, as a matter of fact. And
Speaker 2: then the court of course ordered him to pay a
Speaker 2: certain amount of child support, but Live started making her
Speaker 2: own money when she was fifteen, and by the time
Speaker 2: she was sixteen seventeen, she was extremely wealthy, and I
Speaker 2: was putting everything away for her and keeping her safe.
Speaker 2: When she graduated, she was a millionaire. Just nobody could
Speaker 2: take advantage of her. That's where I came in. I
Speaker 2: was her personal pitbull, and I'm very proud of the
Speaker 2: job I did, and I'm also I'm very very happy
Speaker 2: with the way she maneuvered the emotional part of all
Speaker 2: of this.
Speaker 1: Okay, a rock chick moves to Maine, that's night in
Speaker 1: the day, especially then from New York City. What's that
Speaker 1: like for you?
Speaker 2: I started a band, you know, my record came out
Speaker 2: that Rick Okasik and Rick Darren's You're Produced. I started
Speaker 2: a band called The B Sides, and nineteen eighty I
Speaker 2: was doing my first show, and then before I knew it,
Speaker 2: I was making a living off plane, you know, enough
Speaker 2: to pay my rent and enough, you know, enough to
Speaker 2: get by. I mean, I wasn't living some extreme life,
Speaker 2: but I still had all my connections from the industry.
Speaker 2: I still got invited to every wonderful party and still
Speaker 2: felt very included in my industry. But I didn't mind
Speaker 2: buckling under and really getting to work and do it,
Speaker 2: and I obviously enjoyed it. You know, I enjoy writing.
Speaker 2: I enjoy writing songs. I enjoy performing live. Grew up
Speaker 2: with all of that. Some of her greatest memories they're
Speaker 2: going to rehearsals with me and going to my gigs
Speaker 2: when she was a little thing.
Speaker 1: Okay, you've been at it for forty years. Everybody from
Speaker 1: our demo is certainly aware of who you are and
Speaker 1: that you make music. You have never broken through huge
Speaker 1: commercially such that other people are aware of you. You're
Speaker 1: going to be seventy. I'm seventy already. Does this disappoint you?
Speaker 1: How do you metabolize the fact that you didn't break
Speaker 1: through on a certain level of success.
Speaker 2: Well, I think that I I have a lot to
Speaker 2: bring to the table for that very reason. You know,
Speaker 2: success comes in many forms. You can look at success
Speaker 2: as being financial or status related, or you can look
Speaker 2: at success as being finishing good work, getting good work done,
Speaker 2: doing good work. Your work is your name, and I
Speaker 2: feel that the work I've done has been good work
Speaker 2: and I'm proud of it. I've written two books. I
Speaker 2: was a New York Times bestseller with my first book,
Speaker 2: and I've written probably close to three hundred songs at
Speaker 2: this point. I've made tons of records, you know that.
Speaker 2: And I've made singles. And I do it because I
Speaker 2: love it. It's a passion and I have fans. As
Speaker 2: long as I can pack a room, I'm okay. I
Speaker 2: don't have to see my name at the top of
Speaker 2: the charts to feel successful. And you know, when I
Speaker 2: went to New York for my last book and did
Speaker 2: the honor at the National Arts Club, just to be
Speaker 2: touted by the New York Times and to have the
Speaker 2: people that I've known since I was eighteen in that audience,
Speaker 2: it made me know that I'm doing good work and
Speaker 2: that has given me the greatest pleasure. And I don't
Speaker 2: think this journey is over. I really don't. Who knows
Speaker 2: what might happen, you know, anything can happen. I am
Speaker 2: so open to the possibilities of breaking rules. I mean,
Speaker 2: speaking of breaking rules, look at Tina Turner. Everybody told
Speaker 2: her it was over, and look at the comeback she had.
Speaker 2: And the thing that that's important about the message I'm
Speaker 2: bringing to the table. It's not the same as like Paulina,
Speaker 2: who's like, Okay, I'm hot and I'm almost sixty. You know,
Speaker 2: deal with it. It's exciting to see somebody have that
Speaker 2: kind of confidence. I'm trying to give something different. I mean,
Speaker 2: if I could take my clothes off right now and
Speaker 2: look as good as Paulina does in a bikini, I might.
Speaker 2: I might do that for shits and giggles. But right now,
Speaker 2: what I'm enjoying is continuing the chain of good work.
Speaker 2: And all the projects are that are coming my way.
Speaker 2: There's a treatment for a series, there's somebody that wants
Speaker 2: to make a documentary of my life. There's somebody that
Speaker 2: wants to make a movie of my life. There's so
Speaker 2: many things that are in the works right now that
Speaker 2: who knows, maybe my music will be reborn a La
Speaker 2: Sugarman or something in a soundtrack. You know. I just
Speaker 2: want to be proud of the work I do and
Speaker 2: if someday it gets acknowledged, the heck.
Speaker 1: Okay, so what do you live in on now? Financially?
Speaker 2: Well, what do I live on? I have my Social
Speaker 2: Security and I'm kidding no. I live on the work
Speaker 2: I do, you know, the gigs I play, the performances,
Speaker 2: I do the appearances, I make, the autograph sessions, I
Speaker 2: do autograph conventions. I have a husband that co earns
Speaker 2: with me. And the house that I'm in was just
Speaker 2: an accumulation of everything I've ever done. It's just everything accumulated.
Speaker 2: And I don't really I don't work a nine to
Speaker 2: five job, but I consider the hours I put in
Speaker 2: to writing and creating and doing things like this podcast.
Speaker 2: That's my work. That's what I do. And when I
Speaker 2: can make money, when I can make good money, I
Speaker 2: accept the invitation to make good money. I enjoy it.
Speaker 2: I do a little bit of consulting. I know that
Speaker 2: my knowledge about the industry is one of the things
Speaker 2: that's kept me afloat when young people that are entering
Speaker 2: this business have parents that might be scared or worried
Speaker 2: about their futures or how they're going to handle this.
Speaker 2: I am hired as a creative consultant and I can help.
Speaker 2: And I don't mind signing in das and having to
Speaker 2: keep my mouth shut about because a couple of the
Speaker 2: people I've worked with have gone on to become extremely famous.
Speaker 2: So I'm very proud. I get to be secretly proud,
Speaker 2: and just because everybody doesn't know about all the stuff
Speaker 2: you do in your life. Doesn't mean you shouldn't be proud.
Speaker 2: And you know the fact that I can go to
Speaker 2: Trader Joe's and buy my own groceries, and you know
Speaker 2: that it's a good feeling.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back a step Rick, Okay, sick. You
Speaker 1: become friends, and he's a very close friend. You're talking
Speaker 1: the book about, You're inebriated, and he drives you from
Speaker 1: Boston to Maine. Ultimately, in retrospect, I'm reading the book
Speaker 1: at the time. He is married and has children. He
Speaker 1: ultimately jumps ship for Paulina.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Do you think he was calling you from overseas producing
Speaker 1: your records that secretly he wanted to be with you?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, my mother certainly thought that, and so
Speaker 2: did several of my friends. But I think that I
Speaker 2: was in denial. If that was his intention, he would
Speaker 2: write me beautiful poems too. I have beautiful I mean,
Speaker 2: I have poems from him that became songs. And there
Speaker 2: may have been some unrequated desire there, but he never
Speaker 2: pushed himself on me. He never was Maybe he was
Speaker 2: waiting to see if I would bite. I don't know,
Speaker 2: but I never did. I didn't want to screw it up.
Speaker 2: Relationships always seemed to screw up, and I mean when
Speaker 2: I started to date Rod Stewart, it screwed up. When
Speaker 2: we were friends, we had a blast, We would run
Speaker 2: around together and have the greatest time, and then as
Speaker 2: soon as we became lovers, it just ruined our relation
Speaker 2: relationship And I still to this day, I think Rod
Speaker 2: Stewart is one of the most talented, lovely men I've
Speaker 2: ever known. But I wasn't the right girl for him,
Speaker 2: and we weren't right for each other. We were good
Speaker 2: as mates. That's what we worked as with Rick. I
Speaker 2: just to have somebody believe in me like that and
Speaker 2: not be trying to get in my pants. I wasn't
Speaker 2: gonna let that change. For one minute. I was in heaven.
Speaker 2: It was like being taken seriously. It was like working
Speaker 2: with a director that you admire and he's not interested
Speaker 2: in you for anything but the role you're gonna play.
Speaker 1: Okay. In the book, you make a big point about
Speaker 1: identifying and recording the Wild One Forever off the first
Speaker 1: Tom Petty album, and you do a great version of that,
Speaker 1: and it's now been reissued by the same company that
Speaker 1: has your new book, Rebel Soul. So tell me the
Speaker 1: story of how you got hooked and you ultimately recorded
Speaker 1: that track.
Speaker 2: Well, I was one of the lucky people that was
Speaker 2: at the bottom line for those Tom Petty shows, the
Speaker 2: multiple shows that he did. I'll just never forget it
Speaker 2: in my life. You know, I've not been able to
Speaker 2: meet Bob Dylan a whole lot of times in my life.
Speaker 2: Every time I've met him, it's just been in passing, like,
Speaker 2: you know, Hi Bob, and hi baby. Yeah, I read
Speaker 2: about you and Cream, you know, you know whatever, just
Speaker 2: small talk. But this was the night where I was
Speaker 2: backstaying let's stop there for a second.
Speaker 1: Is that a true story? You're just throwing them off.
Speaker 1: Would Bob Dylan read Cream?
Speaker 2: I don't know if he really did, or if he
Speaker 2: just said that to be funny. I mean, you never
Speaker 2: know with Bob Dylan.
Speaker 1: So he actually said I saw you in Cream, that
Speaker 1: means you had to be paying attention somewhere.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, oh, you never know. You just never
Speaker 2: know with people like that, they're very mysterious. You just
Speaker 2: never know. One of the first letters I got from
Speaker 2: Costello cited something that was from Cream that he had
Speaker 2: written Rick that he had read. So you know, these guys,
Speaker 2: they'll surprise you sometimes. You know Dylan, you know when
Speaker 2: you find out that he makes iron works and is
Speaker 2: one of the best painters on earth, it's shocking when
Speaker 2: you see how brilliant he is all around. But the
Speaker 2: whole thing with the Tom Petty thing, I'm kidding, I'm
Speaker 2: losing my train of thought.
Speaker 1: Oh you're perfect. You brought it back. I give you credit.
Speaker 2: Well with the Tom Petty thing, it was just being there. Well,
Speaker 2: that was the night I was standing and Bob was
Speaker 2: sitting on one of the you know how small that
Speaker 2: backstage and line was, and you had just that tiny
Speaker 2: little area that had a bunch of the equipment boxes
Speaker 2: and everything, and Bob was sort of sitting on one
Speaker 2: and he was gonna watch I think he was going
Speaker 2: to watch the band from there. And I remember Grace
Speaker 2: Slick was there that night too. Everybody was very curious
Speaker 2: about this Tom Petty kid. You know, this this Southern
Speaker 2: boy with the best hair and with the draw And
Speaker 2: I just remember Bob turning to me and he goes,
Speaker 2: what am I doing? Do you want to sit here
Speaker 2: on my box? And he goes it seems to be
Speaker 2: the only seat, and I said, nope, I'm going to
Speaker 2: go in the audience. I said I want to see
Speaker 2: this from the front, and he said that's the way
Speaker 2: to do it. But he didn't go to the front.
Speaker 2: But I just remember the exchange him going, do you
Speaker 2: want my box? He was gonna give me his seat,
Speaker 2: which was very very sweet and very gallant. But that's it.
Speaker 2: My exchange is with Bob Doll.
Speaker 1: But we're talking about the wild One forever.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So anyway, I saw Tom Petty perform that night,
Speaker 2: and when I saw him do that song, it just
Speaker 2: it resonated with me. It was it just grabbed me.
Speaker 2: It grabbed me. And I don't even know if it
Speaker 2: was on a record yet. I'm not sure because I
Speaker 2: can't remember the order of the records. I just remember
Speaker 2: what year this was.
Speaker 1: That was nineteen seventy seven in the record, it was the.
Speaker 2: Fall of seventy seven at the bottom line, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: because Live was just a little baby, she was just
Speaker 2: a couple of months old and he met her. But
Speaker 2: it was when I actually got the records and I
Speaker 2: started listening to Tom Petty's music that it rest It
Speaker 2: hit me the way the Everly Brothers. Did it hit
Speaker 2: me in the way that that, you know, the first
Speaker 2: time I heard that song, I will follow him, you.
Speaker 1: Know, followel little Peggy March.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there you go. And there just wasn't a bad
Speaker 2: song in the Tom Petty repertoire. There wasn't a dud
Speaker 2: in the bunch. And he just became my favorite songwriter.
Speaker 2: And I chose the Wild One because I could sing
Speaker 2: the shit out of it. You know. I did a
Speaker 2: good job with it. And when I sang it for Rick,
Speaker 2: he cried, I mean not okay, sick, but Darrenger. Darrenger goes, okay, well,
Speaker 2: show me sing it for me. So I did an
Speaker 2: acappella version of it for him, and I made him
Speaker 2: actually get a little misty. He goes, okay, we'll record it.
Speaker 2: So I mean that's how I sell everything because I'm
Speaker 2: not a real musician. I can play harmonica. I'm a
Speaker 2: good harmonica player. If you hand me a bass, I
Speaker 2: can play a little bass. I can tink her on
Speaker 2: a piano a little bit. But my mic stand is
Speaker 2: my my my my piece. That is my instrument. And
Speaker 2: you know, the way I get my songs across is
Speaker 2: a cappella. I just Okay, the way I get a
Speaker 2: riff across. If I want to get a riff across
Speaker 2: to my husband when we're writing a song, I'll just
Speaker 2: you know, I'll grunt it, or I'll snap it, or
Speaker 2: I'll sing it. You know, just do the melody.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're talking. You're talking about your husband. How did
Speaker 1: you meet him? How did you decide to get married
Speaker 1: for the first time? My understanding and why is it lasted?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I met Jim. It's funny because we
Speaker 2: both had the same friends. We should have met years before.
Speaker 2: But you know, the thing about what I keep saying
Speaker 2: is that you meet the people you're supposed to. When
Speaker 2: you're supposed to, you have the experiences, the life lessons,
Speaker 2: the tragedies, all the stuff that goes along with all
Speaker 2: the bullshit. We were both He was in a band
Speaker 2: called Dost Dommen, but they had broken up, and he
Speaker 2: was quite the cult figure and very respected within the
Speaker 2: musical community. Dust Doman Thurston Moore Sst. Subpop, you know,
Speaker 2: they they were quite the darlings of that sonic youth
Speaker 2: smashing pumpkins, you know, that whole crowd, and he was
Speaker 2: he was in a new band, and we were both
Speaker 2: playing the Christmas party. Both of our bands were playing
Speaker 2: the same Christmas party at the Continental, and we sort
Speaker 2: of got a look at each other that night, and
Speaker 2: it's and I thought to myself, how come I've never
Speaker 2: seen him before? I mean, I noticed him, So I
Speaker 2: told Hilly Crystal. Hilly Crystal was like my father at
Speaker 2: the time, and I remember going down to Sebe's and
Speaker 2: sitting with him at the desk and telling him all
Speaker 2: about this guy that I had seen across the room
Speaker 2: and I felt something for him, and it was so weird,
Speaker 2: And how come I've never met him before. He's known
Speaker 2: Jesse Mallin since he was fifteen. He went to NYU
Speaker 2: with Rick Rubin. He grew up in Rutherford, New Jersey.
Speaker 2: How Come I've not met this guy? And Hilly was like, oh,
Speaker 2: I don't know. He's pretty fabulous. He's one of the
Speaker 2: nicest guys I've ever met. Hilly knew exactly who he was,
Speaker 2: So I'm home. I lived on Mercer Street at that point.
Speaker 2: I lived on Mercer and Broadway, three hundred Mercer that
Speaker 2: building and my phone rang and it was Hilly calling
Speaker 2: me from CBGB's and Hilly goes, Boebe get down here.
Speaker 2: I literally had five minutes from Sebe's. I go, why
Speaker 2: what's going on? He goes, you know that guy, you like,
Speaker 2: the one that you talked my head off about. He's
Speaker 2: here right now and he's gonna be going on in
Speaker 2: about forty five minutes. He's in the club as Hilly,
Speaker 2: and so I think, So, of course, I just I
Speaker 2: was already in my pajamas, and I threw on some
Speaker 2: jeans and a T shirt and a pink puffer coat,
Speaker 2: and I went down there and I just you know,
Speaker 2: we met and we sort of we sort of clicked,
Speaker 2: you know, and he went off that night after his gig,
Speaker 2: and I thought, I'm niable I ever see him again,
Speaker 2: you know, I didn't know, And and then it was
Speaker 2: shortly after that that I went. It was really funny.
Speaker 2: I wasn't gonna go there, you know, I was going
Speaker 2: to stop into the Continental because I wanted to talk
Speaker 2: to Trigger about gig. So I went into the Continental
Speaker 2: and I look up and they're literally on stage. This
Speaker 2: boy now my husband man. And so I invited him
Speaker 2: over to my apartment because I literally lived across the
Speaker 2: you know Continental, CBS my apartment. I invited him over,
Speaker 2: and it's like he says, we were never a part
Speaker 2: a day after that. We didn't consummate our relationship right away.
Speaker 2: It wasn't like we jumped into each other's arms. We courted,
Speaker 2: we did all the old fashioned stuff. We dated, We courted,
Speaker 2: and we fell in love, and he asked me to
Speaker 2: marry him on one knee in Atlantic City. We went
Speaker 2: to Atlantic City to get away for the weekend. He
Speaker 2: asked me to marry him, and then, you know, it
Speaker 2: was nine to eleven sort of changed people's headspace about
Speaker 2: New York. And so we moved to Maine because my
Speaker 2: family is up there now, including my mother, my mother
Speaker 2: who raised me in Virginia in North Carolina. So we
Speaker 2: spent a few years there, and my book came out
Speaker 2: in two thousand and one, right before nine to eleven,
Speaker 2: which was terrible because the whole book tour I was
Speaker 2: doing and everything got canceled, of course, because understandably it
Speaker 2: was a horrible situation nine to eleven, as we can
Speaker 2: all remember. And so we got married in two thousand
Speaker 2: and two after being engaged for about a year, and
Speaker 2: we've been together ever since. I've never been happier. I
Speaker 2: have never felt more safe. Is that a bad word
Speaker 2: to use? We said, but I feel feels safe. And
Speaker 2: my husband has an amazing work ethic. He has a
Speaker 2: great job. You know, he works hard, and we both
Speaker 2: we both were both just hard workers. You know, I
Speaker 2: I everything. I take everything seriously, even cleaning my house.
Speaker 2: You know, I take that very seriously, my floors. I
Speaker 2: like cleaning my own house. I like cleaning my floors.
Speaker 2: I like cleaning my bathroom. I like cooking beautiful meals.
Speaker 2: I like being there for my friends. You know. I
Speaker 2: love doing the creative consultant work because I can do
Speaker 2: it sort of undercover. Nobody has to even know that
Speaker 2: I'm doing it.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm talking to you now. You were a model.
Speaker 1: You don't appear to have any plastic surgery. How do
Speaker 1: you feel about being an older woman in society.
Speaker 2: Well, I've had a little bit of plastic surgery. I'm
Speaker 2: not going to say that I've never gotten any botox
Speaker 2: or I didn't get a tweak here and there. But
Speaker 2: I did all that stuff a long time ago. I
Speaker 2: did that when I was in my forties because that
Speaker 2: was when I still felt insecure. You know, about who
Speaker 2: I was. I don't think I really came into me
Speaker 2: until I was in my fifties and I just started
Speaker 2: to not care anymore. So if I start to droop
Speaker 2: a little or I'm okay with that, it doesn't scare me.
Speaker 2: It might have scared me when I was younger, but
Speaker 2: I'm not sure for what kind of reasons. Because I
Speaker 2: feel like whatever changes we go through physically, we're all
Speaker 2: in the same boat. We're all just walking each other home.
Speaker 2: Everybody's going to die, and everybody's going to get a
Speaker 2: droopy face, you know. I mean, it's just going to
Speaker 2: happen to all of us. So it's what we do
Speaker 2: with the time that we've got. And right now, with
Speaker 2: the time that I've got, I want to let not
Speaker 2: just women but men. I want all humans, people that
Speaker 2: identify as both men and women, people that identify as nothing.
Speaker 2: I want everybody to know that none of that should
Speaker 2: stop you from doing what you do, none of it
Speaker 2: whatever brings you happiness. I sound like a meme, I
Speaker 2: sound like one of those Facebook affirmations or something, but
Speaker 2: it's true. I feel like I'm much more beneficial to
Speaker 2: women now at my age because I can actually say,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm not going to say that was a
Speaker 2: bad choice or a good choice. You know, people go, oh,
Speaker 2: don't you wish you had married this guy? And don't
Speaker 2: you wish you had done this? And don't you wish
Speaker 2: you had had more children? And well, of course sometimes
Speaker 2: I think about stuff like that, but I don't dwell
Speaker 2: on it. I've learned how to discipline myself. And as
Speaker 2: Tina would say, not your renguaekio, no, your ranguae kill.
Speaker 2: That helps. Chanting really helps you to focus. You know,
Speaker 2: you don't even understand why, but I have to focus
Speaker 2: on bringing as much positivity, not just to myself but
Speaker 2: to others. That's important to me.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back to your more renegade years when
Speaker 1: you weren't married. A lot of rock stars you see
Speaker 1: them with women, and the women are perceived as eye candy.
Speaker 1: I've certainly been around somewhere that has been the case.
Speaker 1: Needless to say, you are a very verbal woman, so
Speaker 1: and a lot of these you know, unfortunately a lot
Speaker 1: of these rock stars speak through their music. They don't
Speaker 1: have much to say, but that certainly is not all
Speaker 1: of them. So you mention all of these iconic people,
Speaker 1: did they pursue you or were you constantly putting yourself
Speaker 1: out there?
Speaker 2: You know, I don't know how to put I was
Speaker 2: living the life that I was living. I was living
Speaker 2: the life of the girlfriend of a rock star. So
Speaker 2: of course you get invited to all the parties. I mean,
Speaker 2: everything that happens, you get invitations. I mean Todd and
Speaker 2: I used to get invitations delivered to our doors by courier.
Speaker 2: And Liz Dringer was my best friend, and she was
Speaker 2: married to Rick Derringer, and she was a journalist and
Speaker 2: she was really plugged into the scene. Ron Delsner was
Speaker 2: our best friend, and whenever there was a great show,
Speaker 2: Ron would call and say, you're on the list, meet
Speaker 2: me backstage at eight fifteen or whatever. You know, we
Speaker 2: were living the lifestyle, and through living the lifestyle, a
Speaker 2: lot of relationships were formed and made. It's really it's
Speaker 2: not something you can plan, because.
Speaker 1: It's certainly not something to planned. You were in the area,
Speaker 1: But you have recited a litany and I don't mean
Speaker 1: that in any negative sense of household names. Right, So
Speaker 1: did they hear you were available or did you run
Speaker 1: into them and say, hey, I would be pursued.
Speaker 2: I mean of course Mick Jagger. He pursues when when
Speaker 2: Mick wants to date you, he he brings out all
Speaker 2: the bells and whistles. It's it's it's very charming, and
Speaker 2: he's notoriously Mick. And you know, I dated Jack Nicholson,
Speaker 2: So I've been with some of the great flirts, the
Speaker 2: great Don Juan's of history. I've done that, and I
Speaker 2: don't regret it for one minute. You know, dating Jack
Speaker 2: was never I knew it was never going to be serious.
Speaker 2: I knew that, but I enjoyed his company so much.
Speaker 2: We had so much much fun together. We would just
Speaker 2: drive around, you know, he loved to He would show
Speaker 2: up when I would be in la He had this
Speaker 2: white Volkswagen that he had for his entire life. It
Speaker 2: was and I wouldn't say it was beat up, but
Speaker 2: it was an old Volkswagen that he would drive around
Speaker 2: Hollywood when he wanted to be undercover. And one time
Speaker 2: I was staying in Laurel Canyon with my girlfriend Pam,
Speaker 2: and his house was over on Mallholland, and he showed
Speaker 2: up at Pam's in the white Volkswagen. And I'll just
Speaker 2: never forget him getting out of the car. With a
Speaker 2: white Volkswagen with some flowers that he had picked and
Speaker 2: wild of course, and just being I introduced him to
Speaker 2: Pam and he was just so polite. He used to
Speaker 2: call my mother. He used to talk to my mother
Speaker 2: on the phone. And Warren Beattie, who I never even met.
Speaker 2: I mean when I say never met, I never met
Speaker 2: him under the sheets, is what I'm trying. I never
Speaker 2: dated Warren Beatty, even though he always gets listed as
Speaker 2: one of my boyfriends. But I think the reason why
Speaker 2: is because he and Jack were such good friends, and
Speaker 2: I hung out with both of them quite a bit
Speaker 2: and a lot of times over at Warren's house, and
Speaker 2: Warren was an amazing piano player. I remember the very
Speaker 2: first time I met Warren Beatty. Jack brought me over
Speaker 2: there and when we walked into the room, Warren was
Speaker 2: sitting behind the piano playing unbelievably. I was shocked. Who
Speaker 2: would have ever known? But he was an exquisite piano player.
Speaker 2: But no, I didn't date him, and I just I
Speaker 2: enjoy the company of like minded people.
Speaker 1: I I'm not just ask you then, because a lot
Speaker 1: of these people I don't mean specifically, but rock stars,
Speaker 1: movie stars are very narcissistic. Oh god, did they listen
Speaker 1: to you? Did they want to engage in you? Did
Speaker 1: they want to hear what you had to say?
Speaker 2: Of course, yes, very much so. As a matter of fact, Jack,
Speaker 2: when I was, you know, going through the big transition
Speaker 2: in eighty eighty one where I was forming a band
Speaker 2: and living in my family's cottage on the family compound,
Speaker 2: and when I was trying to get the band together,
Speaker 2: he would listen to all my demos and it was
Speaker 2: constantly supportive and really really, really nice. And he even
Speaker 2: offered one time to buy me a house. He said,
Speaker 2: let me help you buy a house. He was like,
Speaker 2: let me give you some stability, and he goes, I'd
Speaker 2: like to help you, and I was like, no, I'm
Speaker 2: not going to let you do that. I mean, I
Speaker 2: look back on it now and thinking was I crazy?
Speaker 1: But you know it just okay at this point in time,
Speaker 1: to what degree do you interact with all these people
Speaker 1: famous and not known from your earlier days?
Speaker 2: Oh my god, Well, you know, the only time I
Speaker 2: see people like Mick and stuff is when they play
Speaker 2: I've gone to both of the times the Stones have
Speaker 2: played Nashville, and but no, we're all living very different
Speaker 2: lives now. Bowie, of course, you know, passed away. So
Speaker 2: but he came to my daughter's first wedding, and and
Speaker 2: you know, we socialized. We would see each other at
Speaker 2: various events. But half the people that I used to
Speaker 2: hang out with are no longer alive. Most of them
Speaker 2: are gone. And and and you know a lot of people.
Speaker 2: But you know, I see my daughter's father a lot.
Speaker 2: He brought me up on stage when he played FONTANELLEH gosh,
Speaker 2: I'll have to send you a little iPhone video of this.
Speaker 2: I think you'll get a kick.
Speaker 1: Out of it.
Speaker 2: We did train kept a rolling together in front of
Speaker 2: thirty thousand people. So, you know, I run into people.
Speaker 2: I live in Nashville, so of course I you know,
Speaker 2: I run into people and recording studios now and then
Speaker 2: I see people here and there, Robert Plant over at
Speaker 2: Sound Emporium or but you know, everybody is always So
Speaker 2: I see Jules holland you know, we're still very good friends.
Speaker 2: And I talked to Clive Arrowsmith quite a bit. And
Speaker 2: I you know, I've kept most of my friendships. The
Speaker 2: only estrangements that I have, which is very strange, are
Speaker 2: with two of the most important relationships of my life,
Speaker 2: and I guess those were the guys I hurt the hardest.
Speaker 2: I are. That's Todd and Elvis and.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's switch gears very briefly give me the rap
Speaker 1: on the aliens.
Speaker 2: Well as I just believe that. Oh it's if I'm
Speaker 2: going to put it into synopsis format, I would have
Speaker 2: to say that I believe that we live in a
Speaker 2: multi dimensional universe, that we are present in a three
Speaker 2: dimensional world, but I feel like we're getting ready to
Speaker 2: move into a five D existence on our planet. I
Speaker 2: don't think we have a choice because if we don't
Speaker 2: stop what's happening now, the planet is not going to
Speaker 2: exist anymore and we're all going to be dead. So
Speaker 2: we have to move into a five D consciousness. And
Speaker 2: what is D five D's two above three. It's a
Speaker 2: deeper it's a deeper understanding that these are our bodies,
Speaker 2: but our souls and our consciousness are much bigger, and
Speaker 2: that I believe we do this many times. I believe
Speaker 2: that I believe that the soul travels many lifetimes and
Speaker 2: inhabits many bodies, and goes through many experiences. As far
Speaker 2: as aliens go, I believe in the multi dimensional aspect
Speaker 2: of our existence. I believe that people can come in
Speaker 2: and out. I believe that there's more sophisticated life forms
Speaker 2: and consciousness. So I'm just trying to keep myself elevated
Speaker 2: and open to the metaphysical aspect of the creation of
Speaker 2: our planet, the creation of the universe. You know, you
Speaker 2: can drive yourself nuts going where did it start? Where
Speaker 2: did it the Big bang? Okay, who did the Big bang?
Speaker 2: Who invented that? And how do you know that the
Speaker 2: universe is expanding? Okay? We know that? Why? I mean,
Speaker 2: you can go crazy asking yourself all these questions. So
Speaker 2: the way I've decided that I can internalize it and
Speaker 2: understand it the best is to just think there is
Speaker 2: no beginning, there is no end, there is no time.
Speaker 2: There's dimensions, and there's textures, and there's layers, and I
Speaker 2: believe that we can go in and out.
Speaker 1: Okay, but have you you haven't seen little green men or.
Speaker 2: They? Well, the ones I met were gray?
Speaker 1: Okay, how you met them?
Speaker 2: Where?
Speaker 1: And when?
Speaker 2: Well, it's it's really this is this would take up
Speaker 2: an entire one of them. Okay, just a couple, all right.
Speaker 2: When I I've been having experiences with orbs or light
Speaker 2: since I was very young. One of my earliest memories
Speaker 2: in my crib is of these bouncing lights around my
Speaker 2: crib and I could sort of they would come when
Speaker 2: I wanted them to come, and they would. I thought
Speaker 2: they were playing with me. I thought they were toys.
Speaker 2: And I would tell my mother that I loved the
Speaker 2: lights that would come to see me, that the lights
Speaker 2: were fun. Thanks, you know, Mommy, I love those lights,
Speaker 2: you know. And there were and of course you didn't
Speaker 2: give me any lights maybe a night light. But I've
Speaker 2: always felt connected to something. I've had some experiences that
Speaker 2: cannot be explained at all. Like one time I was
Speaker 2: in a car with my girlfriend, a Volkswagen. We were
Speaker 2: high out of our brains. I'm not proud of this moment.
Speaker 2: I'm not bragging or anything. We were driving, I was seventeen,
Speaker 2: sixteen or seventeen, and we're driving along. This is in Jacksonville,
Speaker 2: North Carolina, when my father was stepfather was stationed at
Speaker 2: Camp La June, and I was getting ready to go
Speaker 2: into the next lane. I was being frivolous and free,
Speaker 2: and literally a voice and I am not exaggerating, said
Speaker 2: don't go left. Very clearly and very loudly. And when
Speaker 2: I turned my head like this, there was a giant
Speaker 2: semitruck coming And if I had gone like that, I
Speaker 2: would have been pulverized.
Speaker 1: Well, you are here, and you're a fountain of amazing stories.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know anybody who has as many
Speaker 1: stories as you, with so many famous people. And you
Speaker 1: have a new book, Rebel Soul, which is photographs of
Speaker 1: you throughout your life, but also essays of your belief
Speaker 1: We'll have one more topic and then we'll go. You
Speaker 1: make a big point in the book that you're not
Speaker 1: a groupie. Why focus on that so much?
Speaker 2: The word groupie? It's just gotten soiled, you know, like
Speaker 2: there's certain words. I know they're just words, But you
Speaker 2: don't want to be defined as somebody that when you're
Speaker 2: when you're an entertainer yourself, when you when you go
Speaker 2: on stage and you make people happy and you sing
Speaker 2: for people, you don't want to be known as just
Speaker 2: the person that that Google goggles over the other people.
Speaker 2: I just think that the word is misunderstood. I think
Speaker 2: that it's been tainted to the point where it's become
Speaker 2: sexist in a lot of ways. Because I don't see
Speaker 2: it used to define men ever, and I I just
Speaker 2: at this point in my life. I've been married forever,
Speaker 2: and I consider myself a nurturer and a healer and
Speaker 2: a person that loves to give. I'm just not in
Speaker 2: a comfortable place where i can deal with being tagged labeled.
Speaker 2: I don't want to be like a cow with a
Speaker 2: tag on my ear. Oh that girl is a groupie,
Speaker 2: you know. I want to be known for many things.
Speaker 2: I'd rather be known as a historian and a storyteller
Speaker 2: and the original Alice in Wonderland who fell through the
Speaker 2: looking glass. I'd rather be known as a person that
Speaker 2: lived an extraordinary life, and I hope that I would
Speaker 2: love my life. I would love to see a series,
Speaker 2: because there are too many stories just for one documentary
Speaker 2: or for one movie. I know that there's ideas that
Speaker 2: people are having right now to do a documentary or
Speaker 2: a movie. But I see a series, I see many episodes.
Speaker 2: I don't see how you The Aliens, for instance, would
Speaker 2: take up one episode. Savador Dolly would take up an episode.
Speaker 2: Tom Petty would take up an episode. Just the experiences
Speaker 2: with these brilliant human beings that I've brushed with, obviously,
Speaker 2: you know, I touched their lives too. We've all touched
Speaker 2: each other's lives, and I want people to realize that
Speaker 2: I'm not a service dog. If I was a service dog,
Speaker 2: I would proudly say I'm a service dog. I am
Speaker 2: here to service these beautiful rock stars. I'm not a
Speaker 2: service dog. I am a human being that has had
Speaker 2: an extraordinary experience and extraordinary experiences and I don't even
Speaker 2: have the complete formula, nor do I have the complete
Speaker 2: explanation as to why. And hopefully I'll live long enough
Speaker 2: that some of these wonderful experiences can be shared, and
Speaker 2: not just in a little, condensed, tiny thing. I think
Speaker 2: there's so much to life, you know. I think people
Speaker 2: we all know each other for a reason, we all
Speaker 2: connect for a reason. There must have been a reason.
Speaker 2: There has to be the other way around. It's not
Speaker 2: just them being in my life. I was in their
Speaker 2: life too, and you're in.
Speaker 1: The life of many people right now as a result
Speaker 1: of doing this. Maybe I want to thank you so
Speaker 1: much for taking the time to share your life and
Speaker 1: thoughts with my audience.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I could do another hour with you.
Speaker 2: You're just You're just interesting. I have to be honest,
Speaker 2: I am a fan. My husband religiously reads your newsletter.
Speaker 1: I just want to let you know that, and I'm
Speaker 1: glad you did.
Speaker 2: I like that well, Tick wn Gate, you know, he's
Speaker 2: always been a champion of mine. He wanted to sign
Speaker 2: me way before anybody and eighty one. I should have
Speaker 2: gone with the Wynn Gate. He's still my friend to
Speaker 2: this stay. But you know he he said that he
Speaker 2: was going to ask you, if you know, if I
Speaker 2: could be on your show, and I'm so glad that
Speaker 2: he did. I'm grateful. See what I mean, how we
Speaker 2: all know each other and how it all cross pollinates.
Speaker 2: See to me, Dick Wingate and my old editor at
Speaker 2: Saint Martin's like Elizabeth Byer, those are my rock stars.
Speaker 2: Those are the people that I'm indebted to and that
Speaker 2: I love. Danny Fields, these are my rock stars. These
Speaker 2: are the people that I will love and cherish till
Speaker 2: the day I die, because they're the people that believed
Speaker 2: in me and gave me chances in life, chances to
Speaker 2: do things myself. And there's nothing better than taking over
Speaker 2: a room. I love to be in front of an
Speaker 2: audience with a microphone. I don't even need instruments. I
Speaker 2: don't need anything. I'll sing the whole thing without one
Speaker 2: drop of an instrument. It brings me so much joy.
Speaker 2: But anyway, I'm thrilled and honored. It's an honor to
Speaker 2: be with you, mister Bob.
Speaker 1: I think you and I'm glad I had the chance
Speaker 1: to talk to you. In any event, till next time.
Speaker 1: This is Bob left Sis