Pamela Des Barres Video Gallery

Mary Magdalene of the Electric Church

by Michael Des Barres

I got a call. I was in New York. Somebody wanted me to replace Keith Moon in a movie. Apparently he had thrown his psyche out of a hotel window and was not available. Yet another replacement gig in my long and illustrious career as a professional exhibitionist and performance artist. My current incarnation was a singer in a rock and roll band, the child of Aleister Crowley and Anita Wallenberg (it was a very different pregnancy).

I arrived at the location in the last night's makeup and I saw her (to be more precise, the back of her). There before me in all its tantalizing glory was the greatest ass I had ever seen. Somebody said my name and she turned and looked at me over her bare left shoulder. Even though I had hardly slept in several weeks everything was suddenly crystal clear. She smiled and literally captivated me and catapulted me into a dimension I had never experienced. No long was my life about me--it was and has remained about us.

I knew of course who she was--the GTO's were legendary to any rock culture aficionado. In fact her spectacular pedigree made me love her all the more--I was the groupie, not her. She was at Altamont with Mick, the Whiskey with the Lizard King, the Garden with Page. I felt elevated to a rarefied rock and roll consciousness. All of that, however, paled when I realized that no one could be as lustful and loving, as passionate and patient, as her. She was the embodiment of everything I had ever loved about the new world of America. She was Marilyn, she was Elvis, she was a forties bathing suit; she swooned, she swayed, she was the Mary Magdalene of the Electric Church.

My pursuit was vigorous and focused, cutting through the narcotic trance established as de rigeur for a rock and roll decadent.

Then I was at the Hyatt on the Sunset strip. She had a cowboyfriend with boots and everything. My boots had platforms and silver stars.

I had to be with her, and before long I was. I left the ol' country, I broke up with the band, I flew back to LA, and this book, dear readers, describes what happened next. Along with our miraculous son, Nick, my beloved Miss Pamela is the most important person in my life—a life that has been saved many times by her joie de vivre and joyous view of our increasingly fearful world.

This book is a fierce and honest account of this time in our lives, written by a woman whose skills are unparalleled and wisdom infinite.

My love for you, Pamela, exists in a timeless place that transcends sentimentality and regret, analysis and speculation, We are all in love with you . . . Forever.
Michael Des Barres

Foreword from Des Barres, Pamela, Take Another Little Piece of My Heart: A Groupie Grows Up, Chicago Review Press: Chicago, Illinois, 2008.