Crasses et Voluptés

Victor Bockris

Notes Of A Punk Rock Groupie

That’s when I started going down to Los Angeles and hanging out with musicians at Rodney Bingenheimer’s. Then we went over to the Ramada Inn because we wanted to meet Kiss. That was when Kiss first came to Hollywood. When we were hard up for money we would go to the hotels and see what bands were in. Then we went to the coffee shop and ordered whatever we wanted and just signed somebody’s name and room number. So we lived off the bands without the bands really knowing it. They probably were so drunk and stoned all the time they thought they had eaten…

When I was hanging around the Hyatt House one time I met The Kinks. I was hanging around with Dave Davies. Leo Sayer was there. B. B. King was there. Led Zeppelin came in. Foghat was there. I just walked around and I would hear party noises coming from all these bands. I would just knock on people’s doors and people would always invite you in. I stayed with Davie Davies for two weeks. He had quarts of vodka and gin. I used to walk around the hotel with a quart of some alcohol or bottles of champagne and of course if you had that much alcohol and knocked on somebody’s door, they always invited you in for sure. At this one Kinks party they took this girl and they got her totally undressed and these two roadies held her upside down and spread her legs and somebody poured the champagne on her cunt while somebody else took pictures. We would sit around with BB guns and shoot out the lights. We tore chairs attached to the walls outside the elevators out of the walls and plomped them in front of Robert Plant’s door. When I was with The Kinks we threw a bed out of the window. These people from Leo Sayer’s room took my girlfriend Lisa and they pulled her pants down and they took shaving cream and made a face on her butt and stuck a cigarette in her ass and took a picture, and you really couldn’t tell it was an ass. But then Lisa’s mother, who was fucking this guy in Silverhead, was at the Hyatt and she ran into somebody from one of these bands and they said, “Look at these pictures to have of this girl Lisa.” And it’s like she goes, “That’s my daughter!” And then she blamed it all on me because I was older. 

On the plane to New York I was sitting next to a Hell’s Angel and he asked me where I was going. I said, “East 3rd Street,” and he goes, “Oh, I live on East 3rd. What’s your address?” It turned out he lived next door. I said, “Well listen, I will be frank with you, I am terrified of the Hell’s Angels.” He said, “Hey, listen, I will tell everybody you are the new kid on the block and nobody will mess with you.”

The apartment on East 3rd was really disgusting and I got a horrible job at Burger King. One day I could not get into the apartment to get my check and I was really pissed off. So I told my Hell’s Angel friend and he went into the apartment above mine and said, “We have to use your fire escape.” He got my check and my clothes and said, “Come on. I will take care of you.” He introduced me to Terrible Ted and his wife and they took me in as their housekeeper.

They kept their guns under my bed. In the middle of the night a guy would come in and say, “Oh, I am sorry to disturb you,” and he would reach in and pull out a gun. The first time it happened I am like, “Oh my God I am sleeping on top of artillery!” But I got used to it.

On the eve of my 21st birthday we went to CBGB and Anya introduced me to Sylvain Sylvain and then he said, “Well, I am going home. You coming?” So I went out with him and I had a really good time and the next morning I woke up and it was my birthday. I said, “Oh, it is my birthday.” He went, “Oh, great,” and he ran out and got me a scrambled egg sandwich and coffee and made me take a bunch of vitamin B. He said, “You know when you drink a lot you have to take your vitamins.” Then he told me all these stories about Japan and the early New York Dolls when they had a lot of money and went through heavy duty drinking. Then he walked me back to Anya’s at 101 St Marks Place.

That night we were going to see Talking Heads at the Ocean Club. Anya talked me into taking acid. I said, “No, no, no.” She said, “Yes, come on. It’s your 21st birthday you got to take acid.” So I did. She dressed me up in skin-tight purple satin peddle pushers, black stiletto high heels boots with caribou feathers around the top and a really tight angora sweater and we went out. I made her buy me a bottle of Jack Daniels because I told her if I started freaking out I wanted something to come down on.

They were videotaping at the Ocean Club that night and we were at a very fun table trying to share a shrimp salad. It looked really horrible. The lights were so bright I could not stand to look at anybody. Then Joey Ramone came in. So I told him, “Look, I don’t have any money and I am just coming down off acid. Can you help me out? Buy me a couple of beers or something.” There was this girl following him around and she kept saying, “You’re talking to him too much. I want to be with him. Please go away and let me have a chance.” I said, “I am just drinking with him.” I didn’t like plan on going home with him or anything but it ended up Joey was trying to, like, ditch the girl. So he says to me, “Come on let’s go to CBGB and drink there.” It was well after five in the morning. I go, “But it

is closed now.” He goes, “It’s not closed to me.”

On the way to CBGB I held my coat so nobody could see him take a piss, and this girl is still following us. She is, like, practically crying. So Joey said, “Come on with us,” and the rest of The Ramones were there and Hilly and a bunch of people like Roberta Bayley and we were playing pinball. I was sitting on the pool table and Joey asked me to watch his beer because he had to go to the bathroom. He comes running out of the bathroom and jumps on top of me and spills beer all over my pants. And he starts kissing me. And I am, like, going, “Oh my God this is really exciting. I got Syl last night who I always wanted to fuck and now I am getting Joey.” And the girl is, like, crying, “Oh, that’s right! Why don’t you just drag me all over town and then just ignore me!” And he is like, “Oh, we are going home now.” This girl was following us right to the door and he goes, “Well, we are going to bed.” She goes, “Oh, that’s it. I take the train all the way to the Bronx.” And it’s like, “Okay, come on up.” So we are sitting on his bed giggling and kissing and she is sitting on the corner of the bed crying. So Joey said, “Hey, do you want to watch TV? Just keep it low so Arturo don’t wake up.” She goes off and we hear her fumbling around in the dark and she knocked a bunch of stuff over and Arturo jumped up screaming and threw her out and me and Joey were just laughing our heads off but trying to be quiet so Arturo doesn’t scream at us.

I ended up fucking Joey but it was, like, really awkward the next morning. He was looking for his glasses. I couldn’t find my bra. It was like really, “Oh God!” We were both really embarrassed and I couldn’t wait to get out of there.