NEIL YOUNG : HARVEST MOON

YOU CAN SLEEP WITH THE WRONG MAN...

BUT YOU CAN'T SLEEP WITH THE WRONG DOG!


(Don't know where this quote originated, but it made me laugh, as my dog is right by my side!)

HER BOYFRIEND MAY BE MENTALLY ILL - NOW WHAT? OPINION BY MISSY

QUESTION FOR MISSY

Missy,

My boyfriend, Shem, is in his late twenties and seems to have a germ phobia.  My teenage sister has obsessive compulsive disorder which is already hard to live with.  I'm worried that he's going to get worse and if I marry him I won't be able to deal with it. 

To give you some idea, he refuses to deal with cat clean up.  He refuses to clean bathrooms.  If I've got a cold or even just allergies he wants me to sleep on the sofa and not get near him.  I think he's used up some of his vacation days this year avoiding going to work when someone else at the office got sick. He's using a tissue to deal with door knobs.  My sister checks and rechecks to see if she locked a door before she can leave but she's in therapy and trying meds.  My boyfriend hires a maid to come in and clean his place up.  She uses bleach solution to wipe down his doorknobs, his entire bathroom, the kitchen, and the entire front door of his apartment.  Besides the germ phobia, all else is good.  He's educated, works hard, and is good to me.

Dana

ANSWER FROM MISSY

Hi Dana!

I'm familiar with the disorders you mentioned, having had a neighbor with the doorknob problems and so on.  I can image you're wondering at what point is it that someone is sick or not.  It's a hard call.  Lots of people gag at the smell of cat odor and can't deal with it.  Lots of people have employers who make people come to work sick where the whole crew is exposed or infected (been there, done that) which I think is beyond stupid.  Then, men more often have maids than women do, and the bleach does get rid of germs.

I also had a friend who married an educated man with a great career who was just like your boyfriend.  She slept on the sofa, scrubbed the bathrooms, and moved her cat to the basement, but he was definitely increasingly phobic of germs as he got older, because it effected their most private life when he became germ phobic of her.

Living with your sister who is sick has sensitized you to behavior that might be mental illness. 

I think your question is more about YOU..  Is it OK to just quit a relationship because someone can get on our nerves or be neurotic?  Your sister is family and you can't quit her at this point and hopefully you never will. But you may not have to live with her for years on end and she may respond to medication.  Does your boyfriend need it?  Marriage is a choice to create a new family but with this possibility looming.

Communicate your concerns to your boyfriend.  Try, "You know I live with an obsessive compulsive sister whose getting help to overcome her issues.  Maybe because of that I'm a bit sensitive but I've noticed.... and I wonder if maybe  you've got what she's got!'  Then listen to what he says.  If he denies it's a problem, let it go for now.  You may be right but maybe he needs time to self assess.

Before marriage talk to him about his expectations of you.  Will he keep the maid? Or will you be it?  It may be negotiated.  Maybe there are tasks you can't or won't do that he will.  You might adore cat clean up and be happy to do it because he's the one who gets the cars detailed - you know?

Missy

BEBE BUELL : MODEL, MUSE, MISTRESS, MOM, ROCK N ROLLER and BOOK AUTHOR

HARPERS BAZAAR INTERVIEW WITH LIV TYLER ON BEBE AS HER MOM  by Elisa Lipsky-Karasz   PICTURE GALLERY

She's Liv Tyler's mom, but before that Bebe Buell had long non-monogamous relationships with Todd Rundgren and Elvis Costello.  Liv was raised by Todd as father, since Steve was a whirlwind romance.  Jimmy Page and Mick Jagger were also paramours.  Was she a Supergroupie?  Her modeling didn't last long... but she's recording Rock and Roll into her 60's.



*****

ARE ONLY "SUPER GROUPIES" CLOSING IN ON MISTRESSHOOD because they are more likely to be financially supported or live with or marry their man?  Missy

OPINIONS on THE TERM MISTRESS from NEW YORK TIMES BLOGGER MARGARET SULLIVAN

BLOGS-NEW YORK TIMES - IS MISTRESS A WORD THAT HAS SEEN ITS BEST DAYS by MARGARET SULLIVAN

EXCERPTS:

Janet Mortenson of Houston wrote: “I would be delighted to see The Times stop using the word ‘mistress’ to describe a self-sufficient woman who is in a romantic relationship with a man.”

And Ellen Hymowitz of New York City asked if The Times “could summon up a less archaic word that didn’t demean the female by her sex or her gender.” She said that the term suggests “not just a female participant in a clandestine love affair but also that the affair is of a long-term nature and that the woman is ‘kept’ — financially supported — by the man.” ....  Philip B. Corbett, an editor said,"I agree that “mistress” has a somewhat old-fashioned tone to it that isn’t ideal (though I don’t accept the argument that it necessarily implies a financial arrangement; it doesn’t. First definition from American Heritage: “A woman who has a continuing sexual relationship with a man who is married to someone else.”

 

*****

Missy here!  I'm editing the long piece that I had posted in Pages that discusses what I think about the use of the term.  Let's just say here briefly that I do not think adultery is necessary to the definition, and I do think that the Classic Mistress is Kept - or at least well cared for beyond her own earnings, but that most women who are Mistresses today do have or earn some of their own income - and should!

 

C2016

JEANNIE CRANE and "SWEET CONNIE" CONNIE HAMZY : PROUD GROUPIES WITH NOTHING TO APOLOGIZE FOR

JEANNIE CRANE, who went to her first concert at 16,  loved Ted Nugent... 

SWEET CONNIE HAMZY of  Little Rock Arkansas, who set out at 15 to be a Groupie, loved Alex Van Halen.

This YouTube video posted in 2010 is from a Hard Copy broadcasted in Australia and my guess is that the telecast is from the late 1980's.

Here's a little more information for you. 

CONNIE HAMZY wrote a book called "Rock Groupie: The Intimate Adventures of "Sweet Connie" from Little Rock" which was published in 1995.  (I haven't been able to get a copy of it, but it's a tell all, and one site mentions that it mentions...Don Henley, Keith Moon, David Lee Roth, Merle Haggard, Huey Lewis... while on other sites about interviews she did, it says that she said that she was in love with Alex Van Halen, and that he was her best sex as a result.  Connie has, perhaps, claimed a record for years as a groupie and numbers of music men she has been with as a result of conquest and making herself available as her reputation proceeds her.


Note August 2017  A reader wants to know if Connie had sex with Vince Neil at 16.  You'll have to read the book and see!  I do not know!  Missy

Old video replaced June 2021  (Couldn't find a new one that included Jeannie Crane.)

ANATOMY OF AN ORCHID

CATHERINE JAMES : DANDELION : MISTRESS MANIFESTO BOOK REVIEW

CATHERINE JAMES OFFICIAL SITE Catherine James

 

Bob Dylan took her out of the orphanage but played the older brother she never had. Not just one more young girl who ran away to Sunset Strip, or got caught up in the Rock Gods who courted her, a bit more of a flower child than a Groupie by my way of thinking, Catherine James survived a abusive childhood, but, not quite out of it was left to raise her only son, fathered by a British rock musician with Moody Blues guitarist Denny Laine, when she was 16.  She lived by her wits after he financially abandoned them. 

 

Mom was a Malignant Narcissist, Dad beat Bruce Jenner to the change. Catherine James relied on the Universe to provide at times and proved that you don't have to duplicate the way your parents raised you, that you can better them, even if you live in a house in the woods that's barely standing or your car doesn't run or the jobs you take are odd.

 

Like a number of Rock Goddesses, she was beautiful enough to model, and despite having a very hard life, has found goodness in it. 

 

One of several books I've read by former Groupies, there's something of a delicacy to James that defies her obvious inner strength.

 

C 2016  MistressManifesto.Blogspot.com / Missy Rapport  All Rights Reserved

INCOME INEQUITY - BY STATE - WOMEN ARE STILL MAKING LESS THAN MEN : MEN SHOULD PAY FOR DATES! OPINION BY MISSY

AAUW - SIMPLE TRUTH ABOUT THE GENDER PAY GAP


In Wyoming women make 64 cents to every $1.00 men do...

In California women make a 86 cents...

I was raised to let men do the asking, planning, and paying for dates.

I came to feel it was wrong not to "contribute," such as for desert or leaving a tip or maybe paying for cab fare.

But in recent years, as I heard that some men even ask a woman out and then, on the date, announce that she is paying her own way or paying for the whole thing, which is appallingly bad manners for starters, I came to feel that while every relationship is different, men who can't afford to date shouldn't. (And there are lots of things to do for free or inexpensively in the big city so whoever is asking another person out does have some options.)

Are some men taking advantage of women, treating them as financial equals when they are not?  I think so.

Men who are satisfied with feminism only because they're lazy about taking the old responsibilities when dating and in relationships seem to be all over.

I've recently met several men, as neighbors and friends of friends, who are living with their much more financially successful girlfriends and letting them pay all the rent and more!  I can't help but think that the day will come when that girlfriend has had enough and asks them to go.  Some of these men are in school or working full time and maybe the day will come when they are the ones who can do it all and let their girlfriends be the ones who are supported.

Maybe I've come full circle...  HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THIS ISSUE?

HOT HOUSE FLOWERS

LETS SPEND THE NIGHT TOGETHER : "WE PUT THE SEX in SEX, DRUGS, and ROCK and ROLL"

 

WARNING!  As I promised I would give you a warning if I think some readers might need or want one, since MISTRESS MANIFESTO BlogSpot demurs from sexual explicitness.  Cynthia Plaster Caster (and her casts of a certain part of the male anatomy) is part of this film!  You may want to skip it if you're shy.

Video replaced with this one June 2021

"We put the SEX in Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll"

"I'm setting out to reclaim the word Groupie..."

LET'S SPEND THE NIGHT TOGETHER stars Pamela Des Barres (sometimes called Queen of the Groupies - at least in LA!) and Lori Maddox (AKA Lori Lightening), who both had relationships with Led Zeppelin Guitar God, Jimmy Page.  These two women were once enemies, but  years later bonded because he broke BOTH their hearts. Based on Des Barres book of the same title, watch it and learn a bit about HOW TO DEFINE GROUPIE!

PAMELA DES BARRES : A WELL KNOWN MUSICAL MUSE BUT A MISTRESS NOT!

Pamela DesBarres, born Pamela Miller, once upon a time Queen of the (Los Angeles) Groupies, is now a successful author based on a number of books she's published such as "I'm With The Band," and "Let's Spend The Night Together," and "Take Another Piece Of My Heart."  These books recount her adventures as a Groupie, and then as a woman (eventually) married to a British rock star, Michael Des Barres, as well as the mother of a brilliant child, who goes through a divorce. Her writing is always explicit, exciting, and heart-full. I've read every one of her books over the years.

She looks just like you or me in her high school yearbook picture, but she had a different World View, and the clubs on the Sunset Strip were not so far from her family home in a working class suburb of The San Fernando Valley.

When it comes to Groupies, she was one with a Heart of Gold. 

Friends of mine think Pamela is way too "talkie" to be a good Mistress! Men might be scared off because they could end up in her book, if she wants to write about them! Does she have to name names?   (Yes, she really does!)

Another reason friends think so is that Pamela, and other groupies, seem to be so not materialism that they're practically sacrificial. Pamela's had lots of adventures but she's wasn't materialistic enough; she stood by her husband when they were low income, living with friends, between jobs, even took dumb jobs. She was just too self sacrificing, they say, but then again, I say, she's managed to make her own way in life. One snotty person said, "She has even made herself into a 'cottage industry'!"" (We could say that about Angelyn!)  If she were a man they'd say that she is a ROCK AND ROLL HISTORIAN!

Pamela now not only writes books but teaches writing workshops - Los Angeles - Vegas - Chicago - New York - gives rock and roll tours around the Sunset Strip area of Hollywood, and well... here is her site, with lots of sexy and fun pictures! 

 PAMELADESBARRES.COM

He tackles the term Groupies, saying these girls were a force of nature...

FROM the YOUTUBE Presenter of this Video:

MICHAEL DES BARRES (PAMELA's EX HUSBAND and the FATHER OF THEIR CHILD) LOVES HER WRITING
 
"Michael Des Barres is the host of Little Steven's Underground Garage on SiriusXM Radio, Channel 21 every weekday morning at 8am ET and again at Midnight ET. He has appeared in countless feature films and television shows and sold seven million albums as a writer and artist. A working musician for five decades, he has performed around the world from backroom bars to Live Aid. Michael’s enduring love of Delta blues and the rock and soul of the mid-60s beat boom is exemplified by his days as front man for such seminal bands as Silverhead, Chequered Past, Power Station and Detective, a band personally signed by Jimmy Page to Swan Song Records."


(SORRY A VIDEO I POSTED HAS BEEN WITHDRAWN FROM PUBLIC USE!)

From www.digitalfilmtree.com

“Documators” Created by Ramy Katrib and Evan York
Award winning documentary and animation producers, Evan York and Ramy Katrib, bring to life…”Documators” A series of short, animated documentaries mixed with Live Action footage. We report on what’s trending, cutting edge News worthy stories."

LISA L. RHODES "ELECTRIC LANDLAND" on WOMEN IN ROCK N ROLL INCLUDING GROUPIES

That picture on the cover of the book isn't Lisa, but a famous Groupie at the time. 

She has the look of someone who knows the score and has seen it all.

ELECTRIC LADYLAND, WOMEN and ROCK CULTURE, 1965-1975 by

Lisa L. Rhodes, who was part of the scene as a singer and made her own album, takes on the question of the role of women in popular music during the early explosion of Rock along with the sexual revolution, in an interesting book, and one for my library. 

To do so she looked at how women in music were portrayed by the media, in particular in Rolling Stone Magazine, as male journalists quoted the musicians and singers and others looked at women's sexuality in old, sexist ways.  About half of her book is about Groupies, how they were defined in the media, Time Magazine also having published an early article about them because they were considered to be a phenomena.

Some of you will think "Why did they let themselves get used?"  Others may think, "Why didn't I run away with the band?"

Page XI

"Another reason to study rock women stems from the fat that between 1965 and 1975 gender roles were in flux in America and these women were in the front lines of the gender wars of the late 1960's and early 1970's.  For example, by redefining what it mean to be a female musician or write, these women were helping to change perceptions about women in general.  The groupies, with their freewheeling sexuality, were also helping to reinterpret what it meant to be a sexually active woman in the music scene, as well as the role of girlfriends, lover, wife, and whore.  The activities of all these women helped to establish gender roles as they exist in America today."

Page XIV

"I chose rock music because it conveys power and being a woman in our society offers us precious little of that commodity." ... Performing music at loud volume means different things to women than it does to men.  As women we are (usually) told all our lives in subtle and not so subtle ways to be quiet, at least more quiet than the men around us.  For women to take center stage, literally, and draw attention to themselves through the employment of loud volume is thus a truly liberating act..."

Rhodes also takes on these: Did the 1960's have its own moral code, as what is considered pedophilia now is viewed by some as sexual experimentation?  Did adult women Groupies basically become slaves to men they idolized or where they liberated hero worshipers?

C 2016  Mistressmanifesto.blogspot.com  / Missy Rapport  All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights

DEEP PURPLE ORCHIDS

GROUPIES! ARE THEY REALLY SO DIFFERENT FROM MISTRESSES? MISTRESS MANIFESTO LOOKS IN ON THE WOMEN WHO DON'T APOLOGIZE FOR BEING SEXUAL!

G R O U P I E S ...

   

This month we're looking at Groupies as part of defining not only them, but Mistresses.  There's no question that some Groupies have become Mistresses, but yet, it seems to me that, in general, a Groupie, while she is one, must have a very different mind set than a Mistress.  For a Groupie tells her tales, if not in books she's published, then to her friends - her peers - on her scene, while a Mistress tends to have a deep sense of privacy, and is usually discreet and careful as a condition of her ongoing relationship. 

A Groupie may revel in her conquests, even the competition she has with other groupies, while a Mistress may revel in being special and important to just one man, in a relationship - at least one relationship at a time! 

Though some Groupies have gone along with a band on tour and had their expenses paid for - plane tickets - meals - and been gifted clothing, jewelry, and so on - many of them have paid their own way along the road, into concerts, and bought those plane tickets and hotel rooms out of their own money or simply stayed in their own home town to meet and greet the bands that come to play local.

Of all the Groupies I've heard about or read about, there is one in particular who managed to move from Groupie to Wife, putting in some time as a Mistress of sorts while she awaited a divorce and marriage, and that is the "Supergroupie,"  Pamela Miller Des Barres. This month will be a lot about Pamela, who has become a prolific book author, but also look at some of the other groupies who she has written about.

Here at MISTRESS MANIFESTO we've dedicated months to May Pang (Mistress of ex  Beatle John Lennon),  Jerry Hall, who hung in there with Mick Jagger of Rolling Stones fame to the tune of four children, to the question of Who Was Door's singer/poet/songwriter Jim Morrison's wife and who was his Mistress (was it  long red haired Pamela Courson or long red haired Patricia Kennealy and where does long haired blonde Judy Huddleston fit in?)  We've dedicated a month to Ginger Alden, live in Mistress of Elvis Presley who was awaiting marriage when he died.  We've learned about the prolific and enduring Bob Dylan whose mysterious Mistress-Muse, Ruth Tryangiel, legally claimed to have helped him write some songs.  We recently covered the Mistress of Ringo Starr, Nancy Lee Andrews. And if you're interested, We also devoted a month to Jillian Laurel, who went from New Jersey to being in a Harem, but who has since been married to a music man.

These women, who had relationships with Music Men, were not Groupies, even though they dated or lived with or had long romances with men who were singers, songwriters, and musicians.  It can get confusing. 

For instance Linda McCartney (who I've never thought of as a Mistress), ex Beatle Paul McCartney's first wife; was she or wasn't she a Groupie first? I think she was, but her long and happy marriage with Paul, who was no saint sexually back in his Beatle-fame days, sort of cancelled out her Groupie time. Which, if you've read my profile of football famous O.J. Simpson's Mistress turned wife, Nicole Brown, you may know is a theory of mine, that Mistress time is forgiven if the relationship turns into marriage.  Paul married Linda and they were faithful to each other all those married years and rather than have a high courtesan aspect to her personality, she was the mothering archetype.

But Groupie time that doesn't turn into marriage is not so forgiven and perhaps this is the ultimate in sexism.  Some of the Rock Gods who Groupies have had sex with pride themselves - and brag about - the hundreds of women they've had sex with.  Why can't a woman do so also and get away with it like that?

These men seemed entitled to so many women and so much sex without any commitment at all, trading the power of fame for it. So many Groupies became infamous for being aggressive and seeing men as prey rather than famous for having lived it the other way around.  The old Double Standard.

Why are Pamela Des Barres, Lori "Lightening" Maddox, Cynthia Plaster Caster,  Sweet Connie, or any number of other women who might be Rock Goddesses called Groupies?

Is it because they became known more for sexuality with a number of rock stars, even though sometimes there was a real relationship happening?  Is it because some of them sometimes wanted nothing more than five minutes, an hour, a night,  or a short term fling while the man was in town, only to say they had sex with him, only to brag, to score, to compete with other Groupies?  Is it because their competitiveness with other women to get with such a man may be not very nice to other women?

Is it because they self declared, or revealed themselves as such?  In Pamela Des Barres' books she exposes her Groupieness and takes pride in it. 

What was it like to be so sure of yourself, and so unafraid, that you might not even be of legal age yet, but driven for that special back stage pass into the inner sanctum of a Rock God's life, that you could not only meet him, talk with him, be a muse, but also his lover, if not the Great Love of His Life?

Or, perhaps, is it because these women had and used CHOICE, which is its own power.

This is year 2016, fifty years or so from the Sexual Revolution and the beginnings of the Rock and Roll Revolution, the Summer of Love, and the first stirrings of a new wave of Feminism that was about Sexual Freedom, linked into the Contraceptive, the Pill.  And what some of the Groupies, women who followed music and the men who made it (though there were male groupies too), did, being promiscuous, even if they were "in-love," with lots of men, back then, made them uncommon women in their time.  Women having conquests, feeling free to be sexual with a great number of men they barely know isn't as unusual now. It's not the lifestyle most women aspire to. It's not a lifestyle that's easy to have. It's also now much more dangerous because of STD's, the most fearsome of them all being AIDS/HIV.

A Groupie is a woman who is sexual, who makes herself available, to a man she finds desirable, maybe because he's a musical genius, maybe because he's a sexy musical genius, or a sexy and seductive musical genius, or maybe simply because he's famous, a name, and she's willing and able to play a game that men have played.  She is not apologetic for being sexual. 


This month I'll be covering some of the Groupies who had that label applied to them and others who themselves applied the label!

Missy

Read more about Groupies including videos, book reviews, a profile of Pamela Des Barres, and more this month!  To read about musical muses and Mistresses such as Jerry Hall, Nancy Lee Andrews,  May Pang, Ginger Alden, Patricia Kennealy... (you might also want to read the updated ANGELYN who is NOT a GROUPIE) , please use the Google Blogger Search feature embedded in the side bar to bring up posts!  Missy

C 2016  Mistressmanifesto.blogspot.com  / Missy Rapport  All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights