Pamela

Queen of the groupies, best-selling author, renowned journalist, Internet columnist, rock & roll aficionado.

As the spokeschick for the most sexually liberated generation of females in history, Pamela Des Barres exemplifies the exuberance of the 1960s hippie subculture, plus an unexpected soup'on of old-fashioned 1950s Mama-Knows-Best wisdom.

Equal parts New Thought believer, born-again Jesus junkie, and rebel with a righteous cause, Pamela has always bulldozed the road less traveled, finding original ways to express her irrepressible spirit. And Rock & Roll was the source of her evolution. Starting with Dion, Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Captain Beefheart and the Rolling Stones, the beat went straight to her senses. Freedom was her birthright, and she flourished in Hollywood's psychedelic heyday. The Sunset Strip and it's environs: Choc-a-bloc boulevards populated with beautiful long-haired hippie freaks in vintage velvet; music pumping from The Whiskey and The Galaxy, Bido Lido's and Thee Experience. She rocked-out to The Doors, Love, Steppenwolf, Iron Butterfly, The Birds- and met the gorgeous men who made the music. Was this Los Angeles or paradise? Either way, Pamela had found her soul's home.

As a member of rock visionary Frank Zappa's most tender-hearted musical creation, the performance art/groupie-group, The GTO's, Miss Pamela and her flamboyant sisters released their cult-classic album, "Permanent Damage" in 1969. Being in her own rock band put her on a lofty pedestal, and she found herself in the presence of some of her most juicy idols, including Mick Jagger, Jimmy Page and Keith Moon. Whether in love or in awe, she explored each relationship with unjaded adoration and an innocent sexual openness few could resist.

Marrying glamrocker actor-extraordinaire Michael Des Barres in 1977, and giving birth to son Nicholas a year later, Pamela discovered fresh aspects of her ability to love. You could say she had settled down, but it wouldn't be true. For she was working on a new creation- one that would set the standard for sexual honesty in women's writing.

With the release of her enormously successful 1987 autobiography, "I'm With The Band," Pamela introduced the world at large to the Hollywood-and-Beyond groupie lifestyle, a badly kept secret among rock & roll musicians and the women who adored them. She lifted sexual conquest and musical collaboration to breathy new heights, then toured the globe advocating the most open-minded sexual perspective anyone had espoused in bone-dry decades. You don't have to burn your bra to be liberated, she seemed to say. Just make it black lace and wear it with garters. In public.

The prolific Miss Pamela followed with three more books: "Take Another Little Piece of My Heart," "Rock Bottom," and her collaboration with rock pioneers Dick & Dee Dee, "The Rock and Roll Cookbook." She has written numerous articles for such diverse publications as Cosmopolitan, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Details, Jane and Tracks, has interviewed a multitude of rock luminaries, and her E! On-Line music column ran for five years. She has appeared on dozens of television programs, innumerable documentaries and radio shows, and is the go-to girl for groupie/rock & roll trivia. In 1998 E! True Hollywood Story produced a one-hour documentary about her extraordinary life. At age 40, she was featured in all her naked glory in Playboy. She is currently working on a new book- a compendium of interviews with groupies and rock musicians aptly named, "Let's Spend The Night Together."

"I'm with the Band" has been republished in England to glowing reviews, and will be republished in the USA in October, 2005, after eight years out of print. With it's blessed re-birth, a whole new generation of readers will be treated to The World According To Miss Pamela. She brings an endlessly optimistic viewpoint, filled with music, friendship and a whole lotta sex. "I'm With The Band" is Pamela Des Barres' joyful declaration of her love of life and life of love.

-Iva L. Turner

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Performing a wedding ceremony between my god-daughter Polly Parsons and Charlie Terrell. I am an ordained minister, and am available for weddings, baptisms, etc.

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