Devils & Blue Dresses: My Wild Ride as a Rock and Roll Legend

three?
    The budget from Polygram and John’s cash flow. Ah, yes. There was a shell of a house under construction in the woods near Seymour, Indiana that belonged to one of John’s relatives. John decided to build a studio inside of the house. After the recording was over the house was finished off as a real home, and occupied by one of his clan. John’s first wife owned the rooms that Mark, Harry, and I occupied for the months we spent there, and she was paid lodging, expenses, and catering. The cost of bringing in other artists, Marianne Faithful from Paris, for example, was all part of the budget. John’s brother did quite well as road manager, driver, etcetera.
    The video for MTV was over budget, like everything else, because John wanted to work with László Kováks, an Hungarian cinematographer who had worked on the film
Easy Rider
. John had plans of one day making his own movie and he needed to make connections in Hollywood. The original screenplay for the video consisted of me lying on a bed in high-heels and a blue dress while two midgets leaped up and down on either side of me in umpire’s uniforms. And they say Hollywood has lost its imagination.
    In a strange way John’s nepotism was expected. John actually reminded me of myself, a young Mitch Ryder, when success first leaped into my life. But with John there was no Bob Crewe pulling the strings. It was clear that John was in control. What we both held in common, I believe, was a rebellious attitude that we had both come by honestly, through our experiences at the hands of our industry molesters. In a more innocent moment, John shared his joy over receiving a writer’s royalty check for some hundreds of thousands of dollars. He didn’t show it to me to make me feel bad, or unimportant, or jealous. He showed it to me because he wanted to share his excitement and joy.
    As always, there is more than one side to a man’s character. We did some recording in Miami. One of the things John asked me to do was keep an eye on Marianne, since we were in the same hotel on the same floor. I agreed. When we first brought her luggage to her room, which was just one large duffle bag, she began searching the seams of the bag. While she did that I stared at her, and two things were going through my mind. So that’s the famous “almost Mrs. Mick Jagger,” and
Broken English
. An excellent recording.
    The first morning I came to get her to go to the studio she called me in, and as I looked down the long vanity mirror I noticed a pattern emerging. As she groomed herself, putting on some last minute make-up, she systematically went down a line arranged in front of her. First the line of cocaine, then the Courvasia, and then the quaalude. This arrangement repeated itself snaking halfway down the length the counter in front of her. When she had completed the ritual, only then could we leave for the studio.
    One night, after we had done “Thrill’s a Thrill” together, we were sitting on her balcony twelve floors up overlooking the Atlantic ocean, quietly enjoying the crashing sounds of the waves below and the warm Miami breeze that was only appreciated by people used to cold climates. She leaned over the edge of the railing and I was concerned, because she had a buzz on.
    As I watched, I saw her feet start to leave the cement floor of the balcony. Time suddenly took on a strange characteristic. I leaped toward her, placing my left arm in front of her body to counter act the direction of her leaning, which had actually turned into a fall, and brought my right arm down against the back of her legs, which flipped her safely back onto the balcony but landed her on her butt. She brought herself to a standing position and slapped me hard across my face telling me to never touch her again. I went to John the next day and said, “She’s all yours.”
    Back in Seymour, I visited John’s house and was introduced to his second wife, but I never hung out and that suited the both of us very well. John liked his privacy, because he gave so much of his time to the demands of the industry. When I was a young star, when John was at his peak, and even today, there is a truth. The industry is full of powerful, perverted ego maniacs who enjoy watching the egos of the artists leveled to their standards. Their jealousy and hatred of artists is very clear. That’s why you have someone like John Mellencamp proclaiming he is “an artist and would never make a commercial” and a few