O G Rock 'n' Roll Diva

Happy Birthday, Grace Slick

I knocked at the front door of a Spanish style villa. The sun was reflecting on the picture windows that spanned the front of the house and behind me was a koi pond without any koi. I had no idea who and what I was about to see. The last I’d heard of this infamous performer was when she pointed a gun at a cop.  

A woman, about 5’7” with white hair, opened the door. In front of me stood Grace Slick, rock “n” roll diva, lead singer for Jefferson Airplane. She looked me up and down. With a look of disgust on her face, she said, “You have blonde hair, long legs and big tits. I hate women like you. C’mon in.”

I burst into laughter, so did she, and that was it. We were bonded.

I was a candidate to write Grace’s memoir and in a way, this encounter was par for the course. I just didn't expect it to happen so fast. I ghostwrote a lot of celebrity memoirs and at some point along the way, they always did what I call “the spaghetti test” for ghostwriters,” throwing me against the proverbial wall to see if I was strong enough to bounce back. No wusses for them. I had maneuvered unwanted pregnancies, drug binges, divorces, a cavalcade of excuses why we couldn't finish the book. But I always did. Now, Grace was trying to intimidate me. I’m pretty sensitive and shakable in my daily life but when I work with someone like Grace, I’m stainless steel. I can withstand pretty much anything they toss at me. Hence, my reputation for working with divas.

I sat down on the couch and Grace hit me again. “I don't remember anything,” she said. Just what a biographer doesn't want to hear but I paid no attention and when I left, we had a starting date.

The following months were filled with research, interviewing and her adventures, her victories and her losses. My questions sparked her memory and she told me her stories with enthusiasm and a wry sense of humor. I saw her sober. I saw her drunk. I heard about her arrests and her failed attempts at rehab. I saw her break down with sadness and she never said, “I’m sorry.” I heard her tell the Department of Water and Power that if anyone came onto her property, she would shoot them. When her doctor told her she had to get a small trampoline because she need to move her body, she bought it and put it next to her bed. “I’m getting a lot more exercise now,” she told me. “I have to walk around it to get to the bathroom.”

When the book was done, I’d learned a great deal about fame and fortune but the most important lesson I got from Ms. Slick was watching her be herself. Unequivocally and unapologetically. She let me write anything she said to me. No redactions. No shame. No second thoughts. She said what she said, she meant what she said and she said what she meant. She never made excuses or cared what anyone thought of her. She said the following in the book we did together, “Somebody to Love?” (By the way, she insisted on the question mark.) “You'd think with all this carrying on, that I would have become an actress, but the idea of having to say someone else’s lines has always bothered me, right up through the writing of this book. Don't put your words in my mouth.

I was present a week or so ago when Jefferson Airplane got a star on Hollywood Blvd. John Densmore, the Doors drummer, one of my writing clients, announced the living members of Airplane, and they all got up to speak. Grace wasn’t walking so well, but her mouth hadn't changed a bit. When she stood at the podium beside John, I swelled with pride and marveled at my good fortune to have worked with these two living legends whose sounds and ideas would outlive them.

Yesterday, Grace had her 83rd birthday. I smile when I remember her talking about Woodstock, her friend, Janis Joplin, and being so drunk on stage in Berlin, she thought it would be a good idea to put her two index fingers up a guy’s nose who was sitting in the front row. I send Grace a lot of love. She showed me how to be me, and I will be forever grateful to her.