Remembering David Bowie

 

 

 

“I saw David many times [..] and it was always great.”

Today would be rock star David Bowie’s 77th birthday, and Philadelphia will be holding a week-long celebration. What follows is one fan’s remembrance of him.

 

“Journalist Michael Kaplan interviewed former teenage groupie Lori Mattix, also known as Lori Maddox or Lori Lightning, for Thrillist about her relationship with David Bowie and other rock stars. She told him:

 

“'What I remember most about the E Club was Bowie. I met him when he was doing the Spiders from Mars tour. I had not yet turned 15 and he wanted to take me to his hotel room. I was still a virgin and terrified. He had hair the color of carrots, no eyebrows, and the whitest skin imaginable. I grabbed on to [DJ and club co-owner] Rodney Bingenheimer and said I was with him. So we all just hung out and talked. I had probably kissed boys by that point, but I wasn’t ready for David Bowie. Next time Bowie was in town, though, maybe five months later, I got a call at home from his bodyguard, a huge black guy named Stuey. He told me that David wanted to take me to dinner.

 

“'Obviously, I had no homework that night. Fuck homework. I wasn't spending a lot of time at school anyway. I said that I would like to go but that I wanted to bring my friend Sable. She was dying to fuck Bowie. I figured that she would sleep with him while I got to hang out and have fun. At the time, Sable and her sister Coral were both dating Iggy Pop, spending time at the home of Tony DeFries [then-manager of David Bowie and Iggy] up in Laurel Canyon. People there were so high all the time − Quaaludes, heroin, whatever. In the limo ride to the Rainbow, Sable said, If you touch David, I will kill you. I didn't think she was kidding.

 

"'We sat at this corner table in a private room. Stuey rolled enormous blunts. John Lennon and Yoko Ono stopped by to say hello. We were drinking cocktails and looking at menus when some crazy guy dove over the table and said to David, You flaming fucking faggot. Kill Bowie! Next thing you know, Stuey's got the guy pinned down and we're being escorted out a side door and back into the limo. Danny's Song was playing on the radio and Sable started singing to David: We ain't got honey, but I'm so in love with your money... He laughed so hard. He thought it was hilarious. We got to the Beverly Hilton and all went up to Bowie's enormous suite. I found myself more and more fascinated by him. He was beautiful and clever and poised. I was incredibly turned on. Bowie excused himself and left us in this big living room with white shag carpeting and floor-to-ceiling windows. Stuey brought out Champagne and hash.

 

"'We were getting stoned when, all of a sudden, the bedroom door opens and there is Bowie in this fucking beautiful red and orange and yellow kimono. He focused his famously two-colored eyes on me and said, Lori, darling, can you come with me? Sable looked like she wanted to murder me. He walked me through his bedroom and into the bathroom, where he dropped his kimono. He got into the tub, already filled with water, and asked me to wash him. Of course I did. Then he escorted me into the bedroom, gently took off my clothes, and de-virginized me.

 

"'Two hours later, I went to check on Sable. She was all fucked up in the living room, walking around, fogging up windows and writing, I want to fuck David. I told him what she was doing and that I felt so bad. Bowie said, Well, darling, bring her in. That night I lost my virginity and had my first threesome. The next morning, there was banging on the door and it was fucking [Bowie's wife] Angie. I was terrified of her. David said not to worry about it. They were already at the point where they had separate rooms. She probably knew he'd be in there with girls... or boys. He was totally bisexual. I saw David many times after that, for the next 10 years, and it was always great.’

 

“Kaplan: 'Still, you were a 15-year-old kid and he was an adult man with a lot of experience, and power, and drugs. You don’t see any problem with that now?'

 

“'I was an innocent girl, but the way it happened was so beautiful. I remember him looking like God and having me over a table. Who wouldn't want to lose their virginity to David Bowie?'

 

“Kaplan: 'But did it ever feel like there was something unusual about it?’

 

“’No. You need to understand that my life has never been normal. I have always been special. I always felt like the universe was taking care of me. [...]'

 

“Kaplan: 'Still, a lot of people would have a hard time with an underage girl having sex with rock stars.'

 

“'But you need to understand that I didn't think of myself as underage. I was a model. I was in love. That time of my life was so much fun. It was a period in which everything seemed possible. There was no AIDS and the potential consequences seemed to be light. Nobody was afraid of winding up on YouTube or TMZ. Now people are terrified. You can't even walk out your door without being photographed. It has become a different world. [...]

“'For me, now, I'm in the fashion business and look back very fondly on those years. I was really special. I knew it the night after I lost my virginity to David Bowie, when I went to see his concert at Long Beach Arena. It was still the Spiders from Mars tour, and, literally, the night that he became a star. But he had the spotlight shined on Lee Childers [Bowie's publicist], Sable, and I, sitting in the audience. That's when he thanked me for being there. Who cares what people said about me? I feel like I was very present. I saw the greatest music ever. I got to hang out with some of the most amazing, most beautiful, most charismatic men in the world. I went to concerts in limos with police escorts. Am I going to regret this? No.'”

 

Source: Source: Michael Kaplan: “I Lost My Virginity to David Bowie: Confessions of a '70s Groupie.” Thrillist, 11 March 2015

 

Excerpted in Positive Memories by T. Rivas, available for free download from uryourstory.