Lick Me - Cherry Vanilla

The full title of this book by well-known groupie Cherry Vanilla is Lick Me - How I Became Cherry Vanilla (by way of the Copacabana, Madison Avenue, the Fillmore East, Any Warhol, David Bowie and the Police). This kinda explains the whole tome right there!

Cherry's tale starts as a child in the New York area, going to the city with her parents, standing on the side of the stage at the Copacabana and even meeting Dean Martin - beginning her fascination with the famous.

As a teen, she worked at Madison Avenue ad agencies and became friends with the many gays there who turned her on to drugs, including acid, which she claims was mostly in the hands of the Mad Men at the time - that explains some of the commercials that came out then!

She came enthralled with r'n'r as the 60's went on, started hanging out and fucking musicians at the Fillmore and other venues in the NYC area and across the country (she diagnosed herself as a nymphomaniac sex addict, though what better time to be one?) and was eventually introduced to Warhol and his crowd and played the lead role in Pork during its British run. Due to Bowie's interest in Warhol, she became involved with him (sometimes as a lover) and helped run the Mainman operations for a while. That further increased her desire to become a r'n'r star herself, which led to her being backed by the pre-"Roxanne" Police in England.

She leaves off her story just as she is about to be signed by RCA - and, of course, she never really did much as a rock star - and wisely, does not go on very much about her post-r'n'r life, although even that sounds like it is more interesting than most people's!

A very entertaining book (with enough pathos, as well) of an extremely exciting time by a woman who was both overtly self-confident and self-conscious and who, I'm sure, many can relate to in some form or another.