Sable Starr - by Vernika Lewis Shlman
I would like to tell everyone about Sable Starr.
She was born in California & lost her virginity to Randy California, guitarist of the band Spirit, when she was only twelve. When she was thirteen, she slept with Iggy Pop as cited in his song “Look Away.”
I slept with Sable when she was 13
Her parents were too rich to do anything
She then had her moments with Mick Jagger, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, & even the boy from T Rex until she eventually moved to New York with Johnny Thunders of the New York Dolls. Johnny got her pregnant, but she didn’t want his child. She left his violent, drug-soaked heart in the dust & went back to the golden coast.
But who was she, really?
What were her dreams?
Is it possible they took the form of thoughts or diary entries?
How about poems, or songs?
The most inspiring girls are often on the verge of not being okay, & yet we would not be okay without them. It is the ones who burn bright who also get the hottest. My friend Captain names them “plate-throwers.” To me, they are like stars.
One day, Sable Starr grew older & eventually, she made a small & stable life for herself. She worked a card table at the Carson Valley Inn, a quiet casino in Minden, Nevada. I looked it up; I could stay there for $89 today. She died when she was 51.
What was it that she longed for, & did she find it?
I wonder if she was ever lonely.
I’ve read about other groupies who died penniless in the Chelsea hotel, never credited for their muse-ships & excommunicated for coming of age, a crime as ever-inevitable as any other. Yet, they are positively essential to rock culture & therefore our culture at large. We must tell their stories. We must try to understand who they were, who they are.
I saw a neon sign the other day at an Italian restaurant that read, “Salt your pasta water.” These women are society’s gorgeous, secret ingredient. The salt of music-earth. Let us go to the ocean in ripped silk shirts together & pay our respects. x
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