Carnival of Light || Paul McCartney/Beatles

18. L.A. Woman

Carnival of Light (Part 2)

18.

November 1967

West Hollywood

Quaaludes are a funny little drug. I always thought of them as downers, the opposite to the uppers we loved so much in swinging London. But then Michelle Phillips taught me how to take them properly — half a pill with a shot of bourbon — and I learned quaaludes don't bring you down, but inspire a very sensual kind of languor.

Michelle was more or less split up from John with one foot out of the Mamas & the Papas by this point, and like me she'd had enough of musicians for one lifetime. We went to a party in Beverly Hills that was all actors and Hollywood people and we were both full of sensual quaalude-induced languor when we ran into Eve Babitz and her friend Charlotte, who was a hairdresser by day and an LA woman by night. Eve and Charlotte both loved musicians.

The party got stale so Charlotte languidly drove us down to the Strip where we caught the end of the Turtles' set at the London Fog. I don't remember much except for how mad the whole club was going when they played Happy Together. I also remember bumping into the Beatles' old publicist Derek Taylor backstage while Eve and Charlotte were making friends with a couple of the Turtles in their dressing room.

"So this is your scene now?" Derek asked me.

"What scene is that?" I asked, thoroughly languorous.

"Fuck you, Derek," Michelle slurred, and pulled me away.

From there, she and I languidly moved on to a late night artists' bar in Beverly Glen where we wouldn't be bothered by musicians or their publicists. We bumped into the writer Joan Didion and her husband John Dunne, who were drinking beers with their pot dealer, a rather dashing chap called Harrison Ford. He was so tall with tawny hair and a crooked smirk and the most rugged all American good looks you could hope for.

Harrison sold me some grass and informed me he was an actor, which was my type these days, especially the mostly out of work sort of actor who'd only done two episodes of a cowboy programme on CBS. Michelle offered him one of her quaaludes and the night got even more beautifully languorous as three of us went back to mine and fell into bed together.

I woke up the next afternoon wedged between Harrison and Michelle with a headache that felt very specifically like my brains were about to leak out of my ears. The telephone was ringing, painfully loud, and my limbs felt rubbery as I untangled myself from the beautiful naked people sleeping in my bed, managing to get one arm in my hideous kimono dressing gown by the time I answered the phone.

"Front desk, ma'am," the concierge greeted me. "This is your wake up call."

"Wake up call?" I said blearily. "Did I ask for one?"

"Mrs Janet Moss called on your behalf to request it, ma'am," he replied and I sighed miserably.

Bloody Janet. I'd been avoiding her calls for nearly two months but she'd made it impossible by coming to town to see me in person. I could avoid her calls but I couldn't avoid the message her assistant left letting me know I would be without a literary agent if I didn't meet her for lunch.

I hung up with the concierge and glanced at the bodies in my bed, briefly worrying that this accidental menage-a-trois would make my friendship with Michelle awkward before I turned to my overflowing closet. I don't suppose hotel closets are designed to accommodate people staying for six months, but I had nowhere else to go. I pulled on the first garments I touched that would suit the mild November weather — scarlet velvet trousers, a ruffled blouse in lemon yellow, and a boxy Ottoman-style jacket made of white brocade with gold embroidery — and then I got the hell out of there before either of my lovers could wake up.