FRESH YARN presents: Not Really a Star F#*ker... by Kate Flannery

FRESH YARN presents:

Not Really a Star F#*ker
By Kate Flannery

It's not really star fucking if you know that the star is washed up and not going to do anything for your career. Right?

In 1993, I was playing the part of Alice in the show The Real Live Brady Bunch. Audiences would line up around the block to see us dress up and reenact actual scripts of the '70s TV show on stage.

I was 28, and profoundly heartbroken over a guy named Doug. So when they asked me to join the national Brady Bunch tour, going to over 30 cities in a year, I said yes.

What happened that year wasn't star fucking.

That year I had sex with a Pop Star. He was a member of the fab four named after simians, let's just call them "The Chimps." I had sex with a Chimp. One of the Chimps and I had sex. It wasn't the drummer. It wasn't the goofy one and it wasn't the one with the red knit-hat, but I don't want to say which one it was.

When the British Chimp decided to join our tour to reenact his Brady Bunch performance from 25 years before, the cult status of our show hit a new level of "what the hell?!" We were performing reruns with the real guy in the rerun.

It was like an acid trip and some days like a cruise ship. The tour went like this: We'd check into a hotel, do the show in a 1,500 seat auditorium for two nights, drive all that night, sleeping on a rock 'n roll bus once owned by the Allman Brothers, with a golden sunset and palm trees airbrushed on it, then arrive in a new city the next morning just in time to do the local morning TV or radio shows.

We had great chemistry, me and the former Chimp. I'd end each of our interviews pointing at him, looking in the camera and saying, "It doesn't get any better than this!"

On the tour bus there were 10 cast members, a director, a driver and a Chimp. (The bus wasn't the only thing that had seen better days.)

The first time he kissed me was on the Detroit morning news. I was dressed in my Carol Brady wig and flowered polyester pantsuit.

It's not star fucking if the star comes after you.

The cast members noticed he liked me when they saw him carrying my tray from the salad bar to the table at Shoney's, or the truck stop. I'd protest, "He doesn't like me, it's just the English-Irish thing." (My dad owned an Irish bar. He drank in English bars.) But I made him laugh. And he made me giddy.

After a week of sexual tension, and late night drinks, the Pop Star made his move on me at the Quality Inn in Bloomington, IN. The next morning I woke up to the sound of his guitar strumming at the foot of the bed. He looked at me and said, "I feel inspired." Then he sang, "I'll love you this year, I'll love you next year, I'll love you forever." Well, I could hardly breathe. I couldn't believe that one of "The Chimps" was singing to me. I was blown away. He was so charming and so sweet and I felt so special. How many girls had dreamed of this moment? I had watched reruns of his TV show in the 2nd grade. My inner seven-year-old was thrilled!

During every show I'd help him on with his jacket in the dark, backstage, before his big scene. I watched him strut onstage and sing, "Girl, Look What You've Done to Me" every night. He'd always catch my eye and wink at me in the middle of the finale. He could eat dinner with any woman in the world, but he chose to eat with me, sometimes. Often I'd offer to pay, just to keep it in check. (I had women studies classes in college in the late '80s.) He bought me a choker that matched the Indian outfit he bought himself (to crack up his drinking buddies at the pub in England.)

In Flint, MI in the throws of passion the Chimp sang in my ear, "Here we cum…" That was pretty cool. I got to hang out with him in his dressing room while he autographed 8 X 10s of himself wearing a lavender leather vest, and a David Lee Roth mullet. He couldn't remember the name of this fan who had seen him perform 22 times that year, so he just wrote "To M'lady, I love ya!" And I got to hear all his private personal stories before he'd repeat them to everyone else on the bus the next day.

His star power may have dwindled in Hollywood, but you'd never know it touring the country. The Ohio tollbooth guy went nuts when he saw him. Outside a St. Louis liquor store, a homeless man lit up like a Christmas tree. People would ask me to take their picture with him -- even in the frozen food aisle of a supermarket in Kalamazoo. We'd hear "The Chimps" songs in every town, restaurant and store. I was with the Daydream Believer guy.

At every venue these two middle-aged ladies would sell his t-shirts. They looked like PTA moms. One of them had a 12-year-old son who bore a striking resemblance to my Pop Star. I was sure she would do anything for him. Anything.

Then there was his fan club who came out of the woodwork. These 40-something-year-old female fans would drive three, four and five hours to catch his act. They showed up with roses, cameras and motel keys. I would make myself look busy, like I wasn't waiting around for him. But I was.

They were the star fuckers, not me.

The Pop Star was 20 years older than I, separated from his second wife and had four daughters. I knew he never belonged to me. He belonged to the world. No promises, no demands.

Two weeks and six cities later, on a night before a two-week break in the tour, he was drunk and he picked a fight with me over nothing in a bar.

He said, in that British accent, "Do you know who you're fucking talking to? Do you know who you're fucking talking to?" (As his anger swelled I imagined him doing his signature "Daydream Believer" dance the whole time...) "Do you know who you're fucking talking to? Do you know? You're not fucking talking to Dudley Moore, you're not fucking talking to Peter Noonan of Herman's Hermits! DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU'RE FUCKING TALKING TO??"

Good question. I did not know who I was fucking talking to, or who I was fucking, for that matter. I waited 'til I got home to my room at the Holiday Inn to cry.

Star fuckers put up with this shit?

The other ten people on the bus, who we spent every waking moment with, were a little more aware of what was going on than I thought. I came back to the show after our two-week break, and received some advice from the guy who played Greg Brady in our show. "Don't wait around for the Pop Star anymore."

So I didn't.

Well, guess who kinda, started waiting around for me? Guess who winked at me during the finale, again? And took me to dinner? And gave me a charm that said, "LUV YA"?

And GUESS WHO woke up the next morning in Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania at the Best Western to the sound of the guitar strumming at the foot of the bed, again?

He looked at me and said, "I feel inspired" Then he sang, "I love you this year, I'll love you next year, I'll love you forever." Had he forgotten that he felt inspired by me four weeks before?

The last time I saw my Pop Star was a year later. He was shaking his tambourine at a balloon and cheese festival in Temecula, California.

We were not alone that day. Besides my new boyfriend, the former Chimp had about 25 women there waiting for him. He was busy autographing those familiar 8 X 10's next to the petting zoo. I found myself waiting in that line to say hi to him.

The 40-something-year-old fan club was out in full force. The t-shirt ladies were working at their usual proximity to the Pop star. And near the cheese display was the fan also known as M'lady. All the usual suspects.

When I got to the front of the line, it actually took him a minute to place me. He gave me a hug, but he seemed so guarded and awkward.

How could I have put myself in this position?

We weren't on the road anymore. We weren't on a rock 'n roll bus anymore. We weren't doing sell-out shows; no radio and TV interviews. We were not the toast of every small town, or spending every waking moment ten feet away from each other anymore. We were not anything anymore.

I don't think he even remembered my name anymore.

I thought, "Do you know who you're fucking talking to?"

He had moved on. And I had definitely moved on.

I was no longer a star fucker.

I grabbed my boyfriend, Minnie Pearl's Godson, and went home.