ROLLING WITH THE STONES

Below is another excerpt from 60s starlet Gail Gerber's memoir Trippin' with Terry Southern: What I Think I Remember to be released in June:

After we had met Brian Jones at Robert Fraser’s place the first time we were in London, Terry stayed friendly with him. I on the other hand had nothing in common with Brian though I respected his talent. We rarely spoke and only exchanged pleasantries. That fall when The Rolling Stones were in New York we met them at the Hilton Hotel on Sixth Avenue one warm November night. They had two entire floors, which were sealed off from the rest of the hotel. Due to throngs of teenage fans camped outside the hotel, security was tight and one had to go up the service elevator to get to their suites populated by burly bodyguards outside patrolling the hall ways. We soon found our way to Brain’s room and a convoy was organized to go to Terry’s favorite restaurant, Elaine’s on the Upper East Side.

Taking the elevator to the basement parking garage, Terry, Brian, and I got into the back seat of a black sedan with a driver. We shot out of the garage like a bullet into a mass of screaming girls in front of the hotel. It seems the trick was to accelerate and speed out of the building into the traffic of Sixth Avenue with a deft left turn. The driver hit the gas to get through the mini-skirted mob but one chubby girl managed to stick to the trunk to my horror. Oblivious to the danger, she kept hollering, “Brian, I love you!” The driver panicked and hit the gas as he maneuvered into the flow of traffic. Everything was moving by us quickly in the dark. I was terrified. Still exclaiming her undying love for Brian, the screaming girl was holding on and looking through the back windshield at her idol, unaware that she was about to slide off and possibly fall under the wheels of a speeding taxi or worse a bus. Brian had experienced this before and told the driver to slow down. He did and the girl slipped safely off the trunk of the car and onto the sidewalk.