Seka returns to Chicago for book signing

Seka and her Bon Jovi friends (Courtesy of BearManor Media)

Once upon a time Chicago was a fun place.

Harry Caray broadcast baseball games with a cooler of beer underneath his desk. Playboy magazine was headquartered in Chicago. People danced until the wee hours at the Limelight, China Club and Medusa’s.

All we have today is Jay Cutler and lots of bicycle lanes.

Like a sequin on a bustier, Seka adorned the Chicago pop culture scene of the 1980s and 90s.

Seka is a pioneer of the adult film industry. She was to X what Z was to Zorro.

Seka (Dorotheia “Dot” Patton) lived in Chicago from 1980 until 2005. She moved to suburban Kansas City, Mo. on her 51st birthday where she lives with her husband Carl Patton.

She returns this week as part of a book tour for her memoir “Inside Seka: The Platinum Princess of Porn (BearManor Media, $24.95) with Kerry Zukus.” Seka meets her fans and signs books at 7 p.m. Oct. 9 at her old haunt Topo Gigio, 1516 N. Wells, followed by a 10 p.m. after-signing at the always frisky The Joynt, 650 N. Dearborn–next door to the old Limelight. Seka also headlines “Nasty Night” at 10 p.m. Oct 12 at the Laugh Factory, 3175 N. Broadway.

Seka is on an interesting circuit that included a launch at The Museum of Sex in New York City and the Cinema Wasteland Move and Memorablia Expo in Cleveland, Ohio.

Chicago was essential to Seka’s success.

Seka was Miss Hopewell (Va.) High, where she starred in prep basketball, softball and field hockey. She moved to Chicago in 1980 because it was the center of the country’s mail order business, then a key gear in driving the adult film industry.

She attended Northwestern University’s drama department.

Over a 1993 dinner over garlic chicken Seka told me she took her stage name from Seka, a blackjack dealer she knew in Las Vegas.

The 336-page book celebrates her 35th anniversary of launching her career. How has the industry changed?

“Movies don’t have a beginning, middle or end anymore,” Seka said from her limo as it cruised through the outskirts of Cleveland. “At least we had a reason for having sex. Now you watch a movie, it opens up and everybody is naked and having sex. There’s no foreplay, so to speak. The internet also has affected the business tremendously because anybody with a camera or video camera can be a producer, director or star. There’s also so much free stuff out there it has cut into the dollars of the business.”

In her book Seka writes she “raised the stakes.”

She elaborated, “Women weren’t viewed all that well when I started. I thought I could do it better and I did. The girls started looking better. They started using regular make up artists and stylists for movies and photo shoots. I also had the copyrights, registers and trademarks to my name. So I owned all of my stuff from 1980 on. It helped a lot of women and men in the business to follow suit. Make sure you have something to fall back on.”

Especially when you have made a career of falling on something.

Seka living the suburban dream in Kansas City.

In the late 1990s Seka hosted the Saturday night “Let’s Talk About Sex” show on WLUP-FM. She returns to Chicago now and then to see her posse. She was at the United Center earlier this year to catch the Rolling Stones, her favorite band. Seka reunited with her long time promoter “Crazy Steve” Szegho.

“I’ve been a Stones fan since the 1960s,” she said. “My favorite songs? Wow. ‘Brown Sugar’ and ‘Sympathy for the Devil.”

Seka says the Aerosmith tour bus was stocked with her videos. (BearManor Media)

“Inside Seka” is a fun read because Seka names names.

When she was living in downtown Chicago actor Gary Busey asked her out to a Blackhawks game. Seka writes, “He was not a pleasant person at all.” She picked up Matt Dillon after a night at the Limelight. They went back to Seka’s place where Dillon fell asleep.

In the late 1980s the entire Bon Jovi band got their hair styled at Seka’s apartment to avoid the paparazzi. She smuggled quaaludes and cocaine under her ample breasts on a jaunt with late comic Sam Kinison to a remote island off of Florida.

In 1985 she dated then-Cubs pitching coach Billy Connors. Seka had season tickets in the same lower grandstand seats as newspaper columnist Mike Royko and this writer.

It was a lot of fun.

I didn’t even have to worry about red camera lights while driving to see a good team.

“I don’t care where I live, I will always be a die hard Cubs fan, she said. “And Chicago will always be my home.”