10/4/70...BYE BYE, BABY, BYE BYE

It has been 42 years since Janis died. At the young age of 27, she died alone one Sunday night at the Landmark Motel from a shot of too pure heroin. Several other junkies died in LA that same weekend, it was just the luck of the draw-and the story of her life.
I remember the first time I saw her, one Saturday night watching the old “Hollywood Palace” tv show. She was with Big Brother then and their first Columbia album had just been released. She came onstage and she wasn’t pretty and she wasn’t what a rock singer was supposed to look like, in a granny dress with a mane of uncombed hair. Then, she opened her mouth and my life literally changed. She sang “Piece of My Heart” and then came back later and sang “Summertime”. I was blown away, as we said at the time. During her first song I literally jumped out of my chair to get closer to the screen. Little Richard said that the sounds Janis made singing were proof of the holy spirits she carried up out of the south when she came to San Francisco from Port Arthur. I’d never heard anything that sounded remotely like her and neither had anyone else. There’s a story about her being the featured act that year at the Columbia Records convention and how these jaded music execs dropped their drinks and rushed the stage after she started singing.
She’s never had anything going for her except her talent. When she was going to the university at Austin, she was voted “ugliest man on campus”. The first time she showed up at Max’s Kansas City, after she had a hit album, they threw her out and told her to go take a bath, not recognizing who she was. Life treated her pretty rough but all the hurt and rage came out when she sang. She said the only time she felt alive was when she was onstage. Her family still couldn’t accept this alien creature, this changeling who’d been dropped in their midst, even though she was a star.
And even though her singing could break your heart there was still a joy of life in it. Like fado or opera or the songs of her hero Bessie Smith, there was a transcendent joy that killed you and then healed you in her voice. She gave a voice to all of the fucked up misfit losers.
I remember another time, after she’s gone on her own solo, she was on “The Ed Sullivan Show” one Sunday night. The next morning, I was waiting for the schoolbus and dreading another day of high school. There were two girls waiting, also, and one asked the other, “Did you see Janis Joplin last night?’. The other girl replied, “Yes, and she was nasty! You could see her titties through her blouse. I’m never going to watch her again!”. They both looked at me and I said, “I think that was the idea, she wanted you to see her tits.”. They were speechless…it never occurred to them that Janis could be sexy, too.
But she was sexy. She was the first hippie pinup, posing for a nude poster before she was well known. She had the same philosophy about sex that a lot of gay men had-if it stands till, fuck it. And she didn’t apologize, she said that maybe love was only supposed to last one night. She didn’t apologize but she suffered, seeing herself as unlovable. After one concert she told a band member, “I just made love to 10,000 people on stage and now I’m going home alone.” Fame treated her pretty rough, too.
And so she died, by a stupid accident and her dealer’s negligence. I fantasize about what she might have become. Her voice would have given out from the heroin and abuse, I’m sure. But I bet she would have kept on singing. She talked about wanting to be a country star and appear at the Grand Ole Opry after the hippie thing died. I bet she would have made it. And, damn, I wish that she had.
She was the hippie Marilyn Monroe, someone who just won’t go away from the public consciousness. When she was told of Janis’s death, her friend Grace Slick said, “She’s dead. What more is there to say?”
Have a happy eternity, Janis.