1969: The Day I met my idol: Janis. EDITED

1969: The Day I met my idol: Janis.

Why start in the beginning like everyone else when the middle can be so much fun? Just like eating an Oreo cookie. Open it up and lick the good part first. So, I thought I would tell my story beginning with one of the most exciting days of my life – the day I met my idol: Janis Joplin.

It was a cold winter’s night in the middle of December, 1969. There I was, standing on the street called "St. Mark’s Place"; where I hung out. It was the East Village (lower east side of Manhattan). I did more than hang out on the streets, I lived there. Most people do not understand street life; they think living on the streets means you sleep on the street. That is not always the case and it wasn’t the way it was for me. I spent my waking hours "hanging out".

Sometimes I would be panhandling; other times I would just stand and stare at the people as they walked by. Sometimes I would watch them watch me, from within the safety of their brightly colored tour buses. The gawkers and their incessant flashbulbs. We called ourselves "freaks" but everyone else called us "hippies". Didn’t they know that all the real hippies were gone? Sure, there were those that looked like the flower children of yesterday, but they were posers. We called them the "bourgeois hippies". The suburban teenagers who came to the East Village on weekends to attend the concerts at the Fillmore.

They lived in the comfort of their mommy and daddy’s homes in the suburbs and never went hungry. Their bell bottoms came from fancy boutiques, not like ours which came from the bargain bins found in Navy surplus stores.

They had money and lots of it. Those "hippies" had no clue about the ideologies embraced by those of us that lived in the subculture. They still revered the values of their parents and we – the “freaks, formerly known as hippies”- had thrown that all away. Materialism was not only rejected, it was our enemy.

So, there I was – on the streets, no place to go. How did I get there – all alone, on that street corner, in the dead of winter? What was a 15-year-old doing on the streets with no place to call home? I’ll get to that a bit later but, meanwhile, let me finish telling the story of how I met Janis.

I was standing in front of the Hippodrome with a small group of freaks. Unexpectedly, everyone around me started to whisper, "Far Out! Look! Right there. Across the street. It’s Janis!" I turned and looked. Sure enough. It was Janis. My heart stopped.

I found myself drawn to her. I just had to get closer. I rushed across the wild New York City traffic and melted into the small crowd which surrounded her. I stood back and watched in awe. Her presence was unquestionably that of the goddess she was. She had earned the title "Queen of the Blues"; even when she was not on stage she had an unmistakable charisma.

I was on the sidelines and watched her glowing aura brighten the faces of those around her on that dark and dirty street. It was like seeing a parade of light.

I began to scream from sheer joy, yet I uttered no sound. It was all inside my head. She was giggling like a little school girl – excited to have the adoration of her fans. She devoured the attention. It was then that I heard her infamous "cackle" and my knees went weak.

Janis was wearing one of her trademark coats with lots of fur on the collar and cuffs. This one also had trim down the front, which resembled those worn by Russian royalty. How appropriate that she be regally robed! 

A small man possessively gripped her arm. He seemed to be invisible, at least compared to her. A young, aspiring actor, whose name escapes me as I write this. I remember thinking that he looked like a desperate little leprechaun clutching his pot of gold. It was his lucky day too, I guessed. His only claim to fame: to walk in the shadow of a superstar. What I saw in his eyes was not what I expected. There was no love, no admiration; in fact, he seemed disturbed that she bathed in the attention she was getting. He actually looked annoyed. He wanted a taste of what she had, but it was as clear to me then as it is to me now – he was nothing. His legacy was to forever to be known to me as "the guy with Janis".

So there I stood, in disbelief. Stars in my eyes. A grin plastered on my face. My mind screamed silently, "Janis is right here in front of me!" And then. It happened. She actually looked over at me. Yes! Right at me! My face flushed and the world stood still for a moment. I could hear my heart beat in my ears, so I knew I was alive – otherwise I would have believed I had died and gone to heaven.

To my further amazement, she looked directly at me. A smile came across her lips and her eyes glinted. She nodded her head down and with a slight gesture of her hand beckoned for me to get closer to her. My brain shut down at this point and in disbelief I walked over next to her. To be honest, I almost tripped on myself as I skipped like a little girl across the street to get over to her. "Hey, chicky," she said. "How the hell are you?" I am sure I must have responded…but not for a million dollars could I tell you what it was I said. "Want a drink?" she asked, as she reached in under her wooly robes and pulled out a bottle of her trademark drink: Southern Comfort. She opened the bottle and handed it to me saying, "Here, have some."

Now at that point it could have been holy water or even arsnic water, it didn’t matter. There was no way I was going to refuse to drink whatever it was she offered. My fingers electrified when I touched the bottle, as they slightly brushed against her hand. I put the bottle to my cold lips and felt the rim warm them. She must have been carrying that bottle for some time under her coat. I slowly savored the sweet nectar of the thick swill. My tongue was instantly awake from the burn of the alcohol. I quickly swallowed and the hot glow followed the path to my gut. The burning must have been reflected on my face, because she giggled at my reaction. It was a giggle that only Janis could perform. I never took my eyes from hers (except for the brief moment I swallowed the hot liquid).

She turned to the "shadow man" to offer him a sip of the drink. He, too, came alive once she acknowledged his meager existence. Clearly, she was the star that night. Little did I know, little did any of us realize, that our precious Pearl would soon be lost. Lost to the addictions that consumed her body and soul, as is so common for all the great ones. The brighter the light, the faster the candle will burn – so they say.

Within a moment, she was gone. She disappeared as quickly as she arrived. All that remained were footprints in the snow. The lingering taste of her "drink" left its impression for a short while.

To this day, I smile fondly each time I see a bottle of Southern Comfort. Thank you, Janis, wherever you are, for acknowledging this little girl. It was one small and insignificant gesture on her part: offering a drink of swill to a cute little street urchin – but the experience itself marked my soul forever.

　

to read more of my stories... get my book: Memoirs of Dakini, now available on  AMAZON

)... here I thought my tears had dried up. I am compiling my stories in chronological order as I ready them for a draft publication.. and I found myself sobbing. Again. Well, I guess I still have some pain. Imagine that? I hope to have this rough draft done today and will be looking for anyone who is willing to provide editing, feedback etc. 

Addiction

Dictionary reference .com defines addiction as “the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.”

Online medical dictionary

Addiction is a persistent, compulsive dependence on a behavior or substance. The term has been partially replaced by the word dependence for substance abuse. Addiction has been extended, however, to include mood-altering behaviors or activities. Some researchers speak of two types of addictions: substance addictions (for example, alcoholism, drug abuse, and smoking); and process addictions (for example, gambling, spending, shopping, eating, and sexual activity). There is a growing recognition that many addicts, such as polydrug abusers, are addicted to more than one substance or process.

I was exposed to addiction at a very young age. I did not know it at the time, in fact it took many years before I realized that my parents were both alcoholics. They were what I now know to be “high functioning addicts”. As a child I did not know what it was I was witnessing, I only knew how I was affected. I was neglected. My mother and father were not the doting parental types. I can’t remember either one of them coming to school to meet my teachers. They never attended open houses either.  I remember coming home from school while in the 1^st grade and finding an empty home. You might say I was one of the founding members of the latchkey kids clubs.

My parents were also addicted to each other. I am not sure if that was unhealthy, but I do know it was detrimental to the emotional well being of us (their children). How many families do you know where 5 out of 5 children managed to find a way to leave home at the age of 17 or younger?  My oldest brother went to live with his grandparents when he was 16, two of my sisters left at the age of 17 to get married and my favorite older brother joined the Air Force at 17. Me, well I started to stray from home before I hit puberty, but actually left home for good at the tender age of 15. You might say our family was a poster child for family dysfunction.

Now.. back to addictions. To fill the void left by the lack of love and nurturing by my parents I turned to unhealthy means. I was rebelling against my environment at a very young age. My parents reported that I would escape my crib before I was fully walking. I am sure that it was due to the extended periods of time that I was left alone. I cannot imagine what my diapers were like and I am sure that I was hungry for more than just food. I sought out attention by any means at my disposal. Whether it was acting cute or acting out by destruction of property. I was bound and determined to get what I needed so desperately. I needed to feel loved.

That led me into situations which were less than desirable. Molestation and multiple rapes to name a few. Those of course, only made matters worse and I found myself turning to food for comfort. I became a pudgy child and a fat teen. This made matters worse, because no one likes the fat girl. In my middle school years I discovered if I allowed boys to have their way with me, that they would overlook my fat. I found comfort in the touching and embracing. I never liked the sex part of it, but was willing to put up with it for the companionship and the physical intimacy, even if it was short lived. I became addicted to the sex, but not for the sex. I hope this is making sense to you, the reader. I am certain that not many will understand, unless they, too have walked this path.

When food and sex were not enough, I began to experiment with drugs. My drugs of choice were alcohol, marijuana, opium, diet pills (prescribed to take care of the previously discussed fat girl syndrome), speed, LSD and other street amphetamines. This was all happening before I was even 14 years old. At 13 I consumed an entire bottle of Crème de Menthe and walked 2 miles to the house of a boy I had a crush on. I wanted his attention so badly. He was one of the few that treated me nice. He was the one that gave me my first real kiss. But it seemed that my obsessive behavior just scared him off. I had passed out on his neighbor’s lawn, the police were called and I never did get to explore that relationship any further.

A year later, at 14, I remember hiding under the table at my sister’s wedding and taking all the left over glasses from on top of the table and drinking them dry. I did not care what was in them, all I wanted to achieve the numbness that came with the intoxication. With drugs it was more a part of fitting in with the crowd. They call that “peer pressure”. But to me it was more than that. It was a path to acceptance that I had not ever even been close to experiencing before. So at an age where others were learning high school cheers or learning to kiss, I was learning how to hold my liquor and how to get high without getting caught.

Unfortunately, the only way I ever learned to communicate or relate with the opposite sex was through sex. So I became promiscuous. I did not like sex, as I mentioned previously, but thought it was the only way to be accepted. To say I had low self esteem was a gross understatement. My physical body was alive, which was only true because my heart was pumping blood and my lungs filled with air for each breath. If those functions could be willed to cease, I would have come to an end a long, long time ago. By the time I left home at 15 I had had more sex partners than most women have in their lifetime. As I write this I find myself cringing with shame. I look back and am astonished that I survived without contracting some horrible incurable disease or worse. I am ashamed to say that I did have to face the fact that having multiple sex partners is going to guarantee one form of sexually transmitted disease or another. My scars ran deep and could not be seen by the naked eye, but many years later they created a barrier to having children. Modern medicine was able to undo the tremendous damage that was caused to my reproductive organs which was caused by one of the most common diseases on the streets.  

Leaving home at 15, was not at all easy, not even for a cute girl who lost her baby fat. Not only did I need to find a way to survive, I needed to find ways to feed my addictions. Not the best scenario. I do not believe in God, at least not in the traditional sense. But I must confess, there were some guardian angels watching over me for those next 4 years. I survived the horror of the streets by self-medicating. I took any (and all) drugs that came my way, regardless of what I had to do to get them. Ironically, my drug of choice during that phase of my life was LSD. I do not know why I am not psychotic. In the short course of my street life I know I had ingested over 400 hits (doses). At one point I had taken over 50 hits which resulted in me falling into a coma-like state for three days. Drugs were my escape. I did not have a physical addition to the LSD, but I can guarantee that I was totally addicted to the sensation of losing of myself that I achieved while tripping. It was a method of disassociation that was readily available to me.

For a brief period of time I found escape in the form of opium. I was “shacking up” with a drug dealer in the Boston area. The drugs he sold were opium and hashish. There was something magical about the way the opium made me feel. It was like curling up in the arms of a lover and drifting off to sleep. I was safe in the warm embrace of the opium. All pain left my body and mind and I never felt lonely. I did not have to think or feel while under the influence. I had heard about “pipe dreams” which were associated with opium use, but never experienced them. I had no motivation to dream. In fact, I had no motivation to do anything. I stopped eating, Stopped going out of the apartment and eventually stopped thinking. My entire existence focused on getting the next pipe.

I am not sure what it was that woke me up. But I distinctly remember that feeling of waking up, as if from a dream. I looked around and saw that I was only existing. I was in a world filled with fog. Something inside told me that I had to get out, before it was too late. It must have been one of those guardian angels I have heard so much about. They must have been screaming inside of my head “Get out while you still can!”. I remember stumbling down a flight of stairs, into the streets of Boston, and never looking back. I am not sure how long it took for me to fully recover from the time I spent in that opium dream. I could not tell you what year that occurred, or who I was with. Such is the life of an addict.

Unfortunately, that was not my last dance with addition.