Beneath Your Bed Podcast
Beneath Your Bed Podcast
Living Fast, Dying Young or The 27 Club
Does genius come with an early expiration date? Whether it be a curse or the consequences of fast living, some of the world’s greatest talents have flamed out at a young age. Tonight we consider the so-called “27 club” and a few of its best known members.
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Braid, Mary. “A Rock Legend Unto Herself.” Independent. October 23, 2011
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/rock-legend-unto-herself-1345098.html
Chiu, David. “Mia Zapata: Punk Musician Murdered in 1993, Changing Seattle Grunge Scene.” Rolling Stone. July 9, 2018
Forensic Files. “The Day the Music Died.” Season 12, Episode 7. Aired November 14, 2007
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1142328/fullcredits
Harrington, Richard and Lei, Richard. “Nirvana Singer Found Dead.” April 9, 1994.
Independent. “The death of Jimi Hendrix: the unanswered questions.” September 17, 2020
Jim Morrison - Final 24: His Final Hours. 2020
https://www.amazon.com/Morrison-Jim-Final-His-Hours/dp/B003VC6F44
Johnson, Tracy. “11 years later, justice for slain singer Zapata: DNA sample helps convict Miami man of murder.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer Reporter. March 25, 2004
https://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/11-years-later-justice-for-slain-singer-Zapata-1140617.php
Lamoureux, Aimee. “The Mystery of Jim Morrison's Death and the Theories Around It.” All That’s Interesting. April 9, 2018.
Military.com. “Famous Veterans: Jimi Hendrix.”
Pian Chan, Sharon. “Singer’s killer sentenced to 36 years in prison again.” The Seattle Times. January 30, 2009
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/singers-killer-sentenced-to-36-years-in-prison-again/
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. “Jimi Hendrix Experience”
https://www.rockhall.com/inductees/jimi-hendrix-experience
"The Last Hours of Janis Joplin" Season 2, 2016.
Tizon, Alex. “Who Murdered Mia Zapata? -- No Arrests, Few Clues 5 Years After Slaying.” The Seattle Times. August 23, 1998
https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19980823&slug=2768095
Does genius come with an early expiration date, whether it be a curse or the consequences of fast living, some of the world's greatest talents have flamed out at a young age tonight, we consider the so-called 27 club and a few of its best known members.
Speaker 2:Jen, how are you? I'm
Speaker 1:Doing well. How are you, Jen? I'm recovering
Speaker 3:From break or recovering from the holidays. I think I'm a bit hung over. Yes.
Speaker 1:I feel exactly the same way kind of in that transitional period where you're trying to go from like the most important decision of your day is what to have for breakfast back to real life. That's where I'm at. Yeah, me too. I feel very out of sorts during transitions like that.
Speaker 3:Uh, I've been having a lot of crazy dreams. Like last night I dreamt that the Iranian government was trying to assassinate me.
Speaker 1:You should run, you should write these dreams down and write political thrillers or something. That's a crazy dream. I think
Speaker 3:Trying to take me out before the aliens come and harvest my eggs.
Speaker 1:That must be it. That's too crazy. That was a crazy dream where you really scared in the dream, like, did you wake up freaked out? I was, but I can't remember the specifics.
Speaker 3:I don't even know where that even came into being. Hmm.
Speaker 1:But that's, that's a crazy dream. I actually, it's funny. You said that you had crazy dreams because I've been getting my days and nights mixed up a lot during break. And um, so I've been, the result is that I'm sleeping a lot during the day. And I had some wacko dreams today and you were actually in one of them. So I was back in college and like my husband and I were together, but I guess we were dating. I don't think we were married yet, but we were like, we were in this huge fight and we had different dorm rooms. And so finally we go to talk and he's like, well, I've just been laying here. Talk, talking about our problems with Jen. And I'm like, what? I was. Cause I'm like, she's my best friend. You can go to her about our problems first. And like, I was trying to call you on this little cell phone from like 2003. And like, I couldn't get your number. I couldn't get anybody's number. And then there was this group that was like, I don't know. They thought I had mental health issues and wanted me to join it. And like their whole thing about how to deal with it was like you do crafts and you had to like write like 100 or like one, 1000 word essays about like different subjects. Apparently if you were busy enough, like you would not be your mental illness would not.
Speaker 3:They needed a new president is what it sounded like.
Speaker 1:And I had swirling water dreams. Do you ever have those? Those are my stress dreams. Oh my God. It's always this swirling Brown water that you don't know what's in the water. Like it could be anything and like cliff. Well it's for me, it is like when I have those dreams, I know that I'm mentally drafted up and take care of myself. So I had one of those as well. Not, not a good afternoon sleep, but we'll get through it. We'll get through these transitions is transitional time and everybody else will too. Transitions are hard, man. They're hard.
Speaker 3:So what are you having to drink tonight? I'm having, um,
Speaker 1:What's called a lemon cello sparkle. It's really tasty. It's I think it's an ounce. I'm trying to remember exactly the amounts I threw in there. Like an ounce of lemon cello, I think a half ounce of Quantro and then I put them in my cocktail shaker with ice. I doubled it because I made one for my husband too. And then poured that in, in a coop and then poured champagne over top of that.
Speaker 3:So can I see? Yeah. Classy. Nice. So what are you having? I'm doing something a little bit different tonight. I am having, and I do this every year and no, it's not drugs around the holidays. I buy this ale. It's called delirium and it's really, really good. It's a Belgium ale. It comes in this really? I don't know if you can see it. Factual bottles are ceramic. So,
Speaker 1:So do they only release it at Christmas?
Speaker 3:I only recall seeing it around Christmas time, but as I said, it's just for special occasions is when I get it and it's normally, I only get it for one special occasion. I get it for Christmas. And then I take it over to my in-laws usually normally.
Speaker 1:So it's, it's like a tradition for you.
Speaker 3:And along with a lot of Dogfish head beer,
Speaker 1:I have to tell you a funny story about Dogfish head. So the other night, I can't remember what we were eating, but we were having something and Brian was like, Oh God, a beer would taste really good with this, but I don't think we have any beer. And I'm like, no, I think there's one way in the back of the fridge. I think Jen left a dog fish head IPA here, like probably a year ago before COVID. So I looked in there. It was. And so he had, he had one of your dog fish heads. He was very happy. It was probably the 90 minute IPA. I think it was
Speaker 3:Bomb because they were bought out by, is it
Speaker 1:Sam Adams? Oh, are you serious? Yeah. About two years ago
Speaker 3:They were bought out and I don't know if like any of their recipes or anything have changed, but it was just a really cool, funky little place that you could go and get a beer in in Delaware and just truly a craft brewery. You meet a lot of different people and it's just, it was a really fun scene, but it just kind of bummed me out that this family owned place was, was bought out by one of these big brewers
Speaker 1:That is too bad. We should get into craft beer brewing you, me and Brian can like drop our jobs and become craft beer brewers. And we can have like a little place on the shore. That would be fun. We, you should do it. I think this should be like one of your projects for 2021 while I'm writing my thousand word essays on mental wellness, you can write your, you can brew your beer. So this will keep us out of trouble. Should we get into our story for this evening? Yeah, let's do it. So tonight we are going to be talking about the 27 club and I'm guessing people out there probably know what that is, but I'm just going to give a quick rundown of what that refers to. So the 27 club refers to a group of musicians, artists, and actors and other entertainers, all of whom have died at the age of 27. There are people like, I mean, I think the Trinity are Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison. And we're actually going to be talking about all three of them this evening, but there are others as well that are more recent. So people may remember Amy Winehouse. She died in 2011 at the age of 27. I think the big one for my generation. And I guess that would be your generation too. Jen is her Cobain who died in 1994 at the age of the age of 27. So we're going to touch on, on most of these folks and just kind of look at why this is, I mean, is it just kind of a random phenomenon if you think about it, most of these people lived pretty high-risk lifestyles, especially the rockers, like they were living like these really rock and roll lifestyles. Um, there was a lot of drug and alcohol use. And so often these people met their ends through overdoses or, you know, through kind of violent or dramatic means such as murder or suicide or just really weird accidents. But, but most of the stuff I'm going to be talking about has to do, has to do with, you know, people dying from drug, drugs, and alcohol. So the first wave of this really happened between 1969 and 1971. And I mentioned Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. They actually died within about a month of each other in 1970. And then Jim Morrison goes the following year in 1971. So I'm just thinking about, you know, what it would have been like to be living and old enough to kind of be aware of what was going on. It must've been such a to have three of these in such a short space of time. Must've been really head-turning, you know, interestingly it wasn't until Kurt Cobain's death in 1994, that the idea of his 27 club kind of began to congeal when people thought of it in that terms, at least that that's what I've read. There was an interview after his death where Kurt Cobain's mother said, and this is a quote from her now he's gone and joined a stupid club. I told him not to join that stupid club.
Speaker 3:And he had lifelong issues with depression, right?
Speaker 1:He did. I think that's one of the reasons why I really I've always liked Kurt Cobain, um, and why his death kind of hit me because I can relate to that. And I mean, I think he was always a troubled soul, but fame, I really think fame lit everything on fire for him in a way that was not healthy. He didn't, he didn't do what with fame. I mentioned Amy Winehouse earlier, you know, who died in 2011. I remember that really clearly too. And I'm embarrassed to say like with Amy Winehouse, I really didn't listen to her music until after she died. And then I realized like what a great talent she was. I really liked that her record back to black. And I think she only hadn't been to two records before she died, but I could be wrong about that. But anyway, Amy had said, um, she had expressed a fear of dying at 27 as well. So it's just that, that to me is kind of eerie.
Speaker 3:And as you were saying before, it started with Hendrix and when I was doing some research about Hendrix, I don't know what the difference between an instrumentalist and a guitarist is instrumentalist, is that when you can play a variety of items,
Speaker 1:I was just going to say, I think an instrumentalist probably refers to like, multi-instrumentalist he knew that he could play more than more than one thing. And I didn't know that about, about hundreds.
Speaker 3:I didn't know that either. And there was a quote from rock and roll hall of fame saying that he was the greatest instrumentalist in the history of rock music. So, wow. Obviously he was a musical genius.
Speaker 1:I think he was probably a guitar virtuoso for sure,
Speaker 3:Along with like some of the other. And I know you're going to talk more about Cobain and Anne, I'm going to touch on some other people too, but you know, there's always this mystery or lore surrounding their deaths. And with Hendrix, he, um, Hendrix died in Kensington, London on September 18th, 1970. And so with like Cobain and also David Jones, he's a member of the 27 club too. There's been speculation that, that they really didn't either commit suicide. Hendrix definitely did not commit suicide, but you know, whether or not someone else contributed to their death or caused their actual death deaths. The interesting thing about Hendrix and the day that he died, once it really a lot of the stuff that ensued later, the woman that was with him when he died, her name was Monica Dan, and she was the person who was with him during his final hours.
Speaker 1:Was she British? Like, what was her nationality? I'm just curious.
Speaker 3:She was German. And she also had been a competitive ice skater and her account of what happened that night or the next day evidently has changed a lot throughout the years. She told people that he was still alive when he went into the, the ambulance and other people have disputed that saying that he wasn't alive. He was, you know, he was already dead at that point, but her story had changed a lot throughout the years, but basically he died of an overdose of barbiturates and red wine.
Speaker 1:Really? Yeah. There's different. Oh, you could overdo it on red wine other than like having a hangover or something like that.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Evidently, well, I guess, you know, too much of anything will kill you, but evidently there was a, he had a ton of red wine in his lungs and his hair on his shirt. Jesus. And so he aspirated on, you know, on his own vomit. That's horrible.
Speaker 1:Well, that must have been really, I don't mean to be really crass, but very dramatic to see, I mean, red wine, it's probably looking like blood and yeah,
Speaker 3:I wouldn't expect red wine would be one of the ways that he would go, like I would think
Speaker 1:Yeah, like vodka or something.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Something hard. Like that's more rock and roll than, than red wine. Yeah. In my opinion. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Maybe he just had a pallet for a red wine, but that's that? And so he was mixing red wine with what was the other thing though with barbiturates barbiturates. Okay. In barbiturates, they keep you are those, I should know this, this is embarrassing, but are they uppers or downers? They're downers.
Speaker 3:Right. They're downers. So they suppress your
Speaker 1:You're breathing. Okay. Given my line of work, I should know my categories, drugs, but it's been a while since the licensing exam. So,
Speaker 3:So he took a ton of barbiturates and a lot of red wine and he died on September 18th, 1970. And
Speaker 1:It seemed unintentional. Right? He was just,
Speaker 3:Yeah, it seemed unintentional. Know there was an interesting dispute that followed with him between two of his girlfriends. And remember I said, Monica Dannemann was with him the night before. And the morning of when he, when he passed the morning of, after he passed, she made basically her livelihood and notoriety was being his fiance, according to her, they were engaged. Okay. But many, many people dispute that. It doesn't really seem like there's anything at all to support that. And he had another girlfriend by the name of Kathy Etchingham and she was seen Hendrix at seams during the time Dan was seeing him, there was some overlap there and she really called into question Dan amens account of, of what happened. She also believes that Dan Herman was not number one, definitely not engaged to him, but maybe they'd only really been together for a few days. Really.
Speaker 1:It sounds very acrimonious, you know, the aftermath of his death.
Speaker 3:And they basically battled over this for, I think it was 26 years.
Speaker 1:Jesus like, let it go,
Speaker 3:That gene ham said, I guess she had a real problem with it didn't seem like she was motivated by jealousy that I could see or that, you know, ma maybe there was some of that. There, there probably was, but it just seemed like she really was disgusted about how Dan Dannon's relationship with him as his fiance. She was making a living off of, I see the writing books and painting pictures of him and things like that. And I think she was just kind of disgusted by that in October, 2011, interview with her by the independent, which is a British newspaper. The name of the article was a rock legend unto herself by Mary braid. And what happened was, is that Dannon and edgy and him ended up in court and Dannon lost like a liable lawsuit after she lost that. She died by suicide really a few days later. So when was this? How long ago was this? I think the Danna man probably died in 96.
Speaker 1:I think really sad. Gosh, it seems like she, like her whole existence was kind of staked on being, you know, his girlfriend and his last days or something. And
Speaker 3:She couldn't, it's funny that you, that you bring that up because in the 2011 interview with, uh, the independent and she'd him, I'd give this following quote of what she said, well, this is the quote. It says, she believes the core case was the final blow to Dan admin's, lifelong deception, according to ECI and ham, the core case established once. And for all that, she was not Jimmy's girlfriend. She says everything was to catch up with her. Yeah. And she also it's very sad. And then Dan and one was also married to, I believe he was the guitarist for scorpions, that heavy metal band in the eighties. And he was like a really, he was a huge fan of Jimmy Hendrix too. So it just seemed like her, her whole life was, was based on his fame.
Speaker 1:What's what it sounds like. Like she was kind of the groupie that never quit until she did exactly
Speaker 3:Another link to Cobain. And then someone else is going to talk about Zapata later. Um, Hendrix was born in Seattle.
Speaker 1:Yeah. When you told me that recently I was really surprised. I had no idea that Jimi Hendrix was from SIA.
Speaker 3:There's someone else that I want to talk about that I don't think many people know of unless you were into the music scene in Seattle. So that's a link to, is there was a singer. She was up and coming. She was the lead singer of a band called the guts. And I think they formed in the late eighties, they were mostly punk, but also in the grunge scene. And with Zapata, she Dawn and July 7th, 1993, she was an extremely popular artist. Her band was really up and coming and she had left a music venue called the comment. She was found dead. Like I said, near the intersection. I have no idea where this would be 24th Avenue, South and South Washington street at around 3:30 AM. And she had been sexually assaulted and beaten and strangled. And they didn't find the person who had done it for about 10 years. They had no idea who did it and they took some DNA and they that's how they were able to find out that this person had, had murdered her. But they think that she encountered her attacker around 2:15 AM. And this might be where I heard about her is that she was featured or her case was featured in an episode of forensic files. The name of that episode was the day the music died. No. And so that was, um, it was aired November 14th, 2007 and evidently, and this is it's like, what are, what are the odds on this too? Is that her body wasn't initially identified? Cause she had no identification on her when she was found. But in the episode of forensic files, evidently she was identified after the medical examiner who is a fan of the band and actually bender their concert. He recognized her,
Speaker 1:Oh my God, that's a crazy detail.
Speaker 3:That is a crazy detail. And according to him, you know, he said, if she, even if she hadn't been strangled that she would have died from her internal injuries because she had been beaten that badly.
Speaker 1:It's horrible. Now the person who murdered her, I know they found this person 10 years later, was it a random act of violence or was this, you know, a fan who was obsessed with her? And yeah,
Speaker 3:It was random. He was, um, he was a cab driver and I think he just, he must've just happened upon her
Speaker 1:Attacked her that's awful
Speaker 3:During the time that they didn't know who killer was actually Nirvana and Pearl jam, they were part of this benefit to raise money or to, you know, draw awareness to try to find out, you know, who, who killed her. Well, that's really cool. So it's just weird that she's connected with Cobain and then Seattle is connected, you know, it was born in Seattle and I just think that's unusual. So yeah, just a lot of, you know, unusual things about me as a Pata, I've gone back, I've listened to some of her music, I've watched some performance videos and just seemed like she was very talented, very dynamic. And it was very young.
Speaker 1:I like the idea that, you know, I don't think there were as many, certainly there weren't as many female grunge rockers as there were men and I think to be a woman in that scene and that really took something to, to do that. So yeah, that makes her really cool. So that's, that's really interesting. I'm going to have to listen to the music of me as a Potter. She sounds like she was a really cool, cool young woman. And I'm sorry that she, you know, that she died in the way she did. That's just really heartbreaking. Yeah. Well, I'm going to talk for a bit about, um, Janis Joplin, who I, I'm not a giant fan of Janis Joplin's music. Like I like me and Bobby McGee and, um, you know, some of her songs, but I couldn't put it on for hours and jam to it. I think it's, it's a little harsh for me or a little like a lot of screaming and a lot of, I guess I, I go from melody more. I'm really making myself sound like an old fuddy-duddy, but there it is. But, but I admire Janis Joplin the person very much because I think she, she just gave off this air of self-sufficiency and of self-confidence really, but I think she actually really struggled with, with self-confidence and with self-esteem. So I'm going to talk about that in a minute, but she died, um, in a lot of what I'm going to be mentioning here is from a documentary called the last hours of Janice Joplin. Um, it's from season two and it came out in 2016. So Janice Joplin, everybody knows this, but just mentioned it. She was really considered the first female superstar of rock and she could, she could rock it as hard as any boy could and probably harder. And she was, um, an amazing person. She was known for a great sense of humor. She had tons of tattoos and she apparently had a legendary libido both from men and women. So I love that Janis Joplin was bisexual. I also read that she was described as very needy. So her relationships were really intense. Um, and she had, I think she always felt like an outcast really from the earliest, from her earliest years, she was born and raised in Texas. And you know, it was just very different from her family. I don't know a lot about her upbringing, but one thing I read about her just really broke my heart. And that was when she went away to college. She went to the university of Texas at Austin and she's like walking down the halls and happens to look at this bulletin board and reads this flyer that says that she has been voted the ugliest man on campus. And that, that just killed me because I think every woman can imagine what that would feel like, you know? And she, she had already had a lot of body, you know, body image issues. And so I think this is something that she carried with her
Speaker 4:For, for a long time, you know, and
Speaker 1:She was a very well known user of drugs and alcohol. And I wonder how much of that, that wound or that sort of self hatred of, of herself and her body contributed to her drug and alcohol use. And I don't, I don't mean to like put her in on the therapist's couch, but, but it just makes you wonder, I mean, that would be a hard thing to forget would not, when that really stick with you.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah. So horrendous thing still
Speaker 1:Joplin was found dead in her Hollywood apartment. And a lot of these, I noticed a lot of these rockers would live in hotels. So their apartments would actually be in a hotel. And hers was at the famous landmark hotel in LA. She died in room one Oh five. And when I, I came across something on the internet that said that the hotel is still in operation and that you can actually visit her room. You can stay in her room room one Oh five and it's become something of a shrine. So they have a plaque in the closet that says, you know, Janice Joplin died here on such and such a date and the fan who stay there, decorate the walls. It's just filled with notes and drawings and, and all of these, um, these tributes to, to Janice is so, you know, in terms of, of what contributed to her death, she was discovered to have been drinking on the night she died. She was drinking. She went out for a drink at this bar called Barney's Beanery, which was a big dive bar. And it was, it was really popular with, um, rock musicians. Jim Morrison would go there too. So she was drinking there and her drink of choice was Southern comfort, which I read something recently about Southern comfort. I thought it was a whiskey, but apparently it's also in another category. And I can't remember what it is. I think I read that it's considered a, liqour like a peach liqour, which really surprised me. Yeah. I think it's like somehow infused with peaches. Um, do you want me
Speaker 3:Look it up? Yeah. I'm just curious. I would not think of it as of the core
Speaker 1:God, there's actually a Janice Joplin Southern comfort. So it's one of the world's most famous LaCores it's made with American grain spirits. Impeaches so yeah. You know, I might give it a try again. I think I had some in college, but, um, but there's some really great sounding drinks like Southern comfort peach smash and it has champagne and coconuts. I mean, that sounds
Speaker 3:Hello. Good. That actually does sound good. I know
Speaker 1:Maybe, maybe we're going to have to try some Southern comfort in honor of Janice Joplin, but anyway, so Janice Joplin worked her Southern comfort angle because she said to the people who made Southern comfort, like, Hey, you know, you know, I drink your drink. Like that's all I drink. If you buy me a for a coat and hat, I will just, you know, I will represent your drink wherever I go. So they did, they bought her this amazing fur coat and you can see pictures of her online and her and her friends. I think
Speaker 3:I've seen that before, but I didn't know that that's what the connection was. Was it like a big white frame?
Speaker 1:I think it was, yeah, I think it was in, in, you know, you might see her holding the bottle and everything. So she was probably the best known drinker of Southern comfort. She would drink on stage. Um, I mean she was a drinker and they did find when they did her autopsy that she had a fatty liver. So, you know, if she hadn't died the way she died at 27, it's kind of makes you wonder how long she would have lived anyway. Or she would have, you know, her, I think she would have encountered a lot of, a lot of health problems at the time of her death. She has, was actually launching out on her own, trying to, to go solo rather than I forget the name of her band. But she had been with her band before that, from what I read and from what I watched her band, her band mates were really centering for her. Like they kept her on solid ground. And so when she went solo, it was a lot harder for her to just cope with life. And I think she was drinking a lot more the night that she died, they found some pills in her room that were marked Lily one 72. And the pathologist on the show said that that, that match no drug that he knew of, but he suspected it was probably methadone. And, you know, methadone is the drug that you take. Um, well now it's used as a treatment for people who are recovering from heroin addiction because it, it gives you forget exactly what it does, but it kind of gives you, it keeps you from going through those terrible withdrawal symptoms of heroin addiction without giving you the high, I think is what it does. So it keeps you from getting dope, sick in other words. So they found these pills in her room, but there was none in her system. So she, she hadn't ODed on that. She did have some needle marks in her arm, but they look kind of old. Like they suspected they were maybe from, I don't know, like three weeks ago, something like that. And in terms of her heroin addiction, she had started probably back in 1967. So about three years earlier. And she had some close calls before her actual death. So between 1968 and 69, she overdosed on heroin six times. So she was kind of, yeah, I mean, that's, that's like a lot of, that's a lot of overdoses. You kind of feel like the, the clock was really ticking on her. It was just a matter of time. And that breaks my heart again, because I think she seems to me, even though I love her appearance of self-confidence, I get a sense of vulnerability from her too. And you just want to kind of keep her safe, you know, you just want to keep her away from all of that. And it seems like
Speaker 3:Heroin is just such a, such an addictive drug.
Speaker 1:I would be terrified to try it even once. Cause I've heard, I've read that sometimes it's just that one high and people are addicted from the get-go, you know, apparently there's a feeling that it's like nothing else on earth, but I've also read that you never know high as ever as good as your first high and that you're always chasing, chasing that, you know, and you can never quite get it. It just seems like a horrible way to live. Just seems evil. Like if a substance can be evil, it just seems like heroin is truly evil. There's
Speaker 3:Famous thread on Reddit and you know, I can get lost and read it, but yes you can. One of the famous threads is about a who's posting. And he said that he just wanted to try heroin for the first time. And then, you know, he was reporting back and then it just, he totally decompensated and became a food addict for years. And of course this is just his account. I mean, it could be anybody making something up, but you know, even a friend can tell you a lie, but that's one of the most, one of the most, I guess, infamous threads on Reddit was, was about that. And this guy becoming, you know, deciding he's just going to do it once and then just to see what it's like, and then he keeps going back and then he turns into a, as a full fledged addiction.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's so scary. It makes you wonder, I mean, there's this curious part of me that makes me wonder what does that, what does that highlight part people describe it as a sense of warmth kind of coursing through your veins, like an ultimate peace, but yeah, but it makes you, I don't know. I have a lot of empathy for people who do use, you know, and who gets sucked into that through, um, over, over, um, prescription of opioids, you know, and God knows, like there's such a, um, such an epidemic of opioid addiction, um, especially in Appalachia and people get into it in such, you know, innocent ways. And then, you know, you're dancing with the devil before, you know, it, it's just awful.
Speaker 3:There's a song off the most recent Brandi Carlile album and it's called sugar tooth. And it's about this guy who developed an addiction. And basically he was just taking the pills as they were prescribed and just how you know, it ruined his life and it led to his death. It's a re it's a really good song. Very sad. Wow.
Speaker 1:I haven't heard that one. We're both huge Brandi Carlile fans. See you.
Speaker 3:We were watching something here. I can't remember. It was narrated by Lawrence O'Donnell and it was about the opioid abuse and addiction. And in Appalachia, I've watched a few things on that,
Speaker 1:Watching that too. I wonder if we were watching that at the same time, it was on the other night.
Speaker 3:One of the areas they were talking about was Pennington gap. Virginia was one place. And then I know West Virginia. I mean,
Speaker 1:Yeah, they were talking about Ronceverte, which I, when I go home to visit my family, I go right past the exit for[inaudible]. I think it's, it's not far from Lewisburg. In fact, they showed this one scene, you know, like they had taken it from, what am I trying an aerial scene? And I was like, I think that's interstate 64. You know, I've driven that interstate like a million times, but yeah, it's weird to think that like you, you drive through there and you know, people are living. I mean, I'm sure within a few miles of each of us, within a mile of each of us, people are living lives with desperation because of this stuff. It's really heartbreaking. And you know, there's that sense when I think about Janis Joplin, like I just want to protect her. Of course I wasn't even born when she died, but she did meet this guy. His name was David Niehaus and she met him when she was, I guess, vacationing in Rio de Janeiro. And he seemed like a legitimately good guy. He was not associated with the music business. He was just an ordinary Joe. And he prem everything. I, you know, I watched, he seemed to really love her and he did help her kick the, so she got off heroin for some time. I'm not exactly sure how long, but the relationship, unfortunately didn't last. She had a good friend who was also, they were lovers and then they shot up together. And so he comes home, I think, from a ski trip and find some in bed together they're asleep. And, uh, you know, he leaves her after that because he, he just feels like, you know, she's never going to get clean and you know, she's cheating on him and things like that, but he seemed like he was a benign more than a benign influence in her life and sad to me that that relationship ended. But, you know, she, she kind of cycled through addiction as, as most people who are addicted to heroin or other drugs do. And when they did the autopsy, they did find that there was morphine in both her, her blood and her bile. And that's what heroin turns into when it enters your enters your system. It turns into morphine and they discovered that what she had used that night. So just to back up a little bit, she typically got her drugs from the same person and this dealer would have a chemist. He had a chemist, I guess, on the payroll who would test the drugs and make sure they were, they were clean and there was nothing in there that was gonna harm more than more than they would anyway, that was going to kill you. But this time the chemist was on vacation for a week. So her, her heroin wasn't vetted by this chemist. And so she used it. Most heroin I read is like around like five to 7% pure, the heroin she used that night, it was around 50% pure,
Speaker 3:Which was, yeah, no one would survive
Speaker 1:That. Yeah. Like that's, that's so strong. And then, you know, she'd also been abstinent recently. I think her last, you know, they were suspecting that her last use before that night was probably about three weeks ago and she was trying to get off of it. So it was just the perfect storm, you know? So her, her death was from an accidental overdose of pure heroin. It's really sad. But one of the quotes I, I found really intriguing from, from Joplin. She said, maybe I won't last as long as other singers, but I think you can destroy today by worrying about tomorrow. You know? And I agree with that sentiment because God knows I'm a warrior, I'm ink, I'm in riddled with anxieties of every kind. And I'm always worrying about tomorrow and the next day and the day after that. And, you know, it seemed like she, she wanted to be free from that. And maybe drugs helped her do that. But, but I do think she had this live for a moment kind of attitude, you know, living for the moment, which I admire, but it didn't, you know, in the end, it, she flamed out too early. Unfortunate.
Speaker 3:I read where I read, where she hit Jim Morrison over the head with a bottle of Southern comfort. Oh my God.
Speaker 1:Hope she did. Cause he I'm going to talk about him next year. Um, I think he was a bit of a Dick. I'm sorry to offend anyone out there. Who's a big Jim Morrison fan, but from things, some things I read about him
Speaker 3:Per the story I read is that he just wouldn't take no for an answer anyway.
Speaker 1:Well, he definitely, he needed to have more than his head knocked off with a bottle of Southern comfort. Um, yeah. Jim Morrison, are you a fan by the way, Jim
Speaker 3:Morrison now, to be honest with you, I'm not a huge seventies music fan that's right. It makes you depressed. Doesn't it? I just think it's a downer
Speaker 1:More of like, I like say like the Laurel Canyon, you know, seventies music like Linda Ronstadt and Jackson Brown, those, those people, but not so much into the seventies rock. I mean, I think the doors had some, they had some really good songs, but he's, he's not one of my faves, but he, you know, regardless, regardless of what you and I think he was regarded as one of the most iconic rockers of all time. And some people truly think he was, you know, a great, he was one of the greatest. Um, and he certainly represented this, this gender gap and the counterculture. And he was, I think he was a very self stylized kind of person. Like he made, maybe it was him or maybe it was his handlers or his agents, but he kind of would develop these persona around himself. One of them was the lizard King. And from what I read, that name came into being in part because of the way he moved. He would almost kind of slither on stage. But, but the thing that he, he was most interested in was poetry. And he really wanted to be thought of as a poet, before being thought of as a rocker, um, in some of his concerts and songs and things, he would do improvised, spoken word poetry. Now I have not spent a lot of time with the poetry of Jim Morrison, but something tells me like, he probably thought I'm probably going to get reamed for this. But something tells me, he probably thought he was a better poet than he actually was. I don't know. I'm just saying, I think he probably fancied himself more of a poet than, than he really was. I'm sorry, Jim. Sorry, but he was a notorious drinker. So he drank, um, just like in a strapline drank. He, he drank from like the 1960s on and I think alcohol was really his drug of choice. It's, it's what he used most. Um, when he died, he died July 3rd, 1971. And he died in Paris. He had been living in Paris for a few months. He had moved there with him. Well, he'd moved there with his girlfriend, Pamela Corson. And it seems like he went to Paris for a couple of reasons. One of them was, he was just really sick and tired of being a rock and roll hero. I think he wanted to escape some of that fame. You know, you think about when we talk about Cobain and how fame was really hard on him. I think fame was hard on Jim Morrison as well, even though he quartered it in a lot of ways, but he wanted to live, I think, a slower paced lifestyle. The other reason I, I came across was that he was trying to get away from some legal troubles in the United States. So the doors had had this concert in Miami. I can't remember exactly the day, but maybe it was a few months before he, before he left for Paris. And it was just pure unadulterated craziness. So like half the audience is like ripping their clothes off. They're naked people everywhere. And it was said that Jim Morrison like whipped out his Dick on stage and exposed himself. Now I saw a documentary where one band mate said, absolutely not like he did not do that. He took off his shirt, you know, and he was provocative, but he did not expose himself. But other people say that he did. So anyway, he was, they were, I think they were charged with public and decency and he was an honor and FBI watch list. Um, apparently the FBI considered him to be a menace to society, which kind of cracks me up. It's like this old 1950s notion of like the kids are going to be just sit, like he was going to have a bad influence on young people. So some people say that he went to Paris to kind of get to get away from all of these legal troubles. He was having back in the States, according to this, um, this documentary that I watched, it sounds to me like it seemed to me like Jim Morrison had a most excellent last day. I mean, if this was going to be my last day, I could think of worst days. So he like first, well, the first thing is his health wasn't too great. Like he had gained a lot of weight. I'm not sure if he started gaining weight before he went to Paris or once he got there, but he put on some weight and he was having, I think in, when you look at it afterwards, it seemed like he was having some heart issues, maybe some congestive heart failure and things like that. Cause he would have a hard time walking up the staircase. And here was a guy who had had like, you know, by all accounts, like a great body who was very fit. And you know, he was considered a sex God by most people. But a lot of women thought he was like the sexiest man they'd ever seen in their lives. So, you know, he was dealing with some health issues, but the day of his death, he had this friend, his name was Allen. He was a French guy and they went out, they had lunch, like they drank, um, they had a lot of beers. Apparently Jim stopped off in the shop and bought a star of David necklace for his girlfriend. And I think they went to, they went to like a film, film shop as well. And one interesting tidbit about Jim Morrison and this I like about him. He went to UCLA and studied film. So he had his, he had his bachelor's in, um, like film history or something. His family was really about that. And speaking of his family, by the time of his death, I don't think he'd been in contact with his parents for like two or three years.
Speaker 5:It was a really, really bad relationship.
Speaker 1:It was like a military family and his dad really wanted one thing for him. And that was for him to go into the military. And Jim wanted none of that. So I think when he went to film school, that was like the last straw. I can't imagine what they thought when he became a rockstar. They were probably completely scandalized. But anyway, so he hangs out with a LAN and then, um, they go back to Jim's apartment that he sharing with Pamela and Jim kind of begs a land. Like, please don't go, don't go, let's go out and have another drink. So they do, they have another drink. And then later LN leaves and does his thing. And Jim hooks up with Pamela and they, I think they also go drinking a bit and then they decide to go to the movies. Um, cause you know, he was a big film buff. So they go back to their apartment and this makes me laugh a little bit. They watch home movies of their vacations play old door's records, but, and then they do heroin together and they're, you know, they're doing quite a bit of heroin. And so they're both really, really high and he's not feeling well. So Pam, his girlfriend wants to call the doctor, but he he's refusing. He's like, no, you know, it's fine. Go back to bed. And I guess she was in the bedroom and he was sleeping out on the couch. So at some point he starts to have trouble breathing. And I guess he figures like, let me get in the bathtub, let me get into some warm water. Maybe that'll help me sort of sober up a little bit. And I guess there are some like folk remedies where people think that getting in a cold or a warm bath is going to help you sober up from heroin more quickly, but don't do that because apparently it does not work. So he, he gets in the tub and he starts throwing up blood and she gets up, I guess she hears him and he tells her go back to bed. So she goes back to bed. I don't understand this. I would think that like if, if my husband were throwing up blood in the bathtub and had done all this heroin, I'd be calling nine one one. I don't know what she's thinking. He could have done this a thousand times before. And that's probably true. And it's funny that you say that because when she finally does get up, you know, the last time around 6:00 AM, she notices that his nose and his mouth are crusted with blood and she's trying to wake him up, but he's not responding. And so she actually thinks he's joking because apparently Jim Morrison would pull this stunt quite often where he would play dead. And so she thinks he's playing dead after I know bad idea. Right. And it's just so cruel, like what a cruel thing to do. She doesn't know her French. Isn't good enough to call an ambulance. So she calls his friend, Ellen, Renee and Renee calls in before, you know, before they know it. Um, paramedics are there. I think firefighters were first on the scene and they get'em out of the bathtub. And at first they think he's maybe still alive because his body feels warm, but the bath water was still kind of half warm kind of tepid. Once they get him out, they realize he's cold. There's no pulse. And so no he's died. Um, his death certificate lists, his cause of death is heart failure. Um, and there was no autopsy done, which I find kind of surprising. I mean, Janis Joplin had an autopsy done. Maybe, maybe customs were different in France than they were in the U S that's that's all I can think. So Jim Morrison was buried in Paris. Um, he's buried in this famous cemetery called parallel shows where there are a lot of notables buried, like Oscar Wilde, Frederick Chapin. I think George sand, the novelist is buried there. I could be mistaken about that, but just a lot of, a lot of famous people. It's a beautiful cemetery. So when I was in France, I spent pretty much a day there just visiting all of the graves. And the summer before I went to France, I worked in this crappy restaurant called Johnny Appleseed. I was a hostess. It was like a, it was like a Cracker barrel knockoff. Um, but there was this girl who worked there. I think she worked back in the kitchen and she was obsessed with Jim Morrison. So I said, well, you know, I'm going to France, like, you know, in a couple of months and you know, I'm planning to go to where, you know, the cemetery where he's buried. Like, do you want me to take anything? And she's like, Oh my God, would you? And so she gives me this piece necklace, it's like the silver necklace. It has like the peace symbol, like a pendant. And then she, um, she wrote this private note to Jim Morrison, which she had all sealed up and I didn't open it. So I laid those things on his grave for her, but his grave was just completely covered with stuff, you know? Cause all these people go and pay homage and on his gravestone. So there were a couple of grave markers that were stolen or defaced over the years. But in 1990, his dad, you know who I mentioned, he had a terrible relationship with his dad, but his dad placed a new gravestone and it had an inscription in Greek that reads true to his own spirit. Um, another translation is according to his own demons. So I liked that. I liked those dueling translations because one sounds very nice. And one sounds kind of like, you know, he was a really up guy, but anyway, that's the story of Jim Morrison.
Speaker 3:It just seems like 27 is such a transitional time in your life. Even more so than like 25 or I think when you're at 27, people start to settle down more. You're on your way to that, you know, and kind of thinking, and I think even more and more about your future, you're kind of realizing, okay, well I'm not going to be in my twenties forever and, and thirties just right around the corner.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's that time when you're settling down and you're kind of getting really getting into your career and making some, some strides. And so yeah, I think to be, to have that cut short is such a, such a really tragic thing when you're just really getting started. There is a quick poem. I just wanted to share with you because I think it really gets at the theme that we've talked about tonight. It's called first fig it's by poet. I really liked named Edna St. Vincent Millay. And I believe she wrote this in 1920, so it's pretty old, but it goes, my candle burns at both ends. It will not last the night, but all my foes and all my friends, it gives a lovely light. I like that. Yeah. I think that really gets it or talking about there's something like there's loss, but there's also, there's something to be said about that great illumination of really burning your candle at both ends. You know? So maybe what these, these souls lacked in longevity, they made up for an intensity, you know? So maybe that's the trade-off so shall we toast?
Speaker 3:Yes, we should toast. I think we should. I don't know how appropriate that is considering, but
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, I think that we're toasting to people who maybe go out to their journeys on too soon, but what they got there and that's where we're all going. I mean, not to be super depressing, but we're all here's to the journey. Maybe that's what we should toes to whatever it looks like, whatever shape it takes or however long it lasts. Just I can drink to that. Making the most of it to the journey is my friend. Cheers. Thank you to everyone who listens. The best thing you can do to help us grow is to like review on subscribe on iTunes and even better yet tweet about us or post about us on Facebook. Tell your friends if you think they would like us and have a good night.
Speaker 2:[inaudible].