The End

"and in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you make"

42 years ago on this date, music history was made on a London rooftop. It was January 30th, 1969 when the most popular, influential, and arguably greatest band in the history of music on this planet set up their instruments and cameras to record their swan song. It is highly unlikely that anyone on that roof on that cold day realized what they were experiencing exactly, which would be the final 'live' performance by The Beatles.

For the legendary quartet that would be forever linked by their musical genius together, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, this was the culmination of a grueling month of work. Throughout January of 1969 the band had worked zealously on the studio recordings for "Let It Be", the album that would ultimately become their final release as a working band.

The concept for "Let It Be" was that it would be all new material which would be performed in front of a 'live' audience at the same time as it was being recorded, a process that had never been attempted previously in contemporary music. But turning this vision of Paul's into a reality proved far more difficult in practice than in theory.

The Beatles were trying to work their way through the stresses and strains that their celebrity, their personal lives and relationships, and simply a decade of working, living, and travelling together had created. These pressures would soon split the band forever, and trying to find a location to shoot this particular project highlighted their problems.

No one could agree on a suitable, unique location for the recording sessions. The Coliseum in Rome had actually been considered, as had the Tunisian desert. One consideration was to film the project entirely on a ship at sea. In the end, much of "Let It Be" was recorded in the studio. The tensions between McCartney and Lennon actually drove Harrison away for a week, and when he returned it was only after keyboardist and friend Billy Preston was allowed to join the sessions.

Finally, on the final Thursday of January in the first month of the penultimate year of the turbulent and tumultuous 1960's, the band and Preston all took to the rooftop of the Apple studios building at 3 Savile Row to record the final pieces to the album, which was being documented for a film project as well. When the decade had begun, the band was a group of clean-cut, clean-shaven, wide-eyed pop stars. On the rooftop this day at decade's end was a rock band complete with long and facial hair.

"Get Back" was the first song that they performed on that day, both a warmup version and then a full version which was eventually captured for the film and became a popular version of the song. As the band plays, people begin to gather on the streets below, and also begin to hang out the windows of adjoining buildings. "Is that really the Beatles?" as the crowd's whispered murmur slowly grows to a mild uproar.

The band moves on to McCartney's beautiful, haunting ballad that will become the album and film's namesake "Let It Be", and from there proceeds to Lennon's dramatic, emotional "Don't Let Me Down", and then on into a fine Lennon-McCartney duet with "I've Got A Feeling". One wonders if they had a feeling that this performance, their first public performance in 2 1/2 years, would be their last together?

"One After 909" and "Dig A Pony" are recorded for posterity before the police begin to bang on the roof's door, trying to bring the performance to an end. The large crowds now drawn into the streets below were causing complete chaos for the workday rush, and the powers-that-be wanted the plug pulled on the impromptu jam session that was creating the ruckus.

As the police are trying to end the session, the Beatles play on with final versions of "I've Got a Feeling", "Let It Be" and "Get Back", which would unknowingly go down in history as the final song ever performed 'live' by the entire band together in public. Lennon steps to the microphone, and in his final public moment at the front of his legendary band makes a humorous statement forever immortalized in the film: "I'd like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves, and I hope we passed the audition."

With that, the end. The beginning of the end of a decade that many would say had ushered in the end of American innocence, if there ever was such a thing to begin with. The end of the band that had been, either directly or indirectly through their own musical evolution, at the front and center of most of the popular cultural revolution of that decade.

The experience of working on the album and film was so bad that McCartney quickly moved to get them back into a studio together, realizing that things were not going to hold together for them much longer as a group. During the first half of 1969 the band worked through sessions which resulted in the "Abbey Road" album. Released that summer, it became a #1 album, though critics were split on the music. But one thing that was clear to all was that while the musical magic might not be gone, the relationships had soured to the breaking point.

The "Let It Be" album would not be released for more than another year, with the final new Beatles track, George Harrison's "I, Me, Mine" recorded on January 3rd, 1970, without John Lennon participating. The full band was last together in the studio on August 20th, 1969, and Lennon announced that he had left the band a month later, an announcement that would not be made public for some time still. On December 31st, 1970, McCartney filed a lawsuit to formally dissolve the band, which would actually take place in 1975 thanks to lengthy legal battles.

It is said that all good things must come to an end. Like many relationships that were at one time phenomenal, positive experiences for all involved, this greatest of all musical collaborations had finally reached it's own end. Any hope for any type of real reunion would fully come to an end on December 8th, 1980, when Lennon would be cut down by an assassin's bullet.

Thankfully for all of us, that final day together in public, 42 years ago today, was captured on film. For fans wanting to experience the Beatles together as a band, it was simply the end.

1980: Not A Kid Anymore

All this year at my Facebook page, which you can view from the link in the sidebar here at my website by joining up yourself and 'friend'-ing me, I am taking a daily trip back in time to the 1980's. Each month I am highlighting a different year chronologically, and this month have been featuring the music, tv, movies, and important events of the first year of the decade: 1980.

In 1980 the world changed, both in my own individual life and the world at large, in some of the most important and influential ways it ever would. Just one year earlier, as 1979 dawned, I was a 17-year old high school senior living in an apartment in South Philly with my dad and brother. Little did I know how much a life could change in less than a year.

I had been dating a girl, Anne Jacobs, ever since meeting her down at the Jersey shore in Wildwood, New Jersey during the late summer of 1976. We overcame the fact that I lived in South Philly without a car and she lived out in the Delaware County suburb of Prospect Park to become high school sweethearts.

Anne was a year behind me in school, and so while I was finishing up my senior year and preparing to graduate from St. John Neumann high school in South Philadelphia during the first half of 1979, she was still just a junior at Archbishop Prendergast high school out in Drexel Hill, Delaware County.

It was at some point in the late spring of '79 that we began to realize something big might be up. There were increasingly unmistakable signs to us that Anne had become pregnant, and by the early summer we knew it was true. We told our parents at the end of that summer, and I put my LaSalle University plans aside to go out and find a job.

In the fall of 1979 I landed a job as a messenger clerk with the old First Pennsylvania Bank, beginning a decade-long career in the banking world. Anne and I, with the necessary permission from our parents since we were still under 18 years old, got married on November 7th that year, and I moved in with her family.

This is where 1980 opened for me, vastly different from a year earlier. Married at just 18 years of age, living in the suburbs, taking a train in to work everyday in downtown Philadelphia. And then in early February, a day before my own father would turn 40 years old, Anne gave birth to a beautiful baby girl who we named "Christine", adding 'Dad' to my new roles in life.

There is no way that I will ever encourage any teenager to get pregnant. It is one of the most difficult things to go through, trying to properly raise a child while you are still very much one yourself in so many ways. But I also cannot deny the love and joy that Chrissy brought into my life beginning on that day. In a few days from now she will turn 30 years old, and is now a 2-time mother herself. Where has all that time gone?

That would not turn out to be the last major domestic change in my life during 1980, however. We tried to live with Anne's family, but trying to make your own way as parents and a couple is difficult enough without having the dynamic of living under the same roof as people who still treat you like kids. By the fall we had gotten our own apartment at the corner of American and Ritner Streets, and thus began trying to give it a go out on our own back in my old South Philly stomping grounds.

One of my favorite little life stories comes from February 22nd of that year. Just as this year, 1980 was a Winter Olympics year, and the American hockey team made up of young college kids had been stunning the world by slipping through the tournament undefeated. Looming ahead of them was a date with Cold War destiny.

On that Friday the American kids were poised to take on the goliath hockey juggernaut from the Soviet Union in an Olympic semi-final game at Lake Placid, New York. Just two weeks earlier, the Russians had blitzed the U.S. by a 10-3 score in a pre-Olympics exhibition. Then they rolled over five opponents by a combined score of 55-11 to reach this point in the tournament.

The day before the matchup, New York Times columnist Dave Anderson wrote: "Unless the ice melts, or unless the United States team or another team performs a miracle, as did the American squad in 1960, the Russians are expected to easily win the Olympic gold medal for the sixth time in the last seven tournaments."

No one really believed that miracle was likely, but the young American team had captured my and the nation's hearts and imaginations with their dramatic play. The game against the Soviets was going to take place during the day, but would be televised that night in prime time by the ABC network. Remember, these were the pre-ESPN domination days with no 24-hour news coverage of events.

I resolved to stay away from any radios or television during my work day at the bank, which in those days proved easy. I went home with no knowledge of what had happened in the game and was prepared to grab some dinner and then settle in to watch the drama of the U.S.-Soviet hockey game.

While I ate, excited about the upcoming game, Anne walked in to the kitchen of her parents house on 11th Avenue and said matter-of-factly "How about the Americans beating the Russians in hockey today?!"

I'll leave it to your imaginations the phrase that immediately raced through my stunned mind at the revelation of the game result that I had been successfully avoiding all day. Ouch. Priceless.

With my excitement ruined and my enthusiasm tempered by the knowledge of what was going to happen, I settled in that evening to enjoy the spectacle of what has become known to history as the 'Miracle on Ice' in the American squad's 4-3 epic upset of the Soviet hockey team: "Do you believe in miracles? Yes!"

In the larger world during the first year of the 1980's, the Carter Presidency continued to deteriorate as the Iranian hostage crisis droned on and on. His candidacy for the Democratic Party nomination received a serious threat from Teddy Kennedy, who I stood just a few feet away from during an early spring campaign stop in Philly that year.

Kennedy would receive my first-ever vote in a Presidential primary, but would lose a hard-fought nomination process to Carter. Later in the year, the Reagan Revolution began with the election to the Presidency of Ronald Reagan, the greatest American President of the past century, but one who I simply did not appreciate or support at the time.

During the year of 1980 we Americans would become introduced to or more familiar with people and topics such as Abscam, Voyager, Ayatollah, Olympic boycott, Rosie Ruiz, Mt. Saint Helens, Yoda, CNN, Solidarity. We would all end the year sobbing over the murder of John Lennon while asking the question "Who shot J.R.?"

Philadelphia was the capital of the sports world in 1980. That spring, the Flyers were beaten in overtime of the 6th game of the Stanley Cup Finals on a controversial goal by Bob Nystrom of the New Islanders. The Isles appeared to be clearly offsides on the winning play, but the refs blew the call. Had the Flyers won, they would have tied the series and sent it back to the Spectrum for a decisive 7th game.

Also that spring, the 76ers advanced to the NBA Finals before succumbing in six games thanks to a herculean performance from Lakers rookie Magic Johnson, who filled in for injured all-star center Kareem-Abdul Jabbar and single-handedly kept the Sixers from sending that championship to a deciding game.

The Philadelphia Eagles had a season to remember that fall and winter, finishing 12-4 and winning the NFC East under coach Dick Vermiel. The Birds finished tied with the Dallas Cowboys, who beat them in the regular season finale by a 35-27 score, but won the tie-breaker for the division title. They would advance to make the franchise' first-ever appearance in the Super Bowl in January of 1981.

And then there were the 1980 Philadelphia Phillies. One of the best teams in baseball since 1975, the Phils were repeatedly disappointed and disappointing in making playoff appearances in 1976, 1977, and 1978. The 1980 team was considered by some to be getting a little old-in-the-tooth, but the veterans fought to yet another division title.

In what many still believe to be the greatest NLCS in baseball history, the Phils edged past the Houston Astros and advanced to face the great George Brett and the Kansas City Royals in the World Series. In the dramatic finale to the 6th game at Veteran's Stadium, Tug McGraw struck out Willie Wilson to preserve a 4-1 win and give the long-suffering franchise' it's first-ever world championship.

I remember clearly watching the game in our little South Philly apartment that was full of friends for the game. We spilled into the streets after the victory, and I headed up to Broad Street with some to enjoy the victory celebration. We worked our way towards the Vet, and it was in the midst of that joyous celebration of the championship just won by Mike Schmidt, Steve Carlton, Larry Bowa and crew that my life very nearly changed forever once again.

I was standing on Broad Street just north of Snyder Avenue in the middle of what was a sea of celebratory humanity, and at the same time there were vehicles still trying to leave the area as well. Somehow I got squeezed by the crowd into the small space between two cars slowly edging their way along. Trying to avoid the crowds, one of the cars kept edging towards the other, pinning my legs between the two.

I started to bang on the hood and windows of the two cars as my legs got squeezed tighter, and just in time felt the release of pressure as the drivers realized what was happening and eased off me. That close to getting my legs crushed while celebrating a life long dream of a World Series victory!

1980 was absolutely a year of change for me, for the country, and for the world. It was a year of beginnings and challenges, of frustrations and celebrations, of defeat and victory, and of joys and sorrows. It was a year that not many others to follow would be able to equal for it's quantity of high drama. And it was ultimately the first year of my life in which I was not a kid anymore.

BORN 1980: Christine Veasey, Erin Mooney Bates, Justin Timberlake, Elin Nordegren, Zooey Deschanel, Robinho, Nick Carter, Gilbert Arenas, Albert Pujols, Eli Manning, Adam Lambert, Francisco 'KRod' Rodriguez, Natalie Gulbis, Andre Iguodala, Joe Flacco, Mischa Barton

DIED 1980: Jimmy Durante, Paul Lynde, Paul 'Bear' Bryant, Ray Kroc, Johnny Weissmuler, Jackie Wilson, Donna Reed, L. Ron Hubbard, Ray 'the Scarecrow' Bolger, 'Pistol' Pete Maravich, Hirohito, Ted Bundy, John Lennon

The 1980's

My life has pretty much been able to be compartmentalized into and defined by each of the decades in which I have lived. The 1960's were my childhood at home on American Street in South Philly being raised by my parents. The 1970's were defined by my own adolescence and high school days, as well as my mom's illness and my parents divorce. The 1990's were my early policing days, and highlighted by meeting and getting married to my wife. This past decade by our life in Somerton, my becoming a grandparent, becoming a police supervisor, and attending and graduating college.

The decade of the 1980's were my 20's, highlighted by my becoming a young parent, my first marriage, my days in the banking industry, and my joining a softball team that would lead me to the best friends of my adult life. The decade began with a life-changing event, the birth of my first daughter on February 2nd, 1980 and ended with another when I took the written exam to become a Philadelphia police officer in December of 1989.

Those who know me or have followed this website over the years know that those 1980's were not just another world for me as far as my family life and my career, but they also found me a completely different person politically and culturally than I am now. As I've stated here before, I spent the 80's and early 90's as a political liberal Democrat who voted for Ted Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, and yes, even Michael Dukakis during the decade's various presidential races.

The world was pretty much dominated during that decade by the presidency of Ronald Reagan, a period of renewed optimism and patriotism and pride that I would not fully recognize and celebrate as positive myself until the next decade. Reagan, certainly the greatest of the 20th century President's, led America to victory in the Cold War after decades of living under the threat of nuclear war. He also teamed with world leaders such as Pope John Paul II and Lech Walesa of Poland to bring about the fall of the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall.

Ronald Reagan was just a couple of weeks shy of his 70th birthday when he was sworn in as the 40th President of the United States on January 20th, 1981. His policies became known collectively as the 'Reagan Revolution' highlighted by his vision of political and social conservatism and a belief in capitalism and free markets taking hold not only in the United States, but in Europe and other areas of the world as well.

Just two months into his first term, Reagan was shot and critically wounded outside of a Washington, D.C. hotel where he had just given a speech. The assassins bullet narrowly missed his heart, but did strike his lung causing it to collapse. Breathing problems as a result of the lung collapse combined with rapid blood loss to put Reagan's life in serious jeopardy, but he valiantly recovered to become the first U.S. President to survive being shot in an assassination attempt.

Reagan's economic policies known as 'Reagonomics' limited government involvement in business and society drastically and led to a major economic recovery during the decade. His political attacks on the Soviet Union were dramatic. He increased America's own military budgets, pushed for creation of a 'Star Wars'-like missile shield, called the Soviets an 'Evil Empire', and supported efforts to overthrow socialist dictators in South America.

In 1984, Reagan was re-elected in a landslide under the banner that said his first term had led to a 'Morning in America' with the image of the sun rising on America specifically and freedom in general. By the time he left office in January of 1989, Ronald Reagan still had a 64% approval rating. His policies and vision have left a lasting impression on a new generation of Americans fighting to maintain America's place in the world as a free, capitalist, God-fearing nation.

Reagan was far from the only major political and social figure of the decade to have a lasting influence. In October of 1978, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla of Poland was elected to the papacy and became known as Pope John Paul II. The Pope, the first non-Italian to hold the post in more than 450 years, became the most well-traveled and possibly the most beloved pontiff of all-time.

Like Reagan, Pope John Paul II survived an assassination attempt that left him in critical condition. On May 13th, 1981, just a month after Reagan had left the hospital, the Pope was entering Saint Peter's Square outside the Vatican, an Islamic gunman pumped numerous shots into his abdomen. The Pope lost 3/4 of his blood, but was saved by surgeons aided by divine intervention. Two years later the Pope visited his would-be assassin in prison and forgave him.

During his lifetime, John Paul II traveled to more than 129 countries, including a visit to my hometown of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania here in the United States in October of 1979. The Pope's visit to his homeland of Poland that summer sparked the 1980 'Solidarity' labor union and social movement led by Lech Walesa. This movement and the support for it by both Ronald Reagan and John Paul II would be pivotal in bringing down the Soviet Union.

Lech Walesa was a shipyard worker in Poland and in his 20's during the 1970's had become an outspoken labor leader in a Communist country that did not recognize and in fact forcibly suppressed entities such as trade unions. Walesa became the leader of striking workers at the Gdansk shipyards in 1980, a labor movement that eventually led to similar work stoppages all across Poland.

In the aftermath of these labor events, trade unions were formally recognized for the first time ever by a Communist state, but Walesa was arrested for his role and served almost a year in jail. In 1983 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his leadership of the movement which he continued throughout the decade. Ultimately, Lech Walesa was elected as the President of a Poland that freed itself from the Soviet and Communist sphere of influence thanks largely to his work with Solidarity.

Margaret Thatcher became the Prime Minister of Great Britain in 1979, and would prove to be a pivotal ally and friend to the United States in general and Ronald Reagan in particular during the 1980's. The woman known as 'Maggie' also survived an assassination attempt, this one when the IRA exploded a bomb at the Brighton hotel where she was staying with the British cabinet in October of 1984. She would go on to provide vital support to the U.S. in Reagan's battles to bring down the Soviet Union.

Reagan, Thatcher, Walesa, and Pope John Paul II were the world leaders who provided the most influence during the decade. The defeat of the Soviets in the Cold War highlighted by the fall of the Berlin Wall was certainly the most important event of the decade. But the 1980's will forever be remembered for much more than its incredible political developments.

Some of the key events that happened during the decade include the murder of John Lennon and the volcanic eruption at Mount St. Helen's in 1980, the royal wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer in 1981, and the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut in 1983 that signalled the beginnings of the Islamofascist War against America.

Also during the decade the Live Aid concerts were held in 1985, the space shuttle Challenger exploded and the nuclear accident at Chernobyl in Russia occurred in 1986, 1987's 'Black Monday' saw near panic on Wall Street with a collapse of the stock market, and in 1989 the Exxon Valdez spilled millions of gallons of oil on to the Alaska shoreline while Chinese students were murdered in demonstrations at Tiananmen Square.

The 1980's brought us the explosion of cable television along with entities such as MTV, ESPN, and CNN. The 'Rubik's Cube', 'Pac Man', and 'Cabbage Patch Kids' helped keep Americans entertained in the early years of the decade. AIDS was first diagnosed and became both a plague to the gay community and a warning scare for adulterers everywhere. IBM introduced the 'PC' or personal computer to the market, and the beginning asphalt was being laid on the information superhighway that would eventually be known to us all as the internet.

In the 1980's we discovered the wreck of the ship Titanic, watched as Sally Ride became the first woman in space and Sandra Day O'Connor became the first woman on the U.S. Supreme Court, and saw a new technology known as 'DNA' introduced in the courtroom. Our hearts were touched when 'E.T.' went home, and we marveled as a young Michael Jackson moonwalked across the stage.

During the 1980's, I worked at First Pennsylvania Bank for the first seven years and then at Fidelity Bank for the last three. I lived in South Philly with my first wife, and saw the birth of and began to raise two beautiful, wonderful daughters. I marched in the Mummer's Parade at the beginning of the decade with the Clevemore Fancy Brigade, and then towards the end with the Downtowners Fancy Brigade. And I played softball and won championships in both 1985 and 1989 with the Brewers softball team.

The 1980's were an unforgettable decade of challenge and struggle for me and my family personally and for the world in general. They were also a time of incredible growth, of learning valuable life lessons, of experiencing intense emotions and events. All during the rest of this year, I will be celebrating the decade of the 1980's with it's music, movies, television, and news stories both here at my website and at my Facebook page.

Rock & Roll Heaven: Kurt Cobain

The tragic, untimely loss of young superstar talent in the rock-n-roll world has often been associated with the hippie-era, flower child period of the late 1960's and early 1970'2. But the passing years have shown that it is not times that are to blame, but the choices these individuals made within a culture and lifestyle that often encourages those choices.

The perfect case in point came over three decades after the deaths of Janis and Jimi, with the death of garage band, grunge-rock legend Kurt Cobain. On April 5th, 1994, Kurt Cobain, lead singer of the popular band 'Nirvana', killed himself with a shotgun blast to the head at his home in Seattle.

Cobain had chronic suicidal tendencies that manifested themselves many times over the years, and increasingly in the months leading to his death. These incidents, and indeed his final demise, likely grew out of a bout with classic, severe depression made worse by the abuse of alcohol and drugs, particularly heroin. He was just 27 years old. Sound familiar? The more things change in the rock world, the more they stay the same.

Kurt Cobain was born and raised in Washington state, and had an intense interest in music as well as 'a lot of charisma' from a young age. His parents divorced when he was just 8 years old, an event which he later said had profound impact on his personality. He became much more withdrawn after this, and spent time living with first his mom and then his dad, who tried hard to direct the young boy into sports activities. Cobain's heart was more in the artistic, however, and he eventually became so unruly that he was allowed to move in with friends.

As a teenager he found refuge and the beginnings of a purpose in the developing Seattle punk-rock scene. At age 14 his uncle gave him his first guitar, and he first learned a few covers and then began to even create his own music. He also met and began to hang out and occasionally jam with Krist Novoselic, who would remain a key influence in his life until the very end. Kurt moved back in with his mom during his last couple of years in high school, but never did graduate. When he dropped out of high school, his mom told him he either had to get a job or move out. When Kurt didn't respond with action, she packed his things in boxes and tossed him out, and he wandered between friends houses.

At age 20 Kurt got a job with a resort on the coast which paid enough to allow him to rent his first house, and which also funded his interest in attending rock concerts in Olympia. Cobain and Novoselic decided to form a band, and eventually joined up with drummer Chad Channing to form the early 'Nirvana'. The band often performed covers of songs by some of their major influences including Led Zeppelin, Kiss, Queen, and Black Sabbath before finally recording their first album in 1989.

It was also during this year of recording and performing that Kurt briefly met a girl after a concert who would be another key influence in his life. Courtney Love met him backstage, and she developed a crush on him after seeing the band perform in Portland. Cobain quickly realized that he didn't like Chad Channing's style, and the drummer was replaced by a new bandmate, Dave Grohl.

In 1991, the new Nirvana released their first major label recording titled "Nevermind", and the album rose to #1 on the Billboard charts thanks largely to the song "Smells Like Teen Spirit", which became the anthem for a generation and cemented both Cobain's and Nirvana's legend. In May of '91, Cobain and Love were formally introduced, and when Grohl let on to each that the other was attracted the two began to hook up more frequently. By the end of the year they were officially together, as much due to mutually-shared drug usage as their physical and emotional connection.

It wasn't long before Courtney turned up pregnant, and the pair married in Hawaii in February of 1992. Their daughter and only child, Frances Bean Cobain, was born in August. Over the next couple of years Cobain frequently helped Love as she developed her own band 'Hole', and some Nirvana fans took a dislike to her, negatively comparing her influence to that of Yoko Ono on John Lennon a generation earlier.

In a magazine article Love admitted to using heroin while pregnant with their baby, though she later claimed that it happened only before she realized the pregnancy. In any event, the courts stepped in and briefly took the child from their custody, placing her with Love's sister before ultimately returning Frances to her parents. Drugs were a consuming part of the parents life. Cobain had begun using marijuana at age 13, abused painkillers throught his teen years, and moved on to heroin by age 19. He tried rehab in 1992 with the baby coming, but quickly reverted back to abusing the heroin, and he suffered his first major overdose in the summer of 1993 just before a concert. However, Love injected him with Narcan to counter it's effects, and Cobain revived enough to take the stage. In rock-n-roll, the show must go on.

While on a European tour in March of 1994, Cobain came down with laryngitis and went to Rome for treatment. It was there on March 4th that he likely committed his first suicide attempt. Love woke up to find him having overdosed on champagne and some of her own prescription sedatives. He was rushed to the hospital where he remained for almost a week, and then the couple flew back to Seattle where at the end of the month Love organized a formal 'intervention' for Cobain. Novoselic didn't like the idea, and tipped off Cobain before it happened, but in the end Kurt agreed to detox in L.A.

The detox stay didn't last long. On his first night at the facility, he told staff that he wanted to go out to have a cigarette. Instead he jumped a fence, hailed a taxi cab to the airport, and flew back to Seattle on April Fool's Day. Over the next couple of days he was spotted in various Seattle-area locales, but wasn't in contact with any friends or family. On April 3rd, Love hired a private investigator to look for him, and on the 7th, with Cobain missing, Nirvana pulled out of that year's Lollapalooza tour.

The next day an electrician went to Cobain's home on a previously arranged appointment to install a security system. He found Cobain with blood coming from his ear, a shotgun placed against his chin, and a suicide note nearby. Toxology tests showed that Kurt had consumed about twice a lethal amount of heroin. On April 10th, Love attended a public memorial service and handed out items of Kurt's clothing to the fans. His body was cremated.

In the years since his death there have been a number of highly speculative, inflammatory, accusatory, and controversial theories on Cobain's death that involve foul play. This seems to be a recurring theme in the death of these rock stars who are actually simply a victim of their own excess. Some fans would rather believe that their heroes were murdered, rather than admit that they were killed by the very drugs and booze that those same fans are often abusing. Or, as in Kurt's case, by their own hands when they could not handle the constant depression which these substances only make worse.

Kurt Cobain was left depressed as a young child by his familial situation, and during his life had to deal with a continual stomach ailment that went mostly undiagnosed and untreated. In other words, when asking whether Kurt Cobain is fronting a band in some 'Rock & Roll Heaven', singing a duet with Janis while Jimi plays guitar, he may have more of an argument to get in than they did. But in the end, the fact remains that like those 60's icons, this voice of a new generation was silenced by his own hand thanks largely to a severe abuse of drugs and alcohol.

NOTE: this continues the 'Rock and Roll Heaven' series, all entries of which can be read by clicking the below label link

Rock & Roll Heaven: Janis Joplin

It is hard to believe that it has been nearly four decades now. On Saturday, October 3rd, 1970 Janis Joplin had stopped at Sunset Sound Studios in L.A. to listen to the instrumental for a song that she would be recording the following day. She failed to show up on Sunday for that recording.

The producers became upset and sent a roadie to the Landmark Motor Hotel where Janis had been residing since the end of August. He found her custom-painted psychedelic Porsche in the parking lot, and proceeded to her room. No doubt he was likely thinking that the hard partying 27-year old was sleeping off a Saturday night hangover or high.

On entering her room, however, he was stunned to find her dead on the floor where she had collapsed after an overdose of heroin during a night in which she had also been drinking alone. A small, private funeral service was attended by her immediate family, and Janis was cremated with her ashes scattered by plane into the Pacific Ocean and along California's Stinson Beach.

Just three days earlier, on October 1st, she had made what she never realized would be her final recording, a birthday greeting of the song "Happy Trails" for John Lennon. Lennon's birthday was October 9th, and the recording did not reach his home until after Joplin's death. It was like receiving a gift from the grave, the haunting voice of a ghost. But the tragedy of Janis Joplin's death is not that she died so young, with so much talent, and with so much still to offer the world. The tragedy is that Joplin did not have to die. She died thanks to the choice of a lifestyle filled with excessive alcohol and drug abuse.

As a child, Janis' parents had considered her unhappy unless she received excessive attention. As a teen, she rebelled by joining up with an outcast group of friends, and began to listen heavily to blues music. She joined a choir, took up painting, put on weight, and broke out heavily with acne. She had a rough school life, often being taunted and called names, and stated herself that she was "a misfit."

After high school she moved on to college in Texas, but never graduated. Hearing the call of the blues musicians and the 'beat poets' that she stylized herself after, Joplin picked up in 1963 and moved out to San Francisco where she eventually settled in the Haight-Ashbury section that became legendary as the home of the 'flower children' generation. Joplin emersed herself in the music, drugs, and drinking culture, and could keep up with anyone in all three categories. She got heavily into heroin and amphetamines, was known as a 'speed freak', and took a particular fancy to shots of Southern Comfort whiskey.

Thanks largely to what today would be termed an 'intervention' by some friends, Jopline returned to Texas in 1965 and tried to get her life together. She cleaned up physically and in her lifestyle, went back to college, and even got engaged for a short time. But in mid-1966 her life changed for good, and not necessarily for the better, when she was 'discovered' musically by an early hippie band known as 'Big Brother and The Holding Company'. She was persuaded to join the band in June, and they began to tour and record.

Money was tight, however, and by the end of the summer the band had driven back to San Francisco and moved in with members of 'The Grateful Dead' band. Here, Joplin once again got heavily into booze and drugs. Over the next couple of years her band toured and recorded, and Joplin became increasingly popular and famous, with Time magazine eventually dubbing her "the most powerful singer in the white rock movement." The band got their first hit in late 1968 with the song "Piece of My Heart" which rose to and stayed at #1 on the Billboard charts for two straight months, but by the end of the year the problems with egos and substance abuse led Janis to leave the band and embark on a solo career.

Over the next couple of years Janis sank further and further into heroin abuse, but continued to make music and television appearances. In the summer of '69 she appeared at the legendary Woodstock music festival, but by the time she hit the stage after a lengthy wait she was wasted on booze and drugs. In the months leading up to her death, she began a relationship with Kris Kristofferson, and recorded one of his songs titled "Me and Bobby McGee" for an upcoming album. Alas, that album would not be released until after her death, and 'Bobby McGee' became a posthumous hit and legendary signature song.

Janis Joplin became a legend because of her talent and her timing. The talent was the obvious part. The timing involved her particular emergence during a counter-culture revolution for a certain segment of America that embraced drugs, booze, free love, personal irresponsibility, and folk-rock music. That her talent didn't last longer was a direct result of those very same excesses and quirks that enamored her to her fan base during her times.

Joplin's tattoo's, a wristlet and a heart on her breast, became signatures and led to some mainstream acceptance of the art form. Her scarves, beads, and zany hairstyles became as much a part of her image as the drugs and her powerful, gravely voice. Had Janis somehow made it through this period of her life intact, and ultimately lived a normal lifetime, she would be 65 years old right now. Can anyone imagine an aging Joplin still belting out "Piece of My Heart" or "Me and Bobby McGee" as an older woman? That may be a hard image to bring to mind. But more importantly, how much more could Janis Joplin have brought to her public, to us all.

The sad lesson of Janis Joplin's life in the end is not how brightly a star can burn, but how quickly it can be extinguished, especially by it's own means. Is Janis Joplin a lead singer again in some Rock and Roll Heaven? Who knows. But we know this, she died of her own accord, from too much booze and too many drugs, alone on the floor of a dingy California hotel room.