Not the One - Part Two

How I almost met Janis Joplin

This will strike people as implausible, but I worked at the Straight Theater for 6 weeks and can't remember a single show that was put on or band that played except for Janis Joplin and Big Brother and Holding Company.  Maybe there is something to that "if you lived through the sixties, you don't remember them" thing after all.

This is how it happened.  Everyone was excited that Janis Joplin was coming to the Straight.  The house was full and all the crew members were backstage. I don't remember the actual concert. Usually someone passed around a joint or two or several.  There was this high school boy who also hung around the Straight, in from the suburbs several nights a week on the bus. 

All I remember is there I was backstage after the concert with the high school kid and a bottle of Jim Beam, unopened, that someone from the band had left behind, where it was rolling around backstage, after everything was cleaned up and everyone else had gone home. This was special.  We had no choice but to open and, sitting there on the stage, in an empty theater on Haight Street, proceed to drink the whole thing, or as much of it as we could, before becoming violently sick. Soon I realized I was the only one left on stage, my young friend (I was 18, he couldn't have been more than 17) had toddled off to catch the last bus. How he could stand up was beyond me, but that may be because my own high school years were spent going to church and youth group, and the the first time alcohol had touched my lips, some three months earlier, had also been the last, once I discovered the much mellower joys of  marijuana. His tolerance as obviously much higher than mine.

Then I heard noises and realized I wasn't truly alone.  One of the crew members or maybe it was a member of the Family Dog who managed a number of the bands that played at the Straight, found me propped up against the rear wall, my eyes going.

"What are you still doing here?" he asked.  I don't recall what I answered other than vaguely waving in the direction of the now half empty bottle lying at my feet.  "Oh," he said, "I'm taking you right home to bed."

If I had paid closer attention to my mother's regular and ongoing admonitions, little warning bells would have gone off in my head. After all, I didn't really know this guy.  He was good looking and he was a regular backstage, so I never thought twice about letting him scoop me up and half carry me to his car outside.  

But I was too out of it to pay attention to mere bells, when my biggest concern was not throwing up all over myself or his nice leather car seats.  Soon I realized we were going over the Golden Gate Bridge, not out to the Avenues, where my own bed awaited.

But I did not protest. In fact, drunk as I was, I was secretly pleased to have attracted the attention of a handsome backstage guy.  Maybe this would be my big break of the love of my life.  If I could manage not to puke, of course.

Soon we were climbing a mountain road. It could have been minutes or hours from the Bridge. (Later I learned it was Mill Valley, a short ride over some twisting roads on the side of Mt. Tamalpais.) Then we had arrived and the handsome man was helping me out of the car, up the stairs into his house and tucking me into a bed. Alone.  He pulled the covers up to my chin and said, "You'll feel better in the morning."

When morning came, I  felt worse, and I didn't smell that good either.  Embarrassed at my unseemly behavior, I all but hid my face in my hands, after showering in the adjacent bathroom and redressing in last night's mussed clothes. Clothes I had slept.

Well, I thought to myself on the ride back to the Straight, a little wistfully, I'll have to tell my mom that not all men who get you in their cars are up to no good.