Janis: Little Girl Blue Page #2

---

on her and bullied her.

And by the time

she got to Austin,

and by the time I knew

her, she had already been

profoundly hurt over and over.

And so in Austin,

it was the same way.

Every year, the

fraternities held a contest,

and people could nominate

someone to be ugliest man.

And someone nominated Janis, and

all these jerks voted for her.

And it crushed her,

saddest thing I ever saw.

You know, it really was.

To that point, I'd

never seen Janis cry.

Janis had a very tough

exterior, but it really got her.

It got her bad.

And I said, Janis, they

don't mean anything to you.

They're... they're not

even in your class.

It became increasingly

harder to fit

into a group of angry, angry

men who liked to pick on her.

Even though she ran around with

a tight group of friends that

were into books and

ideas, she needed

to go out to where

the people were

that wrote those books,

where the people were

that sung those songs.

Where does she go?

What does she do?

San Francisco.

It would have to be about

'63 or something like that.

I couldn't stand Texas anymore,

and I went to California

because it's a lot freer.

You can do what you want

to do, and nobody bugs you.

15,000 San

Franciscans protest segregation

in Birmingham, negro

and white citizens

marching in unity for

equality in San Francisco.

We used to all hang out at

a bar called the Anxious Asp

on Green Street in North Beach.

We went to a party one

night, and, you know,

with a little of wine and

a little bit of, you know,

whatever, We kind

of got to talking.

And two weeks later,

she moved in with me.

Sometimes, we went

down to Monterrey,

and she would sing

in the hootenannies.

And she would win tickets for

us to get to the main arena.

One time, we went there, and

there was Bob Dylan, her idol.

And she walks up to him, and she

said, oh, Bob, I just love you.

You know, I'm gonna

be famous one day.

He said, yeah, we're

all gonna be famous.

I'll never forget

that, you know?

She definitely felt the blues.

Bessie Smith and all

the blues singers,

she loved those people.

And I think she emulated

them in the sense of wanting

to be like them, you

know, to have the pain,

and I guess that's

why she drank like she

did and took drugs

because that's

all part of the whole picture.

She definitely needed people

to tell her how great she was,

and she needed that

stroking all the time.

I don't think she was with

girls to shock people.

I think she was with

girls because that's

what she felt at the moment.

And I think she was

totally in a conflict

all the time with

herself, constantly,

and she was unhappy.

She was quite

unhappy, and I think

on the stage it made her feel

that she was somebody, that she

had something to offer.

And I said, I just think this

is not working for both of us.

You know, you want to go off

and do things with other people,

and I'm not strong

enough to handle that.

She got with this

English fellow,

and they were into shooting

up and stuff like that.

And that was never my style.

You know, I just never

could get into that.

Janis was in North

Beach, and she

developed an

intense relationship

with Peter de Blanc.

Then Janis got into methadrine.

Janis told me that

they were living

in that building

behind Tommy's joint

and had not a

stick of furniture.

And Peter was just sitting

there for hours on end

throwing a Super Ball against

the wall and catching it.

And she was skin and bones.

She used, overused, lost weight,

got so strung out that her

group of friends held a party,

and they passed the

hat to get enough money

to put her on a Greyhound

bus and send her back home.

She and Peter decided

that they both needed

to get their lives cleaned up

and would go to their hometowns

and get their lives

together, and then they'd

get together and get married.

Dear Peter, well, I'm home now.

I have your picture on the

desk where I do my homework,

and everyone in the family's

seen it at least three times.

Everyone agrees you're handsome.

I really love you.

In attempting to find a

semblance of a pattern

in my life, I find I've gone

out with great vigor every time

and gotten really f***ed up.

All I did was be wild,

drank constantly,

f***ed people, sang.

Then San Francisco, kind

of wanting to find an old

man and be happy, but I didn't.

I just found Linda and

became a meth freak.

Jesus f***ing Christ, I want

to be happy so f***ing bad.

He came home at one

point and met the family

and asked our father formally

for her hand in marriage.

Well, now it's Saturday,

and you're letter didn't come.

So I'm very sad and

moping around the house,

and mother's worried.

Baby, what's happening?

You could really be hurting

me, and, hell, I couldn't tell.

Am I still happy?

Do I still have you?

She was embarrassed

that he wasn't

going to show up

after she had told

her mom and dad that he was.

He was evidently living with a

woman who he'd gotten pregnant.

And Janis only discovered that

when she happened to call him,

and this woman

answered the telephone.

Do you ever go

back to Port Arthur?

I went back once.

It's a... it's a bummer, and

I ain't going back again.

No, it's no good.

Chet asked me to come

and see his new band,

and that's when I heard that Big

Brother was auditioning women.

So I went by his house and said,

you know, I'm going to go home.

I can ask about

Janis if you like.

And she found out

that I was there,

and we spent the whole

day talking about what was

going on since she had left.

And we should go see

a rock and roll band,

and there's one playing

around the corner.

Didn't have anything to

drink because she was sober.

And we listened to, I think,

two songs, and she turned to me

and she said, that's

what I want to do.

So I said, OK.

Let's go figure this out.

He said, I'm not

going to go and take

it till you tell your parents.

He waited in the car while Janis

went in to tell her parents.

Janis went in and said she was

going to Austin for the weekend

and left and went

to San Francisco.

Mother and

Dad, with a great deal of

trepidation, I bring the news.

I am in San Francisco.

Now, let me explain.

Chet Helms, an old friend,

now is Mr. Big in SF.

He encouraged me to come out.

Seems the whole city had gone

rock and roll, and it has.

And he assured me fame

and fortune, so I came.

I'm so sorry.

My love to Mike and Laura.

Love, Janis.

I would pick her

up, and I'd drive her

back to where she was staying.

I mean, she was always like,

I don't know whether this

is going to work out.

I probably... I should

go back to Texas.

I don't know if

I should do this.

She had a lot of misgivings.

She was very afraid of drugs.

She said, I don't ever want

to see anybody shooting drugs.

I can't stand to see that

because if I see that,

it's just going to

take her out so much.

She came out to San

Francisco and had

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes