Of Heroines

My return to my esteemed University was amidst tremendous excitement due to a spate of 'sexual harrasment' accusations levied at some boys from my batch by a couple of girls. These boys are - and I say so without any misgivings or shame - my friends. And they did pass derogatory comments against the aforementioned women, for which they have been held accountable and demeaned. However, the comments passed if taken into account would reflect only their genuine feelings about the women and NOT Sexual Harrasment of any form; which in turn seems justified to me - retrospectively - if you take the women and their reactions into account. But thats just me.

However, this post is not to justify the misconduct of my friends or comment upon the lack of character and backbone shown by the female fraternity of NALSAR in general. The aforementioned incidents brought me to consider females I have admired and loved the most. Above are; from left - Grace Slick & Janis Joplin. Needless to say that it is their voice that just kills me. Grace Slick's vocal tremolos and Janis's raw energy and pain, always leave me holding my breath without realising. However, certain instances from their lives reflect certain characteristics in these women which I believe to be the only thing that still keeps me saying "chics can be cool". After all my faith in all I believed in and the people I carried affection for have been shaken brutely by Nalsar and it is in these times I look to my heros, rather heroines in search of hope.

To mention a few instances from rock n roll urban legend;
Grace Slick had once tried to put LSD into Richard Nixon's tea. Seriously. Further, in a 1969 Dick Cavett Show performance, she became the first person to say "motherfucker" on live television during a performance of "We Can Be Together" with the rest of Jefferson Airplane.
In 1971 she fought with her lead guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and challenged him to a race which ended in her crashing her car into the side of the Golden Gate Bridge. She sufferred a concussion and later wrote a song about it. Jorma and Grace remain friends till date. She's also been arrested several times for the crime of - as she believes - Talking Under Influence; the official records reflect arrests on charges of Driving Under Influence. She was well known for her sharp tongue.

Janis Joplin was less boisterous in terms of her behaviour in public, though her music is considered far too bold for her times. She was a white girl, singing black blues melodies, in an overtly rock n' roll market. But she sang with the kind of vengeful darkness that brought her instant success and recognition amongst black and white music afficinados alike. Summertime is an apt example of her approach to music in general. Summertime was a popular lullaby from a George Gershwin opera called Porgy & Bess. In the opera it is a father who sings the song to his infant child reassuring him of the life that lay ahead. However, anyone who's heard the more famous Janis Joplin version would agree that she didn't sing it to be a lullaby. On the contrary, I feel, its Joplin putting on a black woman's cynical sneer at her white counterpart. And the darkness and the confusion is rendered more potent by her being a white woman in reality. A white woman with a black heart.
To provide context the song was recorded by her in the album 'Cheap Thrills' in 1968 and contains the lines "Oh, Your daddy's rich; And your mamma's good lookin', So hush little baby don't you cry".

Its not surprising to me that these women became the voice to the pain, anger and frustation of an entire generation of disillusioned youth, comprising mostly of vagabonds and junkies - men of apparent despicable characteristics.
Pardon my sexist remark but I feel these women had balls. Metaphorically ofcourse. Maybe thats why I admire them so much. Cheers.