It was 37 years ago today that Hendrix passed on….

[mgauction]

That's one of those days I could tell you where I was and picture myself in the room of my parents house when I heard the news.

[shamustwin]

I still have clippings from the L.A. Times on this.

"Drugs kill idol of Acid Rock".

That headline always struck me as if they implying karma was at play.

[mgauction]

Sounds like they wanted to label him "The Devil."

Wow - post #1600!

[kenposurf]

Yep Mike..I remember where I was also...see ya in the next world...

[firstbassman]

Yeah, I remember too. Remember the front page of the NY Post someone was reading on the bus on the way home from school.

Festival Express was on television a few nights ago and I watched it again. Each time Janis was performing I still get the same reaction when I watch her or Hendrix. I still get angry.
Angry at them for dieing so young.
Stupid, stupid, stupid thing to do.

[chrisb]

And on the day Hendrix died, I just happened to be born...my one claim to fame (so far).

[mgauction]

Happy Birthday, Chris! May I call you Jimi?

[hieronymous]

Chris, that's cool! I was born two weeks later, and used to fantasize that I was the reincarnation of Jimi, but actually it takes 49 days to transmigrate...

[rictified]

So many of the great ones died in that era.

[kenposurf]

let your freak flag fly Chris!

[johnallg]

"So many of the great ones died in that era."

So many of them lived and drugged hard.

[jimk]

That seemed like a hard, hard era. I remember going to school and a classmate of mine was passing out black crepe armbands. I wore mine all day. And it rather surprised me that the school administration didn't come down on us for wearing them.

But that didn't break me up half as much as the feeling of...what?...betrayal, sadness certainly, when I heard that the Beatles had broken up. That hit me hard. That was unbelievable.

Jimi died, Janis, Jim Morrison, the break up of the Beatles...man I thought that was the time when the Music died.

JimK

[wayang]

It was a hard era, and hardest of all on those who had their eyes open, for one reason or another and by whatever means.

Many people did not then, and many don't now.

Let's tone down the anger at people whose situations and life stories we can barely imagine coping with...any o' you smart white boys out there want to fantasize aloud about what a picnic it must have been to be a black man in the 82nd airborne in the early sixties? Never mind being brilliant and, later, turned on and tuned in? Jimi felt those American kids in Nam were his brothers, and they were coming back dead much younger than he would be when he eventually passed. Who's got the wisdom to claim he knows when anyone's died too soon? Don't no human know when the right time might be for anyone else. Maybe Jimi and Janis did all the living they needed to.

An' by the way, the cause of Jimi's death could just as easily have been listed: ambulance attendant racism. So let's put to rest the ill-informed post mortems and misdirected anguish, because they have nothing to do with reality...drop a tab, watch the 6 o'clock news and get back to me. Let's just say: "That's what Jimi would have wanted..."

(ps: according to George Carlin, "The wrong two Beatles died.")

[johnallg]

We can always count on you, Dane, to tell us where reality lies. Glad to know you were there with all of them to pass on this insight.

Sorry, but I left my paranoia back in the 70s.

And if your comment, "Let's tone down the anger at people whose situations and life stories we can barely imagine coping with", includes my above post, it was not a judgement, but an observation.

[lyle_from_minneapolis]

I used to have that same paranoia, but now I'm down to just one.