They Laughed Me Out Of Class, Out Of Town And...

Out of state, man. So I'm goin' home." - Janis Joplin

Janis made this infamous remark during the summer of 1970 (on the Dick Cavett show). She'd been invited to attend her 10th annual high school reunion in Port Arthur, Texas. And she decided to go. I've often wondered why? Texas had seldom been kind to her (she was voted ugliest "man" on campus while attending college).

So why suffer such fools gladly (she was the Queen of Rock during the late sixties)? Was she hoping to finally get some acceptance from her hometown? If so, it proved to be a disaster: Most folks still treated her like a freak, and even her own parents made themselves scarce when she arrived for the reunion. That had to hurt. Big time. So what was the point?

I have never gone to any high school reunions. And I never will. The people that mocked me for being openly gay are not people I respect in the first place, so I don't need their wretched approval. High school is something I feel is best buried and dead. Hey, at least I got a book or two published. That's more than I can say for so many of my fellow students. And I never ridiculed or mocked anybody for being different. So I'm happy with how I turned out.

That's why I can't for the life of me figure out why Janis went to that last (for her) high school reunion? Most people in Port Arthur still disliked her (to put it mildly). So why bother? I think she was hoping that her hometown would finally see her as a person of worth - now that she was so respected by both music critics and the public alike. But it all exploded in her face.

Would/have you attended any high school reunions in your own life? If so, what sort of experience were you expecting? Did it turn out well for you?

P.S. Port Arthur NOW has a Janis Joplin mini-museum: You can see some of her paintings (she started out as a painter), her psychedelic Porsche, lots of photographs, plus some of the quite wild (by 1970s Port Arthur standards) clothes she wore on stage. And plenty of classic Joplin tunes. I think it's sad that the respect her hometown gave her was too little (too late)...




Janis Joplin 1943 - 1970 (RIP)

 

Pretty sure I typed "They" Laughed Me out of Class.... Don't know what's up w/the lower case first letter/word? All apologies....

 

Love me some Janis

 

I picked up somewhere she had a problem thinking she wasn't ugly.Could be mistaken.My Mum was a fan so she was often on the turntable.Sort of similar to Sandy Denny in the tragedy department,even though their music was very different.

 

Yeah, your really cool username says it all

 

Yeah, she was insecure about what she looked like for sure. Port Arthur didn't help matters much. But I always thought she was beautiful - inside and out.

 

I also hate university. It sucks too.

 

Maybe you should become a singer? That's what helped Janis to make it through (for the time that she did)...

 

Janis was a true Bohemian, growing up in a city that didn't celebrate diversity. Port Arthur in the 60s was about as conservative as you can get, and anyone who didn't fit in was treated as an outcast. She wasn't much to look at from the neck up either, and she was constantly reminded of that. Moving to San Francisco opened up a new world for her where people embraced her oddities, but it also led her into drug addiction.

She attended her reunion thinking it would be some sort of triumphant return, but her heroin habit had taken its toll. One classmate was quoted as saying she looked like 10 miles of bad road. And a few months later she was dead.

Such a waste. Imagine all the other music she could have given us over the years. But her hometown had inflicted so much pain on her while growing up that she couldn't cope without drugs. Maybe her early death was inevitable, it seems she wasn't built to last.

 

I am not sure if my class even had a reunion. If they did, I wasn't invited. Then again, I don't have Facebook, which would have probably been the way I would have been notified. Had I been invited, I wouldn't have went anyway. I had nothing in common with any of those people, and the last thing I want to do is dredge up my high school years (not that they were any better or worse than now).

The Janis story is so old. There are misfits everywhere. Janis was just one misfit who became famous. Most of us will never be famous, and will live and die as unknowns. At least Janis's story got to be heard, which is more than will ever be said for me or you.

 

Hey, you got a T-shirt. That's a hell of a lot more than most folks will ever get

 

The infamous Pressed Rat t-shirt you mean?

 

Id have to go to prisons and graveyard to visit most the people I went to school with.
crack, heroin, pills and booze. They were always competitive in school. oh well, I guess Ill never get the best junkie award.

 

Fret not, Mr. Squirrel. The
world is a dangerous place:
Cars and drugs and people
Abound. Even green is no longer safe.



P.S. Can you please use your magic powers to change the first word in the title of my post to "They" (not they). I owe you big time, dude...

 

That's the one

 

people are taught to expect too much of their fellow humans. that is always a big mistake.
we should be taught instead to be thankful the universe doesn't have to give a shit
because that keeps anyone, no matter how powerful in any sense of the world,
from being able to rob it, of its nearly infinite diversity.

we may be naturally a social animal, but really we are taught too much to expect and depend on that.
so much more of life people could enjoy if it would even occur to them, that there is infinitely more, beyond the social box.

to me the tragedy is when and that, people don't.

we make the world be of pain, by the short sightedness and indifference of the cultural values that are today dominant.

the mistake that brought power to nations, also brought self destruction to real people, and through them, places and things.

 

Oatmeal-raison clusters.

 

humans are supposed to go good with cetchup, but i seem to be alergic to tomatoes. (lemons and pears are nice though)

(trying to attract everyone with sex, while at the same time chasing them off with toughness, isn't exactly the way to get people to care. what puzzles me to this day, is how she could have failed to see that)

 

I think her tough girl act was just that: an act. Linda Ronstadt (in her recent autobiography) said that the real Janis was nothing like the persona she created to deal with the male dominated music industry. I mean, drinking Southern Comfort on stage? Only men did that (then). Not women. Also, she sang the blues (not just rock). And many of her most memorable songs are quite feminine and tender. One of my favorite Joplin songs is "A Woman Left Lonely." She knew the score. Big time.

 

This is a nice thread, pacific.....
I don't think Janis was ugly....She obviously had alot of ingrained early hurts....and I know people cannot just walk away from those and look the other way sometimes....It is always an uphill battle....and for some, they just don't make it.....

I always gravitated towards the misfits at my schools...the loners....the ones the "IN" crowds picked on...I rallied around the teased and mistreated.... and usually found them more interesting as people, too.....