From: owner-jinglejangle-digest@smoe.org (jinglejangle-digest) To: jinglejangle-digest@smoe.org Subject: jinglejangle-digest V7 #114 Reply-To: jinglejangle@smoe.org Sender: owner-jinglejangle-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-jinglejangle-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk jinglejangle-digest Tuesday, August 31 2004 Volume 07 : Number 114 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [MLL] MLL Street Legal (Archival) [Recordings@aol.com] Re: [MLL] MLL Street Legal (Archival) [LisaTski@aol.com] [MLL] Mary Lou, Kurdt, Courtney, & Me Pt. 1 (Archival) [Recordings@aol.co] [MLL] Mary Lou, Kurdt, Courtney, & Me Pt. 3 (Archival) [Recordings@aol.co] RE: [MLL] Mary Lou, Kurdt, Courtney, & Me Pt. 3 (Archival) ["Jill Falzoi"] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 10:55:51 -0400 From: Recordings@aol.com Subject: [MLL] MLL Street Legal (Archival) MLL STREET LEGAL - Archival Post from 1997 So much has happened, I'll barely be able to fit it in. Anyone who went looking for Mary Lou on Friday night on 2nd and Santa Monica probably didn't see her. Yep: with one more week in L.A. to go, she finally became a legal resident of the Santa Monica busking community and got her laminated $30 Permit (it's actually a Green Card!!). I stumbled upon her entirely by chance at Arizona and 3rd. I had the baby with me so I couldn't stay long. MLL did not seem entirely pleased with her new digs, what with very large groups of people constantly millng past and a certain loss of intimacy. Also, she'd sold out all her CDs and figured she could have sold a few hundred dollars' worth if she had them. She was a little brusque with me: when I asked how the CD mastering was going, she said: "I'm not involved in the MASTERING, I was involved in the MIXING!" clearly implying that I was an idiot who didn't know the difference. Oh-kay! A street-walking black gentleman admired her large stack of $1 and kept asking how he, too, could make the big bucks. He also asked if she and I were "together." After 4 songs Friday kissed Mary Lou goodbye and we left. Last night I arrived around 11:00 to find my usual route blocked by police cars and thinner-than-usual crowds on the promenade. Turns out there was an armed takeover of Woolworth's complete with hostages and gunfire. Mary Lou had been just a few doors away from Woolworth's (she'd almost gone in there for batteries!) and when the shooting started she high-tailed it down the street into a tiny store with a bunch of other folks. She was forced to relocate up the street, joined across the way by FLATHEAD, who joked about what he considered to be Mary Lou's overpowering volume. "Mary Lou Lord, ladies and gentleman!" he announced. "Hey Mary Lou, let's do one together, shall we? You pick!" This seemed to annoy Mary Lou and she packed up her stuff much earlier than Flathead to leave him the field, so to speak. MLL, me, and her homeless-guy bodyguard shuffled down to watch Flathead perform MR. BOJANGLES, which I couldn't get out of my head for the next hour. Mary Lou then decided to set up shop at good ol' Santa Monica and 2nd. It was sparse at first, but amazingly she managed to attract a small crowd even during a police emergency. A VERY oily video director made a great show of presenting his card while preening for his 3 blonde female companions. She quit around 2:00 AM as her amp ran out of time and simply shut off. At this point Mary Lou got a bit nostalgic about the corner, knowing that in all probability she'll be returning to Boston later this week. She gave her homeless-guy bodyguard an advance tape of the new CD, but I managed to make off with the acoustic EP dub, which is wonderful. Mary Lou asked me if I had any good bootleg versions of '56 VINCENT BLACK LIGHTNING, as she wants to end the acoustic disc with something "authentic". I dubbed her my best 3 versions and will deliver that today or tomorrow. Then ML and I sat in her idling car and talked until the sun began creeping up around 5:30 AM. This is normal for ML but not me, and I was awoken this Father's Day morning with only 3 hours of sleep. Ouch!!! ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 11:05:42 EDT From: LisaTski@aol.com Subject: Re: [MLL] MLL Street Legal (Archival) Wow... this is like opening up a time capsule. Thanks for the blast thru time Dino! ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 22:18:55 -0400 From: Recordings@aol.com Subject: [MLL] Mary Lou, Kurdt, Courtney, & Me Pt. 1 (Archival) A TIMELESS CLASSIC FROM 1995 Subj: Mary Lou,Kurdt,Courtney,&Me#1 95-08-19 21:09:26 EDT From: Jainsparow During the fall of 1991, I was living in New York City. Mary Lou Lord, a friend of mine from when I lived in Boston, called me. She had started seeing someone, and was coming into town to catch his band play that night (September 28th). I said that I had been planning to see Nirvana and the Melvins, but that perhaps we could try to catch both shows. She told me that the person who she was seeing was in Nirvana (still just a club band at that point). We laughed at the coincidence. When Mary Lou arrived at my apartment that evening, we were both exhausted. I assured her that bands went on late in New York, and we both took a nap. She woke up before me, but let me sleep longer. We took a cab to the Marquee. When we got there, it turned out that I had been wrong about the times. Nirvana was playing their last song. The show ended, and the security guards started pushing people out. I saw Kurdt repeatedly sticking his head out of the backstage door. I pointed this out to Mary Lou, and I said that he was probably looking for her. She became embarrassed and said that maybe we should leave, because he probably had a lot of things to do. She ducked behind me, so that he wouldn't see her. I told her to at least say hi. She said: Let's just write him a note, and he can call me at your place. We tried to get to the stage to give the note to this orange-haired guy who was moving equipment around. I think that he was the guitar tech.. The guards wouldn't let us. We asked them please to hand it to the tech. for us. One of the guards did, and when the tech. looked up, he said: Oh, Mary Lou! She's OK. Come on up. We went backstage. Kurdt was sitting on the couch. As soon as he saw Mary Lou, he yelled: There you are! I've been waiting for you! and he pounced on her, pulling her down onto the couch with him. She asked him what he meant, and he said: Didn't you get my messages? She told him that she hadn't. He said: Well check them later then. We left the Marquee. Mary Lou and I got into a van with Kurdt, Chris, Chris' wife Shelly, and the guitar tech., who was driving. We went to the Roger Smith hotel. The road manager, Monty checked the band into the hotel. When he opened his briefcase at the front desk, it was filled with pens of all different colors and sizes, lined up in neat rows. I've never seen anything like it in my life. Mary Lou and I went up with Kurdt to his room. He was pissed off, because he had asked specifically to get his own room this time, and they had him sharing with Dave again. He was going on about how they couldn't share a room anymore, because they both had girlfriends. Kurdt tried to find out where Dave was to leave a message for him to stay with his girlfriend that night. He was extremely agitated that he couldn't get in touch with Dave and that the whole thing was up in the air. Kurdt went into the bathroom to take a shower. Mary Lou and I watched MTV. When he finished, he yelled out to her, asking if she could get him some clean underwear out of his suitcase. It was a huge blue-green old fashioned kind with everything tossed in it in a mess. Mary Lou couldn't find his underwear. He yelled from the bathroom: I thought that I finally had some clean underwear! He marched out of the bathroom in a towel and pulled a pair from the inside side pocket. He went back into the bathroom to change. When he came out of the bathroom, he started going on about how he was always hoping that someone was going to do his laundry for him. He said: I put it out, but they never take it. I think that it's been done, and I get really excited, but when I open the bag, it's still dirty. A Mudhoney video came on MTV. It was the video where they throw the toasters in the pool. He was ecstatic, bouncing up and down on the bed. He kept saying: Those are my friends! Those are my friends on TV! My friends are on TV! He kept pointing to them on the screen and telling us what they were like in person. He couldn't calm down after that. The three of us left to go to this girl's apartment for a party. She worked at MTV. Hardly anyone was there. We stayed an hour or two. I didn't hang out with Mary Lou and Kurdt at the party, but instead hung out in the kitchen with a childhood friend of Niles (Nils?, Miles?), one of the Nirvana road crew. Niles(?) had gotten the gig because he had worked in a Minneapolis club with Monty. The few of us at the "party" went to a bar. I sat in a booth in the main part of the bar with Niles(?), his friend, and a black-haired girl who worked for a guitar company (I had met her briefly backstage at the Marquee). Mary Lou and Kurdt went into the back room where the bathrooms were. They sat at a small table by the door to the room. Either it was the only table, or there was one other. Regardless, no one else was sitting in the room. (TO BE CONTINUED) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 22:33:22 -0400 From: Recordings@aol.com Subject: [MLL] Mary Lou, Kurdt, Courtney, & Me Pt. 3 (Archival) Subj: Mary Lou,Kurdt,Courtney,&Me#3 95-08-19 21:17:07 EDTFrom: Jainsparow What I have just written is from my own personal experience. It is not a story told to me by someone else. I am submitting this to you, because I have seen the pain and embarrassment which all the rumors and outright lies have caused Mary Lou. It is upsetting for me to hear uninformed strangers repeating Courtney's accusations about Mary Lou "in the back of a van". Especially as I know from my 1991 conversation with Courtney, that she has always known otherwise. I am tired of hearing over and over again about Mary Lou being a one night stand when I know for a _fact_ that it was so much more. Not only did I witness the relationship which Mary Lou and Kurdt had begun together, but there were other people who witnessed it as well. In regards to other rumors which I have heard about Mary Lou: In all the years that I have known her, she has never been in an asylum or had a restraining order taken out against her by anyone. I have never heard from anyone who knows her personally that either of these things have occurred. No matter how hard you search for evidence to support these rumors, you will not find it, because it does not exist. As we go through life, we have many different relationships, and we often speak of the people in our past. This is normal. Usually, these people are not famous, and no one thinks twice about us when we speak of them. Why then, if an old boyfriend becomes famous, do the rules change? I have always known Mary Lou to downplay events in her life. There is so much that she could tell you all about Kurdt, but she keeps silent, because that is her way. That's why she tends to not always defend herself when perhaps she should. The subject of Kurdt is constantly thrust in Mary Lou's face by others. You will notice in her interviews that she always brushes past that part of her life, usually declining to comment. The only time that Mary Lou ever discussed her relationship with Kurdt with a member of the "media" was in an interview for a local paper, the Boston Phoe! nix. Th e interviewer was someone who has known her personally for years. The remarks that she made about Kurdt were made _after_ the tape recorder was turned off. She thought that the interview was over and that they were just chatting as friends. Again, this is a situation which I was aware of _at the time_, before it became an issue. In the case of more widespread publications, please remember that magazines and newspapers are in the business of selling copies and making money. If throwing Kurdt Cobain's name into a headline or article is going to attract a viewer's eye, and move that unit off the shelf, they are certainly not going to ask for Mary Lou's permission to do it. This is not at all to say that the media bears the responsibility for the perpetuation of rumors about Mary Lou. It is human nature to pass along the interesting stories that we hear from others. The term for this tale swapping is "gossip". I am not condemning this pastime, but rather I am asking you to keep in mind that these juicy stories are just that, _stories_. Maybe they are true. Maybe they're false. Maybe, they're a little bit of both, but they're not %100 fact unless _you_ were there. If you want to base your personal judgment of a person on second hand rumors and the hateful words of others, that's your prerogative. But it's unfair to use this incomplete information as an excuse to smear someone's name around, when you don't even know them. Here is a perfect example of how the actions of others in regards to Mary Lou have gotten out of hand: A few years ago, Mary Lou played a small show at a restaurant in Cambridge, Mass.. A person who worked for someone who was promoting Mary Lou at the time, showed up with about 15 copies of a "comical resume" hand-out which he had written. They mentioned Mary Lou's relationship with Kurdt and they mentioned Courtney. Mary Lou did _not_ write the hand-out. When she saw it, she was adamant that they not be distributed and that the section referring to Kurdt and Courtney be removed. Unfortunately, some of them did get out. Either someone there that night picked one up before Mary Lou saw them, and then made copies for people, or the people who were promoting her sent them out anyway, and didn't tell her. That-hand out is what has become known as the "bio". She's gotten a lot of shit for that, even though she was opposed to it from the start and genuinely thought that she had stopped it's distribution. For years I have watched Mary Lou work long hours in subways and on sidewalks. She was never home, but I knew that if I hopped on the trains, I'd find her. Literally hundreds of thousands of people, if not more, have seen her play. She has crossed the country and she has crossed the ocean. She has spent hours and hours and hours with me just talking about her first love, music. That is what she does. She takes the music that speaks to her, and she shares it with others. The money that she makes, she _earns_. I have seen many people so moved by her singing, that they have left $10, $20, and even once, a $100 bill in her guitar case. If it was anyone else, I'd be amazed, but she works so hard, and she is so gifted, that it just seems natural to me that she gets such recognition. This is why I find it so ridiculous, and why she finds it so frustrating, when a relationship which she had over 3 years ago is continually seized upon and hyped to the exclusion of the one thing that should be, and! remain important, which is the music itself. I am sharing this information with you to hopefully put some of your questions to rest. There are others around who know the truth as well. Unfortunately, many of them are connected with the music industry and have a lot to lose if they talk. Anyway, it _was_ real. Now, please let it go. Mary Lou has moved on. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 01:36:19 -0400 From: "Jill Falzoi" Subject: RE: [MLL] Mary Lou, Kurdt, Courtney, & Me Pt. 3 (Archival) These are beautiful, evocative, well-written posts. I can visualize everything and it is so nostalgic. And the third part is passionate and strong in argument and if only people would think like that nobody would waste precious time on gossip rags and hearsay and would instead use their human creativity for hopeful, useful and not destructive or hurtful causes. The power gained through meanness and cruelty -- it only attracts more meanness and cruelty into their lives. Thank you so much for sharing. Do you have Pt. 2? I only got Pt. 1 and 3. Jill ------------------------------ End of jinglejangle-digest V7 #114 **********************************