Lit Bombast: Bad Like Me
Oh, Courtney Love, you’ve always been at once unfairly disparaged and unfairly idolized by the laymen of your country. But why are people so obsessed with you?
I honestly can’t answer that. I CAN point the reader to a lovely interview I did with the ladies of Frightwig, who in it, tore Ms. Love down a couple notches. What I like about it is that it’s NOT some sorority chick or your daytime news anchor calling her a crazy bitch. The women of Frightwig be crazy bitches (which I mean in the best way possible), so when they point out that Courtney is a SERIOUSLY crazy bitch, and one who they knew personally, I have to listen. But, I won’t totally dismiss her just yet. Let’s read Love’s bad-girl-manifesto for a few moments, shall we?
The woman gets a couple things right- namely that Dame Darcy IS goddess supreme, and that “sex is intrigue, not looks.” Or, at least, those are two statements I can certainly get behind. Oh, and I have to semi-agree with her distinction between “bad girls” and “evil girls.”
The rest of it? Her bravado ends up coming across as veiled self-doubt. Which is fine. We all got self-doubt. But I’m just not sure how I feel about her putting down other women to deal with it. I’ll be real and say I’m a little uncomfortable with the whole thing because I DO identify with a good deal of her assertions, but I can’t resolve the conflict between shitting on other women, wild vanity, and having a sense of irreverence and humor about the whole thing. Thoughts, anyone? It’s a fun read, in any case.
Here’s an awesome Hole sleeve for aesthetic kicks:
This is a little baffling to me, possibly because I’m neither bad nor a girl (or I’m good at denial). It struck me as more about defining and defending territory, but, again, it might be my perspective speaking, not the truth.
She’s full of contradiction, but that’s fine. People who hold such contradictions can be interesting, deep and, sometimes, a little dangerous. I am fascinated by Courtney Love, but I’m also glad to just observe her from afar.
I remember this article. My wife was a BUST subscriber. Because Courtney is such a train wreck, but also an extremely intelligent, well-cultured and well-read woman, she draws attention by virtue of being informed and opinionated. Even when Hole were a nothing little band and I saw them live I thought she was absolutely awful, musically and on stage – absolutely loathed the band and her star-fuck between-song comments about Mark this, Eddie that, Kurt this, etc. But I also remember some music industry manifesto she wrote for Salon in the late 90s that was totally right-on and well written. Definitely more interesting than 99.9% of anyone else in mersh alterna-rock.
Ha, everyone seems to have the same reaction of, “I’m fine with the fact that she’s a trainwreck… but I also don’t want to be anywhere near a trainwreck.”
Also, I’m super jealous of the fact that you actually remember or experienced half of the random shit that I write about. It makes me feel like I have no business examining music from before my day!
Nah, of course you should continue….I mean, I write a ton about 60s and 70s music, and I wasn’t there at all. I’d have loved to have gone through 1966 or 1977 as a full-blown music fan where I could drive myself to shows, but instead my “era” happened to instead be 1983 and into the 90s. I’m certain there’ll be someone pretty excited down the line that you got to see, I don’t know, White Lung in 2012….