When I wake up in the morning, I feel just like any other insecure 24-year-old girl. Then I say, ‘Bitch, you’re Lady Gaga, you get up and walk the walk today.’
Turns out that a lack of healthcare killed, or at the very least contributed to the death of Alex Chilton:
At least twice in the week before his fatal heart attack, Chilton experienced shortness of breath and chills while cutting grass. But he did not seek medical attention, Kersting said, in part because he had no health insurance.
On the morning of March 17, she went to work. Chilton called her after suffering another episode; she arrived home before the ambulance, and drove him to the hospital. He lost consciousness a block from the emergency room, after urging Kersting to run the red light.
Just one case. But policies have consequences. This is one of them. Writ large it is exactly what makes us ~37th in healthcare outcomes amongst developed nations. It is inexcusable. God forbid any Democrat fucking talk about this. Ever.
I don’t reckon Alex Chilton remembrances can get much better than this story:
The night of the Butthole Surfers appearance at the huge Pandora’s Box festival in the Netherlands, [bassist Mark] Kramer went to fetch [singer Gibby] Haynes for a sound check. “It is firstly most important to state that, on this night, Gibby had eaten an entire handful of four-way acid tabs and drank an entire bottle of Jim Beam before the sound check had even begun,” Kramer notes.[Guitarist Paul] Leary was furious at Haynes for getting wasted for such an important show. “Fuck that stupid-ass motherfucker,” he snarled to Kramer. “I hate this fucking band. I swear to fucking Christ on a stick, I hate this fucking band more than I hate myself. And that’s a lot. I don’t even care if we ever play again. If you can’t find him, fuck it. FUCK IT!!!!” With that, he began smashing a couple of guitars with his bare fists.
Haynes was only pretending he’d been knocked out, and as the hired thugs walked away, he rose to his feet and began screaming at them, “DUTCH FAGGOTS!!! GODDAMN FUCKING DUTCH FAGGOTS!!!! A WHOLE FUCKING COUNTRY FILLED WITH NOTHING BUT FUCKING TURD BURGLING FAGGOTS!!!! I FUCK YOUR ASS IN HEAVEN AND HELL!!!! FUUUUUUUUCK YOOOOOOOOU!!”
“The ensuing chase and capture was the stuff dreams are made of,” Kramer says. “Stark naked like the day he was born, beaten, bruised, bloody, and tripping, this icon of modern music ran like Jesse Owens through the entire complex, down the halls, up the stairs, grabbing beer bottles from people’s hands as he went and throwing them down on the concertgoers below. A hail of beer cans, bottles, and miscellaneous garbage rained down upon the Dutch persons as I finally caught up with Gibby just as a throng of the biggest security guards I had ever seen caught up with him
[…] Haynes then made a successful run for the dressing room and slammed the door behind him. Kramer could hear Leary and Haynes screaming at each other inside, and when he finally worked up the courage to open the door, he found the two of them smashing guitars, bottle and chairs in what Kramer calls “the most potent example of bad behavior I have ever seen. To this day, more than fifteen years later, I have no more vivid memory of the effect a life in music can have on a human being.”
Moments later a man entered the dressing room and asked if he could borrow a guitar. “BORROW A GUITAR??!!! WELL, WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU???!!! Haynes screamed, eyes flashing in delerious anticpation of forthcoming violence. But the man was totally unfazed.
“I’m Alex Chilton,” the man answered calmly.
Haynes was flabbergasted. After a long pause, he methodically opened the remaining guitar cases one by one and guestured at them as if to say, “Take anything you want.”
(Many thanks to merlin for bringing this story to our attention.)
Oh, and I guess we can’t end without
“Those fuckin’ Dutch,” Leary explains, “they kind of get you pissed off after a while, man.”
Lemkin 