Rocking Legend

It was all a lie, but it was a beautiful one. The rock stars' days are numbered. They are going to die, as will we all. No one gets out alive. When we mourn the passing of the legends and the tragic greatness of what they've left behind for us to enjoy in the time we have left, we will also be mourning for ourselves.

Rocking Legend

"Although he is no longer here with us, his humanity and kind soul will continue to guide and inspire us," read the statement. "His legacy will continue to live on through his legendary music. Peace, love, and harmony to all who knew David and those he touched. We will miss him dearly. At this time, we respectfully and kindly ask for privacy as we grieve and try to deal with our profound loss. Thank you for the love and prayers."

Even though it persists to this day, history has lost the start of the rocking chair myth, but several true facts refute its existence. Mary died unexpectedly, and the tasks involved in securing the gravesite, and building the mausoleum took four to six months and in 1835 Huntsville, the means of preserving her body did not exist.

Good legends never die; they simply morph to fit the changing times. Way back when, in less sexually open times, the guys in high school who weren't getting any (which was most of them) would tell salacious and spiteful tales about those ubiquitous symbols of youthful sexual desire: cheerleaders. If you couldn't have them, the next best thing was to dismiss them as tawdry sluts of easy virtue so lacking in moral that they would perform disgusting sexual acts (e.g., oral sex) on an entire football team a la Clara Bow. As in all good "sour grapes" tales, these tarts got their comeuppance when their deviant behavior caused them to fall ill, requiring trips to the hospital where astonishing amounts of semen were pumped from their stomachs, revealing their nasty little sexual proclivities to the world. (They didn't just suck; they swallowed, too!)

Never mind that the amount of semen supposedly pumped out of the subject generally exceeded the capacity of even the largest of stomachs, would have required continuously performing blow jobs for about three days straight to ingest, that semen [in any quantity] isn't toxic, and that someone who ingested too much would at worst feel nauseated for a little while or throw up but wouldn't be subjected to stomach-pumping. Plausibility has never been a barrier to the spread of popular urban legends.

The following people have had this legend attributed to them: Rod Stewart, Elton John, David Bowie, Marc Almond, Mick Jagger, Andy Warhol, Jeff Beck, Jon Bon Jovi, the drummer for Bon Jovi, the lead singer for New Kids on the Block, the Bay City Rollers (what, all of them?), Alanis Morrissette, Li'l Kim, Foxy Brown, Britney Spears, and Fiona Apple.

Nowadays this legend keeps resurfacing, attributed to whatever singer (male or female) is currently disliked for being too popular or too lightweight or too cute (frequently teenage singers with legions of fawning adolescent fans, such as the New Kids on the Block or Britney Spears). Some versions still attempt to shock (rather than simply denigrate their targets) by including elements of bestiality. (That is, in some tellings the stomach contents are said to have included dog semen, as if sperm typing were a category of test a hospital would routinely perform under the circumstances.)

Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Lou Reed, a co-founder of the legendary band the Velvet Underground and one of the most influential singer-songwriters of the past 50 years, died Sunday in Southampton, Long Island, N.Y. He was 71.

Bob Morales, the older brother of rock legend Ritchie Valens, and who made a name for himself from Pacoima to Northern California during his own turbulent past, died Saturday night in his Central Coast home after battling prostate cancer. He was 81.

Now, a new documentary explores Quatro's enduring impact and shows a portrait of an artist still rocking through her golden years. Featuring interviews with the likes of Debbie Harry, Alice Cooper, Joan Jett and Henry Winkler, director Liam Firmager's festival hit "Suzi Q" is an exuberant celebration of a woman who broke all the rules. Salon spoke to the 70-year-old icon recently from her home in England, to talk about music, gender, and leather.

In 1998, Frank Zappa released his compilation album called Cheap Thrills. Track 7, titled The Mudshark Interview, recounts a conversation at The Edgewater where the front office manager describes how guests used to frequently fish out of their guest room windows. Shark, squid, and octopuses regularly wound up in the hotel rooms. At that time, you could even rent fishing equipment and buy bait out of the hotel gift shop. Zappa allegedly partook in a legendary fishing excursion from his window during his stay, keeping a mudshark alive in the bathtub. 041b061a72