Janis Joplin Had A Lot Of Shit In Her Purse

In the summer of 1970, a writer for named David Dalton was assigned to write a cover story about Janis Joplin for Rolling Stone.  Janis was touring Canada on the 'Festival Express' tour with a chartered train, touring with The Band, Buddy Guy, Sha Na Na, and The Grateful Dead.  Sounds like an endless party.  Joplin was 27 and only three months away from her untimely death.

For Dalton, it was an "Almost Famous-esque" experience.  He turned his experiences of that summer into a book called 'Piece of My Heart'.  The following is an excerpt of the book that takes place in the back of a limousine:

"Now where in the hell did I put that lighter…? Probably left it in that bar. I'm real sloppy. Lose more damn things in bars. Left a wallet with a grand in it in a bar last week. Just can't seem to hang onto anything, man. In desperation Janis dumps her bag onto the floor of the limo. Its contents are truly awesome. Janis has a baglady's compulsion to carry her whole life with her. There are: two movie stubs, a pack of cigarettes, an antique cigarette holder, several motel and hotel room keys, a box of Kleenex, a compact and various make up cases (in addition to a bunch of eyebrow pencils held together with a rubber band), an address book, dozens of bits of paper, business cards, match box covers with phone numbers written in near-legible barroom scrawls, guitar picks, a bottle of Southern Comfort (empty), a hip flask, an opened package of complementary macadamia nuts from American Airlines, cassettes of Johnny Cash and Otis Redding, gum, sunglasses, credit cards, aspirin, assorted pens and writing pad, a corkscrew, an alarm clock, a copy of Time, and two hefty books-Nancy Milford's biography of Zelda Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel." 

The book has been optioned into a movie.  It's called 'The Gospel According To Janis'.  It's due in theaters sometime in 2012, and it stars Zooey Deschanel as Joplin.  Sounds like a promising movie.

If musical genius is judged by the amount of stuff in your purse, I have a feeling that my wife is the next Mozart.