January 19th
You would be surprised to know how much I’ve thought of Janis Joplin over the last year.
Today is her birthday. January 19. She was born in 1943. She shares this birthday with another one of my favorite artists… Mac Miller.
When my interest in Janis Joplin began, it was the summer of 2017. I had just finished up my sophomore year of college at the University of Iowa & had an internship at a start up out in San Francisco. If you count backwards by 50 years… you land on 1967. My first summer living in SF was the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love. I had known the elusive concept of what it was, but didn’t quite know the full picture. I was in a sublet off 18th Ave in the Richmond, right across the street from Golden Gate Park. There was a constant reminder that it was the 50th anniversary, so I wanted to know more.
So I started learning about the history of the Summer of Love. I didn’t know anyone in SF, which gave me the opportunity to really explore. I walked endlessly. I even left with shin splints from the SF hills. I spent a lot of time wandering through the park & thought it was so cool that I was in a place where the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, & others would hang out & play music. I remember sitting on Hippie Hill & seeing the infamous Janis Joplin tree & a drum circle going on. It was still filled with people you can tell have been hanging out there since the Summer of Love.
This was just a piece of what made me fall in love with SF. You could say it took a Piece of My Heart that summer (lol). From there on out, I knew this is where I would live after college.
A couple of years later, I ended up moving back to SF after college to work at another start up. I still had an affinity for what the Summer of Love was like here, but it was more subtle without the constant reminder of the anniversary. Any time I could learn something new about that era, my ears were always perked. I picked up some old concert posters from events in Golden Gate Park to put up on my walls, with Big Brother & the Holding Company being one of them. The second vinyl I ever bought was Janis Joplin - Anthology (my first vinyl was Mac Miller, of course).
Then I kind of dropped it for a few years… that is until last year on this exact day.
Two days prior, I had received a random LinkedIn message from a guy named Connor. It said he was a recruiter, so I was about to write it off, but then I saw the preview… “You’re Invited to the Most Epic Celebration of the Year”. My interest was piqued, but I had no clue what this was going to be. I opened it to find an invite for a self-proclaimed “International Con(n)or Day”, aka ConnorCon. It was set for January 19. The creativity that went into the message was top notch. I thought, “okay, this guy must have sent this to a mass amount of Connors”, which he did. But then I got to the location… Connor HQ, with the name of the bar in parentheses. Turns out Connor HQ is the bar directly across the street from my apartment, literally visible from my window.
I thought, okay, I have to go to this. I had a feeling I was going to be the only female Connor representing, so I recruited a few friends to join me. We went, but the bar was completely packed because of the NFL playoffs, so we gave up on ConnorCon. Instead, we grabbed drinks & yapped at a table outside. We decided to go to one more place… a new bar in North Beach called Bar April Jean. We had a drink there & then all headed home.
A couple of days later, something randomly came up about Janis Joplin, & for the first time, I realized that she & Mac Miller shared the same birthday.
That coincidence pulled me back into my old fascination with her. I started reading Holly George-Warren’s biography, Janis: Her Life and Music, & watching documentaries, which all gave me a much deeper understanding. I learned that when Janis first came to SF, she didn’t land in Haight-Ashbury… North Beach was where she lived & spent time. She was inspired by the Beat Movement. At 20, just getting started, she performed one of her first gigs at a coffeehouse called the Coffee Gallery in 1963. The Coffee Gallery closed in 1971, but guess what it is now? It’s the same bar we went to on January 19, Bar April Jean.
In a weird way, ConnorCon led me to the site of one of Janis Joplin’s first gigs in SF, on the night of her birthday.
With more life under my belt & over six years living in the city, I was able to see the bigger picture & impact that these artists in SF during that time period have had on culture. I can truly see why it was so special now.
I’ve learned a lot about Janis since. Through learning about her, I finally found the words for something I hadn’t been able to fully express about Mac Miller before. They were both complex people who put their souls into their music. In order to create some of the things they did, they had to. Two extremely talented human beings who I believe felt to incredible depths. They went to those depths for the music, but maybe got lost in them, needing other things to turn it off or fill voids.
I want to honor both of them today. Each of their talents was unique & offered something to the world that I don’t think anyone else will be able to replicate in quite the same way.
Happy Birthday Janis.
Happy Birthday Mac.
