Love, Love, Love

I usually don't do something like this, but I'm going to include the entire text of the New York Times story on Courtney Love's big night. Everything about it is just so classic, from the Times' calm acknowledgement that this was a "classic specimen of punk rock misbehavior" (you sense them straining against the style book's leash to put a 'u' in the last word) to V.V. columnist Michael Musto's approval of same to the lovely phrase "tranquilized Rapunzel." Sounds like a good title for her next album. Of course, you can view the story, along with a nice picture of Ms. Love looking totally smashed, at the Times' website -- for a week, until they put it behind the pay-per-view firewall. This post is so you can view it for free after that.

New York Times -- March 19, 2004

From Flashing Letterman to Being Flashed a Badge
By SHAILA K. DEWAN

Perhaps Courtney Love's Wednesday should be dipped in gold and mounted on the wall at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as a classic specimen of punk rock misbehavior.

Ms. Love stood on David Letterman's desk and bared her breasts to him; tried unsuccessfully to talk her way onto the stage at Irving Plaza; drank Cristal in a V.I.P. room at Plaid; and ended up early yesterday at the Ninth Precinct station house, under arrest on assault and reckless endangerment charges.

The police said that while performing at Plaid, she hit an audience member, identified by officials as Gregory Burgett, 23, of Kentucky, with a microphone stand. The owner of the nightclub said Mr. Burgett was cut on the brow and received three staples at Cabrini Medical Center.

The episode was not altogether surprising for Ms. Love, 39, whose most public moments have veered from extreme pathos -- like the time she read the suicide note of her famous husband, Kurt Cobain, on MTV -- to angry feminism to catfights to incoherent ranting. The drama began during the day on Wednesday when Ms. Love invited the paparazzi to photograph her in the window of her SoHo apartment, where she strummed the guitar like a tranquilized Rapunzel.

Later that afternoon, at a taping of the "Late Show With David Letterman,'' Ms. Love talked about the drug charges she faces, and repeatedly lifted her shirt, with her back to the audience.

Ms. Love's intermittent belligerence is well documented - her numerous brushes with the law include arrests on charges that she had punched fans and cursed at flight attendants. She has pleaded not guilty to the federal and state drug charges that she faces. But on Wednesday night, people who saw her said, she was in high spirits.

Marc Spitz, a senior writer at Spin magazine who is acquainted with Ms. Love, said that before her appearance at Plaid, he saw her at the Vines concert at Irving Plaza, where he said she asked to perform an impromptu set. "She was really, really excited to play, like amped," he said.

He pointed out that Ms. Love, whose band, Hole, broke up, has not had an album in more than five years. "I'm sure there's a lot of pent-up energy," he said.

Ms. Love and her band then went to Plaid, on East 13th Street in the East Village, for an unadvertised performance to promote her new solo album, "America's Sweetheart." By the time the band arrived at the club, after midnight, news of Ms. Love's mood had preceded her. "You might not want to stand there," someone told Michael Musto, the gossip columnist for The Village Voice, he recalled. "This is where she's coming through, and she's kind of on a tear tonight."

When she arrived, Mr. Musto said, she asked where the stage was, even though it was clearly visible. "She looked like she was feeling no pain," he said, "but I wouldn't expect anything else from a punk legend."

The club's crowd included Boy George, Natasha Lyonne and "Amanda Moore, who's a supermodel," said the spokeswoman for Plaid, who spoke on the condition that she not see her name in print.

"It's a rock 'n' roll crowd, a hip, groovy crowd," she said. "It makes sense for someone with a new album to want to play for this crowd, for, like, street credibility and just a buzz-creation type of thing."

Several people who were at the Plaid concert said they had noticed nothing amiss. "I was in the V.I.P. area, and Boy George was wearing a very big hat, and I couldn't see over him," one person said.

The spokeswoman for Plaid said that the stage was very small and that the mike stand fell, or was knocked over. "It wasn't like she hurled it at people."

Mr. Musto, too, said he did not believe Ms. Love meant to hurt anyone. "It was just kind of a punky gesture."

Peggy Millard, the owner of Plaid, said Ms. Love, who played a cover of "Voices Carry," as well as several songs from the new album, had carried on because she did not realize anyone was hurt.

"She was very upset," Ms. Millard said. "She didn't realize she had done anything wrong."

Ms. Love and the police even reviewed a videotape of the performance, but it did not clearly show what happened, the spokeswoman said. The police allowed Ms. Love to send a Love-like decoy out the side door of the theater, where news photographers waited, while she went out the front and got into a police car. She was released at 7 a.m., freeing her for a performance last night at the Bowery Ballroom. Both charges against her are misdemeanors.

Ms. Love arrived at the Bowery Ballroom just after midnight, two hours after she was scheduled to on. Taking the stage she said, "if any of you guys plan on getting injured, please move outside and get arrested.''

Mr. Burgett could not be reached for comment, and Ms. Love's publicist released a statement that read, "We believe she will be vindicated."

She may indeed - after her 1995 arrest on charges that she punched several fans at an Orlando concert, the judge dismissed the case, ruling that they had been exposed to no more violence than might be reasonably expected at a rock 'n' roll show.