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In a recent telephone interview, Melissa lamented that mass market paperback publishing is “a goofy racket.” She spent her entire advance on research assistants in five states, the book is chock-full of typos, and the only thing good she has to say about Pocket Books is that all her legal assistance is provided for. When you consider that Courtney Love slapped 28 pages of litigation on Ms. Rossi in a New York minute after the book came out, a pocketful of lawyers would come in handy. Rossi refers to the litigation as “my punishment,” and describes it as “full of nit-picking details.” The litigation has yielded five dimestore changes for future printings. For example: the book skipped over one of Courtney’s significant boyfriends. And since Courtney prides herself on her sexual prowess (the conquering hole) Courtney couldn’t let that one slide.Needless to say, Love is not pleased with Rossi’s book. In fact, Rossi states that Love was observed at a Seattle, Capital Hill bookstore, Bailey/Coy, grabbing up every copy of “Queen of Noise” and stashing them in the porno section. Whether that’s a conscious statement about the book or an unconscious statement about herself is hard to tell. After all, Love is a West Coast stripper turned rock star who was typecast opposite Woody Harrelson in the role of Larry Flynt’s ("Hustler Magazine") junky, stripper wife, Althea. Critics have raved over Love's work, albeit she was essentially playing herself; bringing the junky, stripper, golddigger to screaming life. Rumor has it that Harrelson was not too pleased doing the love scenes with Love because, well, she smelled. And he wasn’t referring to Courtney’s acting ability.
Getting back to the book, Rossi complained that it’s downright weird that not one word of ink acknowledging its existence has appeared in the three, major music mouthpieces, "Rolling Stone", "Spin", or MTV. Meanwhile, the book has gone traipsing through all the supermarket tabloids and tabloid TV, has been featured in "Entertainment Weekly", "People", and the "LA Times" and was gobbled up by the French, British, Dutch, Canadian and Japanese music press. But for some slick reason, the three American music heavyweights won’t even return Ms. Rossi’s publicist’s calls. Rossi smells fish. In fact, Rossi smells Courtney behind the Three King's blackout of her book. What bugs Rossi is that people think they are getting an independent, free thinking appraisal of the music industry from these three behemoths when nothing could be further from the truth. “They’re all just a bunch of slimy, gutless weasels,” Rossi said plucking her sling shot, “and you can definitely quote me on that!”
Rossi wisely left her home in Seattle as soon as the book came out. She described herself as “living in retirement” with no income to speak of. She’s still waiting for her royalties to exceed her advance so she can go from “losing money on the book” to actually making money. While paperback writing may be the route to overnight notoriety, it’s not exactly a rags to riches kinda thang. Rossi dashes out free-lance work and waits to collect enough checks to escape the retirement community for a few weeks at a time. So much for everyone’s idea that the book was just a ploy to cash in on Courtney’s mega celeb status. Or, if you want bread, fuck a baker; if you wanna starve, try writing for a living.
Speaking of which, we all know Courtney caught a rising star in Kurt Cobain. Those details are well chronicled in Rossi’s book. But this writer wanted to know the kind of dirt that was either too coarse or too unsubstantiated to make it into the pages of “Queen of Noise.” And Rossi was happy to comply, having completed her 28 pages of legal punishment and communed her sentences. The subjects are sex and death. Since we’re playing Jeopardy here with Courtney’s flotilla of lawyers, we will charge you all $100 a minute to read the following juicy tidbits:
Back when the AIDS disease was first breaking over the fearful minds of the American public, Courtney was known to tell a few sexual partners that she had given them AIDS; not true, of course, but just to spite them. That Courtney, such a kidder.
Courtney Love can also be credited with the sexual conquest of at least a dozen women. So it’s not about gender. It’s about power.
Kurt said on British TV that Courtney was the best fuck in the world. A few other lovers confirm that remark. It’s not about sex; it’s about how to fuck your way to the top of the dung heap.
After Kurt’s death, Courtney made the rounds to the Seattle psychics so she could channel with Kurt. She would carry some of Kurt’s ashes wrapped in her wedding dress and stuffed inside a teddy bear knapsack. After she arrived at the psychic’s abode, she would take out Kurt and sprinkle him around the room. Afterwards, she would sweep him up (or use a dust buster?) and put him away. But invariably, she would leave a little of Kurt behind. Ms. Rossi came upon a piece of Kurt this way when she received a Tarot Deck from a Seattle psychic. The psychic, told Rossi the bit of ash wrapped up with the Tarot Deck was a little piece of Kurt. Unfortunately, Rossi lost the bit 0’ Kurt on the floor of Linda’s bar in Seattle, doing a reading for a friend. Ironically, Linda’s was one of the last places where Kurt was seen alive.
A rumor, Ms. Rossi can’t confirm, blasphemes that after Kurt died, Courtney liked to have her lovers wear Kurt’s dirty, smelly socks when they did the wild thing. Borders on necrophilia.
Courtney turned in all of Kurt’s heroin dealers within days after he died. At least she did one thing right.
Rossi believes that Cali, a junky nanny turned A&R Rep. for Geffen, actually found Kurt’s body first on Thursday. (It was reported that an electrician first discovered Kurt’s body on Friday, April 8, 1994.) Cali jumped on a plane and immediately flew to LA to inform Courtney and Geffen Records. Cali was essentially Kurt’s nanny at the time, assigned to watch over him while Courtney was gone. `From junky nanny to Kurt Cobain’s suicide watch to A&R Rep., it’s the story of Cali, coming to Fox this fall.’
The coroner 5 report concludes that Kurt had shot up heroin shortly before putting the shotgun to his head. The report also states that he died on Tuesday. It is generally believed, however, due to accounts of those who saw him on Wednesday, that Cobain died on Wednesday, April 6th. All the Seattle psychics confirm this as Cobain’s death date.
The heroin Kurt shot up just before his death was delivered to his home by a rich dealer. (And maybe the dealer also squeezed the trigger? How many junkies get the desire to kill themselves shortly after injecting the most euphoric drug known to man?)
Kurt told his junky friends that Courtney told him she was having an affair with Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins) in Europe. And that’s why he overdosed in Rome on Rohypnol (row-hip-knoll)~~ a strong, valium-like drug, popular in Europe, that’s used by people kicking heroin as well as for recreational purposes. It’s believed by Rossi that the rohypnol was actually Courtney’s stash that Kurt got into as soon as she arrived in Rome and gave Kurt the nasty news. Courtney was very fond of pharmaceuticals where as Kurt loved the needle and the spoon.
It’s spelled out in “Queen of Noise” that Corgan was Courtney’s significant lover just before things got hot with Kurt in the early fall of `91. Guess Courtney was going to hitch her wagon to a rising star no matter what.
So you might want to pick up a copy of “Queen of Noise” and find out why the major music mouthpieces won’t touch it with a ten foot Hole, whoops, I mean pole. As Rossi states, “for only $5.99, it’s about the cheapest book you’ll find in the store.” Guess Pocket figures the Generation X’ rs are a little light on cash. Several chapters are devoted to underground music, Bohemia and mayhem in Portland in the eighties. If you were a part of, or on the fringe of that scene, then that alone is worth the price of admission. Besides, Melissa really needs to get out of that shuffleboard city in Florida more often. And every book you buy is another fifty-two cents toward her way out of retirement.
Courtney Love, and her band “Hole”, can be found all over the internet. Here are a couple good starting points: http://www.mrshowbiz.com/starbios/courtneylove/ and http://www.lollapalooza.com/history/1995/Bands/Hole/index.html.