From a Self-Righteous Watchtower Comes a Verdict on Jimi Hendrix

The war on drugs that seems, at times, to have turned the nation into a bloody battlefield can claim one more victim.

But this time, the corpse isn’t a John or a Jane Doe. It’s a body named Common Sense.

At Ridgefield High School in Connecticut, more than 100 teen-agers have signed a petition asking that a mural of rock guitar legend Jimi Hendrix be painted over.

Why? Because Hendrix used drugs and, therefore, is now a guitarist non grata.

You could almost understand it if this was a group of old fogies wagging their fingers at their rebellious offspring. Or maybe even some Big Chill-dren who have experienced firsthand the ups and downs of long-term substance abuse.

But this is a bunch of pimple-faced kids from a ritzy suburban neighborhood in Connecticut, and they’re hoping to whitewash away the memory of a man who helped revolutionize popular art before most of them were a hallucination in their parents’ purple-hazy eyes.

Jonathan Fulkerson, the Ridgefield senior leading the crusade to roller-over the Beethoven of the electric guitar, says: “It seems a little hypocritical to have a thing that is such a symbol of drugs.”

Sure (Fulkerson’s sentence structure notwithstanding), it’s a tragedy that Hendrix--and so many others--died from drug abuse. But this simplistic corollary of the “Just Say No” mentality reflects a dangerous black-and-white attitude about drugs, and one certainly not limited to Ridgefield: Not long ago in Tustin, a young girl turned in her parents to the police because she found some drug paraphernalia around the house.

Fortunately, Fulkerson doesn’t appear to represent a majority at his school, where the student body president has said that “most people don’t understand what all the fuss is about. I can see why Jon is circulating the petition, but I don’t really agree with it.”

Yes, Hendrix took drugs. Does that mean we have to hit every mural with the latex flat? Do we torch those old Hendrix black-light posters stuck away in the den closet? And then throw his albums into the document shredder?

And once we eliminate all physical evidence of Hendrix’s existence, do we then go after Jim Morrison (the prevert)? And Janis Joplin (that souse)? And then there’s the Rolling Stones. And the Beatles. And, of course, the Big E himself, whose death was allegedly caused by a stomach full of pills. . . .

Of course, once we’re on a roll, we can’t stop with rock.

Country music pioneer Hank Williams Sr. died at 29 after boozing and pilling himself into oblivion. Jazz greats Charlie Parker and Billie Holiday died far too young thanks to heroin addictions.

Even classical music isn’t immune from poor role models like Modest Mussorgsky, known to be an alcoholic.

While we’re at it, what about such literary Dead-heads as Edgar Allan Poe, who was known to take a whiff of opium now and again? Do we quoth “The Raven” nevermore? And Jean-Paul Sartre, whose existentialist ravings reportedly were helped along by massive quantities of speed. Do we condemn his being to Nothingness?

For that matter, why stop with just drug abusers? Is it necessary to run down a list of historical figures--cultural, political or otherwise--who have succumbed to all manner of vile habits?

Do we delete Pete Rose’s 25 years of sterling performance from the baseball record books because he may have bet illegally on his own team’s games? Do we change the names of all the John F. Kennedy schools around the country because of his penchant for members of the fairer sex who weren’t his wife?

It seems that in our zeal to stem the tide of a society-wide problem with drug abuse, we may be losing sight of the greater danger of judging someone’s entire life on the basis of one element.

Not to mention the unspoken fact that the cavalier condemnation of the drug user is a safe and convenient out for those who would rather point fingers than try to provide real solutions. It’s certainly a lot easier than attempting to remedy ugly social conditions that make the desperate escape of drugs seem the only relief. But then, it’s so much more bothersome to alter a cultural mind-set than it is to spray paint a mural now and then.

Sure, Jimi Hendrix used drugs, and he died a useless death. But who knows how, or whether, his drug habits affected his natural talent? And are those habits any reason to dismiss musical accomplishments so astonishing that they still send shivers up and down the spine?

The creative process is a mysterious, elusive thing. And like it or not, many artists would not measure up to the kind of physical and moral standards you’d want from, say, the folks down at your neighborhood tiny tot day-care center. Frank Sinatra’s not a guy I’d like to sit down with at the roulette wheel or the dinner table, but I still love to hear him sing.

Heck, even William Bennett, director of National Drug Policy, was recently quoted as saying: “My wife has an aversion to the Rolling Stones because she associates them with drug excesses. But I think the Stones are so damned good I allow for them.”

If we start eliminating from our eyes, ears, hearts and minds anyone whose personal behavior falls somewhat short of Gandhi’s (oops, he had a few peccadilloes too, if you recall), all we’re going to have left is Pat Boone.

And what a wonderless world that would be.