Janis Joplin – "Trust Me" (1971)

The older the grape

The sweeter the wine

[NOTE: It’s become a tradition for me to celebrate each 2 or 3 lines anniversary by interviewing myself.  Here’s part four of this year’s  four-part anniversary interview.]

Q:  There’s a rumor going around that you’re being considered to star in the second season of ABC-TV’s The Golden Bachelor show.  Is there any truth to that rumor?

A:  You’ll have to ask the network that question.

Q:  Have you been watching the show?

A:  I’ve watched every episode – despite the fact that it is so full of sh*t that it’s eyes are brown.

Q:  Why do you say that?

A:  They call The Golden Bachelor reality television, but they should call it unreality television.  They put people in an utterly artificial situation, film everything they do – which ensures that everyone is acting unnaturally at all times – and then edit the hell out of that footage so that the audience sees only a small part of what really happens.  The result is as phony as a three-dollar bill.  

Q:  What do you think of Gerry – a/k/a “The Golden Bachelor”?

A:  In the first place, he’s not a bachelor.  A bachelor is a male who’s never been married.  Gerry has been married.  His wife died, so he’s a widower – not a bachelor.

Q:  Thank you, Mr. Webster.

A:  You’re welcome, Mr. Wiseass.  To answer your question, I think Gerry is a good-looking guy, and he doesn’t appear to be an assh*le – which gives him a leg up on most men.  But he has a room-temperature IQ and zero personality.  If the women on the show had met him on a dating website, I think most of them would have said “Thanks, but no thanks” after about two dates.  

Q:  You think so?  Most of them seem very taken with him.  

A:  Most of them seem to believe they’ve fallen in love with him, despite the fact that they barely know him – which is just insane.

*     *     *     *     *

Q:  I assume you saw the episode where Gerry visited each of the three finalists in their hometowns and met their kids and grandkids.  During those visits – which took place on three successive days – all three of them told him that they were in love with him.

A:  And he told all three of them that he was in love with them, too.  All in the space of three days!  

Q:  And you don’t believe that was true.

A:  Of course it’s not true.  But he said it to all three of them, and now he is well and truly f*cked – he has dug himself a huge hole, and he has no idea how to get out of it.

Q:  He seemed to find it excruciating when he had to choose between those last three women.  Do you think he was really as distraught as he appeared to be when he sent Faith home, or was he just crying crocodile tears?

Don't go away mad, Faith –
just go away!

A:  I think Gerry’s a decent guy, and that he takes no pleasure in rejecting women – especially at this point of the show, when all the women are telling him that they are in love with him, which understandably makes him think that they are going to be heartbroken if they don’t get a rose.  Because even though Gerry and these women don’t really have a deep attachment to one another, the experience of being on the show has persuaded them that they’re falling in love.  So when he rejects one of the women, it cuts her to the quick – or at least it feels like it does at the moment.  And he feels very guilty when he’s forced to do that by the format of the show.

*     *     *     *     *

Q:  You seem to think that you know exactly what Gerry is thinking.  Is it possible that there’s a little transference at work here?  Are you attributing your feelings to him? 

A:  That’s certainly possible.  I’m sure that I would feel just as guilty as he does when he has to say sayonara to one of the women on the show.  After all, I find it difficult to tell someone I’ve met on a dating site that I don’t want to continue dating her . . .  even if we’ve only gone out two or three times.  

Q:  If that’s the case, I can only imagine how guilty you felt when you left your wife.

A:  Being rejected after 40 years of marriage is infinitely worse than being rejected after a few weeks on The Golden Bachelor.  I do believe Gerry’s guilt is real – but in contrast to my situation, I think that he and the women he dismisses will get over it pretty quickly.  But right now, he seems pretty overwhelmed by his situation.  Part of that is his guilt at being forced to reject women week after week, but I also think there’s something else going on here.

Q:  And what is that?

A:  Being on this show was a lot of fun for him when he had this big harem of adoring women to hang out with.  But as the field narrowed, I think Gerry began to have major doubts about the wisdom of his choices.  I look at the two finalists, and neither one of them seems like a good match for him.  I suspect he would love to have a do-over so he could make some different choices.

Caught between a rock
and a hard place

Q:  I agree that I find it a little surprising that he’s ended up with Leslie and Theresa.  

A:  I think one of two things happened.  My first theory is that in the second or third week of the show – when he had to go from 16 contestants to 13, and then from 13 to 10 – he lost track of how many roses he had left to give out.  He was going down his list, handing out roses to the women he liked, and then suddenly realized he was down to his last rose when there were two women left that he wanted to keep around.  What could he do?  He couldn’t tell the producers of the show that they needed to stop taping and take it again from the top – he was stuck.

Q:  That theory seems a little far-fetched.  What’s your other scenario?

A:  I think he may have gotten some of the contestants mixed up.  There were a lot of blondes on the show – Jeanie, Peggy, Christina, Edith, Nancy, and so on – that I had trouble keeping straight.  I wouldn’t be surprised if he got some of the names mixed up.

Q:  You’re not being serious, are you?

A:  I would challenge you to come up with a better explanation for how Gerry ended up keeping Susan and Sandra around so long, and then dumped Faith – who seemed like a pretty good match for him – and went with Leslie and Theresa as his two final choices.  

Q:  So you don’t see Gerry living happily ever after with Leslie or Theresa?

A:  Oh please.  I don’t see Gerry lasting a month with either one of them.

Q:  Final question.  Is there a part of you that’s envious of The Golden Bachelor?  Do you wish you were living Gerry’s life?

A:  Actually, I am living Gerry’s life.  Just not all at once.  And not on television.

*     *     *     *     *

Q:  Tell us about today’s featured song – which was released on the Pearl album three months after Janis Joplin’s death.  

A:  Well, I would say that it’s pretty obvious from the lyrics quoted at the beginning of this post that the guy who wrote the song didn’t know very much about wine.

Q:  Those lyrics aren’t intended to be taken literally, of course.  The songwriter was speaking metaphorically to make the point that you might be making a mistake if you pick a younger romantic partner instead of a more mature one.

A:  I think older women are great.  I have a friend who tells me that he thinks I’m lucky because I’m attracted to women my own age – he’s only interested in much younger women, and very few of them are interested in him.  I think he’s crazy – if your choice is between older women and no women, there’s no doubt which option I’m choosing.

Click here to listen to “Trust Me.”

Click here to buy the record from Amazon.