Ships Passing Through The Night

Jimi Hendrix

Final hours – Last Photos taken:

Late morning and early afternoon: Although the details of Hendrix’s last day and death are unclear and widely disputed, he had spent much of September 17 in London with Monika Dannemann. He awoke late that morning at Dannemann’s apartment in the Samarkand Hotel. By around 2 p.m., he was sitting in a garden area outside the apartment enjoying some tea while she took photographs of him holding his favorite Fender Stratocaster guitar that he called the “black beauty”. In the opinion of author Tony Brown, “Jimi doesn’t look particularly healthy in these photographs: his face seems a little puffy and on only a few of the pictures does he attempt to smile.” According to Dannemann, by 3 p.m. they had left the apartment to use a bank. They continued on to Kensington Market, where Hendrix signed an autograph for a young boy, purchased a leather jacket, and ordered some shoes. He also briefly spoke with his ex-girlfriend Kathy Etchingham, inviting her to visit him at his hotel that evening at 8 p.m.; she declined the invitation due to prior engagements and later admitted that she had "regretted it ever since”. Hendrix and Dannemann then went to a Chelsea antiques market, where Hendrix purchased more clothing.[24] After another stop to buy writing paper, which he used to compose his final lyrics, Dannemann and Hendrix drove to his suite at the Cumberland Hotel, meeting Devon Wilson as she walked down King’s Road. Hendrix asked Dannemann to stop the car so that he could get out and talk with Wilson, who invited Hendrix to a party that evening. Dannemann became jealous, giving Wilson a cold stare during the brief meeting. Later, Phillip Harvey invited Dannemann and Hendrix to tea; they accepted. Prior to their arrival at Harvey’s, they briefly stopped by the Cumberland. While at the hotel, Hendrix made several telephone calls. Dannemann said he phoned his lawyer Henry Steingarten, asking him to find a way out of his contract with his manager Mike Jeffery, and producer Eddie Kramer, for whom Hendrix left a voice message. Mitch Mitchell said that he called Hendrix at the Cumberland on September 17, after having been asked to do so by tour manager Gerry Stickells, who had spoken to Hendrix just minutes earlier. Mitchell said that during the phone conversation Hendrix agreed to join him around midnight at the Speakeasy Club for a previously arranged jam session, which included Sly Stone. Late afternoon and evening: After stopping at the Cumberland, Hendrix and Dannemann accompanied Harvey to his apartment, arriving around 5:30 p.m. Hendrix and Dannemann smoked hashish and drank tea and wine with Harvey and two of his female companions while discussing their individual careers. Sometime around 10 p.m., Dannemann, apparently feeling left out of the conversation and jealous of the attention Hendrix was giving Harvey’s female friends, became visibly upset and stormed out of the flat. Hendrix followed her, and an argument ensued between them during which Dannemann reportedly shouted: “you fucking pig”. Harvey, concerned that their yelling would draw unwanted attention from the police, asked them to quiet down. Harvey, who had remained silent about the incident out of respect for his English nobleman father, Arthur Vere Harvey, gave an affidavit after his father’s death in 1994. In his statement, he claims to have been mildly concerned for Hendrix’s safety, worried that Dannemann might “resort to serious physical violence”. According to Harvey, Dannemann “verbally assaulted [Hendrix] in the most offensive possible way”. Approximately 30 minutes later, Hendrix re-entered the flat and apologized for the outburst before leaving with Dannemann at 10:40 p.m. Dannemann said she then prepared a meal for them at her apartment around 11 p.m. and shared a bottle of wine with Hendrix. Sometime after returning to the apartment, Hendrix took a bath, then wrote a poem titled “The Story of Life”.

On September 18, 1970, the American musician Jimi Hendrix died in London, aged 27 years. One of the most influential guitarists of the 1960s, he was described by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as “arguably the greatest instrumentalist in the history of rock music.”

Happy 50th Anniversary to Star Trek, a franchise that has pioneered new frontiers in entertainment! Here are just a few:

Star Trek took the social environment of the 1960s and turned them on their head by including black, Japanese and Russian characters in the story. The series posited that a better future for humanity was possible. Star Trek also broke from racist depictions of relationships in 1968 when Kirk and Uhura shared TV’s first interracial kiss. “Plato’s Stepchildren”

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine explored gender in ways that had never been done on television through the Trill species (see  “Dax,” “Invasive Procedures,” “Afterimage” and really the whole series). The show also explored lesbian imagery in ways that were ground-breaking and not fanservice, and it featured one of the first same-sex kisses on television in 1995′s “Rejoined” (Ellen came out two years later, for perspective).

Star Trek: Voyager explored the complexity of emotions for a mother who will have a mixed child, including the fears that the child will be judged for physical features she cannot control. “Lineage”

The list could go for pages and pages, and the series covered drama, romance, action, adventure, exploration and morality in ways that other franchises could only wish to imitate half as well.

50 years! September 8, 1966-September 8, 2016