Author Archives: smit217@usc.edu

The Janis Joplin Trap House: A Legend

Nationality: American
Age: 56
Occupation: Director of Administration
Residence: Tiburon, CA
Performance Date: 4/21/18
Primary Language: English

Hmm let’s see. I can’t think of any urban legends, but here’s a story.

My best friend growing up – his family bought Janis Joplin’s old house. I ran into him a little bit ago and he told me that people would just show up out of the blue. This was after she died and they’d just let themselves in. So he’d wake up and find some random bum on his couch.

So, turns out, Janis Joplin gave everyone she had ever met a house key and offered up a place to stay if they were in town. They finally had to replace all the locks and had to turn away people for years. Jimi Hendrix apparently showed up one day – he had the manners to knock – and he asked him if Janis was home (laughs).

This is a legend the Informant told me about her childhood in Larkspur, CA. She paints a model childhood in the neighborhood, where the kids roamed the streets, played stickball, and stuck together like a pack. Like stated above, it involved an unnamed member of her friend group.

A bold claim is bound to draw skepticism. This seems like a plot point out of a movie, but, hey, it was the ‘60’s. I read somewhere that about half of what you’ve heard about rockstars in the 1970’s is true. Everything you’ve heard about rockstars in the 1960’s is true. And you’ve only heard half of it.

Records show Janis Joplin owned houses in both Larkspur and on Haight St. in San Francisco. This appears to be the monogenesis of the legend. The key could be an allomotif for a password or special knock, but there is one glaring problem with the legend. Ambiguity in the last sentence could possibly mean to say that Jimi Hendrix showed up after Janis Joplin had died asking her. The problem that raises the alarm is that Hendrix died less than a month before Joplin. If this was backtracking, then the legend can still be true, but we only have the reported reputation of the people involved to go on.

Larkspur is located in Marin County, a mainstay for many bands and other successful hippies of the 1960’s and 1970’s. This legend, if true, only adds to the long list of legends already circulating about Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and possibly the most legendary decade in US History. I want this to be true. The foundation of the legend is factual and, although I can only go on the public persona of Janis Joplin, I feel like this is well within her character to offer her home to anyone involved in the Peace and Love Movement.

Mom’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

Nationality: American
Age: 56
Occupation: Director of Administration
Residence: Tiburon, CA
Performance Date: 4/21/18
Primary Language: English

recipe

I’ll rewrite the recipe because the original recipe sheet is so tattered from use and time.

Ingredients: 2 ¼ cups flour, 1 teaspoon (baking) soda 1 teaspoon salt, 1 cup butter, ¾ cup sugar, ¾ cup brown sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla, 2 eggs, 1 package chips, 1 cup nuts

Combine flour, (baking) soda + salt. Combine butter, sugar + vanilla (beat until creamy). Add eggs. Add flour. Add chips + nuts. Bake 375° 9-11 minutes.

The recipe above is for the Informant’s homemade chocolate chip cookie recipe. I asked it there were any special instructions left out of the recipe card and she stressed the importance of various ingredients and methods. Real butter should always be used, never margarine. The butter should be at room temperature to make the mixing process easier. It has to be light brown sugar, not dark brown sugar to get the flavors right. She says the most important mistake people would often make is to not pack the sugar down into the measuring cup. It is a dense ¾ cup.

Typically, it is the women in the family that bake. The men always make things to crispy, according to the Informant. The name on the top of the recipe is a bit of a confusing story. They were always “Mom’s Chocolate Chip Cookies,” but I was shocked to find out the recipe written above is from Toll House. When I asked, the Informant about this, she told me that she doesn’t really follow the recipe anymore, so the cookies are a little bit different every time. Baking cookies like riding a bike for her at this point. This prompted another question: then how she’s sure she has the right amount of any of the ingredients. She responded she just uses, “enough.”

Shoe Polish: A Folk Insult?

Nationality: American
Age: 58
Occupation: Attorney
Residence: Tiburon, CA
Performance Date: 4/20/18
Primary Language: English

You don’t know shit from Shinola.

According to the Informant, he heard this phrase growing up from his father. It was typically said by Person A in situations in which Person B doesn’t know what’s going on or for general naivety. It’s not exactly a proverb, because it ridicules those without wisdom instead of imparting wisdom. It can be said to be a folk insult. He said he heard this insult so many times, but it took until about the millionth time for him to realize that yes, it was true. He hadn’t the slightest clue what Shinola was.

This folk insult reportedly originated as commander-to-soldier vulgarity during WWII. The original form of the phrase involved a second verse. In the 1940’s, when is started popping up in military barracks, the full-length piece stated: “You don’t know shit from Shinola, and that’s why your shoes don’t shine.” This oicotype clearly allows anyone, using context clues, to decipher that Shinola is brown shoe polish. It’s interesting that the actual product named Shinola is long-gone, but it lives on in an insult.

It turns out that many insults without authors come from the military. “He doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground,” is another example of the same category that can be traced back to the military. Once we know the meaning behind the parts, it’s easy to see the meaning of the whole. Shinola would obviously be the choice pick over shit to shine shoes. Only a truly naïve person would use the two interchangeably.

This phrase always gets a smile out of me, regardless of context. This can possibly be regarded as the Informant’s catch phrase. In a way, it’s a passed-down insult, from my father’s father, that the majority of people today would be clueless to understand the meaning of. This fact, for a phrase meant to mock a person’s naivety, is just the icing on the cake.

 

A Smith Family Christmas: Ritual/Tradition

Nationality: American
Age: 58
Occupation: Attorney
Residence: Tiburon, CA
Performance Date: 4/20/18
Primary Language: English

Some rituals, we actually have a lot of rituals around Christmas time. Ever since I think you guys – I think we’ve done it every year come to think of it – well it became more difficult with you guys away at school. But when you guys were younger, we’d go out together every year to the farm near Northgate – Pazzani or Prazzani or something – and we’d get a Christmas tree. You guys would run all around trying to find the perfect tree.

 And -um- uh you guys had to find one with enough space for all those ornaments. (chuckle/scoff) I swear half that attic is just ornaments. That’s another thing – the ornament… ritual I guess where you guys get the ornament symbolizing the big thing that happened that year.

 Oh! And then there’s the huevos rancheros. Yeah, I’ve got no idea why we do that every year (laughs). I think I just made them one Christmas morning and you guys seemed to really like them, so I started doing it every year.

Pronzini Farms is the name of the place the Informant carelessly guessed at. He seemed a bit confused when I asked him why these rituals were important and why he liked them. “What do you mean?” he said, “It’s stuff like that that makes a family a family.” Just like a society or culture, you can learn a whole lot about a family by studying their rituals. The ritual of getting a new ornament each year that’s symbolical of an accomplishment or rite of passage has been going on seemingly forever. There are ornaments from ever year since I was born, so he assumes the ritual began then with the classic ‘Baby’s First Christmas’ ornaments. Unbeknownst to me, the ritual of an annual Christmas ornament is established. It represents a ritual-turned-rite of passage. The annual ornaments, a lifetime of memories, are passed down, handed over to hang on their own Christmas tree in their own home.

Beyond the more typical Christmas symbols like trees and ornaments, the Christmas morning huevos rancheros seem more of a tradition than a ritual. Up until I was in high school, I remember having a casual breakfast, maybe cereal or a pop tart. According to the Informant, he just had the ingredients to make his huevos rancheros one Christmas morning and the tradition was born. It’s not done to celebrate anything in particular. It’s done because we’ve done it in the past, which makes it a great example of tradition.

I had never thought about how many rituals my family has revolving around the Christmas holiday. I struggled to think of any, but the Informant sure didn’t. He had to think for a couple seconds, but quickly arrived at three rituals revolving around a single holiday. Not only did I not recognize the annual ornament as a ritual before, I had never thought about the sentimentality of each and every ornament in the sequence. It’s a timeline of my entire life and one day it will hang on my own tree next to my children’s annual addition.

“Founder’s” Rock: An Onomastic

Nationality: American
Age: 58
Occupation: Attorney
Residence: Tiburon, CA
Performance Date: 4/20/18
Primary Language: English

The Tiburon Open Space Committee -um-… it was founded for the sole purpose of preventing the 110-acre Martha Property from being developed. They wan’ it to be open space. When they actually founded the committee, what they did was the organizers trespassed on to the property and went to this large rock on the ridge. You said you’ve been there, you know how incredible that lot is.

So -um- they went up there and gave a toast and drank a bottle of champagne to y’know symbolically found the organization. The rock became known as Founder’s Rock and now people use that story to argue that the property can’t be developed in any way that would interfere with Founder’s Rock – an important Tiburon landmark (said sarcastically).

The history section on the website for the Tiburon Open Space Committee neither confirms nor denies the onomastic founding story. The photos on their website, however, are all taken from the Martha Property in a blatant admittance to trespassing. There’s no clear, irrefutable evidence of the truthfulness of the committee formation story told above, but the acknowledgement of trespassing on the property on their website certainly gives the story some weight.

 

This is just one instance of a misnaming being used to try to persuade public opinion. It reminds me of the beginning of the high fructose corn syrup downfall in public opinion. In a commercial paid for by the high fructose corn syrup producers union, they had people from all walks of life saying, “It’s just sugar,” repeatedly for a full minute advertisement. They wanted the American people to associate high fructose corn syrup, a chemical sweetener, with natural sugar. This is seemingly the same marketing tactic being employed by the Tiburon Open Space Committee.

 

Now, the large stone laying on the top of the Peninsula is adorned with a metal post, driven deep within it. It holds a large ‘No Trespassing’ sign. The symbolic breaking of Founder’s Rock may have an effect on the onomastic, but this is a folk location. There is no yelp page; it’s not listed on any tourist map. It is discovered via word of mouth, as does the name. Even with the literal symbol for the location name broken, it could prove more difficult to break the name.

 

I had never even heard this story until I was back at home a few weeks ago. It had always just been Founder’s Rock. I never questioned the name; that’s just what everyone called it – mainly because many people trespassed and went up there. It’s one of the greatest views on Tiburon Peninsula. On the Fourth of July, you can see 8 different fireworks shows if the weather permits. So, I’m not entirely surprised the name revolves around trespassing. I could nearly feel the Informant’s eyes rolling over the phone when he was talking about “Founder’s” Rock.