In general I don't like band biographies. Usually they are very badly written, boring or irritating. One of the worst I have ever read was Alice Echols' book "Scars of Sweet Paradise - The life and Time of Janis Joplin". It was really something.

I have loved Janis Joplin since I was 14 and I have always thought that she was one of the most beautiful women I have seen. So strong, so sensitive, so much of everything I ever wanted to be. But dear Alice Echols here wrote her book from different point of view. Almost every page of her book she remembered to tell reader how ugly Janis Joplin was and how much this ugliness affected her life. Janis started to sing because she was so ugly that this was her only way to get at least some good feedback. Janis drank because she was miserable and she was miserable because she was so ugly. She used drugs because she was so ugly. She never found real love because she was so disgusting. She had a low self-esteem because she was so ugly, etc... Argh! (Only reason why I ever finished that book was because I wanted to know if finally the reason for Janis Joplin's death was also somehow her ugliness...)

Ok, stupid book, but unfortunately that was not all. Saddest part of this story is that nowadays when I see pictures of Janis Joplin I somehow see what I didn't see before. I see that somehow you could call her ugly. She wasn't very thin and she had an acne. I still see the beauty of her but nowadays I see a little bit of that ugliness too. And this is why I will never forgive Alice Echols for writing that book. She opened my eyes to see something that I didn't need to see. She taught me that this is what ugly person looks like. No matter how many people loved and still love this woman. She had an acne so she was ugly. And somehow I have learned that even when I still don't accept it. And I hate that book and myself because I don't want to learn that kind of things.

Nowadays I'm trying to be careful. It's ridiculous what beauty-magazines tell us. "Big eyebrows are not beautiful." "Women shouldn't have moustache." (What about Frida Kahlo? If someone comes and tells me that she wasn't beautiful I promise, I will hit...) It's dangerous how easily others can manipulate your mind. It's especially dangerous and sad when they manipulate you to think that "beauty" has strict limits, so strict that something like this doesn't fit.