Courtney Love – Chris’ words

Chris began to compose a memoir. He wrote regularly during 2013, and stopped abruptly in January 2014 after I was chased down and kidnapped – aggravated kidnapping, I now realize, by a group that included the FBI/CIA as well as people linked to the entertainment industry – and held under the most outrageous false pretenses in a psychiatric mind control facility. Chris didn’t know what to make of all this, and he too was being subject to intense mind control techniques. I feel terrible that this instigated crash destroyed our band (the destruction was deliberate), our marriage plans (also a deliberate destruction), and ultimately, Chris’ last hopes of success (aggravated murder – these were crimes committed in order to facilitate and cover up other crimes).

However, by the time he stopped writing, Chris had recorded a lot of memories. The memoir draft is more focused on personal memories than on his music career, but music was intertwined throughout Chris’ life, as natural to him as breathing.

Chris did intend to publish this memoir, at least at first. Later he had second thoughts, but really what he needed was a good editor. Just as with everything else in his life, his work could have shone with a little professional assistance. This was not going to happen, however, as long as we were under the all-encompassing suffocating blacklist.

Chris’ memories of Courtney Love were important to him, and influenced his views on the possibilities of success in music. Courtney made Chris believe she was in love with him, or at least had a huge crush on him. When she went to Europe in 1981, she wrote him what he described as “love letters” – all of which were removed from his apartment and presumably destroyed in 1997 by his landlord and brother in law, even though the rent had been paid. Similarly, important letters from my collection to me have also gone missing, throughout the 1990s and even as recently as 2018 – including a copy of a 1983 letter to my grandmother about punk rock and the idea of having a music career that Kurt Cobain appears to have seen and quoted from – verbatim – in interviews. This is the sort of thing I mean when I talk about patterns.

Following is what Chris wrote about Courtney Love in the draft of his memoir. The only editing I have done is minor grammatical corrections (and added some relevant images).

We were soon blessed with a self appointed roadie. It was the night of the Joan Jett gig and Steve Shades pulled up his truck to the loading dock and yelled “Let’s go!” Steve was loud, obnoxious, and everybody in the Biz knew him and his loud mouth. He was a stage hand at big concerts, and his obnoxious behavior got him noticed all the time. It got him in trouble most of the time. It was as though Steve suffered from Tourette’s Syndrome.

Once he had to stand outside the cafe as we all enjoyed our after show dinners. Steve was asked to leave since he couldn’t seem to stop swearing. He always pretended to brag about his band The Shades. He briefly led the band playing bass, writing the songs, and calling the shots as Chelsea Ray handled the vocals. She appeared in the Kurt and Courtney documentary as the friend of the Cobain’s nanny, who seemed to be frightened for her life. She implied that Courtney was a dangerous woman.

Steve Shades ended up renting a house in southeast Portland. We all moved in, including a couple of extra room mates. One room mate being Courtney Menely. Later she became known as Courtney Love. Chelsea Ray happened to live right next door with her then husband and daughter. In 1982 Courtney was a trust fund baby. Maybe sixteen years old. She was usually loud and opinionated and always hyper. Courtney would climb in the van uninvited and ride to our Seattle gigs.

Her best friend Robin was a real looker and she and Courtney saw Napalm Beach with April Wine at the Paramount the year before. Courtney was a trippy Rocker chick. Her dad sent her a shitload of original Owsley Acid. Different colored barrels of pure LSD.

Axomoxa was a cool looking and sounding album by the Grateful Dead. Much more accessible than the first one (Morning Dew was my favorite cut) and the second, Anthem for the Sun. My Granny let me pick it out on my fifteenth birthday that summer in Longview. On the back cover a family of hippies are shown laying around on a grassy hill on a sunny day. Courtney Love claimed it was her as a child in the foreground. She claimed her father had dosed her with LSD at the age of four. She said he was the Grateful Dead’s manager of some type. Photographer, gopher, drug runner? She showed me the book he, Hank Harrison had published. It was something like, “My Life with the Dead.” It was all for real. Courtney was some kind of connected rocker kid from the very beginning.

When I watch Courtney’s father in the documentary Kurt and Courtney, I feel a seething hate for the man. He comes off as the opportunistic money-grubbing bitch that some claim Courtney to be. It breaks my heart to see a parent treat their child as disposable commodity. I respect the girl for her intelligence and tenacity. Courtney is as resilient as I am, but I know she hurts down deep.

Courtney had a different outlook back then. She was still developing into a woman and she was a rowdy and aggressive little tom boy sometimes. Other times she was a soft little feral kitten that only required love and understanding. She has so much intelligence and drive. The woman eventually became a household name and a glamorous celebrity in Hollywood. She was raised in a hippy commune and ended up in Beverly Hills.

Courtney has proven to be a pioneer in feminist music and values, yet she seems to hold onto old fashioned beliefs that it is a woman’s duty to take care of her man. She also strongly believes in the institution of marriage, at least it appears that way to me.

When Courtney visited Portland right after being in the movie, Sid and Nancy, she strolled through the Satyricon and walked past my table where I sat with my girl at the time, Nancy Loeffler, and proclaimed,”I would have married you Chris Newman!” I didn’t know what to say, but she kept walking, and out the door and into the night, she went.

She showed up at Nancy’s fancy apartment after hours. Ms. Love wasn’t getting anywhere acting like a Hollywood star, so she came down to our level, and we all included her in the cocaine-fueled conversations that late night.

The acid Courtney’s dad sent her was really amazing. It was as potent as the day it was manufactured, ten years before. We all tripped hard on that shit.

Me and Mark Nelson dropped acid together several different times.

Courtney gave a lot away and sold a few hits for $2.00. Courtney was pretty fun to hang out with as a young girl. One day I saw her diary sitting on her bed. I opened it to the most recent entry: I am in love with this musical genius named Chris, but he’s really fat, and I don’t know what people will think.

It angered me slightly, but I was so accustomed to that attitude. Fat guys rarely got the girl they wanted. I always set my sights high. I could sometimes charm a girl into ignoring my flaws and dazzle her with my shining brightness. Times did eventually change attitudes somewhat, especially as a woman gets more mature, she may fall for an overweight but exceptional guy. Men aren’t so forgiving about the shortcomings in a girl’s physical appearance. They say men are visually oriented and pursue that “trophy girl.” It is a sign of success in most circles.

Courtney did try to hook up with me. We had one evening alone in the band house. We made out on the rug in the light of the television. I stopped myself, after getting very intimate with her. She knew how to kiss back then. We just made out and fondled each other like teen-agers, only I was twenty eight and she was around seventeen. She told me she was a virgin, and she wanted her first to be me. I was thankful I didn’t carry out her request. I really liked Courtney, but she was a handful.

I never dreamed I would ever hook up with a loud aggressive woman, but I did end up marrying Valarie for fifteen long and exciting years.

When Courtney became famous, she had no qualms about “kissing and telling.” She often emasculated former lovers in the press. Calling them a lousy lay or less than adequate in the bedroom.

I was very impressed with HOLE’s album Live Through This which was released to critical acclaim in 1994 right after the suicide death of her famous husband.

My first wife, Valarie and I saw Courtney at La Luna in Portland. She had just been on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. I got us in on the guest list and the guy at the door said, “Hey, Courtney was just taking about you.” I was in awe of her new found power and celebrity.

She quipped, “Hello, Chris Newman” from the stage.

I was high as fuck on heroin and I was beaming with pride. The entire concert blended together into a warm swirling embrace. I loved what I was experiencing. I felt there was a chance for me to make it in the music business.