She hid 600 micrograms of LSD under her fingernail and walked up to the White House gates.It was April 1970. Grace Slick was one of the most famous rock stars in America. And she had a plan to drug the President of the United States.But let's start earlier.In 1965, Grace Slick was a 25-year-old model working at a San Francisco department store. One night, she saw a band called Jefferson Airplane play a small club. Something clicked. Within months, she'd formed her own band and written a song on a $50 piano with eight keys missing.She called it "White Rabbit."The song built like Ravel's Boléro—slowly, relentlessly, hypnotically. It used Alice in Wonderland imagery to deliver something no one had ever put on American radio: a meditation on perception, conformity, and the hypocrisy of parents who read their children stories about magical potions and then wondered why those kids experimented with drugs."Feed your head," she sang at the climax.By 1967, Slick had joined Jefferson Airplane. She brought "White Rabbit" with her. It became a top-ten hit. She became the voice of San Francisco's counterculture—and she did not soften herself to fit the role.In 1968, she performed on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in blackface and ended with a Black Power salute. The following year, on The Dick Cavett Show, she became the first person to say "motherfucker" on American television. The line was in the song. She sang it anyway.Then came the White House.In April 1970, Slick received an invitation to a tea party hosted by Tricia Nixon, the President's daughter. Both were alumnae of Finch College. The invitation was addressed to her maiden name: Grace Wing. The Nixon administration had no idea who they were inviting.Slick decided to bring anarchist activist Abbie Hoffman as her date. She also brought 600 micrograms of LSD powder, hidden under her fingernail. The plan: slip it into Nixon's tea during conversation.They were stopped at the gate. Hoffman was recognized immediately. "We checked and you're a security risk," a guard told her.She never got inside. Nixon, it turned out, wasn't even planning to attend his daughter's event. The plan would have failed anyway.But the message was delivered.At Woodstock, she took the stage at 7 AM after a rain-soaked night of chaos and delays. "You have seen the heavy groups," she told the crowd. "Now you will see morning maniac music. It's a new dawn."She sang "White Rabbit" to half a million people as the sun rose.But the cost was coming.Grace Slick never hid her alcoholism. "I've never had two drinks in my life," she told Rolling Stone in 1978. "It's either I drink and I'm totally drunk or I don't drink at all."In June 1978, the band—now Jefferson Starship—toured Germany. At one festival, Slick refused to perform. The audience rioted. They burned the stage and stole the equipment.Two nights later, she did perform—drunk, wearing a Nazi uniform, goose-stepping and taunting the German audience: "Who won the war?"After the show, guitarist Paul Kantner demanded her resignation. She gave it."I wanted to be so out of line," she said later, "that when I fired myself the next day nobody would object."She returned to the band three years later. By 1985, they'd become Starship and released "We Built This City"—a number-one hit. She hated it. Called it "awful." But the royalty checks were nice.In 1990, she retired. She was 50 years old."All rock-and-rollers over the age of 50 look stupid and should retire," she told VH1.She meant it.She turned to painting. She painted portraits of Jerry Garcia, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison—the friends she had outlived. She painted white rabbits, over and over.In 2006, diverticulitis nearly killed her. She was in a medically induced coma for two months. She had to learn to walk again.She survived.Today, Grace Slick is 86 years old. She lives in Malibu. She paints. She does not perform. She does not tour. She does not pretend to be what she was.Grace Slick did everything. And when the microphone stopped serving her, she put it down herself.
In Album: Judy Gilford's Timeline Photos
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Zulthar Breblebrox
Another liberal idiot
