CONFESSIONS OF A HIGH FLYING JETT

Joan Jett is about an hour late showing up for our interview at the offices of the Howard 'the Ed Sullivan of publicists' Bloom Organization, but after finding out about the day she's been through no further excuses are necessary. Seems she's spent the last few hours being root canaled into submission by some D.D.S. and, as one whose four caps and a bridge can speak volumes on behalf of the wondrous long term effects of pure granulated, I sure can sympathize. (Every time I go to the dentist, I have this terrible tendency to giggle, fantasizing that I'm Jonathan Haze in Little Shop of Horrors and my good pal the doc is Jack Nicholson, the masochistic undertaker; and while we're on the subject, who's bright idea was it to dub it 'root canal therapy' as opposed to simple root canal demolition work?) I am tempted to ask Joan if she thinks hanging around with the former Sex Pistols Steve Jones and Paul Cook might have proven to be contagious, but since she's feeling rotten enough (sorry, I couldn't resist that one)...

I quickly find out that the a.m. part of Ms. Jett's day hadn't exactly been the bee's knee's either. She and her new band, the Black Hearts, have been rehearsing at the rented house smack in the middle of little-old-ladyland, better known as Long Beach, N. Y. —figuring, I guess, thaf the old biddies wouldn't mind, being either totally deaf anyway or scared stiff of venturing across the street in anything but packs to nicely ask them to stop since Long Beach is only a hair's breath 15 miles away from Manhattan where terrible things go on right next door and your best bet is to never open the door or the phone or the mailbox, etc. But, as luck would have it, the neighbors next door to Jett are jocks. 'One's a boxer and the other one's a hockey player,' moans Joan, 'and they stormed in this morning and threatened to beat us up if we didn't stop playing. They're bigger then we are, so we stopped,' she sighs. 'Thank goodness, we're going off on tour soon.'