The Opiate, Winter Vol. 8
There’s A Hole in the Sky Max DeVoe Talley
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il meant nothing, that’s why Joanna Morgan adopted it as her last name. She was aware of the expressions: a downward spiral, a descending trajectory. Even though Joanna knew, knew, knew in her heart that the gig was over, she didn’t fight it. Joanna had coasted for the last two years at Sire Records in New York, and with coworkers from A&R getting away with it, why not her? Coming in to work late if you stayed late and maintained consistent success had never been an issue in the 80s. But by 1991, Joanna took sick days whenever she felt unwell or achy. And now that she lived across the East River in Williamsburg, riding the L train on winter mornings into Manhattan seemed brutal to her
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36-year-old body. “Get it together. You’re blowing it,” Ali Rosenberg, her mentor from Warner Brothers warned her. “People are noticing, Jo.” Matt from Promotion warned her too, but she didn’t listen. Okay, coke was a problem, but Joanna had stabilized: half a gram a day, one on weekend days. That worked for a while, until weekends started on Thursday and ended on Monday. Until her freebase habit began. Sharing a Brooklyn apartment with a part-time drug dealer like Rudy hadn’t helped in that regard. Over three years, their relationship transitioned from lust to love to impersonating a bickering married couple to
