Courtney Love Dishes The Dirt

Courtney Love Dishes The Dirt

The real drama at Love's book signing: the wait: Aidin Vaziri | It had been a rough week for Courtney Love, and not just because she spent Halloween making an appearance on "The View." Several comments she had made in the press while promoting her new book "Dirty Blonde: The Diaries of Courtney Love" had been blown out of proportion. The first credited Mel Gibson for helping her get sober. In another, she lamented letting ex-boyfriend Edward Norton slip away. And, more worrisome, there was one quote in which she claimed that taking LSD at age 4 "freed" her mind.

She wanted to set the record straight. So while signing another stack of books in the office, Love gamely offered to answer some questions.

Instead, she used it as an opportunity to amusingly rant about everything from recently witnessing Christina Aguilera jump onstage with the Rolling Stones ("Dark days!") to the music industry bidding war brewing around her new material ("People are calling my home number!") to a particularly stinging live review that appeared in The Chronicle two years ago by some, er, unidentified writer.

"This was some unnecessary s -- ," she spat, picking up the phone receiver and slamming it down when the store intercom unexpectedly went off. "Yes, I was fat. Yes, my band did suck. Yes, the album was badly produced. But this was the worst review I had ever seen. It was truly jaw-dropping."

The topic was changed quickly to the nude photograph on the cover of "Dirty Blonde" taken by Cobain. Love's mood brightened immediately, as she stubbed out an unlit cigarette in the ashtray.

"I got to say, I'm 42 now, I look in the mirror and that's not happening now," she said, holding up the early '90s picture and smiling widely. "I didn't know how great it was."

Love had another book-signing session to get to at Cody's in Berkeley, but she seemed hesitant to leave. Unprovoked, she talked in detail about unfairly getting shipped off to Bellevue Hospital, her financial disarray and countless famous friends. It was almost better than the actual book.

"Ask another question!" she demanded, even though she had talked nonstop for nearly an hour. "Ask another question!"

OK, OK. Why did she think so many people were still interested in Courtney Love?

For the first time, she seemed at a loss for words.

"I don't know," she said, exhaling a plume of smoke. "I don't know."