'Scuse Me, While I Kiss This Guy

So the misunderstood lyric takes on a whole new dimension, if a revelation in the new Jimi Hendrix biography, "Room Full of Mirrors" is to be believed. CNN reports that according to biographer Charles R. Cross, Hendrix got out of Vietnam by claiming he was gay. Specifically, Hendrix told the base psychiatrist that he was in love with one of his squad mates, and -- I'm giggling over this because I have a tenth-grade sense of humor -- he was addicted to masturbating.

Well that makes all the difference, doesn't it? It's hard to draw a bead on the enemy when you're busy spanking the monkey.

The article notes, "Hendrix's legendary appetite for women negates the notion that he might have been gay, Cross writes." But maybe the masturbation thing had a little more, uh, traction to it.

These days, though, loudly proclaiming your gayness doesn't have the same effect that it did in the 60s. I'm not even sure they'd let you out for obsessively peeling your banana. Who knows?