by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

Today's mission is to clear the name of Michelle Tardif, a striking and talented former writer for this paper whose reputation has been savaged since she died in the desert five years ago this August.

Long ago, the Con U lit student, writing under the name Mimi Re/Tardif, showed a flair for banging out nouns and vowels, perhaps most notably her lighthearted take on local hero Maurice "Mad Dog" Vachon. The seemingly insignificant piece showed that between our tales of bitter injustice, this fledgling rag could periodically display something approximating humour.

In 1987, Tardif found herself at the heart of what remains a great Canadian media mystery. Abraham "Eibie" Weizfeld, a lefty who had protested Mulroney by living in a tent on Parliament Hill, was put in charge of inviting Canadians to an international peace conference in Libya. Weizfeld, also known as proprietor of Galerie FoKus on Duluth, got a bunch of locals on board including Julian Samuel, Julien Feldman, Catherine Bainbridge, Albert Nerenberg, Daniel Sanger and Michelle Tardif.

Once in Libya it became obvious that there was no peace conferencing going down and invitees were stuck twiddling thumbs on a cold beach next to a military complex for two weeks. The Montreal contingent was stuck among humourless Western Canadian skinheads, U.S. Latino separatists and Black Panthers.

Michelle spent her brief time in Libya with a Palestinian lawyer from Ottawa and a Southam librarian named Christoff Lehman-Halens, who was on his first major assignment as a writer. Lehman-Halens, possibly freaked out at a lack of any peace conference to report, started acting strangely. Late at night he put on his suit and said he was going to meet somebody. His dead body was soon found at the foot of a building. It was assumed he had jumped to his death but some remain unconvinced.

Michelle returned and, by all reports, was apparently greatly saddened by the subsequent death of her father. Soon she launched herself into the rock 'n' roll lifestyle, eventually hooking up with Cris Kirkwood, the bassist for the Meat Puppets, a pre-grunge band from Tempe, Arizona. The two married in Arizona in 1995.

Cris's brother Curt, the band's leader, wasn't invited to the wedding, and soon Michelle was being portrayed as the wedge between the bros. This came at a time when the Meat Puppets were on the verge of megastardom, a status that appeared to be inevitable when Kurt Cobain endorsed them as his favourite band.

Michelle and husband Cris had developed a drug habit that was consuming much of their time and efforts. Curt wasn't shy to tell the media of his sister-in-law's evils, detailing, for example, an episode where Michelle allegedly pulled a chair from beneath a 10-year-old girl at a party "just because she could."

Singer Curt blamed Tardif for his brother's adventures in addiction, which he described as "a suicide in progress." By extension, he also blamed Tardif for his band's failure to make the big time. "My brother cost himself, me and [Puppets drummer Derrick] Bostrom millions of dollars. His drug abuse was this band's only catastrophe."

The quote was reported by David Holthouse, who knew Tardif, having edited some of her articles for the Phoenix New Times. Holthouse refused my request to elaborate on his own feelings towards Tardif.

After a series of drug arrests, Tardif was found dead in a home with 113 syringes, one of them being stuck in her arm with traces of cocaine and morphine in it. According to the autopsy, she was suffering from pneumonia, infection and severe malnutrition, weighing only 88 pounds when found dead.

Tardif, rather unfairly, will be remembered as the scapegoat for the failure of a band to make their millions and put Tempe on the rock map. Blaming Tardif is bogus, because when somebody - no matter how charismatic, persuasive or lovable - proposes that you indulge in potentially deadly behaviour, you live or die by the decision you make.

Comments? kgravy@openface.ca