Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is the one and only legendary Joan Bias. Joan,
Speaker 1: the new movie is out. I am a noise. Now
Speaker 1: that it's out, how do you feel about it?
Speaker 2: Well, the response has been absolutely extraordinary and wonderful. But
Speaker 2: even before that, I recognize it as a superb work
Speaker 2: of art. And that doesn't even have that much to
Speaker 2: do with me. It's the filmmaking. I mean, I'm glad
Speaker 2: they were making it about me, but it is really
Speaker 2: a work of art, and it was meant to be
Speaker 2: an honest legacy, and it did turn out to be that.
Speaker 1: Well, it's one thing to have private conversations, is another
Speaker 1: thing to hear your see your story depicted on the
Speaker 1: big screen for everybody. You talk about a lot of
Speaker 1: personal elements, depression, relationships. Do you squirm a little bit
Speaker 1: seeing that up there? Or do you say, no, that's me,
Speaker 1: that's fine.
Speaker 2: The funny thing is what I squirm about is something
Speaker 2: like a vocal lesson the other You know, it's me,
Speaker 2: It's fine. I didn't know how i'd feel. Plus I
Speaker 2: wasn't there when I made it. I had nothing to
Speaker 2: say about it at the very very end, they do.
Speaker 2: You want to have a look, but it's too mad
Speaker 2: to do anything about it. So I didn't know what
Speaker 2: extent of it would be cringe worthy, But the little
Speaker 2: parts that are now just make me laugh. And I
Speaker 2: know that as a whole, whatever is in there is
Speaker 2: in there for a reason. And you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: I've got nothing to lose now, really, Famili's gone. I'm
Speaker 2: eighty two, and if I want to be honest, let's
Speaker 2: just let it all hang out. So that's what we did.
Speaker 1: So you talk a lot about depression in the movie.
Speaker 1: When did you first feel that you were different from
Speaker 1: other people that you felt depressed?
Speaker 2: Well, it's funny about depression. My mother was depressed her
Speaker 2: whole life, but didn't know it until she took any
Speaker 2: depression when she was in her eighties. So you don't know,
Speaker 2: you just know, I mean, for me, speaking for me,
Speaker 2: I didn't know that word. I didn't know. I just
Speaker 2: knew I was different. I knew other kids didn't feel
Speaker 2: sick in the morning, didn't you know? Those are the
Speaker 2: things that made me feel different, you know, in another
Speaker 2: world from my classmates.
Speaker 1: So do you take medication now?
Speaker 2: Yes, I do for the deep work that I did
Speaker 2: to really go through the tunnel and come out what
Speaker 2: I considered to be healthy human being. We had to
Speaker 2: find the appropriate medication that would allow me to work.
Speaker 2: If I was working from a place of depression and
Speaker 2: I didn't have really didn't have my faculties available to me,
Speaker 2: I don't think it could have worked, or it would
Speaker 2: have been really really painful. So to find that takes
Speaker 2: some experimenting, you know. And then we came up and
Speaker 2: I still it's different now because it internally one changes
Speaker 2: and periodically something will go off and I'll review the
Speaker 2: medication see what Maybe you know I need less of
Speaker 2: or more of, et cetera. But I know I'm still
Speaker 2: on it. It's a steady I'm joking about it in
Speaker 2: the film, you know. I say I'm taking sea sick
Speaker 2: pills and nausea pills, up and down pills, and then
Speaker 2: on top of that, I take my own stuff, So
Speaker 2: my own stuff is what's concerned.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So how is your outlook and feeling differently different
Speaker 1: now that you're on medication.
Speaker 2: I don't think that's the question. I think the question
Speaker 2: is how is it different from the work that I did?
Speaker 2: I think, well, okay, do this way. If I stopped
Speaker 2: all on medication, I think I would be in pretty
Speaker 2: big trouble. But that isn't the issue because I'm I
Speaker 2: found what's appropriate to keep the highest from being too
Speaker 2: high and the lows from being too low. And then
Speaker 2: it's more about the work that I have done and
Speaker 2: to some degree still do. But I don't see a
Speaker 2: therapist anymore. No, I'm really free of that. So no,
Speaker 2: it is it's about the work. It's about having done
Speaker 2: the work.
Speaker 1: Okay. In the film, you say that you ultimately do
Speaker 1: this deep work at a relatively advanced age, inspired by
Speaker 1: your system. Me me, can you tell us a little
Speaker 1: bit more how that comes to be?
Speaker 2: Well, she was She and I always knew there was
Speaker 2: something wrong. I mean, there's something wrong with our relationship,
Speaker 2: but we never understood why. And then but she was
Speaker 2: the first one to think, whoopsie, you know, maybe it
Speaker 2: was something that we really that was really buried and
Speaker 2: did I was I understood in going investigating that with her,
Speaker 2: and so we both embarked on this journey and came
Speaker 2: up with very similar stories and supported each other through
Speaker 2: it in spite of our difficulties. Together, You know, we
Speaker 2: really were there to support each other on their mutual journeys.
Speaker 1: Well, in the movie, there's issues of abuse, which your
Speaker 1: father denies and the two of you believe happened. Uh,
Speaker 1: how did you reconcile your father's deniy was what you felt?
Speaker 2: You know? I read him. I was reading a book
Speaker 2: of a famous actor who I willed that name, but
Speaker 2: he he discovered that he was abused by a priest
Speaker 2: when he was eight, and he struggled with that for
Speaker 2: his entire lifetime, and at one point decided he was
Speaker 2: going to call this old man you know who had
Speaker 2: abused him and other kids. And he called him, ready
Speaker 2: to just say, you know, you sort of a bitch,
Speaker 2: you whatever, and he realized he couldn't say anything. This
Speaker 2: old guy was a pleasant old man who was living
Speaker 2: probably a fairly decent life, having passed the stage where
Speaker 2: he had to do all the shenanigans, and he didn't.
Speaker 2: And he realized I didn't remember. I mean, he buried it.
Speaker 2: And I don't know how that happens, but obviously it
Speaker 2: happened to me. So I the reason I could forgive
Speaker 2: my parents is that I I knew they didn't remember anything,
Speaker 2: and that that's one of the hardest things for people
Speaker 2: to understand, because I mean, just the expression on your face,
Speaker 2: for instance, on the zoom is what what what the
Speaker 2: fuck is that about?
Speaker 1: Okay, So, how do you find a box to put
Speaker 1: that in? All these years later?
Speaker 2: I guess the process of discovering who did what to
Speaker 2: whom is a long process and a deep process, and
Speaker 2: I guess the best answer to that is putting in
Speaker 2: my little multiple helpers, and that's what they're there for,
Speaker 2: and just somebody helps take the take the load off
Speaker 2: each You know, each time there's a fresh realization, there
Speaker 2: are different ways, there are different places to put it in,
Speaker 2: different ways to deal with it. And it's ongoing, No,
Speaker 2: it's it's constant through that time period of discovery.
Speaker 1: In the movie, you say a number of times you're
Speaker 1: not good at relationships. Do you think that's as a
Speaker 1: result of the abuse?
Speaker 2: I think that from when I talk to people, everybody
Speaker 2: goes ha ha ha ha, yam too, So I don't.
Speaker 2: I think one to one, one on one relationships are
Speaker 2: probably the hardest things for us, the human beings, to tackle.
Speaker 2: I think that it's exacerbated by the fact that we
Speaker 2: once trusted and that trust was taken away, you know,
Speaker 2: so who do you trust? You don't to be intimate
Speaker 2: means you have to trust the other person to open
Speaker 2: yourself up to the other person. So I'm kind of
Speaker 2: joking when I say I'm I mean, I'm really good
Speaker 2: one on two thousand, because I am, and I never
Speaker 2: I mean. Towards the end of the time period that
Speaker 2: I was really working on this stuff, I reached a
Speaker 2: level of wholeness that I couldn't have imagined before. And
Speaker 2: my therapis said he started hinting around about, well, you know,
Speaker 2: maybe the next step is to try and find somebody,
Speaker 2: to find a partner, and I didn't know. I'm happy here.
Speaker 2: I don't want to take on that load, which you'd
Speaker 2: take another ten years. So that was just a decision
Speaker 2: I made because I know that I don't have the
Speaker 2: patients to disrupt my life again when it's reached this really,
Speaker 2: really happy level.
Speaker 1: Now we've had COVID the last handful of years really
Speaker 1: been crazy. But what does your everyday life look like?
Speaker 1: Are you more of a homebody? Do you go out?
Speaker 2: I am homebody. I would say those two choices very much.
Speaker 2: Your homebody, I guess I've been out enough for sixty
Speaker 2: years traveling around, and I thought, oh, you know, when
Speaker 2: I'm through with that, and I can go visit these
Speaker 2: places and just hang out and see stuff, all things
Speaker 2: I didn't do while I was traveling. But I haven't
Speaker 2: really had any interest in getting back on a plane.
Speaker 2: The only thing I've been doing is hopping around the
Speaker 2: country talking about this film. And you know, at some
Speaker 2: point that might change, because because right now it's I
Speaker 2: don't have a what's a normal day for Joan? You know,
Speaker 2: when I'm not working on something. A normal day for
Speaker 2: Joan is more time on the property. There's a creek
Speaker 2: on this property where I spend a lot of time.
Speaker 2: It's my one of my happy places. I collect rocks,
Speaker 2: I mean I do. I talk to trees. I live
Speaker 2: a life full of nature, as much as a much
Speaker 2: nature as I can fit in there.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're someone who is attractive, outspoken, in legendary famous.
Speaker 1: I have to believe when you're out and about to
Speaker 1: use the vernacular, men are hitting on you.
Speaker 2: But a nice thought, I mean son thought, because at
Speaker 2: this age it's a question of sensuality, sexuality. Where is that?
Speaker 2: When I was talking to Jane fondo. She said, oh,
Speaker 2: I closed up shop a couple of years ago, and
Speaker 2: I said, well, I don't know what's what is here
Speaker 2: at this point to be hit upon. I feel very
Speaker 2: vibrant and I would be delighteders. No men were hitting
Speaker 2: on me as long as I don't have to hit back.
Speaker 1: So if a man is warm and congenial, you basically
Speaker 1: send a vibe. At best, we're on the friend level.
Speaker 2: Probably probably yeah.
Speaker 1: And when we were young, person, what vibe did you send?
Speaker 2: Oh? I think really confused messages. I mean really, I
Speaker 2: look back at myself and my schoolmates. They couldn't understand me.
Speaker 2: I mean I didn't understand me, but it was very
Speaker 2: confusing message that I sent out. And I'm thinking also
Speaker 2: when we moved to Baghdad, for we were there for
Speaker 2: a year, my family and I would write my classmates
Speaker 2: and they never responded. And I was telling them all
Speaker 2: about Baghdad. Well, they had no point of reference. It
Speaker 2: wasn't interesting to them that or not I was talking about.
Speaker 2: So it was just one more I guess what I'm
Speaker 2: saying is that when we moved a lot and so
Speaker 2: I never really did have time to hang out and
Speaker 2: get friends. So I don't know whether I really was
Speaker 2: capable of doing that or not, but the messages a
Speaker 2: girlfriend from those days, there were a few people who
Speaker 2: were really kind to me, and this girl was so
Speaker 2: sweet and would go through the when I was having
Speaker 2: a panic attack. She'd be helpful and she would be there.
Speaker 2: Then years and years later, decades later, I got a
Speaker 2: letter of her from her saying, oh, now I get it.
Speaker 2: She had developed a phobia of bridges, going over a
Speaker 2: bridge and that, you know, all of a sudden, Oh,
Speaker 2: is that's what my strange friend Joan was going through.
Speaker 1: When did you have your first panic attack?
Speaker 2: Oh, Jesus, I don't know. I mean depends probably on
Speaker 2: how you define it. When you're really little, pretty little, And.
Speaker 1: If you told your mother you were feeling this way,
Speaker 1: what would she say?
Speaker 2: Oh? She I wanted to be with my mom because
Speaker 2: she would say, oh, let's have a cup of tea.
Speaker 2: I mean, I've run home from school in kindergarten. That
Speaker 2: my first day of kindergarten, I remember, and I found
Speaker 2: my way back home because I couldn't. I was too
Speaker 2: scared to be there. And instead of saying, well, we're
Speaker 2: going to take your back and talk to the teacher.
Speaker 2: She said, oh, let's have a cup of tea. You know,
Speaker 2: so that did two things. It was my comfort zone
Speaker 2: but also helped keep me from dealing with the reality
Speaker 2: out there. I'm still glad she did it.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you live this tenoran lifestyle and you talk
Speaker 1: about not being able to make friends. How much of
Speaker 1: that was situational and how much of that was you.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, that's what I was trying to say just
Speaker 2: now that because we traveled like that, and I don't
Speaker 2: know if we'd ended up somewhere for ten years, would
Speaker 2: I have developed, you know, relationships, would they have been healthy?
Speaker 2: Would they have been healthy relationship? I mean this first
Speaker 2: time I thought of it in those terms. But if
Speaker 2: I had stayed somewhere, I really don't know. I can't
Speaker 2: imagine that I would really develop, you know, a healthy
Speaker 2: bunch of friends around me that I wanted to hang
Speaker 2: out with and you do whatever normal kids do.
Speaker 1: So at this late date, how integrated? How mean you
Speaker 1: talk to other people on the phone? Do you hear
Speaker 1: from email or you're more of an ice, You're more
Speaker 1: of an isolated person with your team.
Speaker 2: No, No, I have the emails and the text coming
Speaker 2: and going, and yeah, no, I'm not isolated in that sense. Really,
Speaker 2: it's just not I just really don't want to go anywhere.
Speaker 2: I don't want to. I don't go to many concerts.
Speaker 2: It's just like, you know, I'm stay home and I
Speaker 2: have lots of friends. Now I have good friends.
Speaker 1: Okay, I move.
Speaker 2: We have movie night and there are six women who
Speaker 2: watch it. This happened when my mom was still alive
Speaker 2: for ten years in her little house, we'd have movie
Speaker 2: Night the first Tuesday of every month. Well I'm still
Speaker 2: doing that. And then I have another group of friends.
Speaker 2: We dance together. We used to dance in the city
Speaker 2: and now we just dance on Zoom once a week
Speaker 2: and that's and then I have a group I call
Speaker 2: the Gang of Eight. And there are people I refer
Speaker 2: to for anything political, to discuss with them and ask
Speaker 2: their suggestions and their thoughts. So some of those overlap.
Speaker 2: But I have a lot of friends.
Speaker 1: So how do you pick the movies? And what are
Speaker 1: some good movies you've seen?
Speaker 2: How do you pick the movies? Oh, usually it's somebody
Speaker 2: has a plan and then we start talking about it
Speaker 2: and the planet switches and then we just turn on
Speaker 2: TV and see whatever comes up. We turn on the
Speaker 2: Prime one night and on the Waterfront was on, and
Speaker 2: it was it was an old brainer. It was so wonderful,
Speaker 2: especially compared to so much of the trashism that's out now,
Speaker 2: to see, you know, really good. Sometimes you just want
Speaker 2: to be silly. I think the next one I have
Speaker 2: in my mind for us to watch is TUTSI. I
Speaker 2: haven't seen it for years, you know, it would make
Speaker 2: us laugh. And then their serious nights, in their nights
Speaker 2: when there's political stuff going on, and we'll brave it,
Speaker 2: you know, I'll watch something it's hard to watch.
Speaker 1: And this group of eight that you check in with
Speaker 1: political stuff on what kind of topics have you been
Speaker 1: broaching recently?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, obviously the most recent is the Middle East,
Speaker 2: where we all pretty much decide the exception of few things,
Speaker 2: I wish they had them in front of me, because
Speaker 2: there are a few things that you can do and
Speaker 2: go and be with. It's such an agonizing situation. And
Speaker 2: we're all, you know, and have been non violent activists
Speaker 2: for most of our lives, and there comes a point
Speaker 2: when things aren't such full flow. There's very little room
Speaker 2: for non violent action, although there is some and you know,
Speaker 2: it's non violent action. There's those wonderful women who are
Speaker 2: thanking their captors and getting hell for it because they're
Speaker 2: supposed to be resentful and shabby. And this woman, I
Speaker 2: guess shaking hands with her abductor, with her kidnapper as
Speaker 2: he treated her well, she's saying thank you. That is
Speaker 2: an act of strength, and real strength.
Speaker 1: You're a cent in your career coincided with the advent
Speaker 1: of the sixties, youth quake blowing up. Politics was everything.
Speaker 1: The younger generation was a great percentage of the population.
Speaker 1: There was the Vietnam War in nineteen seventy, there was
Speaker 1: Kent State, there was a so called returned to the land,
Speaker 1: people looking their wounds, and then we had the Iran
Speaker 1: crisis in the next decade, and people were talking about
Speaker 1: bombing Iran. With the perspective you have, it's like, is
Speaker 1: there any hope can we you know? Or is this
Speaker 1: just endemic to society.
Speaker 2: I don't really know. I know that, you know, people
Speaker 2: would assume that I'm an optimist. I never have been.
Speaker 2: I struggle to not be a pessimist. Somebody suggested it
Speaker 2: was a waste of time, and I think that's true.
Speaker 2: I struggle with hope. Somebody said, hope is a discipline,
Speaker 2: and it's like a muscle. It has to be exercised
Speaker 2: for me, for somebody who's glass half empty and sometimes
Speaker 2: all the way empty. I think the trick is that
Speaker 2: I've always done what I've done anyway, whether I was
Speaker 2: optimistic about it or not. The moral compass would just
Speaker 2: dictate what I did next.
Speaker 1: In the movie, it hints at the fact that you
Speaker 1: always knew you were different, you were charismatic, you were
Speaker 1: going to be successful. When did you internally recognize that.
Speaker 2: I don't know about being successful. I don't think that
Speaker 2: word was in my vocabulary. I had total faith in
Speaker 2: my voice. I might have been, you know, had squeamish
Speaker 2: about everything else, or thought I wasn't good enough, or
Speaker 2: thought I was a dumb Mexican whatever, But once that
Speaker 2: voice started to I'd say by sixteen, I was sure
Speaker 2: that it was special. By the time I was twenty,
Speaker 2: and there was nothing could have could have inter feared
Speaker 2: with my feelings about my own voice. So I don't
Speaker 2: know what your question was.
Speaker 1: Now, Well, okay, well you felt that voice to be successful.
Speaker 1: In the world of entertainment, talent, is it most fifty percent.
Speaker 1: The other fifty percent is dry and need, etc. So
Speaker 1: where did that drive and need come from?
Speaker 2: I think I don't seize myself as ambitious, and I
Speaker 2: think it's probably because I didn't have to be. I
Speaker 2: had to get ambitious enough to keep going when the
Speaker 2: career fell apart. And that's all in the film is
Speaker 2: pretty clear. But at the beginning, my idea of the
Speaker 2: future was the following Wednesday. You know I didn't have
Speaker 2: Some kid asked me once I was about seventeen, I
Speaker 2: thought I was going to be famous, and I hadn't
Speaker 2: even thought about it. It seemed like a fun idea.
Speaker 2: Once he said it, I didn't me. I thought that
Speaker 2: would be kind of cool. And once I was seeing
Speaker 2: any chiatrist when I was twenty, and I told him
Speaker 2: I'd had a dream that I was singing with Harry
Speaker 2: Bellafai and he said, don't you think you're having delusions
Speaker 2: in grandeur?
Speaker 1: And I said, no, that begs the question. Did you
Speaker 1: ever sing with Harry Bellefanie?
Speaker 2: Yes? I did, Yeah, I did on Marches. Yeah, what
Speaker 2: a wonderful guy.
Speaker 1: Okay, so your family moves to Boston. How do you
Speaker 1: end up playing at club forty seven.
Speaker 2: Well, I have to say, good old Dad took his
Speaker 2: three daughters and his wife into Cambridge because he'd seen
Speaker 2: with his own eyes these coffee shops and he knew that,
Speaker 2: you know, I was starting to play guitar and starting
Speaker 2: to learn folk music. And he took us into Cambridge,
Speaker 2: and he took us into the Harbor Square. He walked around.
Speaker 2: I remember looking in the door of one of these
Speaker 2: coffee shops sing a guy playing guitar, singing, sitting under
Speaker 2: his yellow light. Everybody's smoking, and all these students, you know,
Speaker 2: discussing whatever, and that kind of was. It was a bingo,
Speaker 2: you know. That's what I wanted to do. I wanted
Speaker 2: to go and beg every song off of him and
Speaker 2: everybody I knew, everybody I met, and have them teach me,
Speaker 2: teach me the guitar.
Speaker 1: Okay, So what happened first the learning process? Did you
Speaker 1: would shed for a while or at what point did
Speaker 1: you get up on stage and then perform for others?
Speaker 2: Oh? Very fast, Because I was eighteen or nineteen at Newport,
Speaker 2: I had already sung. I sang this thing for the Shriners.
Speaker 2: I mean I would go where somebody said, hey, I
Speaker 2: was sixteen. I'm in high school. So and so wanted
Speaker 2: you to come and sing for their class. Okay, I
Speaker 2: go singing to their class. Some of his dad was
Speaker 2: with the Shriners. They wanted me to come and sing
Speaker 2: with the Shriners. And I went and I sang in
Speaker 2: his drunken old shriner came over and he said, honey,
Speaker 2: don't sign cheap.
Speaker 1: It's that great phenomenal.
Speaker 2: That was really funny.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, was your first public outing club forty seven
Speaker 1: or did you play another clubs before that?
Speaker 2: No, that was the first one and almost the only one.
Speaker 2: I mean it was became home and I started off
Speaker 2: on every two I think it was every Tuesday, and
Speaker 2: had ten dollars. That was a big deal. Then they
Speaker 2: added a probably it was Tuesdays and Fridays. Then it
Speaker 2: went up to fifteen dollars, and I really felt he
Speaker 2: felt like a rich girl. And I had had two jobs.
Speaker 2: I had had one job at Boston Vespa company, where
Speaker 2: I taught people how to drive vestpro.
Speaker 1: So I had to if you're driving investment was did
Speaker 1: you ever crash?
Speaker 2: Yes? I did once, but it was on a motorcycle.
Speaker 2: It was on a little tiny, stupid motorcycle. But yes,
Speaker 2: I did fall over once as on my way to
Speaker 2: my psychiatrist, and I told what happened. He said, are
Speaker 2: you crazy? That's a stupid question. Anyway, where did I
Speaker 2: Where did I veer off?
Speaker 1: Just now you were talking about playing Club forty seven,
Speaker 1: working your way up the ladder.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I played the one week. The first night I played,
Speaker 2: there was my mother and father, two sisters, and one
Speaker 2: other person. I don't remember who that was. That was it,
Speaker 2: probably the owners of the club. And then whatever happened
Speaker 2: between that and the following week, it was then full,
Speaker 2: and I don't remember what happened.
Speaker 1: And then if there were only your family members there,
Speaker 1: why did everybody show up a week later?
Speaker 2: I don't know. And I don't know if anybody knew
Speaker 2: on that first night, or if the word got out
Speaker 2: or I don't know, but it was really fast. And
Speaker 2: then shortly after that, Albert Grossman, who handled just about
Speaker 2: everybody in the folk world, invited me to come to Newport.
Speaker 2: Wanted me to go to Newport, and so.
Speaker 1: So I went.
Speaker 2: And that was the You know what I'm thinking when
Speaker 2: I'm going through this, I had already been to Chicago,
Speaker 2: to the Gate of Horn to sing itub It was
Speaker 2: his club and it was a real club and people
Speaker 2: drank and stuff. It was a big deal for me
Speaker 2: because I didn't think that was appropriate. Man, people drank anywhere.
Speaker 2: So and I was there for a couple of weeks
Speaker 2: opening for Bob Gibson. That's okay, that's how it goes.
Speaker 2: And then Gibson was singing at Newport and he invited me,
Speaker 2: an Odette invited me, and that's where that's we were
Speaker 2: all kind of pop.
Speaker 1: Let's go a little bit slower. You're playing club forty seven,
Speaker 1: you're going to college. How do you end up dropping
Speaker 1: out of college?
Speaker 2: Oh? That was easy, that was the easy part. I
Speaker 2: literally I was there for about six weeks. I mean
Speaker 2: after that it was just pretending to my parents that
Speaker 2: I was in school. I don't think there was I
Speaker 2: didn't know there are that many ways to flunk. There
Speaker 2: was you know, there was a zero, there was an F,
Speaker 2: there was a missing an action, whatever they are. But
Speaker 2: the only grade I got that was decent was art class,
Speaker 2: and it was because they studied Alasco caves. And I
Speaker 2: was so enthralled with that that I actually paid attention.
Speaker 1: Okay, but your your father's academic how does he feel
Speaker 1: about you dripping out of college?
Speaker 2: Horrible? But he knew. I mean, my opalling went to
Speaker 2: college just really for him. She had no desire to
Speaker 2: go and she didn't last there. And I was so
Speaker 2: out of it. By the end of high school. Everybody's
Speaker 2: talking about college boards. I didn't know what a college
Speaker 2: board was, and I was too embarrassed to ask, And
Speaker 2: anytime anybody said it, I just pictured a two x
Speaker 2: four plank a board that and I wouldn't go be
Speaker 2: I wouldn't ask any questions beyond that. And then my
Speaker 2: mother was trying to get me interested in one of
Speaker 2: the East Coast girls schools, you know, Bennington, where it's
Speaker 2: free for the arts and encouraged arts and music. And
Speaker 2: I went to the interview with Mimi and my parents
Speaker 2: and it was a complete disaster. She'd say something like, well,
Speaker 2: what are your study habits like, and I'd say, I
Speaker 2: don't have any you know. It was just horrible, and
Speaker 2: I didn't get in. And the only place I got
Speaker 2: into was Boston University. Fine Arts.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're at Club forty seven. You obviously are
Speaker 1: feeling good that there's an audience, you're making money. What
Speaker 1: At what point do professionals say, hey, kid, you know
Speaker 1: you should come here and make a deal with me.
Speaker 2: Well, actually that happened when I was in high school,
Speaker 2: and these two they remind me of the of those
Speaker 2: sneaky guys in Pinocchio. They kind of came in, they said,
Speaker 2: come on, little girl, we're going to make an album.
Speaker 2: And all I had was stuff like Annie had a
Speaker 2: baby and work with me, Annie and six Bellefontie songs.
Speaker 2: So I went and did everything I knew and they
Speaker 2: pressed it and it was one that we banned. I
Speaker 2: can't remember the name of it, but it was really
Speaker 2: really early. And then it was that come on, honey,
Speaker 2: we're going to make you famous. And then oh it
Speaker 2: happened in an ice way. That all at grossman time period.
Speaker 2: I was in twenty nineteen, I think, and he wanted
Speaker 2: me to sign with Columbia, which is where everybody was going,
Speaker 2: and I was just leary of the size of it,
Speaker 2: you know, the gold records on the walls, and I
Speaker 2: wanted to talk to Vanguard, which is basically a classical
Speaker 2: music company. And first I went to Columbia with Grossman,
Speaker 2: and I literally developed a cold while I was sitting
Speaker 2: there and he's over my shoulder saying sign here, and
Speaker 2: I said, no, I had to fight it. No, I
Speaker 2: want to go talk to Vanguard first. And of course
Speaker 2: I was more comfortable at Vanguard. And it was a
Speaker 2: wonderful decision.
Speaker 1: It was a wonderful decision because because it.
Speaker 2: Was the right company for me. The Maynard Solomon owned
Speaker 2: the company, and he produced my albums, and he understood
Speaker 2: and loved folk music and he, you know, we helped
Speaker 2: me with always with the songs I was going to choose,
Speaker 2: And yeah, I don't know what the path would have been.
Speaker 2: If I'd gone on Columbia, probably fine, Probably would have
Speaker 2: been fine. But I think for me to stay oriented,
Speaker 2: for me to not tip over, it's probably safer to
Speaker 2: be with that guard.
Speaker 1: Okay, you start to have the success very quickly. How
Speaker 1: do you cope with the attention? Very few people are
Speaker 1: in this situation, yeah, and very few people in this
Speaker 1: situation that quickly. Yeah, but there's a lot of tumult.
Speaker 1: There's no one from your regular life who understands what
Speaker 1: you're going through. Yeah, So what was it like for you?
Speaker 2: Well, as part of it was really exciting because there
Speaker 2: I was with an identity, and there I was with
Speaker 2: people paying attention to me, and I had value and worths.
Speaker 2: And then so that would It's like reading reviews. If
Speaker 2: you read good reviews, you get all puffed up. If
Speaker 2: you read bad ones, you get miserable. You know, So
Speaker 2: what do you do with your life? And that do
Speaker 2: you believe everybody was saying wonderful things about you? I
Speaker 2: know that my Quaker background was helpful because I understood
Speaker 2: about being quiet, and I understood about meditation, and I
Speaker 2: understood about you know that I was just so small
Speaker 2: in this, in the greater scheme of things, and so
Speaker 2: I did a lot of meditation and prayer back then
Speaker 2: to sort of try and keep me on the right path.
Speaker 2: And not that I was always on the right path,
Speaker 2: but I but I tried. At an early age. I tried,
Speaker 2: and I was a little neurotic. I didn't. I mean,
Speaker 2: I didn't want anything on the stage. I want to
Speaker 2: pitch black. I wanted no frills, and I thought it
Speaker 2: would be easier for everybody, and it wasn't. It was
Speaker 2: just as difficult. People had planned to pour roses on
Speaker 2: the stage, you know. And then once I said no
Speaker 2: more limousines for me, I don't want any more limousines
Speaker 2: because I felt too privileged. And that lasted a couple
Speaker 2: of months. If somebody showed up has broken down, Volkswagen Bus,
Speaker 2: give me the limousines back, and I've been happy in
Speaker 2: them ever since. I wish they didn't need so much gas.
Speaker 1: What about the me too moments?
Speaker 2: I was not not active in that, and you know,
Speaker 2: I wasn't speaking about myself at that point.
Speaker 1: So I guess what I'm saying is, you're a young girl,
Speaker 1: twenty years old, you're in business, You're a hot commodity.
Speaker 2: Anyway, I see any.
Speaker 1: Woman who's twenty years old, even at this late date,
Speaker 1: with new consciousness, it's a volatile situation.
Speaker 2: Say which situation?
Speaker 1: Sorry, sexually charged with men trying to take advantage of you.
Speaker 2: Oh I see, well, I think it was in some
Speaker 2: ways too puritanical at some point, and then they didn't
Speaker 2: take advantage when I hadn't slept with them. Okay, this
Speaker 2: isn't I don't know if it's okay or not, but
Speaker 2: I'm just trying to be honest.
Speaker 1: Oh died great, But this is an era with the
Speaker 1: folk music scene. We even end up with a TV
Speaker 1: show about folk music Kot and Nanny prior to the Beatles,
Speaker 1: but Dylan comes along in the early sixties. First album
Speaker 1: is Covers, but then he starts to write did you
Speaker 1: feel any pressure to write? Did you feel different from
Speaker 1: the people who wrote?
Speaker 2: You know what, I never even considered it, because I
Speaker 2: just considered that I was an interpreter of folk balance
Speaker 2: folk music. And it was somebody after ten years in
Speaker 2: said well, are you ever going to write anything? And
Speaker 2: that's the first time I'd really thought about her. And
Speaker 2: that's when I I wrote Sweetster Galahad, and so I
Speaker 2: sort of proved to myself that yeah, I could write.
Speaker 2: And then after that I enjoyed it. I mean, I
Speaker 2: wrote a bunch of things.
Speaker 1: And what did you feel when the Beatles came along?
Speaker 2: Oh? I loved the Beatles. I was in there. I
Speaker 2: was when they might have been their first show in
Speaker 2: the States. It is certainly the first tour. I was
Speaker 2: in Denver and they were I'd been at Red Rocks
Speaker 2: and they were there the next night, and I met
Speaker 2: them out there, absolutely charming and funny, and they were
Speaker 2: so thrilled in that hotel room. They had a whole
Speaker 2: floor to themselves. What got them most excited was the
Speaker 2: fact that there was a Coca Cola machine. You didn't
Speaker 2: have to put any money in. It looked ludn't put
Speaker 2: the co in, and then you get to Coca Colo.
Speaker 2: They were happy.
Speaker 1: Did you have any idea that the British invasion was
Speaker 1: coming and this might negatively impact your career?
Speaker 2: Neither I learned, as as everybody else did. They started,
Speaker 2: you know, just one hit after another in this massive phenomenon,
Speaker 2: and you know, I was fortunate enough to spend a
Speaker 2: little time with them.
Speaker 1: Well did you wake up in the later years and say,
Speaker 1: wait a second. You know, you talk about the seventies
Speaker 1: in the movie, but even the sixties you'd say, wait
Speaker 1: a second. You know, I'm not the hot thing, and
Speaker 1: the direction seems to be going somewhere else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a little later, because I was a
Speaker 2: hot thing for maybe fifteen years or something, and then
Speaker 2: I was, you know, still more than tepid for the
Speaker 2: next five or six years. Okay, question again, Well.
Speaker 1: Let me let me back into it. You are famously
Speaker 1: in the Woodstock movie. Okay, no one else is like you.
Speaker 1: You're pregnant. You're talking about your husband in jail when
Speaker 1: you see that or when you're reminded of that, do
Speaker 1: you feel comfortable or do you feel you're being so
Speaker 1: authentic that you WinCE in some way?
Speaker 2: No, I you know, I don't WinCE much in this.
Speaker 2: I was young, Dylan was young, We still had our
Speaker 2: baby fat. We got to forgive ourselves for some things. No,
Speaker 2: there are a couple of times when I laugh. The
Speaker 2: goal I had we're going to start a peace movement
Speaker 2: and talking it was just rolling off the tongue. No,
Speaker 2: and that's what I felt that it's kind of it's
Speaker 2: not cringe eorthy, just sort of amazing and slightly funny.
Speaker 2: And then I went on and did as much of
Speaker 2: that as I could in my lifetime.
Speaker 1: Okay, so tell me about the realization in the seventies
Speaker 1: that you're talking about after fifteen years in the business.
Speaker 1: A second, I seem to be in my own little
Speaker 1: eddie and it seems to be a have passed me by.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it does. A realization doesn't come that fast. First,
Speaker 2: it's how come this hall isn't full? They must not
Speaker 2: have gotten the advertisements out in time? You everything, it's
Speaker 2: finger pointing time, And couldn't never dawned on me that
Speaker 2: I would have anything but a full house, because that's
Speaker 2: how it started out, and that's how it was. So
Speaker 2: that was the beginning, just the very beginning, because it
Speaker 2: took years really to catch up with my life as
Speaker 2: a musician. I was way steadier with the politics. I mean,
Speaker 2: that was I was on solid ground with that. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I think, And I start the film off by saying,
Speaker 2: I don't think anybody who's ever been famous thinks it's
Speaker 2: ever going to stop, especially if you're that young. No,
Speaker 2: there's no frame of reference except you know, there.
Speaker 1: Was my own. So you know, you talk in the
Speaker 1: movie about having success with diamonds and rust and then
Speaker 1: switching managers. It was a bad decision. Now, if you
Speaker 1: many musicians from that era will tell you they're living
Speaker 1: off the publishing and the performing rights money that you
Speaker 1: can get mailbox money when you're sitting at home. But
Speaker 1: you didn't write that many songs, that's true. How's it
Speaker 1: worked out for you financially?
Speaker 2: I had some really good people around me, Otherwise I'd
Speaker 2: be a mess that I had. I did pick wonderful people,
Speaker 2: and they worked me through that quagmire because they knew
Speaker 2: what they were doing. And I'm fine. I am not.
Speaker 2: You know, I am not a millionaires. I never will
Speaker 2: be that interested in making that kind of money. So
Speaker 2: I'm good.
Speaker 1: Okay, you write Diamonds and Rust. It ends up becoming
Speaker 1: very successful, even on FM radio, which is getting harder
Speaker 1: and more corporate. At the time. You're writing about the
Speaker 1: ten years before twelve years before Bob Dylan, did this
Speaker 1: cause any Let me put it this way. Did you
Speaker 1: say I'm going to do this or did you say, hmm,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm trading on the past. I'm trading on Dylan.
Speaker 1: This might not be the right thing to do.
Speaker 2: No, I wasn't trading on anybody. I just wrote the song.
Speaker 2: I had no idea that it was going to become popular.
Speaker 2: In fact, I was writing another song to that melody.
Speaker 2: And it's true Bob called from the phone booth in
Speaker 2: the Midwest and they read me one of his songs,
Speaker 2: and that's where the whole song was triggered. That I
Speaker 2: just had written a song. And anyway, if you didn't
Speaker 2: know the history of Bob and me to some degree,
Speaker 2: fortunately it still holds up as a song.
Speaker 1: It absolutely does. But there was so much information back then.
Speaker 1: So this phone call took place when.
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm not going to remember. Please don't ask me
Speaker 2: date you No.
Speaker 1: What I'm trying to say is was this a memory
Speaker 1: of a phone call in the sixties or was this
Speaker 1: just before you wrote the song?
Speaker 2: It was just before I wrote the song.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you had maintained contact with Bob Dylan over
Speaker 1: these years?
Speaker 2: Not really, I mean it was sort of out of
Speaker 2: the blue that Betty called. Yeah, it was nine. You know,
Speaker 2: we weren't buddies all that time, and you talked of
Speaker 2: it all now. I don't know if anybody does.
Speaker 1: He's busy on tour than going back to the bus.
Speaker 1: So you meet him when his career is very nascent,
Speaker 1: and then in sixty five, as a giant radio hit
Speaker 1: like a Rolling Stone, you go to England with him.
Speaker 1: Did you see him change? This is you know in
Speaker 1: the movie you talk about the fact you wake up
Speaker 1: one day, what am I doing here? This is not
Speaker 1: my world? Okay? Did he change with success? Was that
Speaker 1: part of it?
Speaker 2: I think so? I think so. And it was also
Speaker 2: says that the film had happened very quickly, that suddenly
Speaker 2: there was this crush of people around him. It started
Speaker 2: but just kids, you know, fans wanted to be around
Speaker 2: him and adore him. And then it was a slightly
Speaker 2: different scene going to Europe. Yes, there were all those fans,
Speaker 2: but then there was his sort of cluster of in
Speaker 2: house people, of the in crowd, and that's where I
Speaker 2: was not comfortable. I think I was welcomed, but I
Speaker 2: wasn't comfortable. And in the end, you know, those that
Speaker 2: group of people, it was really a druggy group, and
Speaker 2: I didn't. I didn't fit in. I didn't. It wasn't
Speaker 2: part of my circles.
Speaker 1: So in terms of your own drug, as we said
Speaker 1: back then, experimentation, we did you go through that? Was
Speaker 1: it never your thing? Or you dabbled?
Speaker 2: No. The only thing ever, and it's also in the
Speaker 2: film was many years later fet Onto Coaylude and took
Speaker 2: a lot of coyluded for about eight years. But well,
Speaker 2: everybody else was doing all this stuff. They were leaving
Speaker 2: these pills on the stool by their microphone, and you know,
Speaker 2: it probably was great stuff, but I just didn't relate
Speaker 2: to it. I throw it in my purse and return
Speaker 2: to powder. So I wasn't. I just didn't relate to it.
Speaker 2: For whatever. I don't think they're virtue reasons. I think
Speaker 2: I've probably just scared.
Speaker 1: So quayludes and soapers, which are the same things, start
Speaker 1: to happen in the early seventies. So how do you
Speaker 1: first start taking quayludes?
Speaker 2: I can't remember. I can't remember because I was so
Speaker 2: scared of taking anything. I must have taken an eighth
Speaker 2: of it or something, and that a sixth of one,
Speaker 2: and I never took Mommy the half of them. Half
Speaker 2: one was probably the most I ever took at a time.
Speaker 1: So what was the motivation to continue to take them
Speaker 1: all those years?
Speaker 2: Comfort zone? It was made my life easier, made meeting people, laughing,
Speaker 2: going to restaurants, all things that had a lot of anxiety.
Speaker 2: It took away to anxiety. That's the real answer to
Speaker 2: your question.
Speaker 1: So, even at this late date, although we're all older,
Speaker 1: did you have a level of social anxiety? Like as
Speaker 1: someone called you up, Oh, we're going to go to
Speaker 1: dann there's going to be s having people there you
Speaker 1: don't know, would say, oh, sounds great. When I show up,
Speaker 1: you say, well, you know, I really have something I
Speaker 1: want to do at home. I'd rather not.
Speaker 2: No, when you're saying that, I don't go to dinner
Speaker 2: that much. But when I go with my pals. We
Speaker 2: have a wonderful time. No, I think it's boiling down
Speaker 2: to it. And I hadn't thought about all this till
Speaker 2: we started talking. I don't know how many friends one
Speaker 2: really needs. I know, I'm not interested in going to parties.
Speaker 2: I'm not interested in going to places where the leaves
Speaker 2: look like really nice people. And then somebody says, oh,
Speaker 2: I saw you in nineteen seventy two and I was
Speaker 2: wearing a plaid shirt, sitting in the front row. I think, yeah,
Speaker 2: not interested, you know, but I try to be nice
Speaker 2: because that meant something in that person's life. Somebody gave
Speaker 2: me a great T shirt wanted to said please, don't
Speaker 2: tell me your story, and then he proceeded to tell
Speaker 2: me his long story about how he found the T shirt. Anyway,
Speaker 2: it's about people wanting to place themselves in your life
Speaker 2: or place you, and what it meant to them so
Speaker 2: and it meant a lots. So I think treating them
Speaker 2: decently is the you know what I can do.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you're a famous person, you're out and about
Speaker 1: on tour, you're in an airport, whatever. Everybody who comes
Speaker 1: up to you tells you a story.
Speaker 2: They want to do you travel with me someday and
Speaker 2: it's just you. I see it in their eyes and
Speaker 2: they take a big breath they say I saw you
Speaker 2: as they go fuck do. And I was in the
Speaker 2: front row. And almost a lot of people will start
Speaker 2: with you may not remember me, but I think you know,
Speaker 2: the chances that I remembering you I want in a million.
Speaker 2: But how do I you know, let that person know
Speaker 2: that they count as a person and try to avoid it.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I'll just say no stories, no stories please.
Speaker 1: Well that's one of the reasons I don't talk on
Speaker 1: the phone people bull It's like, get to the ask
Speaker 1: what do you want? So I can say no, so
Speaker 1: I can hang.
Speaker 2: Up perfect because we're get to the ask. When I
Speaker 2: do Q and A after the film and you have
Speaker 2: to say, please just ask a question. I am not
Speaker 2: interested in here. Yeah, gotta say it. Sometimes they actually do.
Speaker 1: That drives me crazy. Have Q and A and somebody
Speaker 1: stands up to make a company. We don't give a
Speaker 1: shit what you have to say. The people of the
Speaker 1: stage are the ones. But just to drill down a
Speaker 1: little bit further on this, not now, but when you
Speaker 1: were throughout your life brought into situations well, you may
Speaker 1: or may not have been the focus, and there were
Speaker 1: people you didn't know. Did that cause extreme anxiety?
Speaker 2: You know, as you're saying that, I sort of picture myself.
Speaker 2: I was pretty. I was protected somehow because I was
Speaker 2: already separate from them. I wasn't vying for a friendship
Speaker 2: position or I knew I looked okay. You know, I
Speaker 2: was established in myself. I might not have been very interested,
Speaker 2: and I might have been, I might have gotten more
Speaker 2: out of it. And if I'd been more interested and
Speaker 2: more open, but I was okay for the most part.
Speaker 2: I was okay.
Speaker 1: And living is a famous person. Where people treat you
Speaker 1: differently your whole life, good, bad or otherwise, How would
Speaker 1: I know? Well? Sometimes, I mean everybody can tell. You
Speaker 1: can perceive that when you're in a group of people,
Speaker 1: they're treating you differently from the other people in the room.
Speaker 2: No, But what I mean is that's gone on more
Speaker 2: of my life than not, you see, So that's what
Speaker 2: I mean. How would I know? I wouldn't.
Speaker 1: Well, I understand your point of your life. You're the phone.
Speaker 1: But you can tell when someone's being as sick a fan,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I can.
Speaker 2: And the clearest I've ever had to be was just say,
Speaker 2: get the fuck out of here. I get what you're
Speaker 2: trying to say. I am not interested. Stop saying it now.
Speaker 2: I'm going to call a tour manager and get the
Speaker 2: fuck out of here.
Speaker 1: And in your everyday life, when somebody calls you on
Speaker 1: your shit, are you good with that or not good
Speaker 1: with that?
Speaker 2: I'm pretty good with that. I don't have therapy to
Speaker 2: be pretty good with that. In fact, you know you
Speaker 2: asked to be called on your shit. You have to
Speaker 2: ask because it's hard for people to. You know, somebody's
Speaker 2: standing there buttoned up, wishing that you would change or
Speaker 2: you have to unbutton and I have to hear it.
Speaker 1: Okay. In the movie we do see Richard Ferina, it
Speaker 1: does not mention the book he wrote, which is one
Speaker 1: of the most impactful books I've ever read. Been down
Speaker 1: so long it looks like up to me right as
Speaker 1: a freshman in college. What can you tell us about Richard?
Speaker 2: Richard was an interesting guy. He fancied himself a man
Speaker 2: about the world, and in some ways he was. In
Speaker 2: some ways he was a big blowhard. I can tell
Speaker 2: you that he and I for a while would get
Speaker 2: into these we'd have these dinners with Mimi and some friends,
Speaker 2: and Dick and I would get into some goofy story
Speaker 2: being East Indians or being whatever, and we go back
Speaker 2: and forth and creating this play, and we realized everybody
Speaker 2: had left because they were bored. It was just Stick
Speaker 2: and me. And then at a certain point, I, you know,
Speaker 2: I sort of got tired of it because Mimi wasn't growing,
Speaker 2: she wasn't happy. And then you know, after he died,
Speaker 2: he lived on with her forever. I mean, she couldn't
Speaker 2: let go o him and he couldn't let go her.
Speaker 1: Now, Mimi had a singing career. To what degree could
Speaker 1: your sisters accept or resent your incredible success?
Speaker 2: Well, I think a lot of that is in the
Speaker 2: film that there were two different reactions Paulling. The older
Speaker 2: sister had to just leave. I mean, the closest I
Speaker 2: ever heard her come to saying what she was able
Speaker 2: to say in the film was that I sucked up
Speaker 2: the oxygen in the room, and that's why she would
Speaker 2: sometimes not be able to share in whatever time they
Speaker 2: were having. And then Mimi was more complicated because Mimi
Speaker 2: really wanted to be me in some ways, and she
Speaker 2: wanted to be a singer, and it's true. And she
Speaker 2: asked me, and I'll never know whether I should have
Speaker 2: said absolutely, Mimi, and just back to the whole way.
Speaker 2: I don't even know what that would have meant. But
Speaker 2: I told her what I thought was the truth, which
Speaker 2: is that it was going to be a rough road
Speaker 2: with big sister, and it was.
Speaker 1: You're talking about Pauline, your oldest sister, saying you sucked
Speaker 1: up the oxygen before you were famous, before you played
Speaker 1: at Club forty seven. Did you suck up all the
Speaker 1: oxygen in the family.
Speaker 2: I think that's a very good question.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: I think the answer is yes. I because Pauline's feelings
Speaker 2: would get hurt and I didn't understand why. And then
Speaker 2: later on, as we moved through life, I would see
Speaker 2: that I would get the attention. For instance, when I
Speaker 2: was thirteen, somebody gave me, gave us each a ukulele,
Speaker 2: and Pauline went to a room to learn how to
Speaker 2: play that because she was, you know, she was a perfectionist.
Speaker 2: And I learned two chords with flying downstairs and sang
Speaker 2: a song for everybody. So where does that leave Pauline. No,
Speaker 2: there were things like that that happened constantly and I
Speaker 2: wasn't really aware of them. I was just aware. I
Speaker 2: might have been you know, it might have been competitive
Speaker 2: saying well, hah, I did this before she did. But
Speaker 2: I think it was more I could now go and
Speaker 2: get you know, and get people's attention.
Speaker 1: So what was it about you that you were the
Speaker 1: charismatic one and you wanted all the attention. You're the
Speaker 1: middle child. Usually the oldest child is that person.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean, I don't know how the
Speaker 2: stars lined up for the any of it. It's just
Speaker 2: I think that there are genetics. There are the situations
Speaker 2: you've I mean, there was Bagdad. We all had this
Speaker 2: huge reaction to Bagdad, which was Mimi was one of
Speaker 2: the sisters. Through her taper, she struggled through some papers
Speaker 2: supposed to write and wanted it up and threw it out.
Speaker 2: So this is how Americans think or do their homework.
Speaker 2: And Mimi said that that never left her that kind
Speaker 2: of shattering, and I was just And that's the pictures
Speaker 2: in there in the film, or pictures I did back then,
Speaker 2: beggars and poverty, and that impacted me in a way
Speaker 2: that when I went through my life with those images
Speaker 2: and as part of what I ended up doing what
Speaker 2: I was doing, and Mimi and then Pauline, I don't
Speaker 2: even really know. Pauline used to find a way to
Speaker 2: say something good about everything, and in the film, I'm saying, yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't think I was that easy for me to
Speaker 2: be so jolly about our lives.
Speaker 1: And when you reach a level of success. I was
Speaker 1: just reading the paper before we started. The woman who
Speaker 1: wrote the book made turned into a Netflix series. How
Speaker 1: everybody hit her up for money? What deg we do
Speaker 1: you become the family breadwinner? Do you have to take
Speaker 1: care of your family? Or was it clear of this
Speaker 1: was your money, your life, do your thing.
Speaker 2: Oh, I think whenever anybody needed it now, of course
Speaker 2: would be there with it. But it's also funny in
Speaker 2: the film, and I'm talking about I made that money
Speaker 2: at the Vespa company, you know, and I came home
Speaker 2: not with just the fifteen dollars of my singing, with
Speaker 2: a fist full of money and thinking that was, you know,
Speaker 2: to make everybody happen through it in the air and
Speaker 2: people could take what they wanted. And of course this
Speaker 2: is stupid, you know, But I didn't know that, and
Speaker 2: everybody resented me for it. I don't blame them.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of like Brian Wilson that he was
Speaker 1: the one in the Maelstrom. He has mental problems, but
Speaker 1: he still lives and the brothers are dead. And is
Speaker 1: it just luck of the draw that you're the last
Speaker 1: one standing?
Speaker 2: Oh, I don't know. You mean out of the whole family, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't know. Because you're all strong, We're all physically strong,
Speaker 2: and I am physically strong. And it ain't over it
Speaker 2: till it's over. No, I have so many relatives who
Speaker 2: died to cancer. So far, I've just been lucky.
Speaker 1: One of the points you make in the movie, which
Speaker 1: resonates so much, is with all these people gone, you
Speaker 1: have all these memories no one can connect with that
Speaker 1: no one knows about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know. It's a strange feeling. It's very strange.
Speaker 2: You sort of look around and realize nobody is going
Speaker 2: to remember that but me. Maybe it's free. I can
Speaker 2: remember it the way I want to remember it, and
Speaker 2: nobody's going to contest that. In fact, I've written writing
Speaker 2: a book of poetry, I've written a couple of things
Speaker 2: that relate to that that you each of us has
Speaker 2: our own perception of whatever happened, and it can be.
Speaker 2: You know that dress was blue? No, I remember exactly.
Speaker 2: It was pink? No, and you do you remember exactly,
Speaker 2: And it does nothing to do with what color the
Speaker 2: dress was. It was probably white.
Speaker 1: But talking about these people passing, my mother died three
Speaker 1: years ago about this time. My father died long before that.
Speaker 1: But as much as she was an influence on me,
Speaker 1: there was a sense of liberation. So to what degree
Speaker 1: with your parents and your sisters passing, do you feel
Speaker 1: you can be more yourself as opposed to have thinking
Speaker 1: about what their judgment might be.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's absolutely For instance, couldn't have made this film
Speaker 2: if they were there. It was too hurtful, too confusing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm sure. I'm sure liberated in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2: You know, they don't have to worry about you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, as I went, I didn't take the film
Speaker 2: to show me what my sisters felt. It took it
Speaker 2: to really define it. I've never heard them say because
Speaker 2: they would never Pauline would never get in front of
Speaker 2: a camera. It was only because she trusted Karen O'Connor.
Speaker 2: They'd say, I keep getting the end of the conversation.
Speaker 2: What was the question.
Speaker 1: The question was, to what degree was it liberating with you?
Speaker 2: Liberating? Yeah, yeah, I'm sure it was. I'm sure it
Speaker 2: was liberating, and I hadn't thought of it in those terms,
Speaker 2: miss said, and then it is. There's a piece that
Speaker 2: I didn't have to put the time and energy into
Speaker 2: knowing it was a conflict.
Speaker 1: So how has all this family stuff affected your relationship
Speaker 1: with your son?
Speaker 2: I was just thinking about him. We worked so hard. No.
Speaker 2: I thought he was so generous and forgiving and eloquent
Speaker 2: in the film, No saying really what it felt like
Speaker 2: to be a lonely little kid. And I what I
Speaker 2: learned from my family is that I wasn't nurtured properly,
Speaker 2: and so how would I really know? How would I
Speaker 2: know how lonely he felt. I thought I was a
Speaker 2: great mom, you know, I thought everything was hunky Dori,
Speaker 2: and that's what happens. And then and then it wasn't.
Speaker 2: And we've had time to make up for that as
Speaker 2: much as possible. After the film, I decided I was
Speaker 2: going to start a bad mothers club, because seriously, I mean,
Speaker 2: every mother thinks she was could have done more, did
Speaker 2: wrong or so that guilt is something to deal with
Speaker 2: for the rest of my life. Forgiving oneself seems to really,
Speaker 2: by far the hardest thing to do. But Dave, you know,
Speaker 2: he helps me with that. We have a wonderful therapist.
Speaker 2: And we hit a snag, we just go back, go
Speaker 2: back and say can you help us straighten the sound.
Speaker 1: So you married David Harris, you're involved with him, you
Speaker 1: marry him, you're pregnant. He goes to jail for a
Speaker 1: long time. He comes out of jail. How do you
Speaker 1: pick up the relationship and what was it like?
Speaker 2: Well, first thing comes in my mind is that somebody
Speaker 2: who was, say, for instance, a Quaker type, who has
Speaker 2: known themselves and seen the world in an open sense
Speaker 2: of seeing how unimportant we are as individuals, goes into
Speaker 2: jail with a certain mentality. And some guys would just
Speaker 2: do it. They'd do their time and come out and
Speaker 2: they were okay. For David, it was really, really difficult.
Speaker 2: He had no idea. But he was macho, he was
Speaker 2: a guy, this Fresno's Boy of the Year and all
Speaker 2: of that was in there. Plus when he was in jail,
Speaker 2: they picked on him, you know, because he was a magitator, etc.
Speaker 2: And he would be in a strike they throw him
Speaker 2: in solitary confinement, and it was very hard for him
Speaker 2: to not resent all that after he came out. So
Speaker 2: he had a really hard He had a really hard
Speaker 2: go of it when he was in prison, and equally
Speaker 2: is hard when he came out and we did. We
Speaker 2: had a hard time.
Speaker 1: But inherently does that separation mean it's hard to pick
Speaker 1: back up?
Speaker 2: It was for me. I mean, I'm sure for the
Speaker 2: most stable couple, the most quakerly meditative type, it would
Speaker 2: not be easy. But I don't think it had to
Speaker 2: be as difficult as it was with David's nature.
Speaker 1: Mean what it was now, David was younger than you.
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs was younger than you. Is that just luck
Speaker 1: of the drawer? You like younger men, I like younger men.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me anything about that?
Speaker 2: Oh, I'll leave it to your imagination.
Speaker 1: Okay, then let's just go to the crux of the
Speaker 1: movie is its retirement tour. Most people are never on
Speaker 1: stage in front of thousands of people, that are not
Speaker 1: in stage in front of tens of people, And what
Speaker 1: they don't understand is this incredible adrenaline hit that the
Speaker 1: money is good, but a lot of people they need
Speaker 1: that hit, so you're on the road for decades and
Speaker 1: now you're off. Do you miss that?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? Not for a second? Is that interesting? I didn't know.
Speaker 2: I had no idea, and that reflect on that in
Speaker 2: the films thing. I don't know what I'll feel like,
Speaker 2: and from what I hear, everybody who quit starts up again.
Speaker 2: But I had a feeling inside that this was it,
Speaker 2: and I managed, I manager, and I planned. It took
Speaker 2: three years to do this properly, and I had a
Speaker 2: strong feeling that that was going to be it. What
Speaker 2: I didn't know is how calm it was to stop.
Speaker 2: And I didn't know how hard I was working until
Speaker 2: I stopped. And as soon as I stopped, I thought,
Speaker 2: how did I do that? I mean in the film,
Speaker 2: how did I do that? Traveling like that? But no,
Speaker 2: I haven't missed it, and I haven't missed the bus either,
Speaker 2: which I thought I would do well.
Speaker 1: I know people have been on the road for a
Speaker 1: year and a half and it takes them six months
Speaker 1: to recover. So how long did it take you to
Speaker 1: find your new normal after you ended?
Speaker 2: Not long. I was already in the studio painting before
Speaker 2: it ended for number of years. So I just as
Speaker 2: though I just took a deep breath and shifted over
Speaker 2: to the art studio.
Speaker 1: If someone called you and said, oh, we're doing a
Speaker 1: big piece festival, come out and sing a song, you
Speaker 1: would say, My.
Speaker 2: Only regret is that I the facility to just get
Speaker 2: up and sing a song is much more limited. So
Speaker 2: yes I can. I'm not really interested to do that,
Speaker 2: but if it's something that really tugs at me, then
Speaker 2: I'll do it. I mean, I went to the Ukraine
Speaker 2: and just sang for kids because it tugged at me,
Speaker 2: you know. But to really join in a musical sense
Speaker 2: takes a lot of work for me.
Speaker 1: And do you care about legacy or not?
Speaker 2: No? Oh, well the honest legacy. Yeah. Do I care
Speaker 2: about archiving my life? No?
Speaker 1: Okay, Joan. I want to thank you for taking this
Speaker 1: time to speak to my audience and being so honest.
Speaker 2: Hey, thank you. It was fun. I like to make
Speaker 2: you laugh, but.
Speaker 1: I'm laughing now until next time. This is Bob left
Speaker 1: stets