Ode to Joan Baez

hey dude it's been a while not that long though actually oh man it's beautiful day

really on the cusp of spring I took a couple pictures that I may use I don't

know I'm not sure but I'm hanging out in the back hanging with the feral cat

Ming who's scratching some wood I just was bringing the chimes from Laguna sawdust festival

supposedly the original chimes kind of has that old California feel to it and I'm feeling the

old California vibe today I guess you know what's funny thing is most of the

modern

artists that I kind of really enjoy are the singer-songwriter women like for instance Nora

Jones or and some of these people obviously been around for a while but but I love oh god what is

her name I can't even think of her name right now well I just saw Casey Musgraves on the today show

love her Billie Eilish obviously you know with her brother Phineas who I kind of see them as

sort of like I can't even think of them but she's there withwho's one of them is

groupie

I mean they're she's got the love like drops and so I'm growing up with her and

I'm starting to see a lot of her stuff the older brother because you could get

inspired watching the older sisters where you have this sort of prodigy older

brother who's got this crazy fantastic younger sister who's you know off the

charts in terms of her her talent anyway sort of reminds me of a carpenter thing

and I'd seen a documentary about that carpenters maybe you know re-evaluate them and remind me how much I love their music but anyways they're very different but just go with me for a minute and they're Los Angeles but both both carpenters and or California's carpenters are First Nations

and you know you're going to be a放ks on the court but you're also doing some drama right now where's your brother?

california southern california um and billy and phineas and highland park i think anyways so um

oh god who is my favorite gal i can't even think of her name um oh god anyways i'll get to her in

a minute um anyways so i saw a documentary the other day um which i'd seen before it was an hb

i think an hbo thing on the go-go's and it was really good i liked it you know it's got that

southern california thing a little bit about punk a little bit you know i was in high school

during when the go-go's were at the height of their thing and and uh anyways uh brandy carlisle

okay brandy carl i love brandy carl um i actually have really grown to love uh lady gaga too

i love when somebody can play an instrument and then they go off the instrument you know

brandy carlisle does the you know piano to the guitar thing which i love

uh

uh you know i love when when you know lady gaga does more like hey i'm at the piano singing kind

of thing not the dancing around part as much for me anyways so a lot of those artists are people i

like right and i guess you know one of the people that that kind of this may sound a little strange

but it's not really strange at all that broke ground for all those people there's no question

about it is joan baez i mean you know what i mean she there isn't a really

i would argue there isn't any kind of singer-songwriter that isn't indebted to

joan baez on some level you know what i mean and um but certainly if you're a woman uh singer-songwriter

you know even if you're not directly influenced by her you would definitely be influenced by her

because your influence was influenced by her on some level you know what i mean the wind's kicking

up man it's it's this kind of weird fight between winter and spring here they're having one last

battle maybe anyways um i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know

um so i'd seen this thing on the go-go's and it was like i said i'd seen it on hbo and then they

were playing it on on i was hanging out with my dad and they were playing it on broadcast tv

so it was all chopped up with commercials and shit and and they cut out like really key parts

to it from my perspective although if you hadn't seen it you wouldn't necessarily know but it

wasn't it didn't have the the texture they just kind of you know because of they have to make so

much time for the commercials they can only kind of hit the key points you know

anyways so um i the way i'm you know kind of you know watching this thing is like i'm enjoying this

but it's also like super annoying because i know there's so much more and they're really and it's

an interesting story and they're an interesting band and i feel this weird connection to them and

i even like played baseball with a guy guy that was married to one of you know that kind of thing

those weird kind of connections

um and uh anyways let me get back to joan bias um so

i ended up um i was i was in altadena and i was hanging out with marisol and um and we kind of do

this thing where we're like we eat when we're eating dinner kind of we watch a seinfeld and

neither one of us had been like seinfeld people but now we're watching it start to finish you

know it's on netflix and we kind of like going episode by episode

and really it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a

really enjoying it i mean some of it is is whatever it is but um and i don't even want to

get into that but the bottom line is i mean a lot of it you couldn't do today blah blah anyways um

and then we've been kind of tripping out on this uh uh what is it called break point or breaking

break point i think about the tennis players and the and they're fascinating and you know whatever

but they're also the divas and all that shit anyway so i sort of kind of falling asleep at

the end of one episode and i was like okay we're going to bed blah blah

so later i couldn't fall asleep so i ended up flipping on the joan baez i am a noise um

documentary and i knew about it and i knew actually quite a bit about it because i've

been reading really a lot of reviews about it and i was really excited to see it and blah blah

but you know i wasn't really quite in the mood to see it um

um earlier because i was going to watch it earlier and i was like you know

know i'm not quite there yet anyways late at night me trying to fall asleep i thought okay this this

might be a good time to really absorb this thing and sure enough it was and i first off the weird

part about it is although they sure play enough songs and little clips here and there of her

singing and blah blah it's not there's a music throughout but it's you wouldn't go like oh it's

a music documentary at least i wouldn't it's it's a documentary about a historical figure who

joan baez falls under that category not everybody does i mean somebody can be like

uh okay i'm just gonna say judy collins let's say and i'm i mean i don't want to say joni

mitchell because that's controversial but let's just say judy collins i love her she's great and

did great things and blah blah and i don't even know her whole career but she's not a historical

figure in the way that joan baez is i mean joan baez can end up through her you know activism

you know activism

and everything else end up in totally different context in history books you know when they're

talking about the civil rights and all that stuff and her relationship with bob dylan and all that

stuff and i don't mean just even their personal relationship but i mean musical relationship

so i'm watching this thing and surprising how and they did all these cool little animations

based on her sketches and stuff i mean it's like a really artistic piece i mean it was really super

artistic and and i

knew parts of the story and i knew her story kind of but i didn't really know her story and i didn't

realize that she had from the time she was young suffered from like acute anxiety where she would

feel you know nauseous and depression i didn't know that and i was like fuck i'm really kind of

like tapping into what her trip right now and it's like i can relate to this person in a way that

even way more than i cannot relate to bob dylan who's a major influence on me and who i love and

know a lot about and all this kind of stuff and you know obviously his songwriting is a huge

influence but in terms of like the person i could totally tap into who she was as a person and the

documentary really captures that and it's got all these interesting themes about like

sibling rivalries and and um there's a one part the third act that goes a different direction or

they set it up don't get me wrong but you don't necessarily see it coming unless you know it's

coming and um so i don't know if you know about it so i'm going to show you a little bit of it

i highly recommend you check it out so so so i'm going to leave that part alone but but her

struggles with mental illness was like a major part of this thing and forget the reasons why or

whatever um and her honesty about stuff and and um just it's an amazing film i mean it's really

just an amazing film and she's just an amazing person and it's like she almost seemed this kind

of unattainable person you know

set up as this kind of almost like you know they were saying like almost like a madonna kind of

not madonna the this performer but you know uh virgin mary kind of you know madonna kind of thing

um and she was like yeah people kind of started perceiving that way and i wasn't trying to dispel

the myth and you know and um i know dylan considers her the queen of the folk singers and

and almost caesar is a kind of almost like from another world sort of a magical figure

but i was kind of seeing all that stuff and not seeing the real human being you know and and this

film it really in my mind captures that and and tears away a lot of myth but but in the end builds

this other thing that is um pretty amazing and it's and the ultimate message you know without

giving away too much is forgiveness really and um you know it's funny because like i don't really

like think of joan baez as a religious person obviously a spiritual person

but i don't think of her as being religious per se and and then like this reminds you about her

you know come they come from a quaker background and the quakers with the passive pacifism and the

and the anti-war stuff and and she grew up on that stuff and it's like and uh i don't know i i mean i

don't know that she's still a quaker or christian or whatever but she sir sir comes across in many

ways that way certainly when it comes to the forgiveness stuff and and um

and really kind of accepting her own you know faults and and such and coming to terms with it

and all of it and and coming to terms with fame and giving and being saying being willing to say

goodbye to touring and and it's just it's got so much shit in it and and like i say she's a

historical figure not you know you could do a whole movie about her activism and not really

talk about her music i mean i don't think that's a good idea but i'm just saying you could

um anyways um a really cool film really cool film and i just have this new deeper appreciation for

her okay i here's somebody else i'm gonna throw in there okay i wouldn't say i'm a taylor swift

fan i would not say that that i don't know other than like the real hits that you can't avoid

don't know much of her music that said i kind of was a little bit dismissive of her for a long time

and then

i saw this thing where joan baez was accepting her her uh uh induction into the rock and roll

hall of fame and in fact it's one of those things that i that i sometimes when i'm feeling a little

bit blue and i want to just kind of a little little boost as some of the things say i watch

that little bit of that clip where she you know says you know hey look this is a real honor and

a surprise and i know i'm not a rock and roller but i am connected to the stuff the you know the

folk rock thing and all you know and she goes into some of that stuff but she says you know look

i know most people young people have no idea who i am you know no idea who i am she said and

and in fact my own granddaughter had no idea who i was until i took her backstage to a taylor swift

concert where she got a t-shirt and a self selfie and an autograph and a new

respect for her grandmother and the audience goes wild because it's like it kind of just

captures that thing of like if this young person i don't know how old the granddaughter was but

you know obviously she was a swifty if taylor swift is fawning over her grandmother and telling

the granddaughter how great her you know great great the grandmother is to the granddaughter

the granddaughter is going to get the message coming from taylor taylor swift and i thought

you know the fact that taylor swift would do that

i gotta give her credit and i gotta be more open to what she's doing so

anyways put taylor swift on the list kind of uh adjacent

but uh if i was gonna see one person oh but one of the okay real quick before i before i go

one of the ways and joan baez would fit into this category here again everybody i mentioned

joan baez um well i'll put aretha franklin in there but um but you know even uh adele

i don't know if she plays piano i would think she does but um but she might not um but lady gaga

uh certainly brandy uh taylor swift uh casey musgraves you know it's like one of the things

that i do when i rate somebody as a singer songwriter person whatever is if they were

performing and all the power went out okay in some venue could they go acoustic just grab an

acoustic guitar or acoustic guitar and play an acoustic guitar and play an acoustic guitar and

piano and do their thing and all those people i mentioned could do that including of course

joan baez so um anyways dude check out the movie it's freaking good dude i'm gonna watch it again

i'm gonna show it to marisol she's gonna love it anyways dude and it might be the inspiration for

this other thing i'm working on but you know i can't talk about that right now but i can dream

anyways dude um

i hope you're well um hanging with ming i call her mimi now instead of ming ming i call her mimi

mimi and mimi's in the there it is hey mimi you really got your new name now

because mimi is joan baez's younger sister and a key part of the thing so

anyways dude i hope you're well um give me a call dude it's uh can get a little lonely

anyways man oh yeah i just celebrated 19 years as a singer i'm gonna watch it again

as a podcaster um i think i did pretty quietly i mentioned it a few times more than a few times

but uh nobody people were actually cool about it but in the end nobody really cares but i'm

gonna find a way to make them care for number 20 huh anyways dude i'll talk to you all right

brother we'll we'll talk soon sister too okay

oh yeah one of the cool things about the joan baez film is uh is all the classic california the

carmel and all those kind of areas and she lives i guess now in this woodland uh place and anyways

um hey leave the bird alone mimi mimi leave the bird alone all right i'm on bird patrol

this little girl's a hunter

um come on hang with me anyways uh mimi check it out and the mimi thing will make a little bit

more sense all right dude i'll talk to you okay bye