Joni Mitchell: I'm better than Dylan but they snub me...

As for Joni, I love when she talks about how she's the best and everyone else sucks. I also like "professional wrestling".

 

And here's the quote on Morgellons disease, which does not exist:

JM: I have this weird, incurable disease that seems like it's from outer space, but my health's the best it's been in a while, Two nights ago, I went out for the first time since Dec. 23: I don't look so bad under incandescent light, but I look scary under daylight. Garbo and Dietrich hid away just because people became so upset watching them age, but this is worse. Fibers in a variety of colors protrude out of my skin like mushrooms after a rainstorm: they cannot be forensically identified as animal, vegetable or mineral. Morgellons is a slow, unpredictable killer — a terrorist disease: it will blow up one of your organs, leaving you in bed for a year. But I have a tremendous will to live: I've been through another pandemic — I'm a polio survivor, so I know how conservative the medical body can be. In America, the Morgellons is always diagnosed as "delusion of parasites," and they send you to a psychiatrist. I'm actually trying to get out of the music business to battle for Morgellons sufferers to receive the credibility that's owed to them.

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/22/entertainment/la-et-jonimitchell-20100422/3

 

She had some great moments, but she is another one of those who are just WAY too full of themselves.

Shut up and play as Frank would say.

Prove it.

 

Coming from a guy who couldn't shut his pie hole for 5 seconds, and was also entertaining.

 

That quote is aimed at Frank himself by many of his fans. Zappa used it for instrumental albums aimed for those fans.

 

I'm aware of that, although I'm more a fan of his talking than his music and I loved his book.

 

Joni's musical legacy is secure. I don't know why she has such issues. Getting old and cranky, I suppose. She would fit in nicely with us here! Lol

 

Joni I love you but why pick on Bob?

Here's a small excerpt from WebMD on Morgellons Disease:

Who Gets Morgellons
In the past, few doctors had heard of Morgellons. But in response to scattered reports, the CDC worked together with several other health care agencies to investigate this condition. Most reports came from California, Texas, and Florida, although patients have been seen in all 50 states.

The CDC study found that Morgellons is most likely to affect middle-aged white women.

Many of the patients in the CDC study showed signs of being obsessively concerned about health problems in general. This is called somatic concerns.

About half of the people in the study had other health problems, including depression and drug abuse.

 

NO.

 

Ha ha ha!!! I was trying to picture Dr. John saying that to somebody and it was freaking me out, thanks for the clarification even though I've never heard of that line before.

There are plenty of musicians who could justifiably be a bit bitter at being overlooked, in terms of popularity. Joni Mitchell is not one of them. Playing the sexist card is just pathetic. And I like some of her music. It's getting kind of embarrassing, as was noted a little while ago in a pseudo-national newspaper here in Canada:

http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/11/28/an-open-letter-to-joni-mitchell-from-dave-bidini/

 

I hadn't heard of Morgellons until reading an interview with Joni. To dismiss it as delusional parasitosis or non-existent may be unfair.



http://www.carnicominstitute.org/articles/bio2011-6.htm

http://www.carnicominstitute.org/html/webdesigner/newbiology/the_new_biology.htm

http://www.morgellonsexposed.com/nih1Q42.htm

Anyway, her gripes about Dylan aside, I wish her well.

 

Was reading the new thread on spot on critic's reviews and stumbled on this (in a NME review of Patti Smith 'Horses':
"The fact that Patti Smith is a woman may well alienate listeners who are prepared to be receptive to a basically passive female intelligence (like Joni Mitchell), but may find an album of extrovert, ferocious female intelligence (like this one) somewhat unnerving."

 

Neither you nor I know of any musican who was inspired and made it without working. I guess we can both think of musicians who made very tidy careers for themselves with little or no apparent musical inspiration. I guess we can both think, also, of musicians who seemed to have a lot going for them and stymied their own careers through laziness or an unwillingness to do what was required of them by the music business to parlay talent into commercial success.

What you term the 'mantra of the mediocre' became a cliché because it's true: if you want something in this life, declaring your genius comes a distant second to working hard as a strategy for success, and the biggest geniuses were also often the people who slaved hardest over their work.

At best, you're saying that the 1% inspiration is pretty damned important, but what you mean is that it's important to your listening pleasure, not that it's important to a career in the music business.

 

[I think] I'm better than Dylan but they snub me [because I'm a snob]

 

Yeah, I keep hearing how bad Dylan was live in the late 80s, but like you, I saw him in 1988 and I thought it was a good show.

Of the handful of times I've seen Dylan, 1988 was the only show I liked!

 

OK, I know that was intended as just an innocuous remark, and I don't mean to single you out, but since the thread topic includes ways in which women feel trivialized, I'd like to share a bit about the context in which many women experience comments like that. In our culture adult people mostly don't go around publicly declaring their every inner whim and urge and preference. We don't tell everyone at a business meeting, "Hey, my knee itches," or tell a grocery store cashier, "I really enjoy bowling" apropos of nothing. However, as an odd exception, in many quarters, if any woman is just going along minding her business or trying to do her work like any working schmoe or if she comes up in conversation (as in this thread), it's considered perfectly acceptable for people, whether acquaintances or total strangers, coworkers or passersby, to announce aloud their evaluation of her appearance, their feelings about her looks, how f*@kable she seems to them, or what sexual acts they'd like to engage in with her.

It happens more in some settings/regions than others, and more to some women than others. As someone over 50 and therefore invisible, I am now mostly exempt other than the rare "Ugly grandma bitch!" hurled from a passing car when I'm walking my dogs or something, but often even as pre-pubescent kids girls begin being subjected to this uninvited unwanted intrusive presumptuous CRAP that continues and accumulates through most of their lifetimes, in some cases on a daily basis. I'm not talking about a woman's best friend or cousin saying, "Nice shirt!" or "You look lovely today" or about a date/partner asking, "Do you want to go do [sex act]?" I'm talking about some guy at the next table at Starbuck's loudly telling his friend "Man, I'd hit that SO HARD" about you or the months when a random coworker of mine used to stand in his office doorway every morning and "grade" my outfit as I walked past, which doesn't really seem terribly relevant to teaching English. No matter where we are or what the circumstances -- in our workplaces, in a job performance review, meeting with a client or supplier, at stores and restaurants, in a doctor's office or a hotel lobby, on the subway, when we're standing on the corner waiting for the Don't Walk light to change or walking alone down a dark street -- it's always perfectly possible and common that there will be a bozo, or two, or twenty who feel its their privilege and responsibility to let us and the world in general know just how well or poorly we score on their personal scale of HAWTNESS. "Hey, in case you mistakenly thought you were a regular human living her regular life and not bothering anybody, let me remind you that you are merely a thing designed for my amusement and to be the object of my gaze and judgment. Have a nice day!"

So when you-all are contemplating making one harmless "complimentary" innocuous remark, you may want to think a little bit first about the impact hearing hundreds or thousands of such remarks day after day might have on the quality of life of people on the receiving end and about how you'd feel if everybody around you in every situation decided it was nice and polite to remark on the cuteness or non-cuteness of your a$$.

 

I think what they are saying is that the hard work comes naturally when the paychecks start rolling in. And what is hard work without inspiration? And as if inspiration wasn't itself hard work (when it's real).
Bob Dylan himself attributes his success to the grace of the "Chief Commander", certainly something that is not to be overlooked when talking about success in show business.
I personally would rate it 30% inspiration, 35% hard work, and 35% who you know and butt-kissing.

 

You don't know any parents who feel that way?

 

I don't think that's the point that fastskillfulinjured was making. The point that he was making is that the music industry was cluttered up with talentless hacks who were consoling themselves that they could compensate for lack of genius by putting in the hours. In reality, though, there's no dichotomy between genius and hard work, because most successful geniuses also work hard. It's not either/or.

Of course, there are geniuses who become very unproductive, but the question arises in their case whether they are working less hard because the inspiration isn't coming or whether the inspiration isn't coming because they're not working that part of the brain. Did Joni channel all her inspiration into visual work? I have no clue, but for sure she was unproductive as a musician at a time when Dylan seems to have worked harder than ever.

 

With respect to music, I'm a listener. But in other pursuits, where I am creative, I find that the inspiration part is the most enjoyable and intellectually stimulating. So for me the inspiration is a large part of the draw, where as the hard work is what it takes to get there. Who you know is helpful; butt-kissing depends on who you know, and how hard you work.

For JL6161 - Nicely said. I think there are a lot of men who appreciate the dilemma that women face.

 

Bitter woman, though I'd take Court and Spark, Hejira and Hissing over any of Bob's post-1970 output, much as I love his stuff.

 

I think this is the same interview where they asked her if she we interested in Taylor Swift playing her in a biopic and she completely tore her apart

 

As far as I'm concerned she can say whatever she wants. She is IMHO the greatest female songwriter ever and stands equal to Dylan as the male opposite in that regard. I wouldn't say one is better than the other, and to suggest that Dylan is better simply because his output far outweighs hers or has toured extensively doesn't wash with me either. It's not about the volume of output, it's not about touring......it's about a creative talent both have in abundance. Or I should say "had".

And what major artist like her, Dylan, Lennon, Young, etc. hasn't said the odd nasty or two about their competition. It's her life, these are her beliefs, she's entitled to them and like it or not she's honest about them.

 

In my opinion, it's a matter of degree. Yes, most stars of her calibre have said something negative about some of their peers at some point. But Mitchell does so almost every time she opens her mouth.

 

Losers have parents too... that's nothing new. The parents of immature losers have always moaned and groaned.

From where I sit I'd say life is a lot harder for young people today than it was for my generation or Joni's. I think her perceptions living in an isolated cabin on a bluff overlooking the Pacific reflect her bitterness, not the outside world. Of course, if she suffers from painful chronic illness that can color one's mood, but elderly people who have their acts together learn to transcend that stuff and make the best of a challenging situation. Maybe it's time for Joni to learn from the WWII generation and focus on the positive. When I look at the tragedies and health crisis that have befallen many of my parents friends I really have to admire their social grace.

Mitchell may well possess that grace, but she always seems to be in a crabby mood when she give interviews.