Joni was so great today! She and a friend, both with little dogs came and took a seat on the outside patio (only place to smoke) at the Daily Grill. I was surprised to see her with a dog! Coco, the little, very lively terrier was barking, yapping and yapping non-stop. Joni felt a little self-conscious and was trying to calm her down and explaining to everyone that Coco liked to bark at the birds. She would say a few times to all of us sitting out there how Jack Russell terriers were bred to be self-starters, independent and that they do not take well to being chained up (Hehehe). At one point, she took the leash off and Coco was very happy wandering around all our tables and NOT barking. Coco reminded me so much of my dog years ago - part terrier and very much the same personality. So I was telling Stephen about Daisy and Joni asked and we laughed about how they rebel at being on the leash to the point of choking themselves and how they can jump 5 feet straight up in the air and are so hyper, yet always sweet! Meanwhile, Paula Abdul was sitting with a friend behind us and had gone up and introduced herself to Joni and had a nice meeting with her. Later Paula brought out pictures of her own dog to show Joni! So anyway, I was very self-conscious and did not want to intrude on Joni. A large group of young women came in and sat down at the patio. Almost immediately, one of them started being VERY rude to Joni about Coco wandering about. Absolutely rude. She went on about it being unsanitary about a dog near diners, etc., blah, blah. Welllllll...., of course, Stephen and I gave Joni the eye that we would be her "back up" and made a few light comments trying to laugh the girl off. Joni was nice but also assertive with her and said "I'm sorry, I just learned I can't bring the dog here, but she will bark if I leash her so you have your choice - she wanders quietly or you can hear her bark non-stop - it's your call!" The young punk, er, girl, told Joni quite snottily to put the leash on. So the leash went on and then I said "Coco - sing for us!!" Tee hee. Oh and yes, the cacophony started once again ;-)
Somehow, a long, natural conversation began with Joni from there. She was so open and honest right from the heart on many matters, including personal, which I feel not right about sharing here but the point is that when you have someone like Joni being so from the heart with basically strangers it says something very profound about one's integrity - she is who she is in all instances. I want to be so proper here about what she said, rather than being just a blabbermouth. The first thing she brought up was what she kept calling the "war." I asked her if she had been painting lately and she immediately said "three since September 11th." She went on to explain to us in great detail the various images she perceived from the WTC coverage - she actually was taking photos of the TV footage with a "paper camera" trying to capture everything. She saw many images and metaphors literally in the smoke and said how difficult it was to capture them so fast. She had much to say about it all. I still think we should wait to hear her words on this - she sees it, of course, on a larger, global scale, prophetess that she is. On related subjects that we spoke about, including the dismal state of music these days, I opined that there hasn't been much good music since the 60s. She disagreed with me and said that the real best music was back in the 30s and 40 like Louis Armstrong. I said that I had also been thinking about that lately - how those times were much worse for people than today and yet they produced that music. She said - to the effect - that yes, they could be so optimistic in the face of what was happening and produce such life-affirming music and that was real integrity, real strength. Yes, yes. We talked about so much - you know how she is from reading her interviews and this was just one of the most incredible you have ever heard! We talked about painting in general and her painting specifically. I mentioned that Stephen and I were both painters and she wanted to know about Stephen's paintings. I'll let him write more about that when he recovers ;-) We talked about her next project coming up and she told us a lot that we already knew from here - she is using the same crew - Vince Mendoza, and, as she said her "ex-husband" ;-) We talked about Beethoven, Debussy and Mozart. (Our heads were spinning ;-) She mentioned the reworking of her songs but it is hard for me to articulate it now and relate it properly. Ya had ta be there ;-D So - somehow I brought up about her not writing lately and she said she had not been able to write for awhile. Then she said, "no one is interested anymore in what I have to say." God. We immediately jumped in and said "OH YES, WE ARE." And Stephen added emphatically "your listeners ARE." Then she said that this event, the "war" HAS evoked her writing again. Oh yes! She talked about Robert Hilburn (our longtime music guru in L.A.) and how he, for awhile, did not quite "get" her. I said that my impression was always that Hilburn (who is so damn picky) adored her. Naw, she said, he always told her that he didn't like her foray into jazz and she would tell him that the folk music was not as creative as what she did with the jazz. I told her that hey, there were albums I didn't "get" at first, either, but I always thought that was my problem, not hers, and I just figured that she was 20 years ahead of her time. She laughed and said she didn't "get" some of the stuff she did, either ;-) I said that the critics who didn't get her years ago certainly have reconsidered and get her now. She said, "well, I never was writing to write "hit music." So I may think of more that is right to say here later, but for now, the brilliant news is that she is very inspired to write again and we do need to hear from her. Kakki, heart still beating like a hummingbird
