Greetings... It's always been my suspicion that Joni (and the boys) were doing blow during the WTRF period, tour included. I've just always felt that way. In fact, on my WT tour poster, the shot of Joni clearly shows one of her nostrils is larger than the other (same photo was used on the front of the tour book..). When WTRF came out, I was still very young to fully appreciate the artist that IS Joni Mitchell, but I was fully caught up with the older material and waiting for it's release. Though a wee bit 'slick' in terms of production value, I LOVED the disc to pieces, probably in part because as a youngster, I had a lot of trouble with 'the jazz" (which has now become my fave part of the JM catalogue), and so the sound of WT said to me that the messy jazz thing was finally over. I'm not quite sure what caused it, but I always had this sort of upset & fear about my favorite musicians using drugs (probably a reflection of my own fears about MY drug use...). And so, silly observations like the one above about the WTRF poster were my forte as a youngster - I was always looking for clues. I'm not so sure that our Joan was 'done' with the Bolivian marching powder after 'Rolling Thunder,' although she's always quick to remark how ill she was when the tour ended and she drove across country. I think this has something to do with why she was adamant about NOT appearing in 'Renaldo & Clara'. Another silly observation from my adolesence is that at one point during the 'Refuge' Concert video, it almost looks as though Joni walks off to the side of the stage and ingests something...I've really put some time into this little fascination! Joni also looks like shit in the promo video for "Chinese Cafe", very unlike her. She looks pale and a little gaunt, at least for someone who even in the midst of true UNhealth manages to look radiant. Someone lost quite a bit of weight between the filming of S&L and WTRF related stuff. Finally, I left Wally B. laughing himself to tears once on the telephone just before the release of TI. He had received a promo cassette of the final product and did send me one (only maybe 2 weeks before the official release, but it was still quite a thrill to be early!), and having told me the first single was called "How Do You Stop?", I had a dream that the picture sleeve for the single had a photo of Joni holding her head in angst over a large pile of Cocaine. Looking back now, this is undoubtedly related to my own problems with the stuff which, at the time of said dream, has escalated to the 'art' of freebasing. Hope the dream gave some of you a little chuckle. Clean and sober (for the better), Chris NP: "Ladies Man"
