Rolling Stone re-write #2: JONI MITCHELL

Joni Mitchell: Happiness is a piece of toast

There are some people who live a life of black and white. They see right’s or wrong’s, do’s or don’ts, happiness or sadness. They see life or death, fast or slow, sunshine or rain, chocolate or vanilla, sound or silence. But then there are those who choose to see the color in life. They see the rain drops sparkle as the sun breaks through the clouds and the lavender wheat color of the countryside. They taste the green-brown color of old-fashioned licorice. They notice the single cup of coffee in a busy café and the mirrored ball spinning in the club, they dance because they have the urge. They focus on the small things, life’s little, lasting moments that make it magical. Joni Mitchell is one of these people.

Joni Mitchell has never been an outrageous character. Known for her artistic, poetic song lyrics and soft, soothing voice, Joni’s entire life is reflective of the one thing most important to her: art. Since she was a child, Joni has always been the quieter, more contemplative type. She wrote poetry and painted. Music was never an ambition of hers. “I always wanted to play music and dabbled with it, but I never thought of putting them [poetry and painting] all together,” Mitchell said. “It never occurred to me. It wasn’t until [Bob] Dylan began to write poetic songs that it occurred to me you could actually sing those poems.” After realizing this, Joni had a newly awakened interest in making music more of a priority in her life. But even then, she had no idea of the success she would later have in her career.

(Photo credit: popculturemadness.com)

Her earliest memories of singing for people took place when she was diagnosed with polio during the Canadian epidemic. At the age of nine, Mitchell was put in a polio ward over Christmas. Doctors told her she might never walk again, and she would certainly not be able to spend Christmas at home. “I wouldn’t go for it,” Mitchell said. “So I started to sing Christmas carols and I used to sing them real loud. When the nurse came into the room I would sing louder. The boy in the bed next to me you know, used to complain. And I discovered I was a ham. That was the first time I started to sing for people.” But even still, Mitchell was not aware of the gift she possessed.

Planning to go to art school her entire life, Mitchell graduated high school a year late because she was a self-proclaimed “bad student.” She was what many teachers would call a “free thinker.” “The way I saw the education system from an early age was that it taught you what to think, not how to think. There was no liberty, really, for freethinking. You were being trained to fit into a society where freethinking was a nuisance,” said Mitchell. Her teachers knew Mitchell was not a “dummy.” During math she would line the walls with ink drawings and portraits of the mathematicians she was learning about. “I did a tree of life for my biology teacher. I was always staying late at school, down on my knees painting something,” said Mitchell. Art, passion and inspiration seemed to be seeping from her veins.

Mitchell never really fit in with the other kids. She found her identity in the fact that she was a good dancer and an artist, which didn’t exactly make her popular with the cheerleaders and jocks. “Also, I was very well dressed. I made a lot of my own clothes. I worked in ladies’ wear and I modeled. I had access to sample clothes that were too fashionable for our community, and I could buy them cheaply,” says Mitchell. She would go into town immaculately dressed from head to toe. “I hung out downtown with the Ukrainians and the Indians; they were more emotionally honest and they were better dancers.” She was never worried about fitting in with the normal people. Mitchell knew what she wanted and who she liked and that was what she chased after.

One of the things that has made Mitchell’s music so popular and timeless is the un-tampered-with sound that it has. She attributes this to David Crosby who initially discovered Mitchell’s talent in a club in Coconut Grove, Florida. “Crosby, in producing that first album, did me an incredible service, which I will never forget. He used his success and name to make sure my songs weren’t tampered with to suit the folk-rock trend,” says Mitchell. Crosby wanted Mitchell to have a freshness and an honesty that was not exactly popular at the time. “[…] I wore a lot of makeup [at that time]. I think I even had on false eyelashes at the time. […] one of his [Crosby’s] first projects in our relationship was to encourage me to let go of all of this elaborate war paint [laughs]. It was a great liberation, to get up in the morning and wash your face…and not have to do anything else.” This honesty and freshness is something Mitchell has carried with her throughout her entire life.

Mitchell strongly believes that in many ways, she’s never grown up. “Sometimes I feel seven years old,” she says. “I’ll be standing in the kitchen and all of a sudden my body wants to jump around. For no reason at all. You’ve seen kids that suddenly just get a burst of energy? That part of my child is still alive. I don’t repress those urges, except in certain company.”

Her outlook on life is rather childlike as well. Not childlike in the way that she’s uninformed and innocent. But childlike in the way that, in her words, she feels like a cellophane wrapper on a pack of cigarettes. Mitchell sees her life as worth living because she is truly happy. “It’s a funny thing about happiness,” she says. “You can strive and strive and strive to be happy, but happiness will sneak up on you in the most peculiar ways. I feel happy suddenly, I don’t know why. Some days, the way the light strikes things. or for some beautifully immature reason like finding myself toast. Happiness comes to me even on a bad day. In very, very strange ways.” This is what makes Joni Mitchell a unique gem in the world. This is what makes her music raw, honest and hauntingly soothing. She lives her life as a cellophane wrapper on a pack of cigarettes and finds happiness in a slice of toast.

Living Off of the Land: How one family has become conservationists

Returning from a morning of boiling and carrying sap from seventeen maple trees they tapped on their property in the Pocono mountains to their make shift sugar shack, is just one of the many outdoor activities that the Grimm children have engaged in. Whether they’re feeding the animals, checking their traps or sitting out in the woods waiting for a deer, the Grimm family is always outside doing something. Hunting has always been a significant part of the Grimm family’s life. The father, John Grimm’s love of the sport was birthed at a young age. He recalls waiting excitedly as a child for his Dad to return home from the family hunting camp. As his Grandfather’s old station wagon pulled into the driveway, Grimm vividly remembers what he saw laying in the back. “I can remember looking into the back of the station wagon and seeing anywhere from one to six or seven deer laying head first towards the tail gate, all bucks as my Father’s hunting crew only hunted bucks. I would dream of the day that I would be able to accompany my Father, Grandfather, uncles, cousins and my big brother on trips to the woods in search of deer.”

The Grimm family takes hunting seriously. When John was a child, he remembers their family hiring a cook for the week while they hunted at the camp. “We would return exhausted at days end from a very physically demanding hunt,” says John. Someone who had a hot meal prepared and waiting for them was a necessity.
The game that was shot by his family members was used to provide food for their family, hunting was never “just” a sport. “Hunting is a sport in every sense of the word,” says John. “But it never was ‘just’ a sport to me. I played sports growing up and had success at them, but hunting goes further than chasing a ball or challenging your body and mind. I hope that hunting will be a life long sport for me… and the exhilaration is multi-dimensional.” John loves the challenge of varied and unpredictable weather conditions, and game densities changing from year to year. “The only way to be successful is to know the game, the habits they practice and the weaknesses in their survival instincts and abilities,” says John. This love and passion for the outdoor sport is something Grimm has sought to pass along to his children and weave into the fabric of their family life. The Grimm family are conservationists, living on a 53-acre property in the Poconos, Pa. Growing their own vegetables, raising livestock and hunting and trapping on their property are just a few of the ways the Grimm’s are working to save money, improve their quality of life, and also enjoy the things and resources that have been given to them.

(John with a buck, Photo credit: Grimm family)

Hunting has provided a major source of food for the Grimm family. “We dress and butcher all of our own game,” says Zane, a solid, sturdy 15-year-old standing at well over 6’. Zane has learned the tricks of the trade by his Dad’s side from a very young age. “We cut or grind the meat and then wrap and store it in three outdoor freezers. We’ve also canned venison which is a delight mid-winter,” says Zane. Grimm’s wife Peg has learned to become creative and innovative with her cooking for the family. “When we don’t have beef grown on our own property, we exchange venison for any beef in a recipe,” says Peg. “One of our favorites is venison chipsteaks, which is made like Philadelphia cheesesteaks. Men especially seem to like jerky from the venison steaks, and I really like venison steaks on the grill.” Venison is a low fat meat as compared to beef, which is another benefit to cooking with it more often. Peg works hard to supply the family with hearty, healthy meals, though their menu may not reflect the cuisine of the average American. “We have made rabbit stew as well as squirrel pot pie before,” says Peg as 13-year-old daughter Meg chimes in, “the strangest dish we have made was turtle stew!”


(Zane with a turkey, Photo credit: Grimm family)

Hunting and trapping has also served as an educational experience for the Grimm family. Homeschooling all three of their children, John and Peg seek to find the lessons in life experiences for the kids. “This is an excellent way to learn observation skills of wildlife habits,” says Peg. “The details of what each of the kids experience and observe while being in the woods of plant life, wild life, fungi and tree growth, tracks etc always amazes me.” Peg admits she struggled early on with the amount of time, effort and attention that John and the kids’ hobby (now turned business venture) was eating up. Around this time, Peg decided to join her son Zane on one of his trips to check traps. A trip had to be made on the back of a four-wheeler every 24-hours out into a swamp. The Grimm’s neighbor had asked them to remove a troublesome beaver from the swamp. “My mind was boggled at how Zane knew where exactly to place the trap and then how to remember where he had put it the next day, in such an enormous swamp,” says Peg. “It was the study of the animal habits both in the outdoors and much research from books and magazines and men of good reputation in furbearer trapping that determined his work.”

The Grimm family has also learned valuable life lessons and skills as a result from their conservationist lifestyle. “Hunting and trapping has taught me a lot on the importance of patience, perseverance observation, learning from my mistakes and not giving up,” says John. The rest of the family echo that hunting and trapping has taught them patience overall.

As an additional source of income, the Grimm family has spent a significant amount of time trapping in order to sell animal pelts and other animal body parts. “You have to find a fur buyer who is the middle man for a fur auction,” says Zane. “My pelts have gone to Canada for Fur Harvesters Auction which has international buyers of furs. Your income impact depends on the fur market and economy and personal harvest numbers and fur quality.” These may seem like big statements from a fifteen-year-old, but this boy knows what he’s talking about. “My best year was sixty-eight muskrat, forty-eight beaver, and three otter which brought me about $800. The fur market and my pelt quality was really good that year,” says Zane. From a parent’s perspective, Peg loves to see success for her son and husband. “I loved seeing the completion of a successful furbearing season for Zane and John,” she says. “First, the reward of completion of a great work taste was a sense of pride and then to be compensated financially especially for a young man [Zane] for the great investment of time, effort, physical strength and study was really great.”

The Grimm’s initially became involved in the business when they were asked to do animal nuisance removal for neighbors and other landowners. Zane excitedly recalls one of his most exciting trapping experiences. “I caught two very large beaver in a neighbors’ swamp in foothold traps.” A foothold trap is designed to catch an animal by the foot. Used to restrain the animal, foothold traps are ideal because they are easy to disguise both on land and under water.

“The beaver had been putting sticks through our Conibear body gripping traps to intentionally trip the trap and avoid getting caught. It was really exciting to finally catch the beaver in footholds after so many failed attempts. Beavers are really powerful and smart animals and our traps were successful in catching and holding the beavers,” says Zane. Most of the time the Grimm’s do animal nuisance removal because the land owner has land management goals that need to be met, or some other similar reason. Zane has also trapped muskrat in the past. “At one time when fur prices were high I was averaging nine muskrats a day. That’s a personal milestone for me,” says Zane.

One of the potentially most smelly jobs that the Grimm family has been involved in was skunk removal. Before moving to the Poconos, the Grimm’s lived on a 29-acre piece of property in upstate New York, along the St. Lawrence river. Living just down the road from the Grimm’s was the Vincent family. The Vincent’s had a large variety of animals just like the Grimm’s, and were having trouble with a skunk raiding their compost pile and visitng the family cat food dish on the back porch. The Grimm’s were called in to take care of the problem. “Seven skunks later we finished the job,” says Zane. “The skunk essence [spray] was removed from the skunk and used to make a long distance call lure to bring other fur bearing animals long distance to a trap set.” So basically in non-hunting language, the skunk spray was used to attract other animals to traps that had been set. Animals such as raccoons, fox and coyote are attracted to the smell of the skunk. “Many archers use the skunk essence for a cover cent for archery hunting for deer,” says Zane. “But we do not.”

Zane takes his trapping seriously. When he lived in New York state, Zane moved a little 10x12’ shed from a camp near his home that was getting rid of them, onto his property. Zane built a functioning woodstove and working benches into the shed to use to store his furs and pelts as he got them. “We’re hopeful to build on here in Pa this summer too,” says Zane. “I’m designing the plans for a 12x12’ building with a loft for storing furs until I can sell them to the fur buyer for auction.” This 15-year-old is ambitious and has big plans that he’s not afraid to make happen.
But despite all this talk about how much they love hunting, there are elements of hunting and trapping that even outdoor conservational enthusiasts like the Grimm’s find challenging and rather un-enjoyable. “The time it takes to do it well is probably the worst part about hunting for me,” says John. “I would really like to hunt in Alaska and other states for moose and elk but the financial resources to do so are unreachable at this point.” For Evan, waking up so early in the morning and then waiting to get a shot at the animal is the worst part, while Meg thinks the boys coming home smelling like a skunk is rather miserable. Zane, the ever positive hunting and trapping enthusiast boldly claims, “I do not think there is a worst part about hunting! And I enjoy the entire process of trapping from preparing traps, scanning territory and planning, setting traps, harvesting, skinning and fleshing, preparing pelts for sale.” Quite a remarkable claim from such a young man, yet his attitude and smile when he talks about the things he loves are undeniably convincing.


(L-R: Evan and Zane pose with some recent trappings. Photo credit: Grimm family)
This lifestyle that the Grimm family has chosen to live is a way of spending special time together as a family as well as being directly reflective of many of their personal beliefs. “Time spent in close comradery with family and friends while hunting is really important to me. I’ve been able to spend a significant amount of time with my children while we do this, and I have been able to see them become very successful,” says John. “The sport of hunting is very culturally misunderstood and obviously a big target for the so-called politically correct. However, I enjoy the traditions associated with hunting and the rights that are given in the second amendment to the citizen to bear arms.” Closely tied to this is the Grimm family’s belief in God and Him as the Creator of the universe. “What I’ve learned most of all from hunting is that creation makes plain to me the greatness of the Creator, and I am so blessed to enjoy it,” says John. “Our lives exist to prove who or what we will worship. When it comes to hunting as most other forms of environment oriented activity, it is about either the Creator or the creation.” This belief in God is the foundation upon which the Grimm family builds everything else.

The Grimm family loves the outdoors and places great value in the privilege they have been given to enjoy the creation. Using the resources they have been given to provide for themselves, they will continue learning and working hard in order to provide for the family all the while strengthening their bonds between themselves, God, and the world they live in.

Rolling Stone Interview : Leonard Bernstein

He was told hundreds of times that no one would ever be able to sing augmented fourths; the C to F-sharp was absolutely impossible and his musical, West Side Story would be an utter failure. The critics said no one wants to see two dead people laying onstage at the end of Act 1, what kind of musical comedy is that? However, for Leonard Bernstein, failure or defeat was never an option. Born with an insatiable desire to learn, Bernstein made opportunity open its door for him, no matter what he had to do.

(Photo Credit: Wikipedia)
At the young and impressionable age of ten was when Bernstein was first exposed to the wonder of music. He was given an old upright piano by his aunt Clara in 1928.
“I still remember, [the piano] had a mandolin pedal: the middle pedal turned the instrument into a kind of wrinkly sounding mandolin. And I just put my hands on the keyboard and I was hooked…for life,” says Bernstein. This meeting of fingers across the black and white ivory keys began a life-long love affair between Bernstein and music. “You know what it’s like to fall in love: You touch someone and that’s it. From that day to this, that’s what my life’s been about,” says Bernstein.
Hungry to learn everything he could about music, specifically the piano, Bernstein began to teach himself. With no formal training, Berstein developed his own system of harmony but soon became frustrated with his lack of knowledge and asked his father to find a teacher for him. This took some convincing, as his father was convinced there was no money in being a musician. “Neither my father [who was in the beauty supply business] nor I really knew that there was a real ‘world of music,’” says Bernstein. “My father [would] complain: ‘A klezmer you want to be?’ To him, a Klezmer [an interant musician in Eastern Europe who played at weddings and bar mitzvahs] was little more than a beggar,” says Bernstein. But despite these feelings, Berstein’s father allowed him to take his very first piano lessons from Miss Freida Karp for one dollar a lesson. Berstein absolutely adored her and he began to excel in his musical abilities, but soon began to outgrow her. Miss Karp told Bernstein’s father that he needed to attend the New England Conservatory of music; she couldn’t keep up with his Chopin ballades. His father agreed and Bernstein began to take lessons at the Conservatory by a Miss Susan Williams, who charged three dollars a lesson. Bernstein’s father was outraged and only agreed to pay a third of the cost, telling Bernstein he had to find other ways of coming up with the necessary additional funds. However, determined as ever to continue developing his musical interests, Bernstein joined a small jazz group and performed at weddings and bar mitzvahs. “I’d come home at night with bleeding fingers and two bucks, maybe, which went towards my piano lessons,” says Bernstein. The work was hard but he knew it was worth it. Unfortunately, after a bit of time passed, Bernstein realized his new teacher Miss Williams was not going to work out. “she had some kind of system, based on never showing your knuckles – can you imagine playing a Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody like that?” he says. So he moved on to a third teacher, who charged six dollars an hour. So what did Bernstein do? “I had to play more jazz,” he says. “I also started to give piano lessons to the neighborhood kids.” Bernstein found teaching piano lessons to be incredibly rewarding. “Teaching is probably the noblest…most unselfish… most honorable profession in the world,” he says. As he watched children learn, he began to develop his own philosophies about the human mind and how things are learned. “Though I can’t prove it, deep in my heart I know that every person is born with the love of learning. Without exception,” Bernstein says. Giving examples of how an infant studies its toes and fingers and a child’s discovery of its voice, Bernstein speaks with excitement about this, as he is no exception in the love of learning. “I’ve suggested that there must be proto-syllables existing at the beginnings of all languages- like ma (or some variant of it), which is almost every tongue, means “mother,” says Bernstein. Continuing on, Bernstein gives multiple examples of maternal speech in other languages including mater, madre, mutter, mat and mama. These are ideas and contemplations that Bernstein carries with him throughout his life and often references.
Bernstein did not only teach and play in jazz bands. This is not what made him so famous today. His earth-shatteringly successful musical West Side Story drastically changed the path of musical theatre. However, it was not an overnight success. This was yet another time in his life when he was forced to persevere through discouragement. “Everybody told us [Bernstein and his lyricist Steven Sondheim] that the show was an impossible project,” Bernstein says. He recalls playing four-hand parts on the piano with Sondheim to try to convey the complicated musical ideas and forms that were in the West Side Story score. Many people told Bernstein that the music was impossible to sing and that the score was too “rangy” for pop music. However, Bernstein continued to push the idea and eventually convinced Columbia Records to record the score. What a good decision this was for the record company, as the record sales ended up saving the company financially.
“I am a fanatic music lover,” says Bernstein. “I can’t liveo n day without hearing music, playing it, studying it or thinking about it.” It was this obsession, this passion, this hunger for the thing he loved so very much that kept him going in life. The determination to succeed and to learn no matter what obstacles he encountered is what made Leonard Bernstein an undeniably famous musician.