Here's the interview: "Linda Ronstadt Has Found Another Voice/The singer on living with Parkinson’s, the perils of stardom, and mourning what the border has become."
About the border:
I grew up in the Sonoran Desert, and the Sonoran Desert is on both sides of the border. There’s a fence that runs through it now, but it’s still the same culture. The same food, the same clothes, the same traditional life of ranching and farming. I go down there a lot, and it’s so hard to get back across the border. It’s ridiculous. It used to be that you could go across the border and have lunch and visit friends and shop in the little shops there. There was a beautiful department store in the fifties and sixties. My parents had friends on both sides of the border. They were friends with the ranchers, and we went to all their parties and their baptisms and their weddings and their balls. And now that’s gone....About Parkinson's:
Well, I lie down a lot, because I’m disabled. I do a lot of reading... It’s hard for me to get out. It’s hard for me to sit in a restaurant or sit up in a chair. It’s hard for me to stand around, so if there’s a situation where I’m liable to be caught in a doorway talking to somebody for five minutes, I tend to avoid that.
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30 comments:
...David Bowie bass and drums...
That's not a thing
"now that’s gone"
Thank the invaders.
We could have a nice border if people on both sides respect each other's rules, or not.
It’s ridiculous. It used to be that you could go across the border and have lunch and visit friends and shop in the little shops there ... They were friends with the ranchers, and we went to all their parties and their baptisms and their weddings and their balls. And now that’s gone....
And yet she would never blame those responsible for this, the Mexican government and millions of illegal aliens.
The first song was good. I couldn't make it through the other two. The girl (the one in black) could be cute if she got a better haircut.
"That's not a thing"
Maybe a punctuation issue.
More commas, perhaps? I note that the copy editor of The New Yorker wrote a book called "Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen."
You'd think if you self promote as the Comma Queen you'd get the commas right.
I'm not listening to the audio, but I'm thinking that instead of transcribing it as "It was kind of like David Bowie bass and drums, and then this really wild South Korean traditional singing," it would make more sense as: It was kind of like David Bowie — bass and drums — and then this really wild South Korean traditional singing."
The way it is looks like there's something called "David Bowie bass."
or: It was kind of like David Bowie [accompanied by] bass and drums and then this really wild South Korean traditional singing.
I'm thinking what reminded her of David Bowie was the visual presentation — the costumes and makeup.
more interesting musical variations for our 21st century feast, cool!
I will second Ronstadt's mourning of the border life. The town I grew up is a tragic shell of itself. about 20 miles southwest of Eagle Pass and its much larger sister across the river, Piedras Negras, is a little Mexican village Allende where they discovered ovens that the local cartel used to incinerate hundreds of bodies (300 estimated), their murdered foe like Mexican policemen and trabajadores who would not go along.
My brother in Austin only recently told me of our old classmate, Patsy R., who was living in DC with great success as a lobbyist. She came back to the area to look into the disappearance of a family member. She was last seen leaving to meet up with a contact who might know something. her car was found but even now, a few years later, no other sign or word of her again.
more recently, closer to Ronstadt's area & run by a different cartel, a 22-year-old woman cartel boss was successfully arrested (!) on murder charges for ordering the killing of a Mexican prosecutor -- a mother -- shot in cold blood in front of her own children.
a ghastly "government" owns the borderlands, a swathe that is not Mexican or American, ruled by bloodshed and everyday terror. Shame on us that this has festered so much on our watch.
But wait! sorry. let's pay attention to the latest musical development out of korea, yeah!
Give me Ashford & Simpson.
Music riffing off the worst qualities of reggae, pop and kabuki; what's not to like?
is it like kPop?
NO, it's bad, and only liked by white liberals
Let’s see— Linda Ronstadt grew up before the Democrats took a machete to the brasero program at the request of the unions. Yup, there used to be a lot of back and forth.
I spent two years in Korea in the late 1970's. This brought back memories and was a lot of fun. And the three vocalists nicely illustrate that clothes do not make the woman, as the only female up there is obvious.
I suspect she meant to say "drum and bass". It's a style of music from the 90s. David Bowie dabbled with it on his Earthling album.
"They want all the power for themselves, and I think that suits Donald Trump right now. He’d like to be a dictator."
Sounds like she watches a lot of Chris Hayes.
"It's polytonal"
Not how I would describe it, it's actually more microtonal. It sounds sort of like starightforward reggae or rock steady with microtonal vocal lines.
I’m not so happy I need a passport, either. I remember the good old days when a driver’s license was all one needed to cross the border.
I was waiting for the Yoko Ono breakout.
The music's too Yoko for me...
It's not bass but it is a swamp- here's Linda Ronstadt frogs and Muppets and then this really wild American traditional singing
(BTW, When I email this at the right time I get more credit than for a bunch of roses.)
Crikey. Great minds...
I used to go to Mexico all the time,. too. One of these days, if she is not lying, she'll meet a cartel member.
Last week, a drug gang locked the doors to a night club used by another gang and set it on fire. I think 28 died.
Getting a liberal Democrat to think clearly about immigration or public policy is like getting a K-pop singer to do Gilbert and Sullivan. Just shut up and deal with Parkinson's.
Shorter Ronstat: If was so nice back in the old days, and even though i was opposed to everything that would've kept it that way, I wish it was back like that. And now that its worse, I'll just keep on opposing any attempt to make things better, because I'm worth $millions and I'm a dumb liberal who follows the party line.
So thats what David Byrne's been doing!
I mildly liked the music. Nothing for the playlist, but it's definitely something different. Maybe if they did a cover version of Ghost Riders in the Sky, I could ease into their music.....Of course things were better back then. She was beautiful and didn't have Parkinson's Disease.....I'm sorry to hear of her travails. She seems to have won both the good and bad luck lotteries. There's nothing more inequitable than the distribution of luck in this life.
The border she describes no longer exists.
Patsy R., who was living in DC with great success as a lobbyist. She came back to the area to look into the disappearance of a family member. She was last seen leaving to meet up with a contact who might know something. her car was found but even now, a few years later, no other sign or word of her again.
Maybe you should hit every donkey show between there and Tijuana. Might get lucky.
Its interesting that there is no mention of LR's heavy use of cocaine back in the day. That certainly had something to do with her Parkinson's disease.
That dude sings like an old Korean grandmother.
Hipsters will listen to anything.
It just shows they are native Americans without the trail of tears.! And the tears.
Ugh. The k-pop fandom is one of the most annoying in the world. It combines all the obsession and irrationality of tweendom with the giant chip on its shoulder of modern resentment politics.
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