April 25, 2025 • 71 mins
What does it mean to live an authentic life? Meet Linda Wolf, a woman who has fearlessly navigated cultural revolutions, personal struggles, and social upheaval since the 1960s, never losing sight of her core values along the way.
Linda's journey began in Los Angeles, where her feminist mother instilled principles of compassion, honesty, and boldness that would guide her remarkable path. At 19, she broke barriers as one of the first female rock and roll photographers, capturing iconic moments with Joe Cocker's tour before living and studying in France. But her lens captured more than celebrities—it revealed humanity in all its complexity, documenting both joy and injustice across cultural boundaries.
Throughout our conversation, Linda shares the pivotal moments that transformed her: from sneaking backstage to meet Mick Jagger at 14, to her revolutionary realization in her forties that "nobody was going to love me till the day I died but me." This profound insight fueled her work founding Teen Talking Circles and the Daughters Sisters Project, organizations that have created safe spaces for authentic expression and compassionate listening for countless young women.
What distinguishes Linda from many of her counterculture contemporaries is her unwavering commitment to social justice across five decades. While others abandoned the ideals of those early "love-ins and be-ins," Linda continued evolving, connecting dots between racism, environmental challenges, and gender inequality. Her philosophy of "saying yes, then growing to meet that yes" reveals how embracing opportunities—even when uncertain—can lead to extraordinary growth.
Today at 75, Linda finds joy in community dinners on Bainbridge Island, her growing family, and continuing creative expression. Her perspective on our current cultural moment offers wisdom for navigating turbulent times: focus locally, maintain connections, and choose optimism over mere hope. "It's not about wrapping your head around everything happening," she advises, "but about doing what you can, where you are."
Listen now to this compelling conversation that weaves together art, activism, and authentic living. Then ask yourself: What might happen if you began saying "yes" to life's invitations, trusting that you'll grow to meet them?
Linda Wolf Photography Linda Wolf
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Soul Sisteries.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
You are here with Soul Sisteries and we have just
finished the most amazinginterview with Linda Wolf and I
am so excited to share her witheverybody Her story of kind of
hope through acceptance anddiversity and her life
experience as a photographer anda humanitarian and all of the
(00:28):
amazing work she has been doingreally since the 60s.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Right, I mean, and just she's story after story
after story and I feel like weonly scratch the surface and
it's just replete with so muchthat's amazing.
But through it all, I lovedthat idea of yes, just saying
yes, and then growing to meetthat yes, it's everybody.
Wait till you hear all aboutthat.
It is incredibly inspiring andauthentic, lived true.
(00:56):
Really, really good stuff.
Enjoy.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
We are here today with Linda Wolf, who was born in
Los Angeles in 1950, smack dabin time for the 1960s cultural
revolution.
At 19, she became one of thefirst female rock and roll
photographers.
After traveling on tour withJoe Cocker, mad Dog and
Englishman, linda left the US tolive and study in France.
(01:25):
Returning five years later, shebegan a series of public art
murals sponsored by Kodak.
Linda is an award-winningmultidisciplinary artist, a
humanistic photographer, author,musician, feminist activist,
(01:46):
memoirist and devoted daughter,mother, grandmother, wife and
friend.
She was the founder, executivedirector of two nonprofit
organizations for girls, aworkshop leader, fundraiser and
advocate.
What unites all this is herdeep love of life, nature,
people and a lifelong commitmentto social justice.
Over her 50 years as an artist,linda Wolfe has moved
(02:06):
seamlessly between rock and roll, photojournalism, fine art,
public art, street, documentaryand portrait photography.
Her work is part of numerousdocumentary movies, books and
art collections.
Linda co-founded Women inPhotography International, along
with Carrie Mae Weems, theDaughters Sisters Project and
(02:28):
Teen Talking Circles.
She's authored seven publishedbooks, fundraised hundreds of
thousands of dollars forhumanitarian projects, taught
and traveled widely as an artistand produced and facilitated
women's empowerment retreats.
Her latest book, tribute CockerPower, distributed by Simon
(02:48):
Schuster was released in 2020.
And we are very excited tointroduce everybody to Linda
Woolf.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Welcome, linda.
Thank you, so excited andgrateful to have you here and,
my goodness, the life you'velived.
You really have been in thethroes of things, but what I'm
struck with so profoundly isthis the true, humanistic,
(03:17):
authentic staying in the heartand the truth of who you are and
how you want to connect in theworld.
Throughout all of this.
That's so apparent ineverything written about you,
everything I've read about you,looking at your own materials,
the documentaries, all of this.
I'm just so moved by your truthto center and speak to that a
(03:41):
little, if you would, if youcould, and how it is that you
come by, holding so closely andfully to your authentic self and
leading this life sopurposefully in that way.
Am I making sense?
I feel like I'm talking aroundsomething that is so essential
and so beautiful.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
No, you did a great job of making sense.
You're asking me how it is thatI kept my humanity and stayed
true to myself.
Yeah, I have to say that my momand my dad, but particularly my
mother, barbara Wolf, who is nolonger on planet Earth she
(04:27):
brought me up to be a feminist,an artist, caring, compassionate
, honest and bold.
My mother was an Englishteacher, english literature
(04:52):
teacher.
She was also a high fashionmodel when I was, before I was
born.
She was on the track tobecoming a Hollywood starlet,
but her life she was on thetrack to becoming a Hollywood
starlet, but her her life.
She was married at 17 to myfather, who was also.
He was an amazing man.
(05:15):
He had been a stunt man forJohnny Weissmuller Tarzan, so my
dad was like he was part of, hewas the center for the USC
(05:39):
Trojans.
So I come from a family.
Also my grandmother worked,lost the ownership of the Apollo
of the West, which was calledthe Lincoln Theater, which was a
Negro vaudeville theater andmusic theater in Los Angeles.
(05:59):
He did end up managing it forquite a while.
My dad worked the candy counterwhen he was a teenager.
So our family is Jewish,although my mom which is
interesting was the love of mygrandmother and her lover,
(06:22):
rather than my grandmother andmy grandfather, both of whom
died before she was five yearsold.
And I come from a deeply booklearning family.
My mother was agnostic, so itwas not a religious family.
I didn't grow up with areligion.
(06:43):
In specific, I gained mydeepest sense of spirituality
and religion or I wouldn't callit religion, I would call it
spirituality.
The deepest that I went waswhen I was 16.
And I was part of thecounterculture movement was when
(07:04):
I was 16 and I was part of thecounterculture movement which I
pretty much joined with my mom,even younger than 16.
But the first time I took LSDwas when I saw the light, so to
speak.
I saw life from a vantage point.
(07:25):
You spoke to a reverend.
I listened to that conversation.
He went up on a hill to get anoverview and I got an overview.
The first time I took LSD, Igot an overview of it all and I
felt deeply embedded in life andI.
(07:46):
But then you know, so that was avery potent part of my, my, my
beginning.
But also so was my time inmiddle school, grammar school,
high school, where I didn't feellike I fit in.
I wasn't Christian, I wasn't.
(08:11):
I didn't fit the status quo.
And that was a wonderful timeto not fit the status quo,
because we had a whole group ofus who banded together outside
of the popular kids and startedfinding our own way as flower
children and then hippies andpeace freaks, and a whole tribe
of us grew together tounderstand a different way of
(08:38):
living and I honestly thought,during those love-ins and be-ins
that we were all part of in the1960s, that we were truly
changing the world, that allthese guys that we now see, who
have come back like virulent Idon't even think there's an
insect that deserves the name tocall these people that have
(09:03):
come out from underneath therocks.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
And how did that happen?
Speaker 3 (09:10):
yeah, yeah, and that we would have changed the world
by by now to one piece and, um,no war.
And you know there was just.
So back then I say there was atremendous amount of hope.
Yeah, I would say there waslike we lived in not just hope,
(09:32):
but we saw it in front of usbecause we were surrounded by it
and that also brought indiversity.
That also brought in diversity.
It brought in social justice,but it also brought in new
consciousness about is thisfreedom, just privilege that we
(10:02):
have as hippies and flowerchildren and peace freaks and
such?
Even though there was diversityin our midst, we still weren't
looking at the inner city, weweren't really acknowledging, we
weren't really looking atanti-racism work in that same
way.
That was all coming in on adifferent track and while there
was some overlap, it wasn't tillyou know, it just wasn't till
(10:24):
later that social justice andthe idea, you know, the idea of
racism and white privilege andall of that, and womanism not
just white women started toreally then evolve from the good
that we were involved in backthen.
And also we saw taking it tothe extreme and how dangerous
(10:50):
that was for our health.
So there's like a wholemultidimensional aspect to how I
became a woman.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
And all of that is tied in to the education, the
feminist education that I washaving, the women I was meeting
at the women's building in LosAngeles, the Judy Chicago group
(11:31):
of artists who, you know, judyChicago, did the project of
vagina plates, you know, andgreat artwork.
Well, I mean, you know,suddenly we were looking at
Woman House, where they hadtaken over a house in Los
Angeles and started to show whatthe state of life was for
(12:02):
females with, you know, sexismand violence, you know, the
financial aspects started comingin as well as, you know, the
(12:23):
jobs and not being respected forthe work that women do.
And it just that my life wasconstantly surrounded, because I
put myself into those spaces,with growth and with truth and
(12:44):
with circles of truth and withlistening.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
So I want to ask you a question in the midst of this.
This is thank you for sharingall of this, but something you
said along the way that I thinkis so significant, and I want to
dig deeper into what is itabout you, though?
What it is about you that youstayed this course and you've
lived this life of activism, ofhumanitarianism, of creativity,
(13:10):
of art, of fellowship, ofsupport of woman is all of this,
and yet you just spoke a momentago about the numbers from that
very same time who were alsosharing communally and
experiencing all of this, whohave chosen a very different
path and have gone really inopposition.
Yet you didn't.
You have stayed this course,and what is it about?
(13:32):
What is that fire in you, whatis that awareness in you, what
is it in you that is held sotruly and profoundly to this
course?
Speaker 3 (13:46):
and profoundly to this course.
Well, you know, I mean, aquestion like that would have me
pondering for a while, andreally so that I could come up
with a deeper, drilled downanswer to that.
But you know, just my first,I'll just riff off what comes to
me.
You know, I'll just riff offwhat comes to me from my heart,
(14:09):
which is, I know the experienceof being oppressed, I know the
experience of feeling less thanI know the experience of the
history of annihilation ofpeoples, not just the Jewish
(14:32):
people in Germany, but peoplesin general, the indigenous
cultures.
I feel it, I feel it inside.
I happen to have been bornallowed to feel.
My upbringing was one where Iwas allowed to express my
feelings.
(14:52):
I was allowed to understandwhat feelings feel like and how
to express them and how to learnto express them better and
better and better.
I was angry, I was angry andthe anger was on top of a lot of
grief, and the grief is whatyou know the grief, the anger,
(15:18):
as well as the music that I waswith the musicians I was with,
where, you know, you don'tyou've got art and music that
within it is such a pure, a puresense of self-expression and a
(15:40):
pure merging together of humanbeings, regardless of whether
you know like there were issuesoutside of the music that when
people came together to play themusic, the joy and the glory
and the grace of that to be inthat was so profound and so free
(16:06):
.
And the lovins and the be-inswere free.
And also I had the privilegethe white privilege plus the
financial privilege of beingable to go into spaces,
multicultural spaces, and I'llgive you an example of how
simple that was for me, where Iwas given the freedom to be no
(16:36):
holes barred.
I was free, I was accepted, Iwas welcomed and I was free.
And you have that kind of asituation combined with the
heart of you know, the heart ofknowing what it feels like and
(16:56):
then being able to connect thedots of how it must feel like or
does feel like for others.
I don't know.
You know it just was like fuel.
It was fuel for me and I wassuccessful.
My voice was successful.
(17:16):
I made, I got in trouble, I gotpunished, I got banished, but I
was successful too.
And one of the ways in which Ican just give an example of the
kind of space that accepted meand let me be who I was was when
(17:40):
I would visit my father whoworked in downtown LA for a
large transportation company.
The majority of people workingfor the company were people of
color Latino, black.
They were.
You know, it was hundreds ofstaff in his company but he was
(18:00):
the vice president who couldnever be president because he
was Jewish.
That was real.
They'd never make him president, but he could be vice president
all his time at the company andknew it, which was tough, yeah,
but when they would have, and Iwas his daughter, his little
(18:22):
daughter, you know the girl, andI remember going to the picnics
the company picnics or walkingthrough when I got my driver's
license, going to visit him fromSherman Oaks to downtown LA,
which by then was not what it istoday.
It was the other side of thetracks and when I would come in,
(18:42):
everybody in my father was sobeloved, everybody would go
there's Joe Joe's daughter,there's Joe Wolf's daughter, and
they I could go.
I could be off on my ownthrough the company picnics,
walking from blanket to blanketand getting to know people, and
they welcomed me because my dad,they knew with my father that
(19:06):
he knew also what they weregoing through.
Having worked the candy counterat a Negro I put that in quotes
theater.
He was told you do not ever,ever be rude, never to our
(19:34):
clientele.
You never be rude, you alwaystreat everyone with respect.
So he learned that back in the40s.
Plus he was on a team, so hehad that connection, and plus he
was a stuntman, so he had thatconnection with many different
(19:55):
kinds of people.
So my father had a huge heartand these people knew they could
trust my father, understoodwhere they were coming from and
would stand up for them.
So it was like you know, if Ihad any answer at this point to
that, it's that everythingcolluded in my life to give me
(20:17):
more and more and more courageto raise my voice, and my mom
really instilled that in me, ohyeah, you know, having been
married at 17 and not everhaving found herself then
(20:40):
finding herself in the 1960s inthe women's blasted movement,
where you learn your sexualitythe entire time.
She was married and thendiscovered it with a lover, like
my grandmother, her mother hadwith a lover.
(21:03):
So you know, we were, and westill are, a family, apart from
the majority of people, and somepeople are afraid of us because
it's threatening.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
I want you to adopt me as well.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
And other than that, this house we live in, it's
filled with people a lot of thetime who just hang out young,
old, yeah.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
So I have to say, just listening to everything
you've shared, there's so manypieces that I want to talk about
and you know, I did do someresearch before we got together
today and I am just well, I'mfascinated with everything you
said said like I'd love to beadopted, to be raised around a
woman who has a voice and hasexperienced so much and is
(22:04):
willing to share that not onlythrough words, but through your
art, through your photography.
Just amazing, and I couldimagine.
I know you have at least adaughter.
I know you have at least adaughter and I can imagine what
(22:34):
that would be like, kind ofknowing be-ins.
I was born in the late 60s butwhat I've heard about it just
seems like a phenomenal time.
But I'm wondering, how do you,I guess, wrap your head around,
I'm gonna say, all that crapthat you witnessed and
experienced and thinking?
(22:54):
The answers were there, therewas love and there was hope and
there was joy and there was endof war and there was acceptance.
And how do you wrap your headaround what's happening today?
Speaker 3 (23:11):
Well, first of all, I can't wrap my head around it.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
First of all, I can't wrap my head around it, yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
There's no way to wrap your head around it.
(23:36):
It's like I don't think even thebest thinkers in the world can
do much but create some form ofan analysis that goes back to
okay, this started in a longtime ago.
I mean, I just spent two daysin a undoing racism workshop and
we were given the history thatI don't think I ever put
(23:56):
together.
It was like pieces of it I knew, but not like the fact that
white, you know, we talk aboutrace being a construct, a very
painful reality, but a construct, and that the white race was
actually constructed from ourEuropean, from who we were as
(24:18):
Europeans.
We weren't white in Europe, wewere Europeans and we have paid
a tremendous cost to importraces, to import to, to create
racism and import racism.
And and we basically to createracism and import racism.
And basically it feels as though400 years of racism back to
(24:44):
Jonestown, when Pocahontas was achild, stolen in order to gain
a foothold by the English inland and to start exploiting and
try to, you know, wipe NativeAmericans out of the United
(25:04):
States, which wasn't even theUnited States, it was colonies
then.
I mean, it just goes back sofar, this power over by
necessity that other peopleconsider necessity, workers,
money, land and to create theseseparations between us, and it's
(25:28):
basically that is what is stillhappening.
I mean, I think a tremendousamount of this is about racism.
Yeah still happening.
I mean, I think a tremendousamount of this is about racism.
Yeah, and how I, how I livewith that, because we've only
been living with this for abouttwo or three weeks now, as bad
as it is.
(25:49):
So I think all of us are justgoing, wow, how am I going to
walk?
How am I going to pick up mygrandson today and not just want
to sob?
How am I going to hold myself?
(26:10):
What am I going to do?
And so you know, it comes to meand my friends and my family,
and especially one of mydaughters who's pregnant, who
cannot tolerate going into allof the conversations that I
would go in with her oh, did youhear this?
And oh, have you heard that?
And what about this?
(26:30):
They're right now happening sofast and furiously.
The only thing I can come to atthis stage of the game, three
weeks in, is I have to do what Ican, locally, with the people I
love Stand up, continue tostand up and speak out wherever
(26:50):
I feel it and am safe enough todo it.
Consider that I must be with myfriends.
I cannot listen to the play byplay throughout the day.
I can't do it.
I would.
There's no way we can hold thisin our minds, in our hearts
(27:14):
it's like it's in there can holdthis in our minds, in our
hearts.
It's like it's in there, butit's going to.
What gives me hope and I knowhope is a difficult word.
I would say I'm optimistic.
Hope, it's kind of a hopelessword for me on the on the level
of the word try.
Hopeless word for me on thelevel of the word try trying.
(27:37):
I used to teach my daughterstry to pick up that glass of
water, try to pick it up.
And they'd reach for it andpick it up.
I'd say no, just try to pick itup.
You never quite reach it whenyou're trying.
And hope is the you know, as Ihad been educated to understand
was the greatest evil inPandora's box, the heaviest that
(28:02):
never got out of the boxBecause it was so heavy.
Because hope, living in hope,is almost to me like trying,
whereas living with optimism issomething I can wholeheartedly
embrace.
I can be optimistic, and I amoptimistic even in the face of
(28:25):
fires and horrors that we livewith right now, even knowing
that eventually the sun's goingto burn it all out.
We're all going, the planet'sgoing, you know.
So I can still live withoptimism every single day and
find it all over.
But I don't know.
(28:47):
I mean, I hope things work out,but to me it's more of a I
don't know, it's more of a word.
That is kind of like prayer.
It's kind of like a prayer andsince I don't believe in a
(29:07):
religion, the prayer that I seeand I do pray is that, wow, I
know that seed I'm going toplant in my garden is going to
sprout beets and we're going toeat them.
I know it's going to be there.
I know that it may be worse insummer than it's always been
(29:34):
before.
Because of fires and smoke wemight not be able to get out of
the house, but I know that it's.
I know that this is this, thisis going to those.
That tree outside is going to,it's going to leaf out.
Now, that gives me hope, or itgives me hope, um, that when my
(29:56):
grandson comes over, I will beable to put on a different movie
than the crap that he might seesomewhere else yeah I mean, it
gives me hope to see him smileand laugh.
What doesn't give me hope?
Well, what gives me hope ishope is that he's in a family
and a group of people and a citythat represents what we stand
(30:23):
for and that we can teach him.
That gives me hope.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Yeah, yeah, it was said to me today.
I was speaking with somebodyelse earlier today.
I was speaking with somebodyelse earlier today and she just
(31:02):
said that when the macro view isso heavy and so hard, we do
have hope or joy or whatever theword is that we want to put
there, but that thing whichsustains and excuse me and
allows us to keep moving forward.
And I thought, well, yes, andso your grandson clearly is part
of that for you Like how, whatcan we?
How can we shift perspective inany moment and bring forward
(31:24):
really the richness that makesthis life right now livable?
Because, to your earlier point,if we're just in that space of
the nightmares, then what are weeven doing?
Why are we even doing this?
Speaker 3 (31:41):
Well, we're crippled by that If we stay there.
We're crippled I've used thatword is.
I'm now friends with a womanwho they make well, they live on
(32:04):
Bainbridge and she's been doingcommunity dinners at a local
church.
She's Jewish, it's a church, itdoesn't matter, but we do local
community dinners the secondTuesday of every month and so my
husband and I go to help cookthe community dinner, and it's
(32:27):
organic vegetables from a localfarm friend.
It's Helpline, which is what wehave here for people who don't
(32:48):
have enough money to buy food orthey are in need, which I've
even used myself from time totime, and you can pay whatever
you want, and we cook together,we talk together and people come
and we eat together, and that'sreally where we're creating
community.
I told you I want you guys tointerview Heather yeah, because
you will hear more.
(33:09):
She stands on my shoulders Forher.
It's all about creatingcommunity folk, uh, folk
community and people communityand nature community and healing
communities.
So I mean, that's where I getthrough this, this is where I
(33:35):
get through this.
This is where I get throughthis and then gosh, you know,
being able to have a family thathas done the work of the teen
talking circles that I createdback when they were little, to
have a family who actually docompassionate listening with
each other so that we can havehealthy, loving relationships
(33:59):
where we're not running awayfrom our issues.
I mean that in itself is justlike, oh my gosh, that keeps me
going To not have all thesehorrible arguments or divorces.
I mean my ex-husband I call himmy husband to be able to
(34:21):
continue hearing each other.
That's a tremendous gift.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
I will just say, linda, by training I am a
licensed marriage and familytherapist, so I love to hear
that being able to raise yourchildren with that compassionate
listening and speaking is huge.
And I want to go looking atyour history.
(34:48):
I was looking at your, thatbrief, your, your brief
portfolio.
I guess you know and readingabout the caravan that you were
part of and how very cool thatyour friend called you and said
get here and take some pictures.
But I was drawn just looking atall of your pictures and again
(35:09):
thinking about where we aretoday and seeing the same things
going on.
And then my memory ofBainbridge Island, which I just
adore.
I know Donna shared that we'vespent some time in Bainbridge
Island.
The last time I was there, justa couple of years ago, I
finally went to the JapaneseAmerican internment memorial.
(35:32):
That's there.
I finally my aunt took me and Igot to experience that and I
couldn't help but just kind ofput all these pieces together of
you and your breathe.
Oh, go ahead, I'm listening.
Okay, I'm back.
(36:05):
Yeah, the breathe, californiaand Idaho and elsewhere.
And then today, what's going ontoday?
And you're talking about howyou hold out this piece of hope,
even kind of, in this chaos,when all of this stuff is going
on.
And I guess I'm just I kind ofwant to see how it all threads
together for you yourhumanitarian work, your efforts
(36:29):
with the caravan in Mexico, thenonprofits you started, the
mother-daughter group and theteen talking circle, which I'm
totally drawn to.
You know I want to like bringto my students who are
counselors out in the, you know,all around the country right
now, and I just kind of want tohear you talk about how you've,
(36:49):
I guess, gone from one to thenext and how you weave it all
together and just yeah, becauseI'm just floored by what you do
kind of humanitarily.
Well, thank, you.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
I'm going to take you to my other room because I have
a beautiful, supportive,glorious husband who is in need
of lunch, and I'm going to.
I'm going to get out of thedining room and go into our, my
bedroom, so I can actually andif I lose you I'll call you back
, but I think this should work.
(37:21):
Enjoy your lunch, eric.
Thank you.
Eric, but I don't want to keephim from from.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
In that room, so I didn't even realize what time it
was.
So he's probably starving.
Anyway, if you ever do this asa video, you'll have two rooms
now.
So the question was how did Iweave all these things?
Speaker 2 (37:51):
together, like it seems.
Somebody could look at you andsay, oh, she has this career as
a photographer, that's one pieceof it.
But oh my gosh, she's got thiscareer as this humanitarian and
she's got this career in thekind of nonprofit world of
really raising up daughters, andit's like somebody who had
(38:13):
three different lifetimes.
But you've woven them alltogether and I guess I would
love to just hear how you do allof that.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
Wow, desperation, I don't know.
I mean it's kind of like my, Isuppose.
I mean I was going to give youa ridiculous answer.
Like my, the kitchen chairs andat our dining table are all
different and before my husbandcame, every plate was different
and I don't like being in thesame place a lot.
(38:43):
I don't like eating the samething for breakfast every day.
I don't know, I mean.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
I don't know.
I mean because of all of theways in which they all interact.
You know they're all interwoven, it's all interrelated.
There isn't a way to separatethem out.
Each one affects the otherauthentically, in, in in the
truth of who you are, that youare compelled to to do where,
(39:33):
where it is that you're led andwhere you feel you can, you can
make a difference, or that itcan exactly the right thing to
do.
That.
Speaker 3 (39:41):
I hear that and what you're sharing they're all
interconnected, right, it's asystemic interconnection that we
have learned about in quantumphysics and in every aspect.
If we took it and looked at itand mapped it out, they're all
integrated, they're allinterrelated.
(40:02):
It's just like with racism.
You take the barrio, you takethe reservation, you take the
ghetto, you take thosecommunities and then around
those communities you've gotinsurance, you've got
environmental racism, you've gotschools that are education,
(40:27):
you've got all of the, everyaspect of life.
It's all integrated.
You cannot really separate oneout from the other.
So I just don't, I just go okay, what's up now?
Yeah, what's hurting?
Where is it?
(40:47):
I need to learn.
When Neva Welton and I did thebook Global Uprising, which you
know, about confronting thetyrannies of the 21st century,
stories of a new generation ofactivists for teenagers the book
is for, we didn't know a lot ofthese.
(41:07):
We were part of the WTOplanning committee, but that was
because I had a boyfriend atthe time who was part of the WTO
planning committee and he wasturning us on to all of this
stuff.
Noam Chomsky to, you know allof them.
(41:31):
We went to them and said, look,we're doing this for teenagers.
Silence about this in you know,our own world.
We knew we're doing it for usKnow what it is, so could you
just tell it like you would toan eighth grader, because that's
who we are.
We're the eighth grader we don'tknow about what you know, what
(41:54):
do I know about sweatshop labor,you know, etc.
So, um, yeah, you know, it'sall about what?
I guess my growing edge, whereis my growing edge?
And then also, at some pointsthere's, I know, I want to, I
(42:15):
know, I want to contradict,saying that it's all racists.
I mean, it's all, uh, um, gangmembers and criminals in these
caravans.
And and then, lucky me, mysister-in-law has lived in
Mexico City for 30 years and isthe head of an organization she
(42:40):
founded for women and familiesin migration.
So through her I knew more thanI would have ever known if I
didn't know her.
And she said look, you know, ifyou want to show that it isn't
(43:01):
criminals, come now and you knowall the other things that I've
been involved in.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
I would say Anyway, I guess I've said enough.
I feel like we're just touchingthe surface and that I could
talk to you for hours and hours.
I'm so appreciating everythingyou're sharing and I want to
(43:31):
hear more, and there are so manyuntouched threads.
Part of what I'm hearing andI'd love you to speak on a
little bit is I want to honoryour time also is what I'm
trying to say and I know that weonly have so much time but from
the earliest days like againlistening to your documentary,
reading about you, readinginformation about you what I'm
struck with.
Take, for example, your timewith Fanny and going on and
(43:54):
doing the photography and livingwith and you just, so easily,
it seems, said yes to each ofthese opportunities that came
your way.
You just said yes and thenfigured it out.
You spoke to it a little bitearlier, based on that
foundation you had with yourmother in particular, but also
your father.
But can I ask you just thatquestion to speak on that a
(44:17):
little bit more?
What is it that drives you orenables you to say the yes?
How does that happen?
And is it as simple as just sayyes and figure it out later?
And is it as?
Speaker 3 (44:29):
simple as just say yes and figure it out later yeah
, it is, it is, and actuallyHeather was saying that recently
in terms of her writing andperforming.
She's opening for a reallyfabulous act in July and she
only just in the last 10 yearsdevoted herself to music.
So here's a 40-year year oldwoman who keeps saying yes.
(44:50):
So basically what she's sayingis yes, but now she has to grow
to meet the yes, yes, yes, andit's somehow.
There's a self confidence and,believe me, I have struggled for
my self-confidence.
I have struggled for myself-confidence.
(45:12):
I'm 70.
I'm 75 this year.
That's the reward for decadesof struggling with
self-confidence.
Because how could one not?
I'm a woman, I was a girl.
Yeah, I mean, we got it fromevery angle.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:30):
And still are.
Yes, I mean we got it from everyangle and still are.
So I think I've had enoughsuccesses and I've had enough
support, financial, as well asfamily and friends and
colleagues.
(45:50):
Um, family and friends andcolleagues and I was in the
right place at the right time inlos angeles, especially with
fanny and joe cocker, whereby Igot a free ride to some extent,
(46:20):
or a free pass or an all-accesspass.
Because of that, yeah, becausepeople doors open for people who
, yeah, it really does make adifference.
If I tell people, even at the Imean literally no matter where I
go, no matter what I've done,the thing usually that stands
out the most is oh, you were oneof the first female rock and
(46:43):
roll photographers.
Wow, it's cool, it's cool.
(47:16):
And I think one of the reasonsthat it is cool is not just
because of the fame aspect orthe money aspect, but is, I mean
, the excitement of beinginvolved on large stages, with
big music, with music issomething that all of us, it's
like air, it's water, it's oneof the elements that is just our
bodies, our souls, our minds,everything.
And having had that privilege,really, and having those friends
(47:59):
and knowing somehow, I mean tothink that the seed of my entry
into everything that I've becomestarted with music.
It started with the drifters upon the roof expressing my
loneliness.
It started with Bob Dylan andhis first album, maggie's farm,
understanding a little bit aboutracism.
It started with king b with therolling stones and finding my
(48:23):
sexuality just like pop up.
Whoa, I'm hot.
I meant to to meet Mick Jaggerat 14 because I snuck backstage
to meet my idol.
I just said yes and fall againsthis chest and look up at him
like, oh my God, it's you.
Well, from that point on, whowas going to keep me away from
(48:44):
being backstage?
Speaker 1 (48:47):
Amen to that.
Speaker 3 (48:47):
Yeah, amen to that.
Yeah, you know, it's just.
I just was in some ways theright time, right right time,
right place, and I just keptsaying, okay, I'm, I'm going to
keep on keeping on.
Yeah, yeah, and you keptthrough the doors.
I mean it was like, oh, there'sthat, sure, let me go on
keeping on.
Speaker 1 (49:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:09):
Yeah, and you kept through the doors.
I mean it was like, oh, there'sthat, sure, let me go.
There's that, yep, I'm going tojump on the plane and get there
.
I mean I don't know what it wasthat had you go to France for
those five years.
But, like amazing, you're ayoung woman and you're like, yep
, I'm going to leave the country.
You know, that's just that'swhat I want for my own daughter,
(49:30):
who's 20 right now.
That's how I want her to greetthe world.
You know, that's what I'mhoping to pass on to her.
Speaker 1 (49:38):
And what's your modeling?
Speaker 3 (49:40):
I'm trying, I'm trying.
It sounds like it and this isone way you know, just like with
my books.
This is how I educated mydaughters.
Speaker 2 (49:48):
I don't know how old your daughter is.
How old is she?
Speaker 3 (49:55):
She's 20 now.
My daughter is 20 now.
Yeah Well, this is how Ieducated them is just to keep
bringing them into the spaceswhere people are talking like
this or where they're going toget this kind of information.
Speaker 2 (50:01):
Yeah, that's important, very important to me.
Speaker 1 (50:04):
Bringing them into the conversation.
I love that.
That's so worth reiterating.
And I also want to reiterate athing you said a moment ago,
which was grow to meet the.
Yes, I think you know Kirk,producer Kirk, as we put this
information out there, that's atag that we for sure are
including grow to meet the.
Yes, I think that's such animportant one.
All right, so this beautifullife lived, and so much more to
(50:27):
come.
You've taken advantage of somuch.
So let's go back to when you'relike before that 14 year old,
let's say 12, 13.
That girl, that girl, if shewere talking to you right now,
what would, what would she haveto say?
What would she think about thisand where you are and who you
(50:48):
are?
What would be her words to you?
Do you think?
Oh, wow.
Speaker 3 (51:02):
The 12-year-old would have said oh yeah, makes sense.
The 13-year-old would have the13-year-old would have Might not
(51:28):
have ever believed it might nothave ever believed it.
The 12-year-old oh yeah, youknow the 10-year-old.
The 11-year-old just free andbeautiful and just beginning to
(51:48):
sense that she wasn't blonde,straight-haired and thin.
And a 13-year-old would havebeen unable to throw up or be
bulimic or anorexic, justcontinue to eat until she was so
(52:14):
sick to her stomach.
She would cry, then cry untilshe was done and be so lost,
absolutely lost.
The 13-year-old I don't know ifshe would have ever believed
that I could be who I am today.
Speaker 1 (52:37):
And yet she's the one who then took the next step and
got you here.
She did, she found it Well, shebecame the 14-year-old and the
15 year old, and so on so yousee, as I told you, I know what
it feels like yeah to feel umsuicidal without being suicidal
(53:06):
I understand that I do.
Speaker 3 (53:09):
And that the pain is so profound and so shameful that
the shame is so shameful, yeah,so horrible you don't want to
(53:30):
have youriter overeater.
And I got more and more angry.
A lot of that also was becausemy mom was blonde,
straight-haired, thin andbeautiful and when and compared
(53:51):
to her at 13 not at 12, but at13 I was not any of those things
and therefore I couldn't pass.
I couldn't pass, yeah, and thatwas really important to me, and
it was also she, also my mom,bless her heart and all the love
(54:12):
that she and all the supportshe's given me.
She knew it, you could see it.
It wasn't as though it could behidden at home and she was an
earth mother, making me feel,you know, having some other way
to deal with it.
It was.
It was all too obvious inHollywood, in Los Angeles, that
I didn't have what she had.
(54:35):
So that was awful, that waspainful and it lasted.
That went on all our livestogether.
She was always apologetic aboutit.
She was always apologetic aboutit.
Even her psychiatrist told her.
You know your daughter's goingto be angry with you through no
(54:56):
fault of your own.
And we had a really toughrelationship because I was angry
about that, that I couldn't beher.
I couldn't go through life thateasily.
But that's what made me who Iam, is that I couldn't go
through life that easily.
But that's what made me who Iam, is that I couldn't go
through life that easily.
Yeah, I had to find another wayto go through life.
Speaker 2 (55:18):
Yeah, and your story is so inspirational.
When things just come easy,it's like, oh, that's really
kind of cool.
But even hearing more of thestruggle you had before you got
(55:39):
to, kind of the stuff that weknew about, you know from
reading on your website and thebooks and that sort of thing, I
don't know it's even moreinspirational to me.
So I think there is.
I'm excited to share your storywith my daughter and with other
young women, I know, because Ithink, especially with the
events of the world, it needs tobe heard.
But I guess I want to ask youthen, because I think Donna and
(56:02):
I are both probably veryinspired by you and we're
looking at you as this75-year-old woman who's like, oh
my God, yeah, I want toaccomplish that, I want to meet
the.
Yes, I have to figure out howto meet that.
Yes, who, I guess?
Who do you get inspired by?
Speaker 3 (56:20):
Oh, wow, so many people.
It can be so many differentkinds of people in terms of
public, people who I mean?
Geez, oh my gosh.
You know I want to bridge 13,14, 15, 16.
(56:44):
I want to go back to therebecause people that inspired me
Back then.
None of these people werefamous, none of them had cut
record deals.
We were all living in LA and at14, after I met, after I found a
friend who, if it would havebeen the punk era, we both would
(57:08):
have been punks together, butwe were both the freaks.
The freaks were after the, thefreaks were before the hippies,
Flower children, then freaks,then hippies, then peace freaks.
I mean, it goes, it's.
There's a whole, like you know,a whole life of it.
(57:28):
Anyway, trina Lopresti was hername and she had long black hair
like this and she was very thinand she was very gaunt and she
and I would eat lunch togetherin.
It was in high school, I guessthe first year of high school we
(57:49):
met and it must have beenearlier than that.
It must have been middle school, because I was 14 when we went
to the Tammy show and we snuckbackstage, so it was middle
school, but she was my hope, ifthere was such a thing, because
the two of us together I wasn'talone anymore.
Speaker 1 (58:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (58:09):
And we both loved the Rolling Stones.
We both loved thecounterculture that was just
starting to burgeon.
We both wanted out of ourfamilies.
We both were bad girls together.
It led me to Hollywood where Iwould hitchhike your daughter
(58:32):
might find a better way to dothis, but I would.
Back then it was pretty safe tohitchhike from the San Fernando
Valley into Hollywood passes,to the Hollywood Bowl, to
meeting a boyfriend at 16 wholived in a big commune where
(58:57):
Jackson Browne lived, and I knowyou're familiar with Jackson
Browne's music.
Jackson was not a famous personat the time, he was only 17 and
a half, and I had quite an eventwith my first love, which I
don't need to go into.
But that night I spent on theend of Jackson's bed as he
(59:20):
played all night long practicinghis music through Jackson and
through my boyfriend at the timeand another boyfriend.
I just kept navigating througha world of beautiful people
(59:42):
playing music, but I didn't haveanything that was mine and it
wasn't a point where I'd metFanny or thought that I could.
I could play the music or singor do something myself which
your daughter can do now youknow much more easily than I met
(01:00:12):
who inspired me to meeting JuneMillington and then living with
Fanny, and then my world justwas opened to everything,
because I met a group of girlswho were each one devoted,
devoted and committed anddisciplined.
Yeah, and that was when mywhole world changed and I
(01:00:42):
thought, well, if Jackson can doit because now he's getting his
record deal, and if I meanbecause he was just a guy I knew
, and if Fanny can do it, I cando it.
And that was a very pivotal,pivotal moment for me.
There, that moment was was oneof the most pivotal moments for
(01:01:06):
me.
And then, as an adult, one ofthe most pivotal moments for me
that changed my life was backwhen I was in my forties and I
looked.
I was going through a horribledivorce um, not in the sense
that we didn't love each otheranymore, but just that we didn't
love each other and want to betogether and the betrayal of a
(01:01:28):
man.
And I finally realized thatnobody was going to love me till
the day I died but me, couldn'tcount on anyone to be there for
me until the day I die exceptfor me.
And if that was true, that I'mthe only one that can be there
(01:01:51):
for me till the day I die, Ihave to be my own beloved,
because if I'm not my ownbeloved, what am I doing?
And then that was a pivotalmoment that also changed my life
.
So the change when I realizedif they can do it, I can do it.
(01:02:12):
Yeah, so those are two momentsthat were like my come to jesus
moments, you know, and changedmy life.
Thank, you.
Speaker 1 (01:02:28):
Thank you so much, gorgeous.
Every, every word of that,thank you.
That's beautiful.
That was worth everything rightthere, just profound, all right
.
So I know that we're up againstthe hour and I know that you
have another commitment and wedon't want to, we don't want to
(01:02:48):
overstay our welcome, are youokay?
If we do our, we jump into whatwe call our rapid fire.
They're not really that rapidfire, but just a little series
of questions that are fun and wejust come whatever comes first
to your and we'll just gothrough those, is that?
Speaker 3 (01:03:03):
all right with you.
I'm I'm so honored that thatyou're doing this with me and I
just appreciate it so much.
I appreciate being invited, Ijust love it.
So thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:03:17):
Thank you.
I mean, the honor is ours andwe're just so, so grateful that
you've taken this time, and I'veloved every moment of this,
truly truly.
I'm going to weep.
This is just so gorgeous toconnect with you and hear all
that you have to share.
I'm taking it all in straightto my heart.
(01:03:39):
Thank you so much.
All right, sis, I'm emotional.
You go ahead, start thequestions.
Start the questions.
Speaker 3 (01:03:44):
Good, I love that.
Yeah, get emotional.
Speaker 2 (01:03:47):
Kind of like you know , when the politician walks onto
the stage and they have theirwalk-in song, what is your
walk-in song?
Speaker 3 (01:03:55):
Oh boy, jeez.
Oh my God song.
Oh boy, um geez.
Oh my walk-in song, oh my god.
The one that comes to my mindis probably one that I would
(01:04:16):
never have come to my mind.
These boots were made forwalking and that's just what
they'll do but I wouldn't one ofthese days.
These boots are gonna fall overyour, the shitty thing you're
doing, all right, what bookchanged?
You uh catcher in the rye.
Speaker 1 (01:04:38):
Good one.
Speaker 2 (01:04:40):
What movie lives rent free in your brain?
Speaker 3 (01:04:44):
Well of the graduate, but I'd have to say right now,
the Perfect Days, Perfect Days.
Speaker 2 (01:04:55):
Oh excellent.
Speaker 3 (01:04:56):
That's a recent one, but I'd say the graduate
graduate, oh cool, um.
Speaker 1 (01:05:02):
What did you love doing as a kid that you love
doing to this day?
Playing piano.
Speaker 2 (01:05:08):
Oh, you're a pianist as well that's a big word for
what I do if you can make a tuneon the piano, you are a pianist
in my eyes, so I have a playerpiano, so it just does it for me
.
But what in your world islighting you up right now?
Speaker 3 (01:05:32):
um, well geez, my grandson, probably the most, and
my daughters and my husband.
But I have a daughter who's nowpregnant again and I know how I
was singing love songs on myway for the last baby after he
(01:05:53):
was born.
But I have an extraordinarilybeautiful grandson with hair
down to the middle of his backand he is just just mwah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:06:05):
Yeah, lots of light, that's gorgeous, all right.
Well, maybe we can substitutethe word optimism rather than
hope here.
What color is optimism?
Speaker 3 (01:06:17):
Ooh, it'd be rainbow.
Speaker 1 (01:06:20):
Ah, love it.
Speaker 2 (01:06:23):
And so we usually start with like you know hope
through, you know how do yougain hope.
So your hope is through, soyour optimism is through what
People like you.
Oh, thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:06:40):
I'm taking that deep in my heart right now.
I promise you, oh, thank you.
I'm taking that deep in myheart right now.
I promise you, yeah, okay, themeaning of life is.
Speaker 3 (01:06:50):
The meaning of life, death.
Speaker 1 (01:06:57):
Wow, yeah, wow, we could talk an hour on that one.
Wow, go ahead.
No, no, bring it on home sis.
Speaker 2 (01:07:12):
Our last question.
And we say hope, Hope is what?
And if you want to substituteoptimism, we can do that.
So hope is.
Speaker 3 (01:07:28):
Hope is a faith that something we're longing for can
happen.
Yeah, yeah.
It's more than a faith.
It's a prayer.
Hope is a prayer that somethingthat we're longing for will
happen.
Speaker 2 (01:07:49):
Yeah, I like that and that is.
I am very hopeful right now asI long for some certain things
to happen coming up here and Iwill continue hope and I love
that you have been willing toshare this time with us and I'm
(01:08:11):
probably going to do a deeperdive into some of your work and
I want to get up to BainbridgeIsland again.
I will find you on the islandsomewhere, the small island.
Speaker 1 (01:08:21):
Yeah, I bet you you're running across our auntie
up there all the time, actually, because it is a small.
It's a small community up thereand you would love her.
She's a lovely person.
Speaker 3 (01:08:31):
It's your auntie.
Speaker 1 (01:08:33):
Her name is Sue, she has a little well, she had a
shop in Pike market for yearsand years and years where she
hand painted children's clothingand it was just lovely.
And now she's doing her artwork.
She calls it.
My Second Life is Now and sheand her husband basically like
(01:08:56):
built their little, like rebuilttheir home themselves their own
two little hands.
She makes textures.
She's anyway, she's just alovely, lovely woman of of your
era also, and just one of thebest people I know, just a good,
good person in the world.
She and her husband alike arejust beautiful.
Speaker 3 (01:09:15):
I look forward to you coming to Bainbridge and and
having a meal with us.
Speaker 2 (01:09:21):
Oh, my goodness, yes.
Speaker 1 (01:09:22):
Exceptionally grand.
Linda, thank you so much.
We look forward to talking withyour daughter.
Perhaps we'll have moreconversations.
There's so much richness totalk about here and your
openness.
We're so grateful for that.
Thank you for being with us andour soul histories.
Speaker 3 (01:09:42):
Thank you and do please know.
What I've done with my life isnot who I am.
Yes, I hear that who I am isyou, we.
(01:10:04):
You know we are being what wehave to be in order to get
through this period of time.
Speaker 1 (01:10:15):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (01:10:16):
So all of us are doing good work.
We're doing the work we do yes,so much.
Speaker 1 (01:10:24):
Beautiful you, Linda, take good care.
We send you off with so muchlove and light and look forward
to future conversations.
Speaker 3 (01:10:33):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (01:10:35):
Take care-bye.
Speaker 2 (01:10:38):
Thanks for joining us today on Soul Sisteries.
Speaker 1 (01:10:40):
And thanks for sharing stories with us.
We'd love to hear your storiesas well and keep the
conversation going, absolutelykeeping the hope going.
So we're really hopeful thatyou'll connect with our guests
as well, who have great storiesto share.
Go ahead and follow them invarious social media platforms
or live venues, wherever it isthat they're performing and
(01:11:05):
sharing what they do.
Speaker 2 (01:11:06):
We would love to have you follow us on all of our
social media platforms,subscribe and rate, as that will
help us get our message of hopeout to others.
Thanks for listening to SoulSisteries.
Welcome to Soul Sisteries.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
You are here with Soul Sisteries and we have just
finished the most amazinginterview with Linda Wolf and I
am so excited to share her witheverybody Her story of kind of
hope through acceptance anddiversity and her life
experience as a photographer anda humanitarian and all of the
(00:28):
amazing work she has been doingreally since the 60s.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Right, I mean, and just she's story after story
after story and I feel like weonly scratch the surface and
it's just replete with so muchthat's amazing.
But through it all, I lovedthat idea of yes, just saying
yes, and then growing to meetthat yes, it's everybody.
Wait till you hear all aboutthat.
It is incredibly inspiring andauthentic, lived true.
(00:56):
Really, really good stuff.
Enjoy.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
We are here today with Linda Wolf, who was born in
Los Angeles in 1950, smack dabin time for the 1960s cultural
revolution.
At 19, she became one of thefirst female rock and roll
photographers.
After traveling on tour withJoe Cocker, mad Dog and
Englishman, linda left the US tolive and study in France.
(01:25):
Returning five years later, shebegan a series of public art
murals sponsored by Kodak.
Linda is an award-winningmultidisciplinary artist, a
humanistic photographer, author,musician, feminist activist,
(01:46):
memoirist and devoted daughter,mother, grandmother, wife and
friend.
She was the founder, executivedirector of two nonprofit
organizations for girls, aworkshop leader, fundraiser and
advocate.
What unites all this is herdeep love of life, nature,
people and a lifelong commitmentto social justice.
Over her 50 years as an artist,linda Wolfe has moved
(02:06):
seamlessly between rock and roll, photojournalism, fine art,
public art, street, documentaryand portrait photography.
Her work is part of numerousdocumentary movies, books and
art collections.
Linda co-founded Women inPhotography International, along
with Carrie Mae Weems, theDaughters Sisters Project and
(02:28):
Teen Talking Circles.
She's authored seven publishedbooks, fundraised hundreds of
thousands of dollars forhumanitarian projects, taught
and traveled widely as an artistand produced and facilitated
women's empowerment retreats.
Her latest book, tribute CockerPower, distributed by Simon
(02:48):
Schuster was released in 2020.
And we are very excited tointroduce everybody to Linda
Woolf.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Welcome, linda.
Thank you, so excited andgrateful to have you here and,
my goodness, the life you'velived.
You really have been in thethroes of things, but what I'm
struck with so profoundly isthis the true, humanistic,
(03:17):
authentic staying in the heartand the truth of who you are and
how you want to connect in theworld.
Throughout all of this.
That's so apparent ineverything written about you,
everything I've read about you,looking at your own materials,
the documentaries, all of this.
I'm just so moved by your truthto center and speak to that a
(03:41):
little, if you would, if youcould, and how it is that you
come by, holding so closely andfully to your authentic self and
leading this life sopurposefully in that way.
Am I making sense?
I feel like I'm talking aroundsomething that is so essential
and so beautiful.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
No, you did a great job of making sense.
You're asking me how it is thatI kept my humanity and stayed
true to myself.
Yeah, I have to say that my momand my dad, but particularly my
mother, barbara Wolf, who is nolonger on planet Earth she
(04:27):
brought me up to be a feminist,an artist, caring, compassionate
, honest and bold.
My mother was an Englishteacher, english literature
(04:52):
teacher.
She was also a high fashionmodel when I was, before I was
born.
She was on the track tobecoming a Hollywood starlet,
but her life she was on thetrack to becoming a Hollywood
starlet, but her her life.
She was married at 17 to myfather, who was also.
He was an amazing man.
(05:15):
He had been a stunt man forJohnny Weissmuller Tarzan, so my
dad was like he was part of, hewas the center for the USC
(05:39):
Trojans.
So I come from a family.
Also my grandmother worked,lost the ownership of the Apollo
of the West, which was calledthe Lincoln Theater, which was a
Negro vaudeville theater andmusic theater in Los Angeles.
(05:59):
He did end up managing it forquite a while.
My dad worked the candy counterwhen he was a teenager.
So our family is Jewish,although my mom which is
interesting was the love of mygrandmother and her lover,
(06:22):
rather than my grandmother andmy grandfather, both of whom
died before she was five yearsold.
And I come from a deeply booklearning family.
My mother was agnostic, so itwas not a religious family.
I didn't grow up with areligion.
(06:43):
In specific, I gained mydeepest sense of spirituality
and religion or I wouldn't callit religion, I would call it
spirituality.
The deepest that I went waswhen I was 16.
And I was part of thecounterculture movement was when
(07:04):
I was 16 and I was part of thecounterculture movement which I
pretty much joined with my mom,even younger than 16.
But the first time I took LSDwas when I saw the light, so to
speak.
I saw life from a vantage point.
(07:25):
You spoke to a reverend.
I listened to that conversation.
He went up on a hill to get anoverview and I got an overview.
The first time I took LSD, Igot an overview of it all and I
felt deeply embedded in life andI.
(07:46):
But then you know, so that was avery potent part of my, my, my
beginning.
But also so was my time inmiddle school, grammar school,
high school, where I didn't feellike I fit in.
I wasn't Christian, I wasn't.
(08:11):
I didn't fit the status quo.
And that was a wonderful timeto not fit the status quo,
because we had a whole group ofus who banded together outside
of the popular kids and startedfinding our own way as flower
children and then hippies andpeace freaks, and a whole tribe
of us grew together tounderstand a different way of
(08:38):
living and I honestly thought,during those love-ins and be-ins
that we were all part of in the1960s, that we were truly
changing the world, that allthese guys that we now see, who
have come back like virulent Idon't even think there's an
insect that deserves the name tocall these people that have
(09:03):
come out from underneath therocks.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
And how did that happen?
Speaker 3 (09:10):
yeah, yeah, and that we would have changed the world
by by now to one piece and, um,no war.
And you know there was just.
So back then I say there was atremendous amount of hope.
Yeah, I would say there waslike we lived in not just hope,
(09:32):
but we saw it in front of usbecause we were surrounded by it
and that also brought indiversity.
That also brought in diversity.
It brought in social justice,but it also brought in new
consciousness about is thisfreedom, just privilege that we
(10:02):
have as hippies and flowerchildren and peace freaks and
such?
Even though there was diversityin our midst, we still weren't
looking at the inner city, weweren't really acknowledging, we
weren't really looking atanti-racism work in that same
way.
That was all coming in on adifferent track and while there
was some overlap, it wasn't tillyou know, it just wasn't till
(10:24):
later that social justice andthe idea, you know, the idea of
racism and white privilege andall of that, and womanism not
just white women started toreally then evolve from the good
that we were involved in backthen.
And also we saw taking it tothe extreme and how dangerous
(10:50):
that was for our health.
So there's like a wholemultidimensional aspect to how I
became a woman.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
And all of that is tied in to the education, the
feminist education that I washaving, the women I was meeting
at the women's building in LosAngeles, the Judy Chicago group
(11:31):
of artists who, you know, judyChicago, did the project of
vagina plates, you know, andgreat artwork.
Well, I mean, you know,suddenly we were looking at
Woman House, where they hadtaken over a house in Los
Angeles and started to show whatthe state of life was for
(12:02):
females with, you know, sexismand violence, you know, the
financial aspects started comingin as well as, you know, the
(12:23):
jobs and not being respected forthe work that women do.
And it just that my life wasconstantly surrounded, because I
put myself into those spaces,with growth and with truth and
(12:44):
with circles of truth and withlistening.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
So I want to ask you a question in the midst of this.
This is thank you for sharingall of this, but something you
said along the way that I thinkis so significant, and I want to
dig deeper into what is itabout you, though?
What it is about you that youstayed this course and you've
lived this life of activism, ofhumanitarianism, of creativity,
(13:10):
of art, of fellowship, ofsupport of woman is all of this,
and yet you just spoke a momentago about the numbers from that
very same time who were alsosharing communally and
experiencing all of this, whohave chosen a very different
path and have gone really inopposition.
Yet you didn't.
You have stayed this course,and what is it about?
(13:32):
What is that fire in you, whatis that awareness in you, what
is it in you that is held sotruly and profoundly to this
course?
Speaker 3 (13:46):
and profoundly to this course.
Well, you know, I mean, aquestion like that would have me
pondering for a while, andreally so that I could come up
with a deeper, drilled downanswer to that.
But you know, just my first,I'll just riff off what comes to
me.
You know, I'll just riff offwhat comes to me from my heart,
(14:09):
which is, I know the experienceof being oppressed, I know the
experience of feeling less thanI know the experience of the
history of annihilation ofpeoples, not just the Jewish
(14:32):
people in Germany, but peoplesin general, the indigenous
cultures.
I feel it, I feel it inside.
I happen to have been bornallowed to feel.
My upbringing was one where Iwas allowed to express my
feelings.
(14:52):
I was allowed to understandwhat feelings feel like and how
to express them and how to learnto express them better and
better and better.
I was angry, I was angry andthe anger was on top of a lot of
grief, and the grief is whatyou know the grief, the anger,
(15:18):
as well as the music that I waswith the musicians I was with,
where, you know, you don'tyou've got art and music that
within it is such a pure, a puresense of self-expression and a
(15:40):
pure merging together of humanbeings, regardless of whether
you know like there were issuesoutside of the music that when
people came together to play themusic, the joy and the glory
and the grace of that to be inthat was so profound and so free
(16:06):
.
And the lovins and the be-inswere free.
And also I had the privilegethe white privilege plus the
financial privilege of beingable to go into spaces,
multicultural spaces, and I'llgive you an example of how
simple that was for me, where Iwas given the freedom to be no
(16:36):
holes barred.
I was free, I was accepted, Iwas welcomed and I was free.
And you have that kind of asituation combined with the
heart of you know, the heart ofknowing what it feels like and
(16:56):
then being able to connect thedots of how it must feel like or
does feel like for others.
I don't know.
You know it just was like fuel.
It was fuel for me and I wassuccessful.
My voice was successful.
(17:16):
I made, I got in trouble, I gotpunished, I got banished, but I
was successful too.
And one of the ways in which Ican just give an example of the
kind of space that accepted meand let me be who I was was when
(17:40):
I would visit my father whoworked in downtown LA for a
large transportation company.
The majority of people workingfor the company were people of
color Latino, black.
They were.
You know, it was hundreds ofstaff in his company but he was
(18:00):
the vice president who couldnever be president because he
was Jewish.
That was real.
They'd never make him president, but he could be vice president
all his time at the company andknew it, which was tough, yeah,
but when they would have, and Iwas his daughter, his little
(18:22):
daughter, you know the girl, andI remember going to the picnics
the company picnics or walkingthrough when I got my driver's
license, going to visit him fromSherman Oaks to downtown LA,
which by then was not what it istoday.
It was the other side of thetracks and when I would come in,
(18:42):
everybody in my father was sobeloved, everybody would go
there's Joe Joe's daughter,there's Joe Wolf's daughter, and
they I could go.
I could be off on my ownthrough the company picnics,
walking from blanket to blanketand getting to know people, and
they welcomed me because my dad,they knew with my father that
(19:06):
he knew also what they weregoing through.
Having worked the candy counterat a Negro I put that in quotes
theater.
He was told you do not ever,ever be rude, never to our
(19:34):
clientele.
You never be rude, you alwaystreat everyone with respect.
So he learned that back in the40s.
Plus he was on a team, so hehad that connection, and plus he
was a stuntman, so he had thatconnection with many different
(19:55):
kinds of people.
So my father had a huge heartand these people knew they could
trust my father, understoodwhere they were coming from and
would stand up for them.
So it was like you know, if Ihad any answer at this point to
that, it's that everythingcolluded in my life to give me
(20:17):
more and more and more courageto raise my voice, and my mom
really instilled that in me, ohyeah, you know, having been
married at 17 and not everhaving found herself then
(20:40):
finding herself in the 1960s inthe women's blasted movement,
where you learn your sexualitythe entire time.
She was married and thendiscovered it with a lover, like
my grandmother, her mother hadwith a lover.
(21:03):
So you know, we were, and westill are, a family, apart from
the majority of people, and somepeople are afraid of us because
it's threatening.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
I want you to adopt me as well.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
And other than that, this house we live in, it's
filled with people a lot of thetime who just hang out young,
old, yeah.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
So I have to say, just listening to everything
you've shared, there's so manypieces that I want to talk about
and you know, I did do someresearch before we got together
today and I am just well, I'mfascinated with everything you
said said like I'd love to beadopted, to be raised around a
woman who has a voice and hasexperienced so much and is
(22:04):
willing to share that not onlythrough words, but through your
art, through your photography.
Just amazing, and I couldimagine.
I know you have at least adaughter.
I know you have at least adaughter and I can imagine what
(22:34):
that would be like, kind ofknowing be-ins.
I was born in the late 60s butwhat I've heard about it just
seems like a phenomenal time.
But I'm wondering, how do you,I guess, wrap your head around,
I'm gonna say, all that crapthat you witnessed and
experienced and thinking?
(22:54):
The answers were there, therewas love and there was hope and
there was joy and there was endof war and there was acceptance.
And how do you wrap your headaround what's happening today?
Speaker 3 (23:11):
Well, first of all, I can't wrap my head around it.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
First of all, I can't wrap my head around it, yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
There's no way to wrap your head around it.
(23:36):
It's like I don't think even thebest thinkers in the world can
do much but create some form ofan analysis that goes back to
okay, this started in a longtime ago.
I mean, I just spent two daysin a undoing racism workshop and
we were given the history thatI don't think I ever put
(23:56):
together.
It was like pieces of it I knew, but not like the fact that
white, you know, we talk aboutrace being a construct, a very
painful reality, but a construct, and that the white race was
actually constructed from ourEuropean, from who we were as
(24:18):
Europeans.
We weren't white in Europe, wewere Europeans and we have paid
a tremendous cost to importraces, to import to, to create
racism and import racism.
And and we basically to createracism and import racism.
And basically it feels as though400 years of racism back to
(24:44):
Jonestown, when Pocahontas was achild, stolen in order to gain
a foothold by the English inland and to start exploiting and
try to, you know, wipe NativeAmericans out of the United
(25:04):
States, which wasn't even theUnited States, it was colonies
then.
I mean, it just goes back sofar, this power over by
necessity that other peopleconsider necessity, workers,
money, land and to create theseseparations between us, and it's
(25:28):
basically that is what is stillhappening.
I mean, I think a tremendousamount of this is about racism.
Yeah still happening.
I mean, I think a tremendousamount of this is about racism.
Yeah, and how I, how I livewith that, because we've only
been living with this for abouttwo or three weeks now, as bad
as it is.
(25:49):
So I think all of us are justgoing, wow, how am I going to
walk?
How am I going to pick up mygrandson today and not just want
to sob?
How am I going to hold myself?
(26:10):
What am I going to do?
And so you know, it comes to meand my friends and my family,
and especially one of mydaughters who's pregnant, who
cannot tolerate going into allof the conversations that I
would go in with her oh, did youhear this?
And oh, have you heard that?
And what about this?
(26:30):
They're right now happening sofast and furiously.
The only thing I can come to atthis stage of the game, three
weeks in, is I have to do what Ican, locally, with the people I
love Stand up, continue tostand up and speak out wherever
(26:50):
I feel it and am safe enough todo it.
Consider that I must be with myfriends.
I cannot listen to the play byplay throughout the day.
I can't do it.
I would.
There's no way we can hold thisin our minds, in our hearts
(27:14):
it's like it's in there can holdthis in our minds, in our
hearts.
It's like it's in there, butit's going to.
What gives me hope and I knowhope is a difficult word.
I would say I'm optimistic.
Hope, it's kind of a hopelessword for me on the on the level
of the word try.
Hopeless word for me on thelevel of the word try trying.
(27:37):
I used to teach my daughterstry to pick up that glass of
water, try to pick it up.
And they'd reach for it andpick it up.
I'd say no, just try to pick itup.
You never quite reach it whenyou're trying.
And hope is the you know, as Ihad been educated to understand
was the greatest evil inPandora's box, the heaviest that
(28:02):
never got out of the boxBecause it was so heavy.
Because hope, living in hope,is almost to me like trying,
whereas living with optimism issomething I can wholeheartedly
embrace.
I can be optimistic, and I amoptimistic even in the face of
(28:25):
fires and horrors that we livewith right now, even knowing
that eventually the sun's goingto burn it all out.
We're all going, the planet'sgoing, you know.
So I can still live withoptimism every single day and
find it all over.
But I don't know.
(28:47):
I mean, I hope things work out,but to me it's more of a I
don't know, it's more of a word.
That is kind of like prayer.
It's kind of like a prayer andsince I don't believe in a
(29:07):
religion, the prayer that I seeand I do pray is that, wow, I
know that seed I'm going toplant in my garden is going to
sprout beets and we're going toeat them.
I know it's going to be there.
I know that it may be worse insummer than it's always been
(29:34):
before.
Because of fires and smoke wemight not be able to get out of
the house, but I know that it's.
I know that this is this, thisis going to those.
That tree outside is going to,it's going to leaf out.
Now, that gives me hope, or itgives me hope, um, that when my
(29:56):
grandson comes over, I will beable to put on a different movie
than the crap that he might seesomewhere else yeah I mean, it
gives me hope to see him smileand laugh.
What doesn't give me hope?
Well, what gives me hope ishope is that he's in a family
and a group of people and a citythat represents what we stand
(30:23):
for and that we can teach him.
That gives me hope.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Yeah, yeah, it was said to me today.
I was speaking with somebodyelse earlier today.
I was speaking with somebodyelse earlier today and she just
(31:02):
said that when the macro view isso heavy and so hard, we do
have hope or joy or whatever theword is that we want to put
there, but that thing whichsustains and excuse me and
allows us to keep moving forward.
And I thought, well, yes, andso your grandson clearly is part
of that for you Like how, whatcan we?
How can we shift perspective inany moment and bring forward
(31:24):
really the richness that makesthis life right now livable?
Because, to your earlier point,if we're just in that space of
the nightmares, then what are weeven doing?
Why are we even doing this?
Speaker 3 (31:41):
Well, we're crippled by that If we stay there.
We're crippled I've used thatword is.
I'm now friends with a womanwho they make well, they live on
(32:04):
Bainbridge and she's been doingcommunity dinners at a local
church.
She's Jewish, it's a church, itdoesn't matter, but we do local
community dinners the secondTuesday of every month and so my
husband and I go to help cookthe community dinner, and it's
(32:27):
organic vegetables from a localfarm friend.
It's Helpline, which is what wehave here for people who don't
(32:48):
have enough money to buy food orthey are in need, which I've
even used myself from time totime, and you can pay whatever
you want, and we cook together,we talk together and people come
and we eat together, and that'sreally where we're creating
community.
I told you I want you guys tointerview Heather yeah, because
you will hear more.
(33:09):
She stands on my shoulders Forher.
It's all about creatingcommunity folk, uh, folk
community and people communityand nature community and healing
communities.
So I mean, that's where I getthrough this, this is where I
(33:35):
get through this.
This is where I get throughthis and then gosh, you know,
being able to have a family thathas done the work of the teen
talking circles that I createdback when they were little, to
have a family who actually docompassionate listening with
each other so that we can havehealthy, loving relationships
(33:59):
where we're not running awayfrom our issues.
I mean that in itself is justlike, oh my gosh, that keeps me
going To not have all thesehorrible arguments or divorces.
I mean my ex-husband I call himmy husband to be able to
(34:21):
continue hearing each other.
That's a tremendous gift.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
I will just say, linda, by training I am a
licensed marriage and familytherapist, so I love to hear
that being able to raise yourchildren with that compassionate
listening and speaking is huge.
And I want to go looking atyour history.
(34:48):
I was looking at your, thatbrief, your, your brief
portfolio.
I guess you know and readingabout the caravan that you were
part of and how very cool thatyour friend called you and said
get here and take some pictures.
But I was drawn just looking atall of your pictures and again
(35:09):
thinking about where we aretoday and seeing the same things
going on.
And then my memory ofBainbridge Island, which I just
adore.
I know Donna shared that we'vespent some time in Bainbridge
Island.
The last time I was there, justa couple of years ago, I
finally went to the JapaneseAmerican internment memorial.
(35:32):
That's there.
I finally my aunt took me and Igot to experience that and I
couldn't help but just kind ofput all these pieces together of
you and your breathe.
Oh, go ahead, I'm listening.
Okay, I'm back.
(36:05):
Yeah, the breathe, californiaand Idaho and elsewhere.
And then today, what's going ontoday?
And you're talking about howyou hold out this piece of hope,
even kind of, in this chaos,when all of this stuff is going
on.
And I guess I'm just I kind ofwant to see how it all threads
together for you yourhumanitarian work, your efforts
(36:29):
with the caravan in Mexico, thenonprofits you started, the
mother-daughter group and theteen talking circle, which I'm
totally drawn to.
You know I want to like bringto my students who are
counselors out in the, you know,all around the country right
now, and I just kind of want tohear you talk about how you've,
(36:49):
I guess, gone from one to thenext and how you weave it all
together and just yeah, becauseI'm just floored by what you do
kind of humanitarily.
Well, thank, you.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
I'm going to take you to my other room because I have
a beautiful, supportive,glorious husband who is in need
of lunch, and I'm going to.
I'm going to get out of thedining room and go into our, my
bedroom, so I can actually andif I lose you I'll call you back
, but I think this should work.
(37:21):
Enjoy your lunch, eric.
Thank you.
Eric, but I don't want to keephim from from.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
In that room, so I didn't even realize what time it
was.
So he's probably starving.
Anyway, if you ever do this asa video, you'll have two rooms
now.
So the question was how did Iweave all these things?
Speaker 2 (37:51):
together, like it seems.
Somebody could look at you andsay, oh, she has this career as
a photographer, that's one pieceof it.
But oh my gosh, she's got thiscareer as this humanitarian and
she's got this career in thekind of nonprofit world of
really raising up daughters, andit's like somebody who had
(38:13):
three different lifetimes.
But you've woven them alltogether and I guess I would
love to just hear how you do allof that.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
Wow, desperation, I don't know.
I mean it's kind of like my, Isuppose.
I mean I was going to give youa ridiculous answer.
Like my, the kitchen chairs andat our dining table are all
different and before my husbandcame, every plate was different
and I don't like being in thesame place a lot.
(38:43):
I don't like eating the samething for breakfast every day.
I don't know, I mean.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
I don't know.
I mean because of all of theways in which they all interact.
You know they're all interwoven, it's all interrelated.
There isn't a way to separatethem out.
Each one affects the otherauthentically, in, in in the
truth of who you are, that youare compelled to to do where,
(39:33):
where it is that you're led andwhere you feel you can, you can
make a difference, or that itcan exactly the right thing to
do.
That.
Speaker 3 (39:41):
I hear that and what you're sharing they're all
interconnected, right, it's asystemic interconnection that we
have learned about in quantumphysics and in every aspect.
If we took it and looked at itand mapped it out, they're all
integrated, they're allinterrelated.
(40:02):
It's just like with racism.
You take the barrio, you takethe reservation, you take the
ghetto, you take thosecommunities and then around
those communities you've gotinsurance, you've got
environmental racism, you've gotschools that are education,
(40:27):
you've got all of the, everyaspect of life.
It's all integrated.
You cannot really separate oneout from the other.
So I just don't, I just go okay, what's up now?
Yeah, what's hurting?
Where is it?
(40:47):
I need to learn.
When Neva Welton and I did thebook Global Uprising, which you
know, about confronting thetyrannies of the 21st century,
stories of a new generation ofactivists for teenagers the book
is for, we didn't know a lot ofthese.
(41:07):
We were part of the WTOplanning committee, but that was
because I had a boyfriend atthe time who was part of the WTO
planning committee and he wasturning us on to all of this
stuff.
Noam Chomsky to, you know allof them.
(41:31):
We went to them and said, look,we're doing this for teenagers.
Silence about this in you know,our own world.
We knew we're doing it for usKnow what it is, so could you
just tell it like you would toan eighth grader, because that's
who we are.
We're the eighth grader we don'tknow about what you know, what
(41:54):
do I know about sweatshop labor,you know, etc.
So, um, yeah, you know, it'sall about what?
I guess my growing edge, whereis my growing edge?
And then also, at some pointsthere's, I know, I want to, I
(42:15):
know, I want to contradict,saying that it's all racists.
I mean, it's all, uh, um, gangmembers and criminals in these
caravans.
And and then, lucky me, mysister-in-law has lived in
Mexico City for 30 years and isthe head of an organization she
(42:40):
founded for women and familiesin migration.
So through her I knew more thanI would have ever known if I
didn't know her.
And she said look, you know, ifyou want to show that it isn't
(43:01):
criminals, come now and you knowall the other things that I've
been involved in.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
I would say Anyway, I guess I've said enough.
I feel like we're just touchingthe surface and that I could
talk to you for hours and hours.
I'm so appreciating everythingyou're sharing and I want to
(43:31):
hear more, and there are so manyuntouched threads.
Part of what I'm hearing andI'd love you to speak on a
little bit is I want to honoryour time also is what I'm
trying to say and I know that weonly have so much time but from
the earliest days like againlistening to your documentary,
reading about you, readinginformation about you what I'm
struck with.
Take, for example, your timewith Fanny and going on and
(43:54):
doing the photography and livingwith and you just, so easily,
it seems, said yes to each ofthese opportunities that came
your way.
You just said yes and thenfigured it out.
You spoke to it a little bitearlier, based on that
foundation you had with yourmother in particular, but also
your father.
But can I ask you just thatquestion to speak on that a
(44:17):
little bit more?
What is it that drives you orenables you to say the yes?
How does that happen?
And is it as simple as just sayyes and figure it out later?
And is it as?
Speaker 3 (44:29):
simple as just say yes and figure it out later yeah
, it is, it is, and actuallyHeather was saying that recently
in terms of her writing andperforming.
She's opening for a reallyfabulous act in July and she
only just in the last 10 yearsdevoted herself to music.
So here's a 40-year year oldwoman who keeps saying yes.
(44:50):
So basically what she's sayingis yes, but now she has to grow
to meet the yes, yes, yes, andit's somehow.
There's a self confidence and,believe me, I have struggled for
my self-confidence.
I have struggled for myself-confidence.
(45:12):
I'm 70.
I'm 75 this year.
That's the reward for decadesof struggling with
self-confidence.
Because how could one not?
I'm a woman, I was a girl.
Yeah, I mean, we got it fromevery angle.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:30):
And still are.
Yes, I mean we got it from everyangle and still are.
So I think I've had enoughsuccesses and I've had enough
support, financial, as well asfamily and friends and
colleagues.
(45:50):
Um, family and friends andcolleagues and I was in the
right place at the right time inlos angeles, especially with
fanny and joe cocker, whereby Igot a free ride to some extent,
(46:20):
or a free pass or an all-accesspass.
Because of that, yeah, becausepeople doors open for people who
, yeah, it really does make adifference.
If I tell people, even at the Imean literally no matter where I
go, no matter what I've done,the thing usually that stands
out the most is oh, you were oneof the first female rock and
(46:43):
roll photographers.
Wow, it's cool, it's cool.
(47:16):
And I think one of the reasonsthat it is cool is not just
because of the fame aspect orthe money aspect, but is, I mean
, the excitement of beinginvolved on large stages, with
big music, with music issomething that all of us, it's
like air, it's water, it's oneof the elements that is just our
bodies, our souls, our minds,everything.
And having had that privilege,really, and having those friends
(47:59):
and knowing somehow, I mean tothink that the seed of my entry
into everything that I've becomestarted with music.
It started with the drifters upon the roof expressing my
loneliness.
It started with Bob Dylan andhis first album, maggie's farm,
understanding a little bit aboutracism.
It started with king b with therolling stones and finding my
(48:23):
sexuality just like pop up.
Whoa, I'm hot.
I meant to to meet Mick Jaggerat 14 because I snuck backstage
to meet my idol.
I just said yes and fall againsthis chest and look up at him
like, oh my God, it's you.
Well, from that point on, whowas going to keep me away from
(48:44):
being backstage?
Speaker 1 (48:47):
Amen to that.
Speaker 3 (48:47):
Yeah, amen to that.
Yeah, you know, it's just.
I just was in some ways theright time, right right time,
right place, and I just keptsaying, okay, I'm, I'm going to
keep on keeping on.
Yeah, yeah, and you keptthrough the doors.
I mean it was like, oh, there'sthat, sure, let me go on
keeping on.
Speaker 1 (49:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:09):
Yeah, and you kept through the doors.
I mean it was like, oh, there'sthat, sure, let me go.
There's that, yep, I'm going tojump on the plane and get there
.
I mean I don't know what it wasthat had you go to France for
those five years.
But, like amazing, you're ayoung woman and you're like, yep
, I'm going to leave the country.
You know, that's just that'swhat I want for my own daughter,
(49:30):
who's 20 right now.
That's how I want her to greetthe world.
You know, that's what I'mhoping to pass on to her.
Speaker 1 (49:38):
And what's your modeling?
Speaker 3 (49:40):
I'm trying, I'm trying.
It sounds like it and this isone way you know, just like with
my books.
This is how I educated mydaughters.
Speaker 2 (49:48):
I don't know how old your daughter is.
How old is she?
Speaker 3 (49:55):
She's 20 now.
My daughter is 20 now.
Yeah Well, this is how Ieducated them is just to keep
bringing them into the spaceswhere people are talking like
this or where they're going toget this kind of information.
Speaker 2 (50:01):
Yeah, that's important, very important to me.
Speaker 1 (50:04):
Bringing them into the conversation.
I love that.
That's so worth reiterating.
And I also want to reiterate athing you said a moment ago,
which was grow to meet the.
Yes, I think you know Kirk,producer Kirk, as we put this
information out there, that's atag that we for sure are
including grow to meet the.
Yes, I think that's such animportant one.
All right, so this beautifullife lived, and so much more to
(50:27):
come.
You've taken advantage of somuch.
So let's go back to when you'relike before that 14 year old,
let's say 12, 13.
That girl, that girl, if shewere talking to you right now,
what would, what would she haveto say?
What would she think about thisand where you are and who you
(50:48):
are?
What would be her words to you?
Do you think?
Oh, wow.
Speaker 3 (51:02):
The 12-year-old would have said oh yeah, makes sense.
The 13-year-old would have the13-year-old would have Might not
(51:28):
have ever believed it might nothave ever believed it.
The 12-year-old oh yeah, youknow the 10-year-old.
The 11-year-old just free andbeautiful and just beginning to
(51:48):
sense that she wasn't blonde,straight-haired and thin.
And a 13-year-old would havebeen unable to throw up or be
bulimic or anorexic, justcontinue to eat until she was so
(52:14):
sick to her stomach.
She would cry, then cry untilshe was done and be so lost,
absolutely lost.
The 13-year-old I don't know ifshe would have ever believed
that I could be who I am today.
Speaker 1 (52:37):
And yet she's the one who then took the next step and
got you here.
She did, she found it Well, shebecame the 14-year-old and the
15 year old, and so on so yousee, as I told you, I know what
it feels like yeah to feel umsuicidal without being suicidal
(53:06):
I understand that I do.
Speaker 3 (53:09):
And that the pain is so profound and so shameful that
the shame is so shameful, yeah,so horrible you don't want to
(53:30):
have youriter overeater.
And I got more and more angry.
A lot of that also was becausemy mom was blonde,
straight-haired, thin andbeautiful and when and compared
(53:51):
to her at 13 not at 12, but at13 I was not any of those things
and therefore I couldn't pass.
I couldn't pass, yeah, and thatwas really important to me, and
it was also she, also my mom,bless her heart and all the love
(54:12):
that she and all the supportshe's given me.
She knew it, you could see it.
It wasn't as though it could behidden at home and she was an
earth mother, making me feel,you know, having some other way
to deal with it.
It was.
It was all too obvious inHollywood, in Los Angeles, that
I didn't have what she had.
(54:35):
So that was awful, that waspainful and it lasted.
That went on all our livestogether.
She was always apologetic aboutit.
She was always apologetic aboutit.
Even her psychiatrist told her.
You know your daughter's goingto be angry with you through no
(54:56):
fault of your own.
And we had a really toughrelationship because I was angry
about that, that I couldn't beher.
I couldn't go through life thateasily.
But that's what made me who Iam, is that I couldn't go
through life that easily.
But that's what made me who Iam, is that I couldn't go
through life that easily.
Yeah, I had to find another wayto go through life.
Speaker 2 (55:18):
Yeah, and your story is so inspirational.
When things just come easy,it's like, oh, that's really
kind of cool.
But even hearing more of thestruggle you had before you got
(55:39):
to, kind of the stuff that weknew about, you know from
reading on your website and thebooks and that sort of thing, I
don't know it's even moreinspirational to me.
So I think there is.
I'm excited to share your storywith my daughter and with other
young women, I know, because Ithink, especially with the
events of the world, it needs tobe heard.
But I guess I want to ask youthen, because I think Donna and
(56:02):
I are both probably veryinspired by you and we're
looking at you as this75-year-old woman who's like, oh
my God, yeah, I want toaccomplish that, I want to meet
the.
Yes, I have to figure out howto meet that.
Yes, who, I guess?
Who do you get inspired by?
Speaker 3 (56:20):
Oh, wow, so many people.
It can be so many differentkinds of people in terms of
public, people who I mean?
Geez, oh my gosh.
You know I want to bridge 13,14, 15, 16.
(56:44):
I want to go back to therebecause people that inspired me
Back then.
None of these people werefamous, none of them had cut
record deals.
We were all living in LA and at14, after I met, after I found a
friend who, if it would havebeen the punk era, we both would
(57:08):
have been punks together, butwe were both the freaks.
The freaks were after the, thefreaks were before the hippies,
Flower children, then freaks,then hippies, then peace freaks.
I mean, it goes, it's.
There's a whole, like you know,a whole life of it.
(57:28):
Anyway, trina Lopresti was hername and she had long black hair
like this and she was very thinand she was very gaunt and she
and I would eat lunch togetherin.
It was in high school, I guessthe first year of high school we
(57:49):
met and it must have beenearlier than that.
It must have been middle school, because I was 14 when we went
to the Tammy show and we snuckbackstage, so it was middle
school, but she was my hope, ifthere was such a thing, because
the two of us together I wasn'talone anymore.
Speaker 1 (58:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (58:09):
And we both loved the Rolling Stones.
We both loved thecounterculture that was just
starting to burgeon.
We both wanted out of ourfamilies.
We both were bad girls together.
It led me to Hollywood where Iwould hitchhike your daughter
(58:32):
might find a better way to dothis, but I would.
Back then it was pretty safe tohitchhike from the San Fernando
Valley into Hollywood passes,to the Hollywood Bowl, to
meeting a boyfriend at 16 wholived in a big commune where
(58:57):
Jackson Browne lived, and I knowyou're familiar with Jackson
Browne's music.
Jackson was not a famous personat the time, he was only 17 and
a half, and I had quite an eventwith my first love, which I
don't need to go into.
But that night I spent on theend of Jackson's bed as he
(59:20):
played all night long practicinghis music through Jackson and
through my boyfriend at the timeand another boyfriend.
I just kept navigating througha world of beautiful people
(59:42):
playing music, but I didn't haveanything that was mine and it
wasn't a point where I'd metFanny or thought that I could.
I could play the music or singor do something myself which
your daughter can do now youknow much more easily than I met
(01:00:12):
who inspired me to meeting JuneMillington and then living with
Fanny, and then my world justwas opened to everything,
because I met a group of girlswho were each one devoted,
devoted and committed anddisciplined.
Yeah, and that was when mywhole world changed and I
(01:00:42):
thought, well, if Jackson can doit because now he's getting his
record deal, and if I meanbecause he was just a guy I knew
, and if Fanny can do it, I cando it.
And that was a very pivotal,pivotal moment for me.
There, that moment was was oneof the most pivotal moments for
(01:01:06):
me.
And then, as an adult, one ofthe most pivotal moments for me
that changed my life was backwhen I was in my forties and I
looked.
I was going through a horribledivorce um, not in the sense
that we didn't love each otheranymore, but just that we didn't
love each other and want to betogether and the betrayal of a
(01:01:28):
man.
And I finally realized thatnobody was going to love me till
the day I died but me, couldn'tcount on anyone to be there for
me until the day I die exceptfor me.
And if that was true, that I'mthe only one that can be there
(01:01:51):
for me till the day I die, Ihave to be my own beloved,
because if I'm not my ownbeloved, what am I doing?
And then that was a pivotalmoment that also changed my life
.
So the change when I realizedif they can do it, I can do it.
(01:02:12):
Yeah, so those are two momentsthat were like my come to jesus
moments, you know, and changedmy life.
Thank, you.
Speaker 1 (01:02:28):
Thank you so much, gorgeous.
Every, every word of that,thank you.
That's beautiful.
That was worth everything rightthere, just profound, all right
.
So I know that we're up againstthe hour and I know that you
have another commitment and wedon't want to, we don't want to
(01:02:48):
overstay our welcome, are youokay?
If we do our, we jump into whatwe call our rapid fire.
They're not really that rapidfire, but just a little series
of questions that are fun and wejust come whatever comes first
to your and we'll just gothrough those, is that?
Speaker 3 (01:03:03):
all right with you.
I'm I'm so honored that thatyou're doing this with me and I
just appreciate it so much.
I appreciate being invited, Ijust love it.
So thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:03:17):
Thank you.
I mean, the honor is ours andwe're just so, so grateful that
you've taken this time, and I'veloved every moment of this,
truly truly.
I'm going to weep.
This is just so gorgeous toconnect with you and hear all
that you have to share.
I'm taking it all in straightto my heart.
(01:03:39):
Thank you so much.
All right, sis, I'm emotional.
You go ahead, start thequestions.
Start the questions.
Speaker 3 (01:03:44):
Good, I love that.
Yeah, get emotional.
Speaker 2 (01:03:47):
Kind of like you know , when the politician walks onto
the stage and they have theirwalk-in song, what is your
walk-in song?
Speaker 3 (01:03:55):
Oh boy, jeez.
Oh my God song.
Oh boy, um geez.
Oh my walk-in song, oh my god.
The one that comes to my mindis probably one that I would
(01:04:16):
never have come to my mind.
These boots were made forwalking and that's just what
they'll do but I wouldn't one ofthese days.
These boots are gonna fall overyour, the shitty thing you're
doing, all right, what bookchanged?
You uh catcher in the rye.
Speaker 1 (01:04:38):
Good one.
Speaker 2 (01:04:40):
What movie lives rent free in your brain?
Speaker 3 (01:04:44):
Well of the graduate, but I'd have to say right now,
the Perfect Days, Perfect Days.
Speaker 2 (01:04:55):
Oh excellent.
Speaker 3 (01:04:56):
That's a recent one, but I'd say the graduate
graduate, oh cool, um.
Speaker 1 (01:05:02):
What did you love doing as a kid that you love
doing to this day?
Playing piano.
Speaker 2 (01:05:08):
Oh, you're a pianist as well that's a big word for
what I do if you can make a tuneon the piano, you are a pianist
in my eyes, so I have a playerpiano, so it just does it for me
.
But what in your world islighting you up right now?
Speaker 3 (01:05:32):
um, well geez, my grandson, probably the most, and
my daughters and my husband.
But I have a daughter who's nowpregnant again and I know how I
was singing love songs on myway for the last baby after he
(01:05:53):
was born.
But I have an extraordinarilybeautiful grandson with hair
down to the middle of his backand he is just just mwah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:06:05):
Yeah, lots of light, that's gorgeous, all right.
Well, maybe we can substitutethe word optimism rather than
hope here.
What color is optimism?
Speaker 3 (01:06:17):
Ooh, it'd be rainbow.
Speaker 1 (01:06:20):
Ah, love it.
Speaker 2 (01:06:23):
And so we usually start with like you know hope
through, you know how do yougain hope.
So your hope is through, soyour optimism is through what
People like you.
Oh, thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:06:40):
I'm taking that deep in my heart right now.
I promise you, oh, thank you.
I'm taking that deep in myheart right now.
I promise you, yeah, okay, themeaning of life is.
Speaker 3 (01:06:50):
The meaning of life, death.
Speaker 1 (01:06:57):
Wow, yeah, wow, we could talk an hour on that one.
Wow, go ahead.
No, no, bring it on home sis.
Speaker 2 (01:07:12):
Our last question.
And we say hope, Hope is what?
And if you want to substituteoptimism, we can do that.
So hope is.
Speaker 3 (01:07:28):
Hope is a faith that something we're longing for can
happen.
Yeah, yeah.
It's more than a faith.
It's a prayer.
Hope is a prayer that somethingthat we're longing for will
happen.
Speaker 2 (01:07:49):
Yeah, I like that and that is.
I am very hopeful right now asI long for some certain things
to happen coming up here and Iwill continue hope and I love
that you have been willing toshare this time with us and I'm
(01:08:11):
probably going to do a deeperdive into some of your work and
I want to get up to BainbridgeIsland again.
I will find you on the islandsomewhere, the small island.
Speaker 1 (01:08:21):
Yeah, I bet you you're running across our auntie
up there all the time, actually, because it is a small.
It's a small community up thereand you would love her.
She's a lovely person.
Speaker 3 (01:08:31):
It's your auntie.
Speaker 1 (01:08:33):
Her name is Sue, she has a little well, she had a
shop in Pike market for yearsand years and years where she
hand painted children's clothingand it was just lovely.
And now she's doing her artwork.
She calls it.
My Second Life is Now and sheand her husband basically like
(01:08:56):
built their little, like rebuilttheir home themselves their own
two little hands.
She makes textures.
She's anyway, she's just alovely, lovely woman of of your
era also, and just one of thebest people I know, just a good,
good person in the world.
She and her husband alike arejust beautiful.
Speaker 3 (01:09:15):
I look forward to you coming to Bainbridge and and
having a meal with us.
Speaker 2 (01:09:21):
Oh, my goodness, yes.
Speaker 1 (01:09:22):
Exceptionally grand.
Linda, thank you so much.
We look forward to talking withyour daughter.
Perhaps we'll have moreconversations.
There's so much richness totalk about here and your
openness.
We're so grateful for that.
Thank you for being with us andour soul histories.
Speaker 3 (01:09:42):
Thank you and do please know.
What I've done with my life isnot who I am.
Yes, I hear that who I am isyou, we.
(01:10:04):
You know we are being what wehave to be in order to get
through this period of time.
Speaker 1 (01:10:15):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (01:10:16):
So all of us are doing good work.
We're doing the work we do yes,so much.
Speaker 1 (01:10:24):
Beautiful you, Linda, take good care.
We send you off with so muchlove and light and look forward
to future conversations.
Speaker 3 (01:10:33):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (01:10:35):
Take care-bye.
Speaker 2 (01:10:38):
Thanks for joining us today on Soul Sisteries.
Speaker 1 (01:10:40):
And thanks for sharing stories with us.
We'd love to hear your storiesas well and keep the
conversation going, absolutelykeeping the hope going.
So we're really hopeful thatyou'll connect with our guests
as well, who have great storiesto share.
Go ahead and follow them invarious social media platforms
or live venues, wherever it isthat they're performing and
(01:11:05):
sharing what they do.
Speaker 2 (01:11:06):
We would love to have you follow us on all of our
social media platforms,subscribe and rate, as that will
help us get our message of hopeout to others.
Thanks for listening to SoulSisteries.
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