Divas Part Three
It is time for Diva Thursday. It was 64 years ago last night that we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. On August 6, 1930, Judge Crater got into a taxi and was never seen again. This is the birthday of Lucille Ball (1911), Andy Warhol (1928), and Jon Benet Ramsey (1990). On the first Hiroshima day, Major Bong, ace pilot, was killed while testing a P80 jet.
The first of four divas for today is Joni Mitchell. Born Roberta Joan Anderson on November 7, 1943, she is famously Canadian. The wife of Chuck Mitchell is very much alive today, despite years of chain smoking. All four of today’s divas grace the earth with their presence.
One night in 1976, PG took a study break ( he scored 100 on the test the next day). Joni Mitchell was playing at the UGA coliseum a few blocks away, and the door was not watched after the show started. PG found a place to stand, on the first level of the stands. The LA express was her band that night, and created a tight, jazzy sound. The one line PG remembers is “chicken scratching my way to immortality” from “Hejira”.
The next diva is Etta James. She was born Jamesetta Hawkins on January 25, 1938. PG has no clue how the stage name came about. She was portrayed by Beyonce’ in a recent movie, and Miss James was not pleased.
The next voice on the cd is Francoise Hardy. Francoise Madeleine Hardy was born 17 January 1944 in Paris. There are probably some good stories, but the lady has the grace to keep them out of wikipedia.
This is a four diva thursday, and the last part is Carole King. She was born Carole Klein in Brooklyn February 9, 1942. Three of the four divas today were War Babies, with one born under Nazi occupation. They went on to be popular in the sixties, when the saying was make love, not war. According to Pat Paulson, in France our soldiers did both.
Carole King has had an interesting life, sometimes in the chinese curse sense. There is a book, Girls Like Us, about Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon. All three knew James Taylor. When Mr. Taylor made a tour, after hitting the bigtime, his piano player was Carole King. She sang a couple of songs, and was what people talked about the next day.
Soon “Tapestry” was released, and sold an obscene amount of copies. Miss King was never able to duplicate that success. She still performs sometimes, and still has the power.
Chamblee54 
Peirs:
Hooray for Diva Thursday and common ground… Etta & Carol in one place at one time is a “YEE HAW” moment for me.
On to Big Boy:
Thank you for reminding me of this deadly and despicable act of the US (Republican McCarthyism) politicians. Let’s also remember our great nation’s actions during this “war to end all wars” in regard to the Americans of Japanese (and subsequently all Asians) decent being stripped of all Civil Rights, Property Rights and forced into prison camps on US soil.
Let’s not forget the thousands of tragic human deaths, the families of those grieving for life lost on ideology on all sides of the conflict that know that there is no gain from war unless you measure it by the obscene increase in wealth of the US political industrialist. The result is the exact “industrial/military complex” that “give ‘em hell” Ike Eisenhower told us about and we ignored.
I could rant for hours about the social engineering by the government causing the destruction of the American Family that this “industrial/military complex” reality created in Rosy-the-Riveter providing some economic power to women, forcing urban development and creating the Orwellian Big Brother government that exists today. Manufacturing and real productivity distracted Americans from seeing clearly the corporate assault on family farming and small local businesses shaping life, as we know it today, into an impersonal throwaway culture with massive consumption being the measure of success in US. The obscene government intrusion into free American life created the homogenized, centrally educated (indoctrinated) population of mindless sheep who gave us the CIA George H W Bush and “Dumb as a box of rocks” George W Bush twice just to add insult to injury.
I would pray that anyone who has read to this point would take a minute and understand, on an individual level, how much these current wars drive the Feds to print more money to be poured into the industrial/military machine being fed by a mortgage on a future war-fed economy is an addictive habit of politicians in the USA. Stop the madness.