[Capstan]

Hurrah, we have a new VB Star, Joan Kennedy! This celebrity's interview will go through Sept. 2nd. It's time to grill Joan, until she's well-done!

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-Please ask only a few questions at a time, so everyone has a chance to participate. (You can come back often to ask more questions!)

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NOTE- If you'd like to read about our previous Stars (they go back several years,) all of their interviews are archived in the Meet Outstanding Users forum!

Some essential information about Joan:

Quote:

Real first name? Joan

-Age? 61.

-Sex/Gender Identity? Born and still identify as female.

-Relationship status? In a full-time relationship with a man.

-Location (as specific as you are comfortable being)? Loudoun County, Virginia, US.

-Religious beliefs (or lack thereof)? Atheist-leaning agnostic. I don't believe in God but I could be wrong about that, but I don't think so.

-Political leanings? Left.

-Are you a vegetarian, vegan or raw foodist (or something else)? I'm l/o vegetarian. Like most vegetarians I know, I eat like a vegan at home and like a vegetarian when I'm out.

-What is the meaning behind your username? I can be combative and sarcastic in online debates, and I use my given name as a way of trying to keep my disagreeable streak in check. Giving up anonymity isn't enough, of course, but it helps a bit.

-Have you ever met anyone famous? When I was in college I shared a cab in Manhattan with the reporter Bob Woodward, from LaGuardia Airport to mid-town Manhattan. Watergate wouldn't break for another several months, and my school was part of his Metro beat on the Washington Post. He asked me if anything newsworthy had gone down on my campus, and I told him about a big food fight in one of the cafeterias...

Famous in folk music circles, which I know isn't the same thing as actually famous: I've met Josh Joplin, Tom Paxton, Priscilla Herdman, David Maloney, Ginny Reilly and Hugh Moffat. More artists than that, I'm just trying to think of the ones people here might have heard of. I met Kris Kristofferson once, in that he was being interviewed online and gave a detailed and thoughtful answer to a question I'd submitted. That probably doesn't count, but it did mean a lot to me.

-Do you live with any companion animals?

A mean old cat. He might be senile, it's hard to tell.

-Do you live with any companion humans? A darling banjo player I've been involved with since the 1990s. We're only just now trying to live together.

-Where is your favorite place that you have visited?

The Rocky Mountains, in a trip that took in Lake Louise in Alberta and Glacier National Park in Montana.

-What do you enjoy most about being veg*n? Being able to eat until I'm full without putting on weight.

-With whom would you most love to have dinner? Louie CK.

-Do you have any secret talents? More a disorder than a talent, but I write songs and sometimes sing them in public.

-What dish/recipe can you make that knocks people's socks off? Lentil soup! That sounds plain and spartan, but with a coconut milk base and a bunch of potent root vegetables it's pretty rich. Also, the aforementioned seitan sausage gets raves now that I know what I'm doing, and sometimes I put them in the lentil soup.

-What's your favorite restaurant? The Sunflower, in Falls Church, VA.

-What do you do to cheer yourself up when you're feeling blue? I might think of someone I know who's having a rough time and try to give them some unsolicited advice. If they don't pick up, I might take a long bike ride. Then I might put on a CD by David Francey or Blitzen Trapper. Then I might remind myself how much nicer my life is than if I were a predator or prey animal,or a professional musician. If that didn't work, I might put on a paraliminal CD designed to help me reset my"happiness setpoint." If that didn't work I might make a cup of soy chai. If all else failed, I might pour a shot of Laphroaig Scotch over ice and drink it.

-What's your biggest cooking/baking disaster? The first time I made seitan sausages, they were rubbery, tasteless and hideous. In fact they looked like they belonged in a litter box.

-What's the one food/product, that you'd love to "veg*nize"? Easy one! Steak, and not lab-grown animal tissue. It wouldn't have to be a dead ringer for dead cow, but I'd eat it all the time if it were plant-based and came as close in appearance, texture, smell and taste as Clausthaler comes to alcoholic beer.

Who's going to be first?

 

[Werewolf Girl]

What is your favourite kind of music?

 

[Joan Kennedy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Werewolf Girl

What is your favourite kind of music?

I'm an old folkie. I like songs written in a pared-down folk style that could have been written by a Steven Foster or a Ben Gibbard, so a lot of songs in unplugged pop or alt country that are heavily influenced by folk. Most of my favorites are singer/songwriters where the song is driven by very smart lyrics. I also tend to go for arrangements that are little more than one voice accompanied by one instrument, usually an acoustic guitar.

 

[60225]

What's the best show/gig/festival that you've been to, and why?

 

[Joan Kennedy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Quiet-Vegan

What's the best show/gig/festival that you've been to, and why?

Best show I ever saw was in 1972 at the Cellar Door, a very small but classy nightclub in Washington DC. Bonnie Raitt was opening for John Prine, and it was the first I'd ever heard of either of them. I think John Prine was 25 that year, and Bonnie Raitt was 22, and they were already mature artists in the styles they were on the verge of being famous for. She had her guitar and a bass player, he just had his own guitar and he didn't seem to know but four or five chords. I'd never been so blown away by onstage performances (and the material) in my life.

Best gig I ever had was a slot at a folk festival located at a clothing-optional resort in West Virginia.

 

[Capstan]

Can we call you Joanie?

Would you post here the lyrics to one of your songs?

If the Scotch doesn't cheer you up, what do you do next to get happy?

 

[Joan Kennedy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Capstan

Can we call you Joanie?

Sure! That's what they called me when I was growing up.

Would you post here the lyrics to one of your songs?

Here's a dark little song, partly based on seeing the movie Precious, and partly from reading an interview with the singer Crystal Bowersox about some low points during her own upbringing.

Secrets

If I was all grown now and not just a kid
I'd burn you right out from wherever you hid
I heard what you said, but I know what you did
I just don't know what to do now

An iron can brand you or make your hair curl
A mouse can stay quiet or scream to the world
If I was a woman and not just a girl
I think I'd know what to do now

CH: Sometimes when I close my eyes
Night-time secrets, daytime lies
All fall away

I stared at the floor when you told them I fell
What could I show them, who could I tell
Between you and me, we both know goddamn well
And I think I know what to do now

Sometimes when I close my eyes
Night-time secrets, daytime lies
All fall away

I sleep in the dark while you're off on a binge
Til the creak of a floorboard, the squeak of a hinge
The reek of your breathing, you won't see me cringe
And you won't see what's coming right now

Sometimes when I close my eyes
Night-time secrets, daytime lies
All fall away
All fall away

Here's a link to what it sounds like sung:
http://www.soundclick.com/player/single_player.cfm?songid=12459508&q=hi&newref=1

If the Scotch doesn't cheer you up, what do you do next to get happy? I take a nap.

 

[Tom]

I can imagine that "Secrets" could be just what someone might need to hear or perform if they were in the right mood.

When you write a song, does the music or the lyric generally come more easily to you? Or does it vary- sometimes one comes to you more easily than the other?

I think maybe electronic downloading has changed the music industry quite a bit. Have you thought about publishing/copyrighting your songs?

 

[Joan Kennedy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tom

I can imagine that "Secrets" could be just what someone might need to hear or perform if they were in the right mood. When you write a song, does the music or the lyric generally come more easily to you? Or does it vary- sometimes one comes to you more easily than the other? Thanks for that, Tom! Usually the lyric will come more easily than the melody, except for a few stubborn lines where I just insert temporary placeholders so I can keep working on the song until the better, permanent lines emerge. Sometimes a chord progression is working great with the words but gives rise to way too many melodic possibilities. Then I spend time narrowing down the possibilities, deciding whether each line in the tune I'm using is the best way to get the melody from what came before to what that line is leading into.

I think maybe electronic downloading has changed the music industry quite a bit. Have you thought about publishing/copyrighting your songs? I'd copyright anything I recorded for release, including for online downloads. At my current level of visibility, it's hard enough to get people to listen for free! Song theft is heavy on the minds of people who pretty much copyright everything they come out with, but it doesn't actually happen very often.

 

[La Grenouille]

Do you get emotionally involved, anxious, angry, whatever, when you engage in online discussions?

 

[Joan Kennedy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by La Grenouille

Do you get emotionally involved, anxious, angry, whatever, when you engage in online discussions?

The most emotionally invested I get in online debates is sad and sorry if I see I've antagonized someone. Other than that, it's the typical thing others must go through as well if they're caring just a little too much: like being caught up in a vortex. If my excellent information doesn't sway you from your misinformed opinion, I feel like I haven't explained myself clearly enough. So then I might jump back in with something you'll probably just read as a lot of blah blah blah. And if that incites you to impute evil or stupidity or defensiveness to my motives, well, I can't just let that go, now can I? Because if I do, you win in the eyes of everyone who sees the exchange, and that cannot stand!

 

[leedsveg]

Wow Joan. After listening to and being blown by Secrets, it's hard to focus on questions but here goes:

Why do you think that some people go veg*n but other people don't?

Is there any politician you admire or have admired, or do all politicians basically become corrupted by power?

Would you want to be remembered at all, if so, for what?

 

[Joan Kennedy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by leedsveg

Wow Joan. After listening to and being blown by Secrets (thank you, Ian

), it's hard to focus on questions but here goes:

Why do you think that some people go veg*n but other people don't? I don't believe in astrology, but I do like the way astrology distinguishes between the personality traits the world recognizes in us and the submerged traits we're lucky if we even recognize in ourselves. The various explicit reasons people become veg*n (health, weight loss, environment, world hunger, animal welfare, animal rights, religious conversion, falling in love with a veg*n, being grossed out by the smell of fish) could be compared to our public faces. I think maybe all these people might simultaneously be manifesting some underlying, submerged trait veg*ns have in common. A kind of sensitivity or irritation for which going veg*n is a balm that helps put us right and calms certain nagging, jangling nerves. I think of unhealthy, out-of-shape friends who are giving up meat after seeing "Forks Over Knives" or "Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead." Most people in that predicament would join a gym, take statins, give up sugar and starch, even go through open-heart surgery before they'd give up the taste of meat in their mouths, because for most people meat equals sustenance. But the ones I know who are giving up meat to get healthier are unusually sensitive people with a soft spot for animals, and I think they're tending to something in their own selves besides their physical well-being. And they're doing so in the wake of major personal loss of one sort or another. I lost my father and my old dog within weeks of one another, shortly before I began to stop eating meat. One couple I'm close to lost a young adult daughter under horrific circumstances. Making such a radical (to them) dietary change could be a way of shaking things up further, but positively and within their control. I think going veg*n might, whatever else it is, be tending to some personal internal unrest that needs healing. Maybe at base it always comes down to the animals, one way or other, and only some veg*ns recognize that from the outset (not the case with me). If that nagging itch never manifests, the bacon never catches up to us, or some transformative event doesn't shake us at our core, people just never experience the unease that giving up meat helps to heal.

Is there any politician you admire or have admired, or do all politicians basically become corrupted by power? I still admire Abraham Lincoln. Also John Kennedy and Bill Clinton, two dogs who proved impossible to keep on the porch. I still admire the back-story, sparkle and speaking ability of Barack Obama, but the job seems to be getting the best of him. Good ideas, weakness in the follow-through, over and over. I think all four of these guys had or have the ability to inspire people to sign on for hardship and make more of themselves than they thought they had in them. That kind of thing will always matter; it would be great to find that in someone you liked more, not less, the more you learn about them.

Would you want to be remembered at all, if so, for what? It would be nice to write a song that sticks, but you never know, and time is running out for that sort of thing. When I was interested in genealogy it was deadly dull to read about one ancestor after another: the years he or she was born, married and died, and had which children who had children who eventually gave rise to me. It was pay dirt to know what someone did for a living, what obstacles had to be overcome, better yet to be able to read any scrap of writing that gave a hint as to what kind of people they were. I don't need to die a personage, but I want to be one of the cool ancestors, to leave behind evidence of the kind of person I am in a way that descendants would be interested to read or listen to, that would in some way resonate with some of them.

 

[Aristede]

Joan, I wanted to say that I've enjoyed reading your posts over time. And I'm a fan of Louis CK too! ^_^

1. If you were a being encountering the Earth for the first time (like First Contact) what would you notice the most about humanity, either positively or negatively?

2. Given that you were able to travel back in time to any period (or parallel universe if you'd prefer), what time would that be and where? With whom?

3. What are some things that you'd like to accomplish in the short-term and the long-term?

Aristede

 

[Capstan]

Do you use nylon strings on your guitar, or steel?

Do you use a pick when you play?

What is your cat's name?

Do you have a middle name?

 

[Joan Kennedy]

I am so loving the questions and comments! So very thought-provoking.

-If you were a being encountering the Earth for the first time (like First Contact) what would you notice the most about humanity, either positively or negatively? So if I'm an alien, getting my first load of humans. They are cute little things and the fuzzies on their heads are adorable. Wherever you put them, they all fall into line behind the loudest member of their group. I wonder what's up with that?? And when they turn their pointy peashooter thingies at me, they seem to think that'll make me fall over or run in the opposite direction. I understand what my friends are saying, that these humans have some level of experiences and preferences of their own and should be left to their own fates. Unfortunately, they seem to be made of the most delicious substance in the universe. I'm starting to think humans are living proof that the gods love us and want us to be happy. And my serious answer: I might be dismayed that enough is never enough with these little folks. A hamburger isn't enough; they'll eat three at a sitting, given the chance. A glass of wine isn't enough: if there's a bottle sitting there, they'll drain the bottle. A little car and warm dry cottage aren't enough. It takes a fleet of muscle cars and a house big enough to park an airplane in the living room, even with only three or four people living there.

-Given that you were able to travel back in time to any period (or parallel universe if you'd prefer), what time would that be and where? With whom? Going back in time I'd love to visit a spot in the cradle of civilization, Athens or earlier, at some point where we're setting up trading systems and city states in mild climates with nice long growing seasons, and beginning to sit around shooting the breeze about abstract topics. I should probably bring my iPhone XLV along with a solar charger, and make good use of its wonderful translator app. I'd like to get in on some of those early conversations. It would be awesome to convince those guys to open their bull sessions to their wives and slaves who are kept so busy wrangling children, stomping grapes, grinding wheat, weaving linen into cloth and keeping the ovens stoked. While I'm at it, maybe my weird and intrusive presence could show how it flows better when a variety of viewpoints, backgrounds and interests are represented wherever ideas are idly exchanged.

-What are some things that you'd like to accomplish in the short-term and the long-term? I've been following Peter Singer's interest in effective giving. I've come into a little bit of a windfall lately, and I do currency trading in my semi-retirement. So short-term I'm kind of all about trying to grow a bit of money into a lot of it. Long-term, I will be very happy if I can pass the bulk of my holdings along to organizations where giving a little does a lot of good: the people passing out malaria nets or doing mass vaccinations or inexpensive pretreatments for diseases that cause blindness. Farm Sanctuary is also on my list.

-Do you use nylon strings on your guitar, or steel? I use guitars with both kinds of strings. I write songs on a 100-year-old parlor guitar strung with nylon. Performing is mostly on a steel-string.

-Do you use a pick when you play? No. I'd like to but haven't mastered that. It keeps falling out of my hand.

-What is your cat's name? Mister Jinx, after the old cartoon cat who lived with the mice Pixie and Dixie.

-Do you have a middle name? My parents didn't give me a middle name at birth, so when I was eight, I gave myself one by taking on Elizabeth as my Confirmation name.

 

[Ewe Nanny]

I don't know why, but in my dream I asked you "What is your favourite flavour of ice cream?" so there you go- answer that!

 

[Joan Kennedy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ewe Nanny

I don't know why, but in my dream I asked you "What is your favourite flavour of ice cream?" so there you go- answer that!

In my dream I asked you how you liked Secrets, and you said "Not baa-aa-d."

Just kidding.

In my ice cream days my first favorite was chocolate almond from Baskin Robbins. Nothing could improve on it. Later in life I liked vanilla best because of all the ways different toppings could make it taste. These days I mean to try some of the coconut milk-based ones. I'm really loving coconut milk these days.

 

[leedsveg]

Hi Joan.

You're given the choice of any job, anywhere in the world. What job and where?

You're given the ability to go back and undo/redo something in your past. Would you take that opportunity? No need to tell us what that "something" is, unless you really want to.

An enormous asteroid is approaching the Earth and is going to wipe out all life when it hits in 3 hours time. Would you take the opportunity to get blind drunk before it hits or would you be quite curious to see what the "end of the world" is like?

Sweet dreams

leedsveg

 

[Joan Kennedy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by leedsveg

You're given the choice of any job, anywhere in the world. What job and where? If I could be the person at the transplant bank who calls a family to let them know their needed spare part has come in, I would jump on that: the bearer of hope and joy. That might be only a small part of that person's job description and the rest of the work might be pure misery, but I would sure like to do that one part of it.

You're given the ability to go back and undo/redo something in your past. Would you take that opportunity? No need to tell us what that "something" is, unless you really want to. When I read this question, three different scenarios jumped into my mind and I'd go back in a heartbeat and undo them all. Two involved ill-advised romantic entanglements. The other, which is the one I'd undo if I could undo only one of them, involved my social betrayal of a close friend when we were 14 years old.

An enormous asteroid is approaching the Earth and is going to wipe out all life when it hits in 3 hours time. Would you take the opportunity to get blind drunk before it hits or would you be quite curious to see what the "end of the world" is like? I don't know. I'm leaning toward blind drunk or otherwise sedated. It would definitely be something to see, but I'm pretty sure I'd be focused more on my own imminent death. Maybe if everyone around me was puking and moaning, that would bring out my competitive streak and I'd want to show them up and face it with dignity. Or would I be puking and moaning as well??