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Vote G.O.P. … Beware of South Beach Tow Companies — Lot Watchers (Thursday, Aug 8 2013) …
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Many of the towing tactics are so outrageous, in fact, that the brawls on South Beach Tow pale compared to the real incidents involving irate car owners. They may not use karate, but car owners routinely scale walls, try to run over tow truck drivers, and attack employees to get back their rides, all while eating up valuable police time with hundreds of 911 calls.
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…..item 1)…. Beware of South Beach Tow Companies …
… Miami New Times … www.miaminewtimes.com/ …
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By Francisco Alvarado Thursday, Aug 8 2013
www.miaminewtimes.com/2013-08-08/news/south-beach-towing/...
The man’s eyes are wide with fury as he pounds the hood of the Tremont Towing truck that’s hauling his gun-metal Lexus from the plaza at 15th Street and Alton Road in South Beach. The truck stops, and driver Robert Ashenoff Jr. slowly climbs out. He dwarfs the angry Lexus owner, a slim man with dreadlocks, by at least six inches and 80 pounds.
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Tremont Towing
1861 Bay Road
Miami Beach, FL 33139 Category: Retail Region: South Beach
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Beach Towing
1349 Dade Blvd.
Miami Beach, FL 33139 Category: Retail Region: South Beach
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Related Content
… Hustle & Tow: An Investigation Into Beach Towing and Tremont Towing
August 6, 2013
… Andrew Mirmelli Defends His Parking Lot on 17th Street and Lenox Avenue
May 6, 2013
… Reader Mail: South Beach Tow Companies Are the Biggest Scam on Earth
April 18, 2013
… Tremont Towing Snags Another Car That Paid To Park in Private SoBe Lot
April 18, 2013
… Miami Beach Motorists: Beware the Parking Lot on 17th Street at Lenox Avenue
May 1, 2013
… More About
Tremont (Bronx)The BronxMiami BeachPoliticsLocal Politics
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"This is a mistake, man," the guy with dreadlocks says.
"I’m a repo man, and I don’t make mistakes, man," Ashenoff replies. "You know your car is getting repoed."
Without another word, the Lexus owner plants a foot on the truck’s front grill and does a backflip, followed by a couple of cartwheels and another backflip. Ashenoff tries to back away, but the man throws a couple of ninja roundhouse kicks that slam him right in the face. Ashenoff falls to the ground. "Do you feel like a puta?" the dreadlocked man spits.
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Pat Kinsella
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Pat Kinsella
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But he doesn’t notice Ashenoff’s passenger, a husky woman named Bernice. She sneaks up behind him with a tire iron, then lays him out with a vicious blow to the head. Then she lifts Ashenoff off the ground. "I don’t do karate," she huffs. "I do karazy. I’ll fuck a bitch up."
The confrontation is absurd, hilarious, and totally unbelievable. It’s also par for the course for South Beach Tow, a faux reality show that draws thousands of viewers every Wednesday night on truTV. For three seasons, cable audiences have been eating up the badly staged reenactments of day-to-day business at Tremont, one of the two companies that have monopolized towing on South Beach for decades.
But for the thousands of residents and tourists whose rides are actually hooked every month by Tremont and its competitor, Beach Towing, the truth is far worse than Hollywood’s scripted version. The fact is, towing on Miami Beach is an unparalleled city-sanctioned racket even in a town of slimy scams. It’s a decades-long, politically sanctioned operation to hold people’s cars for ransom for hundreds of dollars. In the first six months of 2013, both companies reported .2 million in revenues just from cars towed off public property. That’s close to 5,000 cars towed between January and June.
New Times has pored through a year’s worth of complaints filed with the Miami Beach Parking Department, scoured 81 police incident reports for their tow yards, and checked out a half-dozen open lawsuits filed against Tremont and Beach. The records show how both firms reap thousands in revenue by tricking drivers — and suggest why city officials let them get away with it.
Many of the towing tactics are so outrageous, in fact, that the brawls on South Beach Tow pale compared to the real incidents involving irate car owners. They may not use karate, but car owners routinely scale walls, try to run over tow truck drivers, and attack employees to get back their rides, all while eating up valuable police time with hundreds of 911 calls.
Rafael Andrade, a Miami Beach attorney representing Beach and Tremont, says his clients would not comment on specific allegations reported in this story. "The towing companies exercise caution and diligence before a vehicle is removed and spend considerable resources to investigate all claims and allegations against them," Andrade says. "Most are determined to be without support. When a mistake is made, it is corrected."
Andrade adds: "Bottom line, vehicles are towed due to criminal or civil violations of the law, and the towing industry simply provides a necessary, albeit at times unpopular, public service to the city and private businesses within the city."
"Everybody on Miami Beach knows the horror stories," says James Barak, whose minivan was snatched from his own driveway in March. "Beach Towing and Tremont have a monopoly."
Based on our research, New Times has come up with the biggest complaints about Beach Towing and Tremont. Beware — or end up in the tow lot yourself.
— Lot Watchers
Under Florida law, tow companies cannot snatch a car willy-nilly. Instead, whoever owns or rents the property where a vehicle is illegally parked must call to order a tow. Yet Beach and Tremont routinely flaunt this pesky regulation by deploying lot watchers, usually homeless people, to call their dispatchers on easy prey, according to several victims. This notorious practice is so prevalent on Alton Road that businesses have resorted to posting signs warning their customers: "Beware the tow trucks."
Miami Beach lifestyle blogger Rachel Mestre experienced the tactic earlier this year. On January 10, she parked her Ford SUV in front of the 7-Eleven on 14th Street and Alton Road. Mestre went inside the Liquor Store, which is separated from 7-Eleven by a shared wall, then spent five minutes looking over the wine selection before settling on a Pinot Grigio. The 41-year-old writer then paid the cashier, walked out, and looked around in confusion. Her SUV was gone.
The cashier pointed to a lanky man in a white T-shirt and red basketball shorts sprinting across the street. "He loiters in the parking lot, contacting the tow truck drivers to come get their next victim," Mestre claims. "When I called Tremont, a supervisor told me he didn’t care if I had receipts from the Liquor Store. I had to pay 1 to get my car back."
Mestre isn’t alone. Six months later, Davie-based air conditioner and refrigerator repairman Jay Martin’s white work van was towed from the lot at 1504 Alton Road. On June 5, Martin showed up at the Smoothie King there to fix the freezer. A few hours later, Martin told the manager he was going down the street to set up his equipment to fix an AC unit at another business. "When he returned, the van had been taken away by Beach Towing," says Jonathan Kantor, his attorney. "He had to pay 1 to get it back. Jay’s got a business to run. He didn’t have time to argue or fight with anybody."
Three weeks later, Martin made time to go after Beach Towing in Miami-Dade Circuit Court, claiming the company and the property owner, BB Plaza Ltd., conspired "in a scheme to collect money by towing lawfully parked vehicles."
BB Plaza’s attorney, Allan Reiss, told Kantor in an email July 16 that Martin and Smoothie King were to blame. "The premises are clearly marked with multiple signs including those attached stating ‘Customer Parking While in Stores Only,’" Reiss wrote. "Accordingly, the owner’s representative called Beach Towing and the illegally parked vehicle was towed."
But Kantor and Martin dispute Reiss’ assertion. "Beach Towing has an agent beyond the control of BB Plaza who unlawfully called for the tow," Kantor claims. "Jay is really pissed off. He can’t take getting screwed over like this."
(Officials for Beach and Tremont declined comment for this article. Andrade, a lobbyist who represents both companies, also did not respond to a list of questions emailed to him.)
— Private Lots Disguised as City Lots
A parking lot on 17th Street and Lenox Avenue looks exactly like scores of other, city-run lots nearby. There’s a big "Public Parking" sign and an electronic meter, just like all the city devices. Except this lot is operated by Andrew Mirmelli, a private-parking mini-mogul who’s hired Tremont Towing to haul away the scores of cars belonging to people who walk across the street to pay a city meter instead of his machine.
Local journalist Kris Conesa (a former New Times staffer) learned that lesson the hard way in late March. Conesa parked his black Mercedes-Benz CLK 350 in Mirmelli’s lot on a Saturday during Miami Music Week and, like many others, thought he was in a city lot. He bought a ticket at a meter across the street and stuck it on his dashboard. When he returned to find his car gone, he had to shell out 1 to get it back.
Miami resident Susana Santoro says the same thing happened to her on April 13. "I noticed a huge ‘Self Parking — Open to the Public’ sign," Santoro groused in a complaint to Miami Beach Mayor Matti Bower. "Well it turns out the joke was on me and everyone else that dares park there."
She claims other signs Mirmelli has posted warning people they may get towed are written with letters too small to read from a car. "This sign should be in large caps, not the one that says it is open to the public," she says. "The parking management as well as Tremont Towing are misleading, deceiving, and defrauding people."
That Lenox lot isn’t the only Mirmelli property to generate complaints. A month after Santoro’s ordeal, on May 11, Adam Mendizabal parked in a Mirmelli lot at 1689 West Ave. Mendizabal says the machine would allow him to purchase only up to one hour even though he intended to stay longer. "I assumed that the lot did not charge after 10 p.m.," Mendizabal says in a complaint. "I returned at 11:30 p.m. to find my car towed. I went to Tremont and they informed me it would cost 1… which is an insane amount."
He called Mirmelli, whose cell number is listed on the lot’s signs, to explain that the meter had malfunctioned. "He said his machine was working fine and that I made a mistake," Mendizabal recalls. "This is most likely by design to catch unsuspecting tourists like myself."
There’s good reason to believe that Mirmelli and Tremont may have a mutually beneficial relationship. The lot owner was the company’s treasurer from December 8, 2011, to March 8, 2012. That same day, his mother, Dierdre Mirmelli, incorporated Tremont Towing Investment LLC, an entity that has invested in a new tow yard. Dierdre Mirmelli and Tremont are even represented by the same SoBe lawyer, Mark Alhadeff.
But Mirmelli denies that he’s profiting from Tremont’s tows. "I know a lot of people are pissed off," he told New Times in May. "But I’m not in the business of making a buck from towing cars… People simply don’t read the signs I’ve put up."
He says his mother, a 65-year-old retired schoolteacher, invested only in a development project at 1747 Bay Road that would include a new Tremont lot. "She has no involvement in the day-to-day operations of Tremont," Mirmelli says.
He also refutes the claim that he purposely bought the same meter used by the city so it would confuse parkers, noting that he purchased his in 2011, a year before the Miami Beach Parking Department began using the same machine, and calling it "a terrible coincidence."
Coincidence or not, the city took notice after a slew of irate calls and forced Mirmelli to install new signs at his Lenox lot. "We had a rash of folks coming in [to complain]," Miami Beach Parking Director Saul Frances says. But Frances claims there’s not much else he can do. "It’s a free-enterprise issue," he says.
— Tow Truck Drivers Accused of Stealing Cars
Sometimes, drivers for Beach and Tremont hook cars that are never returned to their owners. Drivers for both companies have been accused of sneaking into condo buildings, trolling for cars with out-of-town owners, and then rolling off with the wheels.
Consider the case of Fu Tian, a Los Angeles businessman who sued Beach Towing in June for allegedly jacking his 2006 Mercedes GL 450 from the Grand Condominium.
Tian says that on September 30, 2011, surveillance video captured a heavyset African-American man behind the wheel of a Tremont truck entering Grand’s garage around a quarter to one in the morning. A hefty Hispanic male was in the passenger seat. A few minutes later, the cameras caught the same truck exiting the garage towing a 1998 blue Porsche Carrera 911, according to a City of Miami Police report.
Then, at 1:07 a.m., the Tremont truck returned and took away a 1998 white BMW Z3. An hour later, the truck came back once more, hitching Tian’s burgundy Benz. It wasn’t until 14 days later that the condominium’s security manager realized the truck had removed all three luxury rides without authorization.
Miami detectives confirmed that no one from the condo had called Tremont and that the driver indeed worked for Tremont. A manager told the cops that the driver, whose name is not listed in the documents, had been flagged down by the Hispanic male, who claimed to be a repo man seeking help to "secure the vehicles."
To date, no one has been arrested, and the cars have not been recovered. Tian has sued the Grand Condominium and its valet parking contractor for negligence, as well as Tremont for negligent hiring and retention.
It’s not the first time either tow company has been sued over similar allegations.
In 2002, Agustus Sanchez took Tremont to court over claims the company auctioned his Harley-Davidson motorcycle while he was trying to retrieve it. Though Sanchez spoke directly with Tremont’s then-owner, Edwin "Tony" Gonzalez, about paying the required impound and storage fees, the bike was sold at public auction December 11, 2001, for about ,000. Tremont settled with Sanchez in 2005 for ,000, the Harley’s estimated value.
A year later, part-time Miami Beach resident Tal Priel sued Beach Towing for civil theft of his vintage 1975 gold two-door Buick LeSabre from his rented spot inside the parking garage at 555 Washington Ave. When he returned after a seven-month stint in New York City, Priel learned that Beach had towed his car and sold it to then-employee Alberto Castellanos for ,481.72. Priel sued, claiming Beach intentionally sent certified letters to the wrong address so it could put a lien on the Buick to sell it. At the time, Priel told New Times, "I was devastated." (Beach later settled for an undisclosed amount.)
Tian’s lawyer, Andreas Kelly, expects a similar outcome in his case. "A tow truck company that employs dishonest people can do a lot of damage," Kelly says. "I have never seen a tow truck company that does something this blatant."
Through their lobbyist, Andrade, Beach and Tremont officials declined to comment on the lawsuits.
— Wasting Miami Beach Police Time
Miami Beach officers must know the Beach and Tremont tow yards like their own backyards, because they probably spend more time dealing with outraged car owners and petty crime there than they do grilling on their patios.
In July, blogger Bill Cooke reported on his Random Pixels site that police fielded 768 calls from Beach and Tremont’s tow yards in the previous year. "Many of the calls are for disturbances that cover everything from a customer arguing loudly to a fistfight," Cooke says. "In those cases, police dispatchers are required to dispatch two units for officer safety. Multiply that by 768 times, year in and year out, and you start to see the tremendous drain on resources these two companies create annually."
And who pays for it? "The taxpayer," Cooke notes. "Definitely not the towing companies."
New Times analyzed 81 incident reports filed between June 2012 and June of this year. The documents show that Beach and Tremont call the cops for everything from petty vandalism to people taking off in their cars without paying.
For instance, Tremont rang the boys in blue on June 16, 2012, when a man named Ramzi Zaghloug sneaked through the iron gate into their yard around 5:30 p.m. Tremont employee Victor Juarbe watched the bald, 34-year-old Jordan native get into his red 2012 BMW 328i and drive off the lot. Instantly, Juarbe called the MBPD, reporting Zaghloug owed a 0 tow fee. The cops spotted him entering a condo on Ocean Drive. When an officer approached, Zaghloug said, "They towed my car wrong, and I went and got it back." The cop took him back to Tremont, where Zaghloug was charged with felony theft — of his own car.
Two months later, Beach Towing manager Jorge Rodriguez called police to report 32-year-old North Miami Beach resident Justin Michael Weaver after cameras caught him forcing open the yard’s gate, getting into his green 1999 Chevrolet Cavalier, and driving off. Weaver owed ,163 in parking fines and towing charges. Miami Beach cops started a fruitless search.
On October 22, Rodriguez again called the cops. This time, he snitched on 24-year-old Sandra Jean Louis, who had entered his yard and sped away in her 2000 maroon Chevrolet Cavalier despite 0 in parking and towing fines. The responding officer called a detective from the property-crimes unit, but no one responded. Obviously, they had bigger fish to fry.
In March and April, Tremont employees twice called police to report people allegedly "keying" cars belonging to tow company staffers. One of the complainers was South Beach Tow star Ashenoff, who accused 26-year-old Palm Beach resident Shawnese Debra Ware of scratching his 2005 Dodge Ram 1500 pickup.
"The victim believes that a black female [Ware]… might have committed the offense," the April 3 incident report states. "She was the last person seen around the damaged Dodge."
As usual, no arrests have been made in that caper.
— Staking Out Private Parking Lots
If you’re pulling into a South Beach lot and you spot a tow truck idling in a nearby alley or slowly circling the block, beware. Tow companies look for victims who walk across the street or to a business next door. Instead of waiting for their homeless lot watchers to call in a tow, the trucks sometimes poach poorly labeled spots themselves.
During Art Basel week last year, Daniel Baumgard, chief executive of Coral Gables-based Investment Management Associates Inc., bought a few items at the Walgreens on 67th Street and Collins Avenue. He walked across the street to get a cup of coffee.
When he returned to the Walgreens lot half an hour later, his Mercedes-Benz CL550 was gone. Baumgard quickly noticed that Beach Towing had two people in the lot. "One person was in the lot and the other on the corner," Baumgard recalled in a December 10 email to city commissioners. "If someone went across the street, they radioed ahead, and the tow truck came."
Baumgard saw three tow trucks "going ’round and ’round" towing cars from the Walgreens lot. "I personally watched three cars being towed in five minutes," he wrote. "This was a well-greased operation."
Baumgard paid 7. In his email to city leaders, he vowed never to spend another dime in Miami Beach. "You spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to attract people from all over the world… yet you ruin their experience by allowing a bunch of thugs to tow cars on a whim," Baumgard wrote.
City Commissioner Jerry Libbin demanded City Manager Kathy Brooks investigate, writing, "This is outrageous!" Yet the parking department sided with Beach Towing.
A month later, Beach Towing found another mark. Ruben Dario Vazquez navigated his 2008 Scion into the empty lot at 6774 Collins Ave. on a Wednesday night. The 56-year-old AT&T technician was taking his two adult sons for dinner at Norman’s Tavern. As he pulled into the lot, Vazquez spotted a Beach Towing truck idling behind a dumpster. He paid it no mind as he parked in front of a vacant pizza joint. "Everything was closed except Norman’s," he says.
While they ate, Beach Towing took the Scion. Vazquez later paid 1 to get it back. "I told them, ‘You hide behind a dumpster, waiting to stick your hands in people’s pockets and steal their money,’" Vazquez says. He later contacted City Hall, to no avail. The parking department told him his only option was to take Beach to small claims court. So he did, filing a complaint in February.
When he learned that the law requires a property owner to call the tow company, he leapt. "I knew for a fact no one called Beach Towing to come get my car," Vazquez says. "Norman’s was the only place open. Their employees certainly didn’t call."
In court, a Beach manager could not provide the name of the person who called, Vazquez claims. On April 2, the mediator ordered Beach to pay Vazquez 0.
"Everyone in Miami Beach is in on the scam, from the politicians to the bureaucrats to the property owners," Vazquez says. "Everyone makes a bundle off towing."
— Taking Advantage of Residents’ Mishaps
Miami Beach residents already jump through Cirque du Soleil-worthy hoops to get parking passes and decals to ensure their rides aren’t jacked by Beach or Tremont. But the companies still use loopholes to swipe residents’ vehicles.
Consider what happened to James Barak when he parked his Ford Windstar in front of his house at 4174 Alton Road, blocking his own driveway in the process. The disabled 43-year-old, who owns a used-car dealership, was unloading groceries from his minivan, which is specially equipped with railings for handicapped access. Barak also had his handicapped placard hanging from the mirror. "I put everything in the house," he recalls. "I come out a couple of minutes later and my Windstar is gone."
Barak immediately knew he had been towed. "They claim they got a call from my neighbor," Barak says of Beach Towing. "Total BS. They pay kids on bicycles 50 bucks to call them when they see a car illegally parked."
When he went to the Miami Beach Police station to complain, an officer informed him he broke the law by blocking his own driveway. "I could have sued them for the tow, but it costs more to get a lawyer," he says.
Instead, Barak paid about 0 to get his minivan back. "I showed them my handicapped placard and told them they should be ashamed of themselves," Barak grouses. "They just laughed and told me that they’ve heard worse hard-luck stories than mine."
Complaints to the city show several other victims like Barak. On September 27, 2012, Nicolle Ugarriza parked her rental car outside her home, the Helen Mar Condo building. She was driving a rental because her own car was in the shop, using daily placards to park in her space. When she was late putting a new tag up one morning, the rental was towed.
"I have to take time out of my busy day to go buy new tags," she wrote to the city. "Was it not enough to just give me a ticket? Did they really need to tow my rental car?"
A month later, on October 26, Matthew Saini left his car in a residential parking spot close to his apartment near Meridian Avenue and Fourth Street. He rode his motorcycle to his second shift at the Fontainebleau Hotel, where he works as an events manager. When he returned in the early morning, Saini saw that MPBD had set up a DUI checkpoint right in front of his building. When he got closer, he realized his car was missing. "I called 911," he says. "The operator told me that a police officer called Beach Towing."
While he was at work, the city had put up temporary no-parking signs. "I am asking that someone from the city look into this situation and offer an apology," he says. Good luck with that.
This March 16, lawyer Gilbert K. Squires parked at a meter near the Nash Hotel and went to his Bikram yoga class. Three hours later, he returned to find his car towed. Squires claims he spoke to a desk manager at the Nash Hotel who told him a valet company operator had put up a no-parking sign while he was gone and called for a tow. "The sign was not there in the morning when I parked," says Squires, who had to pay 0 in towing fees and a parking ticket. "This kind of improper activity should not be tolerated."
— Valuables Missing From Towed Vehicles
Go to either Beach or Tremont’s tow yards and you’ll see big signs warning that management is not responsible for valuables left inside vehicles. Those signs are there for good reason.
According to Miami Beach Police, there have been 15 reported thefts at the two lots between June 2012 and this June. On September 15, for instance, a Delray Beach resident reported that someone from Tremont stole her wallet from her car. But Miami Beach Police told her that since she didn’t witness the theft, there was nothing they could do. "It really sucks," she tells New Times. "On top of paying 1 for towing my car, I had to go get a new license and cancel my credit cards."
Nine days later, 42-year-old Miami resident Alejandro Gonzalez accused Tremont employees of stealing 0 from the glove compartment of his car. Again, no witnesses. No case.
On October 6, 23-year-old Randy Fernandez, following his release from jail on a DUI charge, went to Tremont to pick up his car. He called police after discovering that his car had been ransacked and that someone had stolen his iPad and iPhone. "I’m pretty sure it was someone who works for the tow company," Fernandez tells New Times. "Of course, they denied touching anything."
On February 21, 30-year-old Guerson Cruz complained to Miami Beach cops that he believed Tremont employee Marcos Garcia had swiped 0 he had left in his car. According to the police report, Garcia denied taking the cash. Case closed.
Beach Towing has faced its own klepto accusations. On March 31, 23-year-old Mario Trabillo-Justiniauo told cops he suspected Beach Towing employees had jacked a ,000 HD camera and a ,500 Macbook from his 2008 BMW 328i. No charges came from that accusation.
Through their lobbyist, Andrade, Beach and Tremont officials declined to comment.
— Political Connections Grease the Wheels
Talk to anyone who’s been whacked by any of these schemes and they’ll ask the same question: How the heck do Tremont and Beach Towing get away with it?
The answer is easy: political power. By spending thousands on lobbyists and getting the backing of key city commissioners, the two companies have ensured another long stretch of virtual monopoly.
"There’s no doubt they have strong political connections," says City Commissioner Ed Tobin, who last year was on the losing side of a vote that allowed the two companies to increase their towing fees. "They have been doing it that way for years."
To understand the power, you’ll need some history. Founded in 1977 and 1984 respectively, Beach Towing and Tremont have been the only tow firms in the city Carl G. Fisher built since ’91, when their last competitor folded. Three years earlier, commissioners had approved a measure requiring tow companies to own a lot within city limits. Since the two companies now owned the only spaces zoned for tow lots, Beach and Tremont were the only games in town.
That’s translated into a cash cow for Mark Festa, Beach Towing’s owner, and Russell Galbut and Keith Menin — owners of the Shelbourne and Mondrian Hotels and dozens of other properties — who bought Tremont in 2011 from Edwin "Tony" Gonzalez.
Although the companies don’t provide revenue figures, they each tow roughly 450 cars per week, according to a former high-ranking city official. At 5 ( the Miami Beach resident rate) or 1 (the tourist rate), that means they rake in ,250 to 8,450 every seven days. That doesn’t include the additional mileage and administrative charges tacked on to each bill.
How do they translate that profit into political power?
City law bars Beach and Tremont from raising cash for candidates. But there is nothing stopping them from donating money to candidates outside of Miami Beach. So when Commissioner Jonah Wolfson’s wife, Andrea, successfully ran for county circuit judge last year, she received ,500 in bundled contributions from Beach Towing; Festa, a storage company Festa owns; and two employees. Tremont and 35 companies with the same address as Galbut’s company, Crescent Heights, each gave Andrea’s campaign 0, for a total of ,500.
Perhaps not coincidentally, when both companies lobbied hard for a rate increase, their biggest champion on the dais was Jonah Wolfson. During the June 6 commission meeting, then-City Manager Jorge Gonzalez tried to get commissioners to require the tow companies to provide the city with background checks on all employees and to install GPS devices. "Here’s your chance to get your accountability measures," Gonzalez said.
Wolfson balked. In fact, one former high-ranking city official who asked not to be named says Gonzalez’s opposition to the tow rate hike is the real reason Wolfson started a move to fire him — a movement that ended with Gonzalez’s resignation in June.
"Jorge was never in favor of giving them an increase," the source says. "He was standing in the way of Beach and Tremont making an additional million dollars a year."
Six months later, with Gonzalez out of the way, Wolfson again led the charge to raise tow rates. "This is not a tax," Wolfson proclaimed. "This is something people get charged if they leave their car in the wrong place."
Wolfson vehemently denies doing favors for Beach and Tremont even though both firms supported his wife’s judicial campaign. "Because we’re talking about the tow companies, you want to make it salacious," he says. "My response to asking me if political contributions had something to do with my vote is, ‘Go fuck yourself.’"
Of course, Wolfson is just one Miami Beach pol backing Beach and Tremont. Commissioners Deede Weithorn, Jorge Exposito, and Michael Gongora, who is now a candidate for mayor, voted with Wolfson to give the two companies their rate hike at the November 2012 meeting. "People are doing something bad," Gongora said. "This is essentially punishment for people parking in residential zones and parking where they shouldn’t park."
The only way to remove the grip Beach and Tremont have on towing in the city is to open up business to firms from across the causeways, Wolfson continues. And that is not ever happening. At least not on his watch.
He says: "If you send people who are here on vacation off the Beach, you end up with a situation where they are traveling to dangerous neighborhoods like Opa-Locka and Liberty City where they’ll get their heads shot off."
Gongora is certainly not going to take them on either. He describes Beach and Tremont as "horrible, necessary evils." Phillip Levine, another mayoral candidate, says towing is a "necessary public service in our city."
Even Tobin — who is not up for reelection and voted against the tow rate hike — concedes the city to Beach and Tremont. "I don’t know that it would be any better without a monopoly," he says. "I think it would be worse if any tow truck could come in here to pick up cars."
The only candidate taking a stand is entertainer Steve Berke, who lost in his bid to beat incumbent Mayor Matti Herrera Bower two years ago.
Berke says that as mayor, he would instruct the city manager and city attorney to require Beach Towing and Tremont to pay their drivers a flat hourly rate with no incentives for the number of vehicles towed or have the city completely take over towing operations in Miami Beach, which would kill the duopoly.
"These companies are supposed to be performing a public service," Berke says. "It is a shameful, disgusting state of affairs and an embarrassment to our city."
Tow companies’ response from Rafael E. Andrade, Esq.
Below is my only "on the record" response to all of the questions presented. It is respectfully requested that my statement be included in its entirety and without any edits. Based upon past articles and the questions presented, it appears that the story is going to be an unfair, biased, and misinformed attack on the Miami Beach towing industry and my clients. Since a "cover story" is afforded ample print space, I trust that you will honor my request and print the following unedited statement:
"The towing industry in the City of Miami Beach provides necessary and essential services that promote the health, safety and welfare of the community by removing vehicles that pose a hazard to traffic and pedestrians, vehicles involved in police investigations, and vehicles that illegally park in areas that require residential parking permits. On-street parking in the City is insufficient and residents actually pay a fee for a permit that allows them to park in designated areas. To not enforce illegal parking in these areas would be unfair and adversely affect our residents’ quality of life. Similarly, towing is necessary for the orderly operation of private businesses. Those that illegally park and interfere with the use of someone else’s property have no right to that space. The towing companies exercise caution and diligence before a vehicle is removed and spend considerable resources to investigate all claims and allegations against them. Most are determined to be without support. When a mistake is made, it is corrected. In November 2012 the City Commission adjusted the towing rates for the first time since 2004 based on CPI. That process was thoroughly debated at countless public meetings and was completely transparent. Bottom line, vehicles are towed due to criminal or civil violations of the law, and the towing industry simply provides a necessary, albeit at times unpopular, public service to the City and private businesses within the City."
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Linda Ronstadt (1970) …item 2b.. somewhere out there – Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram (with lyrics) …item 3.. Linda Ronstadt – Living In The USA (Full Album) — All That You Dream …
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Her new memoir, Simple Dreams, reflects on a long career that was ended by the disease years before it was diagnosed. Her conversation with Fresh Air’s Terry Gross finds Ronstadt offering her frank insights on sex, drugs, and why "competition was for horse races and it never belonged in art."
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…..item 1)…. In Memoir, Linda Ronstadt Describes Her ‘Simple Dreams’ …
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With a career that spans rock, pop, country and everything in between, Linda Ronstadt knows no genre, only what her voice can accomplish. Her most famous recordings include "Heart Like a Wheel," "Desperado," "Faithless Love," and many more. But last month, Ronstadt revealed that she has Parkinson’s disease and can no longer sing.
Her new memoir, Simple Dreams, reflects on a long career that was ended by the disease years before it was diagnosed. Her conversation with Fresh Air’s Terry Gross finds Ronstadt offering her frank insights on sex, drugs, and why "competition was for horse races and it never belonged in art."
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— Interview Highlights
… On letting go of perfection in the studio
"It’s always like that when you record: You always think that you can do a better [job]. You know, the whole thing with recording is you have to know when to turn off the tape machine and just stop recording because you want to keep fixing, fixing, fixing, you know? In those days, we didn’t fix anything."
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… On why she never got married
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"The culture supports serial monogamy, and I think I had plenty of that, and I think I was reasonably monogamous in a serial way. But I’m not a good compromiser. I think I don’t have the knack for that kind of compromise. I admire people’s marriages, and I think it’s a wonderful thing to have, but I don’t think it’s the only way to live. I think there are many ways to live and many ways to establish intimate support in your life that can be from family or friends or great roommates that you like. It doesn’t have to be someone you’re sleeping with. I figured that out pretty early on; that was sort of how I felt. I was trying to sing; I was never trying to get married. I think you have to be pretty deliberate about getting married."
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… On the other female artists she admires
"I always thought competition was for horse races and it never belonged in art. I never felt that competitive with other girl singers, really. I admired them; if I really admired them, I would try to find a way, if it was appropriate, to figure out a way to sing with them. I liked Maria Muldaur when I first started out. Now, there was somebody who was really sexy on stage. In fact, Janis [Joplin] admired her, too — she loved her. And I got to sing with Maria a little bit. It was really fun; we got to do some harmonies together.
"Mainly, when I ran into Emmylou Harris, that was it, you know? We could finish each other’s sentences musically, and personally, too. We have a very shared, similar sensibility. And that was a friendship that really opened up a tremendous number of musical doors for me."
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… On sex and vulnerability
"Men are very delicate. They don’t like being rejected. I mean, the whole game of sex, it’s difficult. I feel sorry for everybody. You really put yourself on the line, it’s a tremendously vulnerable position to be in, and we have this biology that drives us in this direction, and we have this culture that puts all these stupid rules on it. Puritanical, idiotic, rigid structure around it that doesn’t have anything to do with nature, and it’s a wonder that anybody ever gets laid or has a baby."
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… On wanting to leave Capitol Records
"I just didn’t think they really got who I was, and to their credit, how could they know? Because I was still shaping who I was; I was morphing into something. It took me 10 years to learn how to sing, really, and to figure out who I was stylistically. But I had always loved Hank Williams, and I had always loved country songs; I could play them on the guitar because there were three chords. I liked singing them and they were good harmonies and they had great sentiment. Again, I had this manager that said, ‘That’s too country for rock or too rock for country; you’ll never sell any records.’ But I liked those songs, so I sang them."
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… On her avoidance of drugs
"I’m a person who is too sensitive for drugs. I’d smoke pot and I’d be hopelessly confused and hungry and sort of paranoid and want to hide under the bed. I just felt like I couldn’t cope. If I tried to do it on stage, I couldn’t remember the words, and I thought, ‘Well, who needs this?’ And cocaine just made me real jittery and made me really nervous and talk really fast, and I talk fast enough already. And also, what I’m really truly addicted to is reading. I love to read, and reading was my hedge against boredom on the road, because you’re always just flying on a plane or riding on a train or riding on a bus, and it’s just endless hours of boring travel, and I always had a book. I was never bored, because I could always find out something really interesting. If I tried drugs, I couldn’t remember the sentence I had just read. It just wasn’t a thing that worked for me."
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— Transcript
… TERRY GROSS, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I’m Terry Gross. My guest, Linda Ronstadt, revealed last month that she has Parkinson’s disease and can no longer sing. Today her new memoir was published, reflecting on her long career, a career that was ended by the disease years before it was even diagnosed.
Ronstadt recorded her first hit in 1967, "Different Drum," under the name of her band, the Stone Ponies. She went on to sell more than 100 million records. Her best known recordings including "Heart Like a Wheel," "Desperado," "You’re No Good," "When Will I Be Loved," "Willin’," and "Blue Bayou."
Her rise to stardom coincided with the height of the ’60s counterculture and the music associated with it, making her a focal point in a world far removed from her Catholic upbringing in Tucson. But she didn’t remain tied to the popular music of her time. Against the recommendation of her record label, she recorded an album of standards with arranger Nelson Riddle that turned into a surprise hit and led to a couple of other albums from the American songbook.
And she recorded albums of the Mexican songs she learned from her Mexican grandfather and her father. Ronstadt’s new memoir is called "Simple Dreams." Let’s start with a song that was a number one hit for her in 1975.
— (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "YOU’RE NO GOOD")
… LINDA RONSTADT: (Singing) Feeling better now that we’re through, feeling better ‘cuz I’m over you. I learned my lesson, it left a scar. Now I see how you are, you’re no good, you’re no good, you’re no good, baby, you’re no good.
… GROSS: Linda Ronstadt, welcome to FRESH AIR. It is a great pleasure to have you on our show.
… RONSTADT: Thank you so much.
… GROSS: Your book about your life and music is being published soon after learning that you have Parkinson’s, which explains why you’ve been unable to sing for several years. Is it hard to talk about your music career now that you can’t sing anymore?
… RONSTADT: Well, not really. I mean, you know, everything comes in its season. And I will say I had a long turn at the trough. So that’s what I – you know, I’m grateful for the time I had. I got to live a lot of my dreams, and I feel lucky about it.
… GROSS: Was it a relief to have an explanation, even though the explanation means that you won’t be able to sing again? And you have – you know, you have a bad disease. But still, did it help to know…
… RONSTADT: Well, at least – I mean I would be saying for years I was struggling onstage. I was having such a hard time singing because I didn’t have any muscle control. And, you know, you have exquisite muscle control when you’re singing. There’s just a lot of things that have to be coordinated on an exquisite level. So I just couldn’t do it, and I didn’t know why.
I knew how to sing all my whole life.
(LAUGHTER)
… RONSTADT: So yes, it was a relief to know, but I’d rather it had been measles or something I was going to get over. But, you know, that’s the breaks.
… GROSS: How’s the rest of your body? How’s walking?
… RONSTADT: Well, walking isn’t too much fun these days. I’m really slow. I’ve got that, you know, bradykinesia. I’m very slow with my hands too. It’s hard to brush my teeth. It’s hard to wash my hair. The worst thing is I love to knit, and I can’t knit. So that – you know, there are just things that I have to – you know, I have to find some other thing to do to make myself useful, and it’s important to do that, I think.
… GROSS: Well, I want to talk with you about your childhood and your family tree. Reading your memoir, I was just astonished by the richness of your family tree. So let’s start with your grandfather, who – correct me if I’m wrong, was born in Mexico and had a hardware store in Arizona.
… RONSTADT: In Tucson, yeah.
… GROSS: And had a lot of business that came across the border from Mexico. And tell us about his music background.
… RONSTADT: Well, he was the one in Tucson who taught everybody how to play their instruments and assembled a band and wrote the arrangements and wrote a lot of compositions for the band. And he was like the Music Man, except he really knew how to play music and how to read. And he was an autodidact. He had quite a rich education. He only went to I think seventh grade in terms of formal schooling, but he was a wide reader and loved opera, loved classical music, you know, loved art.
And all those elements were there. You know, and his life, it was a rich life, artistically. He was a rancher, that’s how he made his living in Arizona. It’s a tough gig because it’s the desert, and sometimes there’s no water, and then there are no cattle, you know.
(LAUGHTER)
… RONSTADT: So he went through some tough times. He went through the Depression. But he also was – he was apprentice to a blacksmith when he was a teenager, and so he made – he had the reputation in southern Arizona for making the most beautiful wagons and buggies, you know, like the luxury – like the equivalent of a Mercedes that you would drive around in a horse and carriage.
… GROSS: Did he do a lot of Mexican songs?
… RONSTADT: Oh yeah. You know, if you wanted to serenade your sweetheart, you’d get my grandfather’s band to go and serenade her at 2:00 in the morning.
(LAUGHTER)
… RONSTADT: And if you had to have a military parade, well, my grandfather’s band was the one you would get, you know. And if you had a wedding or a funeral, well, they’d show up for that. I mean, in those days you had to make your own music. You couldn’t get it off the radio. You couldn’t get it from YouTube. You couldn’t download it. You had to make it yourself, and that’s what he did.
… GROSS: So while we’re talking about some of the music he introduced you to and the music he played, let me play a track from the first of I think three albums that you did of Mexican and Spanish songs. And…
… RONSTADT: They’re Mexican songs, yeah.
… GROSS: Mexican songs. And the title of the album "Canciones De Mi Padre," is the same title that your aunt gave a collection of songs and stories that she published.
… RONSTADT: Yes, my aunt was a singer and a dancer, and she was a music scholar, you know, in the teens and ’20s of the 20th century. And she traveled all over Mexico and also went to Spain, and she collected all these different regional songs and dances. And she wrote a letter home to my grandfather saying that she had discovered a guitar player that she thought was absolutely wonderful, and she thought he was so brilliant.
And he could hold the attention of the audience when she left the stage to change her costumes. And she wanted to bring him to the United States because she was sure he would be a huge hit there and become a star in his own right. And the guitar player was Andres Segovia.
… GROSS: And did he come here because of her?
… RONSTADT: I don’t know. I mean, I’m sure she encouraged him to. But I mean, he – people, that kind of talent, they make it on their own.
… GROSS: Right, right.
… RONSTADT: She just didn’t get in the way, you know.
… GROSS: So the song I want…
… RONSTADT: Kind of like being the Eagles. You know, I didn’t get in their way. They…
… GROSS: They were your backup band before they became famous.
… RONSTADT: They were my backup band, and I just got out of the way.
(LAUGHTER)
… GROSS: So the song I want to play from your first album of Mexican songs is – and I’m going to say this wrong, "Rogaciano El Huapanguero."
… RONSTADT: Huapanguero, yeah, "Rogaciano El Huapanguero." A huapango is a certain kind of song, it’s a style of singing.
… GROSS: Just there’s so much emotion in this song. Just say a few words about it before we hear it.
… RONSTADT: Well it’s – this music is typical of the mountain regions, and I guess in mountain regions people develop a kind of a yodeling style because they can throw their voice across – you know, they don’t have a telephone, so they yodel. And so there’s a beautiful kind of a haunting, romantic kind of break in the voice that makes it typical of a – that’s typical of a huapango. They’re my favorites.
And there’s a rhythm underneath that is – it would be written in European time signature as 6/8, but it’s not really a 6/8. It’s a 6/8 with a kind of hitch in the gate. You’ve got to grow up in that region and sort of know how to count it. It’s very much an indigenous Mexican rhythm.
… GROSS: OK, so this is Linda Ronstadt from her first album of Mexican songs, "Canciones De Mi Padre," from 1987.
— (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ROGACIANO EL HUAPANGUERO")
… RONSTADT: (Singing in Spanish)
… GROSS: That’s my guest Linda Ronstadt, recorded in 1987. She has a new memoir, which is called "Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir." We were talking about how your grandfather introduced you to these kinds of songs and sang these kinds of songs. Your father sang, too. I was surprised to read that Paul Whiteman invited your father to be the boy singer in his band. And, I mean, that’s where Bing Crosby got his start.
… RONSTADT: Yeah, that was a huge deal, because in those days, he was the most well-known bandleader in the country. So that was quite an honor. My father had a beautiful, beautiful baritone voice. He sounded like a cross between Pedro Infante and Frank Sinatra. And he just had wonderful stories in his singing.
And always, you know, if there was a dinner party or something, he’d get the guitar out, you know, about 10 or 11 o’clock, and everybody would start to listen, and he’d just sing. And then people would talk for a while, and then he’d sing a little bit more. And I always would fall asleep in somebody’s lap listening to my dad sing some beautiful song, you know. It was a beautiful memory.
… GROSS: On your mother’s side of the family, her father was Lloyd Copeman, who was an inventor, and…
… RONSTADT: Yeah, he was a famous inventor. He invented, well, the electric toaster, the electric stove, all the timing devices. He invented the thermostat for Westinghouse, basically.
… GROSS: Whoa.
(LAUGHTER)
… RONSTADT: And he invented the pneumatic grease gun, and he invented a dripless paint thing that you put on your paint can, so it doesn’t drip down the side. It’s still in use today. He invented a tamper-proof envelope for the FBI, all kinds of things that he did. You know, he was kind of the Gyro Gearloose of his time. But he worked alone. He was the third to Thomas Edison in number of useful inventions sometime in the ’50s, you know, that he had made, but he worked all by himself. Thomas Edison worked with teams and teams of people. So I always say my grandfather kind of beat him a little bit.
… GROSS: So that leads me to wonder, I mean, did you grow up wealthy? Did your mother inherit a lot of money? That’s a lot of inventions.
… RONSTADT: No. My grandmother had Parkinson’s disease, and it took all his money. He had – he was wealthy from time – you know, at certain times, but he spent all his money trying to find a cure for Parkinson’s disease.
… GROSS: Which is what you have now.
… RONSTADT: It’s what I have now, yeah. It’s a gene, I guess. I mean, I think that’s – a gene is one of the things that – they don’t know what causes it, but I think that genetic is one of the ways you can get it.
… GROSS: Wait, you mean, so he tried to invent a cure, as an inventor, to come up with a cure for…
… RONSTADT: Well, he tried to – you know, he searched everywhere and tried to – you know, people would say, you know, we can cure it. Give us this much money. And he just went through his money trying to find a way to fix her, I think. He loved her so much. I remember seeing her in her declining years with Parkinson’s disease, when she couldn’t walk, and she couldn’t talk. So it’s pretty scary, you know, when I think about – Parkinson’s works differently in different people.
So I don’t really know. I don’t have a crystal ball. I don’t really know what’s going to happen to me, but I hope it’s not going to be what happened to my grandmother. But, you know, it could be.
… GROSS: If you’re just joining us, my guest is Linda Ronstadt, and she has a new memoir called "Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir." Let’s take a short break, here, and then we’ll talk some more. This is FRESH AIR.
— (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
… GROSS: My guest is Linda Ronstadt. She has a new memoir called "Simple Dreams." So you form a band with friends, the Stone Poneys, which eventually has the hit "Different Drum" in 1967. But that was their second album. The first album, it was a harmony group, and you weren’t, like, the lead singer Linda Ronstadt. It was a band. You sang harmonies.
I hadn’t heard that early work until I was preparing for this interview, and I was really interested in hearing how the early Stone Poneys sound. So I want to play the first track from that first album. This is "Sweet Summer Blue and Gold." And do you just want to say a few words about this, and about what the band was about in those early days?
… RONSTADT: Well, Bobby Kimmel was a guy that I met in Tucson. He was kind of a blues guitar player, but he doesn’t – but then he writes stuff that wasn’t bluesy. He wrote songs and stories about his own life and his own experiences for his own vocal register, which was very different from mine.
So, you know, they weren’t songs that would be good for me to sing as a soloist, but so we just – you know, we put them together. And we had Kenny Edwards, who was a really wonderful guitar player and a good musician that I met really early on, and he was part of the group, too. And so he hadn’t thought of himself as a singer, but we just put the harmonies together. We just kind of fit them together, and sort of like throwing against the wall, you know, and see if it stuck.
… GROSS: All right, so this is Linda Ronstadt with the Stone Poneys, the first album that they released.
— (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SWEET SUMMER BLUE AND GOLD")
THE STONE PONEYS: (Singing) Look out your window, the rain is turning into snow. So the time has come, you know. You must decide to stay or go. Oh, how you love me, sweet summer blue and gold. Will you stay with me, long winters gray and cold?
(Singing) Go, love, open up the door. You’ll see the winds aren’t warm anymore. The birds we heard all summer long were chased away by winter storm. Oh, how you love me, sweet summer blue and gold. Will you stay with me, long winters gray and cold?
… GROSS: So that was the Stone Poneys, with my guest Linda Ronstadt, and that was before "Different Drum." This was from their first album. And Linda Ronstadt has a new memoir, which is called "Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir."
So that’s so folk-influenced. Was that the direction you were heading in?
… RONSTADT: Well, that’s what we came from, you know. That’s – on the radio in those days, the radio was so wide open, you could hear a jazz song, the Singing Nun, a country song, and, you know, Peter, Paul and Mary, you know, doing sort of what was considered commercial folk music.
And we heard a lot of that stuff, and we were really influenced by it, you know, that kind of finger-picking guitar style and stuff like that. So that’s what we were chasing then.
… GROSS: You got a manager, and your manager thought you should really be, like, the soloist. He wasn’t that hot on the band, but he liked you, and thought he could really promote you. And then you’re ready to record "Different Drum," and you show up to the studio, and, like, your band’s not there. It’s these different musicians. Tell the story of what happened.
… RONSTADT: Well, originally, we had recorded – I had heard it, it was a song called "Different Drum." I’d learned it off a bluegrass record by the Greenbriar Boys. And I thought it was a really strong piece of material. I thought it was a hit. But I wanted to record it in a folky way.
(LAUGHTER)
… RONSTADT: So we recorded it with a guitar and a mandolin. And, of course, you know, the record company didn’t like it. And they said, well, we want to do it again, but we’re going to get a different arrangement. And I had no idea there was going to be all these musicians. It turns out they were all good players. Don Randi was playing. Jimmy Gordon was the drummer, a wonderful drummer.
… GROSS: Don Randi was playing harpsichord.
(LAUGHTER)
… RONSTADT: Yeah, Don Randi was playing harpsichord, and he played piano. So I was just shocked. And when they played the arrangement, I didn’t know how to fit the phrasing in. I didn’t – it suddenly wasn’t the way I was used to singing it. So it really knocked me off my stride. And I think we went through it twice, and we kept the second take. And that was it, you know, me sort of going I know how to do this now.
(LAUGHTER)
… RONSTADT: And it was a hit. You know, what was I supposed to know? I mean, I was just shocked. I didn’t want them to use it, because I felt like I was struggling so with the singing, and I thought that showed, you know, so clearly. But it was a hit. So when they put it out, that was a lucky thing for me that they didn’t listen to me.
… GROSS: So this is my guest Linda Ronstadt, "Different Drum," 1967.
— (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DIFFERENT DRUM")
… RONSTADT: (Singing) You and I travel to the beat of a different drum. Oh, can’t you tell by the way I run? Every time you make eyes at me. You cry and moan and say it will work out, but honey child, I’ve got my doubts. You can’t see the forest for the trees. Oh, don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I knock it. It’s just that I am not in the market for a boy who wants to love only me.
(Singing) Yes, and I ain’t saying you ain’t pretty. All I’m saying, I’m not ready for any person, place or thing to try and pull the reins in on me. So goodbye, I’ll be leaving. I see no sense in this crying and grieving. We’ll both live a lot longer if you live without me.
… GROSS: That’s Linda Ronstadt, recorded in 1967, a big hit for her, "Different Drum," her first big hit. Did you believe in the lyric about not wanting to be tied down or monogamistic? Like, did that describe you?
… RONSTADT: Well, I didn’t want – yeah. Yes, it did.
(LAUGHTER)
… RONSTADT: Yes, it does.
… GROSS: Never been married, right?
… RONSTADT: No knack for it. You know, I think that the culture supports serial monogamy, and I think I had plenty of that. And I think I was reasonably monogamous in a serial way. But I’m not a good compromiser. I think I don’t have a knack for the kind of compromise – I admire people’s marriages, and I think it’s a wonderful thing to have, but I don’t think it’s the only way to live. I think there are many ways to live, and many ways to establish intimate support in your life that can be from family or friends or a great roommate that you like, you know. It doesn’t have to be somebody you’re sleeping with.
I figured that out pretty early on, and that was sort of how I felt. I was trying to sing. I was never trying to get married.
… GROSS: Speaking of figuring out, you write in the book about how you had to figure out your image. And you write: Female performers in the folk-pop genre were genuinely confused about how to represent themselves. Did we want to be nurturing, stay-at-home Earth mothers who cooked and nursed babies? Or did we want to be funky mamas in the troubadour bar, our boot heals to be wandering an independent course like our male counterparts?
So, where did you see yourself fitting in between, like, the funky mama and the Earth mama?
… RONSTADT: Well, I didn’t really fit in there. I was raised to, you know, to a wear hat and gloves and polish the silver, and it wasn’t the way I was quite raised. So I was a little bit confused by it. But I was also raised out in the country, you know, where we were sort of rough-and-ready child. I was kind of right out there on my own, rolling around in the desert. So I had a little bit of both.
And my mother, there was nothing pretentious or fussy about my mother, but she had had a very nice upbringing, a very privileged upbringing, and she liked to keep the rules sort of, you know, where we lived, way out in the wilderness in Tucson in the desert, which was pretty uncivilized, compared to what she’d grown up, you know, having.
… GROSS: Linda Ronstadt will be back in the second half of the show. Her new memoir is called "Simple Dreams." I’m Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.
— (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
… GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I’m Terry Gross back with Linda Ronstadt. She’s written a new memoir called "Simple Dreams." Ronstadt had her first hit in 1967 with the song "Different Drum." Some of her other best-known recordings include: "Heart Like A Wheel," "Desperado," "You’re No Good," "When Will I Be Loved," "Willing" and "Blue Bayou." She’s also recorded albums of American popular song and Mexican songs.
Last month, Ronstadt revealed that she has Parkinson’s disease. It was diagnosed less than a year ago, but the symptoms ended her singing career several years before that. When we left off, we were talking about her difficulty figuring out her public image early in her career, feeling she didn’t quite fit into the folk-pop images of the Earth Mother or the Funky Mama.
I remember the rumor about Janice Joplin was – and I don’t know if you heard this because you were in the music industry, so – and you actually knew her, but at a distance…
… RONSTADT: Not well, but I knew her little bit.
… GROSS: Right. But at a distance, when like all of her fans were preparing for like the concert, you know, in the college auditorium, like the rumor that went around was like Janis Joplin got so deep into the sexuality of her songs that she actually reached orgasm on stage.
(LAUGHTER)
… RONSTADT: Oh my god. Well, I never heard that.
… GROSS: I doubt that was true, but…
… RONSTADT: I’ve never personally had that experience myself, but…
… GROSS: I assumed that. But did you feel like you have to compete with that kind of image and that kind of like level of sexuality that people projected onto her?
… RONSTADT: No. I think competition is for horse races and I never thought it belonged in art. And I never felt that competitive with other girl singers, really. I admired them. If I really admired them, I’d try to figure out a way – if it was appropriate, just figure out a way – to sing with them. You know, I liked Maria Muldaur when I first started out. Now, there was somebody that was really sexy on stage. And, in fact, Janice just admired her too, she loved her. And I got to sing with Maria little bit. It was really fun. We did some harmonies together. But mainly when I ran into Emmylou Harris, that was it. You know, we could finish each other’s sentences musically, and personally too. We have a very shared, similar sensibility, and that was a friendship that really opened up a tremendous number of musical doors for me.
… GROSS: I love the way you write about first hearing her. That, you know, you loved her singing so much, and the songs that she was singing were the songs you’d wanted to be able to sing, if you record company had let you.
… RONSTADT: And just like that, if I could.
(LAUGHTER)
… GROSS: Yeah. And you said you had a choice. You could either just be like really jealous or meet her and try to sing with her, and you chose to meet her and sing with her. I like that story.
… RONSTADT: I remember that so clearly. It was just like running into a glass wall at 150 miles an hour. I just went, oh my god, it was like a slap in the face, you know, and I thought, OK, I can get jealous here or I can just love this person and admire her and just go with it and see what I can learn. And it was just a split second, but I made that decision and it was – I never looked back. It was the best decision I ever made.
… GROSS: Yeah. You have a few stories in your new memoir about being propositioned by men who assumed hey, it’s a hippie chick singer, free love.
(LAUGHTER)
… RONSTADT: It’s so funny.
… GROSS: Yeah. Like…
… RONSTADT: Yeah.
… GROSS: For example, the time when a producer of a TV show that you were doing, you were a guest on the show. He came into your room on the premise that you had to talk about business, and he immediately like stripped off all his clothes.
(LAUGHTER)
… RONSTADT: He took all his clothes off. I was so shocked because I’m really kind of modest, you know, I had a Catholic school upbringing and we just didn’t see a lot of naked bodies. And this guy, I’m telling you, was not the Adonis of show business. He was kind of…
(LAUGHTER)
… RONSTADT: There was something really kind of exhibitionistic and self-hating about what he was doing.
… GROSS: Mm-hmm.
… RONSTADT: I felt sorry for him. I mean it was – clearly he was so troubled. But, you know, he had the power and I didn’t have any. And so I just kind of edged to the door and edged to the door and then I just went out the door. You know, and I didn’t come back for a couple of hours, I went and sat in the lobby. And I was so bored and I was so mad down there sitting in the lobby, but – because I wanted to go to bed, but I was just afraid to go back to my room. And in those days, you know, when you were kind of low man on the pecking order, or low woman on the pecking order, you didn’t dare go and complain. I called my manager and he said don’t say anything because, you know, they might kick you off the show. I mean you did the show, so…
(LAUGHTER)
… GROSS: So while we’re talking about this kind of stuff, I thought this was hysterical. In 1971 you perform at Disneyland. And the contract stipulated that you had to wear a bra and your skirt had to be a certain number of inches from the ground when you were kneeling. Which led me to wonder…
… RONSTADT: Yeah. Not very many inches.
… GROSS: Yeah. They seemed, so your skirt had to be long enough. Had they seen your act and known that, well, sometimes you don’t wear a bra and that you kneel in your show?
… RONSTADT: No. They just, that was just the rules, that if you wanted to work for Disneyland, you…
… GROSS: For anybody?
… RONSTADT: And I was laughing. I was going to put the bra my head, you know, it didn’t say in the contract. But I really needed to get paid.
They paid really well at Disneyland, that’s why we did those silly gigs. But, you know, they always have these silly laws. I think they were a very uptight organization.
… GROSS: In your memoir you write about how when you found the song "Heart Like A Wheel," the Anna McGarrigle song, which she sang with her sister Kate, that that song rearranged your entire musical landscape. First, let’s start with why did you musical landscape need rearranging?
… RONSTADT: Well, I’d come from this kind of sensibility. My grandfather loved opera, he loved "La Traviata," that was his favorite opera, that’s my favorite opera. And he had this kind of, you know, arty, refined sensibility, but he also look traditional music and he loved Mexican music, he was really passionate about that. So, and the same with my father, you know, he liked those things too. So the McGarrigles kind of married this incredibly traditional sort of refined aesthetic with, you know, just telling it like it is – sort of straight out, no bones about it the way they talk about stuff. And it was just this unabashed sentiment. They were unafraid of female sentiment.
And I don’t know, there’s something in the water up there in Canada because my favorite writers are the McGarrigles sisters, Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, Gordon Lightfoot – oh my god, what a great ballad writer – Joni Mitchell. I mean, you know, they’re just, they’re completely unique great writers. And in a lot of ways they’re falling in the tradition of what it would be called art song. And that’s what I was seeing with the McGarrigles. I thought, I didn’t know what to call it then but I just knew it was different from folk music and it wasn’t the same as rock ‘n roll. It wasn’t, there was no place for it in pop music on the charts, but I wanted to sing it because it told my story exactly how I felt at the time about, you know, what I was feeling about my life and my relationships. And I just had to sing it. And I tried it for a couple – and I sang it for couple of different guys. And, you know, my manager at the time, he said, oh, that’s just too corny. You know, nobody’s going to want to listen to that. And the record company wasn’t interested in it. They said, oh, that’s not a hit, they’ll never play that on the radio. So I just kind of, it sort of hurt my feelings on behalf of the song, and I sort of fold it up tuck it in my pocket.
And then one night before we were going to play at Carnegie Hall and the night before I was rehearsing with my piano player, Andrew Gold, and he had learned the song some other place. I don’t know where he learned it. And he was just playing the introduction to it. I said, I know that song, let’s do it. So I sang through it and of course, you know, I knew all the words and everything and I said let’s put it in the show. We put it in the next night at Carnegie Hall, got a huge response. So that was how I won with that song, I just kept trying, you know.
… GROSS: Well, it ended up being the title track of a 1974 album. Let’s hear it. This is my guest, Linda Ronstadt, singing "Heart Like A Wheel."
— (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HEART LIKE A WHEEL")
… RONSTADT: (Singing) Some say the heart is just like a wheel. When you bend it, you can’t mend it. But my love for you is like a sinking ship and my heart is on that ship, out in mid-ocean.
(Singing) When harm is done no love can be won. I know it happens frequently. What I can’t understand, oh please God, hold my hand. Why it had to happen to me?
(Singing) And it’s only love, and it’s only love that can break a human being and turn him inside out.
… GROSS: That’s my guest Linda Ronstadt, singing "Heart Like A Wheel," the title track of her 1974 album. That also included "When Will I Be Loved," "Willing," "Faithless Love."
I think it was after "Heart Like A Wheel," you go to your record company, Capitol Records, and you basically beg them to let you go because you couldn’t record what you wanted to record with them.
… RONSTADT: Well, they weren’t – I just didn’t think they really got who I was, and I mean to their credit, how could they know? Because I was still shaping who I was.
… GROSS: Mm-hmm.
… RONSTADT: I was morphing into something. It took me 10 years to learn how to sing, really, and to figure out, you know, who I was stylistically. So, but I had always loved Hank Williams, and I had always loved his country songs. And I could play them on the guitar because there were three chords. And I liked singing them and they were good harmonies and they were great sentiment. So – and again, I had this manager that said, oh, that’s too country for rock and too rock for country; you’ll never sell any records, you know. But I liked those songs, so I sang them.
… GROSS: Let’s take a short break here, then we’ll talk some more with Linda Ronstadt. She has a new memoir called "Simple Dreams."
This is FRESH AIR.
— (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
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…..item 2a)…. youtube video … Linda Ronstadt & James Ingram "Somewhere Out There" …
… 3:58 minutes …
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwD5s20z15A
catman916
Uploaded on Dec 2, 2011
"Somewhere Out There" written by James Horner, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil from the animated film, An American Tail, was released in October, 1986 on MCA Records as a single by Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram, reaching #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1987. It can be found on the Elektra CD, The Very Best of Linda Ronstadt.
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Music
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Standard YouTube License
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…..item 2b)…. youtube video … somewhere out there – Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram (with lyrics) …
… 3:59 minutes …
www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkI-B2JWSZI
dulcewater
Uploaded on Jun 8, 2010
a treasure. 
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Music
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…..item 3)…. youtube video … Linda Ronstadt – Living In The USA (Full Album) … 34:39 minutes …
www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsSECiDejqM
vinylripper1967
Published on Sep 15, 2013
Linda Ronstadt’s big selling "Living In The USA" album from 1978.
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Side 1:
1, … Back In The U.S.A.
2, … When I Grow Too Old To Dream
3, … Just One Look
4, … Alison
5, … White Rythm & Blues
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Side 2:
1, … All That You Dream
2, … Ooh Baby Baby
3, … Mohammed’s Radio
4, … Blowing Away
5, … Love Me Tender
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Music
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Standard YouTube License
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