Ladies of the Canyon with Blossom

From the famed song by Joni Mitchell to the amazing ladies who embody it—I share my unique experiences living in magical Laurel Canyon, including a shocking accident involving a car crashing into my home on the same day as the insurrection. On this 5th anniversary of both, I reflect on the chaos that ensued, the unexpected friendship that developed with my elderly neighbor, Joyce, and her beloved dog, Blossom.

Through a tumultuous lawsuit with the city of Los Angeles, I learned valuable life lessons about resilience, community and hidden blessings in life’s challenges. This episode includes a heartfelt introduction to Blossom, the world’s worst driver, and celebrates the femininity of Laurel Canyon and all the great ladies of the Canyon.

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Lies My Vagina Told Me is hosted by Brigitte Bako. Produced by Jacques Thelemaque and Leah Sherman. Theme music by Jack Morer at balletguitar.com

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Happy New Year, everybody, and welcome to the iconic Laurel Canyon. It's another episode and another season of Lies. My vagina told me we are coming from the Casa di Carlotta, my magical estate in the wrong country, but in Laurel Canyon. Last time I saw you, I was in Venice, slightly hungover, and we were discussing that I'm just gonna dig up a dead guy. And guess what? I found out it's like a legal thing, and you've gotta get like permission and lawyers just to dig up one dead Italian count. So we are gonna get on that, and we're gonna take that journey together because she's in it for the villa. But I wanted to share with you, because this episode is actually dropping on January 5th, and it is the uh the eve of a very special anniversary for this country and for the casa. So I don't know if you remember, there was this television show, it was on CNN, it was called The Insurrection, and it was fucking riveting. We were all watching it completely fucking engrossed and in shock and in disbelief. And while I was sitting in this gorgeous living room, this 1923 they call it a Spanish casa, but you know, I think it's a gay Italian casa. Anyway, while we were sitting here watching this TV show on CNN, uh all of a sudden this uh house shook. The whole house shook. It was like quite violent. And I thought, oh my God, are we having an earthquake on the same day as the insurrection? I mean, what are the fucking odds of that? So I went to go check on my sweet pup Delilah because she was in a cone. She had just had hip surgery because I adopted her after she was hit by a car. And oh, my glasses broke, but I'm making it work. So I went to check on Delilah and I saw cracks all over the house. I'm like, holy fuck, they're really what are the odds of an earthquake on the same day as the end of our democracy? It was absolutely fucking shocking. So I go upstairs and oh, sidebar, I had just renovated this whole house in a in a pandemic, which is, you know, a choice. Uh, and so I had, you know, finally finished it. I was like out of money, and I was like, she's finished, and then smash. So I go upstairs into my bedroom, and to my holy great surprise, there is half a 1969 VW sticking into my newly renovated closet. And in that said 1969 VW was a dog, an unhurt, beautiful, blonde dog who will be known as Blossom. So of course I was in fucking triple shock, and I went out the back door to see what the fuck was happening, and sure enough, there was the other half of the 1969 VW. And uh at the very top of this hill, which I live just beneath, 50 feet up, was my legendary neighbor. Uh, I affectionately called her the Crazy Canyon Lady because she probably never said five words to me in all the 20 years I'd been living here. And the first words that she said to me were, I thought I left it in neutral. So her car without her in it, because she was like 85 years old, came down the hill with Blossom through my house. Had this been a heavier car, I'm sure it would have landed on my bed and on my dog. My boyfriend opened the door and and freed Blossom, who just bounced right up this mountain like it was no big deal, and she was in a bumper car. And I started hyperventilating because you know, one crazy thing happening in one day is enough. Like the insurrection was enough, but now uh there was a gaping hole with a car in my house. I mean, you can't fucking make this shit up, right? You just kind of can't make this shit up. So, of course, the police came and the firemen came, and uh, I remember the the police department saying, Well, you're not gonna forget this date.

unknown 4:21

Yeah, I haven't.

SPEAKER_00 4:23

It's the five-year anniversary, ladies and gentlemen, of the insurrection. Can you believe who's back in the White House? And uh, my home, after a gigantuous, painful lawsuit with the city of Los Angeles, the casa has been restored to beyond her former glory. Uh, and that was by the grace of uh, I don't know, the Laurel Canyon gods that I prayed to every day. Because let me tell you what happened. It's so cuckoo cook pants. So I was renovating this house because I did a really stupid thing and I rented it to people. They should be synonymous with destruction. They were friends of a neighbor. The neighbor was named Michael Jackson, different Michael Jackson, but that's probably why I let his friends move in. I was working in London on a TV show. I said, fine, you guys can rent it. You're a family. They fucking destroyed my house to the tune of Grey Gardens. It smelled like dead people. She needed a full fucking renovation. And that happened in a pandemic. And I was out of money. I wasn't working. I mean, no one was. We had a pandemic, then we had a strike. It was really fucking lean times. And so when this accident happened, I mean, two million dollars worth of damages, ladies and gentlemen. About a million dollars worth of damages to the house, another million something to the hillside and the retaining walls, because she took down all the retaining walls as that car went bumpity bump bump bump. So the crazy thing is, about six months before this accident, I found the guy at the city, the guy in charge of roads, and I wrote him a letter and I said, hey, I'm I'm concerned, I'm fucking concerned that a car is gonna fall on my house. I wish I wasn't so fucking goddamn psychic because who the hell could fucking wish that? Like it was so specific. And the guy from the city, who since lost his job, which I feel bad about, because he wrote me in writing, we know that the street is crumbling. We know it needs a new retaining wall. We cannot put our equipment on the street because we're afraid it's gonna collapse. I mean, my lawyer said, How big do you want your swimming pool to be? I want it big. I mean, I want it in Italy, but I want it big. So the city of Los Angeles should have just said, We're so sorry, we're so glad no one was hurt, we're gonna fix this. It's entirely our fault. But you know what they did instead? Oh well, they countersued me and my 85-year-old neighbor, Joyce Forrest. Sidebar Joyce Forrest, moved here in 1969, she was a teacher, I'm pretty sure she fucked everybody. I'm just pretty sure she was a lady, so she never talked about it. I'm sure she blew Mick and Dylan and wouldn't you? 1969. I mean, anyway. So instead of saying, I'm so sorry, we're gonna fix your house, we're gonna restore your house, we're gonna restore your her poor original car, we're gonna make sure that Blossom is kept in the best fucking farmer's dog kibble for the rest of her life. Instead of that, they countersue us for collusion because they said, Hey, this is what happened. This 85-year-old lady said, I have a fantastic fucking idea. I'm gonna take my favorite dog, I'm gonna put my favorite dog in my favorite car, and I'm gonna roll it down the hill. I'm gonna smash it into your favorite house, and then we're gonna see the city because that's so much fun. They also based their lawsuit on another thing, that blossom. Albeit not a good driver, but that blossom lifted up the clutch of this 1969 VW, put the fucking car in reverse, and recklessly drove on to public property. Blossom is a golden, I guess, and poor chow, because she has a purple tongue. And let me just tell you a little bit about this neighbor, Joyce. She was a recluse. I've only found all this out later. And this incredible friendship kind of developed. You won't think that somebody does two million dollars worth of damage to your house, you become friends with them. But we did, and she was a fascinating woman, and she had a kind of witch-like quality because she was all fucking crippled and she had some issue, and Blossom was her service animal. I mean, she was her savior because uh Joyce walked very slow towards the end on two canes, and Blossom would block her from all the cars, so Blossom moved like a fucking gargoyle. I mean, she was just taking care of this woman her whole life, and the whole fucking community rallied around Joyce. Uh, you know, everybody started to take care of her. We took care of Blossom. I mean, Blossom became my best friend. Blossom was just a super wise sage, and she would tell me, because I I would look for comfort, because there were two options. The city of Los Angeles was either going to pay to fix this or bankrupt me. I didn't there was no in the middle. Like I was either gonna lose my house while trying to fix it, or I was gonna fucking win. And um I won. But let me tell you something. Blossom is the reason I won. She would look at me with those sweet fucking eyes and say to me, You're gonna win. We're gonna be okay. This is not your fault, it's not my mom's fault. We are gonna fucking win this lawsuit. There's another theory. The theory is perhaps Blossom is my mother reincarnated. Hear me out. Both beautiful blondes, both kind of audacious, both super sweet, super kind. They have the same wiggle when they walk. I've questioned this because as I said, um Bo's been alright. But this house renovation took like the last of my shekels, and nothing was coming in in this crazy time in history. And somebody suggested to me, like maybe your mom was just watching over you and thought Bridget could use a renovation and uh a little bit of money and just went flick, you know, just flick. I mean, she was very creative, my mother, so she this might have been her way of helping me. I mean, there could have been a fucking lottery ticket, there was there's other ways to do it, but I have often wondered if um my mom had a little intervention in this. I totally think she haunts this house um in the best way possible. I wrote a script about this called Ladies of the Canyon because this unlikely friendship that that happened between me and this woman, Joyce, unfortunately, a few years after the accident. And listen, I want a settlement. Joyce didn't get anything. Joyce had to spend 80,000, 100,000 fighting the collusion case with the city of Los Angeles. She lost her original 1969, her first car, where I'm sure she blew somebody famous in that car. She wouldn't tell because she was a lady, a lady of the canyon. Um, but we she became my buddy. And Blossom became my best friend, became my dog's best friend. She's my best friend to this day. I like her than most people. And Joyce got sick, she got into another accident, probably shouldn't have been driving anymore. And Blossom became a ward of Laurel Canyon. We all vowed to Joyce that she would be loved, taken care of the rest of her days. And our amazing neighbors, Amelia and Jonas Kuna, they adopted her, but the entire canyon takes care of her. I didn't really appreciate um Laurel Canyon when I bought this house. I mean, they bought the canyon, right? Some movies in the 90s bought the canyon house. But it was during the pandemica where I realized this place is fucking badass. I mean, my friends in New York were like in The Walking Dead, and it was so scary and depressing. And here we could walk around the canyon and get a lavender latte on Sundays at Lily's. And it was a really kind of amazing, sane way to get through an insane time. So I have a lot of love for this place. And this season I'm going to be doing most of my shows from here. Listen, my vagina has a lot of explaining to do for season one, a lot of explaining. And I love those stories because this is a storytelling podcast. I have guests and I want to hear their stories, but it is a storytelling self-empowerment fucking podcast. And I remember somebody saying to me, contractor came to look at the escaping hole in my fucking house. Like a vegine. A big old fucking yeah vessel. And he turned to me and he said, I know you don't know this yet. But this is going to turn out to be a blessing. Ladies and gentlemen, that is so fucking true about almost everything. All these fucking things that happen to us, all these fucking mistakes, all these fucking wrong turns, all these fucking bad decisions, they turn out to be blessings. Joy's past, and I love her, and she's enriched my life. She's enriched the whole canyon's life. She's truly one of the great ladies of the canyon, as is Blossom, and you know, as am I. I'm a lady of the canyon, and I'm very proud of it. And this giant big mistake really turned out to be one of the greatest, greatest, greatest blessings in my life. And so I think everybody should sort of take that into consideration when things go really wonky. Right? We don't know. We don't know. And maybe my mama did go poop. You know, we don't really know why things happen. And we don't really have all the answers. And we don't know why we listened to our vagina and, you know, not our head or our heart. But we did. And I think this season we have the most amazing guests coming on with the most amazing stories. And I am gonna find a lawyer to help me. You do know that story about this woman who claimed that Salvador Dali was her father, and she went through all the inclinations of digging him up legally. I gotta look her up and see how she did it so I can do it. She went through all the proper channels and she dug up the great Salvador Dally. And guess what? It was not a match. I'm really hoping Bookie Finzie is a match. But when I put my mind to something, ladies and gentlemen, I put my mind to something. Uh, now I want you to come and meet Blossom. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the star of this episode, Blossom. Hi, Blossom! We just have a couple of questions for you today. Blossom, tell us what was it like when you were blamed for such a terrible accident?

SPEAKER_01 15:56

Blossom says that she knew that the truth would prevail.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

And I have one more question for you, sweet blossom. Tell us how did you feel when they took away your license? Ladies and gentlemen, uh Blossom still has her license, so uh be careful out there. So listen, I want to have a great, healthy, happy fucking wealthy new year. I'm praying for peace on earth, health, happiness, joy. I personally hope that my vagina gets busy this year. Not just telling stories, but you know what I'm saying, and I love you all, I thank you all for watching, for tuning in for our second season. It's so exciting. I'm having so much fun, and God bless you. Happy, healthy new year. We'll see you next week.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

Bye.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

Lies My Vagina Told Me is hosted by Moi de Debacum, produced by Jacques Telemac and Leia Charmand. Artwork by Leah Charmand, theme and original music at Jacques Melan and BellyGitar.com. See you next time on Lies My Vagina Told me.