Remembering Harry Belafonte, Nose-Picking & Wedding Season
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Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, everyone, wherever you are in this big old world. I am Jan Arden, and Poppy is out on the porch barking. I'm here with Sarah Burke, and this is the Jan Arden Podcast and Show. Poppy! He's basically our unofficial third host, hey? This is what I sound like all day long. Poppy!

Are you so happy to be home with your dog? Not right now. Not in this particular moment. We're used to it now at this point, right? I know. So right out of the gate, Harry Belafonte passed away today. He was 96 years old. Sarah was right off the top of the show. She goes, Jan, I'm going to tell you right now, I don't know a lot about Harry Belafonte. And then I just gave her a brief vocalized reminder. Day is a day. Oh, daylight coming. Me want to go home. Day.

is a day, oh, daylight come and me wanna go. Immediately, I'm like, oh, Harry. Harry Belafonte. So those of you that aren't 61, when Beetlejuice came out in the 90s, it was such a huge movie. And that song was featured prominently in a really hilarious dining room scene with Catherine O'Hara, ghosts, and they were all like lip syncing that song. It's an epic song.

absolutely legendary movie scene as far as music goes. So anyway, he had many resurgences kind of in his career. Obviously when you're 96 years old and you start out in the fifties and he brought sort of Calypso and reggae and he brought it to a black man bringing, you know, popular music. And I mean, really popular to mainstream America and in the world.

Anyway, he was from a little island in the Caribbean, Cat Island. My friend Patty and her husband Dave moved there many years ago just to get away from it all. And Patty became sisters with one of his daughters. Oh, wow. One of his daughters, you know, lived like next door to them. Anyway, long story short, in the late 80s, I opened some Harry Belafonte shows and

And there was four or five of them. And they were in sort of Western Canada, Alberta. Anyways, he was so nice. I just remember sitting in like the lunchroom after soundcheck and eating lasagna next to Harry Balafani. And he had cut a little thing out of the newspaper in one of the local papers from, you know, one of the previous shows that we had done.

And it was a little review on my opening act. And it was so sweet that he cut it out and he said, I thought you might like to see this. He had the most beautiful voice. He was a very, very nice looking man. Oh, that's so sweet. But he just took the time. He said, you know, you've got a really nice mention for the show. And I had not signed my record deal yet. I hadn't done any, I don't even know how I managed to, I think my manager at the time

was able to get me. I don't even know how he got me onto those shows, but anyway, safe travels, Harry Belafonte for all of you guys out there that remember him.

He had an extraordinary life. He was such a human rights advocate. And he just did so much for where he came from. He did so much for that part of the world and the Bahamas. And anyway, I was sad to see it today because I thought, oh, this is a person that you think is going to live forever. But look at you. As soon as I sang you a bit of the song, you're like, I know that song. Yes, for sure. I imagine with all the people that you've met throughout your career, you pick up something from...

every one of them. What did you pick up from Harry? Oh, I just think kindness and the way he treated me. I was, he would never have heard of me. No one had heard of me. Like I said, I didn't have a record deal and he treated me with such respect. Beautiful. He introduced himself to me. He would always check in and say hello.

You know, and I mean, here's fast forward. So many, many years later, my first and second records had come out. And on my Living Under June album, I was touring through Europe with Chris Isaac. He had a massive hit. So I'm out with Chris.

I had a pretty good hit going on myself. I had Insensitive winging around the world. Could I Be Your Girl had done really well. Unloved had done really well. Good Mother had done really well. That album was really such a surprise for all of us. So anyways, I'm out with Chris Isaac. And Chris, if you're listening to this, obviously you're not. He was a prick.

Sorry, I'm just going to say it. A lot of people don't say stuff like that. He didn't want us in the catering room the same time he was there. He treated the people around him despicably. I remember he was having trouble with his in-ear monitors. It was probably pretty new technology back in the day, early 90s. And he would rip them out of his ears in the middle of a show and look over at his monitor guy and he just was an asshole.

He just treated us like shit. He never introduced himself. We never met him. His band was amazing. Nicest guys. They made it tolerable for us to be the little opening act, zooming through. We were in these really strange but glorious venues, and I was very, very proud to be

having a job and opening for Chris. And I was such a fan of his before that. So yeah, Harry Belafonte, absolute gentleman. In comparison to what you witnessed. Yeah. One of the biggest stars in the world. And then you got this guy that, and it's all that just posturing. It's that sort of weird, I'm the big guy here and you guys make sure that you get in line and

And I have never been like that. I don't do a lot of opening acts anymore. I just, I have a long show and we take an intermission in between. Like there's a lot of reasons why, but I haven't taken an opening act for, for years.

But whenever I did, I always would go to the dressing room and make some jokes. And hi, if you need anything, help yourself, you know, lunch is at blah, blah, blah. And I hope you guys have a great time. And, you know, I'd always mention them in my show. Like, let's hear it for, you know, whoever the Dalla girls are. Yeah. Let's hear it for these amazing artists. So that just stuck in my mind.

And Harry was one of the biggest stars in the world. He really was. And so revered. But anyway, and I know you're not supposed to diss people, but I'm just saying, Chris, maybe you've changed your ways. I ran into him one more time again. I was now opening for Michael Buble in 2005, 2006. Michael, he's the greatest guy. He is kind. He is generous. He's so great with his fans. He is one of the best live performers I've ever seen in my life.

he, he treats his opening acts with such, I could see him side stage like night after night. He'd be standing there like making goofy faces and clapping. And, um, anyway, I, I do have a point to this story. So I'm sitting in this little restaurant on a day off and I see Michael across the way and he's waving at me and he's waving for me to come over. I come here. So I got up and

Made sure I didn't have food in my nose and, you know, all that stuff. And I went over, I'm like, hey. And this man's back was to me. And he turned around, he goes, this is my friend, Chris Isaac. So Chris Isaac wouldn't have known me from, you know, a rock. He looked at me. Michael's like, this is Jan Arden, friend of mine. She's been opening the shows. And I opened shows for Michael for probably three years at different times. We went all through Australia. We went all through Europe. We went all through the States.

And it was a lot of fun. So I'm looking at Chris and this was years before, this was probably 10 years later that I opened for him. He's like, do you guys want to join us? I think I was having a bite to eat with my guitar player. And I said, did he ask or Michael asked to join? Michael did. Okay. Okay. And I just, I never said anything to Mike. I didn't say, oh, that guy was such a

But I just remember looking at him going... Did he remember who you were? No, not at all. There was no... He had no idea. He wouldn't have known. And I think I was out for a month with Chris. I think that says a lot about a person. Hey, I bet you even if you talk to someone for five minutes, you'll remember them. Oh my goodness. I remember fans. I remember people that have sat in the front row of a show. I remember people's pictures from Instagram. Instagram.

Like I've pointed at people in the audience that I'm seeing. I'm like, can I have the house lights up? Is your name blah, blah, blah. Yeah. I just read your comment. You just commented to me and they just look at me like I got three heads. It's really quite funny and cute. I don't remember everybody, but I, I do. I would certainly remember if somebody was opening for me for a month. This is what I'm saying. Of shows. Yes. So either there was like this,

complete deny bill thing going on in his mind. Like, yeah, I kind of remember her and I, but I don't think they even take responsibility for bad behavior. I'm sure he didn't perceive that as bad behavior. I think he perceived it as, you know, I have a number one song in the world and I deserve to be treated thusly. And you kind of get that vibe, but the fact that he didn't want our band in the catering room when he was in there. Get over yourself, dude.

I'm like, okay. And you know very well that if someone was to hear this story, he would deny it to the ends of the world. And I have my band to back me up. And his own band was just like, the guy is just on hinge sometimes. You know, he can be a good guy, but you know, sometimes you get...

It's inexcusable. I find that stuff inexcusable. In radio, I've had this too. I'm not going to name names, but there are two veteran radio personalities in Toronto here. Opposite experiences. One slid me a $20 bill

on the table as I was coming up after his show and said, would you get me a pop from the pop machine? Yeah. Okay, Mr. Spielberg. The next guy on air was like, Sarah Burke's coming up next. It was like one of my first radio shifts and I was so nervous and

Sarah Burke's coming up next. You're in great hands. She's amazing. She's coming up, says some nice things to me before he leaves the room. Two polar opposites, right? It's funny how people act when they're in like power struggle. It's all fear-based. You know, I think a lot of people suffer from imposter syndrome where they don't feel worthy of success. And so they turn it into something really diabolical. All I can say to young people coming up in any profession that you choose is

And I've talked about this analogy before. Success is not a ladder. A ladder, the visual even of a ladder shows you that only one person can go up and down it at a time. Success is a horizon. So whether Chris felt like, you know, I don't know, whatever the reason, I'm over it. I forgive the guy. I'm actually a fan again. Not only was that a great song, but he's done some really great records. And we all have bad days, but I just saw that behavior repeated over and over again.

Being really talented is no accounting for... Be more like Harry. Okay, so wedding season, your sister's getting married. I'm just going to let you take it from here because you've been really upset this week. I don't know why, but I want to hear all about it. You've been trying to get advice from different family members, your aunt. And what's going on?

on. And are you being serious right now? You are upset? I'm upset. I'm upset. Okay. Let me preface this by saying, I think this is a very relatable thing because wedding season is very stressful for anyone involved in weddings. And the only time it's not stressful is if you're just going as a guest. So the wedding is June 3rd and I will keep you posted. We got probably a couple of weeks between now and then where there will be more stories.

The bachelorette is this weekend. You heard me talking a few episodes ago about the door tags and the maid of honor hasn't really let me touch the bachelorette. But you see, when my sister asked me to be in her wedding, and I'm not her maid of honor, which is fine. Context, we've had a tumultuous, we'll call it five years, and we've had a really good year. And I didn't expect to be her maid of honor. So that's great. I'm just happy we have a good relationship right now.

Um, but she says, yeah. And like, you know, my maid of honor will do this, this and this. I'm hoping maybe you and so-and-so can like work on the bachelorette. The only thing I have done for this wedding is put my credit card down for an Airbnb. So I'm sad about that to start because everything was planned for me and I've

offer to help, you know, in the group chats and all those things. Hey, we're three weeks away. What can I do? Can I pick up any decorations? Do we have a theme for this? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Do we want to have a house cocktail for the guests arriving and things like that? I've got it all under control. I've got it all under control. So for me, that's hard because naturally I want to help, right? Well, yeah. I mean, even just little things. It's my sister. Of course I want to help. It's your sister. Right? Right.

So I'm just going to show up and be happy and enjoy my time. But I'm really upset that I do not get to give a speech. Are other people speaking? I just want to get that clear for our listeners. Is there other people that are going to be speaking? So yeah, it's the maid of honor and my parents for Joanna's side. And

So get this. I've asked her a few times over the last year, like first it started with jokes about emceeing. If your sister's a radio host, you would just think that's a natural fit, right? So I've made the joke like, can I do a speech when I do your speech? When I do your speech a few times, every time she's been like, sorry, Sarah, like you're not doing a speech. You're not doing a speech. And at a family dinner recently, she like looked me in the eyes and was like, you're not doing a speech. And I was like, okay, it's time for me to accept this.

I'm not hurt about the maid of honor thing. I am hurt that I'm your only sibling and I cannot say a few words about our 33 years together on the planet. Come on. Okay, well, I'm going to give you my opinion. Yes. I don't think she wants to be embarrassed. I think you can be very funny. You're very clever. You're witty. You're quick on your feet.

You obviously have a real command for how to public speak, how to kind of wield a room. I don't think she wants any attention on you whatsoever. Bang on. Like whatsoever. I think she wants everything to fall on her, which is sad in a way because I think

Joy shared is intensified. I think when you share your joy, when you share your moment, and I'll just give you just a really quick story. My friend turned 40, my friend, Chris Brunton, who's been my road manager for 20 years. He's texting me right now. Okay. It's so funny. So anyway, it was his birthday was a couple of days before one of his very best friends. And he went to his best friend's dinner party and halfway through the dinner, uh,

his best friend, one of his best friends stood up and said, I have an announcement. It was Chris's 40th and they came out with a cake with sparklers and everything. So nice. A cake for Chris. So anyway, shared joy, it didn't take away from his moment and his birthday. It almost elevated it because everybody was like, wow, that's cool. So your sister is missing a learning opportunity and an opportunity to grow into herself. And I think-

she's going to regret this down the road that 15 years from now, 20 years from now, she's going to be like, I can't believe I did that to you, Sarah. And I'm so sorry. I don't want to look at it as something she's doing intentionally. And I'm trying to be like, really give her the benefit of the doubt here. It's an internal insecurity, I think too, because alongside a radio host, there's a bit of a shadow when you're a big personality, right? And, and,

Just to give you an example, we were on a family vacation years ago and we had met some people from Canada. We were at a resort. I think we were in Mexico. My sister and I were having a great day, day drinking, and we don't get to do those things ever together. So it was really nice. We're laughing our heads off, meet some people from Windsor, Ontario.

So we're chatting with them. Eventually, after like an hour of my sister talking about what she does for work, she does marketing and communications. And right now she's the director of marketing at a food bank. Like, way to go, Joanna. Like, amazing.

After she's done talking about her job, the person turned to me and was like, what do you do? The second I started talking about what I do for a living, she got out of the pool. And that like made me very sad. I tried to not take it personally and understand that there's something else going on there inside of her. But I've been thinking about that day for years, you know, because that's a...

It's just a statement. Oh, it is. It was a pain and a discomfort that was very physicalized. She physically moved herself away from you. Yeah. So I guess the lesson here is, or my advice to you, is to find the grace,

to know it's never about you. Do you remember that little book, The Four Agreements, years ago it came out? It was quite a phenom. And it was four agreements. And one of them was don't take things personally. There was another one, be impeccable with your word. I'm not going to get into The Four Agreements. But the one thing in that book, The Four Agreements, if you're looking for a really easy, really beautiful, inspiring read, it's very worth it. And you might want to pick that up, Sarah, just before the wedding. I'll put the link in the episode notes. The Four Agreements. So

To not take things personally so it is not about you. Nothing is it about you. Yeah. It's about her day to shine. And for whatever reason, she's always felt like she's standing in your shadow. All those things that she sees in you are

that she admires, but she kind of would like to be that. And I'm sure there's things about her that you would like to be, that you admire about her. Well, she's not able to see that right now. She just wants everything to be about her day and her moment. And to your point, oh, she probably doesn't want to be embarrassed. Like, I wish she knew better to know that

Of course, I'm not going to embarrass you on your wedding. I want to talk about some of my favorite memories of you and when I've seen you shine. But I think she still in her mind feels like the attention will be on you while you're speaking. Yes. And she doesn't want to risk that. So you have to go into it with some kind of, like I said, grace is the word that comes to mind of just bowing down to her wishes and

And giving her what she wants, which is a day filled with all eyes on her, all attention on her. Oh, I'm going to give it to her. I know you will. And I know you will. And I'm sorry you're hurt by it. And I don't have sisters. And all of my girlfriends that do come from families that have, you know, like at least one sister or three sisters. I've got lots of friends that have. My friend Nadine has got eight sisters. Holy. But I think...

It would be difficult having sisters. I don't know the complexities of those relationships, but from conversations that I've had over casual meals over the years,

My female friends are like, I wouldn't wish them on anyone. It's the most intense relationship I've ever had in my life. You love, like you want to hate them and just like punch them. But nobody messes with my sister. Like if anyone gets in between, if anyone's hurting my sister or doing her wrong. Oh, I'll be right there. Yeah. Yeah. So that loyalty. And I think it's such a contradiction to be

you know, sisters can fight for years, like years over, you shrunk my sweater in the ninth grade. And so I'm sorry, I told you not to wear it and you did. And that stuff gets brought up every Christmas. And you know, the little like milestones for a wedding, like for example, trying on a

going for a dress fitting and stuff like this was before she asked me to be in the wedding. She sent me a bunch of photos and she was like, what do you think about this for my dress? And I said, I don't know, Joe, like I'd probably need to see it on you. Is there a fitting coming up? Right. Because I was wondering what was going on there.

And she's like, yeah, I'm going with my maid of honor and mom, like period. And I was like, okay. Like I didn't really know what to do. So it's been an interesting experience. She did eventually take me to lunch, right? And asked me to be in her wedding. And that's when she said, I would love for you and so-and-so to work on The Bachelorette. So I thought I was taking a cue from her with trying to help plan The Bachelorette. I'm going to have to

kind of swallow my pride and just show up, plastered smile on my face and have a great time. This weekend is going to be a lot. It'll be interesting to see what I have to tell you next week. I think you're going to have a good time despite all of this. It will be interesting to hear what you have to say, but I'm sorry. It's so complicated. Being a person is so complicated. I know. And what we want and need for ourselves and how we go about

telling people what we need from them and

I mean, at least you're in the wedding party. You didn't get completely sidelined. There was a moment I really wasn't sure about that, but I share these things because families are messy and we all have them. We'll be right back. We've got lots to talk about. We've got some political stuff, some announcements, a little story about nose picking that I think you're going to find very interesting. And if this isn't a deterrent to get you to stop picking your nose, even in the car, I don't know what is. You're listening to the Jan Arden Podcast and Show. I'm Jan. I'm here with Sarah Burke. We'll be right back.

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Welcome back to the Jen Arden Podcast. What a day. What a show. Isn't it so interesting how many topics we can cover? I always think we're going to have a theme for the show. This is what we're going to have, Sarah Burke. And you know what? We never really have a theme. So I don't even know how you write the story bylines or the- Episode notes. Yeah, the episode notes. Okay, sorry. Is that like voicemail and voice text? Sure. Or voice note? Yeah.

You always seem to be able to nail what it is that we talked about. Like people say, what was last week about? I'm like, I don't know. I will have you know we are still getting comments about forgiveness, part one and part two.

Wow. People love topics like that. Yeah. Send us comments, send us voice notes, um, where you can go in and hit that little microphone down in the lower right hand corner. And we may or may not even play them on the show, but if you have some wedding stories that you want to share about or advice, you know, man, I've been so drunk at weddings in my life. I'm, uh, I'm going to be drunk at this one. Sorry. You might need to have a drink or two.

Anyway, it was just announced that Joe Biden is running for president for a second term. How do you feel about that? I'm glad he's running. I worry about him just because... And this isn't ageism, you know, but he just...

It's a lot of work for a man that age. When you're in your golden years, obviously when you have so much wisdom and so much experience, which is very important, I would rather see someone in their 70s than someone in their 30s running a mothership like the United States of America. Yes. But what they give up, the vitriol that they face, how it... You look at pictures of presidents at the beginning of their job, right? The first day on the job.

Even Obama, you look at a picture of him and you look at him after eight years in office and people age like there's nothing in the world. It's like they've been eating at McDonald's every day for eight years. Yeah. We are not sponsored by McDonald's and we never will be. But...

Vice President Kamala Harris, which is great. She's much younger. And I feel like if something were to happen to him, because that's the question, he's so old, he's going to have our tire, he's going to fall off the stairs of the plane and the guy can hardly talk. But he's already facing all this vitriol, all this negativity. I just feel bad. I feel like, God, don't you want to put your feet up? I'm always amazed by people's ability to sacrifice their lives for

the lives of their family. Even to go on a beach somewhere, they're going to be criticized. Oh, yeah, he's on a beach with his feet in the sand. You're damned if you do, damned if you don't. But if he wants to do that for another four years, something happens to him, Kamala's there, she can pick up the ball and run. And we've seen that many times with assassinations and

Look at even what happened to her husband, right? Like there's people targeting these people. I know that's a dark thing to bring up, but like the truth of the matter is that when you choose a job like this, you're a target. Well, he's 80 years old and he's already the oldest president in U.S. history. So 84, you know, at the end of that term, I know nothing about strategy, but can you imagine all the conversations that are just humming right now?

who the Republicans are going to put forward to run against him, like DeSantis or whatever, whatever's DeSanto, the Florida guy. And Trump, of course, has thrown his hat into the ring. Biden's logo so far just out of the gate is let's finish the job. I don't know. I don't know what to think of that logo. The Republicans are calling him out of touch. I don't remember

politics being so dirty when I was growing up like so like even in Alberta the provincial election to elect a premier is coming up and I guess the election cycle is just starting because it's either late summer or in the fall that we elect a new premier hope to god we elect a new premier than the one that's already there I'm not supposed to be political but that person woman should not be leading a parade that's all I'm gonna I'll just leave it there

I don't remember being so mean-spirited. Like some of the ads, oh my gosh. And some of the women in American politics on the Republican side, some of the ads that they're coming up with. And you said that you kind of see some of that stuff in Alberta? Yeah, oh, definitely. There's definitely those kind of real right-wing tendencies, but...

I'm sorry that it's so divisive. I think we all want the same things at the end of the day. And I'm certainly not pointing fingers at anybody. People are very nervous. They don't want to be overlooked. They want to be heard. They want to be recognized. They want the same thing for their families as anybody else wants. So I don't know why there's such a divide. I don't know whose fault that is. Maybe just all of our faults. It's just our faults to be pointing fingers. It's the society that we're living in right now. In Toronto in June,

There's the by-election for, you know, replacing John Tory. You know that whole story. Olivia Chow just announced she's running. And I feel like you said that you met her one time. Did you say that? Yeah, I met her with her husband, Jack. Jack Layton. Many, many years ago. And he was such an inspiring man. That was a shame. That was very difficult and heartbreaking. But she has come out as a force in her own right. And I think no matter what your political party leanings are,

I think it's probably really good to sit down, get off of social media, open up a newspaper, several newspapers, like go get yourself some information about who the individuals are. What is their track record? What do they stand for? What do they believe in? I think so many people base information

They're voting and their opinions about a person's character on nothing. Somebody was interviewing a guy on the street in the States about Trump and all the charges he's facing. And now there's a new one with a woman that's come forward. And they think it's very substantial evidence that Trump did violate her. Let's just put it that way. Many, many, many years ago.

And he basically said she was too ugly for him to ever violate. Look at my wife, he said. You know, would I ever touch this woman? That was his defense, which is so gross. But anyway, this journalist was talking to just a woman on the street about, you know, is this the kind of man that... She goes, I don't care what he's done.

I don't care. He's great. He's the best thing for this country. So when you have that kind of apathy, when you just literally have people voting for you that don't give a damn about your character or what your track record is or how many hideous, indecent acts you've committed on countless women over the decades, like when you have that, I don't know how you win. I don't know how you mount an attack. So basically each side just mounts a bigger attack

wilder, more extreme attack ads, I guess. The attack ads are, I think, the most of what people remember during a campaign. We're not focusing on what the person running's values are, what they can bring to the table. We're focusing on what they're saying about the other candidate. Well, it's not based on facts. Yeah, we've seen that time and time again, Canadian or American. The

But the attack ad thing is so prevalent now that it's hard for the average person not willing to do the research, like you said, opening newspapers, et cetera, to do it for themselves if it's just about what's in front of them. Well, I'm not talking about, you know, putting a thesis together, but it's nice to know who your local people are that are going to be your representatives there.

You know, either in parliament that, you know, the house of commons or in America, an NBC poll very recently found that 70%, 70% of Americans and just over half of the Democrats believe he should not run again. That kind of broke my heart too. So when you have your own party, but they're going on to say that they doubt very much that the Democrats will go against his bid. Yeah.

I don't know, 80. I would want to just pack it in. But maybe that's what service is all about. Let's finish the job. If I was Biden at this point, I'd be like, I cannot let Trump win. It might be like, I must prove that the American people are better than this. Well, his wife, Jill Biden, has continued to work as a teacher at a community college.

In addition to her role as first lady this whole time. Insanity. Yeah. That's all I got to say. That's our take on American politics today. But we don't know anything about American politics. I'm just saying, I just wanted to bring it up because he just, sometimes he seems a little bit frail to me. I don't want this job like killing him. Anyway, I have a lot of respect for anyone going into public service. And I mean that on whatever side of the fence you fall on, you face death threats,

It doesn't matter what you do or don't do. You will have people that hate you for no other reason than just to hate you. So for all of you people that are in public service, I thank you. I think it's an incredibly difficult job. And like I said, I don't care what your party is, what your affiliation is. It is a hellish undertaking. There's so much disrespect. And I think it only adds to the noise and the confusion. You know, when every word you say is somehow weaponized, you know, it doesn't matter what you say. People are going to,

stuff it into their gun and shoot it back at you. No work can ever get done. Like, I don't know how Trudeau gets anything done. All he faces is this loud, obnoxious dialogue about him and his hair and his wife and his kids. And I hate it. So let's just leave it there. This headline caught my eye. Okay. Okay. It caught my eye and it was in health news. And I read health news all the time. I'm a health news fanatic.

I've been on a real journey myself this last six months. I just wanted to feel better. I wanted to feel more vibrant. I wanted to feel more rested. And so I've been reading all this health stuff. My mom had Alzheimer's, very well-known fact. I wrote a book about it called Feeding My Mother, about my experience with having a mom that started forgetting stuff at 72 years old.

So that's like 11 years older than I am now. Oh boy. A study suggests an unexpected link between nose picking and Alzheimer's. So that was what I read. Now, this was a study done on mice for the record. How do mice pick their... I just wanted to say a caveat to this whole story. I am so against animal testing.

I say whatever you want to me. Oh, but because of that, we have cures for this animal testing. The testing has been proven to be unreliable, unrelatable to human health, like 99% of it. So please, I'm not even going to go down that road with anybody right now, sir. This was interesting. A tenuous but plausible link between picking your nose and upping the chances of developing dementia.

In cases where picking at your nose damages internal tissues, so if you're really in there, you see the guy next to you in the car at the red light, just nasal mining, a critical species of bacteria gain an easier path to the brain. Through your nose. Your brain responds to the bacteria's presence in ways that resemble signs of Alzheimer's disease.

Hmm. This is interesting. So lightly picking your nose is okay? Like what if you got a hot sauce on your finger? You make a good case for how... The supporting research is based on mice rather than humans. This was done at Griffith University in Australia. They ran tests on the bacteria called

Chlamydia phenomonae, P-N-E-U-M-O-N-I-A-E. I don't know. How would you pronounce that? Phenomonae? I'm not sure. Chlamydia phenomonae. You don't want that growing on the side of your leg. I'll tell you that much, whatever it is. Which can affect humans and cause pneumonia? Okay, well, that's where that comes from. Pneumoniae, pneumoniae. That bacteria has been discovered in the majority of human brains.

affected with late onset dementia. Okay. So there it is. So in the mice, they basically studied that that could go up the olfactory nerve. So the nasal cavity joining the brain to the nose. And when the nasal cavity was damaged, like along the roof of the nasal cavity from picking your nose, the infections got incrementally worse. Anyway, I'm only bringing this up because when I was scanning through and saw that headline, I thought,

Did my mom pick her nose? I know this sounds so outlandish. I don't ever recall my mom picking her nose, but my mom blew her nose all the time. I'm a nose blower. Okay. My mom had a runny nose all the time.

And when you are a child of someone, both my parents had dementia and Alzheimer's. So when you're a child, genetically, it's in the back of your mind that I could very well be dealing with this at some point. But I got thinking about it. Never saw my mom pick her nose in my life. People don't always do that in front of people though, right? But I'm just saying, you know, when you're growing up with somebody, I never even corner my eye, but blowing her nose,

Non-stop. My mom got strep throat quite a bit, but she didn't get colds a lot. Anyway, it just got me thinking how these tests are done and

There's a lot of stuff that can go up your nose and into your brain that I didn't know about. There's just a lot of things that can go wrong. Have you ever seen the videos of people like putting, like they're waxing their nose hair basically? What? They shove a stick. One of my girlfriends did a live on her Instagram while getting this done and I was like, what? An esthetician puts a popsicle stick with wax up your nose and then they yank it out. And the hairs in your nose, pretty much,

protect all those things that you're talking about right now for bacteria not to go places. It's a protector. That's not good. No. Nine out of 10 people apparently pick their nose and a lot of other species. I love how you haven't asked me if I pick my nose yet. Am I going to ask you? I have picked my nose before. I have. Everyone has. Okay. Well, they're saying nine out of 10. I think, listen, I have a friend that has never masturbated.

Come on. No, never in her life. I don't know how we got to masturbation. I know, but she's just never, she's never tried it. She doesn't have any interest in it. She's had an orgasm before with her partner, with her husband. Like they're fine. They have a really good sex life. But my friend has absolutely no desire to do it. Never. I said, even as a kid, she goes, no, I just never gone there. So anyway, but nine out of 10 people do it.

Maybe there's some beneficial things to picking your nose. I'm not sure. And some of you have probably turned this off by now. And I apologize. But I don't think it's a big deal. I'm just saying be careful with your nose. Like Sarah said, be careful with your nose. Another great example is Q-tips, right? When you're cleaning your ears. There's tons of warnings out there. As a matter of fact, yesterday I was served up an ad on one of the social platforms. I forget which one. It was called like a

and it's something you put in your ear to clean out wax or something. And I was like, why am I getting targeted with these ads? But, you know, people damage their ears all the time. With Q-tips, you can damage your nose the same way. You have to take care of all the holes on your face. No, you really do. I don't, I'm not a Q-tipper person.

I do it with a warm washcloth and I actually will go to my family doctor. And get everything cleared up. Yeah. And I just, I have them do it properly and look at it. They do it with water just because I have in-ear modules, like little forms in my ears for a great deal of time. But most people do listen to music and watch their shows with ear pods in.

Right. Especially, you know, being home with all these Zoom meetings and everything. You got to clean those. So that really has upped the game with people's wax buildup because wax is a response to noise and it's a response to too much noise coming in at the eardrum. So it just basically builds up a little wall like, no, you're hurting us. So we're going to make a little wall between you and me and this sound.

So yeah, it's just a response to go that way. But my hearing is actually really, really good. Like I said, my health kick, I had my hearing tested and the doctor was like, you are extremely fortunate.

that your hearing is absolutely excellent. He said, you're in the top 5% of people in your age group with hearing. You haven't lost any of your upper sounds. And I work with people that have lost a lot of their hearing. Oh yeah. People in radio. Oh my God. Sometimes when I plug my headphones in at the studio, whoever the announcer was before me, I'm like, ow, my ear, right? Like, cause you can tell how loud they had it turned up. Yeah.

Can I tell you one ear buildup story? Oh my gosh, please do this. This whole segment is ears, baby. It's all yours.

Head and shoulders, knees and toes. Anyway. Okay. So you know that I'm best friends for a long time before dating the guy that I'm dating. So Mark and I, back in the day, we find out that, you know, we can get our hearing tested for basically the protective headphones for when you go to a concert, right? Yes. So that it's not damaging your ears. So we're like, oh yeah, there's a place around the corner. Let's go. So we go together. The woman who is helping us out, she's the hottest little thing. He's crushing on her hard. I'm just there as a friend, right?

She tells him in front of me that he's got the waxiest ears that she's ever seen. Wow. The worst buildup that she's ever seen. So by the time we leave anyway, I look at him and I'm like, so you're going to ask her out? And he's like, no, I'm too embarrassed. She knows I've got waxy ears. I can't do that. Still comes up to this day. Did she clean them? Basically, to get his hearing tested, she said, you need to first go to. Yes, exactly. Go get the cleanup done and then come on back.

Take care of your ears, people. Well, you know, there's a lot of talking about when kids go swimming in places that you probably shouldn't submerge your head. In fact, in Iceland, I'll bring this up, they didn't

tell you to not submerge your head into those mineral pools, but they didn't recommend it. So, you know, there's a lot, you think of the bodies, the millions of bodies going into those thermal pools. And I said to my friends I was traveling with, and I said, you can't tell me people don't pee in here. So right now, I know I ruined it for everybody. We hadn't even gotten in there yet. And I'm like,

You wouldn't even be able to tell, like if you go through a warm spot, is it pee or is it the mineral pools? Like you, you don't really know. But anyway, a lot of children, especially because they're so intrepid, right? They're in there for hours. They're putting their heads down. So many bacterial problems with ears and going into nose areas.

brain things like bugs. And I think you have to be really mindful this summer. If you don't have to put your head underwater, and I'm talking about something, maybe not a city pool because they're so chlorinated. Even some of the lakes, like the lake at the cottage. I would be mindful. I would tell your kids to kind of take it easy on that. I know it takes the fun out of it. There's so many new weird things out there now. This has been a great show.

Picking your nose. Sarah and I both admit to picking our noses. Masturbating? No, not masturbating. Anyway. If you're going to pick your nose, make sure you balance it out with a little masturbation. You can pick your nose and you can pick your friends, but you can't pick your friend's nose. You remember that one? We have gone everywhere today. Oh boy. Listen, we are here to entertain you. We want to thank you so much for listening week after week. You have made us

one of the most popular podcasts in this country. And Sarah Burke also has a very fricking popular podcast. She's kicking butt. No, she's got her finger in the air. She's going to pick her nose. Okay.

No, no, this finger is not going up my nose. We actually wanted to mention a friend's podcast that just launched. The Firecrackers? They're called The Blaze Sessions. Well, Naomi Snickus, and I hope I'm not ruining her name because I love her name, Naomi Snickus. Snickus, maybe? Snickus? Snickus? One of the two. Naomi, you can call us and give us hell. They have been promoting women, non-binary people online.

Like for years, they are just championing the creators and they've been doing an amazing podcast. And I'm happy to say I did one of their podcasts, but they have some incredible people. Amanda Bruegel is also involved. She's a terrific actor.

Um, she's done so many things. I mean, just right off the top of my head, Handmaid's Tale. Rita on the Handmaid's Tale. Yeah. She, she just had an incredible, a few years and Working Moms, um, Kim's Convenience to name a few, like I said, lots of movies. And, um, they are spearheading this fantastic podcast and it is called The Blaze Sessions. Um,

And if you want to go and listen to some incredibly inspiring stories, you just go ahead and click right on them. We will have the information in the podcast notes. Sarah is always great at including all that stuff. But listen, we're way out of time. Thanks. Wherever you listen to us, don't forget to subscribe because then we just pop into your inbox along with all the junk mail you get.

about earwax removal and all that kind of stuff. Well, hopefully next week, Sarah is going to have an update on the Bachelorette fiasco. It probably should be a television show, but stay tuned for that. Thank you for listening time and time again, whether it's in your van, in your house, in your bathtub. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll see you next time. Totally do. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.