The Show Must Go On
43:47 Share

Well, welcome to the Jan Arden Podcast. I don't know if you've noticed, but my sound quality has probably gone up so much that you're thinking, why does Jan sound so good? So good. Welcome. I would think that everyone's listening and saying, are they all in the same studio together? I know. Not even close. No, we're not.

I can't wait for that. I hearken back to actually sitting across the stool from you. Adam was through the glass. We were looking at him. I was always trying to get you to help me out of the building. I never knew how to get in and out of that building. It's amazing. It,

It is amazing. And it was also fun because then we would have, we would have like a guest who was in person. I know. And it was fun. Like I remember, I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm meeting Denise Donlan from Much Music in person. And like those types of things. Lisa Laflamme. Yeah. Like Lisa Laflamme just burst out into like jazz song and.

I just was, it was just cool. Like that, that is the thing that I do feel. She smelled good. She smelled good. Her coat. I remember her coat. I was like, okay, Lisa Laflamme, like you already know that she's a badass, but she just really is. Yeah, she is. And she's sexy. Lisa. A hundred percent. I hope you never hear this. I hope you do. You know, I hope you don't listen.

But she is super sexy. And of course, there's millions of Canadians that have seen her gray hair. She just, she did the, you know, the COVID hair transformation. Rick Mercer is another fellow Canadian celeb that has gone gray. And I didn't even know he dyed his hair dark. And he's like, yes, Jan, yes, I did it for years. It was a pain in the ass. And I, yeah, yeah.

I think it's like, that's the thing. I mean, I miss the sometimes option to have everybody in person in that building and the type of talent that that building would attract. I think that energy is really missing because of the pandemic. Now, though, just the ease and the functionality of doing everything remotely is definitely there.

Yeah, I think it's probably more valuable. I would just like to get to the point where we can have a little bit of both, but we'll have to wait till this new variant decides to go to sleep for a little bit, I think. Yeah, it is. It's really a bummer. But, you know, we have discovered so many cool things about technology. I mean, had it not been for some poor technology,

overworked caregiver at some of these long-term care places holding up the iPad in front of a loved one so that their family could see them, I think it would have been really dismal because that really made a difference for people.

Anyway, today there's so much going on right now. There's so much going on in entertainment. Live music is still finding itself at the forefront of a lot of conversations, especially in lieu of Adele canceling her much-anticipated Vegas residency, which was basically touted as weekends with Adele. So any thoughts on that, Caitlin? This is a hot mess. It's such a mess. Okay.

I feel for her because this is someone who, you know, they'd had show cancellations here and there in the past, but mostly was, I guess, coverage in the media was overwhelmingly positive. This is like the act to beat. She had her live special that took place, the one that was shot at the LA Observatory, and it had all the celebrities in attendance. So things were really full steam ahead around this album release. And then the Vegas residency happened.

And it was not only a headline, you know, that it was so prohibitively expensive for so many people to go and that then Ticketmaster did that pre-sale thing that resulted in nobody getting tickets. I was a part of that. Yeah. And I think those things were like, I was already like, oh,

a couple red flags here for this and then now we're hearing obviously that there are so many production issues behind the scene behind the scenes for vegas that she had a big falling out with the set designer that there were issues with the stage setup that there was you know and of course the official word on her instagram story was initially covid delays staffing issues all that stuff which is of course part of the equation for so many people right now in every industry but

But I just, because it was canceled like the weekend of, it was canceled. The day before. You know, it's a mess. So let me just give you a comparison. Celine Dion, who is having really, really horrible muscle spasms. She's been kind of saddled with this stuff the last year for sure. And they're really trying to figure it out. You can't really get out there and sing if your body starts doing crazy things. Having said all that,

Celine canceled 16 more shows yesterday. It might even happen this morning. But I'll give it to her. She did eight weeks in advance. She said, I know we're a long way away from March the 16th when these dates start. But she said, there's so much that goes into these shows. There's so much preparation. And because she is a consummate professional, I've been doing this since she was five years old,

She knows the industry inside out and she knows that it affects hundreds and of course thousands, thousands, thousands of fans. So she canceled the shows. People are disappointed. They've been bumped, you know, to a later date, but that's professionalism and that is being immature. That is getting good counsel from your, from your agents, from your managers, from the people that you work with doing canceling a show a night before is it's unprofessional. Yes. It's immature. Yeah.

And, you know, I like, I love Adele. I love Adele's music. But here we start seeing cracks in the veneer. There could have been an absolute triumph made out of this situation. Caesar's Palace has no end of lighting. And she did have a lighting director. She fired her original lighting director, had another lighting director in that was a specialist in opera. I guess she wanted to go with kind of a different vibe. Anyway, that's neither here nor there. What I'm saying is there are

so many skilled lighting people. She could have stood there with a piano, explained to people, guess what? Everything behind me, behind this curtain isn't ready to go. Yes. But you're ready, but you're ready to go. And you know what? We're here. This is about music and this is about connections. This could have been a personal triumph, a professional triumph, a critical triumph. My theory is that she blew her voice out.

In rehearsals. Because she's famous for that. And, you know, just having vocal problems. And listen, I've been doing this 30 years longer than she has. And I know that it can be an issue if you rehearse too much. It's that simple. You just...

can't sing that much and and not have it affect your voice so anyway how thrilled would people have been to salvage their tickets salvage their their hotel rooms their airfares the dinners the babysitters that they organize the air the flights people came from all over the world this is the day before people yeah to have her walk out and say everything behind this screen's not ready

But I'm ready for you. That felt like the only option to me on the outside as well. Like, if you had have done this two weeks earlier, you would have been able to cancel it tearfully and, you know, express your regrets and everything else. The day before, less than 24 hours before, you're on that stage, girl. Like, that is the only way you can get around this. And here's the sad part. They knew a month ago. What?

So when you are mounting a production, and I'm telling you this, folks, because I've been doing this for 40 years, you know well in advance of problems. And let's set COVID to the side. Let's just set that aside. It became a very central issue in the cancellation. And that's simply not the truth.

When a show is prepped, you can have people step in. It's like an understudy. When things are done, there's so many pros out there. It's Caesar's Palace. This is not the Saddledome in a one-off. This is a residency. They've been working on this stuff for 10 months. Anyway, it was disappointing. And I'll just say on a personal note, to go onto Instagram, I don't know, it's something, just being a woman myself, right?

And watching a teary apology, you know, lots of stories, but to revert to just crying. I don't, it's not, it's just not my deal. You know, there's an adage in show business, the show must go on. I personally would have done it. I would have stood there no matter what the F happened. I would have been there. Yeah. And I've been so sick so many times in my career and I have stood there and done these shows.

The cancellations, yeah. If it wasn't up to snuff, I just feel like, you know, the people who were there already waiting in Vegas expected and deserved something because they had flown a long way. They had made all those plans, as you outlined. It would have been easy to do. Yeah, and then two weeks later, you can say, okay, now moving forward, I had to do these personal shows because people were already here. And that's just, these are my fans.

Now, moving forward, there are a lot of problems right now that I'm not happy with. And so I'm not going to keep going with just me on a stage with the spotlight, but I'm making this work right now for the people who've already paid their money and can't do anything about it. And then afterwards, you can deal with those things. Now, the other thing that happens, and again, I don't know if this is true. So this is what I will point out. Like now there's blood in the water tabloid wise. And so people are all saying, oh, well, did you hear that her and her boyfriend, Rich Paul, have been arguing on the phone?

And crying. And so who knows if that's probably BS. Or maybe it isn't. It's just that now from a PR standpoint, it's like it's all fair game. And the clicks happen. And then everyone's going to be interested in this story. And I just think, again, professionally, you could have cut a lot of that off knowing that this is what's going to happen. Oh, the decision. And had she had good counsel?

I know what Bruce Allen would have said to me. We're doing it. Let's figure it out. You know, if you need to get a string quartet, you know, we'll throw that on there. That'll sound nice. Chris would be out there playing the violin. He sure would. And tambourine. I'd force him to.

And anyway, it is really unfortunate. And I'll tell you from the professional side of the fence, all the people, the agents, the managers, the venue, ticket master, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, there's so many people in that line with their hands out collecting funds. It's going to be a nightmare for insurers. So her stop goes down in those situations because this is not the first time Adele has canceled.

Nope, it's not. She's canceled many times. I had friends that had tickets for the Staples Center, and she canceled a few days out from that. And it's just...

You know, it's called the entertainment business. It's a business. And you can't, you can't, there's no crying in baseball. And I just, I will always be an unbelievable fan. I think what Adele has done for the industry as far as singer-songwriters, for as far as stripping down productions and telling stories has been, there's no end to the positivity that she brings and the realness that she brings. But this is a misstep. We all make them. Nobody's perfect.

But, you know, my heart goes out to everybody, all the hundreds of people working on the show and obviously the tens of thousands of fans. Me being one of them, I had a ticket for March the 26th. That's what I was going to say. But that's okay. I'm in a position. We're getting the roundup. You're listening to the Jan Arden podcast. We've got lots to talk about today. Get better Celine Dion. Get better Adele. And let's get back to live music. We'll be right back.

Welcome back to the Jan Arden Podcast. We were talking about the Adele debacle and, of course, Celine Dion. God love her. She had to cancel her shows too, like serious health issues. I have it from inside people. She's really struggling, and I feel like ever since her husband died, it's just been hard for her to, I don't know, just stand upright. It's got to be difficult when you're only...

you know, relationship has been one you've had since you were 13 years old. Obviously I can't relate because I can't even manage a relationship for a weekend. I wondered about the toll that the, you know, the loss and the stress and everything may have had on her health, to be honest with you, because she,

it's just oh so so profound and you feel like I remember when I found out that Renee had passed away like I was emotional and then I saw her live in Toronto and she dedicated a song to him and then sang it I mean and I like would cry at Celine doing anything pretty well and so then I got even more emotional um so I really hope she gets better I adore her

I would have loved to have gone to see her in Vegas. And initially I thought, what a great time. It could be a twofer. Like if Adele had dates that overlap with Celine, I mean, just seeing the two of them in Vegas would have been amazing. Now I can't see either.

It's not great. Well, we can look forward to Rod Stewart is going to be at, he's booked at the Coliseum at Caesar's Palace and Sting is booked at Caesar's Palace at the Coliseum as well. That's also why I wonder when you're going to see her, Jan, because they're coming up in May and June. So I'm thinking to myself, her dates were supposed to run from January 21st till April. Like when is this going to happen? I think next year.

I think next year. And yeah, it'll be really curious to see how it unfolds. It's going to be a logistical nightmare doing refunds because a lot of people are wanting refunds. You know, money's tight. I'll just, I'll tell you exactly what I paid. We were in the, in the queue for, you know, getting onto like an early fan thing. You get a number if you get chosen from this lottery. Anyway, Chris and I got two tickets. They were 600 us each.

It's wild. It's so much money. And then flights and hotels and stuff. I'm just going to hang on to the tickets. I'm not going for a refund. I have no idea if I'll be touring or where I'll be or what's going to happen. But just for right now, I'm going to hang on to them just to see where that ends up. So...

Anyway, live music is not the only casualty of the pandemic. Obviously, everyone's been affected by it. I was talking to someone yesterday and he just randomly brought up how much he missed. He says, I didn't ever think I'd miss live music as much as I do. I just miss it in the bars. I miss seeing it set up.

there used to be like bands at the casino that my friends and I would go to once in a while, there'd be a, a cover band. And it was so fun to sit there and, you know, have my diet Coke. And,

And listen to ZZ Top covers. And those days are over too. Yeah, it's not just live anything. Like you can't go see a stand-up comedian. And it's also weird as a Canadian to then see that none of the U.S. dates are being canceled and like more and more tours are being announced. But here in Canada, you know, recently Dua Lipa, Billie Eilish, they both canceled their Toronto dates that were upcoming. Chelsea Handler. Chelsea Handler, she canceled. She was supposed to be in Calgary this month.

And I think it's just, it's one of those other looming questions I have where is part of quote unquote living in the pandemic on an ongoing basis going to mean that the winter months aren't really the time to do this kind of stuff. It doesn't feel like numbers because it's kind of a seasonal flu. Does it feel like numbers are going to go down in the summer? Then you have the opportunity for an outdoor venue. Like, does it feel safer to do things then? I don't, I don't know. I just,

I had tickets to go see Tame Impala and I'm so sad that I didn't get to see them and another group that I love called Rufus DeSole and I do really love dance music as well and so part of that is going and being in a big sweaty mess of people dancing and typically it's outside but you're just not gonna I don't know if I'm gonna feel I don't know how I'm gonna feel about that because it hasn't even been an option yet but I do wonder

I don't know if you guys are ABBA fans, but ABBA. Yes. Yeah. Okay. I like some of their music. They have... It's inescapable. You know, there's no one on this planet...

but has not been inundated with ABBA music. It's just, it's just kind of omnipresent. Anyway, they use their own money, Benny and Bjorn and Frida and Agnetha. And I'm sure I'm saying all those names wrong. Uh, they spent, I don't know, $300 million and they built their own venue in London. It's in a great spot and they're going to do this. I don't know in perpetuity, but they did the, uh,

110 cameras on them for a month in their ball suits and they the boys had to shave their beards off and they had to wear skull caps and they're all virtual versions of themselves and they're doing their new record a lot of the songs from Voyage which is spectacular I will tell you that right now go get it and and of course all their they're a great majority of their hits but you can go there and their tickets have been on sale they're selling them like a year and a half in advance so they're going to be there for a while and

But maybe that's part of the equation is to make virtual versions of yourself so they're safe from anything that happens because it's just, they're just on projection. But I thought, what a great idea. Yeah.

And they've got all these different pods set up. I think they've certainly kept COVID in mind and they have all these different ways that you can watch them and keeping in mind with your whole dance thing on the floor, Caitlin, they do have room for standing and dancing, but then they also have for people like me,

you know, you sit in these little booths up top and kind of just look down and enjoy looking at all the kids dancing around. That sounds nice. I love ABBA. I was actually talking about them recently because I have found that my group of friends, and I don't think we're alone in this, has been listening to a lot of older music since the pandemic started. That nostalgia factor has felt really good. So whether it's

Bob Seger or ABBA, whatever. For some reason, old music has made a comeback and same with disco. Disco vibes seem to have made a comeback in our group of friends when we're like at a cottage in the summer. And I'm like, I wish that there was a resurgence of maybe not disco clubs all the time, but you know, I wish that when... Studio 54.

Yes. But just like one night a week or just one night a month, like a really good venue when you can be inside again safely, but would just do this and really nail it like with a great DJ and just make it this fun vibe. Because I remember when I stopped going to nightclubs, part of the reason was because it wasn't fun dancing. It was a deafeningly confusing music and it just wasn't, it wasn't.

that vibe. I don't know. I talk about this with, um, with Marilyn off air from the morning show a few times. Cause she loved disco music back in the day. And she's like, that was the best dancing and the outfits. Yeah. What about all that? Can we get some of that back? I don't know. You're going to have to go to Ibiza. You know what I'm saying? I think you are going to have to get on a plane and go to Ibiza or you're going to have to go to Miami. Yeah.

Is that the best Catalan? I don't even know. I don't even know. I was trying to be like a Beethan Spanish. Barcelona? Barcelona. Maybe I have to go to a big club in Milan. They do have clubs because my friend, Emma Hewitt, is like a trance artist. She's an EDM artist. But that's not really disco. But EDM is sort of the new...

Yeah. 2022 version of dance music. You know, the kids jump on the dance floor and, you know, you're always reading about fricking dance floors caving in somewhere like in Germany. Oh boy. 800 people bouncing up and down, collapse the dance floor at a club built in 1877. It doesn't surprise me for Germany, but yeah. Right. Um, it's, uh, but it, it, it is,

It's not my thing. Like I feel for you wanting to go to a club. I think, I think back to a place called the hippopotamus club in North Vancouver in like 1983. And the music was so loud, but it was, it was disco and they had a disco ball and the floor was packed all night long. Like the railings around the dance floor were all beer bottles and drinks. And you never worried about someone like putting something in your drink. Do you know that they have nail polish now?

for women that you can put your finger in a drink and it changes the color of your nail polish to tell you whether you have been drugged or not. Really? So there's a, so there's a lot of women before they're taking a sip of their drink. Now they put their fingernail in. It's instantaneous. It's like a litmus paper.

And, you know, it goes from red to black and they're like, dude, you've been drugged. Don't drink it. I mean, that's what it's come to. Thank you, science, but also just very depressing piece of technology that we need at all. But yeah, I mean, that's what I think I wanted to go like harken back to the days of... Do you like dancing?

I don't, I do. I don't know if I'm any good. I just think that I like it. But that's not the point. That's not the point. And I still, you know, I'm like a bit, sometimes I get self-conscious. Like I wouldn't want to see a video of me dancing. I'll say that. I have some friends who are such excellent dancers too that if I've gone out with them. What constitutes good dancing though? Like do you have to have moves? Do you have to have limber? Does your leg go up over your head? You got to do some stuff. You have to do some like cool things. You can't just sort of stand there and bounce around. Like I would just bop.

but I have friends, my friend Johnny, like I have videos of him that I've taken when we're out and I'm just like, how does he, does he have this routine like ready to go? I'll have to send you one Jan. Cause it really is quite impressive. But yeah. So, I mean, I like dancing. I just like, I don't like dancing at all. Anyway, listen, we, we, we do have things to talk about that are important today. Um, yeah,

No, we don't. You're listening to the Jan Arden Podcast. I'm here, as always, with Caitlin Green and Adam Karsh. We'll be right back. Welcome back to the Jan Arden Podcast. I'm here with Caitlin Green and Adam Karsh. And Caitlin was just saying on the break that if she had the wherewithal, if she had the cash injection, so any of you young investors out there, Caitlin's got a great idea. And you're not wrong, Caitlin. The speakeasy, like the...

Like opening an actual sexy, you can't vape or anything. You can't smoke. No. But still, crazy great cocktails, right? Yeah, I want the vibe of a place that you could smoke in, if that makes sense. Okay. Like a dinner club where people would dress up and you had an option for a valet and you would sit in a big comfortable booth with a little lamp on the table and there would be...

good food and really strong classic cocktails, good wine list, all that stuff. And then you'd actually get some fantastic singers and a live band. And I think, again, this stemmed from when the lockdown started. I was watching things like Godfather. I was watching mob movies. I started watching Mad Men again. And I just felt like

Oh, that's what we all are yearning for right now is this old school vibe and that music. I mean, I just think of, I mean, I've always loved... And people send you a drink. Oh. Oh, yeah. Yeah. A table away sends you over an icy cold cocktail. That is a great feeling. We can hear some Frank Sinatra. I mean, that's what I want. The gentleman in the corner want to send you a bottle of Dom. Oh, that would be really expensive. Have you ever been sent a drink?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I have Adam. No, never. And I've never sent a drink. You've never sent any, you never sent a drink, never sent a drink. Have you wanted to?

It's been so long since I've been to a bar single. I don't even remember. But maybe. I have been sent drinks. But it's anticlimactic a little bit. But I picture myself being in Caitlin's bar with dark crushed velvet, little tables with a little actual lit candle-y thing with a little lampshade on it. But comfortable. Just – I don't know. And someone –

you know, just comes and the waiter said, you know, what would you like to drink? There's those people over there are buying. Like I, I would love that. Yeah. That's great. That doesn't happen anymore. I mean, now you'd be like, who's the creepy dude or the creepy whacked out woman who wants to send me a drink. But I used to always get like grand Marnier's. I don't know. I couldn't think, what would you like to drink? And I'd be like, uh, grand Marnier. Oh,

Too sweet for me. I'd be the jerk that was like, champagne, thanks. But I feel like, would you be creeped out in this setting though? Because we're not talking about, this is another thing that's starting to happen. No, no, I wouldn't be. Not in that setting. No. Because you look. You make eye contact with the people. The waiter or waitress, they point at them. And it's this group of people right here, these two guys, this woman. Mm-hmm.

And you're like, cool. They look good. They look like they would smell good. I want to dress nicely. That's what you want. I mean, and that's what I think started missing from at least my bar experiences when I was younger was that it started being these hipster bars where it was just like loud, deafening music and all of your food cost $5 and it tasted like it cost $5 and, you know, crappy beer became cool and everybody looks like they just woke up. Can we go back to the clothes? Can we go back to the

We need good clothing in this venue that I've imagined. But I just, I guess you can wear whatever you want. If you want to be really sexualized, if you want to just do a tube top and a tube skirt, I'm so over that. No, not at my bar. But I'm so over that look of a dress that is, it basically looks like a giant scrunchie that is just sucked onto women's body. And it feels like the less amount of clothes that they can wear is sort of the look they're going with. And it's so...

homogenize that all the women, I don't know if they're trying to look different, but they all look the same and the guys all look the same. Yeah. You know, there's, there's the, I don't know what it is. I miss people wearing really nice clothes and maybe that's just the really young people. Maybe I'm so out of touch that I have no idea, but man, when I see someone dressed up nice, whenever I go to Montreal, I'm like, Oh my God, people dress so nicely here.

And then even more in Europe. Because I'm in Alberta. In Europe, it's insane. Casual comfort there is superb. Go walk around in Sweden sometime and you will see the most gorgeously dressed men and women of your life. And I

also want to add that it's not expensive because in it whereas in North America you look like crap but you've paid $800 for because it's like a Balenciaga t-shirt or something we're so brand obsessed that it has replaced personal style in many ways and so sometimes you see that people in Stockholm or Copenhagen or Paris or whatever they're wearing just vintage white

whatever. They're not spending a lot of money on their clothes, but they're more pulled together. It has more personal style, a little more flair. And I think that would be, again, the imaginary club that I'm creating. That would be the vibe I would want because I don't want everyone sharing a big communal table and yelling at each other over a crappy beer. You want it to be

nice cocktails, decent music, and a bit of a, yeah, no, if you don't put some effort in, you're not coming here tonight. You can go somewhere else. There's every other bar for that. But I just want one. I just want one place to do this. And yes, it will probably cost more money, but I don't care because you're not going all the time. Is there anything like that in Toronto? Does not exist. Okay. That I know of. I was just thinking, is there some little walk down where you take, you know, there is an A, Adam? Not really. I mean, maybe,

No, not that I can think of. Certainly none that I've been to. Yeah, I don't know any and I've looked. And it's not that big. I would imagine it wouldn't be that big. You're probably thinking 2,500 square feet.

Yeah, it doesn't have to be huge. And I mean, you probably wouldn't even be able to find a venue that was that huge, but you wanted to feel intimate. So yeah, not that big, but just done right. And so that's the feeling because I'm like, and I mean, now, good luck someone thinking to themselves, I'm going to open an upscale restaurant and lounge in the middle of a pandemic. So probably happening today.

But at some point I do think that there is a yearning for this because anytime I've talked about it with friends, when I randomly will put on Frank Sinatra, when we're hanging out, they all agree. Everybody wants this. So I don't know. There's an opportunity here somewhere. I will sing at your club. Great. Gladly. I will just come with a piano player and maybe an upright bass and I will just sing songs. I can play my guitar a little bit. Super simple. Um,

I used to work in a place that you are describing right now. It was called Il Pedrino. So all you folks in Southern Alberta, in Calgary, it was on 9th Avenue. It had like a beautiful door. I remember it with like a brass doorknob and it had a little window that you could look through like that opened, a little clicky little window that opened and you would go downstairs and

There was something upstairs. I don't, for the life of me, don't know what was up there. Maybe it was another restaurant. I was never there. But you'd go downstairs and it just got dark. There was red carpeting that went down. Then you went through these double wooden doors and it was all booths, a tiny little dance floor. There was that brass footrest around the bar and these beautiful like

stools that had little backs on them that looked so comfortable. The bar was like dimly lit. All these glasses were hanging there and they all had uniforms. The bartender had like a double breasted brass jacket on, but we sung torch tunes, my friend and David Hart and I, and we packed it in there. And actually this would have been the eighties for sure. And that's when I first started having this guy named Neil, uh,

follow me around. And that's kind of where I was discovered in exactly a kind of a club like that, that you're describing. Yeah, this is, and it was, it's like a cool venue if you're an actual singer like you, you know, because that's what people are really going for is to hear live music and not just to be deafened by a DJ, which I also enjoy. So I'm not judging being deafened by a DJ. I'm just saying I like the variety.

I would go to your speakeasy. But am I allowed to wear sweatpants or no? No. No. This isn't Terminal 3 at Pearson. No. That was funny. This is not happening. I'm a sweatpants guy. But yeah. This is the thing. It's like effort. But you have become that. When I get dressed up, like I've been doing press here the last couple of days for my record that is now out.

descendant that you can listen to now on all your streaming delightful places. Same place you would listen to this podcast, Spotify, iTunes, Amazon, all those things. Anyway, I've been getting dressed up the last few mornings just doing press and it makes me feel like a different person.

Yeah, there's real power in, for me at least, in like doing my hair and makeup a bit. Not a lot. I'm not going full glam. But when you do that, I think that I noticed that I hadn't, usually I do it after I have had a stretch of not doing anything for myself looks wise. And then I start to feel really down and out. Like I'm so pale and I feel like crap. And then all I have to do is put on some mascara and actually blow dry my hair. And I'm like, oh, okay.

Oh, you do have this option. You can do this. This is fine. Feels good. Yeah, there's definitely there's something that happens that you just and that's it's been a lesson to myself for sure to

I need to make the effort. Obviously, I'm not going to be doing press much longer. This will be all wrapped up sort of in the next week and a half or so. But I want to just shower and put some really good clothes on to go to the grocery store. I need to lift myself out of this because like I was saying last week and the week before, I do feel a bit of funk coming on. You're listening to the Jan Arden Podcast.

Caitlin Green, Adam Karsh, we'll be right back. We are so excited to welcome another new sponsor, our friends at Cove Soda. Have I pestered Cove enough to come and join us here at the Jan Arden Podcast? I love them so much. They are Canadian, first of all. They are a natural, certified organic, zero sugar soda, which includes, get this, one big

Probiotics. I kind of sounded like Dr. Evil there, didn't I? But seriously, you can get 80% of your daily vitamin C in just one can. Cove Soda is on a mission to promote gut health for all, and you still get to have a delicious treat while

while putting a gut-friendly, guilt-free drink in your body. Cove Soda is available in 12 delicious flavors all over North America. So for our American friends, you can find it. They've got this fruity lineup that's fantastic. I drink those all the time. They've got the classic lineup if you like

A cola or a cream soda, root beer, yes indeedy. And they've got their limited edition summer flavor, which will take you right back to the second grade. You gotta try the ice pop one. Head to janardenpod.com to find out where the closest place to you is where you can go and buy Cove. Go right now.

Welcome back to the Jan Arden Podcast. Caitlin Green, Adam Karsh joining me. We're still in season one. Still in season one. Season one. Yeah. Adele, Celine, nightclubs, speakeasies, disco. We are obviously yearning and trying to reach back into the past and find nostalgia. And it is very true. I think comfort has become a trend. Yeah. I think...

You know, we're so relaxed out at this point that now we are really looking for adventure. I've just been watching people going on cruises and now they're so cavalier about it. They have cases on these cruises, but now they have spaces on the cruises where people can go to recover from their COVID. And there are resorts offering free stay opportunities

Like if you go to the Dominican Republic and if you get COVID on their resort, they are offering to keep you in a different part of the resort free of charge, getting your rooms until you recover. Thoughts on this, please. Well, cause that's the only way that I would really do it. Frankly.

Is because when, you know, we went away to the Bahamas for the holidays, the whole thing was like, well, if we get it while we're there, at least we're staying with friends so we can just stay longer. And our flights were not regular flights, so it would be no problem for us to figure out how to get back.

And so all that stuff made it seem more accessible to travel. But it's been a huge deterrent because I've had friends where this has happened, where they go somewhere, they get sick, then they're stuck there. You're adding two weeks to your trip at a huge unknown cost. I mean, you can tell yourself, well, if we go, it'll cost an extra five grand, but you don't know that. So at the end of it all, I wind up

digging my heels in and saying, well, I don't know if you can't guarantee that this isn't going to really put you out in the event that you get sick. I don't know. It's hard to say.

Well, I think it's very clever. Adam is shaking his head, but you're reading. Go ahead, Adam. That's a great promotion to say, hey, come to our resort. If you get it. If you get it, we'll put you up for free. But for me, if I got sick, I want to be quarantined or locked down or getting better in my house. I don't want to be stranded anywhere. I don't want to be in a different country. I don't want to be on an island. But Adam, I'm just going to play the devil's advocate here. Sure.

If you ever want to go anywhere again in your life, you know, there is going to be a degree of risk there.

It doesn't matter if we, by the time we're on our fifth shots, our sixth shots, our ninth boosters, because we are going to be vaccinated going forward now. Like Caitlin, you've mentioned this before. You imagine this to be like a yearly flu vaccine and just something that's going to be part of our arsenal for our wellness. It's like getting a mammogram. It's like getting a pap smear. It's like having the doctor having you cough in his office, Adam. Give me a good cough, Adam. Yeah.

Cough for me. Like it's going to be that it's going to be that sort of a banal part of our health care that we do every year. We go for a checkup, we get a vaccination. But yeah, you I am going to risk going places like, for instance, I fly to Toronto in a few days. I'm just going for a job for two days and I'm flying home.

I'm going to be on a river cruise for three and a half weeks, end of April, going into May. I'm really looking forward to it. In the back of my mind, I'm thinking, well, hopefully maybe I can do another booster at that four and a half month point. But if not, I'll just do my due diligence because I'm going. I'm getting on that river cruise. It's a job, but it's really fun. I love meeting the people and I don't want to...

I don't want to do that to my life. Like if I get sick, I'm hoping that it's mild, you know, that I'm doing all the vaccinations and I'm doing what's asked of me. And if I'm in the room watching the river go by, I'm,

And watching movies and ordering room service for four or five days, I guess that's what I'm doing. I think if you view it throughout the course of, you know, say this is now what happens forever. Who knows? I'm not going to. Who knows? But if it was worst case scenario, then that means that if you wanted to fully guarantee anything, you're not doing anything because your only guarantee is that you're going to be at home.

So really, I feel like if I was like, okay, well, say over the next however many years of your life, you take 10 trips and one of them winds up getting sidelined in some way because of COVID. You have to basically then decide for yourself if it's worth it or not. And some people are just going to say, I'm not a huge traveler anyways. I don't really care. I'm going to stay within Canada and I feel cool about this. Or I have really serious, you know, this is the unfortunate part. It's the people who have compromised immune systems or, you know, children under the age of five who can't be vaccinated that wind up really getting trapped.

But maybe that will change in a few years, too. You got to hope. You really do. And then you can also time your trip seasonally. I mean, look, traveling in the summer when cases are much lower is a very different story than it is when you're at the height of a brand new variant launching, which is what we've been dealing with recently, too. And again, I return to statistically, if you look at the number of travelers who enter Canada, international travelers who enter Canada and test positive, I

I thought it was like something like 0.17% at one, you know, recently. Yeah. That's not a lot. I mean, it's not, it's not a lot of people. Community spread. That's not yet. That's not where the majority of this stuff is happening. And I think those were our initial fears when this first started happening. Keep the people out, lock down the borders. And we know now that it's basically your homies that you're sitting around the table with.

It's actually the calls coming from inside the house. The call is always coming from inside the house. And it was always recently, I mean, I had so many of my friends get sick over the holidays. And it was usually from a company Christmas party or it was from a family function of some kind. And a lot of people started getting sick at work. And so that tends to be where it is. I was just sleeping with a lot of people. So I knew that that was going to be a problem. You knew it. Who are they? It's Rick Mercer again, isn't it? I blame the waterbeds.

Like I just do. Remember waterbeds? Those things were gross. They were gross. Okay, can I just say, this is probably way too much information. The first time I ever had sex. And I know that I've said this before, was on a waterbed. I don't know this fact. And there was a flip clock beside his waterbed. And it was when the little digital numbers flipped over. Now all the retro stuff, you can order those from like,

you know, sharper image and all these rad companies are like retro clocks where the little things flip over. And I remembered laying there, we'd obviously had some beers and I was 19. So I just want to put that out there. It was very voluntary. I loved the sky. I was so up for this. I was scared, excited. It was very anticlimactic.

But the waterbed was a whole different dimension of, I don't think it's happening. I don't, yeah, I think your aim is off. Like, I don't know.

But I remember the digital clock. Thank you, listeners. See, that was a little bonus information today for you for staying with us this season. I always remember that the waterbeds were something that was in like the guest bedroom in the basement at my friend's houses. And so if we went down to the basement to like play, you know, Barbies or watch TV on the basement TV or whatever. Yeah.

It was always like this other weird room that had the waterbed in it. And I was like, what is this? And I think I was a flower girl for my cousin's wedding. And this would have been like mega early 90s. And we had to stay over at, I think it was either her house or a friend's house the night before the wedding. And I had to sleep on a waterbed. And I must have slept five minutes. I mean, I was eight years old. And I was just... Was your back just jacked? Like...

I genuinely felt sick and there was like of just an overall, I don't know. I remember feeling even as an eight year old child. That was a good idea.

Yeah. I was like, who wants this? This feels not right. But they were so popular. And they had like the bed frame surrounding them had stereos in them, lights. Some of them had little fridges. Some of them had like places like drawers that pulled out where you could have all your, they were like moving and moving those things. My brother had one. I remember my, my older brother, he had a waterbed and he had, he got this black kitten. He was still living at home at the time. This was before he was incarcerated. So he was probably like 16. Yeah.

And he had this little black kitten that we had for years. And the kitten put tiny little insignificant, seemingly benign holes. And it just slowly. Is that it? Are we wrapping up? That's it. We're out of time. I'm sorry. We're leaving on a high. We're leaving on a high. That's the show. We're leaving on a high. No virginity. Yeah. Anyway. Anyway, you've been listening to the Jan Arden podcast.

We hope you stick with us. Send us a review. Even if it's bad, we still want a review. I don't. Shoot us some stars and subscribe so that you don't have to look for us. We appreciate you listening. Adam Karsh, Caitlin Green. We will be here next week as we always are. Until then, look after yourself and the show must go on. Toodaloo.

This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.