Women Who Inspire Us
51:55 Share

Good morning and hello from the sub-thermal prairies. Got up this morning, minus 25 degrees. I'm Jan Arden. You're listening to the Jan Arden Podcast and Show. I'm here with Sarah Burke. Sarah is probably in tropical Toronto. It's warmer today, but we have high winds. So I'm loving the sun, but it's still cold. Yeah, there's something going on here. I'm not sure what it is. Lots to talk about today. I'm going to talk about the

I don't know how this stuff keeps happening year after year, after decade, after decade. It's so old and tired, this whole narrative about drag queens, pretty much in any capacity, reading for children in a library or in a school or in any kind of public space whatsoever.

Here in Alberta, it's a topic that is on the front lines. And it's just, it's embarrassing to me as an Albertan. It's ridiculous. Sarah, you sent me an interesting article. The NPR one? Yes. I'll throw this in the show notes. If you're not familiar with the legislation, there was a bill passed in Tennessee.

that restricts adult cabaret performances in public or in the presence of children, bans them from occurring 1,000 feet out of schools, public parks, places of worship. And then there's a second piece of legislation that bans transgender minors in Tennessee from receiving gender-affirming care, puberty blockers, hormones, and surgery. And this is a bunch of white cis males that are

creating this legislation out of absolute sheer terror and fear. I'll tell you one thing, and this is science, folks. You cannot influence a person's gender and you cannot influence a person's sexuality. Two very different things. Let's just remember. Every straight parent that ever had a gay child that thought they could somehow...

You know, we've done nothing wrong. We've had a perfect life. You know, he was in football. He played hockey. He loved everything. And now he's gay. Well, that's because that's his genetic makeup. That's there. I mean, this is so based on intolerance. And I keep saying the word fear over and over and over again, Sarah, because that's what it is.

You know, when I was in elementary school at Elbow Valley Elementary School, and this is, let's go, let's say 50 years just to be on the safe side. So this is how long this argument's been going on. We had a performer from Australia named Rolf Harris, who was in our school. He was a comedian, a musician, a songwriter. We were so excited to see him. We used to see him on television quite a bit back in the day, on CBC, on, you know, all the networks.

And he did this thing where he had a third leg. He sang really funny songs. He was this bearded, you know, benign kind of looking guy that just made us laugh and seemed to love children. Well, fast forward. This guy was revered as an Australian children's performer on television, radio, theater, all of it. Well, he was arrested and sentenced for molesting children.

a series of molestations that he did between 1968 and like 1972 of young children, young, young girls. So this is a guy, it's just a guy going in. So when people have these arguments about drag Queens, um,

I can't even begin to understand what could, how you groom a child. I'll tell you who's doing the grooming is any kind of, you know, a 45-year-old man that has, and this we're talking present day right now, that has 16 wives that are under the age of 15. Some of them are 9, 10, 11 years old, getting pregnant at 12, 13 years old. This is happening in America right now as we're having this conversation.

that's where people should be concentrating their ire and their focus. So as far as I'm concerned, we see these far right issues, the catalyst being COVID, the travel bans, the vaccinations. And it feels like since that's kind of been resolved,

That that same group of people have moved on to because of what they're seeing in the United States. Let's move on to trans performers. And this has been quietly and boldly and brazenly in often cases been going on for the last 30 years in this province.

I've been to many drag shows. I've been to many all ages drag shows. I haven't been for a decade, but oh my God, so many laughs, so much fun. I was thinking about our friend Tommy Smythe when I was reading through that article and just all the things he said when we had him on a few days after that shooting. And he was talking about the courage that these performers have in this day and age to continue getting on stage. Yeah, because they're being shot as well.

You know, literature is so, it's one of the most important things in the world. And if I could have a drag queen read to me every night as a 60 year old person, there's no proof of any harm or any circumstances. And people keep asking the individuals that are coming forward with these arguments, whether it's transgender bathrooms, whether it's sporting activities, anything to do with that.

These people cannot, asked repeatedly, cannot come up with a single instance of wrongdoing, of what has happened to a child while they're being read to in front of a whole bunch of people. And further than that, I had someone tweet me yesterday, I don't care what drag queens do, but I just don't want them doing hidden buildings where people pay taxes. And I wrote him back. I blocked him, of course. I took a screen grab.

And I said, well, I pay taxes and pretty much every drag performer, drag queen, king, anyone in theater that I know, actors, sculptors, singers, we all pay taxes. So when these people literally come down the line with these notions of I'm paying for this whole building.

So that's not going to happen here because I pay my taxes. I am paying for this. Well, sir, we all are. Did you see the Jon Stewart interview? Oh, it was classic. Absolutely fantastic. Jon Stewart has a show. It's on Apple TV. It's on Apple TV. And it's, is it called The Problem With? Yeah, The Problem With Jon Stewart. Go and look. He's got a bunch of interviews, but he really takes people to task.

And this gentleman that is very pro-gun. Nathan Dahm. He's an Oklahoma state senator. Thank you for naming him. 50,000 gun deaths. And, um,

John was basically saying, how many deaths by reading from a drag queen have you attributed to any-- I had no argument. You want to ban drag show readings to children. - To minors, yes. - Why? Why? What are you protecting? Why can we prohibit children from voting, those under 18 from voting? Why are you banning-- is that free speech? Are you infringing on that performer's free speech? They can continue to exercise their free speech, just not in front of a child. Why?

Because the government does have a responsibility to protect. I'm sorry? The government does have a responsibility in certain instances to protect children. What's the leading cause of death amongst children in this country? And I'm going to give you a hint. It's not drag show readings to children. Correct, yes. So what is it?

I'm presuming you're gonna say it's firearms. No, I'm not gonna say it like it's an opinion. That's what it is. It's firearms. More than cancer, more than car accidents. And what you're telling me is you don't mind infringing free speech to protect children from this amorphous thing that you think of. But when it comes to children that have died, you don't give a flying f*** to stop that.

Yeah, Jon Stewart just put him in his place so good. That's what I loved about that interview. And this was basically, you know, he just debuted the show on Apple TV. Way to come out swinging, Jon. We love it. And also, the children sitting there getting read great stories, it is up to their parents whether they sit in a library or a school. And I suppose at the end of the day that if a notice went out and saying that

Miss Kitty Clark is going to be reading Dr. Seuss at the such and such public library. If they want to keep their children home for that, it's their loss, but that's up to them entirely. It's not up to a democracy of fools.

that are out there, this podium of experts. Performers also understand the task at hand, right? It's the same thing if you knew that you were performing a show that may have some children at it. Well, you might not bust out as many F-words as you normally do, right? I try not to. If I see a kid in the first three rows, I try not to say the F-word. And we have a running joke. I always gave those kids 20 bucks.

I remember sending this one kid off. Oh, this is five, six, seven years ago. The kid went home with $120 and her mother still stays in touch with me on Instagram and says, Jan, my little girl, you were her first concert. And I don't know if you remember this. Well, of course I remember it. You know, you gave her $20 every time you swore. And she goes, I think you swore a couple of times just so that you could give her some more money because it was such a thing.

And she still says, my daughter, it's like one of her top things in her life. Thinking about the show, about the music, the lights, the, you know, it just stuck in her mind as a positive, funny thing that has lingered with her all her life. But to the point, like a drag performer will understand the assignment if it's, you know, in a public space that might have children or not. Their performance may look a little different. It's no different. I don't understand that.

what the problem is. I really, really don't. The heartwarming thing and the life affirming thing for me is that they are so outnumbered. Once again, people that don't want things imposed on their lives, people that don't want to be told what to do are imposing their will and their belief system on other individuals. So I don't know if they really understand the hypocrisy of what they're doing

But what I was going to say is there is a hundredfold people that show up to protect the drag queens, to cheer them on, to champion them, to make sure there's a safe way for the kids to go in and see the show.

Any costume with makeup and hair is part of a performer's tools. You know, you can go back to John Wayne Gacy was a fricking clown. I don't like clowns. I don't want to. I don't like clowns either, but any, why don't you go after the clowns for clowns? Yes.

I want to apologize to all the clowns right now because I love clowning. I have friends that are professional clowning. But I'm just saying is the hair and the makeup and dressing and drag is something that goes back thousands of years. At one point, they didn't have female performers in Greek theater or in Shakespearean times. All the female parts were played by men and young men.

They didn't even allow women in there. So this is a story that's going to keep popping up. And I cannot wait, Sarah Burke, to see what these people move on to next. Yeah. I don't know if it's going to be wearing sandals with socks. I wish somebody would go after that.

I wish they'd outlaw that in the library. No, no socks and sandals beyond this point. Anyway, lots left to talk about. I'm just going to answer this question right now. We've been asked a lot about Adam Karsh on the show. And Adam has just, he's working on other projects. We are all good. We are friends with Adam. Adam is friends with us. He is doing his thing. He loves...

His job, I mean, I've never met anyone that loves radio and broadcasting more than he does, but please no fear. There is absolutely, it's funny, people come up with all this stuff, but Adam's great. He's busy. He works on more shows. I remember trying to schedule him in sometimes and it was just like, no, I got this. I got that. I got this. So for all you asking those questions, that's the story on Adam. We love you, Adam. And I hope you are having the bestest time in the world, whatever you're doing.

Moving on, we were talking about before the break, women that inspire us. Tell our listeners a little bit of why we want to talk about women in our lives that have really, really made a difference and changed the course of our lives, basically. Yeah, and some of the names that you're going to hear, I imagine, will be like people that we know and are close to, but some might be just like figures of history as well. It's Women's History Month. Women's History Month! I wish I would have had a song prepared. Women's History Month!

Welcome on the Jan Arden Show. Okay, thank you. Hey, that's something. But I should have worked on it more. So International Women's Day is this week. And at the time of this recording, it's tomorrow. So that just has me thinking and I think you thinking about all those women who paved the way for us. Absolutely. It's funny because like my mind wanted to go back in history, but there are just so many impressive women like present day too. So I was kind of flipping back and forth between all of it.

But I go back to Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So inspirational. How about this quote? There's one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death. If I could not have one, I would have the other.

Putting it all on the table for freedom, literally. I am so glad people wrote stuff down. I know. I know. And that's why I'm glad that you're writing. She's leading dozens of individuals to safety, freedom in the North. And I just think, wow, the ball's on that woman. Think about the legacy of that, Sarah. You know, when you go in and you're literally taking hundreds, thousands of enslaved people, getting them

Out of the country. Where do you find courage? Where do you find the courage repeatedly? And she obviously had a lot of amazing people helping her because those kinds of things are not done easily.

just solely by the individual. You have to have a trusted group of people along the way. You know, there's the power in one, but then there's the power in a collective. But I think about the legacy of the thousands, the thousands of people that are related to people that were rescued and saved by Harriet Tubman. That's a great one. I love that. And I love the movie that I believe it was Netflix. And if anyone's interested and you want to see that story, it's just...

Punch in Harriet Tubman and you'll find probably four or five that really do a good job of showing. I mean, some of it's fictitious, obviously, but I just really loved it. It's just called Harriet. Harriet, that's it. Go watch it. I was thinking about Anne Frank too, because I sort of prompted you for this discussion. I'm like, we should talk about some of the women that, you know, we really like admire what they've done.

The courage piece with Anne Frank, like, I just don't know. Did you read that book as a Jewish person yourself? Yes. That was required reading for me in junior high, and it must have been for you in school. Yeah, I think it was. I think it was required. But, you know, that's the kind of story you'll never forget reading. That's the kind, like, when you put yourself in that person's shoes, just for the duration of the book, the story, it's a lot. Last year...

I had the opportunity to go to Amsterdam. It was a work job. My friend Chris and my friend Kim, we walked through Amsterdam and went and stood in front of Anne Frank's apartment, which is revered there. There was a lineup. Oh gosh, it was probably a two or three hour long lineup of people that have bought tickets to go through where Anne was hidden.

But I can't, I was so unprepared, ill-prepared for how I felt standing there. Because we didn't do the tour. We just didn't have the time that day. But just seeing the door of the house, just standing in front of that door and visualizing, it's right in front of a canal, visualizing the movement and the people.

And the Germans and just that whole... You can even picture the knocks, the knocks that would have been at that door when she... It was a very tactile, palpable experience. And I can only imagine what people endured during that time. It was very interesting to see the people in the lineup waiting to go in. The chattering, the talking, the eating of snacks, drinking of water. They had a long wait. The kids were running back and forth and their parents kind of, don't do that, stay away. And it was like an energy.

coming out the other side. I got goosebumps. It was like these people were really profoundly changed by the experience. And probably everyone thought about the safety, the comfort, the serenity, the calm of their own lives and what they had. And the fact that Anne Frank was days away from being liberated.

days away from being liberated. And the fact that her writings have survived and endured, once again, going back to our first topic of today, Sarah. Yeah, right. Power of words and a story. I thought today you might bring up Greta Thunberg. She's exceptional. There's a, go ahead, you were going to say something else, and I want you to finish that thought. Even presently, you know, if you look at the women that we see in those international headlines right now, you know, the Greta Thunbergs of

The world's like there again with the courage and the bravery. They don't care what the they don't care what they can lose. They don't care. It doesn't matter if they're going to get arrested with Greta. Obviously, it's like for everyone, really. It's not something she's doing personally for herself. It's for our world that we live in. Well, whenever you feel like you don't have a voice, when you don't have power, this is a little girl that sat out in front of her school.

with a sign, a handwritten sign. And she started gathering the support of her fellow students. And it, it went global to the, you know, thanks to social media. But, you know, the, the, anything that I've read about her, she's had lots of dark periods, lots of periods of

crying in her bed. And she's got great parents, parents that have supported this journey. They didn't pull her back. You know, they're obviously very concerned about a very young woman. She's not as young as she was, obviously, when she started. But, you know, even in Alberta, there was, you know, guys making cartoons with Greta with a noose around them that were from the petroleum industry. And grown men, Donald Trump, grown, grown ass men that

are so frightened of the truth and so frightened of anything monetarily being disrupted for them. It's amazing how they reacted. And the world reacted in turn, once again. They're outnumbered, and young people are mortified and terrified about climate change, the climate crisis that is absolutely here. All the science is there. Once again, science rears its ugly head, Sarah.

But people are making better decisions. They're making better decisions. There is hope. They're finding new ways to manage carbon all the time. And people are making those little changes. We see it in how they're shopping and what they're buying. And people are using their old clothes. And even like Hollywood kind of gets on it because they don't want to be embarrassed. So you're seeing dresses show up on the red carpet for the third, fourth, fifth time. But they're making a statement.

You know, a lot of the right wing people would say that's virtue signaling, Sarah. When you do something good for the planet, you're just trying to show people how great you are. No, they're just trying to do something good.

to make a difference. And maybe other people will be influenced by that too. Anyway, yeah, Greta's an amazing young woman as far as her eating, you know, less animals and the whole plant-based thing. That's part of the equation of what is going to change the planet. That's science. But a lot of people are doing it. I love the Meatless Monday. And I know we talk a lot about eating on this show. You did the two-week vegan challenge. And I'm hoping that some of those little things have stayed with you that

Yeah. Things that you might still do on a week-to-week basis. For sure. Yeah. Like a few of those things have snuck in. And credit to you because you're knowing how many of your trolls are out there just waiting to pounce online when you're being active on social media about whether it's HortShit.ca or...

veganism, you know, you, you take a lot, it takes a lot of courage to put those things out there. But once again, I have tons of support and so many people that are helping me and cheering me on and, and yeah,

Uh, there's hundreds of thousands of people that are against, you know, horse export. We're getting mainstream media. I don't know if it'll air by the time the show airs or this, this podcast airs, but I yesterday taped a segment of this hour has 22 minutes with Mark Rich. And this is a mainstream comedy show. That's been part of Canada for as long as I can remember.

And Mark said, we're going to do like the most unfunniest topic on tonight's news. Jan Arden's here talking about, we didn't say horse shit, obviously, but we talked about live export and he made lots of jokes. He goes, I'm so hungry. I could eat a horse. Remember when people used to say that, but we don't want people doing that, do we? And then I was like, it's not about what you eat. It's about how we get these animals, you know, 8,000 kilometers away and they're terrified. Yeah. I would prefer if you didn't eat them in the end on top of it, but

Those things like that have been so wonderful for us. Anyway, lots left to talk about. I want to come back and talk a little bit more about a couple of women that inspire me, but we'll be right back. Don't go away. Go get your bag of carrots and an apple and come back. Dan Arden podcast and show.

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

Lian 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

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 and show. We're talking about women and women inspire us.

And there's so many. I mean, the obvious thing for me is to go to my mom. I want to talk about my mom too. I know CR moms. I was very lucky. A lot of people did not have good mothers and I recognize that and I appreciate that and I see you. But my mom was extremely funny without knowing it. She was very economical. She loved, I like sitting on a box in the middle of a field. I like everything. She used to say that all the time.

I can't remember a car ride that we took the last five years of her life. Like I'd take her for a car ride. She had Alzheimer's and going for a trip in the car was like, and I love going for a car. Who doesn't like going for a car ride? Anyway, I cannot remember a single time where she didn't say, I love the green of the grass and the gray of the sky. I love that combo.

She taught you to love the little things. Oh, absolutely. And my mom fed the birds all the time. And she would tie scraps of cloth in the trees, like little pieces of denim or an old apron that she would cut up. And, you know, three or four days later, these 50 or 60 little tied pieces of cloth were gone because the birds would take them and use them.

They'd use them in their nests. They'd use them. And I would see... That's so sweet. Occasionally, like a little robin's nest perched on the elbow of a tree branch with a freaking strand of my mother's whatever in it. That was my mom's legacy, was kindness. And animals reacted to her in kind. You know, they just...

She just had a magical thing. So that was very inspiring to me. What was the dynamic in your house? Did she kind of run the house? Both my parents worked, but she expected us to pull our weight and to make dinner and to kind of organize ourselves. I think she got home around five o'clock, which was usually a couple hours after we got home off the school bus. I think we got home between like 3.30 and 3.45, pretty much clockwork. Those bus routes ran a pretty tight schedule. Yeah.

But, you know, we were allowed to have snacks and don't eat so much junk that you can't eat supper. And if you're going to have to sit there and eat it, I don't care how much crap you've eaten. You're going to have to eat your supper. But she let us, all of us make mistakes. She didn't remove obstacles. My mom didn't go, oh, we better not do that because that's not going to work out. She's just like, well, if you're going to do that, I guess you'll find out the hard way. That was my mother's mantra. Well, I guess you'll find out the hard way. I did personally find out the hard way.

But, you know, my older brother was a very troubled kid, drugs and alcohol. And I think it really, really tore the limbs off mom and dad both. It was very hard to watch. But she was always still joyous, Sarah. She always, she was still optimistic. And no matter what my brother did, she'd say, I'm not his judge. And he's a good hearted person. Anyway, she was a wonderful mother.

Even what you've shared about how she helped you get out of your head if someone in the music business was trying to mold you into something. Those little stories you've told about your mom I've always enjoyed too. Well, your dad and I think you're just as good as Anne-Marie. I'd be like, wow, that's a pretty high damn compliment. They believed in you. They had crazy music playing in the house. I think I've talked about this before, but most parents in my generation always had a radio going.

It was bolted underneath the cabinet, you know, the space between the counter and the cabinet. Dad had screwed, well, it's supposed to be there. It's made for that. And it would be like on either 1060 AM talk radio and country music. It was the combo back then or CBC. You know, this is 40, 50 years ago, but we always had music in the house and my mom was always singing or whistling.

And she was the most optimistic person, you know, alcoholic husband and a kid that put her through the paces. I really tried to be, you know, to not...

fall out of the ranks too much because I felt like she had been through so much with my older brother that, I mean, I was, I got up to no good a lot. I crashed cars and drank and, you know, ran away. Teenage stuff. It happens. Oh, but I tried to make it up to her for sure.

But I've also been so inspired by other artists. And we wanted to talk about, you know, people in music. Obviously, I had absolute heroes in music. Karen Carpenter, Olivia Newton-John, Bette Midler, Carly Simon, Janicey, and ABBA. They just were like everything to me. If you had to pick a common thread between all those women, what do you think it would be? I think it was that they just did music, that it was genre-less.

You couldn't sit and listen to them and go, oh, that's jazz or pop or rock. In the 60s and 70s, it was very different, the genres of music. I mean, obviously, Tina Turner cut her own path and she was very much R&B, but a lot of the singer-songwriters, which is what I gravitated towards, really had this wide berth that they could do. But I was very inspired by...

By them, especially. Olivia Newton-John, I miss her to this day. I mean, she hasn't even gone a year and I think about her all the time. And I buy any tribute magazines. I had the opportunity to meet her a few times and I just can't tell you how nice she was and how kind and encouraging. I have all my Olivia Newton-John emails saved. I mean, emailing Olivia Newton-John, if you would have told me at 15 that Olivia Newton-John would be emailing me,

And reading books that I'd written and I just, I can't even believe it. And then I loved, I loved books. My parents, both my parents loved books, but Jane Austen, George Eliot, you know, these are women that face so much to 300 years ago in writing because women couldn't do that. It just wasn't, it was really frowned upon. So they changed their names to male names and had pseudonyms.

I mean, Jane Austen obviously had the last laugh, but there was just like the Bronte sisters, the three of them, the lives that they had and that there was two of them that had these massive like Wuthering Heights and that the sisters literally wrote some of the classic literature of all the time. Two of the three girls in one family. They just, that was probably a competitive nature, but those women have really inspired me because I love to read and

When you're reading, when that much time has passed, when it's 250 years or 200 years or more than that, you're reading words, you're like, this is so bizarre that you're dealing with love and loss and romance, pageantry and parties and dances. And I just was fascinated by all of that. And then, of course, writers, as I got a little bit older in my 20s, reading books,

Anise Nin, I'm probably pronouncing it wrong, but she was so cutting edge and sexual and

her poetry and her, I just thought, how does anyone even live a life like that? That she was in Paris and New York and had all these boyfriends and girlfriends. And I was just like, even Nancy Drew. I mean, even Nancy Drew. It was fantastic. I used to read those. I love Nancy. I still have a bunch of Nancy Drew books. I like the Hardy Boys too. Enid Blyton is another one. She wrote about the four adventurers and Kiki the parrot. Enid Blyton.

Nigel, my darling friend, Nigel from England, he took me to a little village. The village is called Corfe. And Enid was from there. And he goes, I'm going to bloody show you the Enid Blyton display. They've got a little thing set up to honor her. And I'm thinking, this is going to be amazing. And he said, they wanted Jackie Collins to come and unveil it. And she just was like,

No, I can't do that. I can't go to Corf right now. But, you know, we might as well shoot for the stars. Jackie Collins is also a kick-ass, wonderfully nice person. She's since passed away. But anyway, so he took me. We get out of the car. We park. We're walking, walking. We go to this little square. Of course, there's a World War I and World War II monument there. And it's very, very emotional. And then we're walking over to the wall. And I'm looking for maybe like a statue. What's this going to be for Enid Blyton, one of my favorite authors of all time as a child?

It was this picture, one of those frames you can buy at Winters that's a glass box, you know, kind of, do they call them shadow boxes? What the hell are they called? Inside of this glass box hung on this old stone on a wall, probably the original wall that went around the castle, was the three little teeny figures that looked like plastic figures that were bought at a dollar store.

And like tiny little books laid out with tiny little desks. And it was the most hilarious thing. I don't know if it was done in some, someone did it in crafting class. But Enid, you deserve a better marker in this world. But people were lined up to see it.

Like the Mona Lisa, but you're like, not quite, not quite. But you'd see people turn around with the greatest smiles on their faces like, that was perfect for Enid. That was the four adventurers and the bird was there. Anyway, I've bored everyone to tears. No, you haven't. No, you haven't, but that's so funny. I can't thank...

People enough that forged a path for all of us other women. So many artists. Who, I was going to ask you, who, someone that...

Has really like showed you the way. So like a personal connection with an artist who made you not care about all the things that women in the spotlight are supposed to care about. Well, I think, you know, my 80s self watching like Patti Smith. Oh, yeah. Just she's so smart and beautiful.

I think image-wise, and this is not derogatory at all, Patti Smith does not give a flying F about wearing a pretty dress or combing her hair or having her eyebrows groomed. Patti Smith puts on a pair of pants and a shirt and she does her thing and she blows your mind with her musicality.

To me, she's the female version of Leonard Cohen or maybe Leonard. No, you know what? Leonard Cohen is the male version of Patti Smith. I like that. Her prose, her poetry. Go get yourself some of Patti Smith's poems. She's touring. Did you know that? Yeah. And I would love to see her. But you would be shocked at her catalog.

And a lot of people that are listening might go, Patti Smith, it rings a bell. But watching her and I think looking at her appearance, I think she's so cool looking.

But it's not pretty. It was everything that was the antithesis to what we perceived as pop stars, whether it was Dusty Springfield, whom I also loved so much. Dusty was a queer, a lesbian woman coming up in a time where it was so, she was so frightened of people finding out about her sexuality. And she had hit after hit after hit after hit. That Dusty in Memphis album,

is one of the greatest of all time. So, but, but just, I think women coming up in, in music in the 50s, 60s, 70s, what Tina Turner went through, what Aretha Franklin endured. That Tina doc on Netflix is great too. Yeah, absolutely. And if you want to go back to people like Billie Holiday, you know, just with crap managers and heroin addictions and,

not being able to even go into the front door of the clubs that they were playing. It's what artists, female artists in particular, have endured, fought for, survived. It is inspiring. And those on their shoulders, the industry is built upon them for all of us.

Even Shania, I know that we had a comment a few weeks ago about you maybe interviewing Shania. And by the way, we do have a request in. We'll see what comes of it. It's quite inspiring to watch how all of you have come out and done amazing things. Well, you're very kind. It's nothing compared to, but...

you know, you're never supposed to compare yourself to other people. It either makes you vain or bitter, one of the two. So there's just incredible people out there in the world. And to all you guys listening, it's not that we don't appreciate what you're doing, but you've had enough of the spotlight for enough of the time. And we're going to spend the next thousand years celebrating women. So hold on to your belt loops because that's what needs to happen. Maybe there'll be some peace in the world.

Maybe there'll be some fricking common sense in this world. Listen, tell us who inspires you. Jan Arden podcast on Instagram. Please, please let us know who are the women who inspire you. Maybe we can talk about that next week. You guys have been so amazing about sending us comments and ideas, things that you would like Sarah and I and Caitlin eventually to talk about. Sarah, there's a comment from Facebook.

Yeah, so this is from Pam Roganowski. I'm sorry if I'm saying your name wrong. She said that she comes to see your concerts when she can. She's wondering if sometime we could do a bit on blind dates and how people perceive them now with social media. And she goes, when we had a blind date 52 years ago, it really was that. Now you can take a look over the internet before even committing to going to meet the person. Ours has lasted 52 years. We're now in our 70s.

Pam. My mom and dad, my mom and dad met on a blind date. Really? My mom's friend, Frida, who she grew up with in Northern Alberta. Frida's family was very well off. And my mom was just like, I couldn't believe that Frida was my friend, but they were just, they smoked tea leaves and got into trouble and, you know, just drank moonshine and just all kinds of no good stuff going on. But Frida had met a guy.

And they were going to go to a dance. And Al, her husband, who she eventually married, had a pal, dad, who was like 18 years old. He's down from the oil patch. And, you know, he'd love to go to the dance too. And why don't we set you guys up to go together? And my mom, she had a boyfriend on the go at the time. And she said to Frida, well, I'm seeing this guy. Not only seeing this guy, they'd been together for probably...

close to a year when dad picked her up for the dance, you know, the 50 Chevy pulled up in front of her house. And anyway, mom said she, as he's coming up this concrete step, she fricking went and grabbed the roses that were from buddy and chucked him in a closet. Oh, so that dad didn't see them when he came in the door. Cause they had told really, he asked, what does she look like? And

How old is she? And stuff like that. But dad said, oh, I wouldn't have cared what she did. I just wanted to go with a girl to a dance, you know? Yeah. So mom said he was so skinny. I just didn't know what to think. But we sure had fun. Your dad could dance and he was so funny. And, you know, they were together almost 60 years.

And she never, she got rid of the other fellow. She just said, I just don't think I like you enough to keep going. She didn't say, I didn't tell him anything about dad. I just said that I was busy at work. She worked in a law office. I think she was

Well, we were stenographers. I'm like, what? What the hell? Like a secretary? Well, no, stenographers. We just took notes. And Frida, of course, worked in the office with her. And she said, we wore our high heels in two feet of snow because that's what you did in Calgary. You froze to death just as long as you look good. Yeah.

I think there's a lot of setups in Jewish families. Oh, I bet. My parents, I wouldn't call it a blind date, but they met at a bar mitzvah.

So like it's kind of like blind. It is a blind date. Did they know each other remotely from before? No, no, they didn't. They ended up going out after the bar mitzvah on date separately, right? I bet they did. Yeah, they did. But it just makes me laugh so hard, the idea of like a blind date now because you really can. Like one of my girlfriends, she took a PI course, like a private investigation course. She can find anything. Okay.

This dog, one of my girlfriends, she took a P, I course. I thought, where is she going with this?

You took a PI course. You can't pause between P and I when you're talking about a PI. Sorry, my bad, my bad. She can find anybody, anytime, anywhere. So like there's a whole group of our girlfriends right now where anytime they want to know something about a guy or something, they're like, hey, hey, would you mind looking this up? That's not a terrible idea. Not a terrible idea. Like a check, at least on a criminal basis, doing a check on –

You know, who cares about parking tickets? But listen, if they've done a B&E, you kind of want to know. That's fair. I ended up on a, I think you could call it a blind date one time. Do you want to hear? Do you want to hear the story? Yes, I want to hear your blind date. Of course, we all do. You guys, you guys, do you want to hear Sarah's blind? Yes, we do.

Poppy, what do you think? So in high school, there was a new guy that came from another school he transferred. Okay. So I end up crushing on this guy, but my girlfriend ends up getting with him and I'm like, right. So I get in this relationship.

I don't know how I'm trying. I was racking the back of my brain to try and remember how, but I ended up having these long late night phone calls with his friend. And I think it kind of began because I was mad about the other guy. You commiserating with him about the loss of your crush. Like, did you tell him about that?

I don't even remember. I can't remember for the life of me, but I remember being on the home phone at the time where like, you know, dad would be like, I need the internet, get off the phone, right? So hours and hours and hours. It got to the point where I asked my dad, I didn't have my license yet. It was like early high school. Can you drive me to this person's house to have a hangout, a date or whatever we were calling it? I don't think I realized until I got to this person's house that

like his parents' house, he was not anything I pictured fine, but also like a lot older than me, I think. And I got weirded out right away. I was like, this is an older high school guy. Like I'm not ready for this. Like within 20 minutes, I was finding a way to call my dad to drive back and come get me. So I didn't even go through with a full blind date. You were like 16 and he was 18, right? Yeah.

Like 15 and 18? I think I was closer to 14, 15, and he might have been closer to like 18, 19. Which is a cavern of epic proportions when you're that age. I felt like even a grade ahead was quite an emotional maturity gap.

level of, you know, it was a whole different. And now people hide behind screens for hours and days before they actually meet. They're in filters. So even if you're doing any of the apps and swiping yourself silly on a Friday night, you are probably seeing, you know, my friend said to me, I'm really leery when, you know, I'll swipe through and I'll just see like half a head or got with sunglasses out with their dog. She goes, no, I want to see their eyes.

But anyway, an actor friend of mine, actress friend of mine was on Bumble, I think. Okay. And she'd gone through a divorce, a really bad divorce. And she bumbled it up. She used it exactly the way a man would use the app. And I have to applaud her for that. She was safe. She checked with her doctor. There was never any question of not using condoms. None of that.

But she said, Jan, I had, I said, stop using my real name. She said, Frida, I'm, no, I'm just kidding. But she said she had a dozen lovers. She said, I had a morning time guy that would show up. I had an afternoon guy. She goes, I had a guy that was a booty call. That was like, I had a middle of the night guy if I wanted. You go girl. And I was taken aback at first because,

Just because, I mean, I could never in a million years. I could when I was drunk all the time. I just want to lap myself. But I just love that she was so emboldened and blazoned to explore her independence, her individuality, her femaleness, her...

her sensuality, her erotic self. And she got over it. She goes, I'm never going down that road again. She goes, I literally knew on the last, the last time I was like, nope. So when you're talking about blind dates, you know, she said, I would literally pick a picture. She goes, I was mostly going body. She goes, if they had no shirt on and stuff, I didn't care about their likes and dislikes. She was just like, do you want to hook up?

Like she made it very, very apparent. This is what this is going to be. Sorry, I smashed the table. But isn't that, isn't that so cool? It's very, I think it's very empowering to be honest. Yeah. And I mean, I'm sure both of us have had, you know, two things going on at once. Maybe not like two very official things. I have had overlaps and that's as far as I'm going to go. Yeah. But I feel like I was emotionally done with,

And I had moved on in my head, but perhaps did not make that as clear as one could have. So yes, I'm not going to lie and say, oh God, no, I've definitely, I've never slept with two people at the same time. Like I've never been having sex with someone whilst having physical maneuverings with another individual. Physical maneuverings. Shut up, Sarah. Just shut up.

Whatever. All the guys on these apps, they are waltzing to every venue in the city with a different person on the hook. So yes, we can do that too if we would like to. We can. Why are women sluts and men players? Tell me that. Answer me that. Puzzle me that, Sarah Burke.

Because that is the general consensus. And it has been for probably millennia or more, I bet eight or 900 years ago, it was always on the woman, always on the woman, the scarlet fricking letter. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, it's such a frustrating thing. And really, when you think about it, it hasn't changed. Although there's been feminism and great movements, you know, in the 60s and 70s, especially, you know, burning bras and all the things, abortion rights, everything you want to talk about, rights of choice. It's not that different than it was 500 years ago with how women are perceived and frowned upon for exercising their sexuality.

of being a slut. Like I just, it's so maddening to me. And a guy is somehow what he can just walk on and just be, yeah. And it's celebrated. Yeah. Yeah. If I had an answer to that one. Say man, you want to sell your wild oats before you like settle on one.

And I mean, that's a very general statement because the men in my life are the greatest men that ever lived. And I love them. I'm so lucky with the men that are in my life. And I mean, every single individual, my band and crew. Oh my God, good people. And I know most of you guys are fan fricking tastic.

So I'm not going to make that generalization, but I'm just saying in history, that's the thing. For sure. For sure. Maybe a full circle moment. I just thought that this was from a Washington Post article that I read. In closing, it says, Opinion. History months celebrate those who were written out of the story. You've been listening to the Jan Arden podcast and show. Chew on that. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

I'm here with Sarah Burke. We've got so many great people coming up in the next few weeks. Dani Kind is going to be joining us. She talks about working moms and the seven-year journey that she's had with that show.

and raising kids the whole time and relationships and all of it. So you'll want to stay tuned for that. Hit that subscribe button so you don't have to search for us week after week after week. We'll just appear on your phone. We'll vibrate on the inside of your thigh just with your phone. That's what we'll do for you for free.

We appreciate it so much. You can give us a rating and you can leave a comment, which really helps bump us up and make us easier to find by other people that haven't listened to the show before. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We love you, Sarah. Thank you. You are the best. And I am inspired by you and I'm always so impressed with you.

And your work ethic, your professionalism, how great you are in broadcasting. I'm so glad that we found each other, that Caitlin got pregnant. She fooled around and fell in love and got pregnant. Physical maneuverings. And I got you. She did some physical maneuvers, but you are an impressive young woman. And I cannot wait to see your work.

professional life unfold in the next 20, 30 years. So keep kicking butt. Aw, you inspire me too. Thanks, Jan. I'm happy to call you a friend. You've been listening to the Jan Arden Podcast and Show. Sarah Burke and me signing off. Toodaloo. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.