Speaker 1: Today's quote is from British author Diana Hardy. She said,
Speaker 1: it only takes one voice at the right pitch to
Speaker 1: start an avalanche. Welcome to permission to speak the podcast
Speaker 1: about how we talk and how we get ourselves heard
Speaker 1: with me, samar Ba. If you were obsessed with the
Speaker 1: podcast series Dolly Parton's America like I was, you have
Speaker 1: heard today's guest Shima Oli. I was the producer and
Speaker 1: reporter for the series and just won the Peabody, which
Speaker 1: is like the broadcasting Award for excellence along with the
Speaker 1: show's host and her boss, jad Appenron. I wanted to
Speaker 1: have her on to ask all the questions about producing
Speaker 1: and about what it was actually like to be in
Speaker 1: the room with Dolly and with jab Who's I mean?
Speaker 1: I think the first podcast voice I ever heard when
Speaker 1: I discovered Radio Lab while I was driving through the
Speaker 1: backwoods of Virginia in trying to find these like really
Speaker 1: isolated locations where we were shooting the movie Loving Anyway,
Speaker 1: I remember hearing Radio Lab and going, oh, this is podcast, um,
Speaker 1: And I wanted to have Sima on to talk about
Speaker 1: her own voice on Mike, which I was really intrigued
Speaker 1: by as I was listening to the series as well
Speaker 1: as off as the child of immigrants, as a reporter
Speaker 1: who you know, has to ask tough questions and who
Speaker 1: as she talked about here, Jad relied on to speak
Speaker 1: up with a quote unquote love shove every once in
Speaker 1: a while during extremely intense interview moments. And also, you know,
Speaker 1: as a woman in radio trying to own her own
Speaker 1: creative vision. I was so taken with the Dolly Parton series.
Speaker 1: And I mean, clearly I'm not alone. It won every
Speaker 1: award for Best Podcast in twenty and you know, I
Speaker 1: had a feeling that Shema would be full of wisdom
Speaker 1: and insight, but truly was blowed away. Nonetheless, if you
Speaker 1: were in the mood for surprising and deep and balsy, sister, uh,
Speaker 1: this is Shema only I part of my experience listening
Speaker 1: to Dolly Parton's America among the various you know, it's
Speaker 1: sort of insane universe of journeys that we were able
Speaker 1: to follow one of them. And why I wanted to
Speaker 1: what my like inspiration moment was to have you on
Speaker 1: this podcast is that I felt like we were also
Speaker 1: listening to the journey of your voice on air. Oh wow,
Speaker 1: did you feel that because you were at first a
Speaker 1: just a name, yeah, and then by the end you
Speaker 1: were very much a part of the you know, obviously
Speaker 1: the intimacy of podcast is that we have your we
Speaker 1: have these voices in our ears, and you know, I
Speaker 1: remember I think I even like might have lightly gasped
Speaker 1: in the car driving listening with the first time that
Speaker 1: I heard you on air, and that it wasn't sort
Speaker 1: of cut around your question. It was very much like
Speaker 1: integrated in and I was like, there she is. I
Speaker 1: love your podcast because of this, and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: she gets it. We really had a blank slate going
Speaker 1: into this, and there are so many moments. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's four hours of tape, so altogether it was six
Speaker 1: hours and seventeen minutes of the nine episodes, um plus
Speaker 1: the two music episodes that we released as bonuses. But
Speaker 1: can you imagine four hours went to six hours. It
Speaker 1: was a very personal journey for me too, and people
Speaker 1: don't get to hear that. That was also deliberate because
Speaker 1: to me, the interesting aspect of this idea of oneness.
Speaker 1: The first idea I had was Dad's Dad and Dolly
Speaker 1: felt like one person to me viewing them, and I
Speaker 1: also have a Middle Eastern background. And when we were
Speaker 1: in the Kansas Plans with Grandma Betty and sarah' smrsh
Speaker 1: I actually this is three months before we got to
Speaker 1: the Tennessee Mountain Home. I had an emotional breakdown in
Speaker 1: the car which is on tape where I start weeping.
Speaker 1: I'm talking with Sarah Smarsh. Grandma Betty has just shared
Speaker 1: about all the domestic abuse and violence and her in
Speaker 1: her love life and with her seven to eight husbands,
Speaker 1: and I start weeping in this car as we've visited
Speaker 1: the graveyard of her ex husband, and we're driving through
Speaker 1: the Kansas planes and I start talking about my cousins
Speaker 1: and my grandma in Iran. And these are women that
Speaker 1: went through Grandma Betty stories like they lived Grandma Betty's life.
Speaker 1: But I was separate from them because I was in America.
Speaker 1: And when I met one of my cousins, she cried
Speaker 1: to me and said, you know you were lucky you
Speaker 1: were there, but we suffered here. I have an accent.
Speaker 1: I can't live in America. I don't have a visa
Speaker 1: to do so. Um so she's she'll always be seen
Speaker 1: as another on the world stage. And so I had
Speaker 1: flashbacks of my cousin during that visit, and also when
Speaker 1: I met the University of Tennessee kids when they were
Speaker 1: sharing about the accent. That's that was the first reporting
Speaker 1: trip I went on. They all just started bearing their
Speaker 1: souls and that moment, plus that Sarah Smarsh breaking down
Speaker 1: about feeling my grandma and her village in the Kansas Plains.
Speaker 1: And then on top of that, hearing Dolly talk about
Speaker 1: Dad's dad, which we never planned to use at the start,
Speaker 1: but she was kind of teasing Jad's dad about his accent.
Speaker 1: And one of these interviews, in the first interview Jad
Speaker 1: did that. I wasn't there in the one where she
Speaker 1: steam rolls him and where she steaming his chad a
Speaker 1: bit um. But when I was listening, I thought, this
Speaker 1: is funny. This is a woman with a thick Southern
Speaker 1: accent teasing this Lebanese man about his accent. And I'm
Speaker 1: someone who I grew up with parents with an accent.
Speaker 1: So this oneness of like the Middle East and the South,
Speaker 1: and of people being other that you don't expect to
Speaker 1: be mothered, of friendships that form an unlikely places, I
Speaker 1: think that that was my soul. The entire journey and
Speaker 1: what you cannot be captured, you know, which cannot be understated,
Speaker 1: and which I have not really like expressed in any interview,
Speaker 1: is it was such a spiritual experience. Like I don't
Speaker 1: want to say spiritual because it sounds so kind of goofy,
Speaker 1: you know, or whatever. But there were so many moments
Speaker 1: where Jad and I turned to each other and it
Speaker 1: was healing wounds of our childhood. It was healing wounds
Speaker 1: of of being first generation Americans with parents from the
Speaker 1: Middle East. It was for me, it was healing wounds
Speaker 1: of domestic violence amongst women in your family, of poverty, um,
Speaker 1: of all of that um. Anyway, so I think naturally
Speaker 1: that happened. I was just supposed to be the producer
Speaker 1: behind the scene. I didn't even want to talk in interviews,
Speaker 1: but Jad actually encouraged me. He said, no, be a Robert.
Speaker 1: You're like Robert crow Witch, you're crazy, like you're kind
Speaker 1: of you. Just say the crazy thing, just do it.
Speaker 1: And I said, no, I don't want to do that.
Speaker 1: I want to be serious. I want to be so
Speaker 1: serious and I want to be taken seriously, and he said, no,
Speaker 1: just be yourself. But I did see my role as
Speaker 1: a behind the scenes kind of Ninja and that was
Speaker 1: my role. But then naturally, as the series evolved, my
Speaker 1: voice just entered it because my ideas were, so we're
Speaker 1: we're are everywhere in the series. My work is everywhere
Speaker 1: in the series. I think also Jad has a brilliant
Speaker 1: audio mind and he hears things as music. And I
Speaker 1: was a flute. I was the pan flute, like it
Speaker 1: was like I started out little like I was not
Speaker 1: the main I was not the piano, right, I was
Speaker 1: not the main course. That might have been actually Dolly,
Speaker 1: but like you know, and there's a conductor and there's
Speaker 1: it was an orchestra to make those nine episodes. But
Speaker 1: I think I was a pan flute maybe once in
Speaker 1: a while a saxophone or something that would come in
Speaker 1: and it would help. So if it helped the whole series,
Speaker 1: it would happen. But if it didn't help the series,
Speaker 1: those parts were not there. What helped the series is
Speaker 1: what we put in there. I mean, in theory, this
Speaker 1: is why we should speak. Ever, you know, it gets
Speaker 1: when we're when that when eyes are on us, it
Speaker 1: can become oh god, I I better be clever um.
Speaker 1: But if we can always think you know, am I
Speaker 1: opening my mouth? Am I giving myself permission to speak?
Speaker 1: Because what I say is going to be of use?
Speaker 1: You know. I'm also such a self editor. I'm very
Speaker 1: self critical. And it was an intense experience. I mean,
Speaker 1: as as beautiful and gorgeous, it was also really intense.
Speaker 1: I mean, for two people to do something like this
Speaker 1: was insane. People were asking other people I work with,
Speaker 1: you know, oh, Jad's got a team of twenty, right,
Speaker 1: and you would tell, you know, heads of in of
Speaker 1: this industry would have be having lunch with my coworker
Speaker 1: and they would say, oh, Dad's got twenty doing that
Speaker 1: dollar series, right, And my coworker would say, no, it's
Speaker 1: one this one girl. She's not sleeping, you know. But um.
Speaker 1: But it was the opportunity of a lifetime. And I
Speaker 1: am self critical, and I do appreciate that Jad also
Speaker 1: championed me like we would. You know, when you're in
Speaker 1: a creative um environment like that, it's like a crucible,
Speaker 1: so it's like pressure, it's gorgeous, it's like you're making
Speaker 1: a diamond like that. We were trying so hard and
Speaker 1: we were so in there now and I even hear
Speaker 1: a bit of the series I think, wow, I was
Speaker 1: on another level. But it's also you know, going back
Speaker 1: and forth and know it's gotta be this and gotta
Speaker 1: be that, and then how do we say this and
Speaker 1: how do we say that? And I was definitely behind
Speaker 1: the scenes too, so I was championing him. But then
Speaker 1: when I would be pulled in, you know, he knows
Speaker 1: what he's doing. He's had twenty years of experience, and
Speaker 1: so when I felt, Chad, I don't even want my
Speaker 1: voice right there, he would say, no, let it be
Speaker 1: right there. That first interview, right it was just the
Speaker 1: foundation to create a relationship with Dolly. So you know,
Speaker 1: he asked me to draft questions for her and then
Speaker 1: but he let her kind of do her own thing.
Speaker 1: She did steam Roland, but he also led her like
Speaker 1: it's a It was a first meeting, but he knew
Speaker 1: we would go back, and that second interview we prepared
Speaker 1: for months. I was on the phone with anyone who
Speaker 1: had ever written anything about Dolly. I was I was
Speaker 1: reading everying on our life. I was trying to find
Speaker 1: things no one had found, and my goal was I
Speaker 1: wanted and I told Jad this, and I think he
Speaker 1: did a Life Hacker article at that time where he
Speaker 1: says Shema is a unicorn and she makes famous people
Speaker 1: crying interviews because I told him, I said I want
Speaker 1: to make Dolly cry and he said, you're crazy. We
Speaker 1: can't make her cry. Did you hear that interview? And
Speaker 1: I thought, no, we can. We can find a way.
Speaker 1: I want her to get to a real moment of
Speaker 1: something she's never told anyone. I really wanted that, and
Speaker 1: he invited me on that second interview, and we prepped.
Speaker 1: We had a four hour trajectory of an interview. We
Speaker 1: had video, we had audio, we had a we had
Speaker 1: I had done massive research and then we compiled it all,
Speaker 1: we organized it, we made it multimedia, and we set
Speaker 1: the agenda. I remember we were sitting in the car,
Speaker 1: I think this was his dad's car outside of this
Speaker 1: Nashville studio, and we were both nervous. Like Dad was
Speaker 1: visibly nervous, I was nervous. At that point. He had
Speaker 1: done the first interview with Dolly and he had interviewed
Speaker 1: the class by himself, which was okay, But then the
Speaker 1: second time he brought me because the Dolly professor is
Speaker 1: a staunch feminist and thought she must would go and
Speaker 1: told Jad and Jad was like, oh, yeah, okay. So
Speaker 1: Jad brought me second time and that's all the kids
Speaker 1: shared about shame, and Jad and I both connected with
Speaker 1: that because we are we have felt other two as
Speaker 1: first generation Americans, and we were in awe of that
Speaker 1: second of that second Knoxvill trip that in that which
Speaker 1: was my first reporting trip. Then he takes me to Dolly.
Speaker 1: We're in the car, nervous as hell and almost it
Speaker 1: was a state of prayer going in and we walk
Speaker 1: up to the studio and they could see us, but
Speaker 1: we couldn't see them because the studio has like the
Speaker 1: reflective you know, mirror windows or whatever. And I hear
Speaker 1: Dolly go, there's a girl out there? Why is there
Speaker 1: are girls? Like? What is happening? And then they opened.
Speaker 1: She did not know I was going to be there.
Speaker 1: We go into the studio. There's one engineer, one Mike,
Speaker 1: Jad and I sitting in front of Dolly, and um,
Speaker 1: I was on a couch at first, but then I yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: we were sitting in front of Dolly. That's interesting. There
Speaker 1: was like a moment when you when you like scooted
Speaker 1: forward from couch to Yeah. I started on the couch
Speaker 1: the first hour. I think I was on the couch
Speaker 1: and then we had a bathroom break. In the first
Speaker 1: hour we went in, we went in hard. The first hour,
Speaker 1: the suicide was brought up, the Satas songs was brought up,
Speaker 1: mental illness, the abuse in her family amongst women, poverty.
Speaker 1: Then we come back and then we do another three
Speaker 1: and a half hours, and it felt like we left
Speaker 1: the planet. It was. It was so intense, and it
Speaker 1: was every moment felt like you're on a high wire.
Speaker 1: It was not a relaxed interview, but it was UM.
Speaker 1: We were just trying to open doors. And she cried
Speaker 1: twice in the interview, and I served at that time.
Speaker 1: I mean I was not planning to talk at all.
Speaker 1: I knew the entire trajectory and I really felt like
Speaker 1: I was invisible presence. I was there to make her
Speaker 1: say what she needs to say, just invisibly. It's with
Speaker 1: when I've talked to other producers. I have a friend
Speaker 1: of mine UM Eleanor Kagan. We were describing this UM
Speaker 1: being the producer that's supporting a host. It is a
Speaker 1: very freaking cool experience that I don't think people talk
Speaker 1: about where you are the invisible like maker of magic,
Speaker 1: but no one knows because you cannot talk, you cannot
Speaker 1: rue it. But you've got to make You've got to
Speaker 1: make everyone the best they can be without saying a
Speaker 1: word until it's necessary. And so there'd be a moment
Speaker 1: where there were two moments where she she would stop
Speaker 1: the question and then I would love shove, I would
Speaker 1: I would come in, and one time was she would
Speaker 1: not go into the suicide. And I knew the story
Speaker 1: because I had done my research, which didn't make the podcast,
Speaker 1: but I know everything about it, and so I discovered
Speaker 1: exactly what had happened, what was going on. But you know,
Speaker 1: and Jad also has to be polite and kind, kinder
Speaker 1: than me. I can do more in the Bad Cop
Speaker 1: because he has the personal relationship right. And we had
Speaker 1: to get another interview that wasn't our last interview. So
Speaker 1: what is the love shove? So the love shove is,
Speaker 1: you know, she's she answers to cut it off. And
Speaker 1: then I kind of a tiptoe. I kind of tiptoe
Speaker 1: in in my awkward way, and I was like, and
Speaker 1: I said, um, I heard there was a gun, so
Speaker 1: I just put it out there and she goes, there
Speaker 1: was no gun. Did you read that? And this I said, actually, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know from this and this and this, and then
Speaker 1: she says, you know when I needed a gun. I'm
Speaker 1: that's when That's when we got to the Porter question. Right.
Speaker 1: So there's a moment that when you push someone says
Speaker 1: something that might not serve that moment but became like
Speaker 1: the opening of the Porter story. And that was next
Speaker 1: on our agenda, so you dive into the Porter story.
Speaker 1: And then with the Trump moment, that was a moment
Speaker 1: where she just stopped. She would not answer what happened
Speaker 1: at the Emmy's with Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda. Um,
Speaker 1: when they were bashing Trump and she was expected to,
Speaker 1: you know, banter with them, she wouldn't go into it
Speaker 1: too deeply. And Um, that was a moment where all
Speaker 1: my research paid off because I knew I knew all
Speaker 1: about her story about Porter and forgiveness, and I thought, oh,
Speaker 1: if she could forgive Porter, who pointed Lee came for her,
Speaker 1: she's going to have compassion for She just doesn't like
Speaker 1: she's gonna have compassion for Trump. She doesn't jump on bandwagons.
Speaker 1: If you look at her, like the even the cheesiness
Speaker 1: and the butterflies and the Dollywood and she's in her
Speaker 1: own world. She is in her Dolly world. She is
Speaker 1: in her own sphere. She doesn't she does not join
Speaker 1: any kind of group. And that was part of the
Speaker 1: fund That was the answer to the feminist question, that
Speaker 1: was the answer to the Trump question, that was the
Speaker 1: answer to even she could have joined me and Jad
Speaker 1: going hey, let's let's really unpack porter, like, let's really
Speaker 1: just say come on, he was kind of he was
Speaker 1: me come on, Dolly. You know, she wouldn't even jump
Speaker 1: with us into that question. So I think even with
Speaker 1: the me Too movement, she wouldn't really even jump into that.
Speaker 1: She wouldn't. She doesn't jump into any kind of trend
Speaker 1: or group anything like that. She totally sends as an individual.
Speaker 1: And at the end of the day, I also think
Speaker 1: that would link to her faith, that she feels like
Speaker 1: she has her own mission on this planet and with
Speaker 1: her faith and her and God or whatever you might
Speaker 1: call that spiritual essence. She prays every morning at two
Speaker 1: am and then writes she's on her own train. I
Speaker 1: want to talk about this moment that you're talking about,
Speaker 1: where the where the energy changes in a room. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it's as obvious as like literally the person you're interviewing
Speaker 1: saying I'm not going to answer that, but sometimes it's not.
Speaker 1: It makes me think of Anna Davir Smith, who does
Speaker 1: these amazing one Woman shows where she embodies all the
Speaker 1: characters that she's interviewed. She writes about listening for and
Speaker 1: this is sort of a Shakespeare metaphor, but you know
Speaker 1: Shakespeare has this um da da dada i ambic pentameter
Speaker 1: and um, and that that da dada is sort of
Speaker 1: meant to reflect the heartbeat and when it goes off
Speaker 1: when it's data data data data datta. Shakespeare used that
Speaker 1: very specifically to mean like something's really wrong with the world,
Speaker 1: like something on a on a on a grand psychic club.
Speaker 1: And so what Anna Davir Smith says is she listens
Speaker 1: for the trophy, the off rhythm in the I can beat,
Speaker 1: And that's her metaphor. I don't think it's literal, but
Speaker 1: that thing of like when someone talks in a way
Speaker 1: that accidentally reveals something and you want to go in there. Okay,
Speaker 1: so this is what happened. I was I started as
Speaker 1: the main researcher on this project. Then I go into produce,
Speaker 1: which producing means very different things in very different places.
Speaker 1: But because it was a two person projects, it meant
Speaker 1: a lot more than you would expect. You were clearly
Speaker 1: nineteen of the twenty people that works. So it was,
Speaker 1: you know, Jet, it was probably ten and ten, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe sometimes fifteen and five not I love it, and
Speaker 1: but it was it was a lot. When I push
Speaker 1: he knows I can push in away that he has
Speaker 1: to be her sturdy ship, but I can be the
Speaker 1: wave to rock it around a little bit and see
Speaker 1: what comes up. Then towards the end of that four
Speaker 1: hour trajectory, my research became that gut, the gut feeling
Speaker 1: is not just intuition, which is very important. My masters
Speaker 1: was in psychotherapy, so a big part of my life
Speaker 1: and also my personality is if someone is suffering, I
Speaker 1: kind of want to know what's going on. This is
Speaker 1: also part of my Buddhist background is I've met thousands
Speaker 1: of young women that would tell me what they're suffering
Speaker 1: was right, So I naturally I don't want people to
Speaker 1: be superficial with me at ever, it's almost kind of inappropriate.
Speaker 1: I think I don't want small talk. I want to
Speaker 1: know what's really going on, and it's out of love.
Speaker 1: I really I really love people, and I think that
Speaker 1: through someone sharing, everyone is healed because everyone is human
Speaker 1: and understands. Right. So there's that Trump moment. She just
Speaker 1: cuts it done, I'm not talking about it. Jad that
Speaker 1: she couldn't say anything, and I actually shared a story
Speaker 1: about my life in that moment, and I think Dolly
Speaker 1: was like, where the hell is this girl? What is
Speaker 1: she talking about? The silent little She wasn't even supposed
Speaker 1: to be here. She was supposed to be here. What's
Speaker 1: her name again? You know it's for him? Why why
Speaker 1: did Jad bring this? For? Who is where she come from?
Speaker 1: She had no idea and I had this my huge
Speaker 1: curly hair. It's like I looked like I was like
Speaker 1: and m and I was very quiet until this moment
Speaker 1: where I just share the story and then she still
Speaker 1: answers in a quick way. And then I go in
Speaker 1: and say, hey, didn't you want to protect him? Like
Speaker 1: didn't you just want to protect this person in the room?
Speaker 1: And that's when she said yes. I wanted to say,
Speaker 1: let's pray for the president. Why don't we pray for Mr?
Speaker 1: And I knew I sensed what the answers, but I
Speaker 1: didn't know what her answer was. Right. But that's because
Speaker 1: I knew about Porter. I knew about her family, I
Speaker 1: knew about her heartbreak. I knew about things that she
Speaker 1: wouldn't even share with us, and so I knew that,
Speaker 1: and so I shared a story that I felt like
Speaker 1: she would know. I got it, And I think that
Speaker 1: was true. I think she goes, Oh, she gets it.
Speaker 1: She's not trying to get me, she's not trying to
Speaker 1: trick me. She gets it. And when we left that interview,
Speaker 1: we were so high. Jad and I had reporters high.
Speaker 1: We could not believe the places we went. That four
Speaker 1: and a half trajectory was the foundation of the entire series.
Speaker 1: And she cried twice. So I became this kind of
Speaker 1: good luck charm. I became like the lucky rabbits fook
Speaker 1: for jab After that, he said, Okay, I'm taking that
Speaker 1: was your goal, like you achieved it way too early
Speaker 1: in your trajectory. Okay, we're gonna take a quick break
Speaker 1: and we'll be right back. Okay, we're back. Can I
Speaker 1: ask you when you come up with questions? I as
Speaker 1: someone relatively to question asking in a formal sense rather
Speaker 1: than a cocktail party sense. Um, I would to say
Speaker 1: I have no idea what I'm doing, And I go
Speaker 1: back and forth between coming up with questions that I
Speaker 1: truly want to know the answer to and coming up
Speaker 1: with questions that I think will elicit the types of
Speaker 1: answers from my um guests, that readers, that readers, that
Speaker 1: listeners will need to know, but that I'm a little
Speaker 1: too like inside Baseball, I already know the answer, which
Speaker 1: makes me feel. You know, I wonder since obviously some
Speaker 1: of the secret to your brilliant question asking prep is
Speaker 1: prep is just the amount of work you're doing. But
Speaker 1: I also wonder, like what is that? Like that's a
Speaker 1: good question or I want to know about that, but
Speaker 1: how do I ask it to get in? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think um so researchers the first step right, and then
Speaker 1: wanting surprise, wanting to like even me and you, well
Speaker 1: this is so meta or whatever, But for me and you,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm going to enjoy way this interview more
Speaker 1: if I get surprised by things I discover, especially I mean,
Speaker 1: I've only spoken about the Dolly series maybe five times
Speaker 1: in interviews, you know, I'm still learning how to talk
Speaker 1: about it. But I even hear myself repeating things that
Speaker 1: I've said before because it feels comfortable. Dolly has done
Speaker 1: that a billion times over fifty years, like she has
Speaker 1: answered the same questions a billion times. So she has
Speaker 1: these sayings that are funny, charming, genius that she just
Speaker 1: uses over and over again. And as you do research,
Speaker 1: you realize, oh, when you think she's being so spontaneous
Speaker 1: with you, she's not. She's playing you. You know, even
Speaker 1: in concert, she's playing you. And what was crazy was
Speaker 1: right before I moved to New York, I saw her
Speaker 1: in concert, the only time I've ever seen her in concert,
Speaker 1: and I heard these stories of her Tennessee Mountain home,
Speaker 1: and I thought, wow, wow, wow. And then when I
Speaker 1: did research, I saw she's been saying this story sorry
Speaker 1: for thirty forty years, and how does she make it
Speaker 1: sound so new? So I didn't want her to do that.
Speaker 1: I wanted to shock her. So the research helps because
Speaker 1: you find questions that have not been asked. You try
Speaker 1: not to go down the path someone else has gone,
Speaker 1: but you utilize that knowledge to lean into things because
Speaker 1: I don't know everything, so I've got to push. I
Speaker 1: think one thing that we don't talk about much, which
Speaker 1: um Jad and I would do, is the structure of
Speaker 1: the questions matters where you start, where you head, where
Speaker 1: you go. It's not just random, random, random, Like we
Speaker 1: had almost a movie like trajectory. We used audio, we
Speaker 1: used video, We tried to find things of her that
Speaker 1: she hadn't seen, we were hoping she hadn't seen. Do
Speaker 1: you think about structuring questions to get um like stories
Speaker 1: versus facts? Do you think in those terms at all?
Speaker 1: You know? I find like a lot of the surprise
Speaker 1: comes in when people are really trying to search themselves
Speaker 1: for how something felt or how something went down. I
Speaker 1: think some of the some of the most surprising, I
Speaker 1: think some of the best, the deepest moments came from
Speaker 1: she would say something in an interview and we wouldn't
Speaker 1: understand what the hell she's talking about, and so in
Speaker 1: that moment, we you lost that moment, Like when she
Speaker 1: talks about the Appalachian murder ballads, we just we just
Speaker 1: glided by it in that same four and a half
Speaker 1: hour interview, which was which was amazing, but we didn't
Speaker 1: catch it. And it was only in listening afterward where
Speaker 1: we went, wait what did she say about murder ballads?
Speaker 1: About the Knoxville Girl? Wait what? And then that took
Speaker 1: us down a rabbit hole and we had the opportunity
Speaker 1: to interview her again. So what you're getting, um. Also,
Speaker 1: I think one of the beauties of interviews of Dolly
Speaker 1: in the series is you're getting like fifteen I don't
Speaker 1: know how many hours by the end that we had,
Speaker 1: maybe fifteen, I don't know, but where we could go
Speaker 1: deeper and deeper and deeper and say, remember when you
Speaker 1: said this, Well what about this? Remember when you said this, well,
Speaker 1: what about this? So we could come at her from
Speaker 1: every angle. So I would say we had the luxury
Speaker 1: of repetition, which helps us because we're not really just
Speaker 1: doing an interview. We're creating a documentary experience. And it
Speaker 1: sounds like that's also something that you're doing with the
Speaker 1: other people that you referenced for your next project, that
Speaker 1: it is about these longer conversations that layer. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: that actually came out Yeah, yeah, yeah, that came out
Speaker 1: tweeks ago. Yes, But I do think Lauren and Kiss,
Speaker 1: who were in the Flag in the Fury episode, they
Speaker 1: told me things in the last week of production that
Speaker 1: there's no way they would feel comfortable saying that in
Speaker 1: my first call with them. They knew me. By that time,
Speaker 1: they trust at me, they knew I understood, they knew
Speaker 1: what I was trying to do. Even John Hawkins uh
Speaker 1: is in that episode, and he's the cheerleader at all
Speaker 1: miss from three who refused to waive the Confederate flag
Speaker 1: and all hell broke loose on that campus. He's only
Speaker 1: done one another interview ever about that that situation because
Speaker 1: it was so painful. He was getting death threats and
Speaker 1: he was waiting for the right time. I had to
Speaker 1: talk to him for two hours before he would even
Speaker 1: agree to one interview because he wanted to know if
Speaker 1: I was a person that he could trust or if
Speaker 1: I had if I if I knew what I was
Speaker 1: talking about, what I thought about Mississippi, Um, where's my heart?
Speaker 1: And so those things build over time. That a lot
Speaker 1: of being a producer is being someone that is actually
Speaker 1: that people know that you care about them, even people
Speaker 1: that I interview, people that have opposite opinions, you know,
Speaker 1: like don't agree the mrs the story I just did.
Speaker 1: People did not agree with each other. But I loved
Speaker 1: everyone I talked to and I could see their truth
Speaker 1: and whatever they were telling me, I thought, that is
Speaker 1: really true. That is a great point. But then I
Speaker 1: have to create the story based on all of these
Speaker 1: like three thousand truths, because that's the reality of life.
Speaker 1: And I'm now the storyteller telling this to the best
Speaker 1: of my ability. No, And I think that's part of
Speaker 1: your your genius, perhaps the unicorn like quality of you.
Speaker 1: Besides having all these different, you know, literal skill sets
Speaker 1: that you're bringing to the table, is that you very
Speaker 1: much live in and value the gray area rather than
Speaker 1: always being like, this is the answer, this is the
Speaker 1: the truth. You know. My my, my dad had this
Speaker 1: shirt that he used to wear when I was little bit.
Speaker 1: At the time, I thought was ridiculous, and now I'm like, ah,
Speaker 1: it is the deepest wisdom of life, which is bring
Speaker 1: me into the company of those who seek the truth
Speaker 1: and deliver me from those who have found it. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's what's hard is the stories I feel like I
Speaker 1: most want to listen to right now are people that
Speaker 1: don't get to tell their truths. And Dolly couldn't either.
Speaker 1: She told the truth through her songs The Ugly Ship
Speaker 1: about being a woman. She does not talk about that
Speaker 1: in interviews. She laughs, she jokes about her breasts. She
Speaker 1: is fun and flirty, but when you go to her songs,
Speaker 1: she is telling you the effing truth. And so that's
Speaker 1: why we based our questions on the songs, because she
Speaker 1: was saying things in the songs she was not saying
Speaker 1: even in her autobiography, she's not saying that in her
Speaker 1: songs she's sang a lot. More So, it's also doing
Speaker 1: the research we would find the places where she was
Speaker 1: saying things she was not saying anywhere else. But in
Speaker 1: terms of the idea of stories, I think it is
Speaker 1: a chemistry. You know, I'm really understanding this more, especially
Speaker 1: as a creative. There's so many times where I go,
Speaker 1: I like cross my arms and I think, why can't
Speaker 1: something be like this, Why can't we do it this way?
Speaker 1: Why isn't it like this? But being a creative is
Speaker 1: not working for a bank. A lot of it is
Speaker 1: the intangible stuff. It's really interesting because there's things that
Speaker 1: look really nice. You know, constantly we're getting offers for
Speaker 1: other projects or do this or do that. But um,
Speaker 1: the chemistry of life, the chemistry of two people talking,
Speaker 1: the chemistry of ideas, the chemistry of story building, the
Speaker 1: chemistry of the pre interview, the chemistry of the actual interview,
Speaker 1: the chemistry of the research, like having the taste when
Speaker 1: you read something. And this is where Dad was my cheerleader,
Speaker 1: especially when I was first starting and I was like
Speaker 1: very timid and I didn't want to talk. I thought
Speaker 1: I was not supposed to be talking. He he pointed out,
Speaker 1: he said, oh, you do the thing. I said, what
Speaker 1: do you? What do you mean I do the thing?
Speaker 1: He says, you get random, like you tell this story
Speaker 1: and know the person has no effing idea what you're doing.
Speaker 1: You just come out and just associative. You have an
Speaker 1: associative mind. Yeah, so when you know, I'm learning a
Speaker 1: book right now and I'm trying to figure out that,
Speaker 1: I think that. I think the point of the book,
Speaker 1: which is really meant to be practical as well as
Speaker 1: big idea, is to somehow get onto paper like the
Speaker 1: associations that just happened in my mind, you know where
Speaker 1: it's not actually like a logical progression. But nor do
Speaker 1: I think that's how people learn best necessarily. I think
Speaker 1: there's different kinds of thinkings. I think part of it
Speaker 1: is also language, Like people who speak different languages they
Speaker 1: have different loops of how they think and talk. And
Speaker 1: I also think it's partly because my parents are not
Speaker 1: native English speakers, so a lot of my thinking is associative.
Speaker 1: And I think that Jad could recognize that too, and
Speaker 1: he's like, oh, you think like me. You're an a
Speaker 1: social thinker, but I've learned how to taper it. But
Speaker 1: you also are a wild You're not afraid of being
Speaker 1: I'm not afraid of being vulnerable in an interview. So
Speaker 1: I'll just share the thing and the person will just
Speaker 1: get so confused by my non seque which does make sense,
Speaker 1: which does connect to something, but they're trying to follow
Speaker 1: me because I'm going to start when when they refuse
Speaker 1: to answer the question, I then hit a ball. It's
Speaker 1: like way in the sky and they're like, wait what
Speaker 1: is that? Wait what? And then I take them back
Speaker 1: to them that's standing on home plate. It makes me
Speaker 1: think of um, you know a land about Tom the
Speaker 1: the British philosopher. He was on this podcast UM with
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Day called How to Fail, and he said that
Speaker 1: it's so it's so like basic but so profound. He
Speaker 1: said that the only way to truly connect with somebody
Speaker 1: is to be vulnerable, and for them to be vulnerable
Speaker 1: back to you that's like it, you know, and and
Speaker 1: I and I also really love to think of vulnerable.
Speaker 1: You know, vulnerable means literally like showing your weakness. So
Speaker 1: the idea that their strength and showing your weakness. It's
Speaker 1: equality and respect. It's like I bow to you, I
Speaker 1: am offering my soul and then you offer me whatever
Speaker 1: you want to offer me. I have no attachment of
Speaker 1: no judgment. And I think also people feel that there's
Speaker 1: this famous quote about people. People have it. I'm going
Speaker 1: to change it in my own words, but people have
Speaker 1: an innate bullshit detector where they know if you are
Speaker 1: sincere or not. They know if you give a ship
Speaker 1: or not. People just know, even if they're not aware,
Speaker 1: they know. In the interview tape, you can hear that
Speaker 1: they knew we weren't bullshitting, so that the results we
Speaker 1: got in the tape was amazing because people knew we
Speaker 1: were not playing around and we were Sincere. I was
Speaker 1: fiercely Sincere. I wanted I wanted to know what people knew.
Speaker 1: I wanted them to share whatever they needed to share, Um,
Speaker 1: including Jad Zad, including Jad you know. UM. There's also
Speaker 1: this amazing research out of University of Glasgow. I think
Speaker 1: where they can tell in the first millisecond where somebody
Speaker 1: says hello, people have a instantaneous opinion about whether or
Speaker 1: not that person is trustworthy. You know what. I love that,
Speaker 1: And I mean it sounds wrong right because it sounds
Speaker 1: like you're you're maybe judging. But people have wisdom even
Speaker 1: if they don't can't necessarily put it into words. We
Speaker 1: have wisdom. There's a girl, um So Buddhist girl. Her
Speaker 1: name was Sunny Kim. She told me the story that
Speaker 1: in Korea, um where like she grew up with her
Speaker 1: family and they went through a lot of trauma as
Speaker 1: a young person. Her mother almost died three times in
Speaker 1: one year. And she said, like, through that suffering and
Speaker 1: through prayer and and really taking care of other people
Speaker 1: during that time, what would happen is like she'd go
Speaker 1: visit someone who was struggling, and she could hear by
Speaker 1: the way they would answer the door. She could hear
Speaker 1: what their life state was by the way they would
Speaker 1: unlock the door before they open it. I talk about
Speaker 1: this a bit because you know, obviously I'm the voice
Speaker 1: is my jam and not just the voice in and
Speaker 1: of itself. Um As we just talked about in the
Speaker 1: mail bag episode. But really because it's so revealing. It's
Speaker 1: so revealing of what are as you say, our life state.
Speaker 1: And I think that there's something. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: not true for everybody in every moment, but um, I
Speaker 1: think there's something about how each of us uses our
Speaker 1: voices that either reveals our life story or our state
Speaker 1: of mind, our choices, our where what's led us to
Speaker 1: this moment, or it doesn't. And what we're hearing is
Speaker 1: the concealing. I hope and this is my cha championing
Speaker 1: women too. I hope that we can hear better because
Speaker 1: there's a lot, like think about all of the all
Speaker 1: of the reality is coming to the surface right now
Speaker 1: where people are saying it's so bad, and people that
Speaker 1: have been suffering under these realities say, no, it's always
Speaker 1: been like this. But you can't hear the voice if
Speaker 1: you weren't a victim of that voice. But if you
Speaker 1: have suffered and been marginalized and been bullied lost even
Speaker 1: though it was unfair, if you've ever been in a
Speaker 1: situation where you were punished for something you did not
Speaker 1: do because of the of the positions of power of
Speaker 1: people in power, well, if you think about it, people
Speaker 1: are getting a microphone right now that did not get
Speaker 1: a microphone. If you even think about who has been
Speaker 1: hosting radio shows, it has been white mett Okay. So
Speaker 1: also there's a trajectory happening where people are realizing something
Speaker 1: is wrong, so they're shoving everyone into the spotlight. But
Speaker 1: they didn't give any of those people the tools that
Speaker 1: they gave a whole other generation of people in privilege.
Speaker 1: So even for me, that's why it's very nerve racking,
Speaker 1: even as I'm coming into the forefront and my voice
Speaker 1: is being allowed to have a little bit more space.
Speaker 1: I'm very self uh, self editing critical maybe yeah, self
Speaker 1: editing and and self critical and not. I just don't
Speaker 1: think I deserve a space to talk. And many people
Speaker 1: don't even think like that. They just think, yeah, I am,
Speaker 1: I deserve to talk. You know, they've they've done these studies.
Speaker 1: And actually the Dolly Parton's American professor told me this.
Speaker 1: She's a fierce feminist and was a lesbian lawyer in
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies in Chicago, so she would tell me stories.
Speaker 1: This is before I even met her on the phone,
Speaker 1: and this is one of the reason why she fought
Speaker 1: for me to be in the series, and she was like,
Speaker 1: Sheima gets this, bring Dad, you should bring shema. You know,
Speaker 1: it's these invisible spaces where people just think they deserve
Speaker 1: a raise. They just think they deserve a promotion. They
Speaker 1: don't think they need to do anything to get it.
Speaker 1: They just think they deserve it. And and you know,
Speaker 1: there's very famous studies, very well known studies that women
Speaker 1: will apply for jobs that only they fit of the
Speaker 1: criteria cos and men will like apply for jobs where
Speaker 1: they fit the criteria. And so there is a growth
Speaker 1: spurt happening right now. But uh, it's on both sides.
Speaker 1: It's it's awkward for everyone. And so even for myself,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't want to I personally don't want
Speaker 1: to sound trill. I personally don't want to sound dumb.
Speaker 1: I personally don't want to sound like to like I
Speaker 1: don't know, I just want to sound like myself. But
Speaker 1: I'm also scared because getting an opportunity is so rare.
Speaker 1: It's not an everyday occurrence. So that's because of the
Speaker 1: way things are set up. Like when AOC just got
Speaker 1: up and gave that freaking speech, it's it's it's just
Speaker 1: so great for a young woman to stand up and
Speaker 1: just piss off so many men and be like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna piss you off. I don't care. And
Speaker 1: I mean, she's doing some of it for very good reasons.
Speaker 1: I wrote it. I wrote a piece about this too. Actually,
Speaker 1: right before she did her um she gave that speech
Speaker 1: unrelated related just to her being her, about how like,
Speaker 1: what is surprising about her and what is what is
Speaker 1: a lesson for us and for anybody listening, who's who's like,
Speaker 1: you know, feeling any residents here is that what's so
Speaker 1: surprising about her? The reason that we don't associate her
Speaker 1: voice with power historically, leadership historically is that she literally
Speaker 1: sounds like who she is and where she's from. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so many of us have this sense, whether it's
Speaker 1: turning on a radio voice or turning on a politician voice,
Speaker 1: that the way to get ahead and we might be
Speaker 1: right is to shave off those edges of ourselves that
Speaker 1: are the most authentically us, the most real, and go
Speaker 1: into this generic land and by the right. The reason
Speaker 1: I say we might be right is obviously on the
Speaker 1: way up. And then the dream is at some point
Speaker 1: we have enough power and you know, AOC was able
Speaker 1: to do it in this like sooner than expected way,
Speaker 1: which is partly her bravery to say I have enough
Speaker 1: power to let that crap go and actually say, Okay,
Speaker 1: here's what I really sound like, and I shall not
Speaker 1: apologize in the moment. I mean, what you're talking about
Speaker 1: is also this thing I'm always on the kickoff and
Speaker 1: I and I absolutely have to police myself on, which
Speaker 1: is about Apolo jizing for taking up time and space.
Speaker 1: She is okay being hated and that is such a
Speaker 1: superpower like that that that's what I find the most
Speaker 1: in awe about her is she does not care if
Speaker 1: she's hated, And I think, wow, I wish I were
Speaker 1: more like that. I'm not that that's something, but I'm
Speaker 1: also I'm a different I'm a different flavor. I'm a
Speaker 1: different instrument. But in a way, I would say, part
Speaker 1: of what your job was, part of of the of
Speaker 1: the puzzle piece that you, you know, provided in what
Speaker 1: you talked about with your you know, dynamic with Dolly,
Speaker 1: is that you were willing to say some things that
Speaker 1: were came out of left field or were not the
Speaker 1: good cop there. You know, you have your own ways.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't need to defend you. You can
Speaker 1: defend yourself. But you know what I mean, Like there
Speaker 1: we we the ways in which we experiment with being
Speaker 1: brave enough to be unliked, is I think, really really helpful.
Speaker 1: Even speaking up as I worked with jad right, like
Speaker 1: speaking up yes in private with I had a question
Speaker 1: about how you guys agree or disagree and what that
Speaker 1: process is. So if I were just thinking about Shema
Speaker 1: and my career, I would not have spoken up about
Speaker 1: some things. I would not have said, hey, we need this. Hey,
Speaker 1: like I just wouldn't have said it because I'm in
Speaker 1: a v I love my job. I don't need to
Speaker 1: speak up. But I was as per Dolly. I was
Speaker 1: praying a lot about the series, and I felt like
Speaker 1: it was a chance to tell Talk to America. I
Speaker 1: felt like it was a chance to tell Dolly story.
Speaker 1: I felt very personally connected to the story um as
Speaker 1: a woman and and and with my roots in the
Speaker 1: Middle East and all of the things that were all
Speaker 1: of the ideas that you hear in the in the
Speaker 1: in the trajectory and the adventure that we go on.
Speaker 1: But I remember praying, I want to open the gateway
Speaker 1: for all women through this series. And part of that
Speaker 1: is how I stand my own as a creative behind
Speaker 1: the scenes, even though I am this person's junior and
Speaker 1: they are employing me. Yeah, I don't know if anyone
Speaker 1: would have listened to me if this guy didn't give
Speaker 1: me a shot, you know, like was anyone going to
Speaker 1: give me a shot? Like someone has to see your
Speaker 1: genius too, Someone has to see your talent then you
Speaker 1: can do what you want with it. There's another part
Speaker 1: of that puzzle which I really don't want to miss
Speaker 1: out on, which is that because you were doing this
Speaker 1: work on yourself, on on the on the why you
Speaker 1: were speaking up in a way that wasn't just speaking
Speaker 1: up for Shema, and in fact may have been if
Speaker 1: things had gone differently against your best interests. But you
Speaker 1: were speaking up on behalf of and that is I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that is part of what was so successful
Speaker 1: about this this you know, viral moment that um that
Speaker 1: AOC created. That she it was not just like this
Speaker 1: guy said something mean to me, and I would like
Speaker 1: to say that I don't want to be treated that way.
Speaker 1: It was not that at all. In fact, she spent
Speaker 1: the whole first half saying it has nothing to do
Speaker 1: with me and how I'm treated. It has to do
Speaker 1: with a history of this. Do you know how many
Speaker 1: women we're sitting at home, like millions have seen that
Speaker 1: video now and I and so the reality is I'm
Speaker 1: thinking I have two thoughts when I watched that. I
Speaker 1: think this is insane, that this is what's happening in Washington,
Speaker 1: Like this is taking up time during a period in
Speaker 1: the country where people are dying off and like the
Speaker 1: thousands and perhaps like and we don't know how much
Speaker 1: it will snowball too. It's it's a it's a it's
Speaker 1: a horrific time in American history. And she has to
Speaker 1: take time to address this. But every woman at home
Speaker 1: that has ever been just spit at, like I mean
Speaker 1: spit at for doing nothing, for just walking on the street,
Speaker 1: called called whatever. And in fact, it's connected now that
Speaker 1: I hear you talk about this, because yes, I had
Speaker 1: the same thought of like, it's insane that she has
Speaker 1: to sort of like speak about this, this sort of
Speaker 1: triviality of these two words getting getting strung together and
Speaker 1: thrown at her, you know, among the billions that she's received.
Speaker 1: Why you know why. But it's connected to the fact
Speaker 1: that those same women that you're talking about that we're
Speaker 1: home listening to this are also the same women who
Speaker 1: have had to deal with, you know, life since since
Speaker 1: November and what that moment was. Okay, one more question
Speaker 1: before we take another break. Here's what I really want
Speaker 1: to know. At the top of the final episode, you
Speaker 1: get on the microphone and ask for money. It's so
Speaker 1: fucking good and it's a it's a money ask I
Speaker 1: have never heard in my whole life. Like, there's no
Speaker 1: apology in it. It's so you like, what was that
Speaker 1: and what how did you prepare for? What did you
Speaker 1: think as you were going on? Mike? It's so money
Speaker 1: that you asked that, because I find that I find
Speaker 1: that money asked to be a microcosm of the series,
Speaker 1: which is I did not expect to do the money
Speaker 1: ask I did not I and then I got asked
Speaker 1: to do it. I work for Jad's company. I don't
Speaker 1: really work for w N y C. Right, So Dad
Speaker 1: said I want you to do the money asked. And
Speaker 1: I think it was also him giving me a moment
Speaker 1: to say, hey, I produced this thing, and I was scared.
Speaker 1: I've never asked for money, and I did a very
Speaker 1: standard one in two episodes previous to that one. But
Speaker 1: I got because I've already done it. I was thinking,
Speaker 1: what do I want to do? How do I so
Speaker 1: I just built something I took. I was trying to
Speaker 1: think how I was thinking about the Victory lab because
Speaker 1: the last episode is a lighter one, so we're really
Speaker 1: just like we talked about our tattoos, we talked about
Speaker 1: two years from that. You had also been getting feedback
Speaker 1: by that point from listeners, right, so, like you, it
Speaker 1: did strike me as as a different type of ask
Speaker 1: then you might have done before this had had like
Speaker 1: hit air. Yes, it was. It was me talking directly
Speaker 1: to people that we're in the series with us and
Speaker 1: like knew who we were and and we're enjoying it
Speaker 1: or hating on it whoever. But I just I was
Speaker 1: speaking to the listeners, you know. And it started with
Speaker 1: I knew I had to do it. I knew I
Speaker 1: wasn't going to narrate any part of that last episode.
Speaker 1: You hear me in that last episode because I ask
Speaker 1: about the tattoos with the kids with the ut, you know,
Speaker 1: And I love that. I love that when he's when
Speaker 1: he's like, by the way, that with Jama's question about
Speaker 1: the kid's question. The best part of that is just
Speaker 1: the kid's reaction because they're like what I thought? What?
Speaker 1: No one knows just but they were actually kind of
Speaker 1: the highlight of all of that. But um, you know
Speaker 1: what I do want to say that that the act
Speaker 1: of using their questions and then putting them into Dad's
Speaker 1: mouth was like, yes, dream that, just dreamy. After we
Speaker 1: met with the UTI kids, that was another bright idea
Speaker 1: of coming back to Dolly and doing another interview with
Speaker 1: Dolly's just putting their questions in front of her. So
Speaker 1: it gave us the space to not be critical, but
Speaker 1: to be critical, like, hey, the kids wanted to know this.
Speaker 1: The kids wanted to know, what do you think about
Speaker 1: your accent? You know they kind of feel ashamed of it?
Speaker 1: Why don't we don't know? What? Thank you? So we
Speaker 1: we to ask the things that are a little bit
Speaker 1: but to voice, to to give voice to the students
Speaker 1: who felt like so distant you know literally and come
Speaker 1: metaphorically from Dolly and then to have their questions be
Speaker 1: directly asked to her was like a real I mean
Speaker 1: that actually now that I say it felt like it
Speaker 1: was a real um crumbling of of a of a
Speaker 1: like you know, power structure. Yeah. And they were so
Speaker 1: happy too, because they wanted to ask those questions, right,
Speaker 1: So they were real. They were like real quest My gosh.
Speaker 1: I love those students. By the way, I still talked
Speaker 1: to some of them. They're any brilliant, brilliant in people. Um,
Speaker 1: so the ask, Yeah, I was terrified. I asked membership
Speaker 1: services at w YCE. I actually had a meeting with them.
Speaker 1: I said, I'm very scared. And then they told me
Speaker 1: they told me Dad's record for how much someone gave.
Speaker 1: This explains a lot of my relationship with Jad, they
Speaker 1: explained to me. When Jad asked once, people responded with
Speaker 1: this kind of figure. So this is so much. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is the beauty of my religor is like we
Speaker 1: this is like, this is the this is the invisible
Speaker 1: like chemistry, right, Like we compete too. We try to
Speaker 1: outdo each other. I probably do it more because I'm
Speaker 1: free to do so, because I have because I am
Speaker 1: like the young kid coming up or um you know,
Speaker 1: I kind of I feel like I'm like the younger
Speaker 1: sister figure and I go, hey, I wanted to you know.
Speaker 1: So we were editing the final episode. I thought, hey,
Speaker 1: this is my last moment. I'm going to be creative.
Speaker 1: So I built the start, and then I put in
Speaker 1: the questions. I put in the moments that I knew
Speaker 1: people loved the most, you know, and then I made
Speaker 1: it and then I sent it to Jad. And Jad
Speaker 1: was just expecting me to do a straight up ask
Speaker 1: with no music, no nothing, no build. And then when
Speaker 1: he saw it, even though he's like tired and he's like,
Speaker 1: we're wrapping the thing, he saw what I did and
Speaker 1: then he built on it. So then he built a
Speaker 1: middle moment, and then I built the final moment. So
Speaker 1: even though we would we didn't expect to do that.
Speaker 1: That was that was the genesis of the Dolly series too.
Speaker 1: Was like I would throw him more than he asked for,
Speaker 1: and then he would respond in a glow in a
Speaker 1: generous way, and then I would push back in a
Speaker 1: generous way, and then we would get to something that
Speaker 1: was just unexpected. It was just supposed to be a
Speaker 1: straight up asked, no sound, no nothing. But I took
Speaker 1: a moment and I made what I could with it
Speaker 1: with the time I had and with the feelings I
Speaker 1: was having. I also wanted it to feel like a
Speaker 1: victory lap for all the listeners with us to just
Speaker 1: go over like reminisce and then and to ask a
Speaker 1: very sincere question, which is, you know, public radio cannot
Speaker 1: exist without listeners. I mean, to this day, especially in
Speaker 1: this time of the pandemic, it's really beautiful that people
Speaker 1: are still giving, even UM, even though circumstances are much tougher.
Speaker 1: So I really tried to think about people and be
Speaker 1: appreciative to the audience, even if they didn't give. I
Speaker 1: wanted to be appreciative for everyone who had listened. So
Speaker 1: that's what I did. And as lessons go, you know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot in that, but one thing that I'm
Speaker 1: hearing is that in various ways, you really gave yourself
Speaker 1: permission to bring your actual voice to that microphone. And
Speaker 1: one way you did that was to really connect with
Speaker 1: the who you know out there. One way was to
Speaker 1: connect with um, how proud you were what you've made
Speaker 1: at that point, to just trust that it was not
Speaker 1: something you needed to sort of like if you liked this,
Speaker 1: you know, which is a trap that any of us
Speaker 1: could have fallen into. UM. And then and then also,
Speaker 1: you know, a healthy competition, nothing like some some I'll
Speaker 1: show you energy. Okay, we're gonna take another break and
Speaker 1: we'll be back to find out who you brought in
Speaker 1: for us. I just feel like this could definitely be
Speaker 1: like UM, a multi episode series about UM, you and
Speaker 1: us in our take on the world, which is just
Speaker 1: a different it's a different format. What can I say? UM, Okay,
Speaker 1: will you tell me who you brought in for us?
Speaker 1: So I brought in MICHAELA. Cole, who is who should
Speaker 1: be president even though she's not American, but she should be.
Speaker 1: She should be president and she should be queen. But
Speaker 1: I brought her in because not only is her series,
Speaker 1: her newest series, the greatest thing on this planet right
Speaker 1: now in my opinion at this moment, but her business
Speaker 1: practices and the voice she's giving to them, and the
Speaker 1: boldness is at which she is expressing what is happening
Speaker 1: behind the scenes in those business practices I find to
Speaker 1: be wholly encouraging, courageous, and onspiring. She is what she
Speaker 1: is what I want I want to be. I wish
Speaker 1: I could be things I asked for but do not get.
Speaker 1: She is asking for them and getting getting them. She
Speaker 1: was offered a million dollar deal with Netflix. She turned
Speaker 1: it down because she couldn't own the rights to her show,
Speaker 1: and she just wanted like a certain percentage of the shares,
Speaker 1: and these wouldn't even give her that, and she just
Speaker 1: said forget you at a time when no one said
Speaker 1: note of Netflix. I think she's awesome. Every young person
Speaker 1: I know, every woman I know, is she's become the
Speaker 1: blueprint just coming up. She's not a she's not a
Speaker 1: twenty year veteran that's becoming the blueprint. She's an up
Speaker 1: and coming artist that is the blueprint. I think she's spectacular.
Speaker 1: And then her series takes on sexual assault. And I
Speaker 1: hate to even say that because I don't want to
Speaker 1: turn anyone off from watching it, but I may destroy you.
Speaker 1: It is so good and is saying so many things,
Speaker 1: is giving a voice of things that people have not said,
Speaker 1: and and giving you a space into places that people
Speaker 1: don't see from a vantage point of someone you never
Speaker 1: hear from or see from. And every episode I was
Speaker 1: lucky that I watched it with a friend of mine.
Speaker 1: Um I normally you binge something on your own, but
Speaker 1: I actually watched it with a friend, and every time
Speaker 1: an episode ended, she would share about what what what
Speaker 1: she what she related to and then I would share,
Speaker 1: and then we would share about other stories we knew,
Speaker 1: and then we'd watch the next episode, and then she
Speaker 1: would share and I would share. And so MICHAELA. Cole's
Speaker 1: art was giving us a voice to share her business practices,
Speaker 1: and her speeches about her business practices made my coworkers
Speaker 1: they would like send me her speeches like because the girls,
Speaker 1: girls have their own hidden community where they're pushing each
Speaker 1: other to ask for more. But all of us, a
Speaker 1: lot of us are getting said no to. But and
Speaker 1: and even sometimes I'm told by other young women around me,
Speaker 1: you should ask for this, but they would never ask
Speaker 1: for that. But I'm kind of the guinea pig. And
Speaker 1: then I asked them and it's like, no, you can't
Speaker 1: get that because you know who are you. So I
Speaker 1: think that's happening everywhere. I don't think it's personal to
Speaker 1: me or anyone else. I do think the ideas of ownership,
Speaker 1: of artistry, of being a woman, of being, the idea
Speaker 1: of sexual power, the idea of business power, all of
Speaker 1: that is encapsulated in this phenomenal human called MICHAELA. Cole.
Speaker 1: We're gonna listen to a short clip because you said,
Speaker 1: up the way you did. I'm switching. I was trying
Speaker 1: to decide between two, but I'm going to do a
Speaker 1: little bit from her mc taggart lecture. I bet you've
Speaker 1: heard this, Yeah, I think so many of us in
Speaker 1: this industry, this world are on creaking ladders, climbing, surrounded
Speaker 1: by noise, stress, and nothing real, not even the ladder itself.
Speaker 1: It could make the future feel bleak and devoid of peace,
Speaker 1: leaving some feeling isolated to the point of suicide. I
Speaker 1: think of Antony will Dane, who entered his who ended
Speaker 1: his life on Jean eight while shooting a series. I
Speaker 1: think of Alex Beckett, an actor who ended his life
Speaker 1: April twelve mid a theater on had worked with him
Speaker 1: in that place far away is their care for anyone's mind?
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, right, yeah, I mean talk about what
Speaker 1: of voices conveying? She is nothing but a humanist, like
Speaker 1: she sees people, she hears people, and she's very connected
Speaker 1: to her own probably because of her own trauma too.
Speaker 1: She's she sees the person deeper than she sees the artist.
Speaker 1: And I think in realms of creativity we forget that
Speaker 1: there is a person in front of us, and the
Speaker 1: person matters more than the art. At the end of
Speaker 1: the day, the person fucking matters more than the art.
Speaker 1: And that is not part of our society. It's not
Speaker 1: how we view things, it's not how we measure them.
Speaker 1: It's why the countries as it is right now, people,
Speaker 1: it's everything else matters more than the person, the one person.
Speaker 1: We've forgotten the person for a lot of the fucking circus,
Speaker 1: whether it's an art, Hollywood, sucking, politics, fame, fortune, I mean,
Speaker 1: something that came up with up with um at least
Speaker 1: hog my previous guest is this idea that I think
Speaker 1: about a lot about how we don't really talk about
Speaker 1: this aspect of the patriarchy quote unquote, but you know,
Speaker 1: part of it, um magic lies in trying to dissociate
Speaker 1: our brains from our bodies. And this idea that like,
Speaker 1: if we don't have bodies, well, that's convenient. And it's
Speaker 1: also very convenient for capitalism, by the way, because then
Speaker 1: we can work eighty billion hours a week and we
Speaker 1: can skip pea breaks and we can not go outside
Speaker 1: for lunch because who needs that? You know, work, work, work,
Speaker 1: The more you work, the more you make. I mean,
Speaker 1: if we start to think of all of that. As
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know if a lie is the
Speaker 1: right word, but as certainly a truth that's sort of
Speaker 1: somebody besides us. Then we can start to think about
Speaker 1: what what what is it to not live that way?
Speaker 1: Then if you think about like the history of women,
Speaker 1: I'm like, this is so my jam. There are thousands
Speaker 1: of etiquette books for women on how to behave And
Speaker 1: why are there thousands for women and not thousands for men.
Speaker 1: It's because you are property. If you were not picked,
Speaker 1: you die, like you think basically that's my extreme version
Speaker 1: of it. But you are an old made you end
Speaker 1: up in poverty or like you're an outcast of society.
Speaker 1: You have no say in the world, and so you
Speaker 1: have to learn how to harmonize in order to live,
Speaker 1: to just live. And this is where Virginia Wolf is like,
Speaker 1: my Virginia Wolf is my favorite voice that you know,
Speaker 1: there are audio, there is audio of her. She is
Speaker 1: my She's my I mean, michaelical living person without it
Speaker 1: at this moment of time, without a doubt. But Virginia
Speaker 1: Wolf says that when she got an inheritance, I think
Speaker 1: from her aunt that mattered more, that money mattered more.
Speaker 1: So she could have her own room. That's why that
Speaker 1: book is called a Room of one's own. That mattered
Speaker 1: more than getting the vote. Can you imagine that this
Speaker 1: is not what we're taught in school. Her having that
Speaker 1: money to be able to create mattered more than having
Speaker 1: the vote. Like thinking that. It's what mickayl La Cole
Speaker 1: is living right now on in the realm of life
Speaker 1: and death, watching other artists feel so lost and without
Speaker 1: power killing themselves like to that exact, I mean, that's
Speaker 1: that's what I love about this moment. That's what I
Speaker 1: also feel like we have so far to go. So
Speaker 1: when I got my first recording studio job, I was
Speaker 1: the only girl hired. I was the only woman on staff,
Speaker 1: and I learned how to be tough when there was
Speaker 1: a joke about sex. When there's a joke about me
Speaker 1: or my body or a woman, you learn how to
Speaker 1: spit back and you feel good and you feel like
Speaker 1: you're the one in control and you feel cool and
Speaker 1: you you know yes. And there was a moment where
Speaker 1: I got I heard my real voice, and I woke
Speaker 1: up one morning and I thought, oh my god, I'm miserable.
Speaker 1: This job looks shiny, but I am miserable, and I
Speaker 1: am I have to fucking play the game. I cannot
Speaker 1: even be myself. I just look tough and I have
Speaker 1: to do it to survive. But I hate this job.
Speaker 1: No matter how good it looks, no matter how sexy
Speaker 1: it is that I'm recording with this artist or whatever.
Speaker 1: I hate it. And I fucking quit music at that time.
Speaker 1: And I was a second grade teacher for the next
Speaker 1: year of my life, and being with kids melted me.
Speaker 1: I thought, oh wow, I have so much. There's so
Speaker 1: much between what my soul or whatever is. My inside
Speaker 1: and my outside are so estranged from each other, and
Speaker 1: it took years to collapse that. And most people live
Speaker 1: in the space between they It's it's so difficult to collapse.
Speaker 1: It takes a lot of guds. You have to be
Speaker 1: able to when someone hurts, you be able to have
Speaker 1: a dialogue with them. You have to be able to
Speaker 1: if you have trauma and your family address the trauma,
Speaker 1: see the people like you have to love your parents
Speaker 1: no matter what you've got to. You've got to have
Speaker 1: friendships with people from all walks of life. It's a process.
Speaker 1: You've got to constantly push your boundaries with your voice
Speaker 1: connecting with other voices that that ship starts to heal,
Speaker 1: and those the wall of the outside of what you
Speaker 1: project as you to people and what is actually happening
Speaker 1: on inside, so that distance collapses. And as an interviewer,
Speaker 1: I am listening for the space and I am desperately
Speaker 1: trying to collapse all of it. But it takes someone
Speaker 1: to kind of be the catalyst, to be the elixir,
Speaker 1: and art can do it. That speech, Mikayla did that book.
Speaker 1: Virginia Woolf wrote that series a podcast like the reason
Speaker 1: I wanted Dolly to cry is sometimes when I'm lost,
Speaker 1: it's because I haven't cried, like I've gotten so frozen
Speaker 1: because I'm surviving in the world and I can't feel
Speaker 1: myself anymore, and I have to get to a place
Speaker 1: where I can feel what the funk is going on?
Speaker 1: What have I just lived through? What is happening? Because
Speaker 1: things are moving so fast? Anyway, we should probably on
Speaker 1: the episode, Sheima, thank you so much for coming in.
Speaker 1: This is fun. Thank you to Shema for joining me.
Speaker 1: You can find out more about her and her shows
Speaker 1: in the show notes or on our website Permission to
Speaker 1: Speak pot dot com. I'm back to doing I G
Speaker 1: lives every Thursday. So join me tomorrow at Permission to
Speaker 1: Speak POT on Instagram, Q and A style, So feel
Speaker 1: free to ask me any questions you have, send me
Speaker 1: d M s, comment, tell me what's going on with
Speaker 1: your voice, and um, I'm so grateful for all of you.
Speaker 1: Thank you to Sophie Lichtterman and the team at I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and all of you. We're recording this POT
Speaker 1: podcast at various locations around Los Angeles on land that
Speaker 1: is the historic gathering place for the Tongva indigenous tribe,
Speaker 1: and you can visit U S d A C dot
Speaker 1: us to learn more about honoring Native land. Permission to
Speaker 1: Speak is a production of I Heart Radio and Double
Speaker 1: Vision executive produced by Katherine Burt Canton and Mark Canton.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my heart Radio, listen on the
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.