Speaker 1: Hi, Catherine.
Speaker 2: Oh, hello Chelsea, Chelsea. I've got a couple of little
Speaker 2: updates for us.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: This is Emily who called in on our Lake Bell
Speaker 2: episode a while back. She was about to go into
Speaker 2: our last year of law school and was really intimidated
Speaker 2: about going out and trying to find fellowships, find a job.
Speaker 1: I remember, Yeah, So she.
Speaker 2: Wrote in and said, Hi, Chelsea, just wanted to give
Speaker 2: you an update since my podcast episode. I'm headed into
Speaker 2: my last year of law school feeling more and more
Speaker 2: confident about interviewing, getting a job outside of Ohio, etc.
Speaker 2: But even more so, many of my classmates resonated with
Speaker 2: what we discussed, especially the fear of rejection, and I
Speaker 2: think it helped so many of us realize that we
Speaker 2: are really in a collective experience and it's going to
Speaker 2: work out in the end. Also, I just went to
Speaker 2: Chelsea's touristop in Columbus, Ohio, and it was the perfect
Speaker 2: way to start off my last year of school after
Speaker 2: the wonderful advice that you provided me last year. All
Speaker 2: the best, Emily, awesome.
Speaker 3: Some love it, Emily love it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: People are moving and shaken, which is off into the world, Chelsea.
Speaker 2: Do you have some new dates for us.
Speaker 3: Oh you know, I do?
Speaker 1: You know, I do. I have a lot of We
Speaker 1: added lots of Canadian cities, Canadians, I'm coming. We added
Speaker 1: about fifteen new tour dates. I'm coming to Denver again,
Speaker 1: Salt Lake City, Vancouver, Richmond, Virginia, Santa Rosa, California, Gary
Speaker 1: and Diana, Baltimore, Verona, New York, and about seven dates
Speaker 1: in Canada. So go to Chelseahandler dot com. I am
Speaker 1: performing everywhere. I will be on tour all for the
Speaker 1: rest of the year through December, and then next year,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be touring all year. So come and
Speaker 1: get it, you guys. It's good times and it's a
Speaker 1: very much needed reprieve from all the fucking madness that's
Speaker 1: going on in this world. So I'm here to bring
Speaker 1: joy and sunshine.
Speaker 2: Yep, go see Chelsea and do some laughing because her
Speaker 2: show was fantastic.
Speaker 1: Oh thanks, okay. Our guest has a new documentary out
Speaker 1: about her life, Joan Bias. I am a noise. Please
Speaker 1: welcome singer, songwriter and social justice warrior Joan Bias. What
Speaker 1: an absolute delight, Joe Bias.
Speaker 3: Nice to meet you, so.
Speaker 1: Nice to meet you. I was so enjoyed your documentary
Speaker 1: that I watched last night in preparation. It's called I
Speaker 1: Am a Noise And there's a lot to cover.
Speaker 3: There is fire away.
Speaker 1: So yeah. So you start out you grew up with
Speaker 1: two sisters, and you guys were pretty tight growing up, right.
Speaker 1: I grew up with two sisters too, So I under
Speaker 1: I understand that sister. I knew which one oldest, mid
Speaker 1: I was the youngest, youngest, yes, and you were middle
Speaker 1: middle yep. And so Mimi was younger than you.
Speaker 3: She was four years younger than me. Yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 3: the older one was two years older. So okay.
Speaker 1: And so you guys grew up in Yeah we grew
Speaker 1: up Yeah, which is a success in it and of itself.
Speaker 1: Growing up. And in the beginning of the documentary, you
Speaker 1: talk about your childhood and you're with your older sister
Speaker 1: and you just kind of are discussing your different kind
Speaker 1: of takes on your childhood. You didn't have such happy
Speaker 1: memories but while you were growing up. The way I
Speaker 1: took it, in the way it was depicted in the film,
Speaker 1: was that you weren't really sure what had happened during
Speaker 1: your childhood, but that something had happened, that was just
Speaker 1: had disrupted you some sort of trauma that you were
Speaker 1: kind of dealing with throughout your young adult life and
Speaker 1: adult life and really couldn't put your finger on it
Speaker 1: until you went to the deeper stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I mean I had help all the way through,
Speaker 3: starting at age fifteen, because I didn't you know, we
Speaker 3: didn't have the expression panic attack back then, but my
Speaker 3: life was one big panic attack to the next, and
Speaker 3: so that was a clue, but we didn't understand that,
Speaker 3: you know. So I saw good therapists and they helped
Speaker 3: me in round and under, but never to this since
Speaker 3: So that's what was my aim that I had to do.
Speaker 3: And in the film we try to depict that as
Speaker 3: cleverly an understated way as possible. I'm not interested in
Speaker 3: giving details. It's too confusing for people. So I would
Speaker 3: say the film speaks for itself as much as it can,
Speaker 3: as much as I can.
Speaker 1: And when you say you saw a therapist at fifteen,
Speaker 1: but that was so like supplied by your parents.
Speaker 3: Well yeah, I mean I have to hand it to
Speaker 3: my mom. She kind of she kind of got it
Speaker 3: because back then people didn't go to psychiatrists, right, right,
Speaker 3: Our job with the film was to try and make
Speaker 3: that section about childhood trauma not so overwhelming that that's
Speaker 3: all anybody remembers. It's the most startling parts, so people
Speaker 3: refer to it. But the stuff, there's stuff that I
Speaker 3: learned from the film. I mean, I had no idea
Speaker 3: really what my sisters felt. You don't say that to
Speaker 3: your sister, but they trusted Karen and O'Connor, who was directing,
Speaker 3: and so they were able to speak and say how
Speaker 3: they You know, my older sister that I basically sucked
Speaker 3: all the oxygen out of the room and when I
Speaker 3: walked in then she couldn't survive that and MADEI wanted
Speaker 3: to be a singer and was totally you know, confused
Speaker 3: about her place in the world. And my father was
Speaker 3: pissed off that I wasn't making a lot of money.
Speaker 3: I mean, it was all it was all a big jumble.
Speaker 3: But I see it in the film in a way
Speaker 3: that I didn't see it before.
Speaker 1: And how did it make you feel to learn that
Speaker 1: that's how your sisters felt about your success and in
Speaker 1: relation to you.
Speaker 3: Well, I knew in a sense, but I never heard
Speaker 3: them really really say it. So I mean, watching the film.
Speaker 3: Each time I watch it, and I've watched it at
Speaker 3: a bunch of openings, is always a gut punch here
Speaker 3: and there of stuff that I'm learning for the first time,
Speaker 3: but there's also positive stuff that I'm learning for the
Speaker 3: first time. It is a big learning experience.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's really well done because you hint
Speaker 1: at some sort of trauma, but you don't reveal that
Speaker 1: it was sexual abuse until the end of the film.
Speaker 1: But I suspected that as soon as you said something
Speaker 1: earlier in the film about the panic attacks.
Speaker 3: And well, it's interesting that you suspected. It just means
Speaker 3: that you know something about that world because some people
Speaker 3: don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't get it. Yeah, Well, when kids are
Speaker 1: having panic attacks and they can't really put their finger
Speaker 1: on it's something, right, Something is always up. And I
Speaker 1: think it's interesting that the domino effect of a career
Speaker 1: and a big life that can have on your siblings,
Speaker 1: Like you know, one of your sisters, your older sister,
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, had to retreat. She didn't want anything
Speaker 1: to do with it. She didn't like that, you know,
Speaker 1: she didn't want any attention on her. And your other
Speaker 1: sister tried to kind of mimic what you did and
Speaker 1: ended up with a guy that she went and created
Speaker 1: a lot of music with, but who sadly passed away
Speaker 1: much earlier than expected. And then there's also just so
Speaker 1: much activism in this film that you did. It's so beautiful.
Speaker 1: I love it and can relate so much to your
Speaker 1: passion for activism, and then your relationship with Bob Dylan,
Speaker 1: which was heartbreaking. I didn't know that that's how it ended.
Speaker 3: Well. I think it's sort of unique that I just said,
Speaker 3: I guess he broke my heart. You know, these people
Speaker 3: don't usually say that kind of stuff, but I just
Speaker 3: blurted out a lot of truths in the film. I
Speaker 3: figure it's supposed to be an honest legacy. I can't
Speaker 3: afford to hide stuff now, I mean my eighties. You know,
Speaker 3: I've gotten nothing to lose. Family's gone not gonna hurt
Speaker 3: any feelings in the immediate family. So I turned over
Speaker 3: the keys literally to that storage unit. I had never
Speaker 3: walked in there until the film filmed me walking into
Speaker 3: my storage unit. I had no idea that my mother
Speaker 3: kept absolutely every letter, every little tape recording I'd said,
Speaker 3: and my father was a camera buff by the time
Speaker 3: he was ten, kept every eight millimeter he took of
Speaker 3: us and all his photographs, and it was all in
Speaker 3: that room. I mean, I knew about some of my
Speaker 3: own tapes that I knew, but I didn't know was
Speaker 3: that orderly. I had nothing to do with that. Somebody
Speaker 3: else had to put it in order. You know. I said,
Speaker 3: do what you need to do. And if I had
Speaker 3: been involved with the making of the film, it would
Speaker 3: have just been a nightmare. I would have not wanted this,
Speaker 3: not wanted that, and chosen this. And I look good here,
Speaker 3: and we joke about courage. You know, took courage to
Speaker 3: be in the bombshelter, to courage to deal with the
Speaker 3: kou Klux Klan. But the real courage was letting them
Speaker 3: fill this with natural light. You know. I didn't have
Speaker 3: any help from that, and I think that's important.
Speaker 1: Well listen, if this is what eighty looks like, and
Speaker 1: this is what I'm rolling into, I'm pretty psyched about
Speaker 1: it because you're adoraball. I think you're beautiful, you're sexy,
Speaker 1: you're all of the things that nobody equates with being
Speaker 1: in your eighties. So thank you all done on that front,
Speaker 1: Well done on the superficial front. Let's get to the
Speaker 1: deeper stuff. Okay, let's talk about when you became successful
Speaker 1: on a level that you weren't anticipating. You're talking in
Speaker 1: the movie about. I mean, it was obviously the time
Speaker 1: you were living in right that had an impact on
Speaker 1: the success of what people needed to hear. But what
Speaker 1: was the moment where everything changed. I know with Bob
Speaker 1: Dylan you were talking about it being in London, but
Speaker 1: for you.
Speaker 3: The beginning probably bang, it was Newport. I mean I'd
Speaker 3: been seeing that wonderful little club and I had a
Speaker 3: following there, and it's kind of it was kind of
Speaker 3: leaking out of Cambridge and into Boston to New York.
Speaker 3: But then you know, Odetta invited me up to go
Speaker 3: to Newport, and then Bob Gibson, who was well known
Speaker 3: at the time folk singer, invited me up on stage,
Speaker 3: and that kind of did it. I mean it was
Speaker 3: a big First of all, there thirteen thousand people. I
Speaker 3: didn't know that many people got in one place at
Speaker 3: one time. That was very cool, and I was very
Speaker 3: very nervous. I mean literally, you know the expression of
Speaker 3: my knees were shaking. Yeah, my knees were shaking, and
Speaker 3: I was, how am I going to do this? But
Speaker 3: then I went up, I did it, and it was
Speaker 3: a huge response, and you know, as Mimi says in
Speaker 3: the film, it was an overnight thing. And the next
Speaker 3: thing I knew, I was on the cover of Time magazine.
Speaker 3: And yeah, it was fast. It was fast, and you
Speaker 3: try to absorb that as a seventeen eighteen, nineteen year old.
Speaker 3: And I was determined to not become commercial. And I,
Speaker 3: you know, I was a big pain in the ass
Speaker 3: because I didn't want all the stuff that people usually want.
Speaker 3: I didn't want red carpets, and I didn't want limousines.
Speaker 3: I didn't want flowers on the stage. And apparently I
Speaker 3: was just as difficult as anybody else.
Speaker 1: And the whole time, you're writing letters to your parents saying,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not growing enough. You're you're disappointed kind
Speaker 1: of in the path that you had taken in your success.
Speaker 1: You weren't able to maybe enjoy it as much because
Speaker 1: you were worried about your other skill sets in life
Speaker 1: and your other learnings that you felt like you were
Speaker 1: kind of missing out on. Is that accurate?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: And also it was my father and somehow it translated
Speaker 3: to me that I would go to hell literally if
Speaker 3: I did certain things and did them wrong. So everything
Speaker 3: was measured a little bit. I was just a good thing.
Speaker 3: This is a bad thing. It's going to hurt somebody.
Speaker 3: So I know you're right. I didn't have time to
Speaker 3: really enjoy myself.
Speaker 1: And then when did you meet Bobby Bobby Bobby Dylan?
Speaker 3: I must have met him in sixty one or two.
Speaker 1: And how long had you been successful and in the
Speaker 1: public eye.
Speaker 3: At that point until fifty nine?
Speaker 1: Okay, so a couple of years. So there's a there's
Speaker 1: a sequence in the in the film of you two
Speaker 1: singing together, and it is adorable. I have never seen
Speaker 1: him smile like that. I was like, whoa, these two
Speaker 1: are obviously having something. Something's happening with these two. You
Speaker 1: could see that. And at that point, was something happening
Speaker 1: or were you just friends?
Speaker 3: I was a version of that point, you know, shock
Speaker 3: of ball shocks that moved on at some point. But
Speaker 3: so was a question about mom.
Speaker 1: I was saying the scene in the film where you're
Speaker 1: postinging together on stage, Yeah, I don't know where that was.
Speaker 3: Well, I wasn't a virgin anymore, so wow.
Speaker 1: Okay, So were you guys in a romantic relationship at
Speaker 1: that point? Okay, yeah, it.
Speaker 3: Seemed like and you know, and we were so young.
Speaker 3: I look at that and I just keep thinking we
Speaker 3: had our baby fat. You know, we were just kids,
Speaker 3: and so it was as fun as it looked. It
Speaker 3: was just adorable. That was the word you said.
Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty adorable, very obvious the chemistry. And so how
Speaker 1: long did you guys stay together?
Speaker 3: You and Bob Dylan on and off for a couple
Speaker 3: of years, I guess, I don't honestly remember how long
Speaker 3: this part of it lasted. And we stayed with me
Speaker 3: for a while in Carmel Valley and he wrote a
Speaker 3: lot of stuff. He wrote four letter word and dropped
Speaker 3: it on the floor and forgot about it, and I
Speaker 3: picked it up. I said, oh wow, this is really cool.
Speaker 3: And he would say something like tell me what it means?
Speaker 3: Can you tell me what it means? And I would
Speaker 3: give my best interpretation and he say, yeah, it's pretty good.
Speaker 3: You know, after I dropped it, everybody's going to say this,
Speaker 3: this is a this is what this was? Violent? What
Speaker 3: the fuck is about? So yeah, and there he was
Speaker 3: this kid writing these amazing songs.
Speaker 1: And that was your first love. Would you say no, no,
Speaker 1: would you say he was a love or yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, my first love was a Harvard student. I
Speaker 3: was goga about for four years. We hadn't matching the rosies,
Speaker 3: so it went on really quite a long time.
Speaker 1: Okay, so he was your second love?
Speaker 3: He was?
Speaker 1: Oh is there another one in between there? Wow, you
Speaker 1: were busy between seventeen.
Speaker 3: And twenty one? Was but if people don't recognize the name,
Speaker 3: they don't count, well, yeah, I guess.
Speaker 2: And there was Kimmy also oh yeah, yes, yes.
Speaker 3: There was a young woman. Yeah that was. And it
Speaker 3: says in the film it was just a relief. I
Speaker 3: mean it was it was something new, and it was
Speaker 3: something sweet and I didn't have to get all riled
Speaker 3: up that it was a guy.
Speaker 1: Right right. I always feel that I'm always like, just
Speaker 1: to block away from becoming a lesbian, you know, with
Speaker 1: the the dynamic between men and women, You're always like, well,
Speaker 1: at least that's an option later, maybe sooner than later,
Speaker 1: could you know, I know? And whenever. So when you
Speaker 1: guys went to London with Bob Dylan, like that was
Speaker 1: when his fame just became a jug or not. And
Speaker 1: that's when things you felt, I think you used demoralized.
Speaker 3: Demoralizing, Yeah, I mean the act, the action was totally
Speaker 3: around Bob, and I could have jumped in there and
Speaker 3: hung on to his shirt sleeves and gone everywhere with
Speaker 3: him and been the center of attention as well, and
Speaker 3: I thought I just didn't want to do that, so
Speaker 3: I was peripheral and I suffered from that. But and
Speaker 3: then maybe it became too late to try and enter
Speaker 3: the boys club, but they were doing drugs. I didn't.
Speaker 3: I didn't do this little folky addendum outside of you know,
Speaker 3: it's a fringe of everybody of the guys.
Speaker 1: And there was an I mean, they were asking him
Speaker 1: directly questions about dating you, and he said, no, we're
Speaker 1: not together. She's just a friend, right right, right, which
Speaker 1: is in the film, And that was that was devastating.
Speaker 3: But I really bring in now that the years of
Speaker 3: resentment and years of bullshit. And then I was painting
Speaker 3: his portrait. Bob was a younger, maybe the photograph was
Speaker 3: he was twenty one or something. And while I was
Speaker 3: painting this, I put on this music and I started
Speaker 3: to cry and it was gratitude. It was just gratitude
Speaker 3: and all of the bullshit just literally fell away, and
Speaker 3: I was left with this gratitude that I was there,
Speaker 3: I was singing then, that I met him, then that
Speaker 3: his songs were then and at the moment, there's no reason.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'll joke about him because he's nuts, but
Speaker 3: it's not internally hurt and all that angst is gone.
Speaker 1: Did he ever apologize to you?
Speaker 3: You know, I didn't expect him to apologize when I
Speaker 3: look at that film, and maybe I'm just keeping myself
Speaker 3: from feeling anything, but I just see this kid. I
Speaker 3: don't know what was going on in him. I don't
Speaker 3: know if he was for some reason hurting as well.
Speaker 3: You can't tell, right, right, So that's a fair assessment. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't blame him. I mean, I'm sure I did
Speaker 3: then and for years philt. You know, I'd been done wrong,
Speaker 3: But I don't know what he was feeling and I
Speaker 3: never will.
Speaker 1: Right, And because you went back on tour with him later.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that was that was a totally different scene,
Speaker 3: you know, And that was crazy and fun and I
Speaker 3: was on kuailude then, so yes, that was my drug experience.
Speaker 3: Was that was the only one.
Speaker 1: What did quailudes do for you?
Speaker 3: I just didn't worry about stuff so much, and for
Speaker 3: sex as well, you know, made it easier to get
Speaker 3: over the first number of hurdles you have to go through.
Speaker 3: I don't know, maybe you don't have to go through.
Speaker 1: No, I think I have some of the same issues.
Speaker 1: You talk a lot about intimacy in this documentary. You
Speaker 1: talk a lot about about your not necessarily fear of it.
Speaker 1: It's it seems like you're kind of admittingly not so
Speaker 1: well versed.
Speaker 3: In into inability.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and over time, you don't think that you've been
Speaker 1: able to address that in therapy.
Speaker 3: Or oh, sure I have on some levels. Well, I
Speaker 3: would say I went through this deep stuff and it
Speaker 3: was tremendous amount of work, the bone shattering work of remembering.
Speaker 3: And I did that for a number of years until
Speaker 3: I literally began to feel whole, which comes at the
Speaker 3: end of the film. Yes, I feel whole. And at
Speaker 3: the end of the hard work, when I felt like, oh,
Speaker 3: this is what it must feel like to be a person.
Speaker 3: It was sort of hinted at by this therapist, well,
Speaker 3: now you can go on and sort of start dating,
Speaker 3: and I said, no way, no fucking way. I'm comfortable
Speaker 3: where I am. I don't want to wreck my life
Speaker 3: by taking on another level of work, and I didn't
Speaker 3: see it as a goody and start dating was oh
Speaker 3: my god, I can't do that. And that was a
Speaker 3: decision I made, and I've been very happy with it.
Speaker 1: And do you directly link that that lack of intimacy
Speaker 1: to your childhood.
Speaker 3: I would say to that, I call it trauma.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean we're molded by our childhoods. And even though
Speaker 3: I had repressed mine for half a century, I was
Speaker 3: being molded by it anyway. So all of that I did,
Speaker 3: all the sad songs I sang for three years without
Speaker 3: I think there was nothing happy in there at all.
Speaker 3: I didn't know why, and people had asked me why
Speaker 3: it suited me. I had no uncertainty ever about the voice. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I had inhibitions insecurities, but never about the sound of
Speaker 3: the gift that I had. And because I consider it
Speaker 3: a gift, I never claimed it or felt proud of it.
Speaker 3: My I mean proud, yes, because the work I did,
Speaker 3: and my job was maintenance and delivery all the way through,
Speaker 3: you know. And I could talk about it from the outside.
Speaker 3: I WHOA what a voice? I listened to it sometimes
Speaker 3: that early stuff, I am blown away. I'm just it's
Speaker 3: just amazed me.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, during one of the interviews in the film,
Speaker 1: someone asks you, you know, do you still have this voice,
Speaker 1: and if not, do you miss it? And You're like,
Speaker 1: I absolutely do not have.
Speaker 3: That voice, and I absolutely do miss it.
Speaker 1: And I do miss it, but I'm focusing on what
Speaker 1: I do have.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And that got harder and harder, and
Speaker 3: that comes out at the beginning of the film. I'm
Speaker 3: struggling away with vocalizing and happily my Bouvier dog vocalizes
Speaker 3: with me at the same time to ease up on them,
Speaker 3: you know, on the pressure of it. But it go
Speaker 3: harder and harder, and so it just became effortful. During
Speaker 3: the tour, the last tour, yes, and leading up to that.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah. Just as the years went by, I got
Speaker 3: I bought myself about ten years by seeing the right
Speaker 3: vocal therapist, not just a trainer, not just a coach,
Speaker 3: but a therapist who could sort of manipulate on every
Speaker 3: level what I was doing with my voice. And it
Speaker 3: was a huge help that literally bought me sometime.
Speaker 1: And how many shows did you do for this farewell tour.
Speaker 3: Total usually we did about twenty between twenty and twenty
Speaker 3: five shows in general.
Speaker 1: When I go out, yeah, on a tour bus with
Speaker 1: your son, yes.
Speaker 3: And you know. The only thing and I kind of
Speaker 3: wished it had gotten in the film, but I didn't
Speaker 3: have any say about anything, was that the parties we
Speaker 3: did on the bus. We did the dancing and drinking
Speaker 3: and roaring down the highway. We call it bus dancing
Speaker 3: because periodically you're thrown into the seats. But we were family.
Speaker 1: And it was a big, nice kind of repair. Can
Speaker 1: I say with your relationship with your son, spending that
Speaker 1: kind of time together on the road.
Speaker 3: It began something I mean we had started and earlier
Speaker 3: on when your kids says weren't there for me, and
Speaker 3: you think, well, fuck you, I was. And then little
Speaker 3: by little, going through the therapy thing, you know what
Speaker 3: wasn't I was incapable of being present from my boy.
Speaker 3: And we've talked about this with a couple of moms
Speaker 3: in the last few days, and they said, all moms
Speaker 3: think that they weren't present enough for their kids. And
Speaker 3: I think this is an exaggerated version of it, though,
Speaker 3: that I was gone so much and that he's so
Speaker 3: eloquent in the film and so forgiving, you know. But
Speaker 3: we started years ago going to therapist together, went to
Speaker 3: therapy together to begin, you know, the process of healing
Speaker 3: those wounds which were big. We're still going. I mean,
Speaker 3: we hit a bump in the rowe say, come on,
Speaker 3: who's gonna call first? And set up with our latest referee,
Speaker 3: and we do and we go back, and you know,
Speaker 3: I just think that that gives hope to some people.
Speaker 3: The different things in the film we've discovered have been
Speaker 3: helpful to other people that you know, you can know
Speaker 3: you can go to therapy with your son. Wow, what
Speaker 3: a concept and make it through the tunnel with him.
Speaker 1: And in the relationship his father. Spend some time in jail, yeah,
Speaker 1: for you know, activism, and you were assuming that you
Speaker 1: were going to probably spend some time in jail too.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But you did it, did you? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I did. Yeah. When I'm stepping into the little patty
Speaker 3: wagon in the oh oh right, right, okay, but it
Speaker 3: was I mean it was rehabilitation center. Ha ha, Okay,
Speaker 3: it was kind of a joke. As far as jail
Speaker 3: time went, I enjoyed it. I gained eight pounds just
Speaker 3: eating commissary and really good food.
Speaker 1: Weight gained been a problem for you in your life.
Speaker 3: No, but I was lying on my stomach and my
Speaker 3: mom was in there with me. And the next event,
Speaker 3: I said, my stomachers turned out too, I had gained
Speaker 3: a bunch of weight and I shouldn't be sleeping on
Speaker 3: my stomach. So you know, it was not a big
Speaker 3: problem for me, but it was an important piece of
Speaker 3: political work. There were thirty women in there with me
Speaker 3: the first time and sixty the second time. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: it was an important part of that movement, supporting draft resistance.
Speaker 1: Draft resistance, and you had you supported the civil rights
Speaker 1: movement a great deal too. There's some footage of you
Speaker 1: walking a little black girl into school for the very
Speaker 1: first time, and you say a beautiful thing, which you
Speaker 1: just said earlier about courage. It's not courageous to be
Speaker 1: holding that girl's hands. She's the one with courage to
Speaker 1: be walking into that situation. So there's so many beautiful
Speaker 1: moments in it, and it's just a real beautiful tapestry
Speaker 1: I think of your life, and it starts out when
Speaker 1: you say something very powerful as well, which is I
Speaker 1: think there's a time in every artist's life where you
Speaker 1: realize you're not who you used to be, or you
Speaker 1: don't have the same quote unquote value that you used
Speaker 1: to have. Yeah, so talk to me a little bit
Speaker 1: about that, because you say anyone who doesn't admit that
Speaker 1: is lying, well kind of. Yeah.
Speaker 3: People have different ways of sugarcoating. I remember hearing one
Speaker 3: I won't give the name, a very famous singer who'd
Speaker 3: had a little dip, should we say, And then she
Speaker 3: came back and the interviewer were saying, what's the comeback
Speaker 3: feel like you? Why didn't really go away? Well you
Speaker 3: probably did a little bit, but it's really hard to
Speaker 3: deal with. I blamed everybody but myself when the audiences
Speaker 3: weren't as full as big as they were. Well, they
Speaker 3: didn't advertise it properly. Well, they got the haul wrong,
Speaker 3: I mean anything, but oh my god, things have moved
Speaker 3: on and I haven't moved with them. And then I
Speaker 3: was a dummy. And I think he says in the
Speaker 3: film too, I dropped my wonderful manager and hooked up
Speaker 3: with my cute road manager. Was taking too many drugs
Speaker 3: and was a little stupid.
Speaker 1: Yeah it sounds like an idiot sort of.
Speaker 3: It was the whole thing was idiotic and the bottom
Speaker 3: dropped out. I had no machinery and no decent record company, etc. Etc.
Speaker 3: It took a while for me to realize that's what
Speaker 3: was happening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think for all careers there are dips,
Speaker 1: and you know, there are ebbs and flows also, So
Speaker 1: just because you're out, does it mean you're over, because
Speaker 1: there is a comeback. It's just the recognition of that
Speaker 1: being a comeback for some of the artists is also
Speaker 1: hard to grasp because you had one of your hit
Speaker 1: records after that.
Speaker 3: In the middle of it kind of what was the
Speaker 3: name of that? The song, well, the Diamonds and Rust
Speaker 3: was the one during that time period, and that wasn't
Speaker 3: I mean, I've had only literally three things that ever
Speaker 3: were two things that ever made the quote charts, and
Speaker 3: it was Dixie and Diamonds and Rust. Diamonds, Yeah, Dixie
Speaker 3: had been before, and then it was Diamonds and Rust.
Speaker 3: And then began the Great Desert. You know, beautiful albums
Speaker 3: I made. And then I woke up in the middle
Speaker 3: of the night when I was was completely obscure and thought,
Speaker 3: sat up in bed, I thought, why am I making
Speaker 3: this beautiful, beautiful album? When nobody's gonna hear but my family,
Speaker 3: you know, I mean I was. That's when I realized, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I had to get moving on something. In the hired
Speaker 3: a manager, wonderful manager.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I want to let you know. I was texting
Speaker 1: with my friend Juliana Marguley's yesterday. You know her. She's
Speaker 1: an actress. She was she played the nurse on er.
Speaker 1: She's she's done the good wife anyway. She was like,
Speaker 1: I can't believe you're interviewing bias. She's like, you don't understand.
Speaker 1: She's like, that was the only music I played on
Speaker 1: guitar in college. She's like, I could only play Jones
Speaker 1: songs because I was so obsessed with her.
Speaker 3: So oh, I love hearing it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course. And then towards the end of the film,
Speaker 1: you start you kind of reconcile your relationship with your mother,
Speaker 1: your father, your sisters. In a sense. Do you feel
Speaker 1: at peace with the way that all of those relationships? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I did.
Speaker 3: I do. There's a saying I've heard, I'm sure one
Speaker 3: of my Buddhist friends. You can forgive a little bit
Speaker 3: and feel a little bit better, You can forgive a
Speaker 3: lot feel a lot better, or you can forgive everything
Speaker 3: and be free. So it's hard work. And somebody in
Speaker 3: a Q and A once said, well, how do you
Speaker 3: do forgiveness? I mean, it's so difficult. I said, yeah,
Speaker 3: you do it a little bit at a time. You
Speaker 3: don't have to all of a sudden forgive what seems unforgivable.
Speaker 3: You know, you do it a little bit at a time,
Speaker 3: keep plugging away at it.
Speaker 1: And was it was it hard for your son to
Speaker 1: watch that film or to know all of this information.
Speaker 1: Was he privy to this before.
Speaker 3: The Yeah somewhat, but the film still was a shocker
Speaker 3: for anybody in my family or anybody in general. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I think you know. Yeah, he's seen it on the
Speaker 3: big screen twice and once, you know, on a link
Speaker 3: so he could see whether he wanted to come to
Speaker 3: see the big screen one or not. And he did
Speaker 3: and he appreciates it. And as I say, I appreciate
Speaker 3: his participating in it the way he did, same as
Speaker 3: I do with my sisters. I mean, my older sister
Speaker 3: would never get in front of a camera or talk
Speaker 3: to anybody, but Karen O'Connor, who's the main director, really
Speaker 3: won her confidence. They became friends and Pauline was willing
Speaker 3: to say what she said.
Speaker 1: When you say, you had no control over the film,
Speaker 1: so they just came to you with a concept and
Speaker 1: you didn't have any approval at the end or anything.
Speaker 3: I had no approval and nothing to say to the
Speaker 3: whole thing. That's why I mean, would I say handed
Speaker 3: them the keys and it was the keys of the
Speaker 3: storage room, literally, because if I had tried to have
Speaker 3: some control, which I couldn't anyway, But if I had
Speaker 3: tried to, oh, don't put that, no, I look horrible, now,
Speaker 3: oh can you do this one? It would have been
Speaker 3: impossible to make the film. So I just said go
Speaker 3: with it. And when I see it sometimes I think
Speaker 3: I wish that hadn't been in there, And then I
Speaker 3: realized what a brilliant movie it is, and that was
Speaker 3: a part of that movie. So maybe my ego might
Speaker 3: be a little bruise here and there, but for the
Speaker 3: most part, wrinkles and all I think the film is.
Speaker 1: I think you should cut your slack into the wrinkle
Speaker 1: aspect of things. I think you don't realize how beautiful
Speaker 1: you naturally beautiful you are. You really are. You don't
Speaker 1: look like an old person.
Speaker 3: Thank you. I don't feeling and old.
Speaker 1: Wow, you don't act like one, and you don't seem
Speaker 1: like one, and you could still see the beauty of
Speaker 1: your youth in you today. Thank you, Mike. You were
Speaker 1: gorgeous and you are gorgeous.
Speaker 3: When do I get to come back?
Speaker 1: And here tomorrow?
Speaker 3: You're coming back this week.
Speaker 1: We didn't tell you yet. Where can people watch this film,
Speaker 1: by the way.
Speaker 3: In theater and then it starts streaming on November twenty second,
Speaker 3: Hulu on Hulu.
Speaker 2: Exactly check out Joan Bias I Am a Noise in
Speaker 2: theaters now or on video on demand on November twenty first.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's take a break and we will be right back.
Speaker 1: And we're back.
Speaker 2: We're back. Well, Joan, are you ready to give some advice?
Speaker 1: Oh? Sure, Okay, what a joke? Okay, no, no, what
Speaker 1: are you talking about? So many years on this earth,
Speaker 1: everyone's advice is valuable.
Speaker 3: Okay, they have to they have to believe it, whether
Speaker 3: they believe it or not. So yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2: Well, our first question comes from Blanca and her question
Speaker 2: is a little delicate, but you know you have been
Speaker 2: so I was spoken about your Mexican American heritage, and
Speaker 2: so I thought this would be a good question for you,
Speaker 2: she says, Dear Chelsea, I've always been a go getter.
Speaker 2: I was born in Venezuela to Spanish parents. I wanted
Speaker 2: to go to university in Spain, and although the process
Speaker 2: and odds seemed to be against me at the time,
Speaker 2: both financially and academically, I did it. I also wanted
Speaker 2: to have my own business in my early twenties, and
Speaker 2: while I failed in many ways, I also succeeded and
Speaker 2: learned a lot from the experience. I moved to England
Speaker 2: nine years ago. I'm in my mid thirties now and
Speaker 2: I love it here. However, professionally it's been really hard.
Speaker 2: No matter how hard I work or how many great
Speaker 2: results I achieve, I have to fight really hard for
Speaker 2: the bare minimum. I've had to work double hours compared
Speaker 2: to everyone else and show real results in all my jobs,
Speaker 2: thinking it would bring positive outcomes, but instead I've received
Speaker 2: a lot of hate in return, especially from my direct manager.
Speaker 2: Once at a large corporation, the HR director told me directly,
Speaker 2: you have come in and done a great job very quickly,
Speaker 2: and have angered a lot of white men. I'm not paraphrasing.
Speaker 2: Those were his exact words. The cycle has repeated in
Speaker 2: different forms throughout the years. On the face of it,
Speaker 2: I have continued to push through and not given up
Speaker 2: on my dream to have a career I love. I
Speaker 2: have also taken the hardship as an opportunity to work
Speaker 2: on myself and be the kind of manager I never had,
Speaker 2: which has been very rewarding. So here's the issue. I
Speaker 2: left a job and a team I loved three months
Speaker 2: ago because of the same circumstances repeating. Unlike other times,
Speaker 2: I find myself deeply sad and my confidence has taken
Speaker 2: a big hit. During job interviews, I seem to have
Speaker 2: lost my confidence and I can't sell myself or the
Speaker 2: great work I've done. I'm not sure if I'm being
Speaker 2: realistic about the dream of having a career or if
Speaker 2: I'm just part of a system that wants to see
Speaker 2: my potential die. I don't want to give up, but
Speaker 2: I'm out of ideas as to what's best to do next.
Speaker 2: What should I do? Thanks for creating this space, Blanca.
Speaker 3: Oh gosh, tough one.
Speaker 2: It's a tough one.
Speaker 1: I know. I would definitely say never to give up
Speaker 1: on what you are passionate about. Because of a bunch
Speaker 1: of white men telling you that you can't do it.
Speaker 1: But Joan, let me. I'll let you speak a little
Speaker 1: bit about your own experience or your thoughts on this matter.
Speaker 3: What's standing out to me is some old white men,
Speaker 3: because it really is a symbol of the fascism that's
Speaker 3: traveling around the world. I have a friend, an Italian friend.
Speaker 3: He's in his nineties now, but I remember him telling
Speaker 3: me stories about when he was a kid and he
Speaker 3: woke up with the sound of tanks running through, you know,
Speaker 3: running through his block where he lived. When I called
Speaker 3: now a half a year ago, a year ago, I said,
Speaker 3: how are you? He said, Oh, he's the Interday's thing.
Speaker 3: I was born in fascis, I will die in fascis,
Speaker 3: and it's coming, and it's here. It's hard for us
Speaker 3: to admit that or see it. So it's going to
Speaker 3: be a struggle for everybody. And I, you know, I
Speaker 3: don't know how to give advice from from here my
Speaker 3: privileged position, except that somehow all of us will need
Speaker 3: to hang on to decency, so, you know, try to
Speaker 3: promote just human decency with each other. Would be different
Speaker 3: years ago, I would have said, you know, link arms
Speaker 3: we shall overcome. Let's go march and right now the
Speaker 3: odds are so huge that you somehow have to find
Speaker 3: your I mean, what do we with that you said,
Speaker 3: don't give up your passion. You have to find something
Speaker 3: that you really believe in, and I just suggest that'd
Speaker 3: be something that benefit other people as well as yourself.
Speaker 2: Is there anything that either of you would say to
Speaker 2: help her sort of reading her confidence? I mean, in
Speaker 2: my mind, I'm like, tell your future employers this that
Speaker 2: you've had to work twice as hard, you know, talk
Speaker 2: about the extra steps you've taken to make sure that
Speaker 2: you shine in your roles. But is there anything that
Speaker 2: you would say to the confidence aspect and like helping
Speaker 2: her pick herself emotionally off the ground.
Speaker 1: I think letting other people deteriorate your confidence is exactly
Speaker 1: what they want. You know, people when they tear you
Speaker 1: down or they don't, you know, want to acknowledge your
Speaker 1: good work, it is because they want you to think
Speaker 1: less of yourself because they also think less of you,
Speaker 1: and they want to impress their opinion on you. So
Speaker 1: allowing that to happen is letting them win. I know,
Speaker 1: it's not a choice. You're not choosing to lose your confidence,
Speaker 1: but you're allowing them to ship away at your confidence.
Speaker 1: And I think you have to do some inside work,
Speaker 1: whether it be mantras to yourself, whether it be journaling
Speaker 1: every day to reclaim your value.
Speaker 3: And find people who of like mind and that's who's
Speaker 3: really important. Maybe she has that, but to have people
Speaker 3: who support you is absolutely essential. Maybe not that easy
Speaker 3: to find, but they're there. If you're there with your struggles,
Speaker 3: there's somebody else who's there as will. And the power
Speaker 3: begins to come when you have each other. It makes
Speaker 3: it easier to speak out, makes it easier to have courage,
Speaker 3: find three people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, men can be very insecure about their own standing
Speaker 1: and they can be very intimidated by women who have
Speaker 1: something to offer because it means we don't need anything
Speaker 1: from them, you know what I mean, that's their insecurity.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I've been told, well, just play into it, work it,
Speaker 1: work it. I'm not really in a position that I
Speaker 1: need to work it or play into any of that bullshit,
Speaker 1: you know, And I'm lucky because sure that you are
Speaker 1: not in the same position, because you do need to work,
Speaker 1: you need to take these job opportunities. But I just
Speaker 1: want you to know it's men. It's not only because
Speaker 1: you're a woman of color. Men are scared of women
Speaker 1: that are strong, and men are scared of women that
Speaker 1: are capable. So I hope you can take some solace
Speaker 1: in knowing that that happens to people in different positions
Speaker 1: and you're not alone, and it's up to you to
Speaker 1: instill in yourself the confidence and not let people chip
Speaker 1: away at that. And I promise you like the power
Speaker 1: of positive thinking, the power of positive mantras, the power
Speaker 1: of meditation, and positive just feeding yourself in a positive
Speaker 1: loop of like value of what your value is, all
Speaker 1: the things you're good at, you know, waking up and
Speaker 1: telling yourself this is what this is what I'm great at,
Speaker 1: and naming ten things and just kind of building your
Speaker 1: confidence back up so that their slaps and strikes against
Speaker 1: you don't knock you over.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: It just kind of becomes like a breeze that blows
Speaker 1: right past you. And it's easier said than done, but
Speaker 1: it's definitely doable. So that's what I have to say
Speaker 1: on it.
Speaker 3: And I'm thinking of a friend of mine who wanted
Speaker 3: people of like mind to be part of his life.
Speaker 3: New apartment after a few weeks not really making any friends,
Speaker 3: put a signed up saying I will be meditating at
Speaker 3: eight o'clock in the morning. Here's the place, join me
Speaker 3: if you feel like it. And it took a while
Speaker 3: and then pretty soon there was a group of people
Speaker 3: who really were comfortable with each other and they spent
Speaker 3: half an hour hour in silence. I don't know how
Speaker 3: many days a week, but really important bonds that way.
Speaker 1: Community building, Yeah, yeah, you have to create a scene
Speaker 1: that is safe for you. It's funny. I was talking
Speaker 1: to Brandy Carlisle the other day. We're at the Angel
Speaker 1: City game, the soccer game, and she was talking about
Speaker 1: creating a music scene because she said where there was
Speaker 1: no scene when she came up, she needed a scene.
Speaker 3: Like she's made a scene.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's made exactly, she created a scene. And it's like,
Speaker 1: I think that can apply to community as well. You
Speaker 1: create your community. You know, there are ways, like I
Speaker 1: love what you just I don't know if this woman
Speaker 1: is a meditator or anything like that, but there are
Speaker 1: ways to find solace within all of the chaos. And
Speaker 1: you're definitely not alone in the chaos. So anyway you
Speaker 1: can community build create a scene for yourself that is
Speaker 1: a safe space that refortifies you right and kind of
Speaker 1: rebuilds your self esteem, et cetera. And it still is
Speaker 1: a calmness within all of this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well keep us post to Blanca. Our next
Speaker 2: question comes from Calli and she's going to be joining
Speaker 2: us on the zoom here.
Speaker 1: So, okay, this is a live caller, Joan, you better
Speaker 1: get ready.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm ready. I'm live too.
Speaker 2: Amazing, so Cally says. I'm a twenty four year old
Speaker 2: living in North Carolina with my fiance. I came out
Speaker 2: as bisexual a few years ago when I met my fiance,
Speaker 2: and she has been the greatest thing to happen in
Speaker 2: my life. However, while my mom has been one hundred
Speaker 2: percent support of the relationship, my extended family have always
Speaker 2: been a little shady. They're devout Christians, the kind that
Speaker 2: believed that same sex marriage as a sin. However, when
Speaker 2: they met my fiance, they said they loved her, were welcoming,
Speaker 2: and I thought maybe they were conflicted with the subject
Speaker 2: in their religion. They led me to believe they'd be
Speaker 2: coming to our wedding next fall. Recently, my cousin got
Speaker 2: engaged and fast tracked her engagement by getting married this
Speaker 2: fall well. I accepted my cousin's invitation and a few
Speaker 2: days later checked in with my family to see if
Speaker 2: they'd be coming to my wedding. The worst forty eight
Speaker 2: hours of my life began. One of the messages that
Speaker 2: came in said they wouldn't be able to come, but
Speaker 2: send their quote best wishes. I wrestled with the decision
Speaker 2: of whether to back out of my cousin's wedding and
Speaker 2: ended up deciding to go be a part of it.
Speaker 2: I felt I was no better than my aunts and
Speaker 2: uncles if I didn't go, and I'd be putting the
Speaker 2: same negative energy out into the world that they were
Speaker 2: moving forward. I don't know the relationship I want to
Speaker 2: have with my family. I was extremely close with them
Speaker 2: growing up, and it feels like the people I once
Speaker 2: knew are gone. Am I ridiculous for thinking I can
Speaker 2: hold out in hopes they realize the mistakes they've made?
Speaker 2: Or should I save myself more grief by cutting tie?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 1: Callie, Hi, Kelly, Hey, this is Joan Bias, our special
Speaker 1: guest today, Lucky you.
Speaker 5: It's great to meet all of you.
Speaker 3: It's nice to meet you.
Speaker 1: Sweet, nice to meet you too. First of all, sorry
Speaker 1: you're going through this. I'm so fucking over religion. I
Speaker 1: really wish everyone would just stop it. I mean, it
Speaker 1: is just the basis of all discrimination and war and wreckage.
Speaker 1: So that's annoying. We get calls like this a lot
Speaker 1: from people calling in with families I can't accept their
Speaker 1: children's relationships. And I don't know, Joan, you have more
Speaker 1: life experience, so I'll let you speak, obviously, but I
Speaker 1: just want to say I don't think there's any time
Speaker 1: to waste in having people in your life that don't
Speaker 1: support you and love you like I just don't think
Speaker 1: it's worthwhile. And I know people feel differently about family members.
Speaker 1: I feel very vehemently that you should only be surrounding
Speaker 1: yourself with people that love and respect you. And I
Speaker 1: totally agree with you going to your cousin's wedding because
Speaker 1: it's just another chance to demonstrate what they're missing out
Speaker 1: on when they don't want to celebrate you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, that's kind of I mean, that's part of
Speaker 4: the reason why I went. I wanted to see my
Speaker 4: family that was supportive. I just wanted a chance to
Speaker 4: be with them, and then I was also like, if
Speaker 4: I'm not going, I'm just putting that same negative energy
Speaker 4: out into this world. And I didn't want her to
Speaker 4: feel the way that I felt when I showed up that.
Speaker 5: Day at the wedding.
Speaker 4: I didn't know how she would feel if I didn't
Speaker 4: show up, and I just didn't want her to go
Speaker 4: through that same pain that I was. And so I
Speaker 4: am happy that I went, but it was definitely difficult,
Speaker 4: especially to look some of them in the eye and
Speaker 4: act I guess civil I don't know, like everything was okay.
Speaker 4: It's really hard to do that when it's your identity
Speaker 4: that they want.
Speaker 1: A question and how did you feel after that wedding?
Speaker 1: Did you feel good about yourself and good about those interactions?
Speaker 1: Like how did it make you feel?
Speaker 5: I felt strong when I left.
Speaker 4: I think I was proud of myself for putting up
Speaker 4: sort of with those that I know weren't supportive of me,
Speaker 4: just to see those that were because I had a
Speaker 4: good time with them. I got to spend some time
Speaker 4: with my little cousin and that really meant a lot
Speaker 4: to me. So when I walked away, I felt strong.
Speaker 4: But I'll be honest, the minute I got away from them,
Speaker 4: I started to cry. I think it was just that
Speaker 4: acceptance of I'm never going to have that feeling, that
Speaker 4: comfortable feeling with my family again.
Speaker 5: That is gone.
Speaker 4: And I think that's why I was questioning should I
Speaker 4: still try to reach out to them? Should I still
Speaker 4: try to have a relationship, because I think for me
Speaker 4: it's forever that feeling is going.
Speaker 5: To be gone.
Speaker 3: I think I go directly to Dan Savage, which is
Speaker 3: they may come around. They may come around when you
Speaker 3: least expect it. And I think you've done absolutely the
Speaker 3: right thing because all you can do is have your
Speaker 3: own empathy for them, which you've shown, and they will
Speaker 3: learn something from that, even if they even if it's
Speaker 3: not conscious at the moment. And I think giving it
Speaker 3: some time is also important. And it's really frustrating because
Speaker 3: you want it to be okay now, But I think
Speaker 3: you are doing absolutely the right thing.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think I wonder in the future down the road,
Speaker 4: will they regret not getting to come to my wedding,
Speaker 4: like making that decision.
Speaker 5: Will they regret it? I don't know, maybe, but.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think that's something that we all wrestle with,
Speaker 1: you know, when people kind of reject us, it's like
Speaker 1: a breakup, you know, are you going to regret leaving me?
Speaker 1: And hopefully they will, Hopefully they'll come to their senses
Speaker 1: at some point and feel like it feel how silly
Speaker 1: this is. I mean at this point in the world.
Speaker 1: I mean, to honestly not be accepting of gay people
Speaker 1: is absolutely ridiculous, you know, And to hide under the
Speaker 1: umbrella of religion for that with your own daughter is ridiculous.
Speaker 1: So that's not what love is. And I don't think
Speaker 1: as much as you're going to wonder or hope for
Speaker 1: their regret. It's all about you holding your head up high.
Speaker 1: Going to your cousin's wedding. Was you holding your head
Speaker 1: up high? You should be proud of that. And then
Speaker 1: you note what it made you feel like when you left.
Speaker 1: If you felt like shit when you left, which you did,
Speaker 1: then that's you and your brain telling you that's not
Speaker 1: good enough for me. You're operating at this level. They're
Speaker 1: still down here. If they want to come up to
Speaker 1: your level, they can come any time, but they have
Speaker 1: to accept you and your partner. And that's just it,
Speaker 1: And it doesn't have to be mean in the way
Speaker 1: you say it or it doesn't have to be heavy handed.
Speaker 1: It's just like, that's the reality. This is the person
Speaker 1: that I love, and this is who I'm choosing to
Speaker 1: spend my life with. And if you can respect us
Speaker 1: and show us both respect and love, great. I'm happy
Speaker 1: to see you guys anytime, but until then, I don't
Speaker 1: need you in my life.
Speaker 3: Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And Chelsea talks a lot about sending people love,
Speaker 2: and I think this is maybe one of the only
Speaker 2: things you can do in this situation, because you don't
Speaker 2: know if and when one or more of them might
Speaker 2: quote unquote change their minds and talk to you about like, wow,
Speaker 2: I can't believe I did that to you back then.
Speaker 2: It may never happen, but like it also very well may.
Speaker 2: And I think until then, you know, you can send
Speaker 2: them love, but you can't stake your own self confidence
Speaker 2: on it. And I don't think that you are right.
Speaker 3: I don't neither.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think you know you could look at
Speaker 1: it this way. Once you remove your family, you have
Speaker 1: so much room for other people. You can make a
Speaker 1: whole new family, you know what I mean. Your bandwidth
Speaker 1: becomes bigger because you have more room in your life,
Speaker 1: so you could think about it that way as an expansion.
Speaker 2: And how is your fiance's family. Are they all accepting
Speaker 2: and loving?
Speaker 4: Yeah, they're all accepting, loving, They're all already intending to
Speaker 4: come to the wedding. And so it was a shock
Speaker 4: for me when we received the messages from my family
Speaker 4: that they wouldn't be attending.
Speaker 5: Due to religious reasons. But it was also a shock
Speaker 5: for her.
Speaker 4: I think I was surprised by how much it affected her,
Speaker 4: but I know it's because we're in this together and
Speaker 4: that was meant to be her family soon and just
Speaker 4: so she felt.
Speaker 5: That real same rejection that I felt.
Speaker 4: But you guys were making the point about keeping that
Speaker 4: door open, and that's I think what I was intending
Speaker 4: to do by going to the wedding is I had
Speaker 4: friends in the past who, also because of religion, didn't
Speaker 4: believe that my identity was okay or my relationship was okay.
Speaker 4: And so I've had practice with understanding how do you
Speaker 4: keep a door open but protect yourself, And so I
Speaker 4: feel like that's what I was just trying to do
Speaker 4: here with going to the wedding, but also setting those boundaries,
Speaker 4: like you said, give.
Speaker 2: More time to your fiance's family and the people who
Speaker 2: love and support you, because that's where your strength is
Speaker 2: going to come from.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Just trying to fill my life with the people
Speaker 4: that are going to respect me and my relationship.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, thank you, Kelly.
Speaker 1: Thank you, and I have a great wedding, Kelly. Lots
Speaker 1: of love and support.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: Guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, bye bye. I always wonder it's so crazy to
Speaker 1: me that you could be a mother and just discount
Speaker 1: your child based on who they're attracted to. Like, how
Speaker 1: lame is that because of some what? Because God is
Speaker 1: telling you in a book that somebody made up? I mean,
Speaker 1: it's so stupid.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it wasn't. What Jesus said was love one another.
Speaker 2: I mean it's pretty basic.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And you don't know what turmoil they're in, right, because
Speaker 3: they must be some kind oft in there.
Speaker 1: It's like a perpetual intergenerational traumatization. You know, everyone is
Speaker 1: so traumatized, and everyone's just got this narrative in their
Speaker 1: head that they keep perpetuating and perpetuating, and then with
Speaker 1: the cycle breaks, everyone's like wait, what, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: we're not doing that. It's like they'd rather be in
Speaker 1: the cycle of drama.
Speaker 3: Than break it and they can't be happy. Yeah, no,
Speaker 3: it can't be happy.
Speaker 2: Right Well, our next color is Gael. Gail says Dear Chelsea.
Speaker 2: I recently moved back in with my mother this May.
Speaker 2: I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder when I was twenty four,
Speaker 2: now twenty eight, and learning to cope with this illness
Speaker 2: has been a journey. I was hospitalized several times this
Speaker 2: year and had to leave my dream job in a
Speaker 2: city that I loved, Boston. I currently live on Cape
Speaker 2: Cod with my mom and feel blessed, but I'm struggling
Speaker 2: to feel connected to my greater sense of purpose. To
Speaker 2: say the least, I'm in a period of transition. I
Speaker 2: feel out of touch with my dreams and aspirations since
Speaker 2: my relocation. The majority of my life, I've been a
Speaker 2: type A person and that has not served me. Most recently,
Speaker 2: my new motto has been take it easy, and I've
Speaker 2: been doing just that. Now my health is back on
Speaker 2: track and I'm looking for advice on how to realign
Speaker 2: with a future that's meaningful and fulfilling. Since leaving my
Speaker 2: job and spending months in the hospital, my finances aren't
Speaker 2: great either, but of course, when it rains, it pours.
Speaker 2: I know living with my mother isn't permanent, but how
Speaker 2: do I reconnect with my goals without feeling too down
Speaker 2: about where I am currently? Any advice on how to
Speaker 2: make each day count all the best?
Speaker 1: Gail? Hi, Gail, Hi, Hi. This is Joe Biah's our
Speaker 1: special guest today.
Speaker 3: Hi you hi.
Speaker 5: I heard her speak with you.
Speaker 1: I know, isn't it? Okay? Let's get you up and running. Okay, Okay,
Speaker 1: so you're living with your mother. Listen, who gives a shit?
Speaker 1: That's fine. You know, you're not a man, you're a woman.
Speaker 1: You're allowed to live with your mother. I'm not sexist
Speaker 1: in any way in favor of women. By the way,
Speaker 1: how old are you? How old did you say? You are?
Speaker 5: Twenty eight?
Speaker 1: Okay, so everything's fine. Just you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: You You're going to be fine. You're only twenty eight
Speaker 1: years old. This is fine. All of this is fine.
Speaker 1: And in terms of reconnecting, you just have to get
Speaker 1: yourself in this position of covering the basis of like
Speaker 1: every single day to get you towards the goal of
Speaker 1: where you want to be. You know, like, let's talk
Speaker 1: about where you'd like to see yourself in six months.
Speaker 1: You want to have a job, Yes, I.
Speaker 4: Mean I'm doing all these sorts of odd jobs here
Speaker 4: and there, but in six months, I like to have something,
Speaker 4: you know, full time with benefits like I had, you
Speaker 4: know before.
Speaker 1: So yes, okay. And so what is the area that
Speaker 1: you're Are you going to move into the same area
Speaker 1: you were in before? Are you looking to move into
Speaker 1: a different area.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm considering staying where I am, so I also
Speaker 4: want to move out in six months. So I'm kind
Speaker 4: of thinking wherever I can get a job that's going
Speaker 4: to allow me to move out and sustain myself.
Speaker 1: Great, So how are you going to do that?
Speaker 4: Oh, I've been applying to a ton of jobs, so
Speaker 4: I actually have an interview tomorrow, which is exciting.
Speaker 1: Okay, great. And what field of work are you in?
Speaker 4: So I did design for a while and I want to,
Speaker 4: you know, sort of shift out of that in the future.
Speaker 4: But this is another job in design. It's sort of
Speaker 4: sales consultant.
Speaker 1: Okay. Well that those jobs are plentiful, so you can
Speaker 1: definitely line up job interviews for yourself in the next
Speaker 1: few weeks so that you have a cascade of them
Speaker 1: rather than just one, right, Do you have anything else
Speaker 1: lined up in terms of an interview.
Speaker 5: No, that's the only one, So you're right.
Speaker 1: More okay, so more outreach. More. What part of the
Speaker 1: country are you in.
Speaker 5: I'm in Massachusetts, Okay.
Speaker 1: Are you close to Boston?
Speaker 5: It's like an hour and a half.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, then there you got to I mean that
Speaker 1: should be your aim. No, would you are you interested
Speaker 1: in living in Boston?
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's where I moved back from. I was living
Speaker 4: in Boston before. I was working at a design firm
Speaker 4: and it was great, and then you know, I have
Speaker 4: to move back with my mother, so you know, going
Speaker 4: back to Boston would be wonderful.
Speaker 1: And your bipolar disorder is you're on medication and that's
Speaker 1: completely under control.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but I'm I'm medicated and it's under control.
Speaker 5: Thank goodness.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, thank goodness for that. So so all you've
Speaker 1: taken all the steps in the right direction, like you
Speaker 1: are very conscious of where you need to go, and
Speaker 1: you first I think your first goal would be, you know,
Speaker 1: do a more outreach in the Boston area. So you
Speaker 1: have a whole slew of job interviews lined up, reach
Speaker 1: out to anyone that you know in this field, anyone
Speaker 1: you've worked with before, letting them know you're interested in
Speaker 1: getting back into it, that you're interested in getting back
Speaker 1: into the Boston area, because that's where you're going to
Speaker 1: probably have the most you know, luck in finding a job.
Speaker 1: I would think in that city, since there is so
Speaker 1: much action there, and even while you could even commute there,
Speaker 1: you know, it being an hour away, you could take
Speaker 1: a train, and you could take a bus, you could
Speaker 1: drive to Boston. Whatever you you know, whatever you need
Speaker 1: to do. So I think in the immediate future that
Speaker 1: should be what you spend the next couple of weeks
Speaker 1: doing is outreach to procure more job interviews.
Speaker 5: Okay, that's great, thanks.
Speaker 1: And I think and Joan, you can chime in anytime
Speaker 1: if you want to. I would say, obviously, worry about
Speaker 1: the job before you worry about move out. You want
Speaker 1: to get situated and get into a stable situation working
Speaker 1: for somebody. And I would say after about three months,
Speaker 1: once you do get a job, and I'm confident you
Speaker 1: will get one sooner than you probably think, then you
Speaker 1: can start thinking about where you want to live and
Speaker 1: where you can afford to live based on how much
Speaker 1: you're earning and maybe you stay with your mother for
Speaker 1: six months, maybe you stay with your mom for nine months,
Speaker 1: maybe it's a year. Don't beat yourself up about that,
Speaker 1: because you want to set yourself up for success, not
Speaker 1: for failure.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Thanks, I think I haven't really known what to do first,
Speaker 4: so it's nice to hear that go for the job first,
Speaker 4: because that will make everything easier. Once I have the job,
Speaker 4: then I can plan my next step.
Speaker 1: And I didn't become really successful. I just want you
Speaker 1: to know until I was thirty two years old, so
Speaker 1: you have four years. I waited tables my all of
Speaker 1: my twenties. I wrote a couple books, and I had
Speaker 1: a couple gigs, but I wasn't like on my own
Speaker 1: doing everything until I was thirty two. Completely independent and
Speaker 1: financially free until I was thirty two years old. So
Speaker 1: please do not worry about your age. It's about your health,
Speaker 1: your mental health, getting yourself in a strong situation so
Speaker 1: that you're going to succeed, not so that you're going
Speaker 1: to overdo it and then have to come back and
Speaker 1: live with your mother. You want to set up like
Speaker 1: this ballast of support around you so that when you
Speaker 1: leave it's for the last time.
Speaker 5: Yes, absolutely, that's exactly what I want.
Speaker 3: Joan, What do you think I think you've said it all.
Speaker 3: I have absolutely nothing to say.
Speaker 1: She became successful at a very early age, and that
Speaker 1: can have its shortfalls too, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's good to go through this stuff in your earlier
Speaker 1: years rather than have this like hit you when you're
Speaker 1: thirty eight or forty eight. So there are a lot
Speaker 1: of things to be grateful for that you feel probably
Speaker 1: like our big stumbling blocks now that are not they're
Speaker 1: not stumbling blocks now because you can pick yourself up
Speaker 1: more easily at this age. So you live right outside
Speaker 1: of a major city, not far outside of a major city,
Speaker 1: You're going to have a lot of like opportunity unity there.
Speaker 1: And I think you just have to like put out
Speaker 1: every antenna you can to any and think and just
Speaker 1: write down a list of all the people that you
Speaker 1: would feel comfortable reaching out to, and then do research
Speaker 1: online about all the companies and design companies that are
Speaker 1: in the Boston area and you know what they offer,
Speaker 1: and even if it's something that doesn't feel like it
Speaker 1: speaks to you exactly, I would say, put out a feeler,
Speaker 1: you know, just try and get as much into information
Speaker 1: you can about what's out there right now.
Speaker 4: Okay, thanks, I've not really been doing that, so that'll
Speaker 4: be my next step.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you should use your time wisely while you have it,
Speaker 1: you know, and also pick up some books on you know,
Speaker 1: design and career and like meditation and things that are
Speaker 1: going to keep you grounded. Develop some good habits now
Speaker 1: while you have the time to add to your toolkit
Speaker 1: so that you don't find yourself in this position again.
Speaker 3: And doesn't it help that it's possible that it's the
Speaker 3: person you run into or the people you run into
Speaker 3: it defines where you want to go.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, that's very true.
Speaker 3: I mean it's like in school, really kind of bored
Speaker 3: with the whole thing until you find a teacher you
Speaker 3: really love and it almost doesn't matter what the subject is.
Speaker 3: So I think that could be in there a little bit.
Speaker 3: If you find somebody who inspires you, a group of
Speaker 3: people who inspires you, then go from there.
Speaker 5: Okay, thanks.
Speaker 2: One little tip for like, right before you do your
Speaker 2: interview tomorrow, look up power poses Google power poses. You
Speaker 2: will look and feel very goofy doing them, but it's
Speaker 2: basically if you think of you know, when you see
Speaker 2: somebody who's like just made a goal in a sports game,
Speaker 2: like the power pose that they do, or they're like, yeah,
Speaker 2: do those for about three minutes before you go into
Speaker 2: your interview. You can do them in the privacy of
Speaker 2: your own home, you can do them in the bathroom
Speaker 2: at the place you go into. But there's actually like
Speaker 2: a marked difference in the ratio of people who get
Speaker 2: hired after doing those versus not doing those. It just
Speaker 2: does something like to raise your confidence, and it like
Speaker 2: puts that confidence into your body, even though it feels
Speaker 2: totally goofy.
Speaker 1: So do a quick Google after after this call.
Speaker 5: Okay, power poses, got it?
Speaker 1: And also visualize how you want the interview to go beforehand.
Speaker 1: You know, that really matters. Manifesting like positive experiences. Visualize
Speaker 1: you being enthusiastic and excited about the potential of this job,
Speaker 1: and visualize them being responsive to that excitement and wanting
Speaker 1: you to be part of their team, and just visualize
Speaker 1: it all being successful. That matters too. You know, sometimes
Speaker 1: we do the opposite and it's like, no, we don't.
Speaker 1: If you focus on something negative, that always has a
Speaker 1: tendency to kind of become a reality. When you focus
Speaker 1: on the positive aspects of a situation that tends to
Speaker 1: become a reality. So don't undervalue that or underplay that.
Speaker 1: Really sit with yourself because you have an intention. You
Speaker 1: want to get a job. You're looking for the right job.
Speaker 1: You're not just going to take any job. You want
Speaker 1: to get into a job that's also going to you know,
Speaker 1: use your strengths and play to your strengths and what
Speaker 1: your talents are.
Speaker 3: And I agree with Chelsea that visualization and the positive
Speaker 3: thing ahead of time. I did that for most of
Speaker 3: the second half of my career once I learned how,
Speaker 3: which for me it was also with self hypnosis that
Speaker 3: somebody taught me, so I could get to a certain
Speaker 3: level of subconscious and then talk to myself, this is
Speaker 3: how it's going to be, this is how I'm going
Speaker 3: to feel, and then even go into what am I
Speaker 3: going to wear? How am I going to walk? How
Speaker 3: am I going to greet these people? And you just
Speaker 3: really lived through a lot of it. Visualize. I'm big
Speaker 3: on visualization, I think as Chelsea is as well. That's
Speaker 3: my two bits.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Okay, I want you to keep us posted. Okay,
Speaker 1: check in with us in a few weeks and like
Speaker 1: give us an update. I want to know what happens
Speaker 1: with you.
Speaker 5: Okay, I will keep you the updated.
Speaker 1: Okay, we're invested in your future.
Speaker 5: Thank you, thanks so much.
Speaker 1: Call bye son. Okay, should we take a break first,
Speaker 1: Let's take a little break. Okay, we're going to take
Speaker 1: a little break and we'll be right back. And we're back.
Speaker 1: Jan is undressing. Joan is undressing.
Speaker 3: That's what we do.
Speaker 1: That's what we do. It between breaks, somebody takes their
Speaker 1: top off. I was surprised for it to be Joan,
Speaker 1: but you know well.
Speaker 2: Our last question comes from Jessica. She says, Dear Chelsea,
Speaker 2: my curiosity about mushrooms has grown significantly lately, and I'm
Speaker 2: interested in trying some micro dosing.
Speaker 1: How I have some in my purse right now. I
Speaker 1: wish you were here. I would give them to you,
Speaker 1: mushroom gummies.
Speaker 2: Jessica. However, my only experience in this world of self
Speaker 2: medication is alcohol and weed. I wanted to ask you
Speaker 2: whether you think it's a good idea for my friend
Speaker 2: and I to try shrooms for the first time at
Speaker 2: your show, since we have tickets. Who better to try
Speaker 2: mushrooms with than the doctor handler. My hesitations are worrying
Speaker 2: whether it will make me anxious or if I would
Speaker 2: get nauseous or anything like that. I essentially don't want
Speaker 2: to sign up to embarrass myself in public thoughts. Jessica.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, this is what I would recommend, Jessica. You
Speaker 1: should microdose. You don't take a whole thing of mushrooms
Speaker 1: for the first time, and if you can do it
Speaker 1: in a chocolate or form or pure mushroom form. I
Speaker 1: don't like those capsules. The only time I've ever felt
Speaker 1: nauseous on mushrooms is with those capsules. Every person is different,
Speaker 1: so that's my DNA versus your DNA. But I really
Speaker 1: would impress upon you you can't really do anything wrong
Speaker 1: or too badly if you're microdosing. Like most people can't
Speaker 1: even feel a micro dose. So I would start there
Speaker 1: and definitely do it at my show because you're not
Speaker 1: gonna have to be thinking about anything. I'll be doing
Speaker 1: all the work for you. Do you take mushrooms job?
Speaker 3: Not yet? Any time? Do you really have someone you
Speaker 3: I will take some with? Okay, perfect?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think like it's always good, you know,
Speaker 1: like a sit of mushrooms is I believe like three
Speaker 1: or four grams. What they put in a microdose is
Speaker 1: like point point zero point zero zero one gram or
Speaker 1: point zero one gram, so like you're gonna be okay,
Speaker 1: but just make sure it's a micro dose. And then
Speaker 1: you decide, oh I like this, I like a little more.
Speaker 1: Don't say I don't feel it, and then double down,
Speaker 1: don't do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, great, well, Jessica.
Speaker 1: I love ending on a mushroom note perfect. Now I
Speaker 1: have to doast Joan and everyone, you guys, please watch
Speaker 1: this documentary because it's so beautifully done. And like I
Speaker 1: said before, which I liked the way I said it,
Speaker 1: it's a tapestry of someone's life. And I watched it
Speaker 1: twice last night because I watched it once and I
Speaker 1: just wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything. So
Speaker 1: when you said you watch it, you see different things,
Speaker 1: you know, I think we all obviously do. You kind
Speaker 1: of miss things a certain time, but it's it's just captivating.
Speaker 1: It's just it's a snapshot of a time, you know,
Speaker 1: when I wasn't old enough to understand, you know, what
Speaker 1: was going on, and I but I know about all
Speaker 1: those events and I know about you, So it was
Speaker 1: really beautiful to see and you're really going to enjoy it,
Speaker 1: and especially if you're a music lover, because her voice
Speaker 1: is just so unique and so soulful. Thank you, Joan Bias.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Chelsea. I learned a lot today from you.
Speaker 3: Oh really long, No, it was just lovely. Thanks, oh,
Speaker 3: thank you, thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 2: Do you have a holiday themed question for Chelsea? Please
Speaker 2: send us all the questions you need answered about crazy
Speaker 2: family get togethers, arguing over which Cranberry sauce recipe to us,
Speaker 2: and all your holiday drama. Just send your questions to
Speaker 2: Dear Chelsea podcast at gmail dot com. Dear Chelsea is
Speaker 2: edited and engineered by Brad Dickard executive producer Catherine law
Speaker 2: And be sure to check out our merch at Chelseahandler
Speaker 2: dot com