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Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jan Arden Podcast. Wow, it's great to be back. These
No, as they say in Game of Thrones, winter is coming. Sarah Burke, how are you? You're at your parents' cottage in? In Midland, Ontario. Midland, Ontario. Is that north of Toronto? It's like on the way to Parry Sound. So you pass Barrie on the way. So we're about an hour and 40. Depending on traffic, it can be over two hours. But here we are. When your mom is in the background, let me say, I'm so jealous that you have a mom. I'm sorry. And you're there with your mom.
No, no, my gosh. You're not 60 some odd years old. You should have your mom. I've been calling you Auntie Jan if it makes you feel any better. Oh, that's great. I have always wanted to be the crazy ass aunt. I'm at home, which is really nice. I've had a really nice few weeks at home. And tomorrow I will be spending the day on the set of Heartland. I'm very excited. I don't even freaking know if I'm allowed to say this. I'm sure I am. I am playing...
A really fun character who is a zany author. Ooh. Such a good fit. And so I'm going to be doing that tomorrow. I have to be on set in the makeup chair at 5.42 a.m. What kind of a random call time is that? Your skin's great. Do they know they don't have a lot of work to do? Oh.
Oh, thank you. I don't know what the deal is going to be, but I'm very excited about it. And I'm going to be making over $300. That's very exciting. But you know what? And a lot of people will be asking because I've had some friends ask me about, well, what about SAG? What about the strike?
And there certainly are some productions, I think, that certainly have solidarity for all of that. But it doesn't affect the ACTRA people here in Canada. It is a different union. Some actors are ACTRA and SAG members. But this production is going forward. And, you know, so I have nothing to do with that. And I hope nobody writes me horrible letters. Did you apply for this one? How does one get on Heartland?
They just came to me. They came to me. They went through my agent. But also, having said that, Tom and Jordi, the producers that I know quite well, worked on The Jan Show. They were my producers, my Alberta producers on The Jan Show. Beautiful. Which, if you're an American listener, we're on Roku in the United States of America. So if you want to see The Jan Show...
You can just go to Roku and stumble across us. Anyhow, movies, actors, it's a perfect segue to start talking about the Barbie phenomenon. I haven't had a chance to see it yet. I'm dying. The phenomenons going on in the world right now are very female. I just want to say that. Taylor Swift, knocking it out of the park time and time again. We're going to talk about her later in the show, about her Canadian dates coming up. But yeah, the Barbie movie directed by Greta Gerwig,
has surpassed the $1 billion mark, a record for a female director. This is a first for her. And a summer blockbuster, you love to see the success around it, right? Well, coming out of what we've come out of, empty theaters for a couple of years, this has got to be really encouraging for the industry in general. I went to a matinee at 150 at Chinook. It was packed. So when my friends and I were kind of, we went online to get our tickets, and
I'm like, oh my gosh, you guys, we got to get moving here. The whole front orchestra is done. There was a few seats in the very front row where you literally have to be farsighted in order to enjoy the movie so that you can just be looking up somebody's nostrils the whole film. But we found three sort of on the side on the left and everybody had the greatest time. It was like being at a high school football game.
Everyone had popcorn. Everybody laughed in the same spots. And I saw a lot of people crying. Me, I was crying. Oh, you had to cry. Yeah. But I'm not even going to tell you about the movie, but...
It's the whole idea of that imaginary world we all created when we were kids. Absolutely. I played with Barbies. I played with the Jane dolls, Jane West and John West. I don't know if anyone remembers those dolls. I still have one. Leah Gauthier, thank you. She got me a Jane West doll. But yeah, G.I. Joes, Barbies. All that stuff. We did all that stuff. And we played for hours. I mean, up until I was about nine or ten and then...
We moved to the country and I was outside and my dolls had funerals. We were just talking about how creative you've been feeling and how you've been wanting to like sit back into, you know, being an author just because you finish one book, you're ready to start on the next and you're feeling very inspired. Think about how much time you occupied your own mind and entertained yourself with these toys growing up. It's kind of amazing. Hours and hours would fly by.
Oh my gosh, you would. You would just, the clothes, like getting outfits and getting them dressed up. The hair. I used to do their hair. Yeah, the hair. The hair took a hit.
I think I've done everything from braid hair to burn hair when it comes to Barbie dolls. I don't know where I got the tools to be burning hair, but I remember that some of the hair did not look so good after. Kate McKinnon plays Crazy Barbie. Kate McKinnon's from SNL. You'll know her. She's like Crazy Barbie, if nothing else. If you love Margot Robbie, if you love Ryan Gosling, the acting... Margot co-produced. Did she? Yeah, she co-produced this one. The acting is...
Phenomenal. Yeah. The premise seems so kitschy and so outlandish and so cartoony. The sets are incredible, but the acting, Kate McKinnon. Crazy Barbie. I couldn't even look at her without bursting out laughing. The entire crowd, when she came onto the screen, God forbid you should ever act with that woman because you will not be seen. You will disappear forever.
You will be a fly on the fricking wall because she just steals every scene. So when you were talking about hair, cutting the hair off, I know that we melted Barbie's legs. You melted legs? Oh yeah. We melted legs. I think, I don't know what the premise was. Yeah. It could have been, it was probably maybe an earthquake or something that had happened. Who knows? It only happened the one time and only the one Barbie got it because my mother was furious.
costs money and that's ridiculous and you could burn the whole house down. And she wasn't wrong. I mean, when rubber starts on fire, right? And the smell that goes along, I can remember that smell from my childhood right now, actually. Pretty sure G.I. Joe did it. G.I. Joe was responsible. Yeah, blame that guy. I've talked about this on the show before is having mom's maxi pads as beds, as hammocks. Oh, yes, yes. So maxi pads back in the day, hello ladies that are in menopause now, they used to have
There wasn't adhesives. You tied the maxi pads onto a belt that went around your waist to kind of hold it in place. Yes, ladies. That kind of predated me. That was my mom's time. I didn't have my period yet, but in my mom's day, that's what she had. I was mortified when she showed me that drawer as a child. You might need these. This is where they are. I'm like, I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about it.
That's what Barbie and Ken and all the guys would sleep on, the G.I. Joes. I'm glad they had comfortable places to lay their heads. Oh, so comfy. So good. You know, I have to say, I was really judgmental coming into the idea of this Barbie movie. You know, my first thought was kind of like,
Oh, it's a kid's movie. And after, you know, what I've seen in the headlines over the last few weeks, even I listened to this great podcast. I'll link to it in the show notes if anyone wants to listen to it. Not to give another podcast so much love and competition here, but The Daily from The New Yorker. They've got kind of like a history of the marketing of Barbie and kind of the...
We'll call it origin story of the woman, the Jewish woman, Ruth, who started the idea of Barbie. Talk to me a little bit about her. So Ruth Handler co-founded Mattel, which is, you know, the toy company behind all of this, with her husband in 1945. When she pitched the idea of an adult-looking doll to the company executives, they kind of laughed in her face. They said no mother would buy their daughter a doll with breasts. So then it's 1956. The Handlers are on a European vacation.
And Ruth sees a German doll. And that doll was based on a comic strip about like a pinup figure who was really kind of like voluptuous and sexy and meant for the soldiers during World War II. So she brings the pack of dolls back to the U.S. to prove to Mattel that they could do something similar. Then Barbie debuts at the 1959 Toy Fair in New York City wearing the now iconic black and white striped bathing suit that we see Margot Robbie wearing in the film.
Now, there's lots of complicated stories out there about Ruth Handler and financial statements and fraud and that kind of thing. But there's also the story of her battling breast cancer. And she also went ahead and hired a team of women to work on a product for lifelike fake breasts designed for and by women. They were called Nearly Me.
So that's a little bit of the background there. Oh, and this is one of my favorite quotes that I pulled from the LA Times. Ruth Handler at one point said, I've lived my life from breast to breast. So there is, it's not a giveaway, but obviously they do kind of throw to Ruth in the movie. I'm not even going to tell you how or why. But yeah, she comes in quite late in the game. One thing that I learned from looking back at the story of Barbie and Mattel
Barbie was never meant to be doing things that are dependent on a man or housework or any of those things. Like if you look at the accessories and the storylines that went with those toys. Flight attendant, doctor. Yeah. Race car driver. Yeah. Airline pilot, astronaut, doctor, Olympic athlete, presidential candidate. Like Barbie has had her own story the entire time and it's never once been dependent on a guy. The one thing I
found kind of weird that I also learned is that Barbara and Ken were brother and sister. That's where Ruth, the creator, got the names from, was from her children. Her kids, yeah. So they were brother and sister. I'm like, oh, that's a weird storyline. I don't know if anyone's going to pick up on right now. But the idea of Barbie just being this plastic figurine, it's so much more. That's what I've learned in the last few weeks. Well, if you haven't seen it, go see it. The set's
are absolutely whimsical and incredible. The detail, Greta Gerwig not only directed this film, but she also wrote it. And there's a couple of monologues in this thing where you could hear a pin drop in the theater. Because of how engaging they were. There's one by Barbie herself, the character, and then there's another one by the little girl that owned Barbie as a child that had the Barbie doll. And she plays quite a prominent role. That's America Ferrara. She's terrific.
But she has a monologue that is like, it really stopped people in their tracks, I think, and left a lasting impression on how we're all making our way through the world.
And what it is to be human and what it is to be alive. The idea of having the opportunity to be here. Theologians and scientists alike talk a lot about the absolute chances. I mean, you think a lottery has horrific odds? Being a human walking on this planet right now in 2023 in a body is trillions and trillions to one that these two cells...
caught together that a soul inhabited this little body. The odds are astronomical. There's a good way to use the word astronomical. But anyway, terrific movie. And it reminded me too, favorite childhood movies growing up and how they affected us. And I think Sarah's, yours are going to be a lot different than mine because we're like a generation apart. I was trying to think of childhood blockbusters when I was growing up and it would definitely, definitely have been Star Wars.
That was a phenomenon. And as I was a little older, I was probably closer to my 20s. Late teens would have been Indiana Jones. Okay. Those were the big things. E.T., of course, was another giant. Yeah, so those...
were certainly things that I can remember. My dad was a huge movie fan. He loved the movies. He loved Westerns. And we went to a lot of drive-ins, double features. So the first movie we saw was always, it was way too light and you could hardly see it, but they always kind of had the B movie to start first. Yes. The James Bonds were always huge. That was a big childhood, amazing memory. I love the James Bond movies. And there was a Sinbad, there was a series of Sinbad movies that they made with Claymation.
Like way back in the day before CGI, they did stop, you know, this stop and start photography of thousands of incremental little moves with clay. It was so creepy. There was a cyclops. And do you know exactly what I'm talking about if you're anywhere near my age? So what would have been for you? You would have been looking at the 90s. Specifically, I was thinking about movies that actually took place in summer.
And The Sandlot, I know I've mentioned The Sandlot before, one of my favorites. I love The Sandlot. Yes, it's such a great movie. I know it's not probably like blockbuster status, but...
Have you seen the movie Now and Then, Rosie O'Donnell? I've never even heard of it. What? You got to watch that in your movie room. All right. Now and Then. Okay. Let me pull up the synopsis. Rosie O'Donnell. I've never heard of this movie. Where was I? I was probably drunk. Okay. It came out in, let's see, what year was it? 1995. It's directed by Leslie Linka Glatter, Christina Ricci, Rosie O'Donnell, Thora Birch, Melanie Griffith. What? Here's the premise. Here's the premise.
Four childhood friends who are now in their 30s are having a reunion. Their lives have gone separate ways, different ways. Together again, they reminisce about their younger years, especially the eventful period when they were 12. So it's like the 30-year-olds kind of with flashbacks. Oh, they're looking back. They're looking back. Okay. There were crazy things they went through in puberty with boys. I think Devin Sawa was in the movie. So talking about childhood crushes like Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Devin Sawa, like
those were my guys like at the time I think Christina Ricci would have been it's before Casper or around the same time maybe when did Casper come out gosh 1995 I'm bang on same time same year
1995. So I loved movies like that. And, you know, I don't think we went to too many movies as kids. It was more like if one of the kids was having a birthday party, we'd go to a movie. I didn't do drive-ins, to be honest, until I was old enough to drive. Your parents didn't go to drive-ins? Because we had proper movie theaters like right nearby. So it was just easier to go to, you know, the local spot there. But when I was...
Maybe graduating high school around that time when we first got to like get our license, take the car for the night with the friends. That's when we were going to drive-ins. So did you ever watch movies and think, oh, I wish I could look like that or I don't look like those girls or I don't fit in? Or was it ever something that kind of brought a sense of...
I don't know, yearning and a bit of sadness and a twinge of envy. I know that I kind of went through that, I think. Yes. Looking at girls, especially when I was 13, 14, 15, the boys definitely didn't like me. I remember this one boy saying, you know, you're standing in the hallway and you're thinking, I can hear what you're saying. Anyways, this boy that I loved, I won't say his name because I know him to this day,
He said, yeah, she's really cool, but she's not the kind of girl you'd go out with. What the heck does that mean? I think just because I was a tomboy and I think I was too strong-willed. And we had a small high school. There was 42 kids in my class. So the pickings were slim. Right. Like the same girls had a lineup of the same boys and
So-and-so would go out with her and then she'd switch to his friend and then his friend would go out with her. Like it was so kind of... I got the idea of romance from movies growing up for sure. Like that idea of being able to like have a French kiss with a boy. That definitely came from movies. And funny enough, in that movie Now and Then that I was just talking about,
There's a character who's like, you know, filled in and maybe maturing faster than others. And then Christina Ricci's character, who is Rosie O'Donnell when she's in her 30s, is the tomboy. So I bet you, you will really enjoy this movie because you get both sides of that story.
Now and then, I'm going to do it. I'm going to absolutely do it. Did you ever see The Exorcist? Sometime in the last few years, I feel like I saw it. Okay. Not when I was younger, but when I was younger, I saw It, and that was definitely a mistake. It was not scary to me. Yeah, there's a clown and a sewer, two really shitty combos, but-
But still, it just wasn't... Do you know why it wasn't scary to me? Because it wasn't the devil. Anything with religion or Catholicism, dark, crappy Catholicism, I'm not trying to offend. I mean horror movies that used religion...
And the crosses and priests and creepy nuns as a premise for horror movies. And The Exorcist, I never watched it. In fact, my older brother, God love him, he said to me, don't ever watch that, Jan. I don't want you to ever watch that movie. He knew it would scare you. Yeah. I mean, I've seen stills of Linda Blair. I've heard her talk about how it affected her for much of her young adult life, that role.
But no, I'm not horror. My friend Linda Jane, hi Linda Jane in Tasmania. She loves horror. She freaking loves horror movies. I like it now, but I was really scared as a kid. And because I was the oldest in my family, just me and my sister, I'm the older sister. All my girlfriends growing up had older brothers. So they would put on, you know, It. And there I'd be sitting with my, I'll never forget, with my friend Jamie Diamond.
And when I went home, my mom was like, what is wrong with you? Like I was, I thought the ceiling fan in my room was going to somehow be a knife that would come kill me. It's scary. But that's what I mean. We're so, our brains. We're impressionable. We're just taking in so much stuff and.
It's just not something I've ever, ever been interested in is horror movies. Change the subject, please. Coming back to idolizing actors or actresses and maybe having a teenage crush, who were some of those? And it can be music too, like people you saw on screen, whether it was musicians or movie stars. I do not have to think about it. Tell me. Welcome Back, Cotter was a huge sitcom.
So in the 70s, I was going into teenage years. Like 72, I was 10. So the rest of the 70s leading up to 1980, obviously, I was in my teens, junior high and high school. I loved John Travolta. And I think to this day, I still have a poster of him rolled up. I've got a whole bunch of stuff in my basement in Tupperware bins that mom kept for me. Oh, my God.
And I need to go through it, but he was in a beautiful blue worn out denim shirt. His eyes were so piercingly blue. His hair was black and curly and down to his shoulders. The background was blue. And it just said John at the bottom. I was so embarrassed of liking him.
Because I was such a, my childhood was complicated. I just liked everybody. I loved Olivia Newton-John too. So, and I loved Bette Midler and I loved Carly Simon. I mean, loved. I loved Olivia Newton-John, but I loved John Travolta. I was like, I love everybody. But he was in my closet where he should be. Uh-huh.
But I just, I had him and Robbie Benson. And I bet you've never even heard of Robbie Benson. I don't know who that is. Who's Robbie Benson? Another dark haired, blue eyed. I'm looking him up. Gorgeous young guy. The movie Ode to Billy Joe, it was called. And I think it was based on a Bobby Gentry tune. But he's a director now. I've kind of followed him through the years. There's not a lot about him. And there was a guy in high school that his name was Eric. I'm not going to say his last name.
He was older than me by a year or two. And he reminded me of Robbie Benson. And I actually got a chance to kiss him at a dance. And I'm sure it was just a dumb thing. I remember holding his hand at this dance in Bray Creek. Anyway, oh my God, I don't even know why I'm talking about this stuff.
But he was so much like Robbie Benson to me that I just thought, I can't believe. I'm picturing a Rydell High dance right now. We weren't even close to that. We all smelled like shit of some kind. Everybody had farm chores. You smelled of gasoline and BO. And the dances ended when the keg ran out. Of course. Everyone would leave. The fact that there was a keg at your dance, that would never happen in Richmond Hill. God, there was kegs everywhere.
And people were pumping that pump to get the beer out. And it was just. Okay. Another childhood crush.
When I see their happy faces. Do you remember the television show Seventh Heaven? Yes. Okay, yeah. How a young Jewish girl fell into loving Seventh Heaven, which revolves around, you know, like a family that's really into church. It's kind of funny. But Barry Watson, that was one of my crushes, had posters of him on my wall. Barry Watson played, what was his name in...
Barry Watson played Matt Camden. You had Jessica Biel playing Mary. And then Backstreet Boys and NSYNC, those were the guys that, outside of Barry Watson, who I had posters on my walls of, I had this calendar. I had a Backstreet Boys calendar. Did you ever kiss your posters? Yes, totally. Totally kissed my posters. AJ from the Backstreet Boys, I remember he was my birthday month, March, our birthday month, and he was holding a sunflower.
And I didn't change the calendar when it was April. I was like, I need to see this all year round. Did you ever practice kissing on your arm? No, I didn't. I tried to just kiss the boy behind the portables. And if any of my girlfriends from elementary school listen to this week's podcast, they'll know exactly who I'm talking about. What's his name? Come on. Paul. His name was Paul. He was a year older. Hi, Paul. He was a year older. That was always so risky. What was worse though, Sarah? Older or younger?
I don't know. I never fell for the younger guys. I always liked the older. Growing up is not easy. I bet you there's a few people kind of squirming with discomfort. Like my dad downstairs. What? You made out behind the portables? I know. But just the discomfort of growing into a person. Puberty is...
I do not envy any parents going through that with their children because I'm sure they bring into the conversation their own feelings, their own memories of their difficulties in school and parties they were at kissing boys and getting felt up for the first time and that kind of awakening of doing things. And they're thinking about their daughters and their sons going, every alarm in their heads are probably going off, going, I don't want my child to have to go through that. But unfortunately-
And I am allowed to have an opinion. I'm not a parent, but I was a kid. Okay. So I'm allowed to have these memories and to comment on this. Anyway, it's hard going through it. But what I was going to say is that you can't remove obstacles. The only way is through.
The only way is through and you can't, and I'll tell you what, you tell your kid, whatever you want, you tell them this and that, and don't do this and don't touch that. Don't jump off of there. It's not going to make any difference because kids learn exactly. I almost think it would be worse telling them. My mom would say to me, God lover, you're going to do what you're going to do, Jan. There's nothing that I can say to you. That's going to convince you otherwise. Right.
And so my mom was very wise. And she also had an older son that was putting them through the ringer. And so when Pat and I kind of came up through the ranks, they just had been like, these kids are going to do what they're going to do. But my mom also trusted me. In some way, she trusted my decision making. She said, no one's going to be harder on you than you. And that I know about you, Jan.
You are hard on yourself. When I was a kid, my mom had zero trust in me. Also part of being the oldest sibling. You were the youngest? Middle. Middle. Growing up, it's a hard thing. You're listening to the Jan Arden Podcast and Show.
I'm just going to get out of this conversation and take a bit of a break because I'm just like going down memory lane here. We could talk about that for a long, long time. And I don't want to pry too much into your life right now because your mother is in the room at your cottage. We're going to talk about the Taylor Swift Eros tour coming to Canada when we come back. Don't go away. Thank you.
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Welcome back. Taylor Swift has made an announcement. Everyone was waiting for it. Maybe it was the pressure from the Canadian government. Sure. Trudeau made some kind of plea. You know, I think the dates were there. They just couldn't announce them. Well, there's something called a radius clause. And so if you're in Seattle, you can't, you know, announce all these Vancouver dates before you've done that date because they need to sell it. Obviously this shouldn't apply to her because she sells them anyway. And so,
My friend Chris, my road manager, was trying to get some Toronto tickets and he was in the queue with 125,000 people.
Yeah. So I think tomorrow is the day I registered to see if I could buy some. I'm not the craziest Taylor Swift fan. I do enjoy a couple of the records, but I'm more doing it to see if I can help some friends and go with a friend, right? But I will not be paying $1,000. We got to see how that all looks as well. Oh, Lord, no. Right? Because it's one thing to get in the queue and then there's this other part, which is like, how much can you afford to actually buy? And if you also look at dates, one thing to consider, she's doing big stadiums.
shows, right? So they need to have their athletic teams already set in stone for the seasons when they start, when they end, when they're home, when they're away. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because they get first right in the building, in the venue. People don't understand that there's lots of moving pieces. She has dozens and dozens of trucks.
for the, you know, for the equipment. I think there's something like 500 people working on this show, which is massive. I saw she gave them a bonus this week too. Yeah.
I know. Yeah, $100,000 bonus to each of those people. Amazing. But I mean, they're making so much money and good for her. I saw a meme the other day. There should be some kind of a clause when the rich people of the world get up to $999 million just before they turn the page on that $1 billion number. Because $1 billion is $1,000 million for those of you that did not complete high school. Okay. $1 billion is $1,000 million.
So they're saying, once you hit that mark, that's great. You get a trophy. I've won at capitalism. I beat it. I won the game. And now everything you do after that, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Murdoch, you know, we can name a lot of these guys. Now you go to infrastructure of schools, hospitals, poverty, disease, fighting cancer. Just change something. Do something. And Taylor Swift is brilliant.
actually showing capitalism working. They say that when her tours move into a city, it injects billions of dollars into the restaurant, hotels, car rentals, you name it. Even Chris, didn't he travel for a Taylor Swift show recently? I feel like I saw that. Yeah, he went down to the opening night in, I think it was Phoenix when this tour first started. So people are literally touring for the tour. Yeah, they're touring for the tour. And
I think she's at the height of who she is and her power. We've talked about that before. And she's a young lady who is showing what grace is, what it is to be privileged, what
what it is to be graced with millions and millions of people that pay your way. And she understands succinctly that concept. She's in a stadium, but she knows that each one of those people is paying her way, is enabling her to have the life that she has. Yes, she writes memorable, great, catchy songs. She has been the voice for this, not only a generation of girls her age, but you see
Eight, nine, 10-year-olds at these concerts, and you see- Women my age. Chatham Tatum. You see grown-ass men bouncing up and down with their bracelets on that are lighting up, having a communal shared experience of what happens with joy and the magic of music. When you have 75,000 people singing at the top of their lungs, this vibration, this tonal
ancient idea of sending literally a message out into the abyss that we are here. We are on this planet. Doesn't matter what your politics, it doesn't matter what your affiliation is, whatever religion, whatever color, whatever,
At that moment, for those three hours in that stadium, there is a unity. People aren't used to it. Collective joy. They're not used to looking to their left or looking to their right and wondering if this person is indeed a friend or a foe. Those things are left at the door. So it's three hours and maybe for that moment, and I hope people remember the importance and the beauty of art and creativity.
Because when people look back in history, when we look back 2,000 years, yes, there are certainly archaeologists that talk about how the money was used and how they set up banking and things like that. But at the end of the day, what people and what tourists travel all over the world to go to see Pompeii or to go to see the Parthenon or to go to see anything historical, the Mayan Aztec ruins is the art.
the carvings they left behind, their culture, those people saying, we are here. We are yelling out into the abyss. It's the art that is remembered. And don't you think Taylor is approaching, I would compare Dolly and Taylor right now, Dolly Parton and Taylor Swift. They've both got those costumes from their shows in the museums, whether you're going to the Country Music Hall of Fame or Grammy Museum or wherever.
And they both have like enterprises from their art, if that makes sense. You know? Well, what are you going to do with your privilege? What are you going to do with the advantage of
What are you going to do with people paying your way? Dolly's paying for half the children's books in Nashville right now. That's right. But think about the concept of it. That is very generous. I will never not acknowledge that. But people pay Dolly's way. People go to Dollywood. People buy her records. They buy into who she is. And any artist worth their weight in salt...
knows that and you understand the ones that get it, the ones that have integrity and grace. Yeah. You see them. They're not narcissists. You know, fame has a way of twisting even the best person a little bit.
But she's a young woman. And I'll tell you right now, she is surrounded by good people. It shows in her actions. Has anyone in the biz ever told you about her meet and greets? Yes. Chris has met her. She knows every name in a meet and greet. I've heard that from everyone who's ever been in a meet and greet. Early Taylor Swift days when she was first touring to now. Her mom used to go out into the audience and pick a couple of super fans. Yeah. And Chris and his friend years ago were two of those guys. And they went backstage. Yeah.
And they had pizza, a pizza party with Taylor and sat with her and had a slice of pizza. Can you imagine? But she knows that those people pay her way. So yes, I get the gratitude and I get the generosity. But at the end of the day, it's the thousands and thousands of people around you that make that possible. And those people don't forget where that comes from. The individual does have importance. You're just giving back to the people that gave it to you. That's a very good way to put it.
I wanted to ask your take on this because the concept of doing six shows in the same venue, back to back to back to back, and taking over. Vegas. Right. That's a residency. But now we're going to see it at Toronto at Rogers Center for Toronto dates for Taylor. Just so you know, she's got 10 dates on hold. So I just will tell you that that's an inside bit of information that I have.
There's 10 Toronto dates on hold. I have a feeling they'll announce the other four very soon. Right. Okay. The building is on hold. So I think that she'll release those other four shows. Yes, I think so too. But what's your take on like doing the same production in the same place on back to back to back nights? Oh no, it's perfect. You love it? It's fantastic. Oh yeah. Have you done that before? We love it.
Uh, I've done, I think the most I did, I did like four or five Massey Hall shows. In a row? Okay. Yeah. I just went in and stayed in the hotel across the street and walked over there with people, you know, with a ball cap on and went to the, to the dressing room and got ready for the show. Once you're locked and loaded in a tour, it is repetitive, but every night is very different. It has its own personality and its own vibe. And
You finally get into the comfort. You know, there's big moves on a show her size. There's things that happen in set pieces that come in and out and her dancers are coming out and it's all choreographed. There isn't really much of a change from show to show. And it can't be because it's all digitized and the screens, everything runs to the second.
They can tell people when this thing's going to end. It's a moving city, basically. And you imagine what catering looks like in those buildings. They're feeding probably 600, 700, 800 people because you have the crew that travels with and then you have the local ground crew.
You have security. All those people will go to catering and be fed. And that moves with them. It's crazy. I knew you'd have some interesting insight into this stuff. Do you think that she uses a vegan plant-based milk?
Yes, I do. You'd like to think that. Okay. I would like to think that she does a lot of things good for the planet. And you can bet your bottom dollar she would be very environmentally sound. I bet you they recycle the dam out of everything. But I don't imagine someone like her that is aware of the footprint that a tour like this leaves. Yes, the footprint. The planes, the trains, the diesel, the trucks, everything.
You cannot be in a position like she is and be unaware of the environmental stuff you leave in your wake because it's big. All the people, all the porta potties, the water usage. So she would be aware. I'll put a link in the show notes if anyone is interested for her documentary, Miss Americana. It came out during the pandemic. Just if you want a window into what her life and career has been like leading up to this big tour. And knowing that this podcast...
goes out after tickets have gone on sale, we hope that you got your tickets. Keep trying. Even though they've tried to stop the scalping stuff, Sarah, there's going to be tickets out there on StubHub and things like that. But be mindful if something's too good to be true. Make sure you're checking out that it's legitimately a ticket. People will try and rip you off. I've heard lots of stories. Yeah. Just be mindful when you're getting your tickets. Don't
you know, hang your hopes, get up to the gate and it's all a bunch of shit. I just want to do a shout out to somebody on TikTok. Tell us. I've watched this woman for a long time. Shelly, the funny farm, her F A R M H E R. And her and her husband have a sanctuary farm just a couple of hours outside of Halifax. And I went on to her live today and
And she was kind of freaking out. She goes, oh my God, Jan Arden's on our live. It was so cute. Shelly is hilarious. Oscar, her male Holstein cow that she's had since he was a couple of days old is like over six feet tall and 1600 pounds or something like that. Anyway, she's worth the follow. She's also on Instagram. Her daughter has a horse sanctuary with her partner. And her handle on Instagram is dykes down the road.
So good. It is the greatest. So I started following them today and her and her partner have horses and they have a beautiful spot. Man, Nova Scotia has got the most beautiful land. There's some great people there. Alison Cornell and her partner, Kate, my friends, Alison from my band, and
is out there and they have some properties. Rose Cousins is in Halifax. Love Rose. And Murray is in Halifax now. I mean, we're just going to move. We got to move now. Yeah. Her daughter, Dawn Langstroth is out there. Anyway, we actually had some fan comments and Sarah, you're in charge. Okay. So first up here, Karen Holland sent us a note at the Jan Arden pod on Instagram.
She said, okay, so I just listened. I'm the same age as Sarah's mama, so there's that. I'm wondering if there's comments that you get, Jan, about working after 65. Like she knows that you're kind of approaching that time. I love my work. I'm planning to stay for maybe three more years, but the comments from people on why I haven't retired is tiring. Can we please discuss? Love you both. Why would you care what anybody else thinks? Sure.
She needed to hear that. First and foremost, how many times do we have to be told that? It doesn't matter what anybody else thinks or says. It simply doesn't matter. And my mom would say, if someone told you to jump off a cliff, would you jump off a cliff? No. Exactly. It's an old story. It's a tired story.
I don't think retiring is even really that smart. Yeah, sure. If you've got, had a job that you've done for, you know, 30 years and you just don't want to do it anymore. Yeah. But part of you is going, well, then what? Oh my God, there's so many then what's. Don't worry about that right now in the moment.
Do your, whatever you're going to call it officially from that job, and then go start doing things that you like to do. There's a billion people out there that are looking for experienced, intelligent people that have integrity and compassion and loyalty, and you will not have trouble finding a myriad things to do. I'm telling you right now, we need people. We need people doing all kinds of jobs. And you can start doing something at home. You know, you might like
photography or you might like making freaking beanies for infants. These sound like ridiculous things, but I'm just saying, don't worry about that. You never stop having a purposeful life. I will never stop doing the things that I'm doing. But as far as looking at my job from a point of touring, will I always tour? I highly doubt it. I don't think I will have A, the energy
I'd like to think that I will work another nine or 10 years. I'm 61. When I saw Cher in Vegas, she was 73. She came out and said, what's your grandma doing tonight? And that really made me laugh. The whole audience was just upside down. And her audience was every age, 10 to 88, right? Buffy just announced this week, Buffy St. Marie, she's 82. She announced this week- She's stopping. She's retiring from live touring. Yeah. I like how she did that in her own way. She just said-
I've got, you know, travel issues. She lives in Hawaii. So traveling is a huge issue to go anywhere for her. It's 10 hours, a 10, 12 hour day. And there comes a time, there comes a time. Hey dad, Jan says you retire when you want to, not when I tell you to.
Oh, are you the one telling your dad to retire? I think there's a lot of people. He's a window businessman. And over the pandemic, some changes happened on the business back end. And I think we're all looking forward to him enjoying life a little more because he's owned a business his entire life. Like I said, you cannot wait to be like, I'm so done with this. I've been an engineer for the city of Toronto for...
you know, 28 years, I just don't want to do it anymore. That doesn't mean to say that you're going to sit on an Adirondack chair. How much and how little you do obviously is entirely up to you. But having a purposeful life and doing things, when my mom had Alzheimer's, she's like, is there something I can fold?
And I would take a basket of tea towels. I would dump them out 50 times if I needed to. But she taught me about purpose. Even her mind in its diseased state wouldn't allow her to do nothing. A lot of Alzheimer's people walk. They endlessly walk. They hit a wall. They turn around. They walk. On the memory ward that my mom was in for the short period of time, people were on the move.
They just were moving, moving, looking at stuff, touching things. It was very tactile. Yes, some people sat, but they did something. They folded things or they gave them things to touch because the mind still wants to do something. It's keep doing something until you goddamn drop dead. Just keep doing it.
And if doing something is sitting and writing in a diary 10 hours a day, so be it. But don't feel like it's over for you or that you don't count anymore. Never before have we in this world needed the wisdom of our elders, needed the wisdom of people that have seen harder times and more difficult times.
whether it's wars, whether it's hardship or depressions, we need that wisdom. Old people, older people are of so much value and I hope we smarten up
and see the value in people that know a fuck of a lot more than we do. I feel like those are the words we needed to hear from you today. So good. It's just important. Like I'm at a time in my life where, and I include you into this group of people. I know the young women that are just doing such remarkable things and they're
turning the world on its ear and doing, going out on their own and taking chances and bucking a system that is dominated by men or dominated by this, or, you know, historically not meant for women to do this, especially in the technical part of radio. You know, we need to see a hell of a lot more women doing those jobs, production and engineering and recording and all those things. But
I love talking to you guys because I feel like for the first time in my life, I have something to offer. I have some advice to say to you. I've been standing where you're standing. I'm not senile yet. And I will tell you...
That it gets better and you're in for the time of your life because it's a really great couple of decades from, you know, 35 to 65. I've learned a lot from you in this very short amount of time, I will say. But you can do so many things. But I couldn't have been that for you when you were 19 and I was, you know...
40. You had to live it too. Yeah. Yes. So that's what I mean. But having said that, my friends that are in their 80s, my friend Marianne, who's 91, it gives me a lump in my throat because the things that I have learned, the courage and the positivity, the optimism that I have gleaned that has been handed to me and given to me and taught to me in such a way, such a gift,
Having my older friends, my friend, Jean Leslie, who's exactly 20 years older than me. When I turned 61, she turns 81. She's been through breast cancer twice. She lost her son, Aaron, in an automobile accident on his 19th birthday. Her daughter has struggled with addiction. Her husband died of a heart attack from alcoholism. And she stands like a rock on
And her positivity and her joy and bliss and her zest for life is unbelievably uncomplicated. She just keeps standing until she's not. So I do, I look at that. So I thank you. I'm so glad to have you as a friend, Sarah, but also to meet your friends and just to see women doing things
that are outside of that box. You've done a lot of trailblazing in that specific way in the music industry too, so let's not discard that. Well, it doesn't matter what other people say. So if that's today's lesson, take that, grab it out of the air and put it into your heart and shut the door on that and stop listening.
to other opinions. You know, my friend Wendy Liebman from many years ago, she had a funny joke and it was, I don't care what I think. Why would I care what you think? And she's a comedian, but I used to love when she got to that part of the show. Anyway, that's our show for today. Sarah, enjoy the rest of your time with your mom and dad and your dog and the water and go on to any of our socials, Jan Arden Pod, Twitter, or sorry, X JanardenPod.
Jesus Christ. Stupidest marketing thing in the world. Anyway, go on, give us a review. It'll help you find us for one thing if you go onto the Jan Arden podcast and hit subscribe. But like I said, leave comments for us. If you get Taylor Swift tickets, we want to hear about it. Tell us what you did. And I would love to tease our upcoming guest. You're going to have a friend on the next episode. Julie Van Rosendahl is coming. She hasn't been on the show for well over a year. She's been busy writing more books.
writing for the Globe and Mail, raising her son just turned 18. She's cooking up a storm. She's giving lessons online to thousands of kids. She is out there living her life and living large. And Julie's going to be with us next week. Look after yourselves. Have a great weekend. And what are we leaving everyone with, Sarah? It doesn't. It doesn't matter what anyone thinks about you, just you. Totally do. Thank you.
This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.