The Art of Slow Living
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Good day, everyone. It's Jan, Caitlin, and Adam. We're here. We are here for you. This is the Jan Arden Show and Podcast. And I sound very controlled because I'm going into a new phase in my life. I'm going into a phase of

The slow life. What's the hashtag on it, Caitlin? The slow down life. It's the art of slow living. The art of slow living. I knew it. Okay, well, that's why I wanted to start the show like this. Very calm. The hashtag art of slow living is out there just trending like crazy. And guess what? People over the last 18 months have decided that they don't want to go back

to their old life. And they really do aspire to slow down, that it's cool to do nothing.

Yeah. And it's way more relaxing. And I think you guys probably did either. Do you have friends where you almost feel as though they brag about how busy they are? You know, you don't see them forever. And then when you get together with them, they just rifle off all these things they're doing and how they have no time to live. And they make it sound like it's complaining, but it's also a bit of a humble brag. Like I'm doing so much. I'm so busy. And I think it's because of this like warped

hustle culture, girl boss, lean in version of success that we've all been sold.

that really isn't based upon personal happiness or growth or reflection. It's just like go, go, go all the time and just work until you drop. And if you have time in between to go to the gym, society still tells you you should stay thin. And if you should connect, you can connect with all your friends because you need a million friends. You have to be the perfect mom, perfect body, perfect everything. And I just think it has resulted in people being so unhappy that they're saying, no, I just want to learn the art of saying no now.

Well, it seems funny to me that that is what people aspire to, essentially. So all the running around and the socializing and trying to get up another rung in the ladder and keeping busy and taking one extra work and I'm going to stay a few hours extra tonight because the kids need this for school and I want to get myself that bag. But the end game is being able to put your feet up.

and relax and look at a fire and go rent a cabin somewhere. And, you know, and that's, I guess, the irony is that in our pursuit of that slow, comfortable, introspective life that you certainly share with, I'm not saying you're sitting alone on a log at a forest. You are. Although that sounds good. You are.

You are enjoying friends. You are having a great card game and you are doing all those things, but it's not at the risk of, my God, the stress involved in how we live our lives. I saw a lineup yesterday at Costco for gasoline here. And I'm trying to be really fair in my mind. I feel very grateful to have a job and to have a few bucks in my pocket. But the lineup was, I'm going to say...

quarter of a mile long. Oh, no, thank you. Like easily, easily, it was 1500. It could have even been longer, it was like 1000 yards, but gas was seven or eight cents cheaper leader. And people were waiting in a line for two hours. And I just thought, gosh, I don't know, in my mind's eye of saving that four or $5 is worth that. And that's what I mean by, you

You know, we seem to be expediting in our entire lives and like the value on your time, really? Yeah. Yeah, exactly, Caitlin. I think that I think that's a really good point, because I know I have friends who say they have a real they've done this. They have a good salary, a great salary by any standard. But then they realized how much they were working. And so they broke down what they actually are making hourly. And they went, oh, my God, it's not that good.

Sure. Annually, it looks great on paper, but then you pay taxes and then you realize what you're making per hour. And they just started saying, I don't, I feel as though I need to rework my life. And I saw, he's been a guest on our show before, the lovely and honestly, very wise

Jonathan Torrens. I mean, if you have a chance to follow him on Twitter, please do because I just find so many of his posts come at the exact time I needed to hear them. But a while back, he posted, busy is good, balance is better.

And I just thought that is so bang on because busy is fun and it can be distracting and make you forget about maybe all the things you don't want to think about by running around like a chicken with no head from party to work to bed for two seconds. But balance, that balance you want in your life, that's really, that's kind of where people want to be. So do you need as much as you think you need to get by? Yeah.

i'll be the devil's advocate here guys it's just what about those people that say to us that's fine for you you guys have jobs you guys are comfortable you have homes what about us guys that you know food insecurities all we can do is hustle all we can do is go from one paycheck to the next paycheck worry about our gas bill worry about you know the insurance payment worry about doctor's appointments for the kids worrying about you know all those things is it possible

for every single human being on the planet to aspire to an easy life? I don't know. Like I said, I'm just looking at the other side of this going, is that a really elitist, privileged way of thinking? That everyone's hashtagging it, but is it attainable? Or my dad said, you just work until you drop. That's life. You just got to get used to it. Yeah.

I think it's the middle ground because the two extremes don't, it's, you know, it's that balance is that return to balance is that the two extremes don't mean happiness for anyone really like working until you drop doesn't really make people happy and, you know, sitting around and not doing much and being like a lady of leisure. I mean, I, I think we've all seen examples in the media of people who have it all financially and are

pretty miserable. So it's just one of those things where I feel like it's about finding that balance and not burning yourself out, whatever that may look like. And it's interesting because the story came up the same week, or I guess it was last week, that the Ontario Liberal Party threw out the possibility of a pilot project of a four-day workweek.

And the reason why they said that they wanted to consider doing this was because of reports of other countries trying this out. Again, pilot projects. So countries like Japan and New Zealand, and I believe Switzerland, maybe it was Sweden, that they had had some pretty solid success with doing this in that they didn't notice an overall negative impact to productivity.

But what they did see in the places that adopted this, the workplaces that adopted this was less employee burnout and better employee retention. And right now we're experiencing what's being referred to as, you know, the great walkout or the great resignation. Staffing is a huge issue. People are leaving their jobs in droves and trying to recreate a life for themselves, whatever that may look like, because they realized during the pandemic, they were so unhappy. And so now it's an interesting time for people to say, maybe,

We can rework a little bit of this so that the people who are like you outlined, Jan, forcing them, you know, being forced into long, long, long hours in precarious work that maybe doesn't have great benefits and taking care of your family, not just your children, but maybe you live in a multi-generational household. Could we benefit from adopting something like a four day work week? I mean, I absolutely think so.

Yeah, I agree with you 100%. I would love to see that go across the country. I know that my friend in the UK said,

does a similar thing that his boss adopted that very thing. He does four days a week. They're a little longer days. So would that sort of kind of impose on people, instead of your eight hours, your nine to five, you're going to be doing 10 or 12. Is that kind of what they're looking at? And I think people would be willing to do that. I think so. And I think that we've learned that

we can rework our idea of the workday care of COVID because working from home, we didn't think that any of these industries would be able to work from home. And now many people very efficiently can and companies can save money on massive downtown urban center office rent. Adam's pointing at his chest. Okay, Adam.

No, you're a great example. You can speak to this. Well, working from home, I mean, first of all, I don't think that there's nine to five anymore. I don't work a nine to five day. I take a break. I don't mind working in the evening because I have to do a grocery run in the middle of the day, which I could never do before. I love going grocery shopping on a Wednesday afternoon. The

The store is quiet. I can get in and out. I can buy something fresh for dinner that night that I wouldn't normally have had time to do. And I don't mind making my day flexible. So the thought again of nine to five, no.

Not anymore. And I'll never do that again. Yeah. And it's also that a lot of places, and I think you realize too, I mean, yes, technically everyone was working nine to five, five days a week. But if you had your email on your phone, I'm working seven days a week and I'm never stopping and I'm not working nine to five. I am always working. I'm speaking for myself, but I work all the time. And so it became this thing where everyone's like, oh, I don't know if a four day work week is going to work. I'm like, well, it doesn't really exist now, this five day work week.

It has spread out into the rest of our lives for some of us. So I do think that that. And our bosses expect that. Yeah. We're getting emails on Sundays. We're getting, you know, I, I don't know about you guys. I mean, I'm in the arts, but I still, I have an office in Vancouver. You know, people that work there and I get emails on the weekends all the

the time asking me questions or what about this? Are you and Chris going to travel? You're going to fly. Are you renting the van? And, and they're like, so, and it's always prefaced by sorry to do this to you on the weekend, but we need this. Yeah. And I'll throw this out there to you guys. I have friends that are absolutely those types of people that go, I don't know who I am outside of work. I don't know what I like. My job is my life.

So then we have that sort of aspect of our community of people that they either, I mean, they really love their jobs, but they don't look around at all the things they're missing. They just are job centric. That's what they do. Yeah. And if you, if you know anyone who works in a healthcare setting and has any experience in palliative care,

I'll tell you, people aren't talking about, like most people aren't talking about their love of their career and their corporation and their bosses on their deathbed. That's just, it's a, you know, it's something you do in many cases and you may enjoy it and you're so lucky if you get to enjoy it. And I know we do because we, I think, primarily get to connect with people and talk to people and hopefully, you know, brighten their day a little bit.

which is what we're trying to do right now. Even though we sound like a downer, we're trying to brighten and lift your soul. I promise you I'm trying to make you feel good. But it's,

really, you know, it's just this reimagining of things and aiming for balance without having to take down our whole work society, which we still need. We still need to be productive. Everyone still needs to make money. That's still a necessary part of life. But we know we can do that in unconventional ways. And typically the unconventional ways of working have always benefited the employer, not so much the employee, because we have managed to answer emails on our vacation, on the weekends,

and after 8 p.m. at night, but we are sitting here going, oh, now we can't make a five-day work week happen. I think we have to leave it at five days, four days is impossible. I don't think it is impossible. This is my take on this, and I'm going to wrap it up right away. Adam, I swear to God. Thank you. We need to follow kindergartners. You know, you go to kindergarten in the church basement, and guess what? Two hours in, you have your snack, and then you lay down for a nap. Yep. You're listening to the Jan Arden Podcast. We'll be right back.

Welcome back to the Jen Arden Podcast. I'm here with Caitlin Green, Adam Karsh. Once again, during the break, we were chatting and pontificating still on this topic of a

nine to five job and a four day work week. But Adam, you had a very interesting point. I am all for a four day work week and a three day long weekend. That sounds amazing. And again, addressing the I don't work nine to five, it's all over the place. But for me, my job is very task based. I have a certain number of things I have to do every week. So if you took an eight hour day away from me, that would be really challenging because I'd have to fit all that work throughout the rest of the week because I have the same amount of work to do with one less day to do it.

Yeah.

I think the proposal, it seems, and the way that other countries who are trying these pilot projects have handled it, is that you would never, it wouldn't be a case where the whole country gets Friday off or like the whole country gets Monday off. Within your workforce, you would be able to say, like this week, I'm going to have Wednesday off. Next week, I'm going to have Friday off. And you work everyone's shifts around. So there's somebody available. There's somebody available to do the work that needs to be done.

See, now I like that. I like that. I like the rotation. Yeah. The rotation makes more sense.

It does to me too. And I think you're always covering your bases and maybe leave it up to the actual staff people to do those schedules. I mean, would people actually be fair about that kind of stuff? Like if it was left up to the actual employees to go, you guys work it out. Who's going to be off early on a Friday, my office, once again, getting back to my office at Bruce Allen talent, um,

Um, they leave, they do half day Fridays and they have for, gosh, I'm going to say 15 years. So I know that if I'm going to be calling the office on Friday, I know I need to kind of deal with my stuff in the morning and get it done because they're all out of there and all there's eight women there and Bruce Allen at the office, which I think is so epic. Um,

But that's what they do. And it really, really seems to keep everybody's fires burning. And people really appreciate it. And I'm telling you, I bet there is no real difference in the amount of work getting done at that office. No.

Never. And all you do is show everyone, hey, we're trying to be a little more respectful of work-life balance here. We're trying to understand that you have things to do outside of the company and that that's very normal and healthy. And that if we act like all you are and your whole reason for being is to be an employee ID number and nothing else, you're going to burn out. You're going to be unhappy. You're going to become disillusioned. You're probably not going to be as good at your job. And I just think if you focus on trying to like

create a whole person. It seems logical. I can't imagine that countries like Japan that are so dedicated to productivity and success in industry would be adopting something that was going to result in a destruction of our economy. I just don't think that they would. And I don't think anybody would want that. Nobody wants that. But I think you can manage both.

Very much so. Well, you know, there's been lots of stuff on the news about inflation being the highest it's ever been in Canada in the last 20 years. Yeah, not just here, though. Many other countries, I think, in the world are dealing with inflation right now as well. I think it's very global, a global phenomenon, I almost want to say. So does that have to do with our present working model? I don't know. Anyway, not to switch out of this topic, but...

I just would like to know what Brooklyn Heights would do with a four-day. Do drag queens take four-day work weeks, or are they just dragging 24-7? We're going to find out. Just a little teaser. We're going to be talking to Brooklyn Heights, who is the amazing, amazing queen. You may have seen her RuPaul's Drag Race. She was the runner-up.

In the United States. Well, now she's on Canada's Drag Race and she's one of the incredible judges. How you judge drag race is beyond me, but somebody does.

She is so good. And everyone on this show is so great. I mean, I love Tracy Melcher so much and I just, I love the show. I love the franchise. I think it's so, it's such a comforting watch in a way because it's entertainment, but it's artistic and it's funny and it's creative. They're very funny. It's super funny. Yeah, it is. But yeah, I, I don't know about you guys, but I'm one of those people.

And I love it too, Caitlin. I just, I love them. And I'm Googling everybody's names and what their real names are. And I'm clicking that little image icon up in the left-hand corner because I want to see, I mean, obviously in drag race, you do see the guys before they have all their makeup on, but there's some of them that I don't know. And I really just wanted to see candid pictures of them. Just these plain faced young guys. I am so stunned.

at their use of makeup, contouring, these guys morph their faces into works of art. The transformation that these queens accomplish is art. It really is. I'm going to do it to my face. I love following all of them.

all of the RuPaul's Drag Race contestants on Instagram. I love seeing, I love going back to their older posts and kind of seeing their growth, like their queen growth. And it's just, it's incredible. It's so impressive to me as someone who can barely do my mascara and my eyebrows and is hard pressed to get out of my uniform of all black clothing. I have so much respect for people who can represent themselves with their image. Wear color. Yeah. Why am I wearing color today? Yeah.

It's a rare day for me. You are. I am. Caitlin has a bright fuchsia sweater on. I have a black pair of sweatpants and a black hoodie. Yeah, it was, I'm really looking forward to that conversation. Swapping topics. I want to know if you guys have red flags. Yeah.

In social situations, red flags on social media. I want to know if you have red flags on dates. I want to know if you have red flags with friendships. If you just meeting somebody casually in a social situation, you get introduced by the neighbors, red flags. What are they? Is there a common thread? And what do you do when you get red flags? Kind of, it's like, I picture a referee literally throwing a red flag in front of your feet going, don't get involved with this person.

This started on social media and you'll see there've been a lot of people on Twitter and stuff and they'll list a trait or maybe something someone says, and then they'll use, they'll do all the red flag emojis afterwards. So it's been going around for a while. I would encourage any of our listeners on the podcast to tweet your red flags with the red flag emoji to the Jan Arden podcast. It's Jan Arden pod. And I posted mine, I think a week and a half ago. One of my red flags for people is always the people who say I work hard and I play hard.

Okay. What does that mean? It's kind of a weird sentence to me because it's usually the person saying it. They're just using the work hard intro as a way to say they really just like to party. It's like they're almost trying to give themselves permission to just say, I'm a real hard partier.

Because that's usually what it is. It's, you know, they give you the intro of like, I work hard and they're like, but I play hard. And I'm like, hey, the emphasis here is on play hard. I think we all know that. You don't need to quantify it with work in the beginning of the sentence. We all know what's going on here.

Well, it's also the antithesis to our slow living guidelines that we set out at the top of the show. It's the least relaxing sentence anyone can tell me. It's way too intense. I work hard and I play hard. I'm like, okay, calm down. Yeah. Dial it back. I have a silly red flag. Go, go. When people take videos with their phone and they hold it vertically, they're

Turn your phone sideways. Film your videos like this horizontally. That's a red flag. That's a red flag. You can't post those on Instagram. Oh, that's why. That's why it's vertical. Is that why? Because I don't really post videos to Instagram. You know, we have got to keep you in the know.

Okay, if that's a red flag, don't ever stand in front of Adam and record a vertical video because he will not have a friendship with you. In social media land, Adam, they call that landscape mode. And a lot of times I'll get requests from CTV, Bell, iHeartRadio, of course.

And they will request things specifically for Instagram, just vertically on your phone. And they will also say, can you also give us a couple of 15-second throws, landscape mode?

And and I have to tell you, there was a year there where I was just like landscape mode. You're losing me here. Don't know what that means. And I figured it out. Well, now I feel like an old man for saying turn your phone sideways. I'm sure there are ways around it that maybe you could repurpose a landscape. But all in all, if you see someone filming video in portrait kind of mode, that's why. Got it. Thank you for the lesson. You're welcome. Yes. No worries. Red flags for me.

I don't know if they'd be really bombastic things. I think there'd be subtle things. I tend to gravitate towards a person at a party that's sitting by themselves in the corner, just having a drink or the person that their back is to you, but they're looking at a piece of art. I'm like, they're just looking at a piece of art. They're not,

I find a lot of times at social things in my business anyway, and I'm sure this is in every business, is that you're having a conversation with somebody, but they're kind of looking over your shoulder, looking for who's behind you and what's next. Anyway, I wish we had more time to get into this. Brooklyn Heights is up next. She is incredible. She's got so many things to tell us, I'm sure. Don't go away. You're listening to the Jan Arden Podcast.

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As promised, Broken Heights is here. I'm a bit freaked out because, of course, when you meet somebody for the first time... Hello, by the way. Hi. When you meet someone for the first time who has blasted into the stratosphere with their talent, their courage, their absolute whimsy, the whole...

trajectory that Brooklyn Heights has been on this last few years has been awe-inspiring. And I know you're getting pulled in a million different directions. So thank you for joining Adam and I here at the Jan Arden podcast. It is my absolute pleasure. I'm, I'm Jan girling out a little bit here. Yeah. I'm a big fan of yours. Thank you. Thank you. My God, you were, I think when I got my record deal, Brooklyn, you were five. Yeah.

Five. So, yeah. So I've been kicking around your life, you know, since you were blinking. You have been. I love that. Tell me what's your favorite part of all this. And this is a two-part question. Mm-hmm. I think every young person aspires at some point to be famous. Mm-hmm.

Um, and you have achieved that in many, many ways. Is this anything like the 18 year old version of yourself of what's happened to you? Oh my gosh, no, I couldn't have even dreamed any of this stuff. You can't like, I can't, I couldn't have imagined it. Like I knew I did definitely want to be famous. I wanted to be known. I didn't know what it was going to be for. I thought it might've been for dance, but then I got pulled in this whole other direction and, um,

I just can't believe my life. I can't believe what it's become and what it's continuing to become. I'm very, very, very grateful. And I often forget to be grateful. I just, I forget to stop and take a moment and just like take stock of everything that's happened. You know, I think we all do that. And time to time, I just sit down and I'm just like, fuck, I can't.

I can't believe all I've accomplished. But my favorite part of all of this, of the show and everything, is honestly now it's seeing the queens, how excited they get and how thrilled they are. Like when the announcement comes up and they're posting their pictures and they're posting their merch and they're just so excited for it. And it's because I remember what that was like. That was such a big moment for me. And it's life-changing. It puts you on a different...

it opens you, it opens so many doors up to you. Oh, for sure. It's just so cool getting to see them all achieve something they've worked so hard and getting to enjoy it and celebrate it and revel in it. I love that part. Well, that's the thing. I mean, any, any human being that I have met really in the last couple of years who does drag, you know, locally, every single one of those amazing people,

Queens tells me they aspire to be on Drag Race. And of course it started with RuPaul in the States and the franchise has just gone bananas. Did you ever think you'd see it come to Canada and have the success it's having? I mean, who knew? Right? I mean, I like...

I hoped actually, like I've told this story so many times, but right after we filmed season 11, I was in LA where I live now. I was here visiting and I went into the world of wonder offices and I was talking with a couple of the execs there. And we were talking about maybe me doing a YouTube show or something like that. And I said, you know what I would love? I was like, I really want there to be a Canada's drag race. I don't,

I don't know what it'll look like. Because I assumed Rue would host it. So I was like, if I could come on and do a cameo or something, I think that'd be just so great. I would just love it. And then cut to like... That was in August of 2018. Cut to May of 2019. And they're like, hey, do you want to be a judge on Canada's track race? I think the finale had just happened. So I had just lost. And I was kind of like, fuck, what am I going to do now? Yeah.

I mean, I didn't care, but like, I was just like, I was, but in your mind, you're like, okay, well, it's over. Like, what do, what do I do now? How do I keep this going? And then this literally just landed in my lap. So I was always like hopeful. And I knew Canada's, I know now that Canada's Drag Race had been in the works for probably about a year. So I didn't like make that happen, but I had just like kind of suggested it to them while they were already thinking about

Well, they were already in the process of making it happen, which was kind of cool. The most interesting thing that I found about the entertainment business through the years has been, and it's exactly what you just touched upon. What am I going to do now?

So I just did this, all this work leading up to this. What am I going to do now? And I'll just give you this quick, weird example. Every time I do a record, I go on a big promo junket. You go into the radio stations and you're there to talk about the record that came out that day or that week. And the DJ inevitably always says to you, Brooklyn, so jam, what's next? So you can't even be in the moment that you're in and like really enjoy it.

So I'm glad that you weren't looking ahead too far into the future. You've met a lot of really cool people in the last little while. I mean, some amazing queens, some unbelievably talented people. Who, as far as on your fame meter, has been some of your like, oh my God, I'm meeting this person. I love seeing the picture of you with Justin Trudeau. It always just makes me smile. Yeah.

Yeah. He was so lovely and he gives great hugs. Really, really good hugs. He's like, he's got a nice firm yoga body going on underneath all those clothes. Yeah. It was really good. That was a very surreal, cool moment. Um, just to have like the leader of a country be like, and he emailed us the night, well, he didn't email us as people emailed us the night before and we're like, Hey, Justin would love to meet you. And I w I was just gagged. Like the leader of a country wanted to meet me, which was insane. So that was definitely a highlight. Um,

Justin, getting to meet Cara Delevingne, who's an amazing supermodel slash- She really is. Or actor slash supermodel. She does it all. She does it all, and she's just a lovely human being. Demi Lovato, they are incredible. Such a sweet, sweet person. I met Kim Kardashian at the Emmys. I met Lisa Kudrow at the Emmys. Oh my God, Lisa. Yes, Kim.

These are all so amazing. So do you respond the way you want to? Do you walk away from these meetings and go, what the, why did I just, why did I say that? Or are you like, are you Brooklyn Heights in control? Cool. Because girl, they're looking at you going, Oh my God, I got to do that. How'd she do that? What'd she do to her hair? How, how's that? How's that hooked up? I mean, they're looking at you.

probably running home thinking how they can be like you Brooklyn Heights which is probably weird for you yeah I mean I haven't freaked out yet I'm sure it's coming like but I haven't I haven't met anybody who made a complete fool of myself yet but but I'm still young there's time I'm sure eventually I will I have a question for you go when when are you going to come on drag race and judge with us

I am like a fashion felony. I don't care. I watch the show and I'm just like, how would you, everybody wins. I'd be one of those lunatics in there going, and you win a car and you win a car and you win a car. So that's your job as a guest judge. Like we get to do the hard, we get to do the heavy lifting. You just got to come on there and cry and tell everyone they're amazing. Uh,

Uh, that's no problem doing that. Listen, I'm telling you right, right now between you and I, God, queen and country and Justin Trudeau, I will come on that show. Any time you want or need me, I will sing. I will attempt to dance. Although I would hate to dance in front of you. Um, but, and we're going to make them lip sync to good mother. Ooh, that would be, which is my favorite. I, um, I would, I would,

flip the f out to well we're making it happen i'm telling you right now if there is a season three um there's gonna be a season three i know they're they'll i'm sure there's going to be a season three but when season i'm putting it out there when season three happens you are top of my list to get on that show i i'm speechless right now thank you thank you so much of course you have to

I am trying to picture, like I have some shows coming up in, well, we're all getting back on the road sort of next year, but I think I'm in Toronto in May. What I wouldn't do to have you walk out there at Massey Hall. If I am in town, I will absolutely do that. I will introduce you. I will walk out there and bring you on. I'll be your opening act any day. I swear to God. I'll be your opening act. Listen, how long does it take you on one of your more...

like extravagant, really, really architectural looks. How long does that take you if you're doing it? I mean, I know you have...

people now. Yeah, I have people. There's no possible way, but you used to do this on your own. Yeah, and a lot of the times I still do. It's just for TV. I like to have professionals there who can do it and then look at me on camera and can see it. It's just way easier. But honestly, my face, I don't ever do anything crazy with my makeup. We'll do different colors or stuff, but it really depends. Some days it's like...

It happens in 45 minutes. And then some days it takes two hours. It just depends. Like sometimes your thing you like when you're drawing on your eyebrows, they go perfectly easy done. Other times it takes 20 minutes to get them like symmetrical. Like it really just depends. I'm here with Brooklyn Heights. We have so much more to talk about with this unbelievable, brilliant drag queen. You're listening to the Jen Arden podcast. We'll be right back.

We are back with Brooklyn Heights, and I know everyone's trying to phone in and ask questions while you don't freaking get to do anything because I'm hogging her for myself. Brooklyn, here's some questions I want to ask you. Picture you're at a dinner party. You're at my place. We've just had appetizers, and now we're all just settling in with the 14th glass of champagne. And somebody staggers up to you and goes, what was your first job?

My first job, I was a host at Milestones. No! At Queen and John. You know that one right by Much Music? Yes! Yeah, that was my first job. I was a host there for like four months. That's awesome.

That was a record. That's pretty good for someone to last for four months. I've like, I've literally held a normal quotation mark jobs. I had that job for four months and then I, I did my ballet career. And then when I quit ballet and moved back to Toronto to start doing drag, I worked at coach at the Eden center at the Bay for three months. So I've had in my life and my 35 years of existence, I've had,

a normal job for seven months of that, that time. I think, and, and, and it's never going to be eight, honey. So we've moved on. It's never going to be eight months. Um, if you could have any skill, um,

Like instantly wake up tomorrow and have a talent, a skill, something. If it's a language, what do you think it would be? It would be, hey? Singing. Easy. Singing. Now, I'm telling you right now, you can learn to sing. You can learn to sing really well. No, but no.

Can you? Yes. I want to sing like Jasmine Sullivan. Well, I don't know about that, but... That's what I'm talking about. I want a good voice. And I know I could... I actually want to take voice lessons. That's a mental...

like a mental block I have because like, I, I don't think I have a very good voice. Um, but I want to get better at it cause I would love to do Broadway and stuff like that one day. So that like, I would love to be able to at least carry a tune and learn how to harmonize and all that stuff. I'll tell you right now. You could, you could absolutely learn how to harmonize. You could absolutely nevermind. Are you going to be my voice? Are you going to be my voice teacher? I can, in an after, if I spent two hours with you, I could have you singing. Um,

40% better than you did that morning. There's so many easy things you can do. And believe it or not, one of the, and singers don't ever think about this or people wanting to sing better reading out loud quickly. And it's just like, uh, just a book or a newspaper or anything. It does something with how you think and how your mouth moves. And it's just reading out loud to yourself. So even with your, when you're by yourself, Jesus read, read part of your damn book out loud for 10 minutes.

And it just starts you getting thinking, but we're going to do that sometime. If I ever do come and see you on drag race, I'm going to, you and I are going to spend, we're going to spend 15 minutes somewhere and I'm going to show you a couple of really cool tricks. And I've never taken lessons and lessons in my life. Um, earliest childhood memory. Do you have anything Brooklyn where it's like, I remember that I was five, my, the car rolled over my leg, um,

Probably one of my earliest memories was getting bitten by a dog on my lip. I have a scar right here and I was dancing with it. Like I had it up on its like hind legs and it was this little tiny dog and we were up at my cottage and it just like went and it bit me on my lip and I had to get, thank God the owner of the dog happened to be a surgeon. That's always handy. It's always handy. So he gave me one little stitch on my lip on our kitchen table.

Um, that's probably one of my earliest memories. So do you have any fear with dogs now? Oh no, I love animals. Oh, that's good to hear. Yeah. I still dance with them. I have two cats too. Oh, that's really great. Uh, any, we just came out of Thanksgiving. Do you have any family traditions?

Um, well, not really. Like we used to all go to like my parents' house and like have Thanksgiving dinner when we all lived there. But my parents, they're divorced now. So we don't really do that anymore. We've got to go to a sibling's place or something when I'm there. But like, not really anymore. Like everyone kind of has, I'm the youngest of four. So everyone has their own families and their own kind of things. And whoever, if I'm in town, I'll just go to one of their houses. You and I are March 30th.

You're the 10th, yes? Yep. So I'm Aries. I'm a couple weeks after you. I'm the 27th. So yeah, you're Pisces. Do you have any Pisces traits? Do you know anything about your sign? I know I like water.

good enough yeah I like water um I'm very sensitive and I believe that's a Pisces trait I'm very I'm pretty creative sometimes which is also believe a Pisces trait I don't yeah besides that I don't really know anything about it I don't know anything I'm one of those people if I if I'm reading the horoscope like in the newspaper I'll be like oh my god that's so mean then I'll realize that I'm reading the one above me going um do you collect anything

Uh, trophies. Oh, sweetheart. You just nailed that one. I collect some trophies. And you collect compliments. I collect compliments and trophies and wigs. I have a lot of wigs. I bet. And they're freaking expensive.

They are. They're very expensive. And I get them like now because like I'm on TV and like that's the thing about drag. You get on Drag Race and then you just have to everything has to get better. So now I have I get my wig my wigs like custom done the hairline so it like fits on my head perfectly and it's this whole it's

It's just, it's very keeping up with the Joneses, but I mean, it makes you look better. Now, would you consider yourself an influencer on social media? Do you, do you say something? Oh, geez. I was, I was expecting totally the opposite. I was thinking you could say, oh, I really like those, those pair of tennis shoes. And somebody had sent you like a box with every color. Like, well, that does happen. I mean, yeah, but like, and like people will pay me to like promote their products. Or if I find a product I really like, we'll like work with the brand. But like, I,

I just, I, it's very hard. I like to try to do it in like an organic way. It's just, it's very like, like, so you feel so stupid doing it because you're just like peddling shit. I like to cheer people on. I don't do paid placements on my Instagram at all. I don't, I don't do that stuff, but I will cheer people on all the time. I'm vegan. And if I find like a cheese, that's more than just edible, that's really actually, God, this tastes good. I'll put it up. And there are always people are like, Oh my God,

my god and they're always like let us send you a box and i'm like i'm never home don't send me anything i'm not gonna be here very long um send it to me i'll take your cheese okay um if you had to we always love talking about food on this show did you go to school with a lunch kit or did you go home for lunch or what was the dealio there

I went to school with a lunch kit and I always got really mad because my mom, do you remember like so delicious and fruit by the foot and all those things? Like all my friends would get those fruit roll-ups and I would get like,

like a cookie or something boring. And like, I had such boring lunches. Like my mom, God bless her. Like she took so much time and like made our lunches every morning. It was like so good. And we're all just like, where, where's the, we just wanted the garbage. So like bologna and white bread, it just, you didn't get, you didn't get any of the store bought snacks. You got like actual, here's your apple. Yes. Very that, very that. I hated it. Did you have a thermos?

I sometimes when I had soup, yeah, there was a thermos. I think a hot lunch in a lunch kit is the most awkward thing for a child to like pour your soup. And oh my God, I have this. I've talked about this so many times. Adam's probably going to slap me. But my mom at some point thought it was a good idea to put a wiener in a thermos with hot water.

And it absorbed all the water and I couldn't get it out of the thermos. So I'm going in there with a pencil and like pulling out chunks of white wiener. Yes, you heard it here. I'm talking with Brooklyn Heights, ladies and gentlemen. This is the Jan Arden podcast. Is there a favorite meal that you have? Like if I was to take you out for dinner sometime, what would it be?

Well, I grew up on Asian food. My mom was a missionary kid in Malaysia. And my grandparents are missionaries in Japan and stuff. So I grew up, my grandpa was born in China. So I grew up literally like consuming Asian food. So anything from the east side, the east side, I'm down. Indian, Malaysian, Asian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, any of that, I'm here for it. I love it.

I am so with you. And I'm not just saying that, damn it, because we only have 60 seconds left. Love Asian food. I love you. You are A, inspiring, B, unbelievably talented. I think what you're doing out there and how you're presenting your art, your life, your vulnerability, your ability to cheer people on and critique them at the same time as a real art form. And I like that about you because even when you've got to be like, God damn it, you've got to do better.

Please get yourselves together. They still come out feeling like you are still their mentor and you still do for them. And I love that. Anyway, I can't thank you enough for being on the, on the show. And I wish you such continued success. And here's to a singing lesson. And here's to me being a guest judge of some configuration on the

Drag Race. I'm making it happen. Thank you so much for having me. This was an absolute pleasure. I'm a huge fan. You were incredible. And I love you. Thank you. Love you! So that has been Brooklyn Heights. And this was everything that I thought it would be. And even more. Like, even more than that. I want to thank you, thank you, thank you. And, for God's sakes, Season 3, here we come. It's going to happen. It's going to happen. It is going to happen. Jan Arden Podcast, totally do.

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