Thank Goodness For Zoom
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Jan Arden Podcast, you are joining us today, and it's show 70-something. We just buzzed. Oh, I got a... That was me. Do you want me to edit? No, no, don't edit a thing. This is real life. I was actually, ironically, going to mute my phone and my watch, so I didn't have this happen, but that was the Amber Alert stay-at-home orders for Ontario. Oh.

Well, welcome to the Jan Arden podcast, where bleep's just getting real. Anyway, hi. We do have theme music that I just ruin all the time. Adam is getting amber alerts. So the amber alerts, these are for people to stay in their regions in Toronto, correct, Adam? Yes.

Yes, this is actually I'm reading the message that just popped up. I don't know if this is a specific Amber Alert, but it's the same messaging and it's that same same tone. Oh, so it's not it's there's there's there's not a there's not a lost child. But this is an alert system that is telling you Torontonians to stay in your damn regions. All of Ontario, actually, a stay at home order is in effect only leave home for essential purposes such as food, health care, vaccines, exercise or work. It's the law. Stay home. Save lives.

Okay. Well, we're out. We're off and running. Our guest today joining us once again is Julie van Rosendahl. And Julie, thank you so much for joining us.

First thing out of her mouth, she said, listen, I'm knee deep in, you know, the follow up to Buttergate. I'm knee deep in butter. It's not unusual for me. No, I'm just. I do love butter. I want to make sure that I do stick to a topic today. So what I wanted to talk about, and we will get to Buttergate and we will get to the Toronto stuff that's going on, although I hate to burden people with COVID stuff all the time.

In my humble opinion, there's something very interesting happening globally. And it's because of COVID, and it's because of change, and it's because of having to adapt. It's because of having our freedoms curbed. Can I use that word, curbed? The planet is grieving. There's just a blanket of grief. And grief is a very interesting thing because everybody manifests grief.

in a really different way. Sometimes it comes out as anger, rage, depression, anxiety. Everyone deals with it in a different way. There's no one way through grief. There just isn't. So how are you guys feeling? Julie, I'll start with you, just with what that grieving process looks like. And if indeed you would call it that, like I know that sigh was like, where do I start, right? But think about it.

Do you feel like you're doing that? I would. I would call it grieving. I think everyone is grieving for different things and small things and things they can't quite place. They can't quite identify what it is they're grieving.

I feel like this stage of the pandemic has been the hardest so far. You know, we don't have a clear end in sight. We don't have the usual sort of summer and spring plans to look forward to. You know, just grieving, having things to look forward to is hard. I lost my dog in November and I'm still grieving his presence, you know, and I'm

And my teenager isn't as cuddly as he used to be. So there are, you know, there are all these layers. I feel like I'm reacting by throwing myself into work. Right. So, so this butter thing has been kind of a big deal for me because I've been so focused on researching and talking to people and, and it's a distraction, you know? But I think people are, are,

As you said, they deal with grief in different ways and finding different ways to, you know, though daily walks are not cutting it anymore. Netflix isn't cutting it anymore. All those things that distracted us in the early days are not having the same effect there as now, as they were. But what do you do with it? Like grief is something, and we're all very reluctant to talk about it. It's, you know, that proverbial elephant in the room of grief.

Do you ask, do you legitimately continue to ask people how they're doing? I think it's important to check in with people and just to say, what's happening and how are you feeling? And it does feel like a long stretch, but I guess in the big scheme of things, this past 13, 14 months is not even a drop in a drop in the bucket because life just...

You know, we're not here for very much time. So we feel like this is being stolen from us somehow that the time is being stolen. Yeah.

Well, and I think people, there are people who are going through incredible losses, illnesses, losing family members, not being able to visit their loved ones in the hospital, not being able to attend funerals or be there when the people they love are sick or dying. And that's huge. So I think that, you know, makes me feel like...

I can't complain. I have it, you know, I'm fine. I'm safe and at home. I'm not sick. But there are a range of things people are dealing with. And just because, you know, there are always people who have it worse doesn't mean what we're going through isn't hard. Yeah.

Well, that makes sense at all. Yeah, it, no, it does make sense. And I, and I think we're, we're hard on ourselves because what, what I kind of heard you saying is that I have no right to grieve. I have no right to feel down because I am so much better than other people. And I think we have to be mindful of that, that conversation because that's not the truth. Exactly. That, this was my point. You know, we, we all have a right, you know, even, even the man in the castle on the hill, you know,

We have to understand, I think we all know at this point in our lives that money doesn't bring you happiness. It certainly makes life easier. But the guy in the castle on the hill, they have issues too. And I think we can't judge...

how people grieve or how they get to grieve, or if they even get to grieve because of social status, because of money, because of what you have, how big your house is, how big your yard is, you know, the stuff that you have grieving is it's a level playing field.

You know, when you lose your mom, you lose your mom. When you lose a child, you lose a child. That has no social implications. So we tend to kind of be pointy fingers at us. Oh, you have no right to feel down. Look what you have. And we can't let it work that way. I feel like most of us put it on ourselves, you know? I think we have agreed that we...

It's okay to lie in bed all day. It's okay to be sad. It's okay to grieve things that happened before.

a long time ago. And I really feel for all the people who are expected to work double time. You know, we've got people at home and not able to work, but then so many of my friends are, you know, in the hospitals, they're at schools and they are like in grocery stores working at the front lines and working harder than they ever had. So there's that sort of dichotomy. But I think that

That's something we put on ourselves that I feel badly being sad over losing my dog or over whatever circumstances are hard because other people are dealing with such bigger things. I think too, the thing that people forget is that life is not a beer commercial.

And we are sold this bill of goods from the time we're little kids about happiness being the default setting in a human body. Happiness is the end all be all. It's the goal. It's what everyone strives for. And we know from the time that we, you know, have mental independence from our parents and that we start thinking for ourselves and realizing that we are these singular entities that it's really difficult being a person.

And that the default state that we think is supposed to be happiness all the time, these little bouts of whatever this is that we're going through, this grief, these transitions, these changes are just as important and just as much a normal part of human life than joy or happiness or serenity.

And I don't know why we suddenly think that we can skip all of that stuff, that we can skip the obstacles, that we can remove obstacles from our children, that we're supposed to be happy all the time. That's not what it is. Adam, how are you dealing with just grieving? We've got a couple minutes left in this segment. I have a lot to be very thankful for and happy about.

But see how you started that? You're trying to negate the fact that you can feel sad and that you can feel guilt. So you already did that. You gave us a caveat. I know I shouldn't be. It's been a year of missed family. I'm not saying I haven't gotten together with my family or seen them. We see them all the time. But like,

It was Passover a couple weeks ago. I didn't... We did... That's a real special family time for us. You had to Passover Passover. We did have to Passover two years in a row. And, like, just special occasions. I know that...

with my friends we have some traditions we we have a big family new year's eve party that didn't happen with a bunch of families another good friends of ours they have a great backyard with a pool and they do two big events in the summer one with all the families and the kids and another night just the couples and all of these did not happen and as a parent with two young kids I

I've thought about this. My wife and I have not had a night off in over a year. There's been no sleepovers, no- God, I thought you were going to say, my wife and I have not had sex in three years, and this did not help. No, I get that. But do you think there's traditions and things that are replacing that? Like, have you found that-

There's things that you're going to look back on at this piece of time and really treasure. We would not have done that had it not been for COVID, would not have realized that. So good things do come out of bad things. Mm-hmm.

And, but I, I just, yeah, it is. It has been difficult, but I don't, you guys think you're finding out just how tough you are and how much stronger you are than you thought. Oh, I can't do this. I can't do this. And you are doing it and you continue to do it. And not only that, you're probably helping people around you and propping them up.

It's amazing what we as a society have figured out we can actually do, you know, all this time we thought, oh, we can't do that. We can't, this is too, well, we can do that. And on that, and don't lose that train of thought because you're listening to the Jan Arden Show. I'm with Julie Van Rosendahl and Adam Karsh. We're going to be right back after this short break. Welcome back to the Jan Arden Show and podcast and Variety Hour.

Julie Van Rosendal is our guest today. Adam Karsh. These guys, it's very hard for me to stop Julie and Adam in between segments from talking about

Because they're creating a whole other show inside the show. So I've been quite rude to them today. Just going, stop talking in between the breaks because we're going to come back. Save it. So what Adam was saying before I so rudely just cut him off. Just that he... And this will resonate with me, Adam. I need a break. My wife and I need a break. What does that mean? A break from what? I think...

Like we haven't had a night out. We haven't had a quiet morning sleep in. The girls, my girls have four loving and active and involved grandparents that would be happy to take them for a sleepover or a whatever. And not that we see, we see my parents and Reese's parents all the time. I don't think a week goes by where we don't at least have a porch gathering, but they used to take the girls for parties.

sleepovers and stuff. So we could go out. That doesn't happen now. Hasn't happened. Like no anniversary, romantic dinners. How can you, how can you find a way back into that?

Like, could the girls not be part of you guys planning an evening? Could they maybe serve you the dinner? Maybe. Oh yeah. They'd like that. I mean, I mean, I think, I think this is a time absolutely to exercise our creativity. Like how can the girls be part of that? And then you send them off into the basement onto the beanbag couch and have them watch a movie while you guys do have a moment. And, and, and,

Adam, offer them money. I'll give you $10 each. Chocolate. Chocolate. Well, I'll give you whatever. I think, you know, kids can take a bribe. Oh, yeah. And just say, it's 7 o'clock. You girls cannot come up here until 9.30. And here's $10. And here's a bag of candy. Oh, yeah.

I don't know. I think we have to get creative. Julie thoughts. I agree. My sisters and I used to play restaurant all the time for my parents and we would make menus and we would set the table and we would, you know, one of us would go to take an order. I was in the kitchen, of course.

And yeah, I mean, it could be a whole thing. But I love how creative people are getting. I love the efforts that we're going to connect with the people who are most important to us in different ways, you know, door drops and porch visits. I was out walking last summer and walked up the hill in my neighborhood and just sort of happened to peek. I wasn't peeking into their backyard, but I noticed an elderly couple in their backyard in

in sort of the, the shed, one of those old kind of, you know, tin sheds, it was all opened up. They had lights inside. They had a little table for two. They were, they were eating, you know, it was like a little restaurant set up yesterday. I was out walking, walking and noticed a couple in their car parked along the side of the road, eating lunch in their car. And it's like,

this is what you got to do, right? Let's go out, dig some pickup, pick up some food in our cars. We're not at home and, uh, and do what we got to do. And at least, you know, we're all in the same boat in that sense, right? Like, you know, it's not, we're not feeling like, ah, you know, poor me. I'm missing out on these, these special occasions. Everyone's missing out on them. And I feel like that, um, is reassuring to, to a lot of us.

Maybe we have it's time really to shift the focus because I think people thought this would be over in four months that it was six months and it was 10 months. And I think we're realizing that we do have a ways to go. I don't think we're good. Sorry, go ahead, Julie.

Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. No, no, no, go ahead. I was just going to say, it reminds me of, remember going to aerobics or jazzercise? Did you ever go to jazzercise class? And they'd be like, three more, two more, one more, 10 more. And you'd be like, oh, you know, nine more, eight more, 12 more. And you're like, I just thought I was done. It's because they think you know you can get there because you're so close. And then they drop another 10 reps on you. Well, has this not given us all sort of that

little glimpse into you cannot live in the past any more than you can live in the future and you must be where you are so and this was has always been the lesson since the time of buddha or socrates or siddhartha i mean whatever they have taught us that the moment is the thing to be in that moment so we all find displeasure in looking behind us and seeing what was we can't be there

You cannot be there because it's making us all bitter and we cannot look forward because it is, it's always been uncertain. It'll be uncertain for people that are living on this planet a thousand years from now, the future will not be predictable. So we have to be where we are. Yeah. So live, live where we are and create those new opportunities and reconfigure things and rethink things.

And we see the people that are doing that well, and we see the people that are doing that unwell. I mean, most of my friends have absolutely moved away from

last March. They've just, I don't want to live there and I don't want to live. This could be like this for us for, you know, two or three years, especially in the industry I'm in and the industry that you're in Julie as well. And Adam, but Adam has said many times on this show that he's happy to keep working from home. But Julie is, you know, you're very much in the hospitality industry, in the food industry, in that entertainment of,

And I think that's what people miss the most is going out for dinner, going to a movie, being with people and meeting new people and getting dressed up so that you can catch somebody's eye. Yeah. Yeah. It's hard to catch somebody's eye with a mask on and rubber boots and maybe orange shorts. I should plan this out better. Depends on the people you're trying to attract. Yeah.

But no, it's those daily little interactions too, right? It's going to the grocery store and going for coffee, doing all the things. But I do like that there isn't that sort of sense of you should be doing something. I should be, what's everyone doing? Where should I be out? I should be going to this place or going to that place. I kind of do like the calm that's come with this, the reduced pressure to always be somewhere or doing something.

But, but yeah. Do you not find people more friendly in general? I do. Yes. Adam, would you not agree, Adam? Like just more friendly. People are very friendly and I think empathetic because everyone knows what we're all going through with this. And I find people very, very friendly, very communicative. But why is it that the ornery ones are getting the headlines still?

They're stealing those headlines, you know, whether it's an anti-masker rally or, you know, someone who's the person in the store that refuses to abide by the rules that someone's filming and that goes viral on. Like, why are those people getting the headlines still? So I really do question that about people.

how we operate and maneuver our way through social media that we still feel like we want to shine a light on negativity or someone being racist in a lineup and telling people to go back to the country, you know. But we see that on social media constantly. I really would love to challenge people this next week

You know, if you've got your phones out, which everybody does, tape something good. Show it to us on the Jan Arden podcast, Twitter feed or my feed or Julie's feed or Adam's feed. Show us good things. And I know we do see them, but I still feel like the ones that get the big headlines, the big red flag flying above them is these negative things.

and interactions socially. And it drives me nuts. It drives me nuts too. It poisons, I think it poisons my mind when I see all this shaming and blaming and calling people out and all this stuff and filming all the arguments and the racist stuff. It poisons my mind because I just think, what's going on with people and why are we living like this? And why are you doing this? I'm not saying it's not important to see that either. Don't get me wrong.

Like, and Adam, you did, you just hit a nerve with me for sure. It is important to see this discord. It is important to see really crappy interactions and people behaving poorly. But I think there's a lot of really good people out there that are striking a chord of humility and compassion and joy. And I'd like to see them a lot more than we are.

I think the difference is, you know, it's important to see these situations, acts of racism happening. It's important for us to know that these things are happening. But there are also situations, these, you know, anti-mask rallies that are sort of orchestrated for public reaction, right? They're a spectacle and they're recorded intentionally. And so I think there's a huge difference between those two.

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And that people are using and utilizing social media to further their, whatever, their statements. We shouldn't even ever talk about anti-maskers again. You'll listen to the Jen Arden podcast. We're going to be right back. I'm here with Julie Van Rosendahl, Adam Karsh, Sophia Loren. Okay, I'm not here with Sophia Loren. Sophia Loren is not here. We'll be right back. I read the news today, oh boy.

Welcome back to the Jan Orton podcast. I am a professional singer. I used to be. I don't know if you guys know that about me, but I back in the 20s, I was a professional singer. Julie just said something really interesting. Once again, I had to cut her off during the break to say, Julie, save that. Very interesting take.

And I'm just going to let you start that again. The media depends on those kinds of interactions on those clips for their traction. Anyway, I'm saying it really poorly. Julie, go. No, I'm trying to remember exactly what I said. I think media, social media, traditional media, everyone relies on traffic, right? Web traffic. They like talkers. They like things that people are outraged about that they're going to share online.

within their own networks in order to get traction. Outraged about. Outraged about. Exactly. And that's people, things that are shocking are going to get traction online. People are going to share it. Have you seen this? Have you seen this? And that generates numbers, that generates traffic, that generates traffic.

Right. Like that's how people make a living online based on their their impressions, their YouTube views, their, you know, their likes and shares. And I keep trying to tell my teenager this. He'll see these outrageous videos that have millions of views and it's clearly something that's not real or not true. And driven by clickbait. Right. That's what clickbait is.

clickbait is, is all about these headlines that say, you'll never guess what sausage is going to give you E. coli. I just saw, you know, and you have to click to see. And so I'm trying to explain to him, people make money based on how many people click through and view this. Right. So it doesn't matter if it's true or not. It's just, if it's sensationalist and it gets people looking and sharing and sharing with their friends or whatever, that's that unfortunately tends to drive a lot of, of media and social media. If I was just getting started in the music business with a band, I would name my band clickbait.

clickbait. That's a good one. It's not too late. For all of you guys in the garage right now that have been sitting in with one light bulb with a string playing rock and roll music, driving your neighbors crazy, use clickbait. I'm not going to use it. I was thinking of changing my name just for a second, but you guys go ahead and use that. The news has been, and I talked about this many times in my life, I'm not really a news person. I don't

devour new stuff voraciously. My friend Wendy, shout out to my friend Wendy. She does a lot of news and I always appreciate it. And she's always up to speed on everything that's going on. And she always watches really interesting things on the news. And if someone came up to me on my road,

and said, Vivi, I heard blah, blah, blah. I'd be like, I don't know. If it didn't happen here on the road, I couldn't tell you. I just saw a fox run across the road. Not Fox News, an actual fox. And it was super cute. So I can tell you about that. But I find it draining. It can be. And how you curate your news is important. Yeah.

You know, where you source your news from and not, I mean, I think a lot of us have just been sucked down that rabbit hole of doom scrolling at night, right? And, you know, just sort of this constant barrage of news and headlines and this is happening and that's happening. I often wonder what we would be hearing about and talking about if everything wasn't completely consumed by

and pandemic and, you know, our weekly house doc on, on, you know, CBC, what would he be talking about every week? If it wasn't travel stories, travel stories, um, you know, uh,

gatherings and kids, you know, 1000 violin players got together on the steps of the Vancouver library today to play. Imagine. I mean, exactly. There's so many things that have been stolen from kids. And I recognize that as probably one of the biggest tragedies. And this goes out to every single one of you parents that have had a graduating child. Yeah.

I'm not going to say son or daughter because there's a lot of things that aren't sons or daughters. There's a lot of people that aren't, you know, representing themselves as a son or a daughter. So kids, I'm just going to say a lot of children out there that have been, that, that opportunity has been stolen from them to stand in front of their classes with their hats and their gowns and to hear their names called out with, you know, people shoulder to shoulder and clapping. And, and I, I,

I just feel bad about that. I hate that kids aren't experiencing that. I mean, for me, it was, you know, throwing up in a field later that day, you know, drinking too much and, and listening to music from the speaker of a truck door and then the batteries would die and we'd have to figure out how to jump it. Anyways, I'm going too far down that rabbit hole, aren't I? Graduation was a good time. Yeah.

Don't get me started on graduation. But yeah, there are a lot of things that

a lot of people have lost and are missing out on. But we're also seeing this opportunity to do things in different ways. You know, we do a lot of things because that's the way we've always done them. And our kids should do them this way because we did them this way. But, you know, each generation is different. And this generation communicates in a completely different way than we did. And, you know, there will be time to change.

to get together again and celebrate things that we couldn't celebrate together. But this is going to be really memorable, you know, remembering those sort of virtual get togethers. And I've been getting together with people on Zoom and having dinners and movies that I didn't do before the pandemic, even though we've always lived far apart, you know, so. I've been making a lot of sex tapes, but I'm the only person in them.

I've been making a lot of sex tapes, but I'm the only person in them. Which is different, right? It's a different... I don't have any hits. I have no hits so far. But, you know, that's fine. It's okay. Can you imagine? You need an OnlyFans account. Yeah, I don't even know what that is. I don't know. You could tell me all these different things that are going on. Someone told me about Clubhouse recently. Don't know what Clubhouse is.

Someone told me about, do you guys know what Clubhouse is? I've heard of it. I don't know. I thought it was a spice that you put on like vegetables. It's a little, little tins of like, you know, nutmeg and allspice. Yeah. Not anymore. Of course. We just lost our sponsorship with Clubhouse now. But yeah, there's your son, Julie plays. He, I know he does games.

I think they all do video games now. It's a social interaction, right? He's got the headphones on, the microphone, he's talking to his friends, his friends are on screen. So I don't want to kick him off. No, no. In the before time, he was into improv, right? And so now there's no...

there's no improv, there aren't shows happening and, and sports, of course, he wasn't into sports. Why can't somebody do improv Zoom? They did, they tried it for a while with, with Loose Moose Theatre Company in Calgary. And I think it just didn't have the same, didn't have the same effect, but. Well, you don't have that audience. People forget. I think there's a lot of, you know,

famous people out there that have been jonesing for someone to adore them. Like to just be, I think every musician that's an egomaniac has been trying to figure out how to play in New Zealand. But there's that, you feed off the audience, the energy of the audience, right? I mean, you know this better than anybody. And doing it on Zoom, even doing cooking classes or different, you know,

So interactions on Zoom, it's not the same. You're not interacting in the same way as you are with a live audience and certainly not in theater, right? In improv and that sort of physical comedy doesn't translate to comedy.

To zoom as well. I have watched one comedy show on zoom and I did find myself laughing. It was pretty early days. It probably would have been may or June of last year. Yeah. And I did find myself laughing, but it was great because the other, the other comics on the, on whatever the format was, we're laughing at their friend doing comedy. So I feel like it was all these guys. I think there was like 10 people on the particular one that I watched.

And they all had notepads. I loved it. And they were literally, oh, here's one, here's one. And they're flipping through with wetting their finger, going to the next page and just trying out new work. Amazing. Which is great. I wrote a record during this pandemic. I'm just having it mixed now, but I'm telling you, I don't think I've ever written music like this in my life.

I did quite a bit of it with Russell Broom. We wrote a lot of songs, but we recorded 10 of them. Bob Rock, he and I wrote over Zoom. He was in Maui. I was here. And it somehow worked. And the 16 songs that I've recorded are, I think, some of the best things I've done in my life. And it wouldn't have happened had it not been for COVID. So we're going to talk about

Some positive good things. When we come back, you'll listen to the Jan Arden Show and Podcast. Julie Van Rosendahl, Adam Karsh. Don't go away. We are born to obey.

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We're recording Julie van Rosendahl. So be careful what you're talking about. Don't be talking about plucking chin hairs in your car because people will, people are going to hear it. Oh, sorry. Are we on? Is this on? Yeah. Once again, I had to stop Adam. So we were talking about just before we went into break, I watched a comedy show. Julie was talking about her son attempting. Was it your son attempting loose moose stuff?

He used to do improv. Virtual. Yeah. He used to do it in person. Okay. So Adam, during the break, he jumped in and this is an interesting topic because these are things that people have been doing virtually that we never thought would happen. So Adam, tell the people what you did with your wife, which sounds super fun to me. My wife's cousin organized a zoom murder mystery through a company. So Adam,

This company. Let's tell the people who the company, well, let's give them a shout out. We're not even going to charge them. Murder mystery, zoom party.com. We had the best. I wonder how they thought that up. Yeah. Right. What a stretch. It was about two hours, highly organized, great content. You actually had a host, like you joined the zoom meeting and there was a host in character leading you through the

the, the, the story, all of the participants, there was like about 12 of us. Everyone was given a character, my character, I'm reading the email, Earl E. Demise, because it was like an old, an old timey murder mystery. And they tell you a story and then they're, and then they share a link through the zoom. Okay. Watch this video. So it gives more context and everyone has to read from a script. That sounds really fun. Going into it. I'm like, well, how are we going to do this? Like, how do you do a murder mystery online? It was the greatest two hour zoom call.

Aside from our recordings. Yeah, I was going to say. See, I saved myself. It was so much fun. And everyone was just, you wore costumes or little props and you had to like read a script. Everyone was drinking. It was so much fun. It was the best thing. Well, I think we have seen so many interesting things

formats or activities that have been brought to Zoom. I know Julie, I want you to talk to us a little bit about some of these cooking classes and just walk us through how that has worked and what kind of response you've had from people and

Yeah, I've been doing virtual cooking classes on Zoom because obviously we can't do them in real life anymore. But it's been really cool to see families joining from across the country. You know, people are still looking for special things to do for birthdays, for anniversaries.

you know, just for a regular Friday night. And so cooking classes kind of push people out of their comfort zone. So I've done some myself. I've gone to restaurant kitchens while they're closed and worked with chefs and had...

them cook something and, you know, and have all the proceeds go to the restaurants at the restaurants. Oh, yeah. Are just, you know, are just such having such a hard time. So for the restaurant, it was called cook, cook, like cook with a chef as the series is called is called. And $50, 50 spots, $2,500. So many of the chefs said, this is more than we're taking home in a month.

And they don't have overhead. They don't have the food costs. It takes a couple hours. I go with my gear, all the gear that I've sort of accumulated to do my own

zoom sessions at home. So I know we all have ring lights now. Exactly. The ring lights, the little, you know, the little camera on top of my tripod and, and do this really kind of, you know, in the kitchen interactive, they can see people in their kitchens on zoom. So people at home are like, Oh, look at my, look at my pastry. Is it too dry? Look at my

you know, whatever it is I'm making, getting feedback from the chefs, which is really fun. And now is that code for something? Look at my pastry. Is that too dry? That's part of your sex tape, Jan.

I just think it's fascinating that, you know, people are able to be at home, get their stuff together, their ingredients, you know, put their apron on, open up their computer and have you there. Or like you said, there's other, you know, people that you have shone a light on giving cooking classes. I would definitely do that.

Well, and they can get their kids involved too. You know, to go to a cooking class at a cooking school is, it's pretty pricey, you know, it's 80, a hundred dollars more than a hundred dollars. And, and so people can't always afford to do it or afford to bring their kids. So if you're at home and you have three kids, I have so many people joining classes with their kids and they all cook together. And, and, you know, then you have something to eat. You have dinner or whatever pastry afterwards, a pie, right?

So, yeah, it's been great. I've seen a few Broadway shows because, once again, another part of the entertainment business, Broadway, when you're looking at all the shows in Vegas, when you're looking at all the shows in Toronto, London, you know, all these huge cities that so much of their tourism is based on these incredible Broadway shows. Yeah.

But I've seen cast members that are doing Zoom calls where they're reading all the cast members are on and they're singing the shows and they're doing, I mean, that has been fascinating to me. And I've been meaning to go on to one of those shows

They've also had, they had like the cast, I think of The Office, reading one of the scripts. They had everybody on there just doing one of the episodes. Amazing. And all the money going to charity, going to Actors' Equity or going to the Broadway Fund or whatever it is. So people are doing incredible things online. And, you know, obviously there was a ton of musicians early days doing stuff.

So many free concerts. And then of course, everyone realized that they did indeed need to monetize things because once again, going back to what we talked about at the top of the show, we thought this might be 10 weeks. We thought this might be 20 weeks. And you know, here we are really facing, you know, some, some concerning numbers and, but knowing that there is a light at the end of the tunnel with the vaccinations being rolled out anyway, and,

So look it up. Maybe there's something, maybe there's, you know, even just Googling activities that you guys can do Zoom wise. I have another one. And I think people are also looking for ways they can support artists and restaurants and in, you know, a direct and creative ways.

So my family, I have two sisters. They have kids. My parents, I feel really terrible for. They're having a hard time not being able to see us. There's a game called GeoGuessr. G-E-O-G-U-E-S-S-R.com. And so you can do it interactively on Zoom. Everyone gets on their computers. You get dropped...

by Google, you know, like the Google pin or like the little person you get, you get dropped somewhere in the world and you have to figure out where you are. So it's interactive. You can do it with, you know, all ages, all the kids are involved. You're looking at like road signs, you're looking at, you know, the trees and the terroir, you're looking at the buildings. It's so fun. And, and so my, my family, we've all been doing that game virtually and it's,

I've been playing that game all my life with the GPS. Where am I? Where am I? Like, I love it that you can have a, that you can have a game like that, that really gets everybody going. I do miss playing board games. I miss playing cards. I've got some of my pals in, in every time we get together, we play fricking bugger Rummy. Am I allowed to say that on TV? We're not on TV. So, but yeah,

But yeah, just playing card games. Anyway, we're down to our last minute. Adam, two minutes. I was going to say, we did another Zoom idea. We did family bingo with my sister's family and my nephews. And you get, I can find the website for you, but it's an actual bingo generator. And you share the screen. Okay.

So it's like, I, 20, whatever. I love bingo. We play bingo. And on your phone, there's, again, a website. And it's like a bingo dabber. So your phone becomes like- No! Yes. Yes.

so what's that what's the website of that Adam I'll find it and tell you and what you know we'll put it we'll put it on the podcast on Twitter well we will definitely Adam and I will work together between us and we will put up the links on Jan Arden pod it's our Twitter handle and we will make sure that they go up so and yeah so after you listen to us today you can go and check that out and

Thanks for being with us. We just want to say a hi to our lovely dear friend Caitlin Green and Kyle at home and that we're thinking about you guys all the time and can't wait to talk to you and just, yeah, reconnect. Anyway, we're thinking about you constantly. Just know that. You guys, thank you for being here. Thank you. Be kind to each other. Let's get your phones out and, you know,

Film people hugging. No, I was going to say that's not a good thing to film people hugging. Oh, right. Not yet. Damn it. Hugging trees, hugging yourself.

They say hugging trees is very good for you, and that a tree knows it's being hugged, which really almost breaks my heart. Great book suggestions just as we go out, Braiding Sweetgrass, and the Richard Powers book called The Overstory. You have to read it. Anyways, Jan Arden Podcast, Julie Van Rosendahl, Adam Karsh, totally do. Thank you.

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