Strombo for Prime Minister

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Hello, welcome to the Jann Arden Podcast. I'm here with Caitlin green, Sarah Burke, and we have the wonderful George strombolopoulos with us today. And I just want to say that I went on to Wikipedia, as you do when you have a guest of this stature. This guy is one of my favorite voices of all time. I just want to say that your speaking voice should be the voice of Jesus. If that, if Jesus had a voice, and if that was the voice, if Jesus came down into my head to say, Jen, don't do that. I wish it was George's voice. Here's a few things they have to say about you in Wikipedia, which I donate to, a Canadian media personality, television host, podcaster, one of Canada's most popular broadcasters, hell yeah, formerly a VJ for Canadian music television channel. We're going to talk about that. I mean, there's a whole bunch of things I could go on and on own show on CBC. You are so many things. George malabalist, welcome to the Jan Arden podcast. We are so freaking happy that you showed up and that you survived the Los Angeles fires. It is so lovely to be with all of you again. Thank you for bringing me back. You know, I love being in your company. If I was the voice of Jesus, I wouldn't be telling you not to do things. I'd be encouraging you to do the things. Well, even better, let's just start with that, George, because we all sat back all around the world and watched one of the worst fires in an urban area, really, in recent history, I haven't been so mortified, really in my life. Jasper, of course, was bad this past year, you know, losing almost half the city up there. But I'm telling you, this thing scared the hell out of me so feet on the ground. Tell us about what that felt like, what that looked like for you. We've become so accustomed here to the winds causing enormous challenges. So when the winds start the Santa into winds, we know that if there's a fire somewhere, it's very volatile. No one knows where it's going to go. So I think everybody it's one of those really interesting things where you know something's coming because they tell you the winds are coming. You don't know where. You don't know if a power line is going to go down. You don't know if somebody in a state of crisis is going to start a fire. You don't know what it is. You just know that everybody's on alert, and you wait for it. And

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I first found out about the actual fires in terms of the severity, because the winds were so severe, they knocked my doors open in my bedroom, and I felt this weird feeling in my chest, and it was just the smoke in the air, and it wasn't smoke anywhere near my place. It was just the air was saturated with so it's on the ground, you know, you you you get up and you live your life, and you do the things you do, but around you is just smoke and you can see flames in the distance. It's a very you know, you know the modern world how we've just we normalize catastrophe. That's what happens here. Now. The tragedy is so many people lost everything, everything, and I don't know how you rebuild from this kind of thing. Well, those intrinsic memories, the minutia of a human life, the things you collect, random things, whether it's a concert ticket. I mean, people talk a lot about always in photo albums. Thank God. We do live in a time where, pretty much in the modern world, our photo albums are in our hands at all times, but the pets, the animals, and I know you're such an animal lover, I mean the displacement, the loss, the people coming to the rescue, the pictures coming out of there. But I thought of you. I thought, Who do I know that's living in LA and you came to mine and rain, maida and Chantal and my friend Sherry Parker and her husband and her kids? I was like, where are they? I think they're in the Pacific. Palisades, and they're not because, of course, I'm texting. I said, is that where you guys live? And she goes, No, we're about eight miles away. But she said it feels like it's next door. She said, we can feel the heat. You can right over here, of just this, you know, sketchy little canyon that I would hike pretty regularly, just caught on fire. One night I was I was walking down the street, and you just see like a little spark, and within five minutes, people are evacuated because it's so dense. And it happens, as you said, Jasper, it happens in a lot of places. The funny thing about LA is, if it isn't the fires, it's the earthquakes. If it's not the earthquakes, it's, we haven't had one in a while, a big one. It's the mudslides. If it's not the mudslides, it's the crime, it's not the crime, it's the cops. There's always something to keep your head on a swivel about in Los Angeles, because, you know, I'll never leave Canada full time. Toronto is still home for me, and I'm here to work, and I love it down here, and I've been working here for 20 years. That's nuts. 20 years. Yeah, modern cities in Canada and the US, this feels like the edge of the earth in many ways, because it has all the things good and bad you can imagine in a city. And just there's the natural disaster component to this that is really, really compelling. And then, you know, capital.

5:00  
In the class war, so insurance companies and people being screwed over, and and power companies, and there's, there's a million things that make it well the present administration too. You know what we've seen in the last two weeks happening, I would imagine, with a very huge migrant population, just kind of the fear and anxiety yesterday was driving and I was heading downtown,

5:22  
and the highways were closed because there was, there was demonstrations, and all of a sudden, and this is not even, I'm going to downplay it. I'm not even exaggerating. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna under I'm gonna lowball the guests, maybe

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700 cops, and 300 cruisers, 400 cruisers, and we're talking about storming and rushing. And, I mean, with protecting property, really not people. And it was very, very intense. And what was it about George? It was about ice and the immigration crackdowns. And, yeah, this is a and, you know, California, the governor of California and the president the United States don't have, at least on paper, a great working relationship. So it's, it's, you know what it's like? It's like growing up in Toronto when the premier didn't really care about the city as much as he cared about the rest of it. Nothing's happened. Nothing has changed up there. I know, I know. Yeah, I know. I know, yeah. It's, heavy on your heart. You know, I quit drinking a long time ago. And one of the ways that I try to keep my brain together, like, 30 years now, is I read a lot of Buddhist stuff. And there's a really great Buddhist, kind of, a punk rock Buddhist recovery session that happens on the Venice every week. And what's been really interesting is just this notion of impermanence that you kind of, you know, beat that in your head quite rightly, and how impermanence is really important and not being attached to things. And I'm not a spiritual guy in any sense, but I find some

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touch points in that kind of, in those in those teachings. Are you quite pragmatic? I'm so pragmatic, okay? And I think you know, having interviewed as many people as I have over the last 30 years, I've been in the heads of a lot of strangers, and you start to get a sense of what life is like, because I didn't just interview celebrities. I interviewed lots of people from all walks of life, and you get a real sense of the patterns of life. And it's hard not to be pragmatic, but it's important to remain

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have a generosity of spirit to the beauty of this kind of little thing that we have for this brief moment that we haven't. And so, like, I'm gonna probably move out of this place, and downside, get smaller, get rid of stuff, like, less attached to things. I just, I think it's time to do that. And I watched a lot of my friends lose everything in the fires, and it was just, what are we doing with all this stuff? We don't I don't need this stuff anymore. I don't need this stuff, yeah, except for my motorcycles. Jen, hey, no one's touching your motorcycle, dude, we're not going near your motorcycle. No, totally. Am I saying a sweatshirt and my horseshit hat I keep Okay, yeah, you know what? These are three very important things. Over to you, Caitlin, because I know you have questions. I'm curious, because you have interviewed so many people. If you were given the opportunity in some capacity to interview Donald Trump, do you think he would take it like, Would you be interested in talking to him in person? Or are you just like, what's the point? We know what he's gonna say?

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I probably would. Yeah. I love that answer. I knew you would say, yes. You know, I understand in our world, there's a lot of there's a lot of the don't platform, this kind of thing, but I'm a grown ass person who's a very experienced conversationalist and have dabbled in journalism. If I can't have a conversation with the President of the United States, then I shouldn't have this job. So I absolutely, I think, I think I would, I also,

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I'm also old enough and punk rock enough and metal, heavy metal, enough to not really care about the outcome. So, but look, I mean, yeah, you have to be able to talk to newsmakers. You have to be able to talk to newsmakers, not just the ones you agree with. And I think that that was, that's something that's really, really important, yeah. I mean, I've interviewed so many, like, I've interviewed the heads of companies who've done terrible things, and you don't find out till later, or you know about their practices, and you have to challenge them on it. And why not? Like, why? Yeah. So I would, yeah, yeah, for sure.

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Yeah. And how do you feel? Like, because you're you're such a big part of the Canadian cultural identity, I feel like as such a long standing media personality, and you do split your time, obviously, between the US and Canada. So how do you feel? How do you feel like straddling both those worlds right now, especially, uh, good question. Yeah,

9:40  
I'm always going to be a Toronto boy no matter where I go. So, and I'm even more specific, I'm a West Side Toronto boy, right? I'm not even I reject the notion of the GTA, right? So I'm a West Side Toronto boy, and I, no matter where I go, that will always be it. But I travel, I follow.

10:00  
The food, so where the good opportunity in the work is, and what I do notice this is something that I've been saying to people in Canada who I know for a long time, when they kind of are a little bit

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maybe destabilized by what's happening here in the US and what happened what is also happening in Canada. Now, it's that this is a really different country, and they're not like us. We're not even like us across the country. So they're not they're not this. It's nowhere near the moderates here, to me, are not moderate at all, and so and because I'm pretty far into one side, and in many respects,

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so it's for me, I straddle it because I grew up really, really, really poor in a really poor immigrant neighborhood in Toronto who always felt like I wasn't a part of the Canada that I had seen represented in the media or even represented when I went to other neighborhoods. So I'm just in the same situation now. I'm obviously in a much more privileged position than I've ever been, and I'm I've survived to this age. I'm in my early 50s now, so I I've got, I've got enough wisdom, hopefully, to know how to be different than I was when I was 17. But I'm never not going to be that kid in a lot of ways. So I feel like I just straddle it now, the way I straddled it then, which is the world is filled with a lot of people who are subject to the whim of of a smaller group of people, and in the Kennedy West thing, I was listening to the hockey game the other last night on the radio here, and I was listening to some really sensitive Canadian broadcaster going on, Don't boo the anthem. It's classless. Stop it. Stop telling people what to do. The people are freaking out. They let them react the way they want. Like, if your anthems are stupid anyway, so like, let's, let's. Like, people are freaking out in Canada, people down here,

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are there? A lot of people are completely in line with the government's position, and a lot of people who are not they're freaking out here too, because everybody's freaking out everywhere and and the other thing that's happened is the powerful have somehow commandeered the consciousness of a lot of people who have been crushed by the system. Anyway, they're not going to get any less crush going forward. So it's all a mess. It's all a mess. The one thing that we can agree on, though, and this is what I you know, I was raised in a very religious home. It clearly not many of not much of that took but the when I was growing up, I was always the one, and people on my side of the argument were always the one raising the alarm bells ringing. I'm saying it's broken. It's broken. It's designed this way. It's broken. It's designed this way, it's got to change. Things are institutional, data, and the people in the liberals and the conservatives, for the longest time, would just dismiss our point of view. Well, now they're also saying it's broken. So we all agree. So this is the first time that we all agree. Now we don't agree on how to get there. We don't agree on the reasons why it's busted or designed this way. We don't agree on any of that stuff. And I don't, I don't subscribe to any party at all, but I now know that everybody can, most people can come to terms with the fact that this ain't working. And yeah, I voted for every party in my life. I have two. I mean, I'm very non partisan in that way. Well, because I do, because we I don't think we think parties represent our values. That's the issue, right? You're never going to hit something 100% and I think this, for me, is why people have become so apathetic about voting. Because, you know, the the conversation comes up constantly about this split. Well, he, you know, he got the popular vote, but, you know, 80 million people didn't vote, so he didn't really get it, and people are just sick of it because they thought both candidates were terrible, so they sat on their hands. Yeah, I don't know if that's a reasonable argument. I think, you know, there's this sort of line that, that the phrase that circles around my circle since I was a little kid, which is that if voting made a difference. They wouldn't let you do it. And so there's a lot of people who don't believe in, yeah, anyway, well, apathy again, right? George. I mean, it's that whole idea of, it's anger, or it's just, it's disenfranchisement. You know, I would say I was part of this coalition here. That was Bernie Sanders initiative, Bernie and Jane Sanders, and it was about tackling the homelessness crisis in the US, specifically in California, where it's very, very, very, very heartbreaking. And what you realize, and it's really important to be reminded of this, is that

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it will always be hard to make things better for people. It will be even harder to make things better for people who are poor,

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because the system works on the backs of poor people in the working class,

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but despite who's in charge, and this is not a way to absolve them of any responsibility, but despite who's in charge, there are so many incredible people on the ground doing grassroots work.

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To try to make things better in the moment and affect systemic change over time. So because I'm very pragmatic, and because I listen to a lot of Clash records, I just think, what's the job I can do right now? How can I can't change the constitution. I'm not an American. I don't want to vote here. I'm not I don't want to be a US citizen. I'm a Canadian. How can I be of service? What do you need me to do? It's very immediate. It's in the moment. It's the guy right there that needs a pair of socks. Yeah, and the other people working on the bigger policy stuff that I'm not involved in, I work on, hopefully long form, long term, systemic stuff with the World Food Program, and I work in Haiti. But so much of modern life, if you're trying to play a role, is triage. You're just trying to deal with the crisis in front of you, as you say, because they're just constantly a crisis in front of you. What do you say to this? Because I get this a lot, it's kind of damned if you damned if you don't when you're like, I work a lot with animal welfare and things like that. And the term that comes up to me constantly, and I just, I do feel violent. I do want to, like, strike out and stick a fork in their kneecap is, oh, you're, you're virtue signaling. Oh yeah, you go to Haiti and you're in the food program and, oh yeah, George, you're, you're doing this, oh, virtue signaling. And this is what, this is what people come up against that do good things, is that, yeah, it's unprecedented, really, because you weren't hearing that kind of language 20 years ago. And what do you do? Do you not respond to that at all? Do you just do you just ignore it? So first and foremost, you have to make sure that you're not virtue signaling, that you're doing the right thing. So if you, if you are unassailable in your intentions and your actions, then it's just words, and I look at that kind of stuff the way I look at turbulence in a plane. I don't love it, but it's not going to stop me from flying to a destination, so I might as well just enjoy the ride and I the other thing too is

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I don't really care

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when what people think about me relative because, because I like my values and I trust them, and I work really hard, and I'm constantly doing the work to be better, a better person. Did you ever care? I think, you know, early on, I think there are set moments in my life where you get a little exhausted with the battering that you get. But I'll tell you this, I never cared enough to stop or to even pause, and I also have this philosophy in life that's served me well so far. Whatever the majority of people are saying, do the opposite. I was interviewed by another Canadian media guy back in the like, a while ago, and he said to me on camera, on air, your career makes no sense. And I said, That's correct. That's a good thing, yeah, and I like that about it. Everybody knew I was going to get fired from Hockey Night Canada, even before they offered me the job, and I took it anyway, knowing it, I didn't care, because why not? I don't I'm not governed by fear, and I'm also not governed by

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the validation of others, especially when I'm trying to make sure that these kids get to go to school. I'm not the savior. I do my part. I am part of a bigger organization, and everybody does their stuff,

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and I'm gonna let some person in who yells at me on the street stop me from trying to get that kid a school meal. Nah, I don't care. And now virtual signaling is real. I've interviewed enough people, celebrities, who, when you start talking to me, realize they don't know anything about the issue they're promoting, and they're doing it for for fame. That being said, if that's why they're doing it and it's helping, cool, but if that's why they're doing it and it's not helping, well, now we have to have a conversation, and so I just, I just kind of roll with it. I'm not going to name names, but years ago, I was privy to a conversation in a production office they were putting together reels for someone who was going to be receiving an award. This is in Canada, and this person, which I won't even say if it's a man or a woman, said to the producer, there was kind of yelling going on in this room beside me, which is what kind of drew my attention to it anyway. And they were saying that they were very unhappy with their real, you know, the real that they show to, kind of the lead up to, and now here they are, and they were saying it just, I don't have enough philanthropic stuff. Like, we need to get philanthropic stuff, or I'm going to look like an idiot and I'm like, Oh God, I just walked out. So I totally understand that that's happening, because there's so many people that are vacant as far as understanding what giving is, what philanthropy, what philanthropy is, what being a helper is, like, they're just doing it because they need to look a certain way. Drives me nuts. Totally. I do not hold celebrities on any I don't put them on any pedestal.

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I admire people who do the work and do great work at what they do. So that's the thing that I that I.

20:00  
Respect. I would say this, the people who criticize people who do good work, often, are the ones who do no work at all. One of the great challenges, ladies, as you know, is trying to be understanding from about everybody's position. So you sit there, you just say, look, the people who are attacking everybody, some of them totally suck. They flat out suck as people. They're gross, they're embarrassing their mom, it's true, sometimes their mom sucks too. But most people, most people in those situations, they're not happy in their own lives. And it's not me to pile on them. It's not me to sit there smiling on a TV channel.

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I don't, I don't see that, you know? Maybe it's because when I was growing up, my family

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put zero value on what any of us did for a living. Zero. There was never, I don't remember being asked what it was going to do for a living. Maybe someone did when I was like 12, but I don't remember it because it wasn't regular. There was no pressure to go to college or university. Nobody in my family, I think, went to university for in my immediate family anyway, up until, like, the most recent cousins, yeah, so my family, the only thing that mattered was,

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do you suck or not? And are you?

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Are you a kind person? Are you a humble like the work was the key. Come from a very blue collar to below the poverty line family and

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nobody cared what any of us did for a living. When my career took off in Canada, think they got a kick out of it. But there was no extra value placed on it. On it, isn't it? So I don't value accomplishments in that way. I don't, you know, and I understand, I can't hold everybody to that standard, but I definitely just believe that the world is filled with people, and some of them are no good, and some of them are great, and some of them are little, and you just, you just got to do your thing anyway. I'm just grateful that my thing is is like this. And I think it's because of the music that I listen to that I care so much about doing stuff like this. And I want to get to that because you have been involved in a music therapy program, and I'd be remiss that we don't ask you about that today a little bit, and if you can speak to that, and, and what's happening with that, and, and, yeah, I'm very, very curious and excited about it. I think music therapy is this really beautiful pursuit, and because it

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exemplifies the things that I think really matter about the social contract, and it flies in the face of the things that I don't matter, that I don't think matter. So a music therapist job, and this isn't the same as saying, oh, music is my therapy, and I love it. It's music in the hands of a trained professional who goes into a room with somebody who is experiencing an enormous difficulty. We're talking about everybody from

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cognitive and physical disabilities to end of life palliative care. So when you're in the hospital room, or in the in the in the room for a few hours, and then you leave, and that person sits alone. I just went through this with somebody I love, and he said, Everybody comes to see me for a couple hours a day, and then I'm alone for 18 waiting to die and

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and a music therapist can unlock something in a human can bring a moment of joy. Can help usher in peace. It is the most tender, beautiful, compassionate way to do this. And where I think it doesn't align with this Instagram weirdo culture that we live in is it's not results based in terms of there's no cure. And this is one of the reasons why politicians, I think, don't really get behind it the way they can because there's nothing to brag about. They can't come out and say this, we fix this problem, because it's not about that. It's just about man. This woman, who has been an incredible member of society for a long time, is in her final months, and somebody showing up there and working with her to unlock some key memories and play some songs and provide peace. And we know sound frequencies help. We know it actually works. Everything is a frequency. And I don't even mean that in a teleminati like rocks have a frequency, trees have a frequency, your shirt has a frequency, exactly. And those things have impact. And so I just love, I just love the work that music therapists do. And it was presented to me that they,

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a, school is expensive, but B, there's no real infrastructure or support for them. Yeah, they should spend more time and more money on that. There's so many things to unlock. I mean, something really interesting. Getting back to the LA fires, they were showing clips of early stages, but putting fires out with sound. It was fascinating, because anyone who's ever been to a rock concert and stood a little too close to the bass bins, way back in the day, there was a tactile response to bass. You could you were really wondering if your freaking heart was beating. It's like, I feel really weird. I can't tell if my heart's beating or if it's the kick drum, and it is this. I.

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Uh, invasive feeling in your body, like sound waves. But anyway, they were hitting these, these, like, I look like a megaphone, and putting out little fires. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, and so if it's going to do that, imagine what it can do,

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right? And, yeah, that's why I got involved with it. We're about to announce the next I don't again, because I'm not really a results oriented guy. Comes to this kind of work, so I don't know how many scholarships we've given over the years, maybe nine or 12 or something like that, but we've got they will do what. So it'll help pay for their education to become music therapists. And there aren't enough, and classes are expensive and or sessions are expensive, so it's just to help somebody become a music therapist. We I love that. I didn't. I didn't know that's what was the focus of it. And that is so cool. We want. I just think we've had a, you know, I want to do my again. I don't. I'm not a rich man, so I'm just paying part of their educations. But you, you do what you can, yeah, and I do love what we're and this is where it's this is the paradox of me.

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Sorry, Caitlin and Jen, I love my life beautiful, and my sports and music toxic. So i i To me a lovelier, kinder world. And I don't I'm not out there saying, oh, you should do this. I don't care, man, do your thing. Whatever. This is what I'm going to do. And I try to lead by example. And then now for me, my when I want to connect to music that makes me feel better, it's the least pleasant music on the planet. That's what, that's what makes me feel better. But I listen, they played rock and roll like acid, punk, thrashing music to plants. Yep, they get an experiment to see if they would grow better with classical music. And so they played two groups. I think it was freaking tomato plants or something. There was no difference. The tomato plants liked thrash and ska and fucking metal and the tomato and the other ones that were listening to like Rachmaninoff, they nobody went like, holy shit, that's that's bad. We're gonna die on the vine. Nothing like that happened, and they really were convinced that it would. I've, I've seen, I've seen really aggressive music, change water, model molecules, but I don't always think it's to your point. I think it's, could be a good thing too. What I have done, and I loved this part of it, maybe it's just for myself more than the peppers. But if I'm growing peppers, hot peppers, I will put this planter beside speakers, and I will blare the most aggressive satanic music on the speaker on the peppers, in hopes I'll make them just a little bit more evil so that when I put them on this is not a science based show. I do not recommend that you try this at home if you're living in a shared wall situation. I definitely do that. I'm

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gonna turn over to Sarah because we have some really cool questions from our listeners that knew that you were coming on the show today. Our Patreon folks. Patreon folks, yes. Are only jams. We call them only Jans. Do you know that I bought the URL and I wanted to make a website called only hands, and it's just my hands fixing engines and motorcycles, and the other one is only snouts, and it's just dogs and horses noses, because I love I would sign up for that. I would probably sign up for something that did unboxing too. So maybe the only hands could be, you know, linked to that somehow I'm good with a knife, I can, you know, rip stuff open. Why not? Yeah, maybe we need to get the URL. I'm like, shoot. We haven't thought of that yet. Okay, So Kim, wanted to know if you went to the fire aid concert, or knew anyone who was involved. I had a couple friends performing at the fire rate concert you did, you know? Well, just, you know, I've been lucky enough to interview people for so long. Bands that I first interviewed in the 90s are playing. I didn't go. And if I'm being honest, it's because I totally forgot it was happening. I was, I was working on my film, so I was working on my movie, and I was just doing it. And then I did a live stream afterwards, and someone said, Oh, you had fire eight, and I went totally forgot it happened, because I got so locked in the creative process that I don't even know about one of the reasons I'm going to move from this house, I think, is because I never leave it, and I'm so locked inside, I've become even more isolated than I've ever been. And I'm a pretty self isolating guy to begin with. So I should have gone to fire aid, but I didn't. Linda, wanted to know your worst interview with a celebrity, and then also your most favorite interview. I don't want to name the person I interviewed, but I remember. I remember the conversation going so badly, and what blew my mind was how unaware this person was of how badly it went. Okay, that at the end of it, they said to me, Oh, that was pretty good.

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And I looked at them and I said, if that's a good interview to you, the other journalists hang themselves.

29:56  
That's what I said. That's what I said to him, I will now. What so we.

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Aired is that it aired and it went, you know, I'm pretty good at conflict, so I don't want it, but if something happens, I can roll so they do well online. And what, what? I bumped into this cat years later, and he's like, Hey, as if nothing happened.

30:16  
I kind of respected that sort of goldfish memory.

30:19  
So I definitely, I remember interviewing a band once earlier, when I was at much music, and I would think I'd only been on television for about a year and a half, and I they were very tired. Probably weren't. They probably were slightly altered. They were leaning up against the wall, and the talkative one in the band was on the phone outside of the camera, it was Jim Cody. Wasn't the sweetest, right? The thing I love about Jim is, you can, you can, he'll challenge you back. So you always feel like it's a real conversation. Anybody so lovely? No, this band. I could hear the guy yelling, oh, he was. It was a British band to his partner, and they were yelling at each other and at the I could the interview started with the two other people, and I can hear his relationship end. They broke up, and he walked into the camera, and the interview just it was

31:13  
right down, right, right. It was so I remember that interview being painful, as I knew in my career too, so I hadn't quite figured out how to handle, yeah, conflict, the battles, that kind of battle, and so that was it. The best ones are.

31:31  
I know that's hard to pick, but yeah, it is. You know, you are one of the best people that ever interviewed me in my in my career, on the red chair, people who regularly talk to me. Thank you. They regularly bring up our interviews together. They regularly, they'll talk to me about you. People obviously love you, and you know that, but they, I think they liked our thing too, the way we could be, we could be playful with each other. Honestly, I really want you to take that in, because I've been interviewed 1000s and 1000s of times, and the majority of them are kind of in the middle. Yeah, there's certainly some that are just not good at all, like you said, and, but some of them, and you are exemplary. You really are extremely good at it's almost nerve wracking talking with someone like you. But I, we do have a personal relationship, so I know be well enough to kind of feel relaxed and that we don't have to, I don't have to do like a biopic of your life, and, and, and, you know, get it right. I know we can talk about real things so but yeah, you're exceptional. What you do those red chair interviews, and the way you'd sit forward, and it was intense, like it was it was funny and intense. The audiences were so alive, like it was electric. It was such a unique time. We really cultivated a place where, even though you are the star, you weren't the star, and I wasn't the star, the star didn't feel that way. It was the relationship, the space that we can, we can kind of create that would connect to somebody at home or in the audience who's not having a great day. We'd have people that would come to this show every day for a month, and at the end of the month, they would say they're going through a really tough time. They're really alone, and they would just come to the red chair show, just to hang around and and that's what I always valued in in that kind of thing. The secret for me is to any good interview is when you find somebody, and I found this with you, when you find somebody who understands that our job as human beings is the same as our job in this moment, which is to be so real that somebody at home their hearts broken or repaired because of the thing we did. We don't and we do it. We you know, we're two jokes and stuff. So not everything is that, but it really is about this deep human connection, and that's maybe just my strength and my weakness in life is that I'm I actually care. And once the show started, the TV went away, like I actually cared about, Hey, how can we? And I knew that, you know, like Margaret Atwood, for example. To me, that was a good one. You talked to her a few times, yeah, and I knew she was always gonna bring her quirkiness, and I knew that Margaret was always gonna keep me on my toes, and would always do one thing, that in the 120,000

34:17  
whatever, 70,000 plus words, including the ones we no longer use words in the English language. I knew that Margaret was going to put seven in a particular order in a way that I would never have comprehended. I would be stunned by it. But, you know, again, that leaning thing that I would do a lot of it was 50% of it, I would say, is because I was just so casual. And I, like I said, I forgot that I was on TV. The other part, especially when I would lean back or lean hard on my left arm, was because I had had so many concussions that my post concussion syndrome when I was doing that show was because I had all these bright lights on me every day, my dizzy all the time, and so I was always meaning. And there were times during the show where I could feel i.

35:00  
Could feel the wave rushing up, and my whole thing was, because I'm old school, Gen X never let them see a sweat. So it's like, Don't pass out on the air. So a lot of the times I was, don't that's a that's a good tip for all up and comers that are thinking of going into any kind of television journalism or newscasting, don't pass out on air. You will end up in a blooper fucking reel that will play indefinitely on YouTube. We've got time for a couple more questions from our Patreon only Jans, because I'd love for them to get a few more questions in with only two, only two quickies. Okay, so Terry, would like to ask your most rewarding experience, even if it's not on camera. And who inspires you now?

35:47  
That's tough. Yeah, they're not going, you know, my uncle just passed and I thank you. Thank you. He's the guy that really taught me music as a kid. He's like, the, he's like, the rock I remember you talking about, right? Yeah, I didn't have. I didn't have. I didn't grow up with a father, so my uncle was like the guy, and I,

36:08  
I think a lot about him now, as one would when you go through that about

36:13  
what a crystal clear, simple set of values can do on your in your day to day, and we will tie ourselves into knots trying to rationalize and make decisions to do things that we inherently know we don't want to or shouldn't. So I'm, I'm inspired a lot by that. I read Bruce Lee books all the time, like striking thoughts, so I get a lot of, you know, inspiration that way. The other side of me is I love the killer instinct of Michael Jordan, and I watched those old interview clips, and I love it. So that's the opposite of my uncle.

36:47  
But my most memorable moments I

36:52  
I was just in Greenland, but no, I was in, well, so Greenland in Syria. So a year apart, I was in, I was in Syria, walking in the old city of Damascus. Wow, your life. It was so, so so lucky. The cameras weren't rolling. And some guy who was who ran like a little shop, I mean, I my my grandfather, my grandmother, my dad from that area. They're from Egypt, right? So, and Gen three generations, I think, in Egypt. So

37:25  
he just looked at me and he said, What's your ethnicity? I said, you know, Greek, this and that, whatever, Ukrainian. And he said, Here, sit down. So I would just sit down and have coffee every day with this older man in this alley with all the stray cats. And we would just talk about life and politics, and there were no cameras, and it was just two grown ups

37:44  
talking and listening. I remember thinking about or being aware of it in the moment, just how lovely it is to be connected to a completely different world, uh, world views and completely different perspectives on the world. And then recently, when I was in Greenland, I I hopped in a kayak, and I kayaked out to the icebergs and just floating out there, kayaking by these big icebergs. So great. Yeah, it was about as peaceful as I think I've been in a long I've got, I'm a bit of a warning. Could it not be? Yeah, you know, we were talking about music therapy earlier, and the vibrations, the healing quality aspect to music, and that's science. We know that low frequency music and sounds, yeah, heals human cells like it does something to us. Joanna, can I tell you one thing about music that I do? So yes, I have these concerts in my home in Toronto, these houses drama shows. And I would have everybody from John Prine and the cult to play a concert Robert plan has come in, the guys. It's just it was so but, but my I loved all of that. But my favorite part was I on my kitchen table, because it's just, like, not that big a place. I put on my kitchen tables. This the mixing board, and I have full club, full venue, pas and base and base bins in the living room at the main area. So I would, oh, God, I I would be by myself, and then, you know, somebody would come over, like, later at night, but I would be in the house. And I live in an area in Toronto that doesn't have a noise ordinance, so I can technically do what I want. So I would play the gnarliest polish, blackened death metal you can imagine out of and here's what I was trying to do. I was getting it so loud that I was getting my chest to feel what you were talking about earlier, Jan, and I was trying to see what is the threshold wherein I would either pass out or throw up from the aggression. And you wonder why I live alone, right? So I because it was science. I thought, okay, what can I do in the play?

40:00  
Did that go?

40:02  
I got it? Well, here's what happened. There was a friend of mine. She came over that night, and I didn't hear her come in because it was so loud, but it was the first time that I saw a panic on another human's face when they saw in my home, when I saw it, they walked in, and they were just what's good? Because it was so loud, you could feel everything, and I was trembling, just like I was Scotty. It's just not. Can't take much more of this. I was

40:32  
making up, Captain, what I was trying to do with the volume, because I love, as you know, I love all music, but I really love really thundering. There's a band right now I'm listening to called the blood mountain black metal choir, and it's all centered in the Appalachian Mountains. And it's ostensibly about how the Appalachian people in the region have been abandoned or compromised by churches and governments and the economy. And it's part of this thing called the Anti Fascist black metal network, which makes me, I think it's great, but this guy, it's a one person, one man who did, played all the instruments, does everything, and it is the most thunderous music I've heard in a long time, but also kind of beautiful and a little folky. And it's just demos that I heard, and I listened to that at a volume that is ungodly, and I feel good. Appalachian. Dave Grohl,

41:27  
okay, this is the last quickie that is actually quick a woman named Kim horn says she thinks she went to high school with you, and she would love you to confirm what high school you attended, if you were comfortable. I went to a school called her. Name is not familiar. I went to a school called and check this name out, ascension of Our Lord Catholic eyes. And okay, well, we'll let her write us if it's but you might have maybe my grade school, which was our lady of the airways, because I grew up under the flight path at Pearson airways. That's when I moved from Rex del we went to. So I went to Our Lady of the airways, and then but Kim horn sounds familiar to me. That name sounds familiar. Okay, well, we you might have made someone really happy today. George strombolopoulos, I just can't even tell you how grateful we are to hear your stories. And I could literally talk to you for 40 days and 40 nights. But I'm really proud of you. I'm proud of your character, and I wish we had 2 million of you wandering the planet right now. Are you so kind? But you know, you've always been there for us too, to come on the show and and you leave us with a lot of wisdom and a lot of things to consider. So thanks for that, and I hope you continue to thrive and prosper, and please be safe down there. And, oh, those winds. Oh the wind. Yeah, the winds right now. But the good news is, it's rain, so when the rains come, we're like, Great, let's put all the fires out.

42:43  
What's crazy about that? That is, I would just start in January, so there's still a long year ahead. Yeah, but I really appreciate spending time with you and having conversations like this and in your only Jans, which I think amazing. That's Caitlin tell us when we can hear you on Apple Music too. Yeah. So, so we go live on Tuesdays at 5pm Pacific, eight Eastern. But the show is on demand right away, so you can listen whenever you want. It's strombo, the YouTube channel. I work on the strombo show. That's my that's where I'm posting a lot of stuff, and I love that. That's the strombo show. We're gonna have all those in the show notes. We'll have all the links to everything that you've ever done, including what kind of underpants you wear, assuming I wear them. Yeah, you want people say the same thing about me. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. It depends what kind of pants I'm wearing,

43:27  
and judge me, if you will. But I don't like wearing underpants when I'm traveling. I throw my No, I throw my jeans on stories you told about incidents on airplanes with bodily functions

43:38  
before this. This is the new me now. Okay, okay. Once in a while I just, I just have my jeans on. I'm very clean and, you know, all that stuff, but I'm there's something about sitting in the seat. Can someone please agree with me sitting in the seat and I don't want to be pulling underpants out of my arse hole. I Oh, well, I don't wear the kind of I wear boxer boots. I don't have that issue. Well, I wish I could wear boxer briefs. That's too gay for me. That's too Yes, the only time I don't wear them is when I'm

44:11  
at Burning Man. And that's a completely different life, because you don't want to have to give them up to someone. Well, thank you for saying that. Because the plane is my Burning Man, that's all I'm going to say,

44:23  
your Air Canada flights are his Burning Man, okay, by the way, anytime somebody boards a flight now and walks past you on the aisle, yeah, they're gonna know you're free balling on that plane and and it's,

44:38  
Well, I can't take it back now, can I?

44:43  
I love you, and I'm going to be cheering you on if you ever, ever have anything that you want to plug tout, cheer on, champion. You know where to stop in and say us, but our listeners will be thrilled with your questions. We will see you next time and you.

45:00  
Yeah, maybe I'll get to go on a motorcycle ride one of these days. Let's do the voice of Jesus in my head. Let's do that. Caitlin, sir, Jen, thank you. I appreciate you all. Thank you. Thanks, George.

45:19  
Welcome back to the Jen harden Podcast. I'm here with Caitlin and Sarah. We just had George donbalopoulos on the show. And what a what a guy he is like. That sounds so corny to say, what a guy, but he's just, I wish there was more men like him. You know, he likes motorcycles and rock and roll, but he's so tender and sensitive, and he's a feminist, and he's a helper, and he's all the things. And I think he really should be the voice of Jesus. If Jesus had a podcast, I feel like I would listen to George anyway. Personal to me this past week, one of my inner circle friends, my friend Lisa, and I talk about Lisa and Bev a lot. They're dear heart, friends of mine. I've known them for a long, long time. Bev, I've known for 35 years, maybe even longer. And they came for dinner, as they often do, and I pick a really bad movie off of movie or something like that. It's a great app, by the way, M, U, B, I very good $14 that I spend every month. Crazy international films. I digress. Lisa sat down. We were everything was normal, like, how's work? Button, I'm getting food ready and and all of a sudden she she goes, I need to talk to you. I need you to sit down. The feeling that went through my body, the look on her face, and I knew immediately, this was an old joke. There was nothing

46:37  
funny or casual. I felt nauseous instantly. I felt like my legs were weak, and I sat down in a chair where I usually always sit, and Lisa grabbed my hand.

46:49  
I thought one of her kids had died. All three of her children are having babies right now, two sons, two weeks apart, and her daughter is coming up in March. And I know so many of you listening have gone through these moments so many of you. And she just said, I have something to tell you. And I felt like, Am I in my body? Like, am I floating outside of it? She goes, I have breast cancer, and she walked me through. And I know, in a world full of cancers, that that is one that is very manageable in this modern world. Tons of success with it. Treatments have changed amazingly. Even over the last 18 months, people have told me, Oh God, they wouldn't. If I had this today, they wouldn't, not have given me what they gave me a year and a half ago. Anyway, just the look on her little face, she immediately quit her job. She took an indefinite leave. She goes, Jan, I didn't think about it. Yeah, I have grandchildren. I have children. She goes, my job. I will be fine. You know, they're obviously, thank God. She has a job that's supporting her and paying her out. I think she has six or seven months with this type of illness because of her insurance, yada yada. But I just so curious how people, you know, deal with stuff like that. And I think I've known lots of people with cancer in my life. You know that I lost Allison, my dear friend, just over a year ago, my band mate that I worked with for decades, and that just kind of went in my mind and and just the fear, and then you want to be like, and I wrote this in Facebook a few days afterwards, which Lisa has absolutely read. I just, there's a moment where you're like, Thank God, it's not me. And then there's a moment like, Oh God, I wish it was me. Like, it's you're just, you're everywhere. You're everywhere. And these things happen simultaneously,

48:38  
at once, like, you want to take everything away from them. You want to like, I'll take it like, I'll carry it like you don't. It's just what you do. It's what you do when you love somebody you want to just fix it and take it on. But, you know, she said we've known, you know, for like, two and a half weeks, but we didn't want to tell you before you went on the press junket, so all the friend group has just been tight lipped. Meanwhile I'm out there, and then I and then when I did this, and then this one time I and meanwhile they're just sitting waiting for me to get home. But that's the kind of friends that I have, and the kind of people that I know they didn't want me to be carrying anything that would take away from, yeah, you know the work that I needed to do, the empath in you. But Lisa is in a holding pattern, as many people are when they get a diagnosis. There's a huge it's like that gap between Christmas and New Year's what is it? What is that gap? Nobody really knows. There are a variety of names for it and why. The only one that's coming to mind for me is X rated. I don't know.

49:40  
So here she is just in a holding pattern, waiting for the pathology to come back. Because they grow these cultures. They take biopsies from all over the place, lymph nodes everywhere. And her physician, her oncologist, said, listen, we're putting your team together. There's nothing that's going to happen for the next two or three weeks, nothing you're not going to bump.

50:00  
Somebody off a waiting list, nothing like that. Go, take your trip. Because she was flying to Amsterdam to see the one grand baby. Then she was flying to South Africa to see the other grand baby, and then she was going to come home, and this was going to be a month long trip. Well, she's only going for two weeks. Her doctor said, Go, enjoy yourself. Have a great time. Eat food. You know, this has been there for at least a year because she had a mammogram. Get mammograms, get mammograms. Touch your boobs. Feel around every day in the shower. Don't be shy, don't feel weird. Just grab your boobs and feel your boobs because you have a bar in which to measure where you're at. I do it every day in the shower, I just feel around anyway. So she's waiting to see how they're going to treat it. She is talking about it on social media. She and to all her friends. If you're a bit squeamish, you might want to mute me from your feed like she was very good about that. But if not, I'm going to share what I feel like I can share if it helps other people. I love that when people are far more worried about how their friends are going to feel and how their loved ones are going to feel than they are. She goes, I'm not I can deal with this, but I don't want you guys to be hurt and sad. And we went out for dinner last night and talked about it some more. So I feel better. I feel confident. I had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of comments on my Facebook of people that have one year survivors, five year survivors, 34 year survivors, and people that you know haven't survived. Obviously, I lost my mom in 1977 but it was very different then. Yeah, anyway, so that's what I wanted to talk to you guys about, is just, I think I'm doing okay now. But at first it was just like, I hate hearing bad news. Oh my gosh. Well. And also too, like, I find everyone has like, I think these types of things bring up so many different feelings for different people based on, like, their own experiences, or just sort of how your brain is wired. My brain is wired that I can't stand waiting for things like the waiting, the limbo of it all, is very distressing for me. So that's the piece. Like, I have a lot of friends who've gone through every experience with cancer under the sun, you know, friends who that when they were initially given their diagnosis, they were given, like, months to live, and thank God they've been here for, you know, six or seven years, everything, all every spectrum of experience. And most people do because, like, cancer touches so many. So when you when you first get that news, like, when you just started talking Jan, like, even for me, I was like, Oh, my anxiety just spiked. Because you get that, like, second hand anxiety, because, you know, you know what that person's going through, you know what their family's going through, you know the conversations they've had. I can imagine being sitting with them in the doctor's office, like, it just, it's so highly emotional. It brings up so many things for so many people, and you're just gonna run through the full gamut of all of it. It's a real cycle of emotions. And the only thing I find is that I'm like, when those emotions pop up for me, I can't Stomp them out. Like, I have to really try to, like, if it's like a flower that pops up like a sad, stressed out flower, I really do have to, like, let it pop up and deal with it, because when I used to, just when I was younger, swatted away or try to keep myself busy or distract myself with something else, or watch something funny like it would not help me. It would make it worse. I think I just don't think I was dealing with it that well. And then over the over the years, I'm like, no, no, I have to, like, let myself feel sad today about this. Oh, it's a lot. I feel so terrible for your friend, but like you, I remain hopeful. I am like, ultimately, like a hopeful person. I mean, what you said about cancer somehow touching just about everyone, everyone in some way, that everyone has an experience. And I mean, our Patreon shows us no difference. Like we have people talking about surviving it, people they've lost from it, and people just sending good thoughts. We have a lot, we have a lot of comments. You want to hear something? Yeah, please. I'd love to hear what people are thinking. I can't even tell you how much the feedback on the Patreon page and you know, social media of just people cheering you on makes a difference. So Deborah, I'm going to start with this one. She says, I just passed the 10 year anniversary of my bilateral mastectomy. Spoiler alert, life is really good. Now my diagnosis came a couple of years after a surprise to me divorce, after 24 years of marriage and after having gone through that cancer, while scary, wasn't debilitating. The worst part was telling my children, who were at the time, 18 and 23 and my mother and sister, who were both widowed by cancer, I took a more extreme route of the bilateral mastectomy to avoid chemo and radiation, and that was successful. I was on tamoxifen for five years, which was tough, but yeah, me too, nothing like chemo or radio radiation and yes, to help the cells by rejuvenating it. Yes, fucking spreading somewhere, right? Yeah, I heard that my advice, don't keep it a secret, especially from those who are close to you. Most of them will step up and help tell anyone you need to tell your children and that it's not anyone's fault if it is breast cancer, ignore the patriarchal messaging around preserving your breasts and do what you think is right. I stayed flat and have a fabulous.

55:00  
Laboratory chest tattoo, plus no need for two bras when going for a run. That part is an interesting take on it too, the sexuality of breasts, the life giving force of breast. Well, I had a very close girlfriend preemptively have hers removed. Yeah, this was this past summer, and so she lost her father to cancer, and she had tested positive for, like, the more aggressive genetic form for cancer, yeah. And she just said, like, I just can't live with the, I can't live with the questioning of it, all right? And I felt very similarly minded when she had made that decision. I was like, you know, it's a really hard decision to make, and one you just don't ever imagine yourself having to but I don't think I could have either waited. Like, I really sympathize with her. So she had the removal. She was at, like, the morning that our, one of our friends, drove her to, like, help drive her to the doctor. And, like, the morning of, she's like, Am I making a mistake? Like, right down to the wire. And the second that she she had said, the second, like, I woke up and the surgery was over, I was like, this is incredible. I feel incredible. I feel freed from this. She had reconstructive surgery. Like she opted for reconstructive surgery. She's really healthy, really happy with her decision. And so, yeah, there's so many different experiences, but that was her. That was a big struggle for her, this sort of like patriarchal sexualization of breast, I'm sure, beauty standards, all that stuff. And let's remember our friends, Carmen, Casey, the nipple sisters, yes, and they have their whole brand rolled out now, skins official for survivors, where they can, you know, you would never know with like areola,

56:32  
what their business is, just briefly, basically their advanced skin healing and areola restoration support products and tattooing if you have had reconstructive surgery, the nipples go away. You they don't save any tissue that had cancer cells. So they do tattoo very life. So life like tattoos, dimensional, and they have stickers. So that's their everyone has different nipples, yeah. So different colors, different sizes and preferences. So that's what that's what they do. It's really, really, really fascinating. Since we're talking so much about both breasts and cancer, in this episode, we'll have, I'll put the link in show notes. Please do a couple more here. Okay? Karen Murray, I am far enough from my own cancer diagnosis that I can open up and share. I was in my 30s and thought that I had the world by the tail, until I heard those three little words, you have cancer. It was horrendous. I have no idea how I even drove home that day. Then the marathon starts. There's tons of tests and reality hits. The tumor was huge. It spread to the nodes. I would need aggressive chemo to even hope of shrinking the tumor enough to get clean margins so they could remove it. There were months and months of all of that, only to have the cancer return and more surgery, more scans, just when I thought I could stop and catch my breath, the Grim Reaper was chasing me. It was not an easy road, and every time I caught a break, it didn't last long. But the one thing I wanted most in life was my family. I wanted a child, and I would have given anything to be a mom. Cancer had other plans. I did have amazing friends along the way. No one truly understands what it's like to have your friends. Here I am here because of my friends. Here's like a couple advice pieces. There's actually a huge message from her. You can read the rest in Patreon, yes. But she says, listen to your body. It is okay to not be okay. Let people help you. It is okay to accept help. I know you know, a lot of people have trouble accepting help. If your friend has cancer, be a great friend. Make a meal, do a load of laundry, offer to grab groceries child care. Offer to schlep the kids home from school. That was a huge help, or just simply come to chemo with me. Offer a blanket. Those places are really cold, apparently. Well, thank you so much for that message. There's a lot of them in there, so take a look when you get a sec. I love the community, the community of it. And Sarah, you had a scare with your dad, if you don't mind me bringing that up, and that was really scary. I was scared for you. It's like, Caitlin said, I felt anxious for you. I'm like, Oh God, here we go. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's funny, when you were just starting to tell us the story on the podcast today, the moment where you're leading up, where you're like, yeah, she's saying, I need you to sit down for this. I was reliving that whole thing as you were talking like, I got the lump in my throat, my eyes welled up, and you're like, what, what, what, what's happening? Like, that is the worst five minutes, and it's not even me going through it, it's somebody else. And the three weeks at the beginning where they're like, scheduling tests, and you don't know how far along it is, or how bad it is, or what's going to happen next? The limb waiting. Oh, terrible. There was a point, even after my dad, you know, had great news that it hadn't spread, everything got taken out and he didn't have to go on chemo. That like, as I'm talking to people who have been through worse scenarios, I'm thinking, Oh, I feel like guilty that. Like, that's weird. Why don't it's, it's a, I think there's a new emotion. I don't know what the word is for it. We need to think about what it is. When I was saying, glad it's not me, wish it was me. Whatever that is, it's the wackiest, and that the guilt and the anyway, Lisa was really good about it, because I said that.

1:00:00  
I said the words to her, I thought I need to say it to her, because I feel like, if this rattles around in my body, I'm just going to feel like not a true friend, and I want to be real about this. And but, you know, her kids are being great, like her oldest son in South Africa. They're just waiting to have their baby. He's just like my mom has been held up by by gunpoint in Africa and carjacked, and my little sister is thrown out of the window in a car seat like, that's this friend, like Lisa has been. You know, when she was she was a young woman, she was told that she had a life threatening disease. She has a very, very rare clotting disorder that she got from her grandmother and her mother. Her daughter does not have it. It did not pass through her but and her sons don't either. But Lisa said, I have dealt with the idea of my mortality since I was 1817, years old. And she really says this is such a challenge. And she's like, I don't know what's gonna happen with work. I don't even know if I'll go back. I just knew. She said the decision was made the next day. I'm done. Yeah, she just went into her office. I need to leave. I am making decisions for an entire town. I cannot do that right now. I'm doing so. I love the fact that she's being very selfish about her space. And that's not the right word, sorry. It's not the right word, but, but I just, I love the decisions she's making for herself already. Of I am first and foremost, my priority, or her kids are her priority. But, yeah, anyway, yeah, I think it's going to be a really interesting journey. We are Lisa and Bev, my friend Leah, who I've worked with on we work together a lot, Lee and I the Jan show and but we're going on the Christmas cruise, November the 29th scenic cruises. Okay, I think it's sold out. So don't blame me, because I think it's sold out very quickly. But Lisa and Bever company, and Lisa's like, I'm gonna be on that effing cruise. What happens? I'm gonna be there, right? No time to have any boobs, but I'm going to be there,

1:02:03  
you know? But I think the one with the accent that you always do, oh, yeah, Jen, I'm telling you, what are we going to do? It's I'm getting the South African thing down. Yeah,

1:02:14  
Jen, we are the losers. Bev and I are the losers. We're not getting chicken in a pot anymore. You're not making a chicken in the pot. Now we're getting tofu in a pot. What is happening? What is happening?

1:02:26  
We are the losers. We are not. We're not completely happy about what is am I doing that pretty good. I'm gonna send you this clip for you to send her. Okay, okay,

1:02:36  
we have a couple of voice notes on a variety of topics. Let's do it all right, starting us off.

1:02:43  
This is from Jennifer, I believe. Hi, Jan Caitlin and Sarah. I have to tell you a little anecdote. When I was talking about you with my daughter, she was trying to figure out who I meant by Jan Arden, and she went, Oh yeah, it's that religious singer you listen to. I'm not sure where she got that from. I guess you do tend to mention God now and then in your songs. And now you've gone and recorded one of us, and there's gonna be no convincing her that you're nothing but a religious singer. Loving, loving, loving, mixtape. All the best. Have a great week. Oh, that was nice. Oh, the religious singer. Well, I've been called worse. Hey, Jan Caitlin and Sarah. I just listened to your January 31 podcast regarding middle children. I've often heard that middle children tend to be the peacemakers, the quiet negotiators, and this is certainly true for my own three sons. However, I never, ever felt that it held true for myself. I'm the third child of four from a farming family in Quebec. I know by hearing stories and from my own memories that I was, hands down, the loudest, biggest attention seeker of the four of us, as one of you did mention, though on the podcast, I do remember feeling lost in the crowd and the busyness of the large farm. Interestingly, I don't believe that I play that role any longer. Once I went out and created my own family, it became much less about me. Thanks so much for producing such a great podcast. I enjoy listening to you guys all the time on my walks. And Jen, I do share something in common with you. My father died of Alzheimer's, so when you mention your mom, that means a lot to me, because I can definitely relate. Totally do. Thank you. I love it totally do. Hi, ladies. This is Robin from honey towers, California. I just want to say I love your show, and I look forward to it every week.

1:04:48  
I had been diagnosed with breast cancer in June and had a double mastectomy in August, which it was very life changing. Obviously,

1:04:58  
I lost my sister in 2018

1:05:00  
And after a long battle same type of breast cancer, and I just want to say having a warrior attitude and having strong, positive people around me has helped the most, and when I was around my sister, I tried to stay as positive as possible. So I'm sorry to hear about your dad, Sarah and your friend Jan, but try and stay strong for them and to fight on. And thanks again. I love your show. Stay, well, stay. Well, we're thinking about you too. Yeah, we're thinking about you. Like we said earlier. I don't think there's anyone that hasn't been touched by this, and it doesn't have to be cancer. There's lots of things. There's so much als that has surfaced in multiple sclerosis, any kind, anytime you get a diagnosis, you know, Caitlin yourself went through a very tragic time with the loss of Sam, yeah, you know, a few years ago, and obviously happier times with our young will, who's entertaining us to no fucking end. This kid knows no bounds. He is so edible. I just I see him, and I see Kyle, and I see you, and I see strength. I see resilience, and I see you know that

1:06:05  
that whole idea of being human

1:06:08  
and these things happening to us. Kate baller, you come in our minds so much because your wisdom is so so pervasive in all our lives. The three of us, women on this podcast of not everything happens for a reason, but that's you guys are always a reminder to me. You know that you will laugh again, you will find your feet, you will persevere, and no matter what happens, you're going to be okay. We're humans making our way. We're all climbing onto the same raft. And I think sometimes we lose sight of that, whatever your leanings are, in this tumultuous political climate, we're all climbing on the same raft. Yeah, speaking to you know that particular voice note saying to stay strong for your friends, it's such a it's like it was very valuable to me to try to find people who had been through crazy experiences, like Kate bowler, but also like Dr Edith eager. So if anyone's kind of like looking for some inner strength, I really, I recommend her books to everybody, all the time. She's so good. So she has a book called the choice and the gift, and I read through both, or just listen to her on podcast. If you're like, I don't have a whole book in me, listen to her, pod her on podcast. She's just a wealth of kind of, like fortitude and support and great perspective. I cannot recommend her. I'm gonna, I'm gonna do that. She's, I feel like I want to be the best possible version of myself for Lisa and for Bev. Bev is

1:07:34  
Bev and Lisa are not together. They're not they were both married. Bev is divorced with two sons, Lisa's got her three kids, and when they were looking for house, I'm sure I've told you guys this story, this is years ago, and they just as single fucking women out of relationships, could not afford a house in Calgary. So Cochrane came a call, and it's like a 30 minute drive out of the core. And they did it together, and they were, they got in on the bottom of the build. So the build was halfway done. So they picked two en suites.

1:08:07  
You know, Bev wanted the shower, blah, blah, I think Lisa wanted to. Anyway, it's two complete en suites. They have, like, a two and then they have a common living room, kitchen. The basement got refinished, so there's another bedroom down there and a TV. Anyway, they don't, they're not together. I've totally stopped even telling people because I can't. The other day, like, we Bev and I walked out of the house basically dressed identical, like I'm just, I'm giving up.

1:08:35  
But they have really good neighbors that, you know, eventually they're explaining, no, we're not together. We're just so anyway, I'm really thinking about Bev in this too, because, you know, she's on the she's on the front line, so I want to make sure that I'm running around and helping Bev too, because she's Yeah. So anyway, that's, that's our show, and thanks for listening. We run the gamut today of our really great guest, George strombo. I'm not even going to say his whole last name anymore. It's too laborious. We have got Patreon extra content coming up after this, and we've got a few things to talk about. I'll tell you what a little tease here. We are definitely going to be talking about anxiety a little bit, but just the anxiety with what's happening politically. And I know swore we weren't going to do that, but the conversation that I cannot stop having with everyone that I meet is about what's happening and what has happened in the first two weeks. And, you know, we've suddenly, in the last couple of weeks, got our flag back from the convoy truckers. So it was kind of a tablet thing. I wouldn't have flown a flag in my driveway. I wouldn't have because I just feel like my neighbors would have thought, Oh, she's one of those. And that's the reality of what happened. We've got our flag back. So cool anyway, buying Canadian all those things we want to talk about that I've become viral on Tiktok,

1:09:53  
having to give up Diet Coke. So you don't want to miss that conversation. You've been listening to the Jan Arden podcast as always. Caitlin green, Sarah Burke.

1:10:00  
We'll see you next time toodleedoo