RIP Dolly - Icon #8 Dolly Parton: WWDD? (rebroadcast) - The Daily Zeitgeist

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, the internet. It me, Jack. I wanted to rerun
this Dolly Parton iconograph from earlier this year on the
occasion of her passing. Obviously a huge loss. It's a
bigger loss than I would have realized had we not
done this episode. So I wanted to give people another

(00:21):
chance to listen to it. I talk on these icon
episodes about how these icons are our modern day deities
and like our Greek gods. And even if you're not
buying that, even sane people talk about how celebrities are
larger than life. All of which is getting at something
about the relationship between these icons and our shared consciousness

(00:44):
and unconsciousness that I think Dolly Parton takes to a
new level. Like whatever the weird connection is between our
celebrity icons that future historians will study in Marvel, I
think is most true of Dolly Parton. I've heard her

(01:05):
described as the one truly sainted modern celebrity. And I
remember when we first started doing TDZ in 2017, we
had a segment called Bloid Watch, where we would check
in with what was on the front pages of grocery
store tabloids. And we ended up having to basically abandon

(01:29):
that segment because it was kind of always the same
stuff over and over that they were obsessed with. And
one of the handful of things that they were always
covering that I thought at the time was weirdly specific
before doing this episode, one of the things they were
obsessed with was Dolly Parton's health and Dolly Parton's impending death.

(01:50):
Nine years too early. The death wasn't even that impending.
They just kind of made it up because, you know,
there's something singular and powerful about any celebrity dying in
the United States. But it's, again, most true of Dolly Parton,
I think. Anyways, we talk about all of this in

(02:13):
this episode with the great Lydia Popovich, who truly brings
a religious devotion to her approach to Dolly Parton studies,
as you'll hear. I really enjoyed making this episode and
researching it and wanted to add it back to the
feed because, like I said, I got a whole new
appreciation for Dolly Parton from doing it. And yeah, I

(02:35):
hope you get something out of listening to it. R.I.P. Dolly. Hello,
the Internet, and welcome to this spinoff episode of Der
Daily Zeitgeist, which we're calling The Iconograph. Instead of looking
at the zeitgeist through the day's news and current events
on Monday mornings, we're looking back at the zeitgeist through

(02:56):
the powerful pop cultural horcruxes that are our icons. We
use these historical figures and famous characters to create meaning, meaning,
to build identity, to learn how to deliver the greatest
career breakup of all time, to know what the phrase
over-the-shoulder boulder holder means. In my case, that's how I

(03:19):
learned that phrase, was Dolly Parton jokes when I was
six years old. And most importantly, we learned how to
compliment someone into not fucking your man. That's right. Today,
we're talking about St. Dolly Parton, the Dolly Mama, a modern-day...
Religious figure, among many other things. We talk about people

(03:39):
putting their religion into celebrity culture and their icons. And
as old fashioned religion fades away, this is maybe our
best active experiment in that really feels like this is
as close. to a living religious figure, as we've covered
on the iconograph to this point. I'm joined, as always,

(04:01):
by my co-host, Mr.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
Miles Gray!

Speaker 1 (04:05):
Dolly!

Speaker 2 (04:06):
Dolly!

Speaker 3 (04:07):
Man, I'm ready. I love Dolly, and I know nothing
about Dolly Parton. Like, truly nothing. Like, I fuck with
the music, but I don't, I think every, I'm just
so glad we have the perfect guest today, because I'm
not gonna lie.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
I know.

Speaker 3 (04:22):
I went from, I think I remember very early on, I,
like on the show, I played the 45 version of
Jolene sped up.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (04:31):
And how it's just like a fucking whole other banger.
And I remember Lydia coming on and talking about, oh yeah, this, that, that, that, that.
And it was getting me so gassed up about Dolly Parton.
Oh shit, Dolly Parton's like sick, right? Dolly Parton's tight? Okay, okay.

Speaker 2 (04:43):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (04:43):
And so- I'm ready. I'm ready to learn more. I
don't know if I'm ready.

Speaker 1 (04:48):
This is going to be the first time that we've
had a guest who knows more about the subject than me.
After doing a week of research, we're thrilled to be
joined in our third seat by a hilarious comedian, one
of our favorite guests on TDZ. Dave Grohl once touched
her arm and said, hey, you're pretty funny. So maybe
she can come back for the Nirvana episode. You can

(05:08):
see her on stages everywhere. And she is our resident
Dolly Parton expert. It's Lydia Popovich!

Speaker 2 (05:17):
Let me just say, first and foremost, I'm so thrilled
to be here to talk about the only thing that
I truly care about in life, which is Dolly Parton.
She is the thing that keeps me moving every single day,
all things through Dolly. I love her dearly. She's the
greatest American songwriter of our time. I mean, I could
go on. I could do this podcast literally by myself,

(05:37):
but I'm so.

Speaker 3 (05:38):
Glad you guys.

Speaker 1 (05:40):
Should we just get out of the way?

Speaker 2 (05:42):
Honestly, why don't you leave?

Speaker 1 (05:44):
We'll be back in 45 minutes.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
Jack, I think we fucked up.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
For real.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
I remember there was a point where.

Speaker 1 (05:50):
I can't wait. There's a point where you're trying to
acquire a Dolly Parton pinball machine. And like, I was
invested in that shit. I was like, God, I hope
Lydia gets the Dolly Parton pinball machine.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
And I know it's in my living room.

Speaker 3 (06:05):
Yeah, I know it's in your living room.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
It's actually it's it's in my it's my den where
I'm sitting right now. I'm sitting across from it. It's
it's literally I own it. It is mine. I have it.
She is me.

Speaker 3 (06:14):
I would say that our love of Dolly, I think,
is directly tied to Lydia's enthusiasm about Dolly Parton. Because
every time, like when the airport, like renaming the airport
thing came up.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (06:27):
I was like, Lydia, you know what? Of course I
fucking know about that.

Speaker 2 (06:30):
You fucking started it.

Speaker 3 (06:31):
I started it. And then I'm like, oh, shit, my bad.

Speaker 2 (06:36):
If you hear something about Dolly and it seems cool
and weird, I'm probably involved. Look, keep watching the news piece.
You might catch footage. Right. Four times last year. Just
actually six times last year. Talking about Dolly Parton. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
And now you're on the news. Welcome to the news.

Speaker 3 (06:56):
Talking about Dolly Parton.

Speaker 1 (06:58):
So just in summary, broadly, in terms of where Dolly
stands right now, because we do like to talk about
what is her iconography. She has. one of the highest
Q ratings of any celebrity. We haven't mentioned Q ratings
much on this podcast, but it's weird we haven't because

(07:18):
it is essentially a measure of like how iconic somebody is.
She's like top 10 most popular celebrities in the world.
Also has the lowest negative rating of anyone. There's just like,
no negative sentiment out there towards her. In looking back
over her career, I think the modern love for her

(07:41):
is due to her career and talent, her personality. I
feel like the best lines, I watched 9to5, listened to
her songs. I think the best lines that I heard
anywhere were not anything written for her. It's like the
shit that she just says off the cuff as, as

(08:01):
a human being. Um, uh, but also like in terms
of the religious part, because I don't think that's just
coming from, well, this is a celebrity people like so much. And,
therefore people have like a affinity for her that is
quasi religious she does seem to both be giving off
good energy and getting back good energy in return like

(08:25):
in a way that like there's just a glow the
like dow of dolly parton like she contributed a million
dollars to uh vaccine research that ends up being the
Moderna vaccine that saves millions of lives. They name a
scientific breakthrough after her as a boob joke, but it
ends up being the fucking cloning of the sheep, like

(08:47):
the most famous and, uh, you know, a cloning that, uh,
but before science, who's gone in a sheep, Dolly, the
sheep is named after her because they took a mammary gland.
That's how, where the cloning came from. And they were like,
we'll call it Dolly Parton. She's the boob lady.

Speaker 3 (09:06):
All right, go on, go on. Keep rattling off fucking facts.

Speaker 1 (09:10):
One little fact from like just in terms of the
good energy going out and coming back in. She at
one point is incredibly kind to a country singer who
is opening for her named Billy Ray. And when he
has a kid, he makes Dolly Parton the godmother to
a little girl named Miley Cyrus.

Speaker 3 (09:28):
My favorite rapper?

Speaker 1 (09:30):
Who then asks her to Hannah Montana.

Speaker 3 (09:32):
Hannah Montana. J's on my feet. J's on my feet.

Speaker 1 (09:37):
Yeah. who then asks her to play her godmother on
her show hannah montana and when that happens her fan
base becomes like massive and incredibly young for somebody her
age uh.

Speaker 3 (09:51):
It's just like shit.

Speaker 1 (09:54):
Yeah outflow of good energy from her that then just
like comes right back to her and she it's it's
why it truly like there does seem to be this religious,
like philosophical, spiritual goodness. She like lives in the light
and gives off light.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
I feel like a thousand percent, man. I mean, Honestly,
I've always been a Dolly Parton fan, but it turned
into like a religious experience to me, like the first
time that I saw her in concert. I saw her
at the San Jose Sharks Arena. I went with my
best friend coach. I was probably 22, maybe. And we
went because we were like, oh, she's a living legend.
This is someone we need to see. We love her.

(10:34):
There's no way this isn't going to be incredible. And
little did I know that I was going to spend
like the second half of that show, like quite literally
sobbing because it was such an incredible experience like she
was singing live at that point and her voice was
so incredible and just the feeling of people around me
like people around me were just like full of happiness

(10:55):
and full of joy and like she closes off all
of her shows by singing I Will Always Love You
And like, when that happened, I turned to my best
friend and like, he's crying, I'm crying. And I was like,
Oh my God, is this like what we do with
our lives now? Like, is this, this is quite literally.
And like, I grew up a deadhead in a deadhead family.
So like that kind of like absurd, like fandom is

(11:18):
like in my DNA. So like, I literally like, I've
seen over 150 grateful dead shows. You know what I mean?
Like I literally grew up in parking lots and shit,
but like, It was nuts. And I just was like,
this is incredible experience. No one had made me feel
like that quite literally since the Grateful Dead plus LSD.
Do you know what I'm saying?

Speaker 3 (11:36):
Right, right, right.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
It had that, like on no drugs, feeling this full body,
just elation feeling. And just feeling full of joy. And
the same thing happened the first time I went to Dollywood.
Had the same thing. Kind of had this out-of-body experience
of like, oh my God, this woman's light.

Speaker 1 (11:51):
Shines on us all.

Speaker 2 (11:54):
Yeah. Like she just gives. You know, that's why she's
the face of the kindness campaign.

Speaker 1 (11:59):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (11:59):
And that's my favorite things. When you travel around the country,
you can pass it on.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
She's one of the faces for the pass it on
campaign in L.A. It's her and Mr. Rogers are the
ones that I always see. Yeah, the vibes that her
show is like people like I remember, you know, the Internet.
But also, you know, there were like news stories about
people like as she's having this. And there is this podcast,
Dolly Parton's America. It's really good. And they talk about

(12:27):
just like going to one of her shows and it's
like this incredibly diverse group and it's just like the
the vibes at the show are just like there's such
happiness and joy and like a spiritual quality to this
love affair between her fans and her and for her
To be that when like in in the 80s and

(12:50):
like this, I was, you know, six and living in
Appalachian part of the country. So maybe this was me,
but she was just the the first the original stand
in for hot woman. When I was like first, when
I was like five, it was just like Dolly Parton jokes.
And it was like either a boob joke or like, man, yeah, right.

(13:12):
Like I heard you're dating Dolly Parton, you know, like
just like she was the hottest person. So like to
go from that to this religious icon is kind of crazy.
Just in turn, before we dig into her life, just
the other measure of iconography that I wanted to touch

(13:32):
on is and this is our second icon in the
in a row who had this distinction of being the
queen of the tabloids. Tabloids are basically excess news being
created when someone's icon is like too big for the
actual news that they're creating with their actual life. And
so people have to just like create new create new

(13:55):
shit and gossip and intrigue or like it's just not,
you know, it's not enough. for people and yeah during
the 80s she was like on the front page of
every tabloid she found out at one point that this
was partially being fed by her aunt who uh was
mad at her because she wasn't invited to a party

(14:15):
uh around the movie rhinestone and so she was talking
shit about her to tabloids um but she comes from
a huge family and it's like a southern family and
sometimes that gets messy but It wasn't just the 80s
when we started the show, Miles. I don't know if
you remember this, but when we 1977.

Speaker 3 (14:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (14:34):
Back in 1977. Yeah. When we started the show, we
had a segment called Bloid Watch.

Speaker 4 (14:39):
Bloid Watch.

Speaker 2 (14:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (14:40):
Everybody wants that.

Speaker 1 (14:41):
Bloid Watch.

Speaker 3 (14:42):
Everybody wants Bloid Watch.

Speaker 1 (14:44):
The idea was that, like, you can find out about
a lot about America's shared consciousness from like what's on
the front page of the tabloids, the supermarket. And I
think we ended up stopping because it was somewhat repetitive.
It was just like news over and over again about
a handful of people and mainly Dolly Parton still like

(15:05):
in 2017. Like there was a lot of Dolly Parton sick.
Is Dolly Parton going to survive? Is Dolly Parton having
an affair with an alien? So it's just like Dolly
Parton's been an obsession of America since I've been storing memories.

Speaker 2 (15:21):
Well, and it's kind of crazy, too, because it is
really a testament to her ongoing popularity.

Speaker 1 (15:28):
Right.

Speaker 2 (15:28):
You can literally 40, 60 years later still say, oh,
Dolly Parton plus whatever. And people are interested and want
to look at it because people are dying to say
something bad because no one says anything bad about her.

Speaker 3 (15:41):
Right.

Speaker 1 (15:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:42):
She's never there's never been like a gotcha with Dolly Parton.
It's never been tried. You know, they've tried. Well, we'll
get to like there was a Federalist article. And then
there was I mean, we'll talk about the stampede and
the controversy around that.

Speaker 1 (15:55):
But she she dealt with it pretty well. All right.
But so she just celebrated on January 19th. So, you know,
five days ago, she just celebrated her 80th birthday. Tennessee
declared that the 19th will now be known as Dolly
Parton Day. She was born.

Speaker 3 (16:17):
What if MLK Day falls on the 19th? What do
they do?

Speaker 2 (16:21):
Again in the south they're like well let's he already
got his let's make sure let's cover it up with
the white lady that was you know what i mean
people contribute equally.

Speaker 1 (16:31):
I got some ai videos of the two of them
chilling with the grand old opry that i think you're
gonna enjoy he got a joint.

Speaker 3 (16:37):
In his mouth like with like a standard sheet writing
music and shit she's writing.

Speaker 1 (16:40):
Lyrics charlie kirk's up there too um he was in.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
The background making pot pies yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:47):
But January 19th, 1946, born in a one room cabin
in the Great Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee during a snowstorm,
which was eventually especially cramped because she had 11 fucking siblings.
The one room shack is built by her dad. Newspapers

(17:08):
on the walls because that's like what you did when
you couldn't afford anything. And she was like, and it
was nice because we'd put up a new layer of
insulation and there'd be new pictures on the wall. Her
first dolls were corn cobs that they would like glue
eyes onto. Like she was dirt ass.

Speaker 2 (17:29):
It's actually inspired to one of her first songs that
she ever wrote called Tiny Tassel Top.

Speaker 1 (17:33):
Yeah, a little tiny castle top.

Speaker 2 (17:35):
As a little girl after her corn silk doll's hair.

Speaker 1 (17:38):
Yeah, she talks about her corn silk hair and you
think it's a metaphor. She's playing with a literal fucking
corn cob. Yeah, she's playing with a fucking corn cob.

Speaker 3 (17:48):
Wow, what visual language. Nah, man, she's playing with a
corn cob in there. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (17:54):
She once cut a couple of her toes off while
running around in a yard because there was like a
broken bottle and her mom packed them with cornmeal and
kerosene And sewed them back on without any pain killers.

Speaker 3 (18:06):
Hold on. Hold on.

Speaker 5 (18:07):
What?

Speaker 2 (18:07):
I haven't heard that one. That's a new one for me.

Speaker 1 (18:11):
They were sliced really badly to the point that like
they were almost.

Speaker 3 (18:14):
Nearly severed.

Speaker 1 (18:15):
Her mom. They were dangling.

Speaker 2 (18:17):
Mr.

Speaker 3 (18:17):
Bodangles.

Speaker 1 (18:18):
Packed them in cornmeal and kerosene.

Speaker 3 (18:21):
What is that?

Speaker 1 (18:22):
And then sewed them back on.

Speaker 3 (18:24):
You know, that was like medicine. I really want to
know when they're like, well, did you do the cornmeal
and kerosene? Like, of course I did cornmeal and kerosene.

Speaker 6 (18:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:32):
There's a lot of that shit.

Speaker 2 (18:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (18:34):
There's a lot of that shit.

Speaker 1 (18:36):
Like when she first starts wearing makeup, she's like very,
very interested in, you know, makeup and stuff like that
from an early age. But like when she first starts,
she's using like berry juice and a burnt matchstick for eyeliner.
Like she, there's just a lot of like down home
country shit.

Speaker 2 (18:56):
She actually details all of that. There's these really great
scenes where it's like, her and her sisters, like, putting
on this fake makeup and stuff. It's pretty amazing. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:04):
Oh, I just found out the cornmeal is to absorb
the blood. The kerosene in antiseptic.

Speaker 1 (19:10):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (19:10):
There you go. Perfect.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
Fair enough.

Speaker 1 (19:13):
Don't try this at home unless you grew up in
a one-room cabin.

Speaker 3 (19:18):
No, that's some shit only Dolly Parton... I think Dolly
Parton's the only person like, oh, my toes came off.
Can you just sew them back on? Thanks. And then
you keep fucking moving on with your life unaffected.

Speaker 1 (19:29):
Um, she talks about when in her, uh, memoir, she
talks about meeting her best friend for life. Judy Ogle,
just made up ass sounding name, but yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:41):
God bless Judy Ogle.

Speaker 1 (19:42):
Real Judy Ogle.

Speaker 2 (19:43):
Those are a real family. When you drive around, Pigeon
Forge in Sevierville, you see Ogle Road. That family, the
Ogles are still out there. You see signage with Ogle
on it all the time.

Speaker 1 (19:56):
They met and I think it was Judy talking about
seeing Dolly for the first time and I might have
it wrong and it might have been Dolly talking about
seeing Judy for the first time but they were both
poor and one of them had what they call bloomer
rubber in her hair as a headband which is the
elastic on the waistband of like old blown out pants

(20:17):
and they just like pulled that up and they were
wearing that like Like one of the members of the
junkyard gang, you know, right, right, right.

Speaker 3 (20:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:24):
Straight out of fucking.

Speaker 3 (20:25):
Big toe shooting out of the like a hole in
the boot.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (20:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:29):
Like the lore that Dolly describes around the meeting of
her and and Judy, who my dog is named after,
by the way. Wow. So with Judy to noodles because
she's my best girl. So, of course, my dog's name
is Judy. Anyway, but she says basically Dolly was tiny, right?
She was little. And back in those days, you had
multiple ages and kind of a schoolhouse. But Dolly used

(20:50):
to get bullied a little bit. And Judy Ogle was
a little bit of a rough and tumble with a
bunch of brothers. And Judy wasn't having that mess. So
Judy was her first protector. So that's how they became
friends is because Judy stepped in and beat some kids
up that were hassling Dolly. And they quickly became best friends.
And they lived basically together. across the hauler from each other.
So they would, you know, go about their business and

(21:11):
meet and play and be able to kind of like
meet between property lines and hang out. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:15):
Just another couple of details about how poor they were.
They didn't have money to pay the doctor when she
was delivered. So her dad paid with a sack of cornmeal.
It was like what they paid with. And she couldn't
afford a coat. So her mom sewed her a coat
using multicolored rags that they had laying around, which is
a big part of her lore because it later inspired

(21:38):
one of her most popular songs, Coat of Many Colors.

Speaker 2 (21:40):
I also have that tattooed on my arm.

Speaker 1 (21:42):
The Coat of Many Colors?

Speaker 3 (21:44):
The actual coat or the words coat of many colors?

Speaker 2 (21:46):
The actual coat. Nice.

Speaker 3 (21:48):
Hold on, let me see that shit. Is it on
your phone? Oh, shit.

Speaker 2 (21:53):
Jack, what the fuck? I got a little coat of
many colors.

Speaker 3 (21:56):
Lydia's like, yeah, my dog called Judy. Oh, coat of
many colors?

Speaker 1 (22:01):
I got tatted.

Speaker 3 (22:03):
Wait, what's up?

Speaker 2 (22:04):
I got a pair of titties with stars for nipples
made out of rope and it says, what would Dolly do? Wow.

Speaker 1 (22:11):
W.W. Double D's.

Speaker 3 (22:12):
No, no.

Speaker 1 (22:13):
God damn. yeah there's a lot of wild like she
got beat pretty relentlessly by both parents which is you
know was called child rearing at the time yeah like
once she like went missing for a while and like
they they thought she was gone and then like she
heard a dinner bell ringing on the cow's neck and

(22:36):
like found the cow and like let it drag her
back to the house she's like all beat up and
like starving and she still like got whipped for that
for going missing so it's a it's a tough tough
upbringing for sure and her dad was illiterate his whole
life and I think there's something like we talked about

(22:59):
this with Elvis being coming up like very poor Marilyn
Monroe was born in like a charity hospital was in
like foster care I think there's something so like a
lot of our most powerful icons of the 20th century
came up very poor and i think like with dolly

(23:21):
like one of the things she says about her dad
is that he is one of the smartest people she
ever knew but he was illiterate i just feel like
in terms of being an artist there's a power to
knowing that people are smarter than they might appear you
know like that you like one of the most important
things an artist can know is like not to underestimate

(23:43):
how smart people are because like that just makes it
easy to like dismiss them and dismiss your audience and
like that I feel like that's where a lot of
like bad art comes from is from like suits and
studio heads being like yeah we'll just like give them
some slop because they're all idiots and like just having
that understanding like from an early age that this person who, uh,

(24:06):
is illiterate is also like incredibly smart is like an
important part of the way she views the world.

Speaker 2 (24:14):
Right. Well, life teaches us things that books can't, right?
Like you could read every book in the world and
not have a clue how to operate and function in
the world.

Speaker 1 (24:22):
Yeah. Right. Yeah. And I know that kerosene is what
you do.

Speaker 2 (24:25):
Cornmeal.

Speaker 1 (24:26):
Yeah. Kerosene and cornmeal.

Speaker 2 (24:27):
It's how you fix baby toes. Yeah. Right.

Speaker 4 (24:29):
Exactly.

Speaker 2 (24:30):
You know, you got to figure it out. You got
to learn by experience.

Speaker 1 (24:32):
They have like busted up instruments all around the house.
She starts playing. She can play 20 instruments at least.
She says she plays at them. And guitar is the
only thing that she's really good at. She's very self-effacing.
Managed to get booked at the Grand Ole Opry when
she was 13. Johnny Cash introduced her by saying, we've
got a little girl here from up in East Tennessee.

(24:55):
Her daddy's listening to the radio at home and she's
going to be in real trouble if she doesn't sing tonight.
So let's bring her out here. but her and her
uncle who was a big part of her early career
had already, uh, he was a songwriter himself and was
kind of the, they worked together, uh, in her early career,
but like they had approached Johnny Cash outside the Grand

(25:15):
Ole Opry like a year before. And they, they were
working on this and finally got through. And, uh, she
started making a name for herself, getting on local radio
stations on a regular basis. Um, between this and her
moving to Nashville when she's 18, she's still going to

(25:36):
like the local high school. And this is kind of
her first brush with like tabloid because everybody's like starting
rumors about her, about how she's like, sleeping with famous
people to try and like get to the top, which,
you know, is why she moves to Nashville the day
after she graduates from high school. She uses paper grocery

(26:00):
bags as her luggage. And she's so poor when she
first gets there that she has to sneak into hotels
to eat leftover food off of room service trays. and
is just like walking around in grocery stores eating before
anyone notices what she's doing and runs away. But she's
very poor, immediately starts writing, also immediately meets Carl Dean,

(26:24):
who is her lifelong husband, who just passed away last year.

Speaker 2 (26:29):
Who can be seen on the cover of her album,
My Tennessee Mountain Home. He's actually in the background on
the cover. That's like The one of like the most
famous pictures of Carl and one of like four pictures
of Carl available to us previous to his passing. Yes.

Speaker 1 (26:43):
He was so in the background in her life. First
of all, on their first meeting, she said he looked
at her face when they talked, which was like she
was like, nobody looked at my face when we talked.
And then it's her marriage is just ridiculous. kind of
coming off the stories for Marilyn Monroe, where she would
like marry these famous men and they'd be these broken

(27:06):
children who couldn't like deal with her having her own career.
Like Carl Dean goes to one early red carpet event
and leaves and was like, look, I want you to
be successful and have like everything you ever want. I
never want to go to another one of those fucking
things again. And she's like, great. And so he's just

(27:27):
never in the limelight to the degree that people start
creating conspiracy theories that he doesn't exist, which she puts
him on one of her album covers, as Lydia just mentioned.

Speaker 3 (27:39):
Oh, that was like a response to the idea that
Carl was some kind of like creation.

Speaker 6 (27:45):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (27:45):
It's also it's an it's an act of defiance because
at that time, her record label did not want her
to be married. Right. She's got to think about that.

Speaker 3 (27:53):
She's sort of you got to be available to TV.

Speaker 2 (27:56):
As a girl singer. You know what I mean? Girl
singers are supposed to be sort of attractive, available. You know,
people want to spin all these tales and think about
the relationship with her and Porter. And I'm getting a
little head, but. But in her musical, she actually did,
I saw her musical twice. I saw it the opening week,
like basically the preview weekends. Then I went and saw
it the very last night when it left here in Nashville.

(28:18):
And there was such a big difference between, but the
part I loved about it the most is she gave
the most information about Carl that I've ever heard. Like
I learned stuff about their relationship watching this musical that
was like heartbreaking and beautiful. She really spends a lot
of time talking about the moment she met him in
Nashville and basically up until when she first moved to
Los Angeles and became really famous, famous, famous. And a

(28:42):
lot of that time hasn't been discussed, but there was
a period where Carl was just like, are you going
to be married to me or not?

Speaker 1 (28:48):
Like, because she was traveling so much.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
It was a letter that was famously rumored about years ago.
And she actually read the letter, like the actual, like
her character reads the actual letter, um, in the stage
show where he's basically like you know I could have
married anybody I could have done anything but like I
wanted to marry you and I want to be married
to you not the idea of you not your music
not this like I care about you know Dolly Rebecca

(29:11):
Parton who's who I want to be married with and
if I can't be married to you then I don't
want to be married and so she had to kind
of make this choice to like actively like pour into
her marriage and make sure that like he felt loved
and like that that was something that she treasured and
it wasn't more important than her going around and doing that.
She has a song called The Sacrifice that she actually

(29:32):
addresses everything she's ever had to sacrifice in her life
in order to achieve fame. And it's written from a
perspective of someone looking back on their life And she
wrote that in like her mid 40s. So it's kind
of amazing to see that she's had this much reflection,
you know, on what her, what it cost her as
an individual, what it cost her as a woman to
become the artist and this icon that she was.

Speaker 3 (29:53):
Brand even, yeah. That's just so, it's really interesting to
hear too. You're like, damn, how are they together? And like,
you hear all these details, like, Oh, they're like, they
have good communication skills and they're not out of their minds.
Or he's like, hey, man, I'm going to voice my
needs to you, my wife. Can we work this out?

Speaker 1 (30:10):
And she's like, heard, heard.

Speaker 3 (30:11):
I love you. Let me figure this out.

Speaker 2 (30:13):
And I'm like..

Speaker 1 (30:13):
And she would like figure it out in song so often.
Like there's one of her early songs is like about
a conversation where he was like getting... mad that she
had slept with men before she was married to him
and like oh that's a mistake men are just so
i like that i had this narrative of like him
not being like neat men are just so relentlessly needy

(30:35):
oh yeah what.

Speaker 4 (30:36):
Are you gonna choose you're gonna choose your career or
me i like he like he kept construction he was
working construction jobs her throughout her whole career like She.

Speaker 1 (30:47):
Made hundreds of millions of dollars and he just like
kind of did his thing.

Speaker 2 (30:51):
Carl laid the best pavement you've ever seen. And I
mean that as a euphemism.

Speaker 1 (30:55):
Oh, he must have. He must have laid some pavement.

Speaker 3 (31:00):
Can you go to places where you've seen where Carl
Dean has laid the pavement?

Speaker 4 (31:03):
Like..

Speaker 2 (31:04):
I feel like.

Speaker 3 (31:06):
If Lydia knows she'd be like I know you want
to see some of Carl's work come with me.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
All I know is that she has one of those
he purposely made her like the driveway into her house
is like the glittery asphalt it's not the regular kind
it's the kind that's like all sparkly and shit is
like her driveway in Brentwood so I've heard I respect
Lydia too much to drive past her home in Brentwood
I would never.

Speaker 3 (31:26):
I have no shame I could I could I know
the address and everything but I won't.

Speaker 1 (31:33):
She starts dropping albums on all our asses. Her first album, Hello,
I'm Dolly. Hello, I'm Dolly, was released by Monument. She
just has this music flowing through her at all times.
Just one little anecdote, because a lot of people talk
about how she's this multi-instrumentalist and she's, like I said,

(31:56):
self-effacing and says she only plays at the instruments. When
she first presented the song 9 to 5, to on
the set of the movie nine to five uh to
lily tomlin and jane fonda she just like was beating
out the click track with her nails to be like
all right so here's what it goes like like it's
like that pitch perfect cups scene she was just like

(32:18):
playing the uh drum track with her nails and then
that is on the track like you can actually hear
her nails on the track which is a fucking classic.

Speaker 3 (32:30):
It is crazy.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
But that, I think it's like, that's such a small
thing that like speaks to like, not only her ability
to compose the actual musicianship and like the song, you know,
kind of layout around the lyrics, but even her lyrical
choices and the songs that she was writing at the
time she was writing, um, was kind of crazy for women.
Like one of her first TV performances, like on the
Porter Wagner show, she wanted to sing The Bridge, which

(32:53):
is a song about a woman killing herself by jumping
off a bridge. And it's a beautiful, heart-wrenching song. And
this is her first opportunity to be singing live on television.
And Porter tells her he doesn't want her to sing
this song. And she does it anyway. Can you imagine
being on TV in fucking 1967 singing a song about

(33:13):
a fucking depressed woman who threw herself off a bridge?
And that's one of, like, one depressing song. She also
wrote songs in that same period. Like, three songs about, like,
stillbirth there's a beautiful song that she sings called down
from dover that's literally about a woman getting pregnant and
hoping that her her you know her partner comes home
and her partner never comes home and then she has

(33:33):
the baby and then the baby's dead like talk about
wanting to cry she has songs about fucking orphans burning
down an orphanage um because they're tired of being abused
like all of these songs are like heavy material written
in the 60s and 70s when women couldn't even have
credit you know what i'm saying right she's out here
doing the big work but the only song she's getting
credit for are you know, dumb blonde. Sure. Because I'm

(33:57):
a woman.

Speaker 1 (33:57):
Right.

Speaker 2 (33:58):
The dichotomy there is like, what does it for me?
Is it like, it doesn't have to be one way
or the other for Dolly. She's more than happy to
show you like the prim and proper tits and face,
but she's also like, have you heard of death? Yeah.

Speaker 1 (34:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (34:13):
Just so you know, it's fucking heavy out here for women,
especially to like, to your point in an era where
most people have been like, just get her on medication.
She's talking about wacky shit right now. Like we don't
want to hear an opinion. And then, yeah, that's so,
it's such a beautiful moment of subversion to have that
sort of be your television debut. And also I'm sure
communicated to many of the people watching were like, that

(34:35):
probably must've instantly resonated in a way. A lot of
the men who are like, what the fuck is this dude?
And other, like, I'm sure a lot of people are like, yo,
I think I just found my new favorite artist. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (34:45):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:47):
Well, and it's also it's the women can't be sexual. Right.
And if they are sexual, they need to not have
a brain on their shoulders. And so, like, the whole
idea that women can't have is sexuality and still be smart.
And like, I just that's been a through line through
her career. It's incredible. Right. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (35:00):
They talk on the podcast Dolly Parton's America about there's
this long history of murder songs in the country and
folk music tradition that like start go back to the UK.
But basically, the songs are narratives where a male narrator
sings a A story about murdering a woman.

Speaker 2 (35:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (35:18):
And like she was writing songs where she was like,
what if we like told the story from a woman's perspective? Yeah.
But like just the idea that like there's that many
songs where it's like, and then I bashed her head
in like they're sad songs, but also like, well, why
the fuck are you doing that, man? And then she

(35:39):
was like, yeah, maybe it makes more sense. for me to.

Speaker 3 (35:43):
Bash his fucking head in.

Speaker 1 (35:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (35:45):
So like talking from the perspective of a woman who's
been victimized, a lot of people have tried to say
that she's a feminist. She hasn't rejected the idea that
she's a feminist. She's just rejected the word feminist because
like the, her, the quote about this, that our researcher
JM put in here is that I think the words

(36:06):
and titles just have some connotations that, When I think
about feminists, you think about the women that are anti-men
and you think of women that have been so mistreated.
They have to make some sort of statement. I'm all
about women. I'm all about empowering women, but I'm all
about empowering all people. But it's like she doesn't reject
being a feminist. She just rejects the word feminist and

(36:28):
like how people are going to respond to that word.

Speaker 2 (36:31):
I mean, Dolly is a master feminist. in politics. Like,
this woman has been able to straddle the line saying
everything and saying nothing at the same time. She is
a really remarkable way of not offending anyone. But, like,
there is no doubt whether or not Dolly likes the
word feminist or not. Dolly is a feminist. Like, there

(36:52):
is no two ways around it. You look at her
body of work, you see the presentations, and I keep
referencing this musical because it's her most recent, most, like,
autobiographical piece of work, and she literally... like it came
out three weeks after Carl died. So like she made
all these insertions and all of these subtractions to kind
of account for that. So like you're talking about a
woman in her late 70s at this point, 79, you know,

(37:14):
about to be 80, who's revisiting the entirety of her
life Right. And what are the through lines that she
wants to present to represent Dolly, my life, the musical
and two thirds of that final musical are about being
a woman in this industry. She addresses the paparazzi and
all of it from a female perspective of like, I
do what I need to do because I'm a woman

(37:36):
and this is my power. And these are the things
that are lined up against me. And this is how
I want. But she always does it through the dolly lens.
And that's how she kind of escapes that like feminist shawl. Right.
Is by being.

Speaker 3 (37:45):
No, no, no.

Speaker 2 (37:46):
This is just my story. Me as a woman. Yeah.
So if you're if you're a woman, you don't have
to put up with that.

Speaker 6 (37:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (37:53):
She's like, you know, it is.

Speaker 1 (37:56):
There's a great quote from her about being awesome at business,
which she clearly is. She said there are basically two
types of men you have to deal with in business.
The ones who want to screw you out of money
and the ones who want to screw you, period. The
second guy is the easiest to deal with. If I
catch a man who's not looking at my eyes when
he talks to me, I have scored two really big

(38:16):
points with him already. A smart woman can take a
man who thinks with his small head and turn the
would-be screwed into the screwy.

Speaker 2 (38:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (38:27):
She's great.

Speaker 2 (38:28):
Another famous one I have from her, and I took
a screenshot of it the other day because I was like, oh,
that's exactly how she said it. I always fuck it up.
But it's, I'm up front and I will tell you
where to put it if I don't like where you
got it.

Speaker 1 (38:37):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (38:39):
Like, that's perfect. You know, and then she talks about
her age and she says, you know, I'm whatever age
I have to be. I always say I'm as old
as yesterday, but I'm as new as tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (38:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (38:50):
That's what I mean about media mastery.

Speaker 3 (38:53):
Yeah, she's slick. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (38:55):
She's very slick with it.

Speaker 2 (38:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (38:57):
Just real quick. Some of her songs are extremely dark.
There are other ones from this period that could have
been so much darker. Jan found this detail from, I
think it's her memoir where she talks. So there's this
1977 song, Applejack. It's just like a fun tune about
a banjo player and an old orchard shack. And in

(39:19):
her memoir, she reveals that it was inspired by a
real life local near where she grew up, who was
rumored to be having sexual relationships with his dogs and
also was believed to have murdered. and eaten his mail
order bride and her daughter by the local people. So
she turns it into this like sunny, happy song. And

(39:41):
she says, people tend to fear what they don't know
and what they feel they dislike. All kinds of rumors
circulated over the hills about the old man. He had
a bunch of old mangy dogs and some said he
had sex with them. Well, there is no doubt he
slept with them. It's not likely the relationship was actually consummated.
There was one time when he sent away for a

(40:01):
mail order bride. After a while, this woman came to
live with him. She was large and unsightly. The woman
had a grown daughter and right away rumors started to
fly that the old man did them both. It seems
like they stayed for about eight or nine months and
then they disappeared. Naturally, the rumor mill kicked into high gear.
Of course, the old man had killed them. The only
disagreement among the rumor mongers was as to whether or

(40:24):
not he had fed them to the dogs or eaten
them himself.

Speaker 2 (40:28):
I love it. I love Appalachian lore.

Speaker 3 (40:30):
That's what I know.

Speaker 1 (40:31):
Yeah, there's so much good Appalachian lore.

Speaker 2 (40:33):
Wildly spun out of. And like, what a better way
to become a songwriter to just take these extrapolations of
stories and and turn them into these allegories, right? That
just represent sort of time and space and culture.

Speaker 1 (40:44):
But no, there's a bunch of really good, like, spooky
ghost stories that, like, actually happened to her. There's, like,
one time where they're, like, living in L.A., I think, and, like,
or maybe it's Nashville, but, like, They have their doors
locked and they hear somebody walk in and they think
it's Judy who like would just like come and go

(41:05):
in their house. And then they wake up the next
morning and the doors had been locked. But then like
all the faucets are on. And like she said, she
woke up in the middle of the night and like
watched one of the faucets turn on. And it was
Lydia Popovich.

Speaker 3 (41:19):
Sorry, guys. Sorry, darling. That whole thing, too, like, was
just even, like, the Applejack song and her being like, yeah,
this guy had dogs. I'm like, yeah, he's fucking them
or whatever. I think also, like, it's another sort of
arrow in her quiver in terms of how she knows
how to manage narrative and perception too because she's coming
from a place where she's like i've seen this shit

(41:40):
i see this shit all the time okay this dude
who had a couple dogs in his bed yeah everybody
there yeah like people will just fucking lose their minds
and because i've seen like some of the most intense
versions of that i'm really adept at navigating it especially
as someone who's the subject of so much conjecture throughout
her career yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:57):
She has this song called joshua that really lyrically it's
like it's upbeat it's fun but like if you listen
to the lyrics it's about this scary man that lives
out in the middle of nowhere that like is big
and like bearded and like intimidating and it's hard to
tell like what age the woman who it's singing from
a woman's point of view and it's not a real

(42:17):
story but it's one of these stories but it's like
you know she decides to go and show up to
joshua's house and she breaks into his house to like
see what's going on and find out who he is
and he comes home and she's like oh shit and
instead like she just like has a cup of tea
with him and ends up going over there on purpose
regularly and basically ends up like having a good time
with this dude and like marrying him and like fucking
him down and i'm just like what a wild story

(42:39):
to be like hey y'all heard of this fucking creep
in the woods let me go check it out.

Speaker 3 (42:43):
Let me let me find out he's actually kind.

Speaker 2 (42:45):
Of cool and then she's like actually That's my dude.
I'm fucking with Joshua.

Speaker 3 (42:49):
Joshua's fine as hell.

Speaker 2 (42:50):
Y'all know Joshua's out there? Fine as fuck in the woods,
bored as shit, big old dick.

Speaker 3 (42:56):
She's like, honey, he's fingered in zoo glass, okay?

Speaker 2 (43:01):
She's just like, listen, but let me tell you about
me and Joshua, all right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's fucking
so good. She has so many of those songs, and
I'm just like, it's so great.

Speaker 1 (43:10):
I love it.

Speaker 3 (43:10):
I love it.

Speaker 1 (43:11):
This research also gave me some good insight into the
movie Nashville, which I don't think I fully understood until
doing this research. And we're getting to the Porter Wagner
of it all. So she gets a big break in
1967 when she's hired to replace the female singer on
the Porter Wagner show. And she begins duetting with this

(43:34):
guy who's like twice her age and releasing albums with him.
their album covers are insane. Like the outfits that they're
wearing are so funny.

Speaker 3 (43:44):
But wait, what are the, what are the albums called?
I just want to, it's a lot of like, we
found it.

Speaker 1 (43:50):
Peter Wagner and Dolly Parton. We found it as a
good one to look at. Cause they're wearing matching.

Speaker 2 (43:56):
Suits. It's a lot. Porter Wagner was a very like, dandy,
fancy gentleman, but in a country way. Like, literally, Gordon
Wagner is like the founder of country glam. This man
did not have a suit that was not bedazzled. He
is famous for being incredibly vain. We're talking head-to-toe, all
kinds of things. They're called nudie suits by the gentleman

(44:17):
who actually... His last name was Nudie, who was like
kind of the creator and the tailor of these suits.
Porter Wagner made this style of suit famous that you
now see people like Post Malone whenever he wears like
a suit.

Speaker 1 (44:29):
Right, right, right, right.

Speaker 3 (44:30):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 6 (44:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:32):
Porter Wagner had a bouffant that made fucking Elvis's look
like playtime. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (44:36):
And at one point he had a crazy perm on
one of the covers. He has a crazy perm. That's
what you know, the character in Nashville who has the
perm and he's like the older he's like the older,
very established country singer. I was like, oh, that's Porter Wagner.
Like as I was doing the research, I was like, oh, shit,
that was totally based on this guy. And yeah, his suits. Yeah. Blown.

(44:58):
Full blown Z on the narcissism. So she when she
first starts, the audience hates her because the previous singer
had a lower, richer voice. And the audience is just
immediately like, hey, fuck this lady. She's not the other lady.
And so they had to do duets to get the
audience on board. It was kind of creepy because he's

(45:20):
literally like twice her age. And some of the songs,
some of the songs were like daddy daughter. And then
some of them are like horny ish love songs. And
I think so. This like gives him a belief that
he's like rescued her from this initially hostile audience, which,
by the way, every audience is always initially hostile to change.

(45:41):
Just every time you try and do something different, they're
going to be like.

Speaker 2 (45:44):
Hey, certainly in the late 60s.

Speaker 1 (45:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (45:48):
Are you kidding me? Yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:50):
So he is completely convinced that she needs him. and
is shocked when she decides to eventually move on. Um,
and also it's like, this feels in a normal Hollywood
arc that like, this would have been the second husband, uh, that,
you know, they, there's like all sorts of rumors that

(46:11):
they were sleeping together. Um, they definitely had like a
very like emotional relationship that she says was never consummated
or anything like that. But, um, every, there were the
rumors flew, uh, But they never get together. And he
starts trying to control her and her career as she's

(46:32):
becoming a major star. He wanted to prevent her from
taking career opportunities and keep her under his fold. And
so she eventually leaves the show in 1974. And the
way that she does that is she walks into his
office and is like, I wrote this song for you.

Speaker 5 (46:52):
And..

Speaker 1 (46:52):
She sings him. I will always love you. The, the wit,
like the most famous love song of all time.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
Right.

Speaker 1 (47:01):
Um, and he, like by the end, they're both crying.
And he says, well, I guess you can go if
you let me produce that song for you, since it's
the best thing you've ever written. She's like, fine. But
first of all, just like what a way to get
out of an unhealthy, controlling relationship with a boss who
is clearly like in love with you by writing them
the kindest breakup song. Like when you look at the

(47:23):
lyrics to that song, It's basically a song that's like, look,
you are my king. I have to get out of
here because if I don't, I'm going to get in
your way, king. Right, right, right. So, which I always
thought was like in the context of the bodyguard also,
I always thought those lyrics were funny that like, Whitney

(47:43):
Houston as being like we have to break up because
I a world famous artist would only be in the
way of you a professional bodyguard but like you know
it's just he's.

Speaker 2 (47:57):
Just trying to be a normal guy who can kick
shit you know what I mean if you got fucking
a beautiful black queen on your arm who's fucking worldwide
you can't just kick any shit you gotta.

Speaker 1 (48:07):
Kick Nick's shit it's keeping you out she is getting
in his way that's a good point you.

Speaker 2 (48:12):
Can't just go and pick up a hot pocket and
scratch his balls. He's got to deal with Whitney fucking Houston.

Speaker 4 (48:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:17):
It's holding him back.

Speaker 3 (48:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no.

Speaker 1 (48:20):
Two quotes I love from this period. She said, making
the decision to leave was easier than the leaving, which
I feel like every breakup I've been involved with like
that is like a perfect way of encapsulating that also.
Every relationship is like a house with a second floor.
It's got two stories.

Speaker 3 (48:37):
Come on.

Speaker 2 (48:38):
It was interesting, too, because when I saw the musical
the first time, I was shocked because she spent so
much time on that Porter stuff. And again, I saw
stuff in that musical I had never read before. I'd
never heard her talk about. And she really portrayed him
extremely abusive. Like he was so abusive to her to
a level that like I didn't understand until I saw

(48:59):
it visually, you know, being acted out by actors. But
it's just different. And then I was like, God, this
must have been even so much worse because reflecting on
it this long, like this much later in life and
to still feel this strongly about it. You know, and
she ended up like current version, like they've edited a
lot of that out. And I think that was smart.
But I'm glad I got to see the first version
of it. It was fucking 401k. long it was very

(49:20):
long but you know the final i think is two
and a half you know so they cut out an.

Speaker 6 (49:25):
Hour that's a lot yeah yeah uh but it was
but that's also wild that like that is her version
of events now in retrospect because so he sues her
For three million dollars and like goes on a spree
in the media, be.

Speaker 1 (49:41):
Talking like cash shit about her. She is never like
very high road.

Speaker 3 (49:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (49:48):
What is what is he?

Speaker 1 (49:48):
So why did he sue her for?

Speaker 2 (49:52):
He basically sues her for ownership and rights, and basically
he believes he made Dolly Parton. So when she went
on to record Jolene and everything else, he feels like
that's his money.

Speaker 7 (50:01):
Oh, he's like, you're taking money out of my pocket.

Speaker 1 (50:03):
He also did, I mean, you know, had her sign
a predatory contract at this time. Absolutely. So, like, by
the letter of the law, she did owe him a
lot of money. But it's wild that, like, she... has
like you know come out and talked about how abusive
he was because towards the end of his life she

(50:23):
does like go reconnect with him before he died in
2007 um he's he is kind of ruined by her
when she leaves like he just can't fucking work she
also like takes his right hand with her like the
all the musicians like are like well we're gonna go
with The really nice lady who's so talented and not

(50:46):
a fucking monster.

Speaker 3 (50:48):

Speaker 2 (50:49):
And also it's like he's aging out as well, right?
Like he's still a songwriter, but like he's not he's
battling his ego during this time. So his ego is
making it difficult for him to actually move forward. And
he is so caught up in her actual success. It's
he wants credit for her success.

Speaker 3 (51:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (51:06):
Impedes his ability to even move forward in his own career.

Speaker 3 (51:09):
Right.

Speaker 1 (51:09):
Right.

Speaker 2 (51:10):
You know, he's selling off his publishing because he can't
afford it because he's he's broke. He needs he needs
to pay his bills. And then he ends up getting sick.
And the lore is basically Dolly Parton went and purchased.
She purchased his catalog.

Speaker 1 (51:22):
Purchased his catalog for him.

Speaker 2 (51:25):
His catalog. And then she gave it back to him
when he was on his deathbed. So that his children
would have something to live forward on without being asked.

Speaker 3 (51:34):
Is that true? Now you said, is that a rumor
that that's damn Dolly?

Speaker 1 (51:38):
No, she just always is going out of her way
to like make things right. And just like even though
this person has been like publicly a complete monster to
her is just like, all right, well, he's clearly hurting her.
Let's take care of this.

Speaker 2 (51:53):
And also she acknowledges like she wouldn't be where she
was if she didn't have certain opportunities. So she's like,
I don't want to discredit his, his, his, you know,
participation in my success. However.

Speaker 1 (52:04):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (52:05):
And also she's like, let's not get it fucked up though.

Speaker 2 (52:09):
To Jack's point, it's like, it's her larger giving spirit,
which is like, why should his children suffer because their
dad was an asshole?

Speaker 1 (52:15):
Sure, sure, yeah.

Speaker 2 (52:16):
Right?

Speaker 1 (52:17):
Right.

Speaker 2 (52:17):
Like, his children, his children's children shouldn't have to suffer
because of that. If she could do something, she's going
to pay it forward because it's like, it goes back
to her overall thing, which is like, I have more
than I need.

Speaker 3 (52:27):
I mean, I think that's like what's really interesting, too. Like,
we're just... I'm hearing about her upbringing, all the shit
she's been through. The tremendous amount of empathy she has
just based on her upbringing and her life just already
gives her an insane amount of wisdom on how to
really operate and treat people to always know like, okay,
this is the right move in terms of helping a

(52:48):
person or knowing the sins of the father shouldn't apply
to the children. It's... Yeah, I'm like, I'm like, I'm
starting to see the matrix of Dolly Parton's wisdom more
and more.

Speaker 2 (52:59):
It's amazing, too, because we think, I mean, something right
now that young artists have really, I feel like, leaned
into in sort of a negative way is like this
hustle mentality, like, I always have to be working. I
always have to be hustling. I have to, it doesn't
matter who gets in my way. It's about me. And
it's like, I feel like Dolly Parton's life and career
shows you that like, yes, you should hustle. Yes, you
need to make sacrifices. However, you don't need to leave

(53:20):
a wake of fire and blood behind.

Speaker 3 (53:22):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (53:23):
There is a way to move forward and to put
yourself first and to prioritize your art without sacrificing your
immediate family, the greater good, the world. Like if there's
no one around to receive your art, then what the
fuck are you doing?

Speaker 3 (53:36):
Yeah, what's it for?

Speaker 1 (53:48):
So just a little more and I will always love you.
Went to number one on the Billboard charts in 1974
and again in both the 80s and the 90s in
the 80s because she performed it in The Best Little
Whorehouse in Texas. The movie with Burt Reynolds.

Speaker 2 (54:04):
Depending upon which station we're on.

Speaker 1 (54:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (54:07):
They changed the name for the TV friendlies.

Speaker 3 (54:10):
Oh, The Best Little Chicken Ranch.

Speaker 1 (54:12):
The Best Little Chicken Ranch in Texas. That sounds so
good and intriguing. And then the Whitney Houston version became
a sensation thanks to the bodyguard and being just a
fucking complete banger. Dolly says she was driving her car
when she first heard it and it like she like
had to pull over. She was like, it knocked me
off the road. Elvis Presley was a massive fan of

(54:33):
I Will Always Love You, sang it to Priscilla as
they were walking out of their divorce and tried to
record it. And then the night before the recording session,
our old friend, Colonel Tom Parker, you can listen to
our Elvis icons episode, but called part and was like, hey,
by the way, Elvis is going to need at least
half the publishing on this motherfucker if she's going to

(54:55):
record it. And she was like, no.

Speaker 2 (54:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (54:58):
So I'll just never label. Yeah.

Speaker 6 (55:00):
You can eat half my shit.

Speaker 3 (55:02):
Wagner.

Speaker 2 (55:02):
Why the fuck would I give it to you? Get
off my phone.

Speaker 3 (55:05):
Fake ass cowboy you fucking he probably would have killed.

Speaker 1 (55:08):
It though i feel like elvis that would have been
a good one for elvis um but uh another big
fan of this song speaking of uh narcissists uh saddam
hussein was a massive fan and an arabic cover became
his official campaign song in 2002 uh i'm kind of

(55:29):
shocked he had the restraint to not sing it himself
I have it here that I'm just going to play
it for you guys real quick. That's supposed to be waves.

Speaker 2 (55:38):
You can kind of hear it. Yeah. God damn.

Speaker 3 (55:55):
God damn.

Speaker 1 (56:22):
Still works. Still fucking works. Doesn't matter the language. That
song fucking rips. That song rips so fucking hard.

Speaker 3 (56:31):
Saddam's not wrong.

Speaker 1 (56:35):
Saddam's not wrong. Alright, Saddam.

Speaker 3 (56:38):
Gotta give you that one.

Speaker 1 (56:40):
In case you're wondering why it sounds like they've like
got uh, you know, eight bit waves going in the background. The,
the music video for that one takes place on a beach.

Speaker 2 (56:49):
Uh, okay.

Speaker 1 (56:50):
So there's also iconic lore that Dolly wrote Jolene and
I will always love you on the same day.

Speaker 2 (56:56):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (56:57):
In hindsight, she's like, I don't know if it was
the exact same day they were recorded on the same
like session tape, like where, or like the, you know,
where she like takes down the songs. They were like
right next to each other. Um, And I feel like
she might have been a little haunted by this. Her
two greatest songs, two of the greatest songs of the

(57:19):
20th century being written like on a single day. Like
she later talks about how she is. She's like, I'm
sure I've like forgotten so many good songs.

Speaker 3 (57:32):
Right.

Speaker 1 (57:32):
Like just it like suggests that sometimes you're just in
like God mode and And if you're not writing it
down in that moment, like you won't catch it. It's
like a terrifying thought for any creative person to have
is just like you you might not know it. And
it might be the day that like fucking Jolene and
I will always love you like come to you.

Speaker 2 (57:53):
I talk about that in my stand up back. It's
sometimes how I close my show and I tell people
that and I say like I'm a huge Dolly Parton
fan and I say that that thing and then my
whole thing and my messages is like think about that
next time you think you've accomplished something.

Speaker 3 (58:04):
Right like you.

Speaker 2 (58:06):
Haven't done shit like you haven't done anything just like
getting up and writing two great songs even if it's
like one at breakfast and one at lunch do you
know what i mean right and that session tape by
the way that she's referring to is quite literally a
cassette tape yeah she's.

Speaker 1 (58:20):
Just like taking down her ideas literally like a tape recorder.

Speaker 2 (58:23):
Yeah like push down the two buttons and record.

Speaker 3 (58:26):
And record right.

Speaker 5 (58:27):
Yeah like yeah yeah she did that well into the
2000s As for what Jolene is inspired by, she says
that once she was going to the bank with Carl
and there was a hot redhead bank teller who she
said she had everything I didn't like legs, you know?

Speaker 1 (58:45):
She was about six feet tall and had all that
stuff that some little short, sawed-off honky like me don't have.
That's how she described herself when she was like the
fucking number one sex symbol in the world.

Speaker 3 (58:57):
Yeah, but that's the charm, man. But honestly..

Speaker 2 (58:59):
I want to see what that fucking teller looked like.

Speaker 1 (59:01):
Can you imagine?

Speaker 3 (59:02):
If she had Dolly Parton shook like that? Yes.

Speaker 2 (59:06):
But maybe she was just homely as fuck. And Carl
was like, this bitch ain't going nowhere. this is nice.

Speaker 1 (59:11):
Right The teller wasn't named Jolene. That name came from
a young fan who asked for Dolly's autograph and she'd
never heard the name and was like, that's pretty. I'm
going to write that into a song that will define generations.
But on Dolly Parton's America, you get to hear her
tell the story. And it kind of reminded me of

(59:33):
that part in the Beatles documentary, Get Back, where you
watch Paul McCartney kind of like will the song get
back out of his bones? Like he's just like... Like
it's just like mumbling shit. And then like, it just
like starts like vibrating out of him. Like she's talking
about how she's like, so I heard the name and
I was like, that should be a song. And so

(59:53):
I was just like insisting on trying to, trying to
remember that song. And so I kept being like, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene,
and like just reminding herself of it, like gives her
the chorus to it. And then sometime later, uh, She
gets jealous of the bank teller and writes one of

(01:00:14):
the great songs of all time.

Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
We talk so much about like how Jolene came to
be in sort of like the name, the song, who
was Jolene. But we don't spend enough time talking about
that fucking guitar lick.

Speaker 1 (01:00:23):
So good.

Speaker 3 (01:00:24):
We don't spend time.

Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
That is an incredibly difficult and such a unique riff.
Like you don't hear that type of guitar instrumentation. on
a lot of songs even a lot of country or
bluegrass songs but it's so remarkable and it shows the
level of skill with guitar that dolly had to be
able to write that meandering riff into like the courting
that she's she has around that song is like yeah

(01:00:47):
pretty intense like that is not an easy song to
just stumble into the arrangement on it is phenomenal.

Speaker 3 (01:00:54):
Wasn't a lot of her guitar I remember reading a
thing just like as a music person like her fingernails
dictated a lot of how she played guitar yes.

Speaker 2 (01:01:02):
She holds and plays guitars different and she also.

Speaker 1 (01:01:05):
Like different tunings too like because the.

Speaker 2 (01:01:07):
Guitars are also smaller because she's tiny yeah I don't
even think like bodies are so much smaller she's a
little tiny guitar hand on the pump sipping on a
40 smoking on a blunt I'm sorry.

Speaker 3 (01:01:23):
I had to bring Redman and Method Man into it. Oh, okay.
That's like so funny.

Speaker 1 (01:01:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:01:28):
It'd be funny to probably see her with a regular
guitar and like, oh, you look like the ABC cartoons.

Speaker 2 (01:01:33):
All her stuff is custom. She's played custom Martins for
a very, very long time. Yeah. It's just it's an
intense sound. But yeah, the way that she holds her guitar,
the way she plays her instruments totally different because of
her nails. She has special picks and stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:01:45):
It's right. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:01:47):
The music's great. The lyrics are also really like it's
such a unique like trying to like I said up top,
like compliment someone into not fucking your husband and just
but but also like she's clearly taken by Jolene. Like
it's almost a love song to the person. who is
going to steal your man.

Speaker 2 (01:02:07):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:02:08):
Yeah. It's like a song written from the cuck chair.

Speaker 2 (01:02:11):
But also, seriously, though, imagine like I hope that that
lady before she died because or maybe she's still alive.
I hope that bank teller is somewhere just like telling
her grandkids. Well, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:02:20):
Yeah. I'm Jolene, motherfucker.

Speaker 6 (01:02:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:02:23):
Y'all's daddy could have been named Carl.

Speaker 3 (01:02:26):
Lydia, how have you not figured out who this bank
teller is?

Speaker 1 (01:02:29):
I know. That should be a podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:02:31):
I'm not the only one. Honestly, it's a whole thing.
It's like, who is Jolene? Where is Jolene? This has
been a question that has been asked.

Speaker 3 (01:02:37):
What's the furthest people have gotten to IT? identifying they
just know the bank maybe that yeah she worked that
there's well there's two things right there's who is the
little girl named jolene that the song actually got named
after and then who was the bank teller right right
right right right so it's.

Speaker 2 (01:02:52):
Both like i'd love to meet either right like do
we know where this little girl is that was named
jolene that met dolly martin when she was five years
old and has a song named after her And then
is this bank teller still alive and well? How many
kids does she have? Does she even know?

Speaker 3 (01:03:07):
Yeah, right. She was.

Speaker 2 (01:03:09):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:03:09):
Right, right.

Speaker 2 (01:03:10):
Does she know? I mean, there's there's no idea.

Speaker 1 (01:03:12):
Probably.

Speaker 2 (01:03:13):
Yeah, right.

Speaker 3 (01:03:13):
Because it could have just been a bank teller who's like,
and there you go, Mr. Dean, there's your deposit slip.
And he's like, thank you. And Dolly Parton's like, this
motherfucker trying to take my man. And she's like, honey,
I don't even know you or him.

Speaker 1 (01:03:24):
What?

Speaker 3 (01:03:25):
I'm at my job.

Speaker 1 (01:03:26):
All right. So this is when around the time when
her movie career kicks off. It's also when country fans
start getting mad at her for selling out and going pop.
She has another good quote around this. She said, I'm
not leaving it. I'm taking it with me and taking
it to new places about country. I just want to
also say this is I remember from, you know, the aughts,

(01:03:49):
this same backlash happening to Taylor Swift.

Speaker 2 (01:03:52):
Totally.

Speaker 1 (01:03:52):
And I just want to say, if you're a country
singer and you ever start getting shit for going pop,
and you're not making up a fictional character named Chris Gaines,
you're probably on the right track. It seems to work
out for country singers when they go pop and their
fans are like, this is too pop. Taylor Swift, I
think it worked out for her and Dolly likewise.

Speaker 2 (01:04:14):
And I feel like in the last year and a half,
two years, we've been going through a thing of now
pop stars wanted to go country. Everyone and their grandma
wants a country song now.

Speaker 4 (01:04:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:04:20):
You know what I mean? And you've got people that
are sort of splitting the difference. I mean, Sabrina Carpenter
came and did the Opry. You know what I mean? She's,
you know, she did a song with Dolly Parton.

Speaker 1 (01:04:29):
She seems very influenced by Dolly Parton. Big time.

Speaker 2 (01:04:33):
I feel like she's kind of a little Dolly reincarnate,
to be honest. Like, I wasn't really aware of who
she was when I, like, listened to some of her
music and then did a little research on her songwriting.
And I was like, well, look at this little mix.
She's a little tongue in cheek, ain't she?

Speaker 1 (01:04:44):
Yeah. Her sexual double entendres, like, really feel like any
time you get just a quote from Dolly Parton talking
about sex, it's always... Sounds like Sabrina Carpenter Lear.

Speaker 3 (01:04:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:04:58):
She is friends with Jane Fonda and Jane Fonda's friend,
Karen Nussbaum, started a real life organization called for female
office workers called nine to five and they decided they
wanted to make a movie about it. At first it
was going to be a drama about three secretaries murdering
their boss. Um, and then they eventually decided to make
it a comedy. Uh, and they write the character of

(01:05:21):
Dora Lee specifically for Dolly Parton, even though she'd never
acted before. Um, And Fonda reasoned that part in songs
have a kind of depth in humanity that made me
feel like she could act and people would want to
see the movie because of her. Because at this time
she was, again, like famous for being the hottest person
on the planet. The only condition she had for doing

(01:05:42):
the movie was that she could write the theme song.
And that's when she writes the song on the back
of her script on set and then is like, hey,
Jane Fonda. Hey, Lily Tomlin, come over here.

And they're like, yeah,
I think that fucking works.

Speaker 3 (01:06:01):
Jane Fonda and then Lily Tomlin like turn their back.

Speaker 1 (01:06:03):
This motherfucker is so fucking talented.

Speaker 3 (01:06:06):
What the fuck? Fucking deal with this cup of ambition.

Speaker 1 (01:06:10):
That's such a fucking great throwaway way to describe coffee.
She was, by the way, sued by the writers of
a song called Money World, who claimed that nine to
five was a ripoff. It's unfortunately impossible to find that
song online. on any streaming platform because there are 3
million rap songs called Money World that have come out
in the past three years alone. Best Little Whorehouse in

(01:06:34):
Texas comes out. She's described the difference between making 9
to 5 and the difference between making Best Little Whorehouse
in Texas is the difference between like your first sexual
experience with like a very gentle lover and then being
sexually assaulted. Yeah. Best Little Whorehouse in Texas was apparently
a fucking nightmare. There was a bumper sticker at the

(01:06:57):
time in Hollywood that said, honk if you've been fired
from Best Little Whorehouse, because so many people were being
fired from the set of that.

Speaker 2 (01:07:06):
That's hilarious.

Speaker 1 (01:07:07):
But it was a big financial success and people, you know,
loved her in it. And that's where she sings. I
will always love you. That gives that song another second life.
then she makes rhinestone and it's a critical and commercial
failure uh sylvester salone talks about it as the most
fun he's ever had making a movie whereas the story

(01:07:30):
from dolly parton from it make him sound like the
biggest fucking asshole in the history of the world uh
at one point uh on set She, uh, saw an
unhoused man while shooting on location in New York, wraps
a shawl around him for warmth. And Stallone comes up,
pulls it off and says that the man's poverty is

(01:07:53):
his own fault. And Dolly, uh, quote says, I grabbed
the shawl back from him and wrapped it back around
the man. Then I stood up right in Sly's face
and said, Hey, look, that could have been you, you
ungrateful son of a bitch, except by the grace of God. Um,
Stallone still calls rhinestone the most fun hey it was
really fun I've made a movie you.

Speaker 3 (01:08:16):
Know I learned a lot Dolly Parton loves bums or
something um so so it's your own damn fault.

Speaker 2 (01:08:23):
A wild movie I do love it I own it
on DVD uh when I bought my car uh in
2016 I have a different car now but it had
a DVD player in it and I specifically yeah I
could watch right like I literally had three DVDs in
my car and one of them was rhinestone it's so
good my other one was trapped in the closet i'm
not proud of it but you were watching.

Speaker 3 (01:08:41):
The r kelly trapped in the closet dvds in your
car i had it in.

Speaker 2 (01:08:45):
The car it'd be fun just to pop i used
to think it was a funny bit.

Speaker 5 (01:08:47):
Wow yeah yeah yeah and.

Speaker 3 (01:08:51):
I'd be waiting for people.

Speaker 2 (01:08:52):
And they'd get in and they'd open the door and
they'd be like and he opened the door.

Speaker 3 (01:08:56):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:08:57):
I just, it was a funny bit.

Speaker 3 (01:08:58):
What's this little person doing? He's like, hold on, come on,
keep watching, keep watching, keep watching, keep watching.

Speaker 1 (01:09:03):
Wow. So this is also the time that she becomes
like a national sex symbol, international sex symbol. She's talked
about how the inspiration for her style was the town tramp.
When she was a child, she saw a woman in
her town who people would call trash because she dressed
in tight dresses and had high heels with plastic goldfish

(01:09:27):
in them. Oh, what she's describing is basically like a, what,
what a mood, how a movie dresses someone to be like,
this is a sex worker. And she was just like,
that's fucking fire. Like that looks amazing. And she would
like get punished for dressing the way she did. But
that was just like her first experience with being like, that's,

(01:09:48):
just me being me. Like, I just think this is
fucking cool, which I didn't I didn't realize it was
like such an early affectation. I assumed it was like
a thing where the people like the label was like,
we got to sex this up or something. She's just
like always been like that. I think that looks good.
I think that's like the best way to dress.

Speaker 2 (01:10:08):
There's not as many of them as there used to
be at Dollywood. There was a museum called the Chasing
Rainbows Museum that predates the current like Dolly Parton experience.
And it was this two story museum that was filled
to the brim. And I'm talking like walls collaged with notes,
handwritten things, pictures, people, places, things. And she had all
these pictures and there was lovely pictures of her and

(01:10:29):
like the sixties and the seventies, just like off, like, like,
Not on a TV show, like her in hot pants
next to a fucking horse. You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (01:10:37):

Speaker 2 (01:10:38):
Like her walking down the street holding kitty cats in
hot pants. And you're just like, oh, so you really were.

Speaker 1 (01:10:43):
Just about that life.

Speaker 3 (01:10:44):
You were about that life.

Speaker 2 (01:10:45):
You are in a skin tight sweater and the smallest
shorts I've ever seen and nine inch high heels walking
down a gravel road walking a horse. Like, let's go, bitch. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:10:54):
Yeah, come on, saw it off, honky. Give it, give it.

Speaker 2 (01:10:57):
No wonder Carl was like, babe, as long as you
come home and put those shorts on, I'll be doing
shits where you were for the week. Yeah, I will
be in a dark room.

Speaker 3 (01:11:05):
Yeah. By myself, if that's what it takes.

Speaker 1 (01:11:09):
I'll be over here laying pavement.

Speaker 3 (01:11:11):
I'm curious, the idea of the goldfish in the shoe,
that first came to me from I'm Gonna Get You, Sucker,
where there's, you know, Fly Guy, who was the pimp
who had the goldfish in the heels, and now I'm like,
ripping off dolly parton lore like how far i mean
or does she.

Speaker 1 (01:11:29):
Have a false memory from yeah yeah or like did
she because it like i i got that from movies
but she does like say that in her story about
like seeing the town tramp and being everybody calling her
trash and her being like no that's what i want
to look like that fucking rules So I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:11:48):
Yeah. Well, no, pleasers have existed for a very long time.
Pleasers is a company that makes a specific time. When
you think of stripper shoe, that's a pleaser. And pleasers
does make a, like a version that is the big
acrylic that has a hole that you can fill with
whatever you want. You can fill it with glitter. You
can fill it with sand. You can fill it with
water and fish. You can fill it with money. Like,
and those have been around forever. So I think both

(01:12:09):
can be true. I think that, you know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (01:12:12):
That's all I feel like. You're in my mind, Keenan
Ivory Wayans was referencing Dolly Parton. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:12:21):
There's a good anecdote from her first time visiting New
York City where I think it was her and Judy
were interested in seeing a porno movie on 42nd Street
because that's what Times Square was back then.

Speaker 2 (01:12:33):
I love that for them.

Speaker 1 (01:12:35):
And they were there and she was dressed as she dresses.
And they were mistaken for sex workers and harassed by
some guy. And Dolly was packing a gun and pulled
a gun on the guy and threatened to quote, turn
him from a rooster to a hen. And that line
was later worked into 9 to 5. She does say
that in the movie 9 to 5. Again, like she

(01:12:57):
just like has movie lines coming out of her at
all times. She posed in Playboy, not nude, but was
the cover model. And Barbara Walters interviewed her at this
time and was like condescending. Yeah, condescending as fuck. But
then like eventually she, was like, I eventually realized her

(01:13:18):
insides weren't as phony as her outsides and basically like
fell in love with her. So did America. But I
feel like that's the journey. Everyone who found out about
her as like sex symbol boob lady, you know, eventually
you get to know her and you're like, oh, my God, like,
fuck Mother Teresa.

Speaker 3 (01:13:38):
We've got a real living saint here. Yeah, real life.

Speaker 1 (01:13:43):
So not everything she touches turns to gold. I do
want to talk about this sitcom that has just a
crazy story. So 1993, CBS creates a show called Heavens
to Betsy that's about an egotistical country star who dies,
gets sent back to Earth to make amends. So this
feels like the character she was made to play, an

(01:14:06):
angel country singer. The production was a disaster. The show
was hampered by behind the scenes problems because the writers
were in L.A. The show was filmed in Orlando and
a new producing team was hired. And they actually like
got into a kicking and punching fight in the writers room. Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:14:26):
So.

Speaker 1 (01:14:26):
They produced six episodes in six months and aired zero.

Speaker 2 (01:14:32):
Oh, shit. I just can't imagine caring that much about
a script I'm writing to like punch somebody in the
face and be like, all right, write your way.

Speaker 7 (01:14:39):
Like fuck alright okay you're obviously big mad do it
I've been at writers before like people get super like
you can hear their voice shaking like they're about to
start crying over some shit and that's when you go.

Speaker 3 (01:14:53):
Okay yeah let's try that let's try that but.

Speaker 1 (01:14:56):
When it comes to the stakes are high she's also
indirectly responsible for one of the biggest disasters in TV
history the Chevy Chase show Because Fox approached her about
hosting their late night talk show. And she was like, oh, fuck.
You know, I'd really love to. What about Chevy Chase

(01:15:17):
from SNL? He'd be good. And they were like, oh, OK.
And they hired Chevy Chase. It was a fucking disaster.

Speaker 5 (01:15:26):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:15:27):
But she's also has a production company called Sand Dollar
because it's Sandy.

Speaker 2 (01:15:34):
I forget.

Speaker 1 (01:15:34):
The his uh last name but her producing partner uh
who passed away i want to say yes sandy koufax
no no that's a.

Speaker 5 (01:15:42):
No that's your baseball player sandy koenig maybe oh god
that's gonna anyways the.

Speaker 1 (01:15:47):
Thing's called sand dollar uh they produced the movie father
of the bride and the tv show buffy the vampire.

Speaker 3 (01:15:55):
Slayer yeah that's right i remember that and she's an
angel too i think Yeah, she still sends the cast
Christmas presents. I wonder, is she involved in the reboot?
Because they're rebooting that.

Speaker 1 (01:16:04):
I don't know. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:16:06):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:16:07):
Let's see. She once entered a Dolly Parton lookalike contest
that was like, you know, a drag contest at a
LGBTQ bar.

Speaker 2 (01:16:15):
And..

Speaker 1 (01:16:18):
Competed against drag queens who were doing dolly parton uh
and were quote prettier than i could ever dream of
being uh she lost and received the least applause of
any contestant when she took the stage.

Speaker 3 (01:16:31):
Wait like on the low or she was like yeah
they're not gonna clock that it's me it's on the
low it.

Speaker 2 (01:16:36):
Was it was a place that was in knoxville that
she went to and they do like a Dolly Parton
like night of a thousand dollies is a big thing
out here for drag clubs and so it was like
a night of a thousand dollies thing and she.

Speaker 3 (01:16:48):
Went oh so yeah you're like there's already yeah big
blonde wigs going around so it's not like you're gonna
notice the other wow she came in third you said Yeah.
I mean, I get it. She's not, you know, she's
not quite drag queen, but she was the real deal,
I get it.

Speaker 2 (01:17:02):
I mean, she had her own variety show, too. You
didn't talk about that. She had a whole show called.

Speaker 1 (01:17:06):
The Dolly Show that was on. She did, for five years, right?
It was very popular, broke a bunch of people.

Speaker 2 (01:17:12):
There was weird sketches. There was a weird sketch where she, like,
marries Hulk Hogan.

Speaker 3 (01:17:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:17:16):
Uh there's like a lot of weird stuff like uh
bobcat goldfoot was on it i had a really good
conversation with bobcat about like what the hell was that
like being on like the dolly parton show and he
was like i was really on drugs at that time
but like it was crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:17:26):
He's like it was good those episodes.

Speaker 2 (01:17:30):
Are like that that show was all over the place
but like the set was beautiful like they used to
have the swing from the set and then the backdrop
at dollywood at that museum i told you about but
it does they've taken it out now it doesn't exist
now it's in their archives but Oh, so much.

Speaker 1 (01:17:43):
Yeah, I know. There's so much like so she opens
Dollywood in 86, I think, which it had been a
another amusement park that was like Civil War themed.

Speaker 2 (01:17:56):
Yeah, basically, it's like she's in partnership with Herschel Brothers,
who own a lot of parks. They also own parks
that are up in Branson, Missouri. But I think it
was called like it was like a Silver Dollar City
or something like that.

Speaker 1 (01:18:06):
Silver Dollar City is what it was called.

Speaker 5 (01:18:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:18:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:18:09):
And it's massive. It has a like exact replica of
the one room cabin that she was born in. So
you can go in there, look at the fucking newspaper wallpaper.
But it also had a show called the Dixie Stampede. Oh,
I remember this.

Speaker 2 (01:18:30):
This is separate than Dollywood, though. Let me be clear.

Speaker 1 (01:18:32):
It's nearby, right?

Speaker 2 (01:18:33):
Yeah, it's nearby. It's in downtown Pigeon Forge. There's a
lot of sort of dinner theater shows.

Speaker 3 (01:18:39):
That exists.

Speaker 2 (01:18:40):
So there's like a Hatfield and McCoy one. This used
to be called the Dixie Stampede, I believe is what
it was. Is that what it's called now? Or is
that what it was used to call?

Speaker 1 (01:18:49):
It used to be called Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede. And
now it's just called Dolly Parton's Stampede or Dolly Stampede.

Speaker 2 (01:18:56):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:18:57):
But it is the most visited dinner theater in the world. Um,
it's incredibly successful.

Speaker 2 (01:19:05):
It's pretty fucking cool.

Speaker 3 (01:19:08):
It's, and that's after they took down all the Confederate iconography.

Speaker 1 (01:19:11):
So that, that, so that happens.

Speaker 2 (01:19:13):
They took down the iconography.

Speaker 3 (01:19:14):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:19:15):
Uh, so it becomes a major controversy in 2017. Aisha
Harris wrote an article for slate, uh, basically pointing out
that it's basically civil war medieval times. They restaged battles
between the North and South. with audiences cheering for both sides.
Nobody mentioned slavery at a Branson, Missouri location. The building

(01:19:38):
is designed to look like a plantation. And there's also
like a the bathrooms are segregated for Southerners only and
Northerners only.

Speaker 3 (01:19:50):
So it's.

Speaker 1 (01:19:53):
It wasn't great.

Speaker 3 (01:19:55):
Playing with that Jim Crow shit exactly she is so
wild it's like just just between.

Speaker 1 (01:20:00):
North and south you know yeah yeah to.

Speaker 2 (01:20:03):
Be fair like Pigeon Forge is literally like take the
worst parts of Florida that you've ever imagined and take
like the shittiest part of Las Vegas and then like
put all of those people together like that's kind of
what like it's like Pigeon Forge it's just terrible people
from the south visiting it's like the people there are not,
it's not, not people.

Speaker 1 (01:20:23):
That live there.

Speaker 2 (01:20:24):
People that live there are great, but like the tourist
influx is, uh, Ooh, it's a little rough.

Speaker 3 (01:20:29):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:20:30):
Um, so after that article, she does listen. She changes
the name. She takes out a lot of the, uh,
civil war shit. They changed the name to Dolly Parton's stampede. Uh,
the North still fights the South, but in pig races
and chicken catching contests, um, And the overt references to

(01:20:51):
war are removed. The colors of their uniforms are changed
so that Northerners wear red and the South wore blue.
And then around Christmas, it's like between red and green. Oh,
thank God.

Speaker 2 (01:21:02):
And honestly, I've gone. There's not even a lot of
that like sides cheering. Like for the most part, it's
a horse show. Right. It's just people doing really cool
shit on horses, like jumping through hoops on fire and
barrel racing and all that stuff. And then they have
these little tiny like, let's race these pigs. Who wants
this pig to win?

Speaker 1 (01:21:20):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:21:21):
They don't really mention any of that. And then like
the meal they serve you is awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:21:26):
I was going to say crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:21:28):
Like it starts with bread rolls. Then they bring you
this like milky, like corn chowdery vegetable soup thing. Then
they bring you a whole chicken.

Speaker 3 (01:21:37):
Hell yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:21:40):
And slices of pork loin, if you'd like that, in
addition to your chicken, then a whole baked potato, then
like a pile of vegetables or a salad, I forget.
And then at the end, it's like apple crisp. Like there,
it's so much food. Like I didn't, I didn't even
take the pork. Like I barely, I was like, I
am wasting so much food. Like this is so much food.

Speaker 3 (01:21:58):
Jesus Christ, yeah. You're like, you gave my four-year-old a
whole chicken.

Speaker 2 (01:22:01):
Yeah, we were like, oh, can we just split one? Yeah,
it's like literally a whole chicken. You're like, sick, I'll
eat this whole chicken.

Speaker 3 (01:22:08):
I'll eat the leg.

Speaker 2 (01:22:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:22:11):
She said about this controversy, as soon as you realize
that something is a problem, you should fix it. Don't
be a dumbass. That's where my heart is. I would
never dream of hurting anybody on purpose. She is very
involved in philanthropy, mentioned that she donated a million dollars
to vaccine research. right when people started doing that. And

(01:22:32):
they credit her with being very helpful. She's indirectly connected
to one of the most headline grabbing moments in scientific
history with Dolly the Sheep. And there's just like boob
jokes about her all the time. And like you see
her go on talk shows Back in the day. And
fucking Johnny Carson's like, I'd give a week's salary to

(01:22:55):
get a look under there. And like, she just has
the best.

Speaker 2 (01:22:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:22:59):
She has the best boob jokes. So she's like her.
I think the best one was she was like, I
burned my bra once and it took the fire department
like three weeks to put out the fire.

Speaker 3 (01:23:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:23:10):
Pretty solid. But like in the case of the Dolly thing,
she told the press that she was flattered that the
clone was named after her. So she just is kind
of like, yeah, fuck it.

Speaker 3 (01:23:19):
You know, he's like, yeah, OK, one of the most
famous scientific breakthroughs is named after me. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:23:25):
Go ahead.

Speaker 1 (01:23:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:23:26):
Love that for the brain.

Speaker 1 (01:23:27):
Not only did she donate to the vaccine, she was
one of the first people to get vaccine on camera
singing a new version of Jolene with the lyrics vaccine vaccine.
I'm begging of you, please don't hesitate, because once you're dead,
then it's a bit too late. Also donated millions to
AIDS research. Her imagination library charity has distributed more than
100 million books to children across the world, motivated by

(01:23:50):
her dad, who was the smartest person she ever met
and illiterate.

Speaker 2 (01:23:55):
Hmm.

Speaker 3 (01:23:55):
So she really missed with that TV career.

Speaker 2 (01:23:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:24:00):
And even I mean, she launched on the Porter Wagner show,
which was a TV show. I had some like great
small moments on TV, but like didn't really. And Hannah Montana,
Hannah Montana, you know, broke her to a new generation.

Speaker 2 (01:24:14):
So but that's why I think it's important that we
stop and we acknowledge. Well, then if she didn't make
TV money, she made some movie money. How did she
make all this money?

Speaker 3 (01:24:22):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:24:23):
And that's where we need to point back to the
best business decision she ever made that many musicians do not.
And particularly women in her era and songwriters in her era.
This woman fought for and retained the entirety of her
publishing rights for the entirety of her career.

Speaker 1 (01:24:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:24:38):
That is so huge. Not to give like a mini
like dissertation on how royalties work, but like basically, you know,
there's several parts of that pie and most performers receive
a quarter of that pie because they're just performing the
song and that's it. On the other hand, Dolly has
composed the song, Dolly has written the lyrics, Dolly has
performed the lyrics, and Dolly has recorded it. So that
bitch gets paid on all four sides of her record,

(01:25:00):
which is how she has made money and not selling
her songs or giving away publishing rights to people like
Elvis Presley on her biggest songs. two, Whitney Houston didn't
get publishing on that song. And Whitney Houston still did
just fine. You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 6 (01:25:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:25:15):
So that's what she's doing.

Speaker 1 (01:25:16):
She's killing it off that Whitney Houston song to this day. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:25:20):
And just making so much money. And she's, I think,
one of the unique examples of truly wealthy people that
should be a billionaire that are not because they give back.
You didn't even talk about like the amount of like
local level sort of support that she's given. She has
a lot of funds that she has given to local people.
Like every time there is a tragedy here, this woman

(01:25:42):
literally pays people. She was paying people, families, I think
upwards of $ 4, 000 a month During fires, when the first
round of fires that blazed through the Appalachians. She also
has a thing in Sevierville that if you are a
resident of Sevierville and you graduate high school, she was
giving kids 300 bucks if you just like sent her
your thing that you graduated college. I mean, graduated high school.

(01:26:02):
Like she has low level incentives that are just for
people that live in the area that she was like
raised in. And the dedication to that is pretty remarkable.
And obviously, Dollywood makes a shit ton of money. It's
not the only resort that she has. She has a
whole universe of resorts and attractions that are in Pigeon
Forge now that people go through that she provides employment benefits.

(01:26:24):
If you work for her at Dollywood..

Speaker 1 (01:26:25):
Yeah, she treats her employees really well at Dollywood.

Speaker 2 (01:26:28):
She will put you through college.

Speaker 1 (01:26:28):
She'll put you through college. Yeah. Fucking crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:26:31):
For working at an amusement park.

Speaker 6 (01:26:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:26:33):
Such a just good... Just it's a good lesson. I
think generally, not even if you're a celebrity of like,
it really matters what you put out in the world.

Speaker 5 (01:26:41):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (01:26:42):
You know, because that it can come back. Like you
really need to think of like what your output is
into the world, because if you're very generous and giving
with that, like not to say you're going to be
Dolly Parton, but not only will you feel better, but
chances are you're going to build enough goodwill with other
people in your community or whatever that you're always going
to have your back.

Speaker 2 (01:27:02):
And how you define wealth is your own personal thing.
You know what I mean? Like I consider myself very wealthy,
but like I'm not Dolly Parton rich.

Speaker 3 (01:27:09):

Speaker 2 (01:27:10):
But I've spent time enriching my life and trying to
give back and I feel wealthy and like the relationships
and the friendships and like everything that I have. And
that is so meaningful. And that's one of the biggest
things I take away from watching her is like, how
can I downplay this? How can I make a mini
version of this for my life?

Speaker 3 (01:27:26):
What do you, do you think you would be a
shitty person if you didn't go to that concert and
didn't have your head, like your mind totally blown by
seeing Dolly Parton? Like, and you would have just been.

Speaker 1 (01:27:34):
Like, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:27:35):
Yeah. Yes, I do. Like I was a wild piece
of shit and like it took me a while to
figure things out. And like I was before I started comedy,
I was in a very like intense career. It's like
I worked for a record label. I was in the
music business. Like I was being taught to be ruthless.
And the only thing that mattered was my job. And

(01:27:55):
like she truly did teach me balance. You know what
I mean? And then me being like, oh, I do.
I can be creative and be a business person at
the same time and like gave me the like passion
to follow my own passion. And then also realizing, oh,
I can't also just only do comedy and not think
about my family and friends and not have time for myself. Like, honestly,
like she taught me balance. She taught me perseverance. She

(01:28:19):
taught me also taking risks and not being afraid to
take risks. Because if you fail, who cares? You can
be broke anywhere.

Speaker 3 (01:28:24):

Speaker 2 (01:28:26):
She absolutely did. I think I would a thousand percent
be a shitty person if I didn't have Dolly Parton
and her light in my life. Totally agree.

Speaker 5 (01:28:32):
All right.

Speaker 1 (01:28:33):
So this is a question I haven't asked any of
our guests before, but I'm gonna ask you because you
know more about this than me what's the biggest thing
that i've missed is there one thing that we haven't
talked about from her life that like.

Speaker 3 (01:28:47):
We need to yeah yeah we need to tell the
listeners about yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:28:51):
I mean i think we should also talk we've kind
of danced around it but i think we should also
talk about femininity and fashion You know, she is someone
that never let anybody shape what she looked like in
that fashion. Right. Like nobody dresses like Dolly Parton. Dolly
Parton dresses like Dolly Parton. And when you see people like, oh,

(01:29:12):
that reminds me of Dolly Parton. But like she has
a very specific style and fashion road that she has
driven down and all of her clothes and all the shoes.
I mean, she's the only artist that I know that
has like a full time archivist and has whole museums
dedicated to just her clothing. Yeah, just her outfit. She
wrote a whole book about her fashion.

Speaker 1 (01:29:33):
She has a wig for every day of the year.

Speaker 2 (01:29:36):
They have a whole wig display now at Dollywood that
is like my favorite thing because they change the wigs
out seasonally. So I love going to see the new wigs.
I'm like, ooh, the new wigs. All of her shoes
are custom made. All of her dresses there. Her best friend,
Judy Ogle, started saving all of her clothes. very early
on because Dolly didn't think twice about it because Dolly's
just doing Dolly, right? And I'm so glad that Judy

(01:29:59):
locked in because now we have this huge amass of
all of these clothes that we wouldn't have, you know,
that people made that are dead. People have passed away.
The people have, you know, not known. And she didn't
always go with a super famous designer. She's always worked
with like independent, really strong seamstresses. So I think it's
also important that like Dolly created herself not off of
the back of designer clothing, right?

Speaker 3 (01:30:20):
Right, right, right, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:30:21):
Would Cardi B be Cardi B without designers? You know
what I mean? Like everything now is like, oh, it's Balenciaga,
it's custom this, like, dolly shit you don't know who
steven summers is unless you are a dolly parton fan
and then you're like oh that's a steve summers dress
he designed that you know yeah you don't know the
people her beer you know all this like i know
the people who make her clothes because i'm obsessed with
this shit and now her her great niece like her

(01:30:42):
niece is running this and putting this all up and
this you know woman has grown up in you know
this is her aunt can you even imagine like your
aunt being dolly parton get out of here you know
but she's the same reverence that we do because she
understands the how difficult it is as a woman to like,
hold on to like an artistic vibe for the entirety
of your career. Oh, that was Madonna's leather era. Oh,

(01:31:05):
that was Madonna. Like Dolly Parton has been consistent since
the beginning, which is like, is it fucking sparkly? Does
it have a fringe? Like, is my hair big as fuck?
Are my shoes high as fuck? Like, is it fucking rhinestone? No,
send it back. You know what I'm saying? Like, And
everything is custom made. I even love the fact that
when she did fucking, uh, God damn, what was the

(01:31:26):
movie with, uh, uh, Queen Latifah where.

Speaker 5 (01:31:29):
They were, she wasn't, she was in a straight talk
or higher.

Speaker 2 (01:31:34):
So that's, it's gonna, it's, that's gonna drive me crazy. Uh,
but even her choir gown is like joyful noise.

Speaker 1 (01:31:42):
Yes. Joyful noise.

Speaker 6 (01:31:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:31:43):
Uh, she has a fitted choir gown.

Speaker 3 (01:31:46):
It's not that big guys don't be quiet like you.

Speaker 2 (01:31:49):
Know after that movie came out there was church ladies
that were like oh yeah i'm taking my shit in
you know what i mean you know i'm gonna look good.

Speaker 3 (01:31:55):
Like when mariah wore the michael jordan jersey dress to
sing the national anthem at the all-star game people like
hold on you.

Speaker 1 (01:32:00):
Can do that with a basketball jersey.

Speaker 2 (01:32:03):
Yeah like i know there was church ladies running into
taylor's that monday morning like right Take.

Speaker 3 (01:32:08):
My shit in.

Speaker 1 (01:32:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:32:09):
She's like, I got to let them know.

Speaker 2 (01:32:10):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:32:11):
From the pulpit. I'm trying to catch this bastard. You
know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:32:14):
I look good.

Speaker 3 (01:32:14):
From the pulpit to the narthex, they're going to realize.

Speaker 1 (01:32:18):
She has consistently employed her family, which can be like
such a recipe for disaster. But like she, and like
there has been like difficulties where like her aunt was
feeding rumors and like her sister just got messy with
it and was like, pray for my sister.

Speaker 2 (01:32:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:32:31):
She's just like oh i didn't mean anything by it
she's fine i was just yeah um well that's.

Speaker 2 (01:32:35):
Also like i mean that lady's old you know what
i mean imagine yeah i don't know about you guys
but my mom wows on on facebook and doesn't realize
it like that's just like that's all she was doing
was just like you.

Speaker 1 (01:32:44):
Can't talk about dolly like that without the world freaking
out but right just the the fact that like she
has created this like massive family empire and is like
doing succession but like with kindness it's like fucking crazy
you know.

Speaker 2 (01:32:59):
And all her family is like beautiful and lovely like
since i've lived out in here nashville i've really gotten
lucky and like have met like quite a few of
her like younger relatives that are around my age just
from like being in places that i'm at and like
people just talking to me and being like oh i
see you all the time you seem normal are you
are you normal and i'm like yes i am very
normal also very obsessed and they're like yeah me too

(01:33:20):
i can't believe i'm related to this lady you know
and they're all are supported. Like everyone has great stories.
Like everyone is employed or not employed or has gotten
some help or something in some way, but it's never expected.
Like it is beautiful to see that, that she's not
only pouring into her immediate family, but like into her
community and younger generations. And she's teaching her family members

(01:33:40):
how to continue that same vibe. Right.

Speaker 1 (01:33:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:33:43):
And it's just, and now her big thing that she's
coming out with is like, all I want to do
for the rest of my life is literally bring joy
and happiness to people.

Speaker 3 (01:33:51):
That's it.

Speaker 2 (01:33:53):
What an altruistic statement.

Speaker 1 (01:33:54):
She's doing a pretty good job.

Speaker 2 (01:33:55):
What a beautiful thing to say. I think so, too.

Speaker 1 (01:33:57):
So far, I'd say pretty good. Work in progress, but
pretty good work so far.

Speaker 2 (01:34:01):
I got my eye on you, Dolly.

Speaker 1 (01:34:03):
Lydia Popovich, such a pleasure having you on all episodes
of our show, but especially this one. Where can people
find you, follow you, all that good stuff?

Speaker 5 (01:34:11):
Certainly.

Speaker 2 (01:34:11):
Uh, you can find me on the interwebs. Lydia Popovich.com
is my website. Hater Tuesday on all of the socials
is where you can find me. Um, I am based
in Nashville, but I tour all over the place. But
if you're in Nashville, you can always catch me at Zany's.
I pop in there pretty frequently, got different shows. Um,
One exciting thing that I have booked that I think
you will be excited about, Miles, I will be opening

(01:34:33):
for our friend Sarper Goovan from 90 Day Fiance fame.

Speaker 3 (01:34:38):
Sarper, you know, Sophia went to go see Sarper perform.

Speaker 2 (01:34:41):
It's the gig of the year so far. Like, I
couldn't be more excited to be booked as that man's opener.
It's a two man show. Just me and him. It's
a two. What the fuck?

Speaker 3 (01:34:51):
Yeah. And Jack Sarper is a dude who he's like
a 90 day fiance Casimir, this Turkish guy who's just like,
she's like, what do you want to do in your America?
He's like, maybe I'll be a stand up and just
fucking went for it. And he's not that funny, but
he just everyone's so interested in him. That he's selling
out these like he's doing like a whole stand up tour.
And I OK.

Speaker 1 (01:35:12):
Wow. Is he doing material or he's just getting up there?

Speaker 3 (01:35:14):
He got material.

Speaker 2 (01:35:15):
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:35:15):
Oh, he's got material. He's got material.

Speaker 2 (01:35:18):
He definitely has material. So, yeah, look out for that.
I think that's either in February or March. I can't remember.
I'm going to be putting on my website. I just
confirmed that earlier this week and couldn't be more thrilled.
You were one of the first people I thought about.
Miles was like, oh, my God, can't wait to tell Miles.
He's going to get it. He's going to know how exciting. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
But yeah, come see me do some stand up. I
do have jokes about Dolly Parton and all kinds of

(01:35:38):
other stuff. But yeah. And if you see me in
the streets or you see me at Dollywood, I will
be there opening day, probably at the front of the line.
There's video footage of me last year running through dropping.
Rope dropping.

Speaker 3 (01:35:49):
Hell yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:35:50):
Got a rope drop in the world.

Speaker 2 (01:35:51):
Every year.

Speaker 5 (01:35:52):
All right.

Speaker 1 (01:35:53):
Miles, where can people find you?

Speaker 3 (01:35:54):
Checking out, talking 90 Day Fiance on 420 Day Fiance,
talking to Sarper, whatever, everything that's happening over there. And also,
Ain't It Footy, talking about soccer. All of it.

Speaker 1 (01:36:06):
Come find us.

Speaker 3 (01:36:07):
And you know already, Daily Zeitgeist, you already know.

Speaker 2 (01:36:08):
You already know. All right.

Speaker 1 (01:36:10):
That is going to do it for this part of
the conversation. Stick around for after the break, because I
never remember to get to everything I wanted to say
in the conversation for my notebook dump. So be back
in five minutes. Bye.

Speaker 2 (01:36:25):
Bye.

Speaker 1 (01:36:38):
All right. That was our Dolly Parton conversation. Thanks to J.M.
McNabb for providing the research. And thanks to Lydia, of course,
for providing a lifelong devotion to Dolly Parton studies. A
few things I didn't get to. That's right. It's time
for the notebook dump. We're going to do a couple

(01:37:00):
unprecedented things in this edition of the notebook dump. First,
There's something I forgot from a previous episode. I'm going
to notebook dump something from Elvis here. Because I learned
about it after the Elvis episode dropped. I've since learned,
listening to actually just randomly a Conan O'Brien Needs a

(01:37:21):
Friend live episode with John C. Reilly a few years back.
It was recorded a few years back. That Elvis had
a chimp named Scatter. This is... A significant omission that
I have to apologize for. Significant for a number of reasons. One...

(01:37:43):
Was just a point that I think I did mention
in the episode was how similar Elvis and Michael Jackson's
some aspects of their lives were. And that they both
created these universes, Graceland, Neverland, where they were surrounded by enablers.
They both died from medical enablers, basically physician malpractice by

(01:38:03):
way of, holy shit, it's Elvis. And... When you get
to that level of weird fame, like I think those
two human beings, Elvis and Michael Jackson, lived arguably two
of the strangest lives, had two of the strangest human

(01:38:24):
experiences in the in the history of the species, like
being that famous, like they, I feel like we should
kind of study them like psychiatrists or neurologists study Phineas Gage,
the guy who survived getting a railroad spike through his head.
And they're like, well, this is a weird thing. And
so now we can learn things that we wouldn't otherwise

(01:38:45):
be able to their lives. Michael Jackson and Elvis was like,
this vast psychological experiment. And what we found in both
cases is that when you are in those strange alien
worlds where nobody is being real with you and you're
just surrounded in your own castle of your own design,

(01:39:09):
at a certain point, you're just like, I got to
get a chimp. I need a chimp. in here with me. And,
you know, Michael Jackson's was much more famous, at least
in my lifetime. Elvis's was named Scatter. They named it
that after how people would react when he showed up

(01:39:29):
because he was a bit of a live wire, a
bit of a wild card. He would reach up people's
skirts and just make people very uncomfortable. One time, Elvis
and the Memphis Mafia were in L.A. and they found
a car or created a car with a fake steering
wheel so they could drive around Beverly Hills, making it

(01:39:52):
look like Scatter was driving the car and just like
freaking out the people of Beverly Hills. And a very
sad story. He ultimately was left in the backyard in
a cage when it was too cold and he froze
to death.

Speaker 5 (01:40:06):
Anyways.

Speaker 1 (01:40:07):
It was too good, the omission, too unforgivable. Had to
bring it back here. And that's something that I'm comfortable doing.
If I miss something on an episode that needs to
be rectified, let me know. I will bring it back
in the notebook dump in subsequent episodes. On to Dolly Parton,
just in terms of her being... A tabloid queen. There's

(01:40:30):
been a number of conspiracy theories about her over the year.
One suggesting that she's secretly covered in tattoos. This one
was very fascinating to me in the early days of craft.
I was like, this was my white whale. Can we
find we find out if this is true? The idea
is she's almost never seen wearing short sleeves. And she

(01:40:51):
has admitted that she has a few little tattoos here
and there, mostly to cover up scars from surgeries. But
she says she's not tattooed up like a motorcycle girl.
So that is the adorable Dolly Parton way of putting it.
Other conspiracy theories and tabloid queendom. She hasn't been able
to totally outrun the initial boob joke that made her famous.

(01:41:13):
There's numerous rumors that she either had her breasts insured.
or that they're so heavy that they've caused her to
be bedridden and crippled for life, um, which she's obviously denied.
And I will, I will just say during the course
of the research for the Dolly Parton episode, I've never
seen anyone who is less bedridden. I think she's actually, um,

(01:41:34):
one of these people whose success can be partially explained
by needing less sleep, as I mentioned in the episode,
but she, she wakes up at 3am every morning. Like
Donald Trump is another one of these people who needs
less sleep, but, uh, Unlike Trump, she appears to be
vibrating with energy at all times. She seems to be
powered by a hummingbird heart. She sleeps so little that

(01:41:57):
she sleeps in her makeup, has a wig rack with,
as I mentioned, she owns like a different wig for
every day of the year. And I like to imagine
that she just sprints out of bed through a closet
and the wig and the clothes are just on her
when she gets out the other side. like a cartoon
character who accidentally gets dressed up like a lady by

(01:42:18):
running through a woman's closet. Uh, we talked about people
trying to cancel her, getting mad at her. Um, another
anecdote about someone who came at the queen and missed, uh, 2024,
the Federalist attacked Parton for condoning immoral sexual behavior. And
it didn't go well from a Yahoo news article from

(01:42:39):
later that week. Uh, Federalist writer Erica Anderson criticized Parton
for her nonjudgmental approach to life and her claim that
she loves everyone. Those are controversial opinions. I can see
why Erica would object to those statements. Is she a
five-year-old boy in the year 1985? You love everyone?

Speaker 3 (01:43:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:43:02):
The thing I, a Christian, object to is her nonjudgmental
approach to life. But that was the thesis of her article.
And like I said, within a week, she was out
here being like, I regret using Dolly as the example
of the point I was making in the article. As
I wrote in the piece, I love her and think
she does some incredible things for the world. We all

(01:43:24):
make poor choices in how to frame things sometimes. Yeah,
you made your whole article about criticizing Dolly Parton. She
closed her statement within a week that she issued about
her article. The world is lucky to have her. And finally,
I said I'd do a couple unprecedented things in this. No, no, no.
No book dump. First, we gave you an eldest previous episode.

(01:43:48):
No book dump. We're also we've got a notebook dump
from guest Lydia Popovich, who wanted to point out that
we missed out on the importance of Dolly to the
fine art of branding. Lydia, take it away.

Speaker 2 (01:44:03):
Hey guys, I was just making dinner, making chili, and
I'm making cornbread using my Dolly Parton x Loge collaboration,
cast iron butterfly molds. And it occurred to me, oh
my god, we did forget something. We totally forgot to
talk about Dolly the brand. This woman has branded herself.

(01:44:28):
A lot of people love to give credit to Kiss,
who did a wonderful job of marketing themselves in the
70s and the 80s, you know, from Kiss lunchboxes to
posters to dolls, everything, right? But that's pretty limited in
comparison to what Dolly Parton has done. Dolly Parton has
branded herself since the 80s.

Speaker 1 (01:44:47):
All right. Good point from Lydia. I remember reading a
lot of glowing reviews on Kiss's ability to sell out reviews. during,
I don't know, I think the Obama administration or something,
people were like, man, they were really good at marketing themselves.
You know, generally, I'm not the biggest fan of selling out.
But when you're putting your name on products that make

(01:45:08):
people happy and using the money that you make from
that branding to like put people through college and give
poor children books to read, I'll allow it. Dolly, I'll
allow it. All right. That's going to do it for
this week's Iconograph. We are back next week with another
very fun episode that talks about the finer points of

(01:45:31):
selling out. We're talking about the Michael Jordan meets Evil
Knievel meets Johnny Appleseed of skateboarding. We're talking about the
Hawkman Tony Hawk with Mort Burr. That'll be next week's iconograph.
And we will talk to you all then.

Speaker 3 (01:45:48):
Have a great week.

Speaker 2 (01:45:49):
Bye.

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RIP Dolly - Icon #8 Dolly Parton: WWDD? (rebroadcast)

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