August 19, 2020 • 64 mins
Samara chats with the award-winning reporter and producer of Dolly Parton’s America about ALL the delicious behind-the-scenes on the hit pod series with Jad Abumrad, plus finding her own voice on the mic, the superpower of being okay with being hated, and how to land a kickass money ask.
Host: Samara Bay
Executive producers: Catherine Burt Cantin & Mark Cantin, Double Vision doublevisionprojects.com
Producers: Samara Bay, Sophie Lichterman and the iHeart team
Theme music: Mark Cantin
Samara on IG: @samarabay
Cat on IG: @catburt & @doublevisionprojects
Shima’s latest projects: wnycstudios.org/people/shima-oliaee
Quote from: diannahardy.com/
Michaela Coel’s speech: youtube.com/watch?v=odusP8gmqsg&app=desktop
Virgina Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own: indiebound.org/search/book?keys=a+room+of+one%27s+own
Anna Deavere Smith’s Talk to Me: indiebound.org/book/9780385721745
Alain de Botton quote from this gorgeous pod episode: howtofail.podbean.com/e/alain-de-botton-c19/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today's quote is from British author Diana Hardy. She said,
it only takes one voice at the right pitch to
start an avalanche. Welcome to permission to speak the podcast
(00:20):
about how we talk and how we get ourselves heard
with me, samar Ba. If you were obsessed with the
podcast series Dolly Parton's America like I was, you have
heard today's guest Shima Oli. I was the producer and
reporter for the series and just won the Peabody, which
(00:43):
is like the broadcasting Award for excellence along with the
show's host and her boss, jad Appenron. I wanted to
have her on to ask all the questions about producing
and about what it was actually like to be in
the room with Dolly and with jab Who's I mean?
I think the first podcast voice I ever heard when
(01:06):
I discovered Radio Lab while I was driving through the
backwoods of Virginia in trying to find these like really
isolated locations where we were shooting the movie Loving Anyway,
I remember hearing Radio Lab and going, oh, this is podcast, um,
And I wanted to have Sima on to talk about
(01:28):
her own voice on Mike, which I was really intrigued
by as I was listening to the series as well
as off as the child of immigrants, as a reporter
who you know, has to ask tough questions and who
as she talked about here, Jad relied on to speak
up with a quote unquote love shove every once in
(01:51):
a while during extremely intense interview moments. And also, you know,
as a woman in radio trying to own her own
creative vision. I was so taken with the Dolly Parton series.
And I mean, clearly I'm not alone. It won every
award for Best Podcast in twenty and you know, I
(02:13):
had a feeling that Shema would be full of wisdom
and insight, but truly was blowed away. Nonetheless, if you
were in the mood for surprising and deep and balsy, sister, uh,
this is Shema only I part of my experience listening
(02:44):
to Dolly Parton's America among the various you know, it's
sort of insane universe of journeys that we were able
to follow one of them. And why I wanted to
what my like inspiration moment was to have you on
this podcast is that I felt like we were also
listening to the journey of your voice on air. Oh wow,
(03:07):
did you feel that because you were at first a
just a name, yeah, and then by the end you
were very much a part of the you know, obviously
the intimacy of podcast is that we have your we
have these voices in our ears, and you know, I
remember I think I even like might have lightly gasped
in the car driving listening with the first time that
(03:27):
I heard you on air, and that it wasn't sort
of cut around your question. It was very much like
integrated in and I was like, there she is. I
love your podcast because of this, and I'm like, oh,
she gets it. We really had a blank slate going
into this, and there are so many moments. I mean,
there's four hours of tape, so altogether it was six
(03:49):
hours and seventeen minutes of the nine episodes, um plus
the two music episodes that we released as bonuses. But
can you imagine four hours went to six hours. It
was a very personal journey for me too, and people
don't get to hear that. That was also deliberate because
to me, the interesting aspect of this idea of oneness.
(04:12):
The first idea I had was Dad's Dad and Dolly
felt like one person to me viewing them, and I
also have a Middle Eastern background. And when we were
in the Kansas Plans with Grandma Betty and sarah' smrsh
I actually this is three months before we got to
the Tennessee Mountain Home. I had an emotional breakdown in
(04:34):
the car which is on tape where I start weeping.
I'm talking with Sarah Smarsh. Grandma Betty has just shared
about all the domestic abuse and violence and her in
her love life and with her seven to eight husbands,
and I start weeping in this car as we've visited
the graveyard of her ex husband, and we're driving through
(04:55):
the Kansas planes and I start talking about my cousins
and my grandma in Iran. And these are women that
went through Grandma Betty stories like they lived Grandma Betty's life.
But I was separate from them because I was in America.
And when I met one of my cousins, she cried
to me and said, you know you were lucky you
(05:18):
were there, but we suffered here. I have an accent.
I can't live in America. I don't have a visa
to do so. Um so she's she'll always be seen
as another on the world stage. And so I had
flashbacks of my cousin during that visit, and also when
I met the University of Tennessee kids when they were
(05:38):
sharing about the accent. That's that was the first reporting
trip I went on. They all just started bearing their
souls and that moment, plus that Sarah Smarsh breaking down
about feeling my grandma and her village in the Kansas Plains.
And then on top of that, hearing Dolly talk about
(05:58):
Dad's dad, which we never planned to use at the start,
but she was kind of teasing Jad's dad about his accent.
And one of these interviews, in the first interview Jad
did that. I wasn't there in the one where she
steam rolls him and where she steaming his chad a
bit um. But when I was listening, I thought, this
is funny. This is a woman with a thick Southern
(06:20):
accent teasing this Lebanese man about his accent. And I'm
someone who I grew up with parents with an accent.
So this oneness of like the Middle East and the South,
and of people being other that you don't expect to
be mothered, of friendships that form an unlikely places, I
think that that was my soul. The entire journey and
(06:44):
what you cannot be captured, you know, which cannot be understated,
and which I have not really like expressed in any interview,
is it was such a spiritual experience. Like I don't
want to say spiritual because it sounds so kind of goofy,
you know, or whatever. But there were so many moments
where Jad and I turned to each other and it
(07:05):
was healing wounds of our childhood. It was healing wounds
of of being first generation Americans with parents from the
Middle East. It was for me, it was healing wounds
of domestic violence amongst women in your family, of poverty, um,
(07:25):
of all of that um. Anyway, so I think naturally
that happened. I was just supposed to be the producer
behind the scene. I didn't even want to talk in interviews,
but Jad actually encouraged me. He said, no, be a Robert.
You're like Robert crow Witch, you're crazy, like you're kind
of you. Just say the crazy thing, just do it.
And I said, no, I don't want to do that.
I want to be serious. I want to be so
(07:47):
serious and I want to be taken seriously, and he said, no,
just be yourself. But I did see my role as
a behind the scenes kind of Ninja and that was
my role. But then naturally, as the series evolved, my
voice just entered it because my ideas were, so we're
(08:07):
we're are everywhere in the series. My work is everywhere
in the series. I think also Jad has a brilliant
audio mind and he hears things as music. And I
was a flute. I was the pan flute, like it
was like I started out little like I was not
the main I was not the piano, right, I was
not the main course. That might have been actually Dolly,
(08:28):
but like you know, and there's a conductor and there's
it was an orchestra to make those nine episodes. But
I think I was a pan flute maybe once in
a while a saxophone or something that would come in
and it would help. So if it helped the whole series,
it would happen. But if it didn't help the series,
those parts were not there. What helped the series is
(08:49):
what we put in there. I mean, in theory, this
is why we should speak. Ever, you know, it gets
when we're when that when eyes are on us, it
can become oh god, I I better be clever um.
But if we can always think you know, am I
opening my mouth? Am I giving myself permission to speak?
Because what I say is going to be of use?
You know. I'm also such a self editor. I'm very
(09:11):
self critical. And it was an intense experience. I mean,
as as beautiful and gorgeous, it was also really intense.
I mean, for two people to do something like this
was insane. People were asking other people I work with,
you know, oh, Jad's got a team of twenty, right,
and you would tell, you know, heads of in of
this industry would have be having lunch with my coworker
(09:34):
and they would say, oh, Dad's got twenty doing that
dollar series, right, And my coworker would say, no, it's
one this one girl. She's not sleeping, you know. But um.
But it was the opportunity of a lifetime. And I
am self critical, and I do appreciate that Jad also
championed me like we would. You know, when you're in
a creative um environment like that, it's like a crucible,
(09:57):
so it's like pressure, it's gorgeous, it's like you're making
a diamond like that. We were trying so hard and
we were so in there now and I even hear
a bit of the series I think, wow, I was
on another level. But it's also you know, going back
and forth and know it's gotta be this and gotta
be that, and then how do we say this and
how do we say that? And I was definitely behind
(10:17):
the scenes too, so I was championing him. But then
when I would be pulled in, you know, he knows
what he's doing. He's had twenty years of experience, and
so when I felt, Chad, I don't even want my
voice right there, he would say, no, let it be
right there. That first interview, right it was just the
foundation to create a relationship with Dolly. So you know,
(10:39):
he asked me to draft questions for her and then
but he let her kind of do her own thing.
She did steam Roland, but he also led her like
it's a It was a first meeting, but he knew
we would go back, and that second interview we prepared
for months. I was on the phone with anyone who
had ever written anything about Dolly. I was I was
(10:59):
reading everying on our life. I was trying to find
things no one had found, and my goal was I
wanted and I told Jad this, and I think he
did a Life Hacker article at that time where he
says Shema is a unicorn and she makes famous people
crying interviews because I told him, I said I want
to make Dolly cry and he said, you're crazy. We
can't make her cry. Did you hear that interview? And
(11:22):
I thought, no, we can. We can find a way.
I want her to get to a real moment of
something she's never told anyone. I really wanted that, and
he invited me on that second interview, and we prepped.
We had a four hour trajectory of an interview. We
had video, we had audio, we had a we had
(11:45):
I had done massive research and then we compiled it all,
we organized it, we made it multimedia, and we set
the agenda. I remember we were sitting in the car,
I think this was his dad's car outside of this
Nashville studio, and we were both nervous. Like Dad was
visibly nervous, I was nervous. At that point. He had
(12:06):
done the first interview with Dolly and he had interviewed
the class by himself, which was okay, But then the
second time he brought me because the Dolly professor is
a staunch feminist and thought she must would go and
told Jad and Jad was like, oh, yeah, okay. So
Jad brought me second time and that's all the kids
shared about shame, and Jad and I both connected with
(12:29):
that because we are we have felt other two as
first generation Americans, and we were in awe of that
second of that second Knoxvill trip that in that which
was my first reporting trip. Then he takes me to Dolly.
We're in the car, nervous as hell and almost it
was a state of prayer going in and we walk
(12:50):
up to the studio and they could see us, but
we couldn't see them because the studio has like the
reflective you know, mirror windows or whatever. And I hear
Dolly go, there's a girl out there? Why is there
are girls? Like? What is happening? And then they opened.
She did not know I was going to be there.
We go into the studio. There's one engineer, one Mike,
(13:12):
Jad and I sitting in front of Dolly, and um,
I was on a couch at first, but then I yeah, anyway,
we were sitting in front of Dolly. That's interesting. There
was like a moment when you when you like scooted
forward from couch to Yeah. I started on the couch
the first hour. I think I was on the couch
and then we had a bathroom break. In the first
hour we went in, we went in hard. The first hour,
(13:35):
the suicide was brought up, the Satas songs was brought up,
mental illness, the abuse in her family amongst women, poverty.
Then we come back and then we do another three
and a half hours, and it felt like we left
the planet. It was. It was so intense, and it
(13:58):
was every moment felt like you're on a high wire.
It was not a relaxed interview, but it was UM.
We were just trying to open doors. And she cried
twice in the interview, and I served at that time.
I mean I was not planning to talk at all.
I knew the entire trajectory and I really felt like
I was invisible presence. I was there to make her
(14:21):
say what she needs to say, just invisibly. It's with
when I've talked to other producers. I have a friend
of mine UM Eleanor Kagan. We were describing this UM
being the producer that's supporting a host. It is a
very freaking cool experience that I don't think people talk
about where you are the invisible like maker of magic,
(14:42):
but no one knows because you cannot talk, you cannot
rue it. But you've got to make You've got to
make everyone the best they can be without saying a
word until it's necessary. And so there'd be a moment
where there were two moments where she she would stop
the question and then I would love shove, I would
(15:05):
I would come in, and one time was she would
not go into the suicide. And I knew the story
because I had done my research, which didn't make the podcast,
but I know everything about it, and so I discovered
exactly what had happened, what was going on. But you know,
and Jad also has to be polite and kind, kinder
(15:27):
than me. I can do more in the Bad Cop
because he has the personal relationship right. And we had
to get another interview that wasn't our last interview. So
what is the love shove? So the love shove is,
you know, she's she answers to cut it off. And
then I kind of a tiptoe. I kind of tiptoe
in in my awkward way, and I was like, and
(15:47):
I said, um, I heard there was a gun, so
I just put it out there and she goes, there
was no gun. Did you read that? And this I said, actually, yeah,
I know from this and this and this, and then
she says, you know when I needed a gun. I'm
that's when That's when we got to the Porter question. Right.
So there's a moment that when you push someone says
(16:11):
something that might not serve that moment but became like
the opening of the Porter story. And that was next
on our agenda, so you dive into the Porter story.
And then with the Trump moment, that was a moment
where she just stopped. She would not answer what happened
at the Emmy's with Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda. Um,
when they were bashing Trump and she was expected to,
you know, banter with them, she wouldn't go into it
(16:34):
too deeply. And Um, that was a moment where all
my research paid off because I knew I knew all
about her story about Porter and forgiveness, and I thought, oh,
if she could forgive Porter, who pointed Lee came for her,
she's going to have compassion for She just doesn't like
(16:55):
she's gonna have compassion for Trump. She doesn't jump on bandwagons.
If you look at her, like the even the cheesiness
and the butterflies and the Dollywood and she's in her
own world. She is in her Dolly world. She is
in her own sphere. She doesn't she does not join
any kind of group. And that was part of the
(17:18):
fund That was the answer to the feminist question, that
was the answer to the Trump question, that was the
answer to even she could have joined me and Jad
going hey, let's let's really unpack porter, like, let's really
just say come on, he was kind of he was
me come on, Dolly. You know, she wouldn't even jump
with us into that question. So I think even with
the me Too movement, she wouldn't really even jump into that.
(17:41):
She wouldn't. She doesn't jump into any kind of trend
or group anything like that. She totally sends as an individual.
And at the end of the day, I also think
that would link to her faith, that she feels like
she has her own mission on this planet and with
her faith and her and God or whatever you might
(18:01):
call that spiritual essence. She prays every morning at two
am and then writes she's on her own train. I
want to talk about this moment that you're talking about,
where the where the energy changes in a room. Sometimes
it's as obvious as like literally the person you're interviewing
saying I'm not going to answer that, but sometimes it's not.
(18:21):
It makes me think of Anna Davir Smith, who does
these amazing one Woman shows where she embodies all the
characters that she's interviewed. She writes about listening for and
this is sort of a Shakespeare metaphor, but you know
Shakespeare has this um da da dada i ambic pentameter
and um, and that that da dada is sort of
meant to reflect the heartbeat and when it goes off
(18:44):
when it's data data data data datta. Shakespeare used that
very specifically to mean like something's really wrong with the world,
like something on a on a on a grand psychic club.
And so what Anna Davir Smith says is she listens
for the trophy, the off rhythm in the I can beat,
And that's her metaphor. I don't think it's literal, but
that thing of like when someone talks in a way
(19:06):
that accidentally reveals something and you want to go in there. Okay,
so this is what happened. I was I started as
the main researcher on this project. Then I go into produce,
which producing means very different things in very different places.
But because it was a two person projects, it meant
a lot more than you would expect. You were clearly
(19:27):
nineteen of the twenty people that works. So it was,
you know, Jet, it was probably ten and ten, you know,
maybe sometimes fifteen and five not I love it, and
but it was it was a lot. When I push
he knows I can push in away that he has
to be her sturdy ship, but I can be the
(19:48):
wave to rock it around a little bit and see
what comes up. Then towards the end of that four
hour trajectory, my research became that gut, the gut feeling
is not just intuition, which is very important. My masters
was in psychotherapy, so a big part of my life
and also my personality is if someone is suffering, I
(20:12):
kind of want to know what's going on. This is
also part of my Buddhist background is I've met thousands
of young women that would tell me what they're suffering
was right, So I naturally I don't want people to
be superficial with me at ever, it's almost kind of inappropriate.
I think I don't want small talk. I want to
(20:32):
know what's really going on, and it's out of love.
I really I really love people, and I think that
through someone sharing, everyone is healed because everyone is human
and understands. Right. So there's that Trump moment. She just
cuts it done, I'm not talking about it. Jad that
she couldn't say anything, and I actually shared a story
(20:53):
about my life in that moment, and I think Dolly
was like, where the hell is this girl? What is
she talking about? The silent little She wasn't even supposed
to be here. She was supposed to be here. What's
her name again? You know it's for him? Why why
did Jad bring this? For? Who is where she come from?
She had no idea and I had this my huge
(21:16):
curly hair. It's like I looked like I was like
and m and I was very quiet until this moment
where I just share the story and then she still
answers in a quick way. And then I go in
and say, hey, didn't you want to protect him? Like
didn't you just want to protect this person in the room?
And that's when she said yes. I wanted to say,
(21:36):
let's pray for the president. Why don't we pray for Mr?
And I knew I sensed what the answers, but I
didn't know what her answer was. Right. But that's because
I knew about Porter. I knew about her family, I
knew about her heartbreak. I knew about things that she
wouldn't even share with us, and so I knew that,
(21:56):
and so I shared a story that I felt like
she would know. I got it, And I think that
was true. I think she goes, Oh, she gets it.
She's not trying to get me, she's not trying to
trick me. She gets it. And when we left that interview,
we were so high. Jad and I had reporters high.
We could not believe the places we went. That four
(22:18):
and a half trajectory was the foundation of the entire series.
And she cried twice. So I became this kind of
good luck charm. I became like the lucky rabbits fook
for jab After that, he said, Okay, I'm taking that
was your goal, like you achieved it way too early
in your trajectory. Okay, we're gonna take a quick break
and we'll be right back. Okay, we're back. Can I
(22:48):
ask you when you come up with questions? I as
someone relatively to question asking in a formal sense rather
than a cocktail party sense. Um, I would to say
I have no idea what I'm doing, And I go
back and forth between coming up with questions that I
(23:09):
truly want to know the answer to and coming up
with questions that I think will elicit the types of
answers from my um guests, that readers, that readers, that
listeners will need to know, but that I'm a little
too like inside Baseball, I already know the answer, which
makes me feel. You know, I wonder since obviously some
of the secret to your brilliant question asking prep is
(23:33):
prep is just the amount of work you're doing. But
I also wonder, like what is that? Like that's a
good question or I want to know about that, but
how do I ask it to get in? Yeah, I
think um so researchers the first step right, and then
wanting surprise, wanting to like even me and you, well
(23:55):
this is so meta or whatever, But for me and you,
I mean, I'm going to enjoy way this interview more
if I get surprised by things I discover, especially I mean,
I've only spoken about the Dolly series maybe five times
in interviews, you know, I'm still learning how to talk
about it. But I even hear myself repeating things that
I've said before because it feels comfortable. Dolly has done
(24:17):
that a billion times over fifty years, like she has
answered the same questions a billion times. So she has
these sayings that are funny, charming, genius that she just
uses over and over again. And as you do research,
you realize, oh, when you think she's being so spontaneous
(24:40):
with you, she's not. She's playing you. You know, even
in concert, she's playing you. And what was crazy was
right before I moved to New York, I saw her
in concert, the only time I've ever seen her in concert,
and I heard these stories of her Tennessee Mountain home,
and I thought, wow, wow, wow. And then when I
did research, I saw she's been saying this story sorry
for thirty forty years, and how does she make it
(25:04):
sound so new? So I didn't want her to do that.
I wanted to shock her. So the research helps because
you find questions that have not been asked. You try
not to go down the path someone else has gone,
but you utilize that knowledge to lean into things because
I don't know everything, so I've got to push. I
(25:26):
think one thing that we don't talk about much, which
um Jad and I would do, is the structure of
the questions matters where you start, where you head, where
you go. It's not just random, random, random, Like we
had almost a movie like trajectory. We used audio, we
(25:48):
used video, We tried to find things of her that
she hadn't seen, we were hoping she hadn't seen. Do
you think about structuring questions to get um like stories
versus facts? Do you think in those terms at all?
You know? I find like a lot of the surprise
comes in when people are really trying to search themselves
for how something felt or how something went down. I
(26:10):
think some of the some of the most surprising, I
think some of the best, the deepest moments came from
she would say something in an interview and we wouldn't
understand what the hell she's talking about, and so in
that moment, we you lost that moment, Like when she
talks about the Appalachian murder ballads, we just we just
(26:32):
glided by it in that same four and a half
hour interview, which was which was amazing, but we didn't
catch it. And it was only in listening afterward where
we went, wait what did she say about murder ballads?
About the Knoxville Girl? Wait what? And then that took
us down a rabbit hole and we had the opportunity
(26:53):
to interview her again. So what you're getting, um. Also,
I think one of the beauties of interviews of Dolly
in the series is you're getting like fifteen I don't
know how many hours by the end that we had,
maybe fifteen, I don't know, but where we could go
deeper and deeper and deeper and say, remember when you
said this, Well what about this? Remember when you said this, well,
(27:16):
what about this? So we could come at her from
every angle. So I would say we had the luxury
of repetition, which helps us because we're not really just
doing an interview. We're creating a documentary experience. And it
sounds like that's also something that you're doing with the
other people that you referenced for your next project, that
it is about these longer conversations that layer. Yeah, but
(27:39):
that actually came out Yeah, yeah, yeah, that came out
tweeks ago. Yes, But I do think Lauren and Kiss,
who were in the Flag in the Fury episode, they
told me things in the last week of production that
there's no way they would feel comfortable saying that in
my first call with them. They knew me. By that time,
(27:59):
they trust at me, they knew I understood, they knew
what I was trying to do. Even John Hawkins uh
is in that episode, and he's the cheerleader at all
miss from three who refused to waive the Confederate flag
and all hell broke loose on that campus. He's only
done one another interview ever about that that situation because
(28:22):
it was so painful. He was getting death threats and
he was waiting for the right time. I had to
talk to him for two hours before he would even
agree to one interview because he wanted to know if
I was a person that he could trust or if
I had if I if I knew what I was
talking about, what I thought about Mississippi, Um, where's my heart?
(28:42):
And so those things build over time. That a lot
of being a producer is being someone that is actually
that people know that you care about them, even people
that I interview, people that have opposite opinions, you know,
like don't agree the mrs the story I just did.
People did not agree with each other. But I loved
(29:03):
everyone I talked to and I could see their truth
and whatever they were telling me, I thought, that is
really true. That is a great point. But then I
have to create the story based on all of these
like three thousand truths, because that's the reality of life.
And I'm now the storyteller telling this to the best
of my ability. No, And I think that's part of
your your genius, perhaps the unicorn like quality of you.
(29:25):
Besides having all these different, you know, literal skill sets
that you're bringing to the table, is that you very
much live in and value the gray area rather than
always being like, this is the answer, this is the
the truth. You know. My my, my dad had this
shirt that he used to wear when I was little bit.
At the time, I thought was ridiculous, and now I'm like, ah,
(29:46):
it is the deepest wisdom of life, which is bring
me into the company of those who seek the truth
and deliver me from those who have found it. I mean,
that's what's hard is the stories I feel like I
most want to listen to right now are people that
don't get to tell their truths. And Dolly couldn't either.
She told the truth through her songs The Ugly Ship
about being a woman. She does not talk about that
(30:09):
in interviews. She laughs, she jokes about her breasts. She
is fun and flirty, but when you go to her songs,
she is telling you the effing truth. And so that's
why we based our questions on the songs, because she
was saying things in the songs she was not saying
even in her autobiography, she's not saying that in her
songs she's sang a lot. More So, it's also doing
(30:32):
the research we would find the places where she was
saying things she was not saying anywhere else. But in
terms of the idea of stories, I think it is
a chemistry. You know, I'm really understanding this more, especially
as a creative. There's so many times where I go,
I like cross my arms and I think, why can't
(30:52):
something be like this, Why can't we do it this way?
Why isn't it like this? But being a creative is
not working for a bank. A lot of it is
the intangible stuff. It's really interesting because there's things that
look really nice. You know, constantly we're getting offers for
other projects or do this or do that. But um,
(31:15):
the chemistry of life, the chemistry of two people talking,
the chemistry of ideas, the chemistry of story building, the
chemistry of the pre interview, the chemistry of the actual interview,
the chemistry of the research, like having the taste when
you read something. And this is where Dad was my cheerleader,
especially when I was first starting and I was like
very timid and I didn't want to talk. I thought
(31:37):
I was not supposed to be talking. He he pointed out,
he said, oh, you do the thing. I said, what
do you? What do you mean I do the thing?
He says, you get random, like you tell this story
and know the person has no effing idea what you're doing.
You just come out and just associative. You have an
(31:58):
associative mind. Yeah, so when you know, I'm learning a
book right now and I'm trying to figure out that,
I think that. I think the point of the book,
which is really meant to be practical as well as
big idea, is to somehow get onto paper like the
associations that just happened in my mind, you know where
it's not actually like a logical progression. But nor do
(32:20):
I think that's how people learn best necessarily. I think
there's different kinds of thinkings. I think part of it
is also language, Like people who speak different languages they
have different loops of how they think and talk. And
I also think it's partly because my parents are not
native English speakers, so a lot of my thinking is associative.
And I think that Jad could recognize that too, and
(32:42):
he's like, oh, you think like me. You're an a
social thinker, but I've learned how to taper it. But
you also are a wild You're not afraid of being
I'm not afraid of being vulnerable in an interview. So
I'll just share the thing and the person will just
get so confused by my non seque which does make sense,
which does connect to something, but they're trying to follow
(33:04):
me because I'm going to start when when they refuse
to answer the question, I then hit a ball. It's
like way in the sky and they're like, wait what
is that? Wait what? And then I take them back
to them that's standing on home plate. It makes me
think of um, you know a land about Tom the
the British philosopher. He was on this podcast UM with
(33:28):
Elizabeth Day called How to Fail, and he said that
it's so it's so like basic but so profound. He
said that the only way to truly connect with somebody
is to be vulnerable, and for them to be vulnerable
back to you that's like it, you know, and and
I and I also really love to think of vulnerable.
You know, vulnerable means literally like showing your weakness. So
(33:50):
the idea that their strength and showing your weakness. It's
equality and respect. It's like I bow to you, I
am offering my soul and then you offer me whatever
you want to offer me. I have no attachment of
no judgment. And I think also people feel that there's
this famous quote about people. People have it. I'm going
(34:13):
to change it in my own words, but people have
an innate bullshit detector where they know if you are
sincere or not. They know if you give a ship
or not. People just know, even if they're not aware,
they know. In the interview tape, you can hear that
they knew we weren't bullshitting, so that the results we
(34:36):
got in the tape was amazing because people knew we
were not playing around and we were Sincere. I was
fiercely Sincere. I wanted I wanted to know what people knew.
I wanted them to share whatever they needed to share, Um,
including Jad Zad, including Jad you know. UM. There's also
this amazing research out of University of Glasgow. I think
(34:59):
where they can tell in the first millisecond where somebody
says hello, people have a instantaneous opinion about whether or
not that person is trustworthy. You know what. I love that,
And I mean it sounds wrong right because it sounds
like you're you're maybe judging. But people have wisdom even
if they don't can't necessarily put it into words. We
(35:21):
have wisdom. There's a girl, um So Buddhist girl. Her
name was Sunny Kim. She told me the story that
in Korea, um where like she grew up with her
family and they went through a lot of trauma as
a young person. Her mother almost died three times in
one year. And she said, like, through that suffering and
(35:42):
through prayer and and really taking care of other people
during that time, what would happen is like she'd go
visit someone who was struggling, and she could hear by
the way they would answer the door. She could hear
what their life state was by the way they would
unlock the door before they open it. I talk about
this a bit because you know, obviously I'm the voice
(36:04):
is my jam and not just the voice in and
of itself. Um As we just talked about in the
mail bag episode. But really because it's so revealing. It's
so revealing of what are as you say, our life state.
And I think that there's something. I mean, this is
not true for everybody in every moment, but um, I
think there's something about how each of us uses our
voices that either reveals our life story or our state
(36:27):
of mind, our choices, our where what's led us to
this moment, or it doesn't. And what we're hearing is
the concealing. I hope and this is my cha championing
women too. I hope that we can hear better because
there's a lot, like think about all of the all
of the reality is coming to the surface right now
(36:49):
where people are saying it's so bad, and people that
have been suffering under these realities say, no, it's always
been like this. But you can't hear the voice if
you weren't a victim of that voice. But if you
have suffered and been marginalized and been bullied lost even
though it was unfair, if you've ever been in a
situation where you were punished for something you did not
(37:12):
do because of the of the positions of power of
people in power, well, if you think about it, people
are getting a microphone right now that did not get
a microphone. If you even think about who has been
hosting radio shows, it has been white mett Okay. So
also there's a trajectory happening where people are realizing something
(37:32):
is wrong, so they're shoving everyone into the spotlight. But
they didn't give any of those people the tools that
they gave a whole other generation of people in privilege.
So even for me, that's why it's very nerve racking,
even as I'm coming into the forefront and my voice
is being allowed to have a little bit more space.
(37:52):
I'm very self uh, self editing critical maybe yeah, self
editing and and self critical and not. I just don't
think I deserve a space to talk. And many people
don't even think like that. They just think, yeah, I am,
I deserve to talk. You know, they've they've done these studies.
(38:13):
And actually the Dolly Parton's American professor told me this.
She's a fierce feminist and was a lesbian lawyer in
the nineteen seventies in Chicago, so she would tell me stories.
This is before I even met her on the phone,
and this is one of the reason why she fought
for me to be in the series, and she was like,
Sheima gets this, bring Dad, you should bring shema. You know,
(38:33):
it's these invisible spaces where people just think they deserve
a raise. They just think they deserve a promotion. They
don't think they need to do anything to get it.
They just think they deserve it. And and you know,
there's very famous studies, very well known studies that women
will apply for jobs that only they fit of the
criteria cos and men will like apply for jobs where
(38:53):
they fit the criteria. And so there is a growth
spurt happening right now. But uh, it's on both sides.
It's it's awkward for everyone. And so even for myself,
I'm like, I don't want to I personally don't want
to sound trill. I personally don't want to sound dumb.
I personally don't want to sound like to like I
don't know, I just want to sound like myself. But
(39:15):
I'm also scared because getting an opportunity is so rare.
It's not an everyday occurrence. So that's because of the
way things are set up. Like when AOC just got
up and gave that freaking speech, it's it's it's just
so great for a young woman to stand up and
just piss off so many men and be like, Yeah,
(39:37):
I'm just gonna piss you off. I don't care. And
I mean, she's doing some of it for very good reasons.
I wrote it. I wrote a piece about this too. Actually,
right before she did her um she gave that speech
unrelated related just to her being her, about how like,
what is surprising about her and what is what is
a lesson for us and for anybody listening, who's who's like,
(39:57):
you know, feeling any residents here is that what's so
surprising about her? The reason that we don't associate her
voice with power historically, leadership historically is that she literally
sounds like who she is and where she's from. Yeah,
and so many of us have this sense, whether it's
turning on a radio voice or turning on a politician voice,
(40:19):
that the way to get ahead and we might be
right is to shave off those edges of ourselves that
are the most authentically us, the most real, and go
into this generic land and by the right. The reason
I say we might be right is obviously on the
way up. And then the dream is at some point
we have enough power and you know, AOC was able
to do it in this like sooner than expected way,
(40:41):
which is partly her bravery to say I have enough
power to let that crap go and actually say, Okay,
here's what I really sound like, and I shall not
apologize in the moment. I mean, what you're talking about
is also this thing I'm always on the kickoff and
I and I absolutely have to police myself on, which
is about Apolo jizing for taking up time and space.
(41:01):
She is okay being hated and that is such a
superpower like that that that's what I find the most
in awe about her is she does not care if
she's hated, And I think, wow, I wish I were
more like that. I'm not that that's something, but I'm
also I'm a different I'm a different flavor. I'm a
(41:22):
different instrument. But in a way, I would say, part
of what your job was, part of of the of
the puzzle piece that you, you know, provided in what
you talked about with your you know, dynamic with Dolly,
is that you were willing to say some things that
were came out of left field or were not the
good cop there. You know, you have your own ways.
(41:43):
I mean, I don't need to defend you. You can
defend yourself. But you know what I mean, Like there
we we the ways in which we experiment with being
brave enough to be unliked, is I think, really really helpful.
Even speaking up as I worked with jad right, like
speaking up yes in private with I had a question
about how you guys agree or disagree and what that
(42:03):
process is. So if I were just thinking about Shema
and my career, I would not have spoken up about
some things. I would not have said, hey, we need this. Hey,
like I just wouldn't have said it because I'm in
a v I love my job. I don't need to
speak up. But I was as per Dolly. I was
(42:27):
praying a lot about the series, and I felt like
it was a chance to tell Talk to America. I
felt like it was a chance to tell Dolly story.
I felt very personally connected to the story um as
a woman and and and with my roots in the
Middle East and all of the things that were all
of the ideas that you hear in the in the
(42:47):
in the trajectory and the adventure that we go on.
But I remember praying, I want to open the gateway
for all women through this series. And part of that
is how I stand my own as a creative behind
the scenes, even though I am this person's junior and
they are employing me. Yeah, I don't know if anyone
(43:10):
would have listened to me if this guy didn't give
me a shot, you know, like was anyone going to
give me a shot? Like someone has to see your
genius too, Someone has to see your talent then you
can do what you want with it. There's another part
of that puzzle which I really don't want to miss
out on, which is that because you were doing this
work on yourself, on on the on the why you
(43:31):
were speaking up in a way that wasn't just speaking
up for Shema, and in fact may have been if
things had gone differently against your best interests. But you
were speaking up on behalf of and that is I mean,
I think that is part of what was so successful
about this this you know, viral moment that um that
AOC created. That she it was not just like this
guy said something mean to me, and I would like
(43:54):
to say that I don't want to be treated that way.
It was not that at all. In fact, she spent
the whole first half saying it has nothing to do
with me and how I'm treated. It has to do
with a history of this. Do you know how many
women we're sitting at home, like millions have seen that
video now and I and so the reality is I'm
thinking I have two thoughts when I watched that. I
(44:15):
think this is insane, that this is what's happening in Washington,
Like this is taking up time during a period in
the country where people are dying off and like the
thousands and perhaps like and we don't know how much
it will snowball too. It's it's a it's a it's
(44:36):
a horrific time in American history. And she has to
take time to address this. But every woman at home
that has ever been just spit at, like I mean
spit at for doing nothing, for just walking on the street,
called called whatever. And in fact, it's connected now that
(44:59):
I hear you talk about this, because yes, I had
the same thought of like, it's insane that she has
to sort of like speak about this, this sort of
triviality of these two words getting getting strung together and
thrown at her, you know, among the billions that she's received.
Why you know why. But it's connected to the fact
that those same women that you're talking about that we're
home listening to this are also the same women who
(45:23):
have had to deal with, you know, life since since
November and what that moment was. Okay, one more question
before we take another break. Here's what I really want
to know. At the top of the final episode, you
get on the microphone and ask for money. It's so
(45:44):
fucking good and it's a it's a money ask I
have never heard in my whole life. Like, there's no
apology in it. It's so you like, what was that
and what how did you prepare for? What did you
think as you were going on? Mike? It's so money
that you asked that, because I find that I find
that money asked to be a microcosm of the series,
(46:07):
which is I did not expect to do the money
ask I did not I and then I got asked
to do it. I work for Jad's company. I don't
really work for w N y C. Right, So Dad
said I want you to do the money asked. And
I think it was also him giving me a moment
to say, hey, I produced this thing, and I was scared.
(46:29):
I've never asked for money, and I did a very
standard one in two episodes previous to that one. But
I got because I've already done it. I was thinking,
what do I want to do? How do I so
I just built something I took. I was trying to
think how I was thinking about the Victory lab because
the last episode is a lighter one, so we're really
(46:49):
just like we talked about our tattoos, we talked about
two years from that. You had also been getting feedback
by that point from listeners, right, so, like you, it
did strike me as as a different type of ask
then you might have done before this had had like
hit air. Yes, it was. It was me talking directly
to people that we're in the series with us and
like knew who we were and and we're enjoying it
(47:12):
or hating on it whoever. But I just I was
speaking to the listeners, you know. And it started with
I knew I had to do it. I knew I
wasn't going to narrate any part of that last episode.
You hear me in that last episode because I ask
about the tattoos with the kids with the ut, you know,
And I love that. I love that when he's when
he's like, by the way, that with Jama's question about
the kid's question. The best part of that is just
(47:32):
the kid's reaction because they're like what I thought? What?
No one knows just but they were actually kind of
the highlight of all of that. But um, you know
what I do want to say that that the act
of using their questions and then putting them into Dad's
mouth was like, yes, dream that, just dreamy. After we
met with the UTI kids, that was another bright idea
of coming back to Dolly and doing another interview with
(47:53):
Dolly's just putting their questions in front of her. So
it gave us the space to not be critical, but
to be critical, like, hey, the kids wanted to know this.
The kids wanted to know, what do you think about
your accent? You know they kind of feel ashamed of it?
Why don't we don't know? What? Thank you? So we
we to ask the things that are a little bit
but to voice, to to give voice to the students
(48:15):
who felt like so distant you know literally and come
metaphorically from Dolly and then to have their questions be
directly asked to her was like a real I mean
that actually now that I say it felt like it
was a real um crumbling of of a of a
like you know, power structure. Yeah. And they were so
happy too, because they wanted to ask those questions, right,
So they were real. They were like real quest My gosh.
(48:36):
I love those students. By the way, I still talked
to some of them. They're any brilliant, brilliant in people. Um,
so the ask, Yeah, I was terrified. I asked membership
services at w YCE. I actually had a meeting with them.
I said, I'm very scared. And then they told me
they told me Dad's record for how much someone gave.
(49:01):
This explains a lot of my relationship with Jad, they
explained to me. When Jad asked once, people responded with
this kind of figure. So this is so much. I mean,
this is the beauty of my religor is like we
this is like, this is the this is the invisible
like chemistry, right, Like we compete too. We try to
outdo each other. I probably do it more because I'm
(49:23):
free to do so, because I have because I am
like the young kid coming up or um you know,
I kind of I feel like I'm like the younger
sister figure and I go, hey, I wanted to you know.
So we were editing the final episode. I thought, hey,
this is my last moment. I'm going to be creative.
So I built the start, and then I put in
the questions. I put in the moments that I knew
(49:44):
people loved the most, you know, and then I made
it and then I sent it to Jad. And Jad
was just expecting me to do a straight up ask
with no music, no nothing, no build. And then when
he saw it, even though he's like tired and he's like,
we're wrapping the thing, he saw what I did and
then he built on it. So then he built a
(50:07):
middle moment, and then I built the final moment. So
even though we would we didn't expect to do that.
That was that was the genesis of the Dolly series too.
Was like I would throw him more than he asked for,
and then he would respond in a glow in a
generous way, and then I would push back in a
(50:29):
generous way, and then we would get to something that
was just unexpected. It was just supposed to be a
straight up asked, no sound, no nothing. But I took
a moment and I made what I could with it
with the time I had and with the feelings I
was having. I also wanted it to feel like a
victory lap for all the listeners with us to just
go over like reminisce and then and to ask a
(50:49):
very sincere question, which is, you know, public radio cannot
exist without listeners. I mean, to this day, especially in
this time of the pandemic, it's really beautiful that people
are still giving, even UM, even though circumstances are much tougher.
So I really tried to think about people and be
appreciative to the audience, even if they didn't give. I
(51:10):
wanted to be appreciative for everyone who had listened. So
that's what I did. And as lessons go, you know,
there's a lot in that, but one thing that I'm
hearing is that in various ways, you really gave yourself
permission to bring your actual voice to that microphone. And
one way you did that was to really connect with
the who you know out there. One way was to
connect with um, how proud you were what you've made
(51:32):
at that point, to just trust that it was not
something you needed to sort of like if you liked this,
you know, which is a trap that any of us
could have fallen into. UM. And then and then also,
you know, a healthy competition, nothing like some some I'll
show you energy. Okay, we're gonna take another break and
we'll be back to find out who you brought in
for us. I just feel like this could definitely be
(52:02):
like UM, a multi episode series about UM, you and
us in our take on the world, which is just
a different it's a different format. What can I say? UM, Okay,
will you tell me who you brought in for us?
So I brought in MICHAELA. Cole, who is who should
(52:25):
be president even though she's not American, but she should be.
She should be president and she should be queen. But
I brought her in because not only is her series,
her newest series, the greatest thing on this planet right
now in my opinion at this moment, but her business
(52:46):
practices and the voice she's giving to them, and the
boldness is at which she is expressing what is happening
behind the scenes in those business practices I find to
be wholly encouraging, courageous, and onspiring. She is what she
is what I want I want to be. I wish
(53:06):
I could be things I asked for but do not get.
She is asking for them and getting getting them. She
was offered a million dollar deal with Netflix. She turned
it down because she couldn't own the rights to her show,
and she just wanted like a certain percentage of the shares,
and these wouldn't even give her that, and she just
said forget you at a time when no one said
note of Netflix. I think she's awesome. Every young person
(53:31):
I know, every woman I know, is she's become the
blueprint just coming up. She's not a she's not a
twenty year veteran that's becoming the blueprint. She's an up
and coming artist that is the blueprint. I think she's spectacular.
And then her series takes on sexual assault. And I
(53:53):
hate to even say that because I don't want to
turn anyone off from watching it, but I may destroy you.
It is so good and is saying so many things,
is giving a voice of things that people have not said,
and and giving you a space into places that people
don't see from a vantage point of someone you never
(54:15):
hear from or see from. And every episode I was
lucky that I watched it with a friend of mine.
Um I normally you binge something on your own, but
I actually watched it with a friend, and every time
an episode ended, she would share about what what what
she what she related to and then I would share,
(54:37):
and then we would share about other stories we knew,
and then we'd watch the next episode, and then she
would share and I would share. And so MICHAELA. Cole's
art was giving us a voice to share her business practices,
and her speeches about her business practices made my coworkers
they would like send me her speeches like because the girls,
(55:00):
girls have their own hidden community where they're pushing each
other to ask for more. But all of us, a
lot of us are getting said no to. But and
and even sometimes I'm told by other young women around me,
you should ask for this, but they would never ask
for that. But I'm kind of the guinea pig. And
then I asked them and it's like, no, you can't
get that because you know who are you. So I
(55:22):
think that's happening everywhere. I don't think it's personal to
me or anyone else. I do think the ideas of ownership,
of artistry, of being a woman, of being, the idea
of sexual power, the idea of business power, all of
that is encapsulated in this phenomenal human called MICHAELA. Cole.
(55:45):
We're gonna listen to a short clip because you said,
up the way you did. I'm switching. I was trying
to decide between two, but I'm going to do a
little bit from her mc taggart lecture. I bet you've
heard this, Yeah, I think so many of us in
this industry, this world are on creaking ladders, climbing, surrounded
by noise, stress, and nothing real, not even the ladder itself.
(56:07):
It could make the future feel bleak and devoid of peace,
leaving some feeling isolated to the point of suicide. I
think of Antony will Dane, who entered his who ended
his life on Jean eight while shooting a series. I
think of Alex Beckett, an actor who ended his life
April twelve mid a theater on had worked with him
in that place far away is their care for anyone's mind?
(56:34):
Oh my gosh, right, yeah, I mean talk about what
of voices conveying? She is nothing but a humanist, like
she sees people, she hears people, and she's very connected
to her own probably because of her own trauma too.
(56:58):
She's she sees the person deeper than she sees the artist.
And I think in realms of creativity we forget that
there is a person in front of us, and the
person matters more than the art. At the end of
the day, the person fucking matters more than the art.
(57:20):
And that is not part of our society. It's not
how we view things, it's not how we measure them.
It's why the countries as it is right now, people,
it's everything else matters more than the person, the one person.
We've forgotten the person for a lot of the fucking circus,
(57:42):
whether it's an art, Hollywood, sucking, politics, fame, fortune, I mean,
something that came up with up with um at least
hog my previous guest is this idea that I think
about a lot about how we don't really talk about
this aspect of the patriarchy quote unquote, but you know,
part of it, um magic lies in trying to dissociate
(58:03):
our brains from our bodies. And this idea that like,
if we don't have bodies, well, that's convenient. And it's
also very convenient for capitalism, by the way, because then
we can work eighty billion hours a week and we
can skip pea breaks and we can not go outside
for lunch because who needs that? You know, work, work, work,
The more you work, the more you make. I mean,
if we start to think of all of that. As
you know, I don't know if a lie is the
(58:24):
right word, but as certainly a truth that's sort of
somebody besides us. Then we can start to think about
what what what is it to not live that way?
Then if you think about like the history of women,
I'm like, this is so my jam. There are thousands
of etiquette books for women on how to behave And
why are there thousands for women and not thousands for men.
(58:45):
It's because you are property. If you were not picked,
you die, like you think basically that's my extreme version
of it. But you are an old made you end
up in poverty or like you're an outcast of society.
You have no say in the world, and so you
have to learn how to harmonize in order to live,
(59:11):
to just live. And this is where Virginia Wolf is like,
my Virginia Wolf is my favorite voice that you know,
there are audio, there is audio of her. She is
my She's my I mean, michaelical living person without it
at this moment of time, without a doubt. But Virginia
Wolf says that when she got an inheritance, I think
(59:34):
from her aunt that mattered more, that money mattered more.
So she could have her own room. That's why that
book is called a Room of one's own. That mattered
more than getting the vote. Can you imagine that this
is not what we're taught in school. Her having that
money to be able to create mattered more than having
(59:57):
the vote. Like thinking that. It's what mickayl La Cole
is living right now on in the realm of life
and death, watching other artists feel so lost and without
power killing themselves like to that exact, I mean, that's
that's what I love about this moment. That's what I
also feel like we have so far to go. So
(01:00:17):
when I got my first recording studio job, I was
the only girl hired. I was the only woman on staff,
and I learned how to be tough when there was
a joke about sex. When there's a joke about me
or my body or a woman, you learn how to
spit back and you feel good and you feel like
you're the one in control and you feel cool and
(01:00:39):
you you know yes. And there was a moment where
I got I heard my real voice, and I woke
up one morning and I thought, oh my god, I'm miserable.
This job looks shiny, but I am miserable, and I
(01:00:59):
am I have to fucking play the game. I cannot
even be myself. I just look tough and I have
to do it to survive. But I hate this job.
No matter how good it looks, no matter how sexy
it is that I'm recording with this artist or whatever.
I hate it. And I fucking quit music at that time.
(01:01:20):
And I was a second grade teacher for the next
year of my life, and being with kids melted me.
I thought, oh wow, I have so much. There's so
much between what my soul or whatever is. My inside
and my outside are so estranged from each other, and
it took years to collapse that. And most people live
(01:01:45):
in the space between they It's it's so difficult to collapse.
It takes a lot of guds. You have to be
able to when someone hurts, you be able to have
a dialogue with them. You have to be able to
if you have trauma and your family address the trauma,
see the people like you have to love your parents
no matter what you've got to. You've got to have
(01:02:05):
friendships with people from all walks of life. It's a process.
You've got to constantly push your boundaries with your voice
connecting with other voices that that ship starts to heal,
and those the wall of the outside of what you
project as you to people and what is actually happening
on inside, so that distance collapses. And as an interviewer,
(01:02:27):
I am listening for the space and I am desperately
trying to collapse all of it. But it takes someone
to kind of be the catalyst, to be the elixir,
and art can do it. That speech, Mikayla did that book.
Virginia Woolf wrote that series a podcast like the reason
I wanted Dolly to cry is sometimes when I'm lost,
(01:02:49):
it's because I haven't cried, like I've gotten so frozen
because I'm surviving in the world and I can't feel
myself anymore, and I have to get to a place
where I can feel what the funk is going on?
What have I just lived through? What is happening? Because
things are moving so fast? Anyway, we should probably on
(01:03:15):
the episode, Sheima, thank you so much for coming in.
This is fun. Thank you to Shema for joining me.
You can find out more about her and her shows
in the show notes or on our website Permission to
Speak pot dot com. I'm back to doing I G
lives every Thursday. So join me tomorrow at Permission to
(01:03:36):
Speak POT on Instagram, Q and A style, So feel
free to ask me any questions you have, send me
d M s, comment, tell me what's going on with
your voice, and um, I'm so grateful for all of you.
Thank you to Sophie Lichtterman and the team at I
(01:03:56):
Heart Radio and all of you. We're recording this POT
podcast at various locations around Los Angeles on land that
is the historic gathering place for the Tongva indigenous tribe,
and you can visit U S d A C dot
us to learn more about honoring Native land. Permission to
Speak is a production of I Heart Radio and Double
Vision executive produced by Katherine Burt Canton and Mark Canton.
(01:04:20):
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, listen on the
I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your favorite shows.
Today's quote is from British author Diana Hardy. She said,
it only takes one voice at the right pitch to
start an avalanche. Welcome to permission to speak the podcast
(00:20):
about how we talk and how we get ourselves heard
with me, samar Ba. If you were obsessed with the
podcast series Dolly Parton's America like I was, you have
heard today's guest Shima Oli. I was the producer and
reporter for the series and just won the Peabody, which
(00:43):
is like the broadcasting Award for excellence along with the
show's host and her boss, jad Appenron. I wanted to
have her on to ask all the questions about producing
and about what it was actually like to be in
the room with Dolly and with jab Who's I mean?
I think the first podcast voice I ever heard when
(01:06):
I discovered Radio Lab while I was driving through the
backwoods of Virginia in trying to find these like really
isolated locations where we were shooting the movie Loving Anyway,
I remember hearing Radio Lab and going, oh, this is podcast, um,
And I wanted to have Sima on to talk about
(01:28):
her own voice on Mike, which I was really intrigued
by as I was listening to the series as well
as off as the child of immigrants, as a reporter
who you know, has to ask tough questions and who
as she talked about here, Jad relied on to speak
up with a quote unquote love shove every once in
(01:51):
a while during extremely intense interview moments. And also, you know,
as a woman in radio trying to own her own
creative vision. I was so taken with the Dolly Parton series.
And I mean, clearly I'm not alone. It won every
award for Best Podcast in twenty and you know, I
(02:13):
had a feeling that Shema would be full of wisdom
and insight, but truly was blowed away. Nonetheless, if you
were in the mood for surprising and deep and balsy, sister, uh,
this is Shema only I part of my experience listening
(02:44):
to Dolly Parton's America among the various you know, it's
sort of insane universe of journeys that we were able
to follow one of them. And why I wanted to
what my like inspiration moment was to have you on
this podcast is that I felt like we were also
listening to the journey of your voice on air. Oh wow,
(03:07):
did you feel that because you were at first a
just a name, yeah, and then by the end you
were very much a part of the you know, obviously
the intimacy of podcast is that we have your we
have these voices in our ears, and you know, I
remember I think I even like might have lightly gasped
in the car driving listening with the first time that
(03:27):
I heard you on air, and that it wasn't sort
of cut around your question. It was very much like
integrated in and I was like, there she is. I
love your podcast because of this, and I'm like, oh,
she gets it. We really had a blank slate going
into this, and there are so many moments. I mean,
there's four hours of tape, so altogether it was six
(03:49):
hours and seventeen minutes of the nine episodes, um plus
the two music episodes that we released as bonuses. But
can you imagine four hours went to six hours. It
was a very personal journey for me too, and people
don't get to hear that. That was also deliberate because
to me, the interesting aspect of this idea of oneness.
(04:12):
The first idea I had was Dad's Dad and Dolly
felt like one person to me viewing them, and I
also have a Middle Eastern background. And when we were
in the Kansas Plans with Grandma Betty and sarah' smrsh
I actually this is three months before we got to
the Tennessee Mountain Home. I had an emotional breakdown in
(04:34):
the car which is on tape where I start weeping.
I'm talking with Sarah Smarsh. Grandma Betty has just shared
about all the domestic abuse and violence and her in
her love life and with her seven to eight husbands,
and I start weeping in this car as we've visited
the graveyard of her ex husband, and we're driving through
(04:55):
the Kansas planes and I start talking about my cousins
and my grandma in Iran. And these are women that
went through Grandma Betty stories like they lived Grandma Betty's life.
But I was separate from them because I was in America.
And when I met one of my cousins, she cried
to me and said, you know you were lucky you
(05:18):
were there, but we suffered here. I have an accent.
I can't live in America. I don't have a visa
to do so. Um so she's she'll always be seen
as another on the world stage. And so I had
flashbacks of my cousin during that visit, and also when
I met the University of Tennessee kids when they were
(05:38):
sharing about the accent. That's that was the first reporting
trip I went on. They all just started bearing their
souls and that moment, plus that Sarah Smarsh breaking down
about feeling my grandma and her village in the Kansas Plains.
And then on top of that, hearing Dolly talk about
(05:58):
Dad's dad, which we never planned to use at the start,
but she was kind of teasing Jad's dad about his accent.
And one of these interviews, in the first interview Jad
did that. I wasn't there in the one where she
steam rolls him and where she steaming his chad a
bit um. But when I was listening, I thought, this
is funny. This is a woman with a thick Southern
(06:20):
accent teasing this Lebanese man about his accent. And I'm
someone who I grew up with parents with an accent.
So this oneness of like the Middle East and the South,
and of people being other that you don't expect to
be mothered, of friendships that form an unlikely places, I
think that that was my soul. The entire journey and
(06:44):
what you cannot be captured, you know, which cannot be understated,
and which I have not really like expressed in any interview,
is it was such a spiritual experience. Like I don't
want to say spiritual because it sounds so kind of goofy,
you know, or whatever. But there were so many moments
where Jad and I turned to each other and it
(07:05):
was healing wounds of our childhood. It was healing wounds
of of being first generation Americans with parents from the
Middle East. It was for me, it was healing wounds
of domestic violence amongst women in your family, of poverty, um,
(07:25):
of all of that um. Anyway, so I think naturally
that happened. I was just supposed to be the producer
behind the scene. I didn't even want to talk in interviews,
but Jad actually encouraged me. He said, no, be a Robert.
You're like Robert crow Witch, you're crazy, like you're kind
of you. Just say the crazy thing, just do it.
And I said, no, I don't want to do that.
I want to be serious. I want to be so
(07:47):
serious and I want to be taken seriously, and he said, no,
just be yourself. But I did see my role as
a behind the scenes kind of Ninja and that was
my role. But then naturally, as the series evolved, my
voice just entered it because my ideas were, so we're
(08:07):
we're are everywhere in the series. My work is everywhere
in the series. I think also Jad has a brilliant
audio mind and he hears things as music. And I
was a flute. I was the pan flute, like it
was like I started out little like I was not
the main I was not the piano, right, I was
not the main course. That might have been actually Dolly,
(08:28):
but like you know, and there's a conductor and there's
it was an orchestra to make those nine episodes. But
I think I was a pan flute maybe once in
a while a saxophone or something that would come in
and it would help. So if it helped the whole series,
it would happen. But if it didn't help the series,
those parts were not there. What helped the series is
(08:49):
what we put in there. I mean, in theory, this
is why we should speak. Ever, you know, it gets
when we're when that when eyes are on us, it
can become oh god, I I better be clever um.
But if we can always think you know, am I
opening my mouth? Am I giving myself permission to speak?
Because what I say is going to be of use?
You know. I'm also such a self editor. I'm very
(09:11):
self critical. And it was an intense experience. I mean,
as as beautiful and gorgeous, it was also really intense.
I mean, for two people to do something like this
was insane. People were asking other people I work with,
you know, oh, Jad's got a team of twenty, right,
and you would tell, you know, heads of in of
this industry would have be having lunch with my coworker
(09:34):
and they would say, oh, Dad's got twenty doing that
dollar series, right, And my coworker would say, no, it's
one this one girl. She's not sleeping, you know. But um.
But it was the opportunity of a lifetime. And I
am self critical, and I do appreciate that Jad also
championed me like we would. You know, when you're in
a creative um environment like that, it's like a crucible,
(09:57):
so it's like pressure, it's gorgeous, it's like you're making
a diamond like that. We were trying so hard and
we were so in there now and I even hear
a bit of the series I think, wow, I was
on another level. But it's also you know, going back
and forth and know it's gotta be this and gotta
be that, and then how do we say this and
how do we say that? And I was definitely behind
(10:17):
the scenes too, so I was championing him. But then
when I would be pulled in, you know, he knows
what he's doing. He's had twenty years of experience, and
so when I felt, Chad, I don't even want my
voice right there, he would say, no, let it be
right there. That first interview, right it was just the
foundation to create a relationship with Dolly. So you know,
(10:39):
he asked me to draft questions for her and then
but he let her kind of do her own thing.
She did steam Roland, but he also led her like
it's a It was a first meeting, but he knew
we would go back, and that second interview we prepared
for months. I was on the phone with anyone who
had ever written anything about Dolly. I was I was
(10:59):
reading everying on our life. I was trying to find
things no one had found, and my goal was I
wanted and I told Jad this, and I think he
did a Life Hacker article at that time where he
says Shema is a unicorn and she makes famous people
crying interviews because I told him, I said I want
to make Dolly cry and he said, you're crazy. We
can't make her cry. Did you hear that interview? And
(11:22):
I thought, no, we can. We can find a way.
I want her to get to a real moment of
something she's never told anyone. I really wanted that, and
he invited me on that second interview, and we prepped.
We had a four hour trajectory of an interview. We
had video, we had audio, we had a we had
(11:45):
I had done massive research and then we compiled it all,
we organized it, we made it multimedia, and we set
the agenda. I remember we were sitting in the car,
I think this was his dad's car outside of this
Nashville studio, and we were both nervous. Like Dad was
visibly nervous, I was nervous. At that point. He had
(12:06):
done the first interview with Dolly and he had interviewed
the class by himself, which was okay, But then the
second time he brought me because the Dolly professor is
a staunch feminist and thought she must would go and
told Jad and Jad was like, oh, yeah, okay. So
Jad brought me second time and that's all the kids
shared about shame, and Jad and I both connected with
(12:29):
that because we are we have felt other two as
first generation Americans, and we were in awe of that
second of that second Knoxvill trip that in that which
was my first reporting trip. Then he takes me to Dolly.
We're in the car, nervous as hell and almost it
was a state of prayer going in and we walk
(12:50):
up to the studio and they could see us, but
we couldn't see them because the studio has like the
reflective you know, mirror windows or whatever. And I hear
Dolly go, there's a girl out there? Why is there
are girls? Like? What is happening? And then they opened.
She did not know I was going to be there.
We go into the studio. There's one engineer, one Mike,
(13:12):
Jad and I sitting in front of Dolly, and um,
I was on a couch at first, but then I yeah, anyway,
we were sitting in front of Dolly. That's interesting. There
was like a moment when you when you like scooted
forward from couch to Yeah. I started on the couch
the first hour. I think I was on the couch
and then we had a bathroom break. In the first
hour we went in, we went in hard. The first hour,
(13:35):
the suicide was brought up, the Satas songs was brought up,
mental illness, the abuse in her family amongst women, poverty.
Then we come back and then we do another three
and a half hours, and it felt like we left
the planet. It was. It was so intense, and it
(13:58):
was every moment felt like you're on a high wire.
It was not a relaxed interview, but it was UM.
We were just trying to open doors. And she cried
twice in the interview, and I served at that time.
I mean I was not planning to talk at all.
I knew the entire trajectory and I really felt like
I was invisible presence. I was there to make her
(14:21):
say what she needs to say, just invisibly. It's with
when I've talked to other producers. I have a friend
of mine UM Eleanor Kagan. We were describing this UM
being the producer that's supporting a host. It is a
very freaking cool experience that I don't think people talk
about where you are the invisible like maker of magic,
(14:42):
but no one knows because you cannot talk, you cannot
rue it. But you've got to make You've got to
make everyone the best they can be without saying a
word until it's necessary. And so there'd be a moment
where there were two moments where she she would stop
the question and then I would love shove, I would
(15:05):
I would come in, and one time was she would
not go into the suicide. And I knew the story
because I had done my research, which didn't make the podcast,
but I know everything about it, and so I discovered
exactly what had happened, what was going on. But you know,
and Jad also has to be polite and kind, kinder
(15:27):
than me. I can do more in the Bad Cop
because he has the personal relationship right. And we had
to get another interview that wasn't our last interview. So
what is the love shove? So the love shove is,
you know, she's she answers to cut it off. And
then I kind of a tiptoe. I kind of tiptoe
in in my awkward way, and I was like, and
(15:47):
I said, um, I heard there was a gun, so
I just put it out there and she goes, there
was no gun. Did you read that? And this I said, actually, yeah,
I know from this and this and this, and then
she says, you know when I needed a gun. I'm
that's when That's when we got to the Porter question. Right.
So there's a moment that when you push someone says
(16:11):
something that might not serve that moment but became like
the opening of the Porter story. And that was next
on our agenda, so you dive into the Porter story.
And then with the Trump moment, that was a moment
where she just stopped. She would not answer what happened
at the Emmy's with Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda. Um,
when they were bashing Trump and she was expected to,
you know, banter with them, she wouldn't go into it
(16:34):
too deeply. And Um, that was a moment where all
my research paid off because I knew I knew all
about her story about Porter and forgiveness, and I thought, oh,
if she could forgive Porter, who pointed Lee came for her,
she's going to have compassion for She just doesn't like
(16:55):
she's gonna have compassion for Trump. She doesn't jump on bandwagons.
If you look at her, like the even the cheesiness
and the butterflies and the Dollywood and she's in her
own world. She is in her Dolly world. She is
in her own sphere. She doesn't she does not join
any kind of group. And that was part of the
(17:18):
fund That was the answer to the feminist question, that
was the answer to the Trump question, that was the
answer to even she could have joined me and Jad
going hey, let's let's really unpack porter, like, let's really
just say come on, he was kind of he was
me come on, Dolly. You know, she wouldn't even jump
with us into that question. So I think even with
the me Too movement, she wouldn't really even jump into that.
(17:41):
She wouldn't. She doesn't jump into any kind of trend
or group anything like that. She totally sends as an individual.
And at the end of the day, I also think
that would link to her faith, that she feels like
she has her own mission on this planet and with
her faith and her and God or whatever you might
(18:01):
call that spiritual essence. She prays every morning at two
am and then writes she's on her own train. I
want to talk about this moment that you're talking about,
where the where the energy changes in a room. Sometimes
it's as obvious as like literally the person you're interviewing
saying I'm not going to answer that, but sometimes it's not.
(18:21):
It makes me think of Anna Davir Smith, who does
these amazing one Woman shows where she embodies all the
characters that she's interviewed. She writes about listening for and
this is sort of a Shakespeare metaphor, but you know
Shakespeare has this um da da dada i ambic pentameter
and um, and that that da dada is sort of
meant to reflect the heartbeat and when it goes off
(18:44):
when it's data data data data datta. Shakespeare used that
very specifically to mean like something's really wrong with the world,
like something on a on a on a grand psychic club.
And so what Anna Davir Smith says is she listens
for the trophy, the off rhythm in the I can beat,
And that's her metaphor. I don't think it's literal, but
that thing of like when someone talks in a way
(19:06):
that accidentally reveals something and you want to go in there. Okay,
so this is what happened. I was I started as
the main researcher on this project. Then I go into produce,
which producing means very different things in very different places.
But because it was a two person projects, it meant
a lot more than you would expect. You were clearly
(19:27):
nineteen of the twenty people that works. So it was,
you know, Jet, it was probably ten and ten, you know,
maybe sometimes fifteen and five not I love it, and
but it was it was a lot. When I push
he knows I can push in away that he has
to be her sturdy ship, but I can be the
(19:48):
wave to rock it around a little bit and see
what comes up. Then towards the end of that four
hour trajectory, my research became that gut, the gut feeling
is not just intuition, which is very important. My masters
was in psychotherapy, so a big part of my life
and also my personality is if someone is suffering, I
(20:12):
kind of want to know what's going on. This is
also part of my Buddhist background is I've met thousands
of young women that would tell me what they're suffering
was right, So I naturally I don't want people to
be superficial with me at ever, it's almost kind of inappropriate.
I think I don't want small talk. I want to
(20:32):
know what's really going on, and it's out of love.
I really I really love people, and I think that
through someone sharing, everyone is healed because everyone is human
and understands. Right. So there's that Trump moment. She just
cuts it done, I'm not talking about it. Jad that
she couldn't say anything, and I actually shared a story
(20:53):
about my life in that moment, and I think Dolly
was like, where the hell is this girl? What is
she talking about? The silent little She wasn't even supposed
to be here. She was supposed to be here. What's
her name again? You know it's for him? Why why
did Jad bring this? For? Who is where she come from?
She had no idea and I had this my huge
(21:16):
curly hair. It's like I looked like I was like
and m and I was very quiet until this moment
where I just share the story and then she still
answers in a quick way. And then I go in
and say, hey, didn't you want to protect him? Like
didn't you just want to protect this person in the room?
And that's when she said yes. I wanted to say,
(21:36):
let's pray for the president. Why don't we pray for Mr?
And I knew I sensed what the answers, but I
didn't know what her answer was. Right. But that's because
I knew about Porter. I knew about her family, I
knew about her heartbreak. I knew about things that she
wouldn't even share with us, and so I knew that,
(21:56):
and so I shared a story that I felt like
she would know. I got it, And I think that
was true. I think she goes, Oh, she gets it.
She's not trying to get me, she's not trying to
trick me. She gets it. And when we left that interview,
we were so high. Jad and I had reporters high.
We could not believe the places we went. That four
(22:18):
and a half trajectory was the foundation of the entire series.
And she cried twice. So I became this kind of
good luck charm. I became like the lucky rabbits fook
for jab After that, he said, Okay, I'm taking that
was your goal, like you achieved it way too early
in your trajectory. Okay, we're gonna take a quick break
and we'll be right back. Okay, we're back. Can I
(22:48):
ask you when you come up with questions? I as
someone relatively to question asking in a formal sense rather
than a cocktail party sense. Um, I would to say
I have no idea what I'm doing, And I go
back and forth between coming up with questions that I
(23:09):
truly want to know the answer to and coming up
with questions that I think will elicit the types of
answers from my um guests, that readers, that readers, that
listeners will need to know, but that I'm a little
too like inside Baseball, I already know the answer, which
makes me feel. You know, I wonder since obviously some
of the secret to your brilliant question asking prep is
(23:33):
prep is just the amount of work you're doing. But
I also wonder, like what is that? Like that's a
good question or I want to know about that, but
how do I ask it to get in? Yeah, I
think um so researchers the first step right, and then
wanting surprise, wanting to like even me and you, well
(23:55):
this is so meta or whatever, But for me and you,
I mean, I'm going to enjoy way this interview more
if I get surprised by things I discover, especially I mean,
I've only spoken about the Dolly series maybe five times
in interviews, you know, I'm still learning how to talk
about it. But I even hear myself repeating things that
I've said before because it feels comfortable. Dolly has done
(24:17):
that a billion times over fifty years, like she has
answered the same questions a billion times. So she has
these sayings that are funny, charming, genius that she just
uses over and over again. And as you do research,
you realize, oh, when you think she's being so spontaneous
(24:40):
with you, she's not. She's playing you. You know, even
in concert, she's playing you. And what was crazy was
right before I moved to New York, I saw her
in concert, the only time I've ever seen her in concert,
and I heard these stories of her Tennessee Mountain home,
and I thought, wow, wow, wow. And then when I
did research, I saw she's been saying this story sorry
for thirty forty years, and how does she make it
(25:04):
sound so new? So I didn't want her to do that.
I wanted to shock her. So the research helps because
you find questions that have not been asked. You try
not to go down the path someone else has gone,
but you utilize that knowledge to lean into things because
I don't know everything, so I've got to push. I
(25:26):
think one thing that we don't talk about much, which
um Jad and I would do, is the structure of
the questions matters where you start, where you head, where
you go. It's not just random, random, random, Like we
had almost a movie like trajectory. We used audio, we
(25:48):
used video, We tried to find things of her that
she hadn't seen, we were hoping she hadn't seen. Do
you think about structuring questions to get um like stories
versus facts? Do you think in those terms at all?
You know? I find like a lot of the surprise
comes in when people are really trying to search themselves
for how something felt or how something went down. I
(26:10):
think some of the some of the most surprising, I
think some of the best, the deepest moments came from
she would say something in an interview and we wouldn't
understand what the hell she's talking about, and so in
that moment, we you lost that moment, Like when she
talks about the Appalachian murder ballads, we just we just
(26:32):
glided by it in that same four and a half
hour interview, which was which was amazing, but we didn't
catch it. And it was only in listening afterward where
we went, wait what did she say about murder ballads?
About the Knoxville Girl? Wait what? And then that took
us down a rabbit hole and we had the opportunity
(26:53):
to interview her again. So what you're getting, um. Also,
I think one of the beauties of interviews of Dolly
in the series is you're getting like fifteen I don't
know how many hours by the end that we had,
maybe fifteen, I don't know, but where we could go
deeper and deeper and deeper and say, remember when you
said this, Well what about this? Remember when you said this, well,
(27:16):
what about this? So we could come at her from
every angle. So I would say we had the luxury
of repetition, which helps us because we're not really just
doing an interview. We're creating a documentary experience. And it
sounds like that's also something that you're doing with the
other people that you referenced for your next project, that
it is about these longer conversations that layer. Yeah, but
(27:39):
that actually came out Yeah, yeah, yeah, that came out
tweeks ago. Yes, But I do think Lauren and Kiss,
who were in the Flag in the Fury episode, they
told me things in the last week of production that
there's no way they would feel comfortable saying that in
my first call with them. They knew me. By that time,
(27:59):
they trust at me, they knew I understood, they knew
what I was trying to do. Even John Hawkins uh
is in that episode, and he's the cheerleader at all
miss from three who refused to waive the Confederate flag
and all hell broke loose on that campus. He's only
done one another interview ever about that that situation because
(28:22):
it was so painful. He was getting death threats and
he was waiting for the right time. I had to
talk to him for two hours before he would even
agree to one interview because he wanted to know if
I was a person that he could trust or if
I had if I if I knew what I was
talking about, what I thought about Mississippi, Um, where's my heart?
(28:42):
And so those things build over time. That a lot
of being a producer is being someone that is actually
that people know that you care about them, even people
that I interview, people that have opposite opinions, you know,
like don't agree the mrs the story I just did.
People did not agree with each other. But I loved
(29:03):
everyone I talked to and I could see their truth
and whatever they were telling me, I thought, that is
really true. That is a great point. But then I
have to create the story based on all of these
like three thousand truths, because that's the reality of life.
And I'm now the storyteller telling this to the best
of my ability. No, And I think that's part of
your your genius, perhaps the unicorn like quality of you.
(29:25):
Besides having all these different, you know, literal skill sets
that you're bringing to the table, is that you very
much live in and value the gray area rather than
always being like, this is the answer, this is the
the truth. You know. My my, my dad had this
shirt that he used to wear when I was little bit.
At the time, I thought was ridiculous, and now I'm like, ah,
(29:46):
it is the deepest wisdom of life, which is bring
me into the company of those who seek the truth
and deliver me from those who have found it. I mean,
that's what's hard is the stories I feel like I
most want to listen to right now are people that
don't get to tell their truths. And Dolly couldn't either.
She told the truth through her songs The Ugly Ship
about being a woman. She does not talk about that
(30:09):
in interviews. She laughs, she jokes about her breasts. She
is fun and flirty, but when you go to her songs,
she is telling you the effing truth. And so that's
why we based our questions on the songs, because she
was saying things in the songs she was not saying
even in her autobiography, she's not saying that in her
songs she's sang a lot. More So, it's also doing
(30:32):
the research we would find the places where she was
saying things she was not saying anywhere else. But in
terms of the idea of stories, I think it is
a chemistry. You know, I'm really understanding this more, especially
as a creative. There's so many times where I go,
I like cross my arms and I think, why can't
(30:52):
something be like this, Why can't we do it this way?
Why isn't it like this? But being a creative is
not working for a bank. A lot of it is
the intangible stuff. It's really interesting because there's things that
look really nice. You know, constantly we're getting offers for
other projects or do this or do that. But um,
(31:15):
the chemistry of life, the chemistry of two people talking,
the chemistry of ideas, the chemistry of story building, the
chemistry of the pre interview, the chemistry of the actual interview,
the chemistry of the research, like having the taste when
you read something. And this is where Dad was my cheerleader,
especially when I was first starting and I was like
very timid and I didn't want to talk. I thought
(31:37):
I was not supposed to be talking. He he pointed out,
he said, oh, you do the thing. I said, what
do you? What do you mean I do the thing?
He says, you get random, like you tell this story
and know the person has no effing idea what you're doing.
You just come out and just associative. You have an
(31:58):
associative mind. Yeah, so when you know, I'm learning a
book right now and I'm trying to figure out that,
I think that. I think the point of the book,
which is really meant to be practical as well as
big idea, is to somehow get onto paper like the
associations that just happened in my mind, you know where
it's not actually like a logical progression. But nor do
(32:20):
I think that's how people learn best necessarily. I think
there's different kinds of thinkings. I think part of it
is also language, Like people who speak different languages they
have different loops of how they think and talk. And
I also think it's partly because my parents are not
native English speakers, so a lot of my thinking is associative.
And I think that Jad could recognize that too, and
(32:42):
he's like, oh, you think like me. You're an a
social thinker, but I've learned how to taper it. But
you also are a wild You're not afraid of being
I'm not afraid of being vulnerable in an interview. So
I'll just share the thing and the person will just
get so confused by my non seque which does make sense,
which does connect to something, but they're trying to follow
(33:04):
me because I'm going to start when when they refuse
to answer the question, I then hit a ball. It's
like way in the sky and they're like, wait what
is that? Wait what? And then I take them back
to them that's standing on home plate. It makes me
think of um, you know a land about Tom the
the British philosopher. He was on this podcast UM with
(33:28):
Elizabeth Day called How to Fail, and he said that
it's so it's so like basic but so profound. He
said that the only way to truly connect with somebody
is to be vulnerable, and for them to be vulnerable
back to you that's like it, you know, and and
I and I also really love to think of vulnerable.
You know, vulnerable means literally like showing your weakness. So
(33:50):
the idea that their strength and showing your weakness. It's
equality and respect. It's like I bow to you, I
am offering my soul and then you offer me whatever
you want to offer me. I have no attachment of
no judgment. And I think also people feel that there's
this famous quote about people. People have it. I'm going
(34:13):
to change it in my own words, but people have
an innate bullshit detector where they know if you are
sincere or not. They know if you give a ship
or not. People just know, even if they're not aware,
they know. In the interview tape, you can hear that
they knew we weren't bullshitting, so that the results we
(34:36):
got in the tape was amazing because people knew we
were not playing around and we were Sincere. I was
fiercely Sincere. I wanted I wanted to know what people knew.
I wanted them to share whatever they needed to share, Um,
including Jad Zad, including Jad you know. UM. There's also
this amazing research out of University of Glasgow. I think
(34:59):
where they can tell in the first millisecond where somebody
says hello, people have a instantaneous opinion about whether or
not that person is trustworthy. You know what. I love that,
And I mean it sounds wrong right because it sounds
like you're you're maybe judging. But people have wisdom even
if they don't can't necessarily put it into words. We
(35:21):
have wisdom. There's a girl, um So Buddhist girl. Her
name was Sunny Kim. She told me the story that
in Korea, um where like she grew up with her
family and they went through a lot of trauma as
a young person. Her mother almost died three times in
one year. And she said, like, through that suffering and
(35:42):
through prayer and and really taking care of other people
during that time, what would happen is like she'd go
visit someone who was struggling, and she could hear by
the way they would answer the door. She could hear
what their life state was by the way they would
unlock the door before they open it. I talk about
this a bit because you know, obviously I'm the voice
(36:04):
is my jam and not just the voice in and
of itself. Um As we just talked about in the
mail bag episode. But really because it's so revealing. It's
so revealing of what are as you say, our life state.
And I think that there's something. I mean, this is
not true for everybody in every moment, but um, I
think there's something about how each of us uses our
voices that either reveals our life story or our state
(36:27):
of mind, our choices, our where what's led us to
this moment, or it doesn't. And what we're hearing is
the concealing. I hope and this is my cha championing
women too. I hope that we can hear better because
there's a lot, like think about all of the all
of the reality is coming to the surface right now
(36:49):
where people are saying it's so bad, and people that
have been suffering under these realities say, no, it's always
been like this. But you can't hear the voice if
you weren't a victim of that voice. But if you
have suffered and been marginalized and been bullied lost even
though it was unfair, if you've ever been in a
situation where you were punished for something you did not
(37:12):
do because of the of the positions of power of
people in power, well, if you think about it, people
are getting a microphone right now that did not get
a microphone. If you even think about who has been
hosting radio shows, it has been white mett Okay. So
also there's a trajectory happening where people are realizing something
(37:32):
is wrong, so they're shoving everyone into the spotlight. But
they didn't give any of those people the tools that
they gave a whole other generation of people in privilege.
So even for me, that's why it's very nerve racking,
even as I'm coming into the forefront and my voice
is being allowed to have a little bit more space.
(37:52):
I'm very self uh, self editing critical maybe yeah, self
editing and and self critical and not. I just don't
think I deserve a space to talk. And many people
don't even think like that. They just think, yeah, I am,
I deserve to talk. You know, they've they've done these studies.
(38:13):
And actually the Dolly Parton's American professor told me this.
She's a fierce feminist and was a lesbian lawyer in
the nineteen seventies in Chicago, so she would tell me stories.
This is before I even met her on the phone,
and this is one of the reason why she fought
for me to be in the series, and she was like,
Sheima gets this, bring Dad, you should bring shema. You know,
(38:33):
it's these invisible spaces where people just think they deserve
a raise. They just think they deserve a promotion. They
don't think they need to do anything to get it.
They just think they deserve it. And and you know,
there's very famous studies, very well known studies that women
will apply for jobs that only they fit of the
criteria cos and men will like apply for jobs where
(38:53):
they fit the criteria. And so there is a growth
spurt happening right now. But uh, it's on both sides.
It's it's awkward for everyone. And so even for myself,
I'm like, I don't want to I personally don't want
to sound trill. I personally don't want to sound dumb.
I personally don't want to sound like to like I
don't know, I just want to sound like myself. But
(39:15):
I'm also scared because getting an opportunity is so rare.
It's not an everyday occurrence. So that's because of the
way things are set up. Like when AOC just got
up and gave that freaking speech, it's it's it's just
so great for a young woman to stand up and
just piss off so many men and be like, Yeah,
(39:37):
I'm just gonna piss you off. I don't care. And
I mean, she's doing some of it for very good reasons.
I wrote it. I wrote a piece about this too. Actually,
right before she did her um she gave that speech
unrelated related just to her being her, about how like,
what is surprising about her and what is what is
a lesson for us and for anybody listening, who's who's like,
(39:57):
you know, feeling any residents here is that what's so
surprising about her? The reason that we don't associate her
voice with power historically, leadership historically is that she literally
sounds like who she is and where she's from. Yeah,
and so many of us have this sense, whether it's
turning on a radio voice or turning on a politician voice,
(40:19):
that the way to get ahead and we might be
right is to shave off those edges of ourselves that
are the most authentically us, the most real, and go
into this generic land and by the right. The reason
I say we might be right is obviously on the
way up. And then the dream is at some point
we have enough power and you know, AOC was able
to do it in this like sooner than expected way,
(40:41):
which is partly her bravery to say I have enough
power to let that crap go and actually say, Okay,
here's what I really sound like, and I shall not
apologize in the moment. I mean, what you're talking about
is also this thing I'm always on the kickoff and
I and I absolutely have to police myself on, which
is about Apolo jizing for taking up time and space.
(41:01):
She is okay being hated and that is such a
superpower like that that that's what I find the most
in awe about her is she does not care if
she's hated, And I think, wow, I wish I were
more like that. I'm not that that's something, but I'm
also I'm a different I'm a different flavor. I'm a
(41:22):
different instrument. But in a way, I would say, part
of what your job was, part of of the of
the puzzle piece that you, you know, provided in what
you talked about with your you know, dynamic with Dolly,
is that you were willing to say some things that
were came out of left field or were not the
good cop there. You know, you have your own ways.
(41:43):
I mean, I don't need to defend you. You can
defend yourself. But you know what I mean, Like there
we we the ways in which we experiment with being
brave enough to be unliked, is I think, really really helpful.
Even speaking up as I worked with jad right, like
speaking up yes in private with I had a question
about how you guys agree or disagree and what that
(42:03):
process is. So if I were just thinking about Shema
and my career, I would not have spoken up about
some things. I would not have said, hey, we need this. Hey,
like I just wouldn't have said it because I'm in
a v I love my job. I don't need to
speak up. But I was as per Dolly. I was
(42:27):
praying a lot about the series, and I felt like
it was a chance to tell Talk to America. I
felt like it was a chance to tell Dolly story.
I felt very personally connected to the story um as
a woman and and and with my roots in the
Middle East and all of the things that were all
of the ideas that you hear in the in the
(42:47):
in the trajectory and the adventure that we go on.
But I remember praying, I want to open the gateway
for all women through this series. And part of that
is how I stand my own as a creative behind
the scenes, even though I am this person's junior and
they are employing me. Yeah, I don't know if anyone
(43:10):
would have listened to me if this guy didn't give
me a shot, you know, like was anyone going to
give me a shot? Like someone has to see your
genius too, Someone has to see your talent then you
can do what you want with it. There's another part
of that puzzle which I really don't want to miss
out on, which is that because you were doing this
work on yourself, on on the on the why you
(43:31):
were speaking up in a way that wasn't just speaking
up for Shema, and in fact may have been if
things had gone differently against your best interests. But you
were speaking up on behalf of and that is I mean,
I think that is part of what was so successful
about this this you know, viral moment that um that
AOC created. That she it was not just like this
guy said something mean to me, and I would like
(43:54):
to say that I don't want to be treated that way.
It was not that at all. In fact, she spent
the whole first half saying it has nothing to do
with me and how I'm treated. It has to do
with a history of this. Do you know how many
women we're sitting at home, like millions have seen that
video now and I and so the reality is I'm
thinking I have two thoughts when I watched that. I
(44:15):
think this is insane, that this is what's happening in Washington,
Like this is taking up time during a period in
the country where people are dying off and like the
thousands and perhaps like and we don't know how much
it will snowball too. It's it's a it's a it's
(44:36):
a horrific time in American history. And she has to
take time to address this. But every woman at home
that has ever been just spit at, like I mean
spit at for doing nothing, for just walking on the street,
called called whatever. And in fact, it's connected now that
(44:59):
I hear you talk about this, because yes, I had
the same thought of like, it's insane that she has
to sort of like speak about this, this sort of
triviality of these two words getting getting strung together and
thrown at her, you know, among the billions that she's received.
Why you know why. But it's connected to the fact
that those same women that you're talking about that we're
home listening to this are also the same women who
(45:23):
have had to deal with, you know, life since since
November and what that moment was. Okay, one more question
before we take another break. Here's what I really want
to know. At the top of the final episode, you
get on the microphone and ask for money. It's so
(45:44):
fucking good and it's a it's a money ask I
have never heard in my whole life. Like, there's no
apology in it. It's so you like, what was that
and what how did you prepare for? What did you
think as you were going on? Mike? It's so money
that you asked that, because I find that I find
that money asked to be a microcosm of the series,
(46:07):
which is I did not expect to do the money
ask I did not I and then I got asked
to do it. I work for Jad's company. I don't
really work for w N y C. Right, So Dad
said I want you to do the money asked. And
I think it was also him giving me a moment
to say, hey, I produced this thing, and I was scared.
(46:29):
I've never asked for money, and I did a very
standard one in two episodes previous to that one. But
I got because I've already done it. I was thinking,
what do I want to do? How do I so
I just built something I took. I was trying to
think how I was thinking about the Victory lab because
the last episode is a lighter one, so we're really
(46:49):
just like we talked about our tattoos, we talked about
two years from that. You had also been getting feedback
by that point from listeners, right, so, like you, it
did strike me as as a different type of ask
then you might have done before this had had like
hit air. Yes, it was. It was me talking directly
to people that we're in the series with us and
like knew who we were and and we're enjoying it
(47:12):
or hating on it whoever. But I just I was
speaking to the listeners, you know. And it started with
I knew I had to do it. I knew I
wasn't going to narrate any part of that last episode.
You hear me in that last episode because I ask
about the tattoos with the kids with the ut, you know,
And I love that. I love that when he's when
he's like, by the way, that with Jama's question about
the kid's question. The best part of that is just
(47:32):
the kid's reaction because they're like what I thought? What?
No one knows just but they were actually kind of
the highlight of all of that. But um, you know
what I do want to say that that the act
of using their questions and then putting them into Dad's
mouth was like, yes, dream that, just dreamy. After we
met with the UTI kids, that was another bright idea
of coming back to Dolly and doing another interview with
(47:53):
Dolly's just putting their questions in front of her. So
it gave us the space to not be critical, but
to be critical, like, hey, the kids wanted to know this.
The kids wanted to know, what do you think about
your accent? You know they kind of feel ashamed of it?
Why don't we don't know? What? Thank you? So we
we to ask the things that are a little bit
but to voice, to to give voice to the students
(48:15):
who felt like so distant you know literally and come
metaphorically from Dolly and then to have their questions be
directly asked to her was like a real I mean
that actually now that I say it felt like it
was a real um crumbling of of a of a
like you know, power structure. Yeah. And they were so
happy too, because they wanted to ask those questions, right,
So they were real. They were like real quest My gosh.
(48:36):
I love those students. By the way, I still talked
to some of them. They're any brilliant, brilliant in people. Um,
so the ask, Yeah, I was terrified. I asked membership
services at w YCE. I actually had a meeting with them.
I said, I'm very scared. And then they told me
they told me Dad's record for how much someone gave.
(49:01):
This explains a lot of my relationship with Jad, they
explained to me. When Jad asked once, people responded with
this kind of figure. So this is so much. I mean,
this is the beauty of my religor is like we
this is like, this is the this is the invisible
like chemistry, right, Like we compete too. We try to
outdo each other. I probably do it more because I'm
(49:23):
free to do so, because I have because I am
like the young kid coming up or um you know,
I kind of I feel like I'm like the younger
sister figure and I go, hey, I wanted to you know.
So we were editing the final episode. I thought, hey,
this is my last moment. I'm going to be creative.
So I built the start, and then I put in
the questions. I put in the moments that I knew
(49:44):
people loved the most, you know, and then I made
it and then I sent it to Jad. And Jad
was just expecting me to do a straight up ask
with no music, no nothing, no build. And then when
he saw it, even though he's like tired and he's like,
we're wrapping the thing, he saw what I did and
then he built on it. So then he built a
(50:07):
middle moment, and then I built the final moment. So
even though we would we didn't expect to do that.
That was that was the genesis of the Dolly series too.
Was like I would throw him more than he asked for,
and then he would respond in a glow in a
generous way, and then I would push back in a
(50:29):
generous way, and then we would get to something that
was just unexpected. It was just supposed to be a
straight up asked, no sound, no nothing. But I took
a moment and I made what I could with it
with the time I had and with the feelings I
was having. I also wanted it to feel like a
victory lap for all the listeners with us to just
go over like reminisce and then and to ask a
(50:49):
very sincere question, which is, you know, public radio cannot
exist without listeners. I mean, to this day, especially in
this time of the pandemic, it's really beautiful that people
are still giving, even UM, even though circumstances are much tougher.
So I really tried to think about people and be
appreciative to the audience, even if they didn't give. I
(51:10):
wanted to be appreciative for everyone who had listened. So
that's what I did. And as lessons go, you know,
there's a lot in that, but one thing that I'm
hearing is that in various ways, you really gave yourself
permission to bring your actual voice to that microphone. And
one way you did that was to really connect with
the who you know out there. One way was to
connect with um, how proud you were what you've made
(51:32):
at that point, to just trust that it was not
something you needed to sort of like if you liked this,
you know, which is a trap that any of us
could have fallen into. UM. And then and then also,
you know, a healthy competition, nothing like some some I'll
show you energy. Okay, we're gonna take another break and
we'll be back to find out who you brought in
for us. I just feel like this could definitely be
(52:02):
like UM, a multi episode series about UM, you and
us in our take on the world, which is just
a different it's a different format. What can I say? UM, Okay,
will you tell me who you brought in for us?
So I brought in MICHAELA. Cole, who is who should
(52:25):
be president even though she's not American, but she should be.
She should be president and she should be queen. But
I brought her in because not only is her series,
her newest series, the greatest thing on this planet right
now in my opinion at this moment, but her business
(52:46):
practices and the voice she's giving to them, and the
boldness is at which she is expressing what is happening
behind the scenes in those business practices I find to
be wholly encouraging, courageous, and onspiring. She is what she
is what I want I want to be. I wish
(53:06):
I could be things I asked for but do not get.
She is asking for them and getting getting them. She
was offered a million dollar deal with Netflix. She turned
it down because she couldn't own the rights to her show,
and she just wanted like a certain percentage of the shares,
and these wouldn't even give her that, and she just
said forget you at a time when no one said
note of Netflix. I think she's awesome. Every young person
(53:31):
I know, every woman I know, is she's become the
blueprint just coming up. She's not a she's not a
twenty year veteran that's becoming the blueprint. She's an up
and coming artist that is the blueprint. I think she's spectacular.
And then her series takes on sexual assault. And I
(53:53):
hate to even say that because I don't want to
turn anyone off from watching it, but I may destroy you.
It is so good and is saying so many things,
is giving a voice of things that people have not said,
and and giving you a space into places that people
don't see from a vantage point of someone you never
(54:15):
hear from or see from. And every episode I was
lucky that I watched it with a friend of mine.
Um I normally you binge something on your own, but
I actually watched it with a friend, and every time
an episode ended, she would share about what what what
she what she related to and then I would share,
(54:37):
and then we would share about other stories we knew,
and then we'd watch the next episode, and then she
would share and I would share. And so MICHAELA. Cole's
art was giving us a voice to share her business practices,
and her speeches about her business practices made my coworkers
they would like send me her speeches like because the girls,
(55:00):
girls have their own hidden community where they're pushing each
other to ask for more. But all of us, a
lot of us are getting said no to. But and
and even sometimes I'm told by other young women around me,
you should ask for this, but they would never ask
for that. But I'm kind of the guinea pig. And
then I asked them and it's like, no, you can't
get that because you know who are you. So I
(55:22):
think that's happening everywhere. I don't think it's personal to
me or anyone else. I do think the ideas of ownership,
of artistry, of being a woman, of being, the idea
of sexual power, the idea of business power, all of
that is encapsulated in this phenomenal human called MICHAELA. Cole.
(55:45):
We're gonna listen to a short clip because you said,
up the way you did. I'm switching. I was trying
to decide between two, but I'm going to do a
little bit from her mc taggart lecture. I bet you've
heard this, Yeah, I think so many of us in
this industry, this world are on creaking ladders, climbing, surrounded
by noise, stress, and nothing real, not even the ladder itself.
(56:07):
It could make the future feel bleak and devoid of peace,
leaving some feeling isolated to the point of suicide. I
think of Antony will Dane, who entered his who ended
his life on Jean eight while shooting a series. I
think of Alex Beckett, an actor who ended his life
April twelve mid a theater on had worked with him
in that place far away is their care for anyone's mind?
(56:34):
Oh my gosh, right, yeah, I mean talk about what
of voices conveying? She is nothing but a humanist, like
she sees people, she hears people, and she's very connected
to her own probably because of her own trauma too.
(56:58):
She's she sees the person deeper than she sees the artist.
And I think in realms of creativity we forget that
there is a person in front of us, and the
person matters more than the art. At the end of
the day, the person fucking matters more than the art.
(57:20):
And that is not part of our society. It's not
how we view things, it's not how we measure them.
It's why the countries as it is right now, people,
it's everything else matters more than the person, the one person.
We've forgotten the person for a lot of the fucking circus,
(57:42):
whether it's an art, Hollywood, sucking, politics, fame, fortune, I mean,
something that came up with up with um at least
hog my previous guest is this idea that I think
about a lot about how we don't really talk about
this aspect of the patriarchy quote unquote, but you know,
part of it, um magic lies in trying to dissociate
(58:03):
our brains from our bodies. And this idea that like,
if we don't have bodies, well, that's convenient. And it's
also very convenient for capitalism, by the way, because then
we can work eighty billion hours a week and we
can skip pea breaks and we can not go outside
for lunch because who needs that? You know, work, work, work,
The more you work, the more you make. I mean,
if we start to think of all of that. As
you know, I don't know if a lie is the
(58:24):
right word, but as certainly a truth that's sort of
somebody besides us. Then we can start to think about
what what what is it to not live that way?
Then if you think about like the history of women,
I'm like, this is so my jam. There are thousands
of etiquette books for women on how to behave And
why are there thousands for women and not thousands for men.
(58:45):
It's because you are property. If you were not picked,
you die, like you think basically that's my extreme version
of it. But you are an old made you end
up in poverty or like you're an outcast of society.
You have no say in the world, and so you
have to learn how to harmonize in order to live,
(59:11):
to just live. And this is where Virginia Wolf is like,
my Virginia Wolf is my favorite voice that you know,
there are audio, there is audio of her. She is
my She's my I mean, michaelical living person without it
at this moment of time, without a doubt. But Virginia
Wolf says that when she got an inheritance, I think
(59:34):
from her aunt that mattered more, that money mattered more.
So she could have her own room. That's why that
book is called a Room of one's own. That mattered
more than getting the vote. Can you imagine that this
is not what we're taught in school. Her having that
money to be able to create mattered more than having
(59:57):
the vote. Like thinking that. It's what mickayl La Cole
is living right now on in the realm of life
and death, watching other artists feel so lost and without
power killing themselves like to that exact, I mean, that's
that's what I love about this moment. That's what I
also feel like we have so far to go. So
(01:00:17):
when I got my first recording studio job, I was
the only girl hired. I was the only woman on staff,
and I learned how to be tough when there was
a joke about sex. When there's a joke about me
or my body or a woman, you learn how to
spit back and you feel good and you feel like
you're the one in control and you feel cool and
(01:00:39):
you you know yes. And there was a moment where
I got I heard my real voice, and I woke
up one morning and I thought, oh my god, I'm miserable.
This job looks shiny, but I am miserable, and I
(01:00:59):
am I have to fucking play the game. I cannot
even be myself. I just look tough and I have
to do it to survive. But I hate this job.
No matter how good it looks, no matter how sexy
it is that I'm recording with this artist or whatever.
I hate it. And I fucking quit music at that time.
(01:01:20):
And I was a second grade teacher for the next
year of my life, and being with kids melted me.
I thought, oh wow, I have so much. There's so
much between what my soul or whatever is. My inside
and my outside are so estranged from each other, and
it took years to collapse that. And most people live
(01:01:45):
in the space between they It's it's so difficult to collapse.
It takes a lot of guds. You have to be
able to when someone hurts, you be able to have
a dialogue with them. You have to be able to
if you have trauma and your family address the trauma,
see the people like you have to love your parents
no matter what you've got to. You've got to have
(01:02:05):
friendships with people from all walks of life. It's a process.
You've got to constantly push your boundaries with your voice
connecting with other voices that that ship starts to heal,
and those the wall of the outside of what you
project as you to people and what is actually happening
on inside, so that distance collapses. And as an interviewer,
(01:02:27):
I am listening for the space and I am desperately
trying to collapse all of it. But it takes someone
to kind of be the catalyst, to be the elixir,
and art can do it. That speech, Mikayla did that book.
Virginia Woolf wrote that series a podcast like the reason
I wanted Dolly to cry is sometimes when I'm lost,
(01:02:49):
it's because I haven't cried, like I've gotten so frozen
because I'm surviving in the world and I can't feel
myself anymore, and I have to get to a place
where I can feel what the funk is going on?
What have I just lived through? What is happening? Because
things are moving so fast? Anyway, we should probably on
(01:03:15):
the episode, Sheima, thank you so much for coming in.
This is fun. Thank you to Shema for joining me.
You can find out more about her and her shows
in the show notes or on our website Permission to
Speak pot dot com. I'm back to doing I G
lives every Thursday. So join me tomorrow at Permission to
(01:03:36):
Speak POT on Instagram, Q and A style, So feel
free to ask me any questions you have, send me
d M s, comment, tell me what's going on with
your voice, and um, I'm so grateful for all of you.
Thank you to Sophie Lichtterman and the team at I
(01:03:56):
Heart Radio and all of you. We're recording this POT
podcast at various locations around Los Angeles on land that
is the historic gathering place for the Tongva indigenous tribe,
and you can visit U S d A C dot
us to learn more about honoring Native land. Permission to
Speak is a production of I Heart Radio and Double
Vision executive produced by Katherine Burt Canton and Mark Canton.
(01:04:20):
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, listen on the
I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your favorite shows.
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