BEST of FBShow w. Mariann Aalda and Dr. Robert Okin

originally aired 08.08.2023
Mariann Aalda
Dr. Robert Okin

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Don't you always want to be thebest you can be. The Frankie Boyer
Show it's more than a lifestyle show. It's a show about living in today's
world. I think something is happening. Frankie enthusiastically brings an amazing, eclectic
mix to the airwaves. That oneof the reasons she's earned legions of loyal
fans is very simple. When youlisten to The Frankie Boyer Show, you

(00:22):
just never know what's going to happen. So listen for yourself. Here is
Frankie Boyer and welcome. It isFrankie Boyer and Marian Alter. Marian Alda
has been seeing on our television screensfor decades. You may remember her from

(00:49):
Edge of Night, Uh huh,from Designing Women, The Royal Family Family
Matters First in ten. She inthe eighties was the amazing, amazing first

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black soap opera super couple. Inthe nineties, she's successfully pivoted to guest
star, reoccurring and starring sitcom rollscharacters that she still is beloved for today.
Fans have made her solo comedy showa hit in New York and Chicago.

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It broke a thirty year box OfficeRecord. At the twenty nineteen National
Black Theater Festival in Winston Salem,North Carolina. In December, she presented
a virtual excerpt for her Silver SirensRedefining Aging Summit in Sydney, Australia,

(01:57):
her pro age ted and Aarpge Disruptorvideo and are everywhere and Mary Anne,
it's time for us to say hello, Welcome, Hi, Frankie, it's
great to be here. Thank youfor having me on. Okay, this

(02:20):
is the talk that we need tohave. This is the talk that we
need to have. Yes, agismis real. Explain to us what happened
in your career and why you hadto become a hypnotherapist and pivot your life
as an actress as an onstage presenceto it well to reside. Yes,

(02:50):
No, I'm just saying, tellus what happened the story. Well,
I had a great career in televisionfor thirty years. I wasn't the first
black super couple. I think Angieand Jesse were, but Calvin and Deed
and Angie and Jesse were both onthe ABC soaps. They were on All
My Children and we fought immediately followedthem on Edge of Night and that character

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was very important to a lot ofpeople because she was a lawyer, and
I felt very a protective of thatcharacter. And as an African American woman,
I always wanted to make sure thatI played characters that were uplifting in

(03:43):
some kind of way. And nowthat I'm an older woman, I want
to do the same thing for olderwomen. I want to make sure that
older female characters are presented in away that are positive and inspiring and motivational
and inspirational. And like I said, I had a great career for the
first between my twenties and into myearly to mid fifties, and then the

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camping directors just stopped calling me.And I had just recently been divorced and
my parents were both in failing health, and I became their caretakers and I
had to make a living. AndI think actors have a natural curiosity about

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human behavior and motivation. So Itrained at the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in Tarzana,
California, and became a hypnotherapist.Spent a year in training, and
when I started seeing my clients,most of them lived in the Tarzana and
Sino area, which is a verywell to do area. These women had
everything, but they were depressed.These are women in there in late forties,

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early fifties, and I realized thatmy job was not to hypnotize them,
but to dehypnotize them from the negativeimages that we see in film and
television of older women. And soI gave them the positive suggestions. They
took root in my own subconscious mind, and I reclaimed my acting career,

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not in film and TV, buton stage. And that's when I started
doing stand up comedy and started doingsolo shows because women wanted to see themselves
portrayed in a way that they weren'tseeing themselves portrayed in film and television.
And they came out to see myshows. And you know there's Becca Levi

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has a book called The Age Code, and she did a study at Yale
University Beck in the I think earlytwo thousands, although the book just came
out recently. But according to herstudy, people with a pit of attitude
about getting older live on average sevenand a half years longer than those who

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have a negative concept of getting older. So not only are these images depressing
us, but they're killing us.Yes, I have to say I was
watching yesterday. I was on alake with some people and watching so many

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women going by and all sizes,all shapes, all ages, and I
noticed a couple of women that werenot American. They were not speaking English.
I think they were Brazilian. AndI noticed how fit they were as

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older women, very fit and stylish. And I was looking at the American
women and not even their posture.Their posture was terrible. It's you know,
your body shape is your body shape, but make the best of it.
And I wanted to just shape someof these women and say to them,

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you're not defeated. You may beolder, but you're not defeated.
Why are you doing this to yourself? You're You're right. Their defeat is
them is exhibited in their body language. You know. That's the way they
themselves and that's the way to preventingthemselves. And you've got it. We've
got it changed back. We haveto change it. But we're starting to

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see, like Gail King on CBSMorning Show is sixty eight. And I
give CBS credit because Jane Pauli isdoing the Sunday Morning Show and she's seventy
two. So I give CBS creditfor allowing women to age gracefully on television,

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and the reason that they do thatis because they recognize that well,
according to a twenty seventeen Federal ReserveSurvey and Consumer Finances, women over the
age of fifty on seventy five percentof the wealth of this country. So
they're doing it to a demographic.Yes, yes, I did my research

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and discovered that statistic when I wasdoing research on my TEDx talk And it
is amazing that Hollywood is being soshortsighted. I think they're starting to catch
up a little bit now because I'ma baby boomer. I'm seventy five,
and the gen X women are nowstarting to hit their midlife. They're in

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their late forties, starting to bein their early fifties, and the baby
boomers aren't dying, and the genX women are now pushing into this over
fifty group, and there's just toomany of us to be ignored anymore.
It's just too many of us.And I think Hollywood's certainly Madison Avenue.

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I think Peyton started paying attention beforeHollywood because I noticed more older women portrayed
in a positive way in television commercials. Fit women with silver hair and they're
jogging or they're walking their dogs,or they're swimming, or they're doing yoga.
I noticed that that. Yeah,the commercials are a little bit ahead

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of the narrative that we see inthe stories that Hollywood is telling about older
women, although that is starting tochange. But again, I think it's
because of the numbers. I don'tthink they're doing it out of any sense
of social responsibility. I think it'sjust straight up capitalism. You know,
there's money to be made, andbut whatever the reason, I'm lad at

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least attention is being paid, whateverthe motive. Yes, absolutely, we
have so much to talk about withyou. Your new book is out.
Tell us the title. I don'thave a book. I'm writing a book,
but oh, you're writing the book. Okay, I'm writing a book
and it is based on my snaptechnique. Right now, it's tentatively titled

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Snap out of It. You've onlybeen hypnotized into believing you're over the hill,
and I'm good. Great, wehave to go to break tell us
the website as we go to break. Please Marianne oh okay aging shamelessly dot
com. Shamelessly aging shamelessly dot com. She's an actor. She is an

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extraordinary woman and the newest model ofherself and we'll be back in just a
moment. This is Frankie Boyer's statue. She is ageless, she really is.

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I'm Frankie Boyer. She's marry andalder and she is an actress and
she is full of life and thatis aging shamelessly as her website and an
influencer, yes, an influencer,a speaker, disruptor, an actor and

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she's with us today, Mary,and welcome back. If I get into
some serious stuff, what was itlike working with some of the greats in
the industry. It was, especiallyas a younger actor, to be able
to sort of sit at defeat assome of these great talents. I would

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say, especially I played Red Foxand Delares's daughter in the series of the
Royal Family, and working with themwas just it was like getting a master's
degree in comedy. The timing,the characterization, the authenticity, it was.

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It was really really amazing. Andsomething that Della used to say,
because she was also a metaphysical minister, and she would say, be careful
about what you're thinking about when you'renot thinking about what you're thinking about,

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and by that she meant that sometimeswe can have these random negative thoughts that
were not really paying too much attentionto, Like you might say, Oh,
I'm feeling so tired. Oh I'mso old. The subconscious mind doesn't
get the irony, doesn't get thejoke, and it accepts it at faith

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value, and it will make youtired, it will make you older.
And what you were saying before aboutthe women who exhibited, you know,
a sense of defeatism, they probablyhave been sending these negative messages about themselves
when they weren't even paying attention,you know that random Oh my god,

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look at me, I feel soI can't stand the way I look today.
Well, the subconscious mindsets will that'sthe way you feel. We're going
to look that way all day,right exactly exactly, Yes, yeah,
and I have come up with goahead, we are you're gonna ask me
another question? No, I was. I was just going to say,

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Ben and TONI The The tell Usabout Ben and TONI. Ben and Tony
is a wonderful pro age sitcom.The three lead actors are all we're all
in our seventies, and it isabout both of the men are my ex

(14:15):
husbands. I'm kind of a kindof a very much very similar to the
character I played on Designing Women,a very nuppy, baldy, take no
prisoners kind of money grubbing broad withthe best I can to describe describe the
character of Lori, and I don'twant to give away the plot, but

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these two men are both my exhusbands and there there's a certain amount of
money that's involved, and they're tryingto get me to keep me from getting
my hands on it. So that'skind of like the plot. They are
best friends. Is this a moviethat will be Is this pilot that's being
worked on right now or yes,we did a pilot presentation for it right

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now and it's being shopped around allfingers crossed. Fingers crossed. Sounds like
it would be so much fun,so much fun it is. I get
to play a really wicked character.It's like they love me, but they
hate me at the same time,and I love them and hate them at
the same time. You know,like in real life, sometimes you can

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love somebody and you just can't livewith them. So what do you think
about the new the New Golden Bachelor. I think that's a fabulous idea.
Again, ABC probably did their homeworkand they can appreciate the demographics and they're

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appealing to an audience. They certainlywouldn't have come up with a Golden Bachelor
if there weren't, if they didn'tfeel there's going to be an audience for
it. It will be interesting tosee the age of the bachelorettes that he
has to choose from, if they'recloser to his age or much younger.

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I think if they're much younger,women are not going to be happy.
So but you know that show isall all the women who come on there,
and the men too are very goodlooking. So I'm thinking that the
women will be women of older womenwho are falling into that fit category.

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And the more we see women likethat in film and television, I think
it will inspire women to get tothe gym, change their eating habits,
change the way they feel about themselves. You know, sometimes women as they
get although they say, oh,I don't I don't need to bother with
my hair anymore. I don't needto do that anymore. And to that,

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I always say, you know whatthey put flowers on altars, don't
they if you if you don't takecare of your body is your temple.
And if you don't take care ofit, then you're really dishonoring your creation.
Yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. Youhave some great chips, and we

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don't have a whole lot of time, so let's get into them. What
are some of your your wonderful chipsthat you've provide for people. Okay,
The snap technique ss A doubles doubleN, triple A, triple P,
which stands for self love, selfcare, neural linguistic programming, the power

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of no awareness, acceptance, appreciation, purpose, passion, and pride.
A quick little tip self love.When you wake up in the morning,
you know, when you go tothe mirror and you're brushing your keiths,
look into the mirror and tell youyourself, I love you. Say your

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name, look in the mirror sayingI love you, Frankie, I love
you. And just look into youreyes and tell yourself that you love yourself,
because sometimes we forget. And ifyou start up your day with that
message, you're golden for pretty muchfor the rest of the day if something
negative hits you. The second selfcare. A lot of times we forget

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to do things for ourselves. Soset an intention, write it down today
I'm going to and then do it. If it's only today, I'm going
to walk for fifteen minutes, ortoday, I'm going to make sure I
have fresh vegetables for lunch. Butsomething but set an intention, because we

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don't sense the intention a lot oftimes we just don't do it it.
So those are two little takeaways thateverybody can start doing right this moment,
right now, and you're already aheadof the game and becoming I don't say
ageless, I say age full,so that you can give a fullness of

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life to all of the years thatyou This has been such a delight to
have you with us today. MarianneAlda, give us the best website.
Please, I would say go toI would like to invite everyone to see
to see my tedex talk, andthat is that agism is a bully tedex

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dot com. That's age I sM. I s a bully at agism
as a bully ted x dot com. Thank you so much, Marianne,
come back any time. We'll beright back. I'm Frankie Boyer. Welcome

(20:22):
back. It's Frankie Boyer and joiningus now. Is an internationally recognized expert
on mental health service reform. Hewas chief of psychiatry at San Francisco General
hospital and professor of Clinical Psychiatry atUCSF for seventeen years. And what makes

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this doctor so different, doctor RobertOakin so different, is that he spent
two years of his life interviewing peopleliving on the streets. Yes, you
heard me correctly, two years ofgetting to know people on the street.
And this has been for many ofus, a real look a homelessness,

(21:15):
a real look at what's happening onthe streets, a real look at how
there, for the grace of Godgo I can be any number one of
us. And his new book iscalled Silent Voices, People with Mental Disorders
on the Street. And when didyou decide doctor, welcome, Welcome,

(21:37):
it's it's always so great to haveyou on. When did you decide that
this needed to be a book anda project. Well, it was really
after deciding to spend some time talkingto people on the street that I decided
to turn this into a book.You know, I had the original motivation

(22:02):
for talking to people was seeing somelittle woman huddled up on the sidewalk,
you know, when it was rainingin cold and I got into my car,
I was hurrying to get into mycar. I got into my car,
I was bafe and dry and warm, and I kept thinking, my
god, you know, this poorwoman, she's going to be sleeping on

(22:26):
the street night after night after night, and I wondered, honestly, how
in the world she could bear it, how she could endure it. So
I decided that I would, insteadof wondering, talk to people who were
homeless and you know, and manyof them were mentally ill. So I

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started talking to them, and Iwas so struck by their stories and by
their face is that I decided toask them if I could kind of record
them and photographed them. And Ichose the photograph them, by the way,
because you know, their faces wereso expressive. I could see the

(23:17):
suffering etched into their faces, andI thought that, you know, their
their photographs would tell a story thateven their words couldn't completely tell. And
I photographed them while they were talkingto me about their lives, rather than
kind of staging the photographs. Soafter a while I wanted to I wanted

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to turn this into a book inorder to share their stories with the public
and share a view of these peopleas human beings. You know that most
people only see as people with ragsand carts and strange behaviors, and I
thought that by giving them a voicein the public domain, I really could

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convey their essential humanity as a counterweightto the fear and hostility and blame and
indifference with which we generally see themand treat them. Because as long as
we don't see them as real,people will never be able to identify with
them, and we'll never be ableto connect with them, and will continue

(24:34):
to dehumanize them. And if wecarry this view into the political arena,
we'll continue to convey to our politicalleaders that we don't really care about these
people and that we won't hold themaccountable for abandoning them, and the problem
will never be solved. I've cometo believe that humanizing them is the foundation

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for political action, and only politicalaction will let our governments know that we
insist that they stopped nibbling around theedges of the problem and really take action
to solve it, because it issolvable. You know, there's a woman

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in our own neighborhood who her nameis Molly, and she's young. She
looks old because she's weathered and notshowered and her hair and you know,
she's been on the street for forseveral years now, and she was sleeping
in an alcove under an awning nearan apartment building, and the apartment building

(25:49):
people were up in arms and hadher thrown out of that. No,
and she just wanders now from frombench to bench in different parts of the
of the of the neighborhood. Andwhat what I when you say hello to

(26:14):
her, she's so polite. Oh, hello, dear, Hello, dear.
She's so in her old world.She's so sweet, exactly, she
is so sweet. I had acoat and I said, Molly, I
have this really great coat that I'dlove to give to you. Oh no,

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dear, you keep it for yourself. I don't need a coat.
I'm good, you know. Shejust and you just wonder how did Molly
wind up in this place dark?Yeah, well I wondered about the Molly's

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of the world also, And that'swhy it's a asking them. And to
my surprise, they didn't blow meoff like I expected them too, because
after all, I was knowing tothem, you know, I was I
was just a dude on the street. I wasn't anyone with any authority.

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I wasn't the doctor. I wasjust some you know someone, And I
really thought that they would be irritatedwith me, but I found the opposite.
They seemed genuinely pleased that I wasinterested in their lives. You know,

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most of these people had been neglectedas children, and they feel totally
invisible as people on the street,so seeing that I was really interested in
their lives seemed to mean a lotto them. It meant, for one
thing, that I saw them andthat I heard them. So once I

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started talking to them, I expectedto find people with tough outer shells who
are going to be very difficult toconnect with. But instead, just like
you found with Molly, I foundpeople who were exquisitely sensitive and very willing
to talk to me with surprising candorand intensity. Often avowed very personal and

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intimate issues in their lives. Youknow, it really struck me because it
was their generosity that that really surprisedme, because now I was the one
with the tin cup asking them forsomething rather than the reverse, and they
were sweet. Most had tears intheir eyes during much of the interviews.

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You know, I use that expressionthere for the grace of God go I
and I believe that in this dayand age, the circumstances can be varied,
but homelessness is much more prevalent.And a couple of bad luck experiences

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and getting fired and here and thereand everywhere, and divorce and whatever it
might be. I could put anyoneon the street at any time, in
my opinion, many Americans. Yeah, yeah, I totally agree with you.
And that was I really I reallyfelt that, you know, it's
it would seem irrational because I hada job, and I had you know

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this, that and the other thing. I had finances, And yet when
I was talking to these people,I I felt so close to yeah,
and I really thought that I couldbe in their shoes and they could be

(30:12):
in mind. It was just amatter of really bad luck. They were
born into the wrong families. Oftenthey have a genetic disposition to make a
illness. You know, they hadreverses in their absolutely, so we need

(30:32):
to check a quick break. Butwhen we come back, we are going
to continue with this conversation because it'ssuch an important conversation. And doctor,
give us the best website and howpeople can find your book. Please sure.
The website is www dot Silent Voicesbook dot com and the and them

(30:56):
of the book The Silent Voices,Doctor Robert Oakin will be back in just
a moment. This is Frankie Boyer'steaching and welcome back. It is Frankie

(31:21):
Boyer and doctor Robert Oakin is withUS internationally recognized expert on mental health service
reform, and he offers harrowing storiesthat capture the reality of being homeless in
the in the streets of our country. His new book is Silent Voices People
with mental disorders on the Street.And I have to ask you, doctor,

(31:45):
were you able to go back andshow some of them the book and
their pictures in the book? Iwas able to do that with two of
the people. The others I couldn'tfind again. Ah, so sad.
Yeah. Where do you think?And I ask this of you because you're

(32:07):
a psychiatrist, that you've been inthe field for so many years. Is
it worse today than when you firststarted this project? Are we are we
so infested with so many biases andso much anxiety as a country and mental
illness? Where are we? Well? I think the data shows that the

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problem has increased, and it's increasedlargely for systemic factors, you know,
individual factors like the abuse and neglectthat many of these people as children experienced,

(32:52):
and the fact that they were oftenkind of tossed into foster care that
basically deserted them when when they agedout. You know, these are the
individual factors, but frankly, it'sreally important to recognize that it's the systemic
factors that have created the crisis ofhomelessness in the first place, because it's

(33:15):
the systemic factors that have really determinedthat people who are very fragile ultimately slip
into the streets. So it's crucialthat people recognize the systemic factors and that
it's been government that has largely beenresponsible for these systemic factors. It's government

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that has created or certainly contributed tothe problem and has stood by rather passively
watching this train wreck developed. Andthis might sound harsh or oversimplistic, but
think about it. The reason it'sso important to unders and government's role in
creating the problem is because governments atall levels are the only entities in our

(34:07):
society that can solve the problem.You know, you can give a coat
to Mali, but as you saw, it doesn't solve the problem. So
let me explain why I hold governmentsresponsible for creating the problem. You know,
first state governments done six hundred thousandmentally ill people onto the street with

(34:30):
no services, no support, nothing, Well, where were they going to
go? You know, a lotof them just remained on the street.
And seventy years after this, governmentshave still failed to create the kind of
mental health and substantibute services that couldhelp treat these people. So the addiction

(34:53):
started. So the addiction piece isa major, major piece of the story
of homelessness. It's a major piece, and I go, we can't ignore
it. And we look at massmass av in Boston, as you're familiar
with mass cass, which has becomethe biggest mess, biggest mess, and

(35:20):
the tents and the drug addiction,and it's beyond anyone's wildest nightmare. It's
turned into they tried cleaning it up, it's back again. It's so pervasive
and addiction to the opioid crisis youngyoung When you when you see the mothers

(35:45):
and the parents of young kids thatare on the streets right now because they
had a broken playing football, playingsports, playing soccer, and they had
an injury and became addicted to opioidsand here they are now back on the
streets. So the responsibility is everywhere. The blame is everywhere, The blame

(36:07):
is everywhere. Now what do wedo? What do we do? You've
made a drug addict out of thesekids, now what and more people?
In my opinion, the drug isa catalyst, you know, it just
takes off and that's it. Thealcohol just the catalyst from the trauma,
from the events that have happened.And yeah, I mean it's sad.

(36:36):
It's so sad because this is notthese are you know, every one of
these kids as a parent. Thisis not just you know, people on
the street. They have family,they have people that care and love them.
Well, let's face it. Governmentto not only kind of blown it

(37:00):
when the drug epidemic first emerged inthe seventies, because governments at all levels
failed to both stem the flow ofdrugs into the country and failed to establish
substance abuse services they could help peoplewho became addicted. And the absence of

(37:23):
or lack of available substance abuse servicesis all over the country. And there
are ways of treating these people.They are not hopeless. I know,
they seem hopeless when you look atthem. And by the way, not
only do they seem hopeless, butthe public at large tends to blame them

(37:44):
for their substance abuse, so theyhave much less incentive to push government to
create these services. But so,but we need to find the solution and
we haven't and we haven't done that. And I want you back, doctor

(38:06):
Robert Oakin, to talk about thesolution, because you really believe there are
solutions available. As as an internationallyrecognized expert on mental health service reform,
we need you back, We needyour voice all the time. We need
to hear this that homelessness should notbe blank faces, that they are real

(38:28):
human beings that deserve dignity and kindness, and that there, for the grace
of God go I exactly. Weneed to realize that this is a problem
that can be solved and there's alot of resolute for that. And if

(38:51):
we don't, thank you so much, we have to, we have to.
We have to speak out doctor oakenhis new book is out. It
is so important for all of usto understand this problem silent voices people with
mental disorders on the street. Anddoctor Robert okin thank you for all that

(39:14):
you do. Thanks so much,Frankie, get care and thank all of
you. This has been another editionof the Frankie Boyer Show, thanks for
listening, make it a great dayeverybody, and as always smiles