β I could use a beach right now. I could use a beach. A beach could save me. I could use to just get out of the damn city. I need to go away. You say that almost every week that we record. So why has no one taken me away?
Why haven't you got off your ass and done it π yourself? You know where you are. π Welcome to your weekly breakdown, the silly and occasionally smart podcast.
I'm Emily, a washed up tech exec, mother of two, and summer is finally here. My name is Caitlyn. I'm a comedian and actor, and I'm so excited to have my friend Genevieve Angelson on this podcast.
You have to understand as a podcast guest that there is an art to it, which is that no one has tuned in for you.
People tune into the show because they're really drawn to the personalities of the hosts. And so you have to walk the line as a guest of sharing because you've been invited for a reason and it gives variety and maybe you actually do have something of value to offer. And also shutting the fuck up.
We're just gonna open with that. That's gonna be our intro.
As you're hearing her voice listening to our podcast, you're probably gonna go Google her and you're gonna be like, oh, that I know her. She was on The Handmaid's Tale. She was on the after party. She was the star of Backstrom. Oh my God. Was she on Broadway? Oh, what, I'm sorry. Go back to the credit you just named Backstrom.
How many people do you think are going to identify me from being the star of Backstrom? I'll tell you who, unfortunately, they're no longer with us,
right now I know her because she is the star of the Chicken Sisters a show I'm on right now. We're shooting season two. You can find season one on the W Network or on the Hallmark Channel, hi Genevieve.
Listen, I am the biggest fan of this podcast. I can't even tell you. First of all I don't know who Caitlin is. I'm here because I got influenced by Katie Couric. And she's a huge fan of the pod, and that's how I found you. Oh, she still hasn't written me back.
Guys. I came from set where I got picked up for work today at four o'clock in the morning. It ain't right. That's not right. It right. I've already shot an entire day's work for a major television show. I am dying.
And I did not do anything to really help anyone. But you were needed. Okay? Anyway. Follow 4:00 AM is early. Remember we used to go to bed in the fours? No. Oh yeah. I was like a two max party.
Gosh, only one time I remember in university the only reason I remember is because I had these white denim shorts. I got grass stains on them because I was like rolling around in my front lawn with this very cute boy who was a year younger than me and the sun was coming up and that's the only time I stayed up that late.
And you remember 'cause you ruined your shorts. Yeah, that's what I remember. Not his name. Not anything else. This podcast is brought to you by Hard Copy, the Free Culture Newsletter that 5,000 busy women actually read get curated recommendations for what to watch, listen to read and indulge in, and to stay in the know on all things culture, work and women.
You can get that at Hard Copy do online. Holy shit. We have a guest.
She's a little pixie size.
You're like tink in hook. I just watched that movie with my kids. You're like, God, Julia Roberts. Oh my God. I love as Tinkerbell love her so much. I too.
We're leaning out of that phase for me. She's gonna be taller soon. I'm gonna be growing. Oh my God. You are growing. Do you have a drug for that? Yeah. Mount π Jaro.
So what are you, what are you doing here? Why are you here? I'm a huge fan of the podcast. I'm here in Vancouver where it is winter because I'm shooting a TV show When I met Caitlyn, I was like, what did we do to get her to, was that your first time meeting was on set? Oh yeah. Oh, that's very cute. We're so close. Yeah. To your listeners, I just need you to know this about your favorite podcast co-host Kaitlyn Howden. She literally. Went to different apartments for me before I came back to shoot this season, to check them out and make sure that I would like them. That's very jealous.
And that they were real multiple, not one multiple. She went and looked at places for me because I was. Where I live and not here. she's just like the most stunning creature. Oh, but, so this is a funny little piece of BTS from the show. When Caitlyn is doing a scene, they will just do a take where they will roll on her and let her improvise whatever she wants for like several minutes.
And, time is of the essence on a TV set, like every single minute is budgeted for, oh my God, every single minute often costs a lot of money. Uhhuh, it would actually cost us more money not to do those takes because what she provides is such gold. What's really impressive to me about you, Caitlin, and then I'll shut up, is that this is why you brought her on. You don't understand truly how funny Caitlin is, because I think that unlike. βA lot of male comedians that I've spent time with, you actually have the dignity and security to not have to be funny all the time.
So like in person, you're not like doing bits and even on this show, like you're really dedicated to the content and to what's important in that week. And you don't have to make it your moment to do Sunday service or which is the name of Caitlin's Weekly show? Improv show. Oh my goodness. Oh my God.
Give it a fucking rest. Jesus. You're so sweet. I couldn't be happier working on the show. I feel so lucky to be working with the people that we're working with. It's heaven. It's heaven, it's Heaven's so cool. You guys have some legends on that show. Yeah. And it's so funny and really cute. It's like it, and season two actually comes out very soon.
yeah. Oh, badass. Yeah. I need to know because it's one of my favorite shows. Who did you play on Handmaids Still. So my last job before the Chicken Sisters was a show called The Handmaid's Tale. Oh. Because I'm a one trick pony.
Why are you a one trick pony? I was making a joke because I went from playing this greatest super villain on the darkest show on television to a chicken sister. You were a wife. You were a wife. Ooh, I, I played Mrs. Alanis Wheeler on season four of the Handmaid's Tale. And I. No spoilers, but I think it's safe to say that now that we're at the end of season five I hit Serena Joy in the face.
Oh, that was you. Hell with a slap. Hell a slap. Yeah. Well done. That'd be such a crazy role to play. What's your favorite role that you've ever played? That's a really good question. It would be hard for me. Listen, this is definitely my favorite job I've ever had. That wonderful to be there every day, truly.
I did this show called Good Girls Revolt, which is a kind of a cult classic. It only had one season. It was unceremoniously axed within a month of coming out, even though it was like, at that time, the biggest show that Amazon had, it was early days for Prime Video, it had bigger numbers than Transparent, which was like their Emmy award winner. But it was overseen at that time by men who were not supportive of the content. It was just a moment too soon for its time. It was right before Hillary lost the election. it was a really special thing to be a part of. But I really have not had a bad.
Job. The after party was also really, Handmaid's Tale was amazing. New Amsterdam was great. All, they're all This is us was not bad. Like I've been really, really fortunate.
I feel very lucky. And then there's also times where I'm absolutely terrified. But. only terrified to say where does our industry go? What happens next? But I think we are all feeling that. So it's a global feeling right now.
Actually I just read an article from the New York Times. It was M Gessen. Is that how you pronounce their last name? G-E-S-S-E-N. Sounds like Gessen. They wrote an article called Beware. We are entering the new phase of the Trump era.
And it was talking about how what we're getting into this new phase is the normalization of chaos. He did this in 2016. Yes, he did. Yeah. Yeah. And it was exhausting. We're no longer in the shock and awe phase of politics.
We're now in its institutionalized and dangerous second act, which is, we've had the shock and disbelief and now the show goes on. There's, the justice system is gone to shit.
Media is no longer telling all truths. It's twisted. It depends which show you watch and which channel you watch. And that's the kind of news you're gonna get. In the United States Senator Alex Padilla from California, got. Literally taken out and taken down by police for asking a question at a press conference of what's her name, the dog killer. Christie Noem. It was so painful to watch that footage and so reminiscent of in Trump's first situation when the first time that a journalist got attacked.
And I just thought, there are no safeguards. And our nervous systems are getting so dysregulated by this level of chaos that actually there is a bottom, below the bottom. We know.
They did catch that shooter the man who, who shot the senators and the lawmakers. They caught him because as he was approaching another house, that's when the police showed up.
Whew. In his truck, they found so much ammunition, manifestos, lists that go on and on of people he wanted to kill. And his main issue was abortion, right? Yes. He was very pro-life, pro-Trump way. Love, we call it anti-choice love when people are pro-life and then they kill people pro-life.
It's called anti-choice, anti-choice, anti-choice. I, yeah. That's a good flip. You can be anti-abortion and pro-choice. You can be anti-abortion and pro-choice. A statement I haven't considered.
It could be true that I don't think that abortion is right or I wouldn't do it and I don't believe that I have to make a law that would regulate that choice. Actually, that's a really great way to say that. I like that. We're also changing words too, to be like, that word doesn't fit anymore. It used to be pro-life, pro-choice. You like, but that's no longer the fight that we're in.
The fight we're in is crazy. The media's so fragmented and where you say there's, no safeguards, it's like we expected people to be decent and to be like, oh, let's actually find the truth. Or the fact that's not it. Sensationalizing news, crazy headlines, click bait, it's a mess.
The Michelle Obama was like, when they go low, we go high. No. Fuck that. We have to go low. We have to go low, or we're not gonna be able to have these fights. Can I share something with you? I listen to the podcast and I read the news and there are a lot of things going on in the news that feel extremely top of mind for me.
Almost so top of mind. I get too emotional to talk about them. Yeah. I also do fear for my career. So the idea of even dipping my toe into the Middle East how could I what I noticed myself getting incredibly preoccupied by yesterday was the fact that Norma Swenson. Passed away. Norma Swensen wrote the book, our Bodies Ourselves.
She was 93. Oh, she died of cancer. She wrote this book because of her experience having her child and her. Kind of intuition that women deserved more say in how they wanted to have a baby.
And that this thing that was feeling hungry and eating a meal or feeling tired and going to sleep like a human physical experience had become medicalized in this way. That was frightening. And particularly because at the time in which she wrote it, which I think was roughly 1970, amazing.
Or in, or around then 6% of people entering medical school were women. And so in fact, all of these decisions were getting made by people who would never have the experience of having a baby. It was so emotional for me to read because when you think about what was in that book that it was written about masturbation, about lesbians, about stuff that I took for granted, I just took them for granted that now I don't, and maybe it was because I grew up in New York City, that's absolutely possible that I grew up in a bubble. And that there were certain like liberal thresholds or like marks of what I would call progress that we had surpassed.
Yeah. That I wouldn't think that we would have turned back on or undone, or the fact that she wrote about things that were at that time illegal, like abortion. I think we must think, or we must have thought at a certain point, if I have been a part of a movement that leads to something like Roe versus Wade, that is a thing that once it's done, we move forward from there.
That's not a thing that in my lifetime, we see not only undone, but crumble in the hands of the people. Yeah. Who for whom it was done. I can't imagine holding that and dying before there's been a new dawn of that. And gosh, I just, Interesting that she was such a. Game changer. And that, yeah, the world that she saw when she passed is not the world that she fought to make. I was just recently speaking to a friend of mine that I actually met through the A SMR YouTube community. And she and I are, we come from totally different places, but she's actually like a creator who's taught me a lot anyway I told her that my sister is a midwife, and she was like, wait, midwife, what is that?
And I totally respected. I was like you don't know. Let me help you to understand in fact, the ways in which we've all been culturally conditioned to understand. Childbirth as being a thing that happens under fluorescent lighting. Lying down in a group of strangers is not necessarily the way that our body best relaxes.
And incurs a lot of the medical issues that we then need intervention for. Mm-hmm. Because there's so much stress and trauma. Midwifery is this thing that sort of enables more of the biologically designed Yeah. And like emotionally supportive.
Methods of choice and autonomy and whatever. To just have someone who's, 31 years old, not know what that was, was so Oh geez. Wow. Yeah. Interesting to me. But here's the real thing I wanted to say. And this is why I am bad, not good. What I thought was, wait, she wrote that book in 1970.
God, it's hard to have a hit that young. How? How do you follow that up? Oh God. That's tough, She Peaked, she wrote, she peaked our bodies ourselves. That's right. A book for women by women. And then she's now what the hell do I do? She wrote literally the biggest book in sex education of all time, and now she just works at Harvard.
She took all of the residuals from that book and it's not like they're sitting in a bank account. They were actually like all donated forward.
I'm short Sex education for women. Gosh. Yeah. Shout out to your sister. I had midwives for both of my births. Dope. I loved reading Ina MA's Guide to Childbirth and it gave me such a different perspective on, I'm sorry. I went to Ina Garten and I was like, she does a lot.
That's it. I ina Ma Gaskins. She would've been homies with your girls. She's 85 years old it was all about the practice of midwifery. Your sister would know. it was just a beautiful.
Book that helped me understand, it gave me the confidence. It was like, women have been doing this for millions of years. You're gonna be fine. Just for the uninitiated, having a midwife doesn't necessarily mean that you have a home birth in your bathtub. Hell, hell. Or that you go to the woods by yourself.
I had a midwife in a hospital. And maybe you just have someone there who's like talking you through what you want to have happen when you give birth. Even if what you want to have happen is that you want to be lying on your back under floor ascent lighting. That's up to you.
Norma Swensen once said that feminism is just another name for self-respect. So long live Norma Winson. I think sex ed is very important. I'm amazed actually at the number of parents that are like anti-sex ed, people that I thought were like a little bit sane, they're like, no, it's too young. It's too young. As a person whose first sexual encounters were unwanted, I'm like, it is never too young. Also, children go through like their first spurt of sexual hormones when they're three years old.
Oh yeah. There's a way to talk about sensation and pleasure and interaction in a way that is age appropriate. Absolutely. Yeah. In the schools that my kids are in, they call it body science. Great. Because it is body science. Here's your organs and here's how this stuff works.
our Bodies Ourselves. It banned? No, they stopped publishing it. It's been published for 50 years and they have put out new editions.
But there are some band books out there. There are some band books. In Tennessee, they have banned Calvin and Hobbes. Excuse me. I wish I was joking. Yeah. Like the cartoon? About the little boy in his imaginary friend. This one, banned. βTennessee banned ancient Greece and the Olympics because penises penises. Oh, really? Did you just guess that, or did you know? I guessed it. Bridge to Teia. Do you remember that one? I never read that book. Grey's Anatomy, like the actual doctor book Oh wow. Is banned in Tennessee.
In Florida the Windup Bird Chronicle Love by Hurricane Ami. These people are threatened by and find dangerous certain subjects and themes
florida's afraid of everything apparently. Yeah. Including the body. Especially taxes. Yes. A Clash of Kings by George R. Martin. One of the Game of Thrones books. Uhhuh. That one's banned. Ain't too many of those.
Judy Bloom forever. That one's banned. There is an argument, some people argue that banned books it's actually great to get a book banned because then people want it more. I don't know if I fully agree, but I get that point.
I just think if we give people an inch, they're gonna take a mile. You're right, Genevieve. There's a reason why I don't identify with those reasons. And it's a slippery slope.
What it is, is a lack of separation between church and state. To ban something is to make it illegal, which is to involve your moral point of view.
Yes. And what should or shouldn't be available as intellectual property. Yeah. And freedom of speech and freedom of press. Are you American? You grew up in New York City, but are you American or Canadian? Yeah. I'm an American. I showed up at the airport when I got here and I got my work visa and I had to apologize to ATIs for six people I saw.
On the first few days of set Genevieve and some other casts who are here from the states working on the show did keep apologizing every once in a while. They're like, again, sorry about tariffs. So sorry. Sorry about the tariffs. Sorry about that. My favorite is the threat of putting a tariff on all the movies that aren't filmed in America.
That is just cracks me up. I'm excited to hear about how that gets executed. How does that work? I love a complicated logistical nightmare. you know what? Also we should ban what phones. Okay. I'm ready for phones to be banned. Okay, great. A lot of countries are banning social media for under 16.
We're making some progress on banning phones in schools. Speaking of phones, someone smuggled a smartphone out of North Korea, β as one writer describes it, it is a pocket sized Orwellian nightmare. Wait, really
that's pretty cool because North Korea runs a tight ship.
Yeah. They, wait, say more. What did we see? It's funny you should ask. I clearly, I did not see anything.
This
is why we have a podcast. This is why I write the newsletter,
What's funny is, in the last week, something I've never seen happen before. Twice the Daily the New York Times podcast, has had two issues because they're like, oh, so we were gonna do something about this, but then this happened.
So we have to do both. I love when that happens. We were planning on doing this, but there was a meteor, so we have to deal with that. We were like Israel, but then also shooter in Minnesota. Sorry. We gotta do both, it is a fire hose.
What did they find on the phone? They basically, they called it a digital hall monitor with loyalty to the regime hardwired in.
So they do have auto correct on these phones. And so if you, type. For example, opa, OPPA, which is
a term
of endearment for South Korea. It autocorrects to comrade.
Try
to say South Korea and your phone will spit back. Puppet state.
You
can't
just delete
the autocorrect dictionary to make it go away.
Automatic realtime censorship of a person's hand type text is a permanent fixture in these smartphones. It gets even more invasive than that. The phone takes a screenshot every five minutes and sends it to the authorities. Stop. These files are hidden from users,
which means
your phone is literally spying on you and sending your receipts to Big Brother without even letting you peek at them.
There is a person, a North Korea tech analyst. The country uses smartphones as a tool of indoctrination, little handheld loyalty tests that double as surveillance machines. I of course, will link to this full detailed analysis in the show notes as we always do. Well, Trump is a big fan of North Korea, isn't he?
Oh, I gotta play this for you. Are you ready?
I want my people to do the same. I just feel really bad inside. I feel really sad and bad inside. Yeah, I know. I got a lot to say about a lot of things. There are certain times where I feel so overwhelmed by βmy
fucking rage that like, I can't say, I don't know what, I can't say anything. You'd be institutionalized and you have to take that energy and say with this I will not shut down. Like with this I will move forward. I will not like let it go in, but also consider the person who has less opportunity than I do and like it's just really hard. And it's paralyzing. I think when you said that, where you're like, I just, I don't know what I have. I have rage. The three of us all nodded. Oh yeah. Silently. But in, in unison of this feeling of, yeah. Because it takes you, that's what it is. It takes you to this place of having been a child when there was an adult and you had a big feeling when you didn't have the control to do anything about it.
And there is a way in which that's paralleled for me. And like an elected official for whom there are no safeguards. Yeah. Yeah. You feel powerless again when the justice wing is waited in favor of agreeing with the president. When your Senate and your house are waited in favor of agreeing with the president, you have seemingly no. Powerful recourse. Yeah. With which to channel your rage. And so there can be this kind of like white out addict effect where you're like what is on Instagram?
You know what I mean? Yes. What can I buy on Amazon? When I finish this contract, I'm not turning on my phone for six weeks. I'm turning it off.
Really? Yep, I'm done. I'm gonna turn off my phone for the entire month of August. How am I gonna get ahold of you? How do I find it? .
I'm not touching my phone. Like I'm off social media. You got landline? So I'm very pro landline. Yeah. You wanna stop scrolling? get rid of the screens. I feel very passionate about turning off my phone for a set amount of time. Also a privilege.
But it's also a choice. Do your children have phones? Fuck no.
You don't even let phones upstairs. I'm a device free. Like they can't read. But in fact, they do have phones. Her children are feral. They're outdoor kids haven't been inside a home in years. You know what? They'd be better for it. No phones. And then upstairs, there's no devices.
No devices upstairs, no nothing for vibrators. Um, Have your kids ever found? My daughter did once. She was like, what is this?
It's a toy. No, it's so tiny. It's a it's a toy. But also she asked me and I said, it's for pleasure. Yeah, it's for female pleasure. I love how honest you are. That's what I'm talking about. Sometimes it scares me, but I like how honest you are. No, but this is what I'm saying about sex education for children is it's about like the only thing that gets talked about is like the kind of the disease element.
That and I completely understand like the responsibility
of pregnancy.
All of that stuff is extremely important as is agency autonomy and the right to say no. But also what about loving it? Yeah. Is that a thing that you were ever introduced to? Oh, no. No.
No. Shame, shame, shame, shame. It was like, it was a punishable offense. Yeah. It was bad. You avoided it. It was scary. You only give it to one person. You only give it π Great news. Coming out of sports. I wanna tell you about Summer Macintosh.
She is a Canadian swimmer, 18-year-old swimmer who broke world records multiple records. She has three world records and she is now rewriting swimming stat sheet in real time, and she's making real Olympic noise, so she's going to the Olympics. She's incredible. How old did she say she was? 18 years old. Is that very young for a swimmer?
Because in certain sports it's 18 is your prime. I just don't know how that works. She's young for breaking these records. Like she's Michael Phelps level right now. Yeah. And she's about 10 years younger than him. I know what I was doing at 18. Wow. that's probably why you weren't able to break any world records. She was at Canada's nationals and she.
Broke records in the 200 meter?
The 400
freestyle. And she was the first swimmer to do so in a single week since Michael Phelps. Who? And he did it in 2008. Bad. Is there anything harder than swimming? I'll tell you why. No, because it's running where you're also pushing shit out of the way at the same time.
I won't do it. No. And to see how they do the butterfly where you're like, what the hell? Please, if you're listening to this, how are they, this to the video to see this is in it doesn't make sense. Sizzle Like bacon. Yeah. That's what it is. And I adore her. She gave an interview with CBC news and um, she was talking about how so much of her, her professional career as a swimmer.
Has been chasing these goals. Wanting more. And she had this great quote where she said, I guess I'm not chasing things anymore. I'm the one being hunted. And she's now they're coming for me. And I was like, hell yeah, they are.
That's good. I love that. She gave a great interview. She, I think is our best chance for an Olympic gold medal. She also did this wonderful thing when she won all these, she won three gold medals at the Canadian nationals you know what she did with those three gold medals?
She gave them away to kids in the crowd. Because she said, it's gonna mean more to them than it will to me sitting in a box, in a case on a shelf somewhere. She said, I'm gonna give these to these young athletes and then they can hold it and have something to go for. It's really a Chiron more than it is an object, right?
Yes. You're like so and so gold medalist. Yeah. She doesn't have to wear them to be it. It's like how people take their Oscars and put them by the bathtub, at the end of the day, where do you feature your Gwynneth used it as a door stop? Did she? Yeah. It's really funny. It's funny. It's like the humblest thing about her. Yeah.
She put does her oil pulling. She can look down at her. Oh my God. I blame her for sending us down this like wellness shit hole. It is a wellness shit hole, isn't it? Anyways that's Summer Macintosh. Keep an eye on her. She's incredible. She is the π hunted. Do you know that chewing gum is, has a bunch of plastic in it?
I heard that. Stop it. No, I quit chewing gum a couple years ago. 'cause I, it's just TMJ and whatever. But when I say I used to chew gum, I used to not be awake during the day without gum in my mouth. Really think about how much plastic there is in my body. I don't chew gum.
'cause it gives me an upset stomach. 'Cause I probably chew it wrong. No, it's because of the fake sugar. But also, turns out UCLA did a research that found natural and synthetic gum can release hundreds if not thousands of microplastic particles into your saliva. They found up to 637 particles per gram most within the first eight minutes of chewing.
In today's segment of we're all gonna die. Yeah. So the author of the research said, we're not saying don't chew gum. We're saying this happens and it's measurable. Oh my God. You're like, oh, well This study is in pre-print. It's not yet been peer reviewed, so it's not fully published. But I thought it was a very interesting research. So it could be research, could be sensationalized news.
Science. Science isn't real, Emily. Oh my God. But anyways, let's not panic because science says that plastic's just in everything, so we don't, we also don't know how bad it is yet. It's in semen. You don't have to swallow anymore, folks. There's microplastics in semen. So it's bad for you. Don't swallow. Maybe the semen likes it. Maybe like tub toys. It's like they're swimming around in there and then a little piece of plastic comes by and they're like, I could play with this in water. Oh my gosh. Wait, you're saying that the plastic is like a little toy for rubber ducky in the testie, in the fluid.
So it's like a little a rubber ducky in the testie. I just thought I should elaborate on my tub toys comic. 'cause I felt it was actually pretty high level comedy and I wasn't sure you, and you thought we missed it. It that's right. Oh, Emily, I wanted to tell you i'm practicing gratitude, , so what happens is when things go bad, I can still be like it's not so, so bad. The other day I'm driving to work, right? I picked up some egg bites, a Starbucks coffee. I'm eating and I'm driving. And within a minute I was like, I'm gonna barf something's up with those egg bites, and they are not sitting right. But I'm on the highway and I don't have time to pull over. Like it's happening now.
It's happening now. So I'm in my brand new car. I'm not gonna bar from my car. I'm wearing a smock dress. Nothing's gonna hold it. If I bar from my own dress and my only other bag is my beautiful leather saddle bag, don't do it. I'm not barfing in that. So I reach in the car and I find a tote and it's my like tote that has my water bottle and my script in it.
And it's like I emptied this out. I'm on my way to work. Quick question. Uhhuh, where's that tote from? Oh, it's my Doctor's Without Borders tote. It's one of my favorite totes. So I have the tote, I'm on the highway. I'm You're driving. I'm driving, but it's a little trafficy so I'm not going fast.
I'm also in the right lane 'cause I drive slowly. So we're going about 60 and I was like, it's happening. It's happening. So I take the Doctor's Without Borders tote and I loop the handles over my ears, like a little horsey in a feed bag. And I barf All in my Doctor's Without Borders tote.
Sorry.
Oh my God. I don't wanna get those Doctors and borders. Sorry, I've gotta get me a new tote and then I realize this is a canvas bag. I don't have a lot of time. No. Oh no, I don't have a lot of time. I gotta do something with this. You know what I do, but up real tight. I'm like, what do I do?
What do I do? I put down the passenger side window, the passenger side, haw it out, the car door and goes into the ditch. And I was like, I feel great. I feel so much better. And I laughed and laughed and I went into work that day carrying all my stuff, 'cause I now no longer have a bag.
And people were like, oh, how are you? Genevieve and I were sitting in the makeup trailer. I was like, barf, I barfed in my tote this morning. it Was one of the funniest things I think I've done in my life to myself. I was like at least I didn't barf at work.
Good thing I had that extra tote and now I have a Ziploc bag in my car. it was a really nice experience of being like, that could have got me down. Be like, oh my God, I'm sick and I'm going to work. Oh my gosh. But instead, I was like I'm glad I got that outta my system.
You're, you're A leader. I'm a you're a leader. So if anyone has an extra Doctor's Without Borders tote, I will bite it off. That's gross. I have barfed on myself in the car after vision therapy.
See, but where do you barf? All over myself. Okay. See? Yeah. I couldn't do it. It just was like, I had nowhere else. There was nowhere for me to go. Vision therapy makes me wanna die. I haven't tried somatic therapy, but I do believe Wait, you vision therapy? I was thinking that you meant like dream work.
But no, you mean vision therapy literally for your eyes, for your eyeballs. Wow. I thought it was about like holding a vision. I'm from LA We need to have you back on the podcast. Absolutely. I like Joe Dispenza. Like believing in what? And you're having what you want. Oh, that's awesome.
I love that. π
A memoir of pleasure in a year without sex. The dry season. Fabulous. I love a memoir. Yes. You do. The Dry Season by Melissa, Feos She wrote Girlhood and she is a memoirist.
It's beautiful. As always. My favorite books weave in historical context. So she actually in this and examining a year without sex and what pleasure is. It's the normal shtick of I thought my pleasure was a performance for someone else, or you have sex to please someone else.
And so she really examines that after a hellish relationship I loved reading it. I couldn't put it down. Highly recommend. I love that. It is on our, on the hard copy blog. I've got 50 books for the year that I recommend, and that was one I was really highly anticipating and it did not disappoint.
I love women who think about themselves and put themselves first. Another book I really enjoyed by Alice Boland called Culture Creep. it's a, millennial girlhood book. It's a collection of essays that explore the strange career of popular feminism and the steady creep of cults and cult think into our daily lives.
Ooh, yeah, really good. I like essays. Essays are easier to get through sometimes, so those are my book recommendations. Also, the one out in the newsletter because it's summer sunscreen season, I wanted to bring in my favorite sunscreen. I talk about them all the time.
I've got three different kinds here. Okay. I've got them holding them. My first and most favorite is from Zoe Skin Health.
It
is more like a regular sunscreen. It's a creamy texture. More of an oily finish. It's called the daily shear, broad spectrum SBF 50 oh girl, water, sweat resistant.
Have we met? None of that shit can resist my sweat. If I am getting dolled up, then I like SkinCeuticals. Ooh, SF 50. That's a nice, it's got a little tint. It's also a very satisfying ASR and a littler. Hold on a second. Are you getting, are, do these people send you free product? No, this is not sponsored.
Emily. No, we can't help it. Okay. You have to get them to send you something for promoting them on your podcast, but I just buy them because I like them. That's part of the authenticity here. Do you like getting shit for free? Yeah, but we don't get anything for free and no one sponsors us yet.
I'm not good at asking for things. Oh wow. Very Canadian. her. People should know that these are really authentic recommendations. 'cause this woman is paying top dollar skin.
Yeah, it is top dollar cheap. And then the last one, if I'm wearing makeup, so I like the tinted one under makeup. This one color science is a powder. And I actually You Ooh, I like that.
So you put it on and you like tap the bottom and the powder comes up with the brush. So if you have makeup on, this is a nice topup on top. I love that. And it comes in different shades and I'm white as fuck.
Isn't there some discourse on the thing that gets processed through your skin?
And so it needs to be a certain, because it goes through your liver. I'm sure there are better sunscreens to use. I don't know which I'll find out for you though.
I'm not sunscreen shaming you. I actually don't know also dunno where I'm like, is it good? Is it bad? What am I, do you know what's bad? A sunburn. Yes. A sunburn really damages their skin.
Of course you, I have a blog. I'm gonna go do a full sunscreen analysis just 'cause you ask that question and I don't know the answer and I hate not knowing the answer.
So I'm gonna go π find out.
I can feel the sweat dripping down my sides. That's so healthy. Oh, I fucking stink. It's cold. Do you wear deodorant or antiperspirant? I'm a do girl. Yeah. I don't know the anti, see I was brainwashed at some point to know that you're not supposed to use antiperspirant 'cause then it's gonna go and give you breast cancer.
Honestly, I don't wear any of it 'cause I you like your funk? I, the truth is I have scent privilege and I don't really smell that much. My boyfriend, we all disagree, get out, but I also just am like, I just feel like our, the same way that our taste buds have been altered. I feel like our nose buds have been altered.
Oh yeah. I actually think we need to smell more bodies. I love this. Speaking of feral. Yeah. I love Chris's smell. I love his armpit smell. I'll stick my face in that armpit. When you like someone and you love their smell. I love David smell, but he's so murder clean that I'm like, I think he's wearing antiperspirant. Oh, murder, clean. What's murder? Clean.
He's very like OCD. A lot of his life is like very right and tight. So I'd like to describe a lot of his actions as being murdery.
I like
that lovely man. What I mean by that is like American psycho covering up a murder. Like removing all crime scene cleanup. That's right.
Crime scene. Crime. Crime scene cleanup. As I get older and Less brainwashed by what I think I should like and actually start to enjoy what I like. There was this photo, I don't think Zach Efron is hot, he was in a photo with someone else and the hottest thing was his hairy armpit.
I know that sounds bizarre. It was hot. I was like, I wanna sniff that. Interesting. And it was like an you like put my nose in there. I was over virginities the other day and I was wearing a tank top and I was like, oh, sorry, I have really hairy armpits.
And you were like, I love it. Me too. Love it. I have a girlfriend who grew hers out, just like for as an experiment. She liked it. She felt it was very sensual. She eventually got rid of it. It's very chic. I'm into the kind of like Parisian fashion edge of it I did a show where we had to have Harry armpits and hairy legs, so leading up to it, I couldn't shave.
And it was interesting, like at one point though, your hair does stop growing. Yeah. Your armpit hair isn't gonna be like eight inches long. It's ashamed of itself. Also at one point, if you lasered it off, years ago and now you're like, actually I miss it. Like the things we did in our lifetime, waxing, lasering, whatever adjustments we've done to our body.
When you do that in your twenties and then in, let's say later on in life, you're like I like that hair. I'm never gonna want a wolf bush. Nope. That's why I've never gotten a tattoo. Interesting. I did get tattoos and then I got them removed and that was way painful. That's the most painful thing.
That's why I got tattoos in places I can't see them, so I don't know. Yeah. Your Shanky tramp stamp. Yeah. I have a little lower back stamp Celtic Libra sign. Have you not seen this? it's excellent, right? It's excellent.
It's to remind me that I'm a Libra. What? Right above earth crack? No, it's to remind whoever's doing you doggy style. Oh, it's not for me. You're not looking at it. Others. My roots look incredible. I just need to say my what? Your roots. I know. I got them done. Your hair looks stunning. Perfect. Amazing.
Because on the show they have to keep covering up my hair. 'cause the grays keep popping out. Love your j You make me wanna be a j. There's a lot of ginger on the show. You both make me wanna be a J. You know what they do on the show, Emily?
The professional makeup artist do this and I, it's a game changer for me when they put my makeup on. 'cause you put makeup on me. Give me an hour. It's off. It'll just fall off. So healthy. I love sweat. Are you so sweaty? I'm I run hot baby. I'm an old girl. There you go. Queen of the North. They do a setting spray on my face before and after. Okay. I don't get the setting spray 'cause it's water. It's not, it feels like water. Is it? It's not. Nat is a hairspray. It's somewhere. Machine hairspray and water. It's a shell lack, but you, if you do a setting spray first and then whatever makeup you wanna do that day, whether it's just an eyebrow or a bit of blush and then setting spray at the end, it won't fall in the summer heat.
That's why I just don't bother wearing makeup. I know, but sometimes you ha not you have to, sometimes you want to. If you're going to a wedding or a fancy π event.
Working on a show is weird because the hours are always different. So it's like today you were up at three 30 to be picked up at 3 45. Yeah. By the way, then on Friday, because the, I don't know if your listeners know this, but they're, because of union rules, there's a certain amount of turnaround time, which means the amount of time that each different department has had agreed upon by their union to be honored, in which there's a certain amount of time between when they leave set and when they're allowed to come back to set without being paid extra to the tune of like hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars.
And so as a result of that and how long you're allowed to shoot in a certain day, often your week will start with actors in the hair and makeup chairs at 5:00 AM and will end with wrapping out at 5:00 AM So you go through, an entire hemispheres jet lag every week just to make a show about chicken.
Yes. Like this Friday. So today you started at 4:00 AM this coming Friday. You'll probably start at 4:00 PM This coming Friday I'll be in New York City. So Okay. That rocks, everything will be different. Yeah. For everyone. That's a crazy commute. 'cause you do go home sometimes to New York. Sometimes I go home.
If you have a few days off, if you have three days off, you'll fly home on a red hat. No, no, no, no, No. Three nights. Three nights. I will. Yeah. Yeah. But also I go to Los Angeles. I live in multiple places. You do? Yeah. My favorite person lives in New York.
And I'm from New York, but my chosen favorite city would be Los Angeles. I do love la. Yeah. And New York. I did live in New York for a year.
Oh,
it's very overwhelming. I was a baby. I would love to live in New York for a little bit, but then I think it only if I have money. Yes.
I wouldn't wanna be broke in New York. I just can't be broke anymore. I've decided I get that. I don't wanna be broke. No, it's not good for you. It's you're like, Parker, ian, white, lotus. Yeah. It's perfect. I just dunno if I can do that. I want you rich. I want rich, rich, rich, rich, rich. I want a rich too.
Jesus. I don't want you useful. I want you rich. Yes. Yeah. I think I'll be more useful if I'm rich. I will, I'll help you move by getting you movers. How did you get into A SMR? Through insomnia. Oh.
It was a thing that I always had and didn't realize was even a thing, which I think was true for most people before this, like a SMR movement. What I found was that, I was listening to it every night, like by necessity in order to fall asleep because I discovered this community of people who are like recreating these things that would trigger people having a SMR responses in real life on YouTube.
And what I found among the demographic was that it was one of two things. Either children doing things that would embarrass them so terribly by the time they grew up they would not be employable. So whatever, like makeup tutorials and like confessional, this is the boy I have a crush on.
Its school things. Oh. By high schoolers I know really tricky or adults doing it with a pseudonym. And I didn't actually know of the person who was a public figure doing it in their own likeness and talking about adult subjects that I would wanna hear about when I was falling asleep. So I decided, particularly because it was someone recently, a couple months ago, the White House released something A SMR having to do with, I don't know, ice, probably like that. I was like, oh, you can't sit with us. This is not for you, Uhhuh. And so I started making videos again about just grown up talking to grownups. But then I stopped My channel is dormant because I've been shooting a television show. I went back to school just for my own edification. In somatic healing. I studied under my somatic therapist in learning how to treat people.
Is this, this. No, that's EFT, that's tapping. Okay. Somatic therapy is just it's a form of healing your consciousness through healing your body. Not treating those as separate things, and certainly not thinking that by sitting on a couch and talking about your problems that you've like really been able to move things through.
That's this very like western notion that like our brain and our tissue are separate entities that don't like, interact with and inform each other. And this kind of downgrading of the importance of feelings in the body and so I would pretty much just talk about that and Hollywood and boys nervous system regulation, insomnia, fucking, and show business. That's my brand. Let's talk about fucking, hello. It's my favorite subject.
We've been talking about it. We talked about armpit here. That's all I, yeah, that's all I do. Arm sniff armpits. When you were growing up, were you like a musical theater person or did you know you wanted to be an actress? I was not allowed to become an actor because my parents wanted me to be safe.
And have a career. So they didn't, do you mean financially safe? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And they also did a lot to educate me and so they were like, don't throw that all out the window. By doing so something, they sent me to school, why are you doing this so stupid. I know my mom hate, you're so stupid what I do.
But aren't they so proud of you? My parents are super proud of me. Yes. No, they're very supportive now, but they, but and they had really, I think, reasonable boundaries around it. Yeah. Which is like you have to go to regular person college and then if you wanna go to graduate school for fine arts, you may do that.
Which is why you did. That's right. Genevieve went and got her master's in acting. That's right. I love that you did that. You did. She, she went above and beyond was like, okay, I'm gonna do this.
I'm actually gonna study the craft that's really co myself in it. I think that's the way to do it. And you were on Broadway? You seem Broadway to me. Yeah. I don't know actors, but you seem Broadway to me. Yeah. You should see the fucking smug smile she's giving me. Oh my God. She's like, yeah. Do would you do a play again? Yeah. I did one right before Chicken Sisters. You did? Yeah. Not this season. I did a play with Matthew Broderick and Anna Ksky from Oh, amazing. And yeah, it's called Babbitt. Babbitt. Yeah. That would be fun, but it does take up so much time, right?
If you're doing a play, it seems crazy. Oh, my boyfriend always says it's blue collar. Like no matter how successful you are, like you punch in at, six 30 and you warm up and you're at the show eight times a week. Yeah. And pace you no money. No. Yeah. That's like a love of the craft.
Hey. Yeah. Yeah. My daughter's been doing musical theater and it's fun to watch she's I wanna be a triple threat. And I'm like, oh God. There's a way to celebrate it even within your own consciousness, the same way that you celebrate sex education, which is like the pleasure of being expressive as a human. In that embodied of a way. Yeah. Where you are like led to dance and sing. . When did you know you wanted to be an actor?
I
knew I wanted to be an actor when I was born, but I, I really subverted it because I was not going to be I was not en encouraged to do it.
Yeah. Professionally, but, you knew extracurricularly, but then I knew when I was graduating college, I was drinking a lot. I was like, I think if I don't have a really constructive place to put all of this temperament, it's not gonna be good for me. And I need to not do a job behind a desk.
How old would you have been? 21. 20. 21. Yeah. And at that point I think I was working at a production company in Hollywood the summer before my senior year of college. And I just felt these. People coming in to do this job. And I was like, I just really think I can do this job.
It's just that I've said no to me. And I'm afraid of the financial pressure of having to take that on. And I'm afraid I'm bad at it and I'm afraid I'm too old. It was like this very ageist story I had of oh my, if you haven't started being an actor by the time you're 18, you'll never make it.
And so then I just doubled down and went back to school for another many more years. Are you glad you did? Yeah, because the reason I went to school was like, look, I was already working. I had already had a couple of jobs on TV and I thought, this is great, but I don't wanna be a guest star on Army wives when I'm in my thirties and forties.
I wanna be acting on stage at Lincoln Center when I'm 67 and I don't know how to do that. I don't have the skills, you asked me, if I'm a character actor. Yeah. I just don't, I don't know the terms. I like to think I'm flex, , I think that the highest, I think a lot of people aspire to being leading ladies because you think of it as being like the star, the main part.
And often it's the most boring. you're the sort of vanilla character that like all the other people who have more interesting storylines have to revolve around and like more interesting opportunities. So like I have very many times gotten an audition and gone back to my representatives and said, I love this, but I actually wanna read for this much smaller part.
'cause she has much more to do. and yes, I do completely chalk that up to training, which At the end of the day you're not gonna be pretty forever. You know what I mean? And do you wanna feel like you're being looked at or you're giving something.
It's so inspiring. It rocks me to hear you think you were too old at 21? I see that right now with my kids it's like they're discouraged from trying What did, and I was. Yeah. Yeah. They're discouraged from trying something new at 11. Oh. 'cause other kids have been doing it for five years and they're really good.
That's right. They see it and they feel it. And I can't do what I used to do, and so now I'm having to reinvent at this ripe old late thirties, and I'm like, I'm too old for everything.
No. I know the feeling that you were describing when you're in the office at the production company and seeing these people come in and being like, I'm supposed to be you. That feeling. I fucking know that one. And I felt it.
I love that you felt it and were open enough and in tune enough to feel it and go with it. Do you think we get more closed off to it as we get older? Yes. There's a quote that has resurfaced recently, and it's from Georgia Dare. And it says everything we've ever wanted is on the other side of fear.
It's true. fear stops us so often. I can't do that. We find reasons not to so I don't experience that I'm reckless and we'll just do it and fail and do it and fail and do started fail.
I started a SMR channel on YouTube. I'm say we started a podcast in 2024. I was just gonna say, I don't feel like talking about my career has anything to do with your weekly breakdown, but I am enter, no, the wi our listeners like hearing inspiring stories. Yeah. We usually highlight inspiring women. . They get inspired by it because they're waiting or they haven't.
They are scared to take the bite because maybe it'll be more than they can chew. To your question then about do you think it gets harder to do, to see the thing you wanna do and then actually take action on carving that out for yourself? I think unnecessarily for every, like for everything that you wanna do, there is a woman who has decided to do it at 50, and been successful. It is possible. I do think that the sort of like boulder that we're pushing up a hill starts to feel heavier because of conditioning, because of like neuroplasticity, because of identity reinforced, formed whatever. And I also think it's concocted bullshit.
Yeah. And you absolutely are still capable. It's a lot of ego. Have the neuroplasticity. Yeah. Have the selflessness. If your soul is calling for it, what you want is wanting you, it wants you back. Oh, that's so woo. I love that. Do you. Yeah. I wanna believe it. It's reassuring. I wanna believe it.
Oh, I, yeah, I'll believe it for you. Thank you. If you need to be reminded, call me. I think a huge part of my programming is so rigid and limited that my favorite part of getting older is how much more expansive it's become. Didn't you hear me say I went back to school for therapy? Love it. A couple years ago.
It, yeah. No, I love it. Just for fun.
I
started an A SMR π channel. π Genevieve, thank you so much for being on our podcast. Thank you for being my friend and for looking at apartments for me. Here's to season three, right? Oh yeah. Hell yeah. Alright, friends, we are done here this week, unfortunately, because I have had the most wonderful time with both of you this has just been a great morning. Thank you so much for listening. Please click subscribe or follow or whatever the little button says so that you don't miss the weekly episode. We'd love it if you'd rate and review the podcast so that other people like you can find the podcast more easily.
Better yet, if you know another busy woman send this to her. We love being here with all of you, and we are so fricking happy to hang out with you on Spotify or wherever else you listen to your podcasts. Follow Genevieve Angelson at Genevieve angelson on Instagram or go find her ASMR channel on YouTube.
Thank you Genevieve, for being on our show. Can't even imagine how much I love you. I love you to bits. π