Ever Onward Podcast

Karen Day's Fearless Journey: From Dancer to War Zone Reporter and Filmmaker | Ever Onward - Ep. 44

• Ahlquist. • Season 1 • Episode 44

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Imagine a life where every step takes you into a world of untold stories and daring adventures. Join us as we sit down with Karen Day, whose fearless journey from dancer to war zone reporter and social justice documentary filmmaker is nothing short of inspiring. Karen’s compelling narratives have not only shed light on the lives of women and children in conflict zones but have also challenged and transformed the very fabric of storytelling in media. 

Our conversation takes a poignant turn as we delve into the transformative power of women's stories, inspired by Zainab Salbi, the founder of Women for Women International. Through firsthand experiences in Afghanistan and beyond, we uncover the remarkable impact of providing practical skills to women in war zones. Karen shares her journey of bringing these narratives to light, discussing the personal sacrifices and emotional toll of documenting such crucial stories. From challenging media manipulation to navigating political climates, Karen's unwavering commitment to truth and justice shines brightly.

In a broader exploration of media's role in society, we explore the dual-edged sword of media manipulation and tribalism, engaging with thought leaders like the Dalai Lama and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. We reflect on historical oversights and the responsibilities of media in shaping public perception. Karen's insights into the balance between genuine storytelling and escapism through movies offer a refreshing perspective on the resilience of individuals committed to fostering hope through narratives. Celebrate the power of art and storytelling, as we journey from Hollywood to IdaHome Magazine, emphasizing the need for true stories that inspire and unite.

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Speaker 1:

Today on the Ever Onward podcast, we have Karen Day. She literally is the Dos Equis woman of Idaho, the most interesting woman in the world. Today we're going to talk about everything from her beginnings as a dancer, through fashion and running a fashion industry to then becoming a war zone reporter. She's done 21 social justice documentaries full length. She's the owner of Idaho Magazine. We'll hit it all today. We'll talk politics and everything else she loves talking about. She's a longtime friend and amazing Idahoan, karen Day. Prior to Karen Day coming on the podcast today we're going to hear from Corey Hall, our director of construction here at Alquist. Always fun to have Corey on for a ropingping update to hear what's going on in his world cory hall let's get the roping update.

Speaker 1:

Oh boy so all I heard is, you guys hadn't missed for like weeks until the money was on the line.

Speaker 3:

Well, so when dakota and I roped in practice pen we're really good in the practice pen, we call it the lab, that's where we come up with everything then I I pretty much choked at the rope. And when there was some money on the line so it was, it was unfortunate the one problem we're having with this podcast because you come on often to do it's kind of like the same update every time.

Speaker 1:

I know I need to start winning some rope and hey, uh, one of the things I want to talk about today is we're really excited to get going on homedale.

Speaker 3:

So let's talk about homedale um, yeah, that's so it's going to be. I was you literally just made me think about the rope and I missed at homedale last time we talked. But no, uh, that's going to be a fun site. A lot of exciting stuff happening out there. Um, so right now we're working with the city of homedale and doing the kind of designing the off-site sewer, water, roads, that type of thing. So hopefully looking to get going out there next spring.

Speaker 1:

So that'll be a fun one to get going with dnb and and the other users that it's been really fun with, uh, with john jackson, cory jackson, his family, um we actually have him on a podcast um coming up, but he is, you know, legacy family from out there. It's where John grew up, his dad owned the gas station and then he had his first gas station, his Texaco station in Caldwell. But a lot of legacy out there for them too.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it's a great site right there. I think our so on the what is it? The south side of 3rd Street? Yeah, Is that going to be some type of multifamily? Yeah, Something like Third Street. Is that going to be some type of multifamily, something like that? But definitely right at the old Beat Dump site. I think it's going to be pretty cool. Once we get the gas station and those couple other users and the DMV lot, I think it's going to fit there really nice.

Speaker 1:

People are excited out there too. This doesn't happen very often in Holmdel.

Speaker 3:

There's going to be more commercial development out there than there did in 20 years I was talking to somebody out there local and they're like you guys are bringing the McDonald's to the home deal. I was like I don't know, he depends who you talk to if that's a good thing or bad thing, but they're excited.

Speaker 1:

I know if you're a kid looking for a Happy Meal. It's a really good thing for sure. All right, uh, thanks for coming on. Appreciate the update, yeah, great thanks. Thanks, bud, karen Day. Hey thanks, welcome to the Ever Onward podcast.

Speaker 2:

I'm honored to be here. I'm curious why I am here, but thanks for having me.

Speaker 1:

Well, our listeners will not be curious. You, I don't know. You're like the Dos Equis woman, Right. The most interesting life it's the most interesting woman in the world, honestly, oh thank you, I it and uh, in maybe bizarre ways, you know no no maybe not ways where I get to drink a lot of cerveza but I don't know of anyone that have life experience is incredible.

Speaker 2:

It's just incredible it is. I think back on it. I'm so old now I'm like I can't believe I survived.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, me too. Talk me through. We're going to take this a whole bunch of different ways, but you know your story is fascinating. You know your, your story is fascinating. I want to, I want to hear a little bit how it all began, um, uh, for you. Uh, because I've never asked you that. I know kind of the foreign correspondent part, I know the, the director, I know the move to Idaho, I know a lot of things that we'll get into, but how did it all start for you?

Speaker 2:

mostly when you say that I sound like like you know, either incredibly neurotic or serial entrepreneur. Um, or maybe I'm just stubborn, you know, or?

Speaker 2:

maybe all the above yeah, which makes me you know, basically my middle name crazy. So they, my film crews, talk to me, my all the people in the war zones crazy, karen, um, and that's only because it's uh, you know it's, it's a basis of unusual choices. I have a you know a few philosophies in life and one of them is to lean into risk. And I think, tommy, that comes from, uh, maybe failing more times than most people have tried. Where did you grow up? In Indiana. My mom was Miss Indiana, third place in Miss America beauty queen, and I grew up like just wanting to rebel. So that meant, you know, never shaving my legs why?

Speaker 2:

Well, because you know that was the 50s, 60s models of the perfect housewife. You go from Miss Indiana to Mrs Indiana, you know where you bake pies and wear an apron and I'm like, oh, that's not going to be me.

Speaker 1:

Why? Why didn't you go the other way? Why didn't you like, want to be like your mother? Has anyone ever asked you that?

Speaker 2:

No, no, but if I went into that, I'd have to also discuss about 20 years of therapy, and you told me to say what things you weren't going to talk about.

Speaker 1:

Was that on the list?

Speaker 2:

No, it wasn't. No, those were all X-rated things. My mom was not one of them.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so your mother was a beauty queen, what did your dad do?

Speaker 2:

um, I don't know, she was married five times. She was an, you know like, truly an elizabeth taylor wannabe, that beautiful, but um, she kind of she cultivated that lifestyle and so we went from Indiana to California and I graduated from high school in Indiana and I always felt like I was born there. But it was the right time, but maybe the wrong place, because I think they hold up a crucifix when I fly over on this.

Speaker 1:

So then, where did you do your formal education?

Speaker 2:

have. I graduated from the university of colorado with a dance degree, which was really convenient because you know, growing up with the beauty queen it gets more interesting all the time you just want to. Uh, you have. It's a natural thing to have an eating disorder and I found I actually found a job that would pay me to have an eating disorder yes, please don't eat.

Speaker 2:

And so, yeah, I did that, and I did that for many years and that. And then I went to San Francisco, danced with San Francisco Ballet and then the whole time realized that I was never going to have and I was never going to taste bread again in my life if I didn't change my life.

Speaker 1:

Or any other carb.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, right, Carbs were. Yeah, we didn't even talk about that. But I decided I wanted to do something else and I had no other ironically, no other experience. And my mom said hey, I have a very successful modeling agency, which she did in LA. Natural progression from a beauty queen, why don't you start one in San Francisco? And really, truly, it was a lesson in torture. Maybe war zone reporting seemed easier after being surrounded by 15 to 20 year old women that were told by society you really don't.

Speaker 1:

So you started a modeling agency.

Speaker 2:

I did In San Francisco.

Speaker 1:

I did yes. So you go from ballet To modeling, To modeling.

Speaker 2:

And that was truly because I otherwise would have just been standing on the street corner in pointe shoes saying, you know, we'll dance for no carbs. And so I had to do something and I did that and it was I was reluctantly successful. You know, it's like the accidental success, but I wasn't happy.

Speaker 1:

So how do you go from there to Afghanistan? I know how do I.

Speaker 2:

I know that that's the big jump, isn't it? Um, I wanted to be a writer. I, in in my heart of hearts, I wanted to be a writer and, of course, all I knew was not eating carbs and also, you all always loved writing, as you always always loved writing, so as a kid growing up, you writing, expressing, expressing yourself through literature. I remember fifth grade winning like awards and stuff.

Speaker 1:

So it was a strength and it was what you liked doing.

Speaker 2:

Why did?

Speaker 1:

you like writing so much.

Speaker 2:

Even though I appear to be well, I'm an, a personality, but I'm also an introvert, and it seems unlikely, but it's true. You cannot be a writer, you can't be a reporter, you can't be a director. You can't do any of these things I do. They're highly creative. You can have a team, but it requires a lot of solitude to get the silence that allows that flow that's accessible to all of us to come in. You're up on a horse all the time.

Speaker 1:

So I will agree, I'm interviewing you.

Speaker 2:

Oh sorry, it's hard for me. Even when I dance, I can't let someone lead. You know me.

Speaker 1:

So you're doing the modeling agency? Talk me through, talk me through the transition now to becoming a very, very accomplished I mean international reporter. How did, how did that happen?

Speaker 2:

it sounds like another one of those I stumbled into it things, but truly I was. I had a very successful modeling agency. I wanted to be a writer and I lived in Marin County, california, and I met a woman named Zainab Salvi and she was on a tour to very wealthy people's homes because she was Saddam Hussein's niece and she had been raped by his son.

Speaker 1:

Google, Google, Google this person.

Speaker 2:

Zainab Salvi. Yes, please do. How do you spell it? Z-a-i-n-a-b-s-a-l-b-i? Gee, I didn't know there were going to be spelling quizzes here. Where's my spell check?

Speaker 1:

One word.

Speaker 2:

Zainab Salvi. Okay, zainab is her first name. Look at her. Look at him. Go. Zainab Z-A-I-N. Wow see, it's hard. Anyway, she's really quite successful. I see him. I see that on there.

Speaker 1:

You see the yeah, so this is.

Speaker 2:

I met her. She was in a home and she was talking about that. She was Sodom. Yeah, she works for the un. She's worked for cnn now incredible career. And I can tell you my career directly uh, my transition into war zone reporting a hundred percent relates to zainab salvi. I met her when she was touring homes. She was quite young this was 24 years for both of us ago and she was going from home to home with women and she was saddam hussein's niece. She had been raped by one of his sons and this was during uh the uh yugoslavian uh civil war and she was very upset about the rape camps and because we had had the first invasion of Iraq right, she was from Iraq, she could not go back, but she was watching the news about this rape, these rape camps. She went to Yugoslavia.

Speaker 1:

Tell us your rape camps, where I've never even heard of this.

Speaker 2:

Oh my gosh. And Bosherzegovina war, uh the um. They had rape camps where they would take the women and they would be held hostage to serve the soldiers.

Speaker 2:

And horrible, it was horrible and it still exists because you know, as a humanitarian journalist, I never run out of horror stories, but we can go that's another podcast, more depressing things. But Zaina was this incredible woman who had started an organization on her own from the ground up called Women for Women, home to home, talking to women about the fact that she gave $25 to women in war zones, because the architecture and patriarchal society breaks down after a war but women want to feed their children, They'll do anything. So she was teaching non-gender specific skills like furniture building or specific uh skills like furniture building or goat herding or making cheese. Wow, and all you had to do was give 25 a month and you would adopt this. So it was sister to sister, essentially.

Speaker 2:

And so I met her and this is truly how my life changed. I said to her um, do you have someone doing your publicity? Because at that time I was actually a writer. I had done some writing on the modeling industry, because you write what you know when you first start, and I had an excellent agent and a literary agent in New York, and so I said to her well, you know, maybe I could help you, I could write a story about what you're doing.

Speaker 2:

She goes I'm going to Afghanistan in a month. This is three months after shock and awe. She goes. I'm going to open a women for women office there. I said well, let me just ask my agent if I went with you. I wrote a story, if we could get it into Oprah magazine. It's a true story Called my agent. Agent says if you're crazy enough to go to Afghanistan three months after shock and awe, I can get it into Oprah magazine. Short story long. We went. It was literally three months and two weeks after shock and awe. We were one of the first women to walk in, not wearing burkas. Nothing had really changed except we had occupied Kabul. And everywhere I went it was like I was naked. There was just a herd of men and young children around me because they had never seen a white woman's face. I actually went to the soccer stadium where CNN had showed them stoning the woman to death because she so from that.

Speaker 1:

I wrote an article Wait, wait, wait. We're going to slow down. What was that like? Were you safe?

Speaker 3:

No.

Speaker 1:

Were you with like so it's the two of you in Iraq weeks after.

Speaker 2:

No, we were in Kabul.

Speaker 1:

Kabul.

Speaker 2:

Kabul, three months and two weeks after shock and awe and it's interesting because one of my idols was Christiane Amanpour and she even now talks about.

Speaker 2:

One of her regrets was that she first of all didn't go to Bosnia and that she didn't go into Afghanistan. When we did so, we were there. I mean, they would spit on Zainab because, even though we were wearing headscarves, she has a Mediterranean look, she's Iraqi and they thought she was not. You know, she was breaking the Quran by not wearing a burqa. But that experience, flying into that airport in a, on a, an airlines called premier airlines that no longer exists, by the way um, and seeing all those russian fuselage from there, when the times when they had been in afghanistan and getting off that plane and everywhere we went with these kids, I think, mostly the one time I think I was in danger out of stupidity, naivete was I had a cab driver take me to that stadium where they had just recently stoned the woman that we saw, everyone saw on cnn for failing to you know, she was accused of adultery and in afghanistan, all it took was one man accusing you and you were guilty. Wow, so the entire game. And there were only men there and it went silent.

Speaker 2:

When I walked in, I was a white woman with a scarf on, but I got the picture, sent it back. The incredible thing was I came back. I wrote that article. Of course, my everybody I knew thought looked at me like I'd set my hair on fire, like what are you doing? But from that article, oprah put Zainab on her show and the very first time she went on our show she had more than a million hits on her website. It went down and from that moment what happened was Women for Women grew exponentially, wow, and she became a force, a force for changing women. And I suddenly realized that this desire I had to be a writer could make an impact in the world. And there was no going back from there. You know, no modeling, no fiction writing about models, so you were hooked I was hooked.

Speaker 2:

It was the, but there was a price to pay. I mean, part of the reason I came to idaho 20 years later was serious ptsd. I just watched that movie, civil war, and had to leave 20 minutes in because began to shake again. I couldn't believe it.

Speaker 1:

So go back now, so you have this incredible experience with her and you say, okay, here's my calling, I'm going to take my love for writing and I'm going to do it in a productive way. Tell us a little bit about the experiences you've had since then, because it's incredible.

Speaker 2:

It is incredible and they're self-inflicted, because part of what I love talking to you about is, like the power of media, some of the irresponsibility and responsibility of media, especially in our current political and very violent world right now. But the bottom line was I sought out places where I knew I could make a difference and there were huge stories that were being told about usually women and children in war zones. So that became my specialty. You know I went to Iraq, rwanda, sudan, myanmar. You know, trying to where I was arrested, you know, under house arrest. That was really interesting.

Speaker 2:

Flying out of Afghanistan on Premier Airlines it's the title of the memoir I haven't finished yet Flying Naked, true story on Premier Airlines that ended up flying a hundred miles, I mean so close to the desert floor, because they lost all of their power and the plane became so hot.

Speaker 2:

Well, let me just say it was only me and some Taliban on that plane and crazy, crazy stories. But everywhere I went there were stories that were not being told about women and children, and so I had this drive to get those stories out. And I was working for BBC, cnn, nbc, anyone that would take the stories, because if I went in for network they controlled where I went, what I did. I always had to have a minder and, yes, it was more dangerous to go as an independent, but it taught me how to definitely befriend enemies you know frenemies and get the stories. But then my career actually started to evolve when I found out that the stories that I was risking my life for were not conflict-driven enough to make the headlines, and they always ended up being edited by. You know, if it bleeds, it leads, and I I have incredible stories about how my whole life changed to become a filmmaker from being a reporter out of that so go back because I understand that.

Speaker 1:

So what you're saying is incredible stories about human rights, kind of women, children stories but just couldn't get the same traction as these headlines of death and destruction and the sensational things right so so how many years into it. Did you transition into this?

Speaker 2:

I'm going to be a filmmaker and I'm going to make documentaries well, I was, uh, in front of the camera because I was much younger and prettier then. So I eventually got behind the camera because I was much younger and prettier then. So I eventually got behind the camera because I could think it'd be less pressure. It's actually more pressure. But what happened was I was in Baghdad until the troops came in. I rode out of Baghdad on the back of a German fruit truck, you know, when they told everybody to leave, when we were coming in, and the troops were on the on the Kuwaiti border.

Speaker 1:

This is like the craziest podcast we've ever done.

Speaker 2:

Thank goodness right, there's going to be real estate in it soon.

Speaker 1:

I know what. I want to stop here. I want to stop. So, so slow down for me. So why were you in Baghdad doing a story? I was doing a story and you hear that we're going to come. We're going to be coming in I, we.

Speaker 2:

I knew more than that. I had been petitioning the state department for a visa to go into Baghdad because I had pitched a story to April, I mean to Oprah.

Speaker 2:

I had pitched a story to Oprah redoing that because I know we got to edit it, and it was on why Iraqi mothers did not want their sons to go to war with the United States, like what was the reality of being ruled by Saddam Hussein, and the State Department would not give me a visa. However, on Valentine's Day, and we went out in May, they said, okay, we'll let you come, and Iraq was welcoming me. They and we went on in May. They said, okay, we'll let you come, and Iraq was welcoming me. They. They said come on in. And and actually Harpo production said don't go. And I said, oh, I'm going. I got the visa, you know.

Speaker 2:

And I went in and I this was incredible, because they ordered four days later all American journalists to leave. If you were working for a network, you had to leave. And I said I'm not leaving, the story's coming this way. And so I went and got an interview with Dr Anthrax Huda Amash, and there were none of my camera. People were left and I thought I'd sell this big time to any of these networks. Huda Amash, you can look for her. Oh, that's a great story too. Lonnie Levitt Baker, I know you know her right.

Speaker 1:

You've got so many stories. Do uh uh, if you do, dr Anthrax.

Speaker 3:

I'm looking for a picture of what they've erased her.

Speaker 2:

She was on Saddam Hussein's the only woman on Saddam Hussein's deck of cards. Remember that.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and so I got an interview. But I could not find a camera person. So I went to Al Jazeera, the headquarters in Baghdad, because they were the only broadcast network left, and they said how did you get an interview with hoda amash? And I said I went to her door and knocked and told her I was an american journalist and a mother just like her and I wanted to tell her story. And so we I got an interview.

Speaker 2:

That was amazing how her father, um, had been with saddam hussein and he had killed him. And he told her if she did not work for him. And she had a master's degree from the University of St Louis, she was wearing Chanel, she was a grandmother and she said we don't know where Saddam Hussein is. This is how I bonded with her. We knew that we could be bombed any minute. And we were sitting there as two mothers and her a grandmother, talking about how she was just trying to protect her people, and I was saying I'm just trying to get your story out. She literally gave me a government plane and a minder who took me to where the weapons of mass destructions were supposed to be on Dick Ch know dick cheney and donald rumsfeld so.

Speaker 1:

So let's talk. There's there's a lot of people listening to this that may be old enough to remember this yeah, well, you can edit out what's the truth, right? No, but, but. But that was the whole thing. Is these weapons of mass destruction? Remember the un?

Speaker 2:

the whole deal right, so we're there they were there none, and I came back with 13 hours of footage that proved that so did they move him out. There were none.

Speaker 1:

Ever, Ever.

Speaker 2:

In fact, saddam Hussein was in a, you know at that time he was hiding out?

Speaker 1:

Was Saddam Hussein lying that he had him, or were we lying for a reason to go in?

Speaker 2:

We were lying, for reasons that I will be killed if I told you, because I didn't bed with the SEALs and did a book with them and worked with General Petraeus, and all I'm saying is it's these kind of controversial issues. This is no longer not known. We know there were no weapons of interest.

Speaker 1:

Well, I've always known there weren't any when we got in there. I didn't know that there weren't ever any. End of sentence.

Speaker 2:

End of sentence.

Speaker 1:

And I came back with the footage and, ironically, the footage they wanted dropped here on ever onward podcast yeah, go right there.

Speaker 2:

I've got that 13 hours of footage to prove it so, so, that's fascinating yeah, they didn't take the interview. They didn't want the footage of that because the troops were coming in.

Speaker 2:

Yes, toppling sodom hussein's uh statue, remember that, oh, I remember, and I was riding out on a fruit truck, got out, went straight back to the troops were coming in toppling Saddam Hussein's statue Remember that and I was riding out on a fruit truck got out, went straight back to New York, tried to get. Look at this footage. There's no weapons of mass destruction. You know what they wanted. They bid heavily for the Afida Amash interview for her Dr Anthrax, and they distorted that interview so much.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, they took it, they paid me well for it, and what happened was? It changed my life. It changed the way I decided to do work, because I was telling the truth.

Speaker 1:

I want to make sure everyone's understanding this. So you go in, you get this interview, you get footage that show there is no weapons of mass destruction. You go back they don't buy that.

Speaker 2:

I start selling it to every network. Look of mass destruction. You go back. They don't buy that.

Speaker 1:

I start selling it to every network. Look what I've got. They take your footage. They twist it to make her look bad.

Speaker 2:

Make her look bad.

Speaker 1:

They don't tell her story. What ended up happening to her?

Speaker 2:

She was imprisoned with the rest of the deck of cards.

Speaker 1:

I'm sure I've often so those two young to remember this, and there's probably a lot of, listeners.

Speaker 2:

Oh, shut up, tony. I know, but there's are, god, I'm like your grandma. There was this deck there she is.

Speaker 1:

There was this deck of cards oh, look, there's the deck of cards for those of you watching on YouTube. So there was a deck of cards that had his leadership, essentially, and it was put out there as, hey, here's who we're going to go get, here's who we're going to take down, and she was the five of hearts. There she is, 49. Dr Anthrax. She was the only woman in the US list of the 55 most wanted Iraqis.

Speaker 2:

So, even though I came back with the footage of there were no weapons of mass destruction where there were purported to be, they went after that footage and then they distorted it and I really had this incredible change of heart about.

Speaker 1:

Did you ever talk to her about that?

Speaker 2:

I never got. Oh, they kept her locked on. I even asked general petraeus if they could get me in to see her.

Speaker 1:

No, what would you have told her?

Speaker 2:

I would first would have apologized. I would have apologized because the thing that I talk about in my career, even now with the magazines and my personal philosophy is, first of all, tell the truth. Second, then you earn trust and then, third, you serve the truth. You serve people with the truth, and that's not what media is really about when you work for major network media, especially now, because it's driven by special interests and money. But that also taught me a lesson that I was never going to be able to tell the truth if I didn't tell it myself.

Speaker 1:

That's powerful. Before we get off the well, let's do it right now, poor Tommy, I can.

Speaker 2:

He's like spinning.

Speaker 1:

It's just going to go so fast. I know this, but talk about media, because I think you just said something that's powerful, which is media no longer. How long has that been going on? The media has been corrupted by dollars and pushing their own agenda.

Speaker 2:

Well, I think it would be truthful to say, long before we have been born yes, so the fact of Look at Hearst, yeah right.

Speaker 1:

So the fact of media always being there to manipulate, that's just part of what it's always been. Is it the American people that are? When did we become so weary of mainstream national media?

Speaker 2:

We don't trust them.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, what was? When did that become the? There was an event, because I do remember, like you go back to these days living on. I mean, if you're old enough to remember, you lived on CNN, like you watched every day and you didn't ever question them, right?

Speaker 2:

Ever Right. Yeah, remember them in the barrage to remember you lived on cnn like you watched every day and you didn't ever question them right ever.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, remember them in the barrage in the first time we went into. How cnn actually right, all right, look up there were.

Speaker 2:

There were like legendary anchors that you just they weren't, they weren't, there was no advertising on cnn?

Speaker 1:

no, there was not and it was. It's just where we all grew up doing this right.

Speaker 2:

But I think you've touched on something really important the responsibility and irresponsibility of media and the loss of trust. That's why I'm saying that I've learned that it comes from telling the truth, earning trust and then serving that serving the people with the truth and I think a lot of it comes out of our need. Well, you know, there was that time with the Dalai Lama and you know I figured three months did a movie with that. Yeah, you know, I figured I was going to ask him all the really hard questions like why babies and cancer and why can't we all just get along, you know, and mostly I was just constantly apologizing for saying curse words, but the bottom line was I got to ask him questions like why can't we all just get along? And he goes well, you know, we're just about 20,000 years from dragging the mastodons home and the Earth is millions of years old. But we believe that we're superior. But we're still drawn, we're still driven by, you know, our genetic DNA fight or flight. And so, right now, what I think? The role?

Speaker 1:

of this picking sides. Fighting is just part of tribalism.

Speaker 2:

It's tribalism, and tribalism, you know, has become distorted and media and also political parties have begun to profit from that. So that's why media has shifted more and more to this partisan divisiveness and I don't work. I could work for any of them, but I don't want to.

Speaker 1:

So can I ask some follow-up questions? So it's fascinating to me because I do think most media is liberal.

Speaker 2:

You think most media is liberal.

Speaker 1:

I do. I think that you have the Fox News. When it started its uprising was kind of the alternative to. Would you agree with?

Speaker 2:

that I don't know, that. I think that most media is liberal. I'm not even sure what liberal means, because a lot of my conservative friends here who know me as liberal say are you a socialist? But surely they ask me that that's what they think of as liberal. It's all semantics, but what you're really not just presenting and reporting the news.

Speaker 1:

You're presenting a narrative that you're being paid to present. Right, and I think that's true for both sides now, but when you had so many channels that were not fox, it did seem out of balance, don't you think? Absolutely, absolutely and don't you think that that's been exploited a little bit by the right of? Hey, we're being picked on, and I think it just. And then all during Trump's first years, I'm like why are you doing this? You're just, you're feeding you're fueling it fueling the flames of.

Speaker 2:

You're proving the point right, but we're proving the same point that tribalism and partisanship proves to people who can manipulate people by that, because it's not ideological, it's opinion, it's belief-based, which are flexible. They're easily to be influenced, especially if you're disgruntled, and that's what media feeds it is. You know, it is the feed of anger and if it bleeds, it leads. It's always been that. And if it doesn't, bleed we will make it bleed.

Speaker 1:

Right, and that's what sells.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's what sells. Same for politics Partisanship, tribalism is what sells, and it used to be. We could have differing opinions, but this is my new word that I've really been working on, because a lot of people say yo, you're just relentless, you know, and I go in some ways I am, but what I'm really looking at, you know, stop being inflexible, unwilling to bend, and I think that's a key in life and also in media a great deal.

Speaker 2:

I got in a little bit of trouble. I was at that Boise State Exceptional Women Conference and you know I was speaking. As for the media, and we were there and it was Boise State Radio was one of the sponsors, and someone says, well, I listen to them every minute and I go good for you, and it's still major media and liberal media is fueled by special interests. Even you know they feel it's their truth and there is truth. There is truth and then there's untruth isn't it depressing?

Speaker 1:

yeah, because it's like it's just. Uh, I was with a bunch of business leaders at a little panel thing yesterday and, um, they had, we had the san francisco fed president up, so we got to sit around a table. But that was the theme at the end of the whole conversation, was it's hard enough to do business? It's hard enough to live your life without asking for problems? Can't we just have leaders that try at least to connect us all and try to bring us together? And it's not part of this right now.

Speaker 2:

It's not on either side but I do believe, you know, I, I, I. The end of impossible was my Ted talk, and I really believe that one person does make a difference. So each one of us, like, if we practice being that the verb of you know what would I call hope is a verb. It's not it's it's being. To relent is a verb, you know, and so I no longer look to the leaders. I've lost faith long ago.

Speaker 2:

I lost faith in media. But I didn't stop. I decided to be to take the risk lean into it.

Speaker 1:

So let's let's shift a little bit. So then you start doing documentaries and I think that's defined kind of the last, I don't know how many years, but you've done a lot of really wonderful documentaries, thank you 20 matthew 20 so 20 20, 20 full-length documentaries and you've gone into some incredible topics yeah, five of them co-produced with harvard yeah and, and we've looked at several of them in preparation for this and I'd already seen some of them.

Speaker 1:

So here's the question for the podcast. Of all these stories you told, what is the most impactful one to you of the 20 documentaries I? By the way, where can people find your documentaries?

Speaker 2:

um, my documentaries are distributed by women make movies and they're on over 100 universities. Um, they are available. We're just putting them up on bingeable, which is where you can go and do it. It's not through amazon. The newest documentary, aria, is really interesting and a crossover for me. Very commercial, never done that before, but still about diversity, equality and completely 100%.

Speaker 1:

Idaho produced amazing, amazing and so so we catch all that. Matthew, where do you go to find your documentaries? Bingeable, bingeable okay bingeablecom. Okay, bingeablecom, karen Day, they'll pop up so what's the?

Speaker 2:

most impactful one you've done, uh, the most uh, I for me personally or for the in terms of personally oh, for me personally it was definitely girl from god's country, which was about nell shipman shipman, who was the very first female filmmaker in idaho 100 and now, 14 years ago, she left. Uh, there's great. Yeah, you can get it the. I can send you the trailers if you wanted them. But she came here, she was a silent film star in Hollywood and she was the very first animal activist. She bought a zoo of 70 animals, took a train and then a barge to Priest Lake, built a cabin, brought with her a director and a cinematographer, started writing and producing and starring in her own film.

Speaker 2:

She did 12 of them and I was writing the book for the former First Lady, lori Otter, on the history, the Sisquicentennial of Idaho, and there was this gorgeous picture of this woman in very politically incorrect lynx fur and I'm like who is that? You know, I want that coat, even though I might be liberal. And then and they said, well, that was the very first filmmaker in Idaho. And I'm like how could that be? I mean, I've made 20 films. How could I never heard her? And when I started doing the research, there was a professor, dr Tom Trusky, who had discovered her and had a heart attack and all of her assets. He'd even had her movies remastered and they had never been really been put forth. And I thought and this was here I am, my mentor is from 100 years ago. You know, here's someone who's as wild as I.

Speaker 1:

That's incredible. What's the name of her?

Speaker 2:

Her name is Chanel Shipman and the name of the movie is the Girl from God's Country.

Speaker 1:

The Girl from God's Country.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Matthew, pull up your latest one, Aria. So what's Aria about?

Speaker 2:

Aria is about. I met Cecilia Violeta Lopez, who was born and raised in Rupert, idaho, picking beats with her undocumented parents. They used to run back and forth across the border of Mexico and come back in the summers and she grew up singing mariachi in the fields and she received a scholarship to the University of Nevada and decided she fell in love with opera. I met her when I was doing the Wonder Woman issue I've now had three of those with Idaho Magazine, my favorite of course and she told me her story about, even though she was singing self-promoted herself all the way to Belgium and Italy, she couldn't find an agent in the United States. And I said why is that? And she goes well, it's because I'm Hispanic. They don't represent Hispanic opera singers. And this was four years ago and she introduced me to opera which I knew nothing about and, quite honestly, it kind of went. It can't be that interesting, but it's fascinating. How could such an ancient, discriminatory, dead white male art still be so beautiful and alive?

Speaker 1:

Dead white male art.

Speaker 2:

Hey, it was created, you know. But genuine.

Speaker 1:

I got to agree on opera. Like you know, I'm just kidding. So this is Aria. When does it get released?

Speaker 2:

That film is just about to start its International Film Festival run and in 2025, what we're really hoping and this is something I'm very proud of we were talking about it yesterday. You know Esther Simplot, andy Scoggins many of the people that you know are the executive producers. It was all done by donations.

Speaker 3:

Wow.

Speaker 2:

You know I worked for free to do this movie, put my own money in because I felt it was so important. It's not my normal gig, right? Nobody's going to live or die off of opera.

Speaker 1:

Isn't Andy just a wonderful guy oh?

Speaker 2:

my gosh If you don't get him on this podcast, and I'll tell you what you need to talk about. Get Andy Scoggin on this podcast and you know what he should talk about. He was the keynote speaker at the Boise Chamber Gala on the value the actual, proven data value of what arts bring to a community and him being a lead philanthropist in the art. Uh, I, you know, adore that guy.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, get him on he called me, uh, two nights ago to talk to me, and I just love him too, but here's my did he ask you to give money for my movie?

Speaker 2:

No, you should have.

Speaker 1:

Usually we call each other asking each other for money. That's actually what we do best. But he's also one of my favorite Andy Scoggins stories is he came to a thing at my house years ago. Scoggins story is he came to a thing at my house years ago and as he walked into my house he said, oh, there's a guitar here. He's like I'm learning to play the guitar. And I said you're learning to play the guitar? He's like yeah, I've always wanted to play the guitar. And so I called my son down, who's a pretty accomplished jazz guitarist, and he sat and jammed for Andy for a while. But Andy has become a very accomplished guitarist. You probably didn in all this wow, I did not notice.

Speaker 2:

This would be like me saying you became an opera singer.

Speaker 1:

No, I didn't know self-taught, but he's an incredible guy. Hey, let's get back, because I gotta.

Speaker 1:

We're like four days into the podcast yeah, well, no, but I just there's a lot to go through here. So you so we're ballet dancer, modeling agency, model to you have this incredible life-changing moment and you find yourself over in Kabul and then you become a war zone reporter. Documentaries now 20 of them. Can we get to Idaho Magazine, which is your current one of your gigs right now, and it's very? Everyone's seen it everywhere. But tell us the story of how it started. And now I think you just have a new spinoff, that that first issue is coming up. So let's talk about that, let's do some self-promotion here.

Speaker 2:

Okay, okay, idaho magazine. Why did I start Idaho magazine? I was writing, still for Oprah, for Time magazine, the Los Angeles times, and I, you know, have a son who was being raised here in Boise and I said, why isn't there a great lifestyle magazine that represents this valley? And at that time it was six years ago, it was just pre-COVID. And I said, oh, naively, like Karen, lean into risk, don't be afraid to say you don't know what you don't know, just go for it. Don't be afraid to say you don't know what you don't know, just go for it. You know, don't be afraid to fail, which, like I said, I've done more than most people have tried. So I go, I'll just start a magazine. But I did have the advantage of knowing people. Uh, the president of Hearst Publishing and I, I naively called them and said, hey, I'm starting a magazine in Idaho. And those were the days when people said where, what are you doing?

Speaker 1:

Why are you there?

Speaker 2:

Remember that? Iowa? Yeah right, Exactly, but they helped me a lot. And the first issue, I wrote it myself. I took every story, I changed my name on every story and now we have 185,000 subscribers all over the world. The analytics are amazing. We started the food magazine Flavor just two years ago, which has been such. You know, I'm the girl that never ate a carb or had bread in 20 years.

Speaker 1:

You're making up for it now.

Speaker 2:

I am so making up for it. All those new pasta Italian restaurants I'm the first one there and uh, and now we just are getting ready to start our first issue of idaho man garden, which you know, you say, you say, say, do you are in there with the district at 10 mile, which is such an interesting project?

Speaker 1:

yeah, so let's hit these while we got our listeners listeners here. So Idaho Magazine, you can subscribe, and 175,000.

Speaker 2:

185,000 going every minute, I'm sure as soon as your article comes out, bang, oh yeah.

Speaker 1:

I'm sure. And then you've got the kiosk in the airport that everyone knows about. You have the magazines that come out every month, and now the new venture. How is that all going? What have you learned from being a magazine owner?

Speaker 2:

I've learned that if other people could do everything I was asking them to do, they'd already be doing it and have the magazine instead of me. So you know, it's like the devil can't afford to wear Prada. But I've learned to be humble and an example is in the current issue. I just received today Christy Code Red. She had taken her article and framed it and she sent me this great picture and said thank you so much. I immediately sent it to my team and said thank you. I know who did the work, and same with the movies. You know I may be the, the Harry Potter wizard that whips it up, but then there has to be the people that execute it.

Speaker 1:

You know what that's like. So tremendous leader. Through all this, I mean, you've led and lead um, both formally and informally. That's what you do.

Speaker 2:

What are, what are some important characteristics of leadership and this kind of fierce way you live life, leaning into everything um, I think the most important thing I've learned and and it's very pronounced all the time is allow people to thrive in the position that they do best at, and and then find someone else to thrive in the position you need field.

Speaker 2:

Don't try to train someone when they're already succeeding at one thing and they say, oh, they're doing so. Well, I think I'll you know, I'll promote them and have them do something else. Well, no, not necessarily so, especially in an environment where there hasn't been a literary magazine and nobody has had that experience. I'm, you know. So I've learned that a lot. It's uh. I've learned mostly to be humble, uh, to be vulnerable and say, uh, I do think one of the most powerful things I've learned is not being afraid to say I don't know the answer either. But it not knowing the answer is just part of the process. It's not a problem. It is where all we have to do is find the solution that's out there. So don't freak out, because magazines operate under a deadline and it's a Sisyphean push that rock up the hill and everyone has to be as good as the next one. And it's not like social media. It stays there. I see Idaho magazines on people's coffee tables. I saw it out here in yours and I'm proud of that.

Speaker 1:

You know, I hadn't thought of that until you just said it. The fleeting time of lasting in the social media world is is something, isn't it? Whereas a magazine, a documentary, um, some of these things last forever. Isn't that interesting?

Speaker 2:

yeah, I guess they're legacy projects, much like development. If you're building things, you're writing books. It's an incredible. Development is just as creative, like what you do as what I do, and a lot of people say, oh, I'm not a creative, I'm not an artist. But if you're creating things out of the ethers, out of vision, with the help of other people, you're creative. I, I would argue, everyone's creative. You know, that's a different podcast that's a different podcast.

Speaker 1:

That's a different podcast. But I agree and passionate about something that you do and you create, that's usually a pretty good formula for success and happiness too, right.

Speaker 2:

It's a luxury, it doesn't mean it's easy you know and semantically people think of a luxury as being easy. But it's a luxury to be connected with your passion.

Speaker 1:

Can we talk politics?

Speaker 2:

Politics baby let's go, Tom.

Speaker 1:

It's bad right now.

Speaker 2:

Oh, it's, my stomach churns when I think about the possibility. Yes, we can. And at the same time, if Cam does, then how far to the right will the other side go and where will we be then? And I had a great experience with Ruth Bader Ginsburg in one of my films, bamboo and Barb Dwyer, and I interviewed her and she said to me about the history and the mistakes that America has made and how we don't really focus on them, because we were talking about how the Japanese-American internment was only one sentence in a history book about World War II. And she said well, you know, we've made a lot of mistakes and I really think that the symbol of America should not be American Eagle, it should be a pendulum, because we're such a young republic and we've had, you know, we've never had, besides the civil war, a true conflict on our own soil. And so we have the luxury of constantly trying to figure out who we are, and so we swing from one side to the other, and never has it been more true than in the last.

Speaker 1:

You know, I met her eight years ago and, uh, you know I I sure hope it doesn't go that far, but I've I've got some friends that are really, really smart and they're worried about that. I mean they'll they'll say that's how it ends uh is in some sort of conflict and I'm like are you kidding me? They're like no, the thing that's. I've always thought that and I'm like are you kidding me? They're like no, I've always thought that and I'm like I guess I hold out hope that there's some way through this that's not violent.

Speaker 2:

Well, hope is an active verb. I remember and what I would say is from my experience. I would say what is happening here is a reflection of what's happening on the planet. When I was in the Middle East a great deal of the time, I had the honor to write about the SEALs and work with them and work with General Patrice, write for the Pentagon coin policy, about why might doesn't make right. I can still tell you that Iran was a focus of the military industrial complex for many, many, many years, and so now we are seeing that and you know some people call me a heretic. I'm spiritual, but you know Armageddon.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Every day I watch this escalating, but we are not. We are not here to talk doom, are we?

Speaker 1:

Tommy, I know we can talk doom, it's just so. You've gone back over to the Middle East. I've got to believe that most of those other countries over there are not behind Iran. And what's going on? Don't you think you spent a lot of time over there, iran? And what's going on? Don't you think you spent a lot of time over there? I think people that I trust have told me that at least that they're kind of on their own against Israel right now with Hamas. Is that true?

Speaker 2:

Well, I think that the populace, that is true, and they're the ones that pay the price Gazans in Lebanon, for Hamas, hezbollah and Iran, you know and the problem is that they have the financial wherewithal. And then we go to bigger players. You know, everybody worries about Russia, but we have China, and Iran may seem alone, but there are so many things in the works. I mean, I've been in nine of my documentaries where, on the African continent, and the amount of infrastructure that China has been building and the indebtedness to those countries for the hospitals, the railways, the roads. They've learned a different way to control the planet. And all I can say is I figured I'm gonna meet young, um, affluent chinese people now who want freedom and democracy. They don't even question that their system is the best and, you know, democracy is not that old and doesn't really have a very good history of surviving.

Speaker 2:

But uh, you know, history is, is there and we just ignore it. This is totally depressing no, no, okay, what should we talk like?

Speaker 1:

ever onward. Uh, communists are winning you brought it up I know, but that's where we always go I hate believing that well, you know that's so we can avoid talking about.

Speaker 2:

you know, infringement on human rights and you as a doctor and how you feel, and there are so many things we could talk about that are verboten. Why don't we talk?

Speaker 1:

about all that. It's fun when we do talk, because it's interesting to hear different perspectives.

Speaker 2:

Why, I mean, I'm so far out there. No, no, not far out there, but it's just.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean just what you just said about China. I hadn't, I had never heard that. No, these things are going on.

Speaker 2:

But I do believe and this is just part of that luxury of being American and being entitled we are not intellectually curious nor disciplined, and so we don't trust the media, but at the same time we can't stop drinking the Kool-Aid. You know, people think they're. So we do. What do we do? What's the answer what do we do?

Speaker 1:

I don't know what the answer is. I mean, I'm just sitting here thinking through. I mean, I think as americans, we are kind of, you know, we are that shining city on a hill, like we are. I believe that. But I think our media is really messed up and I think the world's revolving around us and what's really going on and who's paying attention to that, I don't know well, you would hope it would be our government and our leaders you would hope, but the but?

Speaker 2:

um, if you're looking at the truth, that reality, you'd say that's not happening. So where does it come from?

Speaker 1:

and I'm trying to make this spin in the sense of Maddie. We're trying to get it back positive, but it's still coming.

Speaker 2:

I know, but he's hoping I'll drink his Kool-Aid.

Speaker 1:

It still comes crashing down to communism is winning no.

Speaker 2:

I mean one of the real things I think we can do, and that is real, what I try to do with. I tell stories that are true, but I tell them and, though they may appear to be some of them, I would say let's see what would we call you're parlaying in despair. They're the reality, but I never offer reality without offering some type of actionable way to make a difference. I tell people one way you can make a difference is question your media sources, seek out other sources of media, inform yourself. But that's part of our culture is to be lazy.

Speaker 1:

So what do you follow? What's your weekly reading? How do you stay informed on world events? You know, the Economist is wonderful, that's one thing. What's your?

Speaker 2:

weekly reading. How do you stay informed on world events? You know the Economist is wonderful. That's one thing most people don't do is they? You know it lives up in the sky, the finances that. You know what the feds are doing. I don't have any control of that, as much as Hezbollah I don't have any control of it. But I definitely read the Economist. I go from the New Yorker. I watch Fox News as much as I watch. I don't even watch CNN. I want to see what is being portrayed to Americans, so that I can talk to people and I don't say from the other side.

Speaker 2:

One of the best, one of the wisest men I ever met was Butch Otter and he said to me the way we met because I was like the most liberal journalist that didn't even work in this country, barely and I interviewed him for NBC, the Governor's Cup in Sun Valley. That's how we met and we both rode horses and he would say to me well, I'm not a Republican, I'm an independent. And I'm like, okay, well, if I can get along with warlords, I can get along with an independent. And he used to say, well, when you're up on a horse and we would ride horses together, he goes. You just see right over the fences and you see the same horizon and ever more.

Speaker 1:

That's true, god bless Butch Otter man. God bless him. What a great human being.

Speaker 2:

Or Phil Batt, or Phil Batt, or, oh my gosh, we can go back and not that. You know, we don't have government leaders that aren't trying the best they can.

Speaker 1:

Do you listen to podcasts?

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Which ones do you recommend?

Speaker 2:

Radio Lab Live and recommend Radio Lab Live and Die by Radio Lab Truth-based. A lot of science. Love the new. You know the new podcast on the micro RNA. Nobel Prize winners from Harvard Americans won. You know that's so cool, you know we've got to have that. And then physics. Oh man, i'm'm deeply, deeply in love with physics. If I was, you know, if I had it's like I think it was the scarecrow if I had half a brain, I'd be a physicist yeah, it's not too late, you can do one more there's still time yeah, there's still time to reinvent yourself one more time here, because you haven't done enough with your life.

Speaker 2:

Are you pretending?

Speaker 1:

you don't know how old I am. You have not done enough with your life. That's funny.

Speaker 2:

That's what I actually. Wake up and think have I done everything I can do? Don't you do that, Tommy?

Speaker 1:

I am just thinking through this. This is incredible. I'm going to keep digging into politics. We've got just a few more minutes. So in our state, very, very red, we're surrounded by states that are very, very blue, where everyone's we already established we can't trust the media on either side, we really can't trust. Where do you get trusted information? I don't know.

Speaker 2:

Idaho.

Speaker 1:

Magazine, idaho Magazine, and the Ever Onward podcast. Yes, they've got great stuff there, but at some point we're going to have a big election here soon. Right, it's right down to the wire. Who knows how it goes? I laugh when people only say that Donald Trump's the one that's ever contested an election, because I think they forget what Hillary did.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah.

Speaker 1:

And so I worry that it's just. Whatever happens, it's going to put us in this state of limbo for even longer, whichever way it goes. The business leaders that were at my panel yesterday were just pleading with we just need some stability, we need some certainty, and it seems like there's so much uncertainty. So what advice as, uh, as an experienced gal who's done amazing things in your life what, what advice do you have for people as we kind of go through these times that are coming in the next two to three to four to five months?

Speaker 2:

well, holly would tell you to go to to horror films, because I'm not kidding, there's a bunch of data that just came out that the reason horror films are doing so well is people are feeling so nervous and unstable that they don't mind being terrified. And it gets resolved in a horror movie and you think you're laughing. But there's box office to prove it, babe. But I'm not going there. But what would I?

Speaker 1:

say I did not think the answer to that very, very like softball down the middle was go see horror flex yeah, but it works.

Speaker 2:

There's data to prove.

Speaker 1:

I didn't make it up, we watch, we love horror movies do you do, you love it, I love it.

Speaker 2:

Okay, we've watched all.

Speaker 1:

There's a great ones that have come out in the last two weeks oh my gosh they're such great ones.

Speaker 2:

but as a director, I have a very hard time suspending my disbelief when I watch films, meaning I look at the angles and I look at the lighting and I look how they manipulate things, and so it's very difficult. It has to be.

Speaker 1:

You just can't enjoy it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, not horror films. They're too orchestrated, they're too fake for me, no matter how great, the substance is dictated as vain as I am.

Speaker 1:

Go to the current films that are out right now.

Speaker 2:

There's been some great ones yeah, well, the one that's really up right now is the substance people are walking out because they can't handle. It's the one with demi more and um you know that where she gives herself the opportunity to have another body because of the obsession with being young and beautiful. Now you know my the thousands of dollars that the doctors gain from Botox. Probably, I thought I thought you were going to talk about how criminally vain I am or that, but the Botox are in my pocket.

Speaker 1:

I thought you were talking about demi moore's botox um, isn't that what?

Speaker 2:

well, this film is about demi moore? Uh, you know a very beautiful woman who has what she will sacrifice, you know, to to stay young and beautiful go to go to the list of the top.

Speaker 1:

Like 10 horror flicks, 10 movies out right now.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, this is a lot less horrible than the doom of politics.

Speaker 1:

We got away from politics. We got away from rape camps.

Speaker 2:

We got away from yeah, it's been all good news in this podcast.

Speaker 1:

It's been all good news. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking. Why?

Speaker 2:

aren't we looking at comedies? Speaking of last night, I watched Will and Harper. That was the movie with Will Ferrell. That is about his great oh yeah, yeah, talk. You know the salt of the earth. They just went everywhere, but Idaho, you know, into a bar with a man who just transitioned into being a woman.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we're not going to go there.

Speaker 2:

Okay, we're not going on that. I can't take Deadpool, you start getting into transitioning stuff right now.

Speaker 1:

Yeah okay, speak no evil Speak, no evil Fantastic.

Speaker 2:

Really Like fantastic. It's 2024 most popular movies on IMDb. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Deadpool was excellent. I did see that because you know Hugh Excellent. I did see that because you know you, jackman, I just like pay half my leg for one of his gloves. You know it's, you asked you asked OK, Joker's getting really bad reviews, even though Lady Gaga can get really bad reviews yeah really bad reviews. But that doesn't mean oh, Megalopolis, OK, now that's another one of those are tour. I can't believe we're doing film reviews. I don't think I'm licensed to do this.

Speaker 1:

It was so much more comfortable than the heavy stuff I was trying to like. We were trying it's like ever onward right, where at the end of the podcast it's going to be some positive hey, here's the advice. And at the end of it it was like Go watch a horror film if you want to feel good.

Speaker 1:

That's how bad it is, Karen if you're wondering how we got here, that's exactly how we got here in the last five minutes, because I had nowhere else to go. I wanted to end on something really positive, so I want to talk about the movies I've been watching.

Speaker 2:

Well, it's maybe a lot more entertaining than the politics.

Speaker 1:

All right, we're up on time. Hey, thank you for coming on.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for having me always.

Speaker 1:

This was really, really fun and thanks for all you do in Idaho. Thanks for your dedication and example and the stories you tell. Thank you for bringing us down to earth and reminding us that things suck out there.

Speaker 2:

But we still can laugh.

Speaker 1:

You still believe in this country and the people that are here, that we're going to find our way through this.

Speaker 2:

Don't you Keep working every day and make it better. I do.

Speaker 1:

I know you do, I do. I believe in my very heart that there is going to be a way through this and dang it. We're Americans and we're going to be a way through this and dang it. We're americans and we're going to figure this out they're americans first we're going to figure this out. Yeah, relent baby relent all right, thanks, karen, thanks everybody thanks, tell me.