Freedom of Speech w/ Eliza Jane Schneider

[00:00:00] Music

[00:00:15] You can do it!

[00:00:18] We have to do a bunch of voices. I already know we have to do a bunch of voices.

[00:00:21] It'd be a shame, a shame.

[00:00:23] No, no, we've got to do a bunch of voices.

[00:00:25] Just be ashamed if we had you here and didn't do a bunch of voices.

[00:00:28] I hear you. Thank you for using this valuable resource that, you know...

[00:00:33] How did you get into voice work and or dialect work and how did that pivot to democracy work?

[00:00:40] Well, that's part of what the story of my first podcast is going to be about.

[00:00:46] If I can get it finished in time to upload it for the January 6th launch date.

[00:00:50] If not, we're going to just do a live webcast of Freedom of Speech,

[00:00:53] the show that we're doing over here at the Abbey on Saturday,

[00:00:56] as well as, you know, the panel discussion, which will be vital and relevant and all very exciting.

[00:01:01] But the story goes, I quit acting.

[00:01:06] Well, so I got into dialects because my dad speaks in different dialects just as a form of expression.

[00:01:14] You know, if he wants you to clean your room, it's, you know...

[00:01:17] Or if he wants you to get to the table, it's gets to the table, you ugly, anthropomorphic pigs, you know.

[00:01:22] So we had to adapt and I always sort of thought of it as just another form of emotional expression.

[00:01:30] And also, I think because I'm a Suzuki violinist, so I had this ear training method that I ended up using to teach other actors to do dialects and accents,

[00:01:40] turned it into sort of a concise looping method that I use with a DAW to take on, you know, a Sri Lankan soldier or whatever I need to do for my day job,

[00:01:50] the voiceover stuff for the video games, instantly, you know, really fast because...

[00:01:55] Because, you know, the study of dialects traditionally in academia is kind of a long, arduous left brain process where you have to learn to speak in code.

[00:02:05] Like literally it's the international phonetic alphabet and it kind of, in my experience with other actors and with myself, it takes you out of the process.

[00:02:14] But I'm digressing and rambling.

[00:02:16] No, this is good. This is good.

[00:02:18] What's the video games? What are your three favorite video games, either because you enjoy the video game the most or because you enjoy your performance in it the most

[00:02:27] or because you're the most proud of being part of that video game that you voiced?

[00:02:31] It doesn't have to be the three, but just three examples.

[00:02:35] There are a lot of conditions. They're all different, you know.

[00:02:38] I loved doing made of windmere because I love that Irish accent.

[00:02:43] I forget what game that was for.

[00:02:47] I liked Final Fantasy a lot because I liked Ariesha's outfit.

[00:02:53] And I loved overdubbing Japanese just because I love listening to Japanese.

[00:02:59] I really like doing gnomes, trolls, mech-a-nomes, you know, like usually when I do a World of Warcraft, I get to do five completely different species.

[00:03:09] That's fun. And I just love that they decided to use like a New York 30s Abbott and Costello accent for some of their mech-a-nomes, you know.

[00:03:16] It's just like so silly.

[00:03:18] Oh, I also really enjoyed Skylanders.

[00:03:20] Same thing. We used a sort of New York accent for the worms that were getting stepped on.

[00:03:25] Oh, well, just oh, it's no problem. I'm fine.

[00:03:29] In addition to, you know, Batspin.

[00:03:31] Batspin's the only one I got an actual action figure for.

[00:03:35] So she's, she's on my altar representing, you know, the undead zone and witchiness.

[00:03:43] Oh, this computer with its constant restarting due to a problem.

[00:03:48] You might hear that periodically. I'm on my backup computer.

[00:03:52] Kingdoms of Amalur. I don't know if I'm pronouncing it correctly.

[00:03:55] Seems to be the video game that had the made or has made present tense or perpetual tense.

[00:04:01] The includes the maid of Windermere.

[00:04:04] Yeah, I love her and I loved decibels like Cooper.

[00:04:07] She's like the description was you are an elephant with a trumpet stuck in your, in your tusk.

[00:04:14] No, in your, in your, what's the prehensile trunk?

[00:04:19] Oh, Trump is stuck in your trunk.

[00:04:22] You are also the Queen of Arabia and you happen to have a posh British accent.

[00:04:27] And she sounds like this, you know, it's just sort of the same voice I did for Neil deGrasse Tyson's cosmos for this teacher that was.

[00:04:36] Hey, look what is ours? That's not how you'll say your.

[00:04:40] You know, those are just really fun and she got to sing. She broke glass, you know, it was great fun, great fun.

[00:04:49] Is there a dialect for you that's the hardest is our, you know, they're two or three. They're particularly challenging for you.

[00:04:55] Don't ask me to do them.

[00:04:57] Well, you can do I could I'll ask you to do your favorites instead of your hardest, but I am curious if there's a hardest Welsh Welsh is difficult Welsh Welsh is confounding and Vietnamese is like they just laugh at me when I try to speak Vietnamese, which is ironic because

[00:05:13] I actually have noticed this across the board with people like coach as well, that if you grew up around certain sounds, it's very difficult for even a dialect coach like myself to distinguish the sounds I grew up around as distinctive and, you know, defining.

[00:05:30] So this is why when you ask an actor who whose mom is Japanese to do a Japanese accent, they kind of do it but they're kind of in this limbo, you know, X Pats who've lived here for a while it tend to be in this limbo.

[00:05:43] Oh, they don't pass as a local back home anymore and they don't pass as a local here in North America. There's something but they can't quite identify it. And it's because when you grow up with these sounds around you your brain selects them as normal, and it's really hard to distinguish them so.

[00:05:58] So, so for me, Minnesotan is hard for me to coach because sometimes out and about just come out. And I don't notice it.

[00:06:07] And also, you know, originally identifying that I was even doing the Great Lakes, I sound with you know I'd like a piece of pie. Instead of I'd like a piece of pie when I try to do a New York accent you know a New York City accent or Jewish New York, East side,

[00:06:24] East side has this all in the back where you like drop your tongue in the back all whereas the Great Lakes is like, Hi, hi like a glass of water, you know. So, these are distinctions that because I grew up around them they're difficult for me but Welsh, in particular, escaped me for a while I think

[00:06:42] I've got it now. Honestly, anything I haven't transcribed listened to studied and memorized like I do with the music. You know anything I haven't practiced like I would the violin isn't with me, you know.

[00:06:57] But but I, it takes you know it's a process and I teach the process and I've distilled it to its essence so it takes about three days to really master this looping method where you three days for you or three days or someone you coach.

[00:07:11] Three days for my students to eliminate 90% of my dialect coaching time.

[00:07:18] So if it weren't already obvious Eliza Jane Schneider is a voice actor and dialect coach her clients include former Oscar winners she's done things in video games we talked about she had characters in South Park.

[00:07:34] She's also the creator of the Internet dialect database travels around the world to capture samples of authentic dialects I'm fascinated by the topic so we're going to dig into that in the areas that it is obviously overlapping with democracy and the places where the overlap is seen by maybe either of us maybe

[00:07:52] She's joining us now to talk about a number of things including her one person performance freedom of speech, which is going to bring to life over 7000 interviews that she's conducted around the world on the topic of free speech performance suggests or promises to be anthropological in nature.

[00:08:09] A look at American culture through conversation. She is planning on kicking off a freedom of speech podcast on January 6 they don't think the date is an accident. Welcome to democracy nerd Eliza Jane Schneider do you prefer all three names or is there a shortened version that you prefer.

[00:08:28] I like Eliza Jane because I'm still hung up on this whole like patriarchal ownership saying like I can't figure out that whole last name of a bunch of it is it is it is an ingrained cultural flaw that there is no I at least have no clear

[00:08:45] I think that's a very good thing to do is to have a perpetual response to lasting solution to. Yeah, well I mean I always imagined that I would pick a new last name for for me and my family and like we would pick one together and that would be our family name because I like the idea of being part of a little tribe.

[00:09:02] I think that's very stuff that's very empowering but choosing that name is the has escaped me. I mean Schneider sounds like something that hangs off the end of your nose I was Schneider.

[00:09:12] You know what I mean, well he and he was the he was the super I didn't know what a super was but he was the super in what was it with the TV show right yeah and he had cigarettes in his pocket and the cigarette rolled up in a sleep which

[00:09:23] incidentally the rat guy on that show Beakman's world that I did in the early 90s decided to do the same thing for Children's Television it was one of our little rebellious little quirks we also had the guy.

[00:09:35] We had Beakman called the prop guy who put on the gorilla, gorilla hands and handed him some prop he said thank you Eve because we weren't allowed to discuss evolution and Beakman's world.

[00:09:47] But anyways I digressed again. I'll be doing that.

[00:09:50] It's all to the good America has a founding principle that is about speech.

[00:09:55] Yeah, it's a moral purpose for the revolution that you couldn't you can't you shouldn't be tossed into a dungeon for criticizing governmental leaders.

[00:10:03] Right there are other liberties and freedoms essentially the United States essentially the United States when the founders were spitballing what a new country should be they decided that the first thing should be the protection of speech.

[00:10:17] Yeah.

[00:10:18] However, is there such a thing as too much free speeches or other if they're guardrails regulations placed on speech to this result in speech being less free I want to talk about that topic in general and it's an honor to have you I do want to dig in a little bit more about dialects.

[00:10:34] What's your favorite.

[00:10:35] Do you have one that is your go to and maybe you go to is what it sounds the most true for you.

[00:10:40] I so I when I discuss, you know, dialects and accents for me it's more.

[00:10:46] It's people, you can't separate the sound of a voice from the voice of a person so when when I teach I have my students do very precise voice matches similar to what I had to do with Mary Kay Bergman on South Park for all those characters just just very precise.

[00:11:06] We actually called Disney mouse wits Disney character voices because like even when you get, you know cure nightly voice, like 99% there.

[00:11:15] They're and you're like that signal is over 1000 feet high the entire world and it is not looking for me to read this even the slides just jump say where see it.

[00:11:22] And then, and then the directors like do that jaw thing you're almost there you know.

[00:11:27] To get very, very precise on a dialect you asked me what my favorite one was my favorite one is is an actual person that I that I took on and she's actually in the play.

[00:11:38] And it's because of her laugh more than her dialect but it's the texture of her voice and how it intermingles with the non-roadic are dropping plantation southern which which is shared by what is called now a VE which is

[00:11:52] African American vernacular English which is essentially you know how they speak on the plantations, you know, white or black.

[00:12:00] And so it's something along the lines of is that an ambulance you're driving.

[00:12:09] I think that's just wonderful.

[00:12:14] That's my favorite.

[00:12:15] That's my favorite.

[00:12:17] I should I should have a clapping.

[00:12:19] I should have a clapping.

[00:12:21] That's the wrong one.

[00:12:24] I should have a clapping button that just has a pause.

[00:12:28] Yes, you should you should what kind of an interface are you using.

[00:12:32] It's a it's a road.

[00:12:34] It has buttons but doesn't have enough and I don't load anything onto them.

[00:12:39] There are never enough buttons Jefferson.

[00:12:41] They're never enough.

[00:12:44] Where does doing a dialect and doing an impression overlap where does it separate.

[00:12:49] So technically, a dialect is defined as a distinction in three things pronunciation grammar and vocabulary, whereas an accent is technically defined as simply a distinction in pronunciation but I mean just the other day Yahoo news was asking me to weigh in on the quote.

[00:13:08] And so I'm going to say that I'm going to be talking about the influence or accent and people in common usage will refer to any way of speaking as an accent.

[00:13:17] And what they were referring to is this kind of, hey guys, up speak.

[00:13:23] And you know, it's a very specific melody.

[00:13:27] So, the for me an impression or a voice match is I actually use this looping methods to it's what I do is I take a phone number sized piece of a native speaker like with that woman it would be is that an ambulance your driving and I loop it in my DAW 14 times.

[00:13:51] I mute numbers for six, eight and 10, where I will have the exact same amount of time to sort of chant.

[00:13:59] And I get into a chat I pan the native speaker all the way to the right, which puts it into my left. No, I'm sorry, I pan all the way to the left which puts it into my right hemisphere my brain which I can sort of get us most like intuitively, like a baby in the wild.

[00:14:15] I can my own voice as I record on the second track all the way to the right goes into my left brain so when I listen back I can kind of simultaneously analyze although there's those who argue that those two hemispheres work mutually exclusively, which is why actors have a hard time acting when

[00:14:32] they're acting themselves on the stage. But anyways this process works for me, and some of the brain science applies. And what you end up having is like a little three minute kind of recording a practice recording that you can work with for three times for three days and then, and then I just take on everything

[00:14:50] like the texture the timbre the lilts, the musicality and the elements of pronunciation you know that what they call sound substitutions where you know they'll say, they'll say I for my, where I'll say rash, she'll say, right, you know and that goes from an, which is like your widest front

[00:15:13] vowel, the phonetic symbol is a type set lowercase a and it goes all the way up to one of the most narrow front vowels which is a capital I is the name of that sound so right for her is I and rash for me is spelled

[00:15:31] automatically like a type set lowercase a squished back to back with the types that lowercase e and that's an ass sound so so it can get very, very, very technical, but it's also you know with this looping method that's kind of how I pull actors out of all that technical stuff.

[00:15:49] And you said that maybe that's what you mean by the technical stuff you said that the, and I've already lost vocabulary for it but you said well there's sort of a official way of doing this but it tends to take people out of the performance because it seems to be about breaking it down getting

[00:16:03] your left brain to do it rather than by hearing it and then seeing if you can say the thing.

[00:16:07] I played the piano as a kid, I could it was hard for me to read music. Right, I mean I understood what it meant but I couldn't go from reading music to playing, but if my music teacher would play the song I could play it.

[00:16:18] And it's the same when I playing by ear spitting it right back like a baby in the wild exactly what you hear and and having so little time to do that that you can't think about it and analyze it first and certainly taking it by ear as opposed to reading it like don't transcribe it

[00:16:35] just just listen. And that's why it's a phone number sized piece so that you can grab it and repeat it grab it and repeat it and just repeat it, and then your body and your mouth just your vocal posture forms to that of whom you are imitating or doing

[00:16:50] an impression of. And that that's why it helps me with factors that I have to coach because they've already adjusted sort of subconsciously by this chant their vocal posture just by ear.

[00:17:01] So we go by ear first we do the auditory then the kinesthetic then if necessary there may be two or three things like for example that Rochester in long I sound that I still was putting into my New York City accent and I can write that down give

[00:17:16] them that one phonetic symbol to memorize and they can score their copy with it and we're done.

[00:17:23] So I'm going to start and by it I mean you becoming a dialect coach, which I must have known existed or if I thought about it for more than a moment I would know that exists but it's not something I've ever needed, or at least I didn't know that I needed

[00:17:36] it right it's not anything I've ever called or looked up in the phone book and I'm fascinated by it. And so I assume your I mean I know that if Oscar winners it's not because you're teaching accountants to do this stuff.

[00:17:46] I assume that it's largely entirely actors it might be other it might be other walks of life if so I'm curious. How did that start because as an actor yourself, you were good with voices and people said how do you do those voices and say well I could show

[00:17:59] you how did it what was who was your first coaching who's your first student.

[00:18:06] Well, I started just helping people in the waiting room at William Morris because William Morris was notorious for having us sit around and wait for like three hours for an audition because they just get such a ton of auditions to go in.

[00:18:19] And so I would just sit there and I'd listen to my fellow actors like trying on these accents that they just gave them right then and there like that was my big shock when I went from theater school you know where you have six months to perfect your character, you

[00:18:35] know, to the real world where they're like okay can you do South African go oh we don't like that can you do, you know, Australian, you know, or whatever it is. And then you have to in this competitive environment you have to be able to say, Okay, would you like Adelaide or

[00:18:50] Brisbane or something more like Darwin and what's the socio economic class so that's what I teach my actors in my online masterclass to do have the dialect masterclass online.

[00:19:02] But in the, when I first started you know it was more a dearth of authentic source material that inspired me to get into what what the byproduct was teaching but the the impetus was research because when I first studied dialects I was at the Northwestern

[00:19:22] University's National High School Institute, which was the sort of summer program with the creme de la creme of every theater acting program high school and so there it was full of divas.

[00:19:32] I hid behind my guitar the whole time because I had extreme social anxiety, and they double cast me as Antigone with some woman and you know I had one of my first some girl.

[00:19:42] She was brilliant and you know I had one of my first scary encounters with an acting teacher who tried to rip me to shreds and he just did there was like, What makes you think you should be able to play Antigone after that performance.

[00:19:56] I think you know maybe coaching is more appealing certainly now when I'm tired and I don't feel like being a performing monkey all the time. You know I just use you see my college base to just help others soar, you know I always say that acting is like flying but teaching is like working real your ass off to get your

[00:20:15] license and taking 350 people somewhere they couldn't have gone without you and that's just a whole other level of satisfying.

[00:20:21] So, but no the they all there was for dialects when I studied at National High School Institute was Dr David Ellen Stern imitating people from everywhere on cassettes his own voice doing the and I was like well where where can we find and this was pre Internet, you know so searching

[00:20:39] for libraries for recordings of of people from everywhere and it was very little source material.

[00:20:46] So I went out in the ambulance and I and I went tried to record everybody in America starting with America even though it didn't thrill me so that I could, you know, not be completely ignorant about where I came from and then go to the more

[00:20:58] places especially where I ended up in the late aughts you know in the places where tonal languages intersect with English and like in in Singapore where you've got four different mother tongues on the subways, you know, melee English Tamil and the other one.

[00:21:18] And then the English, you know these kids these teenagers that sit in the trains. They sort of it's akin to doing the dozens where they try to catch each other with throwing in words from their own mother tongue, and it's all about economy of verbiage it's like.

[00:21:36] Hey, where do you guys want to go for lunch is what eat like, you know. So so I just I just adore the intersection of music and language and and so studying the accents of spoken English, the tonal ones like like Vietnamese which will confound me forever but but it's exciting to to explore.

[00:21:57] Have you ever counted. Do you have any idea how many dialects you have done yourself or coached or no or understand.

[00:22:05] I'm kind of like asking how many songs a musician who's been playing for 40 years has played. Yeah okay so how many songs he played a lot.

[00:22:18] A lot of songs. Let's get into your performance. And I think when you're saying going around and capturing the recordings is part of the process of making the performance.

[00:22:32] It sounds like this wasn't the example and by the way I hope this interesting everybody else is deeply interesting to me my professor at my grandfather I never met passed away before I was born, was a college professor in speech and theater.

[00:22:45] And there's a there's a there's an unreached part of my soul that is that is spoken to by the way you have spent your life from what you do so I am curious about it and pass it by and appreciate it very much.

[00:22:59] And I think what you were talking about was like in your building up to this performance. It was very much not like the William Morris audition where you get a few seconds or even not just like the six months you were talking about for theater but this has been something that has been years in the making.

[00:23:12] Yeah, yeah so will you had originally asked me where the crossover was I mean you asked me the big question at the beginning and I only digressed into like three or four tangents but yeah.

[00:23:22] So I'm going to go back to politics.

[00:23:27] I think it was a very natural transition because when you go out searching for esoteric phonemes you're going to find esoteric points of view.

[00:23:36] My first title for my first one woman show was not freedom of speech it was, I'm not weird American perspectives, because everyone thought, I would think that they were weird and I could not find a mainstream America to save my life.

[00:23:51] No one thought they were part of the mainstream. Everyone felt marginalized disenfranchised as though their voice and their vote didn't count.

[00:24:00] And the pivotal moment was in 2004. I had just done freedom of speech at the fringe festival and it won best solo show is all very exciting and you know I was being courted by Broadway directors and one of them who directed, John Leguiz almost freak, was trying to sort of rewrite

[00:24:20] these verbatim transcriptions of human beings like my guy from the reservation where I grew up Jack Hart who said art might be the thing that brings the world together and you know this money system is all going to come crashing down sooner later you know, and all these great things great things to say and very

[00:24:38] I was so impressed. This is 30 years ago you know and he like wrote all these like fried beaver jokes, like mad TV caricatures and I was just like, if I have to sell out to this extent in order to take my, my play to the next level I quit, I quit, I quit, I quit, I quit.

[00:24:55] And I was just acting and I dropped out I joined the carry campaign in New York and I started raising money on the street to go to Ohio and try to help get all the 250,000 registered voters to the polls in Columbus which was the pivotal precinct in the pivotal

[00:25:13] state, swing state. And I witnessed this systemic disenfranchisement of the African American community and all the poor people in Columbus and I stuck around afterwards when the mainstream media took off and carry conceded and we all knew that there were 150,000 provisional

[00:25:35] uncounted and we were around there on the streets and I went to the community public hearings which you know I just found my mini discs of and recorded people and tried to get their voices heard so that the plays, the one person shows have always been you know using this kind of dog and pony trick of, you know, doing

[00:25:53] different voices doing things like that to get attention for unsung voices people who just are not currently part of the conversation and need to be and just kind of January 6 was chosen to steer the public conversation away from this vocal minority of billionaire

[00:26:13] voters and toward the question what kind of a revolution do the American people really want and need and our do our votes. I'm like, it always bothers me when I hear people advocating for their guy because you know my mom's an attorney my mom's a legal aid attorney and that's why I grew up on a chip or

[00:26:29] reservation. She was an what they called Indian law attorney at the time, and an attorney is trained to be able to argue either side right like and I feel like I should be able to argue either side so when I hear somebody saying our guy one and the system is flawed.

[00:26:46] I want to ask, okay, is the system flawed. Let's ask just that one question it's not about our guy one or your guy one it's about do we have open free fair elections. Does your vote count and I think Oregon does it really well, but Jesse Jackson back when I was interviewing him in 2004 was saying, we have 50 separate unequal election systems, you know, 50 state separate

[00:27:11] unequal election systems and and you know he was like in Florida you don't have to register and even in Ohio and that one precinct one of their football strategies was to divert traffic by changing the laws up to within a week of voting where you were supposed to go

[00:27:29] where you were registered or where you live which of course only affects people who move a lot or who are in apartments or who have been evicted or, you know, and so the one voter that I was trying to get to the polls.

[00:27:40] His vote ended up not being counted because he went to the wrong place because they changed the law four days earlier, because blackwell was the head of the Bush Cheney reelection campaign and the president of the board of elections.

[00:27:53] And you realize then you didn't want to give up.

[00:27:58] I didn't want to give up well I ended up writing that play sounds of silence a documentary puppet musical farce about the 2004 elections in Ohio because sock puppets with the original recordings of the Democratic challengers and all the people you know these kind of

[00:28:13] Dadaist absurdist characters who were rearranging the laws and moving things around to make it just nearly impossible to to actually vote that day they needed sock puppets to get their point across in my opinion.

[00:28:27] You're coming to Portland how come Portland.

[00:28:29] I live here.

[00:28:31] You live here all the time.

[00:28:33] So when you are hiding under a giant sequoia tree and my little record and how long have you been in Portland.

[00:28:39] Often on since 2016.

[00:28:41] I love it here.

[00:28:42] I love the people I love the music scene.

[00:28:45] Your life is based on speech freedom of speech is deeply important to you. How do you define it.

[00:28:53] I defines freedom right now I define freedom of speech as the opposite of cancel culture.

[00:29:00] I think freedom of speech is best defined by Dr. Carl Faber in his quote on listening which I don't have memorized but you know I think it's about the listening freedom.

[00:29:12] You can't have freedom of speech if no one's listening.

[00:29:15] And I think that we're so predisposed to have our opinion and dig in our heels and of course we've got these little devices that are pocket pals and best friends that are spitting back advertisements and feeds tailored by billionaire companies to to make sure that

[00:29:31] we are seeing and hearing our own opinions back at us and we think that that's public discourse now I mean we used to have like at least five news channels that that claimed to be somewhat, you know, non partisan.

[00:29:46] And so we all kind of thought that that we knew what was going on and that we were going to be able to do that.

[00:29:51] And so we all kind of thought that we knew what was going on in the world and it was the same thing other people thought was going on in the world but now our listening is so myopic and and individualized that it's like we're all running around in these little bubbles of

[00:30:07] thought and we don't actually ever get to hear anyone else's point of view.

[00:30:15] Unless you try really hard is the favor quote you're looking for and be clear credit the internet not me.

[00:30:23] There's a grace of kind listening as well as a grace of kind speaking is that the is that the quote starts with that the part of it that I really like is the kind of listening that we're all talking about.

[00:30:35] The part of it that I really like is a few paragraphs in.

[00:30:40] But yes, that's that's the one.

[00:30:44] I remember the exact part of it I actually put it in my program if you go to fosplay.com which will auto correct to cause plays so you might have to turn that see for cat into an effort fantastic.

[00:30:58] Most people have never really been listened to they live in a lonely silence no one knowing what they feel how they live or what they have done their prisoners of the eyes of others the stereotype limited superficial and often distorted ways that others see them.

[00:31:11] This is lovely.

[00:31:13] Yeah, it's worth it.

[00:31:15] We'll put it we'll put the link we'll put the link in the show notes as they say.

[00:31:20] So you worked on South Park with Matt Stone and Trey Parker whose careers have largely been established by the desire to push them limits of free speech in a reverent manner.

[00:31:29] What did you learn about or what did you consider about free speech in that experience.

[00:31:35] I just feel very empowered by their irreverence.

[00:31:39] I mean, they nothing, you know, and it's really hard to do that.

[00:31:44] I remember coming out of the studio one day and it was right around when I did Wendy's cuss song.

[00:31:50] And I'm so proud of having gotten all of those expletives past the FCC.

[00:31:56] You know, I could sing a little bit of it for you now but please.

[00:32:00] I was like, she cooked food in a walk. Mr. Harris was her boyfriend and he had a great big caca doodle doodle the rest of just won't quit.

[00:32:07] I don't like my breakfast because it tastes like she's just make with house baths.

[00:32:10] They're cuddly and sweet monkeys aren't good to have to beat their meaning in the office.

[00:32:14] Meaning in the hall and this guy on the radio.

[00:32:17] So I was very proud of that. I was very happy and I came out of the studio and it sort of stumbled into my, my ambulance or whichever van I had at the time I've been through several.

[00:32:27] Barefoot, you know, because I was always sort of coming. I was always coming into the studio at two o'clock in the morning and night before broadcast because that's how they rolled.

[00:32:34] I love them, but you have to kind of be in their group in their entourage in order to be be okay over there.

[00:32:42] Yeah, but I came out and Matt had just gotten off the phone with standards and practices with Columbia pictures and they and Trey was disappointed because they put the kibosh on the context of one of the jokes in that song was like.

[00:32:57] His favorite spot for fishing was in a lady's contaminated water can really make you sick.

[00:33:03] And what what they were told they couldn't do is put it in the context of fishing they couldn't say the seaward in the context of fishing but they, and I was just seeing they're wondering what was up with this woman at standards and practice.

[00:33:15] What are actually what, but I mean it can be that absurdist right like it's all.

[00:33:22] I don't know I think I don't want to completely discredit the idea of neuro linguistic programming and like, you know words having power and being being thoughtful about what you say.

[00:33:36] And not appropriate culturally appropriating other people's language and words and music and all the things I totally understand that point of view and one of the things about the freedom of speech podcast is it gives equal credence to everyone's voice so you know,

[00:33:52] even cancel culture.

[00:33:55] Like you can have your opinion there but I think, I think that it's really crippling when people are more concerned with what you're not supposed to say them they are with really trying to hear what somebody's trying to communicate behind the words.

[00:34:12] The concern you know my concern is it's not mine alone, but I think about the dynamic or maybe I'm trying to feedback what I heard from you is that it engenders fear and fear of saying wrong thing doing the wrong thing stepping on the wrong thing a little bit of fear can be good.

[00:34:28] On the other hand, fear is very often the limiter of creativity it activates our amygdala turns off our frontal lobes it makes it harder for us, literally to get our brains to integrate and come up with new stuff if we're trying to figure out how do we not, you know burn our

[00:34:45] hand we're not thinking about how we can invent.

[00:34:47] Exactly. Yeah, and I was even on the phone with a voice expert this morning one of my favorite coaches Yvonne Morley chiseled and she was telling me you know, because because I I eliminated the n word from one of the scenes in my play and it was the only transcription that I edited, and I just say in the play hey

[00:35:07] that's not my word. None of these are my words and who am I to take words out of the mouths of other people, you know, but at the same time that's one that I am, I'm, that's not my word. So I took it out and and then I as an actress because I've been just replicating exactly the verbatim what

[00:35:29] these people have been saying this whole time. It was hard for me to step out of what my muscle memory had for exactly what had been said in that scene. And so then I, I, my voice teacher was like, you know, don't think about it, you know, don't get tight, because you've got to just let it flow and relax and allow the voice to come through

[00:35:51] you and not think about the voice so it really yeah it any kind of fear or tension can just not only like stop you from doing your play in the first place, you know, because it's hard enough to put your own voice out let alone try to get other people's voices

[00:36:09] heard. But you know one of the things that I'm doing to balance that out is in this performance on the six you know we've got people indigenous musicians coming to the panel afterwards and singing and sharing their music and pretty much, you know, every culture bearer or ethnic group that I have represented in this in this one person show.

[00:36:34] So there's someone from that that ethnic group or or culture at the end, able to tell their own story talk about action steps you can take to support.

[00:36:46] You know what they're going through and getting their own voice heard because that's elevating the voices is really what for me freedom of speech in the context of my podcast is about it's elevating the unsung the artists without corporate sponsorship, you know the people who who are not having all this

[00:37:03] focus on them all the time who are who.

[00:37:06] No, it's fascinating I'm glad I'm glad you brought it up.

[00:37:09] Glad we're talking about it the and I now realize I have.

[00:37:12] I have three critiques. So the first limit to creativity and so that I'm clear but what I mean I don't mean.

[00:37:18] Oh, because then you don't get to say the n word and that limits creativity that's not what I mean what I mean is, is that if there's 17 things or 117 things or a thousand and 17 things you're worried about, even if you would never want to do those

[00:37:31] 117 things, it might keep your turn your brain off from doing a very different 2017 things or 20,000 and 17 things.

[00:37:42] So that's the first second and this is my and I do worry that it's being used to help build a movement that isn't genuinely about freedom or equality right that the backlash around around it concerns me.

[00:37:58] And I'll tell you and I'm kind of ask where you think it comes from but I will acknowledge it to make way to tell you where I to explain where I think it comes from, which is misplaced.

[00:38:11] Cheapens it doesn't give it enough credit, but in a world we are genuinely facing oppression genuinely facing nearly unprecedented economic inequality at least in this country, where we are facing more real

[00:38:25] and less to democracy that we face certainly in my lifetime, and maybe our shared lifetime that there is. We're seeing a resurgence of of inside racism coming outside and and thinking that it should carry Tiki torches down the street that

[00:38:43] is a very legitimate fear very legitimate concern about oppression and if we and and a feeling of powerlessness over these forces, right. But if we can go online. Say again, I said as a Jew right now, you know, and, you know, like my husband who is not Jewish is like talking to me about

[00:39:06] how are we going to talk to our son about what he's going to experience in his school. You know, this this stuff is new. You know, this wasn't it feels different. It feels different and and I think that so many of us and so many people and and I can include myself or exclude

[00:39:25] myself because I come from several layers of privilege as well that in response to that powerlessness knowing that if you see the former president of the United States mimicking a disabled person and see it the form President United States when running for president mimic and and

[00:39:48] and just just make fun of what we think is war heroes of having of having his own family with a racist history and knowing that oh as a socially progressive activist. Nobody cares in that movement what you think like nobody you have absolutely no impact to in fact you have reverse power to impact the

[00:40:11] political primary if you say oh Donald Trump is bad the people who think that you're you know a pointy headed liberal will like him better and that in fact has been the dynamic. And so where what do you do you go after targets for opportunity, because maybe

[00:40:24] you know, the president of the United States would listen or maybe the fans of J. K. Rowling would listen or maybe Dave Chappelle would listen or maybe the fans of Dave Chappelle would listen or maybe the president of a university would listen or maybe the board of directors of the president

[00:40:37] would listen to your target of opportunity which tend not to be I fear often the targets real desire of real high priority. And so that's part of my concern and I say that, even not merely as a critique I say that with empathy and I think that some of what we're seeing is just is just a

[00:40:53] barbaric yelp as a scream against genuine oppression what I care about is being as intentional with that as we can.

[00:41:02] everything you're saying and I agree.

[00:41:03] I think, God, there was so much that I was thinking

[00:41:08] as you were speaking and went,

[00:41:10] forgive me, I spoke, I said several things.

[00:41:12] No, no, it's all right.

[00:41:14] The otherism is really, I think the issue,

[00:41:18] the us versus them, the thing where you're saying,

[00:41:21] you know, that because you're a pointy-headed liberal

[00:41:24] people are going to not hear what you're saying,

[00:41:27] not listen to you, and then you've gotta like

[00:41:29] get creative about who might listen to you

[00:41:32] because of the label that you wear.

[00:41:34] You know, and it's interesting

[00:41:36] because a man experiencing houselessness in San Francisco

[00:41:40] was the one who coined this term for me.

[00:41:42] I'm sure other people have said it,

[00:41:43] but he said it best and he was like,

[00:41:45] people play these otherism games, you know?

[00:41:48] And otherism is not prejudice, you know?

[00:41:52] And I just loved that term because it's so pervasive.

[00:41:57] It's always this us versus them.

[00:41:59] And anybody in the kind of spiritual world

[00:42:06] will tell you we are all one,

[00:42:08] we hear this kind of adage,

[00:42:10] but the idea that we're so separate

[00:42:14] and that you can say, oh, well, you're a liberal

[00:42:16] so I'm not gonna listen to anything you have to say,

[00:42:18] that eclipses, that shuts off freedom of speech entirely.

[00:42:23] There is no freedom of speech in that.

[00:42:24] The minute you start wearing labels

[00:42:27] and stop listening to people

[00:42:29] just because of who you think they are.

[00:42:31] Or listen them for purposes of disagreeing, attacking

[00:42:34] or deciding you must think the opposite.

[00:42:35] Exactly, exactly.

[00:42:37] Yeah, it's just a whole other kind of listening.

[00:42:39] It's not listening.

[00:42:41] How do you get people to listen to others

[00:42:43] and make that listening experience feel

[00:42:46] not just like listening to others

[00:42:47] but listening to a broader definition of us?

[00:42:50] Okay, so here's what I do.

[00:42:51] So in the play,

[00:42:54] I take on a character

[00:42:57] and you don't know that this guy speaks in tongues

[00:43:03] or is a polygamist.

[00:43:04] You just get to know a police chief and fireman

[00:43:09] who loves his family

[00:43:10] and has a hypnotic virile David Koresh-esque delivery

[00:43:14] and you get sucked into the beauty of the utopian.

[00:43:18] You know, this is one of the places in America

[00:43:21] where you still don't lock your doors at night.

[00:43:23] You can leave your keys in your car,

[00:43:24] not even worry about it.

[00:43:25] No one locks up.

[00:43:27] And you know, start thinking communally

[00:43:30] about marrying your best girlfriend and your family

[00:43:32] and then you find out that he's a polygamist.

[00:43:36] So for me, the way I do it is I have been as of yet

[00:43:41] unsuccessful in getting red state, blue state conversations

[00:43:45] where people are talking directly to each other

[00:43:47] but I can listen

[00:43:49] with a shockingly open mind and a level of trust

[00:43:55] that my mom is still concerned and perplexed by.

[00:43:59] You know, like kissing a white supremacist

[00:44:01] just to watch his reaction when he found out

[00:44:02] I always had you.

[00:44:03] Incidentally, he did a flip

[00:44:04] and then he ate the chocolate chip cookies

[00:44:06] I made in my ambulance and we kept talking.

[00:44:09] So this idea that we are all one, what I do,

[00:44:13] I just like use my physical body

[00:44:16] and my work as an actor, my art to take on

[00:44:21] completely opposing perspectives,

[00:44:23] juxtapose them on stage and have this dialectic

[00:44:27] where they're not directly talking to each other

[00:44:29] but they're talking through me to the audience.

[00:44:32] And so you get both sides of a perspective

[00:44:34] and the audience is able to see it

[00:44:36] in a completely different way

[00:44:37] because the same person literally

[00:44:41] is giving them two completely opposing perspectives.

[00:44:44] So that at least opens up the listening a bit.

[00:44:48] And I like to start with humor,

[00:44:50] pay those dreams, hopes, fears,

[00:44:52] all those things that unify us

[00:44:54] and make people endearing

[00:44:58] and inconsistencies and fallibility

[00:45:01] and all this stuff.

[00:45:02] And then move into what their political view might be

[00:45:08] and usually that's the punchline.

[00:45:10] What about the dialect work?

[00:45:12] It's just the nature of the dialect

[00:45:15] gives an instant cue of other

[00:45:17] but then by doing lots of them,

[00:45:19] it broadens our understanding of,

[00:45:22] is that really other?

[00:45:23] Is it kind of we're all a little bit weirdos

[00:45:25] or none of us are weirdos?

[00:45:26] Right, yeah.

[00:45:27] Yeah and I just adore the inconsistencies.

[00:45:32] Like the same guy who was like

[00:45:34] this money system is all gonna come crashing down

[00:45:36] is gonna then say these dolls went for $11,000

[00:45:40] and Boston they're good investment potential

[00:45:43] and that's the beauty,

[00:45:43] that's what makes you fall in love with the character.

[00:45:47] Cause we all have that.

[00:45:48] An ambulance, maybe it's obvious

[00:45:50] but why an ambulance

[00:45:51] and how did you get the ambulance

[00:45:53] and was it the one that they used in Ghostbusters?

[00:45:55] Maybe that was a Hearst.

[00:45:57] No that was a Hearst.

[00:45:58] Oh it was Cannonball Run,

[00:45:59] they used an ambulance in Cannonball Run.

[00:46:02] I say she found me.

[00:46:04] I was looking for a vehicle that had a separate cab

[00:46:08] so I could lock up my recording gear

[00:46:10] and had AC outlets so I could plug it in

[00:46:13] and I looked open the LA Times

[00:46:17] and right there under cargo vans

[00:46:19] was an affordable Chevy 85 ambulance

[00:46:22] and ultimately it became a metaphor

[00:46:25] for the kind of self-rescuing act

[00:46:27] of leaving Hollywood and going out

[00:46:29] to like seek a truth I could not define.

[00:46:32] And around the turn of the millennium

[00:46:35] I was calling this piece,

[00:46:37] you say 911 prior to the attacks

[00:46:39] because I felt like I was taking my microphone thermometer

[00:46:43] and sticking it up the ass of America

[00:46:45] to take their temperature for a millennium fever

[00:46:48] and they were all just like, you know,

[00:46:51] tripping about Y2K

[00:46:53] and everybody was very agitated at that point in time

[00:46:58] and the ambulance became not just a metaphor

[00:47:01] for the self-rescuing act of leaving Hollywood

[00:47:04] but a confessional atmosphere.

[00:47:07] Your doctor's office, you open up

[00:47:10] and the absence of video was also very helpful

[00:47:13] in the candidness of the resulting interviews.

[00:47:18] You know, and so we got this kind of

[00:47:23] self-appointed traveling cultural therapist, you know,

[00:47:27] sitting in my little ambulance

[00:47:29] inviting people to tell their stories

[00:47:31] and it was really shockingly welcomed

[00:47:35] by people who just don't feel heard.

[00:47:38] That certainly in the context.

[00:47:40] What surprised you most?

[00:47:41] Some of what surprised you most

[00:47:42] were maybe some of those that you said incasally,

[00:47:44] some was maybe they read it with certain people

[00:47:46] that you would not have anticipated opening up,

[00:47:47] opening up, anything else really surprised you?

[00:47:53] Anything else that really surprised me?

[00:47:57] I would say my love for the South surprised me

[00:48:00] falling in love with the woman,

[00:48:01] that woman whose accent I love so much.

[00:48:04] You know, one of the things she ended up saying was

[00:48:07] oh, we had a lot of people who worked in the house

[00:48:10] but when field time came, they hid it, you know.

[00:48:14] And I realized I'm speaking with a plantation owner

[00:48:18] who is just a generation removed from slave ownership,

[00:48:22] you know and she fed me grits and I gave her a hug

[00:48:26] and she's a sweet old lady, you know.

[00:48:31] And I'm not saying that, you know,

[00:48:34] and then I have to grapple with but slavery, you know.

[00:48:39] So yeah, that was surprising to,

[00:48:42] but and transcendent to be able,

[00:48:44] because so the idea is that I don't have to agree

[00:48:49] with everyone in order to love them.

[00:48:51] And I think that if we could accept this idea

[00:48:53] of multiplicity and that in order for me to be right,

[00:48:55] you don't have to be wrong

[00:48:57] and we can still love our fellow humans

[00:49:01] and without agreeing with them is imperative to our future.

[00:49:07] Oh, it's great.

[00:49:08] It's a great takeaway.

[00:49:09] I just want to say it again to capture it.

[00:49:10] Maybe you should.

[00:49:11] We don't, okay.

[00:49:13] Pick three dialects and say the takeaway line

[00:49:16] that we don't have to agree with one another

[00:49:18] to love one another, however you put it

[00:49:19] which is so beautifully.

[00:49:20] You do whatever, you could choose one voice,

[00:49:22] you don't have to play.

[00:49:23] And you're not my trained monkey,

[00:49:23] you don't have to do it if you don't want to

[00:49:25] but I'm inviting you to,

[00:49:26] if you would welcome the invitation

[00:49:28] to choose one or more dialects

[00:49:32] to give that lovely line.

[00:49:39] I keep going back to that old lady.

[00:49:41] And you could do a bunch, right?

[00:49:43] You could spin many pots

[00:49:44] and we could pick your favorite one or three, right?

[00:49:46] You could, partly I just enjoy watching you talk.

[00:49:54] Well, I mean what I say at the end is

[00:49:55] I realized I don't hate America, I love America.

[00:49:58] I broke bread with them.

[00:50:00] I am them and even if I can't continue

[00:50:05] to agree with them all simultaneously

[00:50:07] and even if I never agree with any of them ever again

[00:50:09] I can still love them.

[00:50:12] I can still love them.

[00:50:14] I can still love them.

[00:50:19] There's a bunch of others in there.

[00:50:22] What's been the hardest part

[00:50:24] in going around your ambulances,

[00:50:26] ambulances as if you had a fleet,

[00:50:27] going on your ambulance journeys

[00:50:30] and did it ever break down on you?

[00:50:32] Is it been?

[00:50:34] Yeah, we rolled into a ditch in Sandusky, Ohio in 1990,

[00:50:37] the Blizzard of 96.

[00:50:39] And that's when I started procuring different vehicles

[00:50:43] but yeah, she looked at me as if to say

[00:50:46] after everything we've been through

[00:50:47] you're gonna leave me in Ohio.

[00:50:51] Yeah, she was very dirty.

[00:50:52] The other ambulance came and it was like two girls

[00:50:54] wearing the same dress to the prom.

[00:50:56] Only mine was dirty or it was just, she yeah.

[00:50:59] So then I had to do a full R&R

[00:51:01] and like I pull out the engine

[00:51:05] and put it into like a rider moving van

[00:51:08] and my experience going the rest of the way

[00:51:10] from Ohio to California in a yellow rider moving van

[00:51:15] and staying at Motel Sixes with the same interior decor

[00:51:18] and the same things on the menu

[00:51:20] and I had to get all the chain restaurants

[00:51:22] as opposed to traveling in an ambulance

[00:51:24] where people would invite me in to sleep and for dinner

[00:51:27] and being in the kitchens and the hearts of peoples,

[00:51:32] people's backyards.

[00:51:33] It was just such a completely different way to travel

[00:51:36] and it made me really appreciate the ambulance

[00:51:40] and I think sometimes the dialects themselves

[00:51:44] can be the only distinguishing factor

[00:51:47] if you travel in that conventional way,

[00:51:50] staying at hotels and going to restaurants and stuff.

[00:51:55] But yeah, I broke down in Ohio and it was irretrievable

[00:51:59] and so then I ended up eventually being able

[00:52:03] to afford a Volkswagen Westphalia.

[00:52:06] At one point in time, I had a Eurovan and a Westphalia

[00:52:08] so I could have a four burner stove total

[00:52:12] and lived in the two of them

[00:52:13] and then I traveled in a sailboat in the Caribbean for a while

[00:52:19] and yeah, there were quite a few vehicles.

[00:52:21] A sailboat, you'd go and so you'd go island to island?

[00:52:24] You'd go fishing boat to fishing boat?

[00:52:26] What I would do is I would book a tour for my band

[00:52:29] at the time was called Eliza Jane and the Barnyard Gypsies.

[00:52:32] It's this weird kind of like gypsy bluegrass that I play

[00:52:37] and I would book a tour in the places

[00:52:39] where I wanted to record the dialects

[00:52:43] and my guitarist at the time had built a 56 foot trimaran

[00:52:48] that was all pumps, like no electronics or anything.

[00:52:51] It was really, really beautiful.

[00:52:52] It's called the Virgin Fire.

[00:52:54] It was the fastest trimaran in the Caribbean at the time.

[00:53:00] It's like 2006 through 2009.

[00:53:03] I was there playing Irish tunes

[00:53:05] and St. Croix does St. Patty's Day like nobody's business

[00:53:09] because there were arguably Irish slaves down there

[00:53:13] and the ah sound, like you can hear it in Yaman

[00:53:17] in the Jamaican, you can hear the Irish influence

[00:53:19] in that accent and of course all the other colonizers,

[00:53:23] the Dutch and the French and the Spanish

[00:53:25] and the English layered on top of each other

[00:53:28] and then on top of that Irish and West African influence

[00:53:31] and then you've got a few remaining.

[00:53:33] I forget if it's the caribs or the arrow ax,

[00:53:35] but I recorded the chief, the local chief on Dominica.

[00:53:40] But so you know, so I'll book the music to pay for the trip

[00:53:44] and then I'll send my auditions in via MP3

[00:53:48] which back in the day was not as easy as it is now,

[00:53:51] especially from a sailboat.

[00:53:53] But yeah, trying to use sort of that TV work

[00:53:55] and the voiceover work and the booking a tour

[00:53:58] as a musician to fund my dialect habit.

[00:54:02] What did you learn in all of this?

[00:54:04] And maybe too broad a question to be used,

[00:54:07] but what's the takeaway?

[00:54:08] What's something that you didn't just go into this

[00:54:11] and confirm a prior, but in fact,

[00:54:15] developed your thinking in a way that is worth sharing

[00:54:17] and of course that's what some of the performance is about.

[00:54:19] But what's a takeaway that you learned,

[00:54:23] you drew from the experience?

[00:54:25] I mean, well like I said,

[00:54:30] I was raised to sort of fear and loathe the South.

[00:54:34] I was raised in New York, you know?

[00:54:36] So for me like feeling that sense of comfort

[00:54:41] and hospitality and genuine humanity from people

[00:54:45] that I didn't really see as people,

[00:54:48] took me out of my own myopic perspective

[00:54:51] and just enabled me to really embrace humanity

[00:54:57] on a different level and it helped me stop labeling

[00:55:01] people myself also.

[00:55:03] I started off as this sort of petulant liberal,

[00:55:06] very self-righteous, I'm right and you're wrong

[00:55:10] and I know more than you

[00:55:11] and I'm gonna go out and prove my point kind of thing.

[00:55:14] And what I ended up doing was going out and listening

[00:55:17] and being sort of persuaded, convinced

[00:55:21] and converted to 400 conflicting philosophies

[00:55:23] and rapid succession and forgetting about whether I agreed

[00:55:28] and more feeling, you know, it's interesting

[00:55:32] because I was just asked to weigh in

[00:55:34] on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by Newsweek

[00:55:37] and I'm like, why are you asking me?

[00:55:38] But I have gathered enough public opinion

[00:55:43] to have one myself, you know?

[00:55:45] Like I've interviewed 7,000 people

[00:55:47] and I've really genuinely

[00:55:48] and I've really listened to them.

[00:55:50] And I feel like what they were asking

[00:55:53] is this Israeli Mossad character potentially offensive

[00:55:56] and that they're coming out with.

[00:55:59] And I was like, well, yes, but she has the power

[00:56:03] of regenerative healing and to transfer her life force

[00:56:06] to other people and her child was killed by terrorists

[00:56:12] and so she has the opportunity,

[00:56:15] Marvel has the opportunity to use their wide reach

[00:56:19] and their ability to tap into people's emotions and hearts

[00:56:23] to show humanity from all sides of this conflict

[00:56:27] and to have a superhero whose bag it is

[00:56:30] to save the women and children

[00:56:32] regardless of what the governments are doing, you know?

[00:56:35] And to value human life and healing

[00:56:40] and love and forgiveness and peace and all these things.

[00:56:43] And, you know, so I feel like, you know,

[00:56:47] I came out of it with far more of a humanist perspective

[00:56:51] than a kind of self-righteous, you know,

[00:56:54] I'm right in your wrong perspective.

[00:56:56] Helpful.

[00:56:57] We should get to at least something

[00:56:58] that's related to public policy kind of

[00:57:01] that's related to kind of democracy and its essence.

[00:57:04] And of course, humanity is and the takeaway

[00:57:06] that came in an interview not too long ago

[00:57:08] that we did was that democracy is at some level

[00:57:13] a commitment to humility.

[00:57:14] It's a commitment to believing

[00:57:16] that my beliefs are not the only beliefs

[00:57:18] and that somebody's humanity matters

[00:57:21] even if they disagree with me.

[00:57:23] Nonetheless, how can you build a governing majority

[00:57:26] that strongly believes in things

[00:57:27] that will make people's lives better?

[00:57:28] How do you at the same time have a political structure

[00:57:31] that doesn't just feed upon itself

[00:57:32] or destroy democracy because you're unwilling

[00:57:33] to police fascism?

[00:57:35] These are conflicts that we won't get into all of the,

[00:57:39] go down every rabbit hole today.

[00:57:41] But at least wanted to talk about free speech

[00:57:43] including free speech, absolutism.

[00:57:46] I am reminded, I'm reminded by Kyle,

[00:57:49] the producer of the show,

[00:57:50] of the example set by David Goldberger,

[00:57:52] the Jewish ACLU lawyer who defended

[00:57:55] free speech rights of Nazis in Illinois in the late 1970s.

[00:57:59] And I have my own views about that, right?

[00:58:04] I'm not barely standing up to people.

[00:58:05] What are your views about that?

[00:58:08] Yeah, go ahead.

[00:58:11] I wouldn't do it.

[00:58:13] Those are my views.

[00:58:14] I wouldn't make a law that somebody else couldn't,

[00:58:16] but the old line that I am now stealing, right?

[00:58:19] As somebody who was mostly a recovered lawyer.

[00:58:22] Yeah, everybody's got a right representation,

[00:58:24] but they don't got a right to my representation.

[00:58:26] Exactly.

[00:58:27] And so that's where I wouldn't do it.

[00:58:31] That's a valid point

[00:58:32] because you only have so much energy

[00:58:34] and I question my participation

[00:58:37] in video game franchises

[00:58:40] that are training kids to be desensitized to gun violence.

[00:58:45] But then I sort of do this,

[00:58:48] I make up for it by doing a kind of Robin Hood thing

[00:58:52] where I take the money from that

[00:58:53] to support the political and activist art

[00:58:58] that I put out into the world

[00:59:00] and to try to get more voices heard.

[00:59:01] So...

[00:59:06] And we each have to make trade-offs, right?

[00:59:09] I think climate change is real

[00:59:11] and I drive a Ford F-150, right?

[00:59:13] My hypocrisy is every day.

[00:59:15] And at the same time that doesn't remove,

[00:59:17] I think my responsibility or even my tiny,

[00:59:22] incy, bean-sea wit bit rather of moral authority

[00:59:27] to say, well, we can make the world a little bit better.

[00:59:28] Right, we can make the world.

[00:59:29] I am not perfect, but that doesn't mean we can.

[00:59:32] I play video games that shoot guns.

[00:59:34] That doesn't mean I think real people should shoot guns.

[00:59:37] I have shot a gun,

[00:59:39] but I don't think we should have everybody own lots of,

[00:59:42] totally unfettered on licensed ways to kill other people.

[00:59:44] You can make the body lines on these things.

[00:59:46] So everybody's been saying one of the most consistent

[00:59:50] refrains when I suggest positive change and big changes,

[00:59:56] especially at the beginning of this pandemic

[00:59:58] of like, okay, now it's finally time

[01:00:01] in a very Greta way, let's stop.

[01:00:05] And that's one of the perspectives

[01:00:07] that I bookend my freedom of speech show with

[01:00:10] is a Navajo elder who says,

[01:00:13] hey, I want everybody to stop and look at what they're doing

[01:00:16] and respect Mother Earth.

[01:00:18] If we do this, we will survive.

[01:00:20] And she said this 30 years ago.

[01:00:22] And I've been saying, repeating this for 30 years.

[01:00:26] And people always say, oh, well, you know,

[01:00:29] that's unrealistic.

[01:00:31] Nobody's, maybe we can have change

[01:00:34] over the course of several decades.

[01:00:36] Slowly we can weed out cars,

[01:00:38] but people aren't gonna do that.

[01:00:40] And that's just unrealistic, you know?

[01:00:42] And then the pandemic hit

[01:00:43] and they stopped driving their fucking cars, you know?

[01:00:46] Everybody stopped, the plane stopped,

[01:00:48] the cars stopped, people stopped going to work

[01:00:50] because they were afraid for their lives.

[01:00:53] People do and people can make significant,

[01:00:58] instant changes when it's based on,

[01:01:02] it seems to me, fear.

[01:01:05] And I also see people make significant changes

[01:01:09] when it's based on religion and emotion,

[01:01:12] which is why I actually went into entertainment.

[01:01:15] I said, when I was a kid,

[01:01:17] I said, you know, I will have way more effects

[01:01:19] on things I believe in

[01:01:21] and making positive change in the world

[01:01:24] by performing something like what Jodie Foster

[01:01:29] did in The Accused,

[01:01:30] did more for victims of rape than an article,

[01:01:36] or like Sigourney Weaver in Gorillas in the Mist

[01:01:38] did more for that cause than an article

[01:01:40] in a National Geographic on your dentist table

[01:01:43] because they tap in,

[01:01:44] and this is what I was saying that Marvel could do.

[01:01:46] They tap into your emotions.

[01:01:48] People, emotions, like the root word of emotions

[01:01:51] and motivation are the same, right?

[01:01:53] So people make change based on what they feel.

[01:01:57] And so this medium of film and entertainment

[01:02:02] and theater and music,

[01:02:05] I believe that if somebody is going to herald change

[01:02:09] and champion change,

[01:02:11] we've got to start worshiping the goddess again.

[01:02:14] We've got to form a new,

[01:02:17] updated religion that worships Gaia

[01:02:21] and that people are as passionate about

[01:02:23] as they are about Jesus.

[01:02:26] Well, I don't want to stop there,

[01:02:27] although it's a pretty powerful proposal.

[01:02:30] So you're doing a one-person show

[01:02:32] and what you're really doing is promoting a new religion.

[01:02:35] No, no, not in the one-person show.

[01:02:36] I'm actually writing a science fiction rave opera

[01:02:38] about the return of the goddess.

[01:02:40] So that's a multi-character.

[01:02:42] I am certainly not trying to center myself

[01:02:44] in any megalomaniacal way.

[01:02:46] Well, I didn't say you were the goddess.

[01:02:48] I just said you wanted to,

[01:02:49] nor do you have to play the goddess

[01:02:51] in the one-person show

[01:02:53] or even in the next artistic expression that you work on.

[01:02:59] I want to stick to, or go back to a little bit,

[01:03:01] the idea of sort of free speech absolutism and ask you,

[01:03:05] and I'm reminded now of Elon Musk, right?

[01:03:08] Who's self-proclaimed kind of free speech absolutist,

[01:03:11] but then bans accounts critical of him

[01:03:13] and is arbitrary in his decision making.

[01:03:18] And if anything, it may indicate

[01:03:22] that having the wealth and wealth of a nation state

[01:03:25] unfettered has costs.

[01:03:28] Do you see limits?

[01:03:29] Or if you do, what limits do you see to free speech

[01:03:33] that are justified, that are real?

[01:03:36] Yeah, I could say more, but I can also say less.

[01:03:39] Do I see limits to free speech?

[01:03:42] Yeah, or what limits do you think there should be?

[01:03:44] Like the one that now is on the tip of the tongue

[01:03:47] of blank percentage of Americans

[01:03:48] who just don't cry fire in a crowd to theater, right?

[01:03:51] Others would talk about hate speech.

[01:03:53] In Germany, they would say, yeah, you don't get to have

[01:03:54] a swastika because that was a real bad deal around here.

[01:03:57] And in England it goes further.

[01:04:00] In people on Twitter, they go further or less far, depending.

[01:04:04] You know, I am gonna exercise my right

[01:04:06] to not weigh in on that

[01:04:09] because I don't think it's up to me

[01:04:13] to censor anyone ever.

[01:04:16] And I think again, it's more in the listening.

[01:04:20] I mean, yes, I agree on a metaphysical level

[01:04:23] that there is power in the word,

[01:04:26] that we are giving like physical vibration

[01:04:34] and therefore creating power and energy

[01:04:37] and focused energy by saying words.

[01:04:40] But there's still words, you know?

[01:04:44] So I think that anytime you start telling people

[01:04:48] that they can't say words, you get into trouble

[01:04:53] and then you have this issue of control

[01:04:56] where one individual is controlling

[01:04:59] what comes out of the mouth of another person

[01:05:01] which stops the breathing and creates fear.

[01:05:04] And I think that if the listening

[01:05:10] is able to not give power to the hate speech

[01:05:15] then the hate speech can be irrelevant

[01:05:20] in that context, you know?

[01:05:22] Because you can dismiss it, you know?

[01:05:25] But I don't feel as though I have the authority

[01:05:30] to determine what other people are

[01:05:32] and are not allowed to say.

[01:05:33] I am a linguist, I'm a dialectologist.

[01:05:36] I like to listen to the nonverbal as well as the verbal

[01:05:40] everything that comes out the musicality.

[01:05:42] There's so much about how we communicate

[01:05:45] that has nothing to do with the words, you know?

[01:05:48] So if you start censoring the words themselves

[01:05:50] then maybe we would have to get into

[01:05:53] how those words are said

[01:05:55] which certainly destroys a lot of marriages.

[01:05:58] You know, it's what I ended up teaching

[01:06:01] after going deep into dialects and sounds

[01:06:04] was power voice for lawyers, mostly female lawyers

[01:06:08] empowering your voice and identifying that upward cadence.

[01:06:12] And I went into some research by Dr. Rosario Signorello

[01:06:16] over at UCLA on the charismatic voice

[01:06:19] where they eliminated the verbiage

[01:06:21] and just played back the music of world leaders

[01:06:26] and leaders of Fortune 500 companies

[01:06:29] and determined that they used a wider musical range.

[01:06:33] The most charismatic speakers

[01:06:35] have the musical range of a singer.

[01:06:38] And so I mean, I think that if you're looking at power

[01:06:42] and influence and what could create change

[01:06:45] and what could inhibit and hurt people,

[01:06:48] you know, I think you have to look at all of it

[01:06:50] not just the words that are being said

[01:06:51] and then you have to think about, you know

[01:06:53] we're only dealing with the English language here.

[01:06:56] What about all of the other languages?

[01:06:57] What happens?

[01:06:58] What gets lost and changed in translation?

[01:07:01] What about what's in print?

[01:07:02] You know, so I think there are so many variables

[01:07:05] and nuances and other forces in communication

[01:07:11] that don't have to do with the exact words

[01:07:13] that you're saying that if you get so myopic

[01:07:16] as to be like, oh well, you can't say this word

[01:07:20] or you can't say this word in this context

[01:07:22] people will find another way to communicate their hate.

[01:07:26] You know?

[01:07:29] So I would say stopping the communication is not the answer.

[01:07:34] That's an answer I was looking for.

[01:07:37] Your answer was what the answer I was looking for

[01:07:38] and I appreciate your answer.

[01:07:42] I wanna give you a chance to-

[01:07:43] But I'm not saying.

[01:07:44] No, I am.

[01:07:48] I'm not gonna answer that question

[01:07:49] and then I'm not gonna answer that question

[01:07:50] for a few minutes.

[01:07:52] It was just great.

[01:07:55] Let me ask him we should wrap

[01:07:57] and so then actually let's plug this show then.

[01:08:00] Go ahead, it's January 6th.

[01:08:03] So here's what's cool about January 6th.

[01:08:05] I've been doing this play for 30 years

[01:08:08] and it's been all over the world

[01:08:10] and what's cool about the sixth is we're number one,

[01:08:16] it's gonna be an amazing experience

[01:08:18] because it's the Alberta Abbey

[01:08:19] and they have an incredible mission statement

[01:08:21] about getting unsung voices heard in this community

[01:08:24] and the vibe there is always incredible.

[01:08:27] But I also have several indigenous musicians performing

[01:08:32] including a guy by the name of Quilt Man

[01:08:35] and Rosa Linda who is an amazing singer

[01:08:38] singing her original music opening the show at 730

[01:08:42] and she's gonna be joining me on the panel

[01:08:44] as are several other indigenous musicians

[01:08:48] with Joe Bazegge who is the executive director

[01:08:51] I believe of Recovery Works

[01:08:53] and Andy Miller who's the executive director

[01:08:56] of Our Just Future which is a social service organization.

[01:08:59] Of course you, Jefferson are going to be there

[01:09:01] on this panel and moderating will be Steven Robinson

[01:09:05] who is a political writer and the play type or guy

[01:09:10] and he's just got a great perspective and a great voice.

[01:09:12] It's gonna be a vibrant post-show conversation

[01:09:15] and the show itself, we used to call it

[01:09:18] evolving portraits of an evolving nation

[01:09:22] because essentially what's happened

[01:09:24] it's kind of a weird medium.

[01:09:26] It's documentary theater but because I memorized

[01:09:29] all of the interviews I did ad nauseam

[01:09:33] like each of the interviews in this 90 minute show

[01:09:36] were originally up to an hour each.

[01:09:38] So I have like 32 hours of stuff in my head

[01:09:42] of the words of other people.

[01:09:43] So their stories change like a teacher

[01:09:47] would change slightly how they tell their story

[01:09:49] to different classes of people, classrooms full of people.

[01:09:55] So I don't know if I'm the best person

[01:09:58] to describe this because I'm so like in it

[01:10:01] but yeah, I'll do a bunch of tricks.

[01:10:03] I do 34 voices, it's fun and it's a live webcast.

[01:10:08] It's gonna be recorded.

[01:10:09] You will be that live studio audience

[01:10:12] and I would just love to see you there

[01:10:14] and meet you and join the party afterwards.

[01:10:18] Liza Jane Schneider voice actress, dialect coach

[01:10:21] doing 34 voices out of many, many, many voices

[01:10:25] she has done, writer and star

[01:10:27] for one person performance freedom of speech.

[01:10:29] Thanks for being with us, Liza.

[01:10:31] My pleasure, thanks for having me

[01:10:33] and I look forward to having you on the panel.

[01:10:35] And thanks for being a democracy nerd.

[01:10:38] Of course, nerds, nerds, you guys, he nerds.

[01:10:42] He listened to democracy nerds, nerds.

[01:10:49] Democracy Nerds recorded in sunny Portland, Oregon

[01:10:51] produced by Kyle Curtis.

[01:10:53] Thanks also to technical producer, Sig Seliger,

[01:10:55] logo designed by Kat Buckley at kbucklegraphics.com.

[01:11:00] I am Jefferson Smith, thank you so much for listening.

[01:11:03] You can rate and review, hope you will

[01:11:05] and follow Democracy Nerd on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

[01:11:07] Past episodes of the show,

[01:11:09] Democracy Nerd can be found online

[01:11:11] at democracynerd.us.

[01:11:14] Go America.

[01:11:15] Thank you, thank you democracy.