This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Tonya Pinkins: Welcome back to You Can't SAY THAT and my conversation with Carla Shamberg about life, the universe, and everything in it.

[0:12] Carla Shamberg: You gotta sell anyone who's you can tell.

[0:24] Tonya Pinkins: And so, you know, and there's so many ways to solve these problems.

[0:27] Carla Shamberg: Like what? Tell us some ways to solve it.

[0:29] Tonya Pinkins: Well, I was at a party on Sunday night and uh after Oscar party, and Jeff Bezos was there.

[0:35] Carla Shamberg: And I don't know Jeff Bezos, but they everybody is sort of hugged. And I'm thinking, that guy is the richest man in the world. He's just rich. And he has as much money as like the rest, uh, 50% of the people, what is it, four people have as much money as the rest of the world or something.

[0:50] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah.

[0:50] Carla Shamberg: Why don't they, I don't understand, Jeff, if you're listening. Why don't they build solar power plants wherever they can? I know it's kind of hard. The sun and the little furry animals underneath the solar panels don't like it. And and just run at a loss. Just run at a loss. Maybe you know you don't get your carbon this or you got that, or how much, you know, because the oil industry gets rebates and just operate. And so just build these things, put solar panels on the top of every building, run at a loss, and then eventually you'll make your money back because you don't need the money anyway. And so then you just drop into the grid or just drop into this building, and then after X amount of years, it's the same thing as donating to some other place. Just lose a third of your money to solar panels. And you start getting some net zero buildings all over the planet.

[1:40] Tonya Pinkins: Right. Is that am I like I'm not a scientist, but it seems to make it. You see, here we are. We're solving the problems of the world right here in US.

[1:48] Carla Shamberg: Bezos. Instead of investing in space, just invest in net zero buildings all over the world. In fact, every Amazon warehouse should be a net zero building.

[1:57] Tonya Pinkins: And it might be. And it could contribute to the grid, like net zero buildings actually put energy back into the grid.

[2:03] Carla Shamberg: That's right. Yeah, so uh yes. So I think that people who have that kind of money, you'd have to donate to to some cause necessary, which is all wonderful, but there are there are uh you know businesses that don't make money that are environmentally um profitable, um, that we just need some cash, and you seem to have some.

[2:24] Tonya Pinkins: Well, what about this theory? I like to play devil's advocate with you because you're smart. You know, it's my money. Why should I have to save the rest of you? You all are gonna mess it up anyway, so why don't I just use my money to I I'm smart enough, I made this money, and I don't have an obligation to helping the rest of the world. It's not my responsibility, that's not my job.

[2:43] Carla Shamberg: I completely understand that. You know, look, look, we all have levels of what we think are our standards for living. So if I am walking down the street and I'm I bought I bought an expensive purse, but there's three kids who can't go to college because they don't have the money. So should I not buy my expensive purse so that I can contribute X amount of dollars to some college fund? My level of living says no, you need the purse. Desperately, okay, another one. Um and so I think that move it might move up the the chain where you go, Well, I need a yacht and I have to redo my house, and I need an apartment in Paris, so that those are the standards for everybody. And so I think sometimes it's sort of understandable why people don't give that stuff up. Um, and I don't want to know where the line is drawn.

[3:36] Tonya Pinkins: Well, so I understand, yeah, you know, I understand that, and then I think there's also this piece that sometimes there's a consciousness in people where they can't even receive it. I had an experience where I saw a woman, uh a young young black woman on the street with a dog, and she said, I need money to um get a train to somewhere. And um I stopped and just had a conversation with her, and I thought, a train to somewhere, like where's she going? I think I could probably take care of that myself. Like that'd be my good deed for the day. And so I asked her about, you know, how much the train ticket was, where did she need to go? And I said, So if I gave you this much money for a train ticket, could you go?

And she was like, Well, no, because then my dog has blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Well, how much for the dog? And then it was like, I was like, I couldn't handle the you and the dog. But then there was a whole long story about why the thing that she seemed to be asking for in that moment was not the thing that she was actually asking for. And so whether she wasn't clear about what she wanted or whether she just wasn't able to accept that here was someone in front of her saying, I'm your fairy godmother today, I will grant your wish. And that was like I was a boat coming across the ocean, and she could not see that that was what was in front of her. By the end of the conversation, it was like, Oh, I'm just gonna give you $20 because I've offered, you know, you you what you were saying you need is not outside of the range of what I could afford to give today, but you keep saying no.

[5:07] Carla Shamberg: Wow.

[5:08] Tonya Pinkins: So I was like, you know, there's that piece of each of us where we can't receive when it's right there in front of us.

[5:14] Carla Shamberg: What do you think her object was she actually just getting money for food or something? What do you think was really good? Could you figure out what was going on? Or was she so confused that she didn't even know what she was asking for?

[5:23] Tonya Pinkins: I think that every time I said, Well, if I gave you enough for that, there was a longer story and there was more, and there was more and there was more. So this this question need money to get a train ticket to so and so that wasn't the problem she was trying to solve.

[5:38] Carla Shamberg: Right. Because I I could have solved that for her right there.

[5:40] Tonya Pinkins: Right. Because then when I said, How about that? Then it was like, well, no, actually, I need this, and actually I need this, and then actually I need this, and actually I can't leave yet. I actually have to stay for this much more time because I got to do all of this, that, and the other. And it was like, okay, perfectly acceptable. But thinking about how many of us are asking for a band-aid rather than even uh contemplating that there's something we actually want and need and asking for that. I think that that consciousness we don't have it as a people. We don't teach it in school, we don't even teach it as parents that you could ask for what you really want rather than just a little crumb.

[6:23] Carla Shamberg: There's a long dark silence here.

[6:25] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah, because I I think for you, Carla, you've always been good at asking for what you want and being really clear about what it is and asking for it.

[6:31] Carla Shamberg: Yes, but I also I that actually might be true, but I also think that so you're right. So many people don't know how to operate in in the world in the simplest of ways. So many people actually are so gentle that operating in the world the way you have to operate is hard for them.

[6:51] Tonya Pinkins: Yes.

[6:52] Carla Shamberg: And um, um, and that's why the rest of us need to take care of those people because we need those people too. We need that spirit, that energy. And you know, it goes back to those people who have so much money, and why should they help other people? And I and I and I go back and forth on that. You know, you know. I there was a guy in front of my grocery store in Santa Monica asking for money, and I'm thinking, you know, I've been up since five o'clock this morning working. Okay. Yesterday I woke up at one o'clock in the morning and I was working. I said, Why are you sitting here asking me for money? Because you're not working, you're just hanging out. And so there's always that sort of you uh observation of how people behave and how you behave and how you want to accomplish your goals.

But I'm a I've been very fortunate in a lot of ways in my life, and I've been lucky as far as circumstance and getting artistic things done. But I also um can be tougher, you know, on some and there are people who just aren't I have a lot of friends, I have a lot of friends who just aren't that tough, you know, and they they are marginalized by the system, and it just isn't their fault.

[7:57] Tonya Pinkins: Okay. I don't like lazy, lazy drives me crazy. But um people just don't know, you know, I gotta I always play devil's advocate. I mean, I always think when I'm giving somebody on the street, I'm doing it for me. I'm needing to feel good. I don't ever imagine that I'm doing something for that person. It's like, oh, I want to feel good today. I gave somebody some money. But I also think about the fact that most of the people I see asking for money are men. Where are the women? Women don't have time to ask for money because they're too busy trying to figure out how to hustle and take care of their kids. And they can't sit on a corner and ask for money when they know their kids got to get fed and they gotta do whatever they have to do, which is unfortunately some of the things they have to do. But I'm I'm also astonished, but then there are days when I'm like, well, it's harder for some men to get things. So it's like that's not true though. It's easier for men to get jobs.

[8:46] Carla Shamberg: Well, that's true, but there's I see more in New York City men on the streets asking for money than I see women. Though I have to say, I see families sleeping on the train platform now, so it's getting harder and harder for more people. And even though the jobs say that there's three times the employment, that's because people are working three jobs. One person is working three jobs. I doubt those numbers. I really doubt them about because they are working three jobs. And not even able to make it on three jobs.

[9:13] Tonya Pinkins: Right. I mean, yeah, it's it's it's it's ridiculous. And I do think that, you know, we have an opportunity, a unique opportunity in the business of being creative to at least enlighten people to inspire them to create jobs for other people, or to get out, you know, to hopefully, if they're feeling badly and to they'll they'll see a story that in that some guy overcame some awful obstacle or some woman overcame an obstacle, that they can then go out into the world and do it themselves. I really think that we have a huge opportunity we tell, you know, we're fablists. I see a lot of dark stuff on TV, and I know you love dark stuff. I love dark stuff, but I really like happy endings.

[10:00] Carla Shamberg: I don't let's talk about why.

[10:03] Tonya Pinkins: Like I love South Korean horror, I love South Korean storytelling, period. Right. And for me But don't tell me the end of parasite because I haven't seen it.

[10:12] Carla Shamberg: I won't tell you that.

[10:13] Tonya Pinkins: Okay. But I um I feel like Aristotelian's story structure is another um uh piece of propaganda from the hierarchical leaders that they give um people this happy ending, this hero, so that they can feel good for a minute before they go back to live their ordinary lives. Because the reality is most people are not the heroes of their own lives. And for most people, they are not the protagonist who is causing things to happen that leads them to their heroes' journey of epiphany and enlightenment. Most people, the heroic thing that they do is they survive, the ones who do survive, they survive the circumstances that they find them in. And the heroism is that they didn't take their life. To me, those are the stories that interest me. I don't think of that as dark. I think of that as that's the reality that most people on the planet live.

[11:06] Carla Shamberg: Right. I think you're right.

[11:08] Tonya Pinkins: So that's why I like those stories. It's like, yeah, you're gonna resonate with this because this is how you really live, and maybe seeing that as heroic, which is what I think about the whistleblowers. If you make, you know, sacrificing your own pleasure, your own happiness, your own personal life in the service of something bigger, that that that's heroic. And that's kind of dark if you really tell the whistleblower stories to the ends that they go to, it's dark for most of them.

[11:34] Carla Shamberg: Yeah, but I think it's really important to um what's the word I'm looking for when you make the the most people have lives that are sort of regular, hopefully, if they're employed, and aren't that exciting, but I think you have to um celebrate and really respect the people, and if especially if it's yourself, that do that. That when you wake up at nine o'clock and you go to work and you have a child and you support that child and that child goes to school, that that is a wonderful thing. And I think we've with all this celebrity, and I'm sort of sort of in the middle of it living in Hollywood, and you can't avoid it because it's everywhere, it's on every poster and a magazine, and you open it up, and you're always wondering what somebody is wearing or what the queen is eating. And but the the we have to celebrate regular people.

[12:27] Tonya Pinkins: I agree with you. I think we're saying the same thing now. I want to celebrate regular people, and regular people's lives is not the hero's journey. Whistleblowers' lives are not the hero's journey. But they started out as regular people, and they just happen to have stumble across a malfeasance, okay. And because lots of people stumble across malfeasans, if that's a word, and then they don't say anything about it. But the the the this I really refer to whistleblowers as superheroes, I do think because they actually save more lives than Spider-Man, okay. And and they do more good than Iron Man and Wonder Woman. They just in real life, whistleblowers are real life superheroes. I truly believe that.

[13:11] Carla Shamberg: Well, that would be Galileo and Copernicus.

[13:14] Tonya Pinkins: Well, we're killed by their people, right? You know, some of the people who've given us the greatest things we've ever had were the whistleblowers of their time. They were considered insane, they were considered wrong, will and right. You know, when you think about being a real innovator, there's not a a good outcome for most of those people.

[13:31] Carla Shamberg: No, no, change people both like and don't like change.

[13:35] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah. And um also you want to disrupt the power structure.

[13:38] Carla Shamberg: But they do disrupt them. I mean, humans are kind of phenomenal. I have a love-hate relationship with humans. And and that we do these amazing things, you know, and we build amazing buildings or do beautiful works of art. I mean, you're from Chicago, Chicago is gorgeous, it's a beautiful city. I mean, New York, I love New York. I'm a New Yorker, so I love New York. And we have done amazing things on the planet.

[14:04] Carla Shamberg: We have. Um, but um I but you know, I was watching a program about building New York and all the people who actually built the Empire State Building in a year, which is pretty astounding. And um, and every person who did that was contributing to something bigger.

[14:19] Tonya Pinkins: Yes.

[14:20] Carla Shamberg: Then and I think it's really important that we I thought that was one thing that was one of the many things I liked about Obama was that you felt like you were part of something. And I think I don't know, I don't think it's that hard to do that. I don't think it's that hard to have a leader say, this is what we're going to try and accomplish, and you're you're a part of that.

[14:42] Carla Shamberg: And um as opposed to we're this is what we're angry about, and we we we get to point who I hate. I I'm sorry. Yeah, no, no, Brittany and I were talking about that this morning that I was reading uh 10 arguments for eliminating all your social media accounts, and one of the things it talks about is the social media turns on the pack mentality as opposed to the lone wolf mentality, and the lone wolf has to be uh grounded in reality because they gotta get real food and they gotta get real shelter. And when you're in this pack mentality, you're more aware of where's my place in the pack. Am I in the back of the pack? Am I in the front of the pack? And so that's that's not even uh real stakes at that, and that it feeds our lowest um impulses.

Right. Um, and because it's an algorithm that doesn't care how we're responding, the algorithm keeps feeding whatever is going to keep us engaging, and we tend to get addicted to the dopamine hit that comes from this negative behavior, and we're getting caught in that. And there's nothing real about what's going on in social media, whereas we could get people offline and get them committed to anything.

[15:49] Carla Shamberg: Well, you know, it's funny you you mentioned I I call it a corporal organism, and it's my word, I think it's my word. Corporal organism. Yes, and it's the corporation that becomes an organism. So that when you have someone like a whistleblower who goes up to the head of the company and says, you know, these test results for this drug, there's five out of the hundred people take it drop dead when they open the bottle. Okay. So we probably shouldn't do that. Or with Boeing, the you know, the things that the plane is going to start flying itself down instead of up. And um, so but we don't want to talk about that because we have to keep the corporal organism alive. And if we tell the corporate organism that there's a problem here, it's it's it's going to die.

They they miss they miss um diagnose how what's good and bad for the organism of the corporation. Because Boeing does not look good right now. I don't want to get on one of those planes. But don't you think they do risk reward? Okay, five people are gonna die. If it comes out in the thing, we'll lose, you know, it's gonna cost us a hundred million in advertising for two news cycles, and we're still gonna make a billion because people are gonna forget and then we're gonna go back.

[17:02] Carla Shamberg: Well, let's talk about girls for a second. Girls. Because I think, and look, there if you put 10 women in a room and ten guys in the room, you're probably gonna have X amount of girls who we may not like, and an X amount of guys you don't like. But I think women, the 10 women will have a different objective than the 10 men. I really believe this. And I think that if 10 women were running Boeing, they may sit in a room and go, you know what? We don't want to kill people. Because I don't think the vast majority, and this is quite a statement, I don't think the vast majority of women kill for sport.

[17:42] Tonya Pinkins: I would give you that, but I'm gonna ask you about that 54% of college educated white women who put our current president in office. That 54% of college educated white women who put our current president in office. I think that they go along to get along. I think that a lot of people didn't like Hillary. Okay. I I'm not defending them. Right, right, right. And um, I just don't I think they couldn't uh uh they couldn't vote for her, and I which is very sad and sort of self-destructive, but yeah, see, we stopped her. I we stopped her because I can't describe people's behavior whom I don't know.

[18:21] Carla Shamberg: No, but I'm saying I think women hate women. I think that a woman America is not ready for a female president, like love Elizabeth Warren, she doesn't stand a snowball chance in hell. I think that we that we hate women in America more than we hate black people. That is a there's what I believe. Wow. I and I I I think that if women went back to being what women are, without the definition of how men demand that we are defined. I mean, look at look at Ivanka Trump. Okay, Avanka Trump is hi Ivanka, is someone who has done a lot to please her father. A lot. And she's fabulous looking. She didn't come out looking like that, and you get to do whatever you want to do with your hair and your face and your body.

But I wonder how much if she ever thought about it, if she ever thought about it, she actually really liked who she was originally. She was um someone who changed all of her exterior to please that person, and I think a lot of women, all of us do that to please absolutely that person.

[19:29] Carla Shamberg: I think we need to take a step and look, beauty is beauty. And I and I like beauty. I think it's really important to be around beauty. It makes me feel good. Um and beauty comes in many forms. But and I think it's really important for the world if you had a mandate of things being beautiful, that the air would be beautiful and the water would be beautiful, so that people would be beautiful to each other. Um, but I I think that w women, and I think younger women, I'm hoping younger women um are looking at their relationship to men differently. And I this is one of my missions and my thing I'm working on in my podcast. Um, is to get women to look at what it's like to be a separate um, I don't want to call it a species, but to really understand that we create things, we really love to create things, and that uh we protect things and we nurture things, and guys do that too.

This is not an I hate guys thing, because frankly, I really like guys, but um I think that we have forgotten, especially in this time in the world, that we have to create, you know, a and nurture the world instead of fighting each other. And I really believe, and you can and guides can do this too, get together. It's a mindset, not just a sex, uh, not just a gin uh um uh gender. Thank you very much, a gender thing. Um, I think that we just the mandate has to be different, and guys have been dictating the mandate.

[21:01] Carla Shamberg: You notice the word dick and a couple thousand, a couple thousand years. Well, think about testes and testimonies, right? And you know, their organs are part of the whole legal system, and that's right. Not to mention the Washington Monument. Yeah. Yeah. So I think they've been doing that, and we need to sort of wake up and say there's another way to feel. There's another way to operate. And that's why I say, I just don't think women have been able to be who they are, because they forgot who they are.

[21:30] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah, but I think there's all I agree. And I think there's also the fact that right now, you know, there was a time when 27 genders the Native Americans had. Really? So we are coming back to this acknowledging that there is not just this male-female, there's whole ranges of gender. As I remember I listened to Jill Soloway say, you know, my pronouns are they, them. If you call me she, I'm not gonna get mad. But if you call me they, I'm gonna feel like you really see me because my identity is so much bigger than what the definition of man is and what the definition of female is. And I heard that I thought, that's true for me too. And I asked her, I said, can I use they them, or would I be, you know, culturally misappropriating somebody else's thing? And she was like, no. And I because I I think you know, she does not define what I am.

[22:15] Carla Shamberg: Right. That's great. You know, so I I I welcome this um multiplicity of genders. Now I will say that my caveat on that is I don't welcome women having to give up their genderness for people who want to be women too. I want them to have their own definition. Yeah, the Germans have three. They have she, he, and it. I know. Well, it's like a book. Test book. That book doesn't have a gender, it's just the book. Oh no, I've upset her. She, she, and it, I think it, you know, right now it's associated with the clown. The clown from the Stephen King novel.

[22:57] Carla Shamberg: So when can we expect your podcast? I don't know because um I don't know. I I don't know. But I will get it. But it's gonna be a scripted podcast. It's gonna be a story. Yes, it's a scripted podcast. I don't want to be too specific. Will there be actors or will you be talking? No, no, I won't be talking. I'll just be talking about it. So it's a story. Yes, no, it's a fictional story based on X that will do Y, that I will finish Z. No, and when you when you finish it, you'll come on and tell us about this. Absolutely thing that we're talking about. Yes, I will come back and tell you. But I'm very excited about it and exhausted by it. But it was I I'm I'm a I like, you know, I want to get it done quickly, so I'm almost done.

And this um new branding of of whistleblowers, can we hopefully expect that to become coming soon? Yeah, it should be in the next 18 months. Okay. So we'll see what happens. You know, I'm still in the in the midst of the the mini, the minutiae of the deal.

[23:51] Carla Shamberg: So one last thing I want to say, ask you about. We were talking about how it's easier for everybody to get in and it's harder for everybody to get in. And I've experienced that in my own career. And there's that weird thing of like people can make an album in their bathroom and get it out into the world really, really quickly, or make a movie on their iPhone and get it out into the world. But then there are the people who are like me, you're at a certain level where you can't put out the iPhone version of something because you're expected to compete at another level. So let's just say you, for example, you're caught in this system of you made a movie called Aaron Brokovich. You made a movie called Measures.

Extraordinary Measures. Extraordinary measures. Which is not good. Does that eliminate your ability to say, hey, I'm gonna just go make my um web series make a web series? I'm gonna just put it on a web series on a YouTube video. What keeps you from going that route?

[24:46] Carla Shamberg: Well, hope. Because it hope it doesn't have to go that route. Because I've actually been learning over the last 30 years that I've been, or 20 years I've been doing this. So um it's funny because I I I was reading about the Lime cast, the Lime Town people who had done Lime Town. Uh it's a it was like the most listened to podcast. It's about a Lime Town. Yeah. And it's actually really good though. And they turned it, it was about a town where everybody, a town that was built for some scientific research, and then one day everybody disappeared. And then this is the podcast of a woman who 30 years or 20 years later reopens the case, and then all the people started showing up. And it had a season as a podcast, and then they turned it into a television show with Jessica Beale, and then they didn't renew the show.

They did a second episode year of podcasting, but they um so what and and they there was something I had read, really tiny thing on the internet, saying, you know, we were so surprised this happened, it was like shocking. We're so excited, but really surprised. But I am not going to be surprised if this happens. Okay. I'm really because I have I have a Bible that goes along with it. You know, when you do a show, you have to have a Bible, right? Which describes seven years or five years. Right, but if these people keep saying no, like how many years are you gonna wait if people keep saying no? You said you've been doing it forever. Like, is there a point at which you're like you read the whistleblower and you're like, fuck it. I am so tired of all these studios saying no, I know everybody, I can attach the best people in the world. I'm just gonna do it myself.

[26:29] Carla Shamberg: Well, sometimes no actually is the right answer to some people's stuff. I I hate to be awful about this, but some people's stuff just isn't good. Okay. It's just bad. And so, and I don't know, maybe my stuff is bad, but that's not what people have been telling me who actually do this for a living. So I'm hoping that, and hope is is the is I guess the uh another word for I'm in I'm geared up. I I'm actually working, hoping it actually isn't opening, hoping I'm actually working. I go home and work and writes five, six hours a day. Okay, and I think about them for the rest of it. So I'm actually I'm woping. Okay. I made that up just now. So um, so you know, will will I ever say no? I I don't know.

I I'm old, so I could die before this happens. Who knows? But I just feel like I have everything in place. I have done the Bible, I know how I how I want every year to go. You know, and that look and thankfully, as you said, you know, brilliance is when what was brilliance lies in the moment that might not work. Yeah, so there's probably a whole lot of might not work in there. So when I I'm I don't have luckily, because I am old, I I don't have to stop doing this. The nature will stop me. I mean, I'm not that old, but I so I'm just gonna keep doing it because I think it's important. It's it's important, you know. I can probably tell the difference between something that's just a story about my cat, which will probably get more hits than um, but uh, I think it's important. And I think that uh this idea which has come to me wants to be out there in the universe.

[28:05] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah. Thank you, Carla. And you are listening to Tanya Pinken's podcast. You can't SAY THAT on the Broadway Podcast Network. Come and don't say no when you mean no. Thanks for listening to You Can't SAY THAT, the show where you can. I'm Tonya Pinkins, and You Can't SAY THAT is part of the Broadway Podcast Network, produced by Dori Berinstein and Alan Seales, edited by Derek Gunther, with music by Kat Dale. If you like what you hear, don't forget to subscribe and rate this podcast highly wherever you stream. Follow me on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook at Tonya Pinkins. And to learn more, visit BPN dot F M forward slash Y C S T. Stay safe.