The generational trauma of children bullying their parents continues for both June and Jess, and Jess shares a story of flatulence on set not to be missed.
Then, The Daily Show’s Dulce Sloan joins from her craft room to talk about her new book, Hello, Friends!: Stories of Dating, Destiny, and Day Jobs.
A woman who once received notes on her performance in the improv warm-up game, Zip Zap Zop, is now an accomplished and hilarious comedian with stories to tell.

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Transcript

SPEAKERS

Kia Smith, Dulce Sloan, Jessica St. Clair, June Diane Raphael

Jessica St. Clair  01:09

Hi, I’m Jessica St. Clair.

 

June Diane Raphael  01:11

And I’m  June diane Raphael, and this is The Deep Dive. We’re about to do what women have done for centuries are crowding around the fire with our generous hunches.

 

Jessica St. Clair  01:22

We got babies hanging off our tits, and we’re gonna share with you our fears.

 

June Diane Raphael  01:26

That’s right.

 

Jessica St. Clair  01:26

Our joy, our tips on how to stay alive.

 

June Diane Raphael  01:31

Now Jess, we’re heating a call that no one has made.

 

Jessica St. Clair  01:35

Not a soul.

 

June Diane Raphael  01:36

But you’re invited to listen.

 

Jessica St. Clair  01:37

Absolutely, because we make one promise and one promise only we will not Google a thing because frankly, we’re too damn tired. Please get ready to go on The Deep Dive.

 

June Diane Raphael  01:55

Hi, Jessica.

 

Jessica St. Clair  01:56

June.

 

Jessica St. Clair  01:58

We’re fighting, we’re fighting it and we’re fighting through it, and apparently tomorrow it’ll be better. But I listen, we’re doing what we can. I know I listen. No one is struggling more than me, and you. We take this very seriously, I know, I know we’re very upset and you’ve put on your eye makeup again and you’re in your lips to help raise me I blew dry my hair, I we’re doing what we can, okay.

 

June Diane Raphael  01:58

Jess, it’s raining again and boy, it’s coming down this morning, I can’t believe it, I can’t believe it.

 

June Diane Raphael  02:37

I just, just I’m so shocked.

 

Jessica St. Clair  02:40

I know, I know. It feels like a personal like a personal offense. Here’s the thing to like, here’s the thing. I’m reeling from a couple things one is that BB told me on the drive to school today that one of my eyes is smaller than the other one that she’s always thought so.

 

June Diane Raphael  03:01

Okay, it’s like when a casting director told Casey that she had a lazy eye.

 

Jessica St. Clair  03:05

Like, so I’m really.

 

June Diane Raphael  03:08

Doesn’t by the way and you don’t have a smaller.

 

Jessica St. Clair  03:11

Well, apparently I do, and then she said do you think like, you know, it’s 7:45 and she’s uh, do you think June could help you with that with I make up make your small eye, your tiny eye appear bigger. And I said that’s actually really good idea to explore.

 

June Diane Raphael  03:37

Okay, well, I’ll tell you this, if it makes you feel any better, like skiing this weekend, and our youngest, Sam out of nowhere, said we’d taken some pictures of ourselves on the slopes and he said mom in one of those photos I thought you were Bigfoot.

 

Jessica St. Clair  04:00

Like,  but in that one comment, he speaks to your deepest fear that you are too big that you are too big for this world. I think if I could I think what he’s referencing is actually when they have field photos, you know, photographic evidence of Bigfoot and you see him galumphing in the back and it’s simply a man in a gorilla suit. That’s what he thinks you look like on the slopes.

 

June Diane Raphael  04:29

So stunned Jess, yet.

 

Jessica St. Clair  04:31

They say things, that they think […]

 

June Diane Raphael  04:36

And I will tell you my mom, my mom did have a lazy eye. And one eye especially when I know this is an audio medium, but especially when she watched TV she would come in always like look on the side and when I would go and I love.

 

Jessica St. Clair  04:51

Funny [..]

 

June Diane Raphael  04:51

I loved it, I loved it, I loved her arms like this softness.

 

Jessica St. Clair  04:58

Oh softness.

 

June Diane Raphael  04:59

Have her arms in the fire, that’s the an issue so selfconscious but I loved her. Her like, just flap, you know?

 

Jessica St. Clair  05:11

I love […] you don’t want your mom to be too tight. And it’s also important, but you know, it’s funny as I was just thinking about mothers and daughters, and it’s like, daughters, and you have son, a son that thinks you will the Bigfoot, but it’s different because daughters have to feel they have to feel that they are young and vibrant, and that you are habitude because that’s the need to and I remember looking at my mom’s stomach in a lord and Taylor dressing room and thinking, well, I’m not going to have that loose skin. I’m going to do crunches, I’ll do crunches and then I won’t have.

 

June Diane Raphael  05:47

Said that before, they were just like, do crunches.

 

Jessica St. Clair  05:51

Yeah, like my mom.

 

June Diane Raphael  05:52

Do crunches and you don’t want that to, do them.

 

Jessica St. Clair  05:56

And I now can feel the gaze on me and my loose and my loose skin and the thing that’s so hard about it is that it was her big fucking head that caused that loose skin. It was my big fucking head who cause for my mother’s.

 

June Diane Raphael  06:13

Generational head trauma.

 

Jessica St. Clair  06:15

It is.

 

June Diane Raphael  06:16

Passed down one.

 

Jessica St. Clair  06:17

I wear the large.

 

June Diane Raphael  06:19

That exploded another, yeah.

 

Jessica St. Clair  06:21

I wear a large men’s Panama hat. I can’t wear most baseball caps, you know?

 

June Diane Raphael  06:28

This before they when I was in high school, they had to get a specially made batting helmet for me. I tried on every one of the girls batting helmets and the boys. For my softball team there was not a one that fit and to have to try on all the boys batting helmets in front of them or another baseball team, that’s hard.

 

Jessica St. Clair  06:51

Something people don’t know I had a friend when I was studying abroad who she was at UNC she was in a sorority with Susan Lucci. Famed you know, Slow Star, her daughter and Susan would come down and you know, be there for the rally and the pep rallies and all of it and she said something that would shock you about Susan Lucci, and then I did see her in person. And I’ll tell you that story in a second, but is that her head is enormous, she’s like a bobblehead.

 

June Diane Raphael  07:22

Yeah, I know that.

 

Jessica St. Clair  07:23

Most soap stars have gigantic heads, and you know, and I and they’re the height of glamour. You know what she was a little she was a bobblehead on a tiny body.

 

June Diane Raphael  07:33

So small.

 

Jessica St. Clair  07:35

Now, I just tell you quickly, when I did leave, I was an extra on soaps. And there was a scene and I wish I could find it. Where I was a nurse. I was just an extra nurse I never spoke and what would you get paid like $65.

 

June Diane Raphael  07:52

Find this footage, if there’s any deep diver out there who have please please, I will pay I will start a GoFundMe I need. Okay, this footage Jessica, so I asked to have this footage.

 

Jessica St. Clair  08:06

So I auditioned for the man and the casting director and he said basically in no uncertain terms like you are not good looking enough. Do you have some head size but like there’s a way you know, I read a some sides in his office, his windowless office, some studio by the river. And then he said, but he said, but you can’t come as an extra and how? Yeah, the less attractive people will come in and you would get your scrubs and you put your stuff in a locker and then you would be an extra on the set. You get $65 so I would do that in New York, and one day I hadn’t really eaten anything for breakfast and it was a scene where someone was in a coma. I never watched soap so I don’t know who was dying, but Susan Lewis.

 

June Diane Raphael  08:51

But there’s a lot of crossover with hospitals and comas and, but it’s obviously it was all my children, yeah.

 

Jessica St. Clair  08:56

She was dying, the guy the whoever a man or woman I don’t know it was dying and Susan Lucci was there and grieving. And I was standing next to taking the pulses and the different measurements as the nurse now I let out it’s about 10:30 in the morning, I let out a fart, that is so high. It hits a perfect C sharp.

 

June Diane Raphael  09:20

What {…] couldn’t squeeze it back? […]

 

Jessica St. Clair  09:32

It was so quiet in there because it was just the sound is.

 

June Diane Raphael  09:36

You hadn’t eaten this happen. There was nothing in there for you to just.

 

Jessica St. Clair  09:43

Last night’s Peruvian chicken. So it led out a fart that was like this.

 

June Diane Raphael  09:52

Jess?

 

Jessica St. Clair  09:53

Oh, and unfortunately there would have been no way to know who’s butt.

 

June Diane Raphael  10:16

Because there’s so many people are out.

 

Jessica St. Clair  10:18

Are out of because there were several family members in this sitting vigil but the nurse unfortunately the nurse next to me started laughing hysterically. Now Susan has gotten her tears out you know she’s got she’s in the moment and the director says cut what is going on like treating us like cattle what is going on? And and I looked at her like you mother she said she farted.

 

June Diane Raphael  10:48

No, no Jessica No.

 

Jessica St. Clair  10:51

This motherfucker throws me under the bus. She goes I’m so sorry she farted now I am mortified.

 

Jessica St. Clair  11:05

To the fact like Jessica never resilience because knowing like I would have not just exited the industry like that moment would have sent me like I would be like I now walk away from my life as I know it like I’m I started a new life somewhere else under a different name.

 

Jessica St. Clair  11:21

It like witness protection program type of thing like at the end would do when Jennifer Lopez has to realize either like that guy is going to come for her if she doesn’t like take her daughter and Ron yes that I was never asked back. That was it for me.

 

Jessica St. Clair  11:35

You were asked to not return to CNN. All My Children, okay, seriously, is there footage? Do you know you’re on screen? Jessica? Do you?

 

Jessica St. Clair  11:50

Well, that’s the thing. I don’t know if they were legally allowed to have all of our faces on the screen or what but I just I again, why didn’t I at that point find out what episode was that? How dare that woman throw me under the bus like.

 

June Diane Raphael  12:03

I’ve never, I mean that that is internalized misogyny, that is.

 

Jessica St. Clair  12:07

Yeah, that is patriarchy. That’s on them.

 

June Diane Raphael  12:12

That MSC like that’s a problem.

 

Jessica St. Clair  12:15

And probably by 5pm,  I was over it. Like that’s the thing about me. It’s on baby doesn’t get me debt.

 

Jessica St. Clair  12:23

And I really admire that I want more of that because I am still going over in the wee hours of the morning, like every humiliation I’ve suffered. And I’m like, I’ll just look at them, this is seems like the good time to think about everything, every moment of discomfort I’ve ever experienced. Let’s go through them.

 

Jessica St. Clair  12:43

If you know, so I the fact that you continued forward.

 

June Diane Raphael  12:49

I’ve truly like wow.

 

Jessica St. Clair  12:51

No, it’s like for me, I’m like, I’m like a vagabond where I’m like, that’s gonna be a funny story, even when I got diagnosed with cancer when they mistook Lennon and I for lesbian couple, and we were getting the red carpet treatment. Because Lennon had said, well, first of all, my husband wasn’t there, but Lennon showed up in this sweater says Mama Bear and then she was saying over and over again, our daughters, our daughters.

 

June Diane Raphael  13:22

She’s saying.

 

Jessica St. Clair  13:22

She’s saying our health insurance because we share you know, we were getting the red carpet treatment because if anybody makes a good couple, it’s Lennon and I and then when Dan arrived the next day, I guess.

 

June Diane Raphael  13:39

Should never have shown his face.

 

Jessica St. Clair  13:41

They were looking at him like now is this a queen bee scenario where they both serve the queen. Because you know what happened to dead the New York saved up. He saved up to buy a down jacket from LL Bean , it was all the money he had. Okay, this was back you know, back in the dark days where you had to break in your to punch through your glass to get in that night into your apartment. And he saved up and finally it came and his land his super stole it from him. And he could see the wearing it. And then I said Dan, you got to confront that motherfucker, he said I won’t because what the super was involved in was a queen bee scenario where he and her other men were about four or five people who lived in his apartment. You know, his two bedroom and they all served the queen. A woman sexually and so Dan said any guy who’s got himself in a queen bee scenario four women and living there and that guy and they’re not or four guys and a girl. They’re serving her the queen bee, he didn’t want to get involved in that. And so we let him we had to watch him wear the down jacket. The whole winter while we huddled together for warmth.

 

Jessica St. Clair  15:12

Wow, I do understand on a level why it’s best not to enter into that conversation.

 

Jessica St. Clair  15:20

It’s like, they’re involved in that shadow work like, yeah, I don’t want to know.

 

Jessica St. Clair  15:25

I want to keep my distance. You know, I was actually just asked recently to, to join as a guest on a podcast about ghosts. And they, they, you know, in the email, they said, like, well, you don’t actually have to have a ghost story. And you just like we even talk about other ghost stories you’ve heard doesn’t have to be your own and this and that.

 

Jessica St. Clair  15:43

No.

 

June Diane Raphael  15:44

And I was like, what, it’s a polite pass, and I had to, you know, write my manager and say, like, I don’t want to, I don’t want to open up the door to the other realm.

 

Jessica St. Clair  15:58

You don’t want to dabble in the dark arts. And that’s understandable.

 

Jessica St. Clair  16:03

I’d like to send the message to the ghosts that I’m not available for conversations.

 

Jessica St. Clair  16:10

I respect them, I tip my hat to them, I tip my hat to them.

 

June Diane Raphael  16:16

That’s right.

 

Jessica St. Clair  16:16

But I don’t want to visitation I don’t need to be in there.

 

Jessica St. Clair  16:20

And the first person who told me this, and she’s a deep dive listener was my friend but the resume and this who said, when we were in college together, she said, I truly don’t care if it goes to sitting right next to me right now. What I don’t want is any sort of interaction.

 

Jessica St. Clair  16:39

And they respect that. I really do feel like they respect us.

 

Jessica St. Clair  16:43

Those girls really want firm boundaries, and so I’m like, you know, I’m not gonna go on a podcast and open myself up now to visitors, I’m just.

 

Jessica St. Clair  16:57

I told you my friend about this bogeys, like she just brought it up again, she said I had a back pain and then I didn’t get again.

 

June Diane Raphael  17:04

Jessica, I worry, I worry at this point, guys that were telling the same stories.

 

Jessica St. Clair  17:08

I know, and when I had another one, sorry, but I have one other.

 

June Diane Raphael  17:12

I’ve never heard this, C sharp fart story […] Remember that? Never heard that.

 

Jessica St. Clair  17:20

It’s one of my best.

 

June Diane Raphael  17:22

Was it so high? Because you were holding it back?

 

Jessica St. Clair  17:25

Sometimes they just come out that way, they come at me of course back then this was when I was 24. You know, my my buttons were probably more lifted. And now they come out and it’s like, you know, you can’t stop it. You know, you can’t stop it, there’s no holding it, I try, I say I try to hold it with Dan. I’m like, I, it’s that time has passed for me. This is all to say keep your firm boundaries up when it comes to the other side.

 

June Diane Raphael  17:56

That’s right, and again, I will pay someone I swear fucking God if you can find me that footage of Jessica on all my children. Send me a Venmo you’re gonna get a little treat from me.

 

Jessica St. Clair  18:08

Okay, you gotta find it. It was must have been before 2000 it was like, oh, yeah, we’re talking 2000.

 

June Diane Raphael  18:14

Okay, great.

 

Jessica St. Clair  18:15

Yeah, all right, guys.

 

June Diane Raphael  18:17

We have such a treat coming, we really do, and I just before we have probably about five more minutes, but before oh, God, Bingo is up here. Bingo is up and ready to rock. God, I can’t wait to get my hands on the stock.

 

Jessica St. Clair  18:32

Can we wait for the accountability on the migraine?

 

June Diane Raphael  18:35

Okay, he’s licking the mic. If you heard a lick, as a little lick.

 

Jessica St. Clair  18:40

If you heard a lick of that mic.

 

June Diane Raphael  18:41

Jess, I just want to tell you something because we were about to have on they’ll say Sloane, it’s such a treat. You’re gonna love it. Boy, do we hit some topics that I was not expecting, but she’s talking she talks about one of her hobbies and I just have to update you before we you know, pass it over to this beautiful conversation. I just have to update you. I don’t know if you know that I am studying piano.

 

Jessica St. Clair  19:07

What?

 

June Diane Raphael  19:09

Yeah, yeah.

 

Jessica St. Clair  19:11

What?

 

June Diane Raphael  19:12

I’m studying piano. Wonderful, and I love it. I was away this weekend I purchased a beautiful it is a keyboard but like it’s really wonderful. And there it’s actually looks great in the house, it’s not like a stamp like I bought, I’ll be posting a picture of it, I absolutely love it. My son started piano lessons and I was like, I want piano lessons. Now I’m gonna tell you just for my perimenopause, brain fog, etc. Right brain left brain that I’m doing right hand. I mean, at one point she said both hands at the same time and I just want to tell you, I wanted to like a melt like my brain like exploded like I was like, Oh, yay.

 

Jessica St. Clair  19:54

Isn’t that interesting? Because I learned as a child, and that’s when your brain actually works. For you to be learning, I do, I do and.

 

June Diane Raphael  20:04

Well, what can’t you do? What can’t you be honest? Jessica St. Clair […]

 

Jessica St. Clair  20:10

One more story I just thought Carl, Carl Warren Brower was here at 9am. I was telling him that in my senior year, we had a, an acting class that we all called crying for credit. And we had to get ourselves to cry in front of our professor in order to get an A. And we would do these like exercises, so one was of the […] which was he would pile all of this is kind of like brick a brack on in a pile and then we had to go bananas and contact our anger. And I’ll never forget my best friend Mike Doyle, taking one of those old fashioned wooden, you know, tennis rackets and then hacking it to bits. And I was like, do we stop it? He’s gonna hurt himself. You know, Daddy didn’t care, you know? And then the opposite was the crying one, and I got myself to such a state.

 

June Diane Raphael  21:03

Oh, no.

 

Jessica St. Clair  21:07

I saw in the corner of my eye and upright piano and I stumbled to it in this date, and I just started playing the one song I know by heart, which is his rich […]

 

June Diane Raphael  21:30

Standing […]

 

Jessica St. Clair  21:33

Yeah, so like, that’s what learning how to play the piano and your childhood will get you ultimately, is that kind of humiliation publicly that disease 25 or whatever it was, I stumbled over, that wasn’t.

 

June Diane Raphael  21:49

Comedy, this wasn’t a bit this was like, oh, I’m no, I’m actually now I’m letting out my sadness.

 

Jessica St. Clair  21:54

Yeah, so be careful where this takes.

 

Jessica St. Clair  21:58

I will right now, I’m just plugging away working on my scales, you know, and I do feel like it’s very, it’s been very good for my brain.

 

Jessica St. Clair  22:06

But also you get into a meditative state. I think that anything that can take us away from what the present is, is a good thing.

 

Jessica St. Clair  22:18

It’s a great thing, it’s a great thing, and I’m loving it, it’s nice to have a hobby, wonderful, wonderful, deep divers. We have a very special guest Dulce Sloan, who’s joining us for a conversation. I really think you’re gonna love it, so stick around, and yeah, we’ll see on the other side.

 

Jessica St. Clair  24:57

Okay Jessica, we have a very special guests, coming on.

 

Jessica St. Clair  25:01

No, she’s a feast for the eyes, I’ll tell you that.

 

June Diane Raphael  25:03

She really isn’t, there’s a there’s actually a specific photo I need to talk to her about that is in her book, Hello Friends stories of dating destiny and day job, day jobs. It’s Dulce Sloan folks., and she’s here, buddies with that. She’s ready, yes and I have no I don’t think I’ve seen those, I want to just like, get into the book for two seconds, and we’re gonna go all over the place, and there’s going to be no rhyme or reason.

 

Jessica St. Clair  25:30

No thread, no threads.

 

Jessica St. Clair  25:32

I’ve ever seen a cover that has been, I know, you know, nobody wants to talk about covers of books we’re supposed to talk about the content, and we’ll get into it but I just don’t know that I’ve ever seen a cover, that’s grabbed me.

 

Dulce Sloan  25:46

Listen, I’m all about judging. And I want you to judge this book by its cover. We’ve been told not to do this, but again, not to the inspiration for the cover of the book was old school glamour shots.

 

Jessica St. Clair  26:03

Oh, god, yes, that’s exactly what it looks like. By the way, your boobs have never looked better. Like I don’t know to me, it was like a message that we need to be getting our boobs out there more.

 

Dulce Sloan  26:17

Yes.

 

Jessica St. Clair  26:18

And displaying them as the gift that they are to the world. So that’s where I would say.

 

Dulce Sloan  26:24

I wear a lot of sheer clothing, or latterly, shirts.

 

Jessica St. Clair  26:29

Bring that back.

 

Dulce Sloan  26:30

I got my eggs retrieved in 2022. And for some reason, I started wearing crop tops, because I was never learned like I would wear like a two piece bathing suit, like at the beach, but I never have like my stomach out, and I think just stabbing myself with two to four needles, directly into my stomach.

 

Jessica St. Clair  26:54

In your kitchen, we have always stabbing myself with needles in my.

 

Dulce Sloan  26:58

Fucking bathroom, I’m mixing up medicine like a chemist. And I literally started I have like a minute hour I’m talking about it. But it’s like I was literally in my bath, and you know, you do the tapping thing.

 

Jessica St. Clair  27:10

Gotta tap it.

 

Dulce Sloan  27:11

And I was like, I’m sitting there going, I have a theater degree. Why is somebody letting me do this?

 

Jessica St. Clair  27:17

Why am I going to this? Why am I going to a compounding pharmacy? Picking things up that are like you better keep this on nice. I’m like I what I should have brought dry, like what are we? What is my job?

 

June Diane Raphael  27:30

And it shouldn’t be and I just want to say it and give you a proper introduction because deep divers if you don’t know her already, she’s a correspondent on The Daily Show. She co hosts hold up the podcast and she is is truly hailed as one of our most our most exciting comedians that we have.

 

Dulce Sloan  27:48

Thank you.

 

June Diane Raphael  27:49

I’m thrilled to have her on but I just want to say because because actually they’ll say we just talked about egg freezing and so I’m so glad that we’re because I hadn’t never frozen my eggs but I have been through the process with with my nearest and dearest. And I do find it honestly to be like almost malpractice to send women home I’m dead serious send ruling where it’s feels criminal and so dangerous.

 

Dulce Sloan  28:19

But also, I think that’s why you have to give your shot self a shot just directly like it’s a very short needle. And you just have to give yourself a shot intellect just your stomach, right? Because it was like if you were asking us to find a vein, we would kill ourselves because you are like we bought blood drawn and then looked up and had like blood pooling on our elbow, because these are these are professionals, right and me over here with my degree and zip zap zop.

 

Jessica St. Clair  28:51

Which I read through in the book.

 

Dulce Sloan  28:53

You got notes on zip sapping and he made me laugh so hard. […]  but like it’s so I’m in my because here’s the thing. You have to for those for those listeners who have not had to go through the process of egg retrieval. One I talked about it in the book, the reason I got wait, no, I didn’t mention it because I was like, it wasn’t it wasn’t one of the funny stories, I didn’t include it. But the reason I got my eggs frozen because Eva Longoria told me to.

 

Jessica St. Clair  29:28

A Julia Louis Dreyfus told me to get pregnant and I did it. Bless these women, bless these women.

 

Dulce Sloan  29:35

Right, so I just turned 40, and the top of the thing is like, I didn’t get enough eggs. And they’re like, you need to do this again and I was just like, but the first time I did I got suicidal so can I not do this?

 

Jessica St. Clair  29:47

Nobody talks about the hormonal like, no one’s there.

 

Dulce Sloan  29:50

Like it’ll be gone in two weeks. No, it’s not, no, it’s not, also if takes first of all it takes into your next period to get mostly out of your system. The no one talks about the fact that the shape of your body changes.

 

Jessica St. Clair  30:03

Yeah, yeah.

 

Dulce Sloan  30:04

So like, I got hips that I didn’t used to have, I’m not mad about the hips. I’m a black person we like curvy stuff but I was like these like the hips that came out the womb with it, if I catch a baby, I’m gonna be built like for hourglasses. I’m gonna be four and a half hours, when I finally catch his kid, if these is the hips that the medicine gave me, right.

 

Jessica St. Clair  30:20

That’s right.

 

Dulce Sloan  30:21

And that was almost two years ago, these hips ain’t worn off yet. And the way in your weights because like, my stylus was like your weight moved around.

 

Jessica St. Clair  30:29

Yeah, that’s, well, you’re like the whole bright like, way it moves and travels.

 

Dulce Sloan  30:36

Oh, cuz they put me through, the doctor told me to lose all this weight because of the anesthesia, I went to another doctor, and she was like, no, you’re fine, and then I start taking the medicine and the medicine made me gain the weight back.

 

Jessica St. Clair  30:47

Yeah, that’s right. Like you’d already lost.

 

Dulce Sloan  30:50

To be able to do it, and then I did it, and they’re like, oh, no, you’re fine. And then I was like, Yo, and then you’re sitting on like, mixing saline with powder. And I’m like, but if you push this powder down.

 

Jessica St. Clair  31:01

Trained, they’re not trained.

 

Dulce Sloan  31:03

Not trained, they show you they have a video of some woman stabbing herself and like, okay, we watch this 17 times, then it’s like, if I’m putting saline in the powder why can’t I just take the powder? Like you remember BC powder that came in? They came in the gum wrapper, you just shake it in the mouth, right? One dip, I got a fun dip that they have medicine? Why did I have to mix this up? You see what I’m saying?

 

Jessica St. Clair  31:27

Freak you out.

 

Dulce Sloan  31:29

People go to schools and just say, this is the jump on it, let us move on, this is the dumbest thing, so you know that pen that you have to use, so there’s the one medicine and then there’s another medicine that looks like an epi pen, right? And so what you have to do is this little like a giant marker, and you pull the back of this pin out to get to the dosage of your medicine. And then you stab yourself. And then you have to push the back of it, and now there’s numbers that count down to zero, right? And the lady says to me, she said, No, make sure you get down to zero. Because if you don’t, then you’ll have to stick yourself again. And I’m doing it, and by the third night, I realized that if you turn the pin to look at the numbers, you can see the numbers go down to zero. And I was like why aren’t you telling women.

 

June Diane Raphael  32:22

To turn it around.

 

Dulce Sloan  32:23

To turn it around? To see the numbers, to see it go down to zero and then no one would have to stick themselves. And I said it to the nurse and she was like, good idea for patients. So everybody needs to go to jail.

 

Jessica St. Clair  32:38

Honey, do you know the amount of times to attend to a very high level doctor and have them say back to me? No, I never thought about that.

 

Dulce Sloan  32:47

That the good idea.

 

Jessica St. Clair  32:49

I’m like, ah, and I’m not good in science or math, I failed both. So if I’m coming up with some creative solution.

 

Dulce Sloan  32:57

We’ve got problems.

 

Jessica St. Clair  32:58

We got problem.

 

Dulce Sloan  33:01

Honestly, there’s not enough women in STEM […]

 

Jessica St. Clair  33:06

We’ll see my daughter I can tell you she said the other day I said I made a I said something to BB she’s 10 I said which by the way, thank God I got her because when they tried to get eggs out of me twice did work.

 

Dulce Sloan  33:20

I’m so sorry, Jessica man just walked into the room. Oh man has walked into the room. And I mean, I don’t hate that generally, but if a man walks into my room, it’s my brother.

 

Jessica St. Clair  33:28

I know, we don’t want this man.

 

Jessica St. Clair  33:31

Paul, an enemy of the states arrived, I’m recording.

 

Jessica St. Clair  33:34

Get out.

 

June Diane Raphael  33:36

I’m so sorry.

 

Kia Smith  33:38

It’s fine, I’m just happy to see that someone’s happy.

 

June Diane Raphael  33:42

I am so sorry Jessica please.

 

Jessica St. Clair  33:45

Oh, no I, don’t even know what to say about […] No, listen, girls in STEM, yes because the only doctors I trust are women. Can I just say something though, about girls in STEM because I was sort of of the generation of like, Barbie saying math is hard.

 

June Diane Raphael  34:02

Yeah.

 

Jessica St. Clair  34:06

So there was, there was a Barbie doll.

 

Kia Smith  34:08

We’re not that far apart in age. I don’t know how I don’t remember this, I’m 44.

 

Jessica St. Clair  34:13

Yeah, so obviously your mother kept you away from such damaging. Well, I also do think that there you know, there were I think that white girls in particular were Barbie was marketed to us in a very, very serious way, aggressive way.

 

Kia Smith  34:31

Yeah, because I remember when Barbie came out with a lot of Soul Train Barbies.

 

Jessica St. Clair  34:35

Yes.

 

Dulce Sloan  34:36

That was Soul Train shot she actually I think they had a whole different lines had a different name, she was actually a Barbie, yeah.

 

Jessica St. Clair  34:43

Exactly, so Barbies were definitely like for white girls and they didn’t they don’t like credit card didn’t touch this in the movie, but there was a moment where Barbie there was a talking Barbie and when you pulled her and she was like a school Barbie Like she went to school, and you pulled her string, and she said, math is hard.

 

Kia Smith  35:07

Okay, and she’s not wrong, but also she’s not right.

 

June Diane Raphael  35:14

But I truly and there was like some outrage about it, but ultimately, I was like, oh, math is hard, and I definitely remember the moment I like remember the hormonal moment of sitting in class. And for our listeners, don’t Facebook really, like, is so immersive in terms of like, the school years that you write about? And like, I mean, you’re you’re talking about also, racism and being a black girl growing up and having these also white teachers who hate you for no good reason. And so I will not compare my experience, but I will say there was so much about your school. Writing that was so immersive and I was like, oh my god, I do I remember sitting in these classrooms and the girls who fought you for no reason, and once you did fight, you knew, you’d now consistently have to fight like just oh, God, it was like it took me back

 

Jessica St. Clair  36:13

Or hiding, this is what I my daughter said to me, like, were you always funny? And I said, well, I was but I hid it. I had to hide it in order to get a boyfriend.

 

June Diane Raphael  36:26

Of course, oh.

 

Kia Smith  36:29

Of course, I never had never had one.

 

Jessica St. Clair  36:32

Because you were so fucking funny.

 

Kia Smith  36:34

Was that because I was fucking funny is because I was the fat girl, and so boys didn’t want people to want boys to know what doesn’t want people to know that they liked me or like, if this is the thing if I was if I could just think back if I could be like high school fat. That’s our supermodel. Was the fat, I saw a picture of myself at 14, and I was like one no one no grown men hit on me.

 

Jessica St. Clair  37:01

I will better.

 

Kia Smith  37:04

Never just because I looked I was like my I thought my boobs were huge. And I was looking at my support, my boobs were so small. Why I didn’t have D cups when I started high school, but listen.

 

Jessica St. Clair  37:16

I so related to that, though, because I’m five, nine and a half. And I was a woman 10 I was a woman I was fighting I have at 10 years old, I was towering over my teachers. And again, I encourage everybody to buy hello friends, because it will take you back to sitting in those classrooms. It will take you back. But I have such a memory of sitting in that math classroom and identifying as like a girl who was good at math, I was good at math. And then sitting there and I don’t know what happened with my hormones or puberty or just internalizing math is hard from Barbie. But all of a sudden in sixth grade I was like math is hard.

 

Dulce Sloan  37:56

That’s that’s when the letters showed up.

 

June Diane Raphael  37:58

Oh, yeah.

 

Jessica St. Clair  38:01

Letters.

 

Jessica St. Clair  38:02

You’ll have to remember all those crazy studies though, about how you know if if girls have to identify as girls before taking math tests, their scores go down like 30%. And don’t fact check this, it’s all wrong, but significantly?

 

Jessica St. Clair  38:17

Well, you know, what I heard is that girls and boys are the same in terms of aptitude in math, in terms of our genetics, right? But then girls are actually usually more gifted verbally than boys. They take longer to mature because girls are quote better at English. They start saying I’m better at English than math, I’m not good at math.

 

Jessica St. Clair  38:44

Yeah, I mean, I absolutely did that. And I actually like, I mean, Jess, you’ve seen some of my math work as an adult.

 

Jessica St. Clair  38:50

It’s wonderful.

 

June Diane Raphael  38:51

I think I’m pretty good.

 

Dulce Sloan  38:53

It’s a math as a grown up.

 

Jessica St. Clair  38:55

Oh god, why am I doing math as a grown up I’ll tell you that.

 

Jessica St. Clair  39:46

You painting a wall.

 

Jessica St. Clair  39:49

She does the facts and figures of the Deep Dive Academy.

 

Jessica St. Clair  40:22

We’re actually in my craft room, and I don’t know if you notice there is.

 

Jessica St. Clair  42:20

Oh God, oh, this is scratching an itch for me right now.

 

Jessica St. Clair  42:27

We go into another one with that cricket, we’re all talking at the same time. I’m so sorry, no this is an audio media. What are you working on right now?

 

Kia Smith  42:34

I can tell you one of my favorite things is I have taken Oh no, we can’t say that on this podcast. So I enjoy taking song lyrics and putting them in a visual into a visual media.

 

Jessica St. Clair  42:49

So is that the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life.

 

June Diane Raphael  42:52

Wow.

 

Jessica St. Clair  42:53

You created that?

 

Kia Smith  42:55

Yeah, so they like cricket has like different images. And so what actually had to do was like, it’s two young people in a silhouette, but I had to find pictures of black people. So I had to make like a little um, and so it’s a song lyric. And it’s a young it’s for those of you who can’t see this because this is an audio medium.

 

June Diane Raphael  43:14

I just took a screen grab, I might have to post it if you’re okay with that.

 

Kia Smith  43:17

Thank you, and so it is a young lady holding hands with a young man and it says, if you break my heart, I will date your father.

 

Jessica St. Clair  43:29

Listen, if the comedy thing doesn’t work out at sea is calling because of.

 

Kia Smith  43:34

That song where other than let’s see, there’s another one was one woman on the phone talking to another woman. And it was like in like a 1950s style. And one saying broke boys don’t deserve no pussy, and the other one says, I know that’s right.

 

June Diane Raphael  43:54

I’m gonna photograph this one as well.

 

Jessica St. Clair  43:58

Tell me about crafting first.

 

June Diane Raphael  44:01

Tell me the process.

 

Jessica St. Clair  44:02

Tell me about how because I find that I’m so career focused in a way that I don’t quite frankly want to be, I think it’s just my fear of not having money for food that I don’t believe I deserve time to craft.

 

Kia Smith  44:17

This is my favorite, this is from one of my favorite songs called knock if you book and this is a very classic art nouveau woman whose hair swirling around her. And the caption says, I come in the club shaking my dreads throwing these bowls and busting these heads, and so.

 

June Diane Raphael  44:33

Yes.

 

Jessica St. Clair  44:37

Are you doing this? When are you doing your craft your secret craft.

 

Kia Smith  44:42

As a spoon falls to the floor. Um, these are all the things that I made. I made all of these like during I don’t know if you heard of the pandemic we weren’t a panty dropper, we weren’t a Panda Express we were in a panorama. So I there’s two of those that I won’t put up because you know rap lyrics of the N word in them, and I don’t want to do that to y’all. So I’m not gonna throw that up, but they’re very funny, um, but I find time to do it because it’s like, I’ve made a point like I’ve been crafting since I was a kid, and so my mother would get me like these little crafting kits, and so I had like, the easy to do fashion machine and I had like the fashion plates and I would make scrunchies and all kinds of things of that nature, and then as I got older, I started like making like custom gifts for my friends when they got engaged because I went to a women’s I went to a white women’s college. So I went to five weddings my senior year of college, and I would make like gifts for them, and then as I got older, I needed like a job, and so I would make I started I had a jewelry business and then I started doing kids birthday parties and doing so it’s something that I’ve always done, but it’s I’m one of those people that’s like I do kind of like everything so like I bought a knitting machine. I have a cricket, um, my mom does custom T shirts for people.

 

Jessica St. Clair  46:06

I love that, your love language. It’s sort of your love language.

 

Kia Smith  46:10

Yes, so a man who was lying to me I made him a gift. We no longer speak to him. He’s because I don’t know if you give me nicknames, but I do, he’s been dubbed the liar. But I made um, my mother got one of the try like candlemaking and so I made for him. These wax melts because he has children so he doesn’t like have a lit candle in his house. So maybe these wax melts that are like a weed scented, I guess I don’t smoke weed, I don’t know but I always felt like what I know. And then I use glass etching, I don’t know if you’ve ever used anything called like armor edge, and so I prayed like this monogram kind of manly looking, scholarly shield type of situation, and then etch that onto the glass container that the wax melts read.

 

Jessica St. Clair  46:58

That’s beautiful, he didn’t deserve that. No, he doesn’t.

 

Kia Smith  47:02

No, he doesn’t but let’s just say that he wakes up everyday not talking to me anymore, so that’s punishment enough.

 

June Diane Raphael  47:08

It sure is, wow, I’m inspired, I’m inspired. I mean, I am not a crafter, I’ve I look at it from afar, and I think wow, to spend time you talk about self care in the book, but like to spend that that’s real, that’s a real commitment, that’s a real investment in just your own like hobby, yeah admire.

 

Kia Smith  47:33

Thank you, I have, like one of my friends went to the Beyonce concert, and she’s like, sis you know, we’re all doing like silver Renaissance, and so I like and so she had some hooping, I said she had some glasses and some humor, and I was like, I got a giant bucket of rhinestones, let’s go, right let’s let’s go let’s are writing up some earrings from her and I write up some glasses for her. I was doing like, I got away. A really old Hollywood kind of situation. Anything is out to people actually. So I started like, like the old school turbans?

 

Jessica St. Clair  48:08

Yeah.

 

Dulce Sloan  48:11

Um, and so I started buying like these big brooches and going them onto like.

 

June Diane Raphael  48:16

Oh, that’s gorgeous.

 

Dulce Sloan  48:17

These old school turtle.

 

June Diane Raphael  48:19

That’s gorgeous.

 

Dulce Sloan  48:20

So you just ever want to look like you’re just out here just looking rich and like because, June I can tell you I love seeing you and Grayson, Frankie because when I tell you you look expensive […] You look x what I appreciate about you.

 

June Diane Raphael  48:39

Thank you so much.

 

Dulce Sloan  48:40

Yeah, I got like a giant bucket of like, just rhinestones and brochures and shit. And I have all kinds of, I have a lot of stuff because like one of them I’m supposed to be making this acoustical morehart it’s so just literally just a huge red brooch.

 

Jessica St. Clair  48:56

Oh god, that’s true. You got that at like a secondhand store […]

 

Kia Smith  49:03

No wholesale, wholesale Michaels. This thing right here, Michael’s gonna be $15 you go down to the wholesale place? Four bucks, let’s stick that on there.

 

Jessica St. Clair  49:13

Fuck, that’s hot.

 

Dulce Sloan  49:14

Damn, and so I had a whole bucket full of I got a whole thing full of brochures that are organized or I’ll take necklaces and take them apart, and do those also I got into doing like resin jewelry got really big, and so I have like these rings that I made, so like a little actually a father because I didn’t have a mole to do a leaf […] So I actually took like a green feather and then just molded it into a leaf, it’s kind of too big and then like there’s a split as far as one.

 

June Diane Raphael  49:47

Gorgeous.

 

Jessica St. Clair  49:50

Okay, I love that you’re, you’re putting so much beauty in the world.

 

Kia Smith  49:54

Thank you.

 

Jessica St. Clair  49:56

I really appreciate this and I’m inspired by it. I has also made me wonder you know Jessica and I went to Miami last year we went to Miami last year and I brought a turbans they’ll say brought it, a leopard turbans, okay I well I’m gonna tell you what happened and now I’m now that I’m seeing these turbans I’m rethinking it all so I had a turban and I planned on wearing it poolside with a black deep V bathing suit like real okay like I’m I’m yeah.

 

Jessica St. Clair  50:30

I’m telling you that he was like to the bellybutton deep.

 

June Diane Raphael  50:36

I love that, okay, and then I had and then I was like I’m gonna wear these with high heel speed drills and I’m gonna wear a turban.

 

Jessica St. Clair  50:45

Yes, did you change.

 

June Diane Raphael  50:47

You know what I bailed, I bailed I got scared, I got.

 

Jessica St. Clair  50:52

Well a turban requires.

 

Jessica St. Clair  50:55

I felt it was very me and mentally I couldn’t that day were off. I wasn’t, I wasn’t ready for it.

 

Kia Smith  51:03

So like for listeners if you’re looking for like when I’m when we say turban. What we’re saying is like the small beauty supply store. Old school like if you Google the old school turban hat that many of them. Also we have to remember like if you look at like the 1930s 1940s type of rich woman she’s coming down in just a full toll road. It has no warmth whatsoever. She has on a just very.

 

Jessica St. Clair  51:32

A high heel.

 

Dulce Sloan  51:33

A high here in high heeled slipper inside her home, she cleans nothing. She’s pure opulent. And she has a turban on. And so what I started doing, I was like, I love this style. And so I literally went to the whole full place. And I got when I tell you I have a bad.

 

Jessica St. Clair  51:55

Okay, so I will say I’m going to commission you because I have a loved one who’s going through chemo right now. Oh, and, and she loves a brooch. She’s a huge pin and brooch person, why are we putting a brooch on our heads? This is a great idea, I’m commissioning you.

 

June Diane Raphael  52:13

I just want to say thank you, it’s also for bringing bringing wholesale because I don’t know if I told you this, Jessica but my father was a construction worker in New York City and he did not have a wholesale license.

 

Jessica St. Clair  52:26

He didn’t stop him.

 

June Diane Raphael  52:28

That never stopped him.

 

Kia Smith  52:29

The design could stop him from doing anything.

 

June Diane Raphael  52:32

So he would only shop for us at wholesale stores. So what would happen is he would bring home for me and my sisters like 36 yoyos the year of slap bracelets, like 175 Slap bracelet.

 

Dulce Sloan  52:55

Honestly?

 

June Diane Raphael  52:58

We only shopped wholesale you have I have two older sisters, but he had he had sort of like he had developed this relationship with this one wholesale store, downtown in New York wherever he was trying to town and he they never questioned him. So they assumed he had a whole sale certificate or license or whatever, he was supposed to have to be purchasing these things. And then nobody ever asked him you know, so.

 

Dulce Sloan  53:27

I think you’re spending less than 100 bucks.

 

June Diane Raphael  53:30

They don’t care.

 

Dulce Sloan  53:31

I tried to show up and a lady was like that.

 

June Diane Raphael  53:34

Exactly, and you know what, there’s the discount is so deep are we now are we putting it at like 50% are we putting it at 60%? I mean, that is a deep discount.

 

Kia Smith  53:46

You know those fans like just the old school?

 

June Diane Raphael  53:48

Yeah.

 

Dulce Sloan  53:49

Very cheap dollar fan. I buy them by the dozen, I picked us. Listen, I used to have a car that talks about the one I’m talking about in the book, the Pontiac that was a had 280,000 miles on it was leaking oil and transmission fluid. So I started dating the mechanic. That car had no air conditioning, and so I started with.

 

Jessica St. Clair  54:13

My Rav 4 for my fucking Rav 4, I would show up to auditions just drenched in sweat. Like, what are you going to do?

 

Dulce Sloan  54:18

And this is Georgia, so.

 

Jessica St. Clair  54:20

God help us.

 

Dulce Sloan  54:21

When it first started when I first got to have like, AC and then eventually she you know just she conked out. And so I am. I would like get these fans just to have like some type of just respite when I’m sitting in traffic. And so I was like, Oh, I could just get a couple of these fat and the lady was like, you just buy a dozen and it’s like $8 and I was like say less. Now maybe the car would be so hot that the glue which are starting to they didn’t last long because it was like sometimes the glue would just get warm and the fabric would just flail and just like.

 

June Diane Raphael  54:55

But here’s the great thing you had you had 11 more.

 

Dulce Sloan  54:58

I had 11 more.

 

June Diane Raphael  54:59

You want to 11 more, after that one, after that one went, also. So thank you so much for coming on to the podcast, I could talk to you forever one at a time. I also just did this with the book for every woman and we’ve so many female listeners who’s ever felt like they’re too much and been told, there are a lot. I’ve been told they’re intimidating. There’s so much in here in this book for you, for us. And I really deeply resonated with that you have one line, you’re quoting someone else, what were you say? People was telling me I’m intimidating, but it’s their issue, they are the ones that are struggling with being intimidated, like, why is that my problem? Anyway, I was like, certain flash, you know, certain light bulbs are going off for me. I really loved it, it’s such a fun read. Don’t say where can we find you? Obviously deep divers go, and I want to say this about indie bookstores, you call that bookstore and you say I want this book, they will get it for you.

 

Jessica St. Clair  56:04

That’s absolutely I did that.

 

June Diane Raphael  56:05

They will get it for you. Oh, okay, so just call them and get it get they’re gonna do it. Don’t worry about it.

 

Jessica St. Clair  56:12

And then, then the book is there, too […]

 

Kia Smith  56:19

I didn’t want to say that I wrote the book. I’m glad it sounded to you how I wanted it to sound because I wanted it when I was writing it. I wanted it to sound like a conversation. So I wanted to sound like, okay girl was hey, what happened yesterday? Or okay, what happened was like, it’s really.

 

Jessica St. Clair  56:41

But that’s hard to do, that’s hard to do.

 

June Diane Raphael  56:44

We tell me again, because I remember you seeing you, I don’t know if it was on the Today Show. I had the TV on the other day. You talked about the original title for the book, what was it? […]

 

Kia Smith  56:54

Only 39.

 

June Diane Raphael  56:58

You said the publishers wouldn’t let you.

 

Dulce Sloan  57:00

They wouldn’t let me, what are you talking about? I don’t want to be like don’t call them anymore. I’m only 39 like, how dare you have only been alive for 40 years. I’m only on Elizabeth Taylor’s fourth marriage like why would I call this funny? Indeterminate woman’s life, she has happened she married Richard Burton just taking up No Man’s whole lifetime. So I really wanted to go, hey, don’t call it a memoir, because I like your memoir, like the nerve for me to write a memoir. I was looking at Toys and a story yesterday, they say I’m 40 we’re only chronologically, the only part of my body that knows I’m 40 is my ovaries. The rest of me is like oh toys, so like, don’t do that. I really wanted to call it that and like.

 

Jessica St. Clair  57:43

You just bought a dozen fans, like a fan.

 

Kia Smith  57:46

Doesn’t turn, like you can’t pay the light bill, so.

 

June Diane Raphael  57:52

God that made me laugh.

 

Dulce Sloan  57:54

Thank but I really been they were like, well, you and they’re like, well, you can’t tell people what it’s not. And I’m like, they know what’s a book. So I’m on the social medias, I’m on the internet, at DulceSloan, D U L C E S L O A N at those things loan on everything. I also, just for a shameless plug. I was I have a lip gloss business with a media player called Google blas.

 

Jessica St. Clair  58:25

Needs to have all of it like it will need to come back onto fully disclosed.

 

Kia Smith  58:30

Okay, oh yeah all the names are comedic names. Go to google.com, you can see it. After we get off the call, I’m gonna pack an order because when I tell you that the fulfillment center sometimes it’s usually my house.

 

Jessica St. Clair  58:44

It’s always our house. You have to understand this shit we’re up to a June’s house. It’s always June’s.

 

Dulce Sloan  58:50

I love a small business. I love just really just making things at home when our friends is making statements at our kitchen I had to go hey, you know you need a license if this is edible. She’s like, well, I gotta shut this down. No, no. Problem jars I said, did you get a commercial kitchen? She’s like what you mean and I was like, man, if people have to eat something is more regulated that they just put it on their skin or make a face masks or you shut the shit down.

 

Jessica St. Clair  59:19

Oh, thank you, they’ll say deep divers. We will see you next week, again, Dulce’s book is out and about get it wherever books are sold, and especially shout out to indie booksellers who need our business more than ever talk about a small, small business, Hello friends stories of dating destiny and day jobs. We’ll see you next week.

 

Dulce Sloan  59:40

Bye, thank you for having me.

 

CREDITS  1:00:19

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