Remembering Dolly Parton's Musical and Philanthropic Legacy

23:13administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. So you tell a story when you were a little kid, your mom caught you standing too close to the TV. I remember that time staring at Dolly Parton, like many black Americans, Dolly Parton drew you in. She also collaborated with black artists, Beyonce, Patti LaValle, Queen Latifah, among others. Talk about that because it's also, that was another thing at Dollywood. It was so racially mixed. I've never seen a more racially mixed group of people in one place, in a place I did not expect it to happen, right?

23:45Tressie McMillan Cottom:Like, that's the thing. Well, country music and Black popular music have something in common. And I've written about this before. In some ways, country music and hip-hop music are the two genres most obsessed with authenticity, right? They police who is legitimately, authentically country, authentically hip-hop, you know, as their primary obligation to the culture. and of a genre where authenticity means everything, Dolly Parton was the most authentic. I think what I was really responding to her as a child was this is a person who, yes, there's a lot of artifice, right? There's a lot of smoke and mirrors.

24:25Tressie McMillan Cottom:But there was something undeniably authentic about her presentation of herself that did not have to be like my presentation of herself. She didn't have to be black. She never tried to sing R &B. I always love this about her. Like she would partner with these audiences, but never tried to sound like them, which can be a little condescending, right? The idea that you could come into somebody's genre and own it, right? She never did that. No matter what she did, she did hers. She never tried to blow out her voice. She never did big runs. She never tried to be, you know. I just saw her do come to my window, and I'd never heard it that way.

25:01And it was not the way – she was doing it with Melissa Esseridge, but she was the lead singer, which I was like, oh, look at that.

25:08Tressie McMillan Cottom:I saw her singing with a South African band. Oh, yeah, Black Lady Mambas. Yeah, she's in the pocket. But again, not trying at all to sort of do a mimicry of the culture. And I'm telling you something, Black audiences love, love when artists respect us enough to come into our culture and not try to mimic us. You know, one of the, you know, you talk to black artists, you know, from the 50s and the 60s where it's this really big push for them to quote unquote cross over to the mainstream. And those artists would say, you know, why do white audiences never cross over to us? And in Dolly's respectful engagement with them, she did.

25:48Tressie McMillan Cottom:She would go, no, I'm crossing over to you and I'm going to act like a guest in your home, but I'm also going to do my thing. And I think that really resonated with us and why we gave her so much credit. You know, people tried to make black audiences doubt whether she was really, whether she was really about it, you know, all of that. We all just said, no, we're going to let Dolly cook. We trust what she's doing. And I think that's why. What do you think her legacy will be? A lot of people have had different reactions. I just had Caitlin Collins on my pivot show. And she was like, I just feel like I got to live at the same time that she got to live.

26:21I feel very good about that. Another person was like, I think it's going to have an impact on politics. because people, they're like, I feel woken up, like suddenly, like I've had it with this because the contrast of Trump is so incredible. Does she have an effect? And what do you think it will be?

26:39Tressie McMillan Cottom:We've just been in this, you know, this Trump moment, this moment for so long, it starts to feel like normal. And it does sometimes, it does take an external shock to just go, wait a minute. No, the water's gotten really effing hot, right? We're boiling here. And I can see this being one of those moments. I also think that comparison really draws for people a clear, you know, black or white that this was a choice. Like when Donald Trump embodies something, you can't say, oh, he's a product of his time. You can't say, oh, extreme wealth does this. When Dolly Parton is his peer and chose a very different type of way to exist in the world.

27:18Tressie McMillan Cottom:And so I also think about that. I mean, I think the cultural impact goes without saying, but I think there is like a sort of collective grief we have right now that we lost Dolly Parton in a political moment with this administration who in no way deserves the right to memorialize her. Right. And I do think people feel that as a call to arms. Do we wish it were the fact that babies are being arrested? Sure. Do we wish it was about all of these other horrible things? But you know what? You take the moment you've got. And if it's that we looked up and realized, wait a minute, President Trump gets to preside over our national mourning of somebody who represented the best of who we hope we can be.

28:00Tressie McMillan Cottom:Again, don't know if that will translate into like big P politics, electoral politics. But I do think it has the ability to bring back a little shame. And frankly, we need that. If you had to talk to her, I know it sounds crazy. I always think what would you ask her if you had one question? I think I would have asked her what she wanted to write that she never got the chance to write. I want to know the story of all the great stories she made. It may exist. Apparently she has. That's what I'm hoping. I'm hoping they actually throw open her archives, by the way, and we do find that it's in there.

28:43Tressie McMillan Cottom:But I always felt like she wanted so much to control her story, which goes, you know, totally reasonable. But I thought there was a story of herself she wanted to tell when it was safe for it to be told. And I have had a dream, a fantasy, that there's a secret autobiography in the archives that has been held, you know, upon my death. Now you can do it. That'll just go. Because, you know, she's got the stories about the worst actors in the industry and the business and the bad behavior and what she survived. And I always wanted that stuff from her. And I'm hoping there's a secret biography out there.

29:21Oh, that's great. And I have one last question. One, you talked about her as a writer, and that's what your essay was about. Is there one line that just amazed you?

29:30Tressie McMillan Cottom:It's getting to the point where it don't add up. I can't keep saying I've come this far with my guitar on pure dumb luck. Oh, great one. Great line. Yeah, I have to say it's got to be light of a clear open morning. everything, not everything's going to be all right. That was all wrong. That's to me was the greatest line, you know? And that, because that's it. That's everything. It's all we can do. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Anyway, Tressie, you're a wonder. I really, I really love your work and I really appreciate your thoughts here. Thank you very much. Joining me now to talk about Dolly's legacy as a musician is country artist Shelley Wright and author of Like Me, Confessions of a Heartland country singer.

30:14And Rolling Stone culture writer, Marissa Moss. Moss wrote the book, Her Country, How Women of Country Music Became a Success They Were Never Supposed to Be. Marissa, Shelley, thanks for coming on on. Glad to be here. Glad to be here. And it's such a good topic to talk about, by the way. I'll start with you, Shelley, and then Marissa, and you can answer after that. What was your immediate emotion when you heard she had passed, Dolly had passed away? shock even though we I think we all knew she was not well um it's it I was shocked um and sad and uh it was I think it took me a couple of days to really kind of wrap my head around that Dolly Parton is not somewhere doing something great and Marissa I think she's kind of was kind kind of the definition of someone that we all needed and wanted to believe could live forever.

31:12It's kind of hard to imagine a world without Dolly in it. And I think living in a bit of denial, like maybe if someone's going to make it to like 150, that'll be Dolly, right? Because we need her to do that. But sort of the same as Shelly said, it's been taking a minute to sink in. Just I feel like finally this morning, I was driving my daughter to school and I put on light of a clear blue morning and it just finally hit me i was just like oh had to take a minute to kind of sit with it yeah i'm so glad that song is getting a lot of attention now it's one of my favorites um now mercy you wrote a piece in rolling stone and why dolly was such a beloved figure around the world why did her music make it easier for people to connect with her and with maybe each other in a lot of ways.

32:02Yeah. I mean, Dolly is the thing that we can all agree on, right? Everyone from any kind of political party, any background can unite on loving Dolly. And she came from poverty in East Tennessee and she wrote stories from the heartland, from that experience from Appalachia about what it was like to, you know, be a human in this world dealing with human things. So she could write everything from stories of love to stories of loss to just so many different stories about the human experience. And all of us can see ourselves in Dolly's songs. Shelley, at the start of your career, you kind of followed in Dolly's footsteps, becoming one of Porter Wagner's so-called girl singers on his TV show.

32:50So when you were starting out, were you looking to her as a model of what you should do? Talk a little bit about that experience. Yeah, 100 percent. So Norma Jean was Porter's first girl singer that you may have seen on the Porter Wagner show. And then Dolly stepped into that role. And then in the early 90s, that was the job that I had. And I had been following Dolly and her example since I was a young kid back on a farm in Kansas. My musical landscape was really born of Loretta Lynn and Dolly Barton. Those were my two biggest influences. And then when I got to Nashville and got to know Dolly and was lucky to call her a mentor and a friend, I followed her, not only her music, but the way she conducted herself through the business lens.

33:44She was peerless in this space. And so I did try to emulate her in every way and fell short at every turn. But those of us who made our way to Nashville with a guitar on our back, everybody was paying attention to how Dolly conducted business and how she made her art. And that included me for sure. What's it like to be a girl singer on a TV show? I mean, the Porter Wagner show was just a classic. And of course, he had less and less influence over time, but initially it was critical. Well, yeah, and that kind of was the role. Before I got to Nashville, I worked in Branson, Missouri on a show called The Ozark Jubilee, a pretty storied, historic show there.

34:27And the role I played there was girl singer as well. And so, you know, even into the 90s when I started making records, that's how we were kind of talked about is, you know, you can't have more than one girl singer on an outdoor festival that has eight or nine different acts. I can see Marissa smiling because she's been deep in this conversation for the past 20 years. But it was there was definitely kind of a role for girls and women. And it was, as we look back now, pretty dismissive and belittling of women. But as Loretta told me early in the career, she said, you're not going to change the industry.

35:09Bend, but don't break. And you can't change the game if you're not on the field. So that was the role that most of us were happy to play because that's how we got on the field. When you think about that, I mean, because she was a girl singer, but transcended that with enormous power. Yeah. And I just listening to you tell those stories and thinking about that idea of girl singer, we may not call women performers girl singer anymore, but we still treat them in that role in country music. just thinking of how many women in Nashville have to get on the country radio charts by singing with a man. But, I mean, Dolly didn't call herself a feminist.

35:53I always talk about how she was such a master of words. And so she knew that using a word would be divisive, but her actions were uncategorically feminist. You know, I just think of one of my favorite Dolly songs is just because I'm a woman. And she wrote that song after having a conversation with her husband. They had been newlyweds, and he asked her if she had ever slept with anyone before they were married. And she said yes, and he got really upset. And she was thinking to herself, well, that's not fair. We don't care if men are sleeping around before they get married. And so she wrote that.

36:29That's what that song is about. I can see you're disappointed by the way you look at me. And I'm sorry that I'm not the woman you thought I'd be. Yes, I've made my mistakes. But listen and understand, my mistakes are no worse than yours. Just because I'm alone. I mean, and talk about revolutionary for that time and even for now. If there was a song on country radio right now that was about that, I think it would still be kind of revolutionary. Yeah, so was The Bridge. So was Dumb Blonde. So there were a lot of them. Absolutely. There were a ton of them. That was Barbie. She was good at a lot of things.

37:19Obviously, one of the things that was really special about it was her excellence throughout, right? That it was just whatever she did, singing and songwriting, chief among them, but also business, creativity, branding. What do you think about first when it comes to Dolly? Shelley, go first. When I think about Dolly, I think about, I know this sounds a little too woo-woo, but I think about Angel Wings. I'm not kidding you. This woman, and Kara, I don't know if you ever had a chance to meet her in person. I didn't. But when she walked in a room, whether it be an industry event, a fan event, whether it was, we called it fanfare back in the day, which is now the CMA Music Fest, or a restaurant in Nashville.

38:02people had a spiritual kind of visceral reaction and she had she really did emit a light and she really was an angel walking the earth and and and to the kind of political piece that that she really was careful to not align herself with the political party and and and the point being made that you know you could see through the lens of now that she was quite progressive and some might even say very liberal. The things that she talked about weren't the things that identified her politically, which she didn't want to be. It was the things that she did, i.e., providing uniforms and funding for Black marching bands, giving the monies, her performance royalties for I Will Always Love You, Whitney's version to the Black community.

38:52So she didn't have to express a political belief. She just did things and that we were supposed to know her by her fruit. She would love that I have used a biblical reference here. We were to know her by her fruit and her fruit was angelic. One of the things that I come to mind and the only interview I wish I'd done was with her talking just about business, only about business. That's all, because I really think she sort of, she didn't hide it completely, but she didn't like express it as much. She'd say, I always get one over on them because they think I'm dumb. That was pretty much the extent of it.

39:30But she famously turned down, and she talked about it, Elvis Presley's request to record I Always Love You because he wanted the publishing rights, or at least half of them. She wanted to own all the rights to her own music, which was very unusual at the time. It obviously paid off big time when Whitney Houston sang it and became a best-selling record. Both Marissa and Shelley talk about this, this pressures and what it meant to be so protective of her intellectual property, even as a young up and comer. Yeah, I mean, it is something I think of when we were talking about when Taylor Swift is, you know, has been kind of battling to own her publishing rights as part of like one of sort of the foundational lessons of her career.

40:08When women come to Nashville, and I'm sure Shelly can talk even, you know, even better about this than I can having lived it. The degree to which you're expected to sign away and give away just in order to have a career. I mean, it's huge. Like you will do anything. You are not being advised by people that are always looking out for your best interests that probably aren't. Um, and you're trying to fight to be that one woman in the room, one woman on the radio. Um, and so it's kind of expected that you'll do whatever you have to do. And a lot of times that means giving up your publishing rights and signing these ridiculous deals, you know, multi-album deals and all of these things.

40:50um but dolly was really a model for advocating for yourself as a woman in the business and i think she didn't shy away from showing that she was a business person so at that time especially key and that particular artist was the most popular artist in in the world one of the most popular imagine telling him no like yeah yeah as a young woman shelly talk about this owning your own stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Plus one to everything Marissa just said, the things that we will do when we get to Nashville, when we've got a major label or anyone saying, hey, we believe in you, we want to help you. You just you don't come to town to be a business person.

41:31You come to town to make records. And and so the you know, when when I think about what Dolly did when she did it in terms of her publishing, you know, it's why she was a problematic girl singer. It's one of the reason. I mean, before she was seen as an advocate and a pioneer, she was just like a girl singer who was breaking the rules and causing some trouble. But when Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis's manager, called her and said, yeah, but we're going to need half that publishing, she had already had a hit record with I Will Always Love You. She knew the value of that copyright. But I think even if that were a newly licensed song and no one had ever cut it, I still think she would have said, you can't have my publishing.

42:16So the name of Dolly's publishing company was Opar, I believe. And that was after her uncle Bill Owens and Parton, which is why I named my publishing company in the early 90s Henwright. My mom's maiden name was Henry. My dad, of course, I'm a right. One of the things about Dolly is she saw the whole field. She saw the long game. And she knew she was not going to have a three-year career. It was her plan to have a 65-year career. And when you think about the value of your IP, and Kara, you know I'm a super fan. I've heard you talk a lot about doing all you can do to hold on to your IP. How much has that meant to you?

43:00Everything. You own yourself. Yeah, it's interesting. A lot of people have been tried, different times have tried to get it. And they always go, why do you have to have it? I go, I just want it. I don't have to tell you why. Because it's mine. It's mine. I said it's mine. Because it's mine. Yeah. That's why. And they're always like, well, for what? Well, you may not make money for it. I don't care. It's mine. I don't want you to have it. And Dolly had that. That was her thinking is that this isn't a short-term career that I want to have. I'm going all the way. And she did. And she owned herself.

43:30And what a gift to herself. and to her family and her team and her band and to the world and an example for the Taylor Swifts, an example for me. I've owned all of my publishing and my master's, all of my master's since 2004. That's hard to do. One of the things that was interesting about Dolly the Businesswoman, even as her business flourished, was she was never accused of being greedy. Criticisms of capitalism seemed to whiz right by her. How is that possible? Why don't you start, Shelly, and then Marissa? Oh, she gave so much away. So, you know, one could do a quick Google search and see the things that she gave away, the massive amounts of money, intentional money, not just check writing, but intentional, really focused money.

44:15And I can promise you what you can find on Google is not the half of it, not even the quarter of it. You know, when you grow up poor in the Smoky Mountains and in a two-room shack, and I had conversations with Dolly about this, it's all gravy after that. And so I think no one ever questioned her heart because she showed up with it everywhere, every day, every moment of the day. And she gave so much money away. But again, she did it with intention. and that kind of that coupling effect of writing a check, but knowing where you want it to go, how you want it to go, and who you want to receive it, that's power.

44:57No one would ever suggest that this woman was greedy. She said, I just give it away and just more comes in. I don't know what's happening. The more I give it away, the more it comes in. We'll be back in a minute.

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46:10Tressie McMillan Cottom:Fall is the perfect time to refresh and reorganize your space. At the Home Depot, find power tools and tool sets starting at$50 to help tackle DIY projects, home updates, and more. Whether you're drilling brackets to support new shelving or sharpening your hedge trimmer blade with an angle grinder, the Home Depot has the tools you need to check projects off your list. Shop Labor Day savings at the Home Depot and gear up for fall projects with the right tools to keep your projects moving. So one of the things that she did do a lot was work hard, like an incredible, you see, she seemed to be everywhere.

46:46These clips that are showing up are like, she was there. Oh, she was there. I didn't know she was there. And last summer it was announced she was going to do a six night Vegas residency. I bought a ticket. It was later postponed due to health issues. But, you know, she was even at 79, still grieving her husband. She was gearing up to work. And she'd never really, she didn't retire in any ways. Talk a little bit about where that drive came from, because obviously it wasn't about the money at this point or anything else. First, Marissa, then Shelly. Well, we talk about the fact that Dolly didn't have children.

47:21I think she still saw her life as almost like a version of intergenerational wealth for people in East Tennessee, as a model for Southerners that are really misunderstood, that are kept away from opportunities by, you know, how they grew up, how our society is structured. So I think she saw that business not just as expanding the Dolly brand and working as a model to fuel her charitable efforts and being a model for women, but also providing for her people because the Dolly theme Park is going to keep going on. The Dolly brand is going to keep going on. All of her works that she has, I mean, she has like a whole plan laid out, are going to keep funding people who need that income.

48:07And some people that came, you know, grew up just like Dolly did. So I think that was part of what really fueled her. Fueled her working. What do you think, Shelly? I think Marissa is exactly right. Dolly felt, and I don't want to use the word obligation, I think she thought it was a privilege to go to continue to work really hard because she did have lots of communities that really rely on Dollywood and rely on the big Dolly machine. And it's not to say people were just taking from her, but she had an opportunity to provide access and opportunity to others who without Dolly's influence and kind of her business ecosystem, they'd lose that.

48:52And then I would just add at the end of the day, you know, Dolly's scrappy. She's a hard worker. I don't think she would have known what to do with herself if she weren't working. And I'll say if you were to kind of reverse engineer into all of it, this woman always ended up in a quiet room with a guitar writing something down. That's where the work came from. And I know that as recently as within the past year or so, she found herself in a room with a guitar writing ideas down. And probably, if I'm a betting woman, she probably was jotting down song ideas in the hospital. That's at the heart of her economic kind of ecosystem was make up a story, write down a song, reflect the human an experience.

49:41If she's funding all that philanthropy at the same time, where does the next thing come from, Marissa? I mean, there's rumors that there's lots more songs. Maybe there's other things there. I had heard, the reason I wanted to talk to her is I heard she was doing a lot of work around AI and song stems and creating stuff. She was endlessly interested in future stuff, which I thought was, I was sort of shocked by in a lot of ways. And of course, And I was like, why am I shocked? She's an entrepreneur. Yeah. Yeah. Where does it go then? Yeah. I mean, I think we got from her PR agency within days, I think maybe it was a day.

50:21This has been a blur of a week, but a plan of everything went out to journalists that she has in the works and it detailed all of her different brands, her hotel here in downtown Nashville, her museum, her play opening up on Broadway um there's clothing brands there's food companies you can buy Dolly cake mix there are yeah there are so many things that she has that exist that are still in the works um but I think she knew that the business ventures even as music unfortunately becomes um more difficult uh it becomes more difficult to propel yourself economically with just music alone. So there's a whole Dolly business machine that will keep running, you know.

51:13Shelley, you were the first mainstream country artist to be openly gay in 2010. And you've said Dolly was one of the few artists who offered her support to you. What did that look like? And what did it mean that someone of her stature was speaking up for you? It meant everything. Again, going back to Dolly having been one of my biggest influences in my lifetime and in my musical kind of journey, to have the defining artist of my genre speak publicly and about supporting me. And, you know, we all knew that Dolly was a friend to the queer community. And she, I just can't tell you what, I don't actually still have words to explain how much that meant to me to have Dolly be in my corner and celebrate me.

52:04And it wasn't a surprise to me, because that's who Dolly had always been. You know, one of Dolly's, Dolly used to say, she said a lot of things, but don't try to be anything but who you are. I keep saying, well, if you're the fine Christian that you think you are, why are you judging people? Why are you, that's God's job. If you're gay, you're gay. If you're straight, you're straight. And you should be allowed to be, you know, how you are. And I think that's one of the reasons why the queer community found such a favor in her and loved her so much, because she truly was authentically herself and she wanted others to be.

52:43And that really interesting intersection of supporting the queer community while also having the deep faith practice that she did. That was really unique. And she allowed a lot of grandparents and parents and neighbors and folks to listen a little bit longer to their queer nephew when they said, hey, Auntie, hey, Grandpa, I'm gay. It was Dolly Parton who gave them pause enough to kind of listen to their kid. So it meant a lot to me. yeah so Marissa one of the things she also did a lot was uh was collaborations with other artists and they were they were all over the place like that letter to Eminem like I was like what like like it was sort of like like I suspect she saw a lot in common in terms of the way he grew up and everything else but one of the in 87 for example 1987 she and Emily Harris Linda Ronstadt put an album called Trio uh obviously Ronstadt is more of a rock and roll singer Harris is more folky I saw Melissa Etheridge thing the other day and then Lady Smith Black Mambazo it was all over the place you know bluegrass and then it was pop and then it was country and then it was religious and then it was Christmas and then she just moved along essentially she moved all over the map and like you said she said yes so many times I think when she could have very easily said no repeatedly and I think she understood So the importance of, you know, being Dolly and bringing herself into that conversation.

54:16I think of in 2019 when she joined the High Women, which is Brittany Carlisle, Amanda Shires, Natalie Hemby and Maren Morris on stage at Newport Vote Festival. Yeah. And then a score of other women that joined the stage later. She did not have to show up that day. Apparently she had to like charter a plane just to get in there and they covered her in a cloak so she could come into Newport without anyone recognizing that it was Dolly. So that's a lot of effort to go through just to be this, you know, kind of short surprise performance with women that were out there. The mission of the high women was more women need to be in country on country radio.

54:58And she said, I want to, you know, co-sign this. And and that's pretty wild to me. And you can find, you know, Dolly duets with people that maybe you've never heard of because she just wanted to, you know, wanted to support those projects. Last question for both of you. I'd love you both to reflect on what you think the legacy and the future impact is going to be. Will it be political? Will people be like reminded of kindness in a way, in a profound way? And what lesson will each of you be taking away from her life? Shelley, why don't you start? Yeah, what will the future look like? Well, the world is less than with Dolly gone.

55:41That said, her legacy of using her power and knowing her power, whether it be supporting someone's version of one of her songs or using her power to give money to something that she cared about. She used her power well, and I think her legacy will be a reminder to all of us to know your power and use it, use it often. And then in terms of what it's like going forward, I think it's all of our jobs to remind ourselves kind of what would Dolly do? Dolly was as genuinely as… Let me show you. It's my shirt right now. What would Dolly do? I got it at Dollywood. There it is. Okay. I'm going to need one of those.

56:30Well, great shirt, Kara. Thank you. And I do think she has made the world kinder. And I do think that Dolly belongs to all of us, right, left, center, north, southeast, west. I've heard from people around the globe, colleagues from around the globe in the past few days, we are so sorry about Dolly Parton. We're mourning her here in the office. We're playing her music. Dolly belongs to the world. And I think that's the legacy. Okay. Marissa, you have the last word. Something that I've been thinking about and wrote about is this idea that we all can agree on Dolly. And what does that mean? And what would she think about that?

57:09And I don't think it was an ego project. I don't think she all wanted us to agree on her and love her because it made her feel good and made her feel like she was the most powerful woman on earth. I think there's an important lesson and I really hope that we all stop and think about this now in that if we could all agree on Dolly Parton what more can we do can't we all agree with each other more can't we find a middle place with each other more can't we understand each other's humanity a little bit more um so in that process of all loving something together as a people as humans what more can we do with that feeling and I really hope that now that we're talking about her in the past tense which sucks so much that we'll continue to think how else can we harness this feeling what else can we all come together on because I don't think we want to let that go I hope we don't want to let that go no, no you know who are alternative it's so opposite Trump is so opposite to her I'm trying not to bring him up because he doesn't belong anywhere in this conversation but you're right you're absolutely right it's like what can we what do we have in common and she was what we had in common anyway I really appreciate it from both of you I could talk about Dolly endlessly on all kinds of topics and I hope we'll continue to do so in the years ahead because it's really much needed for sure thanks Kira thanks for having us on thanks for having me today's show was produced by Nishat Kerwa Tracy Hunt Madeline LaPlante-Duby Michelle Alloy Catherine Millsop and Kaylin Lynch Special thanks to Catherine Barner.

58:45This episode was engineered by Aaliyah Jackson-Perez. And our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following the show, then you know about the light of a clear blue morning that's coming. If not, Jolene, go away. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On With Kara Swisher and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On With Kara Swisher from Podium Media, New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us. We'll be back on Monday with more.

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