TUP EP 067
Maysoon: [00:00:00] Hi, my name is Ari DeGrote, and Uplifter to me is someone who uses their light to ignite others. and themselves
along the way. [00:00:15]
Danyell: Maysoon inspires me because of her determination and resilience. Since the day she was born, people have underestimated Maysoon, and she's been able to rise above every doubter and challenge she's faced in victory. I've only known [00:00:30] her for a little under a year and I've seen her bounce back from so many setbacks in her career and personal life that will make most people just want to give up. And to be honest, she's accomplished more in her life with palsy than most people outside the disco [00:00:45] community have even dreamed of.
To me, she's the perfect example of the power of mind over matter.
Aransas: Today, I'm joined by Maysoon Zayid. She's a comedian, a best selling author, [00:01:00] a Princeton fellow, and a disability advocate. She had the most viewed TED Talk of 2014, and she's the author of Shiny Misfits, a graphic novel published by Scholastic.
And I have to say, as the [00:01:15] mom of a shiny misfit, and I may cry again just talking about this because I'm not as funny as Ms. Noon, but this book, which is by, for, and about shiny misfits and uplifters. [00:01:30] had a huge effect on me and though my kids read graphic novels, somehow I had never read one. Oh my gosh.
By myself. And yeah, I know, I was so surprised by how [00:01:45] moved I was. You never read a comic book as a kid? No, I was raised by old people. Yeah. Yeah.
Maysoon: Okay. Like super old parents.
Aransas: My grandparents raised me. Okay, cool. And so I like missed all the things that cool kids got. Yeah.
Maysoon: You had like a [00:02:00] record player. We did.
No, we had an eight track player. Yes. Big fat eight track. So first of all, I want to tell your listeners that a graphic novel doesn't mean it's graphic. Like there's no graphic nudity, there's no [00:02:15] graphic violence. Graphic novel, I always say it's like the publisher's way of getting parents to buy comic books.
So I'm an old school comic book fan and when Scholastic approached me, a [00:02:30] childless, woman in her 40s to write a book for middle grade kids. I was like, how about I write a comic book for everyone? And then we'll just make it acceptable to that age group. So like, it was funny. The things I didn't know, couldn't go in [00:02:45] my graphic novel.
Like I had a great Vaping joke. And they were like, Yeah, no, your 10 year olds can't vape. I'm like, But it's a joke. It's funny, funny. And they're like, or you're sponsoring smoking [00:03:00] illicit drug use in a middle grade novel. And that's a big no. But then I have a scene in the graphic novel. I'm not giving away anything where they add in the main characters contemplating whether she should stay or if she should bounce [00:03:15] from school.
And I remember writing this line and thinking, Scholastic will never let this through, so I'll just put this in for like giggles for like my editor to get a kick out of it. And the line is, If I go, I might be [00:03:30] kidnapped, chopped into little pieces, and fed to hyenas. And it made it through. And like, you know, you put your manuscript, then everything gets drawn, then you get something called the galley about a year before, which is like [00:03:45] the rough draft of the book.
And it's like your last chance to change things. And I was reading the galley and I was Oh my god, the dismembered hyena joke made it into the middle grade novel. I'm gonna give kids nightmares for [00:04:00] decades. And it was like this cool Lion King shout out. It was amazing like being able to not just write a book.
So many people ask me, what would you tell your 10 year old self?
Aransas: And
Maysoon: shining [00:04:15] misfits is everything I would tell my 10 year old self, everything except it's not, it's like a series of nine books. So I have other things to tell them, but this was the basic, like, grounding stone of like what I would [00:04:30] tell 10 year old me.
Aransas: And what a gift now to give it to all the shiny misfits out there. And I think to your point about the hyena, that's the beauty of this story is that it isn't
Maysoon: It's not precious. There's [00:04:45] nothing precious about it. It's really funny because Bayan is 10 years old, the central character. She's actually anywhere between 10 and 12, right?
She's vague because I wanted her to be like, 5th to 7th grade, but she's [00:05:00] disabled, she has cerebral palsy, and Shadia Amin, my illustrator, who's a Colombian Palestinian, so just like, woo, firecracker, lives in Atlanta, Georgia, like, amazing, has a dog named Danny DeVito, like, there's so much to love about [00:05:15] her.
She drew Spider Man in olive oil. And Shady Amin took such care to, like, study me, study how I move, and then incorporate that into the way she drew Bayan. So, like, in every picture, Bayan, either [00:05:30] her eye is tweaking, her mouth is tweaking, her hands are all over the place. Because when you spend time with me, I'm constantly in motion.
Like, it never stops. That's, like, who I am. However, I think all of the misfits [00:05:45] have their own disabilities. It's very obvious to me that Michelle has ADHD. And like, I have a character named A. B. Matt, who is this very empathetic boy character. And like, I [00:06:00] wanted to have like a really strong masculine boy character, whatever that means.
And I put it into this character because I was like, we can have friendships with guys. Some of my best friends are guys. I mean, some of them are [00:06:15] really unlikable. Barely tolerable. I'm divorced, so like, I'm not even into like, keeping one full time around me. But, I have some great guy friends. And I wanted to show that, but also, there's a magical cat.
[00:06:30] And I really wanted to leave that open to the misfit reading the book too, like, is the cat magical? Is the cat, [00:06:45] an imaginary friend. Is it Bayanne's inner monologue? And she's like working through stuff with this cat. Is it Dave Matthews? Because he's who voices the cat on the audiobook, which I thought was Which is so cool.
And [00:07:00] we have to talk about that. Okay. That was like my gift to parents everywhere. I was like, listen, this book is hilarious and this book is dope, but also I'm going to give you the soothing voice of Dave Matthews rhyming [00:07:15] as a maybe imaginary, maybe magical cat. We don't know. But like, everyone was like, expecting a voice like this.
And then you just get this like sultry 60 year old rock star. I probably shouldn't have said this age, but like rock [00:07:30] stars like voice, you know, and And it's paired with my voice as a cartoon, which is so good. It's so funny. It's subversive. And it's my own stuff. So like I recorded [00:07:45] with him. But while I was recording with him, I was just like, I'm recording with Dave Matthews.
Like, I didn't really even comprehend like what I was doing. So then when I listened back to the book, I was like, This [00:08:00] sounds amazing Because talking about as an actor really being in the moment It was like the words I had written that I had always pictured him saying He was saying and I was reacting and I was like, this is really [00:08:15] happening.
This is really happening So when I heard it back, I was like, oh my gosh But in addition to that, I'm an old soap fan, right? I love General Hospital. I grew up on General Hospital. I was on General Hospital. [00:08:30] What? What haven't you done? Made enough money to pay my rent and my health insurance.
I am broke. If anyone would like to give me a full time job as like the color reporter [00:08:45] on like a morning show, listen, we're gonna get to my dreams because I have seven jobs. But one of them was I was on General Hospital and also, One of my best friends in the world, the Ethel to my Lucy, the, you know, Shirley to my [00:09:00] Laverne is Vanessa Marcel.
She was Brenda on General Hospital. She was Gina on 90210. She was amazing on Las Vegas with, you know, with, uh, Michael Kahn and, uh, and Josh Duhamel. And [00:09:15] she does all the audio descriptions. So, Shiny Misfits is a graphic novel, right? So when we did the audio version so that, you know, blind and low vision and intellectually disabled and ESL and just people who [00:09:30] don't want to read could listen along, we needed to make sure that we described all the pictures, right?
And they say, a picture's worth a thousand words. We only got ten. We couldn't have like a 90 hour [00:09:45] book. So it was like we got ten words per panel, and you were like, cat leaps frantically. And you're like, what do I describe? Where do I go? So we partnered with this amazing blind consultant named Thomas Breed, and [00:10:00] he worked with us to make sure that we were describing things in a way that was friendly to low vision and blind people, because I'm not blind, so like the way I see the world is not necessarily helpful to that [00:10:15] community.
And one of the beautiful things that he told us was it was bad to compare skin tones to food. So, like, I've always been a cinnamon girl, you know, Prince has an amazing song called Cinnamon Girl, I'm a cinnamon [00:10:30] girl. But he was like, don't compare people to food. So I was like, okay, this is a world with no borders, right?
So we're not Latino, Italian, Greek, Arab. How do I describe them? So, [00:10:45] I asked. my friends from the First Nations, including Michelle Shenandoah. And I said, what should I do? Like, how did you describe people? And they said, we used elements. So all the skin tones in the books are [00:11:00] elements. Michelle is opal.
Bayonne is rose gold, Davy is baked clay, you know, Ali Mack is amber. He's like the villain and he's like this gorgeous, like amber. And we went back and used all these elements. Her [00:11:15] dad is desert sand. Her mom is porcelain doll because my parents are Palestinian. My dad looks African. My mom looks like the Crusaders forgot her.
Like, she's borderline ginger, you know, and so I wanted to [00:11:30] represent that in the book and say, like, you can have this, like, multicolored family who's of the same origin. And that's not something that we like to see, like, the Simpsons are an easier way to depict a world [00:11:45] than to have a borderless world where differences like diabetes, wheelchair use, amputation, cerebral palsy, you know, queer coding.
All of this stuff exists in this borderless world, so I don't think [00:12:00] that having equality means erasing differences. It means celebrating them and sometimes hating them. Yeah, and that's like you're not supposed to read reviews. I read my reviews all the time. So if [00:12:15] anyone wants to reach any misfits and go to Good Reads and redeem me, I would love it.
What people hate about the book is Beyanne and one of the comments I love because she's human. So, there's this great line in a TV [00:12:30] show called Fleabag and the dad looks at the daughter and he says you're not everybody's cup of tea.
Aransas: Hmm.
Maysoon: Beyanne is not everybody's cup of tea but I feel like she's every kid's cup of tea.
Because I feel like if you're not [00:12:45] Beyanne, you're Michelle. If you're not Michelle, you're Godzilla. If you're not Gosselaar, you're Davey Mack. Maybe you're Ally Mack and you're like, I identify with the villain, like the way that we did Johnny Lawrence and, you know, Cobra Coffee. [00:13:00] But what people don't like about her is that she's unapologetically disabled.
So there are people who are like, I don't get it. She dances, but she uses a stairlift. You're right. You don't get it. [00:13:15] You know, you don't get it because the idea that you could have an ambulatory wheelchair user who could dance but can't stand up is not on your radar. And then I have people saying like, I couldn't even [00:13:30] like the disabled character.
Like, the default is, they're supposed to like the disabled character, and they're like, she was mean, and she's a bully, and she exploits her disability, and I'm like, she's a tween trying to get what she [00:13:45] wants. She's a normal kid making really bad choices, and she has two parents who are trying too hard and failing a lot.
They were like, I didn't know till page 50 what her disability was. I was [00:14:00] like, mm hmm, because I wanted autistic kids to think maybe she was stimming. And I wanted kids who survived limb amputations to think maybe it was a prosthetic. And maybe you could just [00:14:15] identify with whatever that manifestation of Sometimes I feel like, you know, I always say Bayanne is visibly disabled, but she also has an invisible disability.
That's very apparent to me. She's neurodivergent. She's very [00:14:30] neurodivergent. Like if a bell rings, Bayanne's ear twitches. But when she behaves in the neurodivergent way, it's contrary to how we've been taught disabled kids have to behave. The idea [00:14:45] that, like, they have to be sweet, they don't feel pain, like, I just worked on a movie with Disney and there was one line that killed me, where someone asked the girl with cerebral palsy, does it hurt?
And she said, only the people [00:15:00] around me. And I was like, no, dude, it hurts. Like I shake all day long. It's exhausting. I have chronic pain. Most kids with CP have chronic pain. And we've been taught you suck it up. [00:15:15] You pretend like there's nothing wrong with that. And this character, Bayon, sometimes is like, I am done being disabled.
Other times she's like, I'm disabled and fierce. And other times she's like, I want something. And my [00:15:30] disability is how I'm going to get it. And like I said, this idea of a multi facet disabled child was terrifying to readers. They wanted an explanation of what the disability was. They [00:15:45] wanted her to be a happy go lucky kid.
They didn't understand her having like days where she's so tired, she can't get out of bed and days where she's so tired. tap dancing on stage. And that's why when people say, is it [00:16:00] autobiographical? No, I didn't grow up with the internet. I'm the youngest of four girls. This character is an only child. Yes, my cat does speak to me in rhymes.
It's not something we discussed publicly because the FBI, ET, Steven Spielberg, we [00:16:15] saw it. We don't want it. But our physical manifestation is me. And one of the things I wanted to show in this book was that we, people who have my neurological disorder, cerebral [00:16:30] palsy, our emotions very much affect our physical body.
So if I'm run down and sad and scared, it's harder for me to physically stand up without someone [00:16:45] helping me. I might use my wheelchair that day. If I just got like done floating for four days in the dead sea and I'm feeling buoyant, I might actually run down a flight of stairs, fall flat on my face, bounce back up because I do [00:17:00] yoga and be like, look, I'm rubbery because I've been falling down since I was six, you know, when I finally stood up.
So I wanted not to write a book for disabled kids. So many people were like, [00:17:15] is this book for disabled kids or non disabled kids? I was like, get this one. That's for everyone. How about that? How about you don't have to pick if it's for brown kids or white kids, disabled kids or non disabled kids, because a [00:17:30] disability intersects with every minority, women, gay, rich, old, young, doesn't matter what religion you are or what political affiliation you can become disabled.
at any time. [00:17:45] It intersects with every community. And so when people are like, Oh, you were playing DEI lottery. I was like, or I was reflecting the community I live in.
Aransas: It's so interesting to me that the criticisms of this [00:18:00] novel are all compliments. Talk to me about this idea of turning trauma into comedy.
Maysoon: So my dream in life was to become an actor, right? But this is like 25 years ago. I was kind of [00:18:15] one of the trailblazers of like, just visibly disabled. People should play visibly disabled on screen because what was happening was when I was auditioning, they weren't casting disabled people for anything. In fact, the plum roll for like the guy or gal, [00:18:30] that why best actor was to play disabled on screen and then be magically healed on the red carpet.
So where I did see myself was in the world of stand up comedy, specifically Richard Pryor, who was a comic of color and [00:18:45] who was a later in life wheelchair user and who also shook. And he was amazing. And I was like, Oh, that's my end. But then I also saw like Rosie O'Donnell and Ellen before she became like super problematic and Margaret [00:19:00] Cho.
And I was like, Oh, okay. If you don't look like Jennifer Aniston, this is how you get in. This This is how you get the dream job, host. And from like day one, I was like, I'm going to become a comedian. I'm going to sit on the view. Like I knew [00:19:15] it did not happen, but we'll talk about that later. So I started doing comedy nine months before 9 11.
I'm a Jersey girl. I'm a Muslim. I'm an Arab. Post 9 11. Suddenly, like, we [00:19:30] were getting blamed for everything. We went from being the Godfathers of comedy, Jamie Farr, Danny Thomas, Marlo Thomas, Tony Schell, Vic Tabak. Suddenly, we were like, Taxi Driver Terrorist, Belly Dancer Berka. I could [00:19:45] do the belly dancing thing really well, but I was like, no, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna use my comedy to battle the negative images of Arabs and Muslims in media.
And I'm going to teach people what the difference is, [00:20:00] because Arabs can be every faith and any faith or no faith. And Muslims can be any race, any nationality, any culture, any anything, you know. And so I partnered with Dean Obeidallah, an incredible, [00:20:15] incredible Jersey boy comedian who is now a host on Sirius XM Progress 127.
Free ad for my dean. Dean and I partnered and we created the New York Arab American Comedy Festival. Why? Because the [00:20:30] internet didn't exist or we would have just called it Arab Comedy. Why we called it the New York Arab American Comedy Festival, one of the hardest things to type out in your life. The initials don't flow.
It's a nightmare. Anyway, we're in our [00:20:45] 20th year now. And we never ever thought that 20 years later, we would be battling the same hate and racism. So a part of what Shining Misfits is doing is taking away the stigma and the fear of [00:21:00] disability. So that when you have a disabled child, instead of pining for the perfect child you lost, you appreciate the disabled child, the misfit child that you have.
You play to their strengths and not their weaknesses. And hopefully you [00:21:15] decide that death is not better than being disabled. We hear it all the time. People come up to me, you're like, how do you change pain into comedy? People walk up to me and say, if I had to live your life, I would kill [00:21:30] myself. Now, imagine, like, you just got off stage, you got a standing ovation, you got the glitter eyeshadow making the shape of, like, a perfect cat eye.
And someone comes up to you and is like, no, seriously, I would just absolutely end it [00:21:45] if I was you. And that's because we have made it seem. That it's better to be dead than disabled. We have a whole genre of movies where disabled characters are killed and their families lives are [00:22:00] better than me before you, million dollar baby, so on, Philadelphia, so on and so forth.
Like, they love them, but wow, it's so much easier when they're gone. And so what I'm trying to do in Shiny Misfits is create [00:22:15] that very generic image of disability where it's like, it's not easy. It is expensive. It is painful, but it's worth it. And like, What they had lacks physically, [00:22:30] she is like a whiz kid, like she's so smart.
And like when she gets defeated by her arch nemesis, she gets defeated the way that I do by mediocre men that somehow have more opportunities than I ever will. And people are [00:22:45] like, how are you teaching 10 year olds that they can be defeated by mediocrity? And I'm like, I'm preparing them. Yeah. She can't bake.
She can't do everything. She's not a magical unicorn. [00:23:00] Some of the stuff she tries, she fails. But when she debates, she's excellent. And mediocrity beats her. Because sometimes that's how the cookie crumbles.
Aransas: I was once told that the most important piece of advice I could give my children as [00:23:15] a parent was You'll be disappointing, and you will be disappointed.
Yeah. Life is not a fairy tale. And there's a lot of magic that can be found in reality.
Maysoon: So like, it's really hard for me because I [00:23:30] don't choose to be a motivational speaker. I'm a comedian and I try to be like super serious with my audience. So I toured the world with like Glennon and Doyle and Brené Brown and Abby Wambach, and they would be like, And I'm like, Hey, [00:23:45] hey, you're not a white woman.
Sit down, figure out your finances. Make sure nobody's going to jail. Like let's work on things differently. However, I must tell you, I've had a lot of fairy tale in my life. So I don't know [00:24:00] what to tell you. Like God or, or the light, whatever you believe in. gave me like the perfect dad, God rest his soul.
Like my dad was just cool and it was a fairy tale and I was raised by like the king [00:24:15] that taught me how to always have my head held up high and that created the woman that I am and who I choose to be in my personal life and like. My cats, my friends, my stage are really [00:24:30] a fairy tale. But I'm also living in a modern day live streaming nightmare where I am marketing a children's graphic novel in a genocide.
Aransas: For the
Maysoon: [00:24:45] children who are being murdered and shown on my screen on my social media feed look like Bayan and Davie and Ghazala and Ally Mack and Michelle. They look like these kids. They look like this [00:25:00] age group. And when I see, you know, a little reporter like Lama Jemmous and she's nine years old and she's reporting from Gaza.
I'm. Seeing Bayan in real life and there's nothing I can do to save them [00:25:15] and protect them in this like beautiful borderless world I've created where our skin tones are natural elements instead of divisive borders is just that. It's a dream, a fairy tale, in a [00:25:30] chaotic, nightmarish world. And I'm just trying so desperately hard to inspire one person to be better.
One person to not think that they're safer if we murder children. To not think the world is better [00:25:45] if a child is dead instead of disabled, or if a child is dead instead of alive. Like, this is what we're trying to say. And as I'm bringing Shiny Misfits to the world and imagining this like really [00:26:00] cool, vibrant world where I get, you know, it gets me like Miss Marvel and there's a series and we get to see like a disabled kid like really shine in that role.
I'm also really just praying for a world where [00:26:15] I'm writing and kids aren't being murdered like on the daily. Like it's very hard. So I try to lean into the fairy tale. I lean into the love. I lean into like my publicist, Danielle [00:26:30] Flowers, who brought me to you, like the most unlikely connection and how today has felt like, yeah, maybe we can do something.
That's what you're uplifting, right? You're taking someone like me who [00:26:45] lifts up people as a job. It's what I do. Yeah. And I'm feeling so comfortable. So decimated, so destroyed, so dejected. When you said to your kids, you were going to be disappointed. I just [00:27:00] didn't expect it to be at this level, at this age, the amount of people that I just lost because they couldn't understand that what was happening was personal.
But also, let me tell you [00:27:15] something, loving the time of genocide, girl. Oh my gosh. I'm a hundred and seventy five years old. I've never been in love. I fell in love like six months ago, and I was like, I think like you have to. I think if life [00:27:30] is that intense, you have to. But don't worry, I plan to break up with them right after New Year's Eve.
I'm really feeling that, like, just make it through the holidays, get the gift, get the, you know, New Year's Eve hello kiss, [00:27:45] and then bye bye.
Aransas: It's all of it at once. It's all of it though, and I do feel like Sometimes life does feel like a tornado and all these little carefully [00:28:00] constructed pieces and ideas and structures that we've built through with such care, right?
We've done all the dreaming and the planning and we've gotten it all just the way we want it. And then the world just kind of comes through [00:28:15] and, and a big gust of wind, all those pieces are flying in different directions.
Maysoon: So I like to call it an earthquake though, because I shake it, shake it, shake it like Taylor Swift.
I mean, she just wants to shake mine's involuntary, but I like to do. The earthquake instead of the [00:28:30] tornado because it's like you shake the ground and everything lands where it needs to and some of it is destructive but some of it is the most beautiful thing you could ever imagine and you could never create it without that destabilization.[00:28:45]
Aransas: That's it.
Maysoon: But I miss wearing makeup. I know this is so shallow. I love makeup. I'm like the lost It's not shallow, by the way.
Aransas: Oh my
Maysoon: God,
Aransas: it
Maysoon: is. I mean, you get to like, want what you want. I love [00:29:00] my contour. I love having a chin. So I love doing makeup. But like, I don't do subtle. I'm lost Kardashian. Like, it's like bling, like green eyeshadow and like contour.
And since the genocide started, I don't wear [00:29:15] makeup. And it's like, it's such an, it's like an old Mediterranean woman thing. It's like the crux of not wearing makeup when you're in mourning is that you'll cry and it will like beetle juice down your face. [00:29:30] But it's also like the idea of dressing up and looking stunning is impossible to me when I'm watching these women not have access to basic feminine hygiene [00:29:45] products, when I know that there's moms giving birth to kids with cerebral palsy because they don't have prenatal care.
And it's like, My, you know, my person was like, but your lipstick is not gonna like hurt or save anyone in [00:30:00] Gaza, just like put it on. And I'm like, no, I can't do it. And so it's also this weird, it's not performative, but it's very, very hard to have life go on in the way that I live. [00:30:15] You know, someone who's going to stand on stage in front of 10, 000 people and tell jokes and motivate them and inspire them to not be bullies, to be good, to believe in themselves, to stop harming others because they think that, like, [00:30:30] joy is limited and I have to take yours in order for me to have it.
And then I walk, I limp off stage and I immediately send WhatsApp messages to my family. And I wait to [00:30:45] see if the blue checkmark appears and it's red. Because I don't need an answer, I just need to know they're alive. Know you're okay, yeah. And it's literally like, that's, that's the game. So it's like, I go to a school in [00:31:00] Atlanta, and I have a marching band.
Play me in. And we talk about shiny misfits and my illustrator Shadia draws live pictures and we create this utopian world that can absolutely unequivocally exist. I've [00:31:15] experienced that. I've lived that I've loved it. It can happen. And then, like I said, I get off and I'm like, okay, now what do I do as an American citizen?
Like, how do I save my country? How do I save the healthcare rights of women? And how do I. [00:31:30] Fight for any sort of decency or charity or love or light when everything I see is the opposite. And I think it's what you're doing, right? We make fun of podcasts. I make fun of podcasts [00:31:45] all the time, but there's this amazing line about light expunges darkness.
Aransas: My
Maysoon: friend Daman Al Nafari is a rapper from Palestine, and he said, if you light a lighter, in a cave. [00:32:00] That flicker lights up the entire place. So it's just like we can't let the dark side win. It's, it's Star Wars. We can't let the dark side win. We have to keep fighting, but I'm tired. Like I'm super tired, [00:32:15] which is why I go full circle.
So where is my dream job? Yeah, I've been doing this for 25 years. I've never gotten a stand up comedy special because they think I'm inspirational instead of funny, even though I've headlined Gotham Comedy Club for [00:32:30] like the past 25 years. I've never gotten the co hosting seat on The View, The Real, The Talk, CBS This Morning, GMA.
It's like, I'm born to do this stuff, but they just do not look [00:32:45] at disabled women as representing 25 percent of the population, as having one in three American households having a disabled person in it. We have the buying power of China, 8 trillion, and you're seeing it now [00:33:00] in advertisements, but you're not seeing our presence where we need to be seen.
You're so
Aransas: right. It really starts with the spark. Yeah. Right? Like somebody has to do it to create the proof point. [00:33:15] And that economic power just hasn't been realized because nobody's been brave enough to make the first step. And I think you're out there going, Hey, I'm here. I'm ready. Put me in.
Maysoon: Scholastic took the risk on Shining Lessons, right?
Yes. [00:33:30] Because when I wrote the book, they knew I wasn't writing a precious disabled character. They knew I wasn't going to do the education. And they knew I wasn't going to do the resolution. There's a complicated relationship between the mother and daughter. Sometimes when the [00:33:45] mom and the daughter are exactly the same, they clash.
And there's no resolution between this character and her mom in this book. And there won't be. Yeah. There won't be in the nine book series because sometimes our parents are [00:34:00] not perfect and sometimes they refuse to do the right thing. And there's something, again, like I was saying, between death and life, there's disability between a great mom and an evil [00:34:15] mom.
There's a regular mom, , and we rarely see the mom. That's not the angel. And also not the evil stepmother. We don't get that nuanced mom who's like, Hey, I work seven days a week. I can't go [00:34:30] to every single recital and Davey Matt's mom can, and she works seven days a week and somehow she makes it happen. And like, I have that like mom who.
Is doing what she can do, but she's not great. This is not her best [00:34:45] job my mom I love telling this story about my mom I was on 60 minutes and I said, did you see me on 60 minutes? And she said yes, your hair looked terrible and she was right and she was right I always say Hollywood can [00:35:00] never break me because they won't even come close to the criticism my mom hurled around at me.
And that's why, again, with the review of the books, I'm like, Oh, band's unlikable. My mom said I'm unlikable my [00:35:15] entire life. This is not a surprise people. Why don't we get to fail and try again? Yeah. And by the way, you can't always fail. This is another thing. I have a web series. So I have seven jobs, right?
I teach at [00:35:30] universities, whatever university gives me insurance. I'm like, all right, Princeton, NYU Abu Dhabi, Arizona state. Where are we going? I'll go. What do you teach? So for the past five semesters, I was able to [00:35:45] create a brand new original course at Princeton. So I taught standup comedy. I taught Hollywood writing.
So we created a Hollywood writers room and we wrote out the clip that a regular room would. We did a spec script for [00:36:00] an existing show, and then we created an original show. And so I'm taking my messaging class at NYU Abu Dhabi, and then I'm teaching my Hollywood screenwriting class again in Jordan because I have been blacklisted in America.
I [00:36:15] haven't, I haven't had any jobs or like any offers since the genocide started. started because I've taken a very controversial, very dangerous position that I don't think kids should ever be murdered regardless [00:36:30] of what faith they are or no faith. And also that means ugly kids. I think that not just beautiful children should live.
I think ugly kids should live too. Because a lot of people are like, they're killing these beautiful children. And I'm like, the [00:36:45] ugly ones are dying too and they matter. Yes, there are ugly children and they turn into beautiful adults. It's like the proportions are wrong on their face. Or they're just misfits.
Or they're misfits, [00:37:00] exactly. Why shiny? Why the word shiny?
Aransas: Well, it's interesting. I was going to ask you that question and I'll tell you my perspective though. Yeah. My 13 year old daughter, coincidentally, and not even having talked to her about [00:37:15] this, told me last week that she wants to write a children's book.
And she wants to call it Not So Superheroes. And it's all about kids who are neurodivergent, who have differences, disabilities, [00:37:30] using their differences as their strengths and their superpowers. And I think she's sort of speaking to My initial read on this is that like we all have the potential to shine and be bright in our [00:37:45] uniqueness.
And so much of your work to me is really about authenticity and self acceptance. Um, which I think we all struggle with, maybe some more than others, but I think it's really hard to just be like, I am [00:38:00] who I am and I am best at being that. And shine. Don't
Maysoon: hide it. Right? Don't put your light under a bushel, you shine.
You don't like, I don't sit there, here, you don't see me sitting here on [00:38:15] your podcast going, hello. I actually don't move around and I'm, no, I'm flailing around because I'm shining because I'm not fighting it. It's painful to [00:38:30] pass as non disabled. It's painful to pass as a white person. If you're a person of color, it's painful to pass as cis gendered and heteronormative.
If you're not, it's painful to pass, but sometimes we have to [00:38:45] survive. The biggest resistance is existence. The biggest resistance is staying alive. So when I say shine, I say shine, but you have to know where your danger zones are [00:39:00] and what risks you're willing to take. When I limp around a war zone, because I know that this is a mass disabling event and maybe I won't help or change anything, but not being there, I know I won't help or change anything.
I'm shining [00:39:15] and I'm saying to people like, I live this life and I'm gonna try and help you accept living this life because I swear this is better than death, but also we need to stop disabling people. We need to [00:39:30] stop doing it. There's a world between I accept and love disability and I accept that anyone can join our community at any time and rejecting, rejecting, forcing people into the disabled community.
Aransas: [00:39:45] Yes, and I think that, that to me is the whole crux of this. There's so much I don't understand about this crisis. But it's real clear to me, we shouldn't be killing children, we shouldn't be hurting each other, like Can we throw these [00:40:00] people back on
Maysoon: the battlefields? Period. Let's not kill each other. I mean, I would love us not killing each other, like that's the ultimate goal, right?
That'd be good. If we must, can we not just put them on a nice battlefield? Like we've [00:40:15] got all these soccer stadiums, throw them on the battlefield. Best man wins. I'm okay even if we do like the Rocky thing where it's like you have one American, one Russian and they beat each other up and yay. And then we're [00:40:30] done.
Televise it. Yeah, we iced their face. Mickey cut the eye. Like, okay, there's still violence, but it's only one person who's being permanently disabled. And you volunteered for it. Once for glory. Right, we volunteer to distribute. Like, right now we're in the Hunger Games [00:40:45] and none of us volunteered. We don't want to do any of this.
I literally just want to, like, co host a show. Maybe with you. I don't care. Let's just do it. But, like, You don't have. This is what I keep telling people. You don't have to understand [00:41:00] anything in the world, nothing in the world to understand. No child should be killed. If we're killing a bunch of kids, we're making bad choices.
The faith of those Children does not matter. So [00:41:15] as I do the work that I do, I'm always aware that disabled kids, disabled women, disabled men are more vulnerable, are more prone to facing violence, are less likely to escape [00:41:30] because of just the nature of who we are. And because we have been dehumanized, but there's hope, there's light, there's so much knowledge out there.
But now you have a whole generation of [00:41:45] adults with autism adults who have CP adults who have chronic pain and fibromyalgia and know that it's real and they have the ability to talk to the younger generation in a way that like I had no one. I had [00:42:00] Jerry Jewell. I saw Jerry Jewell and I was like I don't know, I feel like I identify with gentle form facts of life, not this person.
Now, I'm online, and like, there was a girl named Cheryl. I [00:42:15] wish I remembered her last name, I don't right now. But she was the first person who told me about being an ambly wheelchair user. And I was like, that's lazy. You don't just sit down when you need to. And she was like, or you do sit down, you avoid injury, [00:42:30] you reserve your energy for when you need it.
And I was like, Oh, okay. And then I started being an ambulatory wheelchair user. It was like the quality of my life completely changed, but [00:42:45] the privilege. was so prominent. I was able to buy a chair. Most people can't buy a chair. You know, I drive a car, thank God. Well, now I'm shot because I've been blackballed and I'll probably have to sell my [00:43:00] cats, but it doesn't matter.
I drive a car that I could throw the chair or the walker in the back of it and I could take out the walker. Or I could have, like, the love of my life just, like, holding me up and be like, look, I'm going to the prom day and night. I [00:43:15] learned that. I, who was the disability advocate, had to be taught that we were not lazy, that we were not faking it, and that it was a valid choice.
Aransas: Isn't that telling? And it's interesting that the big question [00:43:30] I had going into this conversation with you, because having followed your social, having watched your TED Talk, having read your book. You are a person who doesn't shy away from the danger or the drama or the [00:43:45] reality. And you have this remarkable pattern to look at it and I've watched you do it like 20 times in the course of this conversation.
You look at the worst of it and then you pick out this little piece and you're like, but there's hope. And. Both the [00:44:00] hope and the hurt are a lot to carry. And right now at this moment, I suspect you're maybe carrying more. of both than perhaps you've ever even had to carry in a life that [00:44:15] hasn't been easy or convenient.
And so the question I wanted to ask you most of all is, how are you going to take care of yourself so that you can keep going?
Maysoon: I honestly, for the first time in my life, I think I need someone else to do it [00:44:30] for me because I, I actually don't know. It's just, that's funny. I only cry if something heavy falls on me, but it's, I'm exhausted.
My resources are completely tapped. I believe so much in the dream and in [00:44:45] what I'm doing, but like, when you look at a mass disabling event, you're like, how do I begin? What do I do? What I've chosen to do is create. Is continue to create, to continue to put beauty and [00:45:00] laughter and love and dark humor into the world.
Like, I'm making a mockumentary, like the Christopher Guest style. It's the Bachelor set in Palestine, which I think is hilarious, right? And I was talking to people [00:45:15] about like the budget of a movie, right? And a low budget movie is half a million dollars. And I was like, how do you justify making a half million dollar movie while people are starving?
And how you do it is I'm going to pay the salaries of 40 [00:45:30] people for six months. There you go. That's what I'm going to do. Yep. But I'm really worried about What's happening in this country. I'm really worried that me and other people who are Palestinian have just been [00:45:45] stripped of our livelihoods and it's okay, this is a weirdly acceptable discrimination and we're kind of waiting for the pendulum to swing and nothing that happens to me, nothing that happens to me compares.
I know that I keep [00:46:00] doing this, and I've done it 20 times in the conversation, but absolutely nothing that's happening to me compares to a mother in Ukraine, or a mother in Sudan, or a mother in Gaza, who no longer has a house. Like, [00:46:15] I'm stressed. I can't tell a lie. I literally don't know how I'm paying my health insurance next month because academia has like frozen us out, but that doesn't compare to not having [00:46:30] maxi pads and living in a tent, you know, it can be both.
They can both be
Aransas: awful.
Maysoon: Yeah. It's different. And we always say, don't compare your oppression. Yeah. So like, I feel such pain from the [00:46:45] cerebral palsy. But I know that's not the same pain that you're gonna feel as having like an amputation. It's a different feel. So you need to just stop competing. And being like, I hurt, but she hurts more.
But [00:47:00] also be aware of your privilege. I think that's what you see a lot of is me being very aware of my privilege. I was lucky enough to be able to, you know, go to Columbia Presbyterian and have them save my life, have an amazing [00:47:15] doctor. I'm aware of my privilege. I'm never going to pretend that like. I did it all by myself.
Dr. Ulane had nothing to do with it, you know. My dad had nothing to do with it. The Dead Sea Salts had nothing to do with [00:47:30] that. I'm so fully aware of my privilege, but I'm also In a position where I can lose everything. We can all lose everything in a heartbeat. But again, when I hang up with you, [00:47:45] I immediately get on my phone and I look and I say, did he answer?
Did she look at it? Did the 11 year old? Look at it. I keep focusing on men and boys, men and boys, men and boys, which is [00:48:00] crazy. I'm creating a movie right now in Palestine, completely women crew, not a single man. Cinematographers, a woman, gaff, a woman. It's all women, all women, everything. And people are like, Oh, is that because you're a conservative Muslim?
And I'm like, No, it's because [00:48:15] every set I've ever been on, I'm the only woman. And this time I'm going to flip the script and have the five bachelors be, Okay. The only men. So this coming from me is very odd. I feel like our men are disposable, that we don't count men, [00:48:30] that we're okay with our men in America having heart attacks at 41, dying of stress.
We don't focus on men's health. And men should count and boys should count. I always say like [00:48:45] a guy like my dad who dedicated his life to his four daughters who literally used his own feet to teach me how to walk would be not counted. He would just be erased. We only look at women and children and our [00:49:00] definition of children is violent and terrible.
So anyway, everyone should buy Shiny Misfits, especially the audio book.
Aransas: Okay, so May I say something back to you as an observation? Yes. [00:49:15] I think maybe you're right that what you need most of all is not to just take care of you and to let somebody else do it because I think it's the curse of uplifters, frankly, we get so good and comfortable at taking care of others [00:49:30] that we try to just take care of ourselves alone.
And. I think it's pretty profound when we let other people just be there for us. And I, I mean, I see how you do that and the way you talk about your community and the way you invite people in [00:49:45] and I don't know. When you said it, I was just like, I need to say that back to you in case maybe you need to hear it too.
Maysoon: I need to hear it. It's very, very hard to take care of the world and then finally go, okay. [00:50:00] I can't do it anymore. Please someone just take care of me for a second. I won't lay back too long. I just want like maybe six months. It's kind of like the ambulatory wheelchair, isn't it? Yes. Yes. I need an [00:50:15] ambulatory wheelchair service human.
Yeah. And on that note, I'm going to say goodbye to you.
Aransas: It was so nice to meet you, Maysoon.
Maysoon: Let's hang out again soon. I
Aransas: would love that. Inshallah. Bye. Thank you for listening to [00:50:30] the Uplifters Podcast. Wherever you are, whatever shiny misfit you are, let's keep facing it all and likely soon looking for the bright spots.
Find more from us [00:50:45] at theuplifterspodcast. com. Thank you for listening to the uplifters podcast. If you're getting a boost from these episodes, please share them with the uplifters in your life. Join us [00:51:00] in conversation over at theuplifterspodcast. com, head over to Spotify, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast and like, follow and rate our show.
It'll really help us connect with more [00:51:15] uplifters and it'll ensure you never miss one of these beautiful stories. Mmm.
Music: Big love painted water, sunshine with rosemary. And I'm dwelling the [00:51:30] perplexing, though you find it flexing. Toss a star in half for be around best love for relish in a new prime Landry in springtime dance.
With that all hindsight, [00:51:45] bring the sun to twilight. Lift you up, oh, lift you up, oh, lift you up, oh,[00:52:00]
lift you up.
Lift you up.
Lift you[00:52:15]
lift.
Aransas: Beautiful. I cried. [00:52:30]
Music: It's that little thing you did with your voice. Right, in the pre chorus, right? Uh huh. I was like Mommy, stop crying. Mommy, stop crying. You're disturbing the peace.