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ASKITA E174 Intervew with the Jewish Stripper · A Swift Kick In The Ass: Personal Growth & Resilience Podcast

• 0:32
  John W. Curren: Oh, great!
• 0:55
  John W. Curren: Oh, I thought she was there.
• 1:27
  John W. Curren: Oh, okay, all is here.
• 1:29
  John W. Curren: Oh, okay, she's joining.
• 1:40
  John W. Curren: Oh, oh, God!
• 2:09
  John W. Curren: Hello.
• 2:19
  John W. Curren: Allah!
• 2:21
  John W. Curren: Let's see.
• 2:23
  John W. Curren: Oh, she's joining, I see, just taking her time taking systems. Take it, though.
• 2:32
  John W. Curren: There we go. I guess that'll be good.
• 3:35
  John W. Curren: Not sure what happened. Allah! There she is says ask to unmute.
• 3:43
  John W. Curren: I see that's wrong. Oh, hello!
• 3:46
  John W. Curren: Oh, there you go!
• 3:51
  John W. Curren: Oh, let's see, I don't hear you
• 3:54
  John W. Curren: but that maybe that's me.
• 3:59
  John W. Curren: No, not me. I got my volume up, let me see, see.
• 4:06
  John W. Curren: Doesn't say.
• 4:07
  Alla Kaplan: Can you hear me now?
• 4:08
  John W. Curren: There we go!
• 4:09
  Alla Kaplan: I got my, my little microphone.
• 4:12
  John W. Curren: Okay.
• 4:13
  Alla Kaplan: Sorry.
• 4:14
  John W. Curren: No, that's just fine pleasure.
• 4:16
  Alla Kaplan: MA minute.
• 4:18
  John W. Curren: No, I was. I was thinking, you know, technology is great when it works.
• 4:21
  Alla Kaplan: I had to put get my dog off where I'm so my dog's not barking and bothering me while I'm recording.
• 4:30
  John W. Curren: What kind of dog do you have.
• 4:32
  Alla Kaplan: It's a pit mix. She's a pit. Mix.
• 4:36
  John W. Curren: Oh, I lost you!
• 4:38
  John W. Curren: I lost you.
• 4:39
  John W. Curren: It was working.
• 4:48
  John W. Curren: I think. I hear ya.
• 4:49
  Alla Kaplan: Microphone.
• 4:51
  John W. Curren: There you go!
• 4:51
  Alla Kaplan: Microphone. That's that's been charged.
• 4:55
  Alla Kaplan: Can you hear me now?
• 4:56
  Alla Kaplan: Yeah, I can hear you now. Perfect. That's good about that.
• 4:59
  John W. Curren: No, no worries. I have a dog.
• 5:01
  John W. Curren: I feel like the commercial. Can you hear me now.
• 5:03
  John W. Curren: isn't it? Yeah, I have a dog as well. So.
• 5:08
  Alla Kaplan: Have.
• 5:08
  John W. Curren: He's a
• 5:11
  John W. Curren: He's like part circus animal. He's a border, a border collie mix.
• 5:17
  John W. Curren: He's he's almost 16 years old.
• 5:21
  John W. Curren: So he's
• 5:24
  John W. Curren: Yeah, he's very.
• 5:25
  Alla Kaplan: She's pretty old, too. She's like 15,
• 5:28
  Alla Kaplan: and she's starting to have back problems like with her back legs like when she tries to jump on the bed or the couch.
• 5:34
  John W. Curren: Sir.
• 5:35
  Alla Kaplan: She's sliding a little bit.
• 5:37
  Alla Kaplan: and she was panting the other day, and I think that we have to take her to the vet
• 5:43
  Alla Kaplan: to check her out.
• 5:45
  Alla Kaplan: But the last time that this happened I took her to an emergency, and they prescribed her gabapentin.
• 5:53
  Alla Kaplan: which
• 5:55
  Alla Kaplan: I actually take for my nerve damage in my foot.
• 6:02
  John W. Curren: Okay.
• 6:03
  Alla Kaplan: I couldn't dance anymore if I wanted to.
• 6:06
  John W. Curren: Because I can't wear heels.
• 6:09
  Alla Kaplan: And my right foot. My toes point down so the after the nerve damage the surgery
• 6:17
  Alla Kaplan: about 9 years ago. You don't want to hear it. But crazy.
• 6:21
  John W. Curren: No, no, no, no! Take my.
• 6:22
  Alla Kaplan: Glasses off.
• 6:23
  John W. Curren: So hold on to that.
• 6:24
  Alla Kaplan: It was
• 6:25
  John W. Curren: So I don't wanna.
• 6:25
  Alla Kaplan: Horrifying I had. I woke up 2 in the morning during an ice storm that night.
• 6:31
  Alla Kaplan: and it was a fell out of bed couldn't walk
• 6:35
  Alla Kaplan: I so it turned out I had 3 blood clots between my 2 legs.
• 6:41
  Alla Kaplan: and they were like causing sharpshooting pain like almost like a sharpshooting pain
• 6:51
  Alla Kaplan: like a glass shards being.
• 6:55
  John W. Curren: Yeah.
• 6:55
  Alla Kaplan: All over your body here, I'll put the mic over here.
• 6:59
  John W. Curren: Yeah, that's.
• 7:00
  Alla Kaplan: As long as you can hear me.
• 7:01
  John W. Curren: I had sciatic nerve pain before I
• 7:05
  Alla Kaplan: Not so good.
• 7:06
  John W. Curren: Yeah. Not as good.
• 7:07
  Alla Kaplan: Okay, I'll just hold it.
• 7:09
  Alla Kaplan: That's okay. So I got my design behind my my background.
• 7:15
  John W. Curren: With my, so.
• 7:16
  Alla Kaplan: Logo.
• 7:17
  John W. Curren: Before we get too much into the conversation.
• 7:21
  Alla Kaplan: Yeah.
• 7:21
  John W. Curren: And I because I I don't. I I kind of want to start the show like with a clean start, and then we could get in, and I want to hear. I honestly, I think that's
• 7:30
  John W. Curren: like part.
• 7:31
  Alla Kaplan: I have a headset. If you want me to get a headset, I could get a headset.
• 7:34
  John W. Curren: You want to try that, just to rest your awesome, to be tough.
• 7:37
  Alla Kaplan: I can go get it, just to see how, how.
• 7:39
  John W. Curren: Want to try it.
• 7:40
  John W. Curren: Yeah, to plug. It's a USB, so yeah, let's do that.
• 7:44
  Alla Kaplan: Give me a second.
• 7:45
  John W. Curren: Yeah. No worries.
• 7:46
  Alla Kaplan: Actually for my day job, but I never use it.
• 7:49
  Alla Kaplan: It's supposed to be for the phone. I'm not. My day job is I'm a collector.
• 7:53
  John W. Curren: Okay.
• 7:54
  Alla Kaplan: Collector. I don't go around, you know, advertising it, because
• 8:00
  Alla Kaplan: that's I think they hate them more than they hate lawyers. So let me go. Get the headset and see how that goes. Hold on one second.
• 8:15
  Alla Kaplan: Good.
• 8:17
  Alla Kaplan: All right?
• 8:20
  Alla Kaplan: Oh, okay.
• 8:46
  Alla Kaplan: okay.
• 8:47
  Alla Kaplan: Let's hold on one second.
• 8:50
  John W. Curren: Okay.
• 8:54
  Alla Kaplan: Then I have to change on the control panel.
• 8:58
  Alla Kaplan: Oh, it's plugged in so.
• 9:01
  John W. Curren: I can't hear you, though.
• 9:01
  Alla Kaplan: Let's see, is this better?
• 9:04
  John W. Curren: Yeah, I could actually hear you.
• 9:06
  Alla Kaplan: Cool. Okay.
• 9:07
  John W. Curren: That's good.
• 9:08
  Alla Kaplan: Thank you.
• 9:08
  John W. Curren: Me, and.
• 9:08
  Alla Kaplan: Yeah.
• 9:10
  John W. Curren: Okay, yeah, I'm using mine, too. I I actually bought one.
• 9:14
  Alla Kaplan: I don't know why I bought one, but
• 9:16
  Alla Kaplan: just because of the look like Princess Leia, you know.
• 9:20
  John W. Curren: Bye, this is the.
• 9:22
  Alla Kaplan: It's wired, and it's yeah.
• 9:25
  John W. Curren: The ball.
• 9:26
  Alla Kaplan: I'm gonna have to get like the the microphone. The little microphone works pretty good, though.
• 9:31
  John W. Curren: Yeah, yeah.
• 9:32
  Alla Kaplan: Just have to make sure I hold it all the time.
• 9:34
  John W. Curren: Yeah. But if you hold it, that's gonna get tiring. So.
• 9:36
  Alla Kaplan: Yeah, no, it doesn't get tiring. It's just that, or you have to put it up high, like on your necklace.
• 9:42
  John W. Curren: Okay, how do I pronounce your name? Just so.
• 9:44
  Alla Kaplan: Bye, bye.
• 9:45
  John W. Curren: Allah. Okay, not a lot.
• 9:47
  John W. Curren: Allah!
• 9:48
  Alla Kaplan: Allah.
• 9:49
  John W. Curren: Allah.
• 9:49
  Alla Kaplan: Allah! It's Allah, not Allah, but it's okay.
• 9:56
  John W. Curren: Allah.
• 9:57
  Alla Kaplan: Hello!
• 9:58
  Alla Kaplan: The salad!
• 9:59
  John W. Curren: Okay, yeah, I don't know why. Then I'll just over complicate it, anyhow.
• 10:04
  Alla Kaplan: So it's not complicated. It's just not a lock which actually, if you put an h on the end.
• 10:12
  John W. Curren: Oh, okay.
• 10:13
  Alla Kaplan: The the syllable, the sounding syllable is on the end and not the beginning, so I don't know. I have to.
• 10:23
  John W. Curren: Okay.
• 10:24
  Alla Kaplan: It's no doubt.
• 10:24
  John W. Curren: No, I appreciate that.
• 10:25
  Alla Kaplan: I don't get any more like when I was a kid, or you know, when I was younger I don't get offended when people say Allah! It happens all the time, which is fine with me, because I just I got used to it, you know.
• 10:45
  John W. Curren: Okay.
• 10:46
  Alla Kaplan: No, no, we have. Yeah. We
• 10:48
  Alla Kaplan: Georgia, are you from in Georgia or Florida?
• 10:52
  John W. Curren: I'm in Virginia now.
• 10:53
  Alla Kaplan: You're in Virginia. Oh, where? In Virginia?
• 10:55
  John W. Curren: Just out well in Richmond, just outside of.
• 10:58
  Alla Kaplan: I'm in Columbia, Maryland.
• 11:00
  Alla Kaplan: Okay. I'm between Baltimore and Washington.
• 11:04
  John W. Curren: Yeah.
• 11:05
  John W. Curren: Very nice. Interesting. Small. World.
• 11:08
  Alla Kaplan: Yeah, I thought for some reason you were in Georgia. Maybe I was.
• 11:12
  Alla Kaplan: And I tried to like, see your biography or tried to Google you to see you. But you don't have much online, like.
• 11:22
  Alla Kaplan: if you
• 11:24
  John W. Curren: Well, maybe that's a good thing.
• 11:25
  Alla Kaplan: Yeah.
• 11:27
  Alla Kaplan: So my name. Then immediately the George stripper and medium pages and everything, comes up.
• 11:34
  John W. Curren: Okay. So I need name. Recognition is what you're telling me.
• 11:36
  Alla Kaplan: I don't have you know what I'm just. I have my Facebook on public
• 11:44
  Alla Kaplan: profile because of the the business.
• 11:47
  John W. Curren: Okay.
• 11:48
  Alla Kaplan: You know. So it's okay. I just like my hair covers my my fat face. So.
• 11:56
  John W. Curren: You like me? Awesome. Let's
• 12:00
  John W. Curren: We'll just get started.
• 12:02
  Alla Kaplan: And you can ask me anything, and well, I'll try to be as honest and as candid as I can be.
• 12:13
  John W. Curren: Well welcome to a another episode of a swift kick in the ass. I'm John Curran, and today I have with me a very special guest.
• 12:24
  Alla Kaplan: Hour.
• 12:25
  John W. Curren: I don't know why, so I accomplish. I just.
• 12:28
  Alla Kaplan: I'll say it. Ala Kaplan, I.
• 12:31
  John W. Curren: I always want to try to be respectful, and of people's names, you know. It's like John. Every house has one.
• 12:38
  Alla Kaplan: It's all good, anyhow, like I said, I don't get offended, because, you know, people people will miss it.
• 12:45
  John W. Curren: No.
• 12:46
  Alla Kaplan: That's like I've been at called Ella, like Ella Fitzgerald, which is to me is an honor so.
• 12:54
  John W. Curren: Absolutely.
• 12:55
  Alla Kaplan: So.
• 12:56
  John W. Curren: Yeah, absolutely. I've been called John John. So that's like, Yeah.
• 13:00
  Alla Kaplan: One. John is sufficient.
• 13:02
  Alla Kaplan: Do people say, Johnny, ever.
• 13:04
  John W. Curren: Yeah, my good friends call me Johnny. My son is also John, and.
• 13:09
  Alla Kaplan: -Oh.
• 13:10
  John W. Curren: Comes come from a long line of John's.
• 13:13
  John W. Curren: He's the he's the 9, th I think. The 8th or 9.th
• 13:17
  Alla Kaplan: Goes back over to.
• 13:19
  John W. Curren: Goes back over 200 years.
• 13:20
  Alla Kaplan: Have a long history of.
• 13:24
  John W. Curren: Yeah.
• 13:24
  Alla Kaplan: Don Curran, Curran.
• 13:26
  John W. Curren: Yeah, so but this isn't about me. But you have a very interesting background. So, as I understand it, you you, you emigrated from Russia at a at a young age
• 13:40
  Alla Kaplan: 9 when we left in December of 1989. When I'm sorry. 1979, 1989, I was already 19 years old, 1970, 9
• 13:55
  Alla Kaplan: in December.
• 13:58
  Alla Kaplan: and we had to go to Europe to for paperwork and during the immigration we actually stopped
• 14:07
  Alla Kaplan: for sometime.
• 14:11
  Alla Kaplan: We stopped in 1st in Vienna for like 2 weeks Vienna, Austria.
• 14:18
  Alla Kaplan: For 2 weeks we were there.
• 14:20
  Alla Kaplan: It was a culture shock. Yeah.
• 14:23
  John W. Curren: This is your family. I mean, this is your mom and dad.
• 14:25
  Alla Kaplan: My mom. My parents were divorced already in Russia when I was like 2 or 3 years old. By the time I was 2 or 3 years old. My parents were divorced. My father was abusive to my mother, so it was like while she was pregnant. Actually, he started.
• 14:44
  Alla Kaplan: anyway. So that's.
• 14:46
  John W. Curren: Faced adversity like just right.
• 14:49
  Alla Kaplan: I was like came into the world already in the womb. There was, you know, tumultuous circumstances.
• 14:58
  John W. Curren: Yeah, there's like a blue song written about you.
• 15:01
  Alla Kaplan: I was like. There's no there. It's a country song that writes.
• 15:05
  John W. Curren: Gotcha right.
• 15:06
  Alla Kaplan: So, anyway. Then, after Vienna, we were in Italy for about a month in a little town called Ladispoli, which is maybe like an hour to an hour and a half, or something from Rome.
• 15:21
  Alla Kaplan: Very interesting, short, quick story.
• 15:25
  Alla Kaplan: My mom and I went. She took me to the Vatican
• 15:30
  Alla Kaplan: to see the Vatican. So at 9 years old I saw the Vatican.
• 15:36
  Alla Kaplan: and I'd never been inside a church or a synagogue.
• 15:40
  John W. Curren: Okay.
• 15:40
  Alla Kaplan: Any temple. She was afraid to take me to the synagogue. I am Jewish unapologetically, by the way.
• 15:48
  Alla Kaplan: and so in 9 I saw the Vatican and
• 15:54
  Alla Kaplan: it was, it was all, you know, just overwhelming to see the Sistine Chapel
• 16:00
  Alla Kaplan: at 9 years old. Right? And so we were leaving, and somehow I guess she got lost.
• 16:10
  Alla Kaplan: We got lost in Rome, and she said that I
• 16:16
  Alla Kaplan: told her, well, let's just go here and there, and there go here, and she said, we found our way back. I found my way back
• 16:26
  Alla Kaplan: as if I'd known the streets and lived there all my life
• 16:31
  Alla Kaplan: at as a 9 year old child who'd been there for the 1st time in her life.
• 16:36
  Alla Kaplan: So I don't know. Maybe in the past life.
• 16:40
  Alla Kaplan: perhaps if you believe in reincarnation.
• 16:44
  John W. Curren: I've been places to where I felt
• 16:46
  John W. Curren: unnaturally comfortable and and like knew where I was. I felt like I knew where I was going.
• 16:53
  John W. Curren: I I was. When I was studying my genealogy I went to Minneapolis, and I was. The streets had actually the neighborhoods had all been knocked over, but I was in one of the adjacent like streets that still remained from that time, and it felt like I mean, you could send like I could sense
• 17:15
  John W. Curren: the history and the people almost like walking by. But
• 17:20
  John W. Curren: no, I I no, I get that. And and experiencing that at such a young age, so
• 17:25
  John W. Curren: was it difficult to leave Russia, I mean, did you have to.
• 17:29
  Alla Kaplan: So because we're Jewish.
• 17:33
  Alla Kaplan: Well, I don't know how it was for people who were just Russian, so I'll give you
• 17:40
  Alla Kaplan: how anti-semitic it was
• 17:42
  Alla Kaplan: at the time in Communist Russia, 1979. You couldn't just get on a plane and leave. You had to ask the Government for permit.
• 17:54
  John W. Curren: Right.
• 17:55
  Alla Kaplan: Now on top of that
• 17:57
  Alla Kaplan: because my my father didn't want to give permission for my mother to take take me with her.
• 18:07
  Alla Kaplan: She had to get permission from him to
• 18:11
  Alla Kaplan: you know, to immigrate with me, and he wanted money from my family, which they paid him in order for him to give his consent.
• 18:23
  Alla Kaplan: That's.
• 18:24
  John W. Curren: Do you ever keep in touch? Do you ever talk to your father.
• 18:28
  Alla Kaplan: Now I saw my father 2 years ago for the 1st time in 20 years.
• 18:34
  Alla Kaplan: My father is now in Israel in a like home for psychiatric, elderly people. It's not a very good place. His ex-wife, who was his wife after my mother, placed him there with my half sister, who I have no relationship with.
• 18:56
  John W. Curren: Wow!
• 18:57
  Alla Kaplan: She's they're Russian.
• 19:00
  Alla Kaplan: It was a lot of people, I don't it, whether it was purposely or not, purposely
• 19:08
  Alla Kaplan: actually married Russian people married in Russia, Jewish people, because so they could leave an immigrant.
• 19:17
  John W. Curren: I know.
• 19:17
  Alla Kaplan: As the Government was just watching everybody like a hawk.
• 19:22
  Alla Kaplan: You couldn't take your Jew you couldn't take if you had a diamond ring. You couldn't take your diamond ring.
• 19:28
  Alla Kaplan: I mean people. They would literally check.
• 19:31
  John W. Curren: Wow!
• 19:31
  Alla Kaplan: Every crevice, every orifice of your body.
• 19:34
  John W. Curren: Really.
• 19:36
  Alla Kaplan: Yeah, you could basically put almost leave with the clothes on your back pretty much.
• 19:42
  John W. Curren: Wow!
• 19:43
  Alla Kaplan: We were.
• 19:44
  John W. Curren: When you were, and you were 9 years old when you went through this.
• 19:47
  Alla Kaplan: Years old when we got here, so we left in December, and.
• 19:51
  John W. Curren: Hall.
• 19:52
  Alla Kaplan: 79, and we got to Maryland, where I live now in
• 19:58
  Alla Kaplan: February of 80. So we spent new years in Italy.
• 20:04
  Alla Kaplan: and then I I turned. My birthday is in March, so I turned 10. A month after, almost a month after we came.
• 20:12
  John W. Curren: Okay.
• 20:12
  Alla Kaplan: 10 years 10 years old, trying to assimilate into American society.
• 20:17
  John W. Curren: Yes.
• 20:18
  Alla Kaplan: But at 1st it was easier because we were put in a neighborhood where there were other Russian Jewish families
• 20:29
  Alla Kaplan: in Maryland. There's a a little town called Hyattsville.
• 20:34
  Alla Kaplan: and so they put us in an apartment
• 20:39
  Alla Kaplan: with what the society the Immigrant society is called Kias HIAS. Which is he? Hebrew immigrant? Something so association. And it helps not only Jewish people, but people around the world.
• 21:00
  Alla Kaplan: To immigrate and and all defense, human rights, and all kinds of.
• 21:04
  John W. Curren: That's good.
• 21:06
  Alla Kaplan: So he asked, was putting everybody into all the Jewish people into this neighborhood, and then I started going to a Hebrew Academy, a Jewish school.
• 21:18
  Alla Kaplan: I knew nothing that I didn't. Yeah, I heard of my mom and my grandmother and my aunt
• 21:26
  Alla Kaplan: mentioned talking about, you know, Jews, but I was a child, so I didn't know what it meant. I only know that my mom wouldn't take me to the synagogue in Russia because the militia. The Russian militia were standing around
• 21:43
  Alla Kaplan: keeping guard, and so she didn't want to take me to the synagogue. So I've never been
• 21:50
  Alla Kaplan: basically knew nothing about Judaism, or what it means to be Jewish. Nothing at all.
• 21:56
  Alla Kaplan: I started going to the Jewish school in America in March of 1980,
• 22:03
  Alla Kaplan: and that was my 1st experience with just in general religion of any sort.
• 22:11
  John W. Curren: That's so. I mean, that's such an interesting
• 22:16
  John W. Curren: story of you know how how you got here and got you interested. And so you are
• 22:23
  John W. Curren: the Jewish stripper.
• 22:25
  Alla Kaplan: The Jewish stripper, not.
• 22:26
  John W. Curren: So what?
• 22:27
  Alla Kaplan: A former stripper.
• 22:30
  Alla Kaplan: Yeah. So I
• 22:32
  John W. Curren: So? How did.
• 22:33
  Alla Kaplan: The podcast I woke up one day and decided that I wanted to start a. Podcast
• 22:38
  Alla Kaplan: and at 1st I called it raw and real. And it was gonna be actually with my friend Teresa we were doing. We did an episode. So we did one episode of why do people cheat we we're like, you know, going back and forth on what are we gonna do as topic.
• 22:53
  John W. Curren: Brutal honesty.
• 22:54
  Alla Kaplan: No, we.
• 22:55
  Alla Kaplan: And we're just gonna sit there and talk to each other. That's and so, she decided, you know that she wants to. She likes true crime stuff.
• 23:03
  Alla Kaplan: And so, you know, she dropped out. I don't. I'm not mad at her. I just said you know what whether I have a guest or not. I'm gonna do my podcast at least once a week. This is what I want to do. And I made so I decide. I went Google, raw and real.
• 23:21
  Alla Kaplan: And there was like a thousand raw and reels.
• 23:25
  Alla Kaplan: And I started writing a book, actually, which I still haven't finished 5 years called The Life of a Jewish Stripper.
• 23:34
  Alla Kaplan: I have some of the chapters posted on a website called medium.com.
• 23:42
  Alla Kaplan: And so I haven't finished the book because it was difficult for me so right after October 7, th
• 23:51
  Alla Kaplan: because I didn't. I couldn't write about anything else.
• 23:55
  Alla Kaplan: so it was difficult for me to write in the book about my life, because it seemed like my life is
• 24:01
  Alla Kaplan: so minutely UN unimportant compared to what happened.
• 24:11
  John W. Curren: What was going on. Yeah.
• 24:12
  Alla Kaplan: And what's going on now still going on so?
• 24:17
  Alla Kaplan: so. But I named the podcast the Jewish Stripper because and I decided to open an Llc. And I wanted I because if I just said you know advice or something from the ex stripper.
• 24:33
  Alla Kaplan: and I didn't mean in originally when I started writing the book
• 24:38
  Alla Kaplan: it was very cathartic for me
• 24:41
  Alla Kaplan: to put my life on paper. It was everything was pouring out of me. I was writing it. I was crying, I was this was during
• 24:51
  Alla Kaplan: 2020, in the height of the height of Covid.
• 24:55
  Alla Kaplan: At the time I didn't have a job.
• 24:58
  Alla Kaplan: and I had nothing else to do, and I was like, I can't go anywhere. What am I going to do with my life?
• 25:05
  Alla Kaplan: And I decided, you know what? I'm going to write a book. I'm going to write this book
• 25:10
  Alla Kaplan: and everything that's ever happened to me on paper. And my friends, Teresa was reading it. I was sending her chapters
• 25:22
  Alla Kaplan: and she said, Wow, you are just raw.
• 25:25
  Alla Kaplan: You're you're just raw and real.
• 25:28
  Alla Kaplan: And so when we named the podcast, raw and real. And then I went back. I said, Okay, back to the drawing board. It can't be just raw and real with Allah Kaplan, because nobody knows who Allah Kaplan is
• 25:41
  Alla Kaplan: but the Jewish stripper. You know I I feel like
• 25:46
  Alla Kaplan: once I wrote a chapter once a stripper, always a stripper, because all because it changes your
• 25:53
  Alla Kaplan: perspective on the world.
• 25:55
  John W. Curren: It does.
• 25:56
  Alla Kaplan: And I don't think that you ever think the same way again about you know about.
• 26:07
  John W. Curren: The male female relationship.
• 26:08
  Alla Kaplan: The not just male female relationship, but human nature in general.
• 26:13
  John W. Curren: Okay humidity, boom.
• 26:15
  Alla Kaplan: And I think so much about
• 26:19
  Alla Kaplan: it, says Fireflies. I. AI note is off for me or something. Anyway.
• 26:26
  Alla Kaplan: I tear up a little bit when I talk about the book, so
• 26:30
  Alla Kaplan: I'm still working on it. I feel like I'm probably going to end up self publishing on Amazon or something.
• 26:37
  Alla Kaplan: because I tried sending out to literal literary agents.
• 26:42
  Alla Kaplan: But there wasn't much interest.
• 26:46
  Alla Kaplan: Yeah.
• 26:47
  John W. Curren: You know. Your story sounds a lot like mine. And I started this podcast. Over 10 years ago. Now, with with my childhood friend Tommy, who died of brain cancer back.
• 27:00
  Alla Kaplan: Yeah.
• 27:00
  John W. Curren: Back in 2020 we kind of started the same thing. I was here in Virginia. He was in Florida, and
• 27:08
  John W. Curren: my dad had died so you know my dad.
• 27:14
  Alla Kaplan: Time.
• 27:14
  John W. Curren: My dad was well, I I mean, back in 2014. Back in 2014, my dad or 2013, my dad had died, and Tommy called me for my birthday.
• 27:25
  John W. Curren: And he, he said, You know, I think we should. Podcast and I was like, well, that you know sounds like fun. We'd always talked about different business ideas and stuff, you know, like friends do. And he's like should talk about your dad.
• 27:38
  John W. Curren: you know, because my Dad was like this figurehead in our neighborhood growing up in South Florida. He raised like
• 27:45
  John W. Curren: I learned this after he died, and all like my friends, showed up at the funeral in honor of my dad and respect for my dad, because he taught them how to be like men. He'd like work out with weights and work on cars, and, like, you know, be honest and have integrity, and like I mean he was, I mean he also, with that being said he also taught us a lot of things about not what to do.
• 28:10
  Alla Kaplan: That's important. Yeah.
• 28:12
  John W. Curren: You know. I especially me, as I, you know. But
• 28:17
  John W. Curren: You know we start. I started writing a book
• 28:20
  John W. Curren: about that. And as I was in process, and then that Tommy's like.
• 28:26
  John W. Curren: you know, I was kind of just spinning my wheels. But
• 28:30
  John W. Curren: but here we go, you know I I say you need to. I need to give you the swift, kicking ass here, and we need to have you back on you.
• 28:38
  John W. Curren: You need to.
• 28:39
  Alla Kaplan: I love that name, though.
• 28:40
  John W. Curren: Report on.
• 28:42
  Alla Kaplan: I love.
• 28:42
  John W. Curren: Report on when that book is is done.
• 28:46
  John W. Curren: you know, and what we learned. And when we 1st started, you know, we're like, what are we going to talk about? You know. How can we advise people were? I guess we were in our forties at that time, you know, raising families and stuff like that, trying to figure things out for ourselves. But we figured it's a journey, and we want to learn about all these different things. So why not learn and share? And
• 29:11
  John W. Curren: you know we all have our own experience.
• 29:15
  John W. Curren: To base our advice on, you know. So I'm not always going to get it right. This is from my perspective, and it's same for you. You know you have. And you have a very unique
• 29:25
  John W. Curren: perspective.
• 29:27
  John W. Curren: You know, I mean so many, you know. I'm sure a lot of people can relate to
• 29:33
  John W. Curren: to your life, and if you help somebody through a difficult time.
• 29:38
  John W. Curren: and I think it makes the world a better place.
• 29:41
  John W. Curren: It's.
• 29:41
  Alla Kaplan: Yeah, I I did. I had an episode called all about narcissists.
• 29:48
  John W. Curren: Yeah, you.
• 29:49
  Alla Kaplan: My my ex-husband was is the epitome
• 29:54
  Alla Kaplan: of a narcissist, and that was a very
• 29:58
  Alla Kaplan: Now the that particular relationship, I think, kicked me into
• 30:04
  Alla Kaplan: here to write the book, because
• 30:08
  Alla Kaplan: I was still 30 years later, still healing from the trauma.
• 30:16
  John W. Curren: Yeah.
• 30:16
  Alla Kaplan: And understanding that I have like Ptsd. And you know they're
• 30:23
  Alla Kaplan: maybe I was always bipolar, or this caused me to be bipolar. I don't know for sure.
• 30:29
  Alla Kaplan: All I can say is that
• 30:34
  Alla Kaplan: it's not. You know. I I had other relationships after that, and of course I always
• 30:40
  Alla Kaplan: chose abusive or emotionally unavailable men. And
• 30:47
  Alla Kaplan: I had actually a conversation on Facebook because I put a little
• 30:55
  Alla Kaplan: I put a little post with my brand
• 30:59
  Alla Kaplan: and my logo, and I put also ask me anything.
• 31:04
  John W. Curren: It's a little.
• 31:05
  Alla Kaplan: Post, and this guy who is in Nigeria, he
• 31:13
  John W. Curren: A bank account with a million dollars.
• 31:15
  Alla Kaplan: No, no, no! He actually hooked me up with a girl who's a mental health advocate. After he saw my episode about all about.
• 31:25
  John W. Curren: Oh, that's great!
• 31:27
  Alla Kaplan: He saw this episode, and he hooked me up with this girl who's a mental health advocate, not professional. And she just does like videos on Mental Health. And she.
• 31:38
  John W. Curren: Yes.
• 31:39
  Alla Kaplan: Started her own brand
• 31:42
  Alla Kaplan: and anyway, so we her and I did an episode on men's mental health awareness.
• 31:52
  Alla Kaplan: which is important because you know what if there was more men, men, how it's difficult
• 32:02
  Alla Kaplan: for men to reach out and start talk about their mental health, because.
• 32:10
  John W. Curren: Is.
• 32:11
  Alla Kaplan: Boys growing up.
• 32:12
  Alla Kaplan: You gotta you know you're told not to cry. Be a man. You're a boy, and all this stuff. So we talked about that.
• 32:21
  John W. Curren: So that's 1. Yep.
• 32:23
  Alla Kaplan: So, so I had her as a guest. See he! He hooked me up with her. So anyway.
• 32:30
  Alla Kaplan: he's they're Christian. They're very, very Christian and
• 32:37
  Alla Kaplan: Well, he asked me, why do you use the brand of a stripper?
• 32:42
  Alla Kaplan: And why do you? Why, why do you call yourself a stripper
• 32:47
  Alla Kaplan: when you're not a stripper anymore. And I, I said, 1st of all.
• 32:52
  Alla Kaplan: strippers are, you know, very intelligent.
• 32:56
  Alla Kaplan: They're they're more than what you see.
• 32:59
  John W. Curren: Absolutely.
• 33:00
  Alla Kaplan: And don't judge people just because they go and get naked for money.
• 33:06
  Alla Kaplan: I said, aren't you supposed to be? Not not judgmental
• 33:12
  Alla Kaplan: because you believe in? You know, Christian, that is.
• 33:16
  Alla Kaplan: doesn't Christianity forgive everyone for everything?
• 33:22
  John W. Curren: Yeah. And didn't Jesus you know, accept everyone.
• 33:26
  Alla Kaplan: Right.
• 33:26
  John W. Curren: I mean right, the prostitute, the prostitutes, the lepers, I mean just, you know.
• 33:32
  Alla Kaplan: Magdalen.
• 33:33
  John W. Curren: Yeah. Oh, yeah.
• 33:34
  Alla Kaplan: Yeah.
• 33:35
  John W. Curren: So I know I absolutely agree.
• 33:37
  Alla Kaplan: He said something about but you should be helping broken people or way you what you know.
• 33:49
  Alla Kaplan: aren't you helping broken people all right. And I said, Well, if you're assuming
• 33:56
  Alla Kaplan: that all strippers are, people are broken, and I don't like to call anybody broken.
• 34:04
  John W. Curren: Yeah, no, I'm I'm with you.
• 34:06
  John W. Curren: I'm a broken, honestly.
• 34:10
  Alla Kaplan: But you know what. I don't think anybody comes into this world as broken, and I
• 34:19
  Alla Kaplan: I didn't mean I never.
• 34:21
  John W. Curren: Define.
• 34:23
  Alla Kaplan: When I started writing my book.
• 34:25
  Alla Kaplan: I didn't think at 1st I didn't think that it was. It was selfish for me.
• 34:31
  Alla Kaplan: It was about me. It was, you know, my life, my stuff.
• 34:37
  Alla Kaplan: And then I didn't mean to think that I'm going to be some sort of advice. Giver, a Guru, a leader.
• 34:47
  Alla Kaplan: but because people seem to respond
• 34:53
  Alla Kaplan: to my when they read chapters of the book on medium, they responded to it.
• 35:02
  Alla Kaplan: And so, and then, when you know the podcast.
• 35:08
  Alla Kaplan: People, when I start, I started doing episodes by myself.
• 35:12
  Alla Kaplan: And I, you know, my friend, when she dropped out of the podcast I said, I'm not mad.
• 35:19
  Alla Kaplan: You do your own thing, and I wish you well, and I hope that you do something great. And I think you will do something great. So but I'm going to keep going.
• 35:31
  John W. Curren: You should.
• 35:32
  Alla Kaplan: Because I'm not going to stop. And I think that the that's
• 35:40
  Alla Kaplan: the stripping part of my life
• 35:44
  Alla Kaplan: actually gave me a lot of confidence.
• 35:48
  Alla Kaplan: You have to have confidence to go absolutely age naked
• 35:53
  Alla Kaplan: in front of a room full of men.
• 35:56
  Alla Kaplan: but the women are also, you know, they're judging you. Some of them are your friends, some of them are not. It's just like an office.
• 36:06
  Alla Kaplan: The thing is is that it's just that the club is your office.
• 36:10
  John W. Curren: So there's a culture there like there's a strip club culture as.
• 36:14
  Alla Kaplan: Yeah.
• 36:15
  John W. Curren: But it's is it like, I mean? But
• 36:18
  John W. Curren: you know it is a business, and different businesses have different cultures. So I imagine
• 36:24
  John W. Curren: if you go to different strip clubs, the culture.
• 36:26
  Alla Kaplan: Yeah.
• 36:27
  John W. Curren: Right.
• 36:28
  Alla Kaplan: The culture is going to be different. If you go to a strip club where mostly there's African, American black.
• 36:37
  Alla Kaplan: Women, dancing men, customers. There's a different
• 36:43
  Alla Kaplan: you know. It's when if if we you had one or 2 black girls come into a mostly white strip club.
• 36:54
  Alla Kaplan: Then, of course, it's like it's weird for them to be all around, you know.
• 37:03
  John W. Curren: Yeah.
• 37:03
  Alla Kaplan: Girls.
• 37:04
  Alla Kaplan: And and actually, you know, I've worked with some gorgeous.
• 37:10
  Alla Kaplan: gorgeous people of all races, all colors.
• 37:16
  Alla Kaplan: all, of course, shapes and sizes. By the way.
• 37:22
  Alla Kaplan: so you know, everybody has a preference.
• 37:27
  Alla Kaplan: What's 1 thing you learn about men and women, by the way.
• 37:33
  Alla Kaplan: and some of them are lesbians, or a lot of bisexuals.
• 37:38
  Alla Kaplan: And so you
• 37:41
  Alla Kaplan: I was never, you know, when I 1st came into that.
• 37:46
  Alla Kaplan: I was doing it actually, because my ex husband was going to strip clubs and take. He took me to strip clubs, and he was. I didn't realize he was like grooming me to be a.
• 37:59
  John W. Curren: Oh!
• 38:00
  Alla Kaplan: Because that's what turned him on.
• 38:03
  Alla Kaplan: And so pornography and stripping, and all this videos and everything turned him on.
• 38:11
  Alla Kaplan: And then I guess I wanted to be. I wanted to be at the time what I thought he wanted that turned him on.
• 38:19
  John W. Curren: Yeah. And you, how old were you at this point? Now.
• 38:22
  Alla Kaplan: At that point I was like 20
• 38:25
  Alla Kaplan: to 2120 years old.
• 38:28
  John W. Curren: Yeah, so really, highly. Just, you know, open, I guess, open into the
• 38:35
  John W. Curren: we're old. And probably, you know, at that age.
• 38:38
  Alla Kaplan: A shock, because I was a very sheltered child.
• 38:42
  Alla Kaplan: and so like hanging out with him, I you know I got into no, don't get me wrong like I got into drugs and alcohol in middle school, pretty much like as at 1415 years old, you know, smoking cigarettes and hanging out with my best friend and drinking her dad's beer, or raiding the liquor cabinet.
• 39:07
  John W. Curren: I'm a little bit older than you, and honestly, that was part of the culture. Back then.
• 39:12
  Alla Kaplan: I don't think you're older than me. I just turned 55 in March.
• 39:15
  John W. Curren: I I'll I'm gonna be 5th I was born in 66. So I'm 58.
• 39:21
  Alla Kaplan: Yeah. You're a little bit older.
• 39:24
  John W. Curren: But yeah, but I mean, you know, back then it was different, you know. I mean, it was like,
• 39:30
  Alla Kaplan: It was the eighties. I was a teenager in the eighties.
• 39:33
  Alla Kaplan: like our generation, you know, played outside and not.
• 39:37
  John W. Curren: Yes.
• 39:37
  Alla Kaplan: And though.
• 39:40
  John W. Curren: You know. So back in the eighties, I mean, and I mean I was in high school from 80 to 84. And so you know what were was what was one of the biggest songs out there? Motley crue
• 39:54
  John W. Curren: girls, girls, girls right? Or maybe that was a little bit after, maybe. Was that like 8.
• 39:58
  Alla Kaplan: No, no, it was like I was like I was maybe like
• 40:01
  Alla Kaplan: 16 or 17 years old when the whole hair band era.
• 40:09
  John W. Curren: Maybe it was. It was right around the time. I think I graduated high school. It was maybe a little bit after. But you know in Florida I mean, you know, I was single. I went to strip clubs and I mean hell. They were singing about them on the radio, you know, at the dollhouse in Fort Lauderdale, and I was I was honestly I was a little bit younger. I was back then. Drinking age changed
• 40:34
  John W. Curren: from 18 to 21, and I missed the cutoff.
• 40:41
  John W. Curren: You know all my friends, all my friends right
• 40:44
  John W. Curren: drinking, and I wasn't, you know, allowed. So I kind of got a late later start, I guess, but.
• 40:51
  Alla Kaplan: But.
• 40:52
  John W. Curren: But my 1st legal drink was actually in a strip club down in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
• 41:01
  John W. Curren: I think it was the sportsman's lounge, and I had a fake id.
• 41:05
  John W. Curren: or you know, actually, I had my real id.
• 41:08
  John W. Curren: but with like tape on, or something like that, I did something but yeah, my! I turned turned 21 in the in that bar.
• 41:18
  Alla Kaplan: I got in trouble because I I had a fake Id.
• 41:23
  Alla Kaplan: There was a Russian guy that made fake ids my friend, and I was always hanging out with older people.
• 41:32
  Alla Kaplan: So my best friend from the old neighborhood, when I went to what happened when I stopped going to Hebrew school, when I was like
• 41:41
  Alla Kaplan: 1312, or 13, my mom
• 41:45
  Alla Kaplan: moved and I couldn't. She wouldn't drive me to the Hebrew School.
• 41:51
  Alla Kaplan: She wouldn't drive me, and there was no bus. So I I went from a new shock, a culture shock.
• 41:59
  Alla Kaplan: because I was like sheltered at the Hebrew school.
• 42:03
  Alla Kaplan: although we had our class in the Hebrew school was from ages 6 to 16, with one teacher.
• 42:11
  John W. Curren: Oh, wow!
• 42:12
  Alla Kaplan: That poor man went through hell because we were all drink, like, you know, I was at the time 12 or 13, but every we were with around the older kids who were drinking and smoking.
• 42:26
  Alla Kaplan: and
• 42:27
  John W. Curren: Yeah, and that's easy.
• 42:28
  Alla Kaplan: Apparently I threw a chair at the teacher. I don't remember this.
• 42:32
  John W. Curren: Oh!
• 42:32
  Alla Kaplan: I got in trouble for throwing a chair at the teacher, yelling, You're not my father. You can't tell me what to do.
• 42:39
  John W. Curren: Oh, my goodness!
• 42:40
  Alla Kaplan: So I was. I was literally hell on wheels from
• 42:44
  Alla Kaplan: like when we came to the United States.
• 42:47
  Alla Kaplan: because I I did everything that everybody told me when I was a child in Russia.
• 42:53
  Alla Kaplan: including I got molested, you know, sexually at a young age, by my
• 43:02
  Alla Kaplan: So my grandmother's sister's husband who used to babysit me.
• 43:09
  Alla Kaplan: And then, right before we left Russia, a man who was helping us box things up
• 43:17
  Alla Kaplan: also molested me at 9, so.
• 43:20
  John W. Curren: My God.
• 43:21
  Alla Kaplan: Yeah. So I'm a survivor of child sexual child abuse as well.
• 43:26
  Alla Kaplan: So I did. You know, I was a like a people pleaser like I was a child.
• 43:31
  John W. Curren: Yeah.
• 43:32
  Alla Kaplan: When you know, and at that time in Russia, you know, nobody talked about. This is.
• 43:37
  John W. Curren: They just.
• 43:37
  Alla Kaplan: Go go tell a grown up if something bad happens to you.
• 43:42
  John W. Curren: So I wasn't molested, and honestly, it almost brings me to tears because I have daughters.
• 43:49
  John W. Curren: Now I have a 22 year old daughter, and a 19 year old, daughter
• 43:53
  John W. Curren: and this 14 year old son. But
• 43:57
  John W. Curren: it that almost brings me to tears. But when I was being raised, you know, in the seventies my dad actually like. I said he taught me things to do, what not to do. One was how to handle emotions. He didn't teach me that. He held me up in front of a mirror one time when I was crying like I was, you know, hysterically crying. He holds me up in the mirror and said, Oh, look at the little monkey crying, you know, and basically ridiculed me in there.
• 44:23
  Alla Kaplan: Trying.
• 44:23
  John W. Curren: Yeah. So I mean, I I didn't try. And when my grandmother passed
• 44:29
  John W. Curren: who I was very close to? She, you know, I I
• 44:36
  John W. Curren: I started developing headaches, migraine headaches afterwards, because all my emotions were bottled up
• 44:42
  John W. Curren: and I was driving over over to my friend's house, and I'll never forget it.
• 44:47
  John W. Curren: I mean, I was taking mo like 8 800 milligrams of motrin.
• 44:51
  John W. Curren: which was not even prescript. It was a prescription medication back then.
• 44:56
  John W. Curren: Yeah, I'm driving to my friend's house just to hang out, and Ozzy Osbourne's and Lita Ford's song,
• 45:06
  Alla Kaplan: Close your eyes.
• 45:07
  John W. Curren: Yeah, close your eyes. Oh, my God! I had to pull over to the side of the road, and I just let it all out, and after that all the headache was gone.
• 45:18
  John W. Curren: disappeared, and it taught me the power
• 45:22
  John W. Curren: of emotions. You know, both negative
• 45:26
  John W. Curren: and positive, and been working since that time to.
• 45:31
  John W. Curren: you know, to be more emotionally available, emotionally open. But, man, it's it is hard
• 45:38
  John W. Curren: and it is, you know.
• 45:40
  Alla Kaplan: The sound like messed up. Sorry if I messed up the sound.
• 45:44
  John W. Curren: No, I think you're okay. I didn't sound any different. But you know just you were.
• 45:51
  John W. Curren: That has nothing, you know, in comparison to what you went through.
• 45:56
  John W. Curren: I mean, but at 9 years old
• 45:59
  John W. Curren: I mean the sky shaped your life.
• 46:00
  Alla Kaplan: Or 5 the 1st time I got molested.
• 46:03
  Alla Kaplan: Well, my my grandmother's husband.
• 46:07
  John W. Curren: They're a bad sign.
• 46:08
  Alla Kaplan: No, I don't think so. I I used to.
• 46:11
  John W. Curren: No, no, I'm sorry that I'm sorry. That was just like a blues reference more than.
• 46:15
  Alla Kaplan: I know I know I know. So I was like the 1st time was like 4 or 5 he would
• 46:23
  Alla Kaplan: like put his hand in my underwear. We would go to the Park, and he would be like hiding it. And that that was like actually one of my 1st childhood memories. Some people remember things from.
• 46:39
  John W. Curren: Yeah.
• 46:39
  Alla Kaplan: Years old. I don't remember anything like from 2 or 3 years old, but I remember this one of my first, st ever vivid memories.
• 46:50
  John W. Curren: You know I
• 46:51
  John W. Curren: I've I commend people who come on my show and be, and and open up and be. I know that to me that takes so much. I mean to
• 47:02
  John W. Curren: to face that, and and.
• 47:05
  Alla Kaplan: I'm an open book. I.
• 47:06
  John W. Curren: Yeah, I mean, oh, my gosh, I it's amazing. I mean, that's an amazing story. I mean, I
• 47:15
  John W. Curren: it just blows my mind quite.
• 47:16
  Alla Kaplan: But I don't want it to define me right I don't. And and like with the the brand and the logo, the stripper
• 47:26
  Alla Kaplan: and I actually used to have an outfit like that.
• 47:31
  Alla Kaplan: I did, I. It's the way.
• 47:33
  John W. Curren: If you visit.
• 47:34
  Alla Kaplan: So the people that designed my brand. It's it's called design.com.
• 47:41
  John W. Curren: Okay.
• 47:41
  Alla Kaplan: They did an awesome job, and I act. I mean, I don't look like that now. But I did.
• 47:46
  Alla Kaplan: I I actually, you know.
• 47:50
  John W. Curren: Well, if you visit your website you'll see what picture.
• 47:53
  Alla Kaplan: I, you know what I'm working on my website. I need to do a lot with my website and the podcast because I. I have to upload the audio all the audio from the path. I have to edit the pot the
• 48:10
  Alla Kaplan: audio and upload it to the Rss. Feed. So it goes on all the platforms and organize them into episodes from, you know. I've been doing it since August of last year.
• 48:23
  Alla Kaplan: and I need to. You know my job. I have a I have a 9 to 5 job. So it takes a lot of time, you know, editing and and posting, and all of that takes a lot of time and energy.
• 48:38
  John W. Curren: And.
• 48:39
  Alla Kaplan: In addition to all of that, I was last couple of years.
• 48:43
  Alla Kaplan: I started studying Hebrew online. So that took up a lot of my time, because I wanted to speak, be able to speak it, and I want it closer to my roots and wanted to speak it when I went over there.
• 48:57
  Alla Kaplan: And so there's a lot of stuff happening at the same time.
• 49:02
  John W. Curren: Are you going over to Israel.
• 49:04
  Alla Kaplan: No, I haven't since. We I went with my mom.
• 49:10
  Alla Kaplan: We went to visit my aunt and my half brother, who I never met in person. I have a half brother also on my father's side, so I have a sister, half sister, and a half brother, on my my father's side. My half sister used to communicate with us.
• 49:30
  Alla Kaplan: and then she stopped.
• 49:32
  Alla Kaplan: One of the reasons was, I kind of gave her peace of my mind because she stopped communicating with me.
• 49:40
  Alla Kaplan: We were like talking, and then she went into the army.
• 49:44
  Alla Kaplan: and women in Israel also have to, are required to enlist. If nobody knows about this.
• 49:54
  Alla Kaplan: it's they have to serve, unless, you know they have some kind of disability or health reason that they can't. They have to serve, I think. 2 or 3 years.
• 50:06
  Alla Kaplan: So they go through combat, you know a boot camp, all of that.
• 50:12
  Alla Kaplan: So the Israeli women can kick ass.
• 50:16
  John W. Curren: Oh, yeah, wonderful.
• 50:17
  Alla Kaplan: Yeah, exactly. Gal Gadot.
• 50:20
  Alla Kaplan: Oh, what a great wonder woman she is, too
• 50:22
  Alla Kaplan: right. She's a great wonder woman. She's also.
• 50:25
  John W. Curren: Badass.
• 50:27
  Alla Kaplan: She's a badass, and she's also unapologetically Jewish.
• 50:33
  John W. Curren: Yeah.
• 50:34
  Alla Kaplan: Unapologetically, Israeli unapologetically pro Zionist.
• 50:43
  Alla Kaplan: which is, I don't want to get into political stuff here because we're talking about. You know the We're well, he is speaking of overcoming trauma.
• 50:55
  Alla Kaplan: You know, there's a lot of stuff that was being ignored about
• 51:00
  Alla Kaplan: the women being raped and killed in Israel.
• 51:03
  Alla Kaplan: So in any case. But so survivors, I realized, you know, one day when, after I started doing
• 51:12
  Alla Kaplan: the podcast
• 51:14
  Alla Kaplan: and I, I, you know, they have to say that I I was reading and saw in some podcast training.
• 51:23
  Alla Kaplan: When you start a business, the 1st thing you have to ask yourself is why
• 51:29
  Alla Kaplan: or you write a book, and then you ask yourself, why am I doing this?
• 51:34
  Alla Kaplan: What is? If you want to reach an audience or carve out a niche.
• 51:40
  Alla Kaplan: Do you have a niche? What is your niche? And the 1st question you said is, why
• 51:46
  Alla Kaplan: and for me I realized that
• 51:51
  Alla Kaplan: even though I thought it was just me talking and doing different topics, and I realized.
• 52:01
  Alla Kaplan: well, I I am the kind of person that wants to help people.
• 52:06
  Alla Kaplan: And I I said to myself one day, people say all the time, or why me
• 52:15
  Alla Kaplan: like they ask. You know what's so special about me? Why, me.
• 52:22
  John W. Curren: Yeah.
• 52:23
  Alla Kaplan: And I thought to myself one day, and I was doing a I think, a subject on manifestation and clearing the clutter in your life.
• 52:35
  Alla Kaplan: And I said to it came out. I said, Why not you?
• 52:41
  Alla Kaplan: I said to myself, why not you? And why not? You 2 people
• 52:47
  Alla Kaplan: to people who want to have a voice
• 52:51
  Alla Kaplan: if they have. If I have this platform of a podcast and I decided, I said, why not you?
• 53:02
  Alla Kaplan: And that's talking to the audience, not my just myself.
• 53:06
  Alla Kaplan: Why not you?
• 53:08
  Alla Kaplan: What you want to.
• 53:10
  John W. Curren: So many people are self defeated before they even start. Because they this I can't do it.
• 53:16
  John W. Curren: And they you're right. You can't do it if you tell yourself you can't.
• 53:20
  John W. Curren: But you have to. You have to. But I guess you know. I guess also, what you're talking about, too, is what you is.
• 53:28
  John W. Curren: You've been. You've gone bad. You've gone through a traumatic experience. You've survived something. And and for you, it's it's not just one experience. It's multiple experiences throughout your life. And I think things like that build, I mean.
• 53:46
  John W. Curren: build on you. And you have. You have a you have a I mean.
• 53:52
  John W. Curren: your drive is going in a certain direction, and you recognized
• 53:57
  John W. Curren: that and took that, took that power and shifted it into something totally
• 54:03
  John W. Curren: totally different and something positive. So taking something negative
• 54:09
  John W. Curren: and spinning it and not spinning it. But yeah, all transform. Yeah, transforming it into something positive that is very healthy. And a wonderful thing, and people need to be aware that they can do that. You know.
• 54:27
  John W. Curren: you know, a lot of people.
• 54:28
  Alla Kaplan: Power, back.
• 54:30
  John W. Curren: Yeah, I have a friend who's who's a doctor and his father.
• 54:38
  John W. Curren: He's also he's also Jewish.
• 54:43
  John W. Curren: I don't think he's.
• 54:46
  John W. Curren: I think I forget exactly what what kind of Jewish he is, but but anyhow, he.
• 54:51
  Alla Kaplan: Docs, maybe.
• 54:52
  John W. Curren: It. It hit the original, the original
• 54:56
  John W. Curren: clan. I think I forget what it is.
• 55:00
  Alla Kaplan: There's well, that was many 12 tribes.
• 55:03
  John W. Curren: Is it hasidic.
• 55:05
  Alla Kaplan: Well. Hasidic is very, very orthodox, like.
• 55:08
  John W. Curren: I think that's.
• 55:09
  Alla Kaplan: The dog.
• 55:10
  John W. Curren: I think that's what he came from. I think. Anyhow.
• 55:14
  Alla Kaplan: Yeah, it doesn't.
• 55:15
  John W. Curren: He has no hair on his toes, and he's and he says that that's a sign of ultra intelligence. But that's you know, that's just.
• 55:23
  Alla Kaplan: Somebody said, what if one of your toes, the the toe that's next to your big toe is longer than the the big toe, the that you're you're super intelligent, but I I wouldn't go that far, because I think a lot of people have a toe that's longer than the big.
• 55:41
  John W. Curren: Everyone's looking at their toes right now.
• 55:43
  Alla Kaplan: But.
• 55:44
  John W. Curren: You know, it's so funny. Back a few years ago on Npr. My wife was telling me about this.
• 55:50
  John W. Curren: There was an article on Npr. About hands and about like.
• 55:54
  Alla Kaplan: If longer, you know, different fingers being longer than the other.
• 55:59
  John W. Curren: And they said, Well, if this one's longer chances are, you know you're lesbian. And she, my wife like looked around, and she says, because she's stuck in traffic in in Atlanta. She's looking around, and every like people different people are looking all they're all looking at their hands.
• 56:16
  Alla Kaplan: I forgot to hit record on for me on this so well.
• 56:20
  John W. Curren: That's okay.
• 56:21
  Alla Kaplan: You'll have to send me the recording.
• 56:22
  John W. Curren: We could do that.
• 56:23
  Alla Kaplan: Yeah, that's that's hilarious.
• 56:25
  John W. Curren: But he but he but his father was a con artist, and so he was raised basically as a criminal in this.
• 56:33
  John W. Curren: like a, you know, running scams, and I like pocketing like.
• 56:39
  Alla Kaplan: I don't know. I don't know if they want that like running scams like robbing people.
• 56:44
  John W. Curren: I maybe like I don't know if, like, probably, as
• 56:49
  John W. Curren: I don't know what the word is for it, but it's not good.
• 56:52
  John W. Curren: And he was a true, you know. He was a true con artist, from the way, like selling schemes and things like that. But
• 57:01
  Alla Kaplan: Madoff. I mean he wasn't.
• 57:04
  Alla Kaplan: Madoff wasn't exactly, you know. Didn't make the Jewish people look good.
• 57:10
  John W. Curren: Yeah, I don't know. Maybe.
• 57:12
  Alla Kaplan: You know what they, the people, come in all shapes, forms, sizes, races, whatever. But he.
• 57:20
  John W. Curren: He turned his life. My my friend became a doctor because he wanted he wanted to help people, and you know he be. He really changed
• 57:30
  John W. Curren: opposite direction.
• 57:31
  John W. Curren: Yeah, like his family tree. Almost. I mean, he, you know.
• 57:36
  John W. Curren: he's creating a brand new
• 57:39
  John W. Curren: brand new branch. Yeah, a brand new.
• 57:42
  Alla Kaplan: I believe in quantum physics
• 57:45
  Alla Kaplan: like, I'm not a scientist. I'm not an expert, but I have read a lot about
• 57:52
  Alla Kaplan: quantum. I have a book called it The Mind's Eye. It's the minds and the letter I. And it's a so it's play on words.
• 58:04
  John W. Curren: Okay.
• 58:04
  Alla Kaplan: And it talks about. I haven't read the whole book because I'm like
• 58:09
  Alla Kaplan: sometimes it's maybe it's an Adhd. I'm jumping from one thing to another.
• 58:14
  Alla Kaplan: But so it talks about
• 58:18
  Alla Kaplan: how you affect the molecules around you, what you say, what you do, what you think
• 58:25
  Alla Kaplan: I read a lot about manifestation and abundance, and and I did an episode like by myself. You know, about.
• 58:35
  John W. Curren: Yeah.
• 58:35
  Alla Kaplan: Clearing the cloud, and I sometimes I'll take an article that I wrote on medium, and then I'll read it, and then I'll talk about.
• 58:44
  John W. Curren: Yeah.
• 58:45
  Alla Kaplan: The subject and may mo- mostly. It's by myself
• 58:50
  Alla Kaplan: I haven't had guests on my podcast so I would love to have I'm open to any subject like you mentioned. Npr.
• 58:59
  Alla Kaplan: I'm not a huge fan.
• 59:00
  John W. Curren: I don't listen to it anymore.
• 59:01
  John W. Curren: That was a different time of my life.
• 59:03
  Alla Kaplan: Honestly, I'm not. I'm not on the left. I'm not on the right. I'm an independent. I'm in the middle. You know.
• 59:13
  John W. Curren: Yeah, I am, too.
• 59:14
  Alla Kaplan: Like I. You know I have.
• 59:17
  Alla Kaplan: I'm very.
• 59:19
  Alla Kaplan: very open to, you know people who are Lgbtq. What? All of that? Because I I work with someone?
• 59:30
  Alla Kaplan: I didn't know this. We we had someone who was
• 59:35
  Alla Kaplan: a man that was in the club
• 59:39
  Alla Kaplan: that became a woman and had this the surgery.
• 59:42
  John W. Curren: Wow!
• 59:43
  Alla Kaplan: And I would have never known had no one told me
• 59:47
  Alla Kaplan: she was drop dead, gorgeous, drop, dead gorgeous.
• 59:51
  John W. Curren: Yeah, I know I can't say I understand. I I don't understand the drag culture. Honestly, I but I don't. Honestly, I it. It doesn't bother me.
• 1:00:02
  Alla Kaplan: People of all shapes, sizes.
• 1:00:05
  John W. Curren: Yeah.
• 1:00:06
  Alla Kaplan: Everything, if.
• 1:00:08
  John W. Curren: Just because I don't understand. It doesn't mean that I'm saying PE telling people not to do it. I just I don't. You know
• 1:00:16
  John W. Curren: it. The way my friend, who's a doctor, explained it to me is he's like he's like people read about criminals, and they're like, Oh, I just don't understand that? Well, you're not a criminal.
• 1:00:26
  John W. Curren: So yeah, you don't understand it. You don't have a criminal mind, just like if you if you dress in drag.
• 1:00:33
  John W. Curren: I mean, whatever your mindset is, I mean, you feel like
• 1:00:37
  John W. Curren: then that and that's you. And I have no problem with that.
• 1:00:40
  Alla Kaplan: I have no problem with it. I mean, I I have been a lot around a lot of
• 1:00:47
  Alla Kaplan: gay bisexual lesbian, whatever people
• 1:00:53
  Alla Kaplan: and I lived in San Francisco for a short while.
• 1:00:58
  John W. Curren: Atlanta.
• 1:00:59
  Alla Kaplan: I was stripping. Atlanta has Atlanta, I think, is like the number One Strip club capital in the world.
• 1:01:07
  John W. Curren: Really.
• 1:01:07
  Alla Kaplan: It has more strip clubs per capita than any other city in the world.
• 1:01:13
  Alla Kaplan: and I I visited Atlantis when I worked in San Francisco at a club.
• 1:01:20
  Alla Kaplan: And this club.
• 1:01:23
  Alla Kaplan: Actually, you know, there was a lot of Asian. I was
• 1:01:28
  Alla Kaplan: very shocked by the California girls. They were. They were stunning.
• 1:01:34
  Alla Kaplan: I mean, and don't get me wrong, that I worked in
• 1:01:38
  Alla Kaplan: DC and the Baltimore area and
• 1:01:42
  Alla Kaplan: I'd worked with actually a lot of other girls at one club, who were also Jewish like the owner, was Jewish.
• 1:01:52
  Alla Kaplan: The one of the girls mothers came with outfits to sell outfits. Her mother had no problem with her daughter being stripping and being that they were Jewish.
• 1:02:08
  Alla Kaplan: and the her husband owned the club.
• 1:02:12
  Alla Kaplan: Okay, yeah, wow.
• 1:02:14
  Alla Kaplan: So she'll run.
• 1:02:15
  John W. Curren: Can't believe it's fair.
• 1:02:16
  John W. Curren: She'll run it one day, maybe.
• 1:02:18
  Alla Kaplan: I haven't been there in a long time. I haven't no, actually.
• 1:02:23
  John W. Curren: Business.
• 1:02:23
  Alla Kaplan: Somebody else bought it, I know, and I used to actually be roommates. I was living with the girl who now her and her husband own it, and she was not like the nicest, best person in the world.
• 1:02:37
  Alla Kaplan: She she had a drug problem
• 1:02:40
  Alla Kaplan: actually her and my ex-husband did drugs together when we lived with her.
• 1:02:45
  Alla Kaplan: So like I'm lucky I never fell into smoking crack.
• 1:02:51
  Alla Kaplan: I can say that.
• 1:02:53
  John W. Curren: Good.
• 1:02:53
  Alla Kaplan: That. You know I'm just fortunate that I didn't.
• 1:02:57
  Alla Kaplan: never tried, never wanted to. Just. And also I've
• 1:03:01
  Alla Kaplan: kind of felt like when I was with him at the. You know. Somebody had to be the responsible one.
• 1:03:07
  Alla Kaplan: so like I wouldn't drink as much. I wouldn't do as much drugs or whatever, because somebody had to like, take care of
• 1:03:15
  Alla Kaplan: everything.
• 1:03:16
  John W. Curren: Yeah.
• 1:03:17
  Alla Kaplan: But at the end of the so it's it's just funny.
• 1:03:20
  John W. Curren: So is that what kind of?
• 1:03:23
  John W. Curren: So I've so we talk about a swift kick in the ass on this show and what it is really is. It's a positive thing in my mind. It's something that happens.
• 1:03:34
  John W. Curren: It's like a moment or an action or something. That
• 1:03:38
  John W. Curren: kind of opens your eyes. Yeah, yeah. An epiphany you had to say, Hey, you know what
• 1:03:43
  John W. Curren: I need to take. I need to
• 1:03:47
  John W. Curren: go, you know, I I've read some books that, like once you read them, they
• 1:03:51
  John W. Curren: they change your view of the world, and I think it's kind of the same way with a swift kick in the ass. It can open your eyes and it change. Change. Your view of the world so sounds to me like you have responsibility.
• 1:04:02
  Alla Kaplan: Yes, yeah. I mean, you had a
• 1:04:05
  Alla Kaplan: what is the swift kick in the ass, is it? Is it like, you know? Is it hitting rock bottom.
• 1:04:13
  John W. Curren: I don't know. See? I mean, that's it's all up for discussion. Yeah.
• 1:04:17
  Alla Kaplan: I I was in Aa. I went. I lived in I'm not, I guess you call it. They call it upstate because it's 30 min outside Manhattan.
• 1:04:27
  Alla Kaplan: you know you step off, Manhattan, and it's upstate. So.
• 1:04:31
  John W. Curren: Hmm.
• 1:04:32
  Alla Kaplan: So, anyway. So I live, like, you know, in Westchester County and Rockland County, in New York.
• 1:04:40
  Alla Kaplan: where I hooked up with a guy actually, who used to come to the Strip Club. Well, I moved to the Bronx and for a bit.
• 1:04:49
  Alla Kaplan: and I was working in a strip club in in New York, very close to Greenwich, Connecticut.
• 1:04:58
  Alla Kaplan: Greenwich is one of the richest parts of the country.
• 1:05:04
  John W. Curren: Okay.
• 1:05:05
  Alla Kaplan: Like 1 million multi 1 million dollar homes and millionaires and.
• 1:05:10
  John W. Curren: Old money, right.
• 1:05:11
  Alla Kaplan: Old money, old old money, and but new money, too, as I met I had
• 1:05:20
  Alla Kaplan: met a guy, and he was kind of like, you know.
• 1:05:26
  Alla Kaplan: a stock, not a stalker, but anyway.
• 1:05:30
  John W. Curren: I'm sure you've had many.
• 1:05:32
  Alla Kaplan: I I met this guy. He was like 14 years older than me at the time I was 29,
• 1:05:39
  Alla Kaplan: and I was
• 1:05:42
  Alla Kaplan: So I was moved in with him. His daughter ended up getting
• 1:05:47
  Alla Kaplan: pregnant. She was like 19 or 20, and she was in college, and she got pregnant with twins. So her.
• 1:05:55
  John W. Curren: Wow!
• 1:05:56
  Alla Kaplan: Her and her at that time. Fiance, who's now? Her husband moved in with us, and
• 1:06:03
  Alla Kaplan: I had just. He was an Aa, and you know I
• 1:06:09
  Alla Kaplan: for some reason, I guess I decided. At that time I had quit stripping
• 1:06:16
  Alla Kaplan: I asked him. You know, do you think I'm an alcoholic, and he was like, I can't answer that for you. You have to answer that for yourself.
• 1:06:24
  Alla Kaplan: So I,
• 1:06:26
  Alla Kaplan: because because he was in a I joined a. So I was like always doing doing what? What my.
• 1:06:34
  John W. Curren: Really wasn't the drinking that joke to
• 1:06:37
  John W. Curren: it really wasn't the drinking so much. Then.
• 1:06:39
  Alla Kaplan: Not. Really. It was like because he was in this culture that I felt like in order to understand him, that I needed to be in the culture. But after like. And they tell you that after 5 years, you're gonna think that you know everything.
• 1:06:57
  Alla Kaplan: But I stopped after just about 5 years, because I realized that
• 1:07:04
  Alla Kaplan: So in my opinion, this is just my personal opinion. I'm not telling anyone that it has been there like 30 years, or 40 years.
• 1:07:16
  Alla Kaplan: they call.
• 1:07:17
  John W. Curren: Yeah. It's all individual.
• 1:07:18
  Alla Kaplan: It's all individual. I got kind of tired of a lot of negative
• 1:07:26
  Alla Kaplan: talk, because there, there seem to be like a lot of judgmental people who were
• 1:07:33
  Alla Kaplan: I just got. I got tired of the negativity. There was a lot of negativity, in my opinion. Just me personally. There was just like, if if you don't do what we think you should do, you know.
• 1:07:50
  John W. Curren: Yeah.
• 1:07:50
  Alla Kaplan: Talk about. Oh, my God! That if you leave, you're gonna end up dead or in jail.
• 1:07:57
  Alla Kaplan: and I've never done anything.
• 1:08:00
  Alla Kaplan: Yeah, go to jail so. And I, you know.
• 1:08:04
  John W. Curren: I mean, it's like there's a straight. There's a straight, narrow path. And you have to follow that exactly
• 1:08:10
  John W. Curren: right as is, or it's not gonna happen.
• 1:08:13
  Alla Kaplan: If you leave, and then they were like stalking me. When I stopped coming.
• 1:08:17
  Alla Kaplan: I was like, go to the gas station to get gas, and this guy jumps out of his truck, and he is like, where have you been and what's going on with you? And I'm like.
• 1:08:28
  Alla Kaplan: Oh, my God, and then, like I would be driving, and somebody that was in in the rooms, as they call the rooms.
• 1:08:39
  John W. Curren: You see the.
• 1:08:40
  Alla Kaplan: Guy standing there waving at me
• 1:08:42
  Alla Kaplan: from the meetings, and after I stopped going.
• 1:08:46
  John W. Curren: Oh, my! Gosh!
• 1:08:47
  Alla Kaplan: And so I was. You know they were like.
• 1:08:51
  Alla Kaplan: I. I think you know the dead are in jail is for people who are
• 1:08:59
  Alla Kaplan: you know, criminals. They were criminals. They I met people who, you know, they admitted I was a criminal.
• 1:09:07
  Alla Kaplan: you know, from a or na, or I mean? Yeah, there's there's I saw I I remember one lady
• 1:09:17
  Alla Kaplan: who, you know, she was married to a mafia guy, and so
• 1:09:25
  Alla Kaplan: but I decided at 1 point. It's not for me I'm it's just not for me.
• 1:09:30
  Alla Kaplan: But I was already at that time. I started actually therapy
• 1:09:36
  Alla Kaplan: and I think therapy opened my eyes a lot
• 1:09:42
  Alla Kaplan: when I started dealing with the trauma.
• 1:09:46
  Alla Kaplan: and you know there's a lot of people that won't go to therapy. They won't even take
• 1:09:53
  Alla Kaplan: you know.
• 1:09:54
  John W. Curren: What did? What got you the therapy.
• 1:09:57
  Alla Kaplan: Honestly, this this man and I do have to thank him.
• 1:10:03
  Alla Kaplan: I kind of had a nervous breakdown.
• 1:10:07
  Alla Kaplan: I had more than one. And when when I hooked up, when I moved in with the guy
• 1:10:13
  Alla Kaplan: who was older than me and I had met him at the club, actually, we started dating, and I met him at the club.
• 1:10:21
  Alla Kaplan: So you know, it's sometimes that sometimes.
• 1:10:26
  John W. Curren: See how that happens. Quite honestly.
• 1:10:28
  Alla Kaplan: But I mean, honestly, you're it's you're.
• 1:10:32
  Alla Kaplan: Where else do you? Are you going to meet men? And then, when you're
• 1:10:39
  Alla Kaplan: especially if you're working, and you constantly come across different people.
• 1:10:44
  John W. Curren: I met my wife at work.
• 1:10:47
  Alla Kaplan: I met my ex-husband at at work, I together, and he.
• 1:10:53
  John W. Curren: No, it wasn't a strip club just for those. Okay.
• 1:10:58
  Alla Kaplan: It's an office. And like I said, you know, in the Strip Club, when you're working in the Strip club that becomes your office.
• 1:11:05
  John W. Curren: Right, yeah.
• 1:11:07
  Alla Kaplan: So basically
• 1:11:11
  John W. Curren: So.
• 1:11:11
  Alla Kaplan: He, I went to. I had a nervous breakdown. I was in the hospital, and then I was referred to a therapist to go after the hospital.
• 1:11:22
  Alla Kaplan: and so I. I had a nervous breakdown once before.
• 1:11:27
  Alla Kaplan: a long time before that, and I was supposed to go to therapy, but I wouldn't go to therapy.
• 1:11:35
  Alla Kaplan: But when I finally started going, I realized I started
• 1:11:44
  Alla Kaplan: letting people in to and and getting
• 1:11:48
  Alla Kaplan: the stuff out of my head.
• 1:11:52
  Alla Kaplan: And you know, I started medication.
• 1:11:57
  Alla Kaplan: I didn't realize, you know. I didn't know I was bipolar. I I just thought that I was, you know not.
• 1:12:05
  Alla Kaplan: And my, you know my ex-husband used to tell me that I was a manic depressive this is before they called it bipolar. They called it manic depressive.
• 1:12:16
  Alla Kaplan: and so what he was physically abusing me. So I.
• 1:12:25
  John W. Curren: Had issues of his own.
• 1:12:26
  Alla Kaplan: I wasn't going to. Yeah. He had his own issues. And when it comes to men's mental health he had a lot of issues that turned out that he had been molested as a child.
• 1:12:38
  Alla Kaplan: that he had been abused physically by his father. So I stayed with him because I felt sorry for him. He was like a child crying on my shoulder, but at 1 1 time, and that was his reason for
• 1:12:55
  Alla Kaplan: being physically abusive. That was the excuse, and I was, you know, buying into it
• 1:13:01
  Alla Kaplan: for for about we were married only about a year and a half, but together around 3 years.
• 1:13:08
  Alla Kaplan: But so you know, I just I started to realize when
• 1:13:15
  Alla Kaplan: I guess when the medication started kicking in and the talk therapy together.
• 1:13:23
  Alla Kaplan: that's that. That was, I guess.
• 1:13:28
  Alla Kaplan: and I I'm not. I don't knock aa it they it. I learned a lot.
• 1:13:35
  John W. Curren: Yeah.
• 1:13:36
  Alla Kaplan: Just like, you know, I learned a lot in the Strip Club. I learned a lot
• 1:13:41
  John W. Curren: You're still learning.
• 1:13:42
  Alla Kaplan: Yeah. And I learn every day. I'm just not there anymore. I just it's not for me.
• 1:13:50
  Alla Kaplan: But I don't knock it. I did. That's when I encountered forgiveness and and
• 1:13:59
  Alla Kaplan: You know I don't know if the 12 steps are all for me.
• 1:14:04
  Alla Kaplan: I did them over and over and over for 5 years, and I just
• 1:14:10
  Alla Kaplan: no, no, maybe I was hanging out with the wrong people there, too. Who knows?
• 1:14:15
  John W. Curren: Yeah. Well, there's all walks of life right?
• 1:14:18
  Alla Kaplan: Yeah.
• 1:14:20
  John W. Curren: In any group I mean.
• 1:14:23
  Alla Kaplan: So yeah, judge them. I don't judge them. I don't judge.
• 1:14:27
  Alla Kaplan: No, I don't like. I was telling the guy who was talking about people being the strippers being broken.
• 1:14:35
  Alla Kaplan: And I was like, you know what I worked with women
• 1:14:40
  Alla Kaplan: who were not from broken homes.
• 1:14:43
  Alla Kaplan: We're working on. A master's a Phd.
• 1:14:49
  Alla Kaplan: They, you know, if the girl was wearing a wig and she took the wig off.
• 1:14:55
  Alla Kaplan: and she was like in a store, you would never recognize her.
• 1:15:01
  Alla Kaplan: because she, like I had people recognize me in a grocery store or something.
• 1:15:08
  Alla Kaplan: But I, you know, was myself all the time.
• 1:15:11
  Alla Kaplan: But I. I know that some some women who were raising kids going to college, and
• 1:15:24
  Alla Kaplan: they weren't from broken families. They were from a family where the parents were together for 30, 40 years.
• 1:15:33
  Alla Kaplan: So I said, well, you know that. Don't assume.
• 1:15:37
  Alla Kaplan: Don't judge a book by its cover. Don't assume
• 1:15:41
  Alla Kaplan: yeah, there. Of course, there were women
• 1:15:45
  Alla Kaplan: who had drug problems had drinking problems were for broken homes, but not like, don't not.
• 1:15:55
  Alla Kaplan: It's not like I don't know the percentage, 50%, 60%, 70%. I don't know.
• 1:16:02
  Alla Kaplan: I don't. I didn't know I wasn't interviewing at that point. People for every story. And I've decided I think I should like start
• 1:16:12
  Alla Kaplan: going out and interviewing women who are either stripping or no longer stripping.
• 1:16:20
  Alla Kaplan: I think that that's gonna be something maybe I do in the future.
• 1:16:24
  John W. Curren: Yeah.
• 1:16:25
  John W. Curren: I was just wondering about. You know, I mean, I know what strip clubs were like back when I was younger and single
• 1:16:33
  John W. Curren: it. A lot has changed, I mean, you know. I mean, that was also it was pre-aids
• 1:16:43
  John W. Curren: so, or right around. Well.
• 1:16:47
  Alla Kaplan: Yeah.
• 1:16:48
  John W. Curren: Right around that. Yeah, I guess some of that was around pre-aids. But I mean Aids changed thing when Covid
• 1:16:55
  John W. Curren: Covid absolutely changed things. You know more, more in the more recent history.
• 1:17:00
  Alla Kaplan: Yeah.
• 1:17:01
  John W. Curren: I don't know if, like
• 1:17:04
  John W. Curren: strip comes to. I'm sure a booming business always.
• 1:17:08
  John W. Curren: They're always gonna be in demand. I would think.
• 1:17:11
  Alla Kaplan: Not the same. And but the funny thing, the culture has changed so much, because when you see, like even movies and singers and dancers. And
• 1:17:25
  Alla Kaplan: oh, yeah, who? It's a the culture. It's not as taboo as it was.
• 1:17:32
  John W. Curren: Yeah, that's true.
• 1:17:33
  Alla Kaplan: People are more accepting of it. And you know the the sincerest form of flattery is imitation.
• 1:17:43
  Alla Kaplan: and I mean, when you you know Demi Moore got paid like 12 million dollars to portray a stripper
• 1:17:54
  Alla Kaplan: and that's when you know she she I don't know before or after that, when she went and had her breast surgery, the augmentation.
• 1:18:05
  Alla Kaplan: I think she had the surgery to be in the movie
• 1:18:10
  Alla Kaplan: and to be honest with you her portrayal 1st off. I didn't think it was a great movie. I don't want to call anybody out.
• 1:18:20
  Alla Kaplan: That's okay.
• 1:18:22
  John W. Curren: This is brutally honest.
• 1:18:24
  Alla Kaplan: Actually a great actress. I.
• 1:18:26
  John W. Curren: Absolutely. Yeah.
• 1:18:26
  Alla Kaplan: That I just don't think that I portrayed. You know, the movie. It wasn't a very realistic portrayal
• 1:18:36
  Alla Kaplan: of the movie of the of the industry. If there's a movie called the The Players Club.
• 1:18:44
  Alla Kaplan: and that was.
• 1:18:45
  John W. Curren: More real.
• 1:18:46
  Alla Kaplan: Very, very, more true to life.
• 1:18:49
  Alla Kaplan: Okay, very true, more true to life. But.
• 1:18:52
  John W. Curren: You are just a wealth of knowledge. Let me just say I, I you keep on giving good recommendations.
• 1:18:58
  Alla Kaplan: I know. No, I.
• 1:18:59
  John W. Curren: So appreciate.
• 1:19:00
  Alla Kaplan: I'm I'm so. I love movies, and I love, you know books. And I love
• 1:19:07
  Alla Kaplan: I'm just oh, I actually, I'm a wealth of
• 1:19:13
  Alla Kaplan: information. That's just random.
• 1:19:17
  John W. Curren: No! There's there's something to it. There's.
• 1:19:19
  Alla Kaplan: Random.
• 1:19:20
  John W. Curren: You know you. You've been on this incredible journey, I think, and you continue to recognize the importance of growing growing from it. You know you really can't. You have learned to
• 1:19:33
  John W. Curren: kind of.
• 1:19:34
  John W. Curren: So I'm I'm re kind of rebranding. I think I told you so. You know my my latest slogan is, you know, be strong, be bold, be asinine, and.
• 1:19:45
  Alla Kaplan: Like.
• 1:19:46
  John W. Curren: And what is part of it is, you know, it's like, if you look at a donkey, a donkey learns to carry a heavy load that they're given, and you're not complaining about it. They're they. They learn to deal with it, and they they push through, and I mean not to call you a donkey. Gosh! I mean, even I have a problem with my own branding. But you I mean you have shown incredible resilience, I think.
• 1:20:14
  Alla Kaplan: Did an episode on resilience too.
• 1:20:16
  John W. Curren: Had to adversity.
• 1:20:18
  Alla Kaplan: An article on resilience. Yeah.
• 1:20:20
  John W. Curren: Yeah. And you know a woman's perspective. I I was. I was looking through your
• 1:20:25
  John W. Curren: your videos as well, you know and talk about
• 1:20:31
  John W. Curren: the way a woman feels the power that she feels as a stripper in in the club, in at work.
• 1:20:40
  John W. Curren: I mean, I've been a customer, and I'll tell you. I mean
• 1:20:45
  John W. Curren: there were plenty of times, my whole, all the whole party group, the whole group of us. We walked out just empty, you know.
• 1:20:54
  John W. Curren: or our pockets, you know, and that's that was the business. That was the business.
• 1:20:59
  Alla Kaplan: I mean, there's a movie called Hustlers with Jennifer Lopez, which I'm sure people know
• 1:21:06
  Alla Kaplan: where. Basically what what happened is.
• 1:21:12
  Alla Kaplan: that was when the bubble the market of the real estate market
• 1:21:19
  Alla Kaplan: hit above the mortgage. The mortgage prices back in like 2,008, 2,007 2,008
• 1:21:28
  Alla Kaplan: when the mortgage crisis hit, they they went. It was, this is, and this is a portrayal of a true story. By the way, the movie hustlers. It really happened.
• 1:21:39
  Alla Kaplan: So they got started drugging guys to get their credit cards to get cash
• 1:21:49
  Alla Kaplan: and then the Strip club. The people weren't coming to the Strip Club. They were. Everybody was broke because of the mortgage bubble.
• 1:22:00
  John W. Curren: Yeah.
• 1:22:00
  Alla Kaplan: The all the loan off the brokers, the stock brokers, the money, the people with the big money in New York.
• 1:22:09
  Alla Kaplan: It's a true story of. So if you watch the movie hustlers and you'll see. And so
• 1:22:17
  Alla Kaplan: the reputation is that, you know, strippers. All they want is your money. That's I mean we had actually
• 1:22:26
  Alla Kaplan: when I worked in San Francisco. It never aired the episode never aired.
• 1:22:31
  Alla Kaplan: There was a a show called Real sex a long time ago.
• 1:22:36
  John W. Curren: Oh, yeah, yeah. I remember.
• 1:22:37
  Alla Kaplan: Hbo.
• 1:22:39
  Alla Kaplan: and they came and interviewed some of the girls in the club that I worked at in San Francisco.
• 1:22:47
  Alla Kaplan: and one of the girls that I was friends with. They asked her, you know, what are you thinking about when you're when you're dancing, and you're doing your job? And she said. All I see is a dollar sign. I. All I want is your wallet
• 1:23:03
  Alla Kaplan: from your from you, that's all I want is your the money in your wallet. And so there was also a girl I worked with at that time in San Francisco.
• 1:23:13
  Alla Kaplan: who they would go to Tahoe.
• 1:23:16
  Alla Kaplan: and I think there's gambling in Tahoe.
• 1:23:18
  John W. Curren: -
• 1:23:19
  Alla Kaplan: So they would. She would talk about. We're gonna go roll a guy.
• 1:23:24
  John W. Curren: Bye.
• 1:23:24
  Alla Kaplan: Meaning, meaning that they were. They were, gonna you know, drug him up or get him drunk and steal his, you know all his cash or money whatever. That's what they call rolling a guy.
• 1:23:37
  Alla Kaplan: And so people assume that you know all strippers are either horse or gold diggers. I talk about that.
• 1:23:43
  John W. Curren: Yeah.
• 1:23:44
  Alla Kaplan: In my book. It's in the introduction.
• 1:23:46
  Alla Kaplan: It's on medium.com if anybody wants to read it.
• 1:23:50
  Alla Kaplan: So yeah, the thing is one
• 1:23:56
  Alla Kaplan: me. I I worried about it as well that sometimes when I was on stage and we talked about this in the dressing room, what I'm thinking about? What am I gonna do for dinner? What am I having for dinner?
• 1:24:11
  Alla Kaplan: Yeah, just just like when you're sitting in.
• 1:24:14
  John W. Curren: Yeah.
• 1:24:14
  Alla Kaplan: Office.
• 1:24:15
  John W. Curren: Yeah.
• 1:24:16
  Alla Kaplan: Okay. And at that time this was before cell phones. This was before Facebook and chatting, and all of that. So you would be talking to your friends at the office. What are you doing for dinner? Or sometimes we had, like, you know.
• 1:24:34
  Alla Kaplan: before instant messaging we had instant messaging at our company when I used to work in the office where I met my ex husband. Back in like 1990, 1990, 1991, I was 20 or 21 years old when I met him. So anyway, we had like instant messaging within the the company, the the computer.
• 1:24:59
  John W. Curren: Okay.
• 1:24:59
  Alla Kaplan: So so people and people he. I didn't know this, but he was like screwing a lot of girls at the office.
• 1:25:08
  Alla Kaplan: He was very handsome. He's very handsome. Guy still is and and I do keep in contact with him occasionally.
• 1:25:18
  Alla Kaplan: And I yeah, I've forgiven. I could say I've forgiven him, and I forgave myself
• 1:25:25
  Alla Kaplan: for being with him. And and yeah.
• 1:25:29
  Alla Kaplan: that's a big thing. That's a huge thing. And I talk about all of that stuff on my podcast and resilience and all of that.
• 1:25:38
  Alla Kaplan: So anyway.
• 1:25:39
  Alla Kaplan: it's it's just people don't assume like, you know, that I talk about. I had actually a guy
• 1:25:47
  Alla Kaplan: make a comment on one of my episodes that there's no strippers.
• 1:25:55
  Alla Kaplan: he said he was like, meh, there's no strippers.
• 1:26:01
  Alla Kaplan: So I said, okay.
• 1:26:04
  Alla Kaplan: I'm gonna do an episode about strippers. And I did an episode said all about stripping. It had, like 7,000 hits.
• 1:26:12
  John W. Curren: Yeah.
• 1:26:14
  Alla Kaplan: As opposed to like an episode about
• 1:26:18
  Alla Kaplan: abundance, resilience narcissists, narcissists had a lot of hits to the episode. It really
• 1:26:27
  Alla Kaplan: like touched a lot of people, I guess.
• 1:26:30
  Alla Kaplan: But the episode on I said, Okay, I'm going to do an episode all about strippers.
• 1:26:39
  Alla Kaplan: And I said, You know, don't assume that all strippers are whores or gold diggers.
• 1:26:47
  John W. Curren: I, yeah, no, I agree.
• 1:26:50
  John W. Curren: I agree. Yeah, I mean, I and our our experience as a group collectively emptying our money. It wasn't, you know, that wasn't just one girl, I mean, that's what the business is there for to empty, you know.
• 1:27:05
  Alla Kaplan: Because you want.
• 1:27:06
  John W. Curren: And and we were in college at a back. I mean, it was a bachelor party at the at the time, I mean
• 1:27:12
  John W. Curren: in in Tampa, Florida. So there was this place called Xanadu, or Spaceship Odyssey. I think it was maybe.
• 1:27:21
  Alla Kaplan: Wow!
• 1:27:22
  John W. Curren: It was. It looked like a Ufo.
• 1:27:25
  John W. Curren: I almost lost a nipple.
• 1:27:27
  John W. Curren: I won't go under it, was it? Was it was. Yeah.
• 1:27:32
  John W. Curren: We have a lot of good, really great store like.
• 1:27:34
  Alla Kaplan: You almost lost a nipple. That that's a very interesting story. I'd like to hear.
• 1:27:40
  Alla Kaplan: Yeah, he, yeah.
• 1:27:41
  John W. Curren: It was. It was. It was interesting. You have a much, much more interesting
• 1:27:48
  John W. Curren: story. So my! Oh, I know I've got. I I guess.
• 1:27:52
  Alla Kaplan: I've got.
• 1:27:52
  John W. Curren: How to clean.
• 1:27:53
  John W. Curren: It's not a clean episode, anyway.
• 1:27:55
  Alla Kaplan: Yeah, I've got stories. Yeah.
• 1:27:57
  John W. Curren: So, my buddy, my buddy has always looked young.
• 1:28:03
  John W. Curren: He looked like doogie doogie houser, actually, at the time, you know, like like a 13 year old.
• 1:28:10
  John W. Curren: clean cut, kid, right kind of. So we go into this club.
• 1:28:16
  John W. Curren: and I swear this. The one of the dancers there dropped down, sped her legs, pulled her lips out.
• 1:28:28
  Alla Kaplan: Oh, my God!
• 1:28:29
  John W. Curren: Inch like 8 inches, and was like.
• 1:28:32
  Alla Kaplan: But.
• 1:28:32
  John W. Curren: And was like Tip. The clit is what.
• 1:28:36
  Alla Kaplan: Hello!
• 1:28:37
  John W. Curren: Yeah. And and
• 1:28:39
  John W. Curren: people were putting, giving her money, you know, giving her money, and but that was like the saying that
• 1:28:45
  John W. Curren: for the rest of the that weekend my.
• 1:28:50
  Alla Kaplan: Have even been a man before, you would never know it.
• 1:28:53
  Alla Kaplan: Oh, she may have been. She may have been like you never know.
• 1:28:58
  John W. Curren: Yeah, you know, just create, you know.
• 1:29:00
  Alla Kaplan: And yeah.
• 1:29:01
  John W. Curren: Busy times, but.
• 1:29:03
  Alla Kaplan: People love oddities, too, like great like
• 1:29:07
  Alla Kaplan: like, I said, like everybody has a preference. If there's like something that you've never seen, you have to go see it.
• 1:29:16
  John W. Curren: Oh, yeah.
• 1:29:17
  Alla Kaplan: You and you.
• 1:29:19
  John W. Curren: But no, again it's.
• 1:29:20
  Alla Kaplan: You can't come empty handed.
• 1:29:24
  John W. Curren: Oh, so many places we could get there. But you know it's not just, but
• 1:29:29
  John W. Curren: it really isn't just all about the money, too. I also know, too, from
• 1:29:36
  John W. Curren: a lady friend of mine. It's a good way to say lady friend of mine back when I was in college
• 1:29:42
  John W. Curren: she basically had a they had a female, all female review that was like.
• 1:29:49
  John W. Curren: And so they do parties and things like that. She she.
• 1:29:53
  John W. Curren: you know, she worked her way through college that way. Yeah. You know, people, you know, people have dreams and ambitions, and they would just want to live their life the best they can, and
• 1:30:06
  John W. Curren: you know, using the resources available to them, and I mean some of the.
• 1:30:12
  Alla Kaplan: I said in my in my book, and I realized like when I was well, 1st of all, when I 1st started, and I was with my ex-husband, and I was in the abusive relationship
• 1:30:25
  Alla Kaplan: then, after I left him is when I actually and then the power that I felt
• 1:30:33
  Alla Kaplan: the I took my power back when I left.
• 1:30:38
  Alla Kaplan: because because that was a huge thing for me to do is to realize that I will be okay
• 1:30:50
  Alla Kaplan: if I leave that
• 1:30:54
  Alla Kaplan: I'm not. I'm not the person that
• 1:30:59
  Alla Kaplan: I I'm I am a a full person with by myself. I don't need someone
• 1:31:07
  Alla Kaplan: to define me someone else. I don't need to be with someone to define myself.
• 1:31:15
  Alla Kaplan: And so the power that I took back when I left him.
• 1:31:19
  Alla Kaplan: and then the amazed. I you know I felt so much more powerful on stage, and my confidence
• 1:31:31
  Alla Kaplan: went through the roof because I took my power back.
• 1:31:36
  John W. Curren: Yeah.
• 1:31:37
  Alla Kaplan: I continued to dance, even though I started it because I was with him.
• 1:31:45
  Alla Kaplan: The power I took back that I felt.
• 1:31:51
  Alla Kaplan: You know I was still doing drugs and drinking, but
• 1:31:56
  Alla Kaplan: and actually I started doing more drugs and drinking more when I left him, because I was at the time trying to numb the pain.
• 1:32:05
  John W. Curren: -
• 1:32:06
  Alla Kaplan: You know, and physically, mentally
• 1:32:12
  Alla Kaplan: So I started to get into the drugs more because that I didn't have to be responsible for anybody else.
• 1:32:21
  John W. Curren: So did you have something that
• 1:32:23
  John W. Curren: it was a breakthrough for you to to get away from.
• 1:32:27
  Alla Kaplan: The the reason. And I talked about this in a previous recording that I just did with the lady named Anu
• 1:32:41
  Alla Kaplan: she has a podcast called victim to Victor
• 1:32:45
  Alla Kaplan: that I recently recorded. She's in the Uk, and she's a published author and she's a reiki master. Yoga teacher.
• 1:32:54
  John W. Curren: Oh, yeah.
• 1:32:54
  Alla Kaplan: Healer. She's very educated. She has a master's a Phd. She's well traveled so, anyway. When he hit me on the head
• 1:33:05
  Alla Kaplan: with the flashlight like the cops. Use a Mac.
• 1:33:09
  John W. Curren: Oh!
• 1:33:10
  Alla Kaplan: Like flashlight.
• 1:33:11
  John W. Curren: No.
• 1:33:11
  Alla Kaplan: And so I woke up, and I was passed out
• 1:33:15
  Alla Kaplan: in a pool of my own blood, and my head and
• 1:33:21
  Alla Kaplan: had him arrested, never had him arrested before. So I went, and I had him arrested for the the
• 1:33:30
  Alla Kaplan: so.
• 1:33:30
  John W. Curren: Yeah.
• 1:33:31
  Alla Kaplan: Abuse, and that literally be being hit on the head
• 1:33:39
  Alla Kaplan: woke me up to the fact, and that wasn't the 1st time he tried to kill me.
• 1:33:45
  John W. Curren: Okay.
• 1:33:45
  Alla Kaplan: But
• 1:33:47
  John W. Curren: That was the last.
• 1:33:48
  Alla Kaplan: Was the last, and I left
• 1:33:51
  Alla Kaplan: and I had. I'm telling you, guardian angels, because there was a girl that I worked with, and her and her boyfriend helped me to get
• 1:34:01
  Alla Kaplan: a ticket home.
• 1:34:03
  Alla Kaplan: Of an airplane ticket because he was basically taking all my money. So I had no.
• 1:34:10
  Alla Kaplan: but then I started hiding. I started taking a little money and a little bit at a time, hiding it at my locker at work.
• 1:34:19
  Alla Kaplan: because he was always taking money out of my hand as soon as I had it. So he can go get drugs and drink and everything.
• 1:34:27
  Alla Kaplan: And he was actually fascinated with the people who had the sex change
• 1:34:36
  Alla Kaplan: and he was actually fascinated with drag queens, and he.
• 1:34:42
  John W. Curren: Oh!
• 1:34:42
  Alla Kaplan: I don't think he he wouldn't, didn't want to admit that he may be bisexual or gay, or anything, so he knows.
• 1:34:52
  Alla Kaplan: but the fact is, when I got hit on the head
• 1:34:57
  Alla Kaplan: that was my epiphany, I actually I was telling her also on the when I was recording. I I had dreams of killing him, that I was throwing him off a cliff.
• 1:35:10
  Alla Kaplan: And so I realized that one of us is gonna die. And it's not gonna be me.
• 1:35:18
  Alla Kaplan: Yeah, I don't. I don't want to kill him.
• 1:35:21
  Alla Kaplan: I didn't want to kill him. I wanted to kill him, but I wasn't going to do it, so
• 1:35:27
  Alla Kaplan: I chose to leave instead.
• 1:35:31
  John W. Curren: Yeah, I almost married the wrong woman before I met my wife.
• 1:35:37
  John W. Curren: I I was engaged to be married, and I called off the wedding about 2 and a half weeks before. We we lived together, and we lived together in Georgia, and at that time, if a man and a woman with different last names signed a lease together that was considered
• 1:35:57
  John W. Curren: the marriage, or civil.
• 1:36:01
  Alla Kaplan: Oh, really.
• 1:36:02
  John W. Curren: Yeah, and I didn't know that. But but in any case she.
• 1:36:08
  Alla Kaplan: Business kind of.
• 1:36:09
  John W. Curren: She was crazy, you know. I mean she crazy Redhead
• 1:36:16
  Alla Kaplan: Thanks.
• 1:36:17
  John W. Curren: But
• 1:36:18
  Alla Kaplan: I'm not a real redhead, but.
• 1:36:20
  John W. Curren: But
• 1:36:22
  John W. Curren: you know she told me she once she said, I wish you would hit me so. I know you care.
• 1:36:27
  John W. Curren: And for me
• 1:36:29
  John W. Curren: that was she. Obviously she. She was abused as a child as well. And I was like, listen, I you know I want to be with you, but you need to get help.
• 1:36:38
  John W. Curren: you know I can't be with you if you're not going to get help. And she didn't want to get help. And I I mean, I broke it off. And for me that was a light switch moment. It was something. You know, we have these very tough decisions. I mean talking about marriage, marrying someone. You don't take something like that lightly, and we live together.
• 1:37:00
  John W. Curren: So I hemmed and hawed. But when I made that decision
• 1:37:05
  John W. Curren: it. It was clear, definite, and very powerful, and you walk away like
• 1:37:14
  John W. Curren: feeling good. I actually had a friend an old friend I knew from high school
• 1:37:21
  John W. Curren: knew him a long time, and we had a falling out, and I
• 1:37:25
  John W. Curren: severed that relationship, too, and the last time I saw him
• 1:37:29
  John W. Curren: I I said, you know I owed him some money, and I said, Here's the money I owe you.
• 1:37:33
  John W. Curren: but do not say a word, or I'm going to hit you right in the nose. And I said, and I walked away.
• 1:37:40
  John W. Curren: and I remember feeling so powerful, and I think you probably felt so powerful when you
• 1:37:48
  John W. Curren: that I'm out of here.
• 1:37:49
  Alla Kaplan: Well, I was afraid that he is. Gonna follow me. He was released on his own recognizance. This we were in Hawaii. We went from San Francisco. We're living in Hawaii.
• 1:38:03
  Alla Kaplan: and I was hoping that maybe in Hawaii
• 1:38:08
  Alla Kaplan: because Hawaiian people are so beautiful and loving and friendly.
• 1:38:12
  Alla Kaplan: and just you know, the the scenery, and being in that atmosphere
• 1:38:20
  Alla Kaplan: can make you so happy. And yet I was so miserable.
• 1:38:26
  Alla Kaplan: Says I was continuing to work.
• 1:38:29
  Alla Kaplan: and always, and the clubs were open on Friday nights, or to like 3 or 4 in the morning.
• 1:38:37
  Alla Kaplan: and I was doing double shifts to pick up. You know I was giving him the money, and he wasn't paying the rent.
• 1:38:47
  Alla Kaplan: and he was buying drugs and whatever, and.
• 1:38:50
  John W. Curren: Yeah.
• 1:38:50
  Alla Kaplan: You know, they have a huge meth problem in Hawaii, California, Hawaii. They they have huge meth problem, and they call it crystal. And it's it's worse than crack, and whatever.
• 1:39:03
  John W. Curren: Yeah.
• 1:39:04
  Alla Kaplan: So anyway. But the Hawaiian people are just so so kind, so open, so friendly.
• 1:39:15
  Alla Kaplan: and so like. I said, like I thought I had these 2 people, the girl and her boyfriend were my guardian angel.
• 1:39:24
  John W. Curren: Hmm.
• 1:39:25
  Alla Kaplan: Because they went and they got they actually, I think, used
• 1:39:31
  Alla Kaplan: their frequent flyer Miles to buy me a plane ticket so I could leave.
• 1:39:37
  Alla Kaplan: I was afraid.
• 1:39:38
  John W. Curren: You know.
• 1:39:39
  Alla Kaplan: You know, I was afraid he was gonna follow me. But he actually
• 1:39:42
  Alla Kaplan: went, and, you know, got with some other girls. And he he wasn't.
• 1:39:50
  Alla Kaplan: He only realized that I was gone.
• 1:39:54
  Alla Kaplan: You know, when when I wasn't coming back
• 1:39:57
  Alla Kaplan: he realized I wasn't coming back, and I did come back a couple of times.
• 1:40:02
  Alla Kaplan: and as soon as he slapped me I left again, and then I it was for good.
• 1:40:07
  Alla Kaplan: It took me a couple of times.
• 1:40:08
  John W. Curren: Wow, yeah.
• 1:40:10
  Alla Kaplan: Me a couple times, but
• 1:40:13
  John W. Curren: They say that most that happens with
• 1:40:15
  John W. Curren: with Mo in most abusive relationships, that well, I'm just 14.
• 1:40:19
  Alla Kaplan: Going back like a lot.
• 1:40:20
  John W. Curren: And change. Yeah.
• 1:40:21
  Alla Kaplan: I'm just.
• 1:40:21
  John W. Curren: Sounds like it.
• 1:40:22
  Alla Kaplan: To be alive. I felt fortunate that I that I I'm alive!
• 1:40:28
  Alla Kaplan: And then, of course,
• 1:40:31
  Alla Kaplan: I had actually tried suicide with pills. Several years later. This is
• 1:40:40
  Alla Kaplan: jumping into like it's I think it's like it was maybe like 10 years ago.
• 1:40:48
  Alla Kaplan: 10 or 13 years ago. Something like that.
• 1:40:53
  Alla Kaplan: I went and met him for a drink.
• 1:40:57
  Alla Kaplan: I don't even remember why, but I did.
• 1:41:01
  John W. Curren: Okay.
• 1:41:02
  Alla Kaplan: And he told me that my best friend that I used to work with and dance with.
• 1:41:09
  Alla Kaplan: who I hadn't seen in a long time
• 1:41:14
  Alla Kaplan: he told me that she he heard she died, and I started to.
• 1:41:19
  John W. Curren: Right.
• 1:41:20
  Alla Kaplan: Immediately, because I was actually searching for her.
• 1:41:24
  Alla Kaplan: and I didn't know that she had passed, or and so, you know, we drifted apart, and I didn't have her in my life anymore.
• 1:41:35
  Alla Kaplan: And I had a breakdown, and I
• 1:41:40
  Alla Kaplan: wanted to kill myself, and I took every medication that I had.
• 1:41:45
  Alla Kaplan: and I I've went through. I feel it felt like I went
• 1:41:52
  Alla Kaplan: through. A. I can't even explain it. It's hard to really hard. I felt like I was falling through different dimensions.
• 1:42:04
  John W. Curren: Hmm.
• 1:42:04
  Alla Kaplan: I had these vivid dreams or nightmares, and when I woke up I called my mom.
• 1:42:16
  Alla Kaplan: I told my mom that I had tried to kill myself. I was.
• 1:42:22
  John W. Curren: Wow!
• 1:42:23
  Alla Kaplan: I was in the hospital in the Psychiatric Hospital, and my mom told, didn't she for a while
• 1:42:33
  Alla Kaplan: had a hard time being emotionally available.
• 1:42:37
  Alla Kaplan: And when I when I 1st I was like maybe 20, something
• 1:42:43
  Alla Kaplan: or 30, I don't remember told her about the childhood abuse actually.
• 1:42:49
  Alla Kaplan: and she told me that I dreamt it. Maybe I dreamt it.
• 1:42:53
  Alla Kaplan: I was very angry.
• 1:42:54
  John W. Curren: Oh, yeah.
• 1:42:56
  Alla Kaplan: We had a very tumultuous relationship at 1 point, and then, when I tried to kill myself and I said that I tried to kill myself. She was like, I don't believe you. And I was like.
• 1:43:07
  Alla Kaplan: why would I lie? Yeah, but I felt like I was falling through different dimensions. I was going through like it was like being in the matrix or something.
• 1:43:19
  Alla Kaplan: Very, very scary.
• 1:43:21
  John W. Curren: Do you remember the lawnmower man, the movie, the lawnmower man with Pierce Bronson.
• 1:43:27
  Alla Kaplan: I think he I've never heard of it.
• 1:43:29
  John W. Curren: It was a really good movie, and I kind he, he! It was this, as I remember, the basis was, there was this guy, and he gets put into a computer
• 1:43:41
  John W. Curren: and he's or or maybe he's a computer life form or something. But he's trying to get out.
• 1:43:47
  John W. Curren: And he's like putting up his hands like trying to curate all these connections like trying to get out, and he can't. He can't get out.
• 1:43:55
  John W. Curren: And it was kind of like. That's kind of how I'm envisioning like that.
• 1:44:00
  John W. Curren: That different.
• 1:44:04
  Alla Kaplan: I was just. I went up and I was falling, falling, falling, falling. And I'm the type of person that I'm
• 1:44:11
  Alla Kaplan: afraid to suicide, because, like, I'm afraid, you know I do. I believe in a heaven or hell.
• 1:44:20
  John W. Curren: Okay.
• 1:44:21
  John W. Curren: I believe that.
• 1:44:23
  Alla Kaplan: So there! There might be like.
• 1:44:25
  John W. Curren: Isn't.
• 1:44:26
  Alla Kaplan: Hell is here on earth. Who knows?
• 1:44:29
  John W. Curren: Isn't. I thought Jewish people don't believe in heaven or hell.
• 1:44:33
  Alla Kaplan: I mean, I'm not.
• 1:44:34
  John W. Curren: I thought it was here.
• 1:44:36
  Alla Kaplan: Super, religious.
• 1:44:37
  John W. Curren: Okay. Okay.
• 1:44:38
  Alla Kaplan: So just. But I you know I have
• 1:44:42
  Alla Kaplan: I think I'm closer to a Buddhist than any
• 1:44:46
  Alla Kaplan: I have a big, big, big belief in Karma.
• 1:44:50
  Alla Kaplan: And I'm I'm just afraid that if I kill myself where I'm gonna end up.
• 1:44:56
  John W. Curren: Yeah, okay, I guess.
• 1:44:57
  Alla Kaplan: Okay, so
• 1:45:00
  John W. Curren: I'm just glad you didn't. I'm glad that was not successful, and.
• 1:45:04
  Alla Kaplan: And it wasn't.
• 1:45:05
  John W. Curren: That was a cry for help sounds to me like, and luckily
• 1:45:09
  John W. Curren: you've been able to continue, you know. Get get the help and continue.
• 1:45:13
  Alla Kaplan: That was like that was in 2,011, I think, or 2,000.
• 1:45:19
  John W. Curren: Okay.
• 1:45:19
  Alla Kaplan: And then 2,014, and it's been several. I've had several.
• 1:45:24
  Alla Kaplan: but it's been a while. I'm I guess, on the right medication, and just, I think, like I said, the writing. The book
• 1:45:35
  Alla Kaplan: was cathartic.
• 1:45:37
  John W. Curren: Yeah.
• 1:45:37
  Alla Kaplan: And then just feeling.
• 1:45:42
  Alla Kaplan: like I said, when when I started the podcast and when I wrote the book.
• 1:45:49
  Alla Kaplan: I never thought about being any type of a leader or being
• 1:45:56
  Alla Kaplan: help to people. But I realized that.
• 1:46:01
  Alla Kaplan: why am I? The why is that I do want to help other people.
• 1:46:07
  Alla Kaplan: but I don't think that people are broken.
• 1:46:11
  Alla Kaplan: I mean, you can get you can feel broken.
• 1:46:15
  Alla Kaplan: But that doesn't mean that you're broken. I don't assume that a stripper is broken because I've worked with women like, I said. Who were they were in medical school. They were in law school.
• 1:46:29
  Alla Kaplan: They chose to do this for the cash to themselves through school. They don't assume that they're drug addicts and whores. And and you know what I I mentioned this in my all about stripping episode, I said.
• 1:46:46
  Alla Kaplan: and if someone is a prostitute.
• 1:46:50
  Alla Kaplan: or whatever you want to call it.
• 1:46:52
  Alla Kaplan: I said, you know what my definition, of course, is different, because a lot of businessmen and politicians.
• 1:47:00
  Alla Kaplan: And be considered whores.
• 1:47:03
  John W. Curren: Oh, my goodness gracious! I.
• 1:47:04
  Alla Kaplan: So so my definition, and even being, you know what a prostitute is. An honest living.
• 1:47:13
  John W. Curren: Right.
• 1:47:13
  Alla Kaplan: Just like being a stripper is an honest.
• 1:47:16
  John W. Curren: Providing a service. It's it's the oldest known profession.
• 1:47:20
  Alla Kaplan: One of the, if not, if not the oldest.
• 1:47:23
  John W. Curren: Yeah, I mean.
• 1:47:26
  John W. Curren: the sex does sell, and sex is important to human nature. I mean, without it human nature doesn't survive.
• 1:47:37
  Alla Kaplan: A lot of it is not even about sex, like some people.
• 1:47:40
  John W. Curren: Yeah, it's not right. It's about, you know.
• 1:47:41
  John W. Curren: power, right? As I understand, it's more about the power. But I mean, I could imagine I mean being down there on the floor and looking up. I know what I'm I mean. I'm admiring. I'm I'm loving the
• 1:47:55
  John W. Curren: the beauty and and the pole. Dancing, too.
• 1:47:59
  John W. Curren: is freaking amaze. Some is amazing.
• 1:48:02
  Alla Kaplan: People do it, and then some people don't. I mean, honestly, there are.
• 1:48:07
  John W. Curren: I know some.
• 1:48:07
  Alla Kaplan: There are dancers who aren't really doing anything on the pole, because they, you know they have.
• 1:48:14
  Alla Kaplan: They just don't want to, or.
• 1:48:16
  John W. Curren: Extra
• 1:48:17
  Alla Kaplan: Or it's it.
• 1:48:18
  John W. Curren: Strength and ability. Yeah.
• 1:48:20
  Alla Kaplan: But the the thing is like, you know, a lot of the girls who get the augmentation. They don't really have to, because.
• 1:48:28
  John W. Curren: Yeah.
• 1:48:29
  Alla Kaplan: It's it's
• 1:48:30
  John W. Curren: Isn't that funny?
• 1:48:31
  Alla Kaplan: You know so.
• 1:48:31
  John W. Curren: I don't have to.
• 1:48:32
  Alla Kaplan: Or you know what I loved it, because it gave me this amazing workout, and I used to hang upside down on the pole and do sit ups
• 1:48:44
  Alla Kaplan: and like.
• 1:48:46
  Alla Kaplan: I actually said, you know, if I had room in my house now, I would put a pole in my house.
• 1:48:53
  John W. Curren: Know some women that actually do
• 1:48:55
  John W. Curren: do have that, and you know a pole in their house. And then in
• 1:49:00
  John W. Curren: one of my cousins actually put put a post a post on Facebook, and she's been doing. She's.
• 1:49:08
  Alla Kaplan: Yeah.
• 1:49:08
  John W. Curren: Several routines, and it's so funny she starts talking about how how she she used what was the term? It was so funny to me ass meat, or something like that, like to hold grip on to use her ass meat to hold on to the pole, or something like that. I'm like, Oh, my God!
• 1:49:27
  Alla Kaplan: My, my ex husband said you. You have like monkey feet, because because when you.
• 1:49:33
  Alla Kaplan: Dance on the pole. You use your feet and a lot to hold on to the pole, and and you cause I could like pick up the remote control with my foot, so.
• 1:49:45
  John W. Curren: You know it's, you know. Teach his own, you know, and and.
• 1:49:48
  Alla Kaplan: Monkeys.
• 1:49:49
  John W. Curren: Sure people.
• 1:49:50
  Alla Kaplan: So.
• 1:49:51
  John W. Curren: Absolutely.
• 1:49:52
  Alla Kaplan: Oh!
• 1:49:52
  John W. Curren: You know, it's so funny because I think based on title it. You know, people aren't. Gonna
• 1:49:58
  John W. Curren: if they're offended by this, I mean, they're in the wrong place because we're not. You know this is not
• 1:50:04
  John W. Curren: so. i i i think it's a.
• 1:50:06
  Alla Kaplan: Don't worry.
• 1:50:06
  John W. Curren: Thing, yeah.
• 1:50:08
  Alla Kaplan: I actually warn in my book at first, st like in the Introduction.
• 1:50:12
  Alla Kaplan: that if what if foul language offends, if if cursing and sexual situations.
• 1:50:20
  John W. Curren: Right.
• 1:50:21
  Alla Kaplan: And anger because a lot of it in in my book is like, you know, it starts with anger. And I was like, and I'm an angry person, and I think I
• 1:50:31
  Alla Kaplan: got a lot of the anger out writing the book.
• 1:50:35
  Alla Kaplan: So I said, if those things offend you, this is not the book for you. If you're looking for a warm, fuzzy read
• 1:50:44
  Alla Kaplan: book is not for you.
• 1:50:46
  John W. Curren: Okay. Well, you know what I'm gonna keep you on
• 1:50:49
  John W. Curren: on the hook for writing this and finishing this book and getting it done.
• 1:50:54
  Alla Kaplan: I need. I need the swift kick in the ass.
• 1:50:57
  John W. Curren: I'll hold you accountable. I'm gonna I check in on you on this because
• 1:51:02
  John W. Curren: I started writing a book. I've tried to write so many different books. There's something called scrivener, which I use as a program.
• 1:51:10
  Alla Kaplan: Hmm.
• 1:51:11
  Alla Kaplan: It's an AI.
• 1:51:13
  John W. Curren: No, it's not AI!
• 1:51:14
  Alla Kaplan: Okay.
• 1:51:15
  John W. Curren: It's. It's basically a great
• 1:51:17
  John W. Curren: tool that you can use to create like note cards. And when you have a lot of disparate ideas, you know. You can
• 1:51:25
  John W. Curren: put them down in different note cards and then start to shuffle things and make sense and.
• 1:51:31
  Alla Kaplan: Website.
• 1:51:32
  John W. Curren: It's a it's a tool it's an application.
• 1:51:36
  Alla Kaplan: Like you can.
• 1:51:37
  John W. Curren: I'll also I'll also.
• 1:51:39
  John W. Curren: Yeah, I think they have that. I'll send you I'll send you.
• 1:51:41
  Alla Kaplan: Email.
• 1:51:42
  Alla Kaplan: But yeah, yeah.
• 1:51:43
  John W. Curren: But I think we're running kind of long on this show. Probably my long.
• 1:51:47
  John W. Curren: I don't really.
• 1:51:47
  John W. Curren: This is very interesting.
• 1:51:49
  John W. Curren: I've just so much enjoyed talking.
• 1:51:51
  John W. Curren: Yeah, I really did, too. You know, I wish you a lot of luck on your on your own show, and you know I encourage my listeners to, to listen, to check her out. You know.
• 1:52:02
  Alla Kaplan: And and.
• 1:52:03
  John W. Curren: Jewish stripper, raw and real.
• 1:52:05
  Alla Kaplan: People want to come and be guests.
• 1:52:09
  Alla Kaplan: I'm open to almost any topic.
• 1:52:14
  Alla Kaplan: I mean, if you want to talk about shipping, I invite.
• 1:52:17
  John W. Curren: Yeah.
• 1:52:19
  Alla Kaplan: If you're a stripper or an ex stripper, or you're on escort.
• 1:52:26
  Alla Kaplan: People, you know, or escorts, you know. Escorts are also like women who go to school, law, school and college, and I don't know if you ever saw the show. The girlfriend experience.
• 1:52:41
  John W. Curren: Oh, I haven't.
• 1:52:42
  Alla Kaplan: There was a show called The Girlfriend Experience
• 1:52:45
  Alla Kaplan: by, and the director is Steven Sodoheim, who's directed many movies.
• 1:52:52
  John W. Curren: Okay.
• 1:52:53
  Alla Kaplan: And so the girlfriend experience is about escorts.
• 1:52:58
  Alla Kaplan: But the the women are like, you know, super intelligent and going to law school and things like that.
• 1:53:05
  Alla Kaplan: Yeah, no, I love it.
• 1:53:06
  Alla Kaplan: I invite anyone they don't have like we did like. I said we did the show on with the Nigerian girl about the mental health men's mental health.
• 1:53:18
  Alla Kaplan: and how important it is for men.
• 1:53:21
  John W. Curren: Yes.
• 1:53:22
  Alla Kaplan: You know, and that really hits.
• 1:53:24
  John W. Curren: I agree with you, too. I yeah. It hits hope for me, too.
• 1:53:30
  John W. Curren: well, mental health is is very important. In fact, you know. I mean, that's I have to say that this this show has been very important to my mental health as well. You know.
• 1:53:42
  John W. Curren: losing my co-host, Tommy. Back in 2020.
• 1:53:48
  John W. Curren: I had to, you know. I had a decision to make, too. I could have stop the show.
• 1:53:54
  John W. Curren: but I felt like the message was important, and so did Tommy. It was bigger than both of us, and it's really the help create positive change in your life, you know, no matter
• 1:54:05
  John W. Curren: who you are, what you are, what you want to do. We're not trying to tell people how to live their life either. But sharing our experiences and learning from each other because we've got to learn how to relate to one another again, it seems like we've kind of lost
• 1:54:23
  John W. Curren: lost that in our country these days.
• 1:54:26
  Alla Kaplan: I'll be honest. I've I've I've I have done episodes on
• 1:54:32
  Alla Kaplan: You know things that happen after October 7, th and.
• 1:54:36
  John W. Curren: Yeah.
• 1:54:36
  Alla Kaplan: Heaven. Because, I was actually in New York City. We went for the day, me and my friend Teresa, who was originally doing the Podcast, with me@firstst
• 1:54:48
  John W. Curren: Yeah.
• 1:54:49
  Alla Kaplan: And we went. We went for one day to New York City on it was last year, or the or the year before, on October 7, th
• 1:54:58
  Alla Kaplan: and she said to me
• 1:55:01
  Alla Kaplan: she saw something on her phone, there's a war in Israel, and I made a joke. There's always a war in Israel.
• 1:55:09
  Alla Kaplan: but I didn't know what had happened, and then we were we were. We took the bus, and we were waiting for the bus
• 1:55:16
  Alla Kaplan: to go home, and I saw the the Empire State Building was lit up blue and white
• 1:55:24
  Alla Kaplan: and I didn't realize until the next day when I got you know, when I got
• 1:55:30
  Alla Kaplan: what happened. And so I have done a lot of speaking out on my podcast, about
• 1:55:39
  Alla Kaplan: what happened and what's happening and
• 1:55:44
  John W. Curren: Yeah, that's good. We need to do that.
• 1:55:46
  Alla Kaplan: I'm unapologetically Jewish so and Zionist.
• 1:55:52
  Alla Kaplan: and so I've expressed my views on things.
• 1:55:57
  Alla Kaplan: And you know, like I said, if I I have a platform, and I'm going to use it.
• 1:56:06
  Alla Kaplan: or but you know.
• 1:56:10
  John W. Curren: But you know.
• 1:56:11
  Alla Kaplan: The trauma. Imagine the trauma that the families have of the hostages and and the the hostages who've been released.
• 1:56:23
  John W. Curren: Yes.
• 1:56:23
  Alla Kaplan: And the trauma that they're going through.
• 1:56:27
  Alla Kaplan: So yeah, I'm going to just keep doing what I'm doing.
• 1:56:32
  Alla Kaplan: I. And also you know what I've learned.
• 1:56:36
  Alla Kaplan: And I've spoken about this on my podcast is that
• 1:56:43
  Alla Kaplan: I can do what whatever it is that I want to accomplish or want to do. I do not need anyone's permission.
• 1:56:53
  Alla Kaplan: I do not approval.
• 1:56:57
  Alla Kaplan: I'm
• 1:56:58
  Alla Kaplan: I don't need any permission or approval from anyone to live my life the way I want to live my life.
• 1:57:07
  John W. Curren: Here, here, I love it, that's I. That's what I want, all of us.
• 1:57:11
  John W. Curren: The aim.
• 1:57:12
  Alla Kaplan: And I I appreciate you checking in on me. I do need to finish the book.
• 1:57:18
  Alla Kaplan: I kind of stopped. I
• 1:57:22
  John W. Curren: Well, then.
• 1:57:23
  Alla Kaplan: Also because I didn't know where I'm going with it.
• 1:57:26
  Alla Kaplan: Where I go. I I got stuck a little bit with the writer's block.
• 1:57:32
  John W. Curren: And but yes, I need to finish it.
• 1:57:35
  John W. Curren: Do you need any input or comment? Throw? There's throw me some ideas.
• 1:57:40
  John W. Curren: But I certainly I really appreciate your time. And again I appreciate your
• 1:57:44
  John W. Curren: I'm gonna say, we'll wrap this up. But I encourage all my listeners today to, you know. Check out Allah Kaplan, and I hope I.
• 1:57:54
  Alla Kaplan: a OLLA.
• 1:57:55
  John W. Curren: Ayla, yeah.
• 1:57:56
  Alla Kaplan: ELAN.
• 1:57:58
  John W. Curren: Terrible.
• 1:57:59
  Alla Kaplan: 70 on Youtube or just Google, the Jewish stripper.
• 1:58:04
  John W. Curren: Yeah.
• 1:58:05
  Alla Kaplan: Go to Youtube and put in the Jewish stripper. And there's all my episodes.
• 1:58:12
  Alla Kaplan: including a very, very rough introduction in Aug. Back in August.
• 1:58:17
  Alla Kaplan: when back in August of last year, when I didn't have any professional background behind me.
• 1:58:26
  Alla Kaplan: Or I was just like Hi, this is my new podcast
• 1:58:30
  Alla Kaplan: I did it like an introduction for 15 min. And that's it.
• 1:58:34
  John W. Curren: Hey? But you broke the ice. You broke the ice, and you got going, and and you kept going. And and here you are today and you're you're gonna keep on rolling and gain momentum.
• 1:58:43
  Alla Kaplan: You so much for having me.
• 1:58:46
  John W. Curren: You're quite welcome.
• 1:58:48
  John W. Curren: Thank you again, and thanks to all my listeners on swift, kicking ass, this is John Curran.
• 1:58:55
  Alla Kaplan: Keep in touch.
• 1:58:55
  John W. Curren: Peace, absolutely.
• 1:58:57
  Alla Kaplan: Peace out and keep in touch.
• 1:59:01
  John W. Curren: Okay. Let me.
• 1:59:01
  Alla Kaplan: Bye.
• 1:59:03
  John W. Curren: Turn off the recording. Take care, thank you again.
• 1:59:05
  Alla Kaplan: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.
• 1:59:10
  Alla Kaplan: Where do I stop it?
• 1:59:12
  John W. Curren: I'm trying to do the same.
• 1:59:15
  John W. Curren: I will get this.