People at the Core
From The Greenpoint Palace bar in Brooklyn, New York writers and bartenders, Rita and Marisa, have intimate conversations with an eclectic mix of people from all walks of life about their passions, paranoia and perspectives. Featured guests could be artists or authors, exterminators or private investigators, or the person sitting next to you at the bar.
People at the Core
A Writer's Life: Navigating Family Stories and a Career in Education with Janelle Greco
Ever wondered what it’s like to navigate a bustling fair while indulging in deep-fried ranch dressing? Join us as Rita recounts her whimsical adventure at the Minnesota State Fair, featuring humorous tales of quirky Midwestern traditions and fond family moments. We then welcome our guest, Janelle Greco, whose talent in storytelling brings to light her impactful work with formerly incarcerated individuals and youth in foster care. This episode is filled with laughter and heartfelt reflections, including touching memories of Rita’s glamorous grandmother.
Our conversation takes a deeper turn as we explore the multifaceted world of education careers. Discover the triumphs and trials from teaching aspirations to grant writing, and learn about Janelle's journey through roles that balance passion and emotional well-being. We also discuss our writing practices, influences and dissect the genres of memoir, auto-fiction and narrative nonfiction. Through personal anecdotes and shared experiences, we shine a light on the impact our family's have had in our lives and writing.
Mentions
- Eleven by Sandra Cisneros
- The Boys of My Youth by Jo Ann Beard
- Breece D'J Pancake
- James Baldwin
- Werdsmith
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Email us! peopleatthecorepodcast@gmail.com
From the Greenpoint Palace Bar in Brooklyn, new York, writers and bartenders Rita and Marissa have intimate conversations with an eclectic mix of people from all walks of life about their passions, paranoia and perspectives. Featured guests could be artists or authors, exterminators or private investigators, or the person sitting next to you at the bar. This is People at the Core.
Speaker 2:Okay, hey, lady, hello Marissa core. Okay, hey, lady, hello marissa welcome back.
Speaker 3:Uh, you just got back from a trip to girl minnesota with the family. Minnesota, yeah, yeah, okay, I did. I went to the state fair, the.
Speaker 2:I think it's the largest state fair in america what, what is okay, so I have my con I might have just made that up like bands like journey or fleetwood, mac cover bands, pig races, animal pettings and ferris wheels.
Speaker 3:No, it's like every day. It's like 150 000 people just trapped. Oh, I have pictures of it's just like a sea of people. The bandstand is where the bands happen, but that doesn't happen until night, so you don't even fuck with that. It is just like chaos. It is, I mean, so many people and they're just all in line to eat fried food, that's all you do.
Speaker 2:I was like, what is the glue?
Speaker 3:Fried today or this year it was fried ranch, so they figured out a way to fry ranch dressing and it's just. I don't know, I didn't eat it, so a dough filled with ranch and then simmered. Yeah, and then deep fried.
Speaker 2:That's like the most Midwest thing I could think of. Yeah, I know it's very Midwest.
Speaker 3:And then I went to go get airbrush t-shirts and they closed down the airbrush. What were you going?
Speaker 2:to get.
Speaker 3:I was going to get Lourdes one.
Speaker 2:But what was the theme or the image? Well, you get to pick them.
Speaker 3:But I have one that has like a unicorn jumping over a rainbow and it just says Rita and I wanted to get Fiaco one.
Speaker 1:Yeah right.
Speaker 3:Super cool, but they didn't have it this year. They had caricatures. I can't even say that word.
Speaker 2:Caricatures.
Speaker 3:So it was pretty fun, though. I went with my dad and my brother both brothers and we ate a lot of fried food. What did I get?
Speaker 2:Did you try the fried ranch?
Speaker 3:No, I can't Fuck with that. That's too much for me. I got a corn dog and I got cheese curds oh, that's wisconsin though. Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna go green bay packers are they playing today? Okay, no I don't know, but no it was good, it was fun, it was uh, you know, family is always a lot complicated.
Speaker 2:Complicated, yeah, we all know that I think actually that's a really good segue into our guest.
Speaker 3:I think so too, so excited.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so today we have Janelle Greco, who we know from our reading series and we'll talk a little bit about some of that stuff who's a great writer and writes about her family great writer.
Speaker 3:He I just told Marissa I was like I have such a girl crush on you. I woke up this morning I was like, oh, janelle, who's?
Speaker 2:also helped influence me to be smaller and and contained with my stuff, like I don't have to write a whole fucking novel and I can write about these episodic moments with family that that are really impactful to me yeah, um anyway, okay, before we get into that, she is a writer and group facilitator living in Brooklyn.
Speaker 2:She is passionate about storytelling and working with formerly incarcerated individuals, as well as youth in foster care. Originally from Long Island, janelle often writes about growing up there, about her family, mental health and gender roles. Among other things, her work has appeared in the Sun, hobart, after Dark, maudlin House and Pigeon Pages. And yeah, like I said, she's a Palace Reading Series fave.
Speaker 3:One of my favorites, and I don't just say that, I really, I really mean that she does, and she does say it.
Speaker 2:I do say it a lot behind your back. We have behind your back, so yeah, welcome to know.
Speaker 4:Thank you so much. Oh my gosh, what an introduction. I I'm feeling all the love I just coming at you, babe well marissa really works hard too.
Speaker 3:I mean, I try and plug you every time I can but. I mean it is just amazing, like the work that she does on the reading series and the work that she does with the podcast, like I feel honored that I'm even a part of it but she does everything. I mean it is just it's. I mean I'm just so impressed and thanks of you, you know, like I don't know what. I would be nothing without you, literally we should watch beaches.
Speaker 2:Oh my god, no, my first.
Speaker 1:I know my first piano recital.
Speaker 3:I played wind beneath my wings. My mom still has a picture of me and the piano, um, all dressed up in this like laced dress and haired it up. And I remember playing wind beneath my wings, like singing, like singing in my head. But yeah, that was my first piano recital. My grandma, my favorite grandma, was there well, I had one that like dad's mom.
Speaker 3:Yeah, my dad's mom, yeah, my mom's side didn't really like me that much, okay, but that's okay because my dad's side made up for it well, because your dad's so sparkly, I imagine he came.
Speaker 2:Oh, his mother was like yeah this amazing angel sent from.
Speaker 3:I mean, she is this, oh and she, and then we can stop. But she was my fashion idol because she always had to wear animal print, mostly leopard, leopard, um, she did her hair once a week. It was like a giant fro, always had red lipstick on a gold ring on every finger and at least at least five to ten gold necklaces. So an icon, an icon I mean like mr t as a white woman?
Speaker 3:well, she's, but she's macedonian, so she, you know what I mean, like very dark olive skin. Oh, she's just done. I mean, she was my stunning fashion icon legend. I'll show you. I'll show you.
Speaker 2:I've got it on my wall at home. Next to the Keanu Reeves color in Grandma. Heroes are the best heroes Mine, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:Got one too. So, janelle, yes, so you're from Long Island. How'd you get here? Well, I, besides the L-I-R-R, I know right, the good old L-I-R-R.
Speaker 4:I came by way of going to school in Western Mass and then Boston and then decided to come back to New York and I moved into my parents for a summer and then quickly transitioned into city life, back into city life and came to Brooklyn Park Slope the first year and then Greenpoint ever since. So I've been here about 15 years total.
Speaker 3:Oh, I didn't know you're in Greenpoint.
Speaker 4:Yeah, did I know that yeah, yeah. I was over on Newell Street and then now over on Franklin Street.
Speaker 2:So I've been on both sides. She's the mom oh.
Speaker 1:I just started doing the lottery for all those apartments, yeah the affordable housing in Greenpoint.
Speaker 4:I got in there when there were tumbleweeds. Yeah, I bet Like I would walk out of the apartment. It was like Eagle Trading Company and then tumbleweeds. Totally.
Speaker 2:And and it was like Eagle Trading Company, and then Tumbleweeds Totally, and now it's like everybody's out there with their dogs. Luxury condos featured on real estate shows on Netflix for Manhattan.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, and Million Dollar Listing and all this stuff. Yeah, totally it's crazy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I used to live on Manhattan and DuPont, so pretty close over there yeah.
Speaker 2:I love that area actually, but I've had like three friends win the apartment lottery Really, yeah, and have positive experiences, because I've heard some like horror stories, like not getting things repaired, not being able to access the whatever the facilities, amenities yeah, I just want a pool. I feel like.
Speaker 3:I've made it, but that's what I'm saying. I want a rooftop pool.
Speaker 2:I've heard things, that the pool is open or restricted for the poor affordable residents, I don't know Right right, in certain buildings not necessarily there, I'm sure.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, I lied on my thing anyway, so I doubt I'll get it.
Speaker 2:How would you lie about?
Speaker 3:My income.
Speaker 2:Well, they check everything. I've heard that they go into Venmo accounts and shit.
Speaker 3:but they go into like Venmo accounts and shit. Oh really, yeah, wow, it looks like I'm stuck in my studio apartment, but wishful thinking Next door to me.
Speaker 1:You never know. I know I am next door to the best neighbor, so that's true.
Speaker 2:That's so nice, but yeah, so okay.
Speaker 4:So I came here by way of Massachusetts essentially. I mean, I'm from Long Island originally, originally out in Suffolk County, eastern Long Island, south shore, right before the island forks. No one ever knows the name of the town, it's yeah, pink but yeah yeah, pink, yeah, pink yeah pink, yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah a lot of indigenous names for the towns out there. So it's. It's makes for some interesting spellings, Right.
Speaker 2:My first, my first introduction to Long Islanders, the non Hampton vibes. I went to grad school with a guy from Ron Conkama and inevitably I sound like fucking Tony Danzaza if I hang out with him for more than five minutes and it sounds so insulting, but I love it. It's not meant to be.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's where I take the LIR into is. Ronkonkoma, ronkonkoma, yeah, ronkonkoma, yeah. So how long have?
Speaker 3:you been in Greenpoint. Then she said 15. Oh, 15. I've been there.
Speaker 4:Well, I was in Park Slope, the first year and then 14 years in Greenpoint.
Speaker 3:Gotcha Okay yeah.
Speaker 4:So I've loved it here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, me too.
Speaker 4:Obviously, yeah, been here for a while, seen the neighborhood change a lot yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it has changed. I've only been here like 10 years and it's wild to see how much it changes.
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 2:So rapidly changes right so rapidly? Yeah, right, I mean, you've been here. How long have you been here?
Speaker 3:it'll well, since we had the rest, so this will be year 11, okay, uh-huh?
Speaker 2:yeah, this is my year 11 too, really yeah, well, we started on lucky in 2013, okay oh yeah yeah, crazy stuff.
Speaker 3:I know, the neighborhood just changes so fast yeah, it's wild, it's very. Um. So let's talk about a little bit about the? Um, just the well cause. We had Vivek on like the incarcerated stuff. So how did you get into that? Is that what you went to school for, or?
Speaker 4:No, I went to school for English. Okay, Um, with the, with the question of well, what are you going to do with that degree? Are you going to be a teacher? And initially I was going to be a teacher. And then I realized through a series of different variety of jobs, I landed a grant writing job when I first moved to New York.
Speaker 4:So it was for this nonprofit that runs several homeless shelters, several men's shelters, and the grant writing position was not up my alley. It was not what I wanted to be doing. In fact, after my probation period they were like this isn't working out. Oh really yeah, and it just wasn't. It wasn't creative enough, it wasn't fulfilling enough, and so there were a few times that I had visited the shelters during that time and really loved it, and so I asked if there were any positions open. And they had this group facilitator in the training they do like occupational training there and I applied for it and got in, and then I had been there for five and a half years since, so I oversaw the occupational training program there. Yeah, and.
Speaker 4:I just continued to love it. I loved facilitating. Groups of adults taught a lot of soft skill classes, life skills classes. Funny enough, you know, I have OCD and anxiety and I would be teaching like stress management. We're in this together. But I just fell in love with working specifically with that population. It had been a lot of people that had been incarcerated and it was just the relationships that I built. There were amazing and longstanding.
Speaker 1:You know when you're kind of involved in.
Speaker 4:I wasn't in crisis, but you're working with people in crisis and then you feel like you're all in crisis together and you're trying to Like trauma bonding?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're kind of like helping each other, and I feel like I learned just as much from them as they learned, hopefully, from me but do you ever feel like, within that I mean not having necessarily been trained in therapy about deflecting and separating yourself so you don't become? Yes, you're empathizing and you're having this collective experience, but did you have you learned better, I guess, the methods of separating and disassociating so that you're not burdened and taking it all home with you?
Speaker 4:Right. So that was a big thing, and that was ultimately why I ended up leaving the working in the shelters, because I couldn't. It was very hard to separate and dissociate. Yeah, and I think there wasn't a lot of training on that specifically, although we did, you know, take some trauma informed workshops as staff. We did, you know, talk about that. I think not having formal training in that was difficult.
Speaker 2:I mean, there are whole degrees where people spend decades and I just kind of fell into it.
Speaker 4:And I think of myself as an empathic person to almost a fault where I will take on the emotions of others.
Speaker 3:I will take on their trauma here.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm the exact same way so it ended up burning me out essentially, yeah, um, and then I moved back into working specifically in education at LaGuardia Community College, overseeing a program for students who were getting their high school equivalency diplomas and then matriculating into the college, so helping them pass the high school equivalency exam and then getting into the college itself. Okay, uh, and that was more of a managerial role and I wanted to get back into facilitating and that's where I landed in my current role.
Speaker 4:So what's your role? What's your current role now? So now I teach teachers. Actually. So, I do group facilitation and professional development for teachers. To back up, the organization I work for now runs a teen writing program. So kids from all over the city come in they write stories about their lives, they work with an editor and then we take those stories and we publish them. We pay the kids for the publication.
Speaker 2:Fuck yeah.
Speaker 4:And then I kind of develop social emotional learning curricula using the stories as focal points and then in every professional development workshop we read a story by one of the kids and kind of springboard off of that.
Speaker 1:That's amazing.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's great and I don't get burned out by it.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean.
Speaker 4:There's a good balance of being committed to the work and being passionate about it, but also not taking on the emotions of others.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Jinx, Jinx, exactly Jinx. And what's the age group? Just out of curiosity.
Speaker 4:For the writers it's about 14 to 17. Okay, for the adults it ranges from. It could be anyone from 21 to you know forever, that is so cool so yeah, the teachers range in age from being from being like newer teachers to being seasoned veteran teachers. Yeah, Right.
Speaker 2:Oh, my God, yeah I feel like happy hour with that group would be really interesting. Oh for sure All sharing stories. Oh yeah, there's a lot.
Speaker 4:I mean teachers do not get enough credit and for everything that they have to go through and take on and just on a day-to-day basis, and so it's nice to be able to at least try to give some tools to help with that I do a lot on culturally responsive education, anti-racist work, things like that, to bring that to the table with educators yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 3:I know it's incredible.
Speaker 2:Well, I think of I think of you know, when we had, um rich uh, one of our previous guests who was a who is a teacher, and said one of the things that he found most challenging was the isolation of being a teacher and having these questions and experiences and wanting to be a better teacher and to have tools and to share experiences and stories of the kids and like how to best serve them and to be a better teacher, but also to decompress and and to um Right and just the amount of the amount of work that has to go into the amount of work that you have to do during the day the lesson planning and then you're developing relationships with each of the kids or trying to in a room where you might have 34 students which is like the state max.
Speaker 3:Yeah, my father's a college. Well, he just quit again his college. He's a college professor, but I mean he writes books, religious books, for textbooks, but he was teaching ethics for a while and if you know my father, it is hilarious.
Speaker 2:Your father has shared facebook articles with me via text. Yeah, but I bet.
Speaker 3:I mean I can't imagine like I think about you know I have a lot of regrets in life and or just like, oh what, you know, what could I have done with my degrees? You know my all my schooling and whatnot. I always thought about teaching but at the same time, like I just don't know, it's so much work.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I think for me anyway. It was always harder for me to connect with teens than adults and I don't. I'm not sure why that is exactly. I think I often play off the experiences that adults bring into the room and I don't know. It's always been harder for me. I coached volleyball for a while and that was always fun. Love volleyball so it's not like I can't connect with kids but, I, just find that I'm better at facilitating groups with adults Right, I mean teenagers are just enigmas on their own.
Speaker 3:I mean, you know what I mean, right, they're so terrifying. Yeah, I mean, teenagers are just enigmas on their own.
Speaker 1:I mean you know what I mean, Right Like they're so terrifying. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 4:They're like sociopaths.
Speaker 3:I'm like what are they thinking of me? Yeah, exactly, they're so judgmental. I'm not cool, yeah, and we're you know which is fine.
Speaker 2:But angry little boys and angry little girls like 12. I've worked with youth and used to do a non-profit stuff in San Francisco public housing and we'd work with kids anywhere from like 8 to 18 and I helped co-create a junior mentor program for the kids who were kind of aging out of this program. Who needed some sort of sense of responsibility to stay engaged, like they didn't want to do the activities that the 12 year olds were doing. But then you're just angry, like 12 year olds are angry.
Speaker 2:I was like I get you, like I've stopped on the side of the highway. I was like girl, I have no problem letting you out right now. Yeah, you're going to like give me this and she's like you wouldn't let me, I'm not one to be tested, anyway. Yeah, but yeah, I found the opposite that I really connected with, with teenagers, with teenagers and especially angry, frustrated and disengaged. Yeah, yeah, I mean, that was me as a teenager.
Speaker 1:That's what I mean.
Speaker 3:I was a terrible teenager Just awful. I mean just awful. I would run away all the time. I was on so many drugs. I was a terrible teenager, just awful. I mean just awful. I would run away all the time I was on so many drugs. I was a nightmare.
Speaker 4:A nightmare. I was a goody two-shoes, were you a goody two-shoes I was like in my room listening to Enya.
Speaker 3:Oh cute.
Speaker 4:Really.
Speaker 3:I love you, oh my God, because you were a bad.
Speaker 2:But I was good, bad, I like contained, I like controlled, so like I would get fucked up but I would get home for a curfew, or like I would plan things Like I would get like blackout and be like hey, you drive my truck, you follow them, and then I get home, but you're still very responsible.
Speaker 3:I am responsible. You know what I mean? Yeah, I was God. What did this is how bad I was. My parents would leave, like, let's say, friday night they would go to dinner and a movie. Dinner and a movie right, I would throw the biggest party ever, just for the four hours that they were gone, right. But then I would get so fucked up that I would forget that they're coming back, and then I would just leave and I would leave the hundred kids in the house, I would just be the first one out and then I would run away and not come back for like a week.
Speaker 3:So by the time I came back they were so worried and thought I was dead that they didn't care that I threw the party Like just tear.
Speaker 1:I mean, I also had like a you know some trauma that kind of threw me off.
Speaker 3:But but oh yeah, I mean, can you, I apologize? You know, I just got back from Minnesota and I apologized constantly to my parents. I'm so sorry, because I straightened up a little once I turned. They shipped me away to Nashville, so I straightened up a little once I hit 18. But so bad.
Speaker 4:I was the kid watching you guys from the window drive by. I was like I want to go to that party, oh, babes.
Speaker 3:What a nerd, I would have taken you to the party, yeah.
Speaker 2:I was an asshole in my late teens 20s, but I was on my own then, no you were you're the girl from Freaks and Geeks? No, but I was my drug years I was not a good, yeah, yeah the drug years.
Speaker 3:The drug years. So have you always been. Let's go to writing. Let's go back to my favorite.
Speaker 2:Oh, and your family. So we feel like we know you and you know your family because you write about them with such love and humor. And do they read your work? Do they? Do they have they heard your work or read your work? And how do they feel about that?
Speaker 4:They do. I often share it with them, whether that's online sharing or my mother will read my work. It's kind of funny because she sometimes has the reaction of like, oh, that's so sweet, that's so cute. And I'm like, well, it's deeper than you know this is about reading between the lines. Yeah, yeah, um, but she, she, she's very supportive. She's come to some readings that I've had, um, my dad will some. He he'll read some things, um, but I think he gets a little nervous when I'm writing about him yeah uh, so he hasn't really dived into those pieces just yet, uh, but my cousin has read.
Speaker 4:One of my cousins has read quite a bit and is very supportive. So they're overall very supportive. I try not to take it to a level where I'm totally digging on them or anything.
Speaker 4:It's totally out of love yeah it's out of love and it's out of. I write a lot about my grandmother, who passed away when I was in college and yeah, it's just kind of reflecting on what did that all mean? What does a childhood mean? When do you actually grow up? What do you inherit from your family, whether that's mental and emotional, what do you inherit from a place that you grow up in and how much of stays with you and how much of it do you kind of rail against? So, exploring those themes through family, I think it's done with love yeah oh, definitely and
Speaker 3:and, I think, our interpretation of of the past and of the present and how we interact with these people. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I, you know it's very similar. I write a lot about my life and my family and how complicated it is and and you know my dad loves it because he loves the attention. My mother hates it because she thinks I'm exaggerating or like being dramatic, you know, and my brother doesn't say anything. But I totally get that. It is out of risk. I never do it to be cruel.
Speaker 2:Or intentional, or to expose, or to be not salacious but to be exaggerative, where you're overplaying certain perhaps tropes or idiosyncrasies. Right, yeah, I think it's.
Speaker 4:I try to keep, keep it on. It's my experience with my family. It's not about my, my family's experiences and they're they're inextricably intertwined with my life and my childhood and making sense of that. So they're gonna come up, yeah, um, but it's more about me navigating that and less about their sort of idiosyncrasies, even though those do pop up in the in the writing.
Speaker 3:Of course.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I guess there's that fine line between, like I tell all and and telling you of your experience, right? I mean, dave Sedaris is a great example of that, right?
Speaker 2:Just this sort of quirky family, you know or fronds, and I guess it's another great example of, just without giving the dirt right, spilling the tea, right yeah it's, as I say, because I write most freely about my grandparents who are dead and my family, as an anonymous kind of flub, a little bit about my mom, but I try not to yeah and not anything about my father, who's basically doesn't exist for me anymore right the closest I get is through this podcast. My mom will mama, mama she will text me random sentences like sound bites from the podcast.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's cute, so I know that she's listened to it Lots of little catchphrases oh.
Speaker 3:I love that.
Speaker 2:It's really cute, but she's like I can't call you because I listen to it late night when I'm in the kitchen prepping meals for the week or the day. She's like because I know you're asleep, that's great that's lovely so sometimes I'll wake up to like just one liner um, which is really fun, and text um shout out mama, yeah, I love you.
Speaker 2:That's adorable, but yeah, so I have a hard time fully being honest because there are layers to things but, I, write freely about my grandparents and I wrote my memoir, which takes place 20 years ago, because there's time and distance and language. Most of it is about people in Mexico or things in Mexico and they're not reading it.
Speaker 4:Right, right.
Speaker 2:So there's a freedom of that, though I have passed by people who are major features in it. I have talked about it and I've shown excerpts of that. Though I have passed by people who are major features in it. I have talked about it and I've shown excerpts of that and gotten positive responses. And I was like I'm changing everyone's name and I had one friend who was like no, call me by my name, I stand by everything I've done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Do you change the names in your pieces?
Speaker 4:um, I haven't one, one character, one family member I do change the name for, but, uh, I haven't as of yet, but when I publish my manuscript I'll probably have to yeah, uh, change everyone's name that I use in the in the stories yeah, I've been thinking about that too on the book that I'm writing right now.
Speaker 3:It's the same thing Like do I change the way I use, do I?
Speaker 4:change my name. It's a weird thing to balance with auto-fiction or creative non-fiction is that when you do write about people that are in your life, like protecting their anonymity, it's something that you have to consider. That, I think, with fiction is less so, and it's something that you have to consider.
Speaker 2:that I think, with fiction, is less so.
Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely Even if it's inspired by you, know, but when?
Speaker 2:people are reading it as more narrative nonfiction, then it opens up another door, right, yeah, right.
Speaker 4:So I've been thinking more about that and thinking about you know how am I portraying you know in what light am I portraying this person and how do I protect them?
Speaker 1:And am I? Why am I focusing on this?
Speaker 4:person as opposed to how do I focus more on myself, kind of navigating that relationship.
Speaker 3:So've been, you know, playing with that and trying to figure that out as I go yeah, yeah, and it's hard, it's, you know, because you want to stay true to yourself, you want to stay true to the story, but I think you make a really good point of you know what is the story. What are we focusing on us or?
Speaker 2:detail yeah, right, and how can I retain the essence of why I'm writing about this without compromising the person or things being misconstrued?
Speaker 3:by them or others.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, this person or I changed the names of places um left the names of places that no longer exist yeah, it's, it's interesting.
Speaker 3:I mean, you know, with when I had my book come out and there were a lot of stories I mean a lot of those were true stories and and I've heard back from people that were like, was that about me or is that like? But some were non-fiction to fiction and non-fiction, but it was very interesting to see how people interpreted them and you know, someone would call up and be like, so you really knew someone that killed a dog and I was like no, I made that up yeah but it's such a fine line, you know, so I feel like you know.
Speaker 3:Now I'm thinking about it out loud, changing the names.
Speaker 4:It's kind of fun because it does add to that auto fiction aspect, right, and I think I'm always like balancing sorry, I'm always balancing like how much do I change for the sake of the story and the sake of the audience, versus not changing it to stay true to the narrative? Right but that's where I think historical nonfiction might differ from auto fiction or narrative nonfiction.
Speaker 4:Um because the aim of the story is not to get to the truth. The aim of the story is to tell a story right, uh, in a way that draws the audience in, and so I think sometimes I take liberties with what actually happened, not in a major way but, in sort of minor ways to tweak it to like not every piece of dialogue is exactly what someone said for sure yeah, definitely I.
Speaker 3:I mean, I rate the exact same way where you know just what fitting. I don't change the actual story like what happened, but right but, there are definitely. Maybe the wall wasn't blue or the blood right, right, you know, or I omit things for the sake of you know, not rambling on in the story. Right.
Speaker 4:And I think that's human.
Speaker 2:I think that there's the actual thing that happened, and then there's your truth of what happened, right, exactly, but I think that there's a difference between memoir and narrative nonfiction or doing auto fiction things, so like when I wrote my book, I really tried not to embellish and I was like, if it doesn't exist, if I don't have that information, it doesn't make it. How can I work the story? But I didn't put things in. I didn't put in conversations that I couldn't do Like.
Speaker 3:I kept copious notes.
Speaker 2:But I've read other books that call themselves memoirs, that have full passages and like detailed things of a six-year-old and conversations that are a thing I was like. I have a six-year-old and conversations that I think I was like. I have a hard time with that category being used with that type of writing yeah then call it, you know, based on or inspired by, or something, or.
Speaker 2:But I have a hard time saying memoir when you're having full-on dialogue, when you were six years old, taking up a chapter, of course yeah, I think that's a little beautiful writing and beautiful stories. The category is the thing that kind of trumps me yeah, it becomes something else.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think in that case still necessary and beautiful.
Speaker 2:But when I worked so hard and like had interviews, and go through and work through my notes and trying to be and that's just me nerding out and being controlling as well, but yeah, you know what I mean, of course.
Speaker 3:I mean even just as simple. As you know, I was telling um Marissa. You know I started rereading Lit from Mary Carr, who's like one of my favorite authors. I just love what she does. But category wise, wise like. I went to like three different bookstores looking for the book because I wanted to do small businesses in Minnesota and it's like one of it was in memoir, one of it was in fiction, one of it was in non-fiction. You know, it's just all over the place. Yeah, no, no, for me personally, I don't think the category really matters as long as it's a well-written book. But but I understand wanting to know the, the definition of what this piece is right, but coming from like the pitching perspective, where people are requiring certain things I was like wait, this person did all of this, but I did all of this shit.
Speaker 2:And then now we're getting like I could have been more novelesque, I could have been more floral, making things up, but I went through this process yeah, because that was important to me, that my audience knew I wasn't making things up or not understanding something. Because that was also really difficult and I would have you know, yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that does make sense, and I've never really thought about it that way because I've always been like well, genre doesn't? I mean I don't know how to describe like exactly what the stories I write are in terms of genre, right, yeah? And so I've always been like well, genre is just a way to categorize things for publishers etc. But the way that you're talking about it, that makes a lot of sense in terms of genre.
Speaker 4:I never thought about it that way. It does, so what is the manuscript you're working on now? So the manuscript I'm working on now is basically a collection of these short vignettes about growing up on Long Island and growing up with my family and and also pieces from adulthood that I think tie into what, what I learned as a young person and then how that filtered into who I am now.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 4:And so and also how gender roles have kind of shaped who I am, and whether that's because they've sort of infiltrated like my life or because I've been aware of them and have sort of tried to disassociate from them. Yeah, so I explore that, and my mental health as well as is a part of that. Uh, yeah, and so the manuscript is essentially about a growing up yeah and when that? When does that happen?
Speaker 1:because I don't.
Speaker 4:I don't really know, I mean, our. Sandra Cisneros once wrote this story where this little girl it's her birthday, but she talks about her mom being sad and acting like a child and she says that you're always all your ages at once. And there are some times where you're eight and there's some times where you're 38.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I joke, I'm like I have the humor and mental capacity of an ADHD 8-year-old boy. And then I'm an angry 60-year-old woman, old man.
Speaker 3:Yeah, one day you might feel like a 60-year-old, get off my yard, yeah, and then the other day you might feel like a 60-year-old, whose author Sandra.
Speaker 2:Cisneros.
Speaker 4:Yes said much more accurately House on.
Speaker 2:Mango Street.
Speaker 4:This is like a separate short story about a red coat that she has or a red sweater. I'll have to find it for you. I keep forgetting the name of it, but it's lovely.
Speaker 3:It's beautiful I would love to read that. I went working on this fiction novel for like 10 years, but it's lovely. Yeah, it's beautiful. Yeah, I would love to read that. I mean because I'm you know, I went working on this fiction novel for like 10 years and then kind of started flipping over to working on this auto fiction novel.
Speaker 3:And so I'm trying to. My influences have never been memoirs or auto nonfiction or female writers in that sense at all, so I'm really just trying to absorb all that I can when it comes to that. I'm not a writer in that sense at all, so I'm really just trying to absorb all that I can when it comes to that. So who's influenced you a lot with your writing?
Speaker 4:A lot Because your writing is just incredible.
Speaker 4:Oh, thanks so much. I appreciate that. I love Joanne Beard. She's been a big influence. I think also the book that got me writing again was Bree's Pancake. He has one collection of short stories that just blew me away in terms of writing and craft and, okay, that got me writing again years and years ago. Uh, and then james baldwin is a huge influence just in terms of the writing, the life, the interviews that he's done. Just as a person has been a huge influence on my writing and auto fiction and creative non-fiction and essay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, all right, you're writing all these down for me.
Speaker 4:Yeah, okay, good yeah, joanne Beard, she wrote this book called In Zanesville, and it's just, it's so good think you really like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can't wait. She also has.
Speaker 4:Boys of my Youth is another uh, book by her and it's very good in my opinion, yeah, yeah great, I'll check them out.
Speaker 3:I can't wait. Yeah, I'm just trying to devour everything I can right now. Yeah, you know, I don't want it to influence the writing, but I want to be inspired yeah, if that makes sense, right, oh, absolutely do you guys ever get into a kind of subject but writing wise, james elroy, I just thought of it, but his, so he did. He writes fiction, la confidential and the black dahlia. But he also did my dark place, which was a memoir about his, the murder of his mother. Oh, it's fantastic, but it's so dark.
Speaker 2:Oh, I mean it's called my darkest place, but he's a very dark. Yeah, a certain, but it is.
Speaker 4:It is wild, and I remember that sort of influencing me in and realizing oh my god, this is real and I think you know for me with the with the breeze pancake book, I would type out lines that he had already typed out to sort of emulate or get the flow of the sentence. And then you know, as you start writing, you emulate.
Speaker 4:You're taking on the craft or the ways that the writers that influence you kind of write, and then that's how you sort of get to your own place of like. Well, these are the pieces that I want to take from that and how I want to craft my own story so but emulation was a big thing for me in the beginning, even if it just meant typing down already written stories not submitting them or anything but, just typing them out to get the flow of how you write like that that's kind of a great idea.
Speaker 3:I've never thought about that. I think the closest I got was, I think, when I was in my 20s. I read Malcolm X's autobiography and he copies the dictionary. And I tried to copy the dictionary. I got through all the A's oh, that's.
Speaker 3:I was very big into doing little epitaphs of doing, of definition like having the word that that inspires this and then doing the definition. Then you interpret the nuances of it? Oh yeah, b or C, oh for sure, I mean when you're 20, yeah. But he, he, he hand copied the entire dictionary in prison, wow, well, that's what it says in his autobiography, and I'm yeah, I mean it's a little intense.
Speaker 1:I believe it yeah Tracks.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but that's crazy. So how far along are you? When do we get to read this?
Speaker 4:So I'm about like 40 stories in but they're very short.
Speaker 1:And so.
Speaker 4:I'm applying to writing residencies now to try and get basically time to focus on finishing the manuscript. I want to finish it this year or next year, in 2025. But it's been slow going. I mean, I don't religiously write. I don't have like a routine where I write every day. It comes in spurts. And I have droughts with that, so it can be challenging to finish a whole manuscript in a given amount of time yeah, I agree do you find so kind of jumping back to your work.
Speaker 2:Do you find inspiration or incorporate? Incorporate any of the stories through your workshops or through the story, personal stories of the people that you work with, into? I think, things that you do. You mean like writing like you mean like the, the kids stories that they write, or like maybe someone has this, for example, like has a story and then inspires you of something of like a reflective of an experience you had as a kid and like sure, jumping off of that, um not taking mere stories. But no, I think everything you know.
Speaker 4:I love stories, I think I'm a storyteller and I love to listen to people's stories, not for the sake of getting my own story out of it, but just the fact that I love learning about people. And I think, naturally when you do that you it jogs your memory of like a moment that's. I'm like, oh, I could see that being entryway into a story, that memory that's been jogged.
Speaker 4:And so I actually do a lot of writing on my phone in this app called Wordsmith, and I do a lot on the subway, just because something will happen. Or I'll just remember something, or I'll have a dream and it jogs a memory and I'll just have to write down a quick sentence about it and then later I will flesh that out a bit more on the phone and then, when it becomes unwieldy, I'll put it in a Google Doc.
Speaker 2:I do like voice memo notes, which sometimes I accidentally have on Spanish if I'm speaking in English, and that's a very interesting interpretation, yeah. I bet. But yeah, I do the same thing, but I will look into the wordsmith.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm going to look into the wordsmith.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's W-E-R-D Smith, w-e-r? Um, and the reason I the reason I like it, I guess, is because you can part of it, is because you can make the background dark and the and the words lighter, um, and then it just like it's formatted for writers. And essentially the reason I write on my phone is because I always found it so intimidating to sit down at a computer and just start sort of typing, like with the phone. I feel like it's informal and I can I can feel less pressure be more spontaneous, yeah so.
Speaker 4:So that's usually how it's worked, huh really so.
Speaker 3:Do you do the majority of the story on your phone and then I do probably a third of it on the phone and then then I'll move it over to Google Doc when I get lost in it. Yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that I do like memo notes. Or sometimes it's a whole thing, and then I ramble and go through a minute or two. A lot of it is walking, zelda, and I'm walking and I think of something and a breeze comes by, or somebody walks by, or just thoughts. Can. My husband will walk with music and do things. I was like, no, I need all of my noise this is how I filter it right by walking and I get also inspired.
Speaker 2:But I also work through it, processing my perambulations, um to kind of get it yeah a little voice memo, but I'm gonna definitely look into that yeah I mean I'm.
Speaker 3:I'm the same too. I'm a jotter, I have to jot everything down. You know, I'll have, like a sentence written on my arm if I need to, or a word?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, Because I'll forget it. Yeah.
Speaker 3:For some reason the phone is hard for me because I think I associate it with people. People be interrupted, like this anxiety, you know because it's such bad anxiety you know because you're a business owner and usually
Speaker 1:people.
Speaker 3:I think that's true because you know I get a hundred text messages a day about water on the floor, a broken freezer right, so I'm I'm always afraid I'm gonna get interrupted.
Speaker 2:Exists for a reason I know, but owning a small business.
Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely, yeah just for me, it's the informality of it yeah, it depends on like the formality of writing sometimes gives me anxiety and so that kind of takes it away, but whatever works you know?
Speaker 3:oh for sure, I think whatever you know works with us, right? I mean because her and I are very different with our editing process too. I don't know how you are but, Marissa adds everything to editing, and I'm the opposite. I just, I'm that person almost erases and restarts and erases.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's how I am well because maybe the the thing that I originally wrote was a thing, but I needed to go through 10 more to be convinced that the original or the second was was what was needed. Yeah, I have to keep that trace so I can have a, I can analyze each part of it, because then if it goes away, then I'm like I don't like to live in regret.
Speaker 4:I'm horrible with editing because I almost it. To me it almost feels like when I first write it down it's like clay, and then it hardens really quickly yeah, and then I like how do I repiece this together without taking the whole thing apart? And so I have a hard time with editing. I'll be honest Like going back and besides like minor edits and taking things away. I have such a hard time with it.
Speaker 3:Right, I love it. I love it. Yeah, I do too, but I over edit.
Speaker 2:It's like a sunburn when you peel a little bit.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know like it's the best. Yeah, pop and bubble wrap, I mean I do, but I feel like I lose a lot too. I mean because we all do readings now and that has really affected my writing. I don't know about yours, but I read everything out loud and I think of how an audience is going to interpret it and I have to remind myself constantly that I can edit and still leave it on the page. Does that make sense? I can edit for a reading series and but still have these beautiful pages and there's a different you know, I think you know, poetry sometimes can be hard performed.
Speaker 2:Some poetry is meant to be luxuriated. It needs the visual, it needs the pause in the moment where the reader is is participating in in that process and then performing, I think, is a different yeah avenue. I think poetry is a little more stark contrast in that yeah it lives on the page differently yeah, it does in uh spoken or performed spoken yeah, because spoken yeah. Because I like parentheses, I like long dashes, I like I paint, you know.
Speaker 4:Yeah, right I love a good dash in a list.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's like my favorite. I'm a little I over-dash.
Speaker 2:I know I over-dash. Do you over-dash that's okay, yeah, I try to stomach colon and all that stuff, listen, we all have our exactly.
Speaker 3:I'm a dasher writing even dash and text yeah you do dash and text my mom does ellipses.
Speaker 4:Yeah, where she'll be like how are you doing dot dot dot? I'm like what's in the dot dot dot? Yeah, what's what's happening there?
Speaker 1:that I don't know, I went to the store.
Speaker 3:Dot dot dot. I'm like what happened? Yeah, tell me more, tell me everything yeah, yeah well, it's question time.
Speaker 2:I love it all. Right, how's?
Speaker 3:everyone feeling are we good? Pretty good, we'll see what pulls out of here. All right, I feel like all right, what do we got? Sometimes the questions are like freakishly serendipitous right so I don't know, yeah, okay this is very open okay, who is your biggest fan?
Speaker 1:oh, I don't know. My dad, my dad yeah my dad.
Speaker 3:My dad is awesome 100 my dad is just the coolest, craziest motherfucker I've ever met in my life. I I don't know what that noise was. So quick story about my father he's I'm a preacher's daughter, okay, so he has a PhD in theology. He writes theological books for that people use in textbooks and he's also a professor. He's also a huge. Am I allowed to say he's a recovering alcoholic.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's a recovering alcoholic and he um, but he has this obsession, this addiction to books. Okay, I mean, my mother hates it. Every room is filled floor to ceiling with books. If you go into the bedroom, he's got a nightstand and there's a four by six foot stack of books, because that's the only place in the bedroom he's allowed to have his books. But if you look under the bed, there's books. If you go into his underwear drawer and lift up the layer of underwear, there are books. He's no longer allowed to pack for trips anymore, because the last time they went to Italy they opened up the suitcase and there was one thin layer of clothing for three weeks or whatever, and all books oh my gosh, I mean it's great, we used to play this game when we were kids.
Speaker 3:I would have like slumber parties and we'd play this game find the books, because he would stash them. You know what I mean? My favorite fight ever. I've got to tell this story. She knows it. I was visiting my parents at their house. I'm drinking tea and my mother screams from upstairs Chuck, chuck, there's four copies of Mother Night upstairs, four copies. And my dad sets down his spoon and says Susan, it's Vonnegut, you just buy Vonnegut. And I mean, it's just so, he's my hero. So yes, I think he'd be my and he's your biggest fan too.
Speaker 3:He loves you and if he knew you, he'd be your biggest fan. He just loves writing.
Speaker 2:That's so lovely, a supportive father figure who has read my writing. Yeah, um, when I was querying like I would send him sam, like he still emails us random things oh, do you know that shakespeare and company is doing events again in paris, in paris's, like it's my favorite bookstore.
Speaker 1:I would just email.
Speaker 2:Like, yeah, it's, that's so lovely, it's great.
Speaker 3:Okay, what about you?
Speaker 4:guys. I think for me it's my mom. Yeah, I think she is very. She has this awe of like the fact that I write and I think she, when I do readings and she comes to them, she is sort of enraptured in a way, partially because she's in the writing but not in like a cocky way.
Speaker 3:Right, right right.
Speaker 4:But she's always kind of in awe of me getting up in front of people and being able to speak I think because she has a hard time with that and she just she loves my writing and she's the biggest fan of it and the biggest fan of my work too, and and a lot of things that I've done and she's always been supportive and encouraging and, uh, in a way that makes you feel like you have a net beneath you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think that's nice. Yeah, I love that. How about you, mdog, I've never called you that before.
Speaker 1:That's my first time You're trying it out.
Speaker 4:Amazing.
Speaker 2:You can do whatever you want. I would have to say my husband Ken.
Speaker 3:I was going to say Ken too.
Speaker 2:Honestly, I couldn't do what I do, be who I am, without him. Um, there was a con. What were we having a conversation like leaving a relationship um, I was saying and if it?
Speaker 3:leaves, if it leaves, if you leave the other person better yeah, you, and savage always says leave your, leave the person better than you found them and I plan on forever with him.
Speaker 2:Um, but he had, he would have left me better um. I'm kinder, I'm more patient. I'm kinder to myself and I'm kinder to others, more patient, and he encourages me mentally, physically and financially yeah to to just fucking go for it and. I come out with these wild ideas and he's like I know you'll do it okay and you will, and he'll support you, and so it's.
Speaker 2:It's nice to have freedom and to be seen yeah, I love you Ken yeah all my all my accomplishments, but all my faults and all my insecurities, like the person who I take everything out on, but also like sees my deepest vulnerability, um, and that's really awesome to have that yeah, it's nice to have somebody that increases your quality of living yeah, but also like accepts accepts where you're at, but also pushes you to exactly, and he'll stop.
Speaker 2:He's like I think you need to write this morning. I think you need to. He's like let's go for a walk. You don't need to watch. You know, wake up and watch new girl.
Speaker 4:Yeah, right, oh my god does Ken come in pocket size. So I can be like, what should I do today? I know exactly it's pretty good.
Speaker 3:It's amazing. It's free too. It's free too, that's amazing yeah, I've cut out years of therapy. Yeah, oh god, right, that's another podcast he might need some, but uh, yeah I love it. What do we think? One more, yeah, do you want we can do? Maybe one quick one, okay, uh-oh.
Speaker 4:I love those oh boy Okay.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:Have you ever had a reoccurring dream? Oh, yes.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I have a couple of re dreams um, oh my god, how dark do we want to get girl, it's me, you're fine we like I like we have asterisks on everything.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah I have there's dreams where, like I have, I have a child right, which I don't plan on having children yeah, okay but I have like a baby right, and then I don't take care of it, like I I try to dismiss the fact that I've had a child and then I get really nervous that something has now happened to the child because I've neglected it. And then I go over and it turns out somebody else, like, has taken care of it. But at that moment, before I like look in the crib or whatever, it's like anxiety producing and I don't know what that's about. You know, that that's got some deep layers to it. Freudian.
Speaker 3:I know it's so weird, did you say it's Freudian?
Speaker 4:Yeah, freudian as in, I feel like it's about like projects that I've you know not feel like I'm not paying attention to You've birthed something.
Speaker 2:You've created something. Whether you want it to or not, it exists or needs to exist. And then you have this relationship of do I finish? Do I take care of this?
Speaker 4:Do I Right, that's wild, isn't that wild it feels?
Speaker 2:like something you need to do, like to create.
Speaker 4:Or.
Speaker 2:I've had ones where, like I've, in a more lighter tone.
Speaker 4:That's wild, isn't that wild?
Speaker 2:It feels like something you need to do like to create, yeah. Or I've had ones where, like I've in a more lighter tone, because somebody else might take over that.
Speaker 4:Right, right exactly.
Speaker 2:And even though it scares you, it scares you more to like.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I wake up and I'm like, oh my, like I don't have a baby. Yeah.
Speaker 3:We're all good, we're good. And then yeah, it's we're all good, we're good, um, and then I?
Speaker 4:have the ones where, like, I forget my clothes and like I'm like why did I go out without pants?
Speaker 3:um right, just like heavy anxiety dreams yeah, anxiety dreams a lot of times okay.
Speaker 2:Well, I I up the weird on this one okay my anxiety manifests in.
Speaker 2:I find myself in very bizarre, unrealistic situations where I have to go to the bathroom but I can't because, for example, the toilet is fastened to a corner like four feet high, and I have to figure out how to get up there to then go to the bathroom and they're like open rooms, so not like hidden. Or there is all a locker room and they're all overflowing toilets and I have to find a way to precariously position myself so I don't get soiled by going pee. It's not even pooping or peeing, it's like going to the bathroom, but they're weird. Or there's a platform in the middle of the beach and I have to just pee on a plat, like weird, very, but it's usually like hard to get to places to go to the bathroom I have had that dream before.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like I swear you just have to go to the bathroom.
Speaker 2:It's the bathroom and I know, and I know it's it's. It's about exposure, vulnerability and necessity, like it's a function.
Speaker 2:I have to do something um, and I feel I'm I have to do this, but it's. The world is making it very complicated and it's often dirty and gross and I still have to, like, navigate my way, or there's no toilet paper and I have to poop or something and I have to figure out ways to do that and like and or the bathroom. I can't get there. It's like a maze and I can't get to where I know that there's a bathroom and they're all locked or like, but it's usually like a lots of suspended.
Speaker 3:Yeah situations, oh so interesting yeah, that's what I've had dreams like that and I've never told anybody, because I'm like this is so weird, right so weird that if I tell somebody they're gonna think I'm absolutely bonkers.
Speaker 4:But now I feel a kinship.
Speaker 2:Like if that that um the the wall mounted air conditioner where the toilet that I had to figure out how to get to.
Speaker 3:That was how you had to figure. Oh, that's wild, it's wild that.
Speaker 2:That's my reoccurring Okay.
Speaker 3:My, I have. I have three, but I'm only going to do one. I'm actually going to stay light. Oh, I know Weird, right, cause the other two are really dark.
Speaker 3:But, um, I remember I had this live-in boyfriend and he was always on tour. I always dated musicians, right, so they're usually on tour like six months out of the year. But I would have my depression in my twenties would be really bad. So I could sleep like sometimes 32 hours without going to the bathroom or anything. Yeah, I would just lay there. But I used to have this reoccurring dream that my boyfriend and I and George Clooney all lived together and they were my two boyfriends and we were like a throuple.
Speaker 2:This was way before throuples were cool. This was like 20. Facts of life Was he like George Clooney? Facts of life? No, it was more like Ocean's Eleven.
Speaker 1:Ocean's.
Speaker 3:Eleven. I mean, I don't know, he was very handsome, but we just lived together in this apartment in Minneapolis and would take turns cooking each other dinner and I lived such a beautiful life with my boyfriend that was never home and George Clooney that I would just sleep. And I specifically remember going to bed at night and going George Clooney, george Clooney, george Clooney, george Clooney, george Clooney, george Clooney, george.
Speaker 3:Clooney trying to conjure him because, I would try and control my dreams a lot um, but yeah, I, I totally remember, and it would go on for weeks and I would tell my friend, you know, my best friend, fiona, and I would, she'd be like you know, you should have came out and I, like I, slept for 26 hours and she's like what George made me dinner yeah, I mean, but yeah it was crazy
Speaker 4:do you like, like his movies, like? Or he just kind of like came into being. He was a safe charismatic character.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I guess so, because you know I wasn't like a big fan colin farrell's my guy. You know I should have been thinking about colin farrell, but it was like 20-year-old George Clooney. Yeah, tootie. Well, I was 20. He wasn't 20. Well, I know, but he was adorable, but yeah, it was very weird.
Speaker 4:What you want is Colin Farrell, but what you need is George Clooney.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think you're right, I think you're right. All right. So, leading into that, we'll do our Fuck, kill, be, because I got my three today. They are men. Sorry, ken, okay. Ken says we don't do enough women.
Speaker 2:Well, we had a thing where when we did some testing. We had women, other things for our choices of Fuck, kill, Be, and then, when we started recording, it ended up being inanimate characters.
Speaker 3:Like Muppets and stuff Like Muppets and superheroes or men, and Jon Hamm appeared twice.
Speaker 2:So, Jon Hamm's out of the running.
Speaker 3:I think that, or maybe he's going to show up in my dreams.
Speaker 2:Oh.
Speaker 4:Could, be Me.
Speaker 3:Wilbur and Jon Hamm.
Speaker 4:Yeah, how cute would that be. That'd be fun. So the B is like to embody Embody the person.
Speaker 3:Exactly got you all right. So today we're gonna do divorce celebrity dads, okay, okay, first we're gonna do leave shriver, I don't know okay um, okay, he is, how leave, okay.
Speaker 2:So I actually just watched perfect strangers last night, or a perfect, perfect couple. You mean yes I watched it too, okay um, I'm trying to think what he's been in that you would.
Speaker 3:He was married to naomi watts. He, okay, this guy. Do you know who that is? I think, okay, should I pick? I'll pick someone else.
Speaker 4:I'm sorry no, don't be sorry because of my pop culture.
Speaker 2:Well, we're gonna do. He was in ray donovan oh yeah, he was ray donovan scream he was uh um I can divorced dad. Okay let me get my other two out.
Speaker 4:Okay, get the other two Brad.
Speaker 2:Pitt, yeah Divorced dad, ben Affleck, recently divorced dad, I need to throw that one in there.
Speaker 3:Now I need a third one. Who's another divorced dad. Oh my God, my brain. I already did Tom Cruise right, so we can't do him Fuck. I already did Tom Cruise right, so we can't do him Fuck Tom Cruise. He's a divorce dad. Who's a divorce. Think of a divorce dad. A divorce dad. That's a celebrity that you know.
Speaker 2:Okay, I just Googled divorce celebrity couples Hugh Jackman Okay.
Speaker 3:Hugh Jackman, there we go. That's perfect, hugh Jackman, brad Pitt, ben Affleck.
Speaker 2:I don't even know fuck Kilby, I at least know okay, go, I'm killing.
Speaker 3:Ben Affleck. Yes, okay, you're gonna kill Ben Affleck.
Speaker 2:I've always found him obnoxious and I think that he is talented and riding the train of Matt Damon. Okay, um, I want to be Hugh Jackman. He can sing, he can dance, he's fucking wolverine and I don't. I haven't done the dig into the divorce, though. I listened to a podcast where he was. He talked about his morning routine where they would share reading a book together and I thought it was so cute.
Speaker 3:are they getting divorced? That that's so sad. I thought they were like mega no.
Speaker 2:No, so he might be gay. Older woman I don't know, I feel like he might be gay.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:Kind of lean in that way, which is great, that's fine, find yourself, but I still want to be you. You're very talented says I'm going to fuck Brad as Gina Davis Okay.
Speaker 3:I'm going to be controversial, and then I'm going to drive off the cliff and Radiohead's exit to a film plays. Nice, there we go. All right, I'm going to fuck Ben Affleck because it's going to be a hate-fuck thing. Okay, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3:But listen I think he's a great director. I think he's a great director. I think he's made some great movies. I'm kind of intrigued by him, but I also kind of hate. I love assholes, so he's like the perfect thing for me, you know. Which means I'm probably going to kill Hugh Jackman because he's such a nice, lovely, beautiful man, and then I'm just going to be Brad Pitt, because he's from the same.
Speaker 2:He's from Springfield Missouri where I'm from, he's like oh.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're from the same town, my dad. He actually went to SMSU where my dad taught I love. So that's my choice. I'm standing by it. I like your take on it that it's like the reality of.
Speaker 4:I, marissa, kind of hit the nail on the head Like I would kill Ben Affleck, just like I'm so tired of hearing about him and Jennifer Lopez.
Speaker 3:I don't.
Speaker 4:I can't deal with it anymore, and I would be Hugh Jackman, because of all the reasons you said, but also I.
Speaker 3:He seems like a like, a like, like a lovely human being yeah, he just hmm, and I want to be likable.
Speaker 1:That's what I want in my life, yeah.
Speaker 4:And I would marry Brad Pitt. Fuck Brad Pitt, fuck Brad Pitt. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:Why did I say marry? No, marry him, you can marry him. No, I fuck him.
Speaker 4:No, I wouldn't actually want to marry him, I just want to have a romp with him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally, Hugh and Brad Like imagine that power couple.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, yeah, Ooh, right All right Watch out world. It's a lot of chiseled features, I know right. Masculinity, oh my god, all right, we did it guys.
Speaker 4:Oh water, water water, all right well, thank you thank you so much for having me. This has been lovely to have you um.
Speaker 3:Let's see, we've got you hosting November. When is it?
Speaker 2:reading, reading, reading. Friends and fam in November awesome, yeah, that's great yeah, I'm excited, I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Bye. Guys, Bye.
