Speaker 1: So I have a tradition with the kids basically for
Speaker 1: my birthday that every year on my actual birthday, we
Speaker 1: go to CPK.
Speaker 2: And which is for the uninitiated California.
Speaker 3: Cornia Pizza Kitchen.
Speaker 2: Or did they change the name? Is it like one
Speaker 2: of those things like it is? Is it like KFC
Speaker 2: now just KFC. They don't even call it.
Speaker 4: It's true, like they legally changed it.
Speaker 5: Dunkin Donuts. I think it's just it's just Duncan, d
Speaker 5: and d or Duncan.
Speaker 1: It's just Duncan, I know, right, Yeah, every everything's had
Speaker 1: to be modern and refreshed.
Speaker 4: I don't know, because they don't want to be known
Speaker 4: for just the one thing, because Duncan obviously became.
Speaker 2: More of a coffee spot than a donut spot.
Speaker 4: So really it's like Taco Bell should just be come
Speaker 4: bell to the bell, tacos.
Speaker 2: They got burritos.
Speaker 3: They think about it.
Speaker 1: Dunkin Donuts going to Duncan is actually really smart because
Speaker 1: especially like coffee is what you dunk your donuts, and
Speaker 1: so like Dunkin Donuts, Dunkin Yeah, it's perfect, but.
Speaker 4: They complete, Yeah, they had to rebrand because they weren't
Speaker 4: just a donuts place.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm not positive about the CPK whether or not
Speaker 1: it still is known as California Pizza.
Speaker 2: Are they throughout the country or is that only in California.
Speaker 1: There are other places I don't know about it throughout
Speaker 1: the country, but they're not only in California.
Speaker 6: It might be like In and Out where there's a
Speaker 6: couple couple spots.
Speaker 4: Now, I think I've only been once with Fade with
Speaker 4: Fred Savage on a lunch break Savage because it was
Speaker 4: on lunch break, So it must have been when we
Speaker 4: were shooting that Everyone Loves Stewart episode when he was acting,
Speaker 4: or maybe it was when he was directed. But there's
Speaker 4: a group of us like I feel like you guys
Speaker 4: were probably there too, but we all went to CPK
Speaker 4: and I remember just being like, barbecue chicken pizza.
Speaker 2: Isn't that what they're known for us?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's one of the first things they became famous
Speaker 1: for was that barbecue chicken pizza is so good. So
Speaker 1: there are cpks in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii,
Speaker 1: and Illinois.
Speaker 4: Connecticut on the Yeah, So it's not just like a
Speaker 4: West Coast thing like In and Out.
Speaker 1: It's so keeps going Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri,
Speaker 1: New Jersey. Okay, so yeah, get go go to CPK anyway.
Speaker 1: I go to CPK and and there's I mean, this
Speaker 1: is not an ad.
Speaker 3: They don't sponsor us. We get obviously nothing should. But
Speaker 3: boy do I.
Speaker 2: Love barbecue chicken on pizza.
Speaker 3: I don't eat barbecue chicken.
Speaker 6: Picka from the guy who puts.
Speaker 2: They also put pizza.
Speaker 6: So your opinion matters not at all.
Speaker 2: You want candy on your pizza.
Speaker 6: It's degree. I'm a pro pine wrong, there's no debate.
Speaker 6: It's not even opinion thing.
Speaker 2: It's what makes pizza pizza.
Speaker 6: Pineapple is what makes pizza pizza.
Speaker 4: Because here's the thing, here's the thing, here's the you
Speaker 4: know what it does. If it's an average to bad pizza,
Speaker 4: it's better with pineapple, like like, it will be fine.
Speaker 2: Why not just I will not mind?
Speaker 6: Why not just Eminem's on your pizza or.
Speaker 2: Ras chocolate Milt. I agree, dude, it tastes like candy,
Speaker 2: but that's what makes it great. I don't know. I
Speaker 2: don't make the rules. I just enjoyed them.
Speaker 6: What did you do on your birthday.
Speaker 3: It's okay, I really love I really love fighting.
Speaker 2: Birthday's over. It's time to fight argue.
Speaker 1: About pineapple bezza. I do love pineapple on pizza. But
Speaker 1: I could go either way. I could go either way.
Speaker 1: I'm not like, I'm not willing to die on the
Speaker 1: hill of pineapple and pizza, but I do enjoy it.
Speaker 3: So listen to each their own.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like whether you put peanut butter on
Speaker 1: one half of your slice of bread or you know,
Speaker 1: it's just.
Speaker 2: Intolerant. I'm accepting of all pizza types. But will is.
Speaker 6: And there's wrong.
Speaker 1: Well, there was one thing I really wanted before CPK,
Speaker 1: and that was a nap. I had been out of
Speaker 1: town the weekend before my birthday. We had gone to
Speaker 1: Vegas for the Steve Rangala, and so, you know, we
Speaker 1: had some late nights and we drove, so I had Sunday.
Speaker 1: It was we didn't do the smart thing and get
Speaker 1: up super early and leave before traffic. We like left
Speaker 1: at the same time everyone leaves.
Speaker 6: Oh, so it took us.
Speaker 1: You know, we left at like eleven fifteen in the morning.
Speaker 1: We got home at five pm. Week you know, we
Speaker 1: thought I was tired from that and then I, you know,
Speaker 1: worked on Monday, and then Tuesday my birthday. I thought,
Speaker 1: all right, I got to do a podcast in the morning,
Speaker 1: and then I have a pitch meeting at three pm
Speaker 1: in the afternoon. I've got a long stretch from like
Speaker 1: eleven am to three What am I going to do?
Speaker 3: I want a nap.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so that's what I did.
Speaker 6: On your side, you go dark room, walk me through
Speaker 6: it like run a date. What did you do?
Speaker 3: Here's how I did my nap. For my night's sleep
Speaker 3: and my sleep health.
Speaker 1: I am very big on making sure I have my
Speaker 1: pillow cube and my Manta sleep mask.
Speaker 3: Again, not adds.
Speaker 1: These are just things I love and I make sure
Speaker 1: I can't see a single drop of light. I don't
Speaker 1: do that for naps. I can't sleep without my pillow cube.
Speaker 1: That's the only pillow I use. But I feel like
Speaker 1: if I put the eyemask on for a nap, I'm
Speaker 1: not ever waking up.
Speaker 6: No, You're just going back to bed.
Speaker 1: I'm just going back to bed for another seven to
Speaker 1: eight hours. So I sleep with no eyemask during the
Speaker 1: day because I want the natural light to be like
Speaker 1: as soon as not my body's rested.
Speaker 3: I want to wake up right.
Speaker 6: You're in your bed, though you're not on a couch.
Speaker 6: Oh no, I don't copy that.
Speaker 3: I never sleep on the couch.
Speaker 6: That is for sitting only one.
Speaker 1: Jensen's not that way. Jensen loves to take a nap
Speaker 1: on the couch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll nap wherever.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but on the couch is the same as the
Speaker 5: equivalent of pineapple on your pizza.
Speaker 6: I copy that.
Speaker 2: I just don't want my nap to last more than
Speaker 2: twenty minutes.
Speaker 4: So if I'm going to health that way you used
Speaker 4: to that, because I feel worse if I go like
Speaker 4: that hour.
Speaker 1: That is the problem with a good, solid, multi hour
Speaker 1: nap is that then you wake up and you have
Speaker 1: to like start all over again.
Speaker 3: You're like, oh my gosh, I need another cup of coffee.
Speaker 3: I'm super groggy. I'm a little cranky.
Speaker 1: But I was so tired yesterday I just decided I'm
Speaker 1: gonna I'm going to go with it, and so I did.
Speaker 1: I took a glorious nap, and then I woke up
Speaker 1: on my own accord. I responded to a bunch of
Speaker 1: happy birthday texts, I did my my other meeting that
Speaker 1: I had at three, and then we went and picked
Speaker 1: up the kids and went to CPK. I had something
Speaker 1: that writer will probably also not like. I had the
Speaker 1: Toastada pizza It's wonderful, which is thin, crispy crust, melted
Speaker 1: Monterey Jack, cheese, black beans, salsa, a pizza, taco salad, avocado.
Speaker 2: Okay with it's.
Speaker 5: Delicious, recognizably pizza that is that is tomato sauce.
Speaker 4: And it just happens to one thing you don't like
Speaker 4: on it. But this is a whole nother.
Speaker 5: Cheating it to a whole other realm at this point,
Speaker 5: so my brother Gary anymore, my oldest brother Gary, when
Speaker 5: he finished college, decided to buy a motorcycle out of nowhere,
Speaker 5: never ridden a motorcycle in his life, drive it all
Speaker 5: the way across country to California and get a job.
Speaker 6: And where did you get a job? CPK? And so
Speaker 6: when he left, he taught us how to make all
Speaker 6: the pizzas.
Speaker 5: So I still sue and I do barbecue chicken pizza
Speaker 5: night or one they don't have on the menu anymore,
Speaker 5: which is my favorite in the world is the b
Speaker 5: LT pizza.
Speaker 1: Oh, I used to love that one. Anything with avocado
Speaker 1: on it, I'm.
Speaker 6: In it's so good. So it's lettuce. Yeah, you do.
Speaker 6: You do the lettuce on the side, then you put
Speaker 6: it on top of the p I'm a big fan.
Speaker 5: It's dude, and you're gonna be like, wait, that's exactly
Speaker 5: what I'm talking about. One of my favorite things in
Speaker 5: the world is a combination of hot and cold at
Speaker 5: the same time.
Speaker 6: HAVE always loved it.
Speaker 5: So the cold lettuce on top of the nice hot
Speaker 5: slice of pizza with the bacon and the cheese.
Speaker 1: Also, I realized I just said anything with avocado, and
Speaker 1: you had said b lt. I have never eaten a
Speaker 1: b LT without adding avocado to me, Yeah, I caught
Speaker 1: a black l T a b LT A caught a blat,
Speaker 1: you can call it.
Speaker 6: It's so good in your mouth. Yeah, your mouth right
Speaker 6: there on the list. But did you did you dream
Speaker 6: during your nap? Were you like asleep again?
Speaker 1: I mean I was definitely asleep, and yes, I think
Speaker 1: I dreamt, but I don't remember what it is now,
Speaker 1: but I do think when I woke up, I was like,
Speaker 1: that was a weird dream.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it was. It was pretty great.
Speaker 1: But then I have I told you that I topped
Speaker 1: the whole birthday experience off with something you just mentioned
Speaker 1: hot and cold at the same time.
Speaker 3: A warm buttercake.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, with French fine ice cream on top.
Speaker 2: So it's just like cake cake because I don't like cake.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: It's not like that. But it is like a pound cake.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's not like frosting cake.
Speaker 4: Yeah, steak cake, like traditional birthday cake, which I can't stand.
Speaker 2: I can agree. Okay, we all go.
Speaker 5: Like a good pound cake, or like the buttercake, or
Speaker 5: an olive oil cake like the I think Mastros makes
Speaker 5: an incredible olive oil cake. And this place called Milo
Speaker 5: and Olive that makes a buttercake that is just out
Speaker 5: freaking standing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's delicious, but so it's.
Speaker 6: It's salivating over here, and I want to nap. I
Speaker 6: don't know which.
Speaker 5: I don't know which laziness to sensate at this point,
Speaker 5: I don't know if I should gorge myself or go
Speaker 5: back to sleep.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm now forty five, and.
Speaker 4: You woke up from the nap and you were forty five.
Speaker 2: She went to bed. It was still nineteen ninety three exactly.
Speaker 2: And now.
Speaker 1: Jensen and I then we're talking. We were walking through
Speaker 1: them all because you know that's where we went to
Speaker 1: CPK and and I said, he said, so do you
Speaker 1: feel forty five? And I said I don't.
Speaker 3: I don't really know why.
Speaker 1: And he was like, well, forty five's when I really
Speaker 1: started to feel bad.
Speaker 6: Hey, thanks, this isn't only forty six.
Speaker 2: He's my forty seven.
Speaker 3: He's going going to be forty seven. He's going to
Speaker 3: be forty seven this November.
Speaker 7: So he's yeah, you all believe in so forty forty one,
Speaker 7: forty two, you're in your early forties, forty three, forty four,
Speaker 7: forty No, Actually I think it's forty forty to forty
Speaker 7: three is early.
Speaker 3: Forty four or forty five. Five for forty six is
Speaker 3: mid forty.
Speaker 5: So you're still so forty forty forty forty still mid forties.
Speaker 4: I think I'm just laid for No. I think after
Speaker 4: forty I think it's just five plus.
Speaker 1: You'll be late forties this December. When you turn fifteen
Speaker 1: forty seven. You can start saying late forties if you want.
Speaker 6: I'm going to be early fifties.
Speaker 3: Well you're actually going to be fifty.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Yes, that's that's a different thing, just saying fifty.
Speaker 3: Yeah, when you're on that, you're on the milestone.
Speaker 6: Yeah you that, They're like, oh my god, you made it.
Speaker 2: I have a friend who was yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: But I have a friend who was like, because Alex,
Speaker 4: my wife turned fifty, and this friend I was saying, oh,
Speaker 4: we're going to celebrate a birthday, she was like, you
Speaker 4: know what, it's so much better the second you turn fifty.
Speaker 4: Then everybody comments about how great you look, whereas like
Speaker 4: when you're forty nine, it's like, yeah, oh you're just
Speaker 4: that age.
Speaker 2: When you turn fifty and everyone's shocked. Yeah, good for fifty.
Speaker 5: I get I'm getting to the point, like I'm not
Speaker 5: quite there, but I'm getting to the point where when
Speaker 5: I fall, people will be concerned as opposed to laughing.
Speaker 6: You know what I mean.
Speaker 2: It's like your window.
Speaker 6: But you fall forty, everyone's like, that's hysterical. You fall
Speaker 6: at fifteen, people are like, oh my god, you are.
Speaker 6: There's a big difference.
Speaker 2: Yeah, do you need surgery?
Speaker 6: Are you all right? I heard a pop?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you get up for the record at forty five. Currently,
Speaker 1: where I stand right now, I feel better maybe than
Speaker 1: I ever have. I feel like great, good for you.
Speaker 6: I feel the same way. Actually, yeah, I feel the
Speaker 6: same way, Yeah, it's.
Speaker 4: Amazing physically or psychologically or all of the above.
Speaker 3: All of the above, okay, the host for you, I
Speaker 3: would agree.
Speaker 1: Even pysically, I feel really like, you know, are there
Speaker 1: things of course, like every now and then, do I
Speaker 1: get those little neck twinges where I'm like, oh.
Speaker 3: My neck's a little sore. Sure, but guess what. I
Speaker 3: had those occasionally in my twenties too.
Speaker 1: I had I had little things that pop up every
Speaker 1: now and then where you're like, huh, I guess I
Speaker 1: have uneven hips sometimes that does. That's not a thing
Speaker 1: that only happened to me with age. That's something I
Speaker 1: experienced at random times throughout any decade of my life.
Speaker 1: And I feel like I still have energy. I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm more in tune with what my body needs
Speaker 1: more than ever, which is like when yesterday I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, I am tired, I do have the time,
Speaker 1: I am going to take a nap, and it didn't
Speaker 1: affect my sleep last night, like I knew my body
Speaker 1: needed that, And then now I feel great. So I
Speaker 1: just where I didn't used to be that way, I
Speaker 1: didn't I wasn't necessary reading my body cues as a big.
Speaker 4: Part of this is you probably are in the best
Speaker 4: shape of your life thanks to Dancing with the Stars.
Speaker 6: True super.
Speaker 2: For nine months at this point.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, nine months of.
Speaker 2: Like pure physical, like exer. You've been doing really well.
Speaker 1: And it started slightly before Dancing with the Stars, because
Speaker 1: it started when I was going to start taking to
Speaker 1: moxifen and my doctor said, the best thing I can
Speaker 1: tell you is that the worst side effect you might
Speaker 1: deal with physically is that it causes joint It can
Speaker 1: cause joint pain and muscle aches, and the only real
Speaker 1: cure for it is consistent exercise. And so before I
Speaker 1: started to moxifen, I was like, that's it.
Speaker 3: I'm going to get into the gym and I'm going.
Speaker 1: To stay consistent with it because I want to stay
Speaker 1: on this medication for five years because it, you know,
Speaker 1: lowers my risk of recurrence by fifty percent. So I'm
Speaker 1: going to do everything I can to make that easy
Speaker 1: on myself. So it started really in January of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five, you know, like I.
Speaker 5: Really was like, you can take coke ten too, because
Speaker 5: coke ten is also really good for joint because I'm
Speaker 5: not this is oh my god, Oh my.
Speaker 4: God, guys, we're talking about Can.
Speaker 2: We please like things? I always say.
Speaker 4: It's like, do we need three things? I say, travel?
Speaker 4: Do we talk to talk about?
Speaker 2: And then food? Yes? Yes, the medical story things.
Speaker 3: I say, we don't. So it's small right now.
Speaker 6: It's audience is grow.
Speaker 2: They need to know this stuff.
Speaker 4: Everyone knows we're old. They're also old. Let's please daniel
Speaker 4: took a nap. That's a great story. Please don't care
Speaker 4: about what coconut oil you're putting on your.
Speaker 2: Joint pain you kid, whatever it is, pineapple, you're going
Speaker 2: to be down.
Speaker 1: On the record.
Speaker 3: Writer hates supplements. So just so you guys know there,
Speaker 3: you know there are we have.
Speaker 2: We all have argument medicines.
Speaker 6: Yes, vitamins are not pseudo medicine.
Speaker 2: Geez, I didn't say vitamins supplements.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, yeah, I agree with that.
Speaker 2: I'm not a fan of pseudo science. Let's move on.
Speaker 4: We don't have to labor this. Boy, We've already had
Speaker 4: fifteen minutes of research chatter.
Speaker 2: Welcome, I'm right strong, I.
Speaker 6: Love mad old angry Rider.
Speaker 4: Birthday, birthday, Danielle Well, she took goddamn nap. Good for you,
Speaker 4: all right, welcome to red Weather recap. I'm not really
Speaker 4: sure why we're doing this. Are we doing this because
Speaker 4: hold on? Are we doing this because people have demanded it?
Speaker 4: Or have you guys just demanded this?
Speaker 1: I demanded it, Okay, Will demanded it. I want to
Speaker 1: talk about it. And also, we have had so many
Speaker 1: fans who have loved great the Red Weather and after
Speaker 1: I don't know how many times you said our regular
Speaker 1: pod meets World fans are going to hate this.
Speaker 3: But you've said at least you said it at least.
Speaker 1: Ten times while you were talking about the show, and
Speaker 1: we kept saying, no, I don't think I think you're wrong.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I was.
Speaker 4: I was pleasantly surprised with how much crossover there was,
Speaker 4: and I think I I think I knew that there
Speaker 4: would be a certain contingent of our fans that would
Speaker 4: like it. But yes, the the feedback has been overwhelmingly
Speaker 4: positive and heart warming and awesome. And yeah, and I
Speaker 4: am so thankful for our listeners who have given it
Speaker 4: a chance.
Speaker 2: If you haven't given it a chance, you probably don't
Speaker 2: want to listen to this episode maybecause.
Speaker 4: We're probably going to be spoiling a lot of it
Speaker 4: just by recapping the episodes and talking about what happened.
Speaker 4: So if you haven't listened to The Red Weather, you
Speaker 4: like true crime, you like mysteries, you.
Speaker 2: Like me, give it a listen.
Speaker 6: At least at least the first two.
Speaker 2: Yeah, at least the first couple of.
Speaker 5: You don't have to say, at least the first two.
Speaker 5: They've got to like, they've got to like mysteries.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you don't really have to.
Speaker 6: Like to like writer.
Speaker 2: Oh that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Writer, Where where did this idea come from? Will
Speaker 1: you tell people about your love for true crime?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I yeah, I mean I love all things, all podcasts,
Speaker 4: you know, like I mean, that's part of the reason
Speaker 4: why I came up with the idea for Podmeats World
Speaker 4: was because I've been listening to podcasts since two thousand
Speaker 4: and seven.
Speaker 2: You were eight.
Speaker 5: We've talked about this. You were the first time I
Speaker 5: think I'd ever heard the word podcast.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and like the first podcast that I really got into,
Speaker 4: which I think is part of why I was optimistic
Speaker 4: about Pod Meets World was it was called Skeptics Guide
Speaker 4: to the Universe, and it was you know, anti pseudoscience podcasts.
Speaker 4: But the whole idea was that it was a group
Speaker 4: of really smart scientists sitting around talking about medical facts
Speaker 4: and you know, diving into subjects. But really what you
Speaker 4: came to realize is it was not about what they
Speaker 4: were talking about. It was just about them hanging out,
Speaker 4: which is like, you know, I realized early on was
Speaker 4: like what I liked about podcasts and what I think
Speaker 4: most people like about podcasts, which has turned out to
Speaker 4: be the case, like most podcasts are you know, people
Speaker 4: just discussing a subject in general, and then you just
Speaker 4: kind of like that group of people, that group of friends.
Speaker 4: So anyway, so I've been listening to podcasts forever. This
Speaker 4: because the Red Weather specifically goes back to like, you know,
Speaker 4: loving this American life and Radio Lab and all those
Speaker 4: sort of you know, and then I really, of course,
Speaker 4: like everybody loved Cereal when that came out, and I
Speaker 4: feel like Cereals what, you know, launched podcasts into the mainstream,
Speaker 4: and it also you know, helped define the culture as
Speaker 4: a true crime culture. I mean, true crime is probably
Speaker 4: the number one subject of all podcasting, and I don't
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 6: And documentaries I think too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but specifically crime.
Speaker 5: No, that's what I'm saying, documentary crime, true crime for
Speaker 5: documentaries too.
Speaker 6: I mean, I think just true crime is a big fascination.
Speaker 2: Totally, totally, so yeah, So I've just always loved them.
Speaker 2: I've always you know, enjoyed them.
Speaker 4: And I also have tried a lot of fiction podcasts
Speaker 4: and not enjoyed them, mostly because you can tell when
Speaker 4: something is fake very quickly.
Speaker 2: You can tell when something has had fully added of the.
Speaker 4: Sound design, and when actors are recording separately in booths,
Speaker 4: even if they're great actors. There's so many great actors
Speaker 4: out there who do voiceover and who have done a
Speaker 4: lot of fiction podcasts.
Speaker 2: My ear just knows when it's fake.
Speaker 4: So I tap out, And I feel like a lot
Speaker 4: of people feel that way, And so I just had this.
Speaker 2: Idea of like, why don't what if I.
Speaker 4: You know, Blair Witchet and sort of get over the
Speaker 4: fictionality by actually making it as non fictional as possible
Speaker 4: in terms of like putting in real people stories from
Speaker 4: my real life, interviewing my real family and inserting those
Speaker 4: with actors and and you know, and helping the actors
Speaker 4: in terms of the writing, and also directing them to
Speaker 4: maintain this level of realism that I hasn't I hadn't
Speaker 4: really heard in a lot of you know, in any
Speaker 4: of the fiction podcasts I listened to.
Speaker 2: So that was my initial idea.
Speaker 4: And then I spent a long time writing and interviewing
Speaker 4: friends and compiling the material and it was just super fun.
Speaker 2: I mean it was a lot of work, but yeah.
Speaker 4: Like so the initial impetus was like, can I basically
Speaker 4: make a movie without having to raise money and you know,
Speaker 4: hire a film crew or whatever. I could just run
Speaker 4: around with microphones because it's really cheap. I didn't use
Speaker 4: any studio time, so nothing was done in studio. Everything
Speaker 4: was either recorded in where I'm recording this or out
Speaker 4: on location with my actors or with friends that I
Speaker 4: was interviewing. Yeah, and then the material itself in terms
Speaker 4: of the like a lot of the material was stuff
Speaker 4: that I had written versions of before. In other words,
Speaker 4: the opening episode, which begins with me receiving a letter
Speaker 4: from a girl who I grew up with who committed
Speaker 4: suicide to that is that is based on a true story,
Speaker 4: but it's also something I've written about since my twenties.
Speaker 4: I wrote it originally as a poem, then I wrote
Speaker 4: it as a short story, and so a lot of
Speaker 4: the material that ended up up in Red weather. I
Speaker 4: had already sort of written in short story form or
Speaker 4: other forms throughout the years.
Speaker 2: So I think that is partly why it's.
Speaker 4: Really well developed, in the sense that, you know, it
Speaker 4: has a lot of history behind it.
Speaker 2: Even the made up stuff has.
Speaker 4: A lot of history behind it because I've already mind
Speaker 4: this material. I already spent time with some of these characters,
Speaker 4: the fake characters.
Speaker 6: And yeah, so he grew up with a girl who
Speaker 6: ended up killing herself.
Speaker 4: No, that was actually one of my Yeah, the the
Speaker 4: idea of getting a letter from a somebody after they've
Speaker 4: committed suicide.
Speaker 2: That happened to one of my best friends. He's he is.
Speaker 4: Interviewed in the beginning, actually, so those quotes from him
Speaker 4: are actually about when he actually had this happen to him.
Speaker 2: So we were in our twenties when that happened to him.
Speaker 4: I didn't actually know her specifically, so I connected it
Speaker 4: with a girl that I did grow up with. Several
Speaker 4: girls that I grew up with, I you know, sort
Speaker 4: of made an amalgamation into this one character. But that
Speaker 4: particular story about the letter and the suicide was based
Speaker 4: on an experience that a friend of mine had, So
Speaker 4: again I was able to compile quotes from him about
Speaker 4: that experience, insert my own fictional quotes about that experience,
Speaker 4: and so it feels hopefully very real, and you know,
Speaker 4: like something that happened to me.
Speaker 5: Was great because where you grew up in the country
Speaker 5: is such a unique area and a vibe all of
Speaker 5: its own in the United States, and very much becomes
Speaker 5: a character of the show. Is just that Northern California vibe.
Speaker 5: Especially in the eighties and the nineties. Was this stuff
Speaker 5: with like having cults around you, or I mean, even
Speaker 5: if you don't want to call it that word, having
Speaker 5: groups around you or communes around you. I mean, is
Speaker 5: that something that was just kind of the norm when
Speaker 5: you were growing up.
Speaker 2: Absolutely? Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, one of my closest friends who
Speaker 4: I interview throughout as Orian did grow up on a
Speaker 4: failed commune, and I've been able to talk to him
Speaker 4: about it. But a lot of other kids that we
Speaker 4: went to school with were part of I think there
Speaker 4: were about two or three different groups, you know, yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean I would call them colts, I guess that,
Speaker 4: and a lot of them were related biologically because they
Speaker 4: had all you know, there was one guy with a
Speaker 4: lot of wives who had had children with all these
Speaker 4: So there was a lot of the kids that we
Speaker 4: went to school with where literally I was like their cousins,
Speaker 4: but they're also brother and.
Speaker 2: Sister, like you know, it's that kind of weird confusion.
Speaker 4: And the reality is we never asked anybody about it
Speaker 4: because we were trying to be respectful and like, it's
Speaker 4: only now that I'm like, what was going on with
Speaker 4: that family or what was you know. And then there
Speaker 4: would always be these parties that we would go to,
Speaker 4: not parties, but like if you if you went to
Speaker 4: a friend's house, like a kid from school or whatever,
Speaker 4: there would be times when you'd get there and it
Speaker 4: was clear that the adults were on drugs or that
Speaker 4: they're the adults were doing some kind of you know,
Speaker 4: there was like this like alternative hippie druggie vibe going on,
Speaker 4: and I remember being very uncomfortable, you know, like they'd
Speaker 4: be like naked adults in a hot tub and you'd
Speaker 4: be like, I, you know, I'm just gonna go home.
Speaker 4: Like I remember calling my home and asking to be
Speaker 4: take taken home several times. Yeah, So there was you know,
Speaker 4: there was that that it was around, you know, like
Speaker 4: that sort of and that's a big part of this
Speaker 4: show is I wanted to interrogate that that time period
Speaker 4: both you know, negatively, but also somewhat positively.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think that that's kind of where it
Speaker 2: came out, is like.
Speaker 4: You know, I I find that that time somewhat or
Speaker 4: I find that that culture scary, you know.
Speaker 2: Like the idea of like, uh people.
Speaker 4: Living together or not having like the classic American nuclear family.
Speaker 4: But then I also think that a lot of like
Speaker 4: exposure to interesting ideas, and.
Speaker 2: Like, you know, I grew up in a very tolerant area.
Speaker 4: It was very gay friendly, It was very open minded
Speaker 4: in so many wonderful ways, and like for all the
Speaker 4: like fear mongering that I do on my own about
Speaker 4: red Weather, within Red Weather, Sebastopol is lovely and like
Speaker 4: most of the people I grew up with are super healthy,
Speaker 4: They're super down to earth. It's an amazing culture of
Speaker 4: like accepting, you know. So I sort of like take
Speaker 4: the most exploitative version of my hometown in a lot
Speaker 4: of ways, like the version of Sebastopol that I created
Speaker 4: for Red Weather is like much more closer to like
Speaker 4: Humboldt County, which was always a little edgier when I
Speaker 4: was growing up, Like if we I used to go
Speaker 4: backpacking up near like the Sinky on Wilderness and Lost Coast,
Speaker 4: and we'd go into those towns and that would be
Speaker 4: a different vibe. And the reason that that was a
Speaker 4: different vibe is because it was truly the heart of
Speaker 4: the marijuana industry, and it was so illegal, right, So
Speaker 4: you had a lot of these people that went up there,
Speaker 4: you know, in the sort of nineteen sixties seventies hippie moment.
Speaker 2: They like went up and bought lots of land.
Speaker 4: And was beautiful, and maybe they started communes or they
Speaker 4: just wanted to live off the land like my parents did.
Speaker 4: And then so what happened is that that culture, because
Speaker 4: they primarily were funded by weed, that culture got very
Speaker 4: libertarian and very like isolationist. And so what what started
Speaker 4: as a sort of you know hippie free love, flower child,
Speaker 4: you know, peace, love and happiness vibe quickly became a
Speaker 4: like paranoid you're going to protect her crops, And so
Speaker 4: culturally what you got was a much edgier sort of
Speaker 4: you know space.
Speaker 6: And I like that.
Speaker 4: I find that space terrifying but also fascinated for stories.
Speaker 4: So I you know, so the sebastaball that I've created
Speaker 4: for the Red Weather is sort of like a pushing
Speaker 4: it even further north in some ways.
Speaker 1: Did you always have the story set from the very
Speaker 1: beginning or was any part of it morphing in real
Speaker 1: time as you went about it.
Speaker 4: I pretty much had the story set, Like as far
Speaker 4: as the mystery, I knew what I wanted, I knew
Speaker 4: who I wanted it to have done it. I knew
Speaker 4: I had the resolution in mind, and then it was
Speaker 4: just a matter of getting there, and.
Speaker 2: So I wrote.
Speaker 4: In order to sell it to iHeart, I put together
Speaker 4: a fifteen minute demo which is basically the first fifteen minutes,
Speaker 4: and interviewed some friends about their experiences and compiled the
Speaker 4: real people with a couple of actors, made the fifteen
Speaker 4: minute demo and then out and then I wrote the
Speaker 4: first episode, which was you know, at that time, I
Speaker 4: was thinking like an hour long episode. It was a
Speaker 4: little longer first episode. And then I outlined the.
Speaker 2: Rest of the season. So I already had the outline
Speaker 2: for the season.
Speaker 4: But then I spent about once iHeart optioned the script
Speaker 4: and gave me the green light, I spent like over
Speaker 4: a year writing the scripts.
Speaker 1: We remember we were asking you to go to lunch
Speaker 1: and you would say, I cannot get I'm writing in
Speaker 1: my hotel room. And then Will and I got to
Speaker 1: traverse the country alone.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I could walk the streets of random towns.
Speaker 3: So we remember how hard you worked on that script.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was a lot and super fun and but
Speaker 4: very I would say, like indulgent, because it's.
Speaker 2: Like, you know, I'm sitting there thinking about my own life.
Speaker 4: I'm writing about real things, but then also trying to
Speaker 4: add in enough present tense mystery to keep it exciting.
Speaker 4: So it's a really interesting process. And like you know,
Speaker 4: and then you're asking, like when you asked about like
Speaker 4: what I discovered, there was a lot that was discovered
Speaker 4: in the process because I would start to go down
Speaker 4: a path story wise and suddenly realized some aspect. You know,
Speaker 4: like one of the big big turns near the end
Speaker 4: is that I did not interview any women that I
Speaker 4: grew up with, and like that ends up being a
Speaker 4: huge plot point. You know that my wife Alex points
Speaker 4: it out to me, and then you know, I recognize
Speaker 4: the sort of casual misogyny of the nineties and how
Speaker 4: that's carried over into my current situation, and that came
Speaker 4: from a real realization where I had already outlined several episodes.
Speaker 4: I'd already interviewed several friends, and I was like, I
Speaker 4: haven't interviewed any girls.
Speaker 2: And I was like, I'm going to lean into that.
Speaker 4: I'm not gonna like, you know, I'm going to actually
Speaker 4: like make that a big story point because I thought
Speaker 4: that was fascinating. And when I was honest with myself,
Speaker 4: I was like, I was a little scared too, you know.
Speaker 4: I was scared to like interview ex girlfriends or friends
Speaker 4: ex girlfriends, or even if I could find them, even
Speaker 4: if I'm still in touch with them.
Speaker 2: I'm still in touch with a lot of the guys
Speaker 2: that I grew up with, you know, which.
Speaker 4: Is probably natural, but it fed into the themes of
Speaker 4: this story, which you know, I don't want to ruin anything,
Speaker 4: but ultimately, like, yeah, how.
Speaker 5: Much, now, how much of the dialogue was written and
Speaker 5: how much was kind of you and your actors just
Speaker 5: playing in the moment.
Speaker 4: It totally dependent actor to actor, So there are some
Speaker 4: actors who just I knew would never say anything as
Speaker 4: it was written, And so I did write. I wrote
Speaker 4: every line of dialogue interviews with real family and friends
Speaker 4: I wrote around so I knew that I would get
Speaker 4: like friends. Since the second episode begins with a story
Speaker 4: about my dad's childhood that I you know, he's told
Speaker 4: that story since we were kids, so I in the script,
Speaker 4: I wrote a version of it in my own words,
Speaker 4: but basically was like I was just going to exactly
Speaker 4: detail story where this is what happens, and I knew
Speaker 4: that would happen, and then I could comment on it appropriately.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: But then there are some actors who I we would
Speaker 4: get together and they would do the dialogue as written,
Speaker 4: and then it would you know, and.
Speaker 2: This isn't a knock on some actor.
Speaker 4: Every actor is different, right, Like some actors can say
Speaker 4: word for word verbatim and make it sound so natural
Speaker 4: and human, and in fact, I would say with one
Speaker 4: of my actors who did that, whenever they tried to improvise,
Speaker 4: it was rank false, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Like that?
Speaker 4: So that was the fault, and it's just like no, no, no,
Speaker 4: you need to do this as written.
Speaker 2: And then there are other actors.
Speaker 4: Who we just had to throughout the script because we'd
Speaker 4: be recording and I'd be like it's not working. They
Speaker 4: would know it's not working. We'd be like, let's try
Speaker 4: it again, and this time. Yeah. Maybe the most fun
Speaker 4: was my friend Chris Lemke, who I wrote the part
Speaker 4: of el Rick, who is the sort of cult leader.
Speaker 2: I came upon this idea.
Speaker 4: I was like, oh, I could have el Rick's voice,
Speaker 4: because you know, there is a question of like who's
Speaker 4: alive from the case that I want to have in
Speaker 4: the present tense who's dead? And I was like, I
Speaker 4: want this guy to be mysterious, and you know, because
Speaker 4: to me it gets to the heart of like this
Speaker 4: whole question of was it a cult or was it
Speaker 4: a positive commune thing? And so I was like, oh,
Speaker 4: what if I found his lecture tapes? Like what if
Speaker 4: he had like a self help series? And this is
Speaker 4: based on like I definitely know people who've subscribed to
Speaker 4: like tapes where they get these like you know, especially
Speaker 4: back in the day, they would get these self help right.
Speaker 4: So I was like, that would be so cool, And
Speaker 4: what if you know, in order to get those tapes
Speaker 4: like I wrote it for like my friend Chris Lemke.
Speaker 4: Is this an incredible actor and I've known him forever
Speaker 4: and he's a very intense guy, and he's very smart,
Speaker 4: and I was like, Okay, I'm going to write a
Speaker 4: little bit, you know that I know will help the story.
Speaker 4: But then I'm also just going to give him like
Speaker 4: a tape recorder from the nineteen nineties and be like, hey,
Speaker 4: just record yourself and in character.
Speaker 2: And he he took it.
Speaker 4: And went away for I think it was like six weeks,
Speaker 4: and when I got back, he had filled four tapes
Speaker 4: of lectures for me, and I would say seventy five
Speaker 4: percent of what's in the episode is just him improvising
Speaker 4: in character lectures like he would talk, you know, he
Speaker 4: asked me like for some background information, and we would
Speaker 4: text throughout that.
Speaker 2: He would send me text and I was like.
Speaker 4: What about this, And so we were constantly in somewhat
Speaker 4: of communication. But for the most part he was recording
Speaker 4: by himself, walking through the woods. He went out into
Speaker 4: the desert. And so then when I got those tapes,
Speaker 4: he had one taper he's like, here's all the lines
Speaker 4: written as they are in the script. I delivered them
Speaker 4: and he's like, but then everything else was a little
Speaker 4: more improvisational or all over the place. And so I
Speaker 4: was able to go through those tapes just like writer the.
Speaker 2: Character and actually pulled the book. It's interesting party find
Speaker 2: the character. It was so cool. It was like, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm actually doing the thing.
Speaker 3: That's really fun.
Speaker 6: That's cool.
Speaker 2: So everything was different.
Speaker 6: It's it.
Speaker 5: But it also for the time period, it lends itself
Speaker 5: perfectly to finding a mixtape. You know, we would all
Speaker 5: get those, well not everybody, but you knew people that
Speaker 5: had those self help tapes. They'd come in the big
Speaker 5: plastic books that you'd open up. There'd be five tapes
Speaker 5: on one side, five tapes on the other. So it
Speaker 5: does the time of like the seventies, eighties, and nineties
Speaker 5: works perfectly for audio because you do you have there
Speaker 5: how many times did we record? I mean, you guys
Speaker 5: might be a little young for this, but my brothers
Speaker 5: and I when I was very young, would sit there
Speaker 5: on the on my brother's bed and take it into
Speaker 5: the radio with the tape recorder, waiting to press recording,
Speaker 5: play it.
Speaker 6: The same because you want to make sure you're getting everything.
Speaker 6: I mean, that was like part of our life. Yes, yes,
Speaker 6: so it was. Or or my friends and I I
Speaker 6: found old tapes where we made radio.
Speaker 5: Shows, and you know, it was just us having fun.
Speaker 5: That was our camcorder of the time. Yeah, yeah, so
Speaker 5: that it just were it really did work because the
Speaker 5: eye idea. It's not like, oh, this took place in
Speaker 5: you know, twenty thirty eight and in twenty twenty two
Speaker 5: he made a recording of himself, Like really, that doesn't
Speaker 5: mean but in nineteen eighty seven or whatever, of course.
Speaker 6: Exactly what you're going to do.
Speaker 4: It's just now, Yeah, that's why the mixtape, because I
Speaker 4: remember I made you know, we would make mixtapes for
Speaker 4: each other, and we would record clips from movies, yes,
Speaker 4: and we'd have like and then also talking to the
Speaker 4: microphone and like messages to each other.
Speaker 2: So yeah, so once.
Speaker 4: I knew that I was going to do an archival mixtape,
Speaker 4: that was super fun and like very easy in some ways.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: Just still have a CD that Shiloh made me no
Speaker 5: way from back in the day.
Speaker 6: Oh my gosh, that.
Speaker 5: Goes from like great outcast tribe called Quest and then
Speaker 5: there'll be a Reservoir Dogs clip and then you know,
Speaker 5: then there'll be you know, another great band and then
Speaker 5: so I mean still doing that on CD back in
Speaker 5: the day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have CDs for my best friend. I have
Speaker 1: Danielle and Jamie's best Friend mix.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the best.
Speaker 6: It was such a way to tell somebody. It was
Speaker 6: the ultimate love letter.
Speaker 5: It's like I sat here and pick fifteen songs that
Speaker 5: make me feel I feel about you, like, oh my god,
Speaker 5: you're gonna love it. And so just it worked in
Speaker 5: Red Weather because it makes perfect sense that.
Speaker 1: You can can make Spotify playlists for not often. Yeah,
Speaker 1: one question I have because this is someone who's not
Speaker 1: an actor, but I know that it was a scripted moment.
Speaker 1: Your mom talking about the Facebook message and that she got.
Speaker 3: What did did you write something for her?
Speaker 1: Did you just say, pretend that we're talking about you
Speaker 1: getting a Facebook message from someone at home.
Speaker 4: I just gave her. Yeah, I just pretend I just
Speaker 4: called her up. And she's so good, I know.
Speaker 6: Do you guys ever, do.
Speaker 5: You ever wonder where you got your acting talent and
Speaker 5: then ask.
Speaker 6: You to do something.
Speaker 5: In your industry talent, your entertainment talent, because you're a
Speaker 5: hell of a host, and so it's one of those
Speaker 5: things where do you ever think like, I'm the first
Speaker 5: one my family to get it, and then you ask
Speaker 5: your parents to do something and you're like, oh, they
Speaker 5: can actually it's there.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, well that's the thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I realized like my my my mom is a
Speaker 4: genuine but both my parents are good actors, but my
Speaker 4: mom through this process, my mom, she commits one hundred
Speaker 4: percent yes.
Speaker 2: And it was so like there was a.
Speaker 4: Moment in the episode, the last episode, there's a whole
Speaker 4: scene with my parents and my brother and I had
Speaker 4: to you know, I didn't write it. I actually was like,
Speaker 4: I'm just gonna We're going to improvise this whole thing.
Speaker 4: And so I told my parents, was like, Okay, the
Speaker 4: Sheriff's department is to search the house. I'm showing up.
Speaker 4: I need you to react like this and here's what's happened.
Speaker 4: And so I described like what happened and they were
Speaker 4: like okay, okay, okay. And then I came in and
Speaker 4: we did two takes and it was so good and
Speaker 4: Shiloh and my parents were just improvising and like talking
Speaker 4: to me, and at one point Chilotte turned to me
Speaker 4: and he's like, this is just like when we were
Speaker 4: kids and we would be making home movies and because
Speaker 4: that's how we started, that's how we started acting. Is
Speaker 4: like we would just grab the VHS and we would
Speaker 4: make my parents be the bad guys and we were
Speaker 4: superheroes or whatever. And it was so funny that he
Speaker 4: pointed out, I'm like, oh my god, we're still doing
Speaker 4: the same thing.
Speaker 2: My parents are still helping out, and there's totally game
Speaker 2: to like play along.
Speaker 5: And I fully thought the Facebook message in the beginning,
Speaker 5: I thought that was a real thing with your mom,
Speaker 5: Like that was something that you're like, Okay, well this
Speaker 5: is real, and I get to incorporate that into the
Speaker 5: story because this was an actual thing that happened. It's
Speaker 5: amazing to hear the stuff where it's like, oh, real,
Speaker 5: not real, real.
Speaker 2: I know, I mean, I.
Speaker 1: Know this is a hard question, but I know if
Speaker 1: I don't ask it in this way, our listeners are
Speaker 1: going to be angry with me. What percentage would you
Speaker 1: say if you had to say all of the Red
Speaker 1: Weather is one hundred percent, what percentage of.
Speaker 3: It would you say is real?
Speaker 1: And that's including the fact that, of course there are
Speaker 1: a lot of people in it who are playing different characters,
Speaker 1: but are real people from your life count that is real?
Speaker 3: Those people are?
Speaker 2: You know, say that last part against.
Speaker 1: The people, the people who weren't actors, they were friends
Speaker 1: of yours or family members of yours who participated. Yes,
Speaker 1: even if that friend you changed their name.
Speaker 2: Right, I changed all their names, you can count.
Speaker 3: Them as being real not fake.
Speaker 4: I would say only ten percent is real when you're
Speaker 4: actually listening to like clips from people. Only ten percent,
Speaker 4: because even some of the people who are playing themselves
Speaker 4: at times I gave lines or an attention or had
Speaker 4: them improvise a scene with me. So I would say actual,
Speaker 4: like real time, this is a real conversation moment. Yeah,
Speaker 4: five to ten percent, but it sprinkled throughout. And of
Speaker 4: course those people are real people in my life, and
Speaker 4: I get them to do be a part of scenes
Speaker 4: and other times. So and then if you're asking how
Speaker 4: much of the information in other words, like the stories
Speaker 4: that we're telling, and how much of this is based
Speaker 4: on real people and a real night in my in
Speaker 4: my life where this happened, or a real relationship where
Speaker 4: this happened, I would say it's.
Speaker 2: Much higher like that.
Speaker 4: That is all based on real relationships, real friendship. So
Speaker 4: that's a trickier question, right, that's like you know, like
Speaker 4: did I go on a road trip with a girl
Speaker 4: and have this you know, like, and I'm going to
Speaker 4: leave that one a little more big because there's a
Speaker 4: lot of a lot of that is real and a
Speaker 4: lot of it is based on like it's an amalgamation
Speaker 4: of real people or real situations, and so I think
Speaker 4: the takeaway is that this is insanely honest.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Okay, So I have a question.
Speaker 5: Was there ever a time that you were either worried
Speaker 5: about or in fact did rankle some feathers with the
Speaker 5: story you were coming up with thinking that, like, you know,
Speaker 5: you said, there's some relationships that you really did touch on,
Speaker 5: things that really did happen. Was there ever a time
Speaker 5: where you're like, even if I change the names and everything,
Speaker 5: I don't think I can put this in.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I still kind of feel that way.
Speaker 4: But nobody's ever complained to me the people that I interviewed,
Speaker 4: I felt bad at times when I'd be interviewing them
Speaker 4: and I'd be asking them to go towards some of
Speaker 4: the darker parts of our adolescents, like do you remember
Speaker 4: when this person was treated like this?
Speaker 2: You know, and do you remember the drugs?
Speaker 4: And actually it was like it was funny because people
Speaker 4: were people.
Speaker 2: It wasn't as dark.
Speaker 4: As it isn't the show so like, you know, I'm
Speaker 4: trying to like highlight.
Speaker 2: Like it wasn't that person weird? And didn't this?
Speaker 4: And they would be like, no, it's actually pretty fine
Speaker 4: and like they were totally healthy, and.
Speaker 2: I'd be like, yeah, but weren't they a little bit upset?
Speaker 4: You know, Like I was like, weird exactly, I was
Speaker 4: trying to like And so for those and a lot
Speaker 4: of some of a lot of those interviews I'd ended
Speaker 4: up using actually because they were frankly too boring, you know,
Speaker 4: like I interviewed people from my childhood, got material, but
Speaker 4: then ended up not using that many clips from them
Speaker 4: because it wasn't that that wasn't that dark er, you know,
Speaker 4: it wasn't good enough material. But yeah, I so I
Speaker 4: felt bad pushing those people a little bit towards like
Speaker 4: some stuff.
Speaker 2: That they maybe didn't want to talk about, you know.
Speaker 4: But no, in general, I still haven't heard from some people,
Speaker 4: and I'm that I'm curious about how they would feel
Speaker 4: because I definitely took parts of their life or their
Speaker 4: personality or aspects that I'm sure they would recognize themselves
Speaker 4: if they listened.
Speaker 2: But I'm not in touch with a lot of those
Speaker 2: people anyways.
Speaker 5: So did anyone say no, Did you reach out to
Speaker 5: anybody who was like, no, I don't want to I
Speaker 5: just don't want to be involved.
Speaker 6: No. Oh, well that's cool.
Speaker 2: That's good.
Speaker 6: That means something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's good.
Speaker 1: Well, let's do a quick episode breakdown. The very first
Speaker 1: episode is called The Pinky Swear, and it's where you
Speaker 1: really kind of set up that you had a friend
Speaker 1: named Anna Trainor who in nineteen ninety five, at the
Speaker 1: age of seventeen, she was drinking, she got into a
Speaker 1: heated fight with her boyfriend, and then she was last
Speaker 1: seen leaving the party when it got a little chaotic,
Speaker 1: and then a massive fire started at the collective.
Speaker 2: Yes, the Tender Hearts Collective.
Speaker 4: She was written raised with her sister, great, thank you, right,
Speaker 4: and then she disappeared. Her body was never found, no
Speaker 4: one has ever charged, and it's been.
Speaker 2: A cold case.
Speaker 4: And I'm deciding to take it up because I get
Speaker 4: a letter from her sister, who was my best friend
Speaker 4: growing up, and she then killed herself after sending me
Speaker 4: the letter. But in the letter, she lets me out
Speaker 4: of the Pinky Square, which is revealed in the course
Speaker 4: of the episode to be related to the fire.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So Willow is the name of the sister, and she
Speaker 1: lets you out of this pact, and it's a pact
Speaker 1: that was made the night that Anna disappeared after the fire,
Speaker 1: and it involves details about the fire as what we.
Speaker 2: Were doing that night.
Speaker 4: So at this point I'm sort of taking up the
Speaker 4: helm of like I'm going to be a podcaster and
Speaker 4: do this thing. And then of course I go to
Speaker 4: the complete wrong police station, so I immediately start messing
Speaker 4: up the investigation podcasters.
Speaker 6: It also comes out that you are not Lily snow
Speaker 6: White in this either.
Speaker 5: You lied to the police, yes, which is not a small.
Speaker 2: Thing, all right.
Speaker 4: But the end of the episode spoiler alert is that
Speaker 4: I I always thought that we started the fire accidentally,
Speaker 4: and it turns out that Willow intentionally started the fire
Speaker 4: that we made the pinkieswear about.
Speaker 2: So that's the twist at the end of episode one.
Speaker 1: Yes, and you are now going to share the things
Speaker 1: that you know with the police in hopes of reopening
Speaker 1: the cold case of Anna's missing person.
Speaker 6: And then we get.
Speaker 1: Into episode two, which is called Tom Shannigan's which I love,
Speaker 1: Thank you, I love Tom Shannigan's and writer reveals that
Speaker 1: they had put together a Halloween themed plan to lure
Speaker 1: Mick into the woods. Mick was the boyfriend, yeah, Anna's
Speaker 1: boyfriend's boyfriend.
Speaker 5: Possibly if you boyfriend, yeah.
Speaker 1: And it appears as though it's a there's a sex tape.
Speaker 4: Yes, it's like basically that Mick was as far as
Speaker 4: Willow was enlisting us to help her sister Anna.
Speaker 2: Because Mick had a sex tape that he was verage
Speaker 2: revenge porning, right years before revenge.
Speaker 6: Porn was even a phrase.
Speaker 4: But yeah, so we had this weird plan to get
Speaker 4: him out there, and all help sort of breaks.
Speaker 5: Loose because you want to you want to distract him,
Speaker 5: to search his car essentially right, to get the tape
Speaker 5: back right right?
Speaker 1: Yes, And then in that moment of panic, that's what
Speaker 1: makes Willow set fire to a she.
Speaker 4: Discovers a barn full of marijuana, which is why she
Speaker 4: started the fire in the first place, which of course.
Speaker 2: Now opens up a whole nother such a waste.
Speaker 4: Like but now that we know that there was a
Speaker 4: barn full of marijuana on the Tender Hearts property, that
Speaker 4: opens up this whole other motivation about the Tender Hearts
Speaker 4: and like, was Anna involved in some sort of drug
Speaker 4: dealing operation.
Speaker 2: And at this.
Speaker 4: Point in the present tense, I am coming clean to
Speaker 4: the sheriff who was in charge of the case, Sheriff Maldonado,
Speaker 4: and he once I tell him what was happening, he
Speaker 4: immediately is like, well, you need to go to the
Speaker 4: actual sheriff and tell her that you're the current sheriff.
Speaker 2: Tell her that you lied about this.
Speaker 4: So the end of the episode is me finally deciding
Speaker 4: to do that and to come clean so we can
Speaker 4: find find out what was actually going on.
Speaker 3: Who played Sheriff Maldonado.
Speaker 2: John Quertas. He's gonna be incredible. So John is one of
Speaker 2: those guys.
Speaker 4: I am so lucky to be friends with him because
Speaker 4: I put him in everything I write, and he's you know,
Speaker 4: he's just a TV legend. So we all probably met
Speaker 4: him back in the day.
Speaker 2: He was dating one of the Nobody's Angels singers.
Speaker 4: Yeah I'm blanking on her name, but we talked about
Speaker 4: when she was on the show. When they were on
Speaker 4: the show on our podcast. He was like, oh my god,
Speaker 4: you know I met you on the set of Boy
Speaker 4: Met So he came to the set of Boy Means
Speaker 4: World because he was a kid actor back then. Actually
Speaker 4: he wasn't a kid. He was slightly older, so he
Speaker 4: was because he had already he had been in the
Speaker 4: First Golf War, come back and then become an actor.
Speaker 4: But he Yeah, but he was on Sabrina. He was
Speaker 4: on Sabrina in the later years of Sabrina, he was
Speaker 4: on that. He was also in I believe Clueless was
Speaker 4: the show. He was on the Clueless TV show. So
Speaker 4: he was around us. But really I became friends with
Speaker 4: him when I guest starred on Castle in the early aughts,
Speaker 4: and he was a regular in Castle, and then he
Speaker 4: rolled right into This Is Us. That was like he
Speaker 4: finished Castle and he was like, I'm going to take
Speaker 4: a break for a while, but I'm going to do
Speaker 4: this other show.
Speaker 2: It's called This Is Us. And I was like, okay,
Speaker 2: And he ended up on that for seventy thirty two years. Yeah, whatever,
Speaker 2: it was like the biggest show in the country. I
Speaker 2: was like, he was like, it's just a pilot.
Speaker 4: I'm just a guest start and I ended up being
Speaker 4: one of the main cast for so long. So yeah,
Speaker 4: he's been incredibly fortunate as an actor and so talented.
Speaker 4: And what I love about John is like he is
Speaker 4: just he's an actor's actor, Like he will show up
Speaker 4: for any thing just to do it.
Speaker 2: Like he just loves acting. He loves performing.
Speaker 4: He's also a director now he's directing a bunch of television.
Speaker 4: But he's just like he's he's just such a good
Speaker 4: friend and he's always willing to like show. And I
Speaker 4: did that music video in twenty twenty one and he
Speaker 4: he was shooting at the time. He was still shooting
Speaker 4: this is Us, I believe, and it was all it
Speaker 4: was during COVID, so it was like really and he
Speaker 4: got himself up to the woods like he was still
Speaker 4: doing all this this is Us makeup. So he's like
Speaker 4: his hours were insane. He had to do like three
Speaker 4: hours of makeup every day he was on that show.
Speaker 2: And like he flew himself up to shoot.
Speaker 4: A music video on like his two days off and
Speaker 4: like running around the woods with me.
Speaker 2: He's just such a good friend and he's so committed.
Speaker 2: I love working with him.
Speaker 4: So I always knew that he would be my sheriff
Speaker 4: and like my sort of you know, my my police
Speaker 4: guide throughout this whole experience.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he was great, but I called you like halfway
Speaker 5: through the series to talk about who the person who
Speaker 5: I thought was the real standout, and she played the reporter.
Speaker 5: Can you talk a little bit about her because she's
Speaker 5: so good. I mean I literally stopped in an episode
Speaker 5: and I called you, I'm.
Speaker 6: Like, who is this?
Speaker 3: She's amazing?
Speaker 2: So that is Linisa Frederick.
Speaker 4: She and I am just so lucky to have found
Speaker 4: her because I I hired a producer named tes Bartholomew
Speaker 4: who has done a lot of scripted stuff and had
Speaker 4: a lot more experience in the podcast world. And luckily,
Speaker 4: Tess is not only an incredible producer, she's also an
Speaker 4: actor herself, and she knows a lot of actors and
Speaker 4: she has like you know, so I would say there
Speaker 4: were like four or five roles that were cast entirely
Speaker 4: because of Tess, and Linissa was one of the first
Speaker 4: people she brought up, and I I, you know, she
Speaker 4: she had a couple options for for the character of
Speaker 4: Monica that she sent me, and I was listening to
Speaker 4: the reels or watching the reels and listening to the
Speaker 4: work they've done.
Speaker 2: And the thing that for Linisa.
Speaker 4: I looked at I looked her up and she actually
Speaker 4: has a podcast that she hosts about cults because she
Speaker 4: grew up in a very religious cult situation. And so
Speaker 4: she has a whole podcast about black people who grew
Speaker 4: up in colts. Like that's her whole angle because she's like,
Speaker 4: there's so many documentaries and information out there about.
Speaker 2: Colts, but they tend to focus on white people.
Speaker 4: And so her whole angle was like, there's a lot
Speaker 4: of black folks who also grew up in strange situations
Speaker 4: that you know that doesn't do not get that much attention.
Speaker 4: So she and so she hosts this podcast. And when
Speaker 4: I listened to that, and I just listened to the
Speaker 4: you know, her talking and being herself and hosting, I
Speaker 4: was like, Oh, she's going to get this. She's going
Speaker 4: to get the tone, do you.
Speaker 2: Know what I mean?
Speaker 4: Because the tricky part is I didn't want too many
Speaker 4: voiceover actors who, as good as they are, put on voices,
Speaker 4: you know, they do a thing which is part of
Speaker 4: the job, bring energy to their voice. And when I
Speaker 4: saw that she could do that, and then we met
Speaker 4: a couple of times and talked and we did some
Speaker 4: reading together, and I was like, this woman is going.
Speaker 2: To kill it. And she did.
Speaker 4: And it's the toughest role because Monica's pure exposition. You know,
Speaker 4: she really is just like with me in so many
Speaker 4: of the scenes describing like well, Anna was here and
Speaker 4: then she went away. It's like a lot of just
Speaker 4: information sharing, and that can get so boring if you
Speaker 4: don't have the right energy level. But also, like I said,
Speaker 4: I didn't want it to be so, you know, I
Speaker 4: didn't want it to feel fake. So Linisa killed it
Speaker 4: and like, yeah she's and she's on Jury Duty and
Speaker 4: the new season of Jury Duty, which is an.
Speaker 2: All improvised show.
Speaker 4: So I also knew that she had the improv skills,
Speaker 4: you know, that she would be able to roll with whatever.
Speaker 4: And so a lot of our scenes and it's so
Speaker 4: funny because a lot of our scenes were recorded over
Speaker 4: the phone or over zoom, so we're like in other
Speaker 4: rooms in my house, like you know, like she's separate
Speaker 4: and I'm like given directions between.
Speaker 2: But like it was really fun because yeah, it was,
Speaker 2: it was. It was a great experience to work with
Speaker 2: her really.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay, then we have episode three Tree Time. The whole
Speaker 1: Tree Time concept reframes everything because time perception scaled to
Speaker 1: redwoods makes human life feel tiny.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's basically the only written part of Elrick that
Speaker 4: was left.
Speaker 2: I came up with the whole tree Time.
Speaker 4: Belots, and it turns out there really is a concept
Speaker 4: called tree Time. I've had friends send me like essays
Speaker 4: that there there really is this whole theory. But I just,
Speaker 4: you know, I just wanted to come up with a
Speaker 4: philosophy for Elrick that you know this this is by
Speaker 4: far my favorite episode of the show, and I feel
Speaker 4: like this is the one that when I had written
Speaker 4: this one, I was like, Okay, it's it's all coming together.
Speaker 4: Because I knew I would start the show with a
Speaker 4: sort of you know, oh, it's going to be about
Speaker 4: a cult next door, and that be something that would
Speaker 4: draw the listeners in and hint at like a dark underbelly,
Speaker 4: and I always knew I wanted to subvert that and really,
Speaker 4: you know, make it clear that a lot of these
Speaker 4: commune situations were not as crazy and creepy as you know,
Speaker 4: probably think in our imagination. And so yeah, this is
Speaker 4: where I came up with the idea that el Rick
Speaker 4: would have his lecture tapes and I would be able
Speaker 4: to sort of, you know, piece through those. I also
Speaker 4: had the great Adam Bush, an incredible actor play the
Speaker 4: part of Howard, which is like a researcher who I
Speaker 4: tracked down who researches communes, and that is based on
Speaker 4: a real guy. I have like three books that I've
Speaker 4: read because there's you know, there are historians out there
Speaker 4: who specialize in just in alternative communities. So I've read
Speaker 4: a couple of books about you know, written by one person,
Speaker 4: and so I created a fictional version of that person
Speaker 4: and had Adam come and play with me for a day.
Speaker 4: And he's a great actor. I've worked with a bunch
Speaker 4: before too, and yeah, so this is diving into the
Speaker 4: whole tender hearts commune for this episode and discovering that
Speaker 4: really and you know, this is the funny part about
Speaker 4: like outlining a mystery podcast is like nothing changes in
Speaker 4: this episode as far as the mystery costs, Like what
Speaker 4: you realize. I actually up until episode three writer as
Speaker 4: an investigator discovers nothing new. So it's like, you know,
Speaker 4: and that was the hard part about outlining, is like
Speaker 4: writing a present tense mystery and the facts of the
Speaker 4: past and realizing that, like really, true crime is super
Speaker 4: manipulative in this way because often they know everything by
Speaker 4: the time they go to record, but then they lay
Speaker 4: it out and like give you a little breadcrumbs, so
Speaker 4: you have to keep coming back for the.
Speaker 2: Next episode, do you know what I'm saying? So like
Speaker 2: it's pretty manipulatn.
Speaker 1: I would like to go back and say writer did
Speaker 1: not know that the fire was started, that she that
Speaker 1: the fire was started because of the marriage, Like there
Speaker 1: is you do discover some things.
Speaker 4: But I don't discover I don't break any new ground
Speaker 4: in the case until episode.
Speaker 3: Right, okay in the case, yeah, okay.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because I go to Sheriff Maaldonado and he's like, yeah,
Speaker 4: we knew about the marijuana.
Speaker 2: We knew about the fire.
Speaker 4: I know who started it, but we knew you know,
Speaker 4: we knew you were out there. So really it's not
Speaker 4: until episode four that any new information about the case
Speaker 4: itself comes to light.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but there's an interesting way that you did it,
Speaker 5: because it's almost like, I mean, at the end, it
Speaker 5: works out the way that it's supposed to work out.
Speaker 6: But it's almost like a little bit of a.
Speaker 5: Few to true crime podcasters who are like this, I'm
Speaker 5: better than detectives.
Speaker 2: Yes, you know that was always my intention.
Speaker 5: I can figure this out because I did research on
Speaker 5: the Internet, and it's like, Okay, these guys have found
Speaker 5: the case.
Speaker 1: Research always means google searches exactly.
Speaker 4: I find there are some true crime podcasts that I
Speaker 4: am intentionally mirroring that I I've made me very uncomfortable.
Speaker 4: Like there was a period I would say, like post serial,
Speaker 4: like around twenty fifteen through twenty twenty, there was a
Speaker 4: big boom in true crime podcasting and you'd have a
Speaker 4: lot of these sort of white night guys coming in
Speaker 4: and being like, I know nothing about this case, but
Speaker 4: I'm going to make it all about me solving it.
Speaker 4: And I really wanted to, you know, present writer as
Speaker 4: one of those kinds of guys and have that undermine throughout,
Speaker 4: you know, throughout the whole series. Yeah, because I find
Speaker 4: it icky, you know, exploitative, Like there's something really exploitative
Speaker 4: about a lot of true crime out there, and I
Speaker 4: wanted to China, you know, a spotlight on that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, definitely where it's like there are other people there
Speaker 5: that are literally characters, going like you're an actor and
Speaker 5: a podcaster exactly, that's.
Speaker 2: What you do. Stayed in your lane, dude, and so true.
Speaker 4: I will say that like walking into the police station
Speaker 4: even though that's seen as stage that is based on
Speaker 4: a true thing too, like walking into the wrong jurisdiction
Speaker 4: to report a crime actually happened.
Speaker 2: So I I'm here to report a crime.
Speaker 6: Sure, this is the fire department.
Speaker 2: Exactly as it happens the Masa police station.
Speaker 4: Turns out Sonoma County, it's actually West County.
Speaker 2: It's the Sheriff's department thing.
Speaker 4: So that was a real yeah, So like, yeah, there was,
Speaker 4: And I wanted to use all of that.
Speaker 2: I wanted to put it in there.
Speaker 4: Because I think it's Yeah, I don't know, I think
Speaker 4: I definitely like the worst writers as a podcaster. I
Speaker 4: knew that the better the story would be, right, So yeah,
Speaker 4: I made sure that I.
Speaker 2: Do not do not come off that great.
Speaker 5: Well you're not the White Night. That's that's the whole
Speaker 5: point is exactly, You're You're not that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The Interrogation Tree scripts exposed Maldonado for not telling the
Speaker 1: full story and reveals that Elric initially lied. So it
Speaker 1: opens up some new motives, some new potential baddies.
Speaker 4: Yes, turns on and now I'm starting to turn on
Speaker 4: the cops. So episode four is called Swamplvania, and this
Speaker 4: is really Yeah. Now it's now it's much more in
Speaker 4: the present tense. And there's sort of two leads where
Speaker 4: I am going into questioning Maldonado and confronting him about
Speaker 4: his language in the transcripts and his potential bigotry or
Speaker 4: you know, his biases, going into the investigation you know,
Speaker 4: and uh, and then also sourcing this drug dealer, a
Speaker 4: local drug dealer named Sparks, and tracking him down and
Speaker 4: interviewing him about Maldonado's potential corruption as a as a sheriff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and one of the reasons Mick may have been
Speaker 1: protected having did you with money.
Speaker 6: Money campaign donations. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I always knew I wanted to, you know, because the actual.
Speaker 4: Evolution of of northern California, you know, from like alternative
Speaker 4: hippie uh into sort of isolationist, paranoid libertarian drug area
Speaker 4: into tech like in California is like, actually so many
Speaker 4: people went to tech, and so I wanted to create,
Speaker 4: you know, a sort of tech bro character.
Speaker 2: And I always knew that Mick would end up being being.
Speaker 4: I love that, Yeah, based on based on some of
Speaker 4: real you know, a couple of real people that we
Speaker 4: knew growing up who who did end up having a
Speaker 4: lot of money and doing well in tech.
Speaker 1: I also loved that in this episode, uh one of
Speaker 1: the themes, and it's a it's a quiet theme, it's
Speaker 1: an underlying theme. But where uh you know you're not
Speaker 1: supposed to photograph the evidence? You come across, yes, and
Speaker 1: Maldonado lets you. He encourages you to whin the sheriff
Speaker 1: is not present, and it ends up. Of course it's
Speaker 1: super helpful, and your first thought is what a nice guy,
Speaker 1: and then you go, but if he's willing to do
Speaker 1: that for me, does that mean that he's what? He's
Speaker 1: obviously unethical even though it's helpful to me. So I
Speaker 1: love that opening up the theme of why are we
Speaker 1: so okay with the unethical behavior?
Speaker 3: Winning?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 4: Total, But then this is also an episode with a
Speaker 4: very special guest appearances my friends.
Speaker 6: I'm driving to my car by myself. I like, at
Speaker 6: least he didn't use anybody from mother.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So this is where I go to the current Sheriff's office,
Speaker 4: and the liaison that I've been given is.
Speaker 3: Big Boy meets World Fans.
Speaker 2: Is a Big Boys World fan.
Speaker 3: More importantly, a Big Topanga fan.
Speaker 4: So in order to distract him, so I can, you know,
Speaker 4: get some some photographs I used.
Speaker 2: Danielle Fischels.
Speaker 1: You were very smart to not ask us to do
Speaker 1: anything because the whole point of this is obviously that
Speaker 1: it is real and that it feels real, and I
Speaker 1: would it would take us out of it. The only
Speaker 1: reason I was able to do it is because I
Speaker 1: was playing me.
Speaker 3: Saying hello on a FaceTime to a fan.
Speaker 2: So it worked out.
Speaker 3: It wasn't even really you couldn't.
Speaker 6: You couldn't.
Speaker 5: You couldn't combine the worlds in a way that wouldn't
Speaker 5: take you out of the entire thing exact and the
Speaker 5: way that you did mention for me to world about
Speaker 5: the guy's a fan and he's essentially like Sean. We
Speaker 5: dealt with people like that, where it's like you get
Speaker 5: you will get like a little bonus of something, and
Speaker 5: it comes at the most random times too, where it's
Speaker 5: like I'm giving.
Speaker 6: You this extra Carvel ice cream because I'm and you're like, okay, thanks.
Speaker 6: So it does it happens?
Speaker 2: John, I wanted to play with that reality. I don't,
Speaker 2: I mean, it does.
Speaker 5: It happens just like that when you least to expect
Speaker 5: that the extra bag of peanuts on a plane or
Speaker 5: something like that.
Speaker 6: It just always happens that.
Speaker 4: In this case, it was my friend Travis Schultz, who's
Speaker 4: a great actor. He was on Scrubs and we go
Speaker 4: way back. He and my wife have been friends since
Speaker 4: before I met my wife, and so I I got
Speaker 4: him to come play this part. He's never seen a
Speaker 4: single episode of Boy. He was so great because I
Speaker 4: kind of wrote it thinking it would be more sort
Speaker 4: of like a goofy gregarious, like overly gregarious guy, like
Speaker 4: the guy was like. Instead, he came in and played
Speaker 4: it so like creepy and intense.
Speaker 2: He's like, tell me we're about to pang out. Just
Speaker 2: go with that, you know, like and he.
Speaker 4: Like it was so fun because you know, working with
Speaker 4: these actors, we're just micing. We're micing ourselves up with
Speaker 4: like loob mics and then we have a boom mic.
Speaker 4: There's no cameras, but of course we're actually looking at
Speaker 4: each other, haven't And so like his like intense, Like
Speaker 4: he physically was like so creepy too, and everything just
Speaker 4: like getting a little too close and staring a little.
Speaker 5: Changed with him because the character is like the fanboy
Speaker 5: eventually stops and he becomes cop again and then almost
Speaker 5: doesn't like you, and then it's there, zactly it's a
Speaker 5: great kind of and then when you then go back
Speaker 5: and try to use it again, almost like hey is
Speaker 5: off the script.
Speaker 2: Ye, it's like this is not gonna work.
Speaker 6: Yeah is great. It's so creepy and it's really worked
Speaker 6: really well.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then episode five mix tape, we hear Anna's Haunted tape.
Speaker 3: For the very first time.
Speaker 1: Which really gives us a first deep glimpse into who
Speaker 1: she is as a person. We find out some of
Speaker 1: her music taste, her reading preferences, and even a glimpse
Speaker 1: into her drive through order at McDonald's.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this was fun.
Speaker 4: This was another actress that I did not know because
Speaker 4: I immediately had written this episode and then realized, like,
Speaker 4: I don't know any teenage actors.
Speaker 1: Like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but then this is she's not a teenager. This
Speaker 2: is Rachel Marsh.
Speaker 4: She's a great actress, mostly known for comedy, but she
Speaker 4: has a very young sounding voice. And tess As had
Speaker 4: worked with her before and was like, you got to
Speaker 4: meet with Rachel, and I did and it was great.
Speaker 4: And she recorded with a little mini like radio shack
Speaker 4: tape recorder at my house. We did a little bit together,
Speaker 4: and then I just let her take the tape recorder
Speaker 4: and go off and record herself through a drive through
Speaker 4: and all that stuff, and so again, you know, I
Speaker 4: was sort of piecing together documentary style real clips and
Speaker 4: trying to insert them, you know, after the fact, and
Speaker 4: figure out how to like read you know, Anna's tape
Speaker 4: super fun.
Speaker 1: Did you at any point think about changing mix name
Speaker 1: after you realize mix tape was going to sound like
Speaker 1: mixed mixtape.
Speaker 4: No, that became, that became it's it's a complete, it's purposeful,
Speaker 4: it's a red heron because of course, it turns out
Speaker 4: that the tape is not to Mick. So by titling
Speaker 4: the episode mix tape, I really want, you know, driving
Speaker 4: the audience away from from from the truth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, all right great, and then you go back
Speaker 1: home to your family after being away for three full weeks.
Speaker 3: This was another aspect of the podcast.
Speaker 1: I loved hearing what feels like very real family dynamics.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yes, tense dynamics with that at times.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We had people like checking in on
Speaker 2: me and Alex listening. They were like, are you guys
Speaker 2: O caring?
Speaker 4: She's like I'm an actress living exactly, oh man, But
Speaker 4: I know, we we did a lot of improvacy. We
Speaker 4: actually recorded almost everything with Alex and Indy in the
Speaker 4: same day. Actually, no, Indy was separate. Indy was during
Speaker 4: an actual audition that he had. We we did, so
Speaker 4: that is a real he was really auditioning. And then
Speaker 4: we had a conversation that you know, was somewhat scripted,
Speaker 4: but I kept, you know, working with him and just
Speaker 4: talking through it.
Speaker 2: And he's so good in it. I love how like
Speaker 2: so good.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but yeah, I know with Alex, we recorded everything
Speaker 4: for us pretty much in one day, and it was
Speaker 4: super fun because I had a friend visiting who plays.
Speaker 2: Heidi Soulsman, who ends up playing Anna's mom. I wrote
Speaker 2: that part for her.
Speaker 4: She was staying with us, so she came and stay
Speaker 4: with us, and then we spent the whole day with
Speaker 4: Alex and me like improvising all of our fight stuff
Speaker 4: and all those scenes, and Heidi was like, oh my god,
Speaker 4: this is like a Cassavetti's set here.
Speaker 2: We kept, you know, it was super fun.
Speaker 4: Alex and I, obviously we've worked together forever and we
Speaker 4: know each other very well. We give each other creative
Speaker 4: feedback all the time, so it was super fun to
Speaker 4: work with her.
Speaker 5: Well, the thing that really struck me, especially with this
Speaker 5: episode and the family dynamic, is when you listen to Indye,
Speaker 5: you realize that when this whole thing takes place, he's
Speaker 5: not that much younger than you were supposed to be
Speaker 5: when all these events happened. Oh right, So it's like
Speaker 5: when you hear how young he sounds, You're like, dude,
Speaker 5: he's like two or three years away from this happening
Speaker 5: and he sounds like a little little kid.
Speaker 6: Yea.
Speaker 5: So it's kind of that That was really striking to
Speaker 5: me because it's like, oh my god, he's gonna think
Speaker 5: of the problems that rider writer quote had and his
Speaker 5: friend had.
Speaker 6: A year or two later, compared to hearing this little kid.
Speaker 2: It was I never thought strange.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it was really strange.
Speaker 1: In episode six to Live in Park in.
Speaker 3: La, we get the Indie cameo and he tells.
Speaker 1: Writer that he needs to help his old friend and
Speaker 1: crack this case. He really encourages you to take this on, uh,
Speaker 1: and then you hear from mixed lawyers yep, who reach
Speaker 1: out to you and send you a cease and desist yeah,
Speaker 1: and you are then locked out of knowing any further
Speaker 1: details about the case from the Sonoma County Sheriff uh
Speaker 1: and Operation Van Gobea.
Speaker 4: And that is when I put it all together that
Speaker 4: I'm assuming it Mick that the tape is too So
Speaker 4: I finally go confront him and he's willing to sit
Speaker 4: down and talk with me, and only to discover that
Speaker 4: it wasn't a tape to him, it was.
Speaker 2: To somebody else. Into episode seven.
Speaker 4: Loft Times, Yeah, so this is really about Anna's mom,
Speaker 4: Anna and Willow's mom. And I always knew that this
Speaker 4: was going to be sort of a centerpiece of the season,
Speaker 4: and this is, you know, this is really where I
Speaker 4: borrowed heavily from probably one of the greatest true crime
Speaker 4: podcasts out there, which is from the Canadian Broadcasting System
Speaker 4: or the CBC whatever that is Canadian Broadcasting channel. It's
Speaker 4: called Someone Knows Something, and it's an incredible podcast. It's
Speaker 4: like the best of the true crime in that it's
Speaker 4: it's it's less interested in solving the crime, even though
Speaker 4: it is often, you know, trying to solve the crime.
Speaker 4: The host is this very Canadian, wonderful guy who's been
Speaker 4: a filmmaker forever, and he just spends time with the
Speaker 4: people who involved with the case, and like he'll just
Speaker 4: spend like like there'll be whole episodes where it's just
Speaker 4: just you know, walking with him, walking the scene of
Speaker 4: the crime, with like the brother of the person who died,
Speaker 4: and just get a sense of that person's life now
Speaker 4: and how it feels, you know, thirty years to have
Speaker 4: gone by without knowing what happened to their.
Speaker 2: Sister or whatever.
Speaker 4: And so I always I was so inspired by the emotional,
Speaker 4: like the real human fallout of these cases, you know,
Speaker 4: which we don't you know, when you get into like
Speaker 4: the too much of the serialization where you're just like,
Speaker 4: who did it?
Speaker 2: Did get a sensation?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: You forget that there's humans.
Speaker 4: So I always knew that I wanted this confrontation or
Speaker 4: this scene with Anna's mother to be, you know, a
Speaker 4: central part of the show. And I wrote it for
Speaker 4: my friend Heidi, who is an incredible actress.
Speaker 2: She's she does a lot of theater.
Speaker 4: She has been on l word It's probably the biggest
Speaker 4: thing that she's been on lately.
Speaker 2: But she's an.
Speaker 4: Actress, been around forever, and she's I just love her
Speaker 4: we've just been friends. Our sons are actually best friends,
Speaker 4: so I've known her since our kids started hanging out
Speaker 4: when they were like, uh, three or four. Anyway, So
Speaker 4: I wrote this part for her with her in mind,
Speaker 4: and it was great. You know, yeah, she's incredible.
Speaker 5: This was what I mean again, I could picture most
Speaker 5: of the series obviously very well in my head, but
Speaker 5: the scene where you're kind of on the porch shipping
Speaker 5: whiskey and you could tell she's just kind of broken
Speaker 5: and trying not to.
Speaker 6: Be broken and already a little bit drunk, and it.
Speaker 5: Was just I could see the whole like I could
Speaker 5: just visualize the whole scene really great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah, that that that feeling. I think we've
Speaker 1: all been there where you're you've been so excited, you
Speaker 1: feel like there's going to be a conversation, a moment
Speaker 1: with someone that's gonna reveal things, and then you realize, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure you're a reliable narrator.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yeah, man.
Speaker 6: It was Roughen the best possible unfortunate exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it was super fun because this was based
Speaker 4: on I knew I was writing this part for Heidi,
Speaker 4: and I was able to you know, I actually have
Speaker 4: spent a lot of time sipping whiskey and talking with Heidi.
Speaker 4: So you know, obviously she doesn't have a daughter disappeared
Speaker 4: or anything, but I wrote with her like rhythms and.
Speaker 2: Her life and her voice in my head.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it was so cool to you know, take
Speaker 4: parts of her real life, take you know, the sort
Speaker 4: of fictional character that I was creating, and like write
Speaker 4: for her and then have her calm and just nail it.
Speaker 2: I mean it was incredible.
Speaker 4: It was a whole day just the two of us,
Speaker 4: and we really were you know, we were on a
Speaker 4: porch in this house and a friend of mine was
Speaker 4: moving out of his place, so he had just a
Speaker 4: house full of boxes and crap, and I was like,
Speaker 4: this is perfect.
Speaker 2: So yeah, she's an incredible actress. So much fun.
Speaker 1: We also really discover some stuff about the missing case
Speaker 1: and who the tape might be too, and some very interesting.
Speaker 4: Hard throughout books to which I think something very of course, everyone.
Speaker 8: In the.
Speaker 3: Exactly I love it.
Speaker 1: And then we get to our final episode, episode eight,
Speaker 1: the end of the Imagination, and uh, there's some search
Speaker 1: warrants and all will be revealed in this episode, and
Speaker 1: this is the we talked about it a little bit
Speaker 1: at the beginning of this.
Speaker 3: Episode where you had your family and.
Speaker 1: You just did a whole scene that you improved about,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 4: Shaff's office, searching my parents' house. And the fun part
Speaker 4: about this is that my parents nobody who was in
Speaker 4: it playing themselves, even when they were part of scenes,
Speaker 4: no one read the whole script. So for my parents
Speaker 4: it was such a trip to listen to this thing
Speaker 4: it was done. And for a lot of my friends too,
Speaker 4: they'd done interviews with me, but they hadn't heard it,
Speaker 4: and so then, you know, I would have these conversations
Speaker 4: with them. They're like, so you took a real memory,
Speaker 4: put it in right this face listening to it. Yeah,
Speaker 4: Because they were like, I would be listening, going, I
Speaker 4: remember the real story, but then I'm using my imagination
Speaker 4: to hear how I'm a part of the fake story.
Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, isn't that weird.
Speaker 4: So there's like a very small circle of like probably
Speaker 4: ten people for whom listening to Red Weather is a
Speaker 4: real trip.
Speaker 6: Yeah, totally different experience.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I really I don't want to I don't
Speaker 1: want to give it away, and so I'm not going
Speaker 1: to give it away. No more spoilers. We've given enough
Speaker 1: away here. But if you if you haven't heard it,
Speaker 1: I really encourage you to go take a listen. I
Speaker 1: was completely sucked in. It goes very very fast. The
Speaker 1: length of the episodes is truly perfect. There's no fat
Speaker 1: that needs to be cut from it.
Speaker 3: It is. It is truly a really special piece of work.
Speaker 6: And you made a drive to Vegas go by very
Speaker 6: quickly for soon like next one, next one, next one.
Speaker 2: Awesome.
Speaker 6: It was great.
Speaker 1: Now, thank you guys, well, thank you for putting this
Speaker 1: out there and for all your hard work on it.
Speaker 1: So thank you all for joining us for this episode
Speaker 1: of Pod Meets World. As always, you can follow us
Speaker 1: on Instagram pod Meets World Show.
Speaker 3: You can send us your emails.
Speaker 1: Pod meets World show at gmail dot com. And we've
Speaker 1: got merch.
Speaker 6: Hi.
Speaker 5: I'm Wilfredell, actor and podcaster, and I'm trying to find
Speaker 5: out who killed Anna Merch.
Speaker 2: Anna Art is a cool name.
Speaker 1: Pod meets Worldshow dot com writer, send us out.
Speaker 2: We love you all, pod dismissed.
Speaker 4: Pod Meets World is an iHeart podcast producer hosted by
Speaker 4: Danielle Fischel, Wilfridell and Ryder Strong Executive producers, Jensen Karp
Speaker 4: and Amy Sugarman, Executive in charge of production, Danielle Romo,
Speaker 4: producer and editor, Tarasubach producer, Maddie Moore engineer and Boy
Speaker 4: Meets World Superman Easton Out. Our theme song is by
Speaker 4: Kyle Morton of Typhoon. Follow us on Instagram at Podmets
Speaker 4: World Show, or email us at podmetsworldshowat gmail dot com.
Speaker 8: M