WEBVTT - Tembi Locke: From Scratch 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:05.200 Life and art and the professional and the personal and 0:00:05.240 --> 0:00:07.640 the way they intertwine and they dance together, and I 0:00:07.640 --> 0:00:09.959 see that I used to ask questions like why, how? 0:00:10.360 --> 0:00:12.320 I don't even ask questions anymore. I'm just like, this 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:15.080 is a gift. I am supposed to learn something in 0:00:15.120 --> 0:00:18.040 all of these sectors and in reality and life. There 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:19.040 is no separation. 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:23.439 This is it's okay that you're not okay, And I'm 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:27.040 your host, Megan Divine. This week on the show, tembay Lock, 0:00:27.440 --> 0:00:30.640 author of the memoir From Scratch and the hit Netflix 0:00:30.680 --> 0:00:33.720 series of the same name. Temby joins me to talk 0:00:33.720 --> 0:00:38.800 about love and Hollywood and time and meaning, all the 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:42.519 little things settle in everybody, all of that coming up 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:51.879 right after this first break before we get started. 0:00:51.920 --> 0:00:53.360 Two quick notes. 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:57.160 One, this episode is an encore performance. I am on 0:00:57.240 --> 0:01:00.920 break working on a giant new project, releasing a mix 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:03.480 of our favorite episodes from the first three seasons of 0:01:03.520 --> 0:01:06.520 the show. Some of these conversations you might have missed 0:01:06.560 --> 0:01:10.200 in their original seasons, and some shows just truly deserve 0:01:10.400 --> 0:01:13.800 multiple listens so that you capture all of the goodness. 0:01:14.640 --> 0:01:17.920 Second note, While we cover a lot of emotional, relational 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:20.560 territory and our time here together. This show is not 0:01:20.640 --> 0:01:23.600 a substitute for skilled support with a license mental health provider, 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:27.760 or for professional supervision related to your work. Take what 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:30.920 you learn here, take your thoughts and your reflections out into. 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:32.480 Your world, and talk about it. 0:01:35.280 --> 0:01:39.360 Hi rans So, as has happened a lot of times 0:01:39.400 --> 0:01:43.520 on the season, I've known about today's guest four years. 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:48.200 We just never actually met until this conversation. I first 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:51.200 found Tim Baylock's work years before she wrote her best 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:55.120 selling book From Scratch, back before the hit Netflix series 0:01:55.200 --> 0:01:58.320 From Scratch, back when she had her very first blog 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:02.360 called The Kitchen Widow. We talk about that first creative 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:04.680 vehicle of hers in the show to day, and how 0:02:04.760 --> 0:02:08.560 flinging yourself out into the world creatively speaking, can open 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:11.600 pathways to a life you couldn't have dreamed of in 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:14.560 those early days when you started out. You may have 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:18.239 seen the hit Netflix show From Scratch, based on Tembe's 0:02:18.440 --> 0:02:21.799 New York Times bestselling memoir From Scratch. The book and 0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:24.960 the show centers on her life with her late husband Satto, 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:28.760 from Italy to Los Angeles and back again. They mix 0:02:28.840 --> 0:02:32.480 love and food, and in laws and illness. Both the 0:02:32.480 --> 0:02:37.120 book and the show have been immensely popular, and to me, 0:02:37.200 --> 0:02:39.960 that really speaks to our collective need for love stories 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:42.800 that aren't that usual, like everything worked out for the 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:46.760 best Hollywood happy ending thing. This need that we have 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:51.640 for stories that aren't all gloom and doom either. Now 0:02:51.680 --> 0:02:54.359 Tambay manages to convey the truth about grief without slipping 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:57.520 into either one of those outdated tropes, and you're going 0:02:57.600 --> 0:03:00.760 to hear all about that in our conversation. Tambay Locke 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:04.880 is a writer, executive producer, and an accomplished actor. You 0:03:04.960 --> 0:03:07.640 will hear in our conversation that I was thrilled to 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:09.720 learn that Tembay was in one of my very favorite 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:12.600 shows of all time that most of you have probably 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:17.239 not seen, Eureka from the Sci Fi Channel. She's also 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:19.960 on the hit show Never Have I Ever, among other credits, 0:03:19.960 --> 0:03:22.760 and there's this really neat section in the conversation you're 0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:26.520 about to hear where Tembe talks about those roles and 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:28.560 what was going on in her life when she recorded 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:31.400 those shows, and then what it's like seeing herself in 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:39.280 them now. It's like this emotional archaeological dig via television. 0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:40.800 Fascinating. 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:44.160 We also get into the challenges of creating a show 0:03:44.240 --> 0:03:47.160 based on deeply personal and emotional parts of your life, 0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:50.960 trying to stay true to that story while also protecting 0:03:51.000 --> 0:03:54.080 the tender parts of yourself, all while trying to make 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:56.560 a show that other people will want to watch, something 0:03:56.560 --> 0:04:01.240 that will genuinely move people, as you'd imagine, and juggling 0:04:01.240 --> 0:04:05.800 all of that stuff isn't always easy, honestly, in every show, 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:08.720 there's so much going on behind the scenes. All your 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:11.680 favorite shows, oh, your favorite movies, friends, real humans are 0:04:11.680 --> 0:04:17.560 doing real life just offstage. Anyway, You're gonna hear all 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:23.760 about it in my conversation with actor, writer, executive producer 0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:31.599 and all around amazing human Tembilack. I am so happy 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:33.920 to have you here and to actually be able to 0:04:33.960 --> 0:04:36.719 see you and talk with you, and no one will 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:39.560 be surprised that we've actually been chatting forever and could 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:42.680 have been doing this hit record a long time ago. 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:44.880 But here we are, here, we are. 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:45.640 Here, we are. 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:49.240 I have been talking with a lot of people who 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:53.160 who carry a loss with them into the conversation, and 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:57.799 I started asking people to introduce us to their person, 0:04:58.480 --> 0:05:01.120 and I really love this. Before we get rolling with 0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:04.200 all of my questions, would you introduce satatas. 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:06.960 Oh my gosh, that's a pleasure and an honor. Thank 0:05:07.000 --> 0:05:10.719 you first of all for opening that space to do 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:14.640 that right. It's rare that someone even asks that question 0:05:14.720 --> 0:05:17.800 of you, and I always find it's a privilege to 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:20.920 be able to bring Saddle forward. I mean, he's always 0:05:20.920 --> 0:05:24.160 here in my sense, and I know we can get 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:28.480 into that later, but for me, his light is always within, 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:31.279 and when I get to sort of shine it outward, 0:05:31.360 --> 0:05:34.839 I'm happy to do that. So Sado, my late husband, 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:39.359 his resume would say Italian born chef and you know, 0:05:40.040 --> 0:05:46.160 lover of literature and I amateur guitar player, lover of newspapers, 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:49.279 all of those things. He was a gentle, beautiful soul 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:54.719 and he was a soulmate and a best friend, someone 0:05:54.720 --> 0:05:59.920 who made me look at the world in new ways 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:05.640 and often through the prism of tiny, small moments. He 0:06:05.800 --> 0:06:09.240 was a tiny, small moments person and I can be 0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:13.640 a big picture person. And that ability for him to 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:17.760 sort of synthesize down a moment or an experience or 0:06:17.800 --> 0:06:20.080 the meeting of a new person was was a gift 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:23.200 in my life. And he was the father of my 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:27.480 of our daughter. Yeah, it was cool. It was cool. 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:33.599 He could also be complete. You know, he's Sicilian born, 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:36.680 so he had a streak of like a kind of 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:41.680 like incomparable pessimism that could like run through everything. It 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:44.159 was just like everything had to put those to it, 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:48.800 and that I found that like both hilarious and dramatic 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:51.560 in the ways that you know we sometimes see on TV. 0:06:52.320 --> 0:06:54.760 But he could hold it lightly, so that was also nice. 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:56.640 I love this. There's like so many directions I want 0:06:56.680 --> 0:07:00.080 to go with bringing him here into this space. One 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:01.680 thing that I want to say, it's like I think 0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:04.960 sometimes we sort of lionize the dead, Like you don't 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:06.839 speak all of the dead, You only say the good things. 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:10.320 And it's like when you get to have a real conversation, 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:13.480 when you get to introduce your person as the totality 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:15.960 of who they are. You know, after my partner died, 0:07:16.000 --> 0:07:18.280 I always felt like when I got to talk about 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:22.400 him or heard somebody else talk about him, it made 0:07:23.280 --> 0:07:24.840 them become three dimensional again. 0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:31.720 Oh sure, right, absolutely sudo hated. I'm laughing at it 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:33.240 before I can even get it out of my mouth. 0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:36.560 Here he is in his three dimensionality. You know how 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:39.280 you call a number a one eight hundred number to 0:07:39.400 --> 0:07:41.320 like get something done and then they've got all the 0:07:41.320 --> 0:07:46.040 prompts and you have to wait. That vexed him to 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:49.800 know end. He just wanted to get to a human 0:07:50.400 --> 0:07:57.280 and he was so impatient, so ridiculously impatient that I, 0:07:57.760 --> 0:07:59.920 you know it, slammed down the phone and he'd be like, 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:02.920 I kid, and it was always like who are you? 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:06.080 You were a grown man five minutes ago and you 0:08:06.240 --> 0:08:08.160 got on a vote and they asked you to push two, 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:13.120 three or four and you lose your freakin' mind. So anyway, 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:18.120 that's him in the three D Hi everyone, I think 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:19.080 he's sure. 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:20.520 I love this. 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:24.240 It's a really good lead into one of my questions here, 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:28.320 Like the Hollywood way is to sort of two dimensionalize 0:08:28.400 --> 0:08:34.079 complex stories, right, and so much of Hollywood, especially around 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:38.400 grief stories, is like this transformation narrative of these terrible 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:40.240 things happened to you that we only pan on for 0:08:40.280 --> 0:08:43.319 a second, and then we come into this great transformation 0:08:43.400 --> 0:08:47.560 where Heroin learned hard lessons that only this tragedy could 0:08:47.640 --> 0:08:50.800 help them learn, Like what all of this terrible stuff? 0:08:50.920 --> 0:08:55.440 So I wonder, having started with the realness and the 0:08:55.440 --> 0:08:58.440 three dimension, what was that like for you coming into 0:08:59.360 --> 0:09:02.120 what can be like a two dimensional transformation? 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:03.600 Narrative Hollywood arc. 0:09:04.559 --> 0:09:08.200 I don't think any writer really comes to the table 0:09:08.280 --> 0:09:12.079 thinking I want to bring this to the two D 0:09:12.440 --> 0:09:16.319 like like you know, you want to get it. Yeah, yeah, 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:22.320 But there is something in the predominant sort of narrative 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:26.200 of what's going to be easily consumptible for people, right, 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:30.320 you know, Hollywood's very fascinated with like having a sense 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:33.120 of optimism at the end. That's what makes it different 0:09:33.120 --> 0:09:33.800 than French film. 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:37.120 Right, maybe I need to make friends. 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:38.120 Maybe that's my problem. 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:41.280 French film can hang out in the existential and like 0:09:41.440 --> 0:09:43.439 leave you on a note, like the whole film can 0:09:43.559 --> 0:09:47.400 end and you're like wait, huh, like what you know? 0:09:47.440 --> 0:09:50.960 It's the sense of closure and wrapping up and like 0:09:51.320 --> 0:09:55.080 the need to have someone sort of finished that ninety minute, 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:59.600 two hour experience with a sense of optimism. That core 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:03.960 drive runs deep in Hollywood, and there's times when that 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:08.160 is necessary and it actually is helpful. But around grief narratives, 0:10:08.200 --> 0:10:10.120 I don't know that it's always so helpful, and I 0:10:10.120 --> 0:10:13.360 think it's done us a big, big, big disservice collectively, 0:10:14.480 --> 0:10:19.640 and it's very reductive. So when we when I our team, 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:22.760 but really certainly me as the person who had lived 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:25.280 my own grief and who'd written about it in a 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:27.360 book and was now part of a team adapting it. 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:33.800 I was very like, we can't do that thing. And yet, 0:10:33.960 --> 0:10:37.240 as will happen, you're going to get notes along the way, 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:40.960 and I mean notes from your producing and studio partners 0:10:41.559 --> 0:10:43.480 who are trying to sort of guide the ship in 0:10:43.480 --> 0:10:46.559 a different way because they're thinking of their bigger audience. 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:51.720 People are also tapping into their own unprocessed stuff and 0:10:51.760 --> 0:10:55.280 the idea of going near it on the page scares 0:10:55.360 --> 0:10:56.959 them and they're like, ooh, how is that going to 0:10:57.040 --> 0:10:59.000 come off? And we don't know, is that tonally right? 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:02.160 Could be a little too mess that could turn people off. 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:04.920 Maybe they'll so they're always trying. So there's this tug 0:11:04.960 --> 0:11:10.120 and pull right between the creators and the writers. What 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:15.480 are the needs and interests and demands of the people 0:11:15.559 --> 0:11:18.679 were paying for the product that you're making. To say 0:11:18.720 --> 0:11:22.880 it very bluntly, somewhere in there, there's a struggle. So 0:11:22.960 --> 0:11:27.640 for us, I always came back to the thing I'm making. 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:31.960 If someone were to watch this who had never grieved 0:11:32.080 --> 0:11:35.920 someone in a profound way, like they hadn't hit the 0:11:35.960 --> 0:11:38.679 rough that profound loss, right, and we all know when 0:11:38.720 --> 0:11:43.520 we've had that first deeply profound loss. I wanted the 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:47.480 show to be some sort of really honest guide to that, 0:11:47.920 --> 0:11:50.440 and I said, let the magic, if you will, the 0:11:50.440 --> 0:11:53.800 Hollywood magic, the tensil, the light. They'll let that live 0:11:53.920 --> 0:11:58.600 in the surroundings, but that the core people, the people themselves. 0:11:59.080 --> 0:12:04.400 Let the sort ofquote unquote aspirational qualities because of television 0:12:04.440 --> 0:12:07.560 and film. Let that live in the set design, let 0:12:07.640 --> 0:12:11.079 it live in the music, right, but let the actual 0:12:11.280 --> 0:12:15.320 human experiences be as raw as possible. And in so doing, 0:12:15.440 --> 0:12:19.080 I would hope that who that the viewer would be 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:23.600 like oh oh oh, that oh okay, and be kind 0:12:23.640 --> 0:12:26.040 of stopped in their tracks, not in a way that 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:28.520 makes them run and turn it off, but actually makes 0:12:28.520 --> 0:12:31.439 them lean in. That's what we attempted to do. That's 0:12:31.480 --> 0:12:33.240 what I was hoping to do. That was that I 0:12:33.240 --> 0:12:35.720 felt like, if I could just if that becomes my 0:12:35.800 --> 0:12:38.439 north star, I'm just going to keep reaching for that, 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:40.640 and if I can get as close to it as possible, 0:12:40.679 --> 0:12:43.559 then I will have done the best. Our team would 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:45.800 have done the best that we could do. That's a 0:12:45.920 --> 0:12:49.559 very long answer, but it's my way of saying that 0:12:49.600 --> 0:12:54.080 there is a disservice that we have done in Hollywood 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:58.240 by the way, we've done this and stories around people 0:12:58.240 --> 0:13:00.559 of color, We've done it in stories around and we've 0:13:00.640 --> 0:13:02.640 done in many, many stories. Grief is just one of 0:13:02.679 --> 0:13:04.960 the ways. And I think we are in an era 0:13:05.160 --> 0:13:08.640 now of a desire for more honest and real storytelling 0:13:09.240 --> 0:13:10.360 and that includes grief. 0:13:10.679 --> 0:13:15.120 Yeah, that's a perfect answer, because to me, a lot 0:13:15.200 --> 0:13:19.560 of the speaking and teaching and occasionally ranting that I 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:24.000 do is like, we've only got two options in our storytelling, right, 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:26.400 We've got like, no matter what happened to you, everything 0:13:26.400 --> 0:13:28.800 works out for the best, and everything is glorious and 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:32.000 sunshine and puppy dogs and the widowed person finds love 0:13:32.040 --> 0:13:36.360 again and that makes everything better. Or we've got this 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:41.240 depressing stuck in a corner. Nobody wants to see this like, 0:13:41.280 --> 0:13:43.000 And if those are your only two options, you're gonna 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:44.440 choose optimism, even if it's fake. 0:13:45.480 --> 0:13:50.920 Absolutely listen. I am someone who dear Lord. I hang 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:54.440 out in the gray so much I'm like, can I 0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:55.520 see the color. 0:13:57.880 --> 0:13:58.200 Something? 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:02.480 He is kind of where I live. So though that 0:14:02.559 --> 0:14:05.760 sort of binary look at it's either full optimism or 0:14:05.800 --> 0:14:09.200 you're you know, crumpled under a table and you can't 0:14:09.240 --> 0:14:12.160 come out. That just doesn't resonate with me, because, for 0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:15.400 one thing, I can touch on both of those moments 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:16.239 in a single. 0:14:16.040 --> 0:14:17.320 Day and a half an hour. 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:20.720 Yeah, right, in a whole spectrum of things in the middle. 0:14:21.000 --> 0:14:24.840 So let's see all of those colors and let's make 0:14:24.880 --> 0:14:29.280 space for the full totality of the human experience even 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:35.120 if there is not a sense of resolution. This this 0:14:35.360 --> 0:14:41.080 like addiction to resolution that we have. I'm like, oh, 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:44.240 that a lot gets resolved in a lifetime. 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:48.080 It's so weird that addiction to resolution, and that all 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:52.120 so many of our stories show us that resolution is possible, 0:14:53.080 --> 0:14:55.840 and so many of us insist that other people find 0:14:55.920 --> 0:14:59.080 resolution in their stuff, but like, who actually lives in 0:14:59.120 --> 0:15:01.280 that things? Like, there's some things that can get resolved, 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:04.160 but there are some things that don't, and those stories 0:15:04.200 --> 0:15:06.520 are the stories that we need. How do you live 0:15:06.680 --> 0:15:10.120 inside things that don't get resolved, that don't get a 0:15:10.160 --> 0:15:11.000 Hollywood ending? 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:15.120 Yeah, or they get resolved and get And by the way, 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:18.120 there's something called spiral learning. You circle back to that 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:19.960 moment again in a new place in your life, and 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:22.280 suddenly you're like, oh, I'm working on that again. Oh 0:15:22.280 --> 0:15:25.680 that showed up again. So resolution is an quote unquote, 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:29.240 it's an ongoing experience. You resolve it for that moment, 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:31.560 and then a new moment in a new set of circumstances, 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:34.080 and a new you appears, and suddenly you're doing the 0:15:34.120 --> 0:15:36.480 work all over again. And that is called. 0:15:37.960 --> 0:15:39.080 Yes, it is. 0:15:39.760 --> 0:15:42.120 And I really do like as a you know, as 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:44.040 a writer, as a storyteller, Like I come back to 0:15:44.120 --> 0:15:48.640 this too, like the power of telling the truth is 0:15:48.760 --> 0:15:54.800 compelling theater, right, Telling the truth is compelling theater. And 0:15:54.840 --> 0:15:57.240 I mean theater in the broad sense of like Hollywood 0:15:57.240 --> 0:15:59.520 and television and books and be like, oh all of 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:02.360 the theater things, but like that those are the stories 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:05.840 we need because we really take we take our stories 0:16:06.440 --> 0:16:10.840 and we learn how to do life from them. 0:16:11.200 --> 0:16:11.360 Right. 0:16:11.680 --> 0:16:12.560 I love what you said. 0:16:12.600 --> 0:16:16.200 You said something about like the layers in the answers 0:16:16.200 --> 0:16:18.560 to this question, Like I know that a lot of 0:16:18.600 --> 0:16:21.400 people when we're trying to figure out how to be 0:16:21.440 --> 0:16:24.160 supportive for somebody going through any kind of hard time, 0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:27.120 whether that's grief or illness or lost my job or whatever, 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:30.000 Like we think about what have I seen in movies 0:16:30.400 --> 0:16:31.000 in the movies. 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:33.920 My job is to cheer you up. In the movies. 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:37.080 We're going for you coming back to normal and not 0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:41.160 being so sad anymore. So like when we lie in 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:45.000 the media, when we lie in our storytelling, we train 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:47.800 people the wrong way to love each other. 0:16:48.640 --> 0:16:54.080 Absolutely, And I knew that, for whatever reason in this lifetime, 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:56.840 things lined up in a way that I had this 0:16:56.920 --> 0:17:01.360 opportunity with making from scratch on a global platform, and 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:04.240 I thought, well, dog gonet, I'm going to take my shot, 0:17:04.520 --> 0:17:06.159 and I'm going to try to get as close to 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:08.359 truth as possible because I don't want to be a 0:17:08.400 --> 0:17:11.679 part of the canon that is constantly putting out just 0:17:11.840 --> 0:17:17.840 this sort of middling you know, I don't know the 0:17:17.840 --> 0:17:20.960 word schlock comes to mind, but like it was like, 0:17:21.000 --> 0:17:23.479 I'm just like I just can't. I can't. And I 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:28.400 know because I and I'm going to truly date myself. 0:17:28.560 --> 0:17:31.240 But many of our listeners, I'm sure your listeners will know, 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:36.840 I was a child who when the film Terms of 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:39.960 Endearment came out. I can't tell you how many times 0:17:40.200 --> 0:17:42.680 I saw that film as a child. Now, you one 0:17:42.680 --> 0:17:46.120 would think that's not a film for children, and yet 0:17:46.160 --> 0:17:49.520 there was something about the honesty in that movie. And 0:17:49.840 --> 0:17:54.320 when we were breaking the story for From Scratch and 0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:56.280 we were trying to take a book, crack it open, 0:17:56.320 --> 0:17:59.840 and make it into eight episodes, we talked about certain 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:03.399 key moments in film and television that we had seen 0:18:04.080 --> 0:18:07.560 collectively as writers that each of us responded to, is 0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:11.560 that that was truth. Okay, what element of that could 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:14.000 live in our show? Right terms of Germ is one 0:18:14.000 --> 0:18:16.800 of those shows that came became in films that came up. 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:19.879 So you're right, insofar as the things we see, they 0:18:20.000 --> 0:18:22.640 leave an imprint on us. Right, So my young Psyche 0:18:22.840 --> 0:18:25.679 saw particularly, I'm going to just break it down the 0:18:25.680 --> 0:18:28.480 scene with Shirley McLean and Deborah Winger when she's in 0:18:28.480 --> 0:18:31.600 the hospital and she's dying and the mother is like shake. 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:34.840 So you know, like I was like, oh, a lioness 0:18:35.560 --> 0:18:40.520 fighting the system, asking for good care, a mother and 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:45.119 a daughter, the kind of breaking a part of a 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:48.080 relationship to open up a new chapter for both of them. 0:18:48.160 --> 0:18:49.760 You know, it was like all of it I got 0:18:49.800 --> 0:18:54.280 as a child. That's the power of storytelling. And I 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:58.919 cannot stress the importance of that now at a time 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:04.480 when there is so much loss and death in the world. 0:19:04.800 --> 0:19:07.720 I mean that post pandemic, if there is such a thing, 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:11.800 because COVID is still very ongoing and unfolding experience. We've 0:19:11.960 --> 0:19:15.280 just normalized a certain level of death now in the 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:20.880 world right to the virus. There's the death around climate change, 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:23.919 and it could go on. There's the whole systems that 0:19:24.000 --> 0:19:27.000 don't sort of support and work. So we're all experiencing 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:28.600 these griefs and we need to be able to talk 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:29.720 openly and honestly. 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:33.240 This is the thing is that like this stuff isn't siloed. 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:38.000 As much as the medical industry or the psychiatry industry, 0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:41.520 or the media industry want to silo these things. They 0:19:41.560 --> 0:19:44.000 are all the same cloth. Like the ways that we 0:19:44.119 --> 0:19:48.959 portray any kind of hardship in books or on the screen, 0:19:49.640 --> 0:19:54.160 like this trickles out into life, right Like we don't 0:19:54.200 --> 0:19:59.919 know how to talk about the cascading and multifaceted grief 0:20:00.240 --> 0:20:01.359 of the last several years. 0:20:01.359 --> 0:20:03.240 We don't know how to talk about. 0:20:03.119 --> 0:20:09.840 The grief that is unspooling because of the political batshitness 0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:11.880 in the world and the rise of fascism. We don't 0:20:11.880 --> 0:20:14.480 know how to talk about grief in communities of color. 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:15.639 We don't know how to talk. We don't know how 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:18.480 to talk about any of this stuff, and there are 0:20:18.480 --> 0:20:21.040 many many reasons for that, Like I could talk about 0:20:21.080 --> 0:20:22.960 that forever, but this is not about me. But like 0:20:23.000 --> 0:20:29.800 there there is such a void in our understanding of 0:20:29.840 --> 0:20:33.480 how to talk about these complex issues without reducing them 0:20:33.840 --> 0:20:35.919 or bypassing them again, like we come back to that 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:38.480 binary option of we can either reduce it to something 0:20:38.920 --> 0:20:41.840 that has a resolution and a happy ending, or we 0:20:41.880 --> 0:20:42.520 can just not. 0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:43.040 Look at it. 0:20:43.240 --> 0:20:45.800 And unfortunately we are just not looking at it. 0:20:46.840 --> 0:20:51.800 Oh, I completely completely agree, and it's hard to look 0:20:51.840 --> 0:20:58.800 at but it's necessary and those of us who have 0:20:59.000 --> 0:21:01.360 the ability to do that work. And by the way, 0:21:01.359 --> 0:21:03.320 it doesn't have to even be in media. I have 0:21:03.480 --> 0:21:08.760 dear friends who even even people who are not close 0:21:08.800 --> 0:21:11.200 to me, but people as strangers I would meet who 0:21:11.440 --> 0:21:15.080 you know, and I'm thinking specifically in hospital settings when 0:21:15.119 --> 0:21:19.080 Sada was very ill, who just would like cut through 0:21:19.080 --> 0:21:22.879 it at the soda machine. Yeah, just could see like 0:21:23.080 --> 0:21:27.119 I was that caregiver who was stressed, beyond stressed, and 0:21:27.200 --> 0:21:29.800 they would just drop a nugget of knowledge that was 0:21:29.920 --> 0:21:32.640 just truth, right, and then they'd go back into their 0:21:32.640 --> 0:21:35.600 world and I could carry that truth with me. I 0:21:35.640 --> 0:21:39.320 had the privilege of dear friends who had walked similar paths, 0:21:39.359 --> 0:21:41.920 who were you know, decades ahead of me, who would 0:21:43.040 --> 0:21:44.880 take me by the hand and say, let me give 0:21:44.920 --> 0:21:47.360 you an insight into the truth. So I think it's 0:21:47.400 --> 0:21:50.560 this combination of people we meet in the three D 0:21:50.760 --> 0:21:55.800 every day in our quotidian lives and what's happening in media. 0:21:55.840 --> 0:21:58.080 And I hope that we And and by the way, 0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:01.879 I will say, you know, I'm not a TikTok person, 0:22:02.960 --> 0:22:06.760 but I will say that even if somebody for a nanosecond, 0:22:06.760 --> 0:22:10.200 and I think the sort of medium there is short 0:22:10.240 --> 0:22:13.600 format that if you get thirty seconds of truth, even 0:22:13.680 --> 0:22:18.720 through a format like TikTok, and perhaps it opens up 0:22:18.720 --> 0:22:20.840 a portal for you to ask more questions and then 0:22:20.880 --> 0:22:27.160 you go to more substantive sources for help. Okay, great, TikTok. 0:22:27.240 --> 0:22:30.359 You just did something nice, right, You brought a little 0:22:30.440 --> 0:22:33.959 kernel of truth into someone's day that might open up 0:22:33.960 --> 0:22:37.399 something else. So we, I think, have to be excavators 0:22:37.400 --> 0:22:41.359 in our lives for truth, right, And if we can 0:22:41.560 --> 0:22:43.560 offer that to someone at a grocery store, at the 0:22:43.600 --> 0:22:46.399 post office or pumping gas, and we're just like, you know, 0:22:47.320 --> 0:22:49.879 do that I try to do it when I'm in 0:22:50.040 --> 0:22:52.720 situations where I can. I kind of sense someone's a 0:22:52.720 --> 0:22:56.000 caregiver and there's some signs around that. Sure I can 0:22:56.040 --> 0:22:59.840 recognize the signs, and I'm like, oh, here's this little 0:22:59.840 --> 0:23:02.000