April 20, 2026 • 48 mins
In this episode of Sacred Lessons, host Mike de la Rocha sits down with filmmaker and novelist Kevin Abrams, whose feature film, Marisol, follows a 17-year-old undocumented teen confronting her identity and fighting for her future. Drawing from his Mexican-American heritage and activist roots, Kevin reflects on how storytelling becomes both resistance and healing. From documentaries like I Got a Monster to his debut novel Mt. Forgotten, he shares how art can challenge stereotypes, reclaim humanity, and restore belonging.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What are the cycles fathers passed down that sons are
left to yield. What if being a man was about
holding it all together? I've been learning how to let go.
This is a space where that's to be truth, to
find the power to heal and transform.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
I'm Mike Dela Rocha.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Welcome to say your lessons. Stories give us back with
systems try to steal from us our presence, our voice,
our humanity. Welcome to sacred lessons. I'm Mike Dela Rocha.
And today we're joined by Kevin Abrams, a filmmaker who
understands that storytelling isn't just an art, it's a form
(00:41):
of justice. His latest work, Mari Soul, is a coming
of age film that doesn't just reclaim a young girl's voice,
it restores the voiceless. Kevin creates space for healing and
complexity in a world that too often demands simplicity. All right, Kevin,
and thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Pleasure, good nature.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
I was blessed, blessed to watch the film.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Before we jump into that, I kind of just want
to get a context because you know, I studied up
similar backgrounds. We both come from a family of like
movement shapers, builders, activists, and so just contextualize, like who's
kevin in the legacy that you're part of.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
God, I mean, I am blessed with a super cool legacy.
So my mom's side Mexican American, my father's side Jewish American.
You grew up in Queens, she grew up in San Antonio.
We brought the two together and I got to be
this sort of like beneficiary of really cool cultural inheritance.
But on my mom's side, they were truly the activists
(01:49):
and the ones that always inspired me through storytelling. My
grandmother was a big proponent of education with the Latino community.
She was the chairwoman for many organizations that focused on
getting people college degrees, fundraising for women, organizations called lu
LAC and SID and all these different places. And she
worked with all of the Texas governors. I mean, she
(02:11):
worked with Anne Richard who was blue and GWB who
was read, and they both when they passed away, everybody
came together to declare it Media Spirit Today in honor
of the accomplishment she did for education for women in
the Latin community, and watching the way that she was
able to cross different sort of I guess parties and people.
(02:32):
It was just always an inspiration. And from that her
son my uncle, who was probably one of my greatest teachers.
He was a professor of Native America and Chicano studies
and he taught at the University of Saint Clada, Minnesota,
and he would, I mean, he would take me on
these unbelievable places and just tell me stories in the
middle of camping. You know, everything from the history of
(02:55):
what really happened in Texas to just basic fundamental civil
rights things. And he passed that on to me and
my sister and we try to sort of remember that
and the things we decided to do.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
So I'll frame you how I framed myself when I
introduce I'm a movement baby. I like it. I didn't
know anything, but yeah, my father's similar. Your uncle was
a community college professor, amazing, and he would take me
literally as months old and set me on top of
his desk, and he was known to get these polemics.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
He thought he was Fidel Castro, and he.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Would just fucking talk for days on she got on
history Land, American history. And then when I could walk,
he would take me the rallies in marches and I
feel blessed. It sounds like you do, because that gave
me the contexts and the foundation to be who I
am today.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Yeah, I mean, you don't realize how instrumental just those
foundational lessons are. And he was always one who understood
the value of that. And he was a professor and
like your father, and they understood that if you share information,
that's like one of the great galpin things you can do,
to pass on notions of justice and decency. Because he
always came from a place of decency. It was like,
(04:06):
this is not right or this is an incorrect version
of history because of ab and C. I want to
tell you a different version that shows you the other
side and the humans involved in these conversations.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
So let me ask you.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
So obviously, story is sacred, yeah, and stories very important.
Like we were talking, we're living in a time that
story and history in particular is being rewritten, being erased,
being you know, just literally eliminating fum books in schools
(04:38):
and everything else. What was your draw to film? You
could have done other ways, but what was it film
that got you all excited?
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Yeah, I mean he was one of the reasons. I
mean I remember when I was god eight or nine,
and I would visit him at University of Wisconsin and
Madison and he was getting his PhD. But he always
had this epic video collection and he showed me like Norte,
he showed me zoot Suit. I don't know if you
ever are familiar with so like Greg, Yeah, exactly, So
you would watch I would watch these movies and not
(05:08):
only would they be entertaining, but they would also there'd
be an art to it that he was so passionate about.
And his brother, my other uncle on my mom's side,
had the most epic video collection of all time. And
I go visit him and we'd stay up to four
o'clock in the morning watching King Kong and Magnificent Seven
and all these things. And they had such an appreciation
for the actual mythology of what was being created and
(05:32):
just sort of the entertainment value and knowing that through this,
I can feel something that was very visceral and cry
watching something, laugh, watching something, learn about different things, watching
something in like a two hour chunk just resonated with me.
And then I like to get my hands dirty. And
as I got older, I picked up a camera and
I was like, this is cool. I can play with stuff,
(05:52):
I can run out into the world. And that my
uncle Steve, who was the professor, who was also a
photographer as well. So we'd go camping and he'd You're like, well,
let's check your exposure, dude, that seemed a little off,
and he'd just give me things here and there. But
for some reason, within our family, it's always been a
family of storytellers. I mean, the great thing about Mexican
and Jewish communities is they love to tell stories, and
(06:14):
everybody wants to be the funniest dude in the room
or do that depending on who's talking. So I got
that from both sides. But yeah, I mean those two
uncles really from an early early gottos, yeah, six or seven,
were just like, let's watch movies and talk about it.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
I want to say one thing and then this question comment.
But when my family immigrated from Chihuahua, Mexico, they went
to Ball Heights. Oh well, and Ball Heights back then
was known as the Alice Island of the West Coast.
People don't talk about this, but there was African American,
they were Asian, they were Jewish, there were Mexicans, and
(06:51):
then obviously with redlining stuff, it became predominant Latino Chicano.
But that I felt fueled my father's political awakening because
he grew up, you know. And what I want to
ask is that that mixed heritage, right, that obviously informs
(07:11):
what's the beauty or how has that impacted your perception
of you know, issue of immigration, issue of identity issue,
what's happening in this country?
Speaker 2 (07:20):
But how does that blend into your work?
Speaker 3 (07:23):
Yeah, I mean it's I've thought about it actively and
I've thought about it passively. And I remember when I
applied to undergraduate college, I wrote an essay called pelotas
the Matsa, which translates to massa balls, sort of trying
to dissect what that actually meant, and from it, what
(07:44):
I really gleaned was sort of the reverse and racism
that I felt on both sides. I'd go to Texas
and I'd be you know, made fun of for being
Jewish living in the Northeast. At that time there wasn't
strong Mexican American communities like there are now, and I'd
be made fun of for having the Mexican heritage. So
I was combating these things in both different ways. But
(08:07):
the thing that was always amazing to me was that,
like within those communities, regardless or such pride. So I
was lucky I was able to sort of graduate and
being really proud of what both those things meant. And
there's a lot of similarities. I mean, shit, we love
our food, but also there is a notion of having
to fight for things and a notion of what it
(08:27):
means culturally to keep these traditions alive, and what it
means to respect your elders and to actually value these things.
And like I said earlier, storytelling is part of both
those things. You know, you drink some tequila with some
of my cousins, I get the greatest stories of all time.
You eat some you know, matibel soup or some briskie
with my Jewish cousins, you get phenomenal stories. So that
(08:49):
notion of passing on culture was just always present. And
I love it like I am so ef and proud
of it, like I lead with it in conversations.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Well, I was gonna say, I know you started in documentaries,
and I want to share some with you because I
have attention that I feel like we're living in this time.
For example, in storytelling with film.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
I'm in love with Ryan Coogler.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
I think he's the greatest American filmmaker alive today. And
when I see what's happening like in black cinema, I'm inspired.
I'm like, Wow, this is like if I was living
during the time of like Langston Hughes and folks back then,
and a lot of what I'm seeing on the Latino side,
I'm inspired by Mexican directors. And I will honestly tell
(09:37):
you like I felt inspired by watching yours as a
US born Latino of mixed race. The tenderness that you
gave to a story of the seventeen year old girl
that I.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Want to get into.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
But I just want you to know, from one brown
man to another, I thank you and I honor you
because I can like actually tell folks go watch it
and not just to watch it for representation, which yes, do,
but because of the storytelling. And so I want you
to know that. But talk to me about Madi Soul
(10:14):
because it's such a timely, urgent film in this climate, like.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
What is it? You know, how did it come about?
All of that?
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Yeah? I mean I always in my fiction stuff, for
some reason, I always came back to this notion of
borders and immigration. When I was in grad school, my
thesis was sort of magic realist take on a sheriff
working on the Rio Granz and a bunch of the
other films that I did while I was there were
about this notion of immigration, and for me, it's something
(10:46):
that the absurdative, via the absurdity of it. I've always
been aware of the notion that this arbitrary fence line
was erected, and because of that, there all of a sudden,
this bifurcation between what can be accepted and what can
and in that that is just people, which is crazy
to me, because ideally the notion of being able to
coexist should be able to override any other sort of
(11:08):
political motivation. Because we are in a global community now,
and especially when you share borders that closely, the notion
that we're creating enemies is legitimately absurd. And I guess
now that I'm talking about it, it is an extension
of how I grew up like Jewish Mexican. There was
always this beautiful notion of coexisting. Like my dad, you know,
(11:29):
five foot eight gu grown up playing stickball in New York,
who would sit there and like be so excited to
run to my aunt's house to get the mode, and
he'd be like, when are we going to you know,
I'd be like, we're going to go out soon. And
it was always this sort of like acceptance between these cultures.
So when I see it, I find it to be
really ridiculous. So following that notion, I always sort of
(11:50):
tended to write stories about that. It always came into mind,
and we're looking for our first film to do that
was you know, fictionally set, and when this idea came up,
my producing partner sort of generated the idea and I
was like, this is interesting, what can we do to
actually make this feel relevant? And of course I transplanted
(12:10):
her initial idea into this notion of a young girl
facing sort of this immigration issue. And when we came
up with that, at the time, everybody thought I was
being extremist and what sort of the narrative was doing.
How the different parties, the cops, the federal agents were
sort of like interrelating what it meant for this young girl.
Could she really be thrown into, you know, basically ice
(12:32):
from this misunderstanding and would the ramifications be this great?
And it was funny when we got initial feedback on
the scripts or like, we don't feel like this is realistic,
and I was like, I'm not talking to the moment.
I'm talking to the possibility of what could happen, and
unfortunately the reality of that is upon us. And now
when people watch it, they're like, holy shit, this is
(12:53):
so prescient, and that's really sad for me that what
we're hoping could feel like the extreme version of let's
not make this happen now is the reality of, oh
my god, we have to accept this as what's happening.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
And so what's been the response though from audiences, You know,
people are we got incredibly lucky. Our lead actress does
an amazing job of really engendering warmth and sympathy. She
never acted before. She was the first time she's ever
even auditioned for a project. And when I saw just
sort of the natural humanity she would bring to stuff
(13:30):
and the realism we cast her, and that performance really
resonates with people. And I think putting it into somebody
who is a young woman truly at the crux of
really bad sort of like circumstances makes people it breaks
their heart. So it accomplishes what I was hoping once again,
not to, but I'm thankful that we're able to do
(13:50):
which it gets people emotionally engaged. So have your views
shifted on this issue of migration since making it releasing
seeing the response, or have you been consistent in it?
Speaker 3 (14:03):
It's been consistent. I mean, I think the legislation is wrong.
I think the way that we're treating the whole conversation
is actually anti American, and I think it's detrimental to
the integrity and growth of our country. And until we
can do a better job of accepting our plaid history culturally, like,
(14:24):
we won't be the America that sort of like made
people want to come here at the turn of the
twentieth century. And that saddens me.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Right, Well, let me ask you this, I mean, you
sacred lessons. This podcast is really unpacking notions of masculinity, manhood.
You know, the architects of this world we're living in
where young people, citizens, non citizens, like Mighty Soul, the
(14:51):
main character in your film, are literally being hunted, kidnapped
by folks and masks taking the country that are even know,
we don't even know where they're going. And the architects
of this delusion are men, you know, for the most
part the implementers are. There are some women, like the
head of one of the departments. But what's this interplay
(15:16):
between masculinity, manhood, and immigration migration that you've seen and
are trying to tell out in the story.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Yeah, I mean, to me, it comes down to fundamentally
to control, and I wish it only lived in sort
of isolated places. But it's the same thing with men
to run to control women's bodies, men to control what
they can perceive to be proper sexuality, what they're doing
to attack LGBTQ rights and all these I mean, that
(15:44):
is a masculine patriarchal group saying that this is arbitrarily
not good because it doesn't support what we believe in.
So it extends across multiple different factions and it truly
it's heartbreaking. I mean, I would always argue that women
are the medicine we need because of their notion intuitively
(16:07):
to mother be compassionate and in my experience, to be
open minded and strong. Like my mother was a badass,
I mean, is she's still around. My grandmother was a
super badass. My wife is a badass, and I learn
from them every day. So I'm thankful I have those reminders.
But until there is a better representation of that feminine
spirit within I think government, within culture, I don't think
(16:31):
we will ever find the compassionate balance that I hope
we can.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
And what do you tell men though that?
Speaker 1 (16:39):
You know, as soon as we mentioned the word feminine,
there's this visceral reaction. Now, bro, I'm not feminine, I'm masculine,
I'm this, I'm tough. What have you? How do you
approach that situation with folks?
Speaker 3 (16:51):
I think that's about education. To me, feminine is not
about a physical representation which I think people are to be.
I'm feminine. That means you're probably not six foot two
two twenty. You may be smaller, you may have a
different esthetic. I mean people are still. I think we're
laying it into different types of definitions that need to
(17:13):
be broken down and sort of revisited. For me, feminine
is a spirit that shows warmth and compassion. And I
just finished a book and within it there is basically
the person who saves this story is a woman, and
she does it through compassion. And to me, if people
can understand that those things can coexist and the terms
(17:35):
masculine and feminine or more about an energy and less
about sort of this social way that we're defining it.
I think we'll be able to evolve, hopefully in a
way that allows for both to balance each other out,
because I think you need that.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Yeah and yeah, I mean we all embody the spectrum
of all the energies, and that's kind of what I'm
hoping this podcast helps the conversation to be able to
accept all that we are and be comfortable with that
and not put these labels or expectations. You know, how
do you what are your thoughts on I don't want
(18:08):
to say, like, heal the hearts of these men in power,
but I kind of do want to say, like, what
are your thoughts on how do we heal those hearts?
Because in my mind, if I believe in love as
a powerful force for transformation, then I have to see
the mirror in that that I may despise in this moment,
and that's easier said than done. To me, I think
(18:32):
stories are the way to do it completely. What are
your thoughts on that?
Speaker 3 (18:38):
The pessimist in me says, it's tough to do it
with the people that are in power. The optimist to
me says, there are the children of the people that
are in power that are still a very viable place
to hopefully share some of these new notions and bring
them forward in ways that will eventually grasp and put
(18:59):
them into positions of power, and hopefully there'll be a
different filter that they can see the world which will
allow for this greater notion that we're talking about, right
of the compassion of the feminine everybody. I mean, there's
such this sort of like discording conversation about like pronouns
and all these different types of things. It's discordant only
because the established power cannot wrap their head around it.
(19:21):
Young kids, you have these conversations. It is so normal
for them, and it is such a flexible thing. And
if that's what's leading us to the future, that's my hope.
And my hope is just that they don't get put
into paradigms that once again try to restrict that sort
of thought process and not allow for people to understand
(19:43):
the notion of a day or them or I can
be a he this week or a she this week,
or I can be an eighth Indigenous and that's okay,
And I want to celebrate that because that's a cultural
thing that I respect and I want to advocate for
now people are, you know, the product of what I
think is a very restrictive dying system. And I think
(20:03):
part of the problem right now is just that we're
dealing with that friction of an old paradigm, realizing that
it's on its way out, and the hope that this
new paradigm can implement a greater notion of compassion.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Right, And you touring this film, right, festivals and premieres
and all this stuff, have you seen differences or similarities
in different parts of the country you've been going to
about this notion?
Speaker 3 (20:27):
You know, it's amazing. We showed it to a bunch
of kids, and every one of them. We got. One
of the associate's producer, he's a teacher, he's a professor.
He teaches people about school. I'm sorry about a film,
but he's also just a very like progressive guy that
speaks at a lot of colleges and high schools. And
he would show the film to different people and then
(20:48):
they wrote us letters about what it meant to them,
and getting their feedback was the immediate justification that we
needed for this film. And we speak to older people
and they're always politically correct, and you know, especially if
you're left leaning. Thank you for telling the story. But
what the kids did was, oh my god, I can't
(21:08):
believe a girl my age went through that. That is
so freaky and scary. And it wasn't about the agenda
behind it. It was about just the emotions of responding
to somebody that to them was their age and realizing
that this could be their life too.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Right.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
So's we've been really lucky with it.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
And why did you choose the main character to be
a young girl other than a young man?
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (21:33):
That came from our screenwriter. She was a young woman,
and I think she felt that she could probably speak
to that character a lot more effectively.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
And if it was a young seventeen year old man,
do you think it would have had the same resonance.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
I think it would have been an interesting experiment to
see how we would have been able to talk about
masculinity and the notion of what that meant in that right,
Because would we have written to be more passive it's
more active? Like what would have been his response to that?
I think would have been different and I'll not be
an interesting sort of like Yang to the Yang of
(22:08):
the movie yea, because like i'd be curious. I now
wanted to do the thought experiment. I'm thinking about what
that would be like.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Well, you know, when I see your films, it's very
blurry between fiction and nonfiction, like you said, But one
thing that thing has been profoundly impactful for me is
for Latino men, in older Latino men in particular, like
my father's generation.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
It's very very rare.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
If ever you see Latino man cry, definitely you wouldn't
see him cry publicly, and with all the ice rays happening,
something that's been touched me in a very deep way.
As you're seeing older Latino men and just men in
general crying publicly as they're watching someone being taken away,
(23:03):
and that narrative is something we have or that image
is something I've personally never seen. How you know, what
are your thoughts on that in terms of like this crisis.
To your point, there's an opportunity and we're talking about
borders and migration, but we're also in that moment. No
(23:24):
one's telling the grandfather father stop crying as they're watching
their love one being taken away, and so there's just
something unearthing if you will, in real time. And did
you see that with your film as well, in terms
of when people are in the audience.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
Yeah, I mean there was some reviews from some male
reviewers that I was surprised that affected them that much,
And to me, that's like the ultimate compliment. But once again,
like the hope is that like human suffering or human
injustice could be so fundamental regardless of gender or identification
(24:04):
or male versus female, But just as a human we're
registering something in things that are universal. So my hope
is that like good storytelling can do that. And once again,
I'm really curious about the thought experiment if we made
Madis soul Hector or Estevan or somebody that was Steve
(24:25):
like whatever, what that pov would mean and going through
that because as a young woman too, we're putting her
in vulnerable situations that a guy who's five ten, five
eleven maybe played football, wouldn't feel as sort of vulnerable
in he would be maybe more inclined to continue the
journey which he doesn't eventually go on because of fear
(24:45):
or whatever other things that he feels like as a
male in the society that he has more privileged to.
So it's a really amazing question. I sort of want
to do, like.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Well, let me ask you right now though that he
said to you, what is your gut instinct tape that
would be to.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
That story, I think that he would feel I think
there'd be an intendency more for anger and the possibility
of violence. I think one of the things that I
witness in young men that I always find disturbing is
their inability to sort of manifest discomfort and how a
(25:23):
lot of times that turns into violence or anger or
hatred or these things. And I think that would be
something that that character would feel in a much more
tangible way. I think he would be less trusting, and
I think there'd also be a slight element of hubris
where he felt like he could overcome a situation or
that he could be more in control of something than
(25:44):
the reality is. With her, she eventually realizes that this
isn't something that she could outrun, and her instinct isn't
to do something violent because she's a compassionate, sweet human
And I think part of that is because she's a woman.
So yeah, now, really, well.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
I was just thinking when you were describing it, we
oftentimes associate the ego with masculinity and manhood and now,
it just occurred to me these tiers of men watching
loved ones being taken away, is that their egos being
bruised because they have no control and so the outcome
would have been the same if it was a woman
(26:26):
or man, because the man things, I can control it,
and this machine is like, no, you can't, and that's
probably the breakdown.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Yeah, you know, that's a I mean, that's a really
wonderful assessment and I think really accurate.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
From your assessment. You mentioned something which.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
This growing. Let me preface this by saying this. I've
been touring the last three months. I've gone all around
the country and rural, urban, Midwest, out the coasts. I
haven't met a man that hasn't been in pain, an
immense amount of grief that's unexpressed, don't know how to articulate,
(27:11):
and so they keep it in and that's when they explode,
kind of like you starting going down in your life.
How were you able or are you still processing like that?
Like we're no different than that young man that's angry
because they can't get a job, don't know how to
communicate with someone that they may be romantically interested in.
(27:33):
How do you handle these pressures? Or expectations that are
upon us.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
I struggle with it every day. I mean, I love
my father greatly. He was not a great example of
how to control tempers, how to control the bruising of
an ego, what that means. It was not and he'd
be the first to admit it at this point, the greatest.
He was not a good teacher in that way, and
it affected a lot of relationships for me. I didn't
(28:01):
get married till I was forty seven. I was in
a lot of combustible sort of you know, partnerships throughout
the years. And I can look at it now and
own the fact that I was not a good version
of what a partner should be because of those things.
My ability to listen and get my ego out of
the conversation, my ability to disassociate myself from bad patterning,
(28:24):
my ability to presume that I should be an alpha
versus I should be a co partner was really difficult,
and up until recently it wasn't been part of a vocabulary.
But you know, I got sober six years ago, and
in that journey, I've been able to realize that, like
it was time for me to be a better human.
(28:47):
In doing that, I think it makes me a better man.
But it comes from the notion of once again, like
if I'm looking at somebody as an equal and a
partner that I want to feel happy and good with,
Like what do I need to do to to create
that dynamic? And a lot of it is me breaking
my bad patterns.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
But what was that turning point? Was it that you
were in your forties, like, man, I want a partner? Yeah,
you have to look at what was there.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
It was a combination of a lot of stuff. I mean,
I was coming off a really wonderful successful run of
like work in business, and I wasn't happy. I was
drinking a ton. I met this incredibly awesome woman. He
didn't have the patience for my shit. Am I a
lot of curs? I'm sorry, yeah, yeah, And so she
was like, listen, don't want to judge you. You do you,
(29:34):
but like this is not what I want to be
part of. And there was a bit of a bottom
and I was like, okay, I just I can't do
this anymore. And in that conversion, what it did liberate
me to do is to stop thinking about me and
to think about how to be of service to other people.
And that to me, I think has been the greatest
(29:56):
shift in I'm not serving anybody if I'm screaming at
them or or bringing bad judgment or my ego into
a conversation. And of course they'll be triggers, but every
day I'm trying to sort of minimize those triggers so
that I can be the version of myself that can
help a situation, that can be a listener more so
than an alpha doer or somebody that can be receptive
(30:17):
to the notion of like, Okay, this is a human
how can I help them as well navigate this really
difficult thing, right, which is just called life. Yeah, yeah,
it's a pain in the assage challenging dude. So I
just want to be of service really.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Well, you know, And I say this is all the
love in mister Bellafonte. I always taught me to us,
like when we enter into spaces and rooms, you should
always enter with suspending your first judgment because if you don't,
then you're going to miss the opportunity for a connection completely.
And so I'm saying this because the modern definition of
(30:54):
manhood that if you are successful and you're the provider
and the protector, which is everything you just said, you're
going through this run a success professionally that doesn't actually
equate to happiness. And that's a myth, a lie that
trying to unpack through stories. And again it's not to
(31:15):
say you don't you don't achieve or want to achieve
that stuff, but the way you achieve it because you
keep using this word compassion rather than like competition or
us rather than them, right, And so this is a
with changing gender norms, with AI with even like you know,
(31:35):
we're in entertainment Hollywood. In a year, it's gonna look different.
In ten years is gonna be radically different. And so
what happens if you work in the industry and you
can't get a job and you're older, what do you do?
How do you define happiness? How do you find joy?
You know you're expressing like, hey man, I had to
check my ego and had to be in service and
(31:57):
had to look at my partner as a co partner
and with different levels. Yeah it can you explain more? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (32:05):
I mean we are in this business about to face
a very unbelievable mirror, and I think what will hopefully
be preserved in it. It's what you keep alluding to
is the notion of the story, right, and mediums change,
the receiver will change, but a good story will be
continued and passed on. You know, there's a theory that
(32:25):
there's only so many stories you can tell, and I
don't necessarily disagree with that, but I think the beauty
of what those archetypes are as a story form is
that different people can use them to educate, to pass
on in motion, to pass on a notion of justice, history,
and just reprogram them for the next receiver, for the
(32:45):
next storyteller. So yeah, we'll have to deal with all
these different types of stuff, it still won't change the
need for us to have to tell a story and
look into I look forward to that. I'm using AI
all the time, and I'm a dude who still picks
up a digital thirty I mean a thirty five million
camera and I still like printing, you know, film. Myself
and Marisol we shot on sixteen and everybody's like, well,
(33:06):
why don't you just do that? I was like no,
I wanted the feel of that texture. It helped ground
the story for me. I believe all those things are valid,
but like, sure, AI new tool, We're going to still
use it to tell stories. That's not going to change,
and the storyteller will always be valuable because AI doesn't
have the life experience to know what has value as
(33:27):
a story, so they will have different tools as a storyteller.
You won't be in a cave with shadows, you won't
be on a play reciting Shakespeare, you know, in a theater.
You'll have AI hopefully to use as your new way
to communicate with people. So I'm excited. I think it's cool,
and i'm sort of I've been having fun with understanding
(33:47):
what also it can open, Yeah, the possibility, Yeah, because
I can now I have a canvas that's a lot
more accessible than I didn't have before.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
Right, So, as a storyteller, what message or story you
give to those young men or men that do feel
isolated and angry? What's your story that you want to
convey to them, is.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
We're all on the same journey together. You know, your
father was isolated and angry, your mother was isolated and angry,
And if you can recognize that, then hopefully that I'll
just preternaturally allow you to just be a little bit
more compassion but compassionate like to me, compassion love, whatever
term you want to use as a government word for
(34:30):
this idea. It's about allowing for space for another person
to exist and to feel as well, and that you
don't trump that depending on your color, your race, the
amount of money you have in your bank, We're all
going through the same beginning, middles and ends. We get
here as a little baby, we get buried. It's like
(34:51):
the in between is the journey, and that's where the
challenges come. But if you allow for compassion, hopefully that
allows for the or needs to be more productive. And
for me, that's once it goes back to the notion
of us being able to coexist.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Yeah, and so many of these interviews has been about
literally what you just said. This life, the way we
know it now or conceive it now is so relatively short,
and we're all going to end up in the same place,
which is, you know, on a deathbed at some point,
and how do you choose to live that time in between?
(35:27):
And also our divine connection with each other. And you know,
I think it makes more sense now I'm hearing you
the way you shot it. I'm an analog guy, so
it's just to me, it's just more textured and layered
and beautiful.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
But it's more real.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
And I think the greatest stories you're able to like
suspend identity and see yourself and the other characters like Journey,
and I feel like you did that with that film,
So just thank you for doing that. And you know
what's next? Like, is there another thing you want a
birth on the world? Are you working on something?
Speaker 3 (36:07):
Well? I just released a book that came out in July,
which is a fiction novel. So I've been playing in
fiction a bunch lately. And it's a multi generational story
about a fictional Pacific northwest ski town, and it chronicles
the birth of the ski town, the death of a marriage,
and an indigenous population caught in the middle. And it
(36:27):
basically is once again me revisiting this idea of who
gets to write history and why does there have to
be a victor in that conversation? You know, multiple histories
should exist together, and a right should exist regardless of
whoever's in power or control, and a wrong should exist
whoever is in power and control. And this breaks it
(36:49):
down over you know, forty to sixty years with a
group of people that are just struggling to coexist. And
like I said earlier, the person who solves this immediate
problem because it's part of a trilogy. Is a young
woman who realizes the power of compassion and that she
has to find a way to bridge cultures and to
(37:11):
support the notion of everybody being able to live together
and balance in this community.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
I don't think it's an accident that all these main
characters are young and or women. No, because we have
so much that we need to learn from women, but also,
you know, the women, I feel it's socially acceptable to
be all energies for me.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
I mean that's as you're going there, I recognize maybe
I'm using them as an avatar because I'm still afraid
to put that male protagonists and sort of the crosshairs
and show all the feminine and energy that he's capable of.
And I'm using this maybe as a crutch. Now I'm
(38:00):
like outlining the second book, and I'm like, well, maybe
if I change that character. It's I appreciate you holding
up the mirror of this conversation, because, like I, maybe
I need to be braver in showing that men can
be you know, this compassion, this understanding, have these sides
to them as well, and it'd be a sign of
(38:21):
strength because with women, you understand that, like if they're
showing that that's a they're called a strong woman, right.
But if you refer to a strong male, it's usually
somebody who can finish the triathlon, who can climb the
Crazy Mountain. It's like the measuring stick is different. But
can you think of a male that is considered to
(38:41):
be strong because of him being compassionate and decent and
you know, like leading with the feminine?
Speaker 1 (38:51):
Yeah, you know, ironically, in real life, I have most
of those men around me, and in history, the folks
have always inspired me the most or mentored, you know,
mister Bellafonte, Martin Luther King, Junior, Wayne Kramer, Louis Rodriguez
who was here earlier. They redefined the definition of strength
(39:11):
for me by being someone that's rooted enough to be
vulnerable and be courageous enough to share how they really feel.
Because I think for myself, it's easier for me to
hold it in. It's harder for me to let it go,
and I'm trying my best to change that. When you
(39:34):
were talking right now about the crutch, most folks don't know,
but I actually wrote a whole other book before the
one that came out and my father was like really
instrumental in the civil rights and Chicano movement, and he
always wanted a book. So I was like, I'm the
oldest son, I'm a writer. I want to write his story.
So I wrote this amazing book in his voice. Listen
(39:55):
to the interviews, interviewed like roommates from college. It to
my agent and no one bought that book. But what
I realized was it was my crutch because I hadn't
processed the pain of losing the most important man in
my life. So then by using his voice or my
(40:16):
soul's voice, that gave me the escape to not really
process my own demons and my own grief. And then
once I got rejected, that was an ego thing. But
then I started going to therapy. I started doing really
deep like ancestral work, and that allowed me to process.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
And you know, on the mainstream, like when.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
You ask that question, we're seeing on the mainstream only
one definition of a man, which is what you just said.
This guy free solo climbs a mountain, and this dude
just beat the hell out of someone on UFC. That's
the man. But what I've been seeing is so many
(40:57):
men of like our generation in younger are holding their
sons and saying I love you, son and giving them
a kiss. So many more men are going to therapy,
so many more men are having this conversation, but we
don't hear it or see it. So therefore I feel
like a lot of us retreat back to that definition
what we're supposed to be. So I feel more of
(41:18):
like a responsibility in my art to show the truth
and the complexity of who we are as men, which
is all of that and more.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
You know.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
But the irony in all of that is what people
respond to in those stories is the feminine. Because if
you look like I was watching Free Solo last night,
and the heart of that film is this virgin in
relationship with the woman exact. And even if you look
at Rocky like the most classic story of a guy
get into the gladiator ring to take a beating, but
that's a love story.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
It's a love story.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
It's about Adrian exactly, and that's why you care about
the movie. At the end, he loses, but he wins Adrian,
And the strangeness is that what we respond to, male
and female. I mean, people love this. I mean, you
look at Shawshank redemption. That's a love story. Even though
it's between two guys in jail, it's a love story.
And the reason men respond to that is because of
(42:09):
the love story. So it's still the women and the
feminine is what's guiding our emotional sort of like I
guess parameters and what we're receiving, right, and if there's
a way that, Yeah, like now I really want to
reevaluate my you know, because this is actually a beautiful
time now, this conversation, because I'm literally outlining the second
(42:29):
book of the trilogy, and the main character that I
was going to put the next story on was going
to be a young girl again. And now I'm like,
you know what, it'll be a more challenging conversation, but
let's make it a guy and see what that means
for his journey.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
I mean, you know, you just mentioned Rocky, which won
the Academy Award for Best Picture, which Sylvester Slum wrote
and would in cell to anyone because he wanted to
tell his love story and it was couched in a
mass skilling sport, which was boxing. And I always say
a lot of the sports like my son and I
(43:06):
he loves wrestling. Ww Bro it's the most homo erotic
shit you could watch on TV.
Speaker 3 (43:12):
It's guys in bikinis looped up touching each other.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
But hey, it's okay to go to that.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
And again, we have to just normalize the what is
not that what should be the what is currently And
because then when we ask each other, do you have
examples of strength that's rooted and compassion, you can say yeah,
Kevin Abrams, actually yeah, x Y and Z and I
(43:39):
think the more that we can articulate that, the more
that we can feel okay to be who we are inside.
Speaker 3 (43:45):
So I amen to that. Dude, Let's manifest that world.
Did you get that, Let's manifest that, let's hum infest
that world. No, but I mean that's a very valid point.
Speaker 1 (43:59):
Yeah, well, thank you. We have another segment that's coming up.
But I can't wait to read the new the second
in the trilogy of the three.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
And the only thing I would say is.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
With Mari Saul in particular, is it still has a
long life left you. So whatever we need to do
to have more people watch it in power and what
I'm saying, in power not just in Washington or Sacramento,
but the power in your living room. Because all of
this change starts with self and those around you, and
(44:35):
it starts with the story. And you have a story
that needs to be told, and so I just want
to do whatever I can to support you in sharing
that story.
Speaker 3 (44:44):
That's amazing. Yeah, we'll gladly take you up. Okay, sounds good? Awesome?
Speaker 1 (44:53):
All right, So, Kevin, this is our final segment of
the show. It's called the Sacred Five. It's five questions.
I ask one word, one sentence response. It's our way
to give like practical nuggets to folks that are listening
or watching.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
So the first question is.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
Name three things that make you make you feel safe,
connected and a.
Speaker 3 (45:14):
Whole reading My wife and my dogs, I mean dogs,
you got too too nice?
Speaker 1 (45:23):
What song, book or prayer brings you back to yourself?
Speaker 3 (45:26):
Oh my god? One hundred years of solitude, Gabriel Garcia.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
I love that. Did you watch the I did?
Speaker 3 (45:33):
I thought it was good. Yeah, I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
What is one daily ritual or practice that grounds you walking?
What's one small action that listeners can take this week
on their healing journey?
Speaker 3 (45:47):
Listen, don't speak?
Speaker 1 (45:50):
And last one, share a one line blessing or quote
for anyone, well, one line, one line or quote that
inspires you.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
God, that's a tricky one. Be kind. I know somebody
said it someplace, so I'm gonna quote you because I'm
sure you've said it before, not to be kind.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
So thank you.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
I learned a lot, I grew a lot, and I
wanted to say, you know, my mind always thinks in threes,
and so three things I really took from this is
number one is you fully embracing all of your identities Texan, Jewish,
Mexican male storyteller, and more than anything, not having to
(46:44):
choose one of those, but embracing all of those.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
So thanks.
Speaker 1 (46:48):
The other thing I wanted to take from this is
just anyone listening. The power to tell your own story,
your unique voice, whether it is yours and or fictional
character that comes from your heart. It's just so powerful
because that allows folks to connect to an issue, to
a person in ways that we probably couldn't otherwise. And
(47:09):
the last thing I just want to center is your
choice in your forties to transform your life. And that's hard.
I have men in my life that are a lot
older than us that haven't made that choice, and I
(47:32):
pray for them because they're in pain and they mask
it through alcohol or mask it through other things. And
as a result of you choosing something different, you have
a beautiful marriage and two lovely dogs. And so I
just want to say that modeling is powerful. So thank
you for being here, thank you for your art, and
thank you.
Speaker 3 (47:51):
For all you do my pleasure Budding really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
And we'll talk soon. Cool.
Speaker 1 (47:57):
Sacred Lessons is a production My Heart's My go through
our podcast network, Sacred Lessons Media, and the Prints Group
for more of your favorite shows, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
What are the cycles fathers passed down that sons are
left to yield. What if being a man was about
holding it all together? I've been learning how to let go.
This is a space where that's to be truth, to
find the power to heal and transform.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
I'm Mike Dela Rocha.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Welcome to say your lessons. Stories give us back with
systems try to steal from us our presence, our voice,
our humanity. Welcome to sacred lessons. I'm Mike Dela Rocha.
And today we're joined by Kevin Abrams, a filmmaker who
understands that storytelling isn't just an art, it's a form
(00:41):
of justice. His latest work, Mari Soul, is a coming
of age film that doesn't just reclaim a young girl's voice,
it restores the voiceless. Kevin creates space for healing and
complexity in a world that too often demands simplicity. All right, Kevin,
and thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Pleasure, good nature.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
I was blessed, blessed to watch the film.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Before we jump into that, I kind of just want
to get a context because you know, I studied up
similar backgrounds. We both come from a family of like
movement shapers, builders, activists, and so just contextualize, like who's
kevin in the legacy that you're part of.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
God, I mean, I am blessed with a super cool legacy.
So my mom's side Mexican American, my father's side Jewish American.
You grew up in Queens, she grew up in San Antonio.
We brought the two together and I got to be
this sort of like beneficiary of really cool cultural inheritance.
But on my mom's side, they were truly the activists
(01:49):
and the ones that always inspired me through storytelling. My
grandmother was a big proponent of education with the Latino community.
She was the chairwoman for many organizations that focused on
getting people college degrees, fundraising for women, organizations called lu
LAC and SID and all these different places. And she
worked with all of the Texas governors. I mean, she
(02:11):
worked with Anne Richard who was blue and GWB who
was read, and they both when they passed away, everybody
came together to declare it Media Spirit Today in honor
of the accomplishment she did for education for women in
the Latin community, and watching the way that she was
able to cross different sort of I guess parties and people.
(02:32):
It was just always an inspiration. And from that her
son my uncle, who was probably one of my greatest teachers.
He was a professor of Native America and Chicano studies
and he taught at the University of Saint Clada, Minnesota,
and he would, I mean, he would take me on
these unbelievable places and just tell me stories in the
middle of camping. You know, everything from the history of
(02:55):
what really happened in Texas to just basic fundamental civil
rights things. And he passed that on to me and
my sister and we try to sort of remember that
and the things we decided to do.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
So I'll frame you how I framed myself when I
introduce I'm a movement baby. I like it. I didn't
know anything, but yeah, my father's similar. Your uncle was
a community college professor, amazing, and he would take me
literally as months old and set me on top of
his desk, and he was known to get these polemics.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
He thought he was Fidel Castro, and he.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Would just fucking talk for days on she got on
history Land, American history. And then when I could walk,
he would take me the rallies in marches and I
feel blessed. It sounds like you do, because that gave
me the contexts and the foundation to be who I
am today.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Yeah, I mean, you don't realize how instrumental just those
foundational lessons are. And he was always one who understood
the value of that. And he was a professor and
like your father, and they understood that if you share information,
that's like one of the great galpin things you can do,
to pass on notions of justice and decency. Because he
always came from a place of decency. It was like,
(04:06):
this is not right or this is an incorrect version
of history because of ab and C. I want to
tell you a different version that shows you the other
side and the humans involved in these conversations.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
So let me ask you.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
So obviously, story is sacred, yeah, and stories very important.
Like we were talking, we're living in a time that
story and history in particular is being rewritten, being erased,
being you know, just literally eliminating fum books in schools
(04:38):
and everything else. What was your draw to film? You
could have done other ways, but what was it film
that got you all excited?
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Yeah, I mean he was one of the reasons. I
mean I remember when I was god eight or nine,
and I would visit him at University of Wisconsin and
Madison and he was getting his PhD. But he always
had this epic video collection and he showed me like Norte,
he showed me zoot Suit. I don't know if you
ever are familiar with so like Greg, Yeah, exactly, So
you would watch I would watch these movies and not
(05:08):
only would they be entertaining, but they would also there'd
be an art to it that he was so passionate about.
And his brother, my other uncle on my mom's side,
had the most epic video collection of all time. And
I go visit him and we'd stay up to four
o'clock in the morning watching King Kong and Magnificent Seven
and all these things. And they had such an appreciation
for the actual mythology of what was being created and
(05:32):
just sort of the entertainment value and knowing that through this,
I can feel something that was very visceral and cry
watching something, laugh, watching something, learn about different things, watching
something in like a two hour chunk just resonated with me.
And then I like to get my hands dirty. And
as I got older, I picked up a camera and
I was like, this is cool. I can play with stuff,
(05:52):
I can run out into the world. And that my
uncle Steve, who was the professor, who was also a
photographer as well. So we'd go camping and he'd You're like, well,
let's check your exposure, dude, that seemed a little off,
and he'd just give me things here and there. But
for some reason, within our family, it's always been a
family of storytellers. I mean, the great thing about Mexican
and Jewish communities is they love to tell stories, and
(06:14):
everybody wants to be the funniest dude in the room
or do that depending on who's talking. So I got
that from both sides. But yeah, I mean those two
uncles really from an early early gottos, yeah, six or seven,
were just like, let's watch movies and talk about it.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
I want to say one thing and then this question comment.
But when my family immigrated from Chihuahua, Mexico, they went
to Ball Heights. Oh well, and Ball Heights back then
was known as the Alice Island of the West Coast.
People don't talk about this, but there was African American,
they were Asian, they were Jewish, there were Mexicans, and
(06:51):
then obviously with redlining stuff, it became predominant Latino Chicano.
But that I felt fueled my father's political awakening because
he grew up, you know. And what I want to
ask is that that mixed heritage, right, that obviously informs
(07:11):
what's the beauty or how has that impacted your perception
of you know, issue of immigration, issue of identity issue,
what's happening in this country?
Speaker 2 (07:20):
But how does that blend into your work?
Speaker 3 (07:23):
Yeah, I mean it's I've thought about it actively and
I've thought about it passively. And I remember when I
applied to undergraduate college, I wrote an essay called pelotas
the Matsa, which translates to massa balls, sort of trying
to dissect what that actually meant, and from it, what
(07:44):
I really gleaned was sort of the reverse and racism
that I felt on both sides. I'd go to Texas
and I'd be you know, made fun of for being
Jewish living in the Northeast. At that time there wasn't
strong Mexican American communities like there are now, and I'd
be made fun of for having the Mexican heritage. So
I was combating these things in both different ways. But
(08:07):
the thing that was always amazing to me was that,
like within those communities, regardless or such pride. So I
was lucky I was able to sort of graduate and
being really proud of what both those things meant. And
there's a lot of similarities. I mean, shit, we love
our food, but also there is a notion of having
to fight for things and a notion of what it
(08:27):
means culturally to keep these traditions alive, and what it
means to respect your elders and to actually value these things.
And like I said earlier, storytelling is part of both
those things. You know, you drink some tequila with some
of my cousins, I get the greatest stories of all time.
You eat some you know, matibel soup or some briskie
with my Jewish cousins, you get phenomenal stories. So that
(08:49):
notion of passing on culture was just always present. And
I love it like I am so ef and proud
of it, like I lead with it in conversations.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Well, I was gonna say, I know you started in documentaries,
and I want to share some with you because I
have attention that I feel like we're living in this time.
For example, in storytelling with film.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
I'm in love with Ryan Coogler.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
I think he's the greatest American filmmaker alive today. And
when I see what's happening like in black cinema, I'm inspired.
I'm like, Wow, this is like if I was living
during the time of like Langston Hughes and folks back then,
and a lot of what I'm seeing on the Latino side,
I'm inspired by Mexican directors. And I will honestly tell
(09:37):
you like I felt inspired by watching yours as a
US born Latino of mixed race. The tenderness that you
gave to a story of the seventeen year old girl
that I.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Want to get into.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
But I just want you to know, from one brown
man to another, I thank you and I honor you
because I can like actually tell folks go watch it
and not just to watch it for representation, which yes, do,
but because of the storytelling. And so I want you
to know that. But talk to me about Madi Soul
(10:14):
because it's such a timely, urgent film in this climate, like.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
What is it? You know, how did it come about?
All of that?
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Yeah? I mean I always in my fiction stuff, for
some reason, I always came back to this notion of
borders and immigration. When I was in grad school, my
thesis was sort of magic realist take on a sheriff
working on the Rio Granz and a bunch of the
other films that I did while I was there were
about this notion of immigration, and for me, it's something
(10:46):
that the absurdative, via the absurdity of it. I've always
been aware of the notion that this arbitrary fence line
was erected, and because of that, there all of a sudden,
this bifurcation between what can be accepted and what can
and in that that is just people, which is crazy
to me, because ideally the notion of being able to
coexist should be able to override any other sort of
(11:08):
political motivation. Because we are in a global community now,
and especially when you share borders that closely, the notion
that we're creating enemies is legitimately absurd. And I guess
now that I'm talking about it, it is an extension
of how I grew up like Jewish Mexican. There was
always this beautiful notion of coexisting. Like my dad, you know,
(11:29):
five foot eight gu grown up playing stickball in New York,
who would sit there and like be so excited to
run to my aunt's house to get the mode, and
he'd be like, when are we going to you know,
I'd be like, we're going to go out soon. And
it was always this sort of like acceptance between these cultures.
So when I see it, I find it to be
really ridiculous. So following that notion, I always sort of
(11:50):
tended to write stories about that. It always came into mind,
and we're looking for our first film to do that
was you know, fictionally set, and when this idea came up,
my producing partner sort of generated the idea and I
was like, this is interesting, what can we do to
actually make this feel relevant? And of course I transplanted
(12:10):
her initial idea into this notion of a young girl
facing sort of this immigration issue. And when we came
up with that, at the time, everybody thought I was
being extremist and what sort of the narrative was doing.
How the different parties, the cops, the federal agents were
sort of like interrelating what it meant for this young girl.
Could she really be thrown into, you know, basically ice
(12:32):
from this misunderstanding and would the ramifications be this great?
And it was funny when we got initial feedback on
the scripts or like, we don't feel like this is realistic,
and I was like, I'm not talking to the moment.
I'm talking to the possibility of what could happen, and
unfortunately the reality of that is upon us. And now
when people watch it, they're like, holy shit, this is
(12:53):
so prescient, and that's really sad for me that what
we're hoping could feel like the extreme version of let's
not make this happen now is the reality of, oh
my god, we have to accept this as what's happening.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
And so what's been the response though from audiences, You know,
people are we got incredibly lucky. Our lead actress does
an amazing job of really engendering warmth and sympathy. She
never acted before. She was the first time she's ever
even auditioned for a project. And when I saw just
sort of the natural humanity she would bring to stuff
(13:30):
and the realism we cast her, and that performance really
resonates with people. And I think putting it into somebody
who is a young woman truly at the crux of
really bad sort of like circumstances makes people it breaks
their heart. So it accomplishes what I was hoping once again,
not to, but I'm thankful that we're able to do
(13:50):
which it gets people emotionally engaged. So have your views
shifted on this issue of migration since making it releasing
seeing the response, or have you been consistent in it?
Speaker 3 (14:03):
It's been consistent. I mean, I think the legislation is wrong.
I think the way that we're treating the whole conversation
is actually anti American, and I think it's detrimental to
the integrity and growth of our country. And until we
can do a better job of accepting our plaid history culturally, like,
(14:24):
we won't be the America that sort of like made
people want to come here at the turn of the
twentieth century. And that saddens me.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Right, Well, let me ask you this, I mean, you
sacred lessons. This podcast is really unpacking notions of masculinity, manhood.
You know, the architects of this world we're living in
where young people, citizens, non citizens, like Mighty Soul, the
(14:51):
main character in your film, are literally being hunted, kidnapped
by folks and masks taking the country that are even know,
we don't even know where they're going. And the architects
of this delusion are men, you know, for the most
part the implementers are. There are some women, like the
head of one of the departments. But what's this interplay
(15:16):
between masculinity, manhood, and immigration migration that you've seen and
are trying to tell out in the story.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Yeah, I mean, to me, it comes down to fundamentally
to control, and I wish it only lived in sort
of isolated places. But it's the same thing with men
to run to control women's bodies, men to control what
they can perceive to be proper sexuality, what they're doing
to attack LGBTQ rights and all these I mean, that
(15:44):
is a masculine patriarchal group saying that this is arbitrarily
not good because it doesn't support what we believe in.
So it extends across multiple different factions and it truly
it's heartbreaking. I mean, I would always argue that women
are the medicine we need because of their notion intuitively
(16:07):
to mother be compassionate and in my experience, to be
open minded and strong. Like my mother was a badass,
I mean, is she's still around. My grandmother was a
super badass. My wife is a badass, and I learn
from them every day. So I'm thankful I have those reminders.
But until there is a better representation of that feminine
spirit within I think government, within culture, I don't think
(16:31):
we will ever find the compassionate balance that I hope
we can.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
And what do you tell men though that?
Speaker 1 (16:39):
You know, as soon as we mentioned the word feminine,
there's this visceral reaction. Now, bro, I'm not feminine, I'm masculine,
I'm this, I'm tough. What have you? How do you
approach that situation with folks?
Speaker 3 (16:51):
I think that's about education. To me, feminine is not
about a physical representation which I think people are to be.
I'm feminine. That means you're probably not six foot two
two twenty. You may be smaller, you may have a
different esthetic. I mean people are still. I think we're
laying it into different types of definitions that need to
(17:13):
be broken down and sort of revisited. For me, feminine
is a spirit that shows warmth and compassion. And I
just finished a book and within it there is basically
the person who saves this story is a woman, and
she does it through compassion. And to me, if people
can understand that those things can coexist and the terms
(17:35):
masculine and feminine or more about an energy and less
about sort of this social way that we're defining it.
I think we'll be able to evolve, hopefully in a
way that allows for both to balance each other out,
because I think you need that.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Yeah and yeah, I mean we all embody the spectrum
of all the energies, and that's kind of what I'm
hoping this podcast helps the conversation to be able to
accept all that we are and be comfortable with that
and not put these labels or expectations. You know, how
do you what are your thoughts on I don't want
(18:08):
to say, like, heal the hearts of these men in power,
but I kind of do want to say, like, what
are your thoughts on how do we heal those hearts?
Because in my mind, if I believe in love as
a powerful force for transformation, then I have to see
the mirror in that that I may despise in this moment,
and that's easier said than done. To me, I think
(18:32):
stories are the way to do it completely. What are
your thoughts on that?
Speaker 3 (18:38):
The pessimist in me says, it's tough to do it
with the people that are in power. The optimist to
me says, there are the children of the people that
are in power that are still a very viable place
to hopefully share some of these new notions and bring
them forward in ways that will eventually grasp and put
(18:59):
them into positions of power, and hopefully there'll be a
different filter that they can see the world which will
allow for this greater notion that we're talking about, right
of the compassion of the feminine everybody. I mean, there's
such this sort of like discording conversation about like pronouns
and all these different types of things. It's discordant only
because the established power cannot wrap their head around it.
(19:21):
Young kids, you have these conversations. It is so normal
for them, and it is such a flexible thing. And
if that's what's leading us to the future, that's my hope.
And my hope is just that they don't get put
into paradigms that once again try to restrict that sort
of thought process and not allow for people to understand
(19:43):
the notion of a day or them or I can
be a he this week or a she this week,
or I can be an eighth Indigenous and that's okay,
And I want to celebrate that because that's a cultural
thing that I respect and I want to advocate for
now people are, you know, the product of what I
think is a very restrictive dying system. And I think
(20:03):
part of the problem right now is just that we're
dealing with that friction of an old paradigm, realizing that
it's on its way out, and the hope that this
new paradigm can implement a greater notion of compassion.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Right, And you touring this film, right, festivals and premieres
and all this stuff, have you seen differences or similarities
in different parts of the country you've been going to
about this notion?
Speaker 3 (20:27):
You know, it's amazing. We showed it to a bunch
of kids, and every one of them. We got. One
of the associate's producer, he's a teacher, he's a professor.
He teaches people about school. I'm sorry about a film,
but he's also just a very like progressive guy that
speaks at a lot of colleges and high schools. And
he would show the film to different people and then
(20:48):
they wrote us letters about what it meant to them,
and getting their feedback was the immediate justification that we
needed for this film. And we speak to older people
and they're always politically correct, and you know, especially if
you're left leaning. Thank you for telling the story. But
what the kids did was, oh my god, I can't
(21:08):
believe a girl my age went through that. That is
so freaky and scary. And it wasn't about the agenda
behind it. It was about just the emotions of responding
to somebody that to them was their age and realizing
that this could be their life too.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Right.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
So's we've been really lucky with it.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
And why did you choose the main character to be
a young girl other than a young man?
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (21:33):
That came from our screenwriter. She was a young woman,
and I think she felt that she could probably speak
to that character a lot more effectively.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
And if it was a young seventeen year old man,
do you think it would have had the same resonance.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
I think it would have been an interesting experiment to
see how we would have been able to talk about
masculinity and the notion of what that meant in that right,
Because would we have written to be more passive it's
more active? Like what would have been his response to that?
I think would have been different and I'll not be
an interesting sort of like Yang to the Yang of
(22:08):
the movie yea, because like i'd be curious. I now
wanted to do the thought experiment. I'm thinking about what
that would be like.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Well, you know, when I see your films, it's very
blurry between fiction and nonfiction, like you said, But one
thing that thing has been profoundly impactful for me is
for Latino men, in older Latino men in particular, like
my father's generation.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
It's very very rare.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
If ever you see Latino man cry, definitely you wouldn't
see him cry publicly, and with all the ice rays happening,
something that's been touched me in a very deep way.
As you're seeing older Latino men and just men in
general crying publicly as they're watching someone being taken away,
(23:03):
and that narrative is something we have or that image
is something I've personally never seen. How you know, what
are your thoughts on that in terms of like this crisis.
To your point, there's an opportunity and we're talking about
borders and migration, but we're also in that moment. No
(23:24):
one's telling the grandfather father stop crying as they're watching
their love one being taken away, and so there's just
something unearthing if you will, in real time. And did
you see that with your film as well, in terms
of when people are in the audience.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
Yeah, I mean there was some reviews from some male
reviewers that I was surprised that affected them that much,
And to me, that's like the ultimate compliment. But once again,
like the hope is that like human suffering or human
injustice could be so fundamental regardless of gender or identification
(24:04):
or male versus female, But just as a human we're
registering something in things that are universal. So my hope
is that like good storytelling can do that. And once again,
I'm really curious about the thought experiment if we made
Madis soul Hector or Estevan or somebody that was Steve
(24:25):
like whatever, what that pov would mean and going through
that because as a young woman too, we're putting her
in vulnerable situations that a guy who's five ten, five
eleven maybe played football, wouldn't feel as sort of vulnerable
in he would be maybe more inclined to continue the
journey which he doesn't eventually go on because of fear
(24:45):
or whatever other things that he feels like as a
male in the society that he has more privileged to.
So it's a really amazing question. I sort of want
to do, like.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Well, let me ask you right now though that he
said to you, what is your gut instinct tape that
would be to.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
That story, I think that he would feel I think
there'd be an intendency more for anger and the possibility
of violence. I think one of the things that I
witness in young men that I always find disturbing is
their inability to sort of manifest discomfort and how a
(25:23):
lot of times that turns into violence or anger or
hatred or these things. And I think that would be
something that that character would feel in a much more
tangible way. I think he would be less trusting, and
I think there'd also be a slight element of hubris
where he felt like he could overcome a situation or
that he could be more in control of something than
(25:44):
the reality is. With her, she eventually realizes that this
isn't something that she could outrun, and her instinct isn't
to do something violent because she's a compassionate, sweet human
And I think part of that is because she's a woman.
So yeah, now, really, well.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
I was just thinking when you were describing it, we
oftentimes associate the ego with masculinity and manhood and now,
it just occurred to me these tiers of men watching
loved ones being taken away, is that their egos being
bruised because they have no control and so the outcome
would have been the same if it was a woman
(26:26):
or man, because the man things, I can control it,
and this machine is like, no, you can't, and that's
probably the breakdown.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Yeah, you know, that's a I mean, that's a really
wonderful assessment and I think really accurate.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
From your assessment. You mentioned something which.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
This growing. Let me preface this by saying this. I've
been touring the last three months. I've gone all around
the country and rural, urban, Midwest, out the coasts. I
haven't met a man that hasn't been in pain, an
immense amount of grief that's unexpressed, don't know how to articulate,
(27:11):
and so they keep it in and that's when they explode,
kind of like you starting going down in your life.
How were you able or are you still processing like that?
Like we're no different than that young man that's angry
because they can't get a job, don't know how to
communicate with someone that they may be romantically interested in.
(27:33):
How do you handle these pressures? Or expectations that are
upon us.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
I struggle with it every day. I mean, I love
my father greatly. He was not a great example of
how to control tempers, how to control the bruising of
an ego, what that means. It was not and he'd
be the first to admit it at this point, the greatest.
He was not a good teacher in that way, and
it affected a lot of relationships for me. I didn't
(28:01):
get married till I was forty seven. I was in
a lot of combustible sort of you know, partnerships throughout
the years. And I can look at it now and
own the fact that I was not a good version
of what a partner should be because of those things.
My ability to listen and get my ego out of
the conversation, my ability to disassociate myself from bad patterning,
(28:24):
my ability to presume that I should be an alpha
versus I should be a co partner was really difficult,
and up until recently it wasn't been part of a vocabulary.
But you know, I got sober six years ago, and
in that journey, I've been able to realize that, like
it was time for me to be a better human.
(28:47):
In doing that, I think it makes me a better man.
But it comes from the notion of once again, like
if I'm looking at somebody as an equal and a
partner that I want to feel happy and good with,
Like what do I need to do to to create
that dynamic? And a lot of it is me breaking
my bad patterns.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
But what was that turning point? Was it that you
were in your forties, like, man, I want a partner? Yeah,
you have to look at what was there.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
It was a combination of a lot of stuff. I mean,
I was coming off a really wonderful successful run of
like work in business, and I wasn't happy. I was
drinking a ton. I met this incredibly awesome woman. He
didn't have the patience for my shit. Am I a
lot of curs? I'm sorry, yeah, yeah, And so she
was like, listen, don't want to judge you. You do you,
(29:34):
but like this is not what I want to be
part of. And there was a bit of a bottom
and I was like, okay, I just I can't do
this anymore. And in that conversion, what it did liberate
me to do is to stop thinking about me and
to think about how to be of service to other people.
And that to me, I think has been the greatest
(29:56):
shift in I'm not serving anybody if I'm screaming at
them or or bringing bad judgment or my ego into
a conversation. And of course they'll be triggers, but every
day I'm trying to sort of minimize those triggers so
that I can be the version of myself that can
help a situation, that can be a listener more so
than an alpha doer or somebody that can be receptive
(30:17):
to the notion of like, Okay, this is a human
how can I help them as well navigate this really
difficult thing, right, which is just called life. Yeah, yeah,
it's a pain in the assage challenging dude. So I
just want to be of service really.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Well, you know, And I say this is all the
love in mister Bellafonte. I always taught me to us,
like when we enter into spaces and rooms, you should
always enter with suspending your first judgment because if you don't,
then you're going to miss the opportunity for a connection completely.
And so I'm saying this because the modern definition of
(30:54):
manhood that if you are successful and you're the provider
and the protector, which is everything you just said, you're
going through this run a success professionally that doesn't actually
equate to happiness. And that's a myth, a lie that
trying to unpack through stories. And again it's not to
(31:15):
say you don't you don't achieve or want to achieve
that stuff, but the way you achieve it because you
keep using this word compassion rather than like competition or
us rather than them, right, And so this is a
with changing gender norms, with AI with even like you know,
(31:35):
we're in entertainment Hollywood. In a year, it's gonna look different.
In ten years is gonna be radically different. And so
what happens if you work in the industry and you
can't get a job and you're older, what do you do?
How do you define happiness? How do you find joy?
You know you're expressing like, hey man, I had to
check my ego and had to be in service and
(31:57):
had to look at my partner as a co partner
and with different levels. Yeah it can you explain more? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (32:05):
I mean we are in this business about to face
a very unbelievable mirror, and I think what will hopefully
be preserved in it. It's what you keep alluding to
is the notion of the story, right, and mediums change,
the receiver will change, but a good story will be
continued and passed on. You know, there's a theory that
(32:25):
there's only so many stories you can tell, and I
don't necessarily disagree with that, but I think the beauty
of what those archetypes are as a story form is
that different people can use them to educate, to pass
on in motion, to pass on a notion of justice, history,
and just reprogram them for the next receiver, for the
(32:45):
next storyteller. So yeah, we'll have to deal with all
these different types of stuff, it still won't change the
need for us to have to tell a story and
look into I look forward to that. I'm using AI
all the time, and I'm a dude who still picks
up a digital thirty I mean a thirty five million
camera and I still like printing, you know, film. Myself
and Marisol we shot on sixteen and everybody's like, well,
(33:06):
why don't you just do that? I was like no,
I wanted the feel of that texture. It helped ground
the story for me. I believe all those things are valid,
but like, sure, AI new tool, We're going to still
use it to tell stories. That's not going to change,
and the storyteller will always be valuable because AI doesn't
have the life experience to know what has value as
(33:27):
a story, so they will have different tools as a storyteller.
You won't be in a cave with shadows, you won't
be on a play reciting Shakespeare, you know, in a theater.
You'll have AI hopefully to use as your new way
to communicate with people. So I'm excited. I think it's cool,
and i'm sort of I've been having fun with understanding
(33:47):
what also it can open, Yeah, the possibility, Yeah, because
I can now I have a canvas that's a lot
more accessible than I didn't have before.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
Right, So, as a storyteller, what message or story you
give to those young men or men that do feel
isolated and angry? What's your story that you want to
convey to them, is.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
We're all on the same journey together. You know, your
father was isolated and angry, your mother was isolated and angry,
And if you can recognize that, then hopefully that I'll
just preternaturally allow you to just be a little bit
more compassion but compassionate like to me, compassion love, whatever
term you want to use as a government word for
(34:30):
this idea. It's about allowing for space for another person
to exist and to feel as well, and that you
don't trump that depending on your color, your race, the
amount of money you have in your bank, We're all
going through the same beginning, middles and ends. We get
here as a little baby, we get buried. It's like
(34:51):
the in between is the journey, and that's where the
challenges come. But if you allow for compassion, hopefully that
allows for the or needs to be more productive. And
for me, that's once it goes back to the notion
of us being able to coexist.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Yeah, and so many of these interviews has been about
literally what you just said. This life, the way we
know it now or conceive it now is so relatively short,
and we're all going to end up in the same place,
which is, you know, on a deathbed at some point,
and how do you choose to live that time in between?
(35:27):
And also our divine connection with each other. And you know,
I think it makes more sense now I'm hearing you
the way you shot it. I'm an analog guy, so
it's just to me, it's just more textured and layered
and beautiful.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
But it's more real.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
And I think the greatest stories you're able to like
suspend identity and see yourself and the other characters like Journey,
and I feel like you did that with that film,
So just thank you for doing that. And you know
what's next? Like, is there another thing you want a
birth on the world? Are you working on something?
Speaker 3 (36:07):
Well? I just released a book that came out in July,
which is a fiction novel. So I've been playing in
fiction a bunch lately. And it's a multi generational story
about a fictional Pacific northwest ski town, and it chronicles
the birth of the ski town, the death of a marriage,
and an indigenous population caught in the middle. And it
(36:27):
basically is once again me revisiting this idea of who
gets to write history and why does there have to
be a victor in that conversation? You know, multiple histories
should exist together, and a right should exist regardless of
whoever's in power or control, and a wrong should exist
whoever is in power and control. And this breaks it
(36:49):
down over you know, forty to sixty years with a
group of people that are just struggling to coexist. And
like I said earlier, the person who solves this immediate
problem because it's part of a trilogy. Is a young
woman who realizes the power of compassion and that she
has to find a way to bridge cultures and to
(37:11):
support the notion of everybody being able to live together
and balance in this community.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
I don't think it's an accident that all these main
characters are young and or women. No, because we have
so much that we need to learn from women, but also,
you know, the women, I feel it's socially acceptable to
be all energies for me.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
I mean that's as you're going there, I recognize maybe
I'm using them as an avatar because I'm still afraid
to put that male protagonists and sort of the crosshairs
and show all the feminine and energy that he's capable of.
And I'm using this maybe as a crutch. Now I'm
(38:00):
like outlining the second book, and I'm like, well, maybe
if I change that character. It's I appreciate you holding
up the mirror of this conversation, because, like I, maybe
I need to be braver in showing that men can
be you know, this compassion, this understanding, have these sides
to them as well, and it'd be a sign of
(38:21):
strength because with women, you understand that, like if they're
showing that that's a they're called a strong woman, right.
But if you refer to a strong male, it's usually
somebody who can finish the triathlon, who can climb the
Crazy Mountain. It's like the measuring stick is different. But
can you think of a male that is considered to
(38:41):
be strong because of him being compassionate and decent and
you know, like leading with the feminine?
Speaker 1 (38:51):
Yeah, you know, ironically, in real life, I have most
of those men around me, and in history, the folks
have always inspired me the most or mentored, you know,
mister Bellafonte, Martin Luther King, Junior, Wayne Kramer, Louis Rodriguez
who was here earlier. They redefined the definition of strength
(39:11):
for me by being someone that's rooted enough to be
vulnerable and be courageous enough to share how they really feel.
Because I think for myself, it's easier for me to
hold it in. It's harder for me to let it go,
and I'm trying my best to change that. When you
(39:34):
were talking right now about the crutch, most folks don't know,
but I actually wrote a whole other book before the
one that came out and my father was like really
instrumental in the civil rights and Chicano movement, and he
always wanted a book. So I was like, I'm the
oldest son, I'm a writer. I want to write his story.
So I wrote this amazing book in his voice. Listen
(39:55):
to the interviews, interviewed like roommates from college. It to
my agent and no one bought that book. But what
I realized was it was my crutch because I hadn't
processed the pain of losing the most important man in
my life. So then by using his voice or my
(40:16):
soul's voice, that gave me the escape to not really
process my own demons and my own grief. And then
once I got rejected, that was an ego thing. But
then I started going to therapy. I started doing really
deep like ancestral work, and that allowed me to process.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
And you know, on the mainstream, like when.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
You ask that question, we're seeing on the mainstream only
one definition of a man, which is what you just said.
This guy free solo climbs a mountain, and this dude
just beat the hell out of someone on UFC. That's
the man. But what I've been seeing is so many
(40:57):
men of like our generation in younger are holding their
sons and saying I love you, son and giving them
a kiss. So many more men are going to therapy,
so many more men are having this conversation, but we
don't hear it or see it. So therefore I feel
like a lot of us retreat back to that definition
what we're supposed to be. So I feel more of
(41:18):
like a responsibility in my art to show the truth
and the complexity of who we are as men, which
is all of that and more.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
You know.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
But the irony in all of that is what people
respond to in those stories is the feminine. Because if
you look like I was watching Free Solo last night,
and the heart of that film is this virgin in
relationship with the woman exact. And even if you look
at Rocky like the most classic story of a guy
get into the gladiator ring to take a beating, but
that's a love story.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
It's a love story.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
It's about Adrian exactly, and that's why you care about
the movie. At the end, he loses, but he wins Adrian,
And the strangeness is that what we respond to, male
and female. I mean, people love this. I mean, you
look at Shawshank redemption. That's a love story. Even though
it's between two guys in jail, it's a love story.
And the reason men respond to that is because of
(42:09):
the love story. So it's still the women and the
feminine is what's guiding our emotional sort of like I
guess parameters and what we're receiving, right, and if there's
a way that, Yeah, like now I really want to
reevaluate my you know, because this is actually a beautiful
time now, this conversation, because I'm literally outlining the second
(42:29):
book of the trilogy, and the main character that I
was going to put the next story on was going
to be a young girl again. And now I'm like,
you know what, it'll be a more challenging conversation, but
let's make it a guy and see what that means
for his journey.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
I mean, you know, you just mentioned Rocky, which won
the Academy Award for Best Picture, which Sylvester Slum wrote
and would in cell to anyone because he wanted to
tell his love story and it was couched in a
mass skilling sport, which was boxing. And I always say
a lot of the sports like my son and I
(43:06):
he loves wrestling. Ww Bro it's the most homo erotic
shit you could watch on TV.
Speaker 3 (43:12):
It's guys in bikinis looped up touching each other.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
But hey, it's okay to go to that.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
And again, we have to just normalize the what is
not that what should be the what is currently And
because then when we ask each other, do you have
examples of strength that's rooted and compassion, you can say yeah,
Kevin Abrams, actually yeah, x Y and Z and I
(43:39):
think the more that we can articulate that, the more
that we can feel okay to be who we are inside.
Speaker 3 (43:45):
So I amen to that. Dude, Let's manifest that world.
Did you get that, Let's manifest that, let's hum infest
that world. No, but I mean that's a very valid point.
Speaker 1 (43:59):
Yeah, well, thank you. We have another segment that's coming up.
But I can't wait to read the new the second
in the trilogy of the three.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
And the only thing I would say is.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
With Mari Saul in particular, is it still has a
long life left you. So whatever we need to do
to have more people watch it in power and what
I'm saying, in power not just in Washington or Sacramento,
but the power in your living room. Because all of
this change starts with self and those around you, and
(44:35):
it starts with the story. And you have a story
that needs to be told, and so I just want
to do whatever I can to support you in sharing
that story.
Speaker 3 (44:44):
That's amazing. Yeah, we'll gladly take you up. Okay, sounds good? Awesome?
Speaker 1 (44:53):
All right, So, Kevin, this is our final segment of
the show. It's called the Sacred Five. It's five questions.
I ask one word, one sentence response. It's our way
to give like practical nuggets to folks that are listening
or watching.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
So the first question is.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
Name three things that make you make you feel safe,
connected and a.
Speaker 3 (45:14):
Whole reading My wife and my dogs, I mean dogs,
you got too too nice?
Speaker 1 (45:23):
What song, book or prayer brings you back to yourself?
Speaker 3 (45:26):
Oh my god? One hundred years of solitude, Gabriel Garcia.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
I love that. Did you watch the I did?
Speaker 3 (45:33):
I thought it was good. Yeah, I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
What is one daily ritual or practice that grounds you walking?
What's one small action that listeners can take this week
on their healing journey?
Speaker 3 (45:47):
Listen, don't speak?
Speaker 1 (45:50):
And last one, share a one line blessing or quote
for anyone, well, one line, one line or quote that
inspires you.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
God, that's a tricky one. Be kind. I know somebody
said it someplace, so I'm gonna quote you because I'm
sure you've said it before, not to be kind.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
So thank you.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
I learned a lot, I grew a lot, and I
wanted to say, you know, my mind always thinks in threes,
and so three things I really took from this is
number one is you fully embracing all of your identities Texan, Jewish,
Mexican male storyteller, and more than anything, not having to
(46:44):
choose one of those, but embracing all of those.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
So thanks.
Speaker 1 (46:48):
The other thing I wanted to take from this is
just anyone listening. The power to tell your own story,
your unique voice, whether it is yours and or fictional
character that comes from your heart. It's just so powerful
because that allows folks to connect to an issue, to
a person in ways that we probably couldn't otherwise. And
(47:09):
the last thing I just want to center is your
choice in your forties to transform your life. And that's hard.
I have men in my life that are a lot
older than us that haven't made that choice, and I
(47:32):
pray for them because they're in pain and they mask
it through alcohol or mask it through other things. And
as a result of you choosing something different, you have
a beautiful marriage and two lovely dogs. And so I
just want to say that modeling is powerful. So thank
you for being here, thank you for your art, and
thank you.
Speaker 3 (47:51):
For all you do my pleasure Budding really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
And we'll talk soon. Cool.
Speaker 1 (47:57):
Sacred Lessons is a production My Heart's My go through
our podcast network, Sacred Lessons Media, and the Prints Group
for more of your favorite shows, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Popular Podcasts
Hey Jonas!
Hey Jonas! The official Jonas Brothers podcast. Hosted by Kevin, Joe, and Nick Jonas. It’s the Jonas Brothers you know... musicians, actors, and well, yes, brothers. Now, they’re sharing another side of themselves in the playful, intimate, and irreverent way only they can. Spend time with the Jonas Brothers here and stay a little bit longer for deep conversations like never before.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com