In this episode, Scott Loyd interviews the creators and a performer from Sunday Brunch: The Musical, a new theatrical work that humorously explores cult dynamics through a family brunch gone spectacularly wrong. While cult expert and regular host Daniella Mestyanek Young is absent due to technical difficulties, she sends in praise for the team’s viral “cult song,” noting how deeply it resonated with survivor experiences.
Guests Ernie Bird (composer/co-writer), Rachel Abramon (lyricist/co-writer), and Gabrielle Filloux (performer) delve into the creative origins, songwriting process, and comedic construction of the show. Originally written during a jobless winter break as a fun project between friends, Sunday Brunch grew into a layered musical exploring dysfunction, privilege, and the absurdities of cult logic—all grounded in levity and genuine empathy.
Their viral charm song features an escalating back-and-forth between two characters trying to one-up each other’s trauma—with one repeatedly revealing that every family member is, in fact, in a cult. The group discusses the delicate balance of comedy and respect, how cult themes naturally wove into the narrative, and how they may expand the story into a larger universe featuring the three-headed bear deity and warring cults.
The episode also explores broader insights into cult dynamics, including the “meta-cults” of capitalism, white supremacy, and toxic workplace culture. Each guest shares personal brushes with high-control environments, even if not officially in cults, reinforcing the pervasiveness of coercive systems in everyday life.
Keep up with the Musical:
-
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/sundaybrunchthemusical/ -
Ernie’s site:
https://imerniebird.com
Daniella's Links:
You can read all about my story in my book, Uncultured-- buy signed copies here. https://bit.ly/SignedUncultured
For more info on me:
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to another edition of Cults and the Culting of America podcast.
(00:04):
My name is Scott Lloyd.
You'll notice that our friend, our mentor, our teacher, our beloved, Daniela MessenekYoung, knitting cult lady herself is unable to join us.
She has some technical difficulties, but we're going to carry on with uh the group that iscollectively creating a musical that is about
(00:28):
cults, involves cults.
We'll get all of the download.
We'll get all the tea here in just a moment.
uh But the name of the musical, the name of the creative endeavor is Sunday Brunch.
So I want to get that out there.
And Ernie, why don't you take a moment, introduce everyone that's here.
(00:51):
I'm sorry that that responsibility falls on your shoulders, but you look like a leader, myfriend.
So let's roll with it.
Hi, I am a co-leader for sure.
My name is Ernie Bird ah and I am a composer and co-book writer for the show called SundayBrunch.
(01:12):
ah It's a show about a recent graduate who just graduated from college and she doesn'tknow what to do.
ah So she goes to have a brunch with her parents uh after graduation.
And they basically suggest to her that uh she needs to go to grad school to do some moreserious work.
(01:36):
And then her boyfriend shows up uh right in front of her parents and proposes to her.
uh And then brunch goes seriously wrong, extremely wrong.
It all goes, yeah.
And then...
um
Some of that wrongness involves the cult.
(01:57):
Some of that wrongness, yes, doesn't hold the code, actually, yes.
With me here, Rachel Abramon, who is a lyricist and also co-book writer of Sunday, abranch.
My dearest friend, we met each other at the BMI Musical Theater Writers Workshop.
We'll tell later how we started working with each other.
(02:17):
And then ah my other friend, Gabriel Fio, is an amazing actor uh
who I met through a friend of mine, think Eric Shark, if I'm not mistaken.
We were looking for a person to cast for our uh cult character at Sunday Brunch.
(02:40):
And since then, we've became actually very close friends.
And Gabrielle has been with us through the very early stages of this show and willcontinue to be with us in this show and outside of the show and forever.
I'm...
I'd be happy for someone else to talk more about what they do.
Well, you know, it's amazing Ernie, our amazing publicist Lizzie and uh our wonderfulproducer Haley sent out a link earlier to an Instagram post where you guys are actually
(03:13):
singing and Daniela who can't be with us, she just sent me a message.
She said, please tell them that I thought their song perfectly uh illustrated what it islike trying to be a cult survivor.
in the normal world of normal things and normal Sunday brunch with four hearts.
(03:36):
So it really is an amazing talent that you guys have.
And uh Rachel, Gabrielle, just tell us a little bit about how this came to be, oh how itdeveloped and where it's going.
Yeah, so.
First of all, I just want to say in response to Danielle's comment, it's been reallyamazing to see people say that this song is representative of their experiences.
(04:04):
That's something we didn't necessarily expect and it's been really incredible that uh somany people relate and have enjoyed the song.
So we're very happy to hear that feedback always.
um So this project started because Ernie and I
had a lot of time one winter.
were on and exactly, exactly.
(04:29):
were jobless.
We were just burning the midnight oil all the time.
And we, as Ernie said, met in a program called BMI, which is a training ground for musicaltheater writers of all kinds.
um
(04:50):
And so we had our winter break and we were writing a song together for class.
And the first draft and the second draft were sandwiched around our winter break.
So Ernie was like, we really clicked as writers.
Do you want to try to write a show in two weeks?
And I was like, uh yeah, of course.
(05:11):
I'm feeling crazy.
Let's do it.
oh
Um, so Ernie slept on my couch for two weeks and we wrote Sunday brunch.
We were very inspired by our experience of getting brunch.
(05:31):
well, we were saying like, what do we write this musical about?
Like what's something we both really love?
And the only thing we could think of is like, well, we really love brunch.
said brunch together at the same time.
Like we were brunch.
Yeah.
And then, but what can we do with it?
And I'm like, well, it can go very wrong.
(05:54):
Like some brunches do.
Ours haven't so far, but we've seen some examples, I'm sure.
ah
tell me about yourself and your involvement with this troop here.
Yeah, so basically I'm an actor in New York and I was on a cruise ship doing the musicalHairspray and I was there for a year and I came back and almost immediately after I sent
(06:22):
in this audition tape for a completely different production and the casting director,which Ernie mentioned was Eric Shark, he saw it and he emailed me and was like, hey, like,
this isn't the direction we're going for this character, but the tape
was insane.
perhaps not even good, dare I say.
(06:43):
It was just crazy.
And so he was like, we're kind of looking for a crazy character right now if you'd want todo this for his friend Ernie.
So I just ran to their house in Queens.
Not to out your address, but.
(07:03):
You
Yeah, and then that's how we met each other and then I just kind of followed them along.
Very cool, very cool.
So tell me a little bit, and any of you or all of you can chime in on this, uh thecreative process for guys like me that have a window into this creative process, uh how
(07:28):
did that work?
How did you get it from the stage where you're writing to now wherever it's going next andwhat that looks like?
Yeah, so I think we did just have this goal to write a show and it was kind of a quick anddirty.
process.
We've now taken a much longer time to edit what we first generated and just refine it.
(07:57):
Ernie and I are outliners.
We love a good outline and then we just kind of dive in and each song is at its ownanimal, but each song does kind of fit.
If you are like learning the very kind of traditional structure of musical theater, thereare certain
um songs that are like keep you grounded in a show uh so like there's i want songs foryour main character and then the song that we're kind of on here to talk about is would
(08:31):
fall under the umbrella term of like a charm song so it's a song that comes after a reallya moment of really heightened emotions and gives the audience a moment to like breathe and
laugh
um And it doesn't necessarily move forward your main plot in a big way, but it is like amoment of relief for your audience.
(08:56):
Right.
So it's a moment of levity, a moment of emotional release.
oh And the song that you're talking about, I'm assuming is the one that I saw on Instagramwhere you're talking about just everyday things of life.
And then the other person chimes in, yeah, but I was in a cult.
(09:19):
And that's kind of like, that's almost like the...
the card, right?
I thought I had issues growing up until I met Daniela.
And then I'm like, wow, you know, this, this, and we're laughing, but it's really serious,you know, it's like, this is a spectrum.
um know, people have different experiences uh in different high control groups.
(09:42):
And probably all of us, right, can look back at an aspect of our lives because as humanswe're driven, right, to be part of a collective, part of a community.
part of a group, but that is what is exploited by these cult leaders.
And that's, you know, what gives, uh it gives depth.
(10:03):
gives, uh it gives a lot of uh layers to our existence, but man, when it's harmful, it canbe really bad.
So I tell you what, talk to me a little bit about the song's composition.
If you want to share some lyrics, if you want to sing,
some lyrics that would be great as well.
(10:24):
Whatever you guys are comfortable doing.
I told you before we came on that, you this is an episode where we can burst into, bysaying we, I mean, you can burst into song at any moment.
I wanted to add to and to answer your question uh and to add to what Rachel said before isI think to me in theater form follows function and a lot of theater writing is problem
(10:55):
solving and we did have a problem.
had a problem that our main character uh wasn't necessarily privileged but we realizedthat her problems are very big.
(11:22):
So,
as big for other less fortunate people as well.
So our charm song is as much uh fun and the moment of levity as also solving anotherproblem.
by showing uh the perspective of the characters that are much less fortunate than our maincharacter, but in their own ways.
(11:47):
uh So in that way, it's not punching down and still punching up, but at the same time, ahit's also having a lot of fun.
ah The composition of the song, ah Rachel, do you mean the music composition?
I think the
the construction of a structure.
(12:09):
Yeah.
How all of that came about, what that looks like.
no, you know, Ernie, you raise a very interesting and important part because this is thefunction of art, right?
When art is done well, it provides a cathartic experience to the audience.
And it's like, yeah, I'm laughing because if I'm not laughing, I would be crying and I canrelate.
(12:35):
And it gives a picture.
Okay.
perhaps we haven't necessarily experienced ourselves in that way it develops empathy inthe audience.
And that's such an important function of the arts.
And so I just wanted to make that statement and congratulate and affirm what you guys aredoing because it really is important.
(13:00):
And I don't think the artists in our nation are affirmed enough.
So kudos.
and congratulations on everything that you're doing.
Thank you, we appreciate that.
Rachel, anything about the composition of...
m
Well, I think that this song plays a bit of a game.
So there is a back and forth.
(13:22):
There are two characters and one comes from a family that is quite chaotic, doesn't have alot of like resources.
There's not a lot of stability.
And so he keeps presenting his problems.
And then we have our waitress at the diner, Willow Anne, who in response to all of thoseissues is like, well,
(13:46):
My mom is in a cult.
So the first lyric of the song proper is, my mom is a drunk.
My mom is in a cult.
My dad is dead.
My dad's in a cult.
My grandma never visits.
My grandma's in a cult.
um So it's kind of this game of like one-upping and also like, I'm in a cult.
(14:10):
My whole family is in a cult.
I don't know what.
territory because I think, well, first of all, I think we inadvertently created a UCBsketch, a UCB theater sketch wrapped in a song.
But also, uh I think the challenge was is that our rules were we have one joke, it's aboutthe cult.
(14:36):
Again, not a joke in terms of making fun of cults, although it's fun as well, but.
the fact that in choruses we cannot talk about anything else but cult for that character.
So in order for the song to work, we had to come up with chokes and many of them that arefunny.
(14:57):
And that was very, very, very hard because of the rule that we created that it's all aboutthe cult.
So at some point in the very end, we realized that there's just so much we can do.
So we started.
breaking the rules and not ending the joke with the cult, but then ending it with thecult.
sort of, um just keep the funny going.
(15:21):
um The fact that we connected with the audience and like millions of people that listen tothis and connected with this genuinely and they were like, my God, how do you know my
family?
How do you know my life?
um I think
This is something that personally I am trying to analyze later.
(15:42):
What has happened in my and Rachel's life that allowed us to um really tap into thatwithout really per se being raised in a cult?
So maybe we had some cult-like experiences.
Maybe it's the bullying in middle school.
(16:04):
Maybe it's...
It came very naturally to us, so.
(16:28):
And Gabrielle might be able to speak a little bit to.
as far as like the structure of the song, how those jokes land, how you present them.
Yeah, the best part about the song for me is the buildup of the jokes.
It starts out with simpler facts like, my mom is in a cult, my dad's also in the cult, andthen by the end, the cult is at war with the neighbor's cult and everyone's dying for the
(16:53):
full-headed bear, which is their worship idol.
And um it makes it very easy to act because in this case, Rachel and Ernie's words were sofunny and they were so accurate.
(17:17):
But say them very seriously, which is extremely important because for us those charactersare maybe a little bit ridiculous, but from their perspective, they are very serious.
They see nothing wrong with themselves.
(17:53):
Yeah, and go ahead, Rachel.
Yeah.
no, you go.
I was just gonna say, I think that we learned through writing this song that there's a lotmore fertile ground for that character.
And now we're thinking of like,
expanding our universe and creating like a second show that centers around this cultbecause we accidentally like created lore where like their god is a three-headed bear and
(18:19):
there's two cults at war and she's married to the cult leader and like all this stuff thatwe want to keep exploring and it's it's really a serious topic like cults are a serious
topic.
Yes, we are announcing this officially.
We are thinking about writing an actual show about cults which will be in the sameuniverse.
(18:39):
um Yes.
got to connect with Knitting Cult Lady and Daniela because she will be your go-to expertfor consulting on this.
she, yeah, absolutely.
She will be your go-to person.
So tell me, you mentioned this a little bit, Ernie, and all of you really did.
(19:04):
The idea of comedy, I think in my estimation, and I say this as a lay person,
Comedy is uh the most difficult uh if it's on a spectrum as far as execution uh whenyou're on stage to get the comedic timing right, to elicit genuine laughter from an
(19:30):
audience is more difficult than dying on stage.
And that's why
when you attempt to tell jokes and nobody laughs, that's why they say I died up there,right?
Because you can actually feel your spirit leaving your body when that happens.
So I have so much admiration for what you guys do.
(19:54):
Was comedy difficult for you or do you have a natural proclivity for that?
What did that look like in your experience uh writing uh in a comedic style?
uh I'll start and Rachel can continue.
(20:16):
I think uh comedy can sometimes start when people have a lot of comedy in their family andwhen they're raised in environments that are chaotic and they're not much comedy per se
(20:36):
but there's just a lot of emotional...
sort of a roller coaster going on.
So in my case, I don't think I was raised in an environment where there was a lot ofcomedy, but I was raised in the, I'm from, I was born and raised in Ukraine.
There's a lot of comedy comes from just the fact of being raised there because it's adifferent life.
(21:02):
It's a very fast paced, crises happen every day.
Now we're at war.
Yeah, I was gonna say, that's kind of incongruous there.
There's not a lot of comedy, yeah, exactly.
But we stand in solidarity with you, my friend.
Yeah.
that's not about Ukraine.
(21:23):
have another show about Ukraine, but it's not for this part.
But yeah, I think to me writing comedy was always a little difficult.
And with this song and with Sunday in a Branch, it became easier for me to write comedybecause I felt like I'm a funny person sometimes.
(21:43):
but not always.
And I could have mastered the funny whenever I wanted.
And with writing comedy shows, writing Sunday in the brunch specifically, I felt like nowI can actually concentrate the funny and I can, we wrote other songs with Rachel right
after this, we, my best friend, uh which we both found a lot easier to write after writingSunday in brunch because we found our comedic voice more.
(22:11):
We found
I don't think that's true.
I think the reason that we.
uh
(22:32):
as we have been able to successfully make people laugh with Sunday brunch is that Ernieand I find each other funny.
So there's like this openness around each other to say something that feels absurd.
I mean, this song came out of us just like, well, what do we do?
Like, what if their lives are bad?
(22:53):
What if she's in a cult?
And then like, suddenly we're going down this rabbit hole of like, all of this stuff, but
I think it's just because Ernie and I do like connect comedically.
We do, and most importantly, we are ruthless to each other ah when we write.
So we often tell each other, this is not funny, it doesn't work.
(23:16):
No.
It's yes and.
It's yes and, but it's more like, OK, this didn't work, but what if we take this idea andtake further?
ah But yeah, we do.
are very, we want to laugh.
It's funny.
I feel like we have comedic reactions that are true, but we're not always, it's not alwayseasy to write what we comedically respond to.
(23:44):
when we write together with each other, we always look for these genuine comedic reactionsin another person and they didn't happen, then we have to just write better.
Yeah, we're comedy hopefuls, so we'll get there.
you're more than hopeful.
(24:05):
You your Instagram following would suggest that you're more than hopeful.
Gabrielle, is it more or less difficult or is it about the same level when you'reattempting to sing uh something in a comedy style?
Kind of fascinating because comedy in general I view as musical because you're trying tohit certain beats and you have like a little time frame to get to the center of the joke.
(24:35):
You can almost miss it, but if you get too far it doesn't land.
So in songs I find it a lot easier, but specifically in this because the way the music wascomposed, uh the hits like line up musically with the lyrics.
(25:01):
Okay.
really, really is.
And it speaks to your talent.
It speaks to the talent of the collective here, because again, this is something that isvery difficult to do.
And then to speak to it, right?
Because I can imagine sitting in the audience listening to this.
And certainly my experience is growing up in a high control religious group known as theUnited Pentecostal Church.
(25:30):
I laugh at it, but then I pause and I'm laughing because this is true, right?
This resonates with my experience.
And that's the beauty of art.
That's the beauty of singing.
That's the beauty of landing a joke or landing a point where it is a collective experiencewith the audience.
(25:55):
So just to be clear, because I know probably folks that are listening might wonder,
Did any of you have any experiences with a cult?
You touched on this a moment ago, but was there anything in your background that inspiredthis like, I can relate?
(26:18):
not a true cult, not, you know, not what you or Daniela went through.
yeah, we talk about on this show that it's a spectrum, right?
People have different experiences.
And of course, in terms of harm inflicted, uh some groups are worse than others.
I think if you were born and raised in the United States, we all sort of labor uh underthis meta-cult, right, of the patriarchy or white supremacy or capitalism.
(26:47):
It's like all of these systems that bear down upon us and it's like, man, I wish I couldget out of this, but there's really no way to escape it.
And I know as artists that have uh that oh creative space, it can be really difficult, Iimagine, because there's so much pressure to conform and you can't create good art if you
(27:13):
are conforming to what society expects of you.
Yeah, and I mean Ernie and I were discussing this earlier and like
kind of joking about it, because I guess it would be like a cult for good.
But I do feel like before I was a writer, I was a costume designer.
some of the oh theater groups that I worked with, I was like, this could get a littleculty.
(27:36):
mean, I was doing a lot of labor.
I was not being paid.
And there was a promise at the end of it that I would gain.
something.
And also, we would just sit around and be like, yes, this show we're working on is, isvery important.
And then like, it's the music man, like, let's not lie to ourselves, you know, but you getstuck in this collective mindset.
(27:59):
So I think there's some of that in any any theater makers experience.
I always found system of beliefs in general to be fascinating to me.
literally when you take a piece of money, it's a piece of paper, really.
(28:22):
And we all believe that it has value.
uh And just we collectively believe in this.
I know in the past it used to be like tied to gold or not, but even this scarcity ofsomething is also.
(28:51):
.
serious, serious cults per se, but there were some moments in my life similar to Rachel'swhere I felt like I was very close to encountering one.
that you wouldn't normally call a cult, but it kind of behaves cult-like.
When I was very little, I went to Russia to visit the Russian side of my family.
(29:17):
And that was right before Crimea got occupied, etc.
And then some of the things that I heard and seen over there on TV, and just by speakingto extended members of my family,
just started making me feel like some sort of a cult going on there.
(29:39):
Not necessarily a cult of Putin, but the cult of just like alternate reality that is notconnected to the rest of the world, uh which now you can see everywhere on social media
and et cetera, just like a closed uh circle.
I mean, I've applied to jobs in the past where I like, I don't know, some...
(30:01):
recruiting jobs or something where you just go to an office you see this head of thedepartment in this pathetic office in a pathetic company and has this like minions over
there and and it's just like we care about the quota you hustle hustle hustle if you don'tdo this i'll do this and i'm like my god your entire world is so so small and so pathetic
(30:29):
uh
Right.
it's sad.
It's really sad.
And you see this.
So you can create these closed systems almost anywhere.
Two people can be in an abusive relationship with each other.
And that to me is very cult-like.
When you are in a relationship with an abuser, that abuser is still a leader of thetwo-person cult.
(30:54):
so cults are cross-functional teams that can happen everywhere.
Yeah.
And, you know, it's interesting, you pointed out, right, the spectrum, the harm,obviously, that is being inflicted on the world, especially in the part of the world where
you're from, by the cult of Putin.
uh We are experiencing it to a lesser extent, obviously, here in the United States withthe cult of Trump.
(31:21):
But then even in our relationships, right, we...
uh
We end up in abusive relationships where we're taking advantage of.
So what you're doing, I want to point to this over and over again, is so important.
uh What Daniela does on a daily basis, getting information out there is so critical.
(31:42):
What about you, Gabrielle?
Do you have any experiences with cults or high control groups?
Well, I actually have a few.
I'm not, I never was deep in one, but they've been showing up a lot more often in my lifeactually recently.
I think it does have something to do with the political nature of our country right now.
(32:05):
Yeah, uh it's like when you buy a car, suddenly you see that car everywhere.
Exactly.
So this is a crazy story, but I met somebody on hinge and we saw each other for a littlebit seems super normal, super sweet, very respectful.
He went traveling for a couple months, came back and he was like, I want to meet up totell you about a spiritual experience I had.
(32:29):
And that was a huge alarm for me.
uh And, you know, so we had dinner and he literally felt
(32:57):
you
(33:22):
Yeah.
And you know, you mentioned the one about Taylor Swift and that's been around for a longtime.
And that one really pisses me off because obviously she is so creative, so talented andworks so damn hard at what she does.
But then people want to dismiss it as saying, no, the reason she's so successful isbecause she worships the devil or she's in an alliance with Satan, which is just bullshit,
(33:50):
right?
It's just
(34:19):
So,
back in the day.
Super Bowl quarterback, and uh I would watch those news conferences afterwards and thesports reporters would ask him questions about, didn't you do this?
Why didn't you do that?
And all of these people that were asking questions uh could not do what he does if no onewas trying to tackle them.
(34:44):
If no one was watching, they couldn't complete a 10-yard pass with perfect circumstances.
But he's doing it, right?
Under pressure, under duress.
And all of these athletes do that.
And Taylor Swift does it night after night, album after album.
But people want to dismiss it because she's working with the devil.
(35:04):
And so I'm getting off my soapbox now.
No, no, no, you're right.
eh Primarily because I think jealousy is such a powerful, such an immensely powerfulemotion that can drive people to drive people crazy, drive mediocre people crazy,
(35:30):
especially because they know they won't be able to do that.
And they explain their own failings by
It's, I mean, you can create a totalitarian society this way, which has been done.
So yeah.
Yeah, and I feel like it also, always bringing up the devil is like, it's so, religiousinstitutions are so prone to these things as we know.
(35:59):
And when I was little, was raised Catholic and we had one particular deacon who came intoour school and basically introduced the Taylor Swift theory except for like strangers.
So he was like, anyone around you can steal the Eucharist at church.
and use it to summon the devil to chase you.
(36:22):
So I was maybe 11.
I genuinely did not sleep for like six months because I thought if I closed my eyes, thedevil would appear to me when I opened them.
And it's that quality of isolation.
And the next thing he did was say, if you talk about the devil, the devil hears you andwill come running to you.
(36:46):
So I couldn't speak to my
Trauma, trauma.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you for sharing that.
And I'm sorry that you had to endure that.
Wow.
(37:07):
But it's illustrative, right?
Of what so many of us face in this society and you know, what so many of you face asartists and as creatives because, know, again, just because I can't do something doesn't,
should not limit your ability to do it and to do it at the highest level.
(37:28):
And
How grateful should we be, should we all be, that we are uh living at a time when somebodylike Taylor Swift is out there killing it every day?
I mean, she's providing the soundtrack of our lives and all of these artists, you do it,all of these people do it on a daily basis.
(37:49):
Can you imagine how horrible and boring and terrible life would be if we did not havepeople like you in our society?
So.
argument to hear for people who want to replace all the arts with AI.
(38:12):
I think we need humans too.
to be the arbiter of beauty and uh not like enlightenment, just provide uh fun for thesociety.
(38:32):
Otherwise, it's no fun.
Right.
So we're getting close to our conclusion here.
Rachel, if you wanted to tell folks how they can access what you guys are doing, where itcan be seen, what can be, if folks want to support you, they, by all means, if they want
(38:54):
to give you money, if they want to be patrons, whatever, how do we do that?
Okay, let me tell you.
Okay, you can follow us on Instagram.
It's at Sunday brunch, the musical Ernie correct me if I'm wrong.
Yes, you are correct.
(39:16):
Yes, we'll put that in the show as well.
Okay, amazing.
We want people to access it for sure.
um And on TikTok also at Sunday brunch, the musical Ernie is gonna fact check me so staytuned.
And then we do have old demos for the show on SoundCloud, which you can get to throughErnie's website, which is imerniebird.com.
(39:45):
think it's Ernie.
It's just Ernie Bird.
But we don't endorse those demos.
But if you're very curious, you should listen to them.
If you're just really curious.
But we do want to announce, I think, that we are recording very professional demos by theend of this August.
(40:10):
So buckle up.
goal, so we shall see.
We're, yeah, we're in the cult of believing in...
I feel like we're in the cult of believing in unreasonable deadlines.
uh
it'll be.
Yeah.
You've created the urgency.
So it's got to happen now.
(40:30):
Right.
oh And wow, this has been such a fascinating conversation.
And I know that I speak for Daniela that, you know, she is so sorry that she couldn't joinus, but the good news is, right, this uh is going to be disseminated and put out there,
but we're going to do this again with Daniela um and in the not so distant future.
(40:54):
This is, this is a great conversation.
I am so honored and so grateful and so privileged to uh have the opportunity to speak to,all of you, incredibly talented people.
Thank you for what you do.
Thank you for your work.
Keep it up.
And uh if I can ever be of assistance or help in any way, please don't hesitate to reachout.
(41:17):
And I encourage everyone that is in our audience to support these folks, uh find a way to.
Pay them, find a way to support their work, follow them, whatever it takes, because weneed more creatives in our society.
And thank you for what you do.
(41:38):
Thank you.
Thank you.
Absolutely.
And we will see all of you on the next edition of Cults and the Culting of Americapodcast.
For Daniela Messenek-Young, Knitting Cult Lady herself, I'm Scott Lloyd.
We'll see you on the next episode.
Welcome to another edition of Cults and the Culting of America podcast.
(00:04):
My name is Scott Lloyd.
You'll notice that our friend, our mentor, our teacher, our beloved, Daniela MessenekYoung, knitting cult lady herself is unable to join us.
She has some technical difficulties, but we're going to carry on with uh the group that iscollectively creating a musical that is about
(00:28):
cults, involves cults.
We'll get all of the download.
We'll get all the tea here in just a moment.
uh But the name of the musical, the name of the creative endeavor is Sunday Brunch.
So I want to get that out there.
And Ernie, why don't you take a moment, introduce everyone that's here.
(00:51):
I'm sorry that that responsibility falls on your shoulders, but you look like a leader, myfriend.
So let's roll with it.
Hi, I am a co-leader for sure.
My name is Ernie Bird ah and I am a composer and co-book writer for the show called SundayBrunch.
(01:12):
ah It's a show about a recent graduate who just graduated from college and she doesn'tknow what to do.
ah So she goes to have a brunch with her parents uh after graduation.
And they basically suggest to her that uh she needs to go to grad school to do some moreserious work.
(01:36):
And then her boyfriend shows up uh right in front of her parents and proposes to her.
uh And then brunch goes seriously wrong, extremely wrong.
It all goes, yeah.
And then...
um
Some of that wrongness involves the cult.
(01:57):
Some of that wrongness, yes, doesn't hold the code, actually, yes.
With me here, Rachel Abramon, who is a lyricist and also co-book writer of Sunday, abranch.
My dearest friend, we met each other at the BMI Musical Theater Writers Workshop.
We'll tell later how we started working with each other.
(02:17):
And then ah my other friend, Gabriel Fio, is an amazing actor uh
who I met through a friend of mine, think Eric Shark, if I'm not mistaken.
We were looking for a person to cast for our uh cult character at Sunday Brunch.
(02:40):
And since then, we've became actually very close friends.
And Gabrielle has been with us through the very early stages of this show and willcontinue to be with us in this show and outside of the show and forever.
I'm...
I'd be happy for someone else to talk more about what they do.
Well, you know, it's amazing Ernie, our amazing publicist Lizzie and uh our wonderfulproducer Haley sent out a link earlier to an Instagram post where you guys are actually
(03:13):
singing and Daniela who can't be with us, she just sent me a message.
She said, please tell them that I thought their song perfectly uh illustrated what it islike trying to be a cult survivor.
in the normal world of normal things and normal Sunday brunch with four hearts.
(03:36):
So it really is an amazing talent that you guys have.
And uh Rachel, Gabrielle, just tell us a little bit about how this came to be, oh how itdeveloped and where it's going.
Yeah, so.
First of all, I just want to say in response to Danielle's comment, it's been reallyamazing to see people say that this song is representative of their experiences.
(04:04):
That's something we didn't necessarily expect and it's been really incredible that uh somany people relate and have enjoyed the song.
So we're very happy to hear that feedback always.
um So this project started because Ernie and I
had a lot of time one winter.
were on and exactly, exactly.
(04:29):
were jobless.
We were just burning the midnight oil all the time.
And we, as Ernie said, met in a program called BMI, which is a training ground for musicaltheater writers of all kinds.
um
(04:50):
And so we had our winter break and we were writing a song together for class.
And the first draft and the second draft were sandwiched around our winter break.
So Ernie was like, we really clicked as writers.
Do you want to try to write a show in two weeks?
And I was like, uh yeah, of course.
(05:11):
I'm feeling crazy.
Let's do it.
oh
Um, so Ernie slept on my couch for two weeks and we wrote Sunday brunch.
We were very inspired by our experience of getting brunch.
(05:31):
well, we were saying like, what do we write this musical about?
Like what's something we both really love?
And the only thing we could think of is like, well, we really love brunch.
said brunch together at the same time.
Like we were brunch.
Yeah.
And then, but what can we do with it?
And I'm like, well, it can go very wrong.
(05:54):
Like some brunches do.
Ours haven't so far, but we've seen some examples, I'm sure.
ah
tell me about yourself and your involvement with this troop here.
Yeah, so basically I'm an actor in New York and I was on a cruise ship doing the musicalHairspray and I was there for a year and I came back and almost immediately after I sent
(06:22):
in this audition tape for a completely different production and the casting director,which Ernie mentioned was Eric Shark, he saw it and he emailed me and was like, hey, like,
this isn't the direction we're going for this character, but the tape
was insane.
perhaps not even good, dare I say.
(06:43):
It was just crazy.
And so he was like, we're kind of looking for a crazy character right now if you'd want todo this for his friend Ernie.
So I just ran to their house in Queens.
Not to out your address, but.
(07:03):
You
Yeah, and then that's how we met each other and then I just kind of followed them along.
Very cool, very cool.
So tell me a little bit, and any of you or all of you can chime in on this, uh thecreative process for guys like me that have a window into this creative process, uh how
(07:28):
did that work?
How did you get it from the stage where you're writing to now wherever it's going next andwhat that looks like?
Yeah, so I think we did just have this goal to write a show and it was kind of a quick anddirty.
process.
We've now taken a much longer time to edit what we first generated and just refine it.
(07:57):
Ernie and I are outliners.
We love a good outline and then we just kind of dive in and each song is at its ownanimal, but each song does kind of fit.
If you are like learning the very kind of traditional structure of musical theater, thereare certain
um songs that are like keep you grounded in a show uh so like there's i want songs foryour main character and then the song that we're kind of on here to talk about is would
(08:31):
fall under the umbrella term of like a charm song so it's a song that comes after a reallya moment of really heightened emotions and gives the audience a moment to like breathe and
laugh
um And it doesn't necessarily move forward your main plot in a big way, but it is like amoment of relief for your audience.
(08:56):
Right.
So it's a moment of levity, a moment of emotional release.
oh And the song that you're talking about, I'm assuming is the one that I saw on Instagramwhere you're talking about just everyday things of life.
And then the other person chimes in, yeah, but I was in a cult.
(09:19):
And that's kind of like, that's almost like the...
the card, right?
I thought I had issues growing up until I met Daniela.
And then I'm like, wow, you know, this, this, and we're laughing, but it's really serious,you know, it's like, this is a spectrum.
um know, people have different experiences uh in different high control groups.
(09:42):
And probably all of us, right, can look back at an aspect of our lives because as humanswe're driven, right, to be part of a collective, part of a community.
part of a group, but that is what is exploited by these cult leaders.
And that's, you know, what gives, uh it gives depth.
(10:03):
gives, uh it gives a lot of uh layers to our existence, but man, when it's harmful, it canbe really bad.
So I tell you what, talk to me a little bit about the song's composition.
If you want to share some lyrics, if you want to sing,
some lyrics that would be great as well.
(10:24):
Whatever you guys are comfortable doing.
I told you before we came on that, you this is an episode where we can burst into, bysaying we, I mean, you can burst into song at any moment.
I wanted to add to and to answer your question uh and to add to what Rachel said before isI think to me in theater form follows function and a lot of theater writing is problem
(10:55):
solving and we did have a problem.
had a problem that our main character uh wasn't necessarily privileged but we realizedthat her problems are very big.
(11:22):
So,
as big for other less fortunate people as well.
So our charm song is as much uh fun and the moment of levity as also solving anotherproblem.
by showing uh the perspective of the characters that are much less fortunate than our maincharacter, but in their own ways.
(11:47):
uh So in that way, it's not punching down and still punching up, but at the same time, ahit's also having a lot of fun.
ah The composition of the song, ah Rachel, do you mean the music composition?
I think the
the construction of a structure.
(12:09):
Yeah.
How all of that came about, what that looks like.
no, you know, Ernie, you raise a very interesting and important part because this is thefunction of art, right?
When art is done well, it provides a cathartic experience to the audience.
And it's like, yeah, I'm laughing because if I'm not laughing, I would be crying and I canrelate.
(12:35):
And it gives a picture.
Okay.
perhaps we haven't necessarily experienced ourselves in that way it develops empathy inthe audience.
And that's such an important function of the arts.
And so I just wanted to make that statement and congratulate and affirm what you guys aredoing because it really is important.
(13:00):
And I don't think the artists in our nation are affirmed enough.
So kudos.
and congratulations on everything that you're doing.
Thank you, we appreciate that.
Rachel, anything about the composition of...
m
Well, I think that this song plays a bit of a game.
So there is a back and forth.
(13:22):
There are two characters and one comes from a family that is quite chaotic, doesn't have alot of like resources.
There's not a lot of stability.
And so he keeps presenting his problems.
And then we have our waitress at the diner, Willow Anne, who in response to all of thoseissues is like, well,
(13:46):
My mom is in a cult.
So the first lyric of the song proper is, my mom is a drunk.
My mom is in a cult.
My dad is dead.
My dad's in a cult.
My grandma never visits.
My grandma's in a cult.
um So it's kind of this game of like one-upping and also like, I'm in a cult.
(14:10):
My whole family is in a cult.
I don't know what.
territory because I think, well, first of all, I think we inadvertently created a UCBsketch, a UCB theater sketch wrapped in a song.
But also, uh I think the challenge was is that our rules were we have one joke, it's aboutthe cult.
(14:36):
Again, not a joke in terms of making fun of cults, although it's fun as well, but.
the fact that in choruses we cannot talk about anything else but cult for that character.
So in order for the song to work, we had to come up with chokes and many of them that arefunny.
(14:57):
And that was very, very, very hard because of the rule that we created that it's all aboutthe cult.
So at some point in the very end, we realized that there's just so much we can do.
So we started.
breaking the rules and not ending the joke with the cult, but then ending it with thecult.
sort of, um just keep the funny going.
(15:21):
um The fact that we connected with the audience and like millions of people that listen tothis and connected with this genuinely and they were like, my God, how do you know my
family?
How do you know my life?
um I think
This is something that personally I am trying to analyze later.
(15:42):
What has happened in my and Rachel's life that allowed us to um really tap into thatwithout really per se being raised in a cult?
So maybe we had some cult-like experiences.
Maybe it's the bullying in middle school.
(16:04):
Maybe it's...
It came very naturally to us, so.
(16:28):
And Gabrielle might be able to speak a little bit to.
as far as like the structure of the song, how those jokes land, how you present them.
Yeah, the best part about the song for me is the buildup of the jokes.
It starts out with simpler facts like, my mom is in a cult, my dad's also in the cult, andthen by the end, the cult is at war with the neighbor's cult and everyone's dying for the
(16:53):
full-headed bear, which is their worship idol.
And um it makes it very easy to act because in this case, Rachel and Ernie's words were sofunny and they were so accurate.
(17:17):
But say them very seriously, which is extremely important because for us those charactersare maybe a little bit ridiculous, but from their perspective, they are very serious.
They see nothing wrong with themselves.
(17:53):
Yeah, and go ahead, Rachel.
Yeah.
no, you go.
I was just gonna say, I think that we learned through writing this song that there's a lotmore fertile ground for that character.
And now we're thinking of like,
expanding our universe and creating like a second show that centers around this cultbecause we accidentally like created lore where like their god is a three-headed bear and
(18:19):
there's two cults at war and she's married to the cult leader and like all this stuff thatwe want to keep exploring and it's it's really a serious topic like cults are a serious
topic.
Yes, we are announcing this officially.
We are thinking about writing an actual show about cults which will be in the sameuniverse.
(18:39):
um Yes.
got to connect with Knitting Cult Lady and Daniela because she will be your go-to expertfor consulting on this.
she, yeah, absolutely.
She will be your go-to person.
So tell me, you mentioned this a little bit, Ernie, and all of you really did.
(19:04):
The idea of comedy, I think in my estimation, and I say this as a lay person,
Comedy is uh the most difficult uh if it's on a spectrum as far as execution uh whenyou're on stage to get the comedic timing right, to elicit genuine laughter from an
(19:30):
audience is more difficult than dying on stage.
And that's why
when you attempt to tell jokes and nobody laughs, that's why they say I died up there,right?
Because you can actually feel your spirit leaving your body when that happens.
So I have so much admiration for what you guys do.
(19:54):
Was comedy difficult for you or do you have a natural proclivity for that?
What did that look like in your experience uh writing uh in a comedic style?
uh I'll start and Rachel can continue.
(20:16):
I think uh comedy can sometimes start when people have a lot of comedy in their family andwhen they're raised in environments that are chaotic and they're not much comedy per se
(20:36):
but there's just a lot of emotional...
sort of a roller coaster going on.
So in my case, I don't think I was raised in an environment where there was a lot ofcomedy, but I was raised in the, I'm from, I was born and raised in Ukraine.
There's a lot of comedy comes from just the fact of being raised there because it's adifferent life.
(21:02):
It's a very fast paced, crises happen every day.
Now we're at war.
Yeah, I was gonna say, that's kind of incongruous there.
There's not a lot of comedy, yeah, exactly.
But we stand in solidarity with you, my friend.
Yeah.
that's not about Ukraine.
(21:23):
have another show about Ukraine, but it's not for this part.
But yeah, I think to me writing comedy was always a little difficult.
And with this song and with Sunday in a Branch, it became easier for me to write comedybecause I felt like I'm a funny person sometimes.
(21:43):
but not always.
And I could have mastered the funny whenever I wanted.
And with writing comedy shows, writing Sunday in the brunch specifically, I felt like nowI can actually concentrate the funny and I can, we wrote other songs with Rachel right
after this, we, my best friend, uh which we both found a lot easier to write after writingSunday in brunch because we found our comedic voice more.
(22:11):
We found
I don't think that's true.
I think the reason that we.
uh
(22:32):
as we have been able to successfully make people laugh with Sunday brunch is that Ernieand I find each other funny.
So there's like this openness around each other to say something that feels absurd.
I mean, this song came out of us just like, well, what do we do?
Like, what if their lives are bad?
(22:53):
What if she's in a cult?
And then like, suddenly we're going down this rabbit hole of like, all of this stuff, but
I think it's just because Ernie and I do like connect comedically.
We do, and most importantly, we are ruthless to each other ah when we write.
So we often tell each other, this is not funny, it doesn't work.
(23:16):
No.
It's yes and.
It's yes and, but it's more like, OK, this didn't work, but what if we take this idea andtake further?
ah But yeah, we do.
are very, we want to laugh.
It's funny.
I feel like we have comedic reactions that are true, but we're not always, it's not alwayseasy to write what we comedically respond to.
(23:44):
when we write together with each other, we always look for these genuine comedic reactionsin another person and they didn't happen, then we have to just write better.
Yeah, we're comedy hopefuls, so we'll get there.
you're more than hopeful.
(24:05):
You your Instagram following would suggest that you're more than hopeful.
Gabrielle, is it more or less difficult or is it about the same level when you'reattempting to sing uh something in a comedy style?
Kind of fascinating because comedy in general I view as musical because you're trying tohit certain beats and you have like a little time frame to get to the center of the joke.
(24:35):
You can almost miss it, but if you get too far it doesn't land.
So in songs I find it a lot easier, but specifically in this because the way the music wascomposed, uh the hits like line up musically with the lyrics.
(25:01):
Okay.
really, really is.
And it speaks to your talent.
It speaks to the talent of the collective here, because again, this is something that isvery difficult to do.
And then to speak to it, right?
Because I can imagine sitting in the audience listening to this.
And certainly my experience is growing up in a high control religious group known as theUnited Pentecostal Church.
(25:30):
I laugh at it, but then I pause and I'm laughing because this is true, right?
This resonates with my experience.
And that's the beauty of art.
That's the beauty of singing.
That's the beauty of landing a joke or landing a point where it is a collective experiencewith the audience.
(25:55):
So just to be clear, because I know probably folks that are listening might wonder,
Did any of you have any experiences with a cult?
You touched on this a moment ago, but was there anything in your background that inspiredthis like, I can relate?
(26:18):
not a true cult, not, you know, not what you or Daniela went through.
yeah, we talk about on this show that it's a spectrum, right?
People have different experiences.
And of course, in terms of harm inflicted, uh some groups are worse than others.
I think if you were born and raised in the United States, we all sort of labor uh underthis meta-cult, right, of the patriarchy or white supremacy or capitalism.
(26:47):
It's like all of these systems that bear down upon us and it's like, man, I wish I couldget out of this, but there's really no way to escape it.
And I know as artists that have uh that oh creative space, it can be really difficult, Iimagine, because there's so much pressure to conform and you can't create good art if you
(27:13):
are conforming to what society expects of you.
Yeah, and I mean Ernie and I were discussing this earlier and like
kind of joking about it, because I guess it would be like a cult for good.
But I do feel like before I was a writer, I was a costume designer.
some of the oh theater groups that I worked with, I was like, this could get a littleculty.
(27:36):
mean, I was doing a lot of labor.
I was not being paid.
And there was a promise at the end of it that I would gain.
something.
And also, we would just sit around and be like, yes, this show we're working on is, isvery important.
And then like, it's the music man, like, let's not lie to ourselves, you know, but you getstuck in this collective mindset.
(27:59):
So I think there's some of that in any any theater makers experience.
I always found system of beliefs in general to be fascinating to me.
literally when you take a piece of money, it's a piece of paper, really.
(28:22):
And we all believe that it has value.
uh And just we collectively believe in this.
I know in the past it used to be like tied to gold or not, but even this scarcity ofsomething is also.
(28:51):
.
serious, serious cults per se, but there were some moments in my life similar to Rachel'swhere I felt like I was very close to encountering one.
that you wouldn't normally call a cult, but it kind of behaves cult-like.
When I was very little, I went to Russia to visit the Russian side of my family.
(29:17):
And that was right before Crimea got occupied, etc.
And then some of the things that I heard and seen over there on TV, and just by speakingto extended members of my family,
just started making me feel like some sort of a cult going on there.
(29:39):
Not necessarily a cult of Putin, but the cult of just like alternate reality that is notconnected to the rest of the world, uh which now you can see everywhere on social media
and et cetera, just like a closed uh circle.
I mean, I've applied to jobs in the past where I like, I don't know, some...
(30:01):
recruiting jobs or something where you just go to an office you see this head of thedepartment in this pathetic office in a pathetic company and has this like minions over
there and and it's just like we care about the quota you hustle hustle hustle if you don'tdo this i'll do this and i'm like my god your entire world is so so small and so pathetic
(30:29):
uh
Right.
it's sad.
It's really sad.
And you see this.
So you can create these closed systems almost anywhere.
Two people can be in an abusive relationship with each other.
And that to me is very cult-like.
When you are in a relationship with an abuser, that abuser is still a leader of thetwo-person cult.
(30:54):
so cults are cross-functional teams that can happen everywhere.
Yeah.
And, you know, it's interesting, you pointed out, right, the spectrum, the harm,obviously, that is being inflicted on the world, especially in the part of the world where
you're from, by the cult of Putin.
uh We are experiencing it to a lesser extent, obviously, here in the United States withthe cult of Trump.
(31:21):
But then even in our relationships, right, we...
uh
We end up in abusive relationships where we're taking advantage of.
So what you're doing, I want to point to this over and over again, is so important.
uh What Daniela does on a daily basis, getting information out there is so critical.
(31:42):
What about you, Gabrielle?
Do you have any experiences with cults or high control groups?
Well, I actually have a few.
I'm not, I never was deep in one, but they've been showing up a lot more often in my lifeactually recently.
I think it does have something to do with the political nature of our country right now.
(32:05):
Yeah, uh it's like when you buy a car, suddenly you see that car everywhere.
Exactly.
So this is a crazy story, but I met somebody on hinge and we saw each other for a littlebit seems super normal, super sweet, very respectful.
He went traveling for a couple months, came back and he was like, I want to meet up totell you about a spiritual experience I had.
(32:29):
And that was a huge alarm for me.
uh And, you know, so we had dinner and he literally felt
(32:57):
you
(33:22):
Yeah.
And you know, you mentioned the one about Taylor Swift and that's been around for a longtime.
And that one really pisses me off because obviously she is so creative, so talented andworks so damn hard at what she does.
But then people want to dismiss it as saying, no, the reason she's so successful isbecause she worships the devil or she's in an alliance with Satan, which is just bullshit,
(33:50):
right?
It's just
(34:19):
So,
back in the day.
Super Bowl quarterback, and uh I would watch those news conferences afterwards and thesports reporters would ask him questions about, didn't you do this?
Why didn't you do that?
And all of these people that were asking questions uh could not do what he does if no onewas trying to tackle them.
(34:44):
If no one was watching, they couldn't complete a 10-yard pass with perfect circumstances.
But he's doing it, right?
Under pressure, under duress.
And all of these athletes do that.
And Taylor Swift does it night after night, album after album.
But people want to dismiss it because she's working with the devil.
(35:04):
And so I'm getting off my soapbox now.
No, no, no, you're right.
eh Primarily because I think jealousy is such a powerful, such an immensely powerfulemotion that can drive people to drive people crazy, drive mediocre people crazy,
(35:30):
especially because they know they won't be able to do that.
And they explain their own failings by
It's, I mean, you can create a totalitarian society this way, which has been done.
So yeah.
Yeah, and I feel like it also, always bringing up the devil is like, it's so, religiousinstitutions are so prone to these things as we know.
(35:59):
And when I was little, was raised Catholic and we had one particular deacon who came intoour school and basically introduced the Taylor Swift theory except for like strangers.
So he was like, anyone around you can steal the Eucharist at church.
and use it to summon the devil to chase you.
(36:22):
So I was maybe 11.
I genuinely did not sleep for like six months because I thought if I closed my eyes, thedevil would appear to me when I opened them.
And it's that quality of isolation.
And the next thing he did was say, if you talk about the devil, the devil hears you andwill come running to you.
(36:46):
So I couldn't speak to my
Trauma, trauma.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you for sharing that.
And I'm sorry that you had to endure that.
Wow.
(37:07):
But it's illustrative, right?
Of what so many of us face in this society and you know, what so many of you face asartists and as creatives because, know, again, just because I can't do something doesn't,
should not limit your ability to do it and to do it at the highest level.
(37:28):
And
How grateful should we be, should we all be, that we are uh living at a time when somebodylike Taylor Swift is out there killing it every day?
I mean, she's providing the soundtrack of our lives and all of these artists, you do it,all of these people do it on a daily basis.
(37:49):
Can you imagine how horrible and boring and terrible life would be if we did not havepeople like you in our society?
So.
argument to hear for people who want to replace all the arts with AI.
(38:12):
I think we need humans too.
to be the arbiter of beauty and uh not like enlightenment, just provide uh fun for thesociety.
(38:32):
Otherwise, it's no fun.
Right.
So we're getting close to our conclusion here.
Rachel, if you wanted to tell folks how they can access what you guys are doing, where itcan be seen, what can be, if folks want to support you, they, by all means, if they want
(38:54):
to give you money, if they want to be patrons, whatever, how do we do that?
Okay, let me tell you.
Okay, you can follow us on Instagram.
It's at Sunday brunch, the musical Ernie correct me if I'm wrong.
Yes, you are correct.
(39:16):
Yes, we'll put that in the show as well.
Okay, amazing.
We want people to access it for sure.
um And on TikTok also at Sunday brunch, the musical Ernie is gonna fact check me so staytuned.
And then we do have old demos for the show on SoundCloud, which you can get to throughErnie's website, which is imerniebird.com.
(39:45):
think it's Ernie.
It's just Ernie Bird.
But we don't endorse those demos.
But if you're very curious, you should listen to them.
If you're just really curious.
But we do want to announce, I think, that we are recording very professional demos by theend of this August.
(40:10):
So buckle up.
goal, so we shall see.
We're, yeah, we're in the cult of believing in...
I feel like we're in the cult of believing in unreasonable deadlines.
uh
it'll be.
Yeah.
You've created the urgency.
So it's got to happen now.
(40:30):
Right.
oh And wow, this has been such a fascinating conversation.
And I know that I speak for Daniela that, you know, she is so sorry that she couldn't joinus, but the good news is, right, this uh is going to be disseminated and put out there,
but we're going to do this again with Daniela um and in the not so distant future.
(40:54):
This is, this is a great conversation.
I am so honored and so grateful and so privileged to uh have the opportunity to speak to,all of you, incredibly talented people.
Thank you for what you do.
Thank you for your work.
Keep it up.
And uh if I can ever be of assistance or help in any way, please don't hesitate to reachout.
(41:17):
And I encourage everyone that is in our audience to support these folks, uh find a way to.
Pay them, find a way to support their work, follow them, whatever it takes, because weneed more creatives in our society.
And thank you for what you do.
(41:38):
Thank you.
Thank you.
Absolutely.
And we will see all of you on the next edition of Cults and the Culting of Americapodcast.
For Daniela Messenek-Young, Knitting Cult Lady herself, I'm Scott Lloyd.
We'll see you on the next episode.
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