August 13, 2019 • 32 mins
Sonder is the new series I've co-created with my writing partner and guest this episode, Alex Wall. Sonder is defined as, "The profound feeling of realizing that everyone, including strangers passed in the street, has a life as complex as one's own, which they are constantly living despite one's personal lack of awareness of it." We've created a show to explore that, and help discuss how important compassion and patience are for everyone you interact with in your day to day. Give it a follow on Instagram now to stay up to date and catch episodes when it premieres October 16th. @sonder.la.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Straw Hut Media Alex Kimer.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Take this, Take this, I have to hold it. We
were both holding microphones and I'm trying to wait listen.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, that is that's the sound of
a beer. This is the motivation Report. Let's do it.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
A bird with the word came to me the sweetness
of a honey cone tree, and now my look was
taking over me. Couldn't fake it if I wanted to.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
It has been a while since I have a drink
on the podcast. I used to my whole stick was like,
this is not your fucking mom's motivational podcast. I have
a cocktail and two cool stuff and I'm going to
write a book called don't buy this fucking book because
like I'm hard and edgy and almost thirty two. And
then like on Amazon Audible, like all of the books
(00:54):
are like girl, wash your fucking face and like like
get your fucking act together, Like now it's the cool
try anything to swear and also be motivational.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
So I'm really just I'm honestly just a cliche. Now
It's okay.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
I like to believe that I started it like unconsciously
and just put it out into the ether.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
And then some people took the idea and ran with it.
But it's fine.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
So I'm here with my one of my best friends
and my writing partner, Alex Wall today. Hello everybody, Hello everybody,
and we're drinking some beers.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
We're doing Lagunita's Maximus because we are.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
Dave's got Dave's got an itche it's.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
My dog scratching himself.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
This is a very low key episode because I wanted
to share about a project that I've been doing that
Alex and I have created together. It's called Sonder and
we were actually at the pool today getting some sun
because we're going to start production tomorrow. For anybody listening,
this will go up on Monday. We're recording on a Saturday,
so tomorrow Sunday, so by the time you hear this, we.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
Will have already shot our first episode and crushed it.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yeah, it's gonna go the best that it's ever gone.
We will have shot our first episode. But we were
thinking about marketing for the show, and we built a
social media page. So right now, while you're listening to
this episode, get your phone out of your pocket, get
your life together, get on Instagram, go to Sonder dot La.
Follow Sonder dot l a for all the updates from
(02:18):
the show.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
It's really not not just for us. You're like, you're
gonna you're gonna like it.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
You're gonna like it.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
There's gonna be a lot for you. It's not necessarily
it is a shameless plug. But I don't give a shit.
I've been doing this show for almost god almost three years,
and uh, you know, it's never about me.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
It's not about the money. And this is the one
he makes.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
He makes almost no money.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
In my whole life. I make almost no money in general.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
I'm in his apartment right now. He makes no money.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
It's true, there's nothing. That's why it only beer and
empty seven to eleven water bottles. But so we wanted
to talk about what sonder is. And I think the
fun part about that is that sonder is a sort
of ethereal idea that I don't even know if it's
in the Webster's like dictionary, but it is defined on Wikipedia.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
I can bring it up. Yeah, yeah, we have, we
have a verbatim.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
We have the definition written out. But I always wondered
in my life, when you're driving in your car and
you you know, somebody cuts you off or whatever, somebody
Hanks get like fucking pissed off.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
I've always been like, man, what is that person's day?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Like, you know, like an incident that happens that's negative
or positive in any way that it moves. It isn't
just that incident. It's coming from something and then it's
going to something else. And so Sonder is kind of
this notion.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
Yeah, he didn't even know he was experiencing this feeling.
Experiencing this feeling Sonder as defined, is the profound feeling
of realizing that everyone, including strangers past on the street,
has a life as complex as one's zone which they
are constantly living despite one's personal lack of awareness of it.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
And that's so I've just always been so fascinating because
we have to understand and I've talked a lot about
it on the show. Is that I think to work
towards being successful and both happy at the same time.
Is this understanding of embracing the inherent contradictions of life,
so you're simultaneously the most important person in the universe
and the least important person. You know what I mean
(04:17):
that I mean it sounds like really sad, but in
order to give your life and your universe happiness. You
have to understand how important you are to the world
and that without you the world wouldn't be the same.
But two hundred years from now, no one's gonna remember
who we are, you know, technically unless you commit.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Some crazy atrocity or you're Steven Spielberg.
Speaker 4 (04:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Yeah, And so Sunder is this idea that like, when
you're living your life, it really ties into having kindness
and empathy for others because you see them not just
as an object or or something in your space or
in your way, but as a person who's undoubtedly going
through the same struggles in some ways you will.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
It's it's really just like the you know, the thing
that we as a country and a world right now
really need to really need to feel more often, right,
you know, because like we're we're divided, like we're like
I don't I don't know what the life of you know,
as a country if we're talking about in that regards,
like we're divided right and left right now, and there's
(05:17):
I have maybe one or two friends who I would
call on the right, and other than that, I don't
know what the I don't know what the life of
the other side is.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Yeah, I think that that's a good point too, because
I have a lot most of my family is, like,
you know, voted for Donald Trump, and I I don't
think I'm doing myself any favors in this podcast of
like creating a middle of the road show.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
It's not a surprise that I really don't respect. I
respect the office of the president and believe that that
person is is a disrespect to the office. That's the
thing that frustrates me is people will be like, you
have to respect him because he's the president, and I'm like, no, Actually,
like the whole point of being patriotic is precisely the
opposite of that notion, which is that he has an
(06:00):
obligation and a duty to be the greatest among us,
and I think is disrespecting the office by being who
he is.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
But that's neither here nor there.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
You know, We're trying to paint the picture of what
does it mean to have empathy for people who are
different than us in every way?
Speaker 4 (06:17):
Yeah, exactly, I mean, and you know, we have we're
obviously coming at this from the left side, but the
you know, like if we had a mission statement, it
would be you know, to show that every human no
matter who they are or what they believe in, are
at the end of the day, human beings who are
going through basically the same sort of struggles.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
It's true, and I think even we're sort of you know,
we're in the wake of a couple of tragedies, but
there's like a mass shooting every day basically now statistically
there was like a mass shooting. It's almost once a day,
which is crazy. I mean, I think it's like considered
three people who were killed with you know, but regardless,
we want to point the finger a lot of different things.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
And that you know that that comes back, it's you know,
that comes from a place of like, you know, being
entrenched in your in your own ideologies and whatever, whatever
beliefs they come from. But also just like the devaluation
of another life. And this this this show which we
haven't defined yet. Let's maybe we should tell everybody exactly
what it is. That's true's you've given them the tops
the premise. Yeah, it's a it's an Instagram web series.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
Right.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
We're doing ten short episodes, uh, each about three minutes long,
and they they highlight a different underrepresented character that in
Los Angeles, you like, you don't see every day. Some
of our characters we have we actually we do have
a Trump supporter character, so we try to show show
that side and show the human humanity behind somebody who
(07:47):
you know, doesn't share the same beliefs as you. We
have a trans character, we have characters, we have some
gay characters. We have a gay child, We.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Have actors of color, we have we.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
Have travel We have some travelers who are what's the
definition of like some of the people you see under
the intense, under the bridges and things like that, right,
homeless population, Yeah, but you know, not just homeless. They're
sort of a specific, specific type of homeless.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
It's sort of a life choice for some people, which
a lot of people don't know. And you did the
research on that, which I think is fascinating.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
That excuse me a lot of people it is.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
It is the result of, I guess, the path that
their life has taken, and a lot of that is
out of their control. And I've talked about that a
lot on the show. It's like, I have a problem
when people are like, if I give that person money,
They're just gonna buy booz er, drugs or whatever. And
I'm like, maybe, but that's also what you're gonna buy.
But that's all I never thought of it that way.
That's exactly right. And also everybody's addicted to prescription painkillers.
(08:55):
But a lot of people have chosen to be homeless basically,
And this is research that you did for the episode.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean it's a it's a it's
a fascinating life choice and you know, like a very
cheap way to see a lot of the world. You're
gonna get looked down upon, but yeah, people choose. People
do choose that life. They're not just homeless because of
mental illness or or addiction or you know, just straight poverty.
They've they've chosen to travel around the world the country
(09:25):
like this. Yeah, so yeah, we do have we do
have an episode all about that, m M. And you know,
like all around, it's just a it's just a show
about diversity, celebrating diversity, showing showing people a slice of
life that they they don't see in their in their
day to day.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Right and ideally, and I think we've talked about this too.
I think truly the theme of the show is like
for the audience, not necessarily for the characters. Because all
these characters intersect in some minor way with each other
throughout the ten episodes, and so it's it's about it's
that suggestion of realizing that the people you pass in
your day to day could be tremendously important or valuable
(10:08):
or going through something that you don't understand, and their
behavior is not incidental, you know, it's not just doesn't
come out of nowhere, like a person who's pissed off
in his car, or somebody behaving a certain way in
a moment isn't behaving that way in a moment just
because like we're like I feel like being a dick today,
you know.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
Yeah, there's a lot behind that, you know, like the
the asshole that that hanks at you and gives you
the finger because you took you took a second too
long to drive, to drive ahead when it's the light
turned green. You know, like maybe maybe they've got some
deep family issues. Yeah, maybe you know, who knows what's
going on. And that's and we judge people too quickly,
(10:46):
and that's that's what leads to a lot of the
divisiveness in our country. I think, you know, it's like
what you know, we we make instant reads on people,
and yeah, you know, like, uh, I personally have one
friend who our friendship was kind of hurt by the
(11:06):
fact that you know, he was he was on the
other side. He is a Trump supporter, and we've gotten
lots of arguments about that. But at the same time,
I can, I can. I know, I know he's a
good guy. He just he believes different things than I do.
And I think we all get to a place of like,
as as things ramp up, you know politically, where you
think you think you can't see the humanity behind the
(11:30):
other side, but there they are people. They're people just
like us.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
I think it's sort of irresponsible. And this was going
on a lot too when when he was elected. A
lot of people on Facebook were like, if you voted
for Trump, I'm unfriending you, and I was like.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Good job, Like what a what an adult you are?
How responsible?
Speaker 2 (11:50):
You know what I mean that what you've done is
you've caught off the ability to communicate with somebody who's.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Different than you.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
And what we're encouraging is that still a lot of
voices and minorities are not being heard, and so we're
trying to say, like to that majority or Christian America,
let's say like listen to these people too, because they
have the same struggles, if they're in the LGBTQ plus community,
if they're people of color, if they're from other countries.
But what we also want to do, which is truly
(12:18):
the balance, is say, like, you are not doing yourself
any favors by shutting off people who disagree with you
simply because of.
Speaker 4 (12:25):
That, you're making the problem worse exactly. Yeah, And you
know it's not I think a lot of people do
that more as like a proof of like, look, how
look how far I believe in what I believe? Yeah,
you know, like I won't even I won't even be
friends on Facebook with somebody who believes the opposite. Right,
That's just that's that's harmful. You know. Unfortunately, our country
(12:49):
has two main two main parties, and that just that
just sort of splits us right down the middle. You're
on this side or you're on that side. True, and
it's it's been our history forever, you know, like, and
that divides people in this just anyway, that's what that's
the opposite of what Sonder is about.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
That's right, And I think and anybody who's been like
an avid listener of the show knows Craig Smith pretty
well because he's been on the show a couple of times.
And Craig is like my guru, my conservative guru, you
know what I mean. Like he has obviously written for
President Ford and worked with President H. W. Bush and
is a true conservative in every sense of the way.
And you look at the history of conservatism in the
(13:28):
country or of being a Republican, and there's a lot
of important legislation that simply would not have gone through
without Republican support. The Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act,
like major stuff that even though Democrats are in control
of Congress at the time, still have a lot of
Dixiecrats in the sixties, et cetera, et cetera. I don't
mean to make this too political, but it is not.
And Sondra is about looking into situations and looking into people.
(13:49):
And I think that looking at people like that who
you disagree with in the President, we're encouraging people to
look into the people that you disagree with, positively or negatively,
in order to understand why they are the way they
are and where they're coming from. And each episode is
designed to give you a sort of slice of life
display of what that person's life might be like.
Speaker 4 (14:13):
Yeah, and you know, we try to make every every
episode funny, very palatable way.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Yeah, most of them are funny. There's no real cry episodes.
Speaker 4 (14:24):
Yeah, No, it's just it's just it's just a light
way of looking at somebody. You You don't, you don't
think about it. Do you want to tell them a
little bit about the the origin of the project, like
the way way back in the day, or well, like
how did you you? Because Will came to me with
this idea.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
I was writing something else and I was walking to
the liquor store to buy some beer and some ruffles.
I remember the snack you wanted, ruffles exactly.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
I went through a ruffles phase. It was very weird,
me and my roommate Katie.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
It's a solid chip.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
We ate a lot of ruffles last summer.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
And I listening to Anderson Pack who it's like my
favorite hip hop artist currently and he is very much
like the music of Los Angeles to me, like every
time I listen, I mean all his albums like Venis
and Malibu Ox and Our Adventure, like.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
It's all California based.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Or did you like to call the Steinbeck of hip
hop it's all his books were about California. And the
song the Bird, which is the opening track of Malibu,
was playing and there's this section of that song that
was like, you grew up in the home beside me.
You know we you know, we we sing the same songs,
we bleed the same blood. Like everything about being similar.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Said, Oh we ever need is love. We see the
same thing, We sing the same song, We feel the
same grief, We need the same blood. You grew up
in in the home beside me. I always had a
(15:57):
friend to call. How did I'm without? Before you go?
Speaker 2 (16:05):
And I'm just like, you know, kind of buzzed walking
to the liquor store for more beer, thinking about an
expiration of what it would be like to watch Slice
of life shows.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
To give people a peek into seeing what happens when
the interaction goes away. You know.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
So if you have an interaction positive or negative with
a stranger, that's usually the end of the story for us.
But what is each other's unique perspective? And it started
selfishly with uh, this actor, you know, I was like,
what is this? Wouldn't it be interesting to see this
like scene with an actor? But at the end there's
like a tease of another character and then we see
that character come back in a later episode and how
(16:44):
that person's life is connected.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
And he texted you.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
Yeah, and like like you do when you get an idea,
you you tell me and you're like and then we
and then we generally go off and write that thing there.
But I had I had been talking to my roommate
the day before and he was just like.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Who's actually the DP of this product the cinema?
Speaker 4 (17:03):
He is, and he he had listened to a podcast
or something. That's how he gets all his info.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Of course, he hosts his own podcast here on the
tray Hot Media Network called So I heard this interesting podcast?
Speaker 4 (17:13):
Yeah, that yep, he does.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
He does podcast review show around.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
He got his He got this information from a podcast,
as he gets all his information. And he said, I
was listening to this podcast and they were just like
defining weird words that like aren't in the everyday vocabulary
but exists in the dictionary. And I heard about this
word called sonder and it describes as feeling, which we
we just read the definition, which is that phenomenon of it,
(17:39):
You know, like you're walking down the sidewalk and you
realize man, all these people live their lives constantly in
their own heads, just like I do right now. And
he told me that, and I remember thinking, that is
a great idea for a vignette series.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
I had that feeling.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
I had that exact thought, and I said that. I
said that to him, and then the next day Will
text me, Hey, I have this idea for a vignette series.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
I knew you guys were talking about it and you
told me the definition, but I didn't know that you
had the idea that it would be a cool idea
for vignette series.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
No.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
I said that to Mike. I was like, this would
be a great idea for a vignette series, and then
it out of my head and then next day Will
text me, Hey, I have this idea for a vignette series.
And he laid it all out and I was like,
oh my god.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Oh that's Sonder. Another you say like, oh yeah, Mike
and I were talking about that. It's called Sonder, and
I was like, oh, there's a name for it. Yeah,
Thoesn't you know we're destined to work together, wow, because
we're basically on the same wavelength, So we basically got
the same idea at the same time, just in different ways.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
Right on the same day, because he told me the
day before, you called me the day after.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Your thought, that's right, So yeah, that's right. So that's
where that all came together. And we so yeah, we
started writing everything last summer and it came pretty quickly.
I think we probably had first drafts of things like
pretty Fat.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
We wrote thirteen, we wrote fifteen.
Speaker 4 (18:51):
We really we wrote fifteen episodes and then cut them
down to our best ten.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
I thought we had less okay, wow, okay.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
Yeah, and you know, we we sort of split it
down the middle. I wrote seven or eight, you wrote
seven or eight, and you know, helped each other out
during the process, you know, like we the the toughest
one actually was the was the character we talked about
who Will is actually going to be playing.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Yes, I am playing Trump supporter character because it's like
it's actually close to my heart because so much of
my family. I'm kind of like the Black Sheep, not
not an emotional or spiritual way, but in a political way,
just in that I'm a lot more free and open,
Like I post basically tasteful naked pictures of myself on
Instagram and don't think it's a big deal.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
You know.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
I think that's funny that we repress sexuality but we
bolster violence, which is like the opposite. But that's another conversation.
And so getting that character right was really important because
people who voted for Donald Trump are not bad people.
I think that that's something that we need to get over,
especially as like Democrats or liberals or like everyone needs
to fucking get over themselves and understand that inherently because
(19:57):
someone voted for Donald Trump does not make them a
bad person.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
We agree that they made a bad decision, correct, But
but but I say that, yeah, but they are they
are huge, They're they're they're people.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
And what are their influences that would make them think
that it's a good decision, or what are their influences
that led him to the point to feel so desperate
or in a place where they saw this guy and thought,
he is the one who's going to save me.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
He's the one who's going to help.
Speaker 4 (20:24):
Me, And I think or even just like I've been
a Republican my whole life, I'm not voting for Hillary,
so I guess I'm voting for this guy.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Right, right, And and or fucking Gary Johnson that was
my favorite. Everyone's like it. So we live in a democracy.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
I don't want to pick the lesser of two evils,
so I'm voting for the third party candidate. I'm like,
we live in a republic, a democratic republic.
Speaker 4 (20:45):
No, you're not doing anything.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Yeah, come on, don't forge, Okay, Johnson in twenty twenty,
please just pick a side. But yeah, but but but
no fence sitting, no fence sitting, and no wasting votes
in in writing that character, he was like a mustache
twirling racist for like a really long time.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
I think we had a really hard time writing that character.
Will wrote, too, I love you, but they were bad.
Of course they were bad. I wrote too, I can
tell you right now they were bad. And then finally
we sat down together and found something where it was
you know, we we think we found the humanity in
(21:24):
that character.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Right yeah, and we give him things about life that
to me, it's it.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Is monumentally important even for listeners of this show to
understand that compassion is oftentimes the most difficult thing that
we can do because it takes a lot of patience
and we have to have compassion for people who are
different than us. Obviously, in all regards, and so this
show is about celebrating diversity, so I would hope that
(21:55):
it would inspire people, let's say, on the right to
have compassion for people in the LGBTQ plus community, who
have compassion for immigants, to compassion for anyone, but I am.
We are also asking people to have compassion for the
people that they disagree with, which means to me, we
don't give up on anybody, you know what I mean.
(22:17):
It seems a little holier than now, which I don't
necessarily mean it to be that way. But to understand
that people who voted for Donald Trump are people in
and of themselves and have their own problems and have
their own sets of whatever and their own influences means
that we have to have compassion and a lot of
patients in if we desire to defeat hatred, we have
(22:41):
to be patient while it's happening in order to dismantle it.
You know, like we dream of just waking up tomorrow
and having there be no racism. We're having there be
no hatred or having their be whatever, but that's not
how life works. And having the patience and the compassion
for people even that we like don't like is it's
(23:02):
super important.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
It's work because like I mean, even in the even
in the fact that like that's why it was so
hard for us to write, to write that pieces, Like
even even people who came at a project thinking like, Okay,
I I want to understand the other side of this kid,
the understand what a person on the other side is like,
even for somebody like us who say, like, Okay, we
(23:24):
set out for this project thinking I want to understand
the other side. That's not that's not that's not that's
You're not done there, you know, like we said, Okay,
this is a project about understanding people of all walks
of life, even even even people who we don't agree with.
So we sat down to write this character, and we
wrote him poorly. We wrote him as a turly mustache villa,
(23:47):
like you know, we had We had bad versions of
this scene left and right, and it really took us
five tries. And like sitting back and like I remember,
I went and read just like blogs of people making
the case for why Donald Trump is the answer, you know,
and like you know, I read some stuff that I
didn't like, but you know, I tried to find I
(24:08):
tried to find versions of things that were the most
logical and like, Okay, I can maybe see how you
got there on this and that, but it took work.
It is not it's not about just saying like I
want to understand everyone. It's about putting in the putting
in the work that it takes, yeah, to actually make
that a reality.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
And I think when we draw a hard line in
our lives and we say like, these people have no
place being around me, it actually takes value away from
your life. Your life becomes more valuable because you struggle,
you know, like a life without struggle or suffering is
inherently not is not interesting.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
And I sort of talked about that on the last episode.
And and so when.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
You have a lot of people who were like, if
you voted for Donald Trump, I'm gonna unfriend you again,
that just sounds like the most juvenile thing anyone could
ever do. But also so it's saying that there's no
room in your life for debate and there's no room
in your life for growth and change. Now, if we
lived in a fucking utopia where everything was perfect and
(25:13):
we all got along and there's peace of an understanding,
which is impossible, but hypothetically let's say that that's the
place that we're living. Do you think that life would
be interesting?
Speaker 1 (25:24):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
I'm not saying that chaos is essential to life being interesting.
But it's like the Garden of Eden, right, if the
devil didn't tempt eave out of it in order to
understand what her own free will was, would the Garden
of Eden really been a great place or would we
have just been automatons? And so I think living your
life bouncing back and forth between people that you agree
and disagree with on many different levels, is integral to
(25:48):
making your life interesting and giving your life value, you
know what I mean. As opposed to saying I want
everything the way that I want it and then life
will be perfect. It's like that, it doesn't work like that.
Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans, right,
or what's the other one? If you want to make
God laugh, tell them your plans, Like everything goes to
(26:09):
shit because it's not possible. And I think that that's
learn to love the struggle was the title of the
last episode, and really understanding that, like life is fucking
hard and that's great, Yeah, you know, is the important takeaway,
and so for the show, I think that's a big
part of it. It's like it's messy and weird and
(26:30):
all over the place, and everybody puts their foot in
their mouth. And I think that too, especially like you know,
in twenty nineteen, we are very very conscious about the
way that we phrase things and how we word things,
and we want to get pronouns right and we want
to do everything correctly. But people are going to fuck
it up, undoubtedly, yeah, you know, but if their heart
(26:51):
is in the right place. And that's another episode where
we kind of use that theme.
Speaker 4 (26:55):
Yeah, I mean, the overall thing is people are people.
We're all people, and this is you know, this is
just about this is about all of that, and just
understand the other side. Understand that we're understand the humanity
in it all. And yeah, we start we start production
tomorrow on so it will have been yesterday and it
(27:20):
will have gone great. We're strapping some cameras to some cars.
It's gonna go great.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (27:26):
And yes, if you just you know, give us give
us a follow saunder dot l a, we will. We
promised the content will be good.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
The whole show is going to live on Instagram too.
So like, yeah, it's a web series, but it's not
like on YouTube of whatever. Everything is on Instagram and
it's formatted uniquely for Instagram.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
So we're shooting it vertically and we've found it's been
a challenge so far, but we found unique ways to
sort of use that that framework that I mean that
that you know that that composition.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Told your Instagram stories, told.
Speaker 4 (27:57):
Your Instagram stories. We we think it's gonna be good.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
It's gonna be great. We don't think it's gonna be good.
It's gonna be the fucking greatest thing you've ever seen.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
It's gonna be the greatest thing you've ever seen.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
So follow it. Now that sounds very trumpy. This is
the best thing you've ever seen. Okay, nobody knows Instagram.
It worked for him, so nobody knows Instagram.
Speaker 4 (28:16):
Yeah, anyway, we were trying something. The message behind it
is something that I think everybody should agree with.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Alex, you're so much better about time management than me.
Speaker 4 (28:25):
What do you mean because I mean I I okay, sorry,
I saw we were at twenty eight. I was like,
I don't want to stretch it out longer than this.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
But what's funny is that every time I go to
record by myself, I'm like, it's just me in a
room alone talking to fake people. I mean it's real
people listening later, but like there's nobody in my house,
and I'm like, I'm only gonna record for fifteen to
twenty minutes. I always talk for like forty minutes. Every
episode is me by myself in forty minutes. And you're like,
all right, we're at the thirty minute mark, like you're
wrapping it up, like I need you around all the
(28:52):
time so I can be better about time management.
Speaker 4 (28:55):
Well, I have never done a podcast before.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Really, this is your first one. Really, I thought you'd
been maybe done something. No, God, we popped your podcast. Cherry.
Speaker 4 (29:06):
It's popped.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
It's popped pop that that'll never be back.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
But it's like one of those delicious, like bourbon soaked cherries,
like the dark maroon ones in an old fashioned.
Speaker 4 (29:15):
Bourban bourb Yeah. No, it's my first podcast, Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Well yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Saunder dot La on Instagram is where you can find everything.
There's gonna behind the scenes videos. We're posting all of
our cast headshots.
Speaker 4 (29:27):
And then we launch on October sixteenth. We're gonna launch
three episodes and then one a week after that, so
it'll run for eight weeks. We really, we really think
we're tapping into something cool here, So you know, please
give us a follow and check out what we're doing
before before it all launches. I don't think you'll regretted.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Yeah, no one's gonna regret it.
Speaker 4 (29:50):
I mean, it's a follow, you follow like a thousand things.
Just just do a thousand dogs and you could. You
can even mute us.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Just give us the follow exactly. Yeah, follow and mute immediately.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
No, don't do that, don't do that, but truly give
us a couple of double taps too.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
If it's a couple of double times. If you found
value in this show, it is weird to think that
I've been doing this for almost three years. For over
three years, jesus.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
If you find value in the show, if it's helped
you in any way, you know, you can rate and.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Review the show.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
But follow, follow the Instagram web series. I've you guys know,
I'm not missed a podcast. I like doing podcasts. I'm
good at it. But acting and writing is really and
directing is really the focus. So if you want to
see those things in action, if you've enjoyed listening to
the dulcet tones of my voice.
Speaker 4 (30:37):
He's pretty good at the other stuff too. Don't tell
him I said this, but yeah, the writing, directing, the
acting thing, I've been watching him do it for a
bit pretty good.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Oh my gosh, your first podcast. You're making me a blush.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
If you want to see those things in action. You know,
you guys have seen me maybe on bit parts on
TV shows and stuff, but something that's the brainchild of
me coming from from this podcast and Alex and and
get a sense for our voice and the way that
we work together and just what we want to share
with the world. Following the Instagram account is UH is
the best way to discover that.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
So give us a follow.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
All right.
Speaker 4 (31:17):
We've asked for seventimes times we should have had Like, so,
we're so thirsty.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
You know what's funny is UH. I will post like
fitness progress pictures of myself and people be like, oh,
you're thirsty, and I'm like, I don't actually know what
that means. Does that mean that like I'm asking for
people to DM me so I.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Can have sex with those people? Yeah, yeah, you get
the idea. I don't want Yeah, Okay, well.
Speaker 4 (31:41):
We're thirsty for follows. We're thirsty, We're we're thirsty to
spread the message.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
There you go, we're thirsty to spread I got a
fever and the only prescription is for you to follow
Sunder dot la on Instagram. This has been the motivation report.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
It's gonna be great.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
You're welcome, goodbye. Follow us on early Instagram.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
But you mimy what it needs to be human?
Speaker 4 (32:13):
Human human human See the staddic
Speaker 3 (32:28):
No attachment
Straw Hut Media Alex Kimer.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Take this, Take this, I have to hold it. We
were both holding microphones and I'm trying to wait listen.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, that is that's the sound of
a beer. This is the motivation Report. Let's do it.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
A bird with the word came to me the sweetness
of a honey cone tree, and now my look was
taking over me. Couldn't fake it if I wanted to.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
It has been a while since I have a drink
on the podcast. I used to my whole stick was like,
this is not your fucking mom's motivational podcast. I have
a cocktail and two cool stuff and I'm going to
write a book called don't buy this fucking book because
like I'm hard and edgy and almost thirty two. And
then like on Amazon Audible, like all of the books
(00:54):
are like girl, wash your fucking face and like like
get your fucking act together, Like now it's the cool
try anything to swear and also be motivational.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
So I'm really just I'm honestly just a cliche. Now
It's okay.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
I like to believe that I started it like unconsciously
and just put it out into the ether.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
And then some people took the idea and ran with it.
But it's fine.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
So I'm here with my one of my best friends
and my writing partner, Alex Wall today. Hello everybody, Hello everybody,
and we're drinking some beers.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
We're doing Lagunita's Maximus because we are.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
Dave's got Dave's got an itche it's.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
My dog scratching himself.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
This is a very low key episode because I wanted
to share about a project that I've been doing that
Alex and I have created together. It's called Sonder and
we were actually at the pool today getting some sun
because we're going to start production tomorrow. For anybody listening,
this will go up on Monday. We're recording on a Saturday,
so tomorrow Sunday, so by the time you hear this, we.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
Will have already shot our first episode and crushed it.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yeah, it's gonna go the best that it's ever gone.
We will have shot our first episode. But we were
thinking about marketing for the show, and we built a
social media page. So right now, while you're listening to
this episode, get your phone out of your pocket, get
your life together, get on Instagram, go to Sonder dot La.
Follow Sonder dot l a for all the updates from
(02:18):
the show.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
It's really not not just for us. You're like, you're
gonna you're gonna like it.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
You're gonna like it.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
There's gonna be a lot for you. It's not necessarily
it is a shameless plug. But I don't give a shit.
I've been doing this show for almost god almost three years,
and uh, you know, it's never about me.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
It's not about the money. And this is the one
he makes.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
He makes almost no money.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
In my whole life. I make almost no money in general.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
I'm in his apartment right now. He makes no money.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
It's true, there's nothing. That's why it only beer and
empty seven to eleven water bottles. But so we wanted
to talk about what sonder is. And I think the
fun part about that is that sonder is a sort
of ethereal idea that I don't even know if it's
in the Webster's like dictionary, but it is defined on Wikipedia.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
I can bring it up. Yeah, yeah, we have, we
have a verbatim.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
We have the definition written out. But I always wondered
in my life, when you're driving in your car and
you you know, somebody cuts you off or whatever, somebody
Hanks get like fucking pissed off.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
I've always been like, man, what is that person's day?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Like, you know, like an incident that happens that's negative
or positive in any way that it moves. It isn't
just that incident. It's coming from something and then it's
going to something else. And so Sonder is kind of
this notion.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
Yeah, he didn't even know he was experiencing this feeling.
Experiencing this feeling Sonder as defined, is the profound feeling
of realizing that everyone, including strangers past on the street,
has a life as complex as one's zone which they
are constantly living despite one's personal lack of awareness of it.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
And that's so I've just always been so fascinating because
we have to understand and I've talked a lot about
it on the show. Is that I think to work
towards being successful and both happy at the same time.
Is this understanding of embracing the inherent contradictions of life,
so you're simultaneously the most important person in the universe
and the least important person. You know what I mean
(04:17):
that I mean it sounds like really sad, but in
order to give your life and your universe happiness. You
have to understand how important you are to the world
and that without you the world wouldn't be the same.
But two hundred years from now, no one's gonna remember
who we are, you know, technically unless you commit.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Some crazy atrocity or you're Steven Spielberg.
Speaker 4 (04:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Yeah, And so Sunder is this idea that like, when
you're living your life, it really ties into having kindness
and empathy for others because you see them not just
as an object or or something in your space or
in your way, but as a person who's undoubtedly going
through the same struggles in some ways you will.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
It's it's really just like the you know, the thing
that we as a country and a world right now
really need to really need to feel more often, right,
you know, because like we're we're divided, like we're like
I don't I don't know what the life of you know,
as a country if we're talking about in that regards,
like we're divided right and left right now, and there's
(05:17):
I have maybe one or two friends who I would
call on the right, and other than that, I don't
know what the I don't know what the life of
the other side is.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Yeah, I think that that's a good point too, because
I have a lot most of my family is, like,
you know, voted for Donald Trump, and I I don't
think I'm doing myself any favors in this podcast of
like creating a middle of the road show.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
It's not a surprise that I really don't respect. I
respect the office of the president and believe that that
person is is a disrespect to the office. That's the
thing that frustrates me is people will be like, you
have to respect him because he's the president, and I'm like, no, Actually,
like the whole point of being patriotic is precisely the
opposite of that notion, which is that he has an
(06:00):
obligation and a duty to be the greatest among us,
and I think is disrespecting the office by being who
he is.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
But that's neither here nor there.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
You know, We're trying to paint the picture of what
does it mean to have empathy for people who are
different than us in every way?
Speaker 4 (06:17):
Yeah, exactly, I mean, and you know, we have we're
obviously coming at this from the left side, but the
you know, like if we had a mission statement, it
would be you know, to show that every human no
matter who they are or what they believe in, are
at the end of the day, human beings who are
going through basically the same sort of struggles.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
It's true, and I think even we're sort of you know,
we're in the wake of a couple of tragedies, but
there's like a mass shooting every day basically now statistically
there was like a mass shooting. It's almost once a day,
which is crazy. I mean, I think it's like considered
three people who were killed with you know, but regardless,
we want to point the finger a lot of different things.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
And that you know that that comes back, it's you know,
that comes from a place of like, you know, being
entrenched in your in your own ideologies and whatever, whatever
beliefs they come from. But also just like the devaluation
of another life. And this this this show which we
haven't defined yet. Let's maybe we should tell everybody exactly
what it is. That's true's you've given them the tops
the premise. Yeah, it's a it's an Instagram web series.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
Right.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
We're doing ten short episodes, uh, each about three minutes long,
and they they highlight a different underrepresented character that in
Los Angeles, you like, you don't see every day. Some
of our characters we have we actually we do have
a Trump supporter character, so we try to show show
that side and show the human humanity behind somebody who
(07:47):
you know, doesn't share the same beliefs as you. We
have a trans character, we have characters, we have some
gay characters. We have a gay child, We.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Have actors of color, we have we.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
Have travel We have some travelers who are what's the
definition of like some of the people you see under
the intense, under the bridges and things like that, right,
homeless population, Yeah, but you know, not just homeless. They're
sort of a specific, specific type of homeless.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
It's sort of a life choice for some people, which
a lot of people don't know. And you did the
research on that, which I think is fascinating.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
That excuse me a lot of people it is.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
It is the result of, I guess, the path that
their life has taken, and a lot of that is
out of their control. And I've talked about that a
lot on the show. It's like, I have a problem
when people are like, if I give that person money,
They're just gonna buy booz er, drugs or whatever. And
I'm like, maybe, but that's also what you're gonna buy.
But that's all I never thought of it that way.
That's exactly right. And also everybody's addicted to prescription painkillers.
(08:55):
But a lot of people have chosen to be homeless basically,
And this is research that you did for the episode.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean it's a it's a it's
a fascinating life choice and you know, like a very
cheap way to see a lot of the world. You're
gonna get looked down upon, but yeah, people choose. People
do choose that life. They're not just homeless because of
mental illness or or addiction or you know, just straight poverty.
They've they've chosen to travel around the world the country
(09:25):
like this. Yeah, so yeah, we do have we do
have an episode all about that, m M. And you know,
like all around, it's just a it's just a show
about diversity, celebrating diversity, showing showing people a slice of
life that they they don't see in their in their
day to day.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Right and ideally, and I think we've talked about this too.
I think truly the theme of the show is like
for the audience, not necessarily for the characters. Because all
these characters intersect in some minor way with each other
throughout the ten episodes, and so it's it's about it's
that suggestion of realizing that the people you pass in
your day to day could be tremendously important or valuable
(10:08):
or going through something that you don't understand, and their
behavior is not incidental, you know, it's not just doesn't
come out of nowhere, like a person who's pissed off
in his car, or somebody behaving a certain way in
a moment isn't behaving that way in a moment just
because like we're like I feel like being a dick today,
you know.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
Yeah, there's a lot behind that, you know, like the
the asshole that that hanks at you and gives you
the finger because you took you took a second too
long to drive, to drive ahead when it's the light
turned green. You know, like maybe maybe they've got some
deep family issues. Yeah, maybe you know, who knows what's
going on. And that's and we judge people too quickly,
(10:46):
and that's that's what leads to a lot of the
divisiveness in our country. I think, you know, it's like
what you know, we we make instant reads on people,
and yeah, you know, like, uh, I personally have one
friend who our friendship was kind of hurt by the
(11:06):
fact that you know, he was he was on the
other side. He is a Trump supporter, and we've gotten
lots of arguments about that. But at the same time,
I can, I can. I know, I know he's a
good guy. He just he believes different things than I do.
And I think we all get to a place of like,
as as things ramp up, you know politically, where you
think you think you can't see the humanity behind the
(11:30):
other side, but there they are people. They're people just
like us.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
I think it's sort of irresponsible. And this was going
on a lot too when when he was elected. A
lot of people on Facebook were like, if you voted
for Trump, I'm unfriending you, and I was like.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Good job, Like what a what an adult you are?
How responsible?
Speaker 2 (11:50):
You know what I mean that what you've done is
you've caught off the ability to communicate with somebody who's.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Different than you.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
And what we're encouraging is that still a lot of
voices and minorities are not being heard, and so we're
trying to say, like to that majority or Christian America,
let's say like listen to these people too, because they
have the same struggles, if they're in the LGBTQ plus community,
if they're people of color, if they're from other countries.
But what we also want to do, which is truly
(12:18):
the balance, is say, like, you are not doing yourself
any favors by shutting off people who disagree with you
simply because of.
Speaker 4 (12:25):
That, you're making the problem worse exactly. Yeah, And you
know it's not I think a lot of people do
that more as like a proof of like, look, how
look how far I believe in what I believe? Yeah,
you know, like I won't even I won't even be
friends on Facebook with somebody who believes the opposite. Right,
That's just that's that's harmful. You know. Unfortunately, our country
(12:49):
has two main two main parties, and that just that
just sort of splits us right down the middle. You're
on this side or you're on that side. True, and
it's it's been our history forever, you know, like, and
that divides people in this just anyway, that's what that's
the opposite of what Sonder is about.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
That's right, And I think and anybody who's been like
an avid listener of the show knows Craig Smith pretty
well because he's been on the show a couple of times.
And Craig is like my guru, my conservative guru, you
know what I mean. Like he has obviously written for
President Ford and worked with President H. W. Bush and
is a true conservative in every sense of the way.
And you look at the history of conservatism in the
(13:28):
country or of being a Republican, and there's a lot
of important legislation that simply would not have gone through
without Republican support. The Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act,
like major stuff that even though Democrats are in control
of Congress at the time, still have a lot of
Dixiecrats in the sixties, et cetera, et cetera. I don't
mean to make this too political, but it is not.
And Sondra is about looking into situations and looking into people.
(13:49):
And I think that looking at people like that who
you disagree with in the President, we're encouraging people to
look into the people that you disagree with, positively or negatively,
in order to understand why they are the way they
are and where they're coming from. And each episode is
designed to give you a sort of slice of life
display of what that person's life might be like.
Speaker 4 (14:13):
Yeah, and you know, we try to make every every
episode funny, very palatable way.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Yeah, most of them are funny. There's no real cry episodes.
Speaker 4 (14:24):
Yeah, No, it's just it's just it's just a light
way of looking at somebody. You You don't, you don't
think about it. Do you want to tell them a
little bit about the the origin of the project, like
the way way back in the day, or well, like
how did you you? Because Will came to me with
this idea.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
I was writing something else and I was walking to
the liquor store to buy some beer and some ruffles.
I remember the snack you wanted, ruffles exactly.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
I went through a ruffles phase. It was very weird,
me and my roommate Katie.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
It's a solid chip.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
We ate a lot of ruffles last summer.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
And I listening to Anderson Pack who it's like my
favorite hip hop artist currently and he is very much
like the music of Los Angeles to me, like every
time I listen, I mean all his albums like Venis
and Malibu Ox and Our Adventure, like.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
It's all California based.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Or did you like to call the Steinbeck of hip
hop it's all his books were about California. And the
song the Bird, which is the opening track of Malibu,
was playing and there's this section of that song that
was like, you grew up in the home beside me.
You know we you know, we we sing the same songs,
we bleed the same blood. Like everything about being similar.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Said, Oh we ever need is love. We see the
same thing, We sing the same song, We feel the
same grief, We need the same blood. You grew up
in in the home beside me. I always had a
(15:57):
friend to call. How did I'm without? Before you go?
Speaker 2 (16:05):
And I'm just like, you know, kind of buzzed walking
to the liquor store for more beer, thinking about an
expiration of what it would be like to watch Slice
of life shows.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
To give people a peek into seeing what happens when
the interaction goes away. You know.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
So if you have an interaction positive or negative with
a stranger, that's usually the end of the story for us.
But what is each other's unique perspective? And it started
selfishly with uh, this actor, you know, I was like,
what is this? Wouldn't it be interesting to see this
like scene with an actor? But at the end there's
like a tease of another character and then we see
that character come back in a later episode and how
(16:44):
that person's life is connected.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
And he texted you.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
Yeah, and like like you do when you get an idea,
you you tell me and you're like and then we
and then we generally go off and write that thing there.
But I had I had been talking to my roommate
the day before and he was just like.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Who's actually the DP of this product the cinema?
Speaker 4 (17:03):
He is, and he he had listened to a podcast
or something. That's how he gets all his info.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Of course, he hosts his own podcast here on the
tray Hot Media Network called So I heard this interesting podcast?
Speaker 4 (17:13):
Yeah, that yep, he does.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
He does podcast review show around.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
He got his He got this information from a podcast,
as he gets all his information. And he said, I
was listening to this podcast and they were just like
defining weird words that like aren't in the everyday vocabulary
but exists in the dictionary. And I heard about this
word called sonder and it describes as feeling, which we
we just read the definition, which is that phenomenon of it,
(17:39):
You know, like you're walking down the sidewalk and you
realize man, all these people live their lives constantly in
their own heads, just like I do right now. And
he told me that, and I remember thinking, that is
a great idea for a vignette series.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
I had that feeling.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
I had that exact thought, and I said that. I
said that to him, and then the next day Will
text me, Hey, I have this idea for a vignette series.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
I knew you guys were talking about it and you
told me the definition, but I didn't know that you
had the idea that it would be a cool idea
for vignette series.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
No.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
I said that to Mike. I was like, this would
be a great idea for a vignette series, and then
it out of my head and then next day Will
text me, Hey, I have this idea for a vignette series.
And he laid it all out and I was like,
oh my god.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Oh that's Sonder. Another you say like, oh yeah, Mike
and I were talking about that. It's called Sonder, and
I was like, oh, there's a name for it. Yeah,
Thoesn't you know we're destined to work together, wow, because
we're basically on the same wavelength, So we basically got
the same idea at the same time, just in different ways.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
Right on the same day, because he told me the
day before, you called me the day after.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Your thought, that's right, So yeah, that's right. So that's
where that all came together. And we so yeah, we
started writing everything last summer and it came pretty quickly.
I think we probably had first drafts of things like
pretty Fat.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
We wrote thirteen, we wrote fifteen.
Speaker 4 (18:51):
We really we wrote fifteen episodes and then cut them
down to our best ten.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
I thought we had less okay, wow, okay.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
Yeah, and you know, we we sort of split it
down the middle. I wrote seven or eight, you wrote
seven or eight, and you know, helped each other out
during the process, you know, like we the the toughest
one actually was the was the character we talked about
who Will is actually going to be playing.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Yes, I am playing Trump supporter character because it's like
it's actually close to my heart because so much of
my family. I'm kind of like the Black Sheep, not
not an emotional or spiritual way, but in a political way,
just in that I'm a lot more free and open,
Like I post basically tasteful naked pictures of myself on
Instagram and don't think it's a big deal.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
You know.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
I think that's funny that we repress sexuality but we
bolster violence, which is like the opposite. But that's another conversation.
And so getting that character right was really important because
people who voted for Donald Trump are not bad people.
I think that that's something that we need to get over,
especially as like Democrats or liberals or like everyone needs
to fucking get over themselves and understand that inherently because
(19:57):
someone voted for Donald Trump does not make them a
bad person.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
We agree that they made a bad decision, correct, But
but but I say that, yeah, but they are they
are huge, They're they're they're people.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
And what are their influences that would make them think
that it's a good decision, or what are their influences
that led him to the point to feel so desperate
or in a place where they saw this guy and thought,
he is the one who's going to save me.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
He's the one who's going to help.
Speaker 4 (20:24):
Me, And I think or even just like I've been
a Republican my whole life, I'm not voting for Hillary,
so I guess I'm voting for this guy.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Right, right, And and or fucking Gary Johnson that was
my favorite. Everyone's like it. So we live in a democracy.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
I don't want to pick the lesser of two evils,
so I'm voting for the third party candidate. I'm like,
we live in a republic, a democratic republic.
Speaker 4 (20:45):
No, you're not doing anything.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Yeah, come on, don't forge, Okay, Johnson in twenty twenty,
please just pick a side. But yeah, but but but
no fence sitting, no fence sitting, and no wasting votes
in in writing that character, he was like a mustache
twirling racist for like a really long time.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
I think we had a really hard time writing that character.
Will wrote, too, I love you, but they were bad.
Of course they were bad. I wrote too, I can
tell you right now they were bad. And then finally
we sat down together and found something where it was
you know, we we think we found the humanity in
(21:24):
that character.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Right yeah, and we give him things about life that
to me, it's it.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Is monumentally important even for listeners of this show to
understand that compassion is oftentimes the most difficult thing that
we can do because it takes a lot of patience
and we have to have compassion for people who are
different than us. Obviously, in all regards, and so this
show is about celebrating diversity, so I would hope that
(21:55):
it would inspire people, let's say, on the right to
have compassion for people in the LGBTQ plus community, who
have compassion for immigants, to compassion for anyone, but I am.
We are also asking people to have compassion for the
people that they disagree with, which means to me, we
don't give up on anybody, you know what I mean.
(22:17):
It seems a little holier than now, which I don't
necessarily mean it to be that way. But to understand
that people who voted for Donald Trump are people in
and of themselves and have their own problems and have
their own sets of whatever and their own influences means
that we have to have compassion and a lot of
patients in if we desire to defeat hatred, we have
(22:41):
to be patient while it's happening in order to dismantle it.
You know, like we dream of just waking up tomorrow
and having there be no racism. We're having there be
no hatred or having their be whatever, but that's not
how life works. And having the patience and the compassion
for people even that we like don't like is it's
(23:02):
super important.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
It's work because like I mean, even in the even
in the fact that like that's why it was so
hard for us to write, to write that pieces, Like
even even people who came at a project thinking like, Okay,
I I want to understand the other side of this kid,
the understand what a person on the other side is like,
even for somebody like us who say, like, Okay, we
(23:24):
set out for this project thinking I want to understand
the other side. That's not that's not that's not that's
You're not done there, you know, like we said, Okay,
this is a project about understanding people of all walks
of life, even even even people who we don't agree with.
So we sat down to write this character, and we
wrote him poorly. We wrote him as a turly mustache villa,
(23:47):
like you know, we had We had bad versions of
this scene left and right, and it really took us
five tries. And like sitting back and like I remember,
I went and read just like blogs of people making
the case for why Donald Trump is the answer, you know,
and like you know, I read some stuff that I
didn't like, but you know, I tried to find I
(24:08):
tried to find versions of things that were the most
logical and like, Okay, I can maybe see how you
got there on this and that, but it took work.
It is not it's not about just saying like I
want to understand everyone. It's about putting in the putting
in the work that it takes, yeah, to actually make
that a reality.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
And I think when we draw a hard line in
our lives and we say like, these people have no
place being around me, it actually takes value away from
your life. Your life becomes more valuable because you struggle,
you know, like a life without struggle or suffering is
inherently not is not interesting.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
And I sort of talked about that on the last episode.
And and so when.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
You have a lot of people who were like, if
you voted for Donald Trump, I'm gonna unfriend you again,
that just sounds like the most juvenile thing anyone could
ever do. But also so it's saying that there's no
room in your life for debate and there's no room
in your life for growth and change. Now, if we
lived in a fucking utopia where everything was perfect and
(25:13):
we all got along and there's peace of an understanding,
which is impossible, but hypothetically let's say that that's the
place that we're living. Do you think that life would
be interesting?
Speaker 1 (25:24):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
I'm not saying that chaos is essential to life being interesting.
But it's like the Garden of Eden, right, if the
devil didn't tempt eave out of it in order to
understand what her own free will was, would the Garden
of Eden really been a great place or would we
have just been automatons? And so I think living your
life bouncing back and forth between people that you agree
and disagree with on many different levels, is integral to
(25:48):
making your life interesting and giving your life value, you
know what I mean. As opposed to saying I want
everything the way that I want it and then life
will be perfect. It's like that, it doesn't work like that.
Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans, right,
or what's the other one? If you want to make
God laugh, tell them your plans, Like everything goes to
(26:09):
shit because it's not possible. And I think that that's
learn to love the struggle was the title of the
last episode, and really understanding that, like life is fucking
hard and that's great, Yeah, you know, is the important takeaway,
and so for the show, I think that's a big
part of it. It's like it's messy and weird and
(26:30):
all over the place, and everybody puts their foot in
their mouth. And I think that too, especially like you know,
in twenty nineteen, we are very very conscious about the
way that we phrase things and how we word things,
and we want to get pronouns right and we want
to do everything correctly. But people are going to fuck
it up, undoubtedly, yeah, you know, but if their heart
(26:51):
is in the right place. And that's another episode where
we kind of use that theme.
Speaker 4 (26:55):
Yeah, I mean, the overall thing is people are people.
We're all people, and this is you know, this is
just about this is about all of that, and just
understand the other side. Understand that we're understand the humanity
in it all. And yeah, we start we start production
tomorrow on so it will have been yesterday and it
(27:20):
will have gone great. We're strapping some cameras to some cars.
It's gonna go great.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (27:26):
And yes, if you just you know, give us give
us a follow saunder dot l a, we will. We
promised the content will be good.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
The whole show is going to live on Instagram too.
So like, yeah, it's a web series, but it's not
like on YouTube of whatever. Everything is on Instagram and
it's formatted uniquely for Instagram.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
So we're shooting it vertically and we've found it's been
a challenge so far, but we found unique ways to
sort of use that that framework that I mean that
that you know that that composition.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Told your Instagram stories, told.
Speaker 4 (27:57):
Your Instagram stories. We we think it's gonna be good.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
It's gonna be great. We don't think it's gonna be good.
It's gonna be the fucking greatest thing you've ever seen.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
It's gonna be the greatest thing you've ever seen.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
So follow it. Now that sounds very trumpy. This is
the best thing you've ever seen. Okay, nobody knows Instagram.
It worked for him, so nobody knows Instagram.
Speaker 4 (28:16):
Yeah, anyway, we were trying something. The message behind it
is something that I think everybody should agree with.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Alex, you're so much better about time management than me.
Speaker 4 (28:25):
What do you mean because I mean I I okay, sorry,
I saw we were at twenty eight. I was like,
I don't want to stretch it out longer than this.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
But what's funny is that every time I go to
record by myself, I'm like, it's just me in a
room alone talking to fake people. I mean it's real
people listening later, but like there's nobody in my house,
and I'm like, I'm only gonna record for fifteen to
twenty minutes. I always talk for like forty minutes. Every
episode is me by myself in forty minutes. And you're like,
all right, we're at the thirty minute mark, like you're
wrapping it up, like I need you around all the
(28:52):
time so I can be better about time management.
Speaker 4 (28:55):
Well, I have never done a podcast before.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Really, this is your first one. Really, I thought you'd
been maybe done something. No, God, we popped your podcast. Cherry.
Speaker 4 (29:06):
It's popped.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
It's popped pop that that'll never be back.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
But it's like one of those delicious, like bourbon soaked cherries,
like the dark maroon ones in an old fashioned.
Speaker 4 (29:15):
Bourban bourb Yeah. No, it's my first podcast, Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Well yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Saunder dot La on Instagram is where you can find everything.
There's gonna behind the scenes videos. We're posting all of
our cast headshots.
Speaker 4 (29:27):
And then we launch on October sixteenth. We're gonna launch
three episodes and then one a week after that, so
it'll run for eight weeks. We really, we really think
we're tapping into something cool here, So you know, please
give us a follow and check out what we're doing
before before it all launches. I don't think you'll regretted.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Yeah, no one's gonna regret it.
Speaker 4 (29:50):
I mean, it's a follow, you follow like a thousand things.
Just just do a thousand dogs and you could. You
can even mute us.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Just give us the follow exactly. Yeah, follow and mute immediately.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
No, don't do that, don't do that, but truly give
us a couple of double taps too.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
If it's a couple of double times. If you found
value in this show, it is weird to think that
I've been doing this for almost three years. For over
three years, jesus.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
If you find value in the show, if it's helped
you in any way, you know, you can rate and.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Review the show.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
But follow, follow the Instagram web series. I've you guys know,
I'm not missed a podcast. I like doing podcasts. I'm
good at it. But acting and writing is really and
directing is really the focus. So if you want to
see those things in action, if you've enjoyed listening to
the dulcet tones of my voice.
Speaker 4 (30:37):
He's pretty good at the other stuff too. Don't tell
him I said this, but yeah, the writing, directing, the
acting thing, I've been watching him do it for a
bit pretty good.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Oh my gosh, your first podcast. You're making me a blush.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
If you want to see those things in action. You know,
you guys have seen me maybe on bit parts on
TV shows and stuff, but something that's the brainchild of
me coming from from this podcast and Alex and and
get a sense for our voice and the way that
we work together and just what we want to share
with the world. Following the Instagram account is UH is
the best way to discover that.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
So give us a follow.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
All right.
Speaker 4 (31:17):
We've asked for seventimes times we should have had Like, so,
we're so thirsty.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
You know what's funny is UH. I will post like
fitness progress pictures of myself and people be like, oh,
you're thirsty, and I'm like, I don't actually know what
that means. Does that mean that like I'm asking for
people to DM me so I.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Can have sex with those people? Yeah, yeah, you get
the idea. I don't want Yeah, Okay, well.
Speaker 4 (31:41):
We're thirsty for follows. We're thirsty, We're we're thirsty to
spread the message.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
There you go, we're thirsty to spread I got a
fever and the only prescription is for you to follow
Sunder dot la on Instagram. This has been the motivation report.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
It's gonna be great.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
You're welcome, goodbye. Follow us on early Instagram.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
But you mimy what it needs to be human?
Speaker 4 (32:13):
Human human human See the staddic
Speaker 3 (32:28):
No attachment
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