“A Strange Loop” Playwright, Composer & Lyricist, Michael R. Jackson

Published Nov 27, 2023, 12:01 AM

Isaac Mizrahi chats with Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner, Michael R. Jackson about why getting rejected by Liz Phair was the best thing that happened to him, the invaluable advice Judith Light gave him, his unforgettable dating experience and more.

Follow Hello Isaac on @helloisaacpodcast on Instagram and TikTok, Isaac @imisaacmizrahi on Instagram and TikTok and Michael R. Jackson @thelivingmichaeljackson.

(Recorded on October 24, 2023)

Darlings.

I have a few shows coming up, firstly at Cafe Carlisle on November twenty eighth and twenty ninth. The show is called It's Beginning to Look a Lot like Isaac, And in case you didn't realize, that's going to sort of be like a little holiday show, So it's going to be totally fun. My band stories I'm gonna regift because it's around the holidays and I need to make room for my new.

Regifting, So there's that.

Also, I have another show on December one in Stony Brook, which is in New York, and that's going to be really fun too. Please go to my website Hello Isaac to get tickets Hello Isaac dot com.

Finally, I did make contact with this fair to ask for permission to use these songs in the musical, and she said very kindly no, And she wrote in the note to me, I didn't ask the Rolling Stones to lend me their songs. I use them for inspiration to write in my own I advise you to do the same. This ended up being like crucial advice because even though I really loved those mashups and thought they were cool, her telling me through this letter that I needed so God really focus on writing my own music to make the piece ended up being like crucial advice. Oh my God, I used and I was like, Okay, well now I've got to like figure out how to wow like my own truly my own musical engine. And I think a lot of great songs came out of it as a result.

This is Hello Isaac, my podcast about the idea of success and how failure affects it. I'm Isaac Musrahi and in this episode I talked to Pewett Surprise and Tony Award winning playwright, composer and lyricist Michael R.

Jackson.

Hello, Isaac, It's Michael R. Jackson. I can't wait to mix it up.

I was on a panel that was set up by New York One to talk about the theater and one of the people was Michael R. Jackson, who I just couldn't wait to meet, and we kind of had this weird connection on that panel and I made a mental note like if I ever get a chance to talk to Michael R. Jackson again, it would be like such a pleasure. And anyway, I invited him to be on the podcast because I'm just such a big fan and I feel like he has a lot to say about stuff that I value that I love a lot, things like the theater, things like art and culture and New York City. Anyway, not a minute to waste. Let's get right into it, Michael RT.

Jackson. What a pleasure to be talking to you. I am a gigantic, gigantic fan.

Of yours, as I am of yours, Darling.

Okay, I'm gonna start off with this one question, and you just slap me if you think it's it's something you don't want to answer.

How old are you, darling?

I am forty two years old.

Forty two years old. I'm so fascinated by your generation. You have a lot of responsibility. Man. You have a lot of scary shit in the future, and you're dealing with a lot of scary shit from the past.

That's right.

Let me ask you a silly thing. Do you go out? Do you go to like clubs? Do you go to bars?

I don't, I'm a total homebody.

Did you ever? Did you ever go out?

When I was in my twenties and I had just gotten to New York because I got to New York as an eighteen year old, I tried to do that to the extent to which I was able to, but I was pretty miserable with it. It was not my scene, Okay.

I mean, like, it's weird because I don't really know you, but I know so much about you based on some of the stuff in Strange Loop and like what I'm assuming.

Oh, you think biographical?

You think you know, not out of biographical but self referential.

For well, so far, darling, you're batting like you know one hundred percent of what's in the show, right, But I do wonder about that because you're an artist, right And for me as a young artist, I mean, I'm from New York City and it was scary for me going out too, you know, but I did it. I did it a lot, and I did it as like a teenager, like a fourteen year old I was going out.

Well that's sort of how I feel like when I sort of look back on my life, and I like, I've had so many conversations like this with other gay men, specifically who are older than me. And I've been having these conversations since I was twenty two years old, where they were like, go out kill yourself, that's crazy, window fuck everybody. And I like look back on like, oh, yeah, I should have done that. But the thing I always think is yes, but I needed to have started doing that when I was eleven.

Exactly like what I did.

I'm serious because by the time I was like in my late twenties and early thirties, I was like, yeah, going out him over it. But I will say, I'm telling you this, I don't know. Do you have like a relationship in your life? Do you have like a significant other?

Argument a lone madder. I'm a lonely spinster. I did just go on a hilarious date. I didn't want a date for the first time in a long time the other day that was very nice but had a very funny ps to it.

Well, you want to tell us about it or what I wanted.

To date with this guy who I met on tender hinge one of.

The two of those and nice, I like it or read it.

And then it was a nice date, but like because I hadn't been out on a date in a long like a long time, in the moment I was thinking about, like, oh, well, how do I feel about this? And how I felt about it had nothing to do with him. He was like a nice guy, but I was like in real time sort of sorting through my what do I want or need or whatever. And part of our conversation we were talking about like what the experience of being on apps was like, and I mentioned that one of the apps that I was on was Riah, and I told him that, like Riyah, I hate it. It's like so antisocial. It feels weird, Like the one experience I had on Riah literally ended up being a hookup with someone and I don't like it. And I was just trying him how it worked. And then after the day we sort of parted ways. And then the next day I was watching a movie and I checked my phone and on Riya, you have to get recommendations from people to get on there, and he asked me for recommendation. Oh that is amazing, which just felt like so like that and that is my That is like in a nutshell my life. That is like like so I'm Michael R. Jackson experience.

Except here's the thing, like you're from a generation where you might remember before apps like my I do. I don't have any of those apps on my phone. I mean, I'm a happily married guy, but you know, I would never know how I would feel crazy me.

I mean, I don't know how. I mean. That's the thing about it is, like you know, I do remember for the apps, and like I like, I remember like going into bars and I was like terrified, terrified. But it was because again, like I didn't have any like mentors. I didn't have a circle of friends to tell me what to do or to do positive reinforcement or anything.

Any people just never do. But yeah, go, But I feel.

Like whenever I look back on in like the sixties and seventies or whatever, and I hear people like that, you found your tribe, you figured it out. But like I like arrived from Detroit, Michigan to New York City in nineteen ninety nine, and I had no one. I literally had no one.

But I want to say, like, you know, as a gay person growing up in Brooklyn, New York, amongst Hausitic Jews, I had no one either. When I moved to the city, I was twenty one years old. I was working at Perry Ellis. I met some people and I was terrified. I was working at Jeffrey banks You know Jeffrey banks Is. He's a great designer, a great American designer. And one of the other assistants, this darling young man, was like, you're coming with me to a gay bar, and I was like, I am, you know, And I went with him to Uncle Charlie's, and like you said, it's like you walk in and you feel this intense kind of bond with these people, and though you don't want to fuck every single one of them, or like even meet any of them, at least you feel like you're in a place where you are right somehow.

As opposed to like a crazy big old.

Sorts thumb or someone on an app swiping left or right and then going to meet someone who looks like something on a picture and then looks completely different in person and is completely different.

From what they write.

And there was another to mention of this for me, which was that coming from Detroit, weirdly, I actually did have a group in Detroit. Like I always called it the black a teenage storyline, because like I grew up, like there were all of these boys like all over the place, and like there was this whole sort of underground Melrose Place situation going on where everyone was just sleeping with everyone, and one day these people were dating and then the next day that other people dated. It was like a whole thing. But even within that, I felt on the sort of outside of it because I didn't have like free reign to run around the way that they did, Like my parents sort of kept close tabs on these, so I couldn't like sneak out of the house or things like that much. And so then like I left that to then go to New York City, And when I got to New York City, it was like a different culture. It wasn't like black ay boys. It was like very white, and that was something that I really had to like wrap my brain around, and it took me many years to like figure out how to even navigate it. And even then I was like, oh my god, I hate this so much. Like the scene of it and like the culture of it was so not really what I was interested in. But I like quote unquote had to assimilated to it and then like assimilating to it like all the feelings that come along with that. And so then I went through that, and then I got to a point where I hated everyone, and then I just wanted to kill all the way hey man, just wanted to stab them and their fucking eyes, and like rick their throats out and toss them in the Hudson River.

Well, me too, you know, for other reasons.

Sure, but like and so then that was a whole thing. And then I found like my friends. But then by then, like the app world was starting, and then that was a whole new thing to figure out.

Right right, a whole new thing, just downloading the fucking apps.

And then PREP and then like just so many things, like new things.

Oh honey, Prep, I can't even are you kidding me? Prep is never going to be in my world never never will never prep, darling.

Never.

I mean, we'll see, maybe I'll get there. Eventually.

You will get there. If you have to get there, darling, you will get there. So let's start from the very beginning. Let's talk about you as an artist. Where'd you go to college? N YU, of course, And what did you major in at NYU? Did you major in playwriting or acting? Well?

I ended up focusing on playwriting, but broadly it was dramatic writing.

Dramatic writing. Wow, that is so broad I can't even believe that.

Do you think that your education prepared you for like the adult world that you live in?

Now? Well, to backtrack a little bit, I was very focused on writing from like a young age and all through my high school year, I took creative writing as my elective. And then on top of that, we had writers and residents come into our creative writing class who I worked with. And then one of those writers and residents also did a private writing workshop outside of school that I took for like two years. And so I came to NYU even though I hadn't been focused on playwriting, I like was very much like I want to be a writer professionally. Like that was like always on my mind from like age fourteen.

Was it a novelist you wanted to be? Was it a journalist?

I wanted to write for soap operas?

Wow?

God, Darling, I thought I was shallow. I thought I loved you. Now I really loved you. Are literally like some like crazy teenage girl or something.

Yeah, in a way, in a way, it's great. It's great. It's great.

Me too, me too, by the way, you know, anything glittery or dramatic or mellow dramatic. By the way, Darling, I love melodrama. Yeah, it's my favorite, my favorite of all things.

It's pretty great anyway.

So you came to NYU, and you studied dramatic writing. And then did you have a well, I know you had a job. You had several jobs, and I.

Did some of everything, some of.

Everything, and you continued to push forward and write stuff and get involved.

Tell me about that.

What made you decide to become a theatrical or a playwright.

So, you know, as I mentioned, I was really into soap opera writing, and my plan was somehow I would become the head writer for One Night to Live. That was like going to be what I was going to do. And so I interned at all my children in the production office. I intern at ABC daytime. Like I was very focused on that. But because I was in school, you know, I was taking my playwriting screenwriting classes and they would send us to the theater a lot. And also I had grown up doing children's theater. My mother and I used to go and see show so I loved theater, but I developed more of an appreciation for it in New York going to see Broadway, off Broadway, experimental theater or whatever you know we would see, and then taking my playwriting classes and reading plays. I just started to fall in love with theater and with play plays and musicals specifically, and so even though I still had this idea that I would do.

Was there one that you saw?

I mean, there were so many, but the one that I often reference is the Brian denn Key Death of a Salesman. Really yeah, that like had a huge impact on me.

Michael R. Jackson, this is so surprising. You know, Sandra Bernhard, She's one of my best best friends.

I love I love Sandra Bernhard so so so so so so so so munch.

Well, who doesn't, who doesn't. I don't know if you know this.

Her big inspiration when she was a little girl was seeing Carol Channing and Hello Dollies.

Which I never saw until Bette Midler. I had never seen it until Bete Miller was in it.

Bet Midler kind of killed that. Yeah yeah, I mean she killed it.

But the point is that, like for me to hear the Death of a Salesman starring Brian Dennehy was the thing that made you go like, hey, Arthur Miller playwriting, like wait a minute, just a minute, you know, yeah, that's a great great I love to know that. You said you didn't have any like gay kind of mentors who took you to gay clubs and showed you how to do stuff. But was there like somebody who had mentored you as a writer that you have a great deal of I don't know what like.

In your past.

I mean, so when I went to grad school also at n RAYU, and I went pretty much straight through like I did three and a half years at n YU undergrad, then had like a semester off and then I started in YU.

Wow.

So I would say like my mentoring more happened once I was studying musical theater writing specifically. So that was people. Bill Finn was one of my teachers, and he was someone who I really respected.

Bill Finn, Yeah.

Michael John Lecusa, and all of my teachers at NYU. You know, someone whose name you may not know like that that I really started to come into my own voice in that program and the graduate musical theater writing program.

Right, And how integrated was that experience for you?

Was it what do you mean?

Were I mean racially, socially, sexually? Yeah, recognize yourself in that program? Was it something that you had to kind of suspend disbelief? Again?

No, you mentioned the NYU grad program was like exactly the right place at exactly the right time. It had such an interesting mix of people who were also in different stages of their lives. It wasn't like just a room full of like twenty two year old There was like one of my classmates was an older gentleman who had had a whole life. He was an Episcopalian minister who loved musical theater and decided to go back to school. There were some people who were closer to my age. There were some people who were older. A dear friend of mine in the program had like sold her house in Minnesota and like come and like come to the program. And so we all like were just coming from wherever we were. One of the students is from South Korea. Like, it was a real mix and we all just we were all just coming for the love of musicals.

This is amazing, and you know that is such a unifying thing, right. I always love these stories of people who come from outside and get involved, not just in the theater in New York City, because but it is a real it is a real capital of for theater, isn't it New York City, But any kind of theater. It just kind of brings people together in this incredible way, like Alan Comming. I did this talk with Alan coming and it's amazing. You know, he has a really really really dark past, like his father was abusive and it was crazy. He was a drunken and I don't know how he made it, you know, I don't know how the soul came across. And he's not just a great artist, he's a fun guy.

You know.

Yeah, And I think about you and the adversity that you've faced, you know, like, tell me a little bit about that, because I just assumed that there was some truth in Strange Loop, and that's what resonated with me, was this kind of thing where you kind of looked at the religion and you looked at the beliefs or that one Usher character looked at the beliefs of his mother, and it was like, I'm sorry, you know, I just can't.

I mean, that's what I loved. I loved the violent reaction against like that's what to me felt right about that play. You know.

So you know, part of the reason why I'm always very you know, stern and specific about not describing the show as autobiographical. And I'm saying that for a reason. It's because it's not a one to one ratio of like actual events per se, but it's about the emotion, like that, this is what it felt, it's what it felt like, and so I just it was important to me and working on a strange loop to just try to as much as I could capture the emotional reality of what it feels like to bump up against like the religion and the homophobia and sort of the alienation the game the exactly and just the alienation overall, and to also weigh that against how much of that is external and how much of it is internal, and how do you reconcile those two things?

Right?

I mean I have to tell you, like I don't like relevant theater. I don't necessarily need theater or something or art to be relevant. As a matter of fact, I don't like it when it's relevant. Because you were talking about how this is not necessarily autobiographical, and you're really strict talking about that congratulations, you know, like try getting through any interview with anybody not posing it that way or saying wow, you know, strange loo, but it was so politically correct, so relevant. So but that's bullshit because your play was good, not because of that. It just happened that the subject, and you are fat, black, and queer, and so those things together make up like everybody goes, oh, I'm hugging this big, fat black queen or something.

You know, it's like fuck that. Fuck that right a little bit.

Yeah, So like I and I'm glad he raised that this question about relevance because anytime, like I now read a description of something that's coming and I hear relevant timely of the moment, It's like a huge, huge red flag for me, and I'm like, oh no, this is gonna be I'm gonna have to go eat my fucking vegetables and like right, and and and on top of that, I'm like whenever you say something like of the moment, I'm like, well, guess what, the moment has already past by the time you get there. So I was not in a strange loop interested in relevance or timeliness. Oh and also it literally was impossible because that musical is about twenty years of processing an experience and then compressing it into one show. So then like that's another reason why it's not me because like Usher, the character is twenty five going on twenty six, I'm forty two. So like there are things about a strengthuit that I look at that don't even necessarily reflect what I think today or tomorrow, of course, you know, and so and so like and but the expression and the sort of articulation of rage that was what I was going for.

Right, Well, you got it. You you achieved it, darling, you really did.

That's what stayed with me was the rage against and also the sadness of having to have such rage against someone like your mother and your family that you're supposed to be accepted by, and no matter what, they can't bring themselves to say the words.

They just can't or you think that they can't.

Like again, because it's the thing that's triggering me, I don't want.

Them to be Basically, I don't want them to Okay, it's too late. You should have said the words. You're too late.

Bye bye. I mean that's how I feel. I don't know how you feel, becore well.

I mean. Another reason why I don't describe this out of biographical per se is because like, I am very close to my mother, and like in our relationship is different than it was when I was seventeen years old, but like the things about her that I made it as a seven year old hated or thought I hated or whatever. Are the things that today I love, that I appreciate, like we both have grown as people over the years, and that's very very important to me.

Well, can I just say one thing. This is going to sound so mean and horrible.

But give it a minute, because you know you're gonna change, and she's gonna change, and it's going to change again once.

I'm not kidding you.

Wet you ready for a little story. This is a very name droppery kind of story. But I used to be quite good friends with Steve Sondheim, right, and I had also a really really fraught relationship with my mother and Steve had a really fraught relationship with his mother.

Darling.

I don't know if you ever read anything about it, but she was a monster, right, And my mother is not such you know, she's she's she can be very like, you know, push buttony and screw turning. But at one point she said something that was so mean to me, and I called Steph and I was like, that's it.

I hate her.

I'm so excited. It's one emotion that I feel now, pure hatred. And he said, okay, Darling, give it a minute. You know, just give it a minute, you're gonna go back. She's gonna pull you back anyway. So I'm just telling you that you feel like this with your mom, I'm going the opposite way. She's probably gonna do some stuff that you're gonna hate again, and you're gonna have to come around to get I'm serious.

Yeah, I hear you, But I mean, but I have to say, like she and I are like in such a such a really good place because I understand her, like I see her as an actual human being in a way that I did not as a young person. And because I see her as a human it makes it difficult for me to ever rely on my feelings as like a way of like understanding her behavior, even if she does or says things that I like object to.

And you've separated sort of enough so that you feel.

Yeah, I've done Like so I mean so much work to like understand that, like my feelings are not.

They're not the truth.

I mean, they're they're real, Like they're real to me, but I can separate them from the true narrative, the tangible like what's happening in.

The moment, and that was how old is your mother?

Uh? Seventy four.

Wow, she's a chicken, darling. She's so young, she is so young. All right, call me in twenty years. We'll talk about this again in twenty Okay, I'm serious. All right, So let me get some of these things out of the way, Like how the fuck do you write a play, darling?

How do you do that?

Oh?

Hell, I know, I love that answer.

That's like every piece is different. I don't have like a process of how I do everything that I do, Like a strangely began extremely organically as a monologue that was just at the time I had just graduated from undergrad. I was living in the middle of nowhere and to make a queen's in this old lady's house, and I was just like afraid. The Iraq War was about the start. Like people were walking around with them sixteens or whatever in the subway for the first time. I'd never seen that, Like it was just a different time, and I was just like, I don't know what I'm doing, And so I just began writing this monologue that was just a sort of testimony of like what it felt like to be that in that moment emotionally. And then once I went to grad school. About a year later or six months later, I began writing my own songs, and the songs also had a kind of personal touch to them, and then I started trying to put those into the monologue, and then the monologue began to shift as I started putting those songs into the monogue. And then like it was just a process of a slow process of discovery of figuring out a structure and who the character was and how was I going to differentiate Usher the character from me the playwright, even though there was an obvious sort of overlap, he was a kind of all her ego and the piece just came out of that. Whereas my next show after that, Weggirl in Danger, was more plotted out, like it was a plot based sort of thing. And so then I followed the like sort of just building a play that way. So I can't give you like a this is how you do it like because it just depends on what it is.

Well, was there a break? Did you get a big break in terms of the show itself or or yourself is a playwright?

So I started writing them my love and I started writing the songs, and like in between I was like, this is very on and off there was, it was not a continuous journey. And then there was this theater company that was starting to develop called Musical Theater Factory that was started by this oneman named shakinan ne Fact. She was starting a new sort of musical theater development hub. And she said, do you have anything that you want to bring in to work on? And I said, well, I've got this showed up and sort of working on on and off for many years. And prior to that, I had done a one nan show version of the monologue song thing at Oursnova. And then that was where like I had an experience where I was like, oh, I don't want to be in this. This is not about me. It's not about the performer or even me the figure, Like it's not about Micha lar Jackson. It's about a character that's drawn from my experience. And like I did some development there. Then I went to the Musical Theater Factory and then I did some work on it in the writers group there, and then she said, you just need to do a residency. So I called up a director friend, we did a reading, it went over went really well, and then from there that was where the trajectory sort of slowly began. I just got little opportunities to present excerpts of it. There's this one funny night where we presented like some songs at fifty four below and Tony and Tony Danza was there and we sang a song called second Wave that has to refrain the second wave feminist in me is at war with a dick sucking black gay guy and then afterwards black a man. And then afterwards we went out to Tony Danza to say hello, and he he goes, Hey, it's the dick sucking blook goes and like no, it was just such a funny moment.

The boss down.

And then from there we did end up doing a full concert version of the show at the the four below, and then Player to Horizons invited us to do a reading for them, which ended up happening on the date Trump was elected.

Oh God, and so but.

The reading was really really good, but in part I think because people had come to it with all of their feelings about that day, just not knowing what to expect from like this a random reading on Tuesday or Thursday or whatever day it was, and it was a really powerful emotional reading. And then from there a commercial producer became interested because nobody would sort of wants to touch it after that, and so he felt like he just wanted to help it find a life. And then I did some more work on it. We did another industry reading like nine months later, and then from their Players Horizons said they would do it, and then we did it at Players Horizons in twenty nineteen, and then it went really well, and then the Great Plague of twenty twenty came. Then I thought my career was over. Then the Pulitzer came in twenty twenty, in May of twenty twenty, and then by twenty twenty one we were doing it in DC, and then we got a Broadway house in December of twenty twenty two.

This is unbelievable.

Sorry, December twenty and twenty one.

Right, Well, I would like to ask you about failure, because it's almost like, if I look at the whole story that you just told me, it can't be about one success that led to another, to another and to another. Was there a failure or a few failures that you learned from that you could not have lived without that really shaped you?

Do you mean specifically in terms of a strange loop?

Yeah, yes, or is there one failure because you said, at one point in this whole thing, you thought your career was over, right, like everybody did. The minute COVID happened, we were like, Okay, get as much you know, bacon as you can, because're gonna have to live off bacon for the rest and toilet paper, you know, whatever it is. Was there a great big failure in your career or in a Strange Loop, whichever you think is a more relevant answer.

Speaking of the word relevant and how we hate it.

I don't know that there's anything that I would characterize as like a failure, but like, there definitely were moments where I maybe had a setback or I had to read calibrate, but those moments I think helped me move forward. So like in an early early draft of A Strange Loop, I'm very obsessed with the singer songwriter Liz Fair, like he's in my little triumthrant. It's her tore Amos and Jiminy Mitchell, like they're my like holy Trinity. Right, And there was a version of the script where I slashed Usher had put these mashups of my music with Liz Fair songs from her first album Exile in Guyville, and this is going to culminate in a final mashup of the Liz Fair song that was called Strange Loop on her first album with a song that I had written called Fanboy. And in the course of the musical, Usher was trying to get Liz Theair's permission to use these songs in the show, as I was doing in real life, and I was having great difficulty in making contact with her over like a long period of time, until finally I did make contact with this Fair to ask for permission to use these songs in the musical, and she said very kindly no, And she wrote me this email that was like because the whole conceit of it was that her album Exile in Guyville, was, as legend goes, was a song for song response to the Rolling Stones album Exile on Main Street, and so he writes on Guyvill and then my piece was, in its own sort of way, a kind of response to Exile in and it wasn't song for song, but it was like speaking to that album and to the character within that album. And she wrote in the note to me, I didn't ask the Rolling Stones to lend me their songs. I used them for inspiration to write in my own I advise you to do the same. This ended up being like crucial advice because even though oh I really loved those mashups and thought they were cool, her telling me through this letter that I needed so really focus on writing my own music to make the piece ended up being like crucial advice. Oh my god, I used and I was like, Okay, well, now I've got to like figure out how to wow like my own truly my own musical engine. And I think a lot of great songs came out of it as a result. And then in subsequent years I've become acquainted with her and we're friendly and we're like little pinpals and email sometimes, and it feels like a real full circle moment that came because Jeeves said, no, you know what I mean.

Of course, this is like the very definition of what I'm talking about when I asked this word about failure or about some kind of a setback that actually sets you forward so much more than you would have expected had it gone the way you thought.

Right, That's what I'm.

Yeah, it was great, But I mean, like I want to talk to you about like what some people refer to or like what we might have to think about as like the new show business, right, which has very little to do with the old show business, which is so scary, Darling.

It's so scary.

I mean two words social media go.

I mean it's a hellscape. It's really depressing. It's like artless, it's airless. It's it's narcissistic but also van piric. I like fin this phrase, this phrase called like narcissistic vampires, who's who only see themselves but they have no reflections, right, And that's what I sort of feel about this era in art in general, but in theater for sure. And it's very confusing because I don't know what to do next other than to just do what I always do. But I also am very cognizant of the fact that like the sort of social medification of everything, and also, like we just got through with this writer strike, everyone's sort of realizing that streaming was a huge mistake. There's no monoculture, so we can't really relate to each other. Everything's bifurcated, and so there's not a real sense of community or looking toward the arts is like a big sort of melting pot, but one that shared with everyone, even as people talk about inclusion. And that's what I find so ironic about it, is that, like, you hear so many conversations about inclusion, and yet because of the tech and the sort of digital revolution, everything's like totally siloed off, and so how can it really be inclusive of anything?

Exactly? Exactly?

And of course it takes me right back to the top of our conversation. We were talking about just the whole idea of like human interaction, of meeting somebody physically in a room.

These things are all related, related.

They're all related.

The Barbie movie, did you like adore it? Did you gag the way everybody else gagged me?

Either?

I thought me either. I love Greta Gerwig. I think she's amazing. But you know, it didn't feel like there was a movie there. It felt like a bunch of sketches, right.

It was a vibe.

It was a social media vibe. It was it was like an exerptible social media construction, you know.

And I look at that and I think, but.

I felt the same way about Oppenheimer.

I didn't see Oppenheimer. I thought, can I stream it?

You got you got three hours to kill all right?

I will do.

But you know, honestly, if they would shoot something, I would go see it in a movie theater. Right now, it's all CGI, it's all special effects, it's all amplification. So why should I go to a movie theater to see it?

And you know what's so interesting. In the last couple of months, I got rid of all my streaming services except for Amazon, except for accept for Amazon because I like to order stuff from there. That's my digital overlord. But like what I do on Amazon is I just rent movies all the time, like in the old days when we would go to Blockbuster or Hollywood Video or whatever and rent a movie. And so like I'm finding myself just watching a lot of these old movies and watching so many of them, and then I'll go and see something new, and I'm just like, y'all, we need to go back, we need to go back. And then I go to metrograph a lot now and like they'll screen something And I just went there the other day and I saw it to Live and Die in La the William freaking movie, and it was it's just night and day. Like these movies like these were like movies cinema, I know, even they weren't cinema like great cinema. They were like exciting to watch, Like I watched Adventures in Babysitting like a couple of months ago. It's still just as like fun to watch it, and it's not like an ad for something.

Right right, which basically Barbie was. I don't care what you tell me.

I watched interview, I wat I watched an interview, a lot of interviews with Greta and Margot Robbie where they like talked about making it, and like one thing that they kept saying was that we made sure to tell them to tell that, like we're gonna protect the brand.

Really yeah, oh we're gonna.

Be a little critical, but like people are gonna love Barbie. But also like I just felt fundamentally watching it, like Barbie's not even really a character. Barbie's a plastic worshac test that you can project onto whatever you think and feel, which is why ironically, and the advertising they're like, if you love Barbie, you're gonna love the movie. If you hate Barbie, gonna loved Barbier's like because Barbie can represent whatever you want. If you want Barbie to be, you know, your anti patriarchal, you know, warrior princess. Then she will be that if you want her to be, you know, the way that women understand their body bodily autonomy, she will be that. If he wants God, if he is an accessory, if she's a whatever. And so I sort of felt like all of the discourse around it, all of the sort of politics around it, were all just accessories, no different than a handbag or earrings that you stick in Barbie's ears, and all the endless, relentless marketing was just like that was the story. And also think about the fact that, like, this is a billion dollar movie that was like the thing of the summer, and now it's October twenty fourth, and I don't hear people talking about Barbie.

I know, but I brought it up only to kind of like a little circle around everything you're talking about in terms of this art that we're missing, this content that we're missing. Because when it first started happening Instagram, I was like, oh, fun, Instagram, you know, or whatever it was. I was never into Facebook. I could never bring myself to do that. But oh, oh really, well mine was Instagram. It still kind of is. And I always thought when it first started happening. However, many years ago, I thought it relies on content, it relies on great art. But now what's so scary is it feels like, because Hollywood is run by these numbers, that it's going the other way and there is no there there and they're relying on these numbers. So they do something like Barbie in order to quench, and then it's this huge, scary success, which is what really freaks me out just a little bit. And then I think about like you, and I think about me, and I think about people who want to make stuff, you know, that actually has content and a little bit of story. By the way, can I tell you what you need to see? Speaking of Amazon, there's this movie called Cassandra. Have you seen that? Oh my god, darling.

First of all, it's the sexiest thing in the world.

It's about this Mexican sort of wrestler and it's played by that incredibly sexy person from Mozart in the Jungle called Oh anyway tonight. Okay, you're welcome, Right, I'll check out.

Have you seen Riting in the Sun?

No?

What is it?

It's this indie movie that's playing on Movie which is like a random stream thing, and I recommend it. It's like a gay themed movie, but it's really it's wild and it goes to like some really surprising places. And that's what I was like, Oh, this actually zigged where I thought it was gonna zag. I love And you can just like sign up for like a free week long trial and just watch it and get rid of it if you want to get rid of it. Okay, it's a contemporary thing that's been made that I actually thought was really good. And then the other day when the guy sent me, he wanted to look for the recommendation on Rayah, which again I don't hold this ouse if he's watching this, like, I don't hold this against you at all, Like it's totally makes sense.

But call me again, Call me again though date number two.

No, he doesn't have to call He doesn't have to call me again. He doesn't want to. But while I was watching a Stranger by the Lake, do you remember this movie Stranger by the Lake. It's a French movie from twenty fourteen. It's also this game movie that I highly recommend. It's super sexy.

Do remember it? I remember, I remember every moment. There's a lot of nudity.

There's a lot and there's a lot of that in Riting in the Sun, and it's unsimulated sex. It's like real, real sex is happening in both of these movies and they're wild. Anyway, that's all those are my record.

I love that.

Now.

Wait, I want to bring this back. Are you working on something right now?

Yeah? I have a new musical that's a collaboration with my collaborator, Anna K. Jacob. He's a composer. We're doing an adaptation of the two thousand and seven indie her comedy Teeth Oh, about the evangelical Christian girl who discovers she has vagina dentata teeth her vagina. Wow.

Wow, Wow, that's a great idea. I want to see that. Can that happen tomorrow?

It'll be in the workshop Febuary.

Get it up. I can't wait.

It'll be in February. We'll be at Playit's horizons, so me start previews. So I'm working on that.

Does that give you hope when you actually have as a country?

Yeah, it's it's a funny thing. Is like I go through these like peaks and valley sometimes like by the hour, but it's when I'm working on something and like actually doing the work of like putting it together and figuring it out, that I start to feel like the wind in my sales again, Like we just started recording the cast albums from my last show, White Girl in Danger, and just being in the studio and like being like, oh music, singing recording.

Yes like that people.

Then I like get the win in my sales again. So I have to sort of like be in a process to feel hopeful. I don't. I'm not currently feeling hopeful about like the industry. But I wrote this song a couple of years ago. THO was inspired by Judith Light where she's given me some really he'd given me this really great advice that I put into the song where she said the industry will always be the industry, so fuck it, you know. And so I have to like hansting balance like doing my work with not getting too worried about the industry, even though I do feel like I'm also like i'd sort of come around to it. I'm like everyone's always like get rid of gatekeepers. I'm like more gatekeepers, please please bring them back. Bring back people who actually had some fucking taste, and you don't have to be and you don't have to be like a total snob about it. But a little bit of snap read goes along way about.

Saying critics, what about critics?

I think I think the critics have also degraded me too alongside. And so like, now we're in this weird thing because a big part of what I noticed in culture is that everything is about affirmation, not to mention relevance like it's relevant affirmation. And now because everybody's wanting to sort of reconsider the canon and reconsider history, anythings are fine, but you just sort of toss it all out and then act as though your own sort of not particular your opinions.

Are are like are as relevant or.

That they have any like meat to them. And also you can't even argue with them because to argue or to debate itself ideas are like seen as some sort of like oppressive tacticspression, And I'm like, no, fuck that ideas are meant to be debated, that's dissected. Pick the part like all the time, and so like the thing I just keep wishing is that the critics were just being more thoughtful that they were actually And also I'm not just going along with consensus.

Right, taking more risk and saying I hate this. You need to say I hate it. That's your why I hate it?

You say online people always say, why can't you just let people like things? My friend and two may say is why can't you let people not like things?

And why?

Because here's why. Here's why, Darling. You ready to quote the fabulous Judith Light. The industry will always be the fucking industry. That's why Judas Light, She's always right, always she is all.

I have a final.

Question that I always ask, like all my guests, I don't know how you feel a bit better.

Bits.

I read them every single day, the little ones, the big ones. Okay, so you die, let's say about one hundred and four or ninety eight, however old you want to be when you die.

What does your obituary say, Darling.

He did it his way?

Does it say that English or does it say it like in.

Like everything, like seven different languages.

He did it his way?

Oh my god, m.

I feel like I have to pimp for you. I feel like there's someone out there. I mean, if you're interested, because I am very good at that. I'm a very big yent to.

Listen, I offended or something no serious.

No. Sometimes people are like, I don't need your damn relationship advice.

Fuck you, get out.

Of my mind. I need all the advice I can get. I'm not getting any younger. So if you've got somebody out there, like and keep it in mind. But the big thing with me is that I have to be able to talk to you about anything. And you need to not be like, oh my god, you're a heretic. You had a thought that's like not approved, Like.

Well, you mean you're talking about the person you're gonna be with. You need to be able to like really well, okay, and I give you now.

Think of me as Judith Light. I will give you some advice. Time is the price of love, Darling. Time is the price of love. You will meet somebody who you like, and it's not going to feel like eating your vegetables. It's going to feel like, actually, like you really want to be with that person because they're heaven and you just want to have sex with them and be and have fun and just go out to places. And then in twenty years you go like, hey, we talk about all this shit and it's unbelievable and he can listen and I hate his fucking guts and he loves me and all that.

And that's that's ideal. But like a couple of years ago, I was going out with this guy who we started talking about something, and then he very sort of mysteriously said something to me, and I didn't clock at the time. He goes, you're really not a static thinker, And at first I thought that was a compliment, but then I realized that he didn't need it as a compliment, right, he meant it as like danger Oh God.

By static, you mean like from one idea to the space of idea.

Like considering new ways of scene or considering like another opinion. Like I'm not afraid I'm not afraid to engage you know, an idea that's dangerous. I don't even think of ideas as dangerous, Like they're just ideas that are meant to be considered. And and you agree, you don't agree, you toss it, you change your mind, you change it back.

Why because you're not afraid of Like.

I'm not afraid of heterotoxy at all.

And here's another thing, I don't think that you're afraid to be poor.

If you have to be, you know what I mean.

It's like people are afraid to open their mouths because they're afraid if they say something they're going to cut off there And what's speaking of some time? What's that great thing? And merrily we roll along? Burn your bridge is Darling.

Burn na Bridge and Nada's bridges. I burn light the way. But here's what I will say, like, and this is something I am dealing with now, is that because so much of like free speech has just migrated online me, it's not really free. And so I do feel stifled, and I do feel often like I can't say what I think because I'm actually hemmed in into like this weird now cortex. And so the places where I feel free are like when I can actually write. And that's sort of where my free expression goes. It's into my work, into if I'm writing an essay or a poem or a song or whatever, because there no one can judge me and they can't control me or like hansel me or whatever, you know, And I want that freedom with a person.

I was gonna say, the other place that is available to you is at a dinner table with me, or a lunch table or a breakfast table with me. I feel like we have to do this constantly. We have to have like meals together all the time.

I will happily, happily meet you anytime.

I'm not kidding. I'm inviting you. This is an open invitation.

Then I can talk to you about and then I can talk to you about fame fact.

I'm gonna lift which is.

My favorite, and I can tell you my life, oh my god, and I love like watching you in it with your.

With my doing Shakespeare Darling shakes clown thing, which I may I know, I know, of course you know. Well, anyway, is this something you want to promote?

Yeah, come and see teeth at Clart's Horizons in the winter. It's gonna be a while, right. If you like any of my music, you can find me anywhere you listen to music Strange loop like You're own Danger coming soon. I also have some old albums on band camp, and you want to listen to some old songs to mine?

So any of that, well, I love that, Thank you, thank you, thank you. You are a dream boat. And I am so gonna pimp for you. I can't wait. I'm not I get ready, I'm ready.

I like, give me, hit me out.

Okay, darlings, I was right. My intuition was that Michael R.

Jackson is the smartest person on earth, only because I thought his show, A Strange Loop was like the smartest show I've ever seen, and I loved it so much and it resonated with me so deeply, Like I really left that theater thinking that I hadn't gone through something like that in the theater for a very long time. Like it made me think and it made me feel. And here's the thing, I don't know him terribly, terribly well, this is like the second time we've met. But I feel like I now know that he's like a good person, and so I now feel like I have a friend in the world. And like, stay tuned because there's going to be so many dinners and lunches and I'm not kidding, like I am literally going to force this person to dine and lunch with me on a regular and often basis. Anyway, thank you so much for tuning in. It was so much fun. Maybe you know, spot us at our favorite restaurants, me and Michael having dinner at some point. Darlings, if you enjoyed this episode, do me a favorite and tell someone tell a friend, tell your mother, tell your cousin, tell.

Everyone you know. Okay, and be sure to rate the show. I love rating stuff.

Go on and rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts so more people can hear about it. It makes such a gigantic difference and like it takes a second, so go on and do it. And if you want more fun content videos and posts of all kinds, follow the show on Instagram and TikTok at Hello Isaac podcast And by the way, check me out on Instagram and TikTok at. I Am Isaac, mssragi. This is Isaac, Missrahi, thank you, I love you and I never thought I'd say this, but goodbye Isaac. Hello Isaac is produced by Imagine Audio Awfully Nice and I AM Entertainment for iHeartMedia. The series is hosted by me Isaac Musrahi. Hello Isaac is produced by Robin Gelfenbein. The senior producers are Jesse Burton and John Assanti, and is executive produced by Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Karl Welker.

And Nathan Cloke at Imagined.

Audio production management from Katie Hodges, sound design and mixing by Cedric Wilson original music composed by Ben Wilson. A special thanks to Neil Phelps and Sarah Katamak and I AM Entertainment

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Hello Isaac with Isaac Mizrahi

Isaac Mizrahi is an expert -  at almost everything! He’s an iconic fashion designer, actor, singer,  
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