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Jonatha Brooke and Joyous Grief · Jersey Arts Podcast

• 0:04
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: This is Gina Marie Rodriguez and you're listening to the Jersey Arts Podcast.
• 0:08
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Jonatha Brooke has a voice to soothe your soul and the lyrics to nurture it.
• 0:14
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: First introduced to audiences as a part of the duo, the Story Brooke eventually turned to an illustrious solo career and has been gifting us with her own unique storytelling ever since.
• 0:26
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: She has quite the discography to boast, with 14 albums over the past three decades, most of which were produced under her own independent label, bad Dog Records.
• 0:36
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Jonatha has co-written songs with Katy Perry and the Courtyard Hounds.
• 0:41
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: She's written and performed for Disney films, numerous television shows, and she composed and performed the theme song for Josh Whedon's Dollhouse.
• 0:50
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: She also wrote the one-woman musical show my Mother has Four Noses in honor of her own mom, and now finds herself writing for the stage once again, with three new productions underway.
• 1:03
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Today's episode is a little different than most.
• 1:05
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: While Jonathan and I do discuss her music and her career, we also fell into the topic of grief and how pivotal art is to the shared human experience.
• 1:15
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: We laughed, we cried Okay, well, I cried, but we had a grand old time.
• 1:21
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Check out today's episode to learn more about the very talented Jonathan Brook.
• 1:26
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: It's so nice to meet you.
• 1:30
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Thank you so much for taking the time.
• 1:32
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I really do appreciate it.
• 1:33
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I'm very excited.
• 1:35
  Jonatha Brooke: Likewise my pleasure.
• 1:36
  Jonatha Brooke: It's been a while since I've done anything like this, so this will be great.
• 1:40
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Oh well, yay, I'm glad to be your introduction back into it.
• 1:44
  Jonatha Brooke: I guess, and I have to say, I love your twinkle lights in the background.
• 1:51
  Jonatha Brooke: Thank you, that was a COVID thing because I was so depressed and I think they are a great antidepressant.
• 1:54
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: They are.
• 1:54
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: No, they are.
• 1:55
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I want twinkle lights all over my house and I've been trying to find the right one.
• 2:01
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: If that, makes sense.
• 2:02
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I'm very particular about the design.
• 2:03
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I haven't found it yet, but I'm with you on lights helping.
• 2:10
  Jonatha Brooke: Anyway, I guess.
• 2:11
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I should talk to you about music too.
• 2:13
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Okay, if we have to, I've been rocking out to your music because well, obviously because I was amping up to talk to you, right, but I hate when I have such a limited amount of time to talk to people because this is a short form podcast and I have.
• 2:25
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I hate when I have, like, such a limited amount of time to talk to people because this is a short form podcast and I have a million questions.
• 2:28
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: But I'll try to be as concise as possible.
• 2:31
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Okay, me too.
• 2:32
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Okay, but you're, are you in the middle of your tour?
• 2:36
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I know you were just in Denmark, right?
• 2:38
  Jonatha Brooke: Or just got back yesterday.
• 2:40
  Jonatha Brooke: No I think I got back Sunday.
• 2:41
  Jonatha Brooke: Oh, what's today, yesterday?
• 2:42
  Jonatha Brooke: No, I think I got back Sunday.
• 2:44
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Oh, what's today, Tuesday?
• 2:45
  Jonatha Brooke: Yeah, so yeah, I'm always in the middle of my tour because it just as long as I can tour, I will, so there's no specific beginning or end.
• 2:57
  Jonatha Brooke: It used to be based around the cycles of new records, but I've been hoping to make a new record for a couple years now and I just haven't had the time or the funds, so I'm just on tour whenever I can be.
• 3:09
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I love that.
• 3:09
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I'm not a person who travels well, so I'm always fascinated by people who enjoy touring and long-term travel, so I guess I wanted to ask you what about it?
• 3:21
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Do you enjoy?
• 3:23
  Jonatha Brooke: Not the travel part for sure, because it is just grueling and it's um.
• 3:28
  Jonatha Brooke: Especially as you get older your body doesn't bounce back quite as quickly to the insults and assaults of gross, disgusting planes and icky, coughing, gross people, uh.
• 3:42
  Jonatha Brooke: But I have to say I just love the camaraderie with my guitar player.
• 3:47
  Jonatha Brooke: In Denmark I can afford a band because two of my guys are there already, so I'm not paying for hotels most of the time and it's just, I don't know.
• 3:57
  Jonatha Brooke: I think once you've been on the road with a bunch of dudes it's hard not to still love it.
• 4:04
  Jonatha Brooke: And it is, is it's so grueling, but you get on stage and you get, you do your show and you rock and there's this dynamic thing that happens in it.
• 4:13
  Jonatha Brooke: I can't, I just can't quit it.
• 4:16
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I think that's great.
• 4:16
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: When you said that you, you can't oh my gosh, I speak English.
• 4:20
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Sometimes I have trouble with the language that I was born into.
• 4:23
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Try Danish.
• 4:25
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: You were saying that being on tour with a bunch of dudes is actually something that you love.
• 4:31
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: It was not the direction I thought you were going to go in.
• 4:35
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: So is your band?
• 4:35
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Mostly men.
• 4:38
  Jonatha Brooke: Right now.
• 4:38
  Jonatha Brooke: Yes, I mostly tour as a duo because it makes it affordable, and Sean Driscoll is my guitar player.
• 4:45
  Jonatha Brooke: He's based in New York and I'm in Minneapolis, but we just meet up wherever we're going and have an extra day of practice or whatever, but it's mostly dudes.
• 4:53
  Jonatha Brooke: Yeah, there are women in my Rolodex that I would dream of playing with again.
• 5:00
  Jonatha Brooke: It's just the money, it's the affordability factor.
• 5:05
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I think everything in life is, you know, dependent on capitalism.
• 5:08
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I feel for you, though I did want to ask, I mean I should.
• 5:12
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Let's give them a shout out, the gentleman in Denmark who are those folks that you work?
• 5:17
  Jonatha Brooke: with so cool A drummer named Kent Olson and a bass player named Morden Jay and they're seasoned, really just awesome musicians.
• 5:28
  Jonatha Brooke: And they happen to be super fans of mine, so they like know my music inside and out.
• 5:33
  Jonatha Brooke: So it's just a pleasure because they love playing with me and so I feel great and they are honored and I'm honored and they're really good musicians and they're well known in that the sort of music world over there.
• 5:47
  Jonatha Brooke: So it gives me this little sort of cachet.
• 5:50
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: That's great.
• 5:51
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: So how often do you end up in Denmark?
• 5:53
  Jonatha Brooke: It seems like like once a.
• 5:54
  Jonatha Brooke: I was there in June, I was there last spring as well, so usually just once a year, but it's been more and more because I just love it.
• 6:02
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Do you live in Minneapolis?
• 6:04
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Are you still?
• 6:05
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I do.
• 6:06
  Jonatha Brooke: I do.
• 6:07
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Is it super cold right now?
• 6:09
  Jonatha Brooke: Gorgeous.
• 6:10
  Jonatha Brooke: It's like it was in the 50s yesterday.
• 6:12
  Jonatha Brooke: Let me tell you it is currently 31, but probably going up to like oh, 40, 42.
• 6:21
  Jonatha Brooke: Oh wow.
• 6:21
  Jonatha Brooke: So, I came home to like gorgeous, gorgeous springish weather.
• 6:26
  Jonatha Brooke: So it's, and also, you know, climate change.
• 6:30
  Jonatha Brooke: It's becoming a destination, moving place, because we won't probably have fires or floods, so come on down.
• 6:40
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Wow, yeah, you know I haven't.
• 6:41
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Well, again we're back on the travel thing, but I haven't seen much of our country, so I haven't really been past the East Coast.
• 6:48
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I mean, I went out to LA once, but beyond that I'm kind of a Jersey girl and I've stuck here for most of it Amazing.
• 6:56
  Jonatha Brooke: You should come, we'll cook you dinner.
• 6:57
  Jonatha Brooke: Oh, please do I like cooked meals, because I can't cook at all, me neither I'm good at really good at cleaning and eating, but my husband is an amazing cook, so oh, thank God, Lucky.
• 7:08
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Yeah, you are lucky.
• 7:09
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Maybe I'll ask you for relationship advice later too.
• 7:19
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: How do I find a man who can cook for me?
• 7:21
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Anyway, moving on, I, before I forget, I want to tell you one thing my producer, or one of my producers for this podcast, jim Atkinson, is a huge, super fan of yours, so he's very happy to have you on this podcast and I shouldn't say it because I can't speak for him, but I'm assuming that he is currently living vicariously through me.
• 7:42
  Jonatha Brooke: Oh, that's wicked sweet.
• 7:43
  Jonatha Brooke: Tell him hello and give him a hug.
• 7:45
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Absolutely.
• 7:46
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: See, she said hi, jim.
• 7:47
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: But in his honor I wanted to ask you a little bit about your song Inconsolable, which I believe it ended up on the season finale of the first season of a little show called what was it?
• 8:01
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Buffy?
• 8:02
  Jonatha Brooke: the Vampire.
• 8:02
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Slayer, possibly Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
• 8:05
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Yeah, how do you feel about that?
• 8:08
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: How did it end up on that show?
• 8:10
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: What was that process like?
• 8:12
  Jonatha Brooke: That's the weirdest thing, because I hate to admit it but I still have not seen that show.
• 8:16
  Jonatha Brooke: But it turns out that Joss Whedon is a big fan of mine, so it was his call.
• 8:22
  Jonatha Brooke: I didn't even know that it had happened until people started telling me like hey, did you know that inconsolable was on buffy?
• 8:28
  Jonatha Brooke: And then he ended up calling me to write his theme song for um dollhouse.
• 8:33
  Jonatha Brooke: So I wrote and sang what you don't know won't hurt you, um, for his, his next escapade.
• 8:40
  Jonatha Brooke: Uh, so it was.
• 8:42
  Jonatha Brooke: Uh, I guess it was kind of a love story and that was really fun to sort of hear from him himself and to have the assignment of like hey, I'm a super fan, I need you to write me a song that's kind of a cross between Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies and your song Careful what you Wish For.
• 8:58
  Jonatha Brooke: I'm like got it.
• 8:59
  Jonatha Brooke: I got it, and then I sent it to him.
• 9:01
  Jonatha Brooke: He's like oh my god, that's.
• 9:01
  Jonatha Brooke: And then I sent it to him.
• 9:02
  Jonatha Brooke: He's like oh my God, that's exactly what I meant.
• 9:03
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I love hearing the stories of artists like fangirling or fanboying over other artists.
• 9:12
  Jonatha Brooke: It's one of my favorite genres of fandom, so it is it is cool and and there's some quirky, weird things like you wouldn't expect.
• 9:18
  Jonatha Brooke: So, like I'm a super fan of Michael McDonald, like he's the he's the only one that, like I've ever gotten an autograph from.
• 9:25
  Jonatha Brooke: I just adore him so bad.
• 9:30
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: And then everyone else I'm kind of unfazed by.
• 9:31
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Did you get starstruck when you met Michael McDonald?
• 9:34
  Jonatha Brooke: Totally, oh my God, oh, I also did when I was living in LA.
• 9:38
  Jonatha Brooke: I saw Joni Mitchell in the cereal aisle at Whole Foods and I just froze and I didn't want to bother her, but that happened.
• 9:48
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Oh, so you didn't get to talk to her, nope.
• 9:51
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Well, at least you have the cereal story though, because I think that's what I hold on to.
• 9:54
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I do, I do.
• 9:54
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Yeah, that's the good thing about LA you just run into everybody and anybody.
• 9:59
  Jonatha Brooke: Yeah, we'll always have Cap'n Crunch in common.
• 10:01
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Exactly.
• 10:02
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I wanted to ask, since we're talking about film and television, do you have anything in the works, anything upcoming for composing for film and TV?
• 10:12
  Jonatha Brooke: I do not have any film and TV stuff happening.
• 10:15
  Jonatha Brooke: I am working concurrently on three different musicals so I am trying to keep about 40 characters straight in my head and what they sound like and how they should sing and how each thing has its own sort of sound and timbre and musical motif.
• 10:32
  Jonatha Brooke: So that's where my head is right now.
• 10:34
  Jonatha Brooke: I'm hoping finally to record a new Jonathan record and I have a couple songs that I've been working on for that.
• 10:40
  Jonatha Brooke: But it's a it's a juggle.
• 10:41
  Jonatha Brooke: Right now there's lots of things on the front burner.
• 10:44
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Yeah, I mean for our listeners who can't see me.
• 10:45
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: My jaw was just on the floor.
• 10:47
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: That's a lot to handle.
• 10:50
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Is there anything that you can tell us about those musicals, or is it still too early?
• 10:53
  Jonatha Brooke: to say anything.
• 10:54
  Jonatha Brooke: No, I can tell you sort of plot lines.
• 10:56
  Jonatha Brooke: One of them is called Switched.
• 10:58
  Jonatha Brooke: It's about two women who are switched at birth and they kind of they find out from one of the moms who was kind of suspicious all along, who kind of knew, but she, she lets them know, basically around their 40th birthday, like hey, maybe you're not who you thought you were, and so that's we start the play there and then we sort of go back and forth between their 16 year old selves and their 40 year old selves.
• 11:19
  Jonatha Brooke: The second one is called Tempest, is called Tempest and it's a fictional story about an Antarctic explorer named Annie Lawson who perishes with her crew of three dudes.
• 11:35
  Jonatha Brooke: It's like me in a band in the Antarctic in the 1930s and the conceit of the story is that by the time it's 100, 110 years later, the technology exists to revive her because the ice has preserved her and her team.
• 11:46
  Jonatha Brooke: So she's revived and go and we sort of get to see both worlds in that one.
• 11:53
  Jonatha Brooke: And then the third one is a commission from the History Theater here in Minneapolis and it's an incredible story based on a novel called Evidence of V by Sheila O'Connor, about a girl, a 15-year-old girl and this is based on the truth a 15-year-old girl in Minneapolis in the 30s who is an amazing singer-dancer, gets into trouble with club owner where she's singing, gets knocked up and at that time girls were sent away to like prison, basically detention school, and she was locked up for six years just for getting pregnant, oh my God.
• 12:27
  Jonatha Brooke: And so we follow her through her sort of you know character arc of like despair and then agency and then despair and then going through this prison system basically wow, that also sounds scarily timely.
• 12:40
  Jonatha Brooke: So it, yeah, and that one is kind of fast-tracked.
• 12:43
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: That's in the season for 2026 wow, all I mean my jaw was on the floor for all of those.
• 12:50
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: They all sound amazing.
• 12:51
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I have no idea how you're writing three different musicals concurrently like that.
• 12:56
  Jonatha Brooke: I just don't know either.
• 12:58
  Jonatha Brooke: I'm just trying to keep like.
• 12:59
  Jonatha Brooke: I'm trying to keep their.
• 13:00
  Jonatha Brooke: I'm trying to keep a specific sort of musical tone to each character so that I can identify it's like.
• 13:08
  Jonatha Brooke: It's like their vernacular or their accent, so that they don't all start whizzing together.
• 13:14
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Right, right.
• 13:15
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: So are you.
• 13:16
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: You're writing the book and the lyrics and the music.
• 13:19
  Jonatha Brooke: Thank God, I'm just writing the music and the lyrics.
• 13:22
  Jonatha Brooke: Okay, I'm terrible at dialogue.
• 13:26
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Well, while we're on theater, before I forget, I wanted to talk to you, if it's okay, about the one woman show that you did.
• 13:33
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: My Mother has four noses, so this is not about me, but I wanted to share that.
• 13:37
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I lost my father two and a half years ago and one of the things that he left me with was write the book, gina, write the book about us, and I've had such trouble.
• 13:51
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Like, right after he passed, I was actually, the words were flowing out of me and I wrote a good 15 pages in a day, and then I stalled.
• 14:02
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: And I haven't been able to do anything since, and I don't know that there's necessarily a question wrapped up in this, more my admiration for you that you were able to take a difficult time in your life about living with your mother and her struggle with Alzheimer's and then turning that into something really beautiful that other people were able to relate to.
• 14:21
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: So I guess, thank you there wasn't a question there, but thank you for being able to do that.
• 14:26
  Jonatha Brooke: I think this is something I talk about when I teach songwriting as well is sometimes to break the wall of.
• 14:35
  Jonatha Brooke: Either it's like the mean girl on your shoulder saying like you suck, you suck, you suck, don't bother, or it's your editor, so that you don't even let yourself write something before you've tried and then just edit it.
• 14:46
  Jonatha Brooke: So one of my favorite writers, mary Carr, always says like I'm not that great a writer, I'm just a really good editor.
• 14:53
  Jonatha Brooke: So for me the point is just like get it down, even if it sucks, just write and write and write free write.
• 15:00
  Jonatha Brooke: Give yourself assignments of like I will only write this one story.
• 15:04
  Jonatha Brooke: So then you're not overwhelmed by like I must write the story of my life with my father.
• 15:08
  Jonatha Brooke: It's more like what about that time where we made that little silly musical at breakfast about breakfast with mom?
• 15:16
  Jonatha Brooke: And you know I was Crepe Suzette and my husband was the muffin man and we were just like living in this Alzheimer's crazy world.
• 15:23
  Jonatha Brooke: And that really helped me because I too was overwhelmed.
• 15:27
  Jonatha Brooke: When I started I knew it was going to be theater, it was bigger than a record, but I'd never done that before.
• 15:34
  Jonatha Brooke: I was terrified.
• 15:34
  Jonatha Brooke: So I started just taking it in bite-sized chunk stories and that allowed me to move through it.
• 15:41
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Thank you.
• 15:42
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Thank you for that advice, I guess.
• 15:44
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I guess that was the question built in there without me wanting to say it, so yeah, it's hard.
• 15:49
  Jonatha Brooke: I mean we all, anyone creative can tell you about, like the doldrums, you know where you're just like.
• 15:54
  Jonatha Brooke: Oh God, get me out of here, give me some wind.
• 15:57
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I've been stuck in them for probably two and a half years.
• 16:00
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I wonder why.
• 16:02
  Jonatha Brooke: Yeah Well, number one, you're grieving.
• 16:04
  Jonatha Brooke: It's a loss, but also giving yourself assignments is helpful.
• 16:09
  Jonatha Brooke: I luckily had a deadline so I couldn't not write it.
• 16:13
  Jonatha Brooke: I was in the theater, you know.
• 16:16
  Jonatha Brooke: Festival not write it, I was in the theater you know festival six months after mom died, so I'm like I better get cracking.
• 16:23
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Wow, that is definitely.
• 16:25
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: That's a sooner deadline that I would have expected you to say, I know.
• 16:28
  Jonatha Brooke: I know.
• 16:28
  Jonatha Brooke: So I was like crying and grieving and writing and crying some more, and then singing and crying some more, and it was this whole cathartic process.
• 16:37
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Wow, did it help?
• 16:38
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I mean, you said it was catharsis, so like after you finished the run.
• 16:42
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: How did you feel?
• 16:44
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Was it relief, Was it joy?
• 16:47
  Jonatha Brooke: I don't know if they're the right words for that, but it felt yeah, it certainly felt cathartic and there were some days, like any grief story, where it was really really rough and hard to get through the show.
• 17:00
  Jonatha Brooke: There were a couple of times when I started to lose it.
• 17:02
  Jonatha Brooke: But you know, I was acting, so I had to learn to sort of turn it off.
• 17:08
  Jonatha Brooke: Turn off like the Jonathan, real Jonathan, and be like character Jonathan.
• 17:14
  Jonatha Brooke: But it was, yeah, I think it was a great thing because it just became this beautiful love story and gesture to her and I think what also was healing for me was that it, it the play ends with I sort of show you pictures of my mother as normal mom, so you see her in her element.
• 17:40
  Jonatha Brooke: You see her silly and clownish and kind of sexy and making fun of herself and that was her essence.
• 17:47
  Jonatha Brooke: And so to be able to restore that for myself as well as to leave the audience with that as like this is my mom, she wasn't this weird, crazy Alzheimer person, she was that too, but like this is her essence, and that felt really powerful for me as the daughter telling the story.
• 18:07
  Jonatha Brooke: But also I think that gave the audience's permission to be like to laugh, to cry and then to walk away with.
• 18:13
  Jonatha Brooke: Oh, I love her too.
• 18:15
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Absolutely, and I think that's what's beautiful about art.
• 18:19
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: You know, you just introduced her to a whole new world of people who are now sharing that love of your mom, and she gets to enjoy that in the afterlife as well.
• 18:29
  Jonatha Brooke: I sure hope, so I was so bummed.
• 18:32
  Jonatha Brooke: I wish she could have seen the show.
• 18:34
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I fully believe that she did and probably revisits it all the time, because I also am adamant that time does not exist in the same way over there.
• 18:44
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: The other over there is.
• 18:46
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: But not that I want to spend too much time on grief, but I believe that because I don't know if you've had these experiences where, like, maybe you talk to someone who you've lost and ask for a sign, and I mean I got some very clear signs.
• 19:02
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: There was one day where I was drinking my coffee and coffee has a very strong smell.
• 19:07
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Right, it is coffee, but I overwhelmingly smelled my father's cologne.
• 19:12
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: It was else in the room.
• 19:12
  Jonatha Brooke: I don't live with men.
• 19:13
  Jonatha Brooke: There's never any cologne here.
• 19:13
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: But it was very specifically his cologne room.
• 19:15
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I don't live with men, there's never any cologne here, but it was very specifically his cologne.
• 19:19
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I couldn't smell the coffee, I just smelled the cologne.
• 19:22
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: So I do.
• 19:23
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I fully believe that she was over there watching your show and revisiting it and listening to the album however, I think so yeah, I did play her a little bit of the Kalimba song.
• 19:34
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: It's a song called Time I listened to that one and I think that's fantastic, but I'm glad she got to hear it while she was on this plane as well.
• 19:43
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Yeah, thank you, of course.
• 19:45
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Love to your mom, love to my dad.
• 19:48
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Okay, I'm going to try to center myself and bring it back.
• 19:52
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I wanted to talk to you about your song.
• 19:56
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I'll Try, because I'm a Disney nerd to begin with, but shamefully, I didn't know where that song came from or where like.
• 20:04
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: It was something that I had heard over and over and I couldn't figure out why.
• 20:08
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: And it wasn't until recently that I realized I used to have a collection of those Disney's greatest hits CDs.
• 20:16
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: So I had never seen Return to Neverland.
• 20:18
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: It's just that I had listened to that CD on repeat and I was like oh my God, this is a Peter Pan song, but it's, I mean, it's amazing.
• 20:26
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Thank you for writing it.
• 20:27
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: But there, if you don't mind, if I could read some of the lyrics that I feel like are also timely right now, my whole world is changing.
• 20:44
  Jonatha Brooke: I don't know where to turn.
• 20:46
  Jonatha Brooke: I can't leave you waiting, but I can't stay and watch the city burn Dang.
• 20:54
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I'mhmm, watch it.
• 20:57
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Burn Dang, I'm going to cry.
• 21:00
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: This whole episode.
• 21:01
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I'm trying not to Crying is good, I mean, it is also cathartic, but again everything feels like it's changing in the world and it's a little bit hard to function.
• 21:17
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I guess I don't know what other word I want to use.
• 21:19
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: It does feel a bit like I don't know, like we're surrounded by trauma every day and I don't know how to push through that.
• 21:28
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: But that song has been bringing me a lot of solace, and not just because of the lyrics, but like your voice is so soothing and it actually regulates my nervous system.
• 21:40
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: So this is just going to turn into me saying thank you a lot for the art that you've put out into the world, and I wish I mean everybody who listens to this podcast is a fan of the arts, but I wish more people understood, um, what a saving grace it really can be in dark times.
• 21:59
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: So anyway, thank you, I'll try not to cry now.
• 22:03
  Jonatha Brooke: Well, that was.
• 22:04
  Jonatha Brooke: I mean, that was a gift.
• 22:05
  Jonatha Brooke: That song really.
• 22:06
  Jonatha Brooke: My friend the story is actually pretty good my friend, Bambi, who worked at Disney for 19 years, like, literally, she was named Bambi, Not self-given.
• 22:20
  Jonatha Brooke: She's the one that called me and said like hey, Jo, I think you're the one to write this song.
• 22:23
  Jonatha Brooke: Here's the assignment.
• 22:25
  Jonatha Brooke: I'm like I got it and, again, like the Joss Whedon one, it just was a gift.
• 22:29
  Jonatha Brooke: It sort of came down.
• 22:30
  Jonatha Brooke: I was finished in 20 minutes and the song became the glue for the movie because it went through multiple directors and producers, but it just was.
• 22:39
  Jonatha Brooke: It was such an easy voice to find this 12-year-old girl and it's been translated into like 15 or 20 languages.
• 22:49
  Jonatha Brooke: My drummer in Denmark, his wife, sang the Danish version.
• 22:54
  Jonatha Brooke: Oh wow, there's a French version, Italian, Spanish.
• 22:58
  Jonatha Brooke: It's crazy, it's really had life beyond me and that's so powerful.
• 23:05
  Jonatha Brooke: So I sing it every night.
• 23:06
  Jonatha Brooke: I sing it.
• 23:07
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Oh, I love that.
• 23:08
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Yeah, amazing, it's also the power of Disney and then they called me again.
• 23:14
  Jonatha Brooke: I wrote a couple songs for Tinkerbell releases and I just love assignments.
• 23:20
  Jonatha Brooke: I love getting assignments.
• 23:21
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Yeah, yeah.
• 23:22
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Well, you like your deadlines, right.
• 23:23
  Jonatha Brooke: I loved it.
• 23:24
  Jonatha Brooke: Nothing like a deadline.
• 23:27
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: To be fair, so do I.
• 23:28
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: They're very helpful, and the problem with me, and going back to my struggles in writing that book, are that self-inflicted deadlines don't work for me.
• 23:38
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: They don't work At all right Like I can tell myself I want to do it in two weeks and that's not going to happen.
• 23:43
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: So I need somebody else out there saying well, I will pay you $1,000 if you do it, or I will cook you a nice home-cooked meal.
• 23:51
  Jonatha Brooke: It doesn't have to be much or you're fired if you don't do it.
• 23:55
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: There's that one too.
• 23:56
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I like that one less.
• 23:57
  Jonatha Brooke: Well, I ended up.
• 23:58
  Jonatha Brooke: I've been working on this song for weeks.
• 24:00
  Jonatha Brooke: I have a workshop happening starting Monday in New York and I've been on tour and so I've been like juggling and crazy.
• 24:08
  Jonatha Brooke: And then I have another workshop for another musical starting April 1st, once I get back from New York.
• 24:13
  Jonatha Brooke: Once I get back from New York.
• 24:17
  Jonatha Brooke: So I'm like and this morning, cause I have a zoom call at 1230 today with the thing where I've been struggling with this one song which is kind of about what death might be like, what we're speaking about, but it's kind of more fantastical and surreal and a little bit fun and jaunty.
• 24:31
  Jonatha Brooke: I I, just before I got on with you, I w I was like I found the lyric and well, and I sent it to my co-writers and I'm like here's the lyric.
• 24:42
  Jonatha Brooke: I haven't had time to sing it yet, but I think this is how it goes, you know.
• 24:46
  Jonatha Brooke: So like congrats down to the wire.
• 24:49
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I love that and it's funny that we kind of went in that direction and I didn't know.
• 24:54
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I didn't know that was happening, but we ended up there anyway.
• 24:57
  Jonatha Brooke: So see the universe you know, death is going to become my specialty oh my gosh.
• 25:02
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Well, you know that could help a lot of people if it does, so sure, yeah, I wouldn't say anything against that.
• 25:07
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: However, it did make me think of uh, I was watching your oh, I forgot the name of what you called your covid sessions.
• 25:15
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Was it the kitchen?
• 25:16
  Jonatha Brooke: oh, the kitchen, covid.
• 25:17
  Jonatha Brooke: Yes, I used to have a sign but I forgot.
• 25:21
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: We'll pull it out later, but I wanted to talk to you about that because there was one episode where you were talking about songs that dealt with despondence and joyous Was it?
• 25:32
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Joyous grief?
• 25:33
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Yeah, I guess there is a theme.
• 25:35
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: It's clearly on my mind today, but I love those two words and I love your word of the day.
• 25:42
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Do you have, I should ask you, do you have a word of the day today?
• 25:46
  Jonatha Brooke: It was.
• 25:47
  Jonatha Brooke: Oh shoot, I was asking my husband what it meant.
• 25:49
  Jonatha Brooke: Well, it was okay.
• 25:52
  Jonatha Brooke: This isn't the word, but this is the other thing I was chewing on.
• 25:56
  Jonatha Brooke: Like all due respect is this phrase that I put in the song, because one of my Antarctic explorers dudes is kind of mutinying because they're perishing Like the storm is coming in and like there's just nowhere to go and she wants to finish the experiment.
• 26:12
  Jonatha Brooke: They're gathering cells and we're going to prove it, and the French dude is like all due cells and we're going to prove it.
• 26:17
  Jonatha Brooke: And the French dude is like all due respect, we're going to die.
• 26:20
  Jonatha Brooke: So I sort of looked it up and it's got this like it's not respectful.
• 26:27
  Jonatha Brooke: It's like I totally disagree with you but I'm going to pretend that I respect you and I kind of love the dual nature of that meaning.
• 26:35
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: It's funny you said that, because I think I just read something online that I mean it was presented more as a joke like well, when they say, with all due respect, they never said how much respect was due.
• 26:46
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: And I never thought of it that way before because I always used or I used to use it as a caveat to no.
• 26:54
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: No, I do respect you, but I'm trying to offer a different opinion and now I realize, oh no, it could also be an insult.
• 27:03
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Whoops.
• 27:04
  Jonatha Brooke: Yeah, yeah.
• 27:05
  Jonatha Brooke: So that was fun, because I hadn't thought of it that way until I looked it up either.
• 27:11
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I love it.
• 27:11
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I love.
• 27:12
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Research Turns out a lot of great stuff.
• 27:15
  Jonatha Brooke: Oh, and the thing about joyful grief is that I think I live in that place where dueling things coexist, and it happens lyrically but it also happens melodically, with counterpoints and melodies, where there's you know, there's maybe two thoughts and maybe two melodies that coexist, and then they harmonize with each other, they meet in the middle somewhere and then they part again or they cross paths.
• 27:41
  Jonatha Brooke: I'm kind of obsessed with that nature of two things existing at once and your mind being able to hold both.
• 27:51
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Absolutely.
• 27:52
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: There's so much nuance in the world and that's one thing that my therapist would tell you that I struggle with.
• 28:01
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: But I think that's what makes music beautiful and, like you were saying, I'm not a musician.
• 28:08
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: The best I can do is play maybe the first few notes of Yankee Doodle on the keyboard Yankee Doodle on the keyboard.
• 28:18
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: So I don't have the terminology that I need to express what I'm saying, but I think I understand what you're saying.
• 28:22
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: In that there is a melding of emotion.
• 28:26
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I guess, I got that.
• 28:28
  Jonatha Brooke: Right.
• 28:29
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Totally.
• 28:30
  Jonatha Brooke: I'll forget if I don't say it now, but you can edit it out if it's not important.
• 28:33
  Jonatha Brooke: One of the things that I loved about exploring the theater of the story with my mom was, you know, in the throes of caregiving, it's super intense and you're exhausted and people are like, no, you should really, you know, make sure you take care of you, and you're like when, how?
• 28:50
  Jonatha Brooke: But there are these things that happen in the caregiving maybe you experienced this with your dad but where, like, there's this really hard thing, like when mom was actively dying, which is itself this really weird frigging term.
• 29:05
  Jonatha Brooke: So she's actively dying, wow, let me put my head around that.
• 29:09
  Jonatha Brooke: But as she's actively dying, these crazy, actually hysterically funny things were happening.
• 29:15
  Jonatha Brooke: Dying, these crazy, actually hysterically funny things were happening.
• 29:19
  Jonatha Brooke: Like one of the caregivers went into this religious speaking in tongues, convulsions, like epileptic fit.
• 29:25
  Jonatha Brooke: It was like this crazy, like mom, mom is like you know, keep me really quiet.
• 29:30
  Jonatha Brooke: I'm reading her from the Bible and I'm like mom, everything's okay.
• 29:33
  Jonatha Brooke: And I'm here, I'm here, I'm holding her hand, I'm staring at her and then, audrey, our camera was like praise, Jesus, lord is my shepherd.
• 29:40
  Jonatha Brooke: I'm like, oh, my God, this is really happening.
• 29:45
  Jonatha Brooke: And like my, my little, my daughter person is like, oh my God, can you please go in the other room?
• 29:50
  Jonatha Brooke: Like mom, everything's okay.
• 29:51
  Jonatha Brooke: Like I, you know we're quiet here.
• 29:53
  Jonatha Brooke: And then my, my writer brain is like, oh my God, this is hysterically funny.
• 29:57
  Jonatha Brooke: Like, how do I, how am I going to tell this story later?
• 30:00
  Jonatha Brooke: Because, like, no one's going to believe this.
• 30:07
  Jonatha Brooke: So, like that, I just love that there can be these two things.
• 30:09
  Jonatha Brooke: And you're like, on the one hand, your, your heart is shredding, and then there's this incredibly like comical thing that you know, know you'll appreciate even more later.
• 30:17
  Jonatha Brooke: And so you're clocking it of like am I allowed to think this is funny now?
• 30:21
  Jonatha Brooke: And you're kind of like, just save it, save it.
• 30:23
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Absolutely.
• 30:24
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: As I've gotten older, I understand better the notion of yin and yang.
• 30:28
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: When I was a kid, I had no concept of like.
• 30:32
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: What do you mean?
• 30:32
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Balance, whatever.
• 30:33
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Things are black and white and that's it.
• 30:35
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: There is no in between.
• 30:36
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: But but now, yes, everything that you just said, there is yin and yang right In order to take care of yourself.
• 30:45
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Which, what?
• 30:46
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: What do they say?
• 30:47
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: It's that you know you have to put your own oxygen safety mask on first.
• 30:52
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Yeah, which I I understand.
• 30:54
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: But, like you were saying, almost all of us struggle with that notion because your impulse is to help the person that you love who's sitting right next to you, so it feels selfish to take care of yourself first.
• 31:09
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Yeah, but that's, that's the struggle, right?
• 31:12
  Jonatha Brooke: we all, we all deal with that to some extent yeah and there's some of each thing in the other thing too, which is life is interesting.
• 31:21
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: It is.
• 31:21
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: It is very difficult to process, right, but that's why I love talking to folks like you and other artists who are helping I don't know, I guess helping me to understand the things that didn't jump out at me before and it reminds me of I loved Carrie Fisher.
• 31:42
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I still love Carrie Fisher, but she had that quote take your broken heart and turn it into art.
• 31:47
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I remind myself of that constantly, constant, because what we all I mean, whether you consider yourself an artist or not, I think we all should be doing that.
• 31:59
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: You know when, if you, maybe you're not a writer, maybe you're not a musician, but if you lose someone, it's okay to pull out a journal and write down whatever you're feeling.
• 32:08
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Or even nowadays, with cell phones, you can just do like a video diary or something.
• 32:13
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: It doesn't have to go anywhere, but we're all secretly artists somewhere.
• 32:18
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: You don't want to make a career out of it or or pursue it Like.
• 32:22
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Art is pivotal to surviving this messy world.
• 32:26
  Jonatha Brooke: Totally, totally.
• 32:27
  Jonatha Brooke: Oh, I had one more idea for your, for your dad book.
• 32:30
  Jonatha Brooke: Oh, okay, what really?
• 32:32
  Jonatha Brooke: What helped me with creating the mom thing also was I got frustrated between how I would write a story and how I would tell it Like on stage when I'm introducing a song.
• 32:44
  Jonatha Brooke: Sometimes I tell goofy stories, and so I started recording myself in Photo Booth on my laptop.
• 32:52
  Jonatha Brooke: I just started giving myself assignments of like okay, tell the nose story, because my mom had prosthetic noses, because she had had skin cancer, and so I would tell it into the computer and then transcribe that and it would just feel much more natural.
• 33:06
  Jonatha Brooke: So that might be something that helps you.
• 33:09
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Yeah, yes, you know, it's funny because I I mean, I did take my own advice when my father first passed.
• 33:17
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I started video diaries because, even though I consider myself a writer, I had the hardest time and I still have the hardest time writing journal entries because, like with everything else, I overthink it and I don't want to edit myself and it's a whole thing.
• 33:32
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: So I started these video diaries and I was like you know what, maybe I'll turn this into a documentary or maybe I'll use it as inspiration for the book.
• 33:39
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: So now I have hours upon hours upon hours upon hours of footage.
• 33:44
  Jonatha Brooke: There you go.
• 33:46
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Yeah, but I just have to figure out how I'm going to proceed with it.
• 33:52
  Jonatha Brooke: So it's either have someone else transcribe it.
• 33:54
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Yeah, Maybe I will honestly.
• 33:57
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Or there's like computers that just do that.
• 33:59
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: There are this is a plug for Revcom With AI.
• 34:05
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Now, yeah, they do.
• 34:07
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: There are those transcription services and you're right, maybe that's the route because part of it is, like, really hard to revisit.
• 34:15
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: So there's a limit, right, you want to stop yourself from doing too much of it, because you don't want to break down entirely and you know I'd only have to.
• 34:25
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I would only want to revisit it like once before I start working on a project, rather than like the 50 times it would take me to actually.
• 34:34
  Jonatha Brooke: Yeah, and easier to just see it on a page than to witness yourself, kind of going through the.
• 34:39
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Yeah, you know, watch me have a mental breakdown, but that was really good advice.
• 34:44
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: So thank you, and I love that we're kind of on the same page because it's happening right.
• 34:49
  Jonatha Brooke: Whatever it takes to get the, you know it's like get it down.
• 34:53
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I wanted to talk to you about two songs that I was just listening to before I jumped on with you Taste of Danger, which you recorded twice so or I mean a new rendition of an older song Can you tell me what led you to spicing it up and changing?
• 35:13
  Jonatha Brooke: do it again yeah, I guess I felt like I it's a.
• 35:18
  Jonatha Brooke: I just I think it's a really good song.
• 35:21
  Jonatha Brooke: I think that it is, uh, one of those songs that people get right away.
• 35:26
  Jonatha Brooke: You know, I didn't over complicate it, which can be one of my tendencies, uh, and I just was was telling a story that I just like the poetry of it, I like the rock of it, and I thought, well, if no one ever heard this the first time when it came out on the works, which was like 2009-ish 2010, I want to give it another shot.
• 35:47
  Jonatha Brooke: But if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it completely differently.
• 35:50
  Jonatha Brooke: So I made it into this dark, I took it down a whole step and I made it this dark, moody sort of brooding piano thing, and then I added these background vocals and then I added this sort of John Mayer quote at the end, like hold on to whatever you find baby.
• 36:05
  Jonatha Brooke: And I'm like John, is this okay if I steal some shit from you?
• 36:08
  Jonatha Brooke: And he's like, yeah, yeah, do it, do it, do it.
• 36:10
  Jonatha Brooke: So I just wanted to like make a new version and challenge myself, but also just give that song another shot to be heard.
• 36:16
  Jonatha Brooke: I think that's fantastic.
• 36:18
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I mean it's wonderful, Like all of your work is wonderful, but I was really enjoying that one and I'm lacking the words to express myself right now.
• 36:30
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Like you know, it's at the tip of my tongue, but my brain is just not connecting to my tongue right now it's driving me nuts, I feel ya.
• 36:40
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Yeah, I was trying to say sometimes, in listening to an artist's music right before jumping on with them, it gives you an idea of who the artist is or what the conversation will be like.
• 36:53
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: And I mean listening to your work.
• 36:55
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I think your voice is beautiful and the music is stunning, but I still didn't really know what the conversation would be like.
• 37:02
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: But you've been such a joy and, yeah, I loved talking to you and I wish this could go on forever.
• 37:08
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I mean you might want to go, but I loved this conversation.
• 37:11
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: But, like I said, short form and I can only ask you so many.
• 37:14
  Jonatha Brooke: Damn yeah, we could go on all day we could tell a lot of things.
• 37:19
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I love you.
• 37:19
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: You're my new best friend.
• 37:20
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I'm your new best friend.
• 37:22
  Jonatha Brooke: No, like I need a new best friend.
• 37:24
  Jonatha Brooke: Minneapolis is a little lonely in the winter, you know, you don't?
• 37:27
  Jonatha Brooke: Oh gosh.
• 37:27
  Jonatha Brooke: Yeah, if it's crappy out, you just don't leave.
• 37:31
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I have to ask you something really stupid, because we brought up Minneapolis again.
• 37:35
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I feel like I have developed this false memory.
• 37:38
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Do you remember a show?
• 37:40
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: There was a show called Bobby's World.
• 37:43
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: It was, I think it was an animated show and Howie Mandel was involved and all I remember is thinking it was set in Minnesota.
• 37:52
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: And I wonder if I made this up.
• 37:54
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: But I could have sworn that.
• 37:56
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: There was a character I think it was Bobby's mother who would always say something like don't you know, don't you know, like all the time.
• 38:03
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: And it is.
• 38:04
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I mean, just knowing that you're in Minneapolis, I've just, like I don't know, had this I've never heard of that.
• 38:11
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I'm writing it down, though I'm going to Google it.
• 38:13
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I mean, it was a kid show.
• 38:15
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I'm sure I remember this from my youth and, like I said, I've just learned about false memories and how sometimes it's wrong.
• 38:20
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: So I'm wondering if I have to.
• 38:22
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: It's a big adventure.
• 38:23
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Maybe I just made this up entirely, but I guess, if I have to ask a question tied to that, is that the correct accent.
• 38:32
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Does that exist, don't you?
• 38:33
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Oh?
• 38:33
  Jonatha Brooke: yeah, oh yeah, sure, yeah, you betcha, great, great.
• 38:36
  Jonatha Brooke: Yeah.
• 38:37
  Jonatha Brooke: My husband is from here, which is part of the reason that we were not afraid to move here, but his sisters have much thicker.
• 38:45
  Jonatha Brooke: He doesn't have an accent because he left when he was 17.
• 38:48
  Jonatha Brooke: But his sisters are definitely Minneapolis kind of speakers.
• 38:52
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Yeah, it's amazing.
• 38:59
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Oh my God, I love it.
• 39:00
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Well, now that I've just like brought Bobby's world into this, I think that's a great place to end.
• 39:02
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Thank you so so much.
• 39:04
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: This really was a fantastic conversation.
• 39:07
  Jonatha Brooke: I appreciate everything about this day.
• 39:09
  Jonatha Brooke: Thanks, Gina.
• 39:11
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Jonatha Brooke will be sharing her beautiful voice and music with the audience at the Lizzie Rose Music Room in Tuckerton, new Jersey, on March 30th.
• 39:19
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: For tickets and more information, be sure to visit LizzieRoseMusic.
• 39:23
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: com and JonathaBrooke.
• 39:25
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: com.
• 39:26
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: If you liked this episode, be sure to review, subscribe and tell your friends.
• 39:32
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: A transcript of this podcast, links relevant to the story and more about the arts in New Jersey can be found at JerseyArts.
• 39:37
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: com.
• 39:39
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: The Jersey Arts Podcast is presented by Art Pride New Jersey, advancing a state of creativity since 1986.
• 39:45
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: The show was co-founded by, and currently supported by funds from, the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.
• 39:51
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: This episode was hosted, edited and produced by me, Gina Marie Rodriguez.
• 39:56
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Executive producers are Jim Atkinson and Isaac Serna-Diez, and my thanks to Jonatha Brooke for speaking with me today.
• 40:03
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I'm Gina Marie Rodriguez for the Jersey Arts Podcast.
• 40:07
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Thanks for listening.