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Jersey Arts Podcast
The Jersey Arts Podcast presents in-depth, one-on-one conversations with the liveliest and most intriguing personalities in New Jersey’s arts scene. From the casts of hit shows to critically acclaimed film producers; from world-renowned poets to classically trained musicians; from groundbreaking dance visionaries to cutting-edge fine artists, our podcast connects you to what’s happening in your local arts community.
Jersey Arts Podcast
Jonatha Brooke and Joyous Grief
Jonatha Brooke has a voice to soothe your soul, and the lyrics to nurture it. 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.
Jonatha 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. She has co-written songs with Katy Perry and The Courtyard Hounds. She's written and performed for Disney films, numerous television shows, and she composed and performed the theme song for Joss Whedon's "Dollhouse." 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.
Check out today’s episode to learn more about the very talented Jonatha Brooke who will grace the stage of The Lizzie Rose Music Room this March 30th.
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This is Gina Marie Rodriguez and you're listening to the Jersey Arts Podcast. Jonatha Brooke has a voice to soothe your soul and the lyrics to nurture it. 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. 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. Jonatha has co-written songs with Katy Perry and the Courtyard Hounds. She's written and performed for Disney films, numerous television shows, and she composed and performed the theme song for Josh Whedon's Dollhouse. 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.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:Today's episode is a little different than most. 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. We laughed, we cried Okay, well, I cried, but we had a grand old time. Check out today's episode to learn more about the very talented Jonathan Brook. It's so nice to meet you. Thank you so much for taking the time. I really do appreciate it. I'm very excited.
Jonatha Brooke:Likewise my pleasure. It's been a while since I've done anything like this, so this will be great.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:Oh well, yay, I'm glad to be your introduction back into it.
Jonatha Brooke:I guess, and I have to say, I love your twinkle lights in the background. Thank you, that was a COVID thing because I was so depressed and I think they are a great antidepressant.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:They are. No, they are. I want twinkle lights all over my house and I've been trying to find the right one. If that, makes sense. I'm very particular about the design. I haven't found it yet, but I'm with you on lights helping.
Jonatha Brooke:Anyway, I guess.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:I should talk to you about music too. 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. 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. But I'll try to be as concise as possible. Okay, me too. Okay, but you're, are you in the middle of your tour? I know you were just in Denmark, right?
Jonatha Brooke:Or just got back yesterday. No I think I got back Sunday. Oh, what's today, yesterday? No, I think I got back Sunday.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:Oh, what's today, Tuesday?
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. 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.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:I love that. 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? Do you enjoy?
Jonatha Brooke:Not the travel part for sure, because it is just grueling and it's um. 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. But I have to say I just love the camaraderie with my guitar player. 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. I think once you've been on the road with a bunch of dudes it's hard not to still love it. 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. I can't, I just can't quit it.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:I think that's great. When you said that you, you can't oh my gosh, I speak English. Sometimes I have trouble with the language that I was born into. Try Danish. You were saying that being on tour with a bunch of dudes is actually something that you love. It was not the direction I thought you were going to go in. So is your band? Mostly men.
Jonatha Brooke:Right now. Yes, I mostly tour as a duo because it makes it affordable, and Sean Driscoll is my guitar player. 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. Yeah, there are women in my Rolodex that I would dream of playing with again. It's just the money, it's the affordability factor.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:I think everything in life is, you know, dependent on capitalism. I feel for you, though I did want to ask, I mean I should. Let's give them a shout out, the gentleman in Denmark who are those folks that you work?
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. And they happen to be super fans of mine, so they like know my music inside and out. 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. So it gives me this little sort of cachet.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:That's great. So how often do you end up in Denmark?
Jonatha Brooke:It seems like like once a. 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.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:Do you live in Minneapolis? Are you still? I do.
Jonatha Brooke:I do.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:Is it super cold right now?
Jonatha Brooke:Gorgeous. It's like it was in the 50s yesterday. Let me tell you it is currently 31, but probably going up to like oh, 40, 42. Oh wow. So, I came home to like gorgeous, gorgeous springish weather. So it's, and also, you know, climate change. It's becoming a destination, moving place, because we won't probably have fires or floods, so come on down.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:Wow, yeah, you know I haven't. 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. 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.
Jonatha Brooke:You should come, we'll cook you dinner. 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.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:Yeah, you are lucky. Maybe I'll ask you for relationship advice later too. How do I find a man who can cook for me? 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.
Jonatha Brooke:Oh, that's wicked sweet. Tell him hello and give him a hug.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:Absolutely. See, she said hi, jim. 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? Buffy?
Jonatha Brooke:the Vampire.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:Slayer, possibly Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Yeah, how do you feel about that? How did it end up on that show? What was that process like?
Jonatha Brooke:That's the weirdest thing, because I hate to admit it but I still have not seen that show. But it turns out that Joss Whedon is a big fan of mine, so it was his call. I didn't even know that it had happened until people started telling me like hey, did you know that inconsolable was on buffy? And then he ended up calling me to write his theme song for um dollhouse. So I wrote and sang what you don't know won't hurt you, um, for his, his next escapade. Uh, so it was. 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. I'm like got it. I got it, and then I sent it to him. He's like oh my god, that's. And then I sent it to him. He's like oh my God, that's exactly what I meant.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:I love hearing the stories of artists like fangirling or fanboying over other artists.
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. 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. I just adore him so bad.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:And then everyone else I'm kind of unfazed by. Did you get starstruck when you met Michael McDonald?
Jonatha Brooke:Totally, oh my God, oh, I also did when I was living in LA. 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.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:Oh, so you didn't get to talk to her, nope. Well, at least you have the cereal story though, because I think that's what I hold on to. I do, I do. Yeah, that's the good thing about LA you just run into everybody and anybody.
Jonatha Brooke:Yeah, we'll always have Cap'n Crunch in common.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:Exactly. 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?
Jonatha Brooke:I do not have any film and TV stuff happening. 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. So that's where my head is right now. I'm hoping finally to record a new Jonathan record and I have a couple songs that I've been working on for that. But it's a it's a juggle. Right now there's lots of things on the front burner.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:Yeah, I mean for our listeners who can't see me. My jaw was just on the floor. That's a lot to handle. Is there anything that you can tell us about those musicals, or is it still too early?
Jonatha Brooke:to say anything. No, I can tell you sort of plot lines. One of them is called Switched. 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.
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.
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. So she's revived and go and we sort of get to see both worlds in that one. 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. 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.
Jonatha Brooke:So it, yeah, and that one is kind of fast-tracked.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:That's in the season for 2026 wow, all I mean my jaw was on the floor for all of those. They all sound amazing. I have no idea how you're writing three different musicals concurrently like that.
Jonatha Brooke:I just don't know either. I'm just trying to keep like. I'm trying to keep their. I'm trying to keep a specific sort of musical tone to each character so that I can identify it's like. It's like their vernacular or their accent, so that they don't all start whizzing together.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:Right, right. So are you. You're writing the book and the lyrics and the music.
Jonatha Brooke:Thank God, I'm just writing the music and the lyrics. Okay, I'm terrible at dialogue.
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. My Mother has four noses, so this is not about me, but I wanted to share that. 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. 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.
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. So I guess, thank you there wasn't a question there, but thank you for being able to do that.
Jonatha Brooke:I think this is something I talk about when I teach songwriting as well is sometimes to break the wall of. 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. 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. So for me the point is just like get it down, even if it sucks, just write and write and write free write. Give yourself assignments of like I will only write this one story.
Jonatha Brooke:So then you're not overwhelmed by like I must write the story of my life with my father. It's more like what about that time where we made that little silly musical at breakfast about breakfast with mom? 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. And that really helped me because I too was overwhelmed. When I started I knew it was going to be theater, it was bigger than a record, but I'd never done that before. I was terrified. So I started just taking it in bite-sized chunk stories and that allowed me to move through it.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:Thank you. Thank you for that advice, I guess. I guess that was the question built in there without me wanting to say it, so yeah, it's hard.
Jonatha Brooke:I mean we all, anyone creative can tell you about, like the doldrums, you know where you're just like. Oh God, get me out of here, give me some wind.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:I've been stuck in them for probably two and a half years. I wonder why.
Jonatha Brooke:Yeah Well, number one, you're grieving. It's a loss, but also giving yourself assignments is helpful. I luckily had a deadline so I couldn't not write it. I was in the theater, you know. 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.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:Wow, that is definitely. That's a sooner deadline that I would have expected you to say, I know.
Jonatha Brooke:I know. 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.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:Wow, did it help? I mean, you said it was catharsis, so like after you finished the run. How did you feel? Was it relief, Was it joy?
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. There were a couple of times when I started to lose it. But you know, I was acting, so I had to learn to sort of turn it off. Turn off like the Jonathan, real Jonathan, and be like character Jonathan.
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. You see her silly and clownish and kind of sexy and making fun of herself and that was her essence. 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. But also I think that gave the audience's permission to be like to laugh, to cry and then to walk away with. Oh, I love her too.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:Absolutely, and I think that's what's beautiful about art. 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.
Jonatha Brooke:I sure hope, so I was so bummed. I wish she could have seen the show.
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. The other over there is. 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. There was one day where I was drinking my coffee and coffee has a very strong smell. Right, it is coffee, but I overwhelmingly smelled my father's cologne. It was else in the room.
Jonatha Brooke:I don't live with men. There's never any cologne here.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:But it was very specifically his cologne room. I don't live with men, there's never any cologne here, but it was very specifically his cologne. I couldn't smell the coffee, I just smelled the cologne. So I do. 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.
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. Yeah, thank you, of course. Love to your mom, love to my dad. Okay, I'm going to try to center myself and bring it back. I wanted to talk to you about your song. 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. It was something that I had heard over and over and I couldn't figure out why. And it wasn't until recently that I realized I used to have a collection of those Disney's greatest hits CDs. So I had never seen Return to Neverland. 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.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:Thank you for writing it. 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.
Jonatha Brooke:I don't know where to turn. I can't leave you waiting, but I can't stay and watch the city burn Dang.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:I'mhmm, watch it. Burn Dang, I'm going to cry. This whole episode. 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. I guess I don't know what other word I want to use. 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. 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. 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. So anyway, thank you, I'll try not to cry now.
Jonatha Brooke:Well, that was. I mean, that was a gift. That song really. 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. She's the one that called me and said like hey, Jo, I think you're the one to write this song. Here's the assignment. I'm like I got it and, again, like the Joss Whedon one, it just was a gift. It sort of came down. 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. It was such an easy voice to find this 12-year-old girl and it's been translated into like 15 or 20 languages. My drummer in Denmark, his wife, sang the Danish version. Oh wow, there's a French version, Italian, Spanish. It's crazy, it's really had life beyond me and that's so powerful. So I sing it every night. I sing it.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:Oh, I love that. Yeah, amazing, it's also the power of Disney and then they called me again.
Jonatha Brooke:I wrote a couple songs for Tinkerbell releases and I just love assignments. I love getting assignments.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:Yeah, yeah. Well, you like your deadlines, right.
Jonatha Brooke:I loved it. Nothing like a deadline.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:To be fair, so do I. 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. 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. 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.
Jonatha Brooke:It doesn't have to be much or you're fired if you don't do it.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:There's that one too. I like that one less.
Jonatha Brooke:Well, I ended up. I've been working on this song for weeks. 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. And then I have another workshop for another musical starting April 1st, once I get back from New York. Once I get back from New York. 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. 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.
Jonatha Brooke:I haven't had time to sing it yet, but I think this is how it goes, you know. So like congrats down to the wire.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:I love that and it's funny that we kind of went in that direction and I didn't know. I didn't know that was happening, but we ended up there anyway.
Jonatha Brooke:So see the universe you know, death is going to become my specialty oh my gosh.
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. However, it did make me think of uh, I was watching your oh, I forgot the name of what you called your covid sessions. Was it the kitchen?
Jonatha Brooke:oh, the kitchen, covid. Yes, I used to have a sign but I forgot.
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? Joyous grief? Yeah, I guess there is a theme. It's clearly on my mind today, but I love those two words and I love your word of the day. Do you have, I should ask you, do you have a word of the day today?
Jonatha Brooke:It was. Oh shoot, I was asking my husband what it meant. Well, it was okay. This isn't the word, but this is the other thing I was chewing on. 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. 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. And the French dude is like all due respect, we're going to die. So I sort of looked it up and it's got this like it's not respectful. 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.
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. And I never thought of it that way before because I always used or I used to use it as a caveat to no. 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. Whoops.
Jonatha Brooke:Yeah, yeah. So that was fun, because I hadn't thought of it that way until I looked it up either.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:I love it. I love. Research Turns out a lot of great stuff.
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. I'm kind of obsessed with that nature of two things existing at once and your mind being able to hold both.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:Absolutely. There's so much nuance in the world and that's one thing that my therapist would tell you that I struggle with. But I think that's what makes music beautiful and, like you were saying, I'm not a musician. The best I can do is play maybe the first few notes of Yankee Doodle on the keyboard Yankee Doodle on the keyboard. 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. In that there is a melding of emotion. I guess, I got that.
Jonatha Brooke:Right.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:Totally.
Jonatha Brooke:I'll forget if I don't say it now, but you can edit it out if it's not important. 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? 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. So she's actively dying, wow, let me put my head around that. But as she's actively dying, these crazy, actually hysterically funny things were happening. Dying, these crazy, actually hysterically funny things were happening.
Jonatha Brooke:Like one of the caregivers went into this religious speaking in tongues, convulsions, like epileptic fit. It was like this crazy, like mom, mom is like you know, keep me really quiet. I'm reading her from the Bible and I'm like mom, everything's okay. 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. I'm like, oh, my God, this is really happening.
Jonatha Brooke:And like my, my little, my daughter person is like, oh my God, can you please go in the other room? Like mom, everything's okay. Like I, you know we're quiet here. And then my, my writer brain is like, oh my God, this is hysterically funny. Like, how do I, how am I going to tell this story later? Because, like, no one's going to believe this. So, like that, I just love that there can be these two things. 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. And so you're clocking it of like am I allowed to think this is funny now? And you're kind of like, just save it, save it.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:Absolutely. As I've gotten older, I understand better the notion of yin and yang. When I was a kid, I had no concept of like. What do you mean? Balance, whatever. Things are black and white and that's it. There is no in between. But but now, yes, everything that you just said, there is yin and yang right In order to take care of yourself. Which, what? What do they say? It's that you know you have to put your own oxygen safety mask on first.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:Yeah, which I I understand. 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. Yeah, but that's, that's the struggle, right?
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.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:It is. 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. I still love Carrie Fisher, but she had that quote take your broken heart and turn it into art. 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. 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. Or even nowadays, with cell phones, you can just do like a video diary or something. It doesn't have to go anywhere, but we're all secretly artists somewhere. You don't want to make a career out of it or or pursue it Like. Art is pivotal to surviving this messy world.
Jonatha Brooke:Totally, totally. Oh, I had one more idea for your, for your dad book. Oh, okay, what really? 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. Sometimes I tell goofy stories, and so I started recording myself in Photo Booth on my laptop. 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. So that might be something that helps you.
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. 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. 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. So now I have hours upon hours upon hours upon hours of footage.
Jonatha Brooke:There you go.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:Yeah, but I just have to figure out how I'm going to proceed with it.
Jonatha Brooke:So it's either have someone else transcribe it.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:Yeah, Maybe I will honestly.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:Or there's like computers that just do that. There are this is a plug for Revcom With AI. Now, yeah, they do. There are those transcription services and you're right, maybe that's the route because part of it is, like, really hard to revisit. 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. 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.
Jonatha Brooke:Yeah, and easier to just see it on a page than to witness yourself, kind of going through the.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:Yeah, you know, watch me have a mental breakdown, but that was really good advice. So thank you, and I love that we're kind of on the same page because it's happening right.
Jonatha Brooke:Whatever it takes to get the, you know it's like get it down.
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?
Jonatha Brooke:do it again yeah, I guess I felt like I it's a. I just I think it's a really good song. I think that it is, uh, one of those songs that people get right away. 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. But if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it completely differently. 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.
Jonatha Brooke:And I'm like John, is this okay if I steal some shit from you? And he's like, yeah, yeah, do it, do it, do it. So I just wanted to like make a new version and challenge myself, but also just give that song another shot to be heard. I think that's fantastic.
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. 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.
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. And I mean listening to your work. I think your voice is beautiful and the music is stunning, but I still didn't really know what the conversation would be like. But you've been such a joy and, yeah, I loved talking to you and I wish this could go on forever. I mean you might want to go, but I loved this conversation. But, like I said, short form and I can only ask you so many.
Jonatha Brooke:Damn yeah, we could go on all day we could tell a lot of things.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:I love you. You're my new best friend. I'm your new best friend.
Jonatha Brooke:No, like I need a new best friend. Minneapolis is a little lonely in the winter, you know, you don't? Oh gosh. Yeah, if it's crappy out, you just don't leave.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:I have to ask you something really stupid, because we brought up Minneapolis again. I feel like I have developed this false memory. Do you remember a show? There was a show called Bobby's World. 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. And I wonder if I made this up. But I could have sworn that. 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. And it is. 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.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:I'm writing it down, though I'm going to Google it. I mean, it was a kid show. 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. So I'm wondering if I have to. It's a big adventure. 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. Does that exist, don't you? Oh?
Jonatha Brooke:yeah, oh yeah, sure, yeah, you betcha, great, great. Yeah. 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. He doesn't have an accent because he left when he was 17. But his sisters are definitely Minneapolis kind of speakers.
Gina Marie Rodriguez:Yeah, it's amazing. Oh my God, I love it. Well, now that I've just like brought Bobby's world into this, I think that's a great place to end. Thank you so so much. This really was a fantastic conversation.
Jonatha Brooke:I appreciate everything about this day. Thanks, Gina.
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. For tickets and more information, be sure to visit LizzieRoseMusic. com and JonathaBrooke. com. If you liked this episode, be sure to review, subscribe and tell your friends. A transcript of this podcast, links relevant to the story and more about the arts in New Jersey can be found at JerseyArts. com. The Jersey Arts Podcast is presented by Art Pride New Jersey, advancing a state of creativity since 1986. The show was co-founded by, and currently supported by funds from, the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. This episode was hosted, edited and produced by me, Gina Marie Rodriguez. Executive producers are Jim Atkinson and Isaac Serna-Diez, and my thanks to Jonatha Brooke for speaking with me today. I'm Gina Marie Rodriguez for the Jersey Arts Podcast. Thanks for listening.
