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Dear Ani: A Conversation with Keith Wasserman
105 Plays1 year ago
Today, Grant and Fara are joined by Keith Wasserman, who is a producer and a major figure in the film "Dear Ani". In this episode, they have a conversation with Keith about his life, the process of making the film, and his relationship with and understanding of his experiences of mania. "Dear Ani" is a journey that explores music, art, and mania. We hope you enjoy listening to this episode of the podcast.
You can follow Keith on Instagram at @the_deep_wink.
You can also follow us on Instagram at @doorknobcomments, and check out our TikTok account at doorknobcommentspodcast. Don't forget to visit our website too!
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Transcript
Introduction and Concept of Doorknob Comments
00:00:00
Speaker
There's always what's presented and what you see, and then there's always what's going on behind it to create that thing. And for me, that's where the juicy drama is. I imagine it's kind of like therapy in that sense. Hello, I'm Dr. Farah White. And I'm Dr. Grant Brenner.
00:00:22
Speaker
We're psychiatrists and therapists in private practice in New York. We started this podcast in 2019 to draw attention to a phenomenon called the door knob comment. Door knob comments are important things we all say from time to time, just as we're leaving the office, sometimes literally hand on the door knob.
00:00:38
Speaker
Doorknob comments happen not only during therapy, but also in everyday life. The point is that sometimes we aren't sure how to express the deeply meaningful things we're feeling, thinking, and experiencing. Maybe we're afraid to bring certain things out into the open or are on the fence about wanting to discuss them. Sometimes we know we've got something we're unsure about sharing and are keeping it to ourselves. And sometimes we surprise ourselves by what comes out.
00:01:05
Speaker
Hi, welcome to the doorknob comments.
Introducing Keith Wasserman and 'Dear Ani'
00:01:07
Speaker
My name is Grant Brenner. I'm here with my co-host, Dr. Farah White. Today we have a special guest, Keith Wasserman. Keith Wasserman has had a lifelong career in the arts and education. He'll tell us more about that in a minute and has worn many different hats. We're here to talk about his life and his work and more particularly his recent film, Dear Ani, about his long-term relationship with singer songwriter, Ani DeFranco. Welcome, Keith.
00:01:35
Speaker
Hello, hello Grant, hello Farrah. Thank you both so much for having me on today. It's a pleasure. Thanks for coming on. I was really excited at the Urban Dreams Mental Health Film Festival, both to see your film and also to meet your friend, David, who really seems like a really great guy as well. And so I'm glad he could connect us. Absolutely, absolutely.
00:01:58
Speaker
Keith, do you want to tell just for the listeners who haven't seen the film, you know, a little bit sort of about it, what you think people should know and why you decided to make it?
Exploring the Film's Themes and Interpretations
00:02:10
Speaker
Well, absolutely. Well, the first question I always ask people is, have you heard of Ani DeFranco? Because it's amazing to me how many people have not. I was a big fan of her music, actually, still like it. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, you know, she's an artist who has evolved, you know, who has constantly evolved her sound and her style and her,
00:02:33
Speaker
I mean, from the artist point of view, when you think about who are artists you admire and why do you admire them? You know, she's always in my top five. And so, you know, if you're curious about my film, know that or at least be curious about that. And then you shouldn't know anything else. Just go for it. It's a wild ride. I will read
00:02:57
Speaker
the logline of the film, because, Grant, you had asked me for a synopsis. So the most succinct way to put it is this. More than 20 years ago, an aspiring songwriter began a creatively obsessive correspondence with music icon Ani DeFranco, believing her reply letters were encoded in the lyrics of her songs. Dear Ani, is an odyssey of music, art, and mania.
00:03:27
Speaker
for people in my field, in our field.
00:03:32
Speaker
When you hear that part about song lyrics being encoded as a sort of a special message, we're most likely to assume that that is a symptom of mania, right? Of course. I mean, you tell me. It sounds like a delusional ideation is certainly a theme among people who are, you know, who are prone to fear.
00:03:58
Speaker
feel an extra connective tissue, you know, the belief in things that are there which are not there. And perhaps it's helpful to share some greater context. This is a 20 year story after all. And mania, quote unquote, is a very different thing for very many different people.
Keith's Artistic Journey and Personal Growth
00:04:20
Speaker
At least from my kind of untrained perspective, I am not, I'm an artist, I'm an educator. So please correct me if I start to think I know more, if I sound like I really know what I'm talking about and it's an easy adjustment because I'm fascinated and eager to learn.
00:04:42
Speaker
Well, you're an expert on your own experience and you've lived with this firsthand and there may be things that the experts don't get right also. Of course. So you had asked me to perhaps sort of talk a little bit about where I was at when this story began.
00:05:06
Speaker
And I think it's fascinating and important and part of what has been a life philosophy. I imagine you've seen the film and so the story is set up by this author named Rilke.
00:05:21
Speaker
who says that you really need to spend time alone to know yourself. And so as the young kind of artist that I was full of all the juice and my heroes being Kerouac and my heroes being Orwell and my heroes being the transcendentalists, I was searching, I was looking even then for experience.
00:05:43
Speaker
And so in the summer of 1995, I was traveling in Europe for the first time, fulfilling a dream, backpack, hitchhiking. And it was an ecstatic, wild, beautiful time of my life. And I remember being on the ferry boat back from Amsterdam to London. I was getting on a plane the next day. And I said, you know, my life is never gonna be the same after this. This experience has been so transformative.
00:06:13
Speaker
And yet I'm gonna return to everything that's known in normal and people were gonna say that was something else and now you're back here, right? Back to school, back to work, back to the city, back to the same old thing. And I was leery of that and in the throes of this great adventure of my life. And I said, I'm gonna take a semester off from college and I'm gonna move to a cabin in Maine and have that isolation writer experience.
00:06:40
Speaker
And so I did that and it was pretty cool, you know, feeling like I was walking in the footsteps of my heroes and that if I was gonna learn something true and beautiful and big about myself, this was gonna be the way that I would do it. All of this comes after sort of a traumatic breakup
00:07:00
Speaker
with music, where from the age of six years old to 17 years old, music was my thing. I was going to be a classical musician, composer, etc, etc. But for various reasons, I had this tragic breakup with music.
00:07:17
Speaker
And it tugged at my heart because it was like, how will I ever come back to music? Where will I find my way back in? Because it's not through the channels that I used to do. It won't be playing classical, you know, et cetera. And I was in the cabin in Maine, and I don't want to give the film away, but it's there that I discover Ani DeFranco's music. From the artist to artist level, from the musician to musician level, it was like, that's the way.
00:07:46
Speaker
You know, I had never heard anybody play the guitar like that. I hadn't heard songs written like that. I hadn't heard that type of authentic self-expression in music like that. So when you, when somebody says the music spoke to me, and this is before any kind of lyrical, you know, lyrical play, it was just like, I need to learn how to do that.
00:08:11
Speaker
And so that began my kind of musical obsession, if you will, with Ani. And then like the creative part of my brain took over where I was like, oh, well, you know, she's just a few years older than me. She's just a folk singer in New York. She's just an up and comer. And this is so wild, the way that our lives have intersected, coincidence, fate, chance, magic, all of these things, which I'm open to because I'm
00:08:41
Speaker
in this kind of liminal place. A Jungian term being synchronicity, right? A hundred percent. And I was already hip to synchronicity. You know, I was already reading the Celestine prophecy and Richard Bach and another big one for me actually was Carlos Castaneda.
00:09:02
Speaker
Yeah, I read all his work, not all of it, but a lot when I was a kid, this very yucky way of knowledge. So my association when I saw your film with Ani DeFranco's music, and in a way, I admire what you're saying that you kind of
00:09:19
Speaker
didn't feel constrained to, you know, to constrain yourself. I thought of the song Napoleon, because one of the things I like about her music, in addition to what you said, is this righteous, justified, angry way of confronting things that aren't right. And I found her music when I was at Wesleyan University, which is a fairly kind of liberal outspoken place.
00:09:48
Speaker
But that song, it occurs to me in light of what you're saying about her starting out at that time, because I didn't make that distinction. The first line is they told me your music could reach millions, that the choice was up to you. You told me they always pay for lunch and they believe in what I do. And I wonder if you miss your old friends once you've proven what you're worth.
Behind the Scenes and Personal Reflections
00:10:09
Speaker
Yeah. I wonder when you're a big star, will you miss the earth? And I'm wondering if, if you're familiar with that particular song. Absolutely. Yeah. I also thought, uh, right away of blood in the boardroom. I don't know if you remember that one. Uh, anyway, um, you know, what I think of right now, when I hear you talk about that line, when you're a big star, will you miss the earth? I mean,
00:10:35
Speaker
You know, I am fascinated also with kind of celebrity culture, or not even celebrity culture, but the celebrity phenomena. And it really pulls at my heartstrings the way your life becomes public and what you lose in gaining so much.
00:10:56
Speaker
It can be a bit of a genie out of the bottle, right? Well, 100%. And it's funny because I will tell you from my old MTV days,
00:11:06
Speaker
There's the song, maybe it's Journey, and they're talking about life on the road and just what a grind it is and how they miss their life and they miss their wives and they miss, right? And I remember emotionally being struck by that idea, even as a 12, 13 year old kid, right? Like, oh man, it's not all behind the scenes. Behind the scenes is what is so interesting to me in everything, right?
00:11:37
Speaker
There's what was there's always what's presented and what you see and then there's always what's going on behind it to create that thing. And for me, that's like where the juicy drama is, you know, and it's it's I imagine it's kind of like therapy in that sense. You know, I think that's what that's what appeals to us. Right. Even in this podcast, the idea that there's something that's not
00:12:05
Speaker
in the room, it's sort of out of the room, out the door. And, you know, this question of how conscious can we make it? And, you know, at different times, I think the answer is different. And that's something that's kind of amorphous. It's always changing. So, because I want to keep the thread going, you know,
00:12:33
Speaker
So behind the scenes is what kind of fascinates me and I discovered Ani's music and then within, you know, and it was synchronistic and it was blowing my mind. And I think that she's this person who is also my equal because we're close in age. And I do resonate with sort of her, you know, a lot of her lyrical ideas of struggling creatively. And then I see she's on the cover of Rolling Stone.
00:12:56
Speaker
or in Rolling Stone, you know, that's like within 10 days I realized that. And then I realized she's going to be performing in Boston, you know, and I have a creative idea, right? This isn't a manic ideation of lyrical interplay, but I had a creative idea, which is like, what if I can get behind the curtain
00:13:20
Speaker
as a human being to provide value that is being lost, that value of having something personal, that value of having something private and intimate and is not for the public and is not, cannot be scrutinized, isn't the image, isn't the photograph, right? Did you have a sense that she might be lonely or isolated in some way? Did you feel a sense of like empathic attunement? Well, it was an,
00:13:50
Speaker
It was an empathic attunement to the archetype that I remember from the music video journey, you know, that this is now what's going to happen.
00:14:02
Speaker
You know, she's already in Rolling Stone. She's already railing against corporate interests trying to own her. And it was like, you know, I believe in random acts of kindness, you know, impossible gestures. Like, for me, that's juicy. Plus, I'm thinking of Rilke. I love apprentice mentorships. I love
00:14:21
Speaker
You know, that's letters to a poet, right? Correct. Letters to a poet. And then another great reference and beautiful, beautiful book, if anybody should be curious, is Nick Bantox series about Griffin and Sabine. So these are these are art books effectively that I discovered in high school.
00:14:45
Speaker
And the book is an imaginary correspondence between two people who may or may not exist in time or space. And as you turn the pages, their correspondence are letters and the envelopes. And you have to open the envelope and take the letter out and then read the letter or their postcards. And so on one side, it's the front art of the postcard. And then the artwork is just exquisite, right?
00:15:14
Speaker
So these are all my creative references that are going into the whole kind of mission of this creative endeavor. The mania came later, but it was all grounded in this, I really liked your expression, empathetic attunement, because it was grounded in that. The mania came when I thought, holy shit, it worked.
00:15:38
Speaker
Griffin and Sabine sounds really interesting. I like strange art books, but my thought was, well, it sounds like a less boring solution to the existential problem posed in Waiting for Godot. I'd love to hear what Farah has to think because she actually has a lot to say.
00:15:54
Speaker
I guess one of the things that I'm wondering, you said, well, the mania came later. And I'm wondering, how do you know? Because I'm hearing sort of with my psychiatrist hat, you know, I know that one of the
00:16:10
Speaker
sort of precipitating factors can be a lot of travel, a lot of stimulation, new experiences, going across time zones. Oh, we missed a night of sleep. How was it for you to sort of start on this trajectory and what type of insight, awareness did you have and how did it change as you got closer to mania?
Mental Health and Family Connections
00:16:36
Speaker
OK, so it's important to include something, which is that my mother's father was a diagnosed manic depressive and swaying very high and very low. And I was never ever told about that. At 20 years old, when my first episode happened, my parents were both kind of like, oh, no, you know, he got Bernie's brain.
00:17:05
Speaker
They weren't completely caught off guard. Well, I think they were, they were caught off guard cause I had never shown any signs or, you know, I mean, I am, you know, from a young age, I am comfortable performing. I am comfortable being out there. Um, I was always a little bit different.
00:17:25
Speaker
that didn't cause me to hide away. I got a lot of positive praise and attention awards. I was writing plays in high school and they were being performed. So I was always kind of a lot in a wonderful way because it's just my nature.
00:17:46
Speaker
You know, even the idea that I would drop out of college for a semester or that I would go study the Holocaust in Poland as a semester abroad program instead of going to London or, you know, something normal. Right. So this was always just in keeping with my character. But then, yes, during upon my return to New York City, I stayed awake for five, six days.
00:18:13
Speaker
not on purpose, not under the influence of any drugs. You know, I describe in the film the idea that, you know, I was in deep rest while I was in Maine, you know, and time slowed down and I didn't have a phone or a TV or, you know, and I stored up all this energy that when I came to New York,
00:18:37
Speaker
It just all came out. There was sort of a psychodynamic explanation rather than a biomedical one at the outset, and that this is kind of your personality and not necessarily part of a constellation. One of the things we mentioned when we were chatting right before starting to record
00:18:55
Speaker
was I think you said you tend to be without those deeper depressions, which is great. I'm glad to hear that. And it was reminding me of something that's not in the diagnostics system that we use, but of the idea of a hypomanic personality, someone who just doesn't need as much sleep and they tend to be that way. But you're talking about
00:19:17
Speaker
within psychiatry, what would be like a five day period without sleep is clinically significant and not within the ordinary range of I'm just a high energy person. Absolutely. And then within that five day period, and we're coming back to syncreticity and Jungian symbolism, et cetera, the coincidences
00:19:39
Speaker
you know, were just beyond ridiculous, the more, you know, and the more sort of psychotic I became, the more coincidence that had no grounding were suddenly meaningful. I mean, the first coincidence were people I would see on the street, parties I would then get invited to, you know, chance encounters, things like that, all very natural and grounded, but heightened because I'm just coming, I've been MIA for almost a year.
00:20:07
Speaker
That's quite a contrast though, just that having been off the grid and then being back, did you have like a different mind about it? You know, people talk about kind of like child mind or something. And then you had also talked about, Farrah, I'm curious what you're thinking too, about your breakup with music, right? Cause that seems like a similar kind of like I'm seeing things differently.
00:20:31
Speaker
Yeah, when you came back to New York, it must have been this flood of connection and, you know, a sort of reunion with people and places. And do you think that level of change, right, and having it happen rather suddenly brought this on in a more intense way? You know, well, so
00:21:02
Speaker
I always worry a little bit that the more I sort of share my experience of mania, the more manic I'm going to sound. I was feeling like, well, I don't want this to turn into kind of a clinical interview. I also want to come back to hypomania. I do want to come back to hypomania.
00:21:28
Speaker
So just in a kind of life is stranger than the movies theme, right? Here's a young 20-year-old kid who's going to some extreme lengths to have like a spiritual breakthrough, right? And is engaged in the ridiculous direct
00:21:52
Speaker
communication with the divine, which is just to say howling at the moon, you know, which is just to say, please universe, you know, send me a sign, show me the way, you know, and then cut to X months later, and I'm in New York City, and I'm already sleep deprived.
00:22:14
Speaker
And there is an epic snowstorm, biblical snowstorm, right, that shuts the city down. And I witness, you know, a miracle, if you will.
00:22:27
Speaker
I mean, I have a personal philosophy about what miracles are, but I knew that in my lifetime, I would never be in New York City in a snowstorm when I could see clear from 11th Street all the way to 111th Street. And there was no cars and no, you know,
00:22:47
Speaker
I feel like there's a passage in Catcher in the Rye that takes place in a snowstorm. And it makes me think of this kind of magical time. And I've had some of those magical connections with people in snowstorms in New York as well. And, you know, again, it's not to say that it was like, you know,
00:23:12
Speaker
a freak and it would never, you know, it wasn't a 10,000 year comment, but I knew that my time in New York was limited and I wouldn't be there forever. And so for me in that moment, you know, and I had, I had called it to be sort of thing. And so again, you know, it's always been, I've always tried, you know, so for, for a decade, I tried to make the argument that I'm not manic depressive, that I'm just really, you know, creatively awakened.
00:23:41
Speaker
Because I could I could always sort of try to be clever enough to say it's all grounded in reality Like I didn't I didn't think the snowstorm was happening and there it wasn't really a snowstorm Things were actually happening that were actually happening their significance and their meaning is Questionable obviously, but they were really happening so I used that as a shield for a long time and
00:24:08
Speaker
Right, just for listeners, just to be really clear about the point that you're making is that, on one hand, there's the kind of manic element and seeing patterns where there are the idea of manifesting, like being able to conjure things up through intention and connection with cosmic consciousness and even could tie in with self-actualization philosophy and the kind of Beatles kind of Eastern philosophy
00:24:37
Speaker
manifesting, though it's not honestly not my cup of tea. I find it very interesting and I'm curious about the neurobiology and the social networking of these miraculous events. But what you're saying is, and it's important for I think listeners, is that it is actually true that much of what you talk about and show in
00:24:59
Speaker
in Dear Aunty in the movie, and it's really, if there's a way for people to see it, that's great. On a high level, these things were not delusional events. Correct. But it would be easy to misinterpret that if there's this kind of a stigma or assumptions about bipolar disorder. I'm acutely aware of that as a psychiatrist, that if you hear certain things, you don't believe them, especially if the person has this diagnosis.
00:25:28
Speaker
I also think that's why I'm curious. I know, Keith, that you shared a little bit about your interest in sort of spirituality. And so I do think Grant's right that a lot of this is consistent with maybe who you are and your spiritual life and that you're a seeker. And both of those, you know, two things can be true, that there's this intersection and maybe
00:25:56
Speaker
You are correct that that makes it almost harder to tease apart for you and then for anyone who's who's working with you definitely Definitely, you know, I don't know why I was just thinking about this was sort of as I was listening to you but it's like, you know, imagine you're walking in the square and you don't know what time it is and
00:26:16
Speaker
and you're thinking about something and not sure, or sort of deciding between two possibilities, and all of a sudden, you're more focused on one possibility and you hear the church bells go off, right? And you go, oh, okay, well, I'm gonna stick with that one.
00:26:32
Speaker
Now, this is just a little game that maybe we play with our unconscious mind, but I am someone ridiculous enough that's like, I stop and I go, thank you, church bell, right? And I go on with my day. I could frame it in another literal way, which is like I spent a lot of time hiking in the mountains. And there are times when I would not know which path to take.
00:26:59
Speaker
and a butterfly would go down a path. And I would say, I gotta follow the butterfly. There's an openness to new experiences, also a personality trait. It's interesting, I write a blog and my most successful blog, single blog of all time was on the trait of personality openness to new experience as one of the most common things among gifted individuals.
00:27:27
Speaker
of these five or so personality traits. And somehow that really struck a chord with people, this idea of being open. And then you're talking about almost like what remind, is it Shintoism? Like the church bell has like a spirit and that you're sort of showing gratitude for these events, right? Which I think is a good thing to do. I tend to interpret everything through a rationalist framework, but nevertheless.
00:27:54
Speaker
But I also think that that's maybe something that's missing for a lot of people. Sort of that magic and that mysticism. And sometimes we are shut down to it because it's scary or we're not sure what it means. It could destabilize a conventional life. Right. Yeah. And so having access in the way that you do to
00:28:20
Speaker
this sort of, you know, higher level meaning and finding synchronicities and connection. Yeah. I think that's something for people to manage for sure. Yeah. You also talked about liking like Jack Kerouac, right? And so, you know, that epitomizes a certain philosophy. And it's interesting too, because, you know, I read Jack Kerouac in high school, you know, as many of us do first. And I said, I want to, you know,
00:28:48
Speaker
I want that kind of experiential life, but I don't want to do the drugs.
Managing Mental Health and Seeking Support
00:28:54
Speaker
That wasn't going to be my channel. And I kind of just knew that explicitly as a young person, which isn't to say I haven't explored since, but that's a different conversation. I kind of want to come back because I think that there's an interesting link back to something that I'm playing with, struggling with, challenged by a little bit, which is that
00:29:18
Speaker
in this state of openness, right? It's not, you know, I can work myself up into a hypomanic type of scale, right? I mean, I had mentioned to you Farah in our email that I have like a mania scale of one to 10. Being in that hypomanic space is a dance that I want to get better at. And
00:29:44
Speaker
You know, part of my journey has been identifying the canary in the coal mine. Right. Which is to say that my wife of 16 years now, we've been together almost 20 years.
00:29:57
Speaker
She's the first one who will say, you're off. There's something a little bit extra, extra. She's like, I love extra, but this is extra, extra. Right. And I have to really value that. Mania can do damage to friends and relationships, and that's unacceptable. And when my family and relationships became threatened by my mania,
00:30:26
Speaker
the openness had to take a back seat. You know, it's like, what are my real responsibilities here? And what do I need to do to meet them? And that can equal medication, that can equal therapy, that can equal, you know, whatever is appropriate for the individual. But part of my life philosophy, part of the openness is surrender. And that means surrendering to the people who are trying to help you.
00:30:51
Speaker
because they love you and they might know better than you in this type of moment, so to speak. But the hypomanic phase is like when I feel like some of my other challenges are really just being solved.
00:31:07
Speaker
It's a great sort of sense of relief and safety and excitement. One thing for listeners that I think is implicit in what you're saying, I'm putting on my psychiatrist hat, though I think Farah does the Upper East Side psychiatrist way, way better than I do. I sort of admire this a lot.
00:31:26
Speaker
When people become very manic, and you alluded to this earlier, Keith, sometimes the insight that there's a problem tends to fade away, especially when it feels really good. People could stop medications, or to your point, they might have trouble hearing someone who loves them and knows them as having their best interests at heart.
00:31:49
Speaker
And so it sounds like you've you've learned to really to listen. But it also sounds like maybe I'm not sure, but maybe you always had some way where you're in touch with reality. You know, the reality is that there are people I trust, you know, and when they and when they show up, they're they're coming to the rescue, you know. So but you you you continue to trust them and stay connected in like the love and the trust.
00:32:19
Speaker
Well, yes. And tell me if this is an appropriate kind of segue. You know, I opened up sort of by saying I remembered this moment when I said my life will never be the same after this experience. Right. And it's important for me to hang on to this experience, to know that I was most alive and most myself and really in tune with that experience. Right. And so, you know, I came out of my manic experience or I come out of all my manic experiences.
00:32:50
Speaker
And it's really important to me to know that I'm bringing, you know, that I was paying attention. You know, I have these manic experiences, but I also frame them as deep work. And it's taken me half a dozen, you know, trips to the hospital to get there, you know, to be present in the work. But I've retained
00:33:14
Speaker
the stories, you know, the grounded moments, the, you know, I write a lot of things down while I'm in, you know, while I'm manic, while I'm pro, right? So I have all those things. This is, this is creative time. After all, you know, this is connective time. And so I don't, I don't have the feeling of loss.
00:33:35
Speaker
I don't have the feeling like if I can't get back there, then it's all for naught, right? I'm trying to bring them and integrate them, you know, and work with them. Well, I think that's beautiful. And I think, you know, as we're getting towards the end, I do want to hear about how the movie was conceived
00:33:56
Speaker
and also how it came to fruition because it is a huge contribution, I think, to our field and to yours, you know, and just a celebration of artistry. Well, thank you. Thank you. You know, I would love the opportunity to sort of understand more how the ways in which it adds value to your field, you know, it's
00:34:25
Speaker
There does exist for me a disconnect between my diagnosed mania and how it fits in to what is a larger need for people to be talking about, you know, again, because I feel like I'm so privileged, you know, and I feel like I'm so lucky that I don't have the depression and I feel, you know, I mean. Well, you have a lot of resilience factors, right? And, you know,
00:34:53
Speaker
Not a lot of support, not everybody has resources, you know, nobody has support, you know, so I, I'm always, you know, like, I get the feedback that this is super valuable for the community. And it's like, awesome. Tell me how, you know, I'll show up, you know, how can I show up to add value? But anyway, your question Farah was sort of about how the film came to be.
Film Development and Availability
00:35:18
Speaker
You know, over the years, in my mind, it's been a musical and it's been a book and it's been a, you know, it's been a this and it's been a that. And it's all franchise, really. It's all franchise. It's my cats. But in 2007, 2008, I met Micah, who was the director and editor of the film.
00:35:42
Speaker
And he and I started working together on a lot of projects and I was sharing my story with him. You know, by 2008, I had been hospitalized two or three times, all sort of in a kind of safe creative context, you know, all within the story of like lyrical interplay between me. And he, what are you talking about? But he's interested as a film director. You know, this is quite a character. And then I don't want to give too much away
00:36:11
Speaker
But it came to pass that after 20 years, we had an opportunity to interview Anita Franco. And, you know, throughout that process, Micah and I together had been
00:36:27
Speaker
sort of trying to figure out how to get the story on film. I love Spalding Gray, who's a monologist. And so there was an, you know, there's an element of monologuing performance in and of itself that I enjoy. So we were like, what can we do? You know, just hanging out, you know, he's on the West Coast, I'm on the East Coast, but we would get together. And so the fillet was developed a little piecemeal over time. And then, you know, by COVID, when COVID came around,
00:36:56
Speaker
We knew that the opportunity was very likely that we would be able to get Ani DeFranco to sit down for an interview. That was out there. And so we started working a little bit more specifically. But if we have a few more minutes, I know Grant asked me the question, what it was like to sustain
00:37:19
Speaker
this belief, this dream, this hope that I would be able to connect with her or contact her. And obviously I think about it a lot. And I think that there might be something cool in the answer, which is that at the end of the day, through a lot of therapy and a lot of dialogue around this topic, I came to really understand the mirror that Ani DeFranco was.
00:37:49
Speaker
for me because there was no actual Lani DeFranco. You know, she was an artist whose records I would buy and listen to. But she served a very real function in my life. Yeah. And the function that she served in my life was sort of to make me be a better me. Well, in another place in time, or maybe now, one might have referred to her as your muse.
00:38:17
Speaker
100 percent. I mean, and that comes all the way back around to the first time I heard her play. It was like teacher, you know, muse, artist. Wow. North star, you know. Well, I'm glad you got to interview her. And I I strongly encourage people to view your film, though. I'm not sure if it's viewable. How can people find you or inquire? Yes. Well, currently, the film is playing on Vermont Public Television.
00:38:46
Speaker
And so if you go to their website, Vermont Public TV, you'll be able to track it down there. And then coming up in November, the film will be playing at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, as part of the Boston Jewish Film Festival.
00:39:03
Speaker
and it will be available virtually through their, you know, virtual film festival as well. So that's up and coming. And, you know, you can visit DearAni.com, D-E-A-R-A-N-I.com and view the trailer there. And worst comes to worst, just reach out via the website and we'll hook you up with a link.
00:39:31
Speaker
Thank you. That is super generous. And we're so just, you know, have a lot of gratitude for you for, yes, sharing your story, creating your your movie and and the rest of the art that you put out there in the world. So, Grant, do you have anything you want to say or? No, just thank you very much.
00:39:55
Speaker
send our regards to your muse as well. It would be great to have you on again as things continue to develop or talk about other things.
Mental Health Resources
00:40:06
Speaker
Yeah, and if anyone's listening and they do have questions about mental health, bipolar, depression, or anything, a good resource is National Alliance for Mental Illness, NAMA, NAMI.org, is like a consumer advocate group. And if anyone is experiencing any kind of crisis or distress, the 988 Crisis and Suicide Prevention Lifeline is also available.
00:40:33
Speaker
Remember, the Doorknob Comments podcast is not medical advice. If you may be in need of professional assistance, please seek consultation without delay.