315: What if your life became a movie?
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This Is Actually Happening features real experiences that often include traumatic events. Please consult the show notes for specific content warnings on each episode and for more information about support services. If I could truly be a healed person, a person at peace, a person who has learned from the journey, I would probably think that I was enough.

From Wondery, I'm Witt Misseldein. You're listening to This Is Actually Happening. Episode 315. What if your life became a movie?

The problem with talking about my parents is that a lot of it is based in almost like a folklore. You don't really know who to believe. You know, you'll hear one thing from my mom and another thing from my dad and another thing from my relatives. All I can really say that I know for sure about my dad is he grew up in Pasadena. He was valedictorian, prom king, super well-liked, really popular. And then at some point when he was a teenager, he became what I'm assuming is schizophrenic.

I don't actually know, he was never really diagnosed, but from what I can tell, he definitely was extremely paranoid and he would have these episodes every couple years where he'd decide that everybody was laying traps for him, like literally laying scorpions under his doormat and everybody around him was cooking meth and then he'd kind of snap and he'd call you, screaming at you or show up acting like a nut trying to fight somebody. And every once in a while when he would kind of go off, he'd disappear for a while.

So he was kind of wild. I think maybe it got worse as he got older because it seemed like he was pretty functional. He had jobs. He worked as an electrician. He was in a band. You know, they were kind of living like a Malibu party lifestyle. And, you know, I think he was a little volatile. And, you know, when he met my mom, they had this whirlwind relationship that ended basically with me. And then they were never really together after that.

I definitely have a better sense of my mom's upbringing just because she was the one that I grew up with for the most part. She had four sisters and a brother and her dad was a, I guess he'd been in the army. And so he would run the house with a very severe military precision. It's clear he was abusive physically, maybe sexually. He claims that he would like line up the daughters and check them to see how well they were developing, things like that.

So she had a pretty nightmarish relationship with him and I think struck out on her own very young, started working right away, started making money, really was very capable. And, you know, she was like the prettiest, smartest girl in town. You know, like all the rock stars wanted to date her. She turned down Mick Jagger. Mick Jagger tried to date her. She wasn't into it, you know.

and she had me in her mid-30s, so she was, I think, by the standards of that generation, she, you know, had a kid later in life, and, you know, she said it was, like, the most incredible thing that ever happened to her, and she was so happy to have a child, and she immediately realized, like, once she saw that she had a kid, she had to get rid of my dad, because he was a mess, and an alcoholic, and, you know, partying, and firing off guns, and doing God knows what my dad did, but that was when she had her moment of clarity, and was like, I, uh, I

I can't be with this guy. I think having a really strict father made my mom extremely resentful towards anything that resembles authority. So she's always been a little bit of a crook.

You know, she likes to do things to buck the system. She hates being told what to do. She refuses to pay her taxes. You know, she gets into fistfights with security guards if they tell her she can't go down a certain corridor. Like, she's always been extremely fiery and really never wanted to be controlled by a man.

By the time I was born, my mom and my dad were on the outs, and my mom was raising me by herself. She was working as a property manager at this 100-unit complex in Pasadena. I was really loved. My mom was very affectionate. But she was, you know, I don't know what she was dealing with, but she wasn't around much. She was working. She was just kind of not there. I spent a lot of time alone, eating peanut butter out of jars. But I was happy, and it was just the two of us.

One night, my mom is at like the local diner and she recognizes these four Cuban guys as being in this rock band or pop band really called OXO, O-X-O. And they had a hit song called Whirly Girl. And they had like a very expensive music video. They were on like Solid Gold and Poppin' Rockers and all the shows that you would be on back then. And she went up to them and was like, hey, you're OXO. And she started dating the lead singer.

But apparently that didn't work out and she ended up with my stepdad, Frank. So basically the lead singer of Oxxo was the guy she dated first, but then the bass player from Oxxo, Frank, is the guy she ended up dating after. Frank was 19 at the time, you know, Cuban immigrant, had grown up in Florida. This was his first band. Mom's 35. Maybe she's even older. I don't know. She's probably 38, 40. Again, no one knows my mom's real age, not even the government.

Then Frank came into my life. I was five and I didn't like him. I didn't like him one bit. He was a very sweet guy looking back, but you know, I had just been me and my mom and I was semi neglected at that point. I didn't get a lot of attention. I didn't get out of the house. I wasn't going to school. But then right around that time, everything really changed.

My dad's parents, my grandparents on my father's side, I'd met them once or twice before and they would take me out to lunch or Disney World or something nice. And, you know, I barely knew them, but they seemed like nice old people. They showed up one day and were like, hey, you know, we're going to go on a trip. I don't know if it was Disneyland or somewhere. And then I hung out with them. They brought me back to their place in the valley. They lived in like a townhouses for the elderly kind of situation. I kept saying, oh, when am I going back? And they'd be like, oh, yeah, yeah, soon, soon.

And then I was there another week and I'd say, when am I going back? And they'd go, yeah, yeah, soon, soon. And then finally, they told me that I was never, ever going back. And this was my new home. I was like, oh, geez, what? What is happening to me? Who are these old people? Why have they kidnapped me? Where's my mom? Why isn't she trying to find me?

They immediately enrolled me in kindergarten. It's funny if you see pictures of me from that time. They've like shaved my head. I had long, you know, like little rocker boy hair. They shaved my head. I just look like a pale little deer in the headlights. And it sounds like a cliche, but I would cry myself to sleep every night. I just couldn't wrap my brain around who these people were and, you know, that I would never see my mom again.

I was in this creepy house in this creepy guest bedroom. I would have such vivid nightmares that I learned how to control them. I started to realize, oh, this must be another one of these nightmares because they were so frequent and so vivid that I would picture a box of crayons, like those Crayola crayons, and I would pull one out and one of the crayons in the box was the way to wake up.

At the same time, I was a good student. I was getting good grades. And I don't know, what could I do? You know, I just assumed that my mom was out there trying to find me. I thought any day there'd be a knock at the door, like she'd swing in, you know, on a vine like Tarzan through a window and scoop me up and out of there and it would all be behind me.

One day when I was sort of confessing this to my grandmother, she told me that my mom had married Frank. And he'd only been around for, I don't know, like a month before they took me. And that was kind of the sort of the final crushing blow was I thought, well, I've been replaced. Like, how could she be marrying this 20 years younger musician guy when I'm not there? Like, why isn't she focusing on saving me? She's in love. She's getting married. Like it was

inconceivable to me. You know, it was the sort of first feeling of betrayal. Like I'm really on my own now, you know, I've got nobody like I just got to move forward and figure out how I can get out of here. It was very sobering at a very young age to hear that. So when I was living with my grandparents in their own strange way, I guess had my best interests at heart.

I think my grandmother wanted me to get an education and she wanted me to be looked after. And she looked around and was like, oh, everyone's a complete mess in this kid's life. I got to swoop in there. But I don't think she had an emotional understanding of how that would affect me or if she did, she didn't care.

Eventually, my mom worked out with my grandmother away to see me on the weekends. But, you know, she was always living in a different place with different people. She was, I think at this point, had started drinking. So when I would get to see her, she wasn't really present. She was stressed out.

What I come to find out later is that she was still working, but she was supporting Frank in Florida and sending him money because they were throwing good money after bad. He had had this hit. He'd been in this big band. She just thought, well, I've got to put all my eggs in this basket of him breaking through again and getting a big hit song, and then we'll all be living the high life and it'll be worth it.

But, you know, she was struggling to keep up with work and supporting herself and supporting him. And, you know, I think taking a lot of pills at the time and drinking. And so she just wasn't really there. And even though I was happy to see her, something felt amiss. You know, I couldn't quite get over thinking about the fact she'd married Frank. I shouldn't really pay attention to me when she was drunk. And I knew something was off. But I still at that point in my life, I still thought it would all be solved if I could just live with my mom again.

What ended up happening was my grandmother got diagnosed with bone cancer. So one day I was dropped off at my biological father's house, Gilbert's house. And when my mom would talk about him, he was the boogeyman. He was Gilbert. Like, oh my God, what if Gilbert finds where I'm living? Gilbert's scary. Gilbert was like this horrible monster that I would have nightmares about. This guy outside. It's Gilbert. It's Gilbert.

So because they were broken up by the time I was being raised, they started calling me GJ to differentiate me from Gilbert, whose name was synonymous with the devil. And when my grandmother drops me off, it's like, you're staying with Gilbert now. I was like, oh, no, no, no fucking way. I'm out of here. Like, I was pretty terrified.

And Gilbert was a raging alcoholic and very violent, very violent temper. Like I said, he was very paranoid. And he would like put on this old man mask that he had. And I remember him coming back from bars like shit face drunk, like covered in blood being like peeling off this horrible old man mask and saying like, oh, I got into a fight. And at this point is when I finally broke. I was like, I have to get out of here. I have to be back with my mom. Like, I cannot be with this man. This is too much.

My mom decides that she's finally going to settle down. Frank is going to move from Florida. We're all going to basically rent a place in LA together and live together for the first time. And she does kind of the same move. She picks me up one day. And there was literally like, if you can imagine sort of a cartoonish where it was like Gilbert was holding my one arm and my mom was holding my other and they were pulling me back and forth. And I remember

I punched Gilbert in the nose, which I feel kind of guilty about, even though I was like seven. He released his grip and my mom and I literally ran to the car and drove off like this was the caper of a lifetime. And of course, I was convinced that, OK, now it was really going to be good again. And and it wasn't. The thing about being a kid is you're not like a wise person who learns from, you know, past disappointments. You'll sort of hang on to hope that you wouldn't hang on to as a grown up.

We ended up bouncing around from place to place for a couple years. Again, I wasn't going to school. So we lived with various family friends. You know, we sometimes slept in our van. She was afraid to try to put me in school because then, you know, she didn't have legal custody of me. So she was afraid they'd come and basically take me away again. And so we kind of had this little rough life of running scams on people.

The kind of scams that my mom would do at that time were mostly just ways of bilking people she was stringing along for money.

She had like this old guy named Pat and Pat was this elderly postman and she was sort of fake dating him to try to get money out of him. And we'd go to like the library and like basically take legal documents and, you know, white them out and then use the typewriter there and photocopy them. And she'd be like, oh, Pat, I'm getting sued. I need a thousand dollars. And this dude was just shelling out money from my mom and who had no idea that she was married to a guy in Florida the entire time.

I know the whole time he was there, he was having affairs, he was blowing money on coke. Like, he wasn't exactly, you know, rising to regain the Oxo stardom that he had. He was just fucking around. Frank moved to LA. We rented a house in Altadena where she proceeded to basically buy him an entire music studio. Here was this guy who, like, figuratively, literally, seemed to have replaced me. You know, I was stuck at my grandparents while she was marrying this guy.

We were living in vans while he was, you know, playing music in Florida. It seemed like he had always been the priority. And I don't know if it was true love on her part or if it was just an inability to walk away without, you know, having that success come back if she was really hung on to that dream and really believed in his talent or something. But, you know, I just saw him as like my younger brother who came along and replaced me and got all the attention and the funding and the emotional support.

That was kind of the next sort of hell chapter, you know, was all of us living together. I was terrified of nightmares still and very afraid of the dark. And I didn't sleep a lot. And mind you, this whole time there's loud sex happening a lot, which was pretty unpleasant.

I remember once there was like a maggot infestation in the kitchen. There were dirty dishes with food in them and rotting on the stove. They were fighting a lot. They were screaming at each other all the time. She was mad about his latest affair. She would punch and kick him and, you know, he was a functional alcoholic. My mom, not so much. She would have very little to drink and go through like this very horrible phase of first she'd start talking to me in baby talk.

And then she'd get viciously angry and then she'd pass out. And so she was barely able to, you know, hold down a job to pay the rent. And he wasn't working, of course. Sometimes they'd drop me off at school and I'd be, you know, sitting at the school until like 7 p.m. or something, just sitting on the wall, you know, waiting for someone to come get me. They just didn't have any ability to be responsible adults. They were way caught up in their melodrama of fighting and making up.

One time she got so mad at him she kicked him in the face with a cowboy boot and literally busted open his whole face and there was blood everywhere. She ended up getting arrested and dragged through the apartment complex in handcuffs. It was just bad.

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Upgrade your wardrobe with pieces made to last with Quince. Go to quince.com slash happening for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's q-u-i-n-c-e dot com slash happening to get free shipping and 365 day returns. quince.com slash happening. It would have been the latter half of fourth grade when I went back to school. I came in mid-year.

Even though I still was obsessed with getting good grades and I was a bright pupil, I would fight all the time. I would fight, fight, fight. I was fighting constantly. It was pretty silly. You know, I had big, thick Coke bottle glasses and kids would call me a nerd and I would just like literally wait until they turn their back on me and then just like smack them upside the head with a textbook or something.

So like I got this reputation as like a psycho, you know, like don't fuck with that guy. He's a psycho, you know, he kicked this kid in the nuts, you know, whatever. And I loved it. I loved it, you know, because it was like a shield. I was like, yeah, well, you know what? No one's messing with me. There's some respect to be had about being known as someone who will throw down. And I really love to fight. Like it was very, very gratifying for me at that age.

And so I had this funny double life of like all the teachers thought I was this great kid and all the students were like, "That guy's messed up, man." So at that time, I was still drinking the Kool-Aid in those junior high years.

I was still, I think, obsessed with my mom. I still thought she was the key to saving me. She was the person who truly loved me. And she did in her own weird way. She was always very supportive of me. If I said like, oh man, there's a test coming up that I've totally forgot about and I'm going to fail it. She'd be like, all right, I'll call the school and say that you have a doctor's appointment. You know, she would pretty much do everything for me in her capacity. I just knew her capacity was so limited because of the alcohol. So I hated her drinking more than anything.

After living in this apartment, we ended up getting an actual house. Like my mom rented this actual house and it was kind of the first time I'd ever even lived in a house. I'd always lived in apartments. And so that was pretty exciting. And I had my own little room. I would go to my room. I would shut the door. I'd tune everything they were doing out. I got a job. It's literally the day I turned 15 and a half. I got a work permit and I went up and down the town begging someone to hire me. So I got this little job at 15 and a half.

and would just take the bus to school and kind of handle my own business and try to like not, you know, get dragged into the crazy. And this went on for a while and then the crazy finally reached a pretty explosive head, unfortunately. So Frank finally had gotten a job, his first ever job that he managed to hold down for more than a week. He was working at a hardware store and he injured his hand.

And of course, my mom saw dollar signs and was like, ooh, lawsuit, settlement. We got to do this thing. We got to run with it. So he was like, they were kind of embroiled in some sort of, you know, disability claim where he was really laying it on being like, well, you know, I'm a musician. And now that my hands hurt and I can't play, I'm really depressed. And she was sort of egging him on to kind of lay this on as thick as humanly possible.

I guess he started taking some sort of painkillers or antidepressants. He was acting nuttier and nuttier and nuttier. And I remember getting home one night and he and my mom were fighting. I don't even know what triggered it. But I heard her screaming, like, he's hitting me, he's hitting me. I ran downstairs with a crossbow that I had. I had bought this crossbow. And I was ready to do it. I was like, I'm going to have to finally kill Frank. Like, this is it? It's like...

And I go down there and he's not hitting her. He's got a fireplace poker in his hand and he's trashing his studio. She's screaming at the top of her lungs because this is all the stuff that she bought for him. And he's just like out of his mind crazy, like absolutely terrifying. And he's a very stocky guy and I'm very skinny.

He ended up like wildly landing a blow on my mom. So I jumped into action and I put him in a headlock and I'm holding him in this headlock and I'm screaming for my mom to call 911 before he breaks out. And he's like frothing at the mouth and screaming at me and I'm crying and my mom's running around. I let him go and he looked at me crying and he said, kill me, you know, just kill me. He was begging me to kill him. The cops showed up and I ran to the door and I had the crossbow in my hand.

They pulled their guns on me and I said, "No, no, no, it's not me, it's not me." You know, I'm like, "I'm sorry." And I put the crossbow down. And they go in there and they're like, "You know, Frank, put down the weapon, put down the weapon." And he starts, again, like frothing at the mouth, eyes just crying, like somehow both just abominable but also utterly pathetic, you know? It's like, on the one hand, I'm filled with so much rage at this behavior. On the other hand, it's just like watching just a cornered animal.

And they pepper spray him and they blast him in the face with it in this tiny enclosed space. And all of a sudden, like, I can't breathe. No one can breathe. It's like your throat closes up and he like hits the floor. And again, he's like crying and screaming.

And they end up hog tying him. I'm like half amused, but also again, I half feel bad for him. I mean, I'd always kind of wanted this to happen in a way, you know, as sick as it sounds, I'd wanted him to finally cross a line. I wanted their relationship to finally end. I wanted her to find someone else just, you know, for him to stop enabling her alcoholism because I blamed him for everything. And so in a way I was like, yeah, go to prison. This needs to stop.

I ended up comforting my mom. She was obviously pretty hysterical. She was swearing that this was it. This was it. This was the end. She was finally going to get rid of him. She's seen the light.

I believed her foolishly because I figured, well, this was the worst thing I've ever seen around these two. You know, this was a new level of bad. So I thought that she would basically tell him when he got out of jail, like, you know, find a new place to live. I'm going to move on with my life. Even though it was traumatic, I figured at that time this was maybe the new beginning. You know, maybe now she was going to finally get her act together.

So he's in jail and she's basically trying to figure out what to do with him being in jail. Of course, because my mother is crafty, I mean, because she's like a magical witch, she was able to use this incident to bolster his disability claim and the mental health issues he was having. So she managed to somehow turn this whole thing around to get a huge chunk of money in this lawsuit.

She got the money. And I remember them sitting me down. And they very calmly informed me that he's got these amazing musical prospects, and they're going to take this money and buy him a new studio. And I was like, yeah, that's it. No, that's that's no, I'm done. No, I'm I'm done. This is it. Like, you are never ever going to learn anything.

He trashed his own studio that you bought him and you are going to take this money and buy him a new studio. I'm like, you people disgust me. I want nothing to do with either of you ever again.

When I think about my mom's actions, I honestly can't say I can fully understand them or really parse them or psychoanalyze them because they're so foreign to how my brain works. I don't know if she was just so convinced of his impending superstardom and his undeniable talent that she did truly feel like investing this money in him would pay off.

Or if she was just in a drunken stupor and really didn't know what the hell she was doing. I really, to this day, I don't know. I really couldn't say why that spell wouldn't be broken. I mean, it's one thing to stay with a person who is, you know, maybe not like a perfect person who might have a drinking problem or might have cheated. That I can understand more because that's just, you know, the crimes of the heart. But the financial stuff just seems completely unbelievably stupid for a person who's

hustled so much in their life and is so capable to be like, oh yeah, here's a good idea. I realized I was never going to get it. I just couldn't wrap my brain around it and I no longer cared. And I think that's the official moment where any hope I had of them having a better life was just over. I was like, I wasn't going to get a lick of support from them. I never had. And I don't know why I thought I ever would.

And I transferred to college in New York where I perfectly planned to never speak to either of them again and let them rot in their own madness. So I took out massive student loans and I went off, transferred to Bard College and was ready to be as far from L.A. as humanly possible. That was my that's why I picked it.

So I graduated from Bard and, you know, this was the summation of everything I'd been working for on the side, which was, you know, crazy dysfunctional home life, but, you know, very functional academic life.

And I thought in my little confused mind, my little dream I had been holding on to was that you go to college, you get really good grades. And then I genuinely thought this, that there would be like a job fair like the last month of school and people would come and look at your report cards and be like, all right, come work for Sony.

I remember when this year was ending, I was like, wait, you just give us a degree and we go back home? Like what? And the one kid who went to college and my whole family and this is it? So I had to go back. I had to freaking go back and live with them. It was the absolute last thing I thought I'd be doing. And I had to put my tail between my legs with my massive debt and my no job and go back to my old room and live with Frank and Cindy.

I tried to save up enough money to strike out on my own. I started acting in TV commercials, weirdly enough. I bought myself a camera and a microphone and an editing system. And I was trying to like break through into making music videos or something like that. And the whole time my mom kept saying, like, I'm sober now. I'm sober now. You know, I had this epiphany after you left that I and I got sober and I'm like, yeah, right. Sure. I'm not falling for that again.

A few years into it, as I was making these little shorts for the internet and music videos and things like that, trying to figure out how to break into the film industry, I made a short about Frank that was purely mean-spirited. I still just had it out for him. I still kind of blamed him for everything. And I made this very mean little short where I showed his music video back when he was young and skinny and attractive, and I showed him now as like this overweight alcoholic plunking away at a piano, like sighing wistfully that his life is miserable.

And it just so happened that I was doing a commercial shoot when the director asked me, what's your deal? Like, tell me what you did this weekend. And I was like, oh, well, I made a really mean video of my stepdad. And he was like, I want to see it.

And I sent it to him. And then he said, you know, I'm getting into executive producing movies and I think this would make a great documentary and you should turn this into a documentary. And I was like, oh, God, I don't know. Like, it seems so self-indulgent and I'd have to spend all this time with them and I'm trying to get out of here. You know, I don't want to live with them. But then I thought, like, well, I mean, if there's a real successful person who wants me to get behind this project, well, maybe I'll try it.

So after this producer sort of made the pitch that he would support me to make a feature length documentary about them, I kind of went into it extremely hesitantly because I didn't necessarily want to spend all that much time with them and certainly talk about all these things. But, you know, I realized that this was kind of the opportunity that I'd been looking for. You know, this was a person with clout who could back me up and could get this thing seen. And if I did a good job and made a good film, then this was this could be the big break.

And so I approached them about it and I said, you know, I want to film more. And of course, my mom was like, oh, film more? Like, absolutely. Let's spend time together. You know, you've been running away from me your entire life. And Frank was like, oh, I don't know. And she was like, you owe this to him. And he was like, OK, yes, dear, I guess, you know.

And so I started filming them and I just made a plan that I would not just sort of follow them around and film their fights, but try to go to all these various places and talk about all the things that had happened there because I didn't really know what I was doing.

I mean, they were hilarious enough if you just sat them in a room and said, no, tell me about the affair. Like they would just start talking like as if they weren't on camera. So it was crazy. Like I couldn't have found people that seemed to not transform when knowing they're being filmed. They would just let it all hang out there, you know, and talking about all the bad times and the crazy stories. And no, this is where I got arrested. And oh, yeah, we lived in this motel.

Frank had this really love-hate relationship with it where he'd get kind of drunk and be like, "I want to be on camera!" And then he'd get sober and be like, "What is this for? Why are you doing this?"

As I was filming, you know, I was like, well, what's the hook? You know, we can't just be like, look at my crazy parents. So I decided I was going to have Frank do like a performance. Yeah, I was going to have like invite a bunch of people over and have them do a live show because he hadn't done a live show in so long. And we kind of roped him into it. Yeah, Frank, you should do a live show. And the whole time again, it's so malicious because I'm like, yeah, he's going to embarrass himself or he's going to get too drunk and he's not going to show up and just going to prove what a dick he is.

And man, he showed up and he played and I couldn't believe it. You know, he really came through like under all that pressure from me and my mom to like do this thing for me that was so arbitrary, but he did it. So I think they evolved a little and I evolved little.

It was like this year of weird therapy where I talked about some stuff, I worked through some stuff, but also I realized that Frank wasn't the only one to blame. You know, I'd still somehow been hanging on to this idea and anyone listening to this would be like, what are you talking about? Your mom's a mess. But I somehow, she was still an angel in my eyes. And while we were shooting, all this other stuff would come out. And Cindy wasn't talking about breaking up with him anymore. That we were like this little funny family unit who had exposed our lives to the world and

And I was like, oh, yeah, they're kind of equally messed up in really complimentary ways. That's kind of crazy. I realized that she had so much crippling, unbelievable regret about my childhood. And now that she was sober, she was finally kind of dealing with it.

It touched me so much to see how, like, she wasn't writing it off. There was never a point where she said, like, oh, come on, you were fine, you know, blaming people for it. She took so much of that responsibility on herself and wanted so desperately to do something, anything to make up for it. I realized that it consumed her every waking thought, like every move she was making in her life was to somehow make up for everything that had happened to me.

Like she wants now to make up for everything so badly that I almost feel like I want her to do something to help me, not because I want her to help me, because I want her to feel redeemed. You know, I want her to feel redeemed in her own mind.

At some point, I shot enough where I thought I had a story, at least as much of a story as you can tell about two people that you think won't ever change, which was always my theory with them is that they would do the same stuff forever. And in the course of filming, I realized that my mom wasn't drinking anymore and Frank got a job and he held on to that job the entire time and he seemed like he loved it.

He was doing his part and I had to respect him for it. You know, I couldn't deny that he was finally growing up. And I think the biggest transformation between him and I was when I finally did talk about that night he trashed the studio. Hearing it from his perspective and knowing like the depths of his pain and seeing the regret. It's like the first time we'd ever talked about it. You know, and I wouldn't have talked about it had I not thought like, well, this might make a good scene for the documentary.

The thing about him that's so crazy is I wrote him off, you know, as just my mom's idiot boyfriend, my little brother, you know, the fuck up. But he was so proud of being a part of my family. It just came out so much in every interview. You know, I'd be like, what's your greatest accomplishment? I'm thinking he's going to say like, well, Oxo or this song I wrote or something. He'd be like, marrying your mother, like being a part of your family, having such a wonderful kid, you know, being a dad to you as best I could. And, you know, I was like, what? Yeah.

seriously but his dedication to her is just crazy like he would do anything she asked him to do he's like he's like the ultimate person like as my parents are getting older like i think there's no one on earth that could help my mom and deal with all of her her insanity like this guy and i had to stop and be like you know frank you're doing okay like you're helping her and i don't think either of you could do it without each other so you have my blessing

It's hard to say how much they changed versus how much I did. You know, my perception of them definitely changed. I let go of a lot of the resentment I had for him, which was probably my biggest stumbling block in life. You know, I really did think that I could have had this perfect life had he not come into the picture and I let go of that.

I let go of the idea that she should leave him and she'd be better off with someone else. I definitely let go of that. And in the course of making the movie, I learned so much about how they function and how difficult they both are in so many ways. But at the end of the day, like they do really love each other. Like they really do. I don't understand it. I don't get it.

But they really need each other and they're really there for each other. And when they're being functional, it's actually really nice. A lot of times when you hear stories about childhood trauma or whatever, it's about this journey that the person goes through sort of on their own. They go to therapy and they work these things out with a therapist. And it seems like it really does help. I never really did that.

It's kind of like we had our own weird sort of internal crazy town therapy making this film. But I think what caused us to all be in such a good place is for me, it was forgiveness. I just saw things less black and white. And I learned more of what was going on during my childhood. And I saw it from their perspective. And I realized that, you know, their hearts were in the right place. And I chose to forgive both of them.

And in doing that, I let myself care. And that was always my problem is that I was kind of a mercenary. I always had one foot out the door because I was like, you can't trust people. You can't trust them. They're always going to do the same dumb stuff. You got to look out for yourself. And you know, you don't don't put it down any roots because you'll get betrayed. And I think I didn't want to allow myself to love them because then I'd have to care about them.

And then what if they did something and I had to get involved and I wanted to keep it safe? But in forgiving them, I said, okay, I'm going to give you guys this second chance. And I haven't regretted it since. So I make the documentary.

It's pretty rough around the edges. I don't have any money. It's sort of like a home movie. I don't know if it's any good. I think it might just be terribly self-indulgent. So I decided to spend a little bit of what money I had left to put on a screening in L.A. I rented out a little theater and I, you know, sent invites to everyone I knew and was like, invite anyone you know.

And people were losing their minds. They were cracking up like at all the parts I wanted them to think were funny and gasping at all the parts that I thought were shocking. And it was such an incredible experience that I was like, okay, well, maybe I will do something with this. And I submitted to all these festivals and I went around the country and I flew them out to a bunch of places. And I remember we did this documentary festival in Washington, D.C. And they came out, they got a standing ovation. And I was just so proud of them for it.

like doing this for me like this is a crazy thing to do to allow me to expose their tragic flaws and and the amount of hate that they could be putting themselves into the crosshairs for and yet they did it and they did it for me they saw it as a way of you know doing something for me which you know they hadn't really done most my life and it was a real feeling of camaraderie like doing these q and a's and and you know that we went to a thing where ira glass interviewed them on stage

And then, you know, the crazy thing is she did end up getting a job working for a movie producer. And she basically worked at that job long enough to build up enough of a reputation as trustworthy that she introduced them to me. And because of her, I did direct my first feature that was mostly made out of recycled stock footage. So super low budget, but it's scripted and I get to direct it.

It weirdly goes to Sundance and I think, oh my god, like Cindy has directly led me to going to Sundance. And then kind of began this sort of the start of my off and on again film career. I also was able to get a few acting parts. So I was in an episode of How I Met Your Mother and I was in this movie called Extraordinary Measures where I played Harrison Ford's lab assistant. And I'm just a bit player. I think I have like three lines, but I'm around a lot because I'm in the background of all these scenes like working in the lab.

You know, somebody shows up, it's like a day player, it was an actor who's there for the day to do like a kind of a smaller role. And he recognizes my name. And he's like, Are you the guy that did that documentary? And I'm like, Yeah, he's like, Oh, I saw it. It was incredible. And it was kind of the funniest way of promoting something is not promoting it yourself. Because all of a sudden, now everyone was asking me like, What's up with this documentary? And of course, I was like, Well, I happen to have a few DVDs in my suitcase.

So I gave one to Brendan Fraser and he watched it and he was like, oh, yeah, that was crazy. And then one day Harrison Ford walks right up to me and he doesn't say anything, but he's holding the DVD in his hand. I just kind of look at him and he's just staring at me and I'm looking at the DVD in Harrison Ford's hand with my picture of my parents on it. I kind of go like, oh, that's my documentary. Where'd you get that? And he goes, Brendan gave it to me. It's not like they're selling like hotcakes or anything.

And then he walks away. And I'm like, well, I'm never going to follow up on that. I don't want to ask him about it. We'll just see what happens. It's just cool that he even has it. Like, that's such a surreal moment.

Then we go to like the premiere in LA and at the wrap party, he comes up to me and I'm like, oh, so did you watch it? And he's like, your parents, man, balls to the wall. Your parents are balls to the wall, kid. I was like, this is incredible. Balls to the wall. Thank you, Mr. Ford.

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Somewhere along the way, a producer got involved that wanted to turn the documentary into a scripted film. And so there would be actors playing my family. And I thought at the time, well, this is a really interesting opportunity to get more people aware of the doc. And I am very proud of it. And, you know, so sure, like I'll try to write an adaptation or something. And right away, Rene Russo came on board to play my mom. And there was a guy playing me, which is bizarre.

We originally had a director who was interested and then they wanted Tom Cruise to gain all this weight to play Frank. And that was the guy's vision. And then when Tom Cruise wouldn't entertain the idea, he dropped out. And then we had another director that had some other crazy idea and that director dropped out. And then we got a director that I'll just call Danny. And Danny was a big deal, very successful person.

Danny rewrote the script and made it more of a broad comedy. And the actor he got to play the lead, I'll call him James. James was also a huge, huge, huge actor, probably one of the most famous actors you could possibly get. And my mind was kind of exploding. So I went to this table read.

And it was at Danny's house and there was this big buffet table in the screening room. And it was all these people there and casting agents and assistants. And this actor shows up and he's reading as my stepdad and Renee's reading as my mom. And it's just totally surreal. And again, this is one of those moments in my life where I'm like, oh, my God, the big golden door is opening. It's finally happening for me. I'm finally going to have some incredible life because of this. And as we're leaving, the actor gives me a scrap of paper and kind of is like, call me.

So I call him up and he's like, I really want to meet you in secret. Can you meet me at this cafe in Laurel Canyon? And you just don't tell any other producers about it. I just want this to be between you and I. And I said, OK. And that was really conflicting because it's like, I don't want to feel like I betrayed anybody. But, you know, this is this big, super famous actor who wants to meet me. So I go to meet him and he calls me. He's like, oh, you're not gonna believe this, but I just ran a stop sign. And it turns out my registration isn't valid. They're towing my car. Can you come up to the top of Laurel Canyon and pick me up?

So I go up there to pick him up, but now there's paparazzi everywhere taking pictures of him getting into my like 1989 Volvo. And I start getting calls now from the producers who've now seen me picking him up on the front page of TMZ and they're like, what the hell are you doing meeting this guy? And I'm like, well, don't

I'll tell you later. I don't know what he wants to talk about, but I told me not to tell anyone. So we sit down for this meeting and he goes, you know, I really loved your original script and I'm a big fan of the documentary, but I just feel like this new version, it's too broad. You know, it takes out a lot of the hearts from, you know, what the character was and a lot of the darkness. And I'm like,

I'm like, okay, well, you should tell the director that. And he's like, well, you know, as an Italian man, you don't go into another Italian man's house and tell him his business. And you want me to do that? And he's like, well, I just think coming from you, you know, he might listen. I was like, okay, fine.

So we go to this meeting now with just the three of us. And again, it's totally surreal. We're sitting there for like an hour and they're just talking about all like, you know, their crazy Hollywood anecdotes. And finally, the director turns to me. He's like, well, what do you what do you think? What do you want to call this meeting? And I'm like, well, you know, I just think maybe there's some of the darker stuff, some of the complexity that got cut out. You know, maybe we could put a little bit of that back in. And he turns and goes, what do you think, James? And James is like, I don't know. Are you freaking kidding me?

So he ends up dropping out of the project without telling anyone why. And at this point, Renee's like, G.J. has to direct this movie. And that's the only reason why I ended up directing it. So I had to direct the guy playing G.J., whose name is G.J., and Frank and Cindy is Frank and Cindy, in my house, reliving all the stuff that happened in the documentary, but with actors. It was completely surreal. I don't know how to describe it.

So in the documentary, there's a scene where I pull out a bunch of childhood photos. So my grandmother had made really detailed photo albums of me while I was living with her. Little scrapbook photo albums with annotations, you know, where we were and what year it was and things like that. And I brought those albums out to show my mom to go through like where were, you know, what was going on here? What was going on there? Like, and she's going through them.

She kind of just breaks down and she's just sobbing and she's saying all she wishes she could do is be a mom. She woke up and I was grown and she never got to be a mom and she can't go back, but she would go back and change everything if she could. And she's so just devastated. It was so, so hard to put that scene together. And, you know, and I knew that Renee would have to recreate it.

So I just kind of had a jacket over my head and I was looking at the monitor so no one could see me. And I was just crying while she was doing that scene. But weirdly, that's not the one that broke me. The one that broke me is a scene that isn't even in the movie. And I don't know why it just kind of encapsulates to me everything that my family was and everything we went through.

But my mom would try to make me food. And she wasn't, you know, much of a homemaker, obviously. And so she would always be like, oh, I made you some, you know, mac and cheese or something like that. And there's a scene where Rene Russo slides a plate of food under the door. And it's just like sliced avocados and sliced tomatoes with some pepper on it. And for some reason, you know, it's like you build up all these walls against feeling emotional, particularly with having the childhood I did.

And I just started bawling because it was something about that intent, that intent of being a mom, that intent of providing food for your kid, but all you got is sliced tomatoes with some pepper on it. And you're like, "I made you dinner!" And like, ah. That scene, it's funny because I don't know if anyone else who'd ever see the movie would think that was a heart-wrenching scene or if it's just me, I don't know. But that desire to be there and to give so little but wanting to, it breaks my heart. That was the thing about her is I always felt loved.

I always, always felt loved by my mother.

I don't think there was ever a point where I questioned that. And that's what sort of got me by, is that despite the dysfunction, somehow I was able to separate it from how she felt about me. I always thought, you're plagued by these things, these addictions, these neuroses. You're plagued by the alcoholism and the codependency with Frank and all of these things. But at the end of the day, I never thought that affected her love for me. And I always knew that she would do everything she could to be there for me.

But sometimes it was just pitiful. To this day, I hope she lets herself off the hook. I really do.

The process of forgiving them obviously meant I had to let them back into my heart somewhat and I had to care about them. And that's tough because they're still not perfect and they still do, you know, plenty of annoying, crazy things. He's still an alcoholic. She's still constantly making prognostications of giant important things that she never seems to actually do.

And I worry about sometimes after I talk to my mom, if I'm giving her a hard time and she seems depressed about what I'm saying to her, I'm afraid, oh my God, is this going to be the thing that starts her drinking again? I have to carry that weight around. But ultimately, it's worth it. And I think it's changed me too.

You know, I always sort of kept people at arm's length. I always kept my relationships at arm's length. I wasn't very good in most of my relationships. I always kind of thought marriage was a bunch of crap, you know.

Families are stupid. Everyone's dysfunctional. Everyone's a mess. So I definitely always kept, you know, some amount of distance in my relationships. I didn't really want to commit. And even if I seemed like I was committed, I wasn't really committed in my heart. And then I met Camille and she was a whirlwind and I loved it. And I was so constantly entertained.

I found a person that challenged me and was willing to call me out on things and to get me to compromise. And just the absolute force of her will really transformed me into a different type of relationship. And I allowed myself to trust that it was right. And, you know, by the time I was ready to actually get married and settle down, I was like, wow, I...

I guess I've really turned a corner on this. I've let myself sort of, you know, find that vulnerability and that, you know, I'll put it all on the line and trust my heart and, you know, not keep that back door open. And I've been very happily married now for 12 years. My wife is kind of similar to my mom in a lot of ways, just because she's also like a pretty big character. They get along really well.

And I think that's my family. Like, I see them every weekend or every other weekend. I go over there for lunch and my mom, she'll give me presents like toys and stuff. And we'll play like games and Pictionary and charades. And we'll just, Frank will make us play musical instruments like we're in a band. And we just have these hilariously weird weekends where...

He'll be dressed up as Santa on St. Patrick's Day. Like, they're just keeping it funny all the time. And it's just, and it feels great. You know, my mom tells this story. It's one of her sad stories that she tells about my childhood. She says that one of those days where I was visiting her on the weekends, that, you know, she had to go do something and left me alone. And when she came back, I was just sitting in the closet, and she said, what's wrong? And I said to her,

What am I worth, mommy? What am I worth? I don't remember this, but it makes sense to me, like feeling that nobody wanted me around and I was getting bounced from place to place and neglected in so many ways. I feel like that what am I worth question has been at the heart of me probably forever. I think that I always felt this need to prove it to myself that I was worth something and that people thought I was worth something.

And, you know, like even trying to go be a filmmaker, you were like, please tell me you like me, you know, tell me I have to be bigger than life. You know, I have to do something so incredibly great. Like I have to win an Oscar. You know, I felt this need to get that validation. And it's probably still tick tocking away in my heart to some degree. I don't know if I'll ever lose that need to feel, you know, worth something.

If I could truly be a healed person, a person at peace, a person who has learned from the journey, I would probably think that I was enough, that I was of great value to somebody out there, that I could be at peace every night when I go to sleep and not think, "What have I made of my life? What have I done? Do I matter to anyone? Is anything of any significance?"

I want to be okay having like a normal life that isn't incredibly dramatic, that isn't full of crazy stories. You know, it's like I had so many stories, so much craziness for so long that I need to come to terms with being at peace with peace. I need to be like, I have a good life. I have a loving wife and a house and a job. And I don't need to be entertained by showing up on Monday morning being like, oh, you'll never guess this horrible thing that happened.

which was how my life was most of the time, is making fun stories out of horrible events. But can I learn to live a normal life? Can I not be constantly entertained by the gruesome train wreck happening around me? That's what I struggle with.

You grow up with so much chaos and you have so much chaos for such a long time in your life that it becomes extremely familiar. And then when things aren't chaotic, when things are actually moving along, it sort of feels wrong or scary or at the best it's boring and at worst you're just waiting for the next terrible thing to happen. I definitely have a hard time just being okay with the normal everyday life that I'm living. And there's a part of me that's like, God, well, where's the drama? Where's the cops? Where's the crossbow? You know, where's the madness? Yeah.

But I, you know, I get better at it every day. I think the most important thing for me is to have people around me who I know love me and who I love. And that's kind of all you need. It's nice to just have a, again, a kind of a consistent life. I'm getting used to it. I'm getting used to what it's like to lead like a normal life with no crazy highs and no crazy lows. So far, so good.

Today's episode featured G.J. Ekternkamp. If you'd like to reach out to him, you can email at gjactuallyhappening at gmail.com. You can find his documentary Frank and Cindy from 2007, as well as his feature film also titled Frank and Cindy from 2015, both on Netflix. You can also find the music video and song Whirly Girl by Oxo, featuring Frank as the bassist, released in 1983 on YouTube.

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I'm your host, Witt Misseldein. Today's episode was co-produced by me, Jason Blaylock, and Andrew Waits, with special thanks to the This Is Actually Happening team, including Ellen Westberg. The intro music features the song Illabi by Tipper. You can join the community on the This Is Actually Happening discussion group on Facebook, or follow us on Instagram at ActuallyHappening.

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Hey, it's Guy Raz here, host of How I Built This, a podcast that gives you a front row seat to how some of the best known companies in the world were built.

In a new weekly series we've launched called Advice Line, I'm joined by some legendary founders and together we talk to entrepreneurs in every industry to help tackle their roadblocks in real time. Everybody buys on feeling, Guy, like everybody. So if you don't give them the feeling that they're looking for, they're not going to buy. A lot of times founders will go outside of themselves to build a story. And

And you can't replicate heart. You know, I think we all have a little bit of imposter syndrome, which isn't the worst thing in the world because it doesn't allow you to get overconfident and think that you're invincible. Check out the advice line by following How I Built This on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to How I Built This early and ad-free right now on Wondery Plus.