Scout Durwood

Transcript

Scout Durwood AI Transcript

[00:00:00] Johnny Carson once interviewed Betty Davis and asked if she had any advice for young starlets wanting to get ahead in Hollywood, she suggested take Fountain. Fountain Avenue runs parallel to Santa Monica and Sunset Boulevards in Hollywood, and is often used to avoid the heavier traffic. And isn't that what we're all after a smooth run?

No holdups, not only in traffic. Also in life. How do people handle those holdups, the rejections? How do they create a life in the entertainment capital of the world? How do they identify and express their uniqueness in a place where hundreds of thousands of hoping to do the same. Welcome to take fountain, compelling stories from passionate people.

Who've made it are making it in Hollywood writers, comedians, actors, filmmakers. I'll talk to anyone with a story to tell,

Welcome to Take Fountain, [00:01:00] a podcast of passionate people working on their dreams, compelling stories from Hollywood, your host, Ella James.

Welcome to take fountain. My guest today is Scout Durwood, a cabaret singer actor. Fabulous. Funny person singer just blew me away from the moment I first met her several years ago now.

Welcome Scout. How are you?

I'm

great. How are you? My internet just did a weird hiccup, but hopefully it'll, it'll not do that again.

Okay. That'll be fine. We'll we'll deal with anything. I'm going to bring my fan on board featuring my, because of course, you know, make it look like we're doing this from a TV studio, but it's my bedroom and I've turned off the AC.

Yeah.

I keep one of those fans with me always when I'm on set and I'm like, look, I'd rather fan myself and then get to it.

Right, right. It's just crazy. You've gone from strength to strength since we first met. And I [00:02:00] wanted to, well, you, you, you're just marvelous. I wasn't quite sure where to start with you.

So, um, I think we'll, we'll let you tell the story because it was, um, working as a cabaret singer in New York in 2008. And what were you, what were you doing in New York?

Um, so I graduated, I graduated from college and then I, the first thing I did was compete in the miss Massachusetts pageant for miss America.

Cause I, my soccer team dared me to enter the pageant and I won a local title. So I competed in state, got top 10, but didn't get a higher title. And then, um, I don't mean, I just always knew I wanted to do be in New York and be an actor. And when I got there, I think, um, the queer community of at all. It's just such a fun tight-knit nightlife oriented community.

So that's how I started. I just started, I mean, I started how many people do, which is dating a bartender.

Hang on.

I don't mind. [00:03:00] I didn't do that. Maybe that's wrong. Goes wrong.

Well, it wasn't my longest relationship,

audio engineers,

same thing. Um, but, and, and just through that community, which was just my whole life for years and years, um, I ran a little theater company, but I wanted to, I, my goal was to be kind of a theatrical actor and, um, Cabaret just took, took me.

I dunno, grabbed my hand. Didn't let it go. And then I was doing some standup at the time, like musical stuff, but I just didn't. It didn't like light my fire the same way that burlesque did, which I ended up working mostly in the burlesque circuit. But I, and I, I think when we talk about comedy or stand up as being like a male industry or an exclusive industry, I think that's a huge part of it, which is that like, when I was at cabaret shows, I didn't want to be anywhere else.

I was having pleasant conversations. It was my life and I, a lot of comedians, I know that that's [00:04:00] true for them of stand up, but it just wasn't quite, for me, it wasn't enough glitter and too many dudes.

I think, um, we met in an acting class and then you invited me to be in a show at three or the three clubs on vine.

Watch a, a fabulous night there you were in pastries, full burlesque and, uh, an absolute wanting and Rachel bloom from crazy. Right with her ukulele and, um, and who were some of the funniest women that I had ever seen. And it was just such a wonderful experience. And I, I kind of knew that you, you were always going to turn up on, on the big screen.

Oh, there's more screen. Yeah. The first thing you did was, um, that oxygen series, um, was that funny girl? So it was Mary and Jane before that? No, that

was funny girls. And it was, um, uh, that was a horrible experience. I mean, what I [00:05:00] it's, I, it was an unscripted show. It was about stand-ups the show kind of had a couple different iterations before it finally went to air.

I'd been attached from the very beginning and I, it wasn't fun. It was like, I mean, I think that's what I talk about. Like I just, I don't love standup like that. And it was really fun. Reality is hard, man. There's people kind of trying to get to do something and I'm pretty, I'm not private about my life, but I, I didn't need to talk about who I was dating or if I was dating and stuff like that.

Anyway, it was really bad and I quit everything. I was like, I'm done. They're all nice people by the way. And I'm still friends with the cast incidentally close with most of them, but yeah. Yeah. I was like, I don't want to do this anymore. And I fired my reps and then I ended up deciding I was going to kind of hail Mary and I worked with my agents assistant.

Um, cause he had left and his new agency wouldn't take a meeting with me. So I went back, I took some time off and then I went to the assistant was like, I mean, let's try. [00:06:00] And she goes, okay. Within the year I booked Mary and Jane, which was a scripted TV show. And from there, I think go, I love this industry.

I love being kind of in the middle class, this industry, which I feel like doesn't get enough credit that I get to make what I look like. I want to keep making things and make them bigger and more accessible. But, um, I feel like in showbiz is very unique that everyone's like, well, don't give up and don't.

You don't give up either. What are you a lawyer? Well, I'm sorry, you don't own the firm. You know what I mean? It's like, have I ever heard of user? So anyway, Mary and Jane, I kind of Mary and Jane, I kinda wanted to, um, start being more of a creator. And then, and then my life has pivoted towards that. So I have, now I write, I write and direct and act and.

Usually at least one of the three rarely all three of the three sometimes though at the same time.

Yeah. I think you've hit on something. That's that's important to me as [00:07:00] well in that I was, I was a standup in Australia, not particularly well known. I was more of a lab anyway, that's me. But I think, um, I wanted to, I wanted to speak other people's words.

Um, I didn't, I was sick of being me publicly. Uh, I wanted to, I wanted to have that rich experience where I was lifting the words of a writer off of the page and working with a director, even, even to the point of, you know, being told what to do against my instincts is as it were, I, I find that, okay, like, don't tell me how to parallel path, but I, you know, if I've got, if I've got a bent on something, Um, and, and I think this is the way it's going to be in a director says, no, no, no, no, let's do this.

I'm like, oh, I'm there. You know, it's fine. But that,

I agree. I mean, I love, I call it my, my SNM kink. I love a tough [00:08:00] director. No, not SNM. I'm trying to describe what it is, but there's something very pleasing about, um, same with music producers. If someone can get you to do something like something on the edge of what you think you can do, I think.

Globally. That's a positive thing. Yeah. Yeah. And I think I, yeah,

performers, we want someone to see something in us that we have not explored. Right. And so it was interesting. Yeah. We

have a lot of keys on our keyboards and we want to be played.

Right. Um, I just have to attend to something technical, just speak to sales because I'm not there.

She is there. I can go grab her juice. All right, let me grab her.

Just there we go. I love that I have just disappeared off screen. There we go. Oh.

Let the [00:09:00] dog, ladies and gentlemen,

omelet the dog. Hello, my darling. How

her start? Any of your, many of your pieces?

Yes, she hates it. She doesn't have her eyebrows on it. Usually we H she has vintage eyebrows.

I just love it. Yeah. Oh, it's a real trooper. Hello? Hello. She didn't go to scout.com and you can buy a cell phone patch, the dog.

Yeah. She's one of the stars of the thing that I'm finishing right now. And that, I think that was her retirement piece. She really did not enjoy being on set.

Right. Um, can you talk about what you've been writing in, in some way? So

I have, okay. So I have two projects kind of up in the air right now. And I think it's, yeah, I think for me, like where I'm at right now is like the beginning of where I want to stay for a while, which is that [00:10:00] I have a show in development.

Um, uh, with Sony and Gabrielle union and, um, and that's been moving forward network-wise and so that's like a slow, you know, you get a lot of network notes and I like how we were just talking about directors. I not notoriously what's positive, notorious, like infamously we'll take notes. Like I love the challenge of like an impossible note.

Um, So that's been going on and that's a show just about queer relationships and it, I am so proud of it. And like development hell is called development health for a reason, because it is kind of an infinite journey and you never know, my mom will be like, haven't we already celebrated that. And then like, I hear, I hear you.

It sounds like I'm at the same level, but yeah. There's so many, you know, there's so many hurdles to jump over before, before a TV hits the screen and look, I'm a drinker. I got to celebrate every accomplishment with a toast. Um, and then I [00:11:00] have my second visual album coming out. Well, it's getting finished soon, but basically I'm on a music label and we did the first album as a digital series called take one thing off, which is all on YouTube.

And then I did it a second album and then COVID happened. So we got stuck with the visual album where we'd shot all of the narrative and half of the music videos. And then it was COVID. So we ended up having to split the album into two EPS. I had to deliver the. Music videos. And then now finally the narrative is getting, um, is getting finished, but that's, and that's what online is in.

She is not in my network TV show to me.

Two things that you've raised there that I want to talk to you about. Firstly, being a queer artist, um, you're working a lot in, in the queer genre and I don't suppose that I would ever say to a straight actor, why are you always working in the straight shot? Um, but [00:12:00] is that something that you, you, uh, are deliberately working within?

Is that what you meant by your mother saying haven't we already celebrated this? Um, or is there work to be done? Are you more comfortable there? How does it all work for

you? I think it's three things, right. One is that I, I think you naturally hang out with people. You have things in common with like, same as Stanhope.

The, my queer world. I don't know, like I'm around people. I want to date, like when I'm going out, I'm going to go be around. So I do think there is a sense of like, that's my network. Those are my friends. Um, I do have some straight friends. I'm sure somewhere, but I. It's sharing a major common interest. So I think that's part of it, especially in this business, you know, you work with people you like working with, I hire my friends or I get more excited to work, you know, or my friends hire me.

Um, two is I think, um, this year did [00:13:00] something that has never happened before, which is that. All of a sudden, all these things that were really niched became really desired and mainstream. So like, I think it happened along racial lines, maybe even more, no, I think race and gender, like where all of a sudden it was like F you couldn't be trans for a really long time.

And now that's, that's very, you know, we want gender inclusion, we want gender representation. So I joke that the reason my D my show didn't sell five years ago is the reason it's sold when it does. It's just timing and, and you can't really control that. So I guess it's kind of like where I find myself in life, where the industry finds itself and what parts of me, it, it won the show I sold, I hadn't, it wasn't a pit.

They passed on my show. They were like, oh, no, thanks on that. But that thing you said about your life is really exciting.

I mean, it's not now it's Nope.

Is that a sensibly? What happened? Yeah. [00:14:00] Yeah.

Oh yeah. I mean, and it was such a, like, it's such a funny, I'd been up all night for a year, basically editing, take one thing off. And I, I think the night before I hadn't slept and I walked in and was just, just overshare. I didn't know I've done, but I've been told.

But

that is story, you know, that is, was, that is the ultimate. We do get paid for being ourselves and, and we do ultimately get cast for that, something within us that, that, that they see in my case, a homeless woman, but that, well, it was, that was the last picture. As a, as a whole, I'm not dying to promote it because the makeup is extraordinary.

But, um, a lot of makeup, I can't even post that yet because, because it hasn't been run sweetheart run, but I mean, I'm excited for it. Um, the other [00:15:00] thing that you were talking about, um, Was being with a label and producing a visual album, um, the, the landscape of music production and releasing music and being an artist has changed so much, um, in the past 10, 20 years.

Um, and so one of the things that's being done now with these visual albums and. I mean, do you have to go on tour to, to earn your worth as an artist? Or, or can you do that through the visual stuff on YouTube?

I don't make my living as a musician, not even close, and I didn't mean to get involved in the music industry, but then I did and I, it made me feel really bad about myself cause it's a very, it's a very money industry.

And, and then at the same time, You know, do you have like bedroom producers and like Billie Eilish? And I don't know, the music industry doesn't make any sense to me. I started doing visual [00:16:00] albums because I love my job. I am fairly obsessive about liking to stay busy. So it was a thing that I could do.

Filmmaking, it's something I know how to do. Music is much more opaque to me. Like, cause you have to be a personality and tour and social media and I mean, look, nothing's a meritocracy for sure. Not only is it subjective, it's corporate, but yeah, I don't, I mean, I love singing. It is a hobby that I get paid to do when I tried to make it more than that.

I was unhappy and not productive. So. Now I'm just a film. I mean, I I've started to say filmmaker, I'm a comedian, but I make stuff that usually makes me laugh. And if anybody asks me to sing, I'll say, yes,

that song that you wrote about the wedding, the funny, and what was that line where she's like, I want to party.[00:17:00]

Yeah, you really tap the zeitgeists of why in the 21st century educated, intelligent women get all excited to be given from their father to another man. We scrapped and to spend extensively their college education fund on getting married. Right?

Oh my God. Well, again, I'm queer. And so I think there's things like that.

Like I think when you get outside of a structure, you can look back on it and go, what are we doing? And especially like, sometimes you'll learn about another. Culture or something. And they're mating rituals, I guess, for lack of a better phrase or so interesting. But then also sometimes do like straight people and be like, oh, how do you guys, like you guys have nothing or like the kinds of like Dick pics or ghosting all this stuff that I was like, you guys get that this is arbitrary and insane.

And my rituals are too. I mean, arguably like, you know, my tactic. [00:18:00] If you want to, if you want partner perform a lot and then go home with someone in the audience, I mean, that's just as random, but yeah,

well, it is. I mean, straight. Um, I also. At the, at the traditional notion of the white dress and the, and the gift list.

Um, but you know, uh, queer women also caught that whole thing about the Subaru station wagon. Yeah. And the U-Haul like the U-Haul packing up within three days of meeting someone. Right. Very true.

I've done it. Not in a year. I moved someone out in a U

take south with LBJ.

So, um, when it comes to the songs, do what instruments do you play? I know you played the ukulele, so,

and pretty tight collaboration with Dave darling. Who's my producer. He, um, so I was playing [00:19:00] the role of blues, musician, Genova, Genova, Magnus. Uh, like a backers presentation from a musical about her life and her producer, Dave darling was like, do we want to do an album on this label that had just started blue line?

And I was like, I know, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm a comedian. And he's like, eh, so he, I write with him, I play the ukulele. I write comedies like stand-up songs on the ukulele. Um, but I, yeah, I TA I top-line my own music or sometimes I'll come in with most of an idea. But I can't, I think it's part of why made a visual album is like, I can, I know how to con I know how to touch more buttons and filmmaking than I do in music.

And if I had it my way, I would just have like a really talented, uh, band leader and just always play with a live jazz band and just have to sing.

Do you have a favorite genre of music that you like to

sing standards? I mean, look, I'm [00:20:00] over like fever and not the knife. Well, men Mack, the knife, it was really hard to memorize as this beaver.

Um, but I, I really love, I kind of live around like Nina, Simone. I write to a lot of jazz. I write to like, um, Hazel Scott. I like to a lot. Yeah. Someone, someone I think is a documentary something, but it was a black musician and they made the joke that in the fifties and sixties, that white people saying, like they didn't have anything to sing about.

And I feel like was, especially when you look at like bubblegum and like, you know, here we are going, like my boyfriend's Mac and I there's this chunk of music happening, like Harlem jazz at the same time that it's just bleeding feelings. Yeah, I don't, I don't love a lot of modern music. Right.

Was it a, is it a, is it a dream one day to release an album of standards?

Yeah, I mean, I, look, I think that actor wanting to sing standards is a [00:21:00] bit hack at this point, but I do like, I love like black coffee, um, like, which isn't, that's not even that obscure, but I do keep a list of songs I want to cover. I don't know if I'm what I'm going to do, music wise next, but one of the ideas on the table is to do a cabaret album and to take songs from different genres or different eras and kind of unify them.

Totally. Because look, I'm, I still think live music is what you make with instruments. I mean, don't get me wrong. I perform two tracks. Like I don't often get to do that, but boy, do I love being a drunk lady on stage and an evening with.

Yeah,

no, just that I was just, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um, this last 18 months then with the, with COVID and everything shutting down, um, how did that lack of live performance impact you?

When I left New York for [00:22:00] LA, I flew into a depression because I made my living in New York. I kind of had everything I wanted.

I would get recognized on the street enough to make me feel seen. Um, I had a really intimate relationship with my audience. They, it felt like we were exchanging moments. Like it was a very tangible experience and it made my living doing it. And, um, I was, I think I said twice because when I got to LA that's not a thing, comedians talk about it to where you can't make your money live here.

So I waited tables for the first time and I was just. I, and I don't know that I totally recovered from that, to be honest, I, I still kind of Huff and puff about the culture of live performance in LA COVID. I mean, I said, I mean, I'm another depression. I'm actually a pretty happy go lucky person. Um, and I quit.

I was like, I don't want to do this anymore. I didn't want to do, I didn't want to hustle for all these little live shows. I [00:23:00] wanted to sit still and. And I didn't think I was going to come back. Like I have to live performance, but number one, people have, you know, I'm again, let me, you ask me like queer.

Like I started doing live shows again because I went to, my friend was queer. So birthday party and we all sang along and everyone was like, when's your show? Coming back. The queer community loves it. Like we need it. We are chosen family. And so I was like, we're doing a show. So now I've been back. But I don't know.

I mean, I, I miss it. I'm also older, like, and I've also done it. I was thinking about it today because we do a stand-up show once a month at, um, jam in the van or we get a bunch of sponsors and it's so great. And, um, this woman came up to me, Lee Snyder the show and she gave me her card and she makes like pastries and like, you know, glitter and.

And I was like, yeah. And I fought that for a minute. My co-host and I, because he and I look a lot alike, but obviously he's a [00:24:00] dude go on. I was like, we should both wear a he's on stage. And I was thinking about it today and I was like, boy, have I done that? I don't know if I got it. Schlepped the old B cups out again.

Well, certainly I can't be doing it. I can do it. Can they be on my

knees? That's spoken from an burlesque is very. We don't care. We love it. We love a dangley, a dangling.

LIBOR. Um, I think, um, one of the things that I've seen amongst a lot of my, uh, friends, uh, in LA was that they were so impacted financially by COVID and, uh, Uh, being able to access, support, and, um, and many of them there, there were just no gigs because there were no, there were no gigs, you know, there were no, um, do a comedy show and make sure all your friends come and we'll pay you 50 bucks, but they're also, there were no [00:25:00] bartending jobs.

There were no cafe jobs. I mean, everything just shut down. And at first it was really depressing, but then I noticed everybody kind of huddled inside and started getting into content creation. Um, have you seen that amongst your friends? Like how are people handling it all?

Yes. And there's a new crop of especially tick tock, tick tock.

People got really big following really fast, uh, you know, through the first show live show we did back through threesome. A bunch of our crowd cane because, um, a performer had gotten big on Tik TOK and started a thing like, uh, you know, anyway, it was like this isn't like starts throwing events or curating events.

And so she posted it and a ton of her followers came out. So I'm grateful that someone's doing it. My label was like do more Tik TOK, and I was. Nope. [00:26:00] I don't, I don't think like that. And for me, I've tried, I it's not my language. So I mean, I kind of love being the elder gay now and getting to be like back at day, we did have bars, like you're the,

in the game,

I went to a friend's birthday and realize it.

Well, yeah, I went to a friend's birthday and realized it would be age appropriate for me to date a bunch of people there. And I was like, oh right, that happened. And I dug it. I was always the baby. My friends in New York were always older than me. So, so I dug, I like being like, you know, 10 years older than everybody.

I find it endearing.

One of the things I wanted to talk to you about. And I, I hope you're open to it, but you, and on let the dog

stay with you. You and I'll let the dog have, uh, have issued apartment living and [00:27:00] get off into the sunset. Like it sounds terribly romantic. Do you like, how, how cool is it? It was wonderful.

No, I mean, yes, we bought a van, but like right now I'm at my friend Ashley's house who I stay at when I'm in the city.

I bought the van sublet my apartment. I think the truth of it was I wasn't in the right apartment. I'm moving into a little tiny home, um, in the fall, like a little ADU because I don't, I like only being outside, but no, the van in the city sucks and outside of the city. Oh my God. I mean the learning curve of going from.

I live in an apartment. I drive a Prius. So like here's a van, figure it out. You break stuff, you hit stuff. No, I hit one little thing. And again, I'm fine. I don't mean like you hit that sounded like I've met a serial killer. Um, it's really challenging, but I, it is a calmness that I have never [00:28:00] experienced.

And also I work in a really difficult industry to plan and I'm often attached to somebody. Late in the game. So like, you know what it's like to leave LA and then you get a call back for tide and you're like, well, this isn't gonna change my life, but I could sure use the check right now. And then you regret leaving.

So COVID was the first time I was like, it's now or never, dude. So now the fact that I can disappear for weeks at a time, it was great because outside of LA it's so. Nice. It's hard to like be outside of LA and make sure you have enough internet that you can send and receive stuff and do self-tapes and all that.

But when you can just be doing van life. Yeah. Cool.

How safe do you feel as a woman? A hundred percent. Like,

yeah. One of the things I've really tried to work on this year is reminding myself I'm not prey. I think that part of the way I white women in particular are influenced by the patriarchy or held back is by being taught.

That, um, someone needs to have [00:29:00] our back because like, we need a protector because the world is so dangerous. Um, that's a lot of women ask me that. And then I asked another woman who was like in her sixties and she's a solo van lifer. And she was like, I've never once been scared. She's like, sometimes if you're a rat, you know, depending on where you are, there can be people you don't want to interact with.

And so you kind of just choose not to, but no, I mean, and the other thing is that if you're like way out in the sticks yeah. There's like, you can just be logical and avoid, um, nature, like nature doesn't scare me because for me to get like attacked by a bear or an interaction with a coyote, I would have had to have made a few steps that I know better than to take, you know?

And then as far as other people go there aren't that many like roaming serial killers in, on the planet and the odds of one finding me way out in the boonies, pretty low. So. And if you are around other people in band life, the community is incredible. [00:30:00] Like you just make friends instantly, instantly. And I cut myself really badly on this last trip, opening a package of Tempe and just went to the guy next to me and was like, Hey John, does this look like I need stitches?

And he's like, nah, you're good. Wrap it up,

Graham. And I was like, yes,

it's so cute. Look at that. I don't even need to wear the bandaid anymore.

That's amazing. I'm glad. I'm glad y'all was there. I think that that's also one of the things about COVID like I started, um, just reaching out to older people in my community to make sure that, you know, they're okay doing some shopping for them.

If I was cooking, I love to cook. So, um, and I haven't met many people in LA who liked to cook now everybody's going to come at me, but it was like, don't ask me. Oh, yes. I cook something here. It's a bin, a box and I put it in a microwave and I'm like, that's not what I'm talking about. So I would make like a moussaka [00:31:00] or apple pie or something in hand around slices.

And I love doing stuff like that because otherwise I'm making something and I'm freezing five and eating one. And I've just, you know, I'm like kill surprise when I opened the freezer door. That was kind of, um, that was kind of nice. That sense of. What you're talking about, that sense of community gives us a sense of belonging.

Well,

I think it could be really hard to being, I mean, that your family is so far away, right? I did. Oh, they're all done. Okay. So they're in a whole other thing. Yeah.

I have a tremendous amount of freedom. Yeah. Although they still tell you what to do in your head. Like there's no freedom, dead parent dreads, no freedom.

My living parents, they were the reason I got the van. They were like, you are nothing. If not unconventional do it. I was like, oh, I'm going to go broke. And they're like, okay.

Nope. Um, are your parents? [00:32:00] Uh, God, I I'm digging myself a hole here. Are they eccentric and fabulous? No. Did you, uh, okay, so you had a very, I don't know what standard is, but a standard upbringing, like, well,

I think my dad is eccentric, but he's not, I had a pretty standard upbringing and then things got sad and then they got weird and now my mom and I are really, really close and.

Helps me with my scrubs, usually by getting something so wrong that I'm like, well, whatever I come up with, can't be as bad as that. But, um, no, and or my families are creative. My dad's a cartoonist. Um, he worked in corporate stuff for a long time. No, and both my sisters have human, like my sisters or clarity any, I don't know.

They, they knew me before I knew.

Before pastries. Um, you just said something about your mother getting things so wrong. [00:33:00] I, my mother was, uh, like a very lady Bracknell,

the queen senior show. That just sounds crushing.

Of course. Right. But, um, where she was funny was, I don't know whether she deliberately got things wrong or just deliberately didn't listen, but I was the co-host of a breakfast radio program and the station was called today.

FM and my co-hosts name was Dean matters. And my mother would blindly say to people, my daughter's working today with Dean Martin. And I'm like, no, I'm not, you know, just that, but it was so wrong that I have subsequently been able to use all of her material, which is, which is a beautiful thing. But I think, you know, I, I, I joked about the dead parents.

This time has been really good. Not having to worry about loved ones across the country or across the ocean. Yeah. I didn't have to rush back to Australia, you know, to be with anybody. And [00:34:00] I'm so blessed by that because there are 34,000 Aussies stranded overseas because the Australian boy there's a closed.

Oh, that's right. You can't

go there. So, and I know, you know, a lot of my friends here, as soon as things started to open up, they was straight on a plane, you know, to wherever they came from Chicago or New York, so that they could have this. Well, you know, like every year before that it was like, oh, back Thanksgiving.

And I have to go back and see my parents and they're going to tell me what to do. And then this year, last year it was like, I can't get home for

Thanksgiving. Yeah, totally. My family doesn't celebrate how. Um, we started the practice of random visits and it's much better for us. I was in town over Thanksgiving by accident, but we refuse to celebrate.

Where is home? Home? Where, where are your parents still? Where you will, right?

Yeah. I'm from Kansas city. Um, it's a hell of a [00:35:00] tie. No. Ah, there's a lot of arts and it's like, my mom lives in an apartment now in a really cool community. That's kind of undergoing a lot of fusion and the Midwest and Kansas city in particular, like certainly racially has a complicated history and a history of a lot of like white flight and, and kind of legal or defect like digitally or defacto segregation.

But my mom's neighborhood right now has like, is just this wonderful artistic. It's been really cool though to watch her. And then my dad lives in the house I grew up in. So it's kinda cool to like sit in your childhood bedroom, which there's no furniture in it anymore. The upstairs is my sister's room and my room, nothing else.

So my dad at one point just cleaned everything out and they just sit, like, I keep threatening to shoot a horror movie there and he's like, go for it. But I'll just like sit in the empty room of my childhood and go like, it's so small. I had no idea how small.

Yeah, this is my world. I mean, because [00:36:00] I grew up watching so many American movies and I can't imagine somebody's bedroom, not having pink walls, a white bed with a little four poster thing.

And, um, you know, the, the, the, what do you call it? The pennant for diving or baseball or something. Right. And all your dolls on the, on, uh, like who does that? Who lives like that? I

mean, that's pretty cool. Yeah. I was, I was odd. I, my parents got divorced when I was 14. And so my room at my mom's house had all my metals, not penance from all my stuff.

And then my dad's room. I had all the milk ads. I would like fish soup magazines and find all the got milk ads. My wall was covered with that. Cause my older sister collected Absolut vodka ads. So I, I thought I needed to be just like her, but better.

Yeah. That's so sweet. Oh

yeah. Trampoline in my backyard played with the neighbor.

Kids walked down to the pool on the, it was like a mile away. Yeah, [00:37:00] it was cool.

Yeah. Well, I'm certainly glad that you didn't become miss America because I think the world missed out on everything else that you've done. Um, people can go to your website, scouter wood.com and check out all your stuff. And please go to your shop and support an artist.

Yeah. And then, uh, this stuff that you're working on with Sony, does it have a name, like, can we watch out for it? Do you have a release date or is it a way away? It's

just still in there. I don't know. It's it's we are, we just had another, I don't know how else to say it. Like iteration. We just got a big change.

So, um, we're waiting on honestly, some paperwork right now, and then we'll have more info, but we just changed the show. Just changed direction. I don't know what else to say. I don't know what. But, uh, you utopia. I have a bunch of music videos out right now and then the narrative companion to it, which is a feature length piece is, will be finished soon.

And then we'll [00:38:00] decide how we want to release it. But that's yeah, but COVID electronica. Follow me on the list. She's

on the Instagram at scout or you scout Derwood on in-store as well. Um, I'm I am so glad I met you. You too. Just so thrilled. You're so talented and I'm so thrilled that it's all coming. You know, like it's, uh, I was talking with a producer writer this morning and talking about how, how things have to happen and when they happen and then you look back, it's like, ah, I see that now.

But at the time, Oh, God, it's such a, I mean, LA has taught me apart and put me back together again and I wouldn't have it any other way. Um,

maybe, uh, an easy effortless fame in my early twenties would have been, no, I agree. I feel really lucky for my journey and I like the voice I've [00:39:00] developed and the fearlessness.

What am I scared of? Not working.

Come on. Exactly. Well, my darling, I can't wait to see what happens. I will make sure that the audience knows when something does and it'll probably be tomorrow and then tomorrow and then tomorrow. So you take care and love to omelet the dog. Thank you. And we'll keep in touch.

Thank

you so much. It was so great talking with you.

Thank you.

You've been listening to Take Fountain with Ella James available at apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Spotify I heart radio, or your favorite podcast player. You can also stream on demand @bitesz.com. This has been another quality podcast production from bitesz.com.