How many of us have the courage to face the friction that comes when we need to grow, but people want us to stay the same? You’ve built an audience as a “truth-teller,” but then what if your understanding of the truth changes? When you’re an author, artist and performer like Jill Louise Busby, creative growth is essential, but the community that first delivered your moment of “micro-fame” might not be on board. It’s a life challenge we all face, even if we don’t all do it publicly. Laura gets into all that and a whole lot more in her darkly funny and thoroughly revealing conversation with Jill. Then, we REALLY want you to check out Jill’s debut book, Unfollow Me: Essays on Complicity. It’s an intimate, impertinent, and incisive collection about race, progress, and hypocrisy, and was released in September, 2021 by Bloomsbury Publishing. Show notes: Jill Louise Busby: https://jilllouisebusby.com/ Jill’s IG: https://www.instagram.com/jilllouisebusby/ Jill’s book: https://amzn.to/352QlUX Episode link: https://www.tmstpod.com/episodes/36-jill-louise-busby-on-being-unfollowed Spotify playlist for this episode: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7KI7qvvyINKOjyOqcjtszZ Tell Me Something True is a 100% independent podcast. There are no corporations or advertisers backing this community. We are 100% funded by the TMST community. Support TMST today so you can hear the uncut interviews, attend private events with Laura and help keep TMST ad-free: https://tmst.supercast.com/
Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen
Jill Louise Busby on Being Unfollowed
[00:00:00] Laura McKowen: Hey, it's Laura. If you're listening to this, you're not hearing the complete unedited version of this conversation. If you want in on that, you can get it by becoming a TMST plus member. Just head over to our website tmstpod.com and click support. All right. Enjoy the show.
[00:00:25] Hey friends, it's Laura. I have someone I've been dying for you to meet. She's an author, a satirist, and one of the sharpest observers of our curated lives we're living. Jill Louise Busby.
[00:00:43] Jill Louise Busby: There's so many announcements here. You know what I mean? There's so many announcements and you got to keep up when people start talking about how they're finally tired of playing it small and they realize that sometimes things they have to go left so that they can eventually go right. They're about to make an [00:01:00] announcement.
[00:01:00] And I'm like, absolutely, say it with your chest, but speak it from your heart. But because this is social media, I also know that it's launching time. They're about to launch something brand new, something new and branded, and I have to tell you whatever it is you're about to launch. I'm about to rock it. You know what I mean? I'm with it, whatever you want to sell me at the end of this caption, I'm going to buy three or three months of it. Okay. You did the work and making your life make sense. And now you need that sense to make dollars to sell the sense. That makes sense. Why not? It's time. It's just that I'm speaking of time, I do have to, I do have to get paid first. That's all. Um, you're not the only person that made an announcement today, and I want to be a blessing.
[00:01:51] I just gotta, I got to put the blessings in the budget, so let me just get creative. You're getting creative, everybody's getting creative. I got to get creative with the support. That's all, [00:02:00] you know, and I might make an announcement to, if everybody else is doing it, if that's what we're doing, we can all get blessed. I'm just saying the first I got to get paid.
[00:02:18] Laura McKowen: That's Jill Louise Busby in just one of many Instagram videos she's created over the last few years. Jill is your classic hard to pin down, multihyphenate she's an author, a social commentator, a humorous. And most importantly, an incredibly special human. She first achieved what she calls a moment of MicroFame through a series of videos on her, Jill Is Black Instagram account.
[00:02:45] At first her video shined a light on how performative our lives had become, but then she realized that she was just as implicated in everything she'd been commenting on. A very brave and unflinching book [00:03:00] followed, Unfollow Me Essays in Complicity came out last fall and I got to tell you, it is a hell of a read and a listen.
[00:03:09] She's funny and kind of dark and very, very perceptive. All of this is what makes Jill more than a social media phenomenon. She's a true artist and I am so excited to have her on TMST. Let's go.
[00:03:35] I want to know like introduce, cause people may not be familiar who is Jill is Black and tell us about your experience of MicroFame?
[00:03:46] Jill Louise Busby: Oh, that's a big question. Jill is Black is really a name that I came to be known for a few years ago, because it is the name that I had on social media during a time when I had a video about race and power, perhaps hierarchy, go viral.
[00:04:10] And so after that happens, of course, that is my name because once you hit the internet with anything, that's it. So the vehicle becomes Jill is Black and now it feels like a time period. It feels like a reaction. It feels like a consequence of living outside of my honesty. I understand it, but I'm not there.
[00:04:37] And so now it just really symbolizes a time when I felt a very specific way and thought a very specific thing. And it's really made up of all the limitations of thinking, you know, everything. So it's a great thing. She's also, she's funny a little bit too, you know, I like to make a few jokes, so she's a little bit funny, but she's also just a tired [00:05:00] person.
[00:05:00] Laura McKowen: There's a lot in there. So she's a reaction, a reaction to…
[00:05:04] Jill Louise Busby: So during this time, I'm working at a non-profit organization I've been hired to do, what we now call DAI or diversity and inclusion work. And I am frustrated by the reality of what I have been called to do. And the part that feels like it can't really happen where it is.
[00:05:30] Right. So we know, we know that there's some things that are impossible. There's some things are possible and we're not about to change them because it would change too much structurally. And so I'm there to kind of be the figurehead of an attempt that is not really happening. And so 2016, right?
[00:05:49] Yeah. And so in that frustration, because sure I can do that. It makes my job a little bit easier. I can't accomplish anything there and harder at the same time, but I'm frustrated. So I'm [00:06:00] going out every day to my car and I'm taking my lunch there and I start making these videos that are very much all the things that I could say.
[00:06:09] If I could say them, you know, just really getting down to the root of like, Nope, this is just the experience. I don't want to dress it up. I don't want to put rhetoric around it. I don't want to do training. This is just it. And if we're not going to say it, even if it's not true and it's how I feel. And I don't say it.
[00:06:26] What are we doing? So Jill is Black really starts doing these one minute monologues. It begins with dear white people. It eventually gets to dear black people. It eventually gets to dear myself until I'm all out of places to go looking for accountability. Other than me, not in public.
[00:06:47] Laura McKowen: And as someone who has had public persona for a few years now, you said things, I didn't even know how to articulate.
[00:06:58] I didn't know how to [00:07:00] say what you said, but one of the things that stood out that stood out to me that I keep thinking about is you said, I'm changing, but she's not allowed to. So talk about what you meant.
[00:07:14] Jill Louise Busby: Well, I was probably going to change anyway, but playing a caricature of myself, certainly made it hard to ignore what I was and what was happening and what was making this character.
[00:07:34] And so life is going on and I'm starting to wonder why I'm so unhappy. I'm starting to wonder if this is, you know, if I only want to be talking to people. Lecturing, you know, lecturing them on something that I really can't know for sure. If I really want to just be angry if I really want to chase things that upset me and then act as though I'm [00:08:00] surprised that they're there.
[00:08:01] And so I am getting as Jill more and more unhappy, but Jill is Black can't change. She is there to perform a certain task, you know, she's there to articulate something so that people can inside to their jobs also. And so the very same thing I was doing for myself, I would meet people in real life and they were like, oh, I watched your videos, you know, in the restroom at work so that I can go back to my job.
[00:08:27] And so there was also the feeling that even though this isn't how I would do it now as myself. Just by understanding that feeling. I feel indebted to you to keep doing this because I connect with that experience. Then I'm trying to keep everyone happy because also there's the part where I'm like, I like that you like this, I like that you're watching this.
[00:08:49] And not just in ego-driven ways, but like, if I believe myself that I also feel like I'm on a noble pursuit and I'm like, okay, we're all in this together. [00:09:00] And I can't admit that I don't want to lose you.
[00:09:06] Laura McKowen: Yeah, well that’s what you admit that most people won't admit.
[00:09:08] Jill Louise Busby: Right. I don't want to.
[00:09:12] Laura McKowen: And all these things are true at the same time.
[00:09:14] Did you try to change Jill? And like you, I'm just going to imagine that you did, and you were very hyper attuned to what the reaction was or wasn't when you did that.
[00:09:27] Jill Louise Busby: I did, again. So if it starts out, I'm going to talk to white people specifically, and really it's white liberals, right? Because other people aren’t listening to me. So who's going to show up and listen. Okay. And if you're making this attempt, I'm like, if you're making this attempt, do you really want to hear this feedback or not? Because this is the feedback. And then I was like, what are you doing? Like, what are you saying? What is this.
[00:09:53] You know, I started kind of losing an argument against myself because I'm also always my own follower. And I'm [00:10:00] like, by now, I would want you to have a solution. By now I would want you to say something different by now because I also am engaging with my own content. And then I'm like, what about you? What are you doing?
[00:10:10] How are you participating in this? You know, all of this illusion you talk about, but you're in it and you're playing a game. And even to show up here, you're doing the very thing that you talk about. So how are we going to get closer to the. Here comes, dear black people, black people, are you participating in systems of blah, blah, blah, of course.
[00:10:27] And then it's like, but still you, cause you're more than just that. You're also that part where you're just you, what are you doing, Jill? And so, again, as it changes, I'm talking sort of the same way, but I think people began to notice that we were no longer just talking identity. There was something else that was more.
[00:10:47] About me and social media and MicroFame and something else. So it did change, but this book became an important part of saying, but I can't change it without owning what has happened. So I had, I [00:11:00] felt like I had to do that part in public, tell the whole story and not just change and benefit from every single different version of it.
[00:11:07] But to tell the whole thing felt like the important part that, you know, to express the changes.
[00:11:14] Laura McKowen: What was the unhappiness like? How did that show up for you?
[00:11:19] Jill Louise Busby: I was disempowered because everything was everyone's fault. Right. So, yeah, isn't that funny? So it felt like I couldn't fix my own life. I couldn't do anything.
[00:11:35] I was out of control. And so what I could do is articulate how to blame another. And I was on social media one night. And someone posted some passage from a book by someone named Stuart Wilde and, you know, he's this kind of spiritual guy, older, white guy. So I get the book, I download it to Kindle, I'm [00:12:00] reading the book and I'm like, oh, You know, it's that undeniable moment of this is for you, whether you want it to be for you or not.
[00:12:08] In fact, you're a little bit embarrassed that it's for you. Let's, let's talk about why you're embarrassed. How could this person tell you anything based on what you're saying in public? How could he know anything about you? And so I was in a conundrum because I needed everything that he said, and he wasn't supposed to be speaking to me according to me.
[00:12:27] So what age to say, share what you, what do they have to say? So Stuart says, Hey, it's you, it's you, it's your ego. It's all these things that you're reading and doing. You're doing them for you. And, you know, So feel like your life is more valuable and important than someone else. That's why you feel like you have to do everything for them.
[00:12:50] And then, you know, so I'm starting to really get into my ego, work around. Why am I Jill is Black? What are, what benefits am I getting from this thing? It's not just [00:13:00] hurting me again. I can talk about systemic participation, but sure. When I'm alone by myself, what are the benefits? What am I filling up here?
[00:13:10] What is the need? And so once I got to evaluate that, I still had an interest in doing that in public. It just had to be wildly different. I wanted to practice being honest in public. That's kind of the gimmick, right? So it was always, I'm going to be a little more honest than you, which is also a type of performance.
[00:13:36] So, and then I always, it can be, so then I'm always trying to be like, but then I'm going to tell you that I'm performing the honesty, you know, it's this mind trick down to nothing, but I think, I don't mind this vulnerability in public of saying that I was wrong and that I've changed, but I also feel very supported in my home life or in my family or other places.
[00:13:58] So I feel like [00:14:00] I feel rooted somewhere. So it's a little easier. To go out into the world and admit to some of this.
[00:14:20] Mikel Ellcessor: Hi, I'm Mikel. I'm the executive producer of Tell Me Something True. And I co-created the show with Laura. We built TMST and our online community with the hope of creating a sane spot on the internet. We're really passionate about the ad-free nature of this work. Our belief is that this project worked best if we're not hustling to keep advertisers happy, and we keep our attention on you, the TMST community, and this is where you can play a major role. TMST plus is the membership group that helps to keep this podcast going. Whether it's through a monthly membership or a one-time contribution, TMST plus members are vital to this experiment. As a TMST plus member, you get to join Laura for member only events, send in questions for the guests, hear the complete unedited interviews and connect with other TMST community members. You know, sometimes we feel like we can't make a difference in the world. With the TMST [00:26:00] plus membership, you can be keeping this space alive and thriving for a one-time gift or for as little as 10 bucks a month, you can find the link in the show description and then please head over to TMSTpod.com right now to support the show. And thanks.
[00:15:49] Laura McKowen: One of the things that I think, I think I liked most about your book, although it was, it was hard. It's challenging because you really do [00:16:00] talk about complicity and ask, you don't offer a lot of answers on purpose. Most of your book is questions and your sort of continual evolution of questions that you have for yourself.
[00:16:14] And I really appreciate it. You dare for people to kind of interrogate their willingness, to look at their participation and in sort of all of this, where do you fall on that now in this idea of complicity and that we're all kind of watching and being wild. Do you feel like there is an upside and a positive to the way that we live this way now?
[00:16:40] Jill Louise Busby: I have no idea. So let me start by saying, I really don't know. And that feels really good to say that I'm in a phase with social media where I don't know. I am back on social media more often and it feels okay, but I'm very clear about what my intention is. [00:17:00] I think this stuff is kind of funny.
[00:17:02] It has some real consequence to it, but there's a version where we're just showing up and being like, Hey, I'm just here to be authentic. I'm here. Here's my authentic caption. Please buy this. I have bottled my authenticity and now I'm selling it. And the funny part is like, We're in capitalism. This is what you're doing now.
[00:17:24] You got to do it. You gotta do it, but we gotta say it. We have to say that we're doing it. It's so I think it's our refusal to just kind of call things what they are as if we are to blame. So it's silly to just say, I'm trying not to be on here. That was so like four years ago now, now you're here. What are we going to do?
[00:17:47] So, so we'll see. We'll see. I really don't have a clear answer, but I, I think the starting point is to say, what are we doing?
[00:18:00] Okay. I keep telling myself, I'm like, Jill, you better get on that social media. You better post something. You better know. Because it's like, what am I even doing if I'm not working on my social capital via my social media? Do you know what I'm saying? Like, okay. Like, why be content when you can create content?
[00:18:20] Why go live when you can go live. No, there's no reason for me not to be out here. And now that we've like replaced nature with Netflix and selves symbols and friends with followers and presents with presentation, all the more reason. And you get to live in a world of our own design as an interpretation of ourselves, that's fun to do.
[00:18:41] So when we get to be alone, while feeling less alone, a world where we're like finally just left to our own devices. Or okay, so like our own device, same thing.
[00:19:00] Laura McKowen: So you said the intention now you're clear about your intention and your attention now is what, today?
[00:19:06] Jill Louise Busby: My intention today is to make fun of us in a loving way. That's what my intention today. So that it is not taken so seriously that we can't joke about where we are. I feel like people need some humor right now, and I think we want it to be very specific.
[00:19:25] I think we want it to be a little more relevant to what's happening, right now. Let's joke about the social media that we're on all day. Let's talk about what it means when someone launches their new brand, you know, and then you go onto someone else's posts where they've launched their new brand. You've got to figure out how to support both of them.
[00:19:41] These are the kinds of videos I want to be making, because I think right now I don't want to contribute to any more stress. I don't want to be the person who's trying to remind you that everything is on fire. You know, it's on fire, but that obviously can't be the point if we can, if we [00:20:00] can't stop that, then that's clearly not the point.
[00:20:02] What, what do we, how do we regroup when everything is on fire? And I think the only way I know is humor. So I'm going to use that humor.
[00:20:12] Laura McKowen: Humor is serious business though.
[00:20:13] Jill Louise Busby: It is serious business.
[00:20:16] Laura McKowen: It really is in like the best way. I mean, I've always had this obsession with stand-up comedy. I mean, I'm the least, actually funny person. I don't write funny. I'm just not funny…
[00:20:30] Jill Louise Busby: But that's funny.
[00:20:32] Laura McKowen: Well, thank you. Yeah.
[00:20:37] Jill Louise Busby: So there you go.
[00:20:42] Laura McKowen: Yeah. Okay. So, but I'm like the act, the art of comedy, especially stand up comedy. It's fucking fascinating to me because I think it's gotta be one of the hardest things that there is to do from an artist standpoint. Comedy is the thing that can break up the [00:21:00] tension at the edges that we can't. We just can't break it up otherwise.
[00:21:03] Jill Louise Busby: Yeah. It is tough. It is, well, it's a practice, right? Because it's not, it's not casual. I've been practicing comedy my whole life, even outside of standup. If you have to be the funny kid in your class, you've been at work for many years. You know, and I wasn't doing my work, so. I could spend that time trying to be funny.
[00:21:23] And so this is years by now, you know, people show up to the internet and we're like, oh, you just came up with that. I was in drama classes. I was doing like, you know, it took it, it took some time. So I'm not just showing up and like, no, I'll try funny. It's a vulnerability. Right? So it's like, if you're going to take the risk of making a joke in your middle school class, it begins right there. Comedy begins right there. Right. So, and then you're a little bit less scared if you get to be funny about the truth anyway. Right. And you've been practicing that for a while, [00:22:00] being that kind of vulnerable. So it makes sense to me that like you get these fucked up funny people who don't mind saying this is how I am showing up to my life. I don't mind telling you I'll do anything for this joke because this joke is how I connect with you. And if I'm going to connect with you, I have to get specific. It has to be something you really know about, right. If I'm going to call you at, and my kind of humor is also like, come on, you know, you're doing.
[00:22:25] Then I really have to get specific because it has to be something, you know, you're doing or else the joke falls apart. And you also have to know that I'm doing it or else the joke falls apart because you, we got to connect we're in this together, and that's kind of what I'm trying to do right now.
[00:22:42] And I appreciate you saying comedy is serious business because it is like, I you know, you really got to work on being like, I don't want to make fun of people. I want to connect with people, but I want to say what we're up to, how do I do that?
[00:22:56] Laura McKowen: You got to make fun of humanity, but not people and not be a dick.
[00:23:02] Jill Louise Busby: Not be a dick…
[00:23:05] Laura McKowen: Also you have to kind of be a dick, but in the right way.
[00:23:08] Jill Louise Busby: Yeah. I was like a little bit of a dick, but like, yes, you, yes, you do all the things.
[00:23:19] Hey. So like for the record, I never want to hear about your new girlfriend, but you knew that already, right? Because just because I'm sitting here being like, oh my God, like, yeah. Tell me your story about your new girlfriend. I'm fine. Are you serious? I'm fine. Like, I'm fine. I don't mean that. And you know, that I'm lying because that would take somebody who was mature and like, well adjusted.
[00:23:39] And I was neither of those things when we were together. So I wouldn't start now. Why would I start now? So you might as well just tell your story. You should be like, oh, hey, I want to tell you the story about this person who I actually like couldn't have dated without dating you first, because I had to learn and grow and deal with the dysfunction of you to get to this person.
[00:23:58] So they're not even just [00:24:00] like a worthy replacement. They're actually better than you and more consistent and healthier. And I am too, as a result of dating you and now dating them, like, why don't you just start your story? Because like, I want you to be happy, but like, I wanted you to get like a new job or like a new dog or something like, I'm your friend. But like,
[00:24:22] Laura McKowen: We talk about being authentic and truth tellers and yeah. Like real being real. But I think people actually like the idea of that a lot more than they like. Yeah. Like the idea that people like the, or the fact that people like the idea of ambitious, strong women in my experience, more than they like it in real life. What do you think about that?
[00:24:54] Jill Louise Busby: I don't know that I'm completely clear on that. I think I have started the work specifically around what [00:25:00] Jill is Black represented and what that specific feedback looped in to my identity, to the ways that I feel empowered to how I want to be in connection with people. So I feel good about that, but I have just started on the others and I don't quite know as a woman just going off of what you said, ambition is hard for me because I don't know where to put that in my life anyway, with my art versus what I feel about capitol, like, I don't know where to put any of this and feel okay. In the last year I think I have tried to figure out ambition just as me and yes, all of the identities, but just as me, how do I make things I want that I want to make and participate and then critique all of the places where my art can go.
[00:25:58] And I'm like, well then why are you [00:26:00] critiquing? Like, I, I have no idea. But I am trying, so what I can admit is like, I do ask myself these questions as if social media is a real place, you know? And when I watch people still pretend that it's somewhere that we go, that's casual or you're on it, or you're off.
[00:26:20] That's when I'm like, I don't know. You might want to take it a little more seriously. I think that too is four years ago, because if you're spending all this time here, you might want to be thinking about more than I'm going to take a break from social media. You know, just, we might want to evolve that cause you're, you're just very present for it.
[00:26:40] So I, I'm always thinking about social media as if it's a place that I go for a lot to meet a lot of needs and I take it that seriously. But I don't have answers.
[00:26:53] Laura McKowen: No, the questions are good. They're there. The questions are good. I mean, four years ago you were [00:27:00] kind of joking about like, or at least it seems like that was so long ago, but it was really fucking tough.
[00:27:05] Like it was a, I got onto Instagram in 2014. It was still just pictures. And there were no businesses. There were no ads. There were no there's nothing like that. Exactly. As someone who, I mean, I switched careers. I can trace it largely back to having an online presence and truly. Have you done acting or, or voiceover or reading? Like what have you done? Because you definitely have a really, you're really talented at it. Like uniquely talented.
[00:27:41] Jill Louise Busby: I'm just a drama kid. I'm just a fucking drama kid. And now with, you know, I always talk about how I've been on the internet a long time, trying to win. I put on that I have. [00:28:00] And that too is a part of this story.
[00:28:03] I was on message boards, trying to be like the funny person on the message board. I was on other social media sites before they were what they are now trying to do those. The internet has always been an interesting place for me. And I've always been like in love with the strategy of it. That is just true.
[00:28:21] I love the strategy. So I have a true interest in like, oh, what does it take to ascend in this weird beast? That is a gin I can't run from that. That is a part of it. When Joe is Black went viral, I was also like, ha okay. Because, you know, because it was like, I understood that it was a game already and that we were playing at something.
[00:28:49] I didn't know it would be like this, but I was like, oh, then if you're going to be here, you're not going to be yourself. You're going to strategize. But I had come to life to perform, right. I was a performative [00:29:00] person and I think we still see social media, rewarding people for skills that we would have known they had to have, or work on before.
[00:29:09] Right. So we're like, oh, how did this person make it on social media? And you go through their life and they were acting at this point. I do it. So this idea that we're selling the idea that this is just an equal playing field. Yeah. You can definitely go viral on an equal playing field. Absolutely. And some of this, some of these influencers have been working for a long time.
[00:29:32] And now we pretend that it's just like, oh, I just came ready to do a monologue. I did not come ready to do a monologue. And if I'd tell that lie to you, I'm not doing anybody any favors. I was in lessons. We may think the same thing. I took a class to look at a camera. Right. So does it make it any different other than this isn't casual, don't let these people lie to you.
[00:29:58] Some of this is just not an [00:30:00] accident. It's like, I have been trained to do this and now I'm on tick-tock. Well, yeah.
[00:30:08] Laura McKowen: I love that. We don't talk about that at all. Like admit that we want it just like, let's just admit that we want it.
[00:30:19] Jill Louise Busby: I love it. I love it. When I'm back right now, I'm excited because I'm back and I don't feel like I'm doing anything that's not agreeing with me today, right now, today. Right? So because of that, I have it the last few weeks since I've started this, given myself the gift to admit it. That I love it. And that I love trying new things on it. Again. I have to say that if I pretend that I'm like, I, for years I showed up, like I was annoyed by it.
[00:30:59] Laura McKowen: [00:31:00] I know right. It’s the postmodernist thing. It's like, this is all fucking stupid anyway.
[00:31:02] Jill Louise Busby: Why are you here, Jill? You know, so I started doing a lot of videos of. Then why are you here? And I'm asking myself, if you won't ask to be, I'll ask myself, how am I here to critique something? And I'm here to critique it.
[00:31:15] You know, it's just, it's a rabbit hole. So these days I would prefer to just say, yeah, I love this kind of strategy. People have strategy for anything. And now, because I do, I'm trying to use that to do something more than just win.
[00:31:31] Laura McKowen: What are your ambitions or dreams, or like, what do you, what would you want for yourself?
[00:31:38] Jill Louise Busby: I really love my web series with my mother. Oh, I'm so glad you brought that up. It takes a lot of pressure off of me because my mother is such a star and I just get to direct her. And then I get to just focus in on, this is kind of hers. I'm just here to make this happen. Right. So I think [00:32:00] I like to edit. I like to direct, I like to strategize.
[00:32:03] I like that part. And I got to learn from that, that I didn't necessarily need to be in front of the camera. I liked the other part more. And so I have fun. My mom's like my best friend and we spend so much time talking. I mean, we just spend hours a day talking about where we are and what we think. And I grew up with that conversation.
[00:32:28] Wow. Yeah. Oh yeah. By the time I was a teenager, we were doing something, we call it coffee time where we would start with coffee and before you know what the day is over and we've just talked about all of these things. So getting to do that with her in a performative way, and my mother is also really funny, has just been fun.
[00:32:45] And I have fun when I do that. And I can admit that I'm having fun, which can sometimes be hard for me. I don't know why it's sarcasm. Right. So it's like, I'm chosen the vehicle of sarcasm. And so fun is a little hard for [00:33:00] me to be like, I'm having a great time. Like I'm having a great time. This is great.
[00:33:05] Laura McKowen: Well joy is the most actually vulnerable emotion.
[00:33:09] Yeah. And we know that, right? It's like, if I actually show you that I like this, oh.
[00:33:17] Jill Louise Busby: I lose. If I like it, I lose right in that kind of thinking. So I'm trying to get out of that. I have a good time and I don't think about my ambition and my, whatever. I just like it. And I have fun and I'm willing to do it if no one watches it.
[00:33:30] It's that kind of thing. So I would love to keep doing that just for fun. Other than that, I have no idea.
[00:33:42] Alma (Jill's mom): The last thing I was going to ask you as your manager, if it was okay to send an email saying you're fired, you know, like, uh, you know, your apprentice. So I don't know, because if he's going to disrespect this project like that.
[00:33:55] Jill Louise Busby: Let’s put that in the parking lot. Firing John. I think we should move on. Okay. Because he's made me a lot of promises.
[00:34:02] Alma (Jill's mom): Firing John. So we won't forget that you said…That's very true. So I don't know. I didn't even know what his last name was. I just put Doe. He’s made you none of that. Then the next thing again, we've gone over the calendar and so I guess I don't even need to..
[00:34:27] Jill Louise Busby: I'm glad you brought that up. You keep sending me a lot of calendar things.
[00:34:42] Alma (Jill's mom): Because we want some new business. So yeah, I got, I got a few things in that you were supposed to follow up.
[00:34:45] Jill Louise Busby: It's very hard for me to respond to that emotionally. You know, it feels jarring to get those calendar invites like that.
[00:34:55] You know, like I feel like 14 or 15 calendar invites per day. You know, and especially the, the specificity. You know of them. It's, it's hard for me. Okay.
[00:35:09] Alma (Jill's mom): How do you think Kelly Clarkston got where she is? You think that she just added…Clarkson? Sorry. She's up and coming. So I don't remember her name, but do you think she said, oh, American idol is reaching out.
[00:35:23] They sent me a few emails. I'll tell you what I'll do is I'll just say no, maybe I'll call John and see how he would handle it. Do you think that's what Kelly Clarkson did?
[00:35:31] Jill Louise Busby: I don’t understand that. Okay.
[00:35:32] Alma (Jill's mom): Well, she answered them. So, I mean, I sent you a 15 because you didn't answer the first 14. And then I also texted you and
[00:35:40] Jill Louise Busby: Let me ask you a question. Do you say text or texted.
[00:35:46] Alma (Jill's mom): I text you. I don't, I don't think you say text you. I don't like that. I'm going to say texted. I don't know. I say, I tell you what I'm going to do though. I sent you texts, but do you really say..
[00:36:00] Jill Louise Busby: I feel like I say I texted, but I don't know that I like that about myself.
[00:36:05] Alma (Jill's mom): Oh, you have other things to dislike yourself for. Don't make, I mean, you don't, but I'm like don't let that be. You don't I'm saying like, don't let that get you caught up though.
[00:36:16] Laura McKowen: Your mom though, like I'm fascinated by this relationship. So you sit and talk to your mom for hours and hours and hours anyway.
[00:36:26] Jill Louise Busby: I do. That's awesome. I do. But you know, when people, people's moms, I've learned over time that this is a complex conversation to have that a lot of dynamics where people are like, oh, that relationship with your mother.
[00:36:42] What's going on. Like that just, it just happened, you know, like I don't have a big, well, I'm not explaining to you, but I don't have a big circle in my life. I have like a small family and, you know, I meet people all the time. I'm like, yeah, but you have like friends that [00:37:00] like show up. I don't have that, but I definitely do talk to my mother for a long time.
[00:37:05] And that's like my best friend. She had me at 21. It feels like in some ways we grew up together. And my mother was very open with me, so it was always like, all right, I'm trying to figure this shit out. I have no idea. And I was like, cool. I don't either because I'm seven. So you're telling me I'll know. Okay, cool.
[00:37:28] You know, and she just was a courageous person. My mom was like, Nope, this job isn't good. Have no we're not doing this. Nope. So I was, I got used to a lot of change. She explained why things were like, I just got to know a lot. And so we got to know each other well, And, you know, when you're on the run, somebody all the time from life circumstances, you could also, these aren't easy times either.
[00:37:52] So yeah, we are here now and we love to talk. We love to perform together. We will put on a whole [00:38:00] show if you're around us. I love it.
[00:38:04] Laura McKowen: You said I want to perform less and attach myself to less and stop mistaking bigger questions for final answers. I want to stop acting surprised when I find myself exactly where I last saw myself.
[00:38:19] Explain, talk about it, especially that last line.
[00:38:24] Jill Louise Busby: Patterns, patterns. And so I think that so often we're afraid to really get to know ourselves because we are worried a little bit about who we might be. And I think when I end up finding myself in that circle right back to the same place, but it's an a, it's a whole different way.
[00:38:49] So I think. So, did you change anything today? Did you really work on this? Are you really surprised that you are here? And I think I had to take a lot [00:39:00] of blame out of ending up where I end up, because I didn't know how to function from a place of blame. Like how did we get here? So now what I find myself in these patterns back to zero.
[00:39:14] Oh, this is so fun. Okay. All right. Interesting. It's Groundhog's day, right? I'm going to approach this a little bit different today. I want to see the benefits. If I'm going to go around again, I want to, I want to have some fun on this day. So I think, I think it's that I don't think, I mean, anything too complicated other than we blame ourselves for a lot of this.
[00:39:35] And I think we would do more work on ourselves. If there was a lot less blame, some of this like look around you. No one knows what the fuck their doing. No, no, no, it's a mess. So why so much of the blame? It wasn't working for me. I don't think it's going to work for other people. And in a, if the game plan for me is to try to get more honest in public as an [00:40:00] invitation, then that's work that I always have to be doing and I have to really be doing it.
[00:40:03] I don't want to tell people that I'm doing it. Selling another book and I'm not doing it. I couldn't sleep at night with that. So, you know, it just feels like my work.
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