I Take My Coffee Black with Tyler Merritt

Annmarie Kelly:

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[Music Playing]

My middle daughter and I spent a weekend together in New York City recently. I'm embarrassed to say that she's 13, and we've never traveled before, just the two of us.

We drove most of the way listening to a five-part podcast about Princess Diana. And then we caught the train in from New Jersey. We spent two days in the city eating pizza, thrifting and watching musicals.

My favorite show from that weekend was called, & Juliet, which was recommended by today's guest, my new friend, actor, comedian, and Broadway musical enthusiast, Tyler Merritt.

As you might guess, & Juliet is about Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. And it asks a simple question, what if the ending was different?

This is a bit of a spoiler, but I think most of us read it in the seventh or eighth grade. And at the end of that play, Romeo and Juliet both commit suicide. Instead, this new musical asks, what if Juliet lived, after all, she only knew Romeo for like four days. What if she lived?

What I love about this premise is that it takes this universal truth that we all thought would always be, Romeo and Juliet both die at the end, and it flips it.

Every time I see the news these days, it feels like 99% of it is just awful. Our kids are dying at school. It's easy to feel really and completely hopeless, to feel like there's nothing we can do to combat the hatred in this world. And I know it will seem like the absolute pinnacle of naivete to even suggest that a show about singing and dancing could be a vehicle for real world change.

But I think this one can, it can feel like the awful things in this world are permanent. Like they just are how they are. And that can't ever be changed. Like gun violence is as timeless as well, the end of Romeo and Juliet.

But it's not. If you ever feel hopeless about our broken world, I urge you to get to know Tyler Merritt. Tyler is a Nashville based actor, comedian, vocalist, and creator of the Tyler Merritt Project. His film and television credits are too many to list, but they include ABC's, Kevin Probably Saves the World, Disney Marvel's Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Lifetime’s Don't Sweat the Small Stuff.

His viral video Before You Call the Cops has been viewed by over a hundred million people worldwide. He's also the author of two books, I Take My Coffee Black and A Door Made Just for Me. Tyler Merritt, welcome to Wild Precious Life.

Tyler Merritt:

I am so stoked to be here.

Annmarie Kelly:

So, I have like 525,600 questions I want to ask you. We have to talk musical theater. I definitely want to talk about both of your books, how you take your coffee black and how there is a door made just for you.

But I feel like I'm way ahead of some of our listeners on the Tyler Merritt fan fiction project that I've got going in my mind. And so, I got to let the listeners catch up a moment. So, let's just start by having you tell us some of your story.

Tyler Merritt:

Sure. Probably how I ended up here is one day during the time period of being frustrated as a black man, which is pretty much every day of my life.

Annmarie Kelly:

I remember that day.

Tyler Merritt:

I decided to put together a video called Before You Call the Cops, which is basically me just staring directly at the camera and telling the world some things about myself.

And I started it by saying, “Before you call the cops, I just want you to know.” And then at the end I said, “I just want you to know me better before you call the cops.” And in between I talked about things like how I don't like bananas because bananas are disgusting, which is a quantifiable fact.

Annmarie Kelly:

Agree to disagree.

Tyler Merritt:

I talked about how … yeah, that's not really a thing in banana world, but it's cool, whatever. And then, I talk about my love for musicals, but also for hip hop music. So, I say I know all the words to Oklahoma, the musical, but also the words to the N.W.A Straight Outta Compton album.

I talk about how I like basketball and hockey. I talk about how my mom is incredible. My dad is in the military, how I love Las Vegas.

So, I just basically tell you who I am in a very — I would like to say that it was wildly dramatic, but it's not. I'm just talking to the camera. And I thought that I would put it online with some other content that I had out in the world. And at this point, I had already had a following.

But I put that video on the internet like on a Friday. And then on Monday, the Huffington Post called me, and they were like, “We need more people in the world to know this.” And so, by the end of that week, the video had gone stupid viral. And this was in 2018.

So, this is when I was already known for a handful of things that I had done. But that was probably the thing that people really started to get to know who I was. And this was 2018. Then because of a series of things that happened in my life, including me continuing to make tons of mistakes, having to do with women. Because women are great and-

Speaker 3:

We're a lot though, so-

Tyler Merritt:

You're so much. And so, I disappeared from the internet for almost two years. I was basically in the valley of the shadow of nowhere.

And right after the pandemic and after George Floyd, I had made one more video just for myself. And I had no intent on really putting it on the internet. But I made this video, and it ended up being what I thought was pretty powerful, way more powerful than I thought Before You Call the Cops was.

But I just made it for me. But I decided to send it over to my friend Joy Reid, who works for MSNBC. Now, I didn't send it to her because she works for MSNBC. I just sent it to her because she's my friend.

I was like, “I just put this video together and it's crazy.” And she was basically like, “Yo bro, you need to like stop being in your doom and gloom world and come back into the living active world where things are moving and happening and get back into the movement of social justice, of telling your story.”

And what I didn't know, Annmarie, is that when I decided to kind of post that video, basically because she told me to, and a couple other things. I come back online and Before You Call the Cops a video that I had made in 2018 had now completely resurfaced.

I was trending on Instagram, like the Tyler Merritt Project, Before You Call the Cops. And I wasn't even on Instagram. So, I had friends of mine sending me pictures of people like Sara Bareilles, Lionel Richie, all these people posting my video and I wasn't even on the internet. And they were like, “You need to like get back in the world.”

So, I tried to disappear and in disappearing people came to know me even more.

And then from there I decided to take that two years that I was gone and really dig deep and put it all into a book, which is called I Take My Coffee Black: Reflections on Tupac Musical Theater, Faith and Being Black in America.

And since my video was on Jimmy Kimmel, who's from Las Vegas, him and I kind of hit it off and became really good friends. So, he wrote the forward for it. And he's also on the audio book and yeah, then I wrote a kid's book called A Door Made for Me.

And yeah, I want to say that's probably how a lot of people originally discovered me. But it's so interesting now how, because I've become known for so many other things that I've said and done in TV show (I'm an actor as well and whatnot), that a lot of people who know me, it doesn't occur to them that I'm also the same guy from that Before You Call the Cops video. Isn't that weird?

Annmarie Kelly:

Yeah. No, I know what you mean because especially for those of us who missed it in 2018, it was very powerful and made the rounds in 2018. But I was definitely one of the people for whom I saw it in 2020 and assumed until I read your book, assumed it had been written in the aftermath of George Floyd, in the aftermath of what we were all encountering in 2020.

Last time I encountered it, it had been viewed by more than 60 million people.

Tyler Merritt:

It's like a hundred million now. It's dumb. It's dumb. If I meet somebody who hasn't seen that video, I'm like, “I don't trust you.”

Annmarie Kelly:

Oh my, yeah. For anyone who hasn't seen it, or again, they might be listening, and they won't know, oh wait, is that yoga guy? And wait a minute, is that the guy who doesn't like spiders? Like, people will have seen it, but they might not know that you're you. So, I can-

Tyler Merritt:

100%.

Annmarie Kelly:

Imagine that.

Well, so I have seen the video and I have read both of your books and I want to take us back. I know you have a book since this. But the first book you've got that quote that really resonates, I feel like through everything that I've seen you out there doing on social media, in these books, in your speaking around the places, it's that quote about distance breeds suspicion, proximity, breathes-

Tyler Merritt:

Breathes empathy.

Annmarie Kelly:

Empathy.

Tyler Merritt:

Yeah.

Annmarie Kelly:

What does that mean to you?

Tyler Merritt:

Well, first I want to say there's a guy by the name of Dr. Lawrence who kind of put those words together in the format and I kind of helped kind of tell them to the world. And I mentioned that in the book.

But it's something that I've always lived by and it's something that I also didn't realize that my life was telling that story without me knowing it. Like, and you've read the book now, so you know that oddly enough, my world was just one big story of proximity, and I was living it kind of accidentally.

And so, to me it means this, it's really easy to say those people over there if you don't know who those people are and we're all guilty of it. Of course, me being a black man in America, I hear a lot of you people, people saying to me, “Well, you people.”

And I'm like, I need you to be a little clear on what you people means because I'm not just one thing. And black people aren't just one thing. There's not just one way to be black. And that's incredibly important.

The same way that there's not one way to be white or Asian. And any time in my life where I've had the ability, chance, or opportunity to look across the aisle and go those people over there, for whatever reason, life has allowed me to go and be a part of whatever that group is.

And after years and years and years of that happening, I was able to look back, tell a story of my life and realize that I've landed here because I've never shied away from people that are different from me whether I wanted to or not.

And so, I asked the question in I Take My Coffee Black right off the back. I talk about an experience of me walking down the street to a bench that I love so much. And I run into a older white woman in a truck who basically is afraid of me, decides to judge me without knowing who I am.

And that affects me in a pretty deep way because instead of me thinking like, oh, there's just another racist white woman, instead I begin saying to myself, lady, if you instead of being afraid … if you knew who I was, you would know all these things about me.

And then I Take My Coffee Black, I begin to tell you as the reader, all those things. And then the book ends in a pretty special way too, because it's kind of a — it starts one way and ends the other way.

And so, my hope with proximity, my hope with people building empathy for each other is if we take the time, really take the time to get to know each other that we may be able to change the world that way.

Annmarie Kelly:

I love that. Because in the video and in the book, in the video you talk about you're the son of a veteran, but you've never owned a gun. You talk about, you know all the words to N.W.A’s Straight Outta Compton and the musical Oklahoma.

Tyler Merritt:

Yeah.

Annmarie Kelly:

That all of us contain these multitudes. And that if we took the time to get to know one another, it's really hard to hate up close. For my job, I'm a high school teacher, I've taught I'm sure over a thousand students and there's like the one who cussed me out and the one who threw the chair and the one who hid the candy in the toilet, there's all these kids, but I don't hate any of them.

Tyler Merritt:

Right, right.

Annmarie Kelly:

Right. Sure, they might grate on me sometimes. This gray hair is definitely for that one. But like I read their writing, I know their doubt and their vulnerability. I could never hate that.

But for whatever reason, there's a lot of things we could point to, but in our social media silos, and our information tunnels and the way we can just Zoom in and DoorDash our food and hide out in our homes, it becomes entirely too easy not to see each other.

It becomes entirely too easy to distance our hearts from each other and not see each other. And one of the things I love about your work is how you …. I don't know either because you're just like that or because you choose to be how you take the time to see people. And if we would just do that, it's just, I feel like that breeds empathy. It's proximity.

Tyler Merritt:

Yeah. So, I remember when I was a kid thinking to myself, man, one day we'll have flying cars. Like we all thought, right? And though we don't have flying cars, we instead have things that are on some levels even cooler.

We have the ability to literally carry a whole computer in our hand in which we can say a name to that computer, and then a screen will come up and that person that we mentioned will talk back to us live on that screen that's in our hand. That's some Jetsons ish.

Like growing up, I just couldn't have even imagined that that would be the world that we live in. And then the internet has allowed us to literally feel like we know what's happening in China, like in real time or what's happening in New Mexico or wherever, all from our chair, from wherever we're sitting, which that also allows AM, is for us to go, okay, cool, I can also build my opinion of how I feel about New Mexico, though I've never been there.

Or decide exactly what I feel like the food in China is like, because I watch somebody explain to me what it tastes like in some sort of live I watched on the internet instead of tasting it for yourself. Instead of looking at New Mexico, and going, I feel like I know what it is, but not understanding how much they value turquoise there unless you've walked on the streets of New Mexico.

So, we have allowed ourself because of technology with really good, beautiful things that are great and connect us in some ways, to completely allow us to be just armchair judges. I don't even know if that's a thing, but you know what I mean.

Annmarie Kelly:

It is now. I'm writing it down. It's real.

Tyler Merritt:

And so, it also allows us to just not have to do the work to be with people in real life, therefore allowing us to just kind of exist.

Annmarie Kelly:

Yeah. And it's easy to like jump to conclusions about people you never met. It's easy to just like follow the bandwagon of whatever's trending and think that it's true, it's easy and so we all do it.

One of the things I think that when I've followed you on socials and when I've read your work, I always think there's the — you talk about it in I Take My Coffee Black, the way I'm going to say it's probably an oversimplification and I apologize for that.

But there are these viewpoints of the Malcolm versus Martin idea. And sometimes people distill them into love and hate or yes and no, or we're all in this together or they'll never understand us. It's really to oversimplify and I'm not trying to do that.

But for the purposes of what I want to ask is just like, how do you always keep choosing love in this world that is so full of hate? How do you default you, Tyler Merritt, how do you always default to love? Because that's your magic. I just want to bottle it and I want to sprinkle it on everyone, so I just-

Tyler Merritt:

You're right, you're right. And look, I want to be really clear about how even though you are right with that, it's a process and it's work. I just don't wake up every single morning and go, “Today someone's going to say something really crappy to me and I'm going to turn that crappy into flowers.”

I get angry and when I say get angry, I get wildly angry. I get pissy. I get absolutely irrational. Sometimes I want to throw something at the wall and don't care if whatever I threw at the wall breaks or if the wall gets broken as well, I just don't care. Sometimes I just want to burn it all down.

But I'm going to be really honest with you, AM, the thing that brings me back. I haven't always done good things. I haven't always been the best person. I haven't always made the right decisions. I've hurt a lot of people.

I would probably say simply by statistically, there's probably somebody listening to this right now who goes, “He has hurt me. Tyler specifically has hurt me at some point.”

And if whoever you want to say, your higher power God or your mom or your dad, if they can choose to continue to forgive me and continue to have grace for me and continue to look me in the eye and go, “Tyler, you haven't always been good, but you are not the worst, you are not your worst choices.”

If someone can say that to me, how on God's earth am I supposed to stand here and not do that for someone else? It has become a process for me to be able to look at people and go, “You know what? If I deserve grace, so do you.”

Annmarie Kelly:

We're not just the crappy things that we do and that if we deserve grace, then so does everyone else. I love that.

Tyler Merritt:

And if you're lost in your fucked-upness and you're deciding that you aren't able to put that out into the world, it's not going to be your loss. It's going to be mine.

So, if I can do my best to continue to encourage you and you can continue to encourage me that Tyler, even though we're going to say crappy things and there's people out in the world that just suck, if we're able to see the goodness in them, then maybe there's a hope for us yet. You know?

Annmarie Kelly:

Absolutely.

[Music Playing]

The world is not black and white, and we are an array of colors beautifully wrapped in the aloha spirit. From the islands of Kauai and Oahu comes Work-Life Harmonized.

It's a dual cast radio show and podcast hosted by executive coach Dana Mahina, who interviews her guests about the power of joy integration and harmony. Dana delves into what it is to be unapologetically honest with ourselves while living an authentic life.

Listen to life harmonized on Spotify, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Music Playing]

Was your first high school musical, Working?

Tyler Merritt:

It was.

Annmarie Kelly:

So, that was my first musical too. That's why we've got a wavelength. That's the first musical I ever auditioned for. Didn't know what it was. It sounded dumb, was working and it was awesome.

Tyler Merritt:

Do you mind me asking, well, I'll just ask you what year you graduated from high school.

Annmarie Kelly:

Listen man, I'm older than you, but I'm a graduated in the 90s girl.

Tyler Merritt:

Okay.

Annmarie Kelly:

So, every single movie you referenced in your book, every single song, like I know MMMBop from Hanson, I got the what about Bob reference? I've seen Hamilton seven times, mostly from behind a pole. Because you know how there's that obstructed views?

Tyler Merritt:

Sure.

Annmarie Kelly:

One that you can only see like two thirds. That's the one I buy. So, I didn't have to even see his son die because that wasn't in the part of the scene that I saw that time. So, every single musical reference, every single movie, I was like, yep saw it, saw it, saw it.

Tyler Merritt:

Well, you can't be that much older than me because I graduated in ’94, so-

Annmarie Kelly:

Alright. We were in high school together.

Tyler Merritt:

Alright.

Annmarie Kelly:

Or neither of our musical theater programs had enough money to buy a better show. It’s what we learned by that.

Tyler Merritt:

And so-

Annmarie Kelly:

But it was a great show. It was a great show.

Tyler Merritt:

So, here's a story that I don't think I've told at all to anybody because nobody — except for people are really close to me. The reason why I loved working is there were monologues and then there were songs. So, I played Loving now The Wizard, okay?

Annmarie Kelly:

Ooh, loving now the wizard. Loving, loving, loving.

Tyler Merritt:

So, I sang that song. I sang some other song, of course I was part of the chorus. And then I did a monologue of a fireman. So, there's this fireman monologue, and I ended up using that monologue probably until through college as my audition.

And the reason why I loved that monologue, and I loved Working is because that monologue was one of the first acting lessons I had. One of my drama teachers would say to me I would go and do it. And the first time I ever tried to do it, these aren't the lines, but I remember very specifically trying to be like, “I'm a fireman and firemen do this.”

And Joy my acting teacher was like, “Stop it.” I'm like, “What?” And she's like, “Start again.” And I'm like, “I'm a fireman.” And she was like, “Dude, you need to stop it, bro.” And she was like, “I need you to be honest. Like acting is truth and you're not being honest right now. Stop it.”

And then I took that, I'm a fireman, to I'm a fireman, to I'm a fireman, to I'm a fireman. And that connection from that show, from working defined the rest of my acting career. Even now, when I have an audition for a TV show or something. I'll get the script and I'll do my audition on tape. And the first question I'll ask myself is, am I being honest?

And so, I will never be mad at Working because it taught me how to be honest with the work that I do. Now granted, it's not my favorite musical. All it does is you read my book.

Annmarie Kelly:

See that building.

Tyler Merritt:

Building. Up on the top …

You really do know Working — do you realize what a niche world it is for us to know Working from a high school?

Annmarie Kelly:

Exactly. No one knows that show. And if they do know it, they don't remember it. And if they do remember it, they don't sing it on a podcast.

But when I read that in your book, I'm like, oh my gosh, that was exactly my first one. And I had a chorus part and a bit part, and I just … but those are based on real interviews. Studs Terkel … so whatever, Stephen Schwartz, right?

Studs Terkel wrote the book. And those were all interviews. Like he interviewed a guy who picked grapes, he interviewed a woman who cleaned houses. Those were real people. And you're exactly right about those monologues. They seem true and they sound true because they are true.

Tyler Merritt:

Right.

Annmarie Kelly:

And yeah.

Tyler Merritt:

I'll be forever thankful that that was the show because if it would've been Anything Goes or something, you know what I mean? And which I later did, and I was playing like Moonface Martin or something I wouldn't have been able to connect to it the way that I did.

But you know what? Props to you. And now I'm thinking about all the — wait, there was the waitress singing, remember all that?

Annmarie Kelly:

And cleaning women, without faces.

Tyler Merritt:

Without faces.

Annmarie Kelly:

That song is fantastic. Yeah. I was mostly in the chorus. So, most of mine were … like, I could go to McDonald's and back during the time I was offstage and did one time.

Tyler Merritt:

I'm sure, yeah.

Annmarie Kelly:

Twice, two times.

Okay, so I come from a family and a place, a background that loves musical theater. You don't have to sell me on it, but I meet a lot, a lot, a lot of adults especially who don't get it. They don't get it. So, sell us on musical theater.

Tyler Merritt:

This is how I feel about musicals. And you're going to be like, this is a long way around.

Annmarie Kelly:

No, no, no. Bring it. I could talk only about musicals.

Tyler Merritt:

Well, I'm going to use-

Annmarie Kelly:

For the rest of the time.

Tyler Merritt:

I'm going to use a really weird example about this. Okay, you ready?

Annmarie Kelly:

I welcome it.

Tyler Merritt:

I feel about musicals and people not loving musicals the same way I feel about if you don't currently right now as an adult love Dave Matthews Band. Now right, I knew that's where you were going to go. Let me explain why this is that.

Annmarie Kelly:

Okay.

Tyler Merritt:

If there was not a time period between your 17, 18 to like 28-year-old, 29-year-old, somewhere in that window, if you did not have a story where you heard Dave Matthews and it affected you in a certain way, or it impacted you in a certain way and it's a very slow window. The window's not far. It's literally between like, I would probably say 15-years-old and like 29.

If you don't somehow for some reason fall in love with Dave Matthews, which I did because I was at a cast party and there's a song that comes on and the lyrics go like this. It's something to this effect. Like there's this guy singing in my ear and he's singing like, “Hey girl, I know you got a man, and I got a woman. But tonight, the fire is bright. The moon is just right. How about tonight you and I become lovers. And then tomorrow we go back to being friends.”

I remember, AM, sitting next to the speaker listening to songs called Say Goodbye. And I was like, “What the fuck is this dude? This dude is a player. Like what is going?” And I'm falling in love with how dope he is. That was the moment I fell in love with Dave Matthews.

You to this day can't tell me shit about Dave. I will love him until I die. But as an adult now, when I talk to people about Dave Matthews, if you don't get it, you just don't get it. If you're like, “Yeah, I'm just not really …

Like, cool crash or, “Dave's cool.” Or “I never really got into him.” But everybody who is into Dave is into Dave.

But it's a window. And I feel the same way about musicals. If you miss your musical window, if you miss it, you get to an age eventually where it's hard to come back from because soon musicals become like Little Mermaid to you or Lion King, which is a musical, but it's not-

Annmarie Kelly:

It is fantastic.

Tyler Merritt:

Right.

Annmarie Kelly:

But.

Tyler Merritt:

But it's not working. It's not the escapism that we experienced as young people to where we still had hope and we could still dream, and we still were able to get lost in the escapism that is musicals.

It's the magic of being able to step into a theater for two hours and 15 minutes and forget that the world exists because someone is singing to you about their emotions.

And when the musical is right, when a musical aligns with the music that you have inside of you, there is nothing like it, but it gets harder and harder to have that happen as you get older and older.

And so, when someone says to me, I don't love musicals or I'm not really a big fan, my thought usually goes to you probably didn't hear the right musical and it probably didn't land with you in the time that it should have.

Annmarie Kelly:

That's such a fascinating way to think about it. Because you're right. If you didn't get it in that window, I love that, that Dave Matthew's window. If you don't show your world to me. If you don't have those lines, they don't resonate.

And so, but I still defy someone to go and see even these most recent ones, like you're telling me that you could walk into Dear Evan Hansen and not be like down to your core. When I feel the crush of a red velvet seat, even from my terrible view of the stage.

Tyler Merritt:

Sure.

Annmarie Kelly:

When I hear that, the orchestra tuning up or when I hear a song that I know I'm going to love forever, whether it's waving out the window or all my … for forever. Like I'm going to sing that for the rest of my days, and it vibrates on something inside of me that is like desperate for awe. And you're right, it's all contained in that like two hour and 15 minute. But there's nothing like it for me. And it doesn't do it for everyone.

Tyler Merritt:

But I can argue, listeners and anybody who is a Broadway person, if you go and see & Juliet and you come out talking any shit to me about it, I don't know if we can be friends.

So yeah, it's called & Juliet like, &, and then Juliet. And it's basically, I'll give you the quick summation. The storyline is based on what would happen if Juliet didn't commit suicide at the end of Romeo and Juliet.

But instead, she lived her life. And it is so good that I don't even want to talk about it anymore because it's so good. It's just so good.

Annmarie Kelly:

I kind of want to Google tickets right now and get the one behind the pole that's the cheapest one. Okay. I'm sold.

Tyler Merritt:

My friend Betsy Wolfe stars in it and she is fantastic. There's a girl in it named Lorna, who is — ready for this because it's about to be big, what I'm about to say. I don't think I've seen a debut on Broadway from a young girl like I see with Lorna since probably Lea Salonga in Miss Saigon.

Annmarie Kelly:

I'm going back now.

Tyler Merritt:

There you go. I'm just telling you.

Annmarie Kelly:

You are sunlight and-

Tyler Merritt:

And I’m moon.

Annmarie Kelly:

And I’m moon.

Tyler Merritt:

Yeah. See, AM, I told you we're besties now, man.

Annmarie Kelly:

Every single one that you referenced in the book, I was there for.

Tyler Merritt:

You know, there's a playlist, right? Did you know that?

Annmarie Kelly:

How did I miss the playlist?

Tyler Merritt:

There's a I Take My Coffee Black playlist because it's not on the book, I don't talk about it. It came out with later.

Annmarie Kelly:

You didn't put it in the book.

Tyler Merritt:

Because after the book was over, everybody was like, let's talk about all the music that's in this book. And then we started to make a list. And so, we took every single reference that I say on any … if it has anything to do with a song — so the playlist is eight hours, by the way. It's eight and a half hours.

Annmarie Kelly:

I was about to say. It's amazing. I'm so excited to go get this playlist.

Tyler Merritt:

It doesn't matter, there's a part in the book where I say something like, “When I moved to Nashville, I didn't have a car, I didn't have a job.” And then I say something like, “That doesn't mean I was a scrub.”

But so if there's a reference of a song, then the song is on the playlist. And I think it's called something like the Official I Take My Coffee Black playlist, it's on Spotify, Apple-

Annmarie Kelly:

We’ll be linking to it.

Tyler Merritt:

And Apple and all of those. Yeah.

Annmarie Kelly:

I did not know that. But yeah, I was every single reference. It was ridiculous how seen I felt by your book. So, I knew we were the same age. I knew it.

I could talk musicals all day and I've just written down. & Juliet you referenced a Gwyneth Paltrow story and we should explain why we're talking about her. So, you talk in the book about these Sliding Doors moments and for people who haven't seen that 1998 movie, it's kind of cool.

There's this like two plots at the same time and one Gwyneth catches the subway and a car and then one she misses it and then right there it splits. And we go on to see like one movie, one storyline where she catches it. And so, she's on time to something and one where she misses it. So, she's a little bit late and like this split.

And she just lives two totally different lives. And I felt like you pointed to all kinds of sliding doors, moments in your life, whether it was deciding to post that playlist video or deciding to put up, come back to social media or to step away or quitting a job or going back to a job.

Like you had all kinds of … even the fame, not auditioning, these sliding doors moments and you have your eyes open to them. I think a lot of us slide right by or skip right by our sliding doors moments. And we don't even realize that a sliding doors moment can be when you get a thing, when you say yes to a thing.

It can also be when you say no to a thing. I love that. I love that reference and I loved seeing those moments in your book.

Tyler Merritt:

Well, I think one of the reasons why I recognize sliding door moments so much is because I talk about this very specific story in the book. One of my hugest sliding doors moments happened really early in my life. I tried to get into a Spanish class in high school because I thought it would be easy, but it was all filled up by all of my Mexican friends, all of my Hispanic friends were all in these classes.

So, I ended up getting my second elective, which seemed a little easier, which was theater and that singular thing, shit that's why I'm sitting here right now. If I would've gotten to Spanish, I could have been a Spanish teacher, I don't know.

But that singular thing of me not being able to get into my first elective, that was a sliding door that shifted everything in my life.

And so, I became aware of that really young. And as actors, they train you to always be watching life, always be observing. And so, I was able to kind of go from there and continue to observe through my life. So yeah.

Now you want to hear the Gwyneth story?

Annmarie Kelly:

Yes. This is the kind of content I'm here for.

Tyler Merritt:

Okay. So, long story short, around Christmas time, Gwyneth Paltrow went on social media and said, “Guys, I have some time off. Please recommend books for me to read.” And of course, of course, because we talk about her in I Take My Coffee Black, anybody who's ever read it saw this post and suddenly were like tagging me.

They were like, “Gwyneth, you have to read I Take My Coffee Black by Tyler Merritt, blah, blah, blah. You have to read.”

And so, there's all kinds of commentary on it. And so, typically stuff like that I wouldn't really pay much attention to. But then I started thinking, you know what, Gwyneth maybe should read this book because it's kind of fu …

And so, all the things she stands for, I knew she would love it. And so, I reached out to Jimmy Kimmel, my homie, I hit him. I sent him a message. I'm like, “Yo bro, I need you to — do you have any connections with Gwyneth?”

And he was like, “I actually don't know her personally, but I know her publicist.” I was like, “Dope.” So, two hours later her publicist is like, “Tyler, what's up?” I'm like, “What's up?” Or maybe someone hooked us up. I don't remember what the situation was.

But here's the moral of the story. They're like, “Yes, send us your book. We'll get it to Gwyneth.” And I'm like, “Sweet.” And this isn't weird for me. Like now it sounds crazy, but in my life, this isn't weird anymore because now I'm a little bit more connected.

So, I'm like, “Cool.” So, I have my people go and ship off a book to Gwyneth and then I get an email that says, “We just want to know before you send it to us that you don't talk derogatory about Gwyneth at all.” And I was like, “Of course I don't talk derogatory about Gwyneth. I love Gwyneth Paltrow. Are you kidding me? Duh.”

So, then I look even closer and find out that her publicist is also like one of the lead people on Goop. Like her brand that she owns. So now, AM, I'm still thinking to myself I love Gwyneth Paltrow, duh. But let me just go back and read what I wrote.

Annmarie Kelly:

Well, I can see in a certain light.

Tyler Merritt:

Do you remember how we start talking about her?

Annmarie Kelly:

I do.

Tyler Merritt:

We start talking about her, even though I end up talking about the movie for the rest of the book, even though I paid homage to Gwyneth Paltrow, it starts by me saying, “Gwyneth Paltrow is one of the whitest, whitest people in the whole world.” And I'm like, “She is so white that when she got a divorce from her husband, they called it a conscious un-coupling.”

Annmarie Kelly:

Conscious un-coupling.

Tyler Merritt:

I was like, “She is so white that she has a kid named Apple.” And then I go on with like so many so whites. And then I go into Goop specifically. Then I'm like, “She's so white. She has a brand that tries to sell you bee serum or get stung by bees.”

And then I was like, “And then above that she wants to sell you on vaginal steaming,” which ends up becoming a joke through the rest of the book.

The whole reason though, why I talk about her being so white is because I'm trying to make the point that I shouldn't know this much information about this white woman.

And so, I'm like, “I know I'm about to get my black card revoked because I'm about to go hard on Gwyneth Paltrow.” Then I give you all these facts and then I go, “But the real reason I'm talking to her is because of this movie called Sliding Doors.”

AM, AM I forgot that I had talked so much shit about Gwyneth Paltrow. All that to say I haven't heard from her publicist since.

Annmarie Kelly:

Oh no, no. I'm sure that if they read it though, they'll see it's gentle ribbing and she is white last I checked.

Tyler Merritt:

Oh, man.

Annmarie Kelly:

And so, if you call me white, it's true. So, that's okay. Isn't it funny how when you write a book though … when I wrote a book, it's like different — how do I say it? You write all these versions of it, like you write it and then you write it again and then you write it again and then you write it again and then, so you don't remember. Wait, is the fish finding technology, is that in there? Or did that get deleted?

You actually can't always remember.

Tyler Merritt:

Right.

Annmarie Kelly:

And you don't always go back and reread the final one because by then you're so sick of it. And then people ask you all the questions. So, that is hysterical. And I think then when she gets a moment in between, she might come back around.

Tyler Merritt:

It's a loving lean to her.

Annmarie Kelly:

It is. It is.

Tyler Merritt:

But it's still like, when you just read it out of context, it just sounds like I'm just, you know …so yeah.

Annmarie Kelly:

Hey, what's next for you? So, I know we get two books into the Tyler Merritt Project and many videos in, and I think I read that you were doing some acting things again. What's coming up? What can we look forward to for you?

Tyler Merritt:

You're breaking news here, but I'm currently adapting, I Take My Coffee Black into a play. So-

Annmarie Kelly:

Fantastic.

Tyler Merritt:

Not only is it's a play, but it's a one man show in which I will star in.

Annmarie Kelly:

Oh, my gosh.

Tyler Merritt:

Right. So-

Annmarie Kelly:

That is so much.

Tyler Merritt:

It's so much. So, we're currently working on that right now and it's kind of dope.

Annmarie Kelly:

That's excellent. We always close with kind of like a rapid fire round, just some playful stuff. And I will ask you like this or that.

But I know one of your mantras is like, we're allowed to like both Bon Jovi and Jay-Z. Like I like both Oklahoma and Straight Outta Compton.

So, I know that your answer to all of them could be both, but I am asking you to choose when you can. So, you ready?

Tyler Merritt:

Let's do it. Yep.

Annmarie Kelly:

Alright. Just pick one. Coffee or tea?

Tyler Merritt:

Coffee.

Annmarie Kelly:

Mountains or beach?

Tyler Merritt:

Beach.

Annmarie Kelly:

Dogs or cats?

Tyler Merritt:

Cats.

Annmarie Kelly:

What do you dislike more? Spiders or bananas?

Tyler Merritt:

My brain does not know what to do with that. Wait. I'll give you an answer. I'll give you an answer, but I just … my brain is like-

Annmarie Kelly:

I know you don't-

Tyler Merritt:

We just entered in like the matrix right now. I'm going to go with spiders.

Annmarie Kelly:

Alright. Which house would you want to live in more? Will Smith's uncle's house in the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air or Ricky Schroder's house in Silver Spoons.

Tyler Merritt:

Silver Spoons. Oh, my God. Bel-Air. Bel-Air. Although, man, that's a good question.

Annmarie Kelly:

Those video games, that train.

Tyler Merritt:

You know what? Ricky Schroder didn't age well. He didn't like … as people, as a person. Like, and so it's hard for me to even connect Ricky Schroder. I don't know if you know anything about Ricky now, but that dude, it's neither here nor there.

Annmarie Kelly:

Alright. Will Smith's house then, or his uncle's house.

Tyler Merritt:

Yeah.

Annmarie Kelly:

Alright. Are you an early bird or a night owl?

Tyler Merritt:

Night owl. No questions asked, without a shadow of a doubt.

Annmarie Kelly:

I mean, you have to be if you're going to work anywhere near a theater. Miss Saigon, or Dear Evan Hansen.

Tyler Merritt:

Miss Saigon.

Annmarie Kelly:

Dirty Dancing or Bring it on? Shut up.

Tyler Merritt:

Dirty Dancing, the movie. Bring it on, the musical.

Annmarie Kelly:

Alright. I like this answer. Titanic or Love Actually?

Tyler Merritt:

Titanic. I have to be really clear that you could have said Titanic and then almost anything else. The only thing that I would've changed that would have sent me into the matrix, if you would've said Titanic, and there's a movie called Almost Famous, which I don't know if I talk about it in my book.

Annmarie Kelly:

You don't reference that. I would've remembered it.

Tyler Merritt:

It will be in my next one.

Annmarie Kelly:

That’s a gorgeous, gorgeous movie. It's young Kate Hudson, of course, but it's also Philips Seymour Hoffman. And one of my favorite things about that is like, we've all done this. You're getting really wise advice and you're not going to listen to it at all.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman throughout that whole book is like, “Don't make friends with them.” Like everything-

Tyler Merritt:

Don't make friends with the rock stars.

Annmarie Kelly:

We've all done it too. Like, you hear the good advice, and you do the opposite. That's a great movie.

Tyler Merritt:

Yeah. You know what, a good question for me would be Almost Famous, That Thing You Do, like two movies side by side, but Titanic probably trumps all of the, for me.

Annmarie Kelly:

Sometimes I'll just watch the first three fourths of Titanic and then turn it off.

Tyler Merritt:

Yes. Like that's good.

Annmarie Kelly:

And give them all a happy ending.

Tyler Merritt:

Right. I'll get to the part where he's painting Kate, like his French curls, and I'm like, “Alright, I'm good.”

Annmarie Kelly:

A handprint in a car, ends scene. Are you a risk taker or are you the person who always knows where the band-aids are?

Tyler Merritt:

Risk taker.

Annmarie Kelly:

Yeah. I thought so. Okay. These are some fill in the blank.

Tyler Merritt:

Sure.

Annmarie Kelly:

If I wasn't working as an actor, speaker/change agent, I would be a?

Tyler Merritt:

Teacher.

Annmarie Kelly:

That's kind of like the actor, speaker/change agent.

Tyler Merritt:

But it's kind of not really a good — it's not fair. Let me give you another answer. Let me give you another answer. Because that was kind of cheating. I’d probably own a clothing store.

Annmarie Kelly:

I would totally buy jeans from you, by the way, I hate buying jeans. I was like, you know what? Maybe I just haven't from Tyler.

Tyler Merritt:

I’m the one, man.

Annmarie Kelly:

I missed out, didn't do enough shopping in Nashville.

Alright. What is something quirky that folks don't know about you? A like, a love, a pet peeve. We already covered bananas and spiders. That's really not fair. What is something people don't know about you?

Tyler Merritt:

I sleep with a mouth guard, and I cannot not sleep with a mouth guard because I bite my tongue. Like when I go to sleep, I bite my tongue. I can wake myself up by like falling asleep and biting my tongue so hard that it'll wake me up. So, I have to sleep with a mouth guard. There you go.

Annmarie Kelly:

Huh. Is it a cool color? Does it look like the ones from like the Molly Ringwald movies or is there a lot of like outside mouth stuff? Or is it just like inside your mouth?

Tyler Merritt:

It is whatever you think is cool, a cool mouth guard is, it's the opposite of that.

Annmarie Kelly:

I'm picturing the hockey mask from the scary movies.

Tyler Merritt:

No, it's just like a plastic thing, but it's just not sexy. It's not-

Annmarie Kelly:

Well, whatever helps you sleep, man. We're not getting any younger.

What's one of your go-to songs? You mentioned a ton of songs in this book, but if I said, “Hey, what's that song that pumps you up?” It could be a corny song. Just one of the songs.

Tyler Merritt:

My pump-up song. Got a lot of them. I'm just going to pick one. It's a rap song by an artist named Big Sean called Fire.

Annmarie Kelly:

Fire, I don't think I know that one. I would look it up.

Tyler Merritt:

But it’s cool.

Annmarie Kelly:

Excellent.

What's your favorite book?

Tyler Merritt:

I'm going to go way, way back. Because I was talking about this on another podcast recently. Probably one of my first favorite books was Where the Red Fern Grows.

Annmarie Kelly:

You’re just trying to make me cry.

Tyler Merritt:

One of the first ever. Yeah.

Annmarie Kelly:

So sad. So, no spoilers guys, but just like read it with Kleenex.

Tyler Merritt:

Yeah.

Annmarie Kelly:

My English teacher made us read that.

Tyler Merritt:

Of course.

Annmarie Kelly:

What's a movie you love?

Tyler Merritt:

A movie I love? Well, we kind of covered that.

Annmarie Kelly:

Oh, that's true. I asked you a-

Tyler Merritt:

It's okay.

Annmarie Kelly:

See, I'm just reading from the script here.

Tyler Merritt:

No, it's okay.

Annmarie Kelly:

We already talked about-

Tyler Merritt:

We'll say Almost Famous.

Annmarie Kelly:

There you go. I forgot my own self.

Tyler Merritt:

No, you know what? I'm going to give a movie that a lot of people haven't seen, but it's one of my favorite movies of all time. And if you have seen this movie, mad props to you because it's super niche. It's called Camp.

Annmarie Kelly:

Ooh Camp. Is it scary?

Tyler Merritt:

No, it's not. It's called Camp and it's Anna Kendrick's very first movie.

Annmarie Kelly:

Are you kidding me?

Tyler Merritt:

Yep. Go.

Annmarie Kelly:

Does she sing?

Tyler Merritt:

Yep.

Annmarie Kelly:

Is it campy?

Tyler Merritt:

It's about a musical theater camp.

Annmarie Kelly:

I went to musical theater camp twice and so; I can't believe I don't know this movie and I'm going to do — go see right now.

Tyler Merritt:

That's why I changed my answer because there's so many people that don't know it and you're going to be like, this movie's kind of cheesy. It's kind of simple. It's kind of weird. But I saw it in the movie theater probably seven times as an adult.

Annmarie Kelly:

I love it. I used to go in when I worked a job with no air conditioning, I worked outside in Florida and so I would go to the movies, and I would just stay all day. I would buy one ticket and I'd buy lots of popcorn. I bought lots of snacks, so they made money off of me.

But I would go in and I'd see my first movie and if I liked it, I'd go get a snack and I'd double down and see it again. Or if I didn’t, I would just walk around and all day.

Tyler Merritt:

Let me be very clear. I love a movie theater, man. I love a movie theater.

Annmarie Kelly:

No. So, last one, last one. If we were to take a picture of you really happy and doing something you love, what would we see?

Tyler Merritt:

You would probably see me in New York City in line, just about to go into a theater.

Annmarie Kelly:

Oh, I love that feeling. This hasn't started yet, but you're going and everyone's excited. That vibe.

Tyler Merritt:

And that vibe, the feeling.

Annmarie Kelly:

We're all out. We put on the pants, and we are out.

Tyler Merritt:

We’re already-

Annmarie Kelly:

Even if we didn't feel like it. We are out and we are loving it.

Tyler Merritt:

And we're already in a city, New York City's probably one of my favorite cities in the world next to Las Vegas where I grew up at. But you're in a city that just for me, it makes me feel electric and alive and you're about to go see what people are born, they were made and born and created to do and everybody is going to have this shared experience. We're about to escape for however long. And even if the show's bad, like really, really bad, there's still something that's still a little good about it. You know?

Annmarie Kelly:

And those are all our people. We don't even know them yet, but it's just like, hey, hundreds of strangers or in some cases thousands of strangers come with me. Let's all be together. We are all each other's people. We just don't know each other yet. But you come to know each other in that space. Yeah.

Tyler Merritt:

But you're like, if you're in this room with me right now, you are my people.

Annmarie Kelly:

You're my people. Sometimes my daughter tells a story. The very first time, we saw Hamilton first in Chicago, my English teacher's husband fell down the stairs and they couldn't go. And she gave me these tickets and we went and there were people sitting-

Tyler Merritt:

You saw my boy Chris Lee play Thomas Jefferson Lafayette.

Annmarie Kelly:

The best, so incredibly good. I have never seen a Thomas Jefferson Lafayette live up to what I saw that first one. It's such a hard … it's two different show. There's two different ones. Hard to be both.

Tyler Merritt:

Do you know that also my best friend James Monroe Iglehart played Thomas Jefferson Lafayette on Broadway. So, there's a combination of like, ooh.

Annmarie Kelly:

I don't think I saw him in that role then.

Tyler Merritt:

I don't think you did.

Annmarie Kelly:

Because I would remember, because anytime, for people who haven't seen it, it's the same actor plays both. And it's really hard to be good at Thomas Jefferson because that's kind of a what did I miss.

It's just like a funny, and Lafayette's got to pull off that accent and just be fierce and French and it's hard to be good at both. But that, yeah.

So, when we got there to that show someone was sit in our seat and my daughter was like, “Well, we can't sit there.” I'm like, “We can’t sit there, it's fine. It's a mistake.” And the lady apologized to me, she's like, “Do you want to drink of my wine?” I'm like, “Absolutely.”

And my daughter was like, “You just drank that lady's wine.” I'm like, “Didn't think twice about it because she was my people.” We're all each other's people in the theater. These are your people.

Tyler Merritt:

I love it. I love it. That's such a great story. But it's kind of the truth. Want some wine? Hell yeah. I want your wine. Yeah.

Annmarie Kelly:

You're my people.

Hey. So, in your most recent book, you ask all of us to open the door wide and welcome folks to walk in. And I was just thinking like, thank you for first helping us find the holes in the walls where those doors need to go. Like you are a gift and a treasure. And I hope that you'll walk through our door anytime, Tyler Merritt.

Tyler Merritt:

AM, my homie. I appreciate you. And we got to do this again. We need to do just a musical theater. Just a musical theater moment with you and I for the Wild Precious Life Podcast.

[Music Playing]

Annmarie Kelly:

You can find both of his books, I Take My Coffee Black and A Door Made for Me at an indie store near you. And if you're not yet familiar with the work of the Tyler Merritt Project or if you somehow missed his videos, we are going to link to all of that in our show notes because we're wishing you love and light wherever this day takes you.

Be good to yourself, be good to one another, and we'll see you again soon on this wild and precious journey.

Wild Precious Life is a production of Evergreen Podcasts. Special thanks to executive producers Gerardo Orlando and Michael DeAloia, producer Sarah Willgrube and audio engineer Ian Douglas. Be sure to subscribe and follow us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

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