While I gave a bit of a teaser to this interview done – ahem – quite some time ago, I only eventually got to posting it in its entirety today. With the second season of The Buried Life set to premiere in late November, I think putting it up now is almost not exactly the right time to do so.
Since this interview with Jonnie Penn (in early January 2010), the boys of The Buried Life have completed a full season on MTV, played basketball with the second most powerful person in America and been on the television program of the most powerful person in America.
Eventual success has come their way, much as the following interview has come yours…
Mike: I’d like to welcome Jonnie Penn, member of The Buried Life, to Eventualism. Thanks for joining me, Jonnie.
Jonnie Penn: Thank you very much. I’m excited to be here.
Mike: Many people don’t realize what The Buried Life is actually about — it’s not about burying life, it’s not about gravediggers, or anything like that, or about people who want to bury people alive. It’s actually a heart-warming sort of mission that you guys are on. Tell us about The Buried Life.
Jonnie: Well, it’s a project we started in 2006 in a garage. Basically it revolves around three of my friends (Ben Nemtin, Dave Lingwood, Duncan Penn) and I who are traveling around North America in a big purple bus called Penelope, trying to complete this list of 100 things to do before you die. The reason we started it is because we felt disillusioned by our experiences in the world. We saw a lot of problems in the world and didn’t know how to get people excited about fixing them. So we thought this would be a good entry point to begin a discussion about life and purpose and legacy and the things that they want to do with the time they have on earth.
The other side of it is for each item that we complete on our own list is that we help a stranger do something that they’ve always wanted to do. We hope that other people out in the world will tell us what they’re doing and write a list – and also hope people do things around them that they always wanted to do.
Mike: So you’re making up for lost time when you were a kid when you were asked not to talk to strangers. Now, you’re talking to them all the time.
Jonnie: Bingo. With everyone we meet we ask, “What do you want to do before you die?”, because we figure there’s a lot to learn about life. Especially these days, older people and younger people don’t talk that much so we’ve used it for us to strike up conversations with people of all backgrounds, ages and all sorts of beliefs, and then we share the stories that we come across on the internet and – actually – soon on television. That was one of the things on the list: to make a TV show. That’s number 53 and it will be airing on MTV on January 18th, 2010.
Mike: Wow! This is the same network that, of course, airs the the critically acclaimed show Jersey Shore.
Jonnie: (chuckles) Yes, the critically acclaimed show. It’s been a pretty interesting experience for us because we started this in protest of reality television. So moving into TV has been a difficult process, and it’s something that we’ve waited a long time to do because we don’t want to change the project and all. Thankfully, in the last year, basically, MTV which obviously have major, major influence on young people today has recognized that people are kind of fed up with that crap and want something new. So we’ve been talking to them for months and actually kind of agreed on a way to do this that isn’t going to change anything that we’ve ever done. We’re not going to have a lightning round or a script or any punching people in the face. We’re going to do it just the way we’ve always done it and air stories about really cool stuff. Usually.
Mike: Well, unless someone wishes to be punched in the face by a member of The Buried Life. I mean, it could be on their list, right?
Jonnie: It’s true. I am hoping that list gets written in soon because we can definitely help with that.
Mike: So, when you’re traveling with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson, how do you get along with those guys? Because I mean they’ve got the Bucket List and I’m sure that this is something you guys share in common. Is it something that you guys came up with together or chicken before the egg? How did that work?
Jonnie: Yeah, Jack was over my house and he kind of brought the idea and then Morgan came over, and we figured all six of us have so much in common that we should just do it together. I guess Morgan Freeman had since died, so we continued his legacy.
(laughs) Actually that’s funny because we get that comparison all the time and people assume like “Oh, man, you guys are sickening compared to The Bucket List.” But it doesn’t really bother us because we figured it’s all the same message. I’d say the biggest difference between the two things is obviously theirs is a Hollywood movie so it wasn’t real.
But like I said, I hope that both provoke people to think of the same stuff which is: “What are you going to do? In your lifetime, what are you going to do beyond just the simple skydiving and the fun stuff? What legacy are you going to leave? What are you going to change in the world and contribute?”
And the other thing that I hope our project can add to the conversation is, “What are we going to do collectively as a generation and also just as a society? What are we all going to do before we die? What will be our legacy?” It’s good that Hollywood made that movie back in the day. I just thought that MTV has picked up the show that we’re making because I think people want to talk about this stuff and there’s a lot of good that can come from starting that discussion.
Mike: You know you’re young when back in the day it was only three years ago.
Jonnie: (laughs)Yeah.
Mike: How many are left on the list of a 100 things?
Jonnie: Well, actually, I can’t tell which ones we’ve completed and which ones we didn’t, but our goal this summer is to complete — they are the biggest which are things like play basketball with Obama, deliver a baby, camp at the Playboy Mansion, and much of the other kind of more entertaining ones to watch, but throughout the four years that we’ve been doing this, we’ve completed almost 65 or 70 of them so we’re getting close to being done.
And for each one of those we complete, we help someone that we meet along the way do stuff – big and small. Some people we’ve punched in the face, others we’ve reunited with family members that they haven’t seen in 20 years. I’m sure everybody reading this has a different list than their friends and their family. Everyone’s got something that they want to do that’s just specific to them.
Mike: What’s the weirdest thing that anyone has ever asked you to do?
Jonnie: (laughs) There wasn’t much. Oh, one wants to recreate Jurassic Park – which I think would be so awesome – but we didn’t know where to start with that one. That would be difficult.
Mike: You could start with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman.
Jonnie: (laughs) Sure. That’s true. Yeah, and then we just needed one of those dinosaurs that spits venom and that would be a very good start.
Mike: What is more of a “feel good” moment to you guys? How Victoria residents like yourselves doing well, that you’re helping others do well or that others are seeing that Victoria local boys are doing this?
Jonnie: It’s a good question. Let me think. I mean –
Mike: Because let’s face it, you guys are going to be on MTV. I mean that’s a pretty big deal. And it’s not MTV Canada that you went to. It’s right to MTV USA, so you went to the real deal. You Victoria boys have done good. So I mean it’s a very, very rare thing. I may be the only one to ever eventually repeat it.
Jonnie: Thanks a lot, Mike. I appreciate it. I mean, we have worked really hard to get the project to where it is today, and I think we’re going to keep – I know we’re going to keep – continuing to work hard and try to get it to everywhere we’ve always dreamed it could be.
To answer your question, I think it’s both. We’re excited to have made it this far because our original intent with this project was to inspire our friends. And to do that we didn’t want to preach to them, first off because we really don’t know enough about the world to preach to anybody, and secondly because we just know that that’s not what people respond to. We wanted to prove through action, through actually doing these things that anything is possible. And it sounds cheesy but we this would be a good way to prove it.
So to make it this far I think we’ve got a positive response from our friends because they’ve seen just that. They know us and they know that we’re just regular guys like everybody else. Others can succeed – like our friends who are extremely talented, smart people that can do anything that they set their minds to.
To your other point, I think for us personally the biggest takeaway is helping other people. Sure, it’s fun to do all the crazy stuff; I think we look back and we’re really proud of the show and all that. But the things that you actually reflect on when you put your head down and go to sleep (for me, at least), is that you got to do helping other people because that’s the change that actually means something. We keep in touch with all the people that we help and we’ve learned a lot of what we know about life through those people, through their experiences and through their dreams. So, I think that both – I think it’s both points.
Mike: Tell me about the time that – I think it was Dave – that you guys got a free laptop bag from someone very special in Victoria. Could you tell me a little bit about that? I know that it’s unfortunately second-hand from you, but just tell me how that felt and who that person might have been?
Jonnie: (laughs) I’m actually saving that for the blockbuster. We’re doing a movie on the Buried Life and it’s actually going to talk about that story in particular.
Mike: Really?
Jonnie: I don’t want to give away too much – but yeah, a very generous man in Victoria did this something a lot likely you said, but I don’t want to say too much. I don’t want to give it away.
Mike: That’s fair. I’m sure that person will want to make sure that they sign over the rights properly and then make sure their faces got blurred – or highlighted. Perhaps even some form of top billing.
So, who’d win a Cage Match? The boys of The Buried Life or the boys from Jersey Shore?
Jonnie: Oh, man, I think we’d get stomped by the Jersey Shore boys – but that’s a great question. Hmm. Well, The Situation looks like he’s got a strong right hook, but I’ve also actually been in a fist fight with David Lingwood from The Buried Life and I know that he also has a strong right hook. That is tough. If Morgan Freeman was on our team, I would say we would have the advantage but Jersey Shore has Snookie so – that’s up for the people to decide, I think. They’ll tell who is stronger.
Mike: Well, truth be told, you’re already at a disadvantage because they may put on their list their wish that they get to beat you up. Then you have to help them, so that could be a big thing.
Jonnie: That’s true.
Mike: Speaking of Jersey Shore, Saturday Night Live recently parodied them on a Weekend Update segment. Do you think you guys will finally have made it when, say, Kristen Wiig plays you on a Weekend Update sketch?
Jonnie: (laughs) You know, we anticipate getting made fun of a whole lot – and actually we are the first people to make fun of ourselves because there’s a lot of room to do that. If that happens, though, I would be flattered. What’s that expression? There’s an expression that like imitation is the – what is it? As a form of flattery?
Mike: “Imitation is the best form of flattery.”
Jonnie: Yeah.
Mike: I totally hear where you’re coming from on that.
Jonnie: Yes, I would be honored.
Mike: Again, great work and I’ve followed you guys for a while now, and I think it’s fantastic that you guys are doing this, helping others help themselves help you.
Jonnie: Well, thanks a lot, Mike. I mean, like I said in the beginning, we don’t really, really tell what we’re doing in any given point in time. We just learned so much through this project and getting to MTV was a big experience for us because it reminded us that big things can happen if you set your mind to them. And if you’re patient and you put in a lot of hard work, you can do anything that you want to do in your life – for us that was making a TV show. Everybody’s got their own thing that they want to do and we encourage people to write those things down. That’s a good way to start the process; set yourself goals and have them written in front of you so they’re tangible.
We encourage people to ask their friends and their family about what they want to do before they die because often you have these things but you don’t talk about them because they get buried. They never get explained. That’s where the name of the project comes from. It’s from this poem written by British poet Matthew Arnold 150 years ago and it speaks to that feeling of forgetting – or losing touch – with the things that you’re passionate about. That resonated for us back when we started this project and it still does. If you look at our own lives and stop losing touch of the things that you’re passionate about but just keep going and keep working towards it, every so often you’ll win big and be reminded of the payoff of hard work and dedication.
Mike: The fact you guys have done this in such an eventual manner; that you’ve made your way through, you’ve got a list that’s long and it’s going to be a drawn-out process – that to me is the draw for Eventualism. That success comes eventually. If you do what you guys have done, the sky is pretty much the limit. Unless, of course, you’re staying inside the house, in which case the sky is only as high as your ceiling. So, I guess the moral is to get out there and do stuff, right? That’s what you’re saying.
Jonnie: Yeah. True enough. Right on the nose.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Great interview, Mike. Thanks for putting this out–eventually. Like you, I’ve been following these guys for a while. Like them, I believe that many things are possible with hard work and a good dose of eventualism.
Paul
A good dose of Eventualism also can result in a long-awaited response to a comment.
Like this one, for example.
Thank you for the kind words.