Excuse My Grandma As My Co-Worker

Show Notes

In this week’s solo episode of Excuse My Grandma, Kim gives us a behind-the-scenes look at what it’s like to work with her grandmother, Grandma Gail. From the challenges of creative collaboration to hilarious moments at brand events, Kim shares insights into their dynamic and how they balance business and family. Plus, get a glimpse into their creative process, as Kim discusses her career, early inspirations, and the fun of working with family.

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Music By: Guy Kelly 

What is Excuse My Grandma?

Grandma Gail is full of wisdom... even if Kim doesn't always take it to heart. Every week, the granddaughter/grandmother duo share stories, chat about their lives, discuss pop culture, and unpack the generational differences of dating, sex, relationships, and more. Listen on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch the show in full on YouTube and follow @excusemygrandma on TikTok and Instagram to keep tabs on what’s happening in their lives between episodes.
Inquiries: [e-mail].

Speaker 1: 00:00

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Speaker 2: 00:15

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Speaker 2: 00:40

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Speaker 3: 01:01

Welcome back to another episode of Excuse My Grandma. This week it has just came, I'm doing a little solo episode and we're gonna talk all about what it's like to work with Grandma Gail. People are always asking what it's really like to work with my grandma. It's both the best job ever and also in, I don't know, weird one just because I'm basically running a media company with someone who doesn't use a computer or get on calls or really do the behind the scenes but has stronger opinions about all of it than me and my agent. And she really is the talent in every sense of the word.

Speaker 3: 01:47

I think I wear a talent hat, a producer hat, but we are both cofounders. So there's a lot that goes into that. I'm sure people listening, work with family or they're just curious about it. And you know there's lots of cooks in the kitchen. So that's why I wanted to do this episode alone because usually when grandma's here, we're focused on entertaining and catching up with each other.

Speaker 3: 02:11

And I just wanted to slow down and talk about what it's really like working with her. Our real dynamic is very funny because it's a mix of families and business as I'm saying. I'm always the one saying, excuse my grandma, whether she is saying something out of pocket or just getting involved in someone's business or my own. I'm always trying to make sure we're being like authentic and open and making sure we got the shot. And she's just living her life.

Speaker 3: 02:39

And that's what makes it awesome, I think. Grandma's motive with this is definitely as a grandmother. She's a business partner, but grandmother first. She knows how much I have fun doing this. She knows how many goals I have and like the career that I want to make in the media business.

Speaker 3: 02:59

So she's really doing it for me not as much her own incentive and I think that's really special. I think I am so grateful I get to have these moments with her. I get these moments recorded that I'll be able to look back at but I am so head in the ground driven like I'm not thinking about those things on a day to day, I'm thinking about the business and the creative and all the amazing things we could do together so that's sort of where our head spaces lie. I always knew I wanted to do something creative for my career. Obviously, I couldn't have told you when I was a kid or even six years ago that I was going to make a podcast, Instagram, TikTok, social channels about my relationship with my grandma and to have it be fashion and lifestyle and dating.

Speaker 3: 03:52

I couldn't have told you all that obviously but all of my early projects in life when looking back kind of had to do with collaborating with my family. So one memory that I have is I was probably like five years old or however old you are when you can't really write yet. And I remember Grandma Gail coming into my room and I was like, I wanna write a book together. And she would basically handwrite these concept, these stories that we would come up with together in this little piece of paper. And there were pages and pages and pages.

Speaker 3: 04:28

I think we might have even watercolored at one point. And it was just such a lovely moment to look back on. Obviously, we didn't do anything with that. And I don't I don't think it's lost now. But it's so nice to think about how she was so supportive of my creativity.

Speaker 3: 04:44

And who knew that we would end up doing a business together down the line and it started with a project like that. Then I remember my fascination with TV and film coming in pretty quickly into my life. I was obsessed. This is so niche. Mary The Martin starred in Peter Pan, like live action, not animation, which was staged and broadcast on, I wanna say NBC, but I'm forgetting the channel.

Speaker 3: 05:19

And we must have had, like, a VHS recording of it. And I was so obsessed with this production. The music was so good. I would play it every single night. And after a while, I was like, I need the script.

Speaker 3: 05:33

Like, I need to be able to read these lines, see it on a page. I don't know if I would I wanted to act it out. I don't know if I just loved it the piece so much that I wanted to see the words and, like, feel connected. But, again, I don't know if I couldn't write or if I just couldn't type because we had just gotten a computer in our house I remember. So I was like, come in and help me with this project.

Speaker 3: 05:59

And he was so willing to help me. And basically, I would press play on the VHS. They would say a line and I would press pause and then I would be like, dad, write that down. And he would write line by line this film with me. And it's so crazy because now I feel like you can just look up a screenplay online.

Speaker 3: 06:17

But at the time I just loved it and my dad was so helpful. And I studied creative writing once I got to high school. I was really lucky Dalton had a lot of courses from, like, ninth grade on, poetry writing, fiction writing, and that kinda became my thing and my outlet. And I was writing a lot about relationships and it definitely sparked my fascination for, like, love. Obviously you're not dating in the same way because you're in high school but I had crushes.

Speaker 3: 06:53

I had a boyfriend at one point he sucked but whatever. Then when I got to college my love for creative writing continued. I was an English major with a creative writing minor and I even joined a slam poetry club. So I was always writing, writing my feelings. It was always based on my real life, my real relationships and I love that as an outlet.

Speaker 3: 07:14

And I'm sad that it's not something I continue to as much because it's now manifested into excuse my grandma and all the creativity and writing I do around that. But it is something I definitely want to bring back into my life. If you guys have also seen some of my social videos, I've like read my diaries from a very very early age. I would love to write, write about my crushes, write about my friends, write about my family and then I would always reread it to myself too like not right after but probably a month or two have gone by and kind of like thought about the re edit and the rewrite. So it's always something that I've loved and I urge everyone with like little kids to tell them to write in journals or diaries because I feel like it does really breed a creative person.

Speaker 3: 08:02

So it definitely all made sense looking back that I ended up doing something creative with my family. It is that full circle moment. Now there's cameras and brand deliverables involved, but it's all the same. So on a day to day, grandma and I have very different ideas of work scheduling, production, all the above. My grandma is always dressed and she's always early And that is such an amazing trait that unfortunately I struggle with.

Speaker 3: 08:35

I'm always running late. I'm always trying to plug in a mic. I always I'm still doing my hair and makeup. I'm behind. I think I just like load up a lot to do on myself and there's never enough time in the day.

Speaker 3: 08:46

And I also I don't know. I have no good excuse because it's rude. But my grandma's always on time. She calls me like if we're doing a podcast and she's like, where are you? Because she's gotten there twenty minutes early and I already know I'm gonna be twenty minutes late and it's honestly the hardest thing about working together is our timing and our schedules because I just feel like an asshole all the time but clearly not enough to fix my habits.

Speaker 3: 09:10

So another thing grandma and I do together are go to brand events with a ton of other influencers or representatives from a brand often celebrities And the funny thing that I think people would like to know is that she is still 100% Grandma Gail at every single one of those events. So for example, when we're there, I don't know, I wear a different hat. I'm trying to network. I'm not exact I'm not acting exactly as I would be in my own home or if grandma and I were at lunch alone, but she is exactly the same. Like, she'll talk to a bartender about their grandkids or she'll eat one hors d'oeuvre and then be like okay I'm ready to go home but I'm like no we're here to network and do all this stuff and we've noticed after time like okay if she wants to leave early and I want to stay a little bit later that's fine or I'll bring someone else from the team to come join me if it's like a longer event or if it's a nighttime event.

Speaker 3: 10:13

Sometimes like, you know, she likes to stay with Poppy, so she'll do her own thing and like daytime stuff is better if you want the both of us together. But it's just funny because even if we do like I don't know if people saw our Dancing With The Stars red carpet interviews from a few weeks ago. But I went into that interview and grandma didn't know a lot of the celebrities which honestly made a lot of the interviews funnier. And I said to her before I was like I just want to talk to Alex Earle. Like I think she obviously is so relevant and she's the one I she's really the star of the season probably so she was going from outlet to outlet, e news, Entertainment Tonight.

Speaker 3: 10:56

I'm like oh my gosh I don't think I'm gonna get her. And I'm not as outspoken as you guys might know like I have my thoughts and feelings and do my my own thing and I have my friends and I have my boyfriend, but grandma like talks to everybody. And so she has no shame. She she just walked up to Alex Earl and was like, come talk to us. Like, I would not have done that, but it totally worked.

Speaker 3: 11:22

She came over and we talked. Like, she pushed to make sure we got that interview and it's not because she cares about Alex Earl or cares about us getting that interview. She knew that I cared about it and then so she made it happen. So I really love moments like that. When it comes to scheduling, we schedule stuff around honestly her card games, her hair blows if it's a night thing like her if she has a dinner party or something like that like she's not canceling her social life versus I have a very active social life I probably go out almost every night but like to get home early because like grandma core, like grandma energy that I'm trying to cling on to.

Speaker 3: 12:04

But I usually move a lot of my social life around for work versus we have to move work around her social life. A lot of people also are curious if we go in with a script or something when we're filming our videos. We've tried for a brand partnership once before I think reading off of a script and it's not exactly grandma's thing. I like having a script like when I even when I do podcast, my outlines are very tight. This goes back to my to my writing.

Speaker 3: 12:34

Like, I like to have it all laid out even if I'm not saying things exactly. That process of the prewriting kind of gets me thinking about what I do wanna say in those moments. But obviously, when we're doing an outfit video in the closet, that's not scripted. I do go in with an idea. So if I know I'm filming with grandma, I come with a list of a few videos I know I wanna get done that day like a get dressed video, like video of her walking on the street with a rule or something that I've already mapped out but of course there's so many moments where we're just hanging out and I know she's gonna say something funny or we're in a funny situation and I have to make sure that my camera is out and I'm ready to record otherwise we'll miss it and that that's just kind of on me.

Speaker 3: 13:20

A lot of the times in our podcast I know where I want the conversation to go and she kind of shows up ready to talk but that's kind of the magic of it. I handle the creative prep and she really brings some of that spontaneity that it only works if I bounce back with her on because that's where the humor is So I think that's where it really makes it feel alive. Okay let's talk about the relationship. Has it changed since Excuse My Grandma? Of course not.

Speaker 3: 13:48

I think we've always been really close but yeah it's shifted. It's different because we have this working dynamic, have this new added element of people we can talk about when we're together that we've met with, we can talk about brand deals, we can talk about all of these things that we don't always agree on. It's not always smooth. Sometimes when we're filming we're disagreeing about what's funny, sometimes we're disagreeing about timing for something, whether something is even worth filming, whether an event is even worth going to. Sometimes I want a redo take and she's like you're overthinking it, it's fine.

Speaker 3: 14:30

Advice I would give people working with their families I think is sometimes they forget or they don't see you in a way that you actually are like a hard worker or a boss or see all the prep work that you do when you're there when they're not there. So gently reminding them you know what you're doing and hoping that they trust that and trust you is essential. I don't think it's perfect yet. Even as a kid when I was like I want to act and I want to be in shows, I feel like my family was like LOL I don't need to come to the show because they didn't take it quite seriously. It was honestly similar with Excuse My Grandma until they really saw that there was an audience of people like you guys who loved us and then I think everyone was like okay fine.

Speaker 3: 15:15

But once it all clicks for everyone I think it becomes less about who's right and more about finding the rhythm, when to push, when to let go, and when to just roll the camera and see what happens. You know what's funny? People who've seen us off camera like in a dressing room at a store if grandma and I are trying stuff on and we're bantering or at a dinner, people come up to us and they're like, Oh my god, you are exactly the same in real life. I'm so happy to see that and we are. That is something I totally take pride in.

Speaker 3: 15:51

It's not a performance. It's basically surveillance footage but as you know with the prep work and I see what kind of videos do well, I try to recreate those moments. So in that way of course there's strategy and creativity that comes with it but we are exactly who we are. Off camera, the stuff you're not seeing, it's hard because there is so much that goes on behind the scenes so I wonder if there is a medium where I can show that to you because then you're gonna see much more of our personality, especially, you know, when we're a little bit more relaxed. Even the running of the business, the planning, what we're filming, the decisions around creative direction, talking to the rest of my team.

Speaker 3: 16:39

You know, Grandma showing up with her hair done. She has something hilarious to say, and you're seeing that. But there's so much more. And the reason, you know, she's so natural and I hope I'm natural in these roles is because it is just an extension of who we are together. She's always been the one giving me instructions.

Speaker 3: 16:55

I've always been the one, you know, pretending I don't need them, but still asking her everything anyway. Like this week, I I was telling her, of course, I'm such a basic fall girl. I wanna do all fall activities. And I was like, I really wanna go pumpkin picking, but I'm upset because it's been raining. And she was like, go to Trader Joe's and pick up a pumpkin, which is just so her, like, practical, no nonsense.

Speaker 3: 17:18

Like, I don't want to go to Trader Joe's. I want the Instagram at the pumpkin patch but she she's just not wrong. She says it how it is. Excuse My Grandma has changed the way I see grandma and it's also changed the way I see myself. It's made me realize who I am creatively and kind of where that came from from a young age, which is from the people who raised me.

Speaker 3: 17:40

Even my comedy, you know, it's hard when I'm talking to myself to crack jokes, hopefully you see a little bit of my comedy through the way I edit my videos and you know when grandma's being silly the way I'm like winking at the camera and I'm like, you guys get it, I get it, there's humor here. I think it's hard for me to separate myself from my family because I did grow up so close to them. And so I've been able to use it as an outlet creatively and professionally where I can be myself or the self that I am around them and and as a unit because it's so real and humorous and aspirational often. And we're making something that people are really connecting with. Those are just some of my thoughts.

Speaker 3: 18:24

Quick conversation me and you without grandma here. And if you have more questions for me or wanna see what this conversation would look like, me and grandma, maybe for another episode about the business of it all, please let me know. You can message on Instagram, Kim Murstein. That's k I m m u r s t e I n, or message Excuse My Grandma. You already follow there, hopefully.

Speaker 3: 18:45

Or you can write a comment on the podcast. You just leave a rating review. Please do that anyway. Five stars on Apple, Spotify, wherever you're listening. It makes such a difference to the show.

Speaker 3: 18:56

I think that's it. Thanks for listening. Bye.

Speaker 4: 19:06

Spring just slid into your DMs. Grab that boho look for that rooftop dinner, those sandals that can keep up with you, and hang some string lights to give your patio a glow up. Spring's calling. Ross, work your magic.