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Rita: we are half an hour away and our air conditioner stops working on the RV
Sinead: well first yeah yeah
Mirthell: no half an hour after leaving California to come back
Sinead: no no not in California.
Rita: no not even that on the way there
Sinead: on the way remember?
Mirthell: Oh you’re right
Sinead: on the way to California it’s 30 minutes later
Mirthell: it’s true
Sinead: air conditioning doesn’t work and keep in mind it’s the middle of summer
Mirthell: right and this is new this is a new RV so it’s like whoo and I’m just like I think I’m gonna stop and then I stop and all of a sudden bang!
Rita: Welcome to the onyx family podcast and today we are talking about the Onyx family dinner guys this summer we went to um LA and we were out there for about a couple of months
Sinead: yeah
Rita: and we filmed our first talk show uh season of onyx family dinner
Sinead: yeah
Rita: it premieres November 4th, 2021 on the onyx family channel
Sinead: when this comes out it would have premiered yesterday
Rita: right right yeah that’s right
Mirthell: and it’s a youtube original youtube originals
Rita: It’s a youtube originals produced by Pocketwatch youtube and shine global
Sinead: yeah
Rita: in partnership with our company we are just ecstatic to finally have it just so for everyone to see we worked so hard on it but I want to kind of go back and talk about the experience
Sinead: oh yeah like how it all began
Shasha: well it was about to be filmed at our house
Mirthell: well that was because of
the whole video and everything like this
was in 2020 or 2020
Rita: right so we actually pushed back the filming because of the pandemic we’re like well we don’t feel comfortable going in the studio neither did they feel comfortable with us coming in some studio
Sinead: yeah
Rita: we all had to be very cautious so there was a lot of pushing back and finally summer of 2021 we were able to do it in a very safe environment that controls everything from the testing everything went beautifully um we had no positive cases on the set everything just was great
Sinead: that’s so blessing
Rita: that was a huge blessing but you know the road there so we like to take road trips, okay maybe I shouldn’t use the word like now it’s just a necessity for us at this point in time
Mirthell: right
Sinead: yeah
Rita: so we take road trips so we took a road trip over there so we were tired but we thought in our idealistic you know manner hey why don’t we take the RV and we’ll take the RV with our dog, yeah and yeah we’re gonna be like all those other people you see on the road you know like when you’re traveling and you seem like a whole bunch of RVs and their cars yeah I don’t know why but it’s just I don’t know what experience they’re having but I’m not having that experience
Sinead: no none of us are having that
Rita: okay
Mirthell: I mean we just always have drama every single time every single first time the first time for those that don’t know we found that the car that we were towing behind us was traveling now alongside us
Sinead: it was supposed to be towed it was supposed to be connected to the back of the RV right?
Mirthell: but somehow it disconnected the metal ripped
Sinead: yeah the metal fully
ripped
Mirthell: the car detached and now we see our car traveling down on the side of the road I’m looking like hey there’s somebody that looks just like our car the one like we’re towing
Sinead: I don’t see anybody in this nobody’s driving driver’s seat
Rita: oh my goodness
Sinead: luckily it was an empty road so it was like like deserted you know when you’re traveling
Mirthell: this is a very fine piece of metal that was still attached
Rita: very fine
Mirthell: and so when we pulled off it dragged the car over slightly back behind our vehicle and then it went like this way and then it went that way and then we stopped on the overpass like we stopped at the side and then we were able to rectify the situation
Rita: and then what did we do we unhooked it and then we ended up driving
Mirthell: we ended up driving it all the way back home
Rita: Yeah it was crazy the second time now I had this big bright idea I said okay I said hun this is why that happened because the hitch maybe was too low to the ground and so I thought maybe blowing all these bumps on you know the interstate roads maybe jerked it a lot so I said let’s flip the hitch upside down so that it’s high and let’s do that so I was like we’ve got this okay problem solved
Mirthell: so we’re traveling
Rita: On the next trip
Mirthell: this is the second trip that we did with it and I would say probably maybe about five hours or six hours in
Rita: yep yep
Mirthell: maybe seven
Sinead: no no no it wasn’t even that long because we did not trust me it was not five or six hours it was like three
Mirthell: well it was true it was two states over
Sinead: yeah It wasn’t that far
Mirthell: that state that we came oh and it wasn’t the next state was the following statement
Sinead: yeah yeah
Mirthell: maybe three maybe four hours
Rita: yeah maybe four hours yeah
Mirthell: but anyhow we stopped and um oh no we’re driving and I see a red light ahead but it’s one of those highways that you can drive a little bit faster yeah so I’m driving it into red light and I try to stop as fast as I can to not hit the red light because I know I’m not going to be able to go through it I’m like whoo and I’m just like I think I’m going to stop and then I stop and all of a sudden bang
Rita: no let’s see this is what happened we were at the red light and I’m looking on the monitor because we have a camera for the back, yeah and I see that the car that we’re towing did not stop it just kept on going and the thing is because we have such a large RV we didn’t even feel it no we didn’t look at the monitor I would have not known so then we go I said hun uh that the thing just crashed our car just crashed into behind us so we come out of the RV and we see sure enough there’s hood damage bumper damage everything so now we try to unhook the RV from the car we can’t do it so I go
Mirthell: in literally a hole in the hood because it just went
Rita: right so I go in the car and my job was to remember to press on the brake or something while you drove the RV a bit forward right so I get in there like I’m a bad woman yeah look at me I’m gonna do this or
Mirthell: How were you supposed to reverse
Rita: well I don’t know all I know is that I watched too much fast and furious and or something because I thought I could do something that I could not do when I was in the car and Mirthell like put the RV forward and I’m going backward I don’t know why I panicked because I felt the car was almost being dragged along so what I do is I as well
Mirthell: Open the door while it’s moving.
Sinead: while it’s moving
Rita: I open the door and I’m
Mirthell: That women Rita rolls out you know Im gonna jump out of the car and do a flip.
Rita: I didn’t do all that but I did jump out and I felt like I hurt my shoulder or something a bit I was just like
Shasha: what you rolled in the ground?
Rita: no I didn’t roll
Mirthell: no that was my exaggeration
Rita: and I screamed
Sinead: she jumped out of the car while it was moving
Shiloh: like just walkout
Rita: no because there was I don’t know
Sinead: no because the car was moving
Rita: it was moving it was a lot of moving pieces
Shiloh: Then just step out
Sinead: no not when it’s moving
Shiloh: no was it going slowly?
Rita: yes it was going slowly but not enough for me
Mirthell: look at our age let me tell you something at our age
Rita: everything
Mirthell: what you have in your mind
Rita: yeah yeah
Mirthell: it doesn’t actually play out you think you’re a stunt woman or a stunt man
Rita: right
Shiloh: At least like hop out like
Rita: I did I hopped out I threw the door open and i
Mirthell: I think it was more like a hobble out it was more hobble
Rita: all I know is that I screamed and I was scared but it worked you know it did detach and then so then we were like
Mirthell: oh that was the second time
Rita: so we were like forget it you know we’re not doing the hitch anymore I don’t know how all these other people do it I see them all the time on these streets I don’t know how they do it but for some reason, hitches don’t work for us so now on this trip
Mirthell: this trip now we decide we’re going to drive our Cadillac right behind it
Rita: right behind it
Mirthell: right behind it so you know or in front like we’re going to drive
Rita: yeah with it right
Mirthell: we’re not going to hitch it up
Sinead: yeah
Mirthell: so the whole trip now
Rita: no before you even go to the first we are half an hour away and our air
conditioner stops working on the RV
Sinead: well first yeah yeah
Mirthell: no half an hour after leaving California to come back
Rita: no no no not even that on the way there
Sinead: on the way there remember?
Mirthell: you’re right
Sinead: on the way to California it’s 30 minutes later
Mirthell: it’s true
Sinead: air conditioning doesn’t work and keep in mind it’s the middle of summer
Mirthell: right and this is new this is a new RV so it’s like what’s going on here so we bring it back we bring it to uh RV place and they, we really gotta go because we’re in a time crunch because now we have to start filming everything is set up gotta get out there
Sinead: and it takes four days to get to California
Mirthell: right so we’re just like okay so what we’re gonna do we’re gonna bring it back to an RV place have them fix it and then we’ll get back on the road the very next morning so we drive back they start working and they’re just like oh man we need this part and we need that part we need this and that so what they’re going to do is they’re going to macgyver it and they’re going to like
Rita: because they don’t have time to order them
Mirthell: and all the parts are not even available because of it yeah so it’s just like they’re going to guide for it and they’re going to like connect this wire to that and
Sinead: they’re going to do this generator or something like that
Mirthell: yeah and then disconnect this I don’t even know okay because I don’t know
Rita: yeah anyway it worked
Mirthell: it worked so we took off
Rita: but we have to have the generator on
Mirthell: right
Rita: So that’s kind of loud at night you know
Sinead: so that is going to tie into more later in the story
Rita: right
Mirthell: so we actually, everything was going fine pretty much on our way there
Rita: right
Mirthell: I don’t think we had any problems on our way there good once we start to get there
Rita: Shalom and Sinead drove a lot
Sinead: did we well I can’t remember if we didn’t figure out did we figure out how to plug in we didn’t we couldn’t figure out how to plugin
Rita: oh the plugs
Mirthell: no what happened is one of the places that we went it was full and the place that we went to actually had a burnt-out plug
Rita: oh yeah yeah the unit
Mirthell: so we couldn’t plug it on that one but
Rita: that’s we that was our we didn’t know
Mirthell: yeah we just didn’t know but anyhow so everything pretty much was pretty good yeah oh no no no the stairs
Rita: Oh my goodness the stairs
Mirthell: so once we get there everything is fine until we have to go into our Airbnb because we stayed at a really beautiful spot off in malibu
Rita: no but the stairs started coming out
Mirthell: no it didn’t come out we were fine going in malibu going uh whatever
Rita: no we were not because oh after we left Malibu
Mirthell: after we left malibu
Rita: oh yeah
Mirthell: now we went to and we went to our Airbnb right something happened with our stairs where whatever they did whatever they macgyvered or whatever happened it started to like
Rita: I don’t think it was them though
Mirthell: it might not be
Rita: but before we get to that though we stayed for a while in malibu we were at a beautiful RV park
Sinead: yes
Rita: and so we thought like I said kind of how I started this thing with our idealistic selves guys look at this we could stay in this RV for a while we’re right here by the ocean, it’s beautiful I think within what a few days we were like we need it we need an Airbnb
Sinead: yeah this six people in that small of a space
Shasha: oh my goodness and a dog
Rita: with a dog
Sinead: and a dog is actually a key part to that because it just takes up even more space
Rita: Yeah it was nice though it was beautiful it’s nice
Mirthell: it’s a nice RV it’s spacious but it’s just not spacious for six people
Rita: we go from malibu now from the RV park now to our Airbnb for where we’re gonna be for like you know several weeks while we’re filming and that’s when we discover as we’re driving the stairs that you know to come out that extend when you open the door to the RV keep on going in and out in and out as you’re driving as you’re driving
Mirthell: so we’re like this is not safe like the stairs are coming out it could hit a car beside us so we’re just like okay we gotta get this thing was fixed but we decided that we were just gonna park it on the street
Rita: by our Airbnb, this is in West Hollywood now
Sinead: yeah this RV in the middle of the West Hollywood
Mirthell: right
Rita: to be fair there’s a lot of RVs in l.a I mean a lot.
Sinead: this is a giant RV
Mirthell: right so we call uh you know a mechanic to come and fix our stairs mechanics don’t want to come nobody wants to come up
Rita: no what happened is there are so many RVs in LA that the people who fix RVs are on backorder or on the waitlist for months for people for us to sign up and actually, have them come to fix our RVs
Mirthell: so the company that we that has us out there they get us a spot they get us um a place where we can bring the RV where we can store it and where they can fix it so, me and Rita
Rita: no-no not to fix it it was just a place where we can store it we can store it
Mirthell: that’s true so, me and Rita head out there and stairs are coming out [Music] yeah every second people are honking me, yeah honking me and then we have to wind down the window or not wind down the window but open the window and they’re like
Rita: yeah yeah and then we’re always like we know we know
Mirthell: we know so it’s just like over and over you know what the irony of it is is is that someone from the set was on the highway a random highway like California is like a big place by millions and millions of people and there is some guy that was worked on the side that had worked on the set was driving down the highway and just like
Rita: saw us in the RV and then it was like you’re stairs are out.
Mirthell: your stairs and he realizes it’s the Onyx Family he’s like hey hey that’s the Onyx family see you in the morning!
Shalom: I don’t remember that
Sinead: yeah yeah that happened
Mirthell: so we get there okay so we get to the place where we’re gonna store the RV and it’s just like ah the headache of the RV is gonna be off we’re gonna go back in our Airbnb we’re gonna enjoy the rest of our time and guess what I forgot our insurance card and our registration and the people will not give us and it was Friday so
Rita: it was Friday
Mirthell: we couldn’t get it forwarded over from where we lived
Rita: what was stunning though was how did we go across a country without this insurance, III no I mean honestly it’s on our phone so that’s one thing
Sinead: yeah
Rita: but it was something else that we needed was the registration
Mirthell: was the registration or the title one of them
Rita: registration it was the title or one of them it was one of those and so we had to wait to go and get it um faxed back to us so we had to drive that though all the way back to the West Hollywood
Sinead: yeah I drove there then get drive back
Rita: and this is the thing this RV park was all the way in the valley and we were staying in West Hollywood and it was just like Nah this was no good fam
Mirthell: okay so there’s a mystery I don’t know maybe you guys can help us solve this mystery
Okay so we drive our RV back and when we drive our RV back we park it back on the street now we had gotten a note for some reason
Sinead: Can I just say for some reason, the door also started malfunctioning when we went to the Airbnb
Shiloh: it would unlock it
Mirthell: which door?
Sinead: the door just started for no reason
Mirthell: the front door?
Sinead: yeah this door no-no the door of the RV just started malfunctioning because as soon as I opened it start blaring alarm
Mirthell: oh right right
Rita: It has never done that before
Shiloh: Oh yeah, I remember
Mirthell: right so we ended up parking on the street okay it’s a neighborhood really nice neighborhood okay I got a note on the RV that week saying I would like to buy your RV would you like to sell the RV we love you know I really like your RV whatever okay
Rita: oh I didn’t know we got someone who wants to buy our RV
Mirthell: yeah somebody wanted to buy our RV
Shasha: remembered I showed you guys the note
Rita: oh
Mirthell: yeah so someone wanted to buy the RV I didn’t call them back and basically, I’m just like I’m not going to sell our RV, okay that is we’ll call that subject number one okay
Sinead: okay
Rita: okay suspect number one
Mirthell: suspect number two was we got into a little spat not a big one but a little spat with the
owners of the actual Airbnb right because they were like something like they wanted to overcharge for cleaning and we’re just like no we clean our own stuff so
Rita: we wanted to clean like twice a week or something and we’re like
Mirthell: and we’re just like no we will we’ll clean our own whatever thing I think they want to make some money so that’s suspect number two suspect number three there is a Karen that was on the street
Rita: oh yeah
Mirthell: that lived across and I was parking on that side I didn’t know it was care in there I just parked where there was an opening but I later found out that like one day when I came back to park there she was like no you can’t park here because my serviceman is gonna be here and so you can’t park here so I was just like oh okay fine thank you and I moved on over there and I parked over by a construction worker
Rita: worksite, like a house being renovated
Mirthell: suspect number four the owner of that worksite or yeah whatever yeah anyhow that day we got a ticket on our vehicle saying that they are going to tow our vehicle if we don’t move it right away
Rita: right
Mirthell: we, they are towing our vehicle and we got like a ticket from the city now granted
the whole time we were there we had gotten no ticket until one of these suspects was engaged and it happened around the same time right right where it was the owner of our Airbnb the Karen across the street you know the person that wanted to buy our RV and that other person so we’re wondering like who wants us off the street
Shasha: I think it was a Karen I feel like the person with the RV won by the RV wouldn’t report it
Mirthell: yeah maybe
Shiloh: I think the moral of the story is to book plane tickets wear some masks and just go on a plane
Mirthell: yeah
Shiloh: because that’s less time get over your fears just do it
Sinead: what are you trying to say, Shiloh?
Mirthell: Well I don’t know what but somebody wanted us off that street anyhow we kept the RV there over the weekend and then on Monday we were able to bring it in we had all our paperwork but oh what a headache so
Shalom: let me tell you there are more RV stories than it is film production stories
Mirthell: I know but that was the first part
Rita: that’s a huge part
Sinead: it was such a huge part
Shiloh: I remember you said you know RV owners always have these amazing stories and everything and that was when we first got the RV and now I see what they mean
Mirthell: I think the last so we managed to survive for the rest of the time because our view was away and then afterward on our way back home after filming that’s when that the final
Sinead: the final clincher oh my goodness
Mirthell: it was my it was the worst
Sinead: it was again guys it’s the middle of summer okay
Shiloh: oh
Sinead: finally for some reason the air conditioner now decides to give out
Mirthell: we’re driving through the desert
Sinead: we’re driving through the dessert
Rita: we’re in Arizona
Sinead: we’re in Arizona
Rita: in New Mexico, texas
Sinead: where it gets to 100 degrees guys
Mirthell: yes
Shiloh: we were thinking of going to a hotel we stuck it out and slept in that RV
Sinead: no barely slept we were having fever dreams guys
Shiloh: sweat was pouring
Rita: there was one night I don’t think any of us slept because we were just too hot
Sinead: It was just one night because we were trying to get through those states as fast as possible we did not stay long at all
Shiloh: wait did we mention the earthquake or the earthquake in Cali?
Mirthell: there was an Earthquake?
Sinead: there was a
Rita: I didn’t know if there was an Earthquake.
Sinead: there wasn’t there was a slight one but you guys didn’t feel I felt it it was in malibu and we were In Malibu
Mirthell: oh okay
Rita: oh but all I know guys are that I put my face by a window trying to get cool air but there was no breeze nothing
Sinead: yeah that’s the thing
Rita: it was the hottest I think I’ve ever been
Mirthell: and this is when I discovered I would rather freeze didn’t have that
kind of heat
Rita: it was horrible
Mirthell: I would rather bundle up in a blanket and just super cold and cuddle and whatever
Sinead: yeah
Mirthell: but heat
Sinead: you feel like you can do nothing
Mirthell: you can’t escape you
Sinead: you can’t escape the heat
Rita: you can’t well I mean honestly I don’t know when we’ll take another RV
trip
Mirthell: no you know what the problem was that I couldn’t breathe the air was so thick I could breathe no RV RV is just not the thing
Rita: it’s not for us maybe it’s for others maybe other families but not for us
Shiloh: always in planes even boats
Rita: I don’t mind boats if
Sinead: you want to take a boat to LA?
Shiloh: why not like
Mirthell: we would have to we should have to find from where we are we would have to find a port
Rita: to go through the Panama canal
Mirthell: right
Rita: all right but you know back to but when we were in la now we’re filming and I tell you guys this is probably our first time well we’ve actually been on sets as guest stars for things like Ryan’s mystery player playdate um and then you guys had done actually a nickelodeon commercial so
Sinead: yeah
Rita: but this was the first set that we’ve been in where we were actually the talent and it was like oh my goodness this is so cool you know we’re there we got a dressing room and you just see the whole thing like this really showed us like you know
Sinead: definitely
Rita: you know you see like I always hear about craft tables, Is it craft paper
Sinead: yeah crafts crafting
Rita: craft services I always hear about that now I’m like oh this is what it is and it was fun okay so guys I really only drink like Fiji water you know maybe some avion I mostly drink Fiji water so I happen to mention it because I don’t know something was weird one year when I drink some other waters I won’t get into it but I’ll say is that I just don’t drink other I don’t do well-bottled water and he doesn’t do well with avian water right I didn’t have an upset stomach with the other water but it was just a weird thing so basically I only drink Fiji but I only drink fiji water so anyway I happen to mention it to the people at craft services and next thing I know all over said it’s like don’t drink the Fiji water it’s only for Rita and I felt like such a diva that’s not like what I meant to happen but it was like because they had the regular I don’t know arrowhead or whatever it was and then he was like oh you want fiji water let me bring it for you and I was like oh
Mirthell: They’d be chilling Fiji water just for Rita like Diva Rita
Rita: I feel like Im a diva I know but it was really good
Sinead: yeah and one thing that we did not expect to have I didn’t really think about it when we got up like our own pa our personal assistant I was like oh wow just someone that would be able to get away from
Mirthell: that would do everything for us literally
Rita: right right it was he was just like Dang anything you needed he was always like you guys need anything, you guys need anything yeah I was like
Sinead: it was really nice it was
Mirthell: it was fun we had a wardrobe would go and buy us outfits if we needed it
Shalom: Did you say wardrobe?
Mirthell: a wardrobe that’s what they call them
Shiloh: I’m literally wearing the clothes he bought me like right now
Rita: oh Wow
Mirthell: that’s true he did he bought that the top for him
Shasha: yeah I’m wearing a blue dress and I think I wore this too I’m not sure but it was like it was very cool working with the designer
Shalom: I’m wearing the rings that he gave me
Sinead: oh for real
Rita: well see I guess his impact is still on us, you know
Mirthell: was it aj?
Rita: AJ
Mirthell: AJ yeah AJ was cool I really like AJ
Rita: right shout out to Bradley
Mirthell: yeah yeah our first PA
Rita: yeah so there’s AJ, Bradley and oh well we had our own you know makeup and hair, Jordana?
Sinead: Yes! Jordana was great
Rita: yeah she was so so good she made our face look so good like guys I don’t usually wear makeup I have no clue what I’m doing when I do the
Shalom: same
Rita: um but just to go on there and just roll up and not have to even think about it
Sinead: yeah that just felt nice
Rita: it was nice yeah and then oh man Shy she was the like production coordinator
Mirthell: Oh yeah, she was very cool though
Rita: oh she was so cool she was just like
Shalom: every day I would see her purple jeep and I’ll be like she’s here yeah
Rita: yeah she’s lots of energy but it was so good and that’s the point you, I mean there are so many other people on set
Sinead: yeah we appreciate it, everybody
Rita: like our director Sandy
Mirthell: um I was close with Elion
Rita: Elion the assistant director like see there’s a lot of terms that I’ve always heard about or read about and all of a sudden now you see it like all in front of you
Sinead: um you see how it all works together
Rita: right the grip best boy like there are so many people
Sinead: yeah
Rita: so many names but I could tell you guys like right off the bat and I’m not exaggerating this like I was saying 99.9 of everyone was so nice
Sinead: yeah definitely
Rita: was so friendly was so professional
Mirthell: Definitely
Sinead: it was like it was a great set
Shalom: a great experience
Mirthell: and they were just like I mean if anything even happened they were hiding all the drama from us, that’s like they literally protect the stars like it’s always just like you know we’d probably never hear anything that is you know happening around us
Sinead: yeah even if there was we wouldn’t know
Shasha: and I love the food too I think that I like the vegan food
Sinead: yeah because every one of the dishes on the set was vegan so that was really nice yeah
Rita: Yeah it was really it took us out of our comfort zone because these were foods that maybe we wouldn’t normally
Sinead: Yeah
Mirthell: right so that’s true so what about like our first guest like let’s talk about the guests
Shasha: Our first guest emmanuel acho?
Mirthell: Emmanuel Acho that was amazing like yeah this guy he has he’s so intelligent
Shasha: first of all he came in the room with so much energy
Rita: yeah
Sinead: definitely
Rita: Confident
Mirthell: I felt like I knew this guy for like the longest time
Shalom: well you didn’t you? because you’ve been watching him online
Mirthell: well I’ve been watching him But
Rita: yeah but not personal
Mirthell: he didn’t know me as it wasn’t personal
Rita: One thing I recognized while I was like sitting there and listening to him talk I’m like I whispered to him like you sound like a preacher and he started laughing like preaching is in my blood wasn’t his like I think his father’s
Mirthell: His father, his father was a preacher
Rita: yeah that was a preacher and I mean like you could totally tell he just had that minister swag
Mirthell: yeah
Sinead: yeah
Rita: you know
Shalom: oh yeah
Mirthell: right he’s like a light like drawing people to what he has to say what he has to do and probably drawing a few girls too I mean he has that swag that’s like you know
Shalom: yeah he’s a really great guy I saw he won like an Emmy the other day I just love the like ministry that he has about you know having uncomfortable conversations with you know a black man like I don’t know because it’s something like when people have conversations with us like a black man like imagine the uncomfortable conversation with onyx family
Mirthell: well I guess that’s kind of what we are doing in the show is kind of like
Sinead: having conversations
Mirthell: some conversations that are uncomfortable some of them
Sinead: some of them yeah yeah but what I really appreciate about like talking with him is that he really brought a light to what how we can talk with people with uncomfortable conversations like how we should talk be talking to them and how it’s an important thing to do because a lot of people will avoid uncomfortable situations
Shalom: right
Sinead: or uncomfortable conversations and it’s not something that you really should avoid but just learn how to deal with it.
Mirthell: that’s interesting because a lot of people think that if they avoid conversations or avoid an argument that somehow it’s just gonna magically go away the problem whatever the dissonance is whatever the challenge is but how can you work on a problem unless you come to understand it and how can you come to understand it the differences that we have unless we’re talking
Sinead: exactly
Rita: yeah so when he first came in he was like wow look at this vegan spread how did you guys know I was vegan and we were like you’re vegan and he was like yeah we’re like well how long he goes like a day and we’re like no that’s you’re no you’re just eating a more plant-based, yeah you know for the day
Shalom: Do you remember what we ate?
Sinead: what did we eat on that day?
Mirthell: that was pizza I believe
Rita: we had so much food during that whole process we can’t even remember what meals we had on what day
Shasha: yeah it was so hard to um chew and also speak
Mirthell: but with Emmanuel, we had pasta I think
Rita: I think it was pasta, yeah and so I mean a lot of pasta can be very plant-based you know but it was really good food and I just want to shout out you know the chef that was on the show although Mirthell is our cook he’s like our chef you know if you guys watch the feed the soul you guys know yes he is our in fact even after this podcast we have some soup waiting for us
Mirthell: so the month of November I’m going to be fixing a soup every day just comfort soup
Rita: yeah
Shalom: I love that!
Mirthell: but it’s all good everything is vegan
Shasha: can you please write down the recipe so I can make it like I’m afraid that one day like you won’t tell me anytime like just tell me
Mirthell: Nah cookbook coming soon and everybody will
be able to get it
Rita: but interesting is a lot of people would think well why didn’t you guys cook it it’s onyx family dinner you know one of the reasons why and at first, we wanted to they actually gave us the option but we said you know what we can’t be all things to all people as much as we would want and it’s not like a cooking show where you know you’re gonna see the food cooked but at the end of the day it is a family dinner and that’s the portion we needed to focus on because cooking for production in fact
Mirthell: everything is perfect
Rita: I forgot what the term is but they basically like um they decorate the food they set it’s it’s I can’t remember the department but it’s the whole department that takes care of it
Mirthell: that person was on set I think longer than anybody else, they would break down the cameras they would break down the sound the computers right and the person that is doing the cooking would have to come there the earliest and end up leaving the latest
Shasha: right yeah coz they have to clean up after
Shalom: oh yeah
Mirthell: i couldn’t do that and film and be this one of the stars exactly no I couldn’t do it
Rita: Exactly, because there’s a food prep scene where we’re prepping the food so in essence, we are helping to prepare the food but we’re not right we’re not the
Mirthell: we’re not in charge.
Rita: yeah exactly so that was really important but I mean it was really really tasty meals the meals I think even were new to us and I think you know we actually now feel like oh we can probably
Shasha: like strawberries and pasta
Rita: Yeah, I don’t know about that one
Shasha: it was interesting, I like it
Shalom: I love that I like it
Shasha: I liked it too! Because I love strawberries
Shalom: It was interesting I like the strawberries like the cream cheese it was like an interesting combination
Shasha: I know they didn’t like it I liked it
Rita: I have to try that
Shasha: no you didn’t like it even if you did try it again
Shiloh: Did I like it?
Rita: I don’t really
Shasha: do you like it? I liked it it was good
Sinead: I think it was good it was different
Mirthell: I think I’m glad that we led off with Emmanuel being the first show because I think that it will prepare the audience I think I’m glad that we let off with that because the reason why I really like it is that he models very well how to have conversations that are uncomfortable
Rita: well he just puts you at ease you know when you start talking to him he has a real way about him and the stories he tells about some of his first incidents where he felt like this pull like were to like when he was at the lunchroom in the NFL like where do I sit who do I relate more to just people who are black or people who are you know maybe they grew up like me like there’s just a lot of different things
Sinead: and he was talking about how there was a division there sometimes too
Rita: yeah
Mirthell: you know what’s interesting uh you know his uncomfortable conversation with a black man focuses on the relations the racial relations and tensions in America and encourages us to sit down with one another especially black and white and others to be able to understand each other more but what’s interesting is that when I see him on other programs that he has because he has like sports programs and other things he has uncomfortable conversations about a lot of things even including in the world of sports because he was an ex-NFL and I remember one of the conversations that he had that was kind of like uncomfortable was about that runner that
Sinead: um um Sha’carri?
Mirthell: Sha’carri right and there were some challenges you know just some people felt really challenged about what he was saying about her attitude and how she’s coming to the sport and he’s taking a pretty strong stance on that particular situation and he’s gotten a lot of people coming back and kind of like
Shasha: what sense does he have I don’t understand
Mirthell: well I think I think what he’s trying to say is that he doesn’t get why a lot of people are on there saying that you know to fight and saying that like you know this is a woman why are we putting down a woman when really these were everybody that was running were black women so we gotta respect black women but he’s saying basically that everybody that was running was black women and so
Sinead: You need to respect all of them
Mirthell: you know respect all of them everybody needs to be respected including Sha’carri needs to respect the woman that she’s racing with
Rita: here we go again
with the way you butcher her name, “Shakairi” It’s Sha’carri
Mirthell: Sha’carri my apologies to Sha’carri um but um so he is comfortable with having uncomfortable conversations no matter what the topic is
Sinead: and he’s comfortable having a difference of opinion or not necessarily following along with what everybody else is saying
Shalom: see it’s all about respect or like you
know just listening and respect right i
feel like you’re going to see a lot of
this on the dinner table you know
Sinead: yeah
listening and respect that’s that you’re
Right
Rita: I think that one of the things that we had to actually confront for ourselves was how comfortable were we having conversations with other people see when we do our show like on our on our youtube channel or you know any platform that we have our app or whatever it’s really mostly our family
Sinead: right
Shalom: It’s true
Sinead: and we’re extremely comfortable with each other
Rita: Right and we don’t really we have never really tackled these topics before the topics that you’re going to see on onyx family dinner though they are I think topics that everyone is talking about and we are no exception it’s just that we had never talked about it or done anything
Mirthell: with the camera in front of us
Rita: exactly but we are just like every other family out there we have these discussions too we have our opinions and we have our thoughts and all these things affect us as well there are some topics that we’re going to be getting into that affect us very deeply you know
Sinead: right
Rita: and you know if they ever did like a director’s cut and this and you were able to see the full conversation you’d probably see more but you know we have to fit it in between a certain time
Shasha: did you say you’re about to cry one of them?
Rita: Yeah there was um there was one where we
were talking about body positivity and
there were ones where we talked about my
grandfather who just passed away and
raced the racial injustice that he often
faced as a black baseball player in the
60s and 50s so there’s a lot of things
that hit very close to home
Sinead: definitely
Mirthell: well i mean guys
how real do you think we were on when as
we were talking?
Rita: I think we were real you Know
Mirthell: I think for the most part we were
Shasha: yeah
Rita: well where were we not?
Mirthell: well I just think that we interrupt each other a little bit more
Rita: oh yeah
Sinead: oh yeah yeah yeah
Mirthell: like around the table like
Sinead: we’re a little more polite on camera
Mirthell: right right
Rita: Yeah that’s true that’s true
Mirthell: I just want to keep it real
Sinead: yeah I don’t think we said anything that was not us it’s more like the way we interact with each other
Rita: okay
Sinead: you know a little just a little bit oh that’s right we had to give a good show
Shasha: like what like what?
Rita: well I was gonna say like Shalom is you know she’s talked so softly here and you guys don’t see her when the camera is off yeah
Shalom: I’m loud
Mirthell: yeah shalom can get it in
Rita: she can get in there so
Shiloh: that is a cap on most cases
Shasha: Why
Shiloh: in my honest opinion like Shalom can get mad on the inside but not on the outside
Rita: not mad we’re talking about animated
Mirthell: animated
Sinead: like she talks like loud sometimes what she wants
Shiloh: oh yeah
Shasha: do you think you were real on your talk show
Shiloh: yes I think so
Sinead: I think you were too honestly
Shalom: yeah
Mirthell: yeah we shared our opinions and everything that we shared was true to life i think that we were just a little bit more polished in a sense that we weren’t really interrupting each other or if we had a difference of opinion we were a little less animated than we could get but for overall i think that we were very true to who we are
Rita: I think we focused on listening, listening to our guests especially and learning and I think that that’s what we hope that you all do as well that you as you listen you learn a lot about what these guests have to say and actually learn more about us too
Sinead: that’s true that’s i feel like that this is a setting that the show is a setting where people can learn more about background of our lives and how we came to who we are and who we are as a family more than what we’ve kind of shown on our channel sometimes you know
Rita: right right
Mirthell: yeah and that you’ve been to such a good point about the listening part because you know if we are really going to truly understand each other it’s not so much about telling others what we feel but taking the opportunity to listen and i think that’s why we modeled listening we were very intentional in modeling listening because that was an opportunity for our audience to be able to hear what their story truly is
Shalom: right
Rita: right yeah so overall guys it was a great experience we are really excited to share it with you you know like like um sinead said by the time you see this episode of this podcast, it would have aired yesterday
Sinead: yesterday yes
Rita: so let us know what you all think let us know like what you guys think of the topics and just the whole vibe so beautiful beautiful set
Sinead: yes go watch episode one right now it’s um the one with Emmanuel Ocho on our channel on Onyx family on youtube so those who are listening it’s on onyx family on youtube
Shalom: until next
time when we expose even more behind the
scenes
Sinead: oh yeah we’re going to be doing every after every episode of onyx family dinner we are going to be doing a behind-the-scenes podcast episode to talk more about the topic talk more about the guests and more about the experience
Shalom: and our experience in California guys yeah so you still have so much to share
Sinead: there’s still so much to share about the whole trip
Rita: oh i know so much more
Sinead: so yeah there’s so much more to share guys in these scenes at podcast episodes for Onyx dinner so we hope you guys stay tuned don’t forget to go and watch episode one and we will see you in the next podcast episode
Everyone: bye