Speaker 1: Pushkin any sort of career as goals I have are
Speaker 1: related to trying to make sure that when I hand
Speaker 1: them off to their adult life that's smooth a transition
Speaker 1: as possible, like you know, Like well, at the same time,
Speaker 1: if I was just a single person who wasn't married
Speaker 1: and didn't have any kids, I would just sort of
Speaker 1: ride this United Shade Show out until the wheels fell off,
Speaker 1: because it's a good living for me to have. But
Speaker 1: because of my kids, I'm like, Okay, well, I have
Speaker 1: to sort of be thinking four or five steps ahead.
Speaker 1: But then on top of that, I have to make
Speaker 1: sure that the work that I'm trying to get and
Speaker 1: trying to produce is still something that makes me feel
Speaker 1: like I'm doing good work in the world. You know
Speaker 1: what I mean? That was w Kamala Bell. I'm San
Speaker 1: Frecoso and this is Talking Easy. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Hey everyone, I hope you're safe and sound wherever you
Speaker 1: are right now, and I want to thank you again
Speaker 1: at the top of this episode for making us part
Speaker 1: of your week. At the beginning of this crisis, everyone
Speaker 1: on the Talk Easy team came together and talked about
Speaker 1: the kind of person they would like to hear in
Speaker 1: this precarious, scary moment. People that are experts like doctor
Speaker 1: or She's Jaw and Noam Chomsky. People good for the
Speaker 1: heart like Juliet Lewis and Elizabeth Gilbert and Jane Fonda.
Speaker 1: People to inspire action like Dolores Fuerta and Naomi Klein.
Speaker 1: All of these folks have come on the show or
Speaker 1: are about to come on the show. And then it
Speaker 1: dawned on me that W. Kamalbell a socio political comedian
Speaker 1: who's the host of this great show on CNN called
Speaker 1: The United Shades of America, is exactly the kind of
Speaker 1: person I want to hear in this moment. Kamal has
Speaker 1: been on this show twice before. In fact, he was
Speaker 1: the second guest to appear on Talk Easy almost exactly
Speaker 1: four years to the date. I've known him for about
Speaker 1: that time, maybe four or five years, and he's the
Speaker 1: only person to come on Talk Easy three times. And
Speaker 1: there's a reason for this. Aside from being one of
Speaker 1: the funniest people I know, which he totally is, he
Speaker 1: has this quality about him that is kind of singular.
Speaker 1: He can make you crack up in one moment and
Speaker 1: then on a dime, turned serious and political and passionate.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what makes United Shades of America such a
Speaker 1: compelling program. He's willing to go to these unexpected places
Speaker 1: in conversation with anyone that's willing to have them, and
Speaker 1: so I'm very grateful to keep having these conversations with
Speaker 1: Kamal over the years. I hope this episode makes you laugh,
Speaker 1: makes you a little bit upset, makes you happy. I
Speaker 1: imagine we will do this again down the line, but
Speaker 1: until then, here is round three with w Kamal Bell.
Speaker 1: Kamal Bell, welcome back. You are the running champion of
Speaker 1: this podcast. A third appearance. There's there's no there's no
Speaker 1: one else who's made it here three times. How do
Speaker 1: you feel? I feel good. I mean I was here
Speaker 1: very close to the beginning, right I did in your apartment.
Speaker 1: I think we did the second episode of the show together.
Speaker 1: You were the first person to do an in person podcast,
Speaker 1: and you came to like the shitty office that I
Speaker 1: had in San Francisco. That's funny, that's how shitty and
Speaker 1: office it was. I thought it was an apartment, so yeah,
Speaker 1: it was, well you really thought it was an apartment.
Speaker 1: It was a little box. I mean I just this
Speaker 1: is my memory of like years ago. I could I
Speaker 1: I've had several kids since then, sir. So I'm not
Speaker 1: saying it wasn't a special experience, but I don't have
Speaker 1: an exactly memorized in my mind. No. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: above a weed dispensary. It was in the mission, right,
Speaker 1: it was in the mission. I go, okay, I got
Speaker 1: that part. Your memory is pretty good. And I remember
Speaker 1: ten minutes before we were supposed to tape, you text
Speaker 1: me and You're like, hey, so it smells like weed.
Speaker 1: I'm getting contact high out here. Can you let me in?
Speaker 1: It seems like something I would have said. Maybe, God,
Speaker 1: do you remember That's like when we could laugh about
Speaker 1: things like you were you were doing like a Denzel
Speaker 1: Washington podcast. Remember, Like, do you remember when you used
Speaker 1: to experience joy? Oh? I mean I think I still
Speaker 1: experienced joy. It's just a lot of it is processed
Speaker 1: through pain, which is how humor began in the first place.
Speaker 1: I liked it when we could just talk about man
Speaker 1: on fire verse out of time, like, yeah, although there
Speaker 1: are a lot of lessons that we learned from the
Speaker 1: Book of Eli, I keep going like, yeah, they need
Speaker 1: a prequel to that where it's just people in their
Speaker 1: homes going, this is going to get back to normal. Right.
Speaker 1: So back in twenty sixteen, we spoke before Donald Trump
Speaker 1: was elected, and of Donald Trump, you said, he is
Speaker 1: the nagging cough that has turned into AIDS. Yes, that
Speaker 1: was my special. That's my showtime special. He's the nagging
Speaker 1: cough that has turned into full blown AIDS. I had
Speaker 1: no idea that he would go, I can do you
Speaker 1: one better and actually exacerbate a whole new uh pandemic
Speaker 1: that no way he'd heard of. So yeah, he went,
Speaker 1: he went, He went a step beyond well. You even
Speaker 1: said in that interview he's like a virus. He's getting
Speaker 1: everybody else sick, but it's not hurting him. Wow, look
Speaker 1: at me. I don't get enough credit. I'm underrated, totally
Speaker 1: prophetic right there, twenty sixteen. Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't take any pleasure of being right. I mean
Speaker 1: I feel like this. I think people in the in
Speaker 1: the in the Bay Area, especifically the East Bay. I
Speaker 1: feel like especially the like the activist people, they were
Speaker 1: like like sort of happily, like, oh yeah, this is
Speaker 1: gonna get awful, like sort of very clear on the
Speaker 1: fact that like, oh this is gonna be awful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, get ready, it's gonna be awful, Like no,
Speaker 1: sort of like maybe it'll be okay, Like oh yeah,
Speaker 1: we're going all the way down in the hole. And
Speaker 1: I feel like I was the one who was always
Speaker 1: like the cheery, like it's not gonna be that bad, right,
Speaker 1: So when I hear those things you quote, I'm like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I definitely knew. But you know, I definitely felt like
Speaker 1: I was the cheery, the cheery one amongst my like
Speaker 1: activist radical friends. What were their gloomy predictions? Like I
Speaker 1: think they just knew that, Like you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: first of all, you're talking to people who and you
Speaker 1: know where, they're already like capitalism is already trying to
Speaker 1: break all of us, like so like that that's just
Speaker 1: a so a lot of the things that existed in
Speaker 1: America are already awful for oppressed people, black and brown folk,
Speaker 1: people who aren't millionaires or multibillionaires or whatever. Those things
Speaker 1: are always are always gonna be hard for you. But
Speaker 1: then you put like a guy like that in charge,
Speaker 1: it's just gonna turn up the heat on all those
Speaker 1: factors that are already hard. So I think that's what
Speaker 1: they were aware of, is like the things that have
Speaker 1: been hard are about to get a lot harder, especially
Speaker 1: because he's not even like a calculating James Bond villain,
Speaker 1: you know, He's just like flipping switches the way I
Speaker 1: was flipping switches on Garage Band before we got on this,
Speaker 1: when I was like, I don't know what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: I'm just keep pressing stuff. I've gone back and forth
Speaker 1: on that point. Are any of his moves planned or
Speaker 1: is it all shooting in the dark. I think he
Speaker 1: has a general direction he's trying to get to, which
Speaker 1: is all based on his own ego and selfishness. So
Speaker 1: I think that in that sense things are planned. But
Speaker 1: I think that the thing that makes it seem more
Speaker 1: planned is there's people around him who are sort of like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like trying to get the rat to
Speaker 1: the end of the maze, like the cheese is over there.
Speaker 1: So I think in that sense, like you have people
Speaker 1: like Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham and you know any
Speaker 1: you know, Stephen Miller, you know, who are sort of
Speaker 1: like there to sort of like, you know, he probably
Speaker 1: still takes phone calls from Steve Bannon, So those people
Speaker 1: are like sort of like pointing him in the direction
Speaker 1: of the cheese because that helps them all. But I
Speaker 1: think he's probably like, you know, it's like the old
Speaker 1: the old school Looney Tunes Tasmanian Devil. When this crisis started,
Speaker 1: there was a conversation between me and everyone who works
Speaker 1: on the show, and it was about like, should we
Speaker 1: continue podcasting, and if so, who would we have on?
Speaker 1: And the first people that candom that I thought were
Speaker 1: actually available and interested and could speak to the moment
Speaker 1: with the people we've been having on, we had betto
Speaker 1: or Work. We had Noam Chomsky last week, we have
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Gilbert coming on Gladwell. And I also immediately thought
Speaker 1: of you, and it's why I reached out. That's quite
Speaker 1: a dnnish waiting room, Dennis, Like, that's quite a doctor's
Speaker 1: waiting room. The people you just mentioned, I don't I
Speaker 1: actually think all of us would get along if we
Speaker 1: were all in that dentist waiting room. I don't think
Speaker 1: there's like one asshole in there. But I thought of
Speaker 1: you because you have a way both on Twitter but
Speaker 1: also in your show on CNN. You know, United Shades
Speaker 1: of America. You have this way of making sense of madness.
Speaker 1: I'm curious, how are you making sense of all this?
Speaker 1: I mean, it's funny. I think a lot of the
Speaker 1: ways in which I'm have to deal with this is
Speaker 1: because I'm a parent, you know. I think when we met,
Speaker 1: Ahead did have one or two kids. I had two.
Speaker 1: Okay I'm hard to remember, but one was brand new
Speaker 1: if I if I remember, so, yeah, So I think
Speaker 1: that like now i have three, one of whom the
Speaker 1: youngest is who's not even two years old yet. So
Speaker 1: I've got an eight year old, of five year old
Speaker 1: and a two year old, which are very different stages
Speaker 1: of emotional and intellectual and even motor skills development. So
Speaker 1: like right now we're here talking and I'm very aware
Speaker 1: as soon as this is done and i walk out
Speaker 1: of my wife's closet where I'm doing all my recording
Speaker 1: and go back into the house, it's game time, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. So, like before I got on
Speaker 1: with you, or as I was trying to figure out
Speaker 1: the recording, I was also like negotiating with an Instacart
Speaker 1: delivery driver about like you know, no, no, no, that
Speaker 1: do they have the other oat milk. No, no no, I
Speaker 1: think oat milk, not soy milk, you know, through text,
Speaker 1: while also trying to be like thank you, you know.
Speaker 1: So I'm very aware of the of the like it's
Speaker 1: not like like, you know, I have a lot of
Speaker 1: friends who are childless and good for you all, who
Speaker 1: are like, oh so many books and I've started farming again,
Speaker 1: you know, and I'm just like, it really is like
Speaker 1: being on the deck of like a of like you know,
Speaker 1: some sort of like I don't know, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: you wake up and it's like and go and at
Speaker 1: the end of the day you're like, I can't stay
Speaker 1: awake anymore. I have to go to sleep. But then
Speaker 1: you wake up and go. So really a lot of
Speaker 1: it is just about like trying to make sure that
Speaker 1: the people in my immediate group and that includes my
Speaker 1: mom who lives nearby, are all fine, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. And then there's another part of it that
Speaker 1: is like also using whatever platform that I've been given
Speaker 1: to try to figure out ways to share information or
Speaker 1: poor people in the right direction, or fundraise for different
Speaker 1: things or highlight things where I do feel like a
Speaker 1: responsibility to do that, and also to do it in
Speaker 1: a way that I do it, which is trying to
Speaker 1: be a little bit funny sometimes, although sometimes it's just
Speaker 1: about cyber bullying. The Surgeon General. Do your kids know
Speaker 1: what's happening? Yeah, I mean the five year old that
Speaker 1: year old a thousand percent to one, because the news
Speaker 1: is sort of like a thing in our house and
Speaker 1: they're aware of it. So since my five year old
Speaker 1: was three, she's been able to sort of understand who
Speaker 1: Donald Trump was and why it was not working out
Speaker 1: for America and so so they're aware of that. And
Speaker 1: then I just like the idea of her being like, Dad,
Speaker 1: I know why this guy is not working out for
Speaker 1: this country. Yeah. No, she's very clause you know what,
Speaker 1: because she's also watched cartoons about bullying, so it's very
Speaker 1: clear these are he has all the hallmarks of every
Speaker 1: bully on every kid's cartoons, So it's you know, and
Speaker 1: he also she's at the age where she's really learning
Speaker 1: how to be, how to share, and how to cooperate,
Speaker 1: and it's very clear he does not know how to
Speaker 1: share or cooperate. So plus he's so over the top.
Speaker 1: He's like every kid's character that is the over the
Speaker 1: top bully like he reads the same way as a
Speaker 1: as a bully from a kid's TV show or a
Speaker 1: bully from a kid's cartoon, right, except at the end
Speaker 1: of all those episodes, the bully learned some kind of
Speaker 1: moral less and yeah, and I think and sometimes I
Speaker 1: think that's good for kids too, to learn like, yeah,
Speaker 1: they don't always learn that. Daniel Tiger was able to
Speaker 1: figure it out, but Trump is. We may not be
Speaker 1: able to figure out Trump. We just may have to
Speaker 1: like end run around him at some point. But unfortunately,
Speaker 1: life does not always cut the commercial break and have
Speaker 1: a nice ending. No, no, no, it cuts the commercial break.
Speaker 1: When you come back, it's right where you left it.
Speaker 1: We have a few questions from people online topical stuff,
Speaker 1: So why don't we start with that? Pete Manning asks,
Speaker 1: should the press Corps continue to ask the same question
Speaker 1: at briefings until the president answers the question. This is
Speaker 1: one of times I feel super glad I'm not a journalist,
Speaker 1: because I don't. I think we'd all like to think
Speaker 1: we'd be like, I'm out of order, You're out of order.
Speaker 1: The whole thing is out of order. I think that
Speaker 1: we'd like to think we would flip a chair and
Speaker 1: throw a shoe and walk out. Have you ever done
Speaker 1: that in your life? Let me see, have I ever?
Speaker 1: I've definitely stormed out. Have I ever flipped a chair? No,
Speaker 1: only as a child, Like I've never liked That's the thing.
Speaker 1: I don't think any Honestly, most of us haven't done
Speaker 1: that because we had. We respect the social contract, and
Speaker 1: so I think we think it's weird when somebody does not.
Speaker 1: Now Donald Trump does not respect the social contract. I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know what those press corps people should do.
Speaker 1: I also think I don't know because I would never
Speaker 1: have taken that job, you know, I mean what I'll
Speaker 1: but to be fair, a lot of those people who
Speaker 1: have that job had it during the Obama presidency. Yes,
Speaker 1: they had it during the Bush presidency. They had it
Speaker 1: when presidents actually had press briefings. We just forget that.
Speaker 1: He just canceled them, Like, yeah, he canceled them like
Speaker 1: a Netflix show. Well he's like, nah, I'm not I'm
Speaker 1: not doing it anybody that no more. It's been successful,
Speaker 1: But I've had enough of it. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: for the most part, those press briefings were never supposed
Speaker 1: to be a thing. Where they had to sort of
Speaker 1: figure out an adversary, you know, Like, I think there's
Speaker 1: definitely been times when reporters have stood up, like but
Speaker 1: I think now I think what's is you're seeing reporters
Speaker 1: like Yamici El Sender and I think it's Paula Reid
Speaker 1: from CBS and Jim Acosta is known for this too,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna put him aside because he's CNN. I'm saying,
Speaker 1: you're seeing other reporters be like you sort of can
Speaker 1: see them go what the fuck? Man? Like Brian Carram's
Speaker 1: another one of those guys, And I think they're starting
Speaker 1: to realize we cannot expect this to return to that
Speaker 1: he's going to suddenly go, oh, I'm sorry, I don't
Speaker 1: know what I've been thinking. Let me ask this like
Speaker 1: an adult. And I think that you're starting to see
Speaker 1: the press people have to figure out. But they didn't
Speaker 1: get that job necessarily because they wanted to deal with
Speaker 1: a person like Trump, so they I mean, you might
Speaker 1: be better off sending a bunch of stand up comics
Speaker 1: in that room, like like Lewis Black might be the
Speaker 1: best political reporter this country has, unknowingly right now. If
Speaker 1: Lewis Black would ever say yes to that job. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, that would be a godsender. I think the
Speaker 1: problem is we realize now that he's not ever going
Speaker 1: to play by any sense of rules or logic. He's
Speaker 1: only going to do the thing that sort of feels
Speaker 1: good to him in the moment, whether it makes sense
Speaker 1: or not. And we realize, and I think this is
Speaker 1: the thing that people from my friends from the East
Speaker 1: Bay that I talked about earlier, who realized for a
Speaker 1: long time you can't trust the people around him to
Speaker 1: suddenly go, Okay, that's enough, Donald, stop you just like
Speaker 1: it's just you know, as much as we love doctor Faucci,
Speaker 1: he's very clearly said, I'm going to hug this science
Speaker 1: lane as hard as possible and deal with some of
Speaker 1: this indignity because the science lane is so important to me.
Speaker 1: But he's not going to ever push Trump out of
Speaker 1: the way. He's in an impossible situation where he has
Speaker 1: to speak to public health and also vaguely manage someone's
Speaker 1: tiny insecure ego, sorry, large insecure ego. But he's also
Speaker 1: in a good spot, I think, because he actually doesn't
Speaker 1: need the job the same way some of those sycophants
Speaker 1: need the job. Yeah, he doesn't. Like Faucci has a
Speaker 1: job and he's doing this because he's because it's for
Speaker 1: the public good. And as a friend of mine pointed out,
Speaker 1: like Faucci was leading the epidemic back in the day,
Speaker 1: back in the eighties. Yeah he was. No, So I
Speaker 1: think that like in some sense, it's like he's dealt
Speaker 1: with some shit, so like this is like you know, like,
Speaker 1: I mean, I've all enough to remember that. Like that
Speaker 1: seemed like that was never going to get better at
Speaker 1: the time, and they have not figured out a cure,
Speaker 1: but they certainly figured in a lot of medications that
Speaker 1: have helped people. I mean, you know, Reagan wasn't Trump,
Speaker 1: but he wasn't exactly like, yeah, let's really figure out
Speaker 1: this HIV thing. No, I mean, it wasn't until Rock
Speaker 1: Hudson called him. You know, there's that study that people
Speaker 1: only comprehend something is a real threat. They don't realize
Speaker 1: it's the real threat until it happens to either them
Speaker 1: or someone they know. And that's the thing that's frustrating
Speaker 1: is I think there's a large percentage of this country
Speaker 1: who is basically disengaged from politics, and I understand because
Speaker 1: I was when I was young, I was like that,
Speaker 1: So who the president is? They don't really see that
Speaker 1: as mattering. And Obama did this too, turned the presidency
Speaker 1: into a celebrity thing. So Obama started it, and now
Speaker 1: Up is sort of capalasting on it. So this is
Speaker 1: all just a TV show and Trump is entertaining to them.
Speaker 1: And then on top of that, he's entertaining them because
Speaker 1: he plays into a lot of things they believe deep state,
Speaker 1: you know, blah blah blah, blah blah. And so because
Speaker 1: this pandemic hit the urban areas first, which Trump, even
Speaker 1: though he's from the urban areas, has sort of like
Speaker 1: feeds into their thing about hating the urban areas. They
Speaker 1: have this thing that they're like, well, i've seen people
Speaker 1: on Twitter. I don't know anybody with COVID nineteen. I don't,
Speaker 1: you know. And it's to me, it's like, why would
Speaker 1: you need to But it's a thing. It's a thing.
Speaker 1: If it doesn't affect me, it's not it's just a
Speaker 1: TV show. Out of sight, out of mind. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: you know, there's a big percentage of America whose empathy
Speaker 1: button is broken. And and I think that one of
Speaker 1: the things I try to do with United Sha just
Speaker 1: try to like reboot people's empathy buttons and also give
Speaker 1: people who do have the empathy button some knowledge that
Speaker 1: they can share. Trump has no empathy, and he plays
Speaker 1: on people's ability to not empathize with something they can't
Speaker 1: directly see or touch. This from Ali Vine. It's a
Speaker 1: two part question. First part, he wants your comments on
Speaker 1: the Surgeon General regarding black people. I have here Surgeon
Speaker 1: General Jerome Adams. This is from the New York Times.
Speaker 1: When asked about the disparity between the rate at which
Speaker 1: Black Americans are contracting COVID nineteen as opposed to other
Speaker 1: racial groups, Adam said African Americans and Latino should avoid alcohol, drugs,
Speaker 1: and tobacco. Do it for your roboella, do it for
Speaker 1: your granddaddy, do it for your big mama, do it
Speaker 1: do it for your pop pop. I can barely get
Speaker 1: through this, he said. We need you to understand, especially
Speaker 1: in communities of color, we need you to step up
Speaker 1: and stop the spread so that we can protect those
Speaker 1: who are most vulnerable. Oh my god, I remember it
Speaker 1: was like weeks ago when we were at the very
Speaker 1: beginning of this but where people who who pay attention
Speaker 1: are like, yeoh, you know, we're at the Yeo place
Speaker 1: for those for early adopters. And I consider myself an
Speaker 1: early adopter. I was at you know so and he
Speaker 1: was on Jake Tapper's show and I didn't even know
Speaker 1: who he was. And he comes up as the surgeon
Speaker 1: general and I was like, oh, the surgeon general is
Speaker 1: a black guy. Well, good job, sir, like joys like,
Speaker 1: I didn't know. I didn't he was. I'm sure appointed
Speaker 1: by Trump, but whatever, he's a black guy. I'm happy
Speaker 1: for him. And that's when he said, talking about the
Speaker 1: president and whether or not he was gonna get COVID nineteen,
Speaker 1: he said he was the president is seven three years old,
Speaker 1: and he's healthier than I am, and he sleeps four
Speaker 1: hours a night, and he and he just went off
Speaker 1: on this tangent about how the president was healthier than
Speaker 1: he is now. Jerome Adams is like forty four forty
Speaker 1: five and has several pictures on the Internet of him jogging. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: let me say, if he's healthier than you, aren't you
Speaker 1: really got to figure some stuff out. Yeah, that says
Speaker 1: more about your health than it does about his health.
Speaker 1: It's like, I feel like you're deeply ill. Then if
Speaker 1: he's healthier than you, it's not a praise of his health,
Speaker 1: it's a admission about your own health. So, and he
Speaker 1: got I sort of tweeted. I was like, and I
Speaker 1: think I did I tweet at him at that point.
Speaker 1: I don't remember if I did, but I was just like, dude, like, like,
Speaker 1: just talk. You're a doctor. You don't have to kiss
Speaker 1: his ass. All you have to do is stick to
Speaker 1: the facts of medicine. And at that point, I didn't
Speaker 1: know anything about him, So I'm like, you're a medical doctor.
Speaker 1: Just be a medical doctor. You're in the one position
Speaker 1: in the Trump administration where you can just be like,
Speaker 1: here's the facts. I'll see you later. And he responded
Speaker 1: to me and was like I was making a bad joke.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a good joke. Also, instead of maybe you
Speaker 1: could just share the facts of how not to spread
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen and basically instead of talking to me, And
Speaker 1: so I said, Okay, I'll do that and I'll shared
Speaker 1: whatever facts when we share. Also, maybe you can stop
Speaker 1: kissing your boss's ass and just stick to the facts.
Speaker 1: Oh Twitter, And I'm not a Twitter Beefer but I
Speaker 1: feel like if you're truly beefing up with like this,
Speaker 1: to me, this is beefing up. He's a surgeon journal
Speaker 1: of the United States, you know what I'm saying. I'm
Speaker 1: not like, I'm not like going after you know, a
Speaker 1: bot or somebody with three followers. And also, I really
Speaker 1: did think it's important for you to be honest about
Speaker 1: the facts is in medicine, you know. So then he
Speaker 1: was doing the thing with the naacpeople. There's a conference
Speaker 1: call and I got an email about it because I'm
Speaker 1: on those lists, and I just was like, you know, okay,
Speaker 1: good for him. And when the conference call started at
Speaker 1: like seven o'clock, I got a phone call from the NAACP.
Speaker 1: I was like, are they calling me? And I didn't
Speaker 1: answer because I got three kids and it was seven
Speaker 1: o'clock on a Sunday. I'm deep in parent mode. So
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm not. I was like, this is
Speaker 1: where they're calling me. Then this article comes out and
Speaker 1: it's all about how he apparently on the phone call
Speaker 1: told a story about like you know, every you know,
Speaker 1: the black story that every black person has access to
Speaker 1: you I was born on a river, you know, like
Speaker 1: just about how he grew up poor and blah blah
Speaker 1: blah blah blah and helen la da dah, and how
Speaker 1: he's doing the best he can. And then the Jorge
Speaker 1: and General tagged me in it just to be like,
Speaker 1: look at me. I was born in a river and
Speaker 1: I was just like nah man. And so since then,
Speaker 1: when he says things that are ridiculous, that thing that
Speaker 1: you just read, I call him out for it, and
Speaker 1: for a while he would respond to me, but he
Speaker 1: doesn't respond anymore. I just think the thing that is
Speaker 1: so tragic about him, So let's just look at that
Speaker 1: one statement about big Daddy. That's the kind of thing
Speaker 1: you can only get away with if you have a
Speaker 1: connection with the people you're talking to, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. Like literally, Tyler Perry could put up a
Speaker 1: video where he was like, call your big Daddy, call
Speaker 1: your grandmama, call your aunt Bess, whatever, and the black
Speaker 1: folks who liked Tyler perryould be like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I can't believe he knew the name of my grandmother,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Like they would be like, like,
Speaker 1: you know, Oprah could do that, and Black people would
Speaker 1: be like, I have such a long term investment in Oprah.
Speaker 1: I feel that she actually does know me. So when
Speaker 1: she goes through these colloquial phrases, even if it's not
Speaker 1: the name of my grandmammy, mammy, whatever it is, I
Speaker 1: understand what she's getting to people with high approval ratings,
Speaker 1: people with high prow and actually a long term investment
Speaker 1: in the community, you know what I mean, Like like
Speaker 1: Steph Curry could probably do that in Oakland, he could
Speaker 1: put up a video call your grand mammy. You know.
Speaker 1: So this guy nobody in the black community for the
Speaker 1: most part. I'm not nobody, but overwhelming the black community
Speaker 1: had not heard of him until he went on Jake
Speaker 1: Tapper and said Trump is healthier than me. And then
Speaker 1: basically most of the stuff that came out of his
Speaker 1: mouth after that was either way behind the news cycle
Speaker 1: where he was saying things like he should have been
Speaker 1: saying weeks ago, or just like wrong, or like you're
Speaker 1: just like clearly trying to make room for his and
Speaker 1: he never like called out the president for talking about
Speaker 1: when the President was prescribing drugs to people. He never
Speaker 1: called out the president for that. He was one of
Speaker 1: the last people to say wear a mask. So it's
Speaker 1: like his science isn't right, and then his like so
Speaker 1: when he gets to call you grand mamma and your
Speaker 1: uncle Ted, and people like what are you doing? And
Speaker 1: it's clear And this is the part that like, as
Speaker 1: I start to get into my preacher mode, that some
Speaker 1: white person in the Trump administration came to him and said,
Speaker 1: talk to your people, you know, like you do with
Speaker 1: you you're a boy, Alat saying that stuff like he
Speaker 1: was doing that because it didn't come off natural from him.
Speaker 1: We're definitely talking about a Boila's he's not Latino, so
Speaker 1: I'm really confused by that. Well, he came out and
Speaker 1: said later that his apparently I don't know, you know,
Speaker 1: he's got a Puerto Rican something or other in his family,
Speaker 1: which is fine. But again, if he had said, my
Speaker 1: brother in law's Puerto Rican and he called his at Boila,
Speaker 1: that's different. If he'd come out and said you should
Speaker 1: do like I did. I just called my granddaddy and
Speaker 1: my big mama, then we go, okay, you're talking about
Speaker 1: your own experience. But the way he did it is
Speaker 1: this like sort of this broad brush of black and
Speaker 1: brownness and again does not have that deep reservoir of
Speaker 1: love and respect in the black community and whatever he
Speaker 1: could have built up he has spent on kissing Trump's butt.
Speaker 1: It just it comes off comical. And the thing that's funny,
Speaker 1: and this is as a performer when he does it,
Speaker 1: if you watch him do it, he's not comfortable. It's
Speaker 1: like I was, like, I've seen flop sweats before. I'm
Speaker 1: a comedian, I've had him before. It's clearly a dude
Speaker 1: who's like, I am out of my depth, and I
Speaker 1: think the whole position is probably out of his depth.
Speaker 1: He was like the whatever the surgeon and general equivalent
Speaker 1: of that is in Indiana, and Mike Pence brought him
Speaker 1: in and so I think this is clearly just like,
Speaker 1: oh Jesus, how am I gonna do this? And this
Speaker 1: is the thing I last hit him up for was
Speaker 1: he as he talked about how black people were susceptible
Speaker 1: for COVID nineteen and he talked about because we have
Speaker 1: pre existing health risks, which is true. He never connected
Speaker 1: to because racism. He need sort of act. It's sort
Speaker 1: of the way he came across. It sounded like black
Speaker 1: people just like to have high blood pressure. They just
Speaker 1: black people just really enjoy not living near grocery stores.
Speaker 1: That's just what we like. We like not being able
Speaker 1: to afford healthcare, like it's a choice on the menu. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 1: it's just that's how I don't know why we chose
Speaker 1: that stuff. And so to me to be a black
Speaker 1: man in that position and to be able to go
Speaker 1: to speak on stage for five minutes about black people's
Speaker 1: susceptibility to a to COVID nineteen and why, and to
Speaker 1: sort of and not ever get to also it all
Speaker 1: starts with the Transatlantic slave trade. It's just like, you've
Speaker 1: really revealed yourself to not be the person that we
Speaker 1: want for the job. So we have another question from
Speaker 1: the same person. He wanted your thoughts on the NASCAR
Speaker 1: driver who used the N word and was fired. Now,
Speaker 1: I googled it this morning and there was a headline
Speaker 1: from Business Insider today, a prominent race journal. That's what
Speaker 1: I admitted as races and racism, but also racing, it's
Speaker 1: the puns make themselves. Yeah. Well, the headline said NASCAR
Speaker 1: driver Kyle Larson has been fired from his race team.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if my brain was like defrosting,
Speaker 1: but I read that and I was like, he has
Speaker 1: a race team. Then how did they let him say
Speaker 1: the N word publicly? And then I figured it out?
Speaker 1: So do we care about this? Does this matter? I mean,
Speaker 1: what do we feel? So apparently NASCAR drivers were doing
Speaker 1: like a virtual race online like some sort of like
Speaker 1: they all got into their video game race cars and
Speaker 1: raced each other. So that's also sort of like a
Speaker 1: thing that only happened because of COVID nineteen. And he
Speaker 1: was and you know, as people play video games talk
Speaker 1: to each other while they're playing video games. Apparently he
Speaker 1: thought he was on a private line and he was
Speaker 1: actually talking to a friend and he actually had his
Speaker 1: whole his line wide open to the world, and he
Speaker 1: dropped He's like, basically like he did the thing that
Speaker 1: a lot of you white people do. I'm not saying you,
Speaker 1: but he called his friendly in word out of out
Speaker 1: of friendliness, you know what I mean. I'm not saying you,
Speaker 1: you know, not me. What are you talking about about
Speaker 1: saying you just put the hell out of here. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying. I'm just saying that there are white people
Speaker 1: in the world, and you know some of them, and
Speaker 1: you've met them and you've been around them. Who dropped
Speaker 1: the ind bomb on each other the way the black
Speaker 1: people doing each other. But for the most part, they
Speaker 1: know to do it in private because that's because otherwise
Speaker 1: you're gonna get fired. By the way, the whole I
Speaker 1: thought I wasn't speaking publicly defense is a terrible offense.
Speaker 1: Saying oh, I didn't know I was being recorded is
Speaker 1: not a good excuse. In fact, it makes you think, so,
Speaker 1: is this what you're saying all the time? Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it's what else are you doing? So? And you know,
Speaker 1: to me, it's it's hilarious and that I'm sure NASCAR
Speaker 1: is a wash and white guys dropping the inbomb on
Speaker 1: each other. And I'm not gonna say a percentage, but
Speaker 1: I'm just sure because a lot of these dudes grew
Speaker 1: up listening to rap music and they think they're cool
Speaker 1: and they're they have white privilege. So I'm sure they're
Speaker 1: all like sort of looking at each other, like, man,
Speaker 1: I can't believe that nigga got fired. Like so that's
Speaker 1: the thing I think it's funny, is like he's probably like,
Speaker 1: I got fun but I don't even use as much
Speaker 1: as Tommy does. So welcome to the twenty first century.
Speaker 1: Glad you could join us. You can't. You can't be
Speaker 1: that careless anymore. And also, if you're a really good
Speaker 1: NASCAR driver, you'll find another job. I want to go
Speaker 1: back to when you were starting to find your voice,
Speaker 1: because I stumbled upon this article in nineteen ninety five,
Speaker 1: after you had dropped out from college. Your father, Walter Bell,
Speaker 1: offers you a job, and he says it's a job
Speaker 1: where you would have to move back to Mobile and
Speaker 1: join the family insurance business. He said, I offered him
Speaker 1: a salary. I told him he can make a certain
Speaker 1: amount of moneys. You said, thank you very much, Dad,
Speaker 1: But this is what I want to do. Do you
Speaker 1: remember that call. I do remember that call. That's a
Speaker 1: very because I remember getting off that call, like I
Speaker 1: guess I mean that like it was very much like
Speaker 1: a I knew I was. I was really disappointing him.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think he sits with it now, but
Speaker 1: he was super shocked that he thought he was throwing
Speaker 1: me a lifeline because I was calling him like him
Speaker 1: going up in a Collbee shop tonight and I did
Speaker 1: five minutes last night and I bombed, you know, he
Speaker 1: thought he was really throw like say me, and I
Speaker 1: was like, no, thank you, and So I got off
Speaker 1: that call knowing I had really disappointed him, but also
Speaker 1: never regretting the decision to not do it. Even if
Speaker 1: I didn't make the career I made, I knew that
Speaker 1: was not the right decision for me. That episode on
Speaker 1: United Shades of America about Mobile, Alabama is one of
Speaker 1: my favorites. There's so much in there that feels tellored
Speaker 1: both to you and this moment that we're in. I
Speaker 1: was just thinking about your ongoing relationship with your dad
Speaker 1: and how that must have changed over the last twenty
Speaker 1: years as your career has taken all its twists and turns. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's funny. Can you can sort of shorten
Speaker 1: the window over the last ten years is when the
Speaker 1: real things my career really like kicked into a different level.
Speaker 1: And so and he got to like, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: as much as he loves United Shades. He was living
Speaker 1: in New York at the time that I was doing
Speaker 1: my first show, Totally Biased, and Chris Rock was producing it,
Speaker 1: and Chris Rock was around for the shows, and so
Speaker 1: my dad would show up at the set and just
Speaker 1: hang out with Chris Rock for like, you know, for
Speaker 1: like two or three hours a day. So when he
Speaker 1: would come up to the set, he would see everybody like,
Speaker 1: come out, do you need another sugar free Red Bull?
Speaker 1: Or would you like some tea? And he would see
Speaker 1: like all this stuff with my name on it, and
Speaker 1: he would just see all this like crew running around.
Speaker 1: Everybody's like everybody's like saying, oh, come out's the best
Speaker 1: whatever they were saying, you know whatever. He felt like
Speaker 1: the president of showbiz for about a year. And so
Speaker 1: once he saw that I could get there, like it's funny,
Speaker 1: he was the least worried. He was way less worried
Speaker 1: than I was when the show got canceled that I
Speaker 1: thought my career was over, and I really did. He
Speaker 1: was like, you got one show, you did another one.
Speaker 1: And I was just like, Dad, that's not exactly how
Speaker 1: showbiz works. And yet he felt like, if you could
Speaker 1: get this far, you can keep going. Basically, I think
Speaker 1: my dad was like, if you could turn down that
Speaker 1: good insurance gig that I gave you and get here,
Speaker 1: you can get somewhere else. There's some context of this
Speaker 1: because you know, for a long time your father lived
Speaker 1: in Alabama on a street called Bell Road. It was
Speaker 1: a shock and up until he was about thirty five,
Speaker 1: he wanted to be a photographer, a poet. All of
Speaker 1: that has to play into how he feels about you
Speaker 1: actualizing kind of the creative dreams that he had growing up.
Speaker 1: I mean, I do think that he as much as
Speaker 1: he would like to sort of you know, I think
Speaker 1: he really does like the man he's built himself into,
Speaker 1: and he really is like a very accomplished and has
Speaker 1: college degrees and an MBA and you know, and it's
Speaker 1: like n CEO of company. You know, he's done a
Speaker 1: lot of things in business. I think he can't help
Speaker 1: but go. Yeah. But also I was a dude writing poetry,
Speaker 1: listening to John Coltrane albums, trying to be a photographer
Speaker 1: and doing some activism. So I think he's that's in him,
Speaker 1: although at some point he chose a different path. He
Speaker 1: felt like he wasn't ever going to be successful in
Speaker 1: that stuff, and I think really financial success was important
Speaker 1: to him, and so I think he was worried for me.
Speaker 1: He's like, yeah, you can go be a comic and
Speaker 1: go perform in coffee shops and you know your gift,
Speaker 1: that's what you want to do, or you can make money.
Speaker 1: And I think the thing he has seen is as
Speaker 1: financial success has come to me and I'm still doing
Speaker 1: basically the same stuff I was doing, just at different levels.
Speaker 1: I think he's very proud of that. I mean, putting
Speaker 1: him on United Shades. I think it was like this
Speaker 1: sort of defining moment for him because he's a big
Speaker 1: deal in Mobilele the band where he lives. But now
Speaker 1: people come up to him and go, how's your son doing?
Speaker 1: I saw his show, I saw you on his show,
Speaker 1: and it just it's sort of the final level of
Speaker 1: like the place where he's a big deal, people think
Speaker 1: I'm a big deal. Does that bruises ego? No, not
Speaker 1: at all. He's not even a little bit because it's
Speaker 1: that thing where my accomplishments are his. I think as
Speaker 1: far as he's concerned, so not even I think he
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, we have pretend talk about it,
Speaker 1: but now it's not. He couldn't be happier about the
Speaker 1: direction it's going. And he's also the guy who's like,
Speaker 1: you should be working harder, So I think that he's
Speaker 1: not like he doesn't feel like we won. You know,
Speaker 1: we've known each other for a while now, and there's
Speaker 1: a part of season three where you returned to your
Speaker 1: grandmother's house, Gladys and the house has been boarded up,
Speaker 1: And I get the sense that you hadn't visited in
Speaker 1: a long time, or if you had something about that
Speaker 1: and visit seemed to strike a real chord. Yeah, I had.
Speaker 1: I hadn't visited for a long time because there'd have
Speaker 1: been no reason. I'd been to Mobile a lot, but
Speaker 1: it's on the other side of town. It's like there
Speaker 1: would have been no reason to go over there. The
Speaker 1: last time I had been there had been like like
Speaker 1: a year or so after she had died, and they
Speaker 1: had my dad still owned the house, or my dad
Speaker 1: and his siblings owned the house, and they had rented
Speaker 1: the house out to somebody else. And I'd walked in
Speaker 1: and looked around and I was like, oh shit, like
Speaker 1: I could like I started to break down then, because
Speaker 1: it was like a bunch of strangers with their feet
Speaker 1: up in my grandmother's house and they had like torn
Speaker 1: a wall down, and I was like, what do you do?
Speaker 1: That's not how that you know. And so at that point,
Speaker 1: I'd had an emotional experience, so I sort of knew
Speaker 1: and so this was and that was I was probably
Speaker 1: at that point in my mid twenties, so I hadn't
Speaker 1: been there for fifteen close to twenty years. So when
Speaker 1: I went back that day and I knew we were
Speaker 1: going to film there as soon as we were just
Speaker 1: traveling by to like sort of parked the van and
Speaker 1: set up, And as soon as we pulled up, I
Speaker 1: was like, oh shit, and I was like stopped the
Speaker 1: car and I hopped out of the car and just
Speaker 1: sort of like started dry heaving, like it just really
Speaker 1: like oh because it was just in such disrepair, like
Speaker 1: it was just you know, nobody was living in it.
Speaker 1: Weeds were going all over it, and you know, I'd
Speaker 1: spent I spent every summer there as a kid and
Speaker 1: lived there was before a while. And so when we
Speaker 1: pulled up. The cinematographer's name is Patrick Higgins, who's my
Speaker 1: brother from another mother and father love him. There's another
Speaker 1: episode of that crying that I'm talking to Patrick, and
Speaker 1: I was like, Patrick, turn the cameras on. Like it
Speaker 1: was like I was like I was suddenly like turn
Speaker 1: the cameras on. I think we need you're gonna want
Speaker 1: to film this. And so Patrick, who was an incredible
Speaker 1: human being, saw what I was going through and saw
Speaker 1: what I was holding in, and he was sort of
Speaker 1: quickly fired up the cameras and just started talking to me,
Speaker 1: and he's like, what's going on, Come out? And I
Speaker 1: started talking about and I just broke down because it
Speaker 1: was just like, you know, it's the physical representation of
Speaker 1: the fact that she's not only dead but on some
Speaker 1: level forgotten by this neighborhood, you know. But also at
Speaker 1: that moment, I'm sort of like flooded with memories of
Speaker 1: why she was important to me. And this was a
Speaker 1: woman who, for a good part of my childhood I
Speaker 1: was scared because she was a classic Southern grandmother who
Speaker 1: would whoop your who would at least threaten to whoop
Speaker 1: your ass and sometimes pull off the shoe and whoop
Speaker 1: your ass in a very loving Southern grandma way. It
Speaker 1: would be super easy on United Shades to go, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go cry for an hour while you guys set up,
Speaker 1: and I'll come back and I'll be fresh and ready
Speaker 1: to record. And it was just like, that's not the show,
Speaker 1: and that's that's not that's why I'm not a journalist.
Speaker 1: That's not my version of how to make a show
Speaker 1: like this At forty seven, where do you see herself
Speaker 1: and you uh, really valuing family, like you know, she
Speaker 1: was like the matriarch of the family and so everybody
Speaker 1: came through and everybody like checked on her. And so
Speaker 1: for me, like right now with COVID nineteen, there's people
Speaker 1: in my life that I'm like, I need to call
Speaker 1: that person just to see how they're doing, you know,
Speaker 1: because I'm recognizing on some level that I'm in a
Speaker 1: much more privileged position than some of my friends and
Speaker 1: family members and just want to be like, hey, I
Speaker 1: am right here if you need me. So I think
Speaker 1: that's a part of it. I would say, what else.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think there's also just a a respect
Speaker 1: for older black women that I think that was probably
Speaker 1: like started with her. Like if you're if you're a
Speaker 1: black woman over the age of like sixty five, and
Speaker 1: you walk up to me in the street and say
Speaker 1: come here, I'll be like, yes, ma'am. I think that
Speaker 1: that's you know, I'm just giving out a secret like
Speaker 1: and I and I'm definitely passing that down to to
Speaker 1: my daughters, Like we'll be out in the world and
Speaker 1: because they're young black girls, you know, black women will
Speaker 1: see them and nod at them. Or just say hello,
Speaker 1: And I will always be like, speak to them, say
Speaker 1: hello back. Do not leave a black woman hanging. But
Speaker 1: you're so like, whereas I will not tell him do
Speaker 1: you do that with white men? So I think really
Speaker 1: respect for black women, especially older black women. Like if
Speaker 1: an older black woman is laughing when I'm at a show,
Speaker 1: I will highlight her laugh because I feel like that's
Speaker 1: the Actually, that's the most important laugh in this room
Speaker 1: is the laugh of an older black woman. In that episode,
Speaker 1: your father said, making a living and making a life,
Speaker 1: there's two different things. And when you make a living,
Speaker 1: you also want to make a life. I'm curious when
Speaker 1: totally bias ends and you have that experience with true
Speaker 1: kind of mainstream success on some level and mainstream failure.
Speaker 1: I was going to leave that part out. No, that's
Speaker 1: that's actually the most important part. The recovering from failure
Speaker 1: is the was the I think was the key lesson
Speaker 1: from that. So when you're recovering from failure in that moment,
Speaker 1: not only how did you move forward, but were you
Speaker 1: thinking about those steps of how to make both the
Speaker 1: life and a career. Well, yeah, I think the reason
Speaker 1: that we moved back to the Bay area, it was
Speaker 1: about making a life. It wasn't about making a living.
Speaker 1: It felt like it was the opposite. I was running
Speaker 1: away from making a living because I was in New York.
Speaker 1: I was established. You know. We were definitely in an apartment.
Speaker 1: We couldn't afford anymore, so we could have moved to
Speaker 1: a smaller place, but again, my wife was pregnant with
Speaker 1: our second kid at that point, and it was like
Speaker 1: if we moved out to Queens where we don't know
Speaker 1: anybody and we have a second kid and we're trying
Speaker 1: to figure out life in Queens, and also we don't
Speaker 1: have anybody we can rely on that who can just
Speaker 1: sort of come be at the house and help us,
Speaker 1: Like we don't have family, whereas in the bar and
Speaker 1: my wife is like within two hours of all of
Speaker 1: her immediate family. So moving back to the Bay, it
Speaker 1: was definitely like choosing to make a life and then
Speaker 1: figure out how to make a living from there. Did
Speaker 1: you really feel like your career was in jeopardy thousand percent?
Speaker 1: And I say this with all the love do this
Speaker 1: man because I still know him and work with him.
Speaker 1: There as a comedian named Chris Spencer who is in
Speaker 1: commercials he's like writes for every comedian, every black comedian,
Speaker 1: especially that you know Chris Spencer has probably written him
Speaker 1: at least a line he's written for Obama, which he's
Speaker 1: just like he's got he's got a Rolodex that he's
Speaker 1: got everybody, and he's just a dude who everybody knows.
Speaker 1: And he used to host Chocolate Sundays. I think it's
Speaker 1: the laugh Factory in LA But he's like, he's like
Speaker 1: a super well known and love dude and works and
Speaker 1: you know he's he's he's if you see a commercial
Speaker 1: with a black dad and it might be him. But
Speaker 1: back in the nineties, when Arsenio Hall went off the air,
Speaker 1: they were like, basically like, oh, we need another black
Speaker 1: talk show because Arsenio Hall is gone and he has
Speaker 1: a whole demographic of people that we need to still
Speaker 1: make money off of, basically, and so Vibe Magazine started
Speaker 1: a talk show. I think it was just called Vibe
Speaker 1: and the host was an unknown black comedian named Chris Spencer,
Speaker 1: and I think he was the host that show for
Speaker 1: I mean, it was like, let's say it was two weeks,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't six months. And then I went years
Speaker 1: without seeing him again, and what happened is they replaced
Speaker 1: him with Sinbad, and then Sinbad had this show for
Speaker 1: a while and then the show got canceled. But I
Speaker 1: always remember Chris Spencer at like I went along because
Speaker 1: I was like, Oh, that guy, I can't wait to
Speaker 1: see him again. He was funny. And I'm not saying
Speaker 1: he wasn't working. He was dead. I don't know what
Speaker 1: he was doing, but he definitely did not go roll
Speaker 1: from that show into another TV show, whereas like it.
Speaker 1: A part of Conan O'Brien's legend is NBC only had
Speaker 1: him on week to week contracts and he was doing
Speaker 1: horrible in the ratings, and for some reason they let
Speaker 1: him keep going. So and I'm not saying Conan didn't
Speaker 1: deserve to go. Conan is funny. I like Conan, But
Speaker 1: I think that's the difference between being white in American
Speaker 1: being black in America. Chris Spencer got his two weeks,
Speaker 1: They're like moving on on, whereas Conan, they're like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, We're just gonna let this guy keep going
Speaker 1: and see what happens. Same thing with Seinfeld. The Seinfeld
Speaker 1: sitcom was not a number one hit for the first
Speaker 1: couple of years, it became a cult show and then
Speaker 1: grew into a number one hit. But they apparently they
Speaker 1: said NBC just wanted to hold on to him because
Speaker 1: they didn't want him to go somewhere else. His inability,
Speaker 1: and I think the industry's inability to publicly recognize why
Speaker 1: maybe they you know, they wrote it out with Conan
Speaker 1: for a decade. It wasn't an accident, no, And I
Speaker 1: think it's easy to it's easy to forget the origin
Speaker 1: when you are surrounded by your current day, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. Like, so I don't blame the I think,
Speaker 1: but the story is more interesting to me if you
Speaker 1: tell it the way that I remember it happening and
Speaker 1: the way that I've I've heard of people talk about
Speaker 1: the time that NBC was like, we don't want that
Speaker 1: guy to go somewhere else, so we're gonna let him
Speaker 1: do this sitcom. Now, I think things would change now.
Speaker 1: I don't think he would have got that kind of
Speaker 1: runway now because the media landscape has changed. But it happened,
Speaker 1: And I'm saying, like, at the same time, that's happening
Speaker 1: on NBC, Vibe Magazine and Vibe TV show and syndications going,
Speaker 1: that's enough from that guy. And so Chris Rock said
Speaker 1: to me when I got the show, and I said
Speaker 1: so many times, he's like, unfamous black guys never get
Speaker 1: TV shows. Unfamous white ones to get him all the time,
Speaker 1: which is which I think we can say is true,
Speaker 1: but I think the thing is or I can say
Speaker 1: it's true. But the thing that I was like, I'd
Speaker 1: always remembered Chris Spencer even before I got my show,
Speaker 1: because I was like, whatever happened to that guy? Now
Speaker 1: I've come to find out that he's he like opens
Speaker 1: for he actually opens for Chris Rock and Seinfeld. I think,
Speaker 1: so he's doing fine. Everybody can't have their own show.
Speaker 1: But it was just to me, it was like I
Speaker 1: didn't think that. I was that somebody's gonna be like, oh,
Speaker 1: you failed at a TV show, we should get you
Speaker 1: another one. And you know, so I didn't know what
Speaker 1: the next step was that was going to keep my
Speaker 1: growing family, you know, above water. What did Chris Rock
Speaker 1: hit you about building a career? That's funny. I just
Speaker 1: talked to him recently and we don't talk that often,
Speaker 1: but he said this thing to me several times, and
Speaker 1: I think that and I think I start to take
Speaker 1: it in more. He's like, you would have made it
Speaker 1: without me. I just helped you get Basically get through
Speaker 1: a door that wasn't open to you, is basically how
Speaker 1: he puts it. But he was like, you were working hard,
Speaker 1: your money you somehow He's like, basically like, don't give
Speaker 1: me too much credit. And I think at the time
Speaker 1: with you Toty buzz like yeah, it's like, Okay, I
Speaker 1: think I'm gonna give you all the credit. And I
Speaker 1: certainly think it's It means a lot to say this
Speaker 1: guy opened a door, because I think it encourages other
Speaker 1: people to open the doors for people, and so I
Speaker 1: think I've tried to take that and open doors for
Speaker 1: people who the door wouldn't have been opened for, while
Speaker 1: at the same time recognizing don't don't bite yourself on
Speaker 1: the back for two, don't give yourself too much credit
Speaker 1: for opening the door for somebody you're you're supposed to do.
Speaker 1: I wonder how much living and working in Berkeley has
Speaker 1: shaped your perspective of what a life and career should
Speaker 1: look like. The thing I like about living in the
Speaker 1: Bay areas that there are people here who know who
Speaker 1: I am but it's very clear to me that they
Speaker 1: know who I am and are like, oh, that's Kamal,
Speaker 1: Like there are occasional times when people like have that
Speaker 1: sort of that's the guy from TV. But I think
Speaker 1: I've been around in the Bay Area long enough that
Speaker 1: like people feel invested in me in a way that
Speaker 1: I really like that is not the same in others.
Speaker 1: That would not be the same flight state in New
Speaker 1: York or stay in LA I think that like, you know,
Speaker 1: being able to make a life in a place that
Speaker 1: is that is a real place with real people, and
Speaker 1: I have real and I've known people for a long time.
Speaker 1: Like I just had a phone call last night with
Speaker 1: a guy who's an great activist and it speaks truth
Speaker 1: to power and somebody that I like to rely on
Speaker 1: and talk to. And he was sort of reminding me,
Speaker 1: he's like, I was trying to find your email address,
Speaker 1: and I realized that he found like an email from
Speaker 1: twenty and ten when he had seen me performing in
Speaker 1: an art gallery in downtown Oakland. But the art gallery's
Speaker 1: not even there anymore. It's probably a parking lot now.
Speaker 1: And he was just like man like sort of had
Speaker 1: that moment of like you have come a long way,
Speaker 1: and also a little bit like I appreciate the fact
Speaker 1: that I can still talk to you, you know, like
Speaker 1: so and I'm just like, I appreciate the fact that
Speaker 1: you still want to talk to me, that you don't
Speaker 1: see me as somebody who like got too big or
Speaker 1: something or got a big head or something. So for me,
Speaker 1: that's why I like living out here is that I'm
Speaker 1: still just a person who I like to live in
Speaker 1: the bar because I like to live here, and I
Speaker 1: like to live here before all this career stuff happened.
Speaker 1: You know, you and I have been talking for five
Speaker 1: years now, if you can believe that, Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: it was a defining moment how we met. I woke
Speaker 1: up this morning and I was like, did we tell
Speaker 1: the story again? Is that what it was? We've never
Speaker 1: told the story publicly. Oh that's funny. Oh that's hilarious.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that. So this story, um, come out
Speaker 1: was here and part of my life and a witness
Speaker 1: to something that yeah, I've not shared on the show.
Speaker 1: Five years ago Jesus Christ's five years ago. Um, I
Speaker 1: can't believe it's been five years, But five years ago
Speaker 1: I was I was a creative director at the Roxy
Speaker 1: Theater over in the mission in San Francisco, and we
Speaker 1: were desperate to figure out interesting events that would bring
Speaker 1: in folks from all across the community. I mean, running
Speaker 1: in our house theater is an absolute thankless and pain
Speaker 1: in the ass of a job, but but but one
Speaker 1: I love doing. But it was so so difficult. And
Speaker 1: we had this idea of screening the film The Last Dragon.
Speaker 1: And I knew, for some reason or another that you
Speaker 1: love this film, that this is a film you grew
Speaker 1: up on, and so I reached out to you, and
Speaker 1: much like your friend who had a call with yesterday,
Speaker 1: you know, you responded almost immediately, and I was like, cool,
Speaker 1: let's do it, let's set up the screening, let's figure
Speaker 1: it out. So we got together, we talked about it.
Speaker 1: Then we started to figure out how can we get
Speaker 1: Timemack here to San Francisco. I think he lives in
Speaker 1: New York. You hadn't met him, like six months prior
Speaker 1: or something like that. Yeah, when I had lived in
Speaker 1: New York. He is friends with somebody who worked on
Speaker 1: Totally Biased. And you know, if you're at some point
Speaker 1: The Last Dragon, he come up like it probably does
Speaker 1: once a year for me. But and so she was like,
Speaker 1: I know him, and I was like, you know him
Speaker 1: because he was another dude to go back to Chris Spencer.
Speaker 1: We're trying it together. He disappeared. He did the Last
Speaker 1: Dragon and then like popped up in an episode of
Speaker 1: a Different World and then never was to be and
Speaker 1: like and I was like, so this is sort of
Speaker 1: fed into my black guys black guys in SHOWBIS disappeared,
Speaker 1: so you get in contact with him. We arrange for
Speaker 1: him to come. I think the theater takes care of
Speaker 1: his travel. We get his ticket, his hotel. I mentioned
Speaker 1: this because the Roxy Theater is a non for profit,
Speaker 1: which is really just a complicated way of saying it
Speaker 1: has no money. It makes no money. It has no money.
Speaker 1: The people who work there are doing it because they
Speaker 1: love doing it, So the theater has no money. So
Speaker 1: it was a big deal for us to fly him out.
Speaker 1: We put him up. The night before the screening, I
Speaker 1: get a call from come out. I didn't answer it.
Speaker 1: I didn't see it, and you left the voicemail and
Speaker 1: your voicemails like Sam, I hate to say it, but
Speaker 1: the other shoe was dropped because if he had gone
Speaker 1: so easily. It didn't all come together so quickly. Everything
Speaker 1: had gone so well, and I get that voicemail and
Speaker 1: my stomach just drops, and I call you back and
Speaker 1: you're like, look, he really wants to be compensated for
Speaker 1: the appearance. You know, he wants to sell merche, he
Speaker 1: wants to do all these things. He feels like the
Speaker 1: theater's sold out and we're profiting off of him. Again,
Speaker 1: I think Nat, we made like four hundred dollars. Well,
Speaker 1: I just I just was like, I remember what he
Speaker 1: called me. I was like, hey man, I'm not making
Speaker 1: a dime, like I was just doing it for fun.
Speaker 1: Like I was like, and I was happy that it
Speaker 1: came together because I was. And I was like, and
Speaker 1: I don't work for the theater, so I'm gonna because
Speaker 1: I felt bad. I was like everything he was saying,
Speaker 1: I was like, sure, we all want to make money, great, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know what the money is to be made.
Speaker 1: It was already sold out. Yeah. And it also, let's
Speaker 1: be clear, it was not in a It was not
Speaker 1: like it's some sort of multi thousands. He cast right
Speaker 1: two and twenty five seats two. You remember the exact
Speaker 1: I do. It was my job for a year. It
Speaker 1: was two hundred and twenty five seats, you know. Five
Speaker 1: of those were for staff, ten of those were for
Speaker 1: you and your friends. He had some guests. I think
Speaker 1: we sold like maybe one hundred and seventy five tickets.
Speaker 1: You know. I have this call with him and he's like, look,
Speaker 1: I want to get paid. I tell him the situation
Speaker 1: and he is understandable. Actually, And so the next day
Speaker 1: happens that the screening is going to happen. Before the screening,
Speaker 1: we set up this meet and greet. Before the meet
Speaker 1: and greet, you and I and Timach and I think
Speaker 1: my friend Ian, we go to like a Mexican restaurant. Yes,
Speaker 1: on my Instagram there's a picture of him with a burrito. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we have. And it's totally a fun meal and we're
Speaker 1: hanging out, and I think for you, it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of doing this thing with a childhood hero
Speaker 1: of mine. It's the I'm meeting my hero. People say,
Speaker 1: don't meet your heroes, but I'm meeting my hero. Right. Well,
Speaker 1: we'll get to that. So so we do the meet
Speaker 1: and greet. The meet and greek goes, well, a bunch
Speaker 1: of people show up like, and it's people from all over.
Speaker 1: There's folks from from Oakland and East Bay and South
Speaker 1: Bay and SF and a blacker audience. I think then
Speaker 1: the Roxy probably gets on in your average evening. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, that's an understatement. It was absolutely a blacker audience.
Speaker 1: And something I tried really hard to figure out is
Speaker 1: that how do we get more you know, Mexicans and
Speaker 1: black people into the theater. And it was a real
Speaker 1: challenge and I think that happened because of you. And
Speaker 1: so this meet and Greek goes great. We show the movie.
Speaker 1: It is to date and I tell this to everyone,
Speaker 1: one of the best experiences of watching a movie I've
Speaker 1: ever had in my life. It's black, rocky horror pictures
Speaker 1: show like people are like like saying the words, they're
Speaker 1: singing the songs, they're dancing, they're riffing, you know, they're
Speaker 1: they're making jokes on the joke. They're making jokes on
Speaker 1: the joke. Everyone is about two drinks and it's perfect. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And afterward we do this Q and A. We get
Speaker 1: on stage. It's Kamal, myself and Timac and you, and
Speaker 1: I asked him a bunch of questions. It goes pretty well,
Speaker 1: and then we opened it up to the audience because
Speaker 1: the audience is like dying to ask questions. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I remember. Maybe you remember this better than I do,
Speaker 1: but I remember there was some question from a woman
Speaker 1: in the audience where he had like a pretty homophobic response.
Speaker 1: The thing I remember is that, first of all, this
Speaker 1: is just you know why people hate doing Q and
Speaker 1: as with audiences because the audiences get sort of like it.
Speaker 1: And I felt like there was something where some question
Speaker 1: was asked and I felt like he didn't understand it
Speaker 1: the way it was asked. Yeah, and he sort of
Speaker 1: his response was like whoa, whoa, Hey, no, no dude,
Speaker 1: because you were underplaying. You totally saved it. He like
Speaker 1: bombed and you were like, let me get you out
Speaker 1: of this with a joke. Yeah, that's I remember. I
Speaker 1: definitely remember being like, we're almost at the finish line here,
Speaker 1: like we don't work. That's how I felt, because I
Speaker 1: remember we looked at each other, we were like what
Speaker 1: the fuck is it? And I be like I got
Speaker 1: And I felt like at that point, I felt like
Speaker 1: because the whole night I'd sort of been his I'd
Speaker 1: sort of been there to like sort of lead him
Speaker 1: through and I felt responsible in all the ways that
Speaker 1: like now he's mad he's getting paid. Sam is like
Speaker 1: looking at me, like why did you get me involved
Speaker 1: in this? And I felt like I am here to
Speaker 1: jump on grenades, like I'm here to, like this is
Speaker 1: I'm here to and I will happily. And also I
Speaker 1: felt like because I wasn't didn't have a financial stake
Speaker 1: in it, the least I could do was jump Like
Speaker 1: I was like I can happily jump on grenades and
Speaker 1: feel like I'm just doing what I need to do.
Speaker 1: So and it was a soul off thing and people
Speaker 1: were happy, but there was like just a couple like
Speaker 1: people's Ferrell questions combined with his sort of like maybe
Speaker 1: like I can't believe I'm not getting paid for this.
Speaker 1: There was just some weirdness in the air that I
Speaker 1: felt like I had to keep jumping on grenades. You
Speaker 1: totally did, and I never felt any kind of like
Speaker 1: it'll will towards you. I felt like we were both
Speaker 1: co managing the best we could. It ended up being
Speaker 1: a great event until afterward it ends, and you know,
Speaker 1: for people who don't know, like we try to arrange
Speaker 1: these things to be as special as possible, and so
Speaker 1: we set up this this meet and greet, signing autographs,
Speaker 1: doing all this, and I said it on stage and
Speaker 1: there was about fifty people waiting in line, which is
Speaker 1: way more than what it usually is. Usually it's like
Speaker 1: you got like ten nerds, like in a corner waiting
Speaker 1: for you. Well, I think it's also has been to
Speaker 1: the fact that nobody had seen him since the movie
Speaker 1: had come out in eighty five. People who have been
Speaker 1: like waiting for like thirty years to talk to this guy,
Speaker 1: you know, so they've been waiting thirty years. We set
Speaker 1: up this line, we pull out this, this step and repeat.
Speaker 1: We set him up on stage. It takes five minutes
Speaker 1: and the line forms and a few people start going
Speaker 1: up and I'm looking at it and things seem to
Speaker 1: be going all right. And then I notice people would
Speaker 1: talk to him and then they would leave and they
Speaker 1: went past the line and they were like, look, he's
Speaker 1: charging you. He's charging us twenty dollars for a photo
Speaker 1: or a signature, which I had I obviously did not
Speaker 1: know he was going to be like charging people money.
Speaker 1: And one by one you just saw the line disappear.
Speaker 1: You know what, what fifty turned into thirty five, and
Speaker 1: thirty five turned into twenty and then there were like
Speaker 1: probably still ten people who did come up and pay
Speaker 1: the twenty five thirty dollars. There was definitely people who
Speaker 1: are like, well, I have been waiting thirty years for
Speaker 1: this moment, and I think the thing that I remember
Speaker 1: was and this because because I now remember I met him.
Speaker 1: I met him at comic con, where that's the thing, right,
Speaker 1: like you go meet like I remember, we would went
Speaker 1: the same comic con. I met him at We like
Speaker 1: my friend Kevin Avery from the Denzel podcast the title together,
Speaker 1: saw Edward James almost there for Battlestar Galactica, and Kevin
Speaker 1: walked up like, Hi, man, fellow industry member. You're in
Speaker 1: the entertainment industry. I write for a TV show. I'm
Speaker 1: in the entertainment industry. How are you doing sir? He
Speaker 1: should have walked up with that energy, and Edward James
Speaker 1: was like, I'm doing great, you random stranger, and Kevin goes,
Speaker 1: can I have a photo, fellow member of the industry,
Speaker 1: And Edward James almost goes of course, random stranger twenty
Speaker 1: dollars and Kevin was like, had that so I'd seen
Speaker 1: that moment before like, wait what, and but Kevin was
Speaker 1: already pot committed, and so he gave him twenty dollars
Speaker 1: for a photo with Edward James, almost even though he
Speaker 1: was like, I wasn't. And so that's Kaimak was coming
Speaker 1: out of. Isn't that comic con culture where it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's twenty dollars for a photo. Yeah. So I was
Speaker 1: more than pot committed. I was absolutely all in. And
Speaker 1: afterward he is just like livid, he is angry, and
Speaker 1: I'll never forget this. The theater is cleared out. I'm
Speaker 1: going to the stage to talk to him. You and
Speaker 1: your wife are there. I think my literally, I think
Speaker 1: Melissa was like I think there's one more grenade feed
Speaker 1: jump off. So the conversation went like this. He is like,
Speaker 1: you should have put the step and repeat and my
Speaker 1: table out in front of the lobby, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: there was no room to even do that even if
Speaker 1: we could do that. Um, you know you didn't set
Speaker 1: this up right. You fucked up this whole event. You've
Speaker 1: cheated me out of money. He is truly yelling at
Speaker 1: me and angry, deeply deeply angry and frustrated, and I
Speaker 1: am by the way a tender twenty one years old.
Speaker 1: You were that weird twenty one, but you look thirty five,
Speaker 1: so people didn't know. I tried to I tried to
Speaker 1: act thirty five. I don't know if I looked thirty five,
Speaker 1: now would yeah, I mean, you didn't look thirty five,
Speaker 1: but you carried yourself nobody. I didn't realize you were
Speaker 1: twenty one until you said it, and I was like,
Speaker 1: oh you you definitely. I mean, you were also trying
Speaker 1: to be you're the creative director of this theater, so
Speaker 1: you're trying to carry yourself like a full on like
Speaker 1: of course I have this job, yeah, no, which you
Speaker 1: have to do. And he was just really really deeply upset,
Speaker 1: and I remember you tried to calm it down because
Speaker 1: it was over. The whole thing was over. But I
Speaker 1: think he had had like so I was like, can't
Speaker 1: we just you know, basically like, well that didn't work anyway.
Speaker 1: It's sort of like whatever it is, it's over. People
Speaker 1: had a good time, but you know this is and
Speaker 1: this is what to take it back earlier that I
Speaker 1: can't imagine being a dude who was in that movie
Speaker 1: and it wasn't a financial hit of like it wasn't
Speaker 1: a big box, but it was a movie that had
Speaker 1: long legs. And every black kid who was from the
Speaker 1: ages of like eight to eighteen, probably thirty maybe saw
Speaker 1: that movie and has a special place for it. And
Speaker 1: everywhere he goes, people are like, you're the guy from
Speaker 1: that where you been? And for whatever reason, and he
Speaker 1: did some theeded some other roles, but nothing as big
Speaker 1: as that, And for whatever reason, his career did not
Speaker 1: continue along the path that you would have thought it
Speaker 1: would have the way that it might have had for
Speaker 1: he had he been had Conan O'Brien started in the
Speaker 1: Last Dragon. So all of this is totally true, and
Speaker 1: I'm glad you're providing this kind of context because in
Speaker 1: the moment I was not processing Yeah, why would you? Right?
Speaker 1: I mean, what I later understood was the sort of
Speaker 1: decade long trauma that he had, and these feelings of
Speaker 1: not totally making it and feeling a little unsatisfied and
Speaker 1: like he came up short. But I'll tell you, I'll
Speaker 1: never forget. The screening ends, you go home, I say
Speaker 1: goodbye to you and Melissa and time ax like, well,
Speaker 1: so you give me a ride back to the hotel.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, you want to you want me to
Speaker 1: drive you like you want to spend more, you want
Speaker 1: to spend more time with me. It was, as you
Speaker 1: can imagine, one of the most uncomfortable car rides. It's
Speaker 1: it's dead silent. When we did speak, I think I
Speaker 1: was like, hey, man, I'm really sorry about this. Again,
Speaker 1: I'm driving him in my car to his hotel that
Speaker 1: we paid for. Yeah, And that was that. And then
Speaker 1: the next morning he calls me and he's like, look,
Speaker 1: I'm bumping up my flight, like I need to get
Speaker 1: me a new flight, and also, can you drive me
Speaker 1: to the airport? And I was like, look, man, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be honest with you. You let me know when
Speaker 1: you want to go to the airport. I'll call you
Speaker 1: an uber. I'll cover it. I'll cover It's not even Also, again,
Speaker 1: people don't understand this. None of this is like on
Speaker 1: the theater's dime, Like I'm just paying for it out
Speaker 1: of my money. You're just trying to pay for this
Speaker 1: to be done. I'm paying for this to be done.
Speaker 1: And so I call this uber up he goes and
Speaker 1: I will say, you know, on that call, he was
Speaker 1: vaguely apologetic, but he basically spun in his like, well
Speaker 1: now you've now you know, now this is a lesson.
Speaker 1: This is a good lesson for you, And I will
Speaker 1: give credit. I'll give credit to him. That was a
Speaker 1: learning experience and it happened to be three months before
Speaker 1: I moved to LA and I will say that experience
Speaker 1: taught me so much about doing this show for four
Speaker 1: years and now in my own life as someone trying
Speaker 1: to make and direct movies, it did teach me a lot. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: I mean it's I mean everything that he sort of
Speaker 1: did and said, now make it j Lob. It definitely
Speaker 1: was a great show business lesson that you That was
Speaker 1: like a pummic stone to your ego at that point.
Speaker 1: Was it tough for you to see a childhood hero
Speaker 1: like that? I mean, it was just, you know, it's
Speaker 1: the classic thing, don't meet your heroes. I still I
Speaker 1: talked to him afterwards. I mean, if he hit me
Speaker 1: up now, I talked to him, and I understood, here's
Speaker 1: the thing. Everybody in shows just felt like, wait, man,
Speaker 1: am I being taken advantage of? And so I understood
Speaker 1: where he was coming from the suspicion. I just was
Speaker 1: trying to be like, this is just what it was
Speaker 1: you know, you know, so this is not one of
Speaker 1: those occasions. This is not yet nobody, This is just
Speaker 1: exactly is exactly what you see before we go. Since
Speaker 1: we're on the subject of career and path, we're in
Speaker 1: such an unusual moment, a scary moment, and I think
Speaker 1: if you have the privilege of doing so, I think
Speaker 1: many of us are taking stock of what matters, what
Speaker 1: we want in life, what we want in the future,
Speaker 1: What are those things for you? It really comes down
Speaker 1: to making my kids path as easy as you can
Speaker 1: as a parent, just as far as like I want
Speaker 1: them to have access to the things they need and
Speaker 1: while also absolutely creating a real sense of responsibility and
Speaker 1: generosity in them and gratitude like those things are, Like
Speaker 1: I want them to have an easy path, and I
Speaker 1: want them to also not take that for granted. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. Yeah, So it's like, so my
Speaker 1: entire like any sort of career as goals I have
Speaker 1: are related to trying to make sure that when I
Speaker 1: hand them off to their adult life, that it's like
Speaker 1: it's smooth the transition as possible, like you know, like well,
Speaker 1: at the same time, so like I always say this,
Speaker 1: like if I was just a single person who wasn't
Speaker 1: married and didn't have any kids, I would just sort
Speaker 1: of ride this United Shade show out until the wheels.
Speaker 1: Will often just sort of like it's definitely a living
Speaker 1: that's a good living for me to have. But because
Speaker 1: of them, my kids, I'm like, Okay, well, I have
Speaker 1: to sort of be thinking four or five steps ahead.
Speaker 1: But then on top of that, I have to make
Speaker 1: sure that the work that I'm trying to get and
Speaker 1: trying to produce is still something that makes me feel
Speaker 1: like I'm doing good work in the world, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? I wonder how has this presidency in
Speaker 1: this climate affected how you're a parent and what you
Speaker 1: tell your kids. I mean, I feel super glad that
Speaker 1: my kids know what's going on, that I'm not trying
Speaker 1: to hide it from them or that I feel like
Speaker 1: they can't handle it. I feel super great that my
Speaker 1: kids know what coronavirus is and COVID nineteen is and
Speaker 1: know that Trump is not doing a good job of it.
Speaker 1: And because to me, it feels like then we can
Speaker 1: sort of I can move through the house more easily
Speaker 1: than if I was like, turn off the TV, turn
Speaker 1: off the TV. You know, like which we do that
Speaker 1: sometimes because sometimes the President gets pretty explicit in his
Speaker 1: press conferences. But you know, but to me, it's like
Speaker 1: it sort of affirms that me and Melissa are right
Speaker 1: to be as honest with our kids as we think
Speaker 1: we can be, and even being more honest than we
Speaker 1: think we should be sometimes because they will also let
Speaker 1: you know when they've had enough. So I think I'm
Speaker 1: glad to be able to have these conversations with my
Speaker 1: kids in an honest way and not feel like I
Speaker 1: have to protect them from the truth of the world
Speaker 1: all the time. Are you finding any way to be
Speaker 1: hopeful about our future, especially in an election year? I mean,
Speaker 1: I do tend to have an operating system that says
Speaker 1: things over a long timeline, things move in a more
Speaker 1: progressive and inclusive direction in American history, you know, and
Speaker 1: maybe even the world, but certainly in American history if
Speaker 1: you go back where we started to where we are now.
Speaker 1: But I don't believe that that necessarily doesn't mean there
Speaker 1: aren't hiccups and two steps back for one step forward.
Speaker 1: And right now it feels like we're very much in
Speaker 1: a two steps back place right now, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: mean we can't get out of this. But I also
Speaker 1: really I think it's important to accept the fact that
Speaker 1: we may not take steps forward for a few more years,
Speaker 1: you know, that it's not like once we get through COVID.
Speaker 1: You know. I think it's a very real thing that
Speaker 1: Trump is the president again, you know, And it's also
Speaker 1: a very real thing that, like, you know, Harvard scientists
Speaker 1: just recently said that we should probably be indoors until
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, you know, So you know what, having
Speaker 1: said that, doctor Sanjay Gupta said he hears there might
Speaker 1: be a vaccine by the spring. So I'm taking it
Speaker 1: all the information none none of it from the Surgeon General,
Speaker 1: Harvard and Sanjay goop. Four more years, I think it's
Speaker 1: so I think that we have to accept that reality.
Speaker 1: And then the thing that gives me hope is that
Speaker 1: it's on us as individuals to do everything we can
Speaker 1: to make that four years better because we cannot rely
Speaker 1: on our federal government even if Joe Biden does win.
Speaker 1: We can't just go who All right, Joe, you take
Speaker 1: it from here. I'm gonna go back to UH to
Speaker 1: working on myself. To paraphrase Mark Merrit, I didn't see
Speaker 1: that reference coming. Yeah, I'm always gotta I'm always for
Speaker 1: a Marin reference. But uh so, yeah, I think that
Speaker 1: it's on us. And so like I just did this
Speaker 1: thing Mass for the People with Pastor Michael McBride here
Speaker 1: from who's in Berkeley as a church in Berkeley, where
Speaker 1: he wanted me to help him raise a million dollars
Speaker 1: for Mass for black and brown folks and poor folks
Speaker 1: who are struggling right now to not to be protected
Speaker 1: during this COVID nineteen. And in that process, Jack from
Speaker 1: Twitter was like announced that he was giving a billion
Speaker 1: dollars of his money to COVID to fight COVID nineteen.
Speaker 1: And I was like, huh, Jack from Twitter follows me,
Speaker 1: I don't know him, but maybe I'll just ask him
Speaker 1: to give money to Pastor McBride, and he did, and
Speaker 1: he announced he's given him a million dollars. So like,
Speaker 1: I think, because of my dad, I don't like asking
Speaker 1: anybody for a dollar if I can help it. But
Speaker 1: it was like this moment of like, Camo, are you
Speaker 1: who you say you are? And as much as you
Speaker 1: might feel embarrassed or or feel weird about asking a
Speaker 1: billionaire for money, it's four people who need it and
Speaker 1: you may be the only path. And not that I'm
Speaker 1: not giving myself credit, it's the same thing, like I
Speaker 1: was a conduit to make this happen, and then Pastor
Speaker 1: McBride was the one who actually got it across the
Speaker 1: finish line. But for me, it's like, that's how we
Speaker 1: get through this, is that we all have to sort
Speaker 1: of figure out ways to, as I say, be the
Speaker 1: surgeon general you want to see in the world. You
Speaker 1: have to figure out ways to improve your community and
Speaker 1: not just sort of think about yourself in this moment.
Speaker 1: And that's the only way we get through this through
Speaker 1: whatever the next four years are, whether it's with Trump
Speaker 1: or without him. Well, I'll tell you, I just want
Speaker 1: to thank you for very often not thinking about yourself.
Speaker 1: And I can say that both as someone who's known
Speaker 1: you for five years and has seen it in action
Speaker 1: and someone who's been following all the good work that
Speaker 1: you do. So I really I thank you for all that.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, if the thing that I was
Speaker 1: trying to do with you in time, OK, back in
Speaker 1: the day, just trying to jump on some grenades, if
Speaker 1: I have the privilege to be able to take a
Speaker 1: grenade shot I'll take it that grenade shot and you know,
Speaker 1: so that's what I'm still trying to do. I owe
Speaker 1: you a grenade shot. So let me know when I
Speaker 1: can do that for you, and I will. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like the Godfather. One day, I'll come to you for
Speaker 1: a favor. But until then, consider this a gift. On
Speaker 1: COVID nineteenth birthday, Kamal Bell, thank you very much, Thank you,
Speaker 1: and that's our show special thanks this week to Kelly
Speaker 1: Rafferty and w Kamal Bell. To learn more about Kamal,
Speaker 1: be sure to visit our site at www dot talk
Speaker 1: easypod dot com. On that site, you'll find a back
Speaker 1: catalog of some of our most recent episodes with folks
Speaker 1: like Noam Chomsky, Federal Rourke, Naomi Klein, Doctor Ashish Ja, Juliette, Lewis,
Speaker 1: Sam Waterston, Alison Pill, Morgan Parker, and Hayley Bennett. You
Speaker 1: can also find and subscribe to this show on Spotify,
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Speaker 1: and you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram
Speaker 1: at talk Easypod. You can also drop us a line
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Speaker 1: with a friend online, with the family member, anyone that
Speaker 1: you think may be interested in what we're doing here
Speaker 1: week after week. As always, this podcast would not be
Speaker 1: possible without our incredible team. Our executive producer is j
Speaker 1: Nick Sobravo. Our associate producer is Nicky Spina. Illustrations by
Speaker 1: Christiana Chanoy, graphics by Ian Jones, music by Dylan Peck
Speaker 1: and Jin Sang. Our editors are Andre Lynn and kat Owen.
Speaker 1: Our social media is by Dejoe Washington. Our engineer is
Speaker 1: Tim Moore, and we tape ont of your recording here
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles, California, Well not this week. This week
Speaker 1: is in my closet. And finally, the show is produced
Speaker 1: by Caroline Reebok. I'm Sam Fragoso. Thank you for listening
Speaker 1: to Talk Easy. I'll see you back here next Sunday
Speaker 1: with Jane Fonda. Until then, I have a safe freak everyone,