Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hi, everyone, welcome to Talk Easy, a weekly podcast
Speaker 1: of long form interviews with fascinating people from all walks
Speaker 1: of life. I'm your host, Sam Fragoso. Just a reminder
Speaker 1: off the top. You can subscribe to the show on
Speaker 1: iTunes and SoundCloud or your favorite podcasting app. You can
Speaker 1: also email the show at talk easypod at gmail dot com,
Speaker 1: and please feel free to review our show on iTunes
Speaker 1: as well. Every review helps us reach new listeners. This
Speaker 1: week on the program, we have comedians sociopolitical commentator w
Speaker 1: Kamal Born in Paulo Alto but raised in Chicago, Bell
Speaker 1: came to prominence in twenty twelve with Totally Bias, an
Speaker 1: FX show produced with the help of Chris Rock that
Speaker 1: served as a springboard for Bell's biting, observational humor on
Speaker 1: race in America. Although the show was short lived, the
Speaker 1: program catapulted Bell into the spotlight. He didn't waste time
Speaker 1: after Totally Bias his cancelation, instead hosting Kamal Right Now,
Speaker 1: a unique radio show in collaboration with Ka lw and
Speaker 1: creating the Denzel Washington is the Greatest Actor of All
Speaker 1: Time period podcast, which yes, is a real, very amazing thing.
Speaker 1: That exists in the world. Over the next three weeks,
Speaker 1: Bell will be making his big return to television in
Speaker 1: two different formats. On April twenty fourth, United Shades of
Speaker 1: America will premiere on CNN as the network's first comedy series.
Speaker 1: The wide ranging show sees Bell traveling across America, interacting
Speaker 1: and sometimes infiltrating unseemly subcultures like the New KKK or
Speaker 1: the type of hipsterism mocked in Portlandia. I wish the
Speaker 1: man's sister to kick your own cotton. You and me both, sir.
Speaker 1: You don't take a champion race hord and made it
Speaker 1: to a mule. We don't dumb it down for him.
Speaker 1: I'll try to keep up. There's a thing about poorly
Speaker 1: about by hipster? Yes? Now is that a dirty word here?
Speaker 1: Hipster is the involved before Land. Five days after that premiere,
Speaker 1: Bell's first stand up special, titled Semi Prominent Negro, will
Speaker 1: debut on Showtime. Like all of his work, the special,
Speaker 1: directed by Morgan Spurlock, simultaneously tackles and pokes fun at
Speaker 1: issues of race, gentrification, and just being a dad in
Speaker 1: the twenty first century. Last week I sat down with
Speaker 1: come Out to talk about all these projects and more.
Speaker 1: But first we started on a rather unexpected note. But
Speaker 1: Paul Thomas Anderson's nineteen ninety eight film Magnolia. I mean,
Speaker 1: I like, I forgot how much I like it. Sort
Speaker 1: of to me, I think it's even better I liked
Speaker 1: him yesterday than I did originally. Originally I think I
Speaker 1: was a little bit like, you're just trying to be
Speaker 1: weird movie, And now I'm like, oh, no, you're an artist.
Speaker 1: But what do you think about the frogs? I think
Speaker 1: the frogs to me? Or I like the frogs. I mean,
Speaker 1: I can't. I can't come from a like a film
Speaker 1: like I can't. I feel like the movies about random
Speaker 1: random things that you think are that you try to
Speaker 1: make meaning out of, Like that's the theme, that's the
Speaker 1: theme that a movie that you try to we try
Speaker 1: to put our lot. We try to take these random
Speaker 1: events to put them in a sense of order or
Speaker 1: the universe is telling us something, and I feel like
Speaker 1: what the movie eventually says. Sometimes it just rains frogs,
Speaker 1: like like you're you're doing all this work in your
Speaker 1: head to try to connect the dots and go, oh
Speaker 1: that's why. No, sometimes it just rains from and I
Speaker 1: feel like that is the thing I remember the movie
Speaker 1: because I feel like in my life sometimes like sometimes
Speaker 1: it just rains frogs. Well, when has that happened for you?
Speaker 1: For me, just when things happen where you're like, like
Speaker 1: if you get caught up in the why why is this?
Speaker 1: Why would this be happening? You just have to go?
Speaker 1: Sometimes it just rains frogs. So like any career frustration
Speaker 1: or kids, Like with kids, like why would this be
Speaker 1: the thing? Why would you fall off the thing now
Speaker 1: and hit your head when we have to go? You know,
Speaker 1: like why would you? Why would why would the thing
Speaker 1: that somebody promised you I was gonna do and they
Speaker 1: double checked eight times it would fall out the hour?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Like stuff where you do
Speaker 1: like sometimes rang So just for me between a very
Speaker 1: sort of tertiary belief in God and that I get
Speaker 1: that's my life philosophy. Are you gonna tell your kids that?
Speaker 1: Like when when when they need advice? Were you gonna say,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes, I absolutely will. Me and I have
Speaker 1: my oldest daughter, she's five, and we have a really
Speaker 1: good really I think we feel like we have a
Speaker 1: really good like she bull she's should be five in me.
Speaker 1: But we have a really good sort of like just
Speaker 1: like you know, like it's like a really uh direct
Speaker 1: relationship that way, which I'm really happy about. I feel
Speaker 1: like i'm lying to or run anything. You mentioned your
Speaker 1: kid who is five, And I was watching the first
Speaker 1: episode this morning, and I thought it reminded me in
Speaker 1: a way of did you read Oh, yes, the World?
Speaker 1: And yes, yeah, I listened to it to read it
Speaker 1: to me. Oh did he do the audiobook? No, he
Speaker 1: just read it to me. Oh, he just read it.
Speaker 1: I didn't. You guys were that? I just call him.
Speaker 1: I just call him and say, chapter twelve. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: writing an article right now. Now, it's fine, you gotta
Speaker 1: do it. Yeah, I'm ready for bedtime. He said, you'd
Speaker 1: read it to me? No, Yeah, he did the audiobook. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because of course he should do. I think it's weird
Speaker 1: when people don't do the audio book. A lot of
Speaker 1: people don't. I think it's stupid. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: it's an old school model. Now because of podcasting, you
Speaker 1: expect everybody to do the book. Like. This is totally unrelated,
Speaker 1: but I'm a big Chicago Bulls Phil Jackson fan from
Speaker 1: back in the day. So Phil Jackson has a book
Speaker 1: and he doesn't do the audio book. Yeah, what is
Speaker 1: it called? Again? He's got several books he's got like
Speaker 1: I thought one was The Game or some shit or
Speaker 1: he has a bunch. The one I think this was
Speaker 1: like the one about him and Kobe and the Lakers,
Speaker 1: the last one he did, but it was just like
Speaker 1: it was some guy going And then I talked to Kobe,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, you didn't talk to Kobe Jackson. Philip
Speaker 1: Jackson's a personality, so it's not like I don't know
Speaker 1: his voice. You may have talked to Phil Jackon, you
Speaker 1: not talk to doubt he talked to Phil Jackson. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I'm working actually just uh, this hasn't been an
Speaker 1: ounce ship, but it will be. But I just I
Speaker 1: sold a book. I sold a book. I'm writing a book.
Speaker 1: And they asked me if I wanted to do the
Speaker 1: audio rights and I was like, yeah, I want to
Speaker 1: do the audio like that would be weird to get
Speaker 1: why it's an act to do it rights in the book.
Speaker 1: Thanks man, that sounds good. Sometimes it rains frogs, sometimes
Speaker 1: it rains frogs. That book is a letter to his son, Yes,
Speaker 1: and I the reason I brought it up just because
Speaker 1: it in any way, is this show going to be
Speaker 1: a way of communicating to your kids about what it
Speaker 1: is or what's happening right now? I think that, um,
Speaker 1: it's this since I've had children. I have two now,
Speaker 1: it's hard to disconnect the work from It's not like
Speaker 1: the work is like, well, I do this work and
Speaker 1: house I have kids. It's there's very sort of for me,
Speaker 1: there's a very solid mind between those two. And so
Speaker 1: now the work takes on a new meaning and a
Speaker 1: new relevance in my life. Like I want to make
Speaker 1: good work because I want to put good work in
Speaker 1: the world, but I also want to make work that
Speaker 1: my kids will look at and go, oh, that's what
Speaker 1: dad does. He makes good things. And and also there's
Speaker 1: a part of it that is a dad. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm the dad to my kids. I'm also trying to
Speaker 1: prepare the path for the world to be like make
Speaker 1: it a little bit easier on them. So yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mean I think that's a great device that he used,
Speaker 1: and I think for me it's like, yeah, I'm like
Speaker 1: when I have an hour long comedy special coming out
Speaker 1: and there's a huge chunk about my family in it,
Speaker 1: and a lot of it is about Mike, and I
Speaker 1: just feel like it's very important to me when I
Speaker 1: wrote that stuff that it's like stuff that they can
Speaker 1: look at when they're old enough and go oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that's like I'm not saying bad things about them. You know.
Speaker 1: My hope is I think that they in like twenty
Speaker 1: years see your comedy special and be like, Oh, that's interesting.
Speaker 1: That's that's what happening. That's not happening now. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I go that seems like weird, antiquated. Yeah, then it
Speaker 1: feels like, oh, it's like a black and white movie,
Speaker 1: like the way like I think, if your show does
Speaker 1: what it's supposed to do and then reaches the level
Speaker 1: I think you want it to, like, the future is
Speaker 1: going to be better for them, That's that's that's the
Speaker 1: I hope that's like, Well, I mean I think the future,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think the future is gonna be better.
Speaker 1: I think the future is always better in macroways. It's
Speaker 1: not always better in microways. I think, what do you
Speaker 1: mean by that? Like, I I believe I've said this
Speaker 1: before and I used to have a bit about this
Speaker 1: that the world that America say America gets more liberal
Speaker 1: and progressive over an infinite timeline. Like if you look
Speaker 1: at like, you know, Columbus Lands, He's like, this is great.
Speaker 1: Kill all those Indians, like you know, like that was
Speaker 1: a bad start, not not a great start. Not a
Speaker 1: great start. Kill all those Indians. Go to Africa, find
Speaker 1: some black people. Not that that was him, that was
Speaker 1: a British but you get what I'm saying. Yeah, uh
Speaker 1: that that you know, it's like, what is the what
Speaker 1: was the suffragette movie was in the early twentieth century,
Speaker 1: Like they were like should women vote m I don't know,
Speaker 1: like you know, like that like that's it sounds crazy
Speaker 1: to think that there were people on both sides and
Speaker 1: an argument. There are people really contemplating I don't know,
Speaker 1: let's talk. Let's debate this conversation in the same way
Speaker 1: that yeah that you see colonel Cable News and people
Speaker 1: are debating things that I'm like, are you really debating
Speaker 1: I don't know, should we ask should we uh? Should
Speaker 1: we put all Muslims and banned them from coming to
Speaker 1: the country. I don't know, let's talk this out, you know.
Speaker 1: So for me knowing that that's where we came from
Speaker 1: and here where we are now. It's just the thing
Speaker 1: that I think that we can't do. And me and
Speaker 1: Harry kind of blue front of my community talk about
Speaker 1: we can't sort of accept Yeah, things are so much
Speaker 1: better than they were. You have to go, Okay, what's
Speaker 1: what else do we need to do. It's like with
Speaker 1: marriage equality, that was a huge victory, but you can't.
Speaker 1: But then meanwhile, trans people are like, excuse us, we
Speaker 1: would like to talk to everybody, you know, this whole
Speaker 1: bathroom thing. You know. So I think that we have
Speaker 1: to keep sort of being aware. So I think there
Speaker 1: will always be more battles to fight. There's also communities
Speaker 1: we're excluding that we're not even aware that we're excluding,
Speaker 1: because those people haven't really made it clear to us
Speaker 1: that we're excluding, you know what I mean in the
Speaker 1: way that like when I was in ten years ago,
Speaker 1: nobody could have told you that we're excluding transgender people.
Speaker 1: You know, dude, be like that's not a thing, or
Speaker 1: you know, well that's one guy that lives in you know,
Speaker 1: you didn't think of it as a whole community people.
Speaker 1: So those communities now that we're including that we're not
Speaker 1: even aware of, you know, because they haven't the sort
Speaker 1: of like haven't gotten their message together or abiding their time,
Speaker 1: you know, So acceptance of things will just lead to stagnation.
Speaker 1: I think acceptance of like who in the same way
Speaker 1: that like when we made it, ye say, when Obama won,
Speaker 1: there was the whole narrative of post racial America, Like
Speaker 1: people were like who and the little did we know?
Speaker 1: Who made that term up? That was the media? That
Speaker 1: was Like I feel like that was totally a media
Speaker 1: creation because it was a way to sort of like
Speaker 1: put the cherry on the Sunday of a black president,
Speaker 1: like we know, you know who made that tournament? Who? CNN?
Speaker 1: That's probably they. I'm certainly they were in the room
Speaker 1: when it was made up with if if all the
Speaker 1: cable news networks voted on and I'm sure they were
Speaker 1: probably a part of that decision process. Your program is
Speaker 1: radically different from the things going on at CNN. Here's
Speaker 1: the thing. You have to give them credit for that,
Speaker 1: because I certainly can't force them to put it on
Speaker 1: the you know what I mean. Like, so I think
Speaker 1: it is not saying you held them up at gunpoint?
Speaker 1: Say did you hold them up at Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: a little bit. But I think the the The feedback
Speaker 1: I've gotten from a lot of people is like, I
Speaker 1: guess I'll have to watch start watching CNN. Like I
Speaker 1: think CNN there's a reputation, and I'm aware of that reputation.
Speaker 1: And certainly I don't get most of my news from
Speaker 1: cable news anyway, So but I do every now and
Speaker 1: again out of TV turn it on us, go what's happening?
Speaker 1: You watch the fifteen minutes to figure out why? Are Okay,
Speaker 1: I got it airports when airports a lot so, but
Speaker 1: people are like, there's a narrative CNN is being sort
Speaker 1: of sort of moderate I would say moderate right leaning.
Speaker 1: But when I say that to people at CNN, they
Speaker 1: get offended. So just because I feel like out here
Speaker 1: on the West Coast, this doesn't feel like it's in
Speaker 1: the middle to me, SNN, why do they get offended
Speaker 1: Because I think they they're trying to carve out that
Speaker 1: middle position that that journalism used to be used to.
Speaker 1: Always want to carve out that sort of like you know,
Speaker 1: like have the argument of like this person thinks Muslims
Speaker 1: we should ban Muslims from entering the country, and this
Speaker 1: person thinks we shouldn't. Let's let them talk it out.
Speaker 1: It's the I mean it's then you see the tvah
Speaker 1: other newsroom. Yes, yeah, it's that the false the false
Speaker 1: free where you get the false equivalency, or the thing
Speaker 1: where it's like you pretend there's two sides when there's
Speaker 1: not actually two sides. I don't buy objectivity and report it.
Speaker 1: I don't either. I mean I think and I think
Speaker 1: that like even reporters who I know are an objective
Speaker 1: will like I'm a huge uh Rachel Maddow fan. As
Speaker 1: a person, as a thing in the world, I think
Speaker 1: she's the best. I think she's a good force. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think she She would say she's being objective when
Speaker 1: from my side of thing, like, I think you've got
Speaker 1: to I think it's clear you have skin in the game.
Speaker 1: But I think in her mind she's she's being objective,
Speaker 1: you know so because she I think there's there's a
Speaker 1: part of the history of journalism is about like here
Speaker 1: the facts, I'm laying them out for you. But the
Speaker 1: minute you start laying out the facts, there's facts you're
Speaker 1: not picking. There's facts are part picking. It's like when
Speaker 1: people say documentaries are like, no, there's there's an editor. Yeah,
Speaker 1: things are cut together people aren't making a decision to
Speaker 1: show you this information. Yeah, I mean, I know there's
Speaker 1: like Michael Moore has gets a lot of Christism like,
Speaker 1: but he's very clear about the fact that he's making
Speaker 1: his film, like he puts himself in it. He's like, Hello,
Speaker 1: I feel like that's way more honest than not putting
Speaker 1: yourself in the film and just letting go. This is
Speaker 1: just how it happened, you know, This just is what happened.
Speaker 1: And I mean that's why I'm a fan of like
Speaker 1: him and Morgan Spurlock and like all anti Bourdain. So
Speaker 1: when CNN came to me and said we had this
Speaker 1: idea for this show that we were pitched, and I'd
Speaker 1: already liked Bourdaine from back in the day and Spurlock
Speaker 1: forever and Mike Roe even from a Dirty Jobs like
Speaker 1: it's just fun TV to watch. I'd always like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'd like to do a show like that. So when
Speaker 1: they came to me, I was like, Oh, I what
Speaker 1: would my spin on that show be? And they had
Speaker 1: originally pitched me it was called black Man, White America,
Speaker 1: and I was only going to go to white places,
Speaker 1: and I was just like, but then, what do you
Speaker 1: do after the fifth episode, you're back at the country club.
Speaker 1: And so I pitched it as being like all sorts
Speaker 1: of cultures that I that I am not familiar with her,
Speaker 1: you would expect me to be. By the way, who
Speaker 1: pitched that idea? Who pitched the first Black Man White America? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a reality show company. I mean they they're
Speaker 1: the producers this objective media. I mean, it's funny. The
Speaker 1: guy who pitched his name is Jimmy Fox, laughs about
Speaker 1: the fact that like and then come out made it
Speaker 1: smarter and better. Look. So, I mean he totally accepted.
Speaker 1: He was very open. I mean he could have said, no,
Speaker 1: it's gonna stay black and white American scene and might
Speaker 1: have bought that, but I was like, he was very
Speaker 1: open to me. And then he came up with the
Speaker 1: name United Shades of America, which I was like, so
Speaker 1: clearly he knew once that my idea had more lengths
Speaker 1: to it. You know, if you want to do five
Speaker 1: or six or seven seasons of it, you can't just
Speaker 1: shill Black and White America is one show. One is
Speaker 1: one season of a show. You know what was the
Speaker 1: hardest part about making the show, and this is the
Speaker 1: Asid your first four A and new well second now, yes,
Speaker 1: I yeah, it's funny things. I mean the cable IX
Speaker 1: is not a cable I mean there it's but basically
Speaker 1: it's the same because we want anymore. It's all just
Speaker 1: it's all content providers. It's a terrible thing, it's all.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, everybody's trying to provide content, and
Speaker 1: everybody's sort of following the trends in content or CNN.
Speaker 1: I think it's very aware that like there are news networks,
Speaker 1: so things they put on if it's not strictly the news,
Speaker 1: they at least wanted to be relevant or topical, or
Speaker 1: they want to be smart, you know, they want to
Speaker 1: be something that they can't just put on. They can't
Speaker 1: just go get like a Kardashian cousin and go it's
Speaker 1: keeping up with this card. They have to sort of
Speaker 1: do something that sort of is that extends the brand.
Speaker 1: But eventually, if you keep extending the brand, you end
Speaker 1: up at a Kardashian cousin, Like yes, you know, and
Speaker 1: I think that eventually, I mean I remember there was
Speaker 1: a point in which, remember a poker was big room
Speaker 1: and poker was big for like two years. I was
Speaker 1: knee deep in poker. Oh yeah, so they were. Every
Speaker 1: channel found a reason to justify having a poker show,
Speaker 1: like every like you know, like it was on like
Speaker 1: it was sports, It was on ESPN, the Game Show Network,
Speaker 1: it was a game on the Travel Channel. It was
Speaker 1: like live from Monte Carlo, and it was like, but
Speaker 1: you're not seeing any of Monte Carlo. Uh, You're seeing
Speaker 1: a room and time. Yeah, a dark room with dudes
Speaker 1: with sunglasses on who don't smile. So I think that
Speaker 1: the sunglasses things always bother to me, like why why
Speaker 1: do you have to wear sunglasses? Is because they're afraid
Speaker 1: they don't They're gonna give it away because they don't
Speaker 1: want to show the tell. If somebody asks where I'm from,
Speaker 1: I always lead with a Laska because people just lose
Speaker 1: their minds. And of course the inevitable do you know
Speaker 1: Sarah Palin question comes up? Do you know Sarah Palin?
Speaker 1: I've met her on a few occasions. So a guy
Speaker 1: from the clan said to you, black people cannot maintain
Speaker 1: long order on their own. This was over like lunch. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't really eat that much of that lunch though, No,
Speaker 1: no shit, you didn't need no, sorry to go tell
Speaker 1: me more about how black people Okay, all right, keep
Speaker 1: passed the catch up. Yeah, it was that episode. It
Speaker 1: seems like forty five minutes of you just holding your
Speaker 1: tongue and then kind of talking over narration. But I
Speaker 1: can see you there and I'm like, what, how are
Speaker 1: you not just well? I mean it's funny people some people.
Speaker 1: First of all, that you asked earlier, what was the
Speaker 1: hardest thing to do? That was the pilot episode. So
Speaker 1: not only am I new to this TV show, I
Speaker 1: also hadn't met the crew before the first thing. The
Speaker 1: first day we shot, we shot in Dawson Springs, Kentucky,
Speaker 1: and that night we shot the cross burning episode. So
Speaker 1: I never met any of the crew. I met the
Speaker 1: crew of the night before, meet the security guy who's
Speaker 1: an x LAPD officer, and I was like, oh, you're
Speaker 1: my security. Who's my security for my security? And so
Speaker 1: it was like and then so there was a lot
Speaker 1: of episode that's me like getting comfortable with the whole thing,
Speaker 1: you know, and because there was also part of me
Speaker 1: that like the crew was all white. Now, part of
Speaker 1: that was because they said the clan requested that, but
Speaker 1: also part of that is because that shows work well,
Speaker 1: they're not even they're not even. That's the thing. This
Speaker 1: is an outside production company from LA, so they're not
Speaker 1: even affiliated with seeing it. But they couldn't get one.
Speaker 1: I didn't. I was I was not a Actually the
Speaker 1: LAPD officer was Hispanic, but they told the clanny was white.
Speaker 1: But but the thing is is that this is how
Speaker 1: TV production is in in New York. It's it's better.
Speaker 1: I felt like when New York you see more black
Speaker 1: and brown faces. In LA usually when I work, it's
Speaker 1: a lot of white faces. And I think that that
Speaker 1: was sort of part of my frustration too, is that
Speaker 1: it's good to have a black person or a brown
Speaker 1: face you can look at and go in the middle
Speaker 1: of all this, to go, this is all happening, like
Speaker 1: somebody that you can sort of lean on, the hardest
Speaker 1: part about the show, as there was times when I
Speaker 1: would be there pitching ideas to the other producers, and
Speaker 1: I found myself position of not just of having to
Speaker 1: sort of explain my perspective on why I was pitching
Speaker 1: the idea and the reason why I to do that
Speaker 1: is because they weren't black, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So like it's not like so whereas if you say
Speaker 1: to a black person like something where they go they
Speaker 1: sort of go, oh, I get it because of the
Speaker 1: history that you know, there's just an embedded narrative in
Speaker 1: the same way that like if you if you're a
Speaker 1: Italian you talked to another Talian person or Talian American
Speaker 1: and they sort of go oh, yeah because of Grandma whatever, like,
Speaker 1: and so there would be times where I had to
Speaker 1: I had to go, I want to do this, like
Speaker 1: or this is a great example, Like there's there's there's
Speaker 1: like the point like the episode, the part of the
Speaker 1: episode where I'm sitting with the guys before the cross
Speaker 1: lighting and they and the guy talks about skittles. How
Speaker 1: he separates the skittles. Yeah, And there's another time when
Speaker 1: he the guy talks about how I go, I was
Speaker 1: asking about sin and he goes and he goes gay
Speaker 1: like he says brace mixing is a sin, or I
Speaker 1: don't says gay marriage is a sin, and I go,
Speaker 1: what about but about eating uh shellfish? The Bible says
Speaker 1: that's a sin too, and he's like, well, I send
Speaker 1: it Bobster last night. Well, the first edit of the show,
Speaker 1: those things weren't in there, and I said to the Brewster,
Speaker 1: I was like, if you don't put those things in there,
Speaker 1: then it looks like I am quiet the whole time,
Speaker 1: like I'm just sort of letting this guy talk. And
Speaker 1: he goes, well, we want the clan to we want
Speaker 1: to make sure that people think the clan is scary.
Speaker 1: In the episode, I go, the clan's already scary, and
Speaker 1: to me, that's like no black person goes, we want
Speaker 1: to make sure people think the clan is scary because black,
Speaker 1: You're like, the clan is already scar They're already the
Speaker 1: America's original boogeyman, so you don't need to make them scarier.
Speaker 1: But what you do need to show is the black
Speaker 1: guy poking fun at them, because that's the that's the juice,
Speaker 1: that's the It's not even just the juice, it's the
Speaker 1: new experience that doesn't happen, that has not happened. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and like kind this is this is like we discovered, Yes, platonium,
Speaker 1: this is a new thing you're watching. Yes, And that's
Speaker 1: what I had to But I had to. I had
Speaker 1: to argue for not argue, but I had to advocate
Speaker 1: for things like that because I was like, that's that's
Speaker 1: why this is a TV show. I think if it's
Speaker 1: not that, it's just the only thing you're getting is
Speaker 1: that a black guy sitting across from the clan, well
Speaker 1: who you know who? I mean, fine, but that's not enough.
Speaker 1: You have to show and the black guy sparred with them,
Speaker 1: and the black guys that dad, and so I had
Speaker 1: to sort of push for those things. And there's more
Speaker 1: like that that I that we didn't get in because
Speaker 1: I didn't get it all in. And then when we
Speaker 1: screen the episode at Sundance, that stuff got huge laughter,
Speaker 1: Like he was like because people needed to laugh too,
Speaker 1: and he afterwards the producer cameras, he said, it's like,
Speaker 1: you're right, and I was like, I mean he's a
Speaker 1: good guy. But I was like, yeah, I know. And
Speaker 1: so for me, that's the difference between having a black
Speaker 1: producer or a producer of color who gets how oppression
Speaker 1: works and gets that like who sort of wants to
Speaker 1: see me be funny with the clan because fuck them,
Speaker 1: as opposed to a white guy who's like, this is
Speaker 1: crazy that a black that's all he wants is to
Speaker 1: see me sit with the clan. So, uh, that's that
Speaker 1: was that's the hard part. And this is I mean,
Speaker 1: it's funny in the midst of the Oscar. So white
Speaker 1: thing on screen is the one battle, but the off
Speaker 1: screen is the big battle. If the head of the
Speaker 1: studios is a person of color and the executive producers
Speaker 1: are people of color, and and and you know, and
Speaker 1: the and the grip and the lighting guy as a
Speaker 1: person of color, then all the stuff, then you don't
Speaker 1: have to fight as many battles. Then sort of automatically
Speaker 1: people on screen become people of color because it's like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: because we're all looking out for this thing. Whereas if
Speaker 1: you're just talking about the people on screen and it's
Speaker 1: just white people control who gets on screen, then it's
Speaker 1: like then it ends up just being black best friend,
Speaker 1: just like we had the whole day and then we
Speaker 1: throw on a black best friend. You know. Uh So
Speaker 1: it was endless battles. Huh, it was endless battle. I
Speaker 1: would say it's endless, but it's a recurring battle. It's not.
Speaker 1: I mean, we I got along, we got along and
Speaker 1: everything and everybod It's like for me, it's like when
Speaker 1: I watched the show, that's what I see. I see
Speaker 1: and it's this is off the back of Totally Bias too,
Speaker 1: where there was battles of similar battles set, although they
Speaker 1: we had more diversity on that staff because it was
Speaker 1: New York and also I was in a position to
Speaker 1: really like staff the show up. And also in New York,
Speaker 1: I just New York is generally there's more people. There's
Speaker 1: just more the more people of color in the industry.
Speaker 1: It was you and Chris and me and Chris and
Speaker 1: the other pretty sure. Yeah, yeah, I'm just interested in
Speaker 1: understanding or get into the bottom of how you felt
Speaker 1: when when that guy not only this line about black
Speaker 1: people cannot maintain the order on their own, but like
Speaker 1: the skittles line. We can even talk about that for
Speaker 1: those who haven't seen the show when this comes out.
Speaker 1: The skittles line is like when you open a bag
Speaker 1: of skittles, do you separate them or do you do it?
Speaker 1: He said, He's like when I eat about He's like,
Speaker 1: we're talking about racial Like, you know, separ why separating
Speaker 1: the racist better? He's like, when you open a bag
Speaker 1: of skittles, if if you just put them on your mouth,
Speaker 1: they taste okay, but if you separate them, they taste
Speaker 1: much better. But by the way, that's not true. That's
Speaker 1: not true. What skittles is he eating? That's not true.
Speaker 1: It's not true. It's just like it. And also they
Speaker 1: all kind of taste to stare all. You know, it's like,
Speaker 1: you're just fucking skills, sugary candy skills. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: and so, and that's why he's got a better metaphor. Well,
Speaker 1: I think that's funny. That's why I asked him, was like,
Speaker 1: are you serious? Like I was really like, this is
Speaker 1: the thing that the show for me was like an
Speaker 1: opportunity to be curious about these people in a way
Speaker 1: that was like, are you seriously saying you separate? Because that,
Speaker 1: to me is crazy. And he was like yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know if he was serious, but I mean he
Speaker 1: this is the one guy who when we got there,
Speaker 1: he was super aggravated. So he's like, yes, I sure do.
Speaker 1: And uh. To me, it was like that sort of
Speaker 1: that sort of destroys your whole argument, because if you
Speaker 1: think the racist should be separate because you just don't
Speaker 1: think we should live together, that's one thing. But if
Speaker 1: you're so crazy and sociopathic about it that you don't
Speaker 1: eat skittles, together. Then it's like, well that's a mental illness,
Speaker 1: Like that's not so the rest of your argument starts
Speaker 1: to fall apart, you know. Because so that's what I was.
Speaker 1: That's why I pushed to get that in because it's like,
Speaker 1: this is crazy time. You can't if you take the top.
Speaker 1: It's like the house is built on clay, you know,
Speaker 1: the house is built on a false foundation. He's standing
Speaker 1: on clay feet. Did they do they responded any differently
Speaker 1: or reacted to any differently because as they were on camera, Well,
Speaker 1: the funny thing is that we weren't because we weren'
Speaker 1: shooting the whole time. They would take off, they would
Speaker 1: like take off the hoods, the ones who were hooded,
Speaker 1: they would take there off, and they let their guards
Speaker 1: down a lot and we weren't shooting. And and specifically
Speaker 1: the one guy, the guy who I talked to a
Speaker 1: lot where he was showing me how to burn it
Speaker 1: light a cree's from me, how to put across together
Speaker 1: for the cross lighting, and because and he was and
Speaker 1: he was like like, you know, we were having we
Speaker 1: actually were having a good back and forth. And he's
Speaker 1: the guy that when I left, I was like that
Speaker 1: guy likes me like and that that may bother him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that guy's gonna go to bed tonight and be like,
Speaker 1: I think I like a black guy. And to me,
Speaker 1: that's mission accomplished. You know, if I if I can
Speaker 1: be his uh I think it was a Joe Tory
Speaker 1: in American History X with the Ed Norton. If I
Speaker 1: can be his black guy in the laundry in the
Speaker 1: laundry mat is at Norton, then mission accomplished. So uh,
Speaker 1: I think that like we you know, like there's there's
Speaker 1: there's a little moments like that like where I felt
Speaker 1: like and you know, because we asked because there was
Speaker 1: a lot of question like the whole thing about like
Speaker 1: where do you get the robes from? How much do
Speaker 1: they cost? You know, Yeah, it's not bad because it
Speaker 1: is funny to me because like you can't buy them
Speaker 1: over the counter, Like so where do they show up from? U?
Speaker 1: And you know, that's the same thing I thought because
Speaker 1: I went to Catholic school. Yeah, and um, you go
Speaker 1: up for a communion and then give you that little bread. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like you can buy that at kmart, I know, but
Speaker 1: you like you can't, but they have to buy it
Speaker 1: somewhere somewhere. I remember when speaking of the Catholic thing,
Speaker 1: I went to my wife's Catholic and we went to
Speaker 1: like New Year's like like Christmas Night Mass or something
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago with my daughter because the
Speaker 1: whole family went, and they had the church we went to,
Speaker 1: they had a plastic baby Jesus that they were like
Speaker 1: sort of like doing the whole thing with. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: where do you get the plastic baby Jesus from? And
Speaker 1: for me, that's the show. That's that's this is why
Speaker 1: there's more episodes of the show, because I would because
Speaker 1: no matter what it is, there's those things I'm curious about.
Speaker 1: Want to ask more questions about, like where do you
Speaker 1: buy a plastic baby Jesus for the Catholic Church. There's
Speaker 1: got to be a store. You're asking the hard hitting questions.
Speaker 1: I am asking the hard but also those questions sort
Speaker 1: of help demystify things. So like we sort of think
Speaker 1: the clan ropes are scary, but where do you get
Speaker 1: them from? Oh, they only caused one hundred forty five dollars,
Speaker 1: you know, like you know, like how do you where
Speaker 1: do you get the wood from the crosses chopped down?
Speaker 1: A tree. Why don't you go to home depot? That
Speaker 1: would burn too quickly? You know, why do they like
Speaker 1: home Depot so much? That guy was he was like
Speaker 1: he did. I thought that was one of my favorite moments.
Speaker 1: He's like, I don't want to no offense to home Depot.
Speaker 1: And it was like this guy just say no offense
Speaker 1: to home Depot as he's standing here burning across you know,
Speaker 1: hey a black people, fuck you, but respect. We had
Speaker 1: to cut it out. There's a lot of talk about
Speaker 1: when they were drinking their water off camera, when the
Speaker 1: cameras would start to roll again, they would they would
Speaker 1: put the water down. They're like, I'm not gonna drink
Speaker 1: that water on camera unless they want to pay me
Speaker 1: for an endorsement. It was like, pay you for an endorsement.
Speaker 1: They it's like they're so caught up in their thing
Speaker 1: and they do believe they're right that they actually don't
Speaker 1: see the insanity of it, which for me, that's why
Speaker 1: I'm here to sort of help show the insanity of it.
Speaker 1: But you know, my hope is that if we get
Speaker 1: the season two that I can just hit We can
Speaker 1: hit the ground running faster, because even the crew like
Speaker 1: the camera crew. That first few episodes, they were sort
Speaker 1: of trying to get my rhythm. I was trying to
Speaker 1: get their rhythm. I didn't know their names. And by
Speaker 1: the end of the season we were all like a
Speaker 1: really tight crew. And so I would love to be
Speaker 1: able to take those guys out again and just and
Speaker 1: hit the ground running and also diversify parts of the
Speaker 1: crew that I can diversial, because I just it's like
Speaker 1: I wasn't a part of that discussion, where season two,
Speaker 1: I'll be a part of that discussion. But I mean,
Speaker 1: doesn't it say something that you weren't part of that discussion.
Speaker 1: I think it says there when the way the industry
Speaker 1: works is the way the industry works, and you have
Speaker 1: to disrupt how things work to make things different. And
Speaker 1: when I was I don't live in La so I
Speaker 1: was not at the office talking to the people. I'm
Speaker 1: an executive producer thanks to Chris Rock because I was
Speaker 1: an exact producer on the other show. So I will
Speaker 1: always be an executive producer on each show I do,
Speaker 1: which is again that's how you change the thing. Like
Speaker 1: Chris just sort of allowed me negotiating to the thing
Speaker 1: that I could be an executive producer, which puts me
Speaker 1: in the room. Now, I wasn't in the room because
Speaker 1: I was up here. My wife was pregnantly just moved.
Speaker 1: But so I So some of that's on me, But
Speaker 1: some of that's also like I don't I can't necessarily
Speaker 1: tell you who to hire because I don't know the industry.
Speaker 1: I can't go, don't get hired that guy, hire this guy.
Speaker 1: But now that i'm if we get to season two,
Speaker 1: will I will make it a point to be in
Speaker 1: the room. But it's just the this is what happens
Speaker 1: if you're not in the room. So for me, this
Speaker 1: is like when I was watching the whole Oscar So
Speaker 1: White thing. I was just very aware like it's and
Speaker 1: Spike Lee said this too. It's about who the head
Speaker 1: of the studio is. It's about who the producers are
Speaker 1: and the people who can green light projects, making that
Speaker 1: more diverse. It's not on screen is like the Final Battle,
Speaker 1: something I find aggravating and press and I'm sure you've
Speaker 1: seen this. It's why I don't really, I really have not.
Speaker 1: I don't like asking. I talked about this with Why
Speaker 1: It's Snack is that before I was able to interview him,
Speaker 1: I got an email from my editor saying, hey, can
Speaker 1: you make sure to ask him about the diversity problem
Speaker 1: in Hollywood? Can you? And I've told why it's snack.
Speaker 1: You know, we're not going to talk about that, but
Speaker 1: I'm going to talk about why. I'm only asked that
Speaker 1: when I'm talking to a black person. Yes, yes, and
Speaker 1: if it's and it's um like these conversations we've had,
Speaker 1: we've had him not you know, on the of the record,
Speaker 1: and they're the same. It's always like people up the
Speaker 1: higher powers got a bit. It's not just people in
Speaker 1: front of the camera. Yeah, And but I'm wondering, I
Speaker 1: guess I'm just curious, like when do you think we
Speaker 1: can stop having that same conversation and then it's just
Speaker 1: it just is well, I think, you know, I keep
Speaker 1: using the word disrupt because I hear Republicans using it
Speaker 1: in a negative way. So I'm trying to I'm trying
Speaker 1: to claim it as a positive. Uh. These disrupt her
Speaker 1: showing up at our Trump rallies, yay. Uh. I think
Speaker 1: the way to do it is to you take the
Speaker 1: power back. And it's funny. Denzel Washington talked about this,
Speaker 1: and I have a soft spot for Denzel Washington or
Speaker 1: a hard spot to pay? Why how you judge? It's
Speaker 1: Malcolm X's that was on the shelf over there that
Speaker 1: we have to sort of. The internet has created a
Speaker 1: way in which we can create our own stories and
Speaker 1: make our own things. Sa Ray, who was on my podcast,
Speaker 1: Denzel Washington podcast all weeks ago. She made her own
Speaker 1: web series, Awkward Black Girl, and she made it. She
Speaker 1: got a crew together, she made him, She made a
Speaker 1: lot of them. It became a hit online. Now she's
Speaker 1: working on her own HBO show. HBO No No, Offensive.
Speaker 1: Never would have met with her to pitch that show.
Speaker 1: They never would have taken that meeting because she would,
Speaker 1: who are you? You're some You're just some lady who
Speaker 1: works a day job, and as ideas that, you think
Speaker 1: you're funny. So she went out and made the thing,
Speaker 1: and now she gets to sit at the HBO table
Speaker 1: and have control over it, more control than she ever
Speaker 1: would have had if she if she had just been
Speaker 1: a writer who pitched them an idea, you know. And
Speaker 1: she did that without having to spend years in Hollywood
Speaker 1: taking the best black friend roles, you know. So I
Speaker 1: think we have to and this is despite I'm at
Speaker 1: CNN doing this thing. But also most of the work
Speaker 1: I'm doing is independent. It's just like things where I
Speaker 1: get to control of my own destiny and get to
Speaker 1: make my own decisions. So I think that you have
Speaker 1: we have to sort of like ignore the student on
Speaker 1: some level. There's people who want to go out and
Speaker 1: do those auditions and Da da dah. And Seanda Rhymes
Speaker 1: is a great example of somebody who worked within the
Speaker 1: industry and is now like probably will want to be
Speaker 1: the president of ABC if she if she wants the job,
Speaker 1: you know, if she doesn't want the job, she may
Speaker 1: turn that down. Yeah, she may. She actually made her Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I saw somebody one of the new heads of
Speaker 1: the programming ABC is somebody who came up under her,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh that she turned it down.
Speaker 1: But yeah, but she's the person who that's how you
Speaker 1: get the job is because she has by hook or
Speaker 1: by crook, she built, she owns Thursday Night and now
Speaker 1: she's gonna start, you know, acquiring other nights of television
Speaker 1: and ABC. Avia du Verney Selma soone didn't get know,
Speaker 1: didn't win any awards. Well, she started her own production
Speaker 1: company and she's making as they say, making her own gravy.
Speaker 1: You know, Ryan Coogler, Fruitville Station, pitches Creed, you know,
Speaker 1: people like, why would you make a sequel to Rocky?
Speaker 1: Now he's directing a Marvel movie? Now? Is is that
Speaker 1: the best thing ever? No? But what it does say
Speaker 1: is that the industry trusts you with googabs of money
Speaker 1: and they're in an important brand, which is which means
Speaker 1: you have acquired power. So I note that movie is
Speaker 1: gonna be great, the fact that it's based on Coats
Speaker 1: is writing. Yeah, No, I think it's gonna be I
Speaker 1: just think it's just it's funny to think of a
Speaker 1: Marvel movie as being the highest level of achievement in Hollywood.
Speaker 1: So it's but it is now, it is. It is
Speaker 1: because it means we trust you with hundreds of millions
Speaker 1: of dollars and with not without and this movie has
Speaker 1: to fit into a whole spectrum of movies. So we
Speaker 1: touched you with not screwing up the brand. And so
Speaker 1: for me, but that came out of him making Fruitvale Station,
Speaker 1: you know, an independent movie. So as as black people
Speaker 1: and people of color and underserved communities have to do,
Speaker 1: you have to make our own gravy. We have to
Speaker 1: do our own things, and eventually, if you were good
Speaker 1: at it and you work hard enough at it, they
Speaker 1: will come. They want to come and sit at your table.
Speaker 1: You know. It's the thing where they want to go,
Speaker 1: oh oh right, okay, yeah, why don't you do this thing?
Speaker 1: And so I think on some level, you know, you
Speaker 1: can avoid or you know, and I mean Tyler Perry,
Speaker 1: I mean, whether you what everything about his movies, he's
Speaker 1: ma he he By the way, that's the most exasperated
Speaker 1: I'm saying you. I'm not. I just think for I
Speaker 1: used to have I used to have a lot of
Speaker 1: heat around Tyler Perry. I don't have that heat anymore.
Speaker 1: I do feel like it doesn't even matter if you
Speaker 1: like his movies, because the example he's setting is going
Speaker 1: to be an example that other people can play and
Speaker 1: can you use. So the fact the fact that he
Speaker 1: lives in Atlanta, I mean, hell, there's probably him living
Speaker 1: in Atlanta and do his own thing. Probably in some
Speaker 1: weird way in the back of my head, gave me
Speaker 1: the ability to go, I'm gonna move back to Berkeley.
Speaker 1: It's some weird back in my brain way like if
Speaker 1: he's in Atlanta, I can go to move back home
Speaker 1: to Berkeley or the Bay Area. So I think that,
Speaker 1: But it's not gonna change. It's not. The industry is
Speaker 1: not gonna change until they sort of until they until
Speaker 1: they get over the fear that people of color can't
Speaker 1: make them money worldwide. Like that's the whole thing. Like,
Speaker 1: you know, Transformer is a big movie internationally because it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter if you understand the words like it does.
Speaker 1: So that's that's the last Like is that even something
Speaker 1: we want to aspire to? Is the other question? I
Speaker 1: don't know. Yeah, I mean I think, you know, Creed
Speaker 1: is a way more interesting in the movie to me
Speaker 1: than any of the Transformers movie. And it's also way
Speaker 1: more interesting movie to me personally than any of the
Speaker 1: movies nominated for Best Picture because it tells a story
Speaker 1: that I relate to personally. You wrote a lot about it,
Speaker 1: I wrote a lot. I wrote a lot about it,
Speaker 1: and I've talked a lot about it. I think I
Speaker 1: like that movie more than Ryan Cooler. Like that may
Speaker 1: be true. That's how it works. It's how fandom works.
Speaker 1: Uh So, just because to me and I've talked about
Speaker 1: this before, the degree of difficulty of making a sequel
Speaker 1: to the Rocky movies that is critically acclaimed and a
Speaker 1: commercial hit. There's that's a way higher degree of difficulty
Speaker 1: than making any of like in no offensive, like than
Speaker 1: making big Short, which I love. I saw, I watched
Speaker 1: it on a plane. I've seen it like three times.
Speaker 1: But a movie about white guys destroying the economy. Was like,
Speaker 1: that's not You're not breaking a lot of new ground there.
Speaker 1: I think the new ground is how he that's how
Speaker 1: Adam McKay made it. I think he's funny, and I
Speaker 1: think it was funnier than he could have been. And
Speaker 1: da da da. But that story is sitting there. You know,
Speaker 1: there's nothing you The only thing Adam mccad to do
Speaker 1: is go, I'm gonna make it. Well, that's different, but
Speaker 1: you know, but he'd also he's made a lot of
Speaker 1: money for Hollywood. So is that how you feel about
Speaker 1: your show, that you're breaking new ground? No, I think
Speaker 1: I can't get caught. I think I mean it's funny.
Speaker 1: Only now people keep telling me how totally Bryan Totally
Speaker 1: Biased was like groundbreaking and I and at the time
Speaker 1: it was just a job I was doing. I was
Speaker 1: doing my best to keep it on the air and
Speaker 1: it fell off the air and it sort of felt
Speaker 1: gutted by it. But I think for me, the only
Speaker 1: thing I focused on. I want to make things that
Speaker 1: I don't think I see in the world, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. So that's the thing I'm trying to do,
Speaker 1: and that if in some sense so that does automatically
Speaker 1: break news ground, but if it's not any good, who cares?
Speaker 1: So for me trying to raise the quality level of
Speaker 1: the things I seen on TV and also do things
Speaker 1: that I haven't seen before. So me sitting to the
Speaker 1: clan was so I've never seen that before. You know,
Speaker 1: the blind Black White Supremacist was as close as we
Speaker 1: got from Chappelle, which is that's in the Hall of
Speaker 1: Fame of greatness. But I don't think this is that.
Speaker 1: But I do think that, like it's my version of
Speaker 1: like trying to extend the extend the conversation. So I'm
Speaker 1: not so yeah, I'm just trying to make That's when
Speaker 1: I generally do anything, I'm trying to make something I
Speaker 1: feel like I haven't seen any before. But sometimes it's
Speaker 1: something as simple as a podcast about how Denzel Washington
Speaker 1: is the greatest actor of all time period. Because I
Speaker 1: knew we weren't competing with anybody because which Denzel Washington
Speaker 1: is the greatest actor? Podcast? Do you want to listen to?
Speaker 1: You know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, a niche market. I could
Speaker 1: have very easily done one about the NBA because I'm
Speaker 1: a big NBA fan. But there's a there's a ton
Speaker 1: of NBA podcasts you can listen to. Uh. And so
Speaker 1: for me, like the things come out right now, which
Speaker 1: is this, uh, this live talk show that I'm doing
Speaker 1: on KOW It's like I'm doing it the way that
Speaker 1: I don't see MPR talk shows being done right. Uh.
Speaker 1: And you know, down to my comedy, down to my comedy,
Speaker 1: I'm always trying to write things I feel like about.
Speaker 1: Writing comedy about mixed race families and interracial relationships is
Speaker 1: usually pretty negative and shitty and usually sort of making
Speaker 1: that the target. And so I'm trying to write something
Speaker 1: about my family from my experience that doesn't that is funny,
Speaker 1: but isn't putting them down or making me look like
Speaker 1: I'm ashamed of them. So if you're not doing that,
Speaker 1: what's the point. Like, you gotta be, you gotta be
Speaker 1: trying to create something new. You gotta I mean, I think.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think every probably I don't know. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: the pressure is to fit in though. I mean that's
Speaker 1: true even if you're feel that pressure. Yeah, I mean, like,
Speaker 1: for example, pressure that you're trying to fit into something.
Speaker 1: Showbiz pressures you to be in showbiz, and being in
Speaker 1: showbiz means making decisions based on oh that showbiz. I
Speaker 1: should do that. Uh for example, And I know this
Speaker 1: is gonna happen, but like you know, I'm doing press
Speaker 1: for the for the CNN show United Shades of America
Speaker 1: April twenty fourth, ten pm. And uh, just in case
Speaker 1: you forget to say it Pacific time and Eastern time
Speaker 1: and actually seven pm Pacific time because that's how they
Speaker 1: do it. But uh so I was talking to the
Speaker 1: press person from CNN, who's great. She's great and we
Speaker 1: have a lot of fun together. She's a black woman,
Speaker 1: so I can talk. That's the thing. She's black, so
Speaker 1: I feel like I can talk to her and she
Speaker 1: talks to me. There's which it's just such a big
Speaker 1: difference about Like so if she says this thing, somebody
Speaker 1: wants you to do this thing, I can be like, yeah, there,
Speaker 1: I don't want to do that because those people talk
Speaker 1: about like we can have a nuanced conversation about why
Speaker 1: I don't want to go into that space right as
Speaker 1: opposed to like having to explain to a white press
Speaker 1: person like that makes me uncomfortable. Why does it make
Speaker 1: you uncomfortable? You have to manufacture Yeah, you have to
Speaker 1: sort of like the way I have to talk about
Speaker 1: you have to go so fourty years ago a slave
Speaker 1: ship man. But it's a really good all the way
Speaker 1: back to the beginning of the narrative. And so I
Speaker 1: feel like that that that has to work every time.
Speaker 1: It well stops the conversation. So yes, So with Heather,
Speaker 1: I can to be like, like we can talk about
Speaker 1: something like God's not I'm not black like those people.
Speaker 1: And she goes, I know, and so we can have
Speaker 1: them back and forth about that. So she goes, So
Speaker 1: we were we were doing pressings and we see Wendy
Speaker 1: Williams is on TV and I was like, I don't
Speaker 1: know if I ever want to do the Windy Williams show. No,
Speaker 1: I know, I didn't say that. Let me be honest.
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't ever want to do the
Speaker 1: Winny Williams show. I'm glad you're being honest, yeah, I
Speaker 1: just was like, why am I equivalent? Because what if
Speaker 1: Winny Williams here's this. But the thing is, it's not
Speaker 1: about her, It's about me. It's about me and her,
Speaker 1: like the thing she does is not something I do, right,
Speaker 1: And so Heather goes, well, they're going to do a thing.
Speaker 1: They do this thing called hot topics, which I know,
Speaker 1: and where they have a bunch of comedians and entertainment
Speaker 1: people sit down and sort of kick around the hot
Speaker 1: topics of the day. And I go, I know, Heather,
Speaker 1: but I don't actually care about what they consider to
Speaker 1: be the hot topics of the day. Not that I've
Speaker 1: gotten beyond the active indicting your choices about what you
Speaker 1: talk about or what you because it's we all have
Speaker 1: to make our own choices, and everybody can't. Every movie
Speaker 1: can't be Citizen Kane or trying to be Citizen Kane.
Speaker 1: I'm just looking at it because on your show, we
Speaker 1: have to sort there has to be something which is great.
Speaker 1: But if you go if the minute, somebody goes we
Speaker 1: had this on toy Bislot. Now I did about jokes
Speaker 1: about Chris Bryan. I'm like, I don't really care about him.
Speaker 1: In any sort of like Microway. Maybe in a Macroway,
Speaker 1: but I suddenly if it goes this week, Chris Brown tweeted,
Speaker 1: I don't give a shit. Might hear they call you
Speaker 1: the mayor of Saint Glin Black guys, you have the
Speaker 1: basketball court. No surprise there. America is a country that
Speaker 1: likes to get people's second chances yet, but for some reason,
Speaker 1: prisoners don't usually get that second chance. You get defined
Speaker 1: by the worst moment of your life. Stay there, don't move.
Speaker 1: If you think about showbiz is that they assume that
Speaker 1: if you're in show biz, that you want to be
Speaker 1: in all of show biziness. Like people will often go
Speaker 1: like this not a lot. But sometimes when they're talking
Speaker 1: about who the next host of the Oscars is, people
Speaker 1: like some of my some of my fans as the
Speaker 1: part of the like I hope come out host the Oscars.
Speaker 1: I don't ever want to host the Oscars, like, but
Speaker 1: people assume if you're in showbiz, you want to be
Speaker 1: in all of showbizz, So there's pressure to be in
Speaker 1: all of showbiz. Like for me, there's very specific aspects
Speaker 1: of showbiz. I enjoy being in and feel like I
Speaker 1: can do well in and the other ones. I feel
Speaker 1: like I should be I'd be able to opt out
Speaker 1: of like and you're not always able to opt out
Speaker 1: of them until you get the power to opt out
Speaker 1: of them, right until you're Chris Rock, until you Chris Rock.
Speaker 1: But see the point about Chris is he does want
Speaker 1: to be in all of showbiz. So that was one
Speaker 1: thing we sort of went back and forth about, Like
Speaker 1: he he wants to host the Oscars, he would host
Speaker 1: him next year if they offered him to him, Whereas
Speaker 1: I he's he likes being square and he's like, in
Speaker 1: some sense, he's really like an old school, classic rat
Speaker 1: pack showbiz guy he likes I mean, I think you've
Speaker 1: talked about that before. He is right, Yeah, he's a
Speaker 1: very like you know what, likes to be in the
Speaker 1: epicenter of the thing. And for me it's like, I like,
Speaker 1: at the very most, I want to be on the
Speaker 1: outside edge of the epicenter. I don't want But you're
Speaker 1: coming from he's how much older than you? It's funny,
Speaker 1: he's not that much older than me, but he's a
Speaker 1: generationally were very different feels. It's very different, like human
Speaker 1: versus his human. I mean, when he was in Beverly's
Speaker 1: Cop Two. It was like nineteen eighty four or five
Speaker 1: or something, and I was twelve, you know, so like
Speaker 1: he was a very young guy to be in that.
Speaker 1: He was in his early twenties. But I was like,
Speaker 1: I wasn't There was no aspect of men. I was
Speaker 1: not gonna be in Beverly's Cop three, you know. So,
Speaker 1: uh yeah, but he and he also that means he
Speaker 1: came up in the comedy boom with the eighties when
Speaker 1: I was in like, you know, high school, you know.
Speaker 1: So he he remembers when he was around for comedy
Speaker 1: to get huge and then dip down and then get
Speaker 1: big again. By the time it dipped down, he was
Speaker 1: already on the other side of it. He was like
Speaker 1: bringing the pain, you know. So uh so yeah, he
Speaker 1: just so in that sense, we're like light years apart,
Speaker 1: but uh so, yeah. So, but he and I don't
Speaker 1: think I'm not even that. This is not a judgment
Speaker 1: at all. He I have friends who liked that part
Speaker 1: of show business. I have friends and other comics who
Speaker 1: are like, like the whole thing, and I'm just like
Speaker 1: I at some point I thought I would like I thought,
Speaker 1: but then I thought I thought, like you'd grow into Like, well,
Speaker 1: I thought, I everybody likes to be popular and liked,
Speaker 1: and so then it becomes about, well, how are you
Speaker 1: trying to become popular and liked? And at some point
Speaker 1: it very occurred to me like I don't have to
Speaker 1: like the whole thing. I just have to be better
Speaker 1: about drawing the line of where I don't want to be.
Speaker 1: And on top of that, I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: in high school, I didn't like that either. I didn't
Speaker 1: like the popular part of high school either, the quarterback
Speaker 1: popular kids table. I sat at my own table, and
Speaker 1: so I sort of had to remind myself, I'm still
Speaker 1: sitting at my own table, right, you popular? And what
Speaker 1: was going on? Like I said, what was going on?
Speaker 1: I went to? Well, the high school I graduated from
Speaker 1: was it was actually the small high school in Chicago
Speaker 1: that called the University of Chicago Laboratory High School, which
Speaker 1: is where the Obama Girls. It's a whole k through
Speaker 1: twelve school. The Obama Girls went there when they were
Speaker 1: in elementary school before they decided to move to DC.
Speaker 1: The girls decided, for some reason, they decided to move Dad,
Speaker 1: can we move to DC? Okay, let me see if
Speaker 1: I can get a job there. I'm gonna apply for
Speaker 1: a job in DC. Because you really want to go
Speaker 1: to that school? Run this cover letter? Yeah so, but
Speaker 1: so I to say that they were there. It's a
Speaker 1: very small private school that I got into my mom,
Speaker 1: you know, broker butt, to make sure we could I
Speaker 1: could go there, because she wanted me to have a
Speaker 1: good education. And but it's the school whre kids would
Speaker 1: go on there their whole lives. So when I got
Speaker 1: there sophomore year of high school, there was just like
Speaker 1: I could feel like that table is known each other
Speaker 1: for their whole lives, that tables on each other whole lives.
Speaker 1: I need to find the table of people. I need
Speaker 1: to find the misfits table. And at that point in
Speaker 1: high school, the misfits were the smart kids, so I
Speaker 1: would sit at the smart kid table, but I wasn't
Speaker 1: necessarily I was a fine suit, but I wasn't one
Speaker 1: of them. And then at some point, did you have
Speaker 1: glasses done? No? I didn't have. I didn't classes I
Speaker 1: was in my twenties, so I didn't even I couldn't
Speaker 1: even fake it. But at some point I became friends
Speaker 1: with a guy named Jason Smith and a guy named
Speaker 1: Rob Nassator, and we probably junior year, just sat at
Speaker 1: our own table, like and Jason was like a deadhead,
Speaker 1: long haired, waken bake pot smoker, hyper intellectual. Rob was
Speaker 1: a teetotaler, musician. Play was like the was like the
Speaker 1: school's music guy, like play guitar saying had a band
Speaker 1: and recorded demos in his home. And you were I
Speaker 1: was the guy who liked Bruce Lee a lot. It
Speaker 1: was pretty funny. That was pretty funny, But that was
Speaker 1: you know, that was mine and I did. I did,
Speaker 1: I did took. I took martial arts classes like every
Speaker 1: day after school. Maybe not every day, but like four
Speaker 1: days a week. I was going to take martial arts classes.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I was That was what I was my identity.
Speaker 1: I thought, he's he's the guy who likes Bruce Lee.
Speaker 1: That's how I would have surmided. I don't know what
Speaker 1: they would have said. They would have been like that
Speaker 1: that guy who's not that other tall black guy who
Speaker 1: goes here. Yeah he's not Jason Burrow. Uh. But yeah,
Speaker 1: Like I just was really quiet. I was funny with
Speaker 1: my friends, but I had no identity. I don't think
Speaker 1: I had any identity amongst the people at school. I
Speaker 1: was really shy. I went on one date in high
Speaker 1: school and I was so nervous. The next day I
Speaker 1: forgot that I didn't talk to the girl I saw
Speaker 1: in the halls. I just couldn't talk to her. It
Speaker 1: was fine, but nothing, nothing happened. We went to the
Speaker 1: like the equivalent of the showtime at the Apollo of
Speaker 1: Ship Tago like this theater or they had like a
Speaker 1: talent contest and we watched, and but I didn't have
Speaker 1: a driver's license. I was fifteen, so we got picked
Speaker 1: up and dropped out. It was very it's very chaste
Speaker 1: and pretty probably pretty boring. In the next day, was
Speaker 1: so nervous. I can talk to it. What was her name?
Speaker 1: The funny thing is that she lives in the Bay Area,
Speaker 1: and there's so there's a chance we know we both
Speaker 1: live out here now. So she we've we've we've corresponded
Speaker 1: and uh, we've talked about it. She's married with kids.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't think I should say her day
Speaker 1: because she's married with kids. And yeah, she's she is
Speaker 1: a face. We are Facebook friends, Uh yeah, and we
Speaker 1: talked about it at one point, like about how she
Speaker 1: saw me back then and she was like, you were
Speaker 1: so mean, and I was like what, And because she
Speaker 1: said of that, apparently I said things that she considered
Speaker 1: to be mean. And I think I was probably trying
Speaker 1: to be funny, and I was also super shy, and
Speaker 1: so I probably didn't have I was so shy, I
Speaker 1: probably didn't have an effect. I was probably just the
Speaker 1: guy who said weird things that didn't smile around her,
Speaker 1: and so I probably came off like a lunatic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we have funny. We've been in touch recently because
Speaker 1: I got asked like a few months, a couple of
Speaker 1: months ago to give the commencement address at my high
Speaker 1: school this coming June, which nobody made that. Nobody bet
Speaker 1: that was gonna happen. So what happened is when they
Speaker 1: said when I got the email, I first, it took
Speaker 1: me a day to like respond to is. I was like,
Speaker 1: this is crazy, h and also a little bit I was.
Speaker 1: I actually googled the person's name to make sure it's
Speaker 1: this real, and then I called my best friend Jason,
Speaker 1: who who is still my best friend. The guy went
Speaker 1: to high school with he owns a bookstore now in
Speaker 1: oak Park, and in oak Park. Yeah yeah, writing downtown
Speaker 1: oak Park on Lake Street. And that's a nice spot
Speaker 1: down there, is it is a very nice spot down there.
Speaker 1: And he when he moved his store there, him and
Speaker 1: his wife on the store. When they moved their store there,
Speaker 1: Borders was down there like three other local bookstores. And
Speaker 1: now he's the last ones. Then well that's good for him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, he's he's really become quiet. He's like, it's
Speaker 1: funny pothead like followed the grateful that around the country.
Speaker 1: Now he's like a civic leader and he likes, I'm
Speaker 1: doing a benefit for his uh for a homeless charity
Speaker 1: he works with. And to turn out to be a
Speaker 1: good person. He did. He was always a good person.
Speaker 1: He just was, you know, tortured in high school like
Speaker 1: a lot of us were, I mean, tortured by his
Speaker 1: own brain. So were you tortured by your own brain? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: go on, what was it? I thought you were just
Speaker 1: tortured by like Bruce Lee Envy or something. No, No,
Speaker 1: I mean I just didn't. You know, there's two people.
Speaker 1: There's two types of people in high school. This is
Speaker 1: what I think I will I will talk about in
Speaker 1: the speech. There's people who feel like they are living
Speaker 1: the best time of their lives. And there's people who
Speaker 1: feel like this is the worst. I don't know, is
Speaker 1: the rest of my life going to be like this? Really,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't think I fit into either of those.
Speaker 1: So I'll tell you I fit into like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm having a good time, but life's gonna get way better.
Speaker 1: I see. I would put you into this is the
Speaker 1: best time in my life category. I knew, I knew,
Speaker 1: I knew, and I was I'm just saying for the
Speaker 1: purposes of this, I'll let you simplify, but just for this,
Speaker 1: there's people well, like I said, there's people well, I'll
Speaker 1: just put like, there's just people having a good time
Speaker 1: in high school and there's people not having Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1: And so for me, you were firmly to not people
Speaker 1: having a good time. I think they do think it's
Speaker 1: gonna be better, and some of them it doesn't. Some
Speaker 1: of them they look back in five years ago that
Speaker 1: that was actually the best time of my life, and
Speaker 1: I that's heartbreaking. So for me, I was in the
Speaker 1: category of like this sucks, is this is the beginning
Speaker 1: of how bad my life is gonna? Sound like, I
Speaker 1: don't know anybody no girl will date me. I mean,
Speaker 1: I had I have two friends, no girl will. You
Speaker 1: only need a couple of friends in high school. The
Speaker 1: later I figured I only need two friends in life,
Speaker 1: Like it's good to know people, but you don't need
Speaker 1: a lot. You know, friends is a very you need
Speaker 1: to define friends somebody, At least for me, a friend
Speaker 1: is somebody that you can call three in the morning
Speaker 1: to like, come over, and they just show up and go,
Speaker 1: what's happening? If the David Tell jokes what mean? And
Speaker 1: Jason always said, David Tell, comedian Great Men, had a
Speaker 1: joke or an early joke about the different between a
Speaker 1: friend and a best friend. A friend will help you
Speaker 1: move the best friend will help you move the body.
Speaker 1: And so that's how mean Jason wants to define. He said,
Speaker 1: he quoted a joke in the wedding speech heap the
Speaker 1: best man speeching game. And so that's how I feel like.
Speaker 1: There's only a few people that I can do that with.
Speaker 1: And so so yeah, I just I wasn't popular in
Speaker 1: high school. Popularity is currency. I didn't. I wasn't like
Speaker 1: in my body in a way that I felt good
Speaker 1: about myself. I was sort of tall and lanky, and
Speaker 1: didn't have any sort of definable traits, traits or characteristics.
Speaker 1: I didn't because I didn't think I was very good looking.
Speaker 1: I couldn't find a super uncomfortable around women. Didn't date anybody.
Speaker 1: My best friend Jason, who even though we were best friends,
Speaker 1: he was he was sixteen dating a twenty three year
Speaker 1: old that he met like because he was also like
Speaker 1: working in the anti nuclear movement, so he met some
Speaker 1: he was actually her. He was like, so we go
Speaker 1: have a job after school and be the boss of
Speaker 1: people in their twenties. I love at first nuclear movement.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, anti anti nuke movement. And so he had
Speaker 1: he was dating like a twenty three year old, which
Speaker 1: is when even high school. I was like, good for you, Jason,
Speaker 1: but she's gonna be fucked up. So yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: can't know. I was like even in high schools, like
Speaker 1: that's good, great, I'm glad you're having a good time.
Speaker 1: She's crazy. Is he still Facebook friends? Is there? No? No? No,
Speaker 1: I think he's like he's he's he's he's cyberstalker, but
Speaker 1: he can't find her. Said she's probably she's off the
Speaker 1: grid for sure. Uh. And then Rob was like this
Speaker 1: great guitar player, and like, I mean, he wasn't really
Speaker 1: day anybody either, but he there was just this sense
Speaker 1: of like these two guys know what they're doing. They
Speaker 1: they're sort of in their skin, and I did not.
Speaker 1: I was I like Rusilee a lot and taking martial
Speaker 1: arts classes, but not weirdly not feeling confident about that
Speaker 1: as being a thing that would make me. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think there would be a way to say I'm
Speaker 1: a martial artist and that's really identifying, that'd be popular
Speaker 1: for that, but this didn't happen. So I really just
Speaker 1: felt like an only child was in my head a lot,
Speaker 1: and just like, oh my god, I think I'm never
Speaker 1: gonna I'm never gonna have a girlfriend. I'm never gonna
Speaker 1: I don't know what kind of career I'm gonna have.
Speaker 1: I think I think, you know, I'll just I'll be
Speaker 1: a shut in, like really sort of actually internalizing this
Speaker 1: and the sort of thinking like it's never gonna get
Speaker 1: better than this, wanting to wanting loving stand up comedy,
Speaker 1: wanting to be a comedian, but this is way before
Speaker 1: the Internet, so not knowing that that was even a
Speaker 1: legitimate path, Like like whereas now kid in high school.
Speaker 1: We can Adians google, how do you become a media
Speaker 1: fifth who knows who you are? Yes? Yeah, yeah, they
Speaker 1: and they just show up at the UCB class or
Speaker 1: whatever their local version of that is, and they start
Speaker 1: participating in the thing. And so I just was like,
Speaker 1: I just think, I think I'm doing so and then
Speaker 1: slowly you climb out of that hole. Hopefully it gets better. Actually,
Speaker 1: so when did it get better? When did you feel
Speaker 1: I went to college. When I went to college, I said,
Speaker 1: I had one of my was like, goal, I have
Speaker 1: to have friends who are women, because if we were
Speaker 1: going to date a woman, I should be friends with women.
Speaker 1: So one of my best friends in college I would
Speaker 1: call for a year and a half of Universe of
Speaker 1: Petsuvania was a woman. I felt better about that. I
Speaker 1: dropped out of Universe Pensuvania because I realized I didn't
Speaker 1: want to be a I was majoring East Asian Studies
Speaker 1: again the Bruce Lete thing. Realized I did not want
Speaker 1: to agree in that. Moved to Chicago. I mean it
Speaker 1: took a while, I mean, start ting class of the
Speaker 1: second city, start doing stand up. Really felt like that's
Speaker 1: what I wanted to do. Wasn't that good at it,
Speaker 1: but really sort of enjoyed doing it and really felt
Speaker 1: like I saw like I just loved it so much
Speaker 1: I couldn't do something else. Had a great time being
Speaker 1: an open Mike community in Chicago, but there was no
Speaker 1: at that point, there was nothing else. There was all
Speaker 1: the only one club was open. I mean, Second City
Speaker 1: was pretty much I did. I took all the Second
Speaker 1: City classes. Yeah, so yeah, how were those? Because my dad,
Speaker 1: I always forget that you're from Chicago just because like
Speaker 1: that's it's because it's I mean, I moved out here
Speaker 1: in ninety seven. I'm convinced that's why we get along.
Speaker 1: It doesn't feel very familiar. Yes, yeah, my dad took
Speaker 1: those Second City classes there, took one of them. If
Speaker 1: you try to pay an actor, you know, I mean yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's a good program. But it's also like
Speaker 1: it's one of those things where UCB is probably doing
Speaker 1: any more streamlined load of the ground version of it now.
Speaker 1: So right, well, because maybe, but it's still it's because
Speaker 1: of like geography. It's like you're in Chicago. As great
Speaker 1: as the city is, it's not La and it's not
Speaker 1: New York. But I will say even now, I think whenever,
Speaker 1: back then it was definitely true. Like Adam McKay was
Speaker 1: the Second City when I was there, I mean he
Speaker 1: was like on the stage. Yeah, Tina Fey had either
Speaker 1: just left. She was like that, that was all. Steve
Speaker 1: Correll was my uh, one of my instructors. So how
Speaker 1: is that? I mean, it's funny. He was great. The
Speaker 1: funny about Steve Carell that I always think it is
Speaker 1: funny is that at the time, this is the very
Speaker 1: Chicago thing he would people thought of him as like
Speaker 1: a good looking leading man guy because it's because it's
Speaker 1: not New York or Lace. You're trying to say, stand
Speaker 1: I'm saying once he moves la in New York, he's
Speaker 1: a quirky guy. He's a quirky guy. He's not I mean,
Speaker 1: he's a pleasant looking guy. But he makes way more
Speaker 1: sense in the Big Short as the guy who's like
Speaker 1: than is like Ryan Gosling in that movie playing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I'm just a quirky guy. Now, well you know
Speaker 1: you're San Francisco, so quirk quirk goes far here, right,
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think it's so at the time I
Speaker 1: remember the sort he's really he is really good looking
Speaker 1: in that Midwestern way you know, Uh, where were you
Speaker 1: in that spectrum? For you? I think I make up
Speaker 1: for everything with personality. Thank God, I'm tall, That's what
Speaker 1: I think. Height adds points to good looking definitely, as
Speaker 1: you know. So so that sounded like an insult, as
Speaker 1: you know, as you know, but yeah, so I uh yeah,
Speaker 1: so I think I you know, I took the same
Speaker 1: city classes, realized I was not going to be an
Speaker 1: improviser or a sketch guy. I want to do stand
Speaker 1: up that stand up, had a great time going to
Speaker 1: stand up, but didn't get find an advancement there. Did
Speaker 1: it for three years. Moved to the Barry in ninety seven,
Speaker 1: and uh, I had a great time here, but slowly
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven is when I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: I gotta really a figure out how this works and
Speaker 1: how what my version of this is. And that's one thing.
Speaker 1: And at that point, you know, I met started dating
Speaker 1: a woman in Chicago, we moved out here together, we
Speaker 1: broke up, started dating another woman. Then when I the one,
Speaker 1: I did it after I dated my first girlfriend. I
Speaker 1: dated no no offense to her. Literally, was just a
Speaker 1: sense of like, this is the only person who likes
Speaker 1: me like, so there was not really a sense. The
Speaker 1: second woman I dated who became my girlfriend, I was like,
Speaker 1: it was that thing where you go, I want that person.
Speaker 1: So it really did a lot though. We ended up
Speaker 1: having a crazy relationship. What does that mean? You know
Speaker 1: everybody she probably describes me the same way I would
Speaker 1: say she everybody's a crazy X. She's a crazy X. Know,
Speaker 1: she's probably sittings and we're calling me the crazy X.
Speaker 1: Do you guys get into like huge fights and she's
Speaker 1: just a lot of like nothing. It was just I mean,
Speaker 1: it was funny when I look back on it, It
Speaker 1: wasn't that dramatic, but it just felt at the time
Speaker 1: like very sort of you know when two people sort
Speaker 1: of climb into an emo hole together listen to a
Speaker 1: lot of Radiohead and is that what you did? Yeah?
Speaker 1: She Radiohead was her favorite band. I had a lot
Speaker 1: of sex to Radiohead, which is a weird band. Sex
Speaker 1: that's too weird. Yes, you generally want calm up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Olice had a lot of sex to Carma Police, which
Speaker 1: is not a not a swerve of getting song that No, D'Angelo, no, no,
Speaker 1: she was It was cake and Radiohead and oh who's
Speaker 1: there's a woman singer who's not Beth Whorton. I mean,
Speaker 1: you should be proud of yourself for being able to
Speaker 1: have sex. But yeah, so we you know, so we
Speaker 1: you know. But it became a thing where I suddenly
Speaker 1: had more components. And then, you know, like Melissa was
Speaker 1: a popular kid in high school, so it was she.
Speaker 1: It was Melissa, who's your wife? She was a third. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was I had other there was you know, I
Speaker 1: did on Craigslist like we all did in the early auts.
Speaker 1: Was that a thing? Yeah, Craigslist. I'm showing my age.
Speaker 1: I don't know about that, but no, tell me about that.
Speaker 1: I mean it was I mean, the funny about it
Speaker 1: was a it was a I felt like it was
Speaker 1: like the equivalent of like if you couldn't if you
Speaker 1: weren't finding anybody to date, there was just it was free.
Speaker 1: It was before you put pictures on Craigslist, so it
Speaker 1: was really like using your words right there. So was
Speaker 1: it like it was okay Cupid before it wasn't really
Speaker 1: a you weren't setting up a profile. It was just
Speaker 1: people going I'm a twenty three year old executive assistant
Speaker 1: who likes the Beatles and the bags and long walks
Speaker 1: on beaches, and I have brown hair and I have
Speaker 1: blue eyes, and I love to clip Chinese. But like
Speaker 1: it just it just texts. You just had to go
Speaker 1: sounds attractive and I have a slim to medium athletic bill,
Speaker 1: like you know, just sort of these words where you're
Speaker 1: sort of like trying to because you couldn't put a
Speaker 1: picture on the Internet back then. It was a big deal.
Speaker 1: So and also people didn't have they had to like
Speaker 1: scan a real picture into the Internet because there wasn't
Speaker 1: like a digital you know, and they had to cut
Speaker 1: their uncle out of it, like you know, it was
Speaker 1: a whole It was a disaster. There was a disaster.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of like middle of the night,
Speaker 1: you find a profile, you email that person, email you back.
Speaker 1: You get on an instant messenger like a I am
Speaker 1: and you're like, yeah, so if you were in high
Speaker 1: school and I was twenty eight or thirty and you know,
Speaker 1: and you're like and then you sort of go and
Speaker 1: and then it's all that weird like sexting, like oh yeah,
Speaker 1: they send you the picture of their hat, the picture
Speaker 1: where their uncle's cut out and they're turned to the left.
Speaker 1: You want to see half their face. You're like, oh,
Speaker 1: you look hot, and then you go meet And the
Speaker 1: thing I would always say with the Craigist date is
Speaker 1: it's inevitable that when you show up to meet that
Speaker 1: person again. This was before pictures, one person feels like
Speaker 1: they won the lottery and the other person feels like
Speaker 1: they lost the lottery, and it s about which person
Speaker 1: are you. So if you showed up at the Craigist
Speaker 1: date like yeah, then the other person was like, oh god, damn.
Speaker 1: It never worked out that both people felt like they'd
Speaker 1: both hit the lottery. That's a good bit. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: never I've ever done that. Really, No, it's just because
Speaker 1: it was just the reality of the situation. That's a
Speaker 1: good one though. So when did you move on from
Speaker 1: winning or not winning the lottery and Craigsist uh so,
Speaker 1: then funny like the I want to say the day before,
Speaker 1: maybe it was the week before, but I might have
Speaker 1: the day But the day before I met Melissa, I
Speaker 1: had a Craigsist date where I think we both felt
Speaker 1: like that was the one we both felt like we
Speaker 1: lost the lottery. That was like it was just because
Speaker 1: it got sad after a while, because sometimes you did
Speaker 1: n't up because it was there was no picture. You
Speaker 1: did end up emailing with somebody and you realize, I've
Speaker 1: already talked to this person. Because it's sort of a
Speaker 1: limited community of people, and everybody's putting up different profile,
Speaker 1: like different not profiles, different like different versions, say because
Speaker 1: they because they the other one was up for a
Speaker 1: week and it gets buried, so he put up another one,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So like it was really
Speaker 1: like you're just sort of putting up classified ads so
Speaker 1: they would go away, and then you put up a
Speaker 1: new and you go, oh, yeah, that's just a person
Speaker 1: before and uh And it was also back when you
Speaker 1: didn't tell somebody your name right away because you were
Speaker 1: like whereas now we're all on Facebook, but back then
Speaker 1: you're like you might give a fake name or you
Speaker 1: all sorts of nonsense. And so what was your fake name?
Speaker 1: I don't even remember. I think al the same name
Speaker 1: used a Star Wars, that's definitely what it was. Yeah,
Speaker 1: remember that it was an a But uh so we
Speaker 1: went I went to this I remember what I was
Speaker 1: on this date with this woman. It was like sorting
Speaker 1: an afternoon and like, let's go get coffee and go
Speaker 1: for a walk and something, and it was just sort
Speaker 1: of like lifeless and nothing. And I remember we were
Speaker 1: sitting at a coffee shop. She saw a friend of
Speaker 1: hers and she goes and she clearly was like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, hey, like I got to friends somebody I
Speaker 1: like in the world. And I'm like, good, here's your friend.
Speaker 1: And her friend is like, she goes, all good to
Speaker 1: see you. I'll talk to you. And then her friend
Speaker 1: goes to get on the bus and the woman I
Speaker 1: was with goes, oh, my friends getting on the bus.
Speaker 1: You know what, we lived near each other. I can
Speaker 1: give her a ride home. And I was like, you could,
Speaker 1: And I jumped and ran on the bus and said
Speaker 1: she wants to give you a ride like and Jock
Speaker 1: got her off the bus and she I like, and
Speaker 1: she took that lady home and I was like that
Speaker 1: I'm done. I'm not Yeah, I'm done with crisis dating.
Speaker 1: And I feel like it was actually the next day
Speaker 1: I met Melissa at a at a theater in San Francisco,
Speaker 1: like the Shelton Theater, like a little independent black box theater.
Speaker 1: I was directing her friends one person show and her
Speaker 1: friend hired MST lights and sound and her friends set
Speaker 1: us up, even though she didn't tell us. So those
Speaker 1: are the best kind of setups, it is. It was
Speaker 1: absolutely the best kind. And Melissa was like twenty three
Speaker 1: and I was thirty, so it was very like she
Speaker 1: thought I was gonna be her friend is like was
Speaker 1: like in her forties, so she most thought I was
Speaker 1: gonna be way older. And her friend had described her
Speaker 1: most of me as a college tud and so I
Speaker 1: just sort of pictured like an eighteen year old. But
Speaker 1: Lizza was in grad school and Lisa also was very
Speaker 1: I thought she I thought she was older, but she
Speaker 1: was twenty three, And so that turns out that's a
Speaker 1: good age difference. A thirty year old man and a
Speaker 1: twenty three old woman is about where it should be.
Speaker 1: It's not no, no, no no, it's not it's not gross.
Speaker 1: But it's also like I was still wanting to have fun.
Speaker 1: She was young enough to have fun, but by the
Speaker 1: time she turned thirty, she was like, it's time to
Speaker 1: get married some kids. And I was like, all right,
Speaker 1: you've made a good point. You've really uh So, who
Speaker 1: won the lottery in this one? I think we both
Speaker 1: won the lottery now, I mean, listen, was the popular kid.
Speaker 1: I just wasn't grown up. I was at an adult.
Speaker 1: So I think that the thing that Lis always said
Speaker 1: about me was that she was she's a dancer. She's
Speaker 1: that point had sort of given up her dreams of
Speaker 1: sort of doing anything professionally. But because of my example
Speaker 1: of being like a comedian and sort of putting it together,
Speaker 1: that he gave her the example of, like she went
Speaker 1: back to grad school to get her in my fan
Speaker 1: dance and her PhD in dance, and now right now
Speaker 1: she's teaching in Santa Clara for so she's like she saw, oh,
Speaker 1: this artist's life could work out, so which her family
Speaker 1: told her it couldn't work out. And so I became
Speaker 1: the example of how the artist's life could work out.
Speaker 1: And then then she really hit the lottery because I
Speaker 1: got a TV show. That's we were married by that point, No,
Speaker 1: we both, of course, yeah, But I mean I do
Speaker 1: think on some level, like thank god that sort of
Speaker 1: proved her family that I was actually you know that
Speaker 1: they were like, what are you? You're a comedian, but
Speaker 1: you're never on TV and we senior acting. It's not
Speaker 1: that funny, and you're a what is it? A semi
Speaker 1: prominent Negro, semi prominent negro. Yeah, thanks to effects that
Speaker 1: became semi prominent. So but once I got the TV
Speaker 1: show they came out and saw the tape ages just
Speaker 1: sort of made everything feel like, Yeah, when does the
Speaker 1: special come out? April twenty ninth, Friday, five days after
Speaker 1: the CNN show. That's a two. I know it's a it's,
Speaker 1: as I've said, show business. This is the rough show
Speaker 1: Business is having her. That's the title of the special.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just me. So would you say that, Sam,
Speaker 1: that is not appropriate? Uh? Yes, semi prominent Negro based
Speaker 1: on a joke in the special where I refer to
Speaker 1: myself as a semi prominent Negro before we leave. I
Speaker 1: just want to I've been thinking about this since I
Speaker 1: watched it this morning. Um, and I knew this was
Speaker 1: part of it because I saw the advertisement, but you know,
Speaker 1: not to spoil anything. But by the time, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know show. The end of that episode finds you
Speaker 1: uh standing at a cross burning and the show is
Speaker 1: consistently funny. Even now were talking, it's funny, and when
Speaker 1: we joke about it, it's always been funny for the
Speaker 1: last few months we've been talking. But it's not funny. No, no,
Speaker 1: I know. This is the benefit of working at CNN
Speaker 1: versus working at like a comedy network. I'll say, because
Speaker 1: I was allowed, I don't have to feel like i'd
Speaker 1: be funny all the time. Yeah, I can actually just
Speaker 1: be real or be how I feel. And so I
Speaker 1: think the show is consider the show are consistently funny,
Speaker 1: but some are funnier than others, and some are funny
Speaker 1: when they're supposed to be funny, they're not funny. When
Speaker 1: don't feel funny, they're not funny. I think I always
Speaker 1: want to make a good thing because I'm a comedian.
Speaker 1: That means there will be humor in it. But I
Speaker 1: want to make something that is good and relevant, and
Speaker 1: so that means that doesn't always mean hilarious. But yeah,
Speaker 1: the end of the episode is me watching a crossboarding
Speaker 1: and realizing that, you know, talking about how I realized
Speaker 1: at that moment that like, uh, this is a whole
Speaker 1: crazy situation, but people have died at black people. My
Speaker 1: ancestors have died these things, and so as much as
Speaker 1: this is a crazy situation, it really felt like a
Speaker 1: big deal to me. The fact that you know you're there,
Speaker 1: I'm there, and I get to leave, like you know that,
Speaker 1: you know that I get to go. That was a crossboarding.
Speaker 1: I get to leave freely under my own power and
Speaker 1: own free will. And also with a little bit of
Speaker 1: the fact, what if they hadn't let me leave? You
Speaker 1: know what if there was one hundred guys in the
Speaker 1: forest who came out and ran out that point, and
Speaker 1: you know, if I had died going to a crossboarding,
Speaker 1: nobody would have been like what right, no, oh, it
Speaker 1: would be like why did you go to crossbarger? You know,
Speaker 1: but the show would have been such a good ratings,
Speaker 1: many good ratings. All right, thanks for coming on. Thanks
Speaker 1: again to Kamal for coming on the show, and be
Speaker 1: sure to check out United Shades of America on CNN
Speaker 1: when it premiers April twenty four. You can also catch
Speaker 1: Semi Prominent Negro his first solo stand up special on
Speaker 1: Showtime April twenty nine. Peep. Remember to subscribe to the
Speaker 1: show on iTunes and SoundCloud or your favorite podcasting app.
Speaker 1: And if you want to send mail of any kind,
Speaker 1: hate mail, love letters, just miscellaneous thoughts on Trump, please
Speaker 1: email the show at talk Easypod at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: I promise I will read everyone you can also follow
Speaker 1: the show on Twitter and Facebook at talk easypod and lastly,
Speaker 1: if you have a spare moment in your busy day,
Speaker 1: please give us a review on iTunes. It helps out
Speaker 1: quite a bit. Our theme music is provided by Vanilla,
Speaker 1: Our executive producer is David Chen, graphics by Ian Jones,
Speaker 1: Technical assistance provided by Joe Stillwater, and the show is
Speaker 1: produced and edited by Coriatad. I'm your host, San Fragoso,
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening. I'll see you next week. Peop