Sam Pollard

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[3] Welcome, welcome to an armchair expert and Dan, rather I'm joined by maximum miles.

[4] You're doing a weird voice.

[5] Did you like it?

[6] I liked it because it was just slightly off.

[7] You're right.

[8] I had to note it.

[9] In fact, if you were listening to it, you're like, am I listening to this at 19?

[10] percent or 110 it's not like it was 200 percent or 50 cent you hate when i say that so today in our black voices series we have sam pollard who i fucking love talking we nerded out too much i'm sure you had to cut a bunch of it out but he's an editor he's an incredible editor and i love talking to editors because movie editor yeah movie and documentary maybe it is on some tv but the editor is such an unsung hero in the movie making process they are so creative and i don't think people realize that but sam is an Emmy Award winning and Oscar nominated director and producer and he is a really great documentary that I saw called MLK FBI which is this incredible story of the FBI's involvement with Dr. Martin Luther King and all the crazy things that happened with them trying to sabotage him so it was a great conversation and I really enjoyed it and I think you will too so please enjoy Sam Pollard oh wait and should be noted I am missing from this episode Mm -hmm.

[11] You were mad at me. I was not.

[12] You were traveling.

[13] I was traveling, and so I missed this episode, but because I miss it, we do have a little, not so much fact check, but a little check -in.

[14] Post -script?

[15] Yes, with me, because I had some two cents.

[16] I wanted to throw in there.

[17] Yeah, you didn't feel like I represented you per se, maybe in the combo.

[18] So stick around for that.

[19] We support these businesses.

[20] We'd like to take some ad space to highlight some black -owned businesses.

[21] What do you want to talk about today?

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[24] I had this the other day.

[25] You did?

[26] Yes, this is a cheese shop in Los Angeles.

[27] I got a turkey sandwich from there that was so good.

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[32] That's say cheese.

[33] Los Angeles .com.

[34] And I can attest very, very tasty.

[35] Now, see, that's kind of local to Los Angeles.

[36] Yeah.

[37] Mine is worldwide.

[38] There's a new app called the expert.

[39] It is a designer app.

[40] So all these really, really, really awesome interior designers are on there.

[41] And you can book a consultation with them.

[42] You can book like an hour and have them talk about your living room or your kitchen or whatever.

[43] And they give you ideas and thoughts.

[44] And I mean, this is like so amazing.

[45] Yeah.

[46] And it's really expensive and these are a little bit cheaper.

[47] So the expert is not black owned, but there's a designer on there, Joy Moyler, and she is so good.

[48] I've been scouring all her stuff.

[49] She's like, you know, been highlighted in Architectural Digest.

[50] She's awesome.

[51] Anyway, so if you're looking to do some design in your house, go to the expert and get a consultation with Joy.

[52] Great Rex.

[53] He's an out to Redskine.

[54] Hello.

[55] Hey, Dax, are you?

[56] I'm good.

[57] How are you, sir?

[58] Pretty good.

[59] Are you in New York?

[60] Yeah, New York and the Village on Bleaker Street.

[61] Oh, baby, my favorite piece is Bleaker Street pizza.

[62] You think about it.

[63] Give it a shot, maybe.

[64] I will.

[65] Now, you grew up in Harlem.

[66] East Harlem, Spanish Harlem was called.

[67] In the 60s?

[68] In the 50s.

[69] Damn.

[70] I've been around a long time, Dax.

[71] Yeah, well, first of all, you look fantastic.

[72] But secondly, holy smokes, have you seen that city cycle through so many periods, huh?

[73] Yeah, you know, I've seen it a lot.

[74] Being born and raised in New York City, somehow when you see these things change, it kind of just goes right by you until someone says to you, boy, the city sure has changed a lot.

[75] You know, the one place that really seems very different from me is when I was a young man. none of us would go beyond Houston Street down into it became Soho or Tribeca because there was nothing there.

[76] It was pretty rough back then.

[77] But now it's not rough anymore.

[78] Yeah, good luck finding an apartment over there.

[79] Yeah, expensive, man. My single mother would take us three children to New York from Detroit when we were kids in the 80s.

[80] And Times Square was a ton of nudie bars and a ton of peep shows.

[81] I mean, even in my lifetime, I have many times been walking through Manhattan and just gone, wow, this place turned into like a beautiful European city somehow while I've been here.

[82] It's changed a lot.

[83] The first plane ride I ever took was to Detroit.

[84] Oh, really?

[85] In 1968, I guess the year after those rebellions of those riots.

[86] Yeah, we had the National Guard down there.

[87] Yeah, yeah.

[88] I had a lot of family in Detroit.

[89] And were they originally from Kentucky, Tennessee?

[90] Oh, Mississippi.

[91] Mississippi and Georgia.

[92] Okay.

[93] I've recently become fascinated with the migration routes.

[94] And my family came from Mississippi, but not from the Delta part.

[95] They came from the western part of Mississippi.

[96] And then they went from that part of Mississippi to Milwaukee, St. Louis, to New York and Detroit.

[97] So what was your path into becoming an editor?

[98] Because I can't imagine you met a lot of your neighbors in Spanish, Harlem, in the 50s and 60s that were working film editors.

[99] So where'd you get the idea and how did you get into it?

[100] I didn't mean anybody who was in that.

[101] of film business.

[102] Of course not.

[103] I was going to Baruch College, part of the city university system in 1970 and 71, and I had the goal that I want to be a businessman.

[104] I wanted to really be a businessman.

[105] But as I was going into my junior year, I was feeling pretty kind of disgruntled with these classes, these statistics classes, and these marketing classes.

[106] So one day, I just went across the street to see one of my counselors, this African -American lady, and I said, I'm really, feeling very discouraged and I'm looking for some sort of internship, some after -school internship to do.

[107] So she asked me, she said, what are your interest?

[108] And I said to her, well, I love reading books.

[109] I grew up reading all these classic books from Richard Wright to Hemingway to Zorniel Hurston, Catherine Ann Porter.

[110] And I said, I grew up watching a lot of old movies on television.

[111] You know, weekly, I would get the weekly TV guide and go through with a pin and circle movies I wanted to see.

[112] And it used to be in New York City.

[113] There was a Channel 9.

[114] It was called WOR.

[115] And they had bought the RKO Studios catalog.

[116] Oh, wow.

[117] And they would show one movie five days a week all day.

[118] Uh -huh.

[119] So you could see, from their catalog, you could see King Kong, Gunga Den, Out of the Past, the Big Steel, anything that was done by Archao with Mitchum and Randolph Scott or Robert Ryan.

[120] So I became a real movie buff.

[121] I really just watched these old movies.

[122] And so that's why I said to my counselor.

[123] So she said there's this program, there's this workshop that had been started by WNET, the public television station in 1968 after Dr. King's assassination to get more people of color behind the scenes in the editing room, shooting, producing, writing scripts, taking sound.

[124] She said it was a one -year program.

[125] It was two nights a week from six to ten.

[126] And professionals were coming and teaching the business.

[127] And she asked me if I was interested in trying to sign it for the program.

[128] And honestly, I said no. Oh, really?

[129] I said, I like watching movies, but I don't really care about how they make them.

[130] Right, right.

[131] Let's add for people born only in the era of Avid, a very labor -intensive and tedious process film editing back then.

[132] I mean...

[133] I didn't even know what it was.

[134] The height of tedium, no?

[135] One frame at a time.

[136] I had no idea, but she was pretty persuasive, so she got me to go have an interview, and I got accepted to the program.

[137] And so that one year, that's what we would do, we would have a professional come in every Tuesday night and teach us the business.

[138] Then we'd go out and shoot little films, we'd have to do the post -production.

[139] And the thing I gravitated to, because I was pretty shy back then, I didn't talk a lot.

[140] I didn't feel comfortable on sets.

[141] But when you put me in the editing room, on the first little film we had to put together, I was given the job as the editor.

[142] So I put the piece together with the splicer in the film, 16mm.

[143] And when we had to screen our first cuts, my splices were so bad, Doc said, it went like this.

[144] You got feet, shh, right, right, right.

[145] Like a strobley?

[146] So the lady who ran the program, who spliced that film?

[147] I told it was me, but I really felt comfortable with the editing because no one could see me make a mistake.

[148] If I made a mistake, I could then change it.

[149] Nobody could see if I fixed it.

[150] So by the end of the program, I decided I was interested in editing.

[151] I always say that when I fell in love with editing, a light bulb turned on, and this was the first time I ever felt creative.

[152] Right.

[153] Really felt creative.

[154] Now, I have to imagine the lift on a documentary is so much more intense, because at least with a film, they've gone out and they've shot a script.

[155] You have the script in front of you.

[156] ostensibly you're going to at least assemble it to mirror that script, then you're going to watch and go, well, this doesn't work this, and then start shaping.

[157] But at least you have finite film in an architecture that you start with.

[158] Yeah.

[159] Walk me through a dock.

[160] I mean, you get a wheelbarrow full of media, right?

[161] And they go find something.

[162] Usually a documentary producer -director, this is their approach.

[163] I mean, they'll go out, they'll have a great idea.

[164] They'll get the money to shoot material, do interviews, or shoot Verite footage.

[165] And they'll usually come to editing room and say, I got this great idea about cats.

[166] I love cats.

[167] Here's this book about cats called Metropolitan Cats.

[168] I've done all these audio interviews with people and showed them pictures in the books about cats.

[169] Let's make a film from it.

[170] And quite honestly, you know, Dax, I prefer that.

[171] Okay, okay.

[172] I've always preferred the experience of shaping films right from just having this footage and figuring out the story.

[173] That was one of the reasons that I became so in there with editing because early in my career, I didn't have to go out in the field.

[174] I didn't have to ask questions.

[175] I didn't have to shoot anything.

[176] I could sit in the editing room and become the person who helped shape the story.

[177] It was like I was the director in the editing room.

[178] Yes.

[179] So I really love that.

[180] Until I got to the point that my ego said, I want to get out there now and do it.

[181] You know, as I got well confident.

[182] Well, yeah, because you do become a master of knowing, I think half of learning how to direct is fucking yourself, getting into the editing room, from figuring out the hard way what you need to get next time.

[183] So it's like you got to learn from all those mistakes of all those directors you probably ever worked with, right?

[184] So you have a pretty damn good list of what to avoid when you go out there and make yours.

[185] You try, you know, but you still make mistakes.

[186] It's impossible a lot to, right?

[187] It's embarrassing, yeah.

[188] You still make mistakes.

[189] But, you know, after being edited for about 14 years, I said it was time for me now to see how I could make my own mistakes, make my own stories, you know.

[190] Yeah.

[191] How do you come to start working with Spike Lee?

[192] Because you've obviously had this beautiful relationship with him, I guess, similar to, like, you know, Scorsese and his editor, or there's all these famous pairings that, again, I find it so telling of the role of the editor, the kind of unsung heroes, that you see these partnerships form between directors and their editors.

[193] And they may work with a million writers or actors, but that seems to be a really special relationship.

[194] This is what happened.

[195] I had started producing on this series, eyes on the prize up in Boston in 1987, 1888, I was producing and directing two shows.

[196] I had done my shooting.

[197] I was in the editing process.

[198] I had another editor woman named Betty Triccarelli editing for me and my co -producer, co -director, Sheila Bernard.

[199] And I was living in the back -based section of Boston and my sons were with me at the time.

[200] My son, Jason, who was 10 at the time, and my other son, Jordan, who was two or three.

[201] And we're in the apartment one day, and the phone rings.

[202] And Jason picks up the phone.

[203] And he says, says, Dad, Spike Lee's on the phone.

[204] I had just seen, with my wife, do the right thing.

[205] Oh, wow.

[206] A few weeks before in the movie theater, and I had said, man, this guy is really some fascinating director.

[207] So when Jason said, Dad, is Spike Lee on the phone.

[208] I very quickly said, Jason, stop pulling my leg, man. Spike Lee doesn't know me from anybody.

[209] Right.

[210] And he said, no, damn serious is Spike.

[211] So I get on the phone, and Spike says his production manager, who was a friend of mine, had suggested he called me because he was getting ready to do Mo Better Blues, and Barry Brown, who had edited school days, wasn't going to be available because he was directing his first feature.

[212] So my buddy had told Spike, I was a real jazz fan, and this would be a good film for him to think about hiring me. So he said, was I available?

[213] And I told him that wasn't free.

[214] Okay.

[215] I said, I'm in the middle of finishing this documentary series, and I really appreciate the call, but thank you, but no thank you.

[216] Oh, wow.

[217] So I hung up.

[218] He's so horny for you now?

[219] Whatever is interested in you, it quadrupled when you said that.

[220] Yeah, so two months later, two months later, I get another call from him.

[221] And this other filmmaker, buddy of mine, a mentor also gentleman named St. Clair Boyne, had done a documentary about the making of do the right thing.

[222] And he mentioned the Spike my name also.

[223] He said, I had edited it with Sam Pollard, and he's a good editor, and he really loves jazz.

[224] He should really hire him.

[225] So right before Labor Day, Spike called me again.

[226] I said, Spike, I'm still not free.

[227] I'm sorry.

[228] But he said, you know, I'm going to be up in the Boston area where I'm Labor Day.

[229] Why don't we get together?

[230] And then he says, this is how life is, man. He said, I'm going to be at the vineyard in Hope Bluffs.

[231] Now, coincidentally, I was going to Oak Bluffs.

[232] Oh, is it coincidentally?

[233] No, it was coincidentally.

[234] Oh, okay, okay.

[235] And so he said, oh, let's meet this.

[236] coffee shop in downtown Oak Bluffs.

[237] So we spent at the most 40 minutes in this coffee shop.

[238] But I don't think he did much talking.

[239] Okay, okay.

[240] By the end of that 40 minutes, I had talked myself into taking the job.

[241] Oh, that's wonderful.

[242] This is why you can't meet people.

[243] I tell my agent, like, so -and -so wants to meet, I don't know.

[244] I'll go, no, I don't want to do anything.

[245] We'll just meet the person.

[246] I'll go, no. I know what happens when you meet somebody.

[247] That's right.

[248] Oh, wow.

[249] And you've done how many movies together?

[250] Eight or something?

[251] We did Movedo Blues, Jungle Fever, Clockers, Girl 6, Bamboozle, Four Little Girls When the Levees Broke, If God is Willing, and The Creek Don't Rise, eight, and then I worked on, I did some editing on Inside Man and 25th hour.

[252] So, 10 films.

[253] That's a lot of time in a room.

[254] That's a lot of time.

[255] That's years in a room.

[256] Yeah, but he's a very unusual guy.

[257] He's been with him.

[258] directors who are very firm in how they see things.

[259] And they don't have to sit with you all the time to tell you exactly what they want.

[260] Yeah.

[261] Yeah.

[262] That's how he is.

[263] That's nice.

[264] Because he's not much of a talker.

[265] I know he's a talker on the sidelines at next games.

[266] That's pretty much right.

[267] Yeah, but in the edit, you know, he knows exactly what he likes.

[268] And when he doesn't like it, he knows how to tell you he doesn't like it.

[269] And you know what to do to change it.

[270] You know, I always say, after I cut jungle fever, I cut juice, Bernice Dickerson, with two.

[271] And me and Ernest talked more in that film than me and Spike talked in five films.

[272] Wow.

[273] Wow.

[274] Yeah.

[275] And then the old days, when we used to take those big 35 millimeter reels to screenings, the big fear was, you know, your tracks would break or your reel would break because you would have the 35 picture.

[276] And then we'd do a mix down of a track, of the track, and there'd be two separate things.

[277] We screen Mobeda Blues in Chicago, and halfway through the screening, The trap broke.

[278] Oh, Jesus.

[279] So I had to run up to the projection room and figure out how to sink it back up by eye.

[280] I'm rolling down the picture and it was 35 millimeters.

[281] Rolling down the picture, rolling down the sound, telling the projection is, I'm going to make this splice here.

[282] I'm going to make the splice in the sound lying up here.

[283] Hopefully it will be in sync.

[284] Oh, my gosh, the stress.

[285] Oh, yeah.

[286] When it was film, it was much more stressful.

[287] All right, let's talk MLK FBI, which I watch.

[288] and I loved, which you directed and wrote and edited.

[289] It's a wild story.

[290] It's a wild story in a lot of ways, I think.

[291] And I think you did a really good job at being fair as you could to most parties involved.

[292] And what I mean by that is here's what I think people know in general, right, that Martin Luther King had been under surveillance from the FBI.

[293] I think that's kind of common knowledge.

[294] Yeah.

[295] But I don't know if what's common knowledge is how that ever got justified, you know, what was the FBI's big motivation, Dr. Martin Luther King's awareness of it or lack of awareness of it, all that stuff is really fascinating.

[296] It brings up some really profound questions, I think, with some current issues that we have that are interesting.

[297] But just, first and foremost, maybe tell us about what the FBI's obsession was at that moment in time.

[298] Well, one of the major obsessions the FBI had was the concern about, Communism, taking over America.

[299] That was a big thing with Hoover and the FBI back in the late 40s and early 50s with the Cold War.

[300] Yeah.

[301] That was major.

[302] I mean, every rock day overturned was about fighting communists, the Rosenbergs, everything.

[303] Anybody who they felt had any kind of previous affiliation to communism, as we know with the blacklist in Hollywood, it was like you were in deep trouble.

[304] If you were John Garfield or if you named names like Ilya Kazan, it was very much.

[305] Pretty intense.

[306] Pretty intense.

[307] Even the Manhattan Project, you had scientists being questioned.

[308] That's right, Robinheim.

[309] Yeah, Oppenheimer was under great scrutiny.

[310] I guess, first and foremost, I would want people to understand what the red panic was.

[311] It was really huge and it was ubiquitous and people thought about it on stop and we were involved in all these different wars, either by proxy or actively.

[312] It was looking like Russia might take over in the whole world.

[313] That was the feeling.

[314] That was the feeling.

[315] So anyone that they felt had the slightest connection with communist infiltrators or people had been fellow travelers, they were going to monitor.

[316] And the other thing that really, quite honestly, that obsessed Hoover was the fact that in the, let's say, with the Montgomery bus boycott in 55, 56, and Dr. King became a known quantity and start to really galvanize communities in the South primarily to fight for equal justice.

[317] For J. Edgar Hoover, from my perspective, it was like, oh, my God, these black people know long going to be second -class citizens.

[318] What's the problem?

[319] They have their own communities, so they can't drink at the same water fountain.

[320] So they can't go into a restaurant and sit down.

[321] What's the big issue?

[322] So all of a sudden, the notion of American democracy was going to change, scared the bejesus out of Hoover.

[323] So King's fame started to grow.

[324] His ascendancy started to really grow.

[325] He became, as Hoover says he was concerned about the rise of a black Messiah.

[326] Someone who's going to lead black people to the promised land.

[327] This is what I think is so interesting about the story you told is you have this really heightened, heightened fear.

[328] I would even say existential crisis.

[329] And now you weave in racism and you weave in bias and you weave in the fact that Jagger Hoover is from the South in the 20s or whatever.

[330] I was shocked to learn in your film that that motherfucker was.

[331] the head of the FBI for like 45 years or something astronomical like that?

[332] That's right.

[333] Over 40 years.

[334] That is bonkers from when Washington was nothing to it's the center of power.

[335] So that in itself is like, wow, that's a unique scenario.

[336] That's why he was able to amass such power.

[337] He has such a level of power.

[338] I mean, as everyone knows now, Jay Hague who've had files and everybody, you could be Lyndon Baines Johnson, you could be Adley Stevenson, you could be Martin Luther King, you could be Elijah Muhammad, he had files on everybody.

[339] He knew where all the bodies were buried.

[340] Yes, 100%.

[341] Yeah, being around for 45 years, being privated people's secrets, put him in the craziest intersection of power and had the instrument at his disposal.

[342] I would hope he would never allow someone to become that.

[343] It's almost Russian in nature, to be honest.

[344] Well, it is.

[345] It's like Putin.

[346] It's like Putin, man. It is.

[347] It's so Putin.

[348] Putin -esque.

[349] Yeah.

[350] There were no measures in place like they are now to say, you can't be a director of the FBI for over 40 years.

[351] That would never happen now.

[352] For four and a half decades, yeah.

[353] Never happened.

[354] But I think the tipping point for Hoover, William Sullivan, who was one of his right -hand men, was the fact after that March on Washington speech, Dr. King had such impact with the I Have a Dream speech.

[355] I think that was when Hoover said, oh, my God, we're in trouble.

[356] We got to do something.

[357] And think about this.

[358] Right before that, he had started wiretapping King and had got the sign off from Bobby Kennedy.

[359] And we need to remember that this is not the Bobby Kennedy that people love and revere from 67 -68.

[360] This is the Bobby Kennedy who had worked with Roy Cohen in the late 50s.

[361] He was an attorney general for his brother.

[362] And they weren't exactly like pro -communist in the Kennedy administration.

[363] Right.

[364] They too are definitely succumbing to maybe it's not a 10 like some of the other folks, but they're definitely operating out of seven, which is, it was a pretty crazy Cold War and we narrowly won it.

[365] So it's not to belittle the stakes of what that battle was.

[366] I thought it was interesting to find out, yeah, Robert Kennedy and JFK, who both ostensibly really liked Dr. King initially pulled him aside and they said you got to stop associating with certain people that are seeing as involved in the Communist Party because that's all the leverage that J. Edgar Hoover needs to be all over you.

[367] That's exactly right.

[368] When the Hoover started initially wiretapping Dr. King, it was because of Dr. King's close personal relationship with Stanley Levinson, who had been a member of the Communist Party but had said he had left the Communist Party.

[369] And he was a white Jewish lawyer, an advisor, right?

[370] He was an advisor.

[371] So that was why they initially signed off on the wiretapping.

[372] And then when right before the march in Washington, Dr. King was invited to the White House by Bobby Kennedy and JFK.

[373] And they said to him, you should disassociate yourself from Stanley Levinson, Bayard Rustin, and anybody in your organization who might have had past communist affiliations.

[374] Now, quite honestly, King never really severed his relationship with Stanley Levinson, even though he said that he was going to do that to Bobby and JFK.

[375] He never really did.

[376] Right.

[377] And the wired traps prove that, and they kind of had egg on their face to Jager Hoover, because he knew that.

[378] Exactly.

[379] But the thing that became the smoking gun for Hoover was as they were wiretapping King and his associates like Clarence Jones and Andy Young and Levinson, they learned of his, of Dr. King's extramarital affairs.

[380] Yeah.

[381] And when they learned about that, that's when Hoover said, this will hopefully destroy and discredit Dr. King's supposed it.

[382] Black Messiah's status.

[383] Exactly.

[384] That was the goal to destroy his reputation.

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[410] Okay, and now here's another fascinating intersection.

[411] So you've got the Red Scare, now you've got non -monogamous activities, a fear of a black Messiah, and then Jagger Hoover's own personal relationship with sexuality, his own personal fear of black men being sexual, the fear that black men would rape more, that they couldn't control their desires.

[412] So then, again, the braid of racism plus these tapes he has, now the fire is just like, it's just gaining oxygen.

[413] at this point.

[414] Yeah, and then to just really piss off Jay Edgar Hoover in the midst of all this, he wins the Nobel Peace Prize, right, at like 34 something?

[415] Yeah, that had to really gall, Chegg Oliver.

[416] Oh, he must have just thought, well, this fucking hypocrite, this is baloney, he, you know.

[417] That's why he called him the most notorious liar.

[418] That's why he came out with that because as far as he was concerned, Dr. King was a hypocrite.

[419] He's preaching all these nonviolent things.

[420] He's a minister.

[421] And here he is having this double life.

[422] Which you can think about, Jackson, is fascinating, knowing that Hoover had his own double life.

[423] Exactly.

[424] Okay, so here's what's really fascinating, because I'll tell you that the real message I got from your film and what I couldn't get out of my own head about all morning was, and in fact, I had to go look up Jay at Grohoover, because I was like, I heard he cross -dress, you know, so that's what they called cross -dressing back then.

[425] And upon researching that, in order to talk to you.

[426] That is not substantiated in any way.

[427] It's a rumor.

[428] It may or may not be true, but there's no evidence of it, but it is one of the most well -known rumors.

[429] In the Democratic Party perpetuated a lot of rumors about him that he was either gay because he was living as a bachelor his whole career or that, you know, this one woman had seen him cross -dressed.

[430] The point is this is the thing about your movie that I am secondarily most rattled by.

[431] Obviously, the racism and the history of it is terrible.

[432] But I think if all of this happened in 2021, Dr. King would have actually been silenced.

[433] I think the society we live in currently, had Jagger Hoover been able to get tapes out and to pass them to the right people and to say some of these women maybe, there was a power imbalance or whatever the thing would have been, I think that in today's current council culture, he might not have weathered that.

[434] And that is a very terrifying thought to me because whatever he did sexually, in my opinion, had nothing to do with his nonviolent approach and the movement he led and civil rights.

[435] They're not even related.

[436] They don't even ever need to be talked about.

[437] But I do fear, oh, I'm sorry, I'm on my pedestal.

[438] I think today someone is brilliant and revered and loved as Dr. King could have been taken out.

[439] Well, we live in a society where that can happen now.

[440] We see it every day now.

[441] We see it every day.

[442] People who had a certain sort of prominence and accolades can be taken down.

[443] We saw it happen without Franken.

[444] Uh -huh.

[445] Yeah.

[446] You know, you see it happen all the time.

[447] The fascinating thing, though, think about this way, though, Dax.

[448] All this shit that came out on Donald J. Trump in his four years in office never took him down.

[449] No. Never took him down.

[450] No. The question is why not?

[451] Well, so here's what I was challenging myself to do this morning.

[452] So at first, I just recognized like, wow, man, I think we would have denied ourselves a Dr. King currently.

[453] I think we would have accidentally lost one in a very short -sighted way.

[454] But then I had to challenge myself and think, I don't know, though, if they have Mitch McConnell, right?

[455] If they got video of Mitch McConnell at restrooms, at travel centers with dudes hooking up and that shit exists and he's anti -gay, I want that out.

[456] So I had to admit that when they're my enemies, I might have a different opinion of this stuff coming out.

[457] And then I was forced to think, oh, yeah, the Jagger Hoover thing.

[458] I love spreading that.

[459] But that is me doing the same thing, right?

[460] I'm still trying to weaponize someone's private life against what they did professionally.

[461] And I think we're all really susceptible to it.

[462] It's just whether we love the person or not.

[463] That's right.

[464] But you got to be mindful, man. You don't want to say, I want to weaponize it against Mitch McConnell.

[465] but I don't want to recognize it against Dr. King.

[466] I mean, it's complicated, man. So what's curious about all this is that the tapes, as again I learned in your film, MLK FBI, all these tapes that had been recorded and ultimately were put somewhere per judge's orders, they all exist and they will come out in 2027 and therein lies like a new interesting chapter.

[467] Here's the thing to think about.

[468] What will be the status of those tapes if they are released?

[469] First of all, will the FBI only have doctored and edited the tapes the way they want you to hear them?

[470] If that's the case, then we should question the release of those tapes.

[471] Uh -huh.

[472] If they were, let's say, honest enough to say, we want to release all the unedited tapes.

[473] Uh -huh.

[474] Where there was not only supposedly the scandalous behavior, Dr. King, but the conversations he may have had with his associates like Abernappy or Andy Young or Clarence Jones about the strategies they were undertaken certain cities they were in like in Albany or Birmingham should that be released.

[475] So I think someone, some law professor, some history professor should challenge the government to understand what kind of tapes are being released.

[476] If it's just the edited tapes, I would say don't release them.

[477] Interesting.

[478] That's my take.

[479] Yeah, it brings up a really, really good philosophical question, right?

[480] Because in general, I am of the opinion that all info should be seen by the citizens, right?

[481] So if it exists, I want to know.

[482] That's in general how I feel about classified stuff that gets declassified.

[483] Like, we've got to have a real understanding of what this government does.

[484] That's right.

[485] Herein lies the proof.

[486] And I acknowledge that there will be some cadre of people who are still pissed at this nice, kind man without ever swinging a punch.

[487] got the Civil Rights Act passed.

[488] Like, the people still have a chip on their shoulder about that, and they will try to weaponize and dig up and defame and bastardize and try to call into question any great thing he ever did.

[489] So that has to be weighed against it, I suppose.

[490] You hit it right on the head.

[491] There will always be people who didn't think that Dr. King was an aberration.

[492] How dare this man challenged him, the democracy that we grew up in, and will have no respect for him at all?

[493] So to me, it goes back to the question that if I was a history professor or law professor, if I was the King family, I would challenge to release those tapes and wanting to know what's on those tapes if they're going to be released.

[494] You know, because there's obviously transcripts of everything they did.

[495] So that would be my opinion.

[496] There's another way I thought about this.

[497] Okay, so minimally, they'll be embarrassing.

[498] That's pretty much acknowledged.

[499] They'll be embarrassing, you know.

[500] He was involved with different sexual activities with people that are in his wife.

[501] That's embarrassing.

[502] And so I think at some point we have to have a reckoning, which is, yeah, man, the best human beings that have ever walked on this planet were complicated.

[503] They had behavior they regretted or were embarrassed about.

[504] I don't know his position.

[505] Maybe he was not embarrassed about any of those things, but minimally it caused a lot of havoc with he and his wife.

[506] But I guess what I want to say is, are we going to continue to try to live this fantasy where we hide everything we do?

[507] And then just because that's the system, then we're just taking down all these people because we're demanding perfection.

[508] Or do we use him yet again as a symbol to break another thing, which is like, fucking stop it.

[509] We're all flawed.

[510] A non -flawed human does not sit among you.

[511] Look at this example.

[512] This is one of the greatest humans we've ever had on planet Earth.

[513] And he had some flaws.

[514] So that should be the expectation.

[515] Like, is there room for that to be the product of this?

[516] Well, there should be.

[517] there should be that attitude, but we're living in a country now where everything seems to be black and white.

[518] Yeah.

[519] There's no shades of gray.

[520] It's sort of frightening that we live in a country like that now, that people just can't seem to have shades of gray.

[521] But I think that should be the attitude.

[522] He was a great man, but like any human being, he had his flaws.

[523] Yeah.

[524] He did more than any other man ever in the March of Civil Rights, and he fucked a lot.

[525] Okay, so there you go.

[526] There's your whole picture.

[527] of this guy.

[528] And move on.

[529] Except that.

[530] Yeah.

[531] What are your thoughts on the fact that the FBI was actively surveilling him when he was murdered in Memphis at the hotel?

[532] So, I mean, they're literally, they're watching the hotel.

[533] What do we make of that?

[534] Here's my analysis of it.

[535] As one of the subjects in the film, Chuck Knox says, anytime Dr. King went to another city, the FBI had ages out there 24 -7, surveilling him, watching him, observing him, bugging his hotel rooms.

[536] The question I think we all have to ask ourselves, with that kind of intense surveillance, how was the FBI not aware of a supposed lone gunman?

[537] How was the FBI not aware of a James Allray?

[538] So that brings the next question.

[539] Were they complicit in Dr. King's assassination?

[540] Or did they turn a blind eye to it, knowing that it would happen?

[541] Yeah.

[542] The thing to remember, too, about the FBI, when you look at their history and within the civil rights movement, they always came late to the table.

[543] When Cheney, Schwerner, and Goodman were killed in Mississippi, the FBI had to be challenged to step up to investigate the murders.

[544] There was lynching in 1946 in Morris Ford, Georgia, for these four black people, the FBI had to be challenged to come to the table.

[545] The FBI never was proactive in the fight for civil rights.

[546] I mean, that was not Hoover's agenda.

[547] Yeah.

[548] He was so concerned about first communism, then the possible rise of a black Messiah, not only with Dr. King, but with Malcolm X, Elijah Muhammad, Fred Hampton, for the Black Panther Party.

[549] He was so fixated on the fact that these groups and these people, these individuals, he felt were going to change his perception that he had grown up with in terms of what it meant to be an American.

[550] I mean, quite honestly, that's the perception I grew up with.

[551] Sure, yeah, yeah.

[552] In the 60s, I was a big fan of the FBI.

[553] Yeah.

[554] You know, I didn't know any different.

[555] I love watching these movies with James Cadney G. Men or Jimmy Stewart, the FBI story.

[556] The FBI with the good guys.

[557] Well, yeah, again, we're all swimming in the water, and it's not like years later we look back and go, oh, that was a little, hmm, okay.

[558] Wow, they used to say that on late night talk shows all the time.

[559] Okay, that's troubling.

[560] That's my latest thing I keep noticing, like, wow, they really were rough on women just 15 years ago on these talk shows.

[561] That's right.

[562] That's right.

[563] A different world.

[564] you know back to what a thorn and edgar's side dr king was like the beauty of his success i think is he did everything that hoover was afraid of but he did it in a way that cannot be done that to me is the best sucker punch of it all so this is a country that's protecting the patriarchy it's protecting the white supremacy it's protecting all these things and if we hold these institutions and we have the guns and we have the money, we have the power, we can control.

[565] And the fact that it happened with none of the things that make us feel safe is a really nice, fuck you.

[566] There's a real poetry to that.

[567] Like, I think had, let's say, the Black Panthers succeeded in civil rights through armed conflict, I think that would feel better for Jay Gagher Hoover than what happened.

[568] That's right.

[569] I mean, this past weekend, TCM had gone the untowell.

[570] television.

[571] Remember the movie?

[572] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[573] Ben Kingsley.

[574] And watching that movie, and I keep watching that movie every time it comes on, the strategy that McGondy implemented, the same strategy that Dr. King implemented.

[575] It was using a nonviolent force against those who were expecting for you to retaliate with force.

[576] Yeah.

[577] And it got to a point where you said, I can't beat those who aren't going to really fight back in the way we want them to fight back.

[578] Yes.

[579] That was Dr. King's strategy.

[580] that's why people are so impactful.

[581] Yeah.

[582] These things are always so fascinating.

[583] And it's why it's so relevant to continue to watch history.

[584] And you do it in such an entertaining way.

[585] It's not like a task to learn about this.

[586] Your film is so fun and well -paced.

[587] But it's good because you start seeing like, oh, this stuff just all, all these tactics, they're still here.

[588] So the BLM stuff, a lot of the criticism of the BLM stuff, is that there's some socialist undercurrent to it.

[589] And we fear socialism greatly.

[590] So you see the whole thing.

[591] getting churned up again.

[592] Same thing.

[593] Same thing.

[594] Yeah, the same thing.

[595] I mean, what's really fascinating and sometimes frightening was like in the film when the woman on the television shows asked Dr. King, don't you feel your peaceful protest of causing riots in the cities?

[596] All you've got to do is flash forward to last summer when Trump's on the stump or some other politician from the rights on television saying, aren't these Black Lives Matters protest causing a rise in the city?

[597] Yeah.

[598] The same thing, communism is going to take over the country in 2020, if you elect some socialist Democrat, they're going to destroy our suburbs.

[599] To me, the biggest joke for this past year, to hear anybody say, Joe Biden is a socialist.

[600] I chuckled every time.

[601] I said, are you guys kidding?

[602] He's a middle -of -the -road guy.

[603] A hundred percent.

[604] Yeah, he wants a thriving capitalist society.

[605] There's no two ways about it.

[606] It's really crazy to see how parallel it is and how much it does strike up the fear.

[607] It just gets it going.

[608] And then now this fear of socialism got a face, BLM.

[609] Well, wait, that's not the face of BLM.

[610] That's not their cause.

[611] No. Well, I loved your film.

[612] Thank you.

[613] And really enjoyed talking to you, Sam.

[614] I hope everyone checks it out.

[615] Where can people watch MLK FBI?

[616] You can watch it.

[617] It's in playing and theaters now that are opening around the country.

[618] Oh, wonderful.

[619] It's also streaming everywhere, Amazon, YouTube.

[620] Any place that has streaming.

[621] You can stream it all.

[622] Okay, great.

[623] So everyone should stream MLK FBI.

[624] It's a fascinating history of that relationship.

[625] And I want you prepared in case these tapes do come out.

[626] You've got a primer to how to digest them.

[627] Right.

[628] So great meeting you, Sam.

[629] We should have a ton of luck with the movie.

[630] All right.

[631] Take care.

[632] Be good.

[633] Bye.

[634] Stay tuned for more armchair expert.

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[663] What's up guys?

[664] It's your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season, and let me tell you, it's too good.

[665] And I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest, okay?

[666] Every episode, I bring on a friend and have a real conversation.

[667] And I don't mean just friends.

[668] I mean the likes of Amy Polar, Kel Mitchell, Vivica Fox, the list goes on.

[669] So follow, watch, and listen to Baby.

[670] This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast.

[671] Hello.

[672] Hi, we've not ever done a fact check on these, but this will be the first.

[673] It's not a fact check.

[674] That's why I want to make it pretty.

[675] Oh, right.

[676] You're not going to check any facts.

[677] Yeah, I'm not checking any facts.

[678] We don't check facts for these.

[679] But I was missing and I was jealous that I was missing.

[680] And I was editing and I thought, hmm, maybe we should chat a little bit after.

[681] You were editing an editor.

[682] I know.

[683] So meta.

[684] Really a ding, ding, ding.

[685] Yeah.

[686] Okay, so I'm going to guess on what the topic is.

[687] But cancel culture?

[688] Yeah.

[689] Okay.

[690] Yeah, that needed another opinion in there.

[691] Okay, right.

[692] I just want to make sure that this episode has the other side presented because you're a conversation with him.

[693] You guys really align.

[694] I am not a fan of cancel culture.

[695] I don't think it's helpful to.

[696] remove people for every indiscretion.

[697] I think you have to look at it case by case.

[698] But I do think it is important that things get called out.

[699] I think it's really important.

[700] I think that is what has progressed us so far and it will continue to progress us.

[701] Could we make it a little more specific and less broad?

[702] Because in this case that he and I were talking about, my singular point was, had Martin Luther King existed today as a civil rights leader, he would have been canceled.

[703] And the thought of missing a Martin Luther King, so on that specific case...

[704] It was more broad than that.

[705] It was saying we got to be careful about canceling people.

[706] That we don't miss out on an MLK because we're worried about people's fucking.

[707] Yeah, I mean, I don't know all the details of MLK.

[708] I guess maybe we will find them out.

[709] I know about the orgies and stuff.

[710] That to me is his personal life.

[711] Well, unless there are staff, involved in those orgies, which most certainly there would have been.

[712] Then it becomes this whole other thing.

[713] It's also tricky because none of those people have come out to say that they didn't like it or they weren't consenting.

[714] Really quick, though, wasn't there's the congresswoman who no one came out.

[715] It's just she acknowledged there was a tape of her and one of her staff members having sex.

[716] Do you remember this?

[717] Katie something?

[718] Oh, Katie Hill.

[719] Yeah.

[720] Yeah, and she stepped down because she said this is wrong because she worked for me. Right.

[721] That woman didn't have a problem with it.

[722] They were both consensual.

[723] I don't think Katie should have stepped down.

[724] Oh, I don't either, but she did.

[725] Right.

[726] But that's what I'm saying.

[727] It's case by case.

[728] I mean, if someone in that experience is saying I was taking advantage of or this happened to me or this person is abusing their power or whatever or this person sexually harassed me, we can't say, oh, well, they're providing.

[729] a lot of goods, so we can't listen to you.

[730] Katie Hill's totally not like that.

[731] But her career was ended.

[732] I guess that's what I'm saying.

[733] Like there were no victims and her career's over.

[734] Yeah, I don't think that should have happened.

[735] But I do think it should happen in certain cases.

[736] Do you think there are, is there room though, I wonder?

[737] This is very provocative.

[738] But is there room for, let's say, Dr. Martin Luther King was inappropriate with women.

[739] He hit on women that worked for him.

[740] And those women didn't like it.

[741] And they said so.

[742] And it was learned that he was that way.

[743] Is there room in this world to go, he's an absolute piece of shit when it comes to women.

[744] And he has this message about civil rights that is actually 100 % accurate.

[745] Yeah.

[746] I mean, both things can be true.

[747] I mean, can we can, I guess my question is, I think currently, that's not an option right now is to go, oh, this person's a piece of shit in this category, but they're amazing in this category.

[748] So, you know, don't be.

[749] around the person, blah, blah, blah, but allow them to do the thing that is super beneficial for the rest of the world.

[750] But the reason they are successful in that one category is because they are trusted.

[751] It's because the message that they are giving feels powerful.

[752] If you know that person is a hypocrite, it's hard to buy in.

[753] But all of Dr. Martin Luther King's rhetoric about civil rights had nothing to do with his sexuality or anything he did.

[754] So all of his...

[755] Yeah, but it's about love and peace.

[756] And no, I'm not saying what he did was wrong because I don't, again, I don't think anyone has come out to say that they were mistreated.

[757] So I don't want anyone to take this as me saying he needs to be canceled.

[758] That is literally the opposite of what I think.

[759] But let's say it's another person right now.

[760] Well, could we use the example where we do have a thought experiment where he did do that?

[761] And people were saying at the time it's a problem?

[762] Yeah, I don't.

[763] Then no. He shouldn't have been allowed to lead that civil rights.

[764] I don't think I would have been able to buy into it if there's a person who, there's all these people saying, this is a bad guy, this is a bad dude, he's doing this, he's doing this, and yet he's standing on a pedestal preaching, I think it's - Now, in my opinion, if he was preaching that you should not hit on people and exploit your power over women, and then was doing it, then he's a hypocrite.

[765] But he's speaking on all humans are equal.

[766] Here is the history you guys are ignoring.

[767] Here are the rights that are being denied to black people.

[768] This is what you have to acknowledge.

[769] He's not a hypocrite in that situation.

[770] Yes, he is because he's speaking on not marginalizing a group, but he's marginalizing another group at the exact same time, women.

[771] So he can't do both at the same time.

[772] He can't say everyone should be treated well.

[773] But he might have.

[774] We don't know, and I doubt it's the case.

[775] but we might find out in whatever year it said this is coming out, we might find out it was gnarly.

[776] Yeah, that's going to be a bummer.

[777] Yeah, but my point is like, I guess it's a utilitarian view of it.

[778] It's like the amount of good he did for the whole country in all the black people is so significant.

[779] It is.

[780] That I don't know that you can take that from them because there are some victims over here.

[781] there's let's say 10 victims they would have been victims anyways uh he would have victimized 10 people anyways well not necessarily well if you're a dirtbag and you're that kind of guy no you have to have power is what you're saying you have to have power in order to exploit it i guess what i'm saying is like one thing won't erase the other so it's like if he has 10 victims taking the civil rights movement away from him and everyone in America is not going to fix that thing all it's going to do is like you add up his whole life now and now it's just all negative it's just all damage right you add up his life now and it's like there's a humongous mountain of positivity yeah i don't know man it is fucking complicated if you really think about it in terms of a martin luther king it is it's incredibly complicated i mean but again part of his power is you believe in his goodness.

[782] So Obama is the next, I would say, in line for that, where you really, when he speaks and he's talking, you believe him and you trust him.

[783] And if a bunch of horrible stuff were to come out about Obama, you'd feel betrayed.

[784] You'd feel like, wait, wait, wait, this person presented this and it helped everything.

[785] You know, he helped change the world for the better.

[786] but you still feel like yeah see i wouldn't feel betrayed i would go oh yeah he was a flawed really complicated multifaceted person can i say something you're not going to like yeah you you can't feel betrayed because you aren't in any of these categories you are a woman who would feel like oh my god women are being silenced women are and you're not black and so i i think it's maybe be harder to connect to those feelings.

[787] That's a great point.

[788] I'm trying to think of some category I could count myself in where you'd have to do with something like molesting or addiction or something, but I don't think.

[789] Yeah, maybe that's why.

[790] I mean, that's a really great point.

[791] But it is complicated.

[792] But I also, in general, that aside, which is a great point, and it's, I'm not brushing over it, but I don't think Obama's that good.

[793] I hate to tell you this.

[794] I don't think he's a saint.

[795] I think he's a really smart man who did a tremendous amount of good.

[796] But I don't think he doesn't have secrets.

[797] Of course.

[798] Huge mistakes.

[799] You fucking snorted Coke.

[800] I love that.

[801] You know, I don't think he, like, that's what I mean is I can't, I can't imagine feeling betrayed by him other than finding out, yeah, he raped women or his children or something.

[802] I'm not asking, no one's asking for perfection.

[803] Well, I would argue that the, I'm sorry.

[804] No, no, no, go ahead.

[805] You said this man is good, Martin Luther King.

[806] Yeah.

[807] You can be good and not perfect.

[808] Well, I would say the people following him as a reverend, as a man of the church, what he was doing was incredibly hypocritical.

[809] Having orgies when you're touting this monogamous religion is total hypocrisy.

[810] So it's like there's these levels.

[811] Like if you're a religious person going to church and you find out he's fucking five people a night, you're going to feel betrayed.

[812] But I'm in a position that's like, you didn't have a right to expect him to have a certain fucking sex life.

[813] Yeah.

[814] What you should have felt like you had a right to is the message he was giving you, you either believed in it or not, it motivated you or made you passionate or got you involved and he's made change or not.

[815] That's what ends for me. You can't have expectations about his fucking or.

[816] Yeah, but those people who are feeling betrayed, there aren't victims.

[817] They're just betrayed by the philosophy.

[818] Well, I think they would say, no matter what, whether the women said so or not, he was exploiting this huge fame he had, this popularity, had this charisma that those poor women he manipulated or, you know, wooed and prayed upon when he was married and he was supposed to be with his wife.

[819] You know, I don't agree with any of this, but I can see where these little lines that feel objective aren't really that objective.

[820] Yeah, I don't think anything is objective.

[821] It's complicated and it's gray.

[822] I'm only bringing up the question.

[823] And the question might be that, yeah, you can't have both.

[824] If it turns out Martin Luther King had victims, then maybe it turns out we should have lost him.

[825] I don't know if it's not as simple as it.

[826] I don't know.

[827] But what is also true is maybe that is the standard that we should be having.

[828] And we have to acknowledge we're going to have a much smaller pool of people to solve.

[829] our problems.

[830] Yeah, again, I think you're making it a little bit more perfect or not perfect.

[831] And I'm not.

[832] I'm saying, if you're hurting someone, that's a problem.

[833] Like, that is a problem.

[834] I agree.

[835] I just, I wish there was consensus on what hurting someone is.

[836] There isn't consensus on what is hurting someone or what consent is or what, you know, like, unfortunately, there's not even consensus over what harming someone is.

[837] And that's what scares me. Yeah, I mean, the reason I think some of this is needed is because I think...

[838] The Brittany doc.

[839] Yeah, yeah.

[840] And I mean, yeah, I think a lot of men in power are used to exploiting it and they have a hard time even knowing that it's a problem.

[841] Yeah.

[842] And it's not even their fault.

[843] It's, again, it's the water and they're used to it.

[844] And the reason we have to stop it.

[845] Because the women were in the water, there's a period where the women are attracted to that.

[846] like they were attracted to power yeah and i just think the way to say to the next person in power hey you actually can't abuse your power because look at what happened to that guy like the next generation is hopefully not going to be the same because they're going to see there are consequences yeah i guess my fear is like if the expectation is that people in power shan't ever fuck people because they have power and they must recognize that that power can be exploited.

[847] I don't think there's ever going to be a world where people don't fuck each other.

[848] No, it's not, again, that's so, that is binary.

[849] They should not fuck their employees.

[850] Yeah, I don't know that that's ever going to be a reality.

[851] I think people that work, no, you're saying that no, people who work together fuck each other.

[852] But if you're the boss or you're the owner or you're this.

[853] Yeah, so think about that.

[854] So I'm with you.

[855] But think about it.

[856] So that means the one person at the company who can't fuck is the boss.

[857] No, they can.

[858] They just can't fuck anyone at their company.

[859] That's fine.

[860] There's a billion people.

[861] See, I kind of don't think that's fair.

[862] So every, listen, everyone at the company can fuck each other.

[863] Fuck themselves.

[864] Everyone in a company can fuck each other.

[865] Who are on the same level.

[866] We like that, right?

[867] Who are on the same level.

[868] Don't even we think between level four and level three at GM?

[869] Yeah, that's probably fine.

[870] Yes.

[871] Yeah.

[872] So all these.

[873] people can fuck each other because it's consensual but the boss can't fuck someone below him even if that person is pursuing him or her and likes them and they like each other that expectation i think is not tenable you can't ask you can't you can't say everyone's allowed to fuck here except for you yes you can that is a rich owner of a company that has access to every other person on the planet sorry they can't have the five women who work under him yes it's totally fine.

[874] I mean, it is.

[875] And the difference between level four and level three relationship and the boss of a company is that person makes big decisions about the employee's livelihood.

[876] There is no way to untie that.

[877] Well, but then we got to get more specific.

[878] I think it should be illegal for a boss, which it already is, to change the career path of someone they've slept with.

[879] That's already illegal.

[880] That's what wrongful termination suits are about.

[881] than regularly won.

[882] You can't do that.

[883] So that problem is already addressed.

[884] You can't fuck someone.

[885] And because you broke up, fuck their career.

[886] Well, but it's so nuanced.

[887] A boss can say, well, I just didn't give them a raise because they weren't performing.

[888] Well, I would say it's pretty easy.

[889] You chart their 12 years at the company and you see how regularly they got promoted.

[890] You see how regularly they got raises.

[891] They fuck the boss and all that stopped.

[892] They prove it all the time in court.

[893] But they also don't.

[894] It's hard to prove stuff like that because there are so many factors at play as an employee that it's very easy to say it's this, that, or the other.

[895] But most people, that's the only human beings they see.

[896] If they're at work for 80 hours a week as a lawyer or something, they don't see anyone out.

[897] The people they know they work with.

[898] Think about all the people you know in your life.

[899] How many of them are relationships.

[900] But I'm not a CEO.

[901] No, but anyone.

[902] My mom and my dad didn't meet at work.

[903] My Amy and Ryan didn't meet at work.

[904] Like, no one I know.

[905] Tons of people don't meet at work.

[906] Yeah, it's not unfathomable.

[907] It's not the only pool you have.

[908] And lots of people's whole life is work.

[909] Yeah, well, that's maybe something to change.

[910] If you're like literally the only pool is this pool of employees I have because I work nonstop, then you say, I'm working less or I'm not going to have relationships.

[911] The answer is not to then have a relationship with someone.

[912] At work?

[913] What's this mean?

[914] Below you?

[915] Yeah, but there's a word.

[916] Subordinate.

[917] Ooh, subordinate.

[918] Ding ding, ding, ding, ding.

[919] Anyway, fun dance.

[920] That was good.

[921] Yeah, that was a great dance.

[922] Love you.

[923] Okay, love you.

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