Joy Bryant

[0] Welcome to the armchair expert.

[1] I'm Dax Shepard.

[2] Today, I am joined by my TV wife, Joy Bryant.

[3] You know her from Parenthood, Get Rich or Die Trying, Antoine Fisher.

[4] She's a writer.

[5] She's an actress.

[6] She's a clothing designer.

[7] And one of my all -time favorite people to talk to.

[8] I think we worked together for almost seven years on Parenthood and we never, ever tired of shooting the shit.

[9] And as you will hear, our favorite topics are sex and race in no particular order.

[10] I credit her with defeating me in numerous debates.

[11] And I thank her for her patience.

[12] while guiding me at a snail's pace towards wokeness.

[13] She would hate that I just use that word wokeness.

[14] But anyways, please enjoy my good friend, Joy Bryant.

[15] Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad free right now.

[16] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

[17] Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts.

[18] We can edit.

[19] Like, we can have a conversation.

[20] Eventually, I don't feel comfortable about.

[21] Like, I don't talk about this shit.

[22] Or we can talk and kind of go back and like.

[23] This ain't NPR.

[24] I'm not trying to.

[25] Oh, this is not NPR?

[26] Oh, I must be in the wrong place.

[27] My appointment sheet says NPR.

[28] My call sheet says, um, MPR.

[29] Okay, I'm going to start.

[30] Joy Bryant, welcome to the Armchair Xwork podcast.

[31] I've got to say out of everyone that's on, and you can look at it, my dry erase board.

[32] I have a bazillion name.

[33] on there.

[34] I'm cleaning my glasses.

[35] Sincerely, you're the person I'm most excited to talk to.

[36] What?

[37] Say what?

[38] I think I enjoy talking to you almost more than anybody else.

[39] Oh, I see people on there.

[40] Yeah, maybe you should look.

[41] Oh my God, there's like some real deal motherfuckers.

[42] What if it just seems like Superman, Batman, not even their names.

[43] Aw man, wonderful man. But we were on parenthood together for six years and we virtually did this every single day in our trailer right?

[44] Yeah, there was a lot a therapy that went down.

[45] Oh my God.

[46] Well, you, yes, because you are, your listeners don't are not, don't know this, but Dax, I mean, you'd make a great therapist and a great acting teacher.

[47] Oh, wow.

[48] Yeah.

[49] I mean, I know people know you direct.

[50] They don't know how good you, you know, you know what saying?

[51] I'm always looking for the backup plan.

[52] Because as we all know, eventually you'll just, that phone will not ring for about four years.

[53] And you got to move into something else.

[54] And I've been kind of working on Transpo if you know like remember one time I drove my trailer to work and they they found a little that.

[55] Was that in the movie?

[56] No, no, I'm Parenthood.

[57] I was like leaving for the sand dunes after we shot one day so I drove the 20 foot trailer onto the lot and then they they found this little spot for me and I backed it in and they were all really impressed and that to me felt bigger than any Academy Award or anything else.

[58] I just wanted all those blue collar dudes to be like, yep, he's one of us.

[59] Um, yeah, I remember when I was, um, um, when I was shooting a movie and at the time I had this like fancy like Mercedes G wagon.

[60] Oh yeah, yeah.

[61] And I drove that to set.

[62] They're like, mm, whatever.

[63] But then the day when I drove my husband's like Dave's big, Dave's big ass.

[64] We have the same truck.

[65] So it was Silvarado, whatever.

[66] 2 ,500 HD Silverado four door with the Dura Max diesel.

[67] Like all transfer were like, yo.

[68] And I'm like, and they started park.

[69] I would like pull up and they would park my truck.

[70] Like you had a Ferrari.

[71] Yeah.

[72] And then Kevin Hart was like, because he had a G -wagon.

[73] He was like, yo, how come they don't?

[74] And I was like, they don't give a fuck about your G -wagging now.

[75] I care about this.

[76] This diesel, motherfucker.

[77] This 700 pounds of foot tour.

[78] Yeah, I got so much props and like, yeah.

[79] Yeah.

[80] Well, we'll get into your husband, your husband, who's an enigma in so many ways.

[81] And I'm attracted to every one of those ways.

[82] But I think you have, in addition to you, I just love talking to you, I think you have one of the more interesting stories that there are because you grew up in the Bronx and you were raised by your grandma.

[83] And I think it's a really interesting, long, curvy road to you and I being on parenthood.

[84] In a weird way, I feel like I relate in that I, like, lived in a welfare building for a few years.

[85] I was brought home to a trailer.

[86] It's just a, it's a, I love that either you or I could end up.

[87] up, you know, doing what we do.

[88] Well, hence the, when you said about, like, always having a backup plan, because I think when you grow up like that.

[89] Yeah, you're terrified.

[90] Money's a big fucking deal.

[91] And even though things go, well, you're always, you got to make sure, because you always had to have.

[92] Yes.

[93] And be, fancy.

[94] It was on our collective mind as a family all the time.

[95] Money, money, money, money, money.

[96] But you were raised by your grandma.

[97] Mm -hmm.

[98] And also, So, for some of you that don't know, Joy's an amazing writer, she's one of my favorite writers.

[99] She's written two super, really powerful kind of op eddy pieces.

[100] What would we call them, op eddy pieces?

[101] I would just call them essays.

[102] Essays.

[103] Personal essays.

[104] You've written two that were fucking brilliant.

[105] And one of them you were, was, I found to be so powerful because I hadn't even thought.

[106] You and I both wrestle with some issues.

[107] Mine is with my dad.

[108] I was, you know, I had a very, very hard time.

[109] just liking him, to be honest, I was so disapproving of every decision he made in life and by my own estimation, everything shitty about myself came from him and anything good came from my mom.

[110] So I was really hard on him.

[111] And it's really layered.

[112] And then when this Me Too, this Me Too movement started, you had what I thought was just a really interesting take, which is, as I remember, you two had a hard time with your mom and you were pretty judgmental of her and then realizing that oh my god she was a victim of like that set her entire life in motion yeah yeah so what did you come from the home from the hospital straight to grandma's or when did you move in with grandma um i came home straight from the hospital to grandma's yeah yeah and she wasn't acting like was you weren't calling her mom or anything no no like geoffrey dalmer shit where you thought your mom was your sister or any of that oh really one of those famous serial killers they were raised thinking their mom was their sister oh well i also heard Jack Nicholson.

[113] I mean, he's not a serial killer, but I heard it was the same No, he is a serial killer as well.

[114] Yeah.

[115] It hasn't broke yet.

[116] They're waiting for him to pass.

[117] He's linked to like 26 murders throughout the Hollywood Hills.

[118] That's fucked that.

[119] Fake news.

[120] If I had to be murdered by someone, I would pray it would be Jack Nicholson.

[121] Really?

[122] Yeah, wouldn't that be an outstanding experience just before you go?

[123] No, no. Who would you want to be killed by?

[124] Oh, I already know.

[125] I'm going to out.

[126] I'm going to out.

[127] I'm going to out you you want to you would like to be fucked to death by jimmy hendricks you had your dream death is it accurate to say oh okay it can be anyone living or dead yeah yeah yeah sure right would that would that would that would that would do you find a porno somehow at some point that was jimmy hendricks yes and we watched it to see if like we couldn't tell yeah we wanted to know if he had like a foot of log right is that what our goal yeah it was kind of janky because it was more so about like the women who were saying that it was him and the tape or like talking about it was a lot of but like it wasn't the sex tape no it was a big letdown it was a huge letdown we thought we were going to see lovemaking that sounded like crosstown traffic like we thought we were going to see the biggest purple haze just something real messy but but but it left us with more questions and answers right yeah we actually watch that like in between like in between like takes yeah takes or whatever in fact if you and I don't eventually get some sexual harassment case brought against us by some of the people on parenthood.

[128] I'll be shocked because we also would watch, Joy and I would watch nonstop this video series about power of the penis with this woman who warned other women about the power of a man's penis.

[129] Oh my God.

[130] And how if he hits your walls.

[131] You got to hit the wall.

[132] If he hits your walls, your your cognitive function goes out the window.

[133] We didn't force anyone to watch.

[134] We didn't even share it.

[135] No, we didn't.

[136] We talked about it.

[137] But we talked about it and we were watching it certainly with an earshot of a lot of people.

[138] This is true.

[139] This is true.

[140] Yeah.

[141] So if we also...

[142] Well, since there's usually no women that work on the set and I was a dude, so, you know, we should be okay.

[143] But I think we had a sound guy we loved Ron, Big Ron.

[144] And he could sue us for sure.

[145] Because we talked to Ron almost exclusively about what kind of swimwear he wore on vacation.

[146] And we had guessed and it had been confirmed that.

[147] He does wear leopard print Speedos, which is spectacular.

[148] Oh, Ron, we love you, Ron.

[149] I just always imagine.

[150] Yes, Ron.

[151] I'm wearing a bra.

[152] He had to ask me that because, you know, with the microphone, you got to hide the little mic.

[153] Yeah, you have to hide the mic.

[154] You need a place to clip it on.

[155] Yeah.

[156] So he would ask me if I was wearing a bra.

[157] Yeah.

[158] But it was funny because it was just funny.

[159] Again, one of those scenarios were in a bro.

[160] You win a bro.

[161] Yes, Ron.

[162] Yes, Ron.

[163] I'm wearing a bra on today.

[164] But you can see where a different actress, that's a weird situation because there are no women.

[165] Like generally women in this business are having a microphone put on their bra by a man. I'd say at least 99 % chance that's the scenario.

[166] I mean, I think like dudes, I mean, especially I think sound guys, they recognize that that's a very, it's awkward.

[167] I mean, and no one's trying to cop a fee.

[168] I mean, at least, I mean, I hope not.

[169] Yeah.

[170] But it's an awkward thing, but you know, it is funny to be asked if you're wearing a bra because anybody else asks me, Are you wearing a bra?

[171] Fuck you.

[172] The fuck you care about what I'm doing.

[173] Mine is your business.

[174] But Ron's like, yes, Ron, I'm wearing a bra.

[175] I am, Ron.

[176] I am Ron.

[177] In fact, in six years, did you ever have to say to him I'm not?

[178] Um, I think possibly a couple of times I might have said.

[179] Not today, Ron.

[180] And did he?

[181] And then what?

[182] Any other day, Ron.

[183] A free balling.

[184] I'm free balling today.

[185] So, and then did he just get perplexed like, oh, what are we going to do now?

[186] Right.

[187] Then you're just going to go to the thigh.

[188] Ah, okay.

[189] That's so wrong.

[190] Yeah, there's no good option.

[191] It's so wrong.

[192] Well, we used to even say, we say.

[193] No, don't even say.

[194] I'm not going to say.

[195] Don't even say.

[196] Yeah, we'll get sued by.

[197] Oh, my God.

[198] But you were raising the Bronx and what did your grandma do?

[199] Well, actually, my grandmother, um, prior to me being born.

[200] I mean, she worked, she dropped out of school in like ninth grade to like, work.

[201] I think she was doing like insurance, like working in insurance.

[202] A lot of my family worked like Blue Cross and Blue Shield and working on insurance.

[203] Oh, medical insurance.

[204] Not like car insurance.

[205] No. But when I was born, she, in order to take care of me, she quit her job and she went on welfare to take care of me. And she was somebody who never, I mean, we grew up in, we were poor.

[206] We grew up in South Bronx.

[207] And, but she had worked hard her whole life.

[208] And she had never, so for her to accept government assistance, yeah, was a big deal.

[209] Probably, yeah, right.

[210] So, yeah.

[211] But you're, even there.

[212] And then she, and then she, to supplement that, she would do odd stuff on the side, like help people, you know, in their houses or whatever.

[213] But certainly a lot of your neighbors were also getting government assistant, yeah?

[214] Not necessarily.

[215] No. It's a mix.

[216] It was a mix.

[217] But there was shame regardless.

[218] Oh, for sure.

[219] Yeah.

[220] For sure.

[221] I mean, like, I remember, like, I hate, did y 'all, did you get food stamps?

[222] I didn't.

[223] Again, my mom, very prideful woman, and there were moments where we certainly should have had them.

[224] And we didn't.

[225] Right.

[226] Or, like, my lunch, and I was looking at the other kids that were poor, and they had the free lunch.

[227] Like, they were eating the pizza and the fries, and I had, like, a bologna sandwich, and it sucked.

[228] With no mayonnaise.

[229] Yeah.

[230] All for my mom's pride.

[231] Yeah.

[232] No, but whatever.

[233] Yeah, but I mean, I remember, like, being a shame that we.

[234] were on welfare like you know being handed food stamps to go to the store but that government cheese I just tweeted about that the other day because my grandmother was like the best cook and to this day my favorite cheese is that government cheese well to this day the best cheese for macaroni and cheese and a grilled cheese I would argue is government cheese yeah because almost all my friends had that government cheese and they had the really gross looking like 70 ounce can that just had a picture of a pig on the side you remember that one it was like it was like a fucking can of pork.

[235] I don't know what part of the pig was in it.

[236] But it was, and I assume because of, you know, English is the second line.

[237] Whatever, they made it as simple as possible.

[238] There's a picture of a pig on it.

[239] It's like a black outline.

[240] It was, it was cheese, peanut butter.

[241] Cheese and peanut butter.

[242] Those are the biggest ones are.

[243] Make it work, mother.

[244] Right.

[245] Cheese and peanut butter.

[246] You got protein and fake dairy.

[247] But so you started in public school there.

[248] Um, actually I started in Catholic school.

[249] Oh, you did?

[250] I went to Catholic school for like six years and then public school for two years.

[251] And then I got a scholarship to private school.

[252] Yes, you were a part of the Fieldston Enrichment program, right?

[253] That is correct.

[254] And what the fuck is the Fieldston Enrichment Program?

[255] The Fieldsden Enrichment Program was a, was took place at the Fieldston School, which is like this private day school, like fancy school in Riverdale, which is like the North Bronx.

[256] Okay.

[257] Um, and so on Saturdays, on Saturdays and then every day in summer.

[258] So basically I went to school six days a week and summer for my seventh and eighth grade.

[259] Like we would go to the school and there would be other teachers from the district that we were in, which was district nine in, um, in the Bronx, which was, which I didn't know until years later was like one of the worst performing districts in New York City.

[260] Yeah.

[261] I didn't know that.

[262] Of course, when I was there.

[263] But anyway, um, the teacher.

[264] from the district would come to the Philston Richmond program and that's when we would like get like intensive like reading math science classes.

[265] So basically to supplement the what wasn't happening as education we were getting.

[266] Was this driven by you or your grandma?

[267] No. Like you got to.

[268] No. I mean it was I was always a pretty driven kid.

[269] I mean she instilled in me that like the only way for me to get out of the environment.

[270] She's signing you up for all this shit obviously.

[271] She's signing me up but I'm no about this first like you gotta do it right right um so school like private schools would go to um and i believe philston was a part of a bigger umbrella of a better chance which is another it's a national organization so private schools will come to programs like fieldston there's there's a bunch of different programs like this right um and basically scope out their talented minority sure sure because for them the in theory one to diversify their student body.

[272] Yes.

[273] As we want to have a better education.

[274] But they also, I would imagine, don't want to let someone in that's going to ultimately test terribly and their program looks like not a success.

[275] So they're kind of cherry picking out of imagining.

[276] Because like when you sort of go to programs like the one that I went to, that's the sort of help kind of get you kind of, you know, it's going to weed out some people.

[277] It's going to also kind of get you the mindset of like competitive academics and sort environments right yeah so you want someone you want to set everyone up up for success the school wants like you know viable candidates that's going to make them look good yeah we want to get a good education yeah so today are you being made fun of at this point because you're doing all this schooling is that uncool in your neighborhood um I wouldn't say like they think you were up at a year or anything um I wouldn't say I mean I definitely got the oh you sound like a white girl or you smart so you white or whatever but it wasn't I never felt bullied okay good so it wasn't it wasn't like that I mean that's a shit people say but and you said you wrote about this I believe in your um your essay about having kids I feel like this is where I read it or maybe you just told me but that you didn't feel like you were fitting in in the black community because you didn't have a big ass yo that was this other that was another that was the refra I'm reading all your shit I can't keep it straight because I'm like one of your favorite writers yeah yeah you really are Oh, my God.

[278] Yeah.

[279] No, so that was on the refinery.

[280] You're like Hemingway.

[281] There's like, there's no, there's no flourish.

[282] There's like, it's just all the truth.

[283] It's great.

[284] Thank you.

[285] Yeah.

[286] But you, you felt skinny.

[287] Well, no, I mean, because I, I didn't, yeah, I didn't feel like I fit in.

[288] Like, I didn't, I didn't feel like I looked like what everyone else looked like.

[289] Or at least wanted to look like, right?

[290] Because this is 80s, Bronx.

[291] Yeah, because I was born in 74.

[292] So this is, you know, I went away to school.

[293] Running.

[294] Yeah.

[295] Yeah.

[296] Because I went away to.

[297] boarding school in 88.

[298] Oh, damn.

[299] You were 13.

[300] Yeah.

[301] Right.

[302] Yeah.

[303] Yeah.

[304] So.

[305] So, but I think it's, I think it's, again, I think weirdly, although they were very different.

[306] You and I straddled a bunch of different things where as a kid, you don't feel like you're a part of either of these groups.

[307] And maybe you're drawn to both groups and you're kind of playing a little bit in both.

[308] But you may, for me personally, I feel a little bit fraudulent in both and it's really complicated and then later in life like so many things it's like this crazy gift that you have yeah you know it becomes it becomes this like the greatest thing in your arsenal yeah and like I wish I wish that of course like looking back I wish that I had more confidence in just being even if I was different right I wish I had more confidence in that And I also wish that, you know, for instance, like now when I see, I think it's such a great time to as a, as a black person or as a black woman especially to be like free to express yourself however you want, you know, like in a small way, just as fact of seeing like black kids skateboarding.

[309] Yeah.

[310] Every time I see a black kid on a skateboard, I'm like, progress.

[311] Yeah.

[312] My people.

[313] Or your hillbilly husband.

[314] who's fucking black and he's got a beard driving a diesel truck on his way to go snowboarding, blick.

[315] A blick, right?

[316] A black hic.

[317] But yeah, like anytime I see that or like I was at this, at this concert the other night and there was an artist who opened up for this band and he was black dude and he was really just out there.

[318] And I was like, wow, I'm like, I just love seeing black people be free to express themselves.

[319] You know, and I'm sure there's still, there's definitely still stigmas or people who talk a lot of shit.

[320] Like, it's much more easier to be a black nerd or to be, or to be like, you know, there's, there's more, there's more examples.

[321] I should say there's more niches now.

[322] There's more examples of that.

[323] So, like, if you're growing up now and you're seeing all of these people who look like you doing things that you're interested, you feel more supportive versus when back in the day when you're like, there's on internet.

[324] I'm saying, I'm like, I'm the only one that wants to go to space.

[325] Yeah, you're right.

[326] Like, I wish there was, yeah.

[327] Groups on Facebook.

[328] Yeah, you find your tribe.

[329] I think also the way that the television business has evolved, which I'm regularly lamenting at times when it's time to get paid or something.

[330] But what has happened, which is cool, is now the TV game is a niche game.

[331] So Netflix is stoked with 700 ,000 viewers.

[332] Back in the day, if you weren't getting 12 million viewers, they were not going to pay money.

[333] So now there's like hundreds of options of all these niche.

[334] subcultures or cultures or whatever they are.

[335] And I think that's really kind of cool.

[336] Something I don't really think about is that, yeah, you can kind of find the thing you're into.

[337] You can find your tribe.

[338] And it was a lot harder to do that back in a day.

[339] I mean, but for people who don't know, you started in the Bronx and now I know you went to Catholic school, but then you were part of this.

[340] And then you went away to a boarding school in, what is it, Westminster?

[341] Yeah, in Simsbury, Connecticut.

[342] Which is all fucking white, right?

[343] Yeah.

[344] So it was about 350 students, 9 % minority.

[345] And I said minority.

[346] So it's like a blanket.

[347] That's for black.

[348] That's a girl.

[349] That's one 18th Cherokee Indian too.

[350] But I'm punk.

[351] But yeah, so that's black.

[352] By the way, when someone tells you they're American Indian, I just want to say, I have a little ratio that goes through my head.

[353] So if I mean a dude that's like I'm quarter, quarter Cherokee, I then multiply that by 0 .25.

[354] I think people tend to exaggerate how American Indian they are.

[355] Well, you know what?

[356] There's a point.

[357] Now, I wouldn't, I wouldn't.

[358] Would you call that?

[359] You told me in Bronx they call that Redbone.

[360] No, that's different.

[361] That's different.

[362] That's like a, oh, man. Well, I'm not going to, I don't want to trap you into speaking for the black community, but I feel like you can speak for the Bronx community in 1980.

[363] I can speak for Milford, Michigan.

[364] Well, you know, I want to go back to the American, to the American anything.

[365] Like, if someone were to say, I'm a quarter, I would most likely, yeah.

[366] I mean, I think like, but you raise a point where, because like, you ever watch the show, like, finding your roots with Harold Lewis Gates?

[367] Oh, I'm aware of it.

[368] I've never watched a whole of it.

[369] You should totally watch it.

[370] Every white person has like got a slave owner in their background.

[371] Right.

[372] That's the one that Ben Afflego was like, can you just like scrub that from the record?

[373] And almost derailed the show.

[374] And then, you see how your people do?

[375] Larry David.

[376] Larry David?

[377] But he seemed to laugh.

[378] Like he had the reaction to be like I wouldn't have, which is they exposed that one of his relatives owned some slaves.

[379] And he starts laughing uproarously.

[380] He's like, I knew you would find it.

[381] I knew like he came knowing that he was going to be embarrassed.

[382] But what about Ty Burrell from modern family?

[383] He found out.

[384] that he's actually a descendant of slaves.

[385] Oh, really?

[386] Yeah, he's got black.

[387] Yeah, you should watch this shit.

[388] It's really good.

[389] All right.

[390] But anyway, Henry Lewis Gates, because there's a lot of black people who, like, over time, like, oh, I got indie in my family.

[391] That was, you know, and sometimes it's, you know, that's what they've been told.

[392] You don't just make that up.

[393] It's what, you know, are anybody's family, kind of just, the family legend, like, oh, we're descended of this or whatever.

[394] Whatever.

[395] So that used to be something that.

[396] And it's always dressed up a bit.

[397] Of course, of course.

[398] Like, yeah, we're the descendant of it.

[399] So I think during that, during that show and sort of his involvement in genealogy or whatever, he discovered he's like, you know, like that's probably for most black folks in America that's actually not true.

[400] It's not accurate.

[401] So, but again, it's because of what's been passed down.

[402] Now, I did 23 and me. Okay.

[403] And I have, I've always been told that we have Cherokee.

[404] Okay.

[405] I don't know which.

[406] So you got your own song.

[407] Cherokee.

[408] people.

[409] Well, I'm not Cherokee.

[410] I don't know if my...

[411] But I'm just saying if you're going to find out you're American Indian, sky's the limit if there's a song.

[412] Well, I'm 1 % according to 23 in Maine.

[413] 1%.

[414] Yes.

[415] Cherokee.

[416] I don't know.

[417] Cherokee.

[418] I'm American Indian Indian.

[419] Oh, okay, not so specific.

[420] I'm an anthropology major.

[421] I should know.

[422] They won't be able to tell you exactly what.

[423] No, so I don't know where that came from.

[424] But I'm also 0 .2 % Ashkenazi Jew.

[425] Okay.

[426] Don't believe it.

[427] But anyways, I'm teasing.

[428] I actually don't do the ratio when a black person tells me that they're American Indian, which, by the way, almost never happens.

[429] It's more to me when a white dude tells me he's American.

[430] Because you know me, I like, I love 70s outlaw country.

[431] Right.

[432] And all these guys all of a sudden decide they're American Indian.

[433] Really?

[434] Like who?

[435] Well, I'll tell you.

[436] Well, well, in Jennings and, oh my God, Hank, Hank Jr. They did a couple duets together.

[437] And in those duets, you find out they have, they've given themselves American Indian names.

[438] So one of them's named Watashi and one of them's named Bo Seifis.

[439] And they, they have this kind of arcadian, utopian idea of what American Indians' life was.

[440] I don't think so.

[441] I don't think Hank Jr. is really Cherokee.

[442] I just think it was like, they were all excited to embrace that.

[443] And they had Wattashi and Bo Sevis.

[444] Don't you know we would Wattoshi.

[445] I'll be right here by my side.

[446] No sense of irony that they're calling each other America.

[447] Anyways, that's why I have the ratio.

[448] It really doesn't transfer on to black folks.

[449] I didn't take my face value.

[450] But suffice to say you went from a very black neighborhood.

[451] I went from a predominantly black Hispanic neighborhood.

[452] And you didn't necessarily feel like you were the, you know, apex of whatever girls were trying to be there.

[453] No, I was definitely not.

[454] What's the opposite of apex?

[455] The nadir.

[456] You were the nadir.

[457] And then what's the op?

[458] And what's like lower than that?

[459] Naid deer minus 10%.

[460] Exactly.

[461] That was me. And then you go to this fully white world in Connecticut, by my estimation, is like the whitest of the whitest of the white.

[462] Pretty white.

[463] Because hillbillies in, we can maybe get into this, but you and I have invented the soul spectrum, right?

[464] Yeah.

[465] Yeah.

[466] So there's, I think just when you're pouring, you're down and out, there's some soul action that happens, you know, on the good end of it.

[467] So there can even be, there's some, there's some soul attributes to these weirdos living in Appalachia with their banjos and stuff.

[468] You know what I'm saying?

[469] Gotcha.

[470] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[471] Whereas Connecticut is like, you know, where now, Scott, the, the Christmas tree is 11 feet tall and it's got white lights on it, right?

[472] Or at least that's my idea of it.

[473] Blue blood.

[474] Blue blood, old money.

[475] Yeah.

[476] Yeah.

[477] So you go there.

[478] Uh -huh.

[479] And are you scared to go there?

[480] No. You're excited.

[481] I'm really excited because, like, following what my grandmother said, education is going to be my ticket out of here.

[482] So as soon as I found out that I could go to school, not that I would or could, but when I found out that I could go to school in fucking Hawaii, I'm like, what?

[483] I'm out of here.

[484] Right, right.

[485] So, like, I was excited to go away.

[486] But at the same time, it was a culture shock.

[487] Yeah.

[488] And honestly, it wasn't so much even like, yeah, it was.

[489] I mean, obviously there weren't very many people who were, you know, black, Hispanic or whatever, whatever, but the, the hardest part aspect of the culture shock was not the racial part.

[490] It was the socioeconomic.

[491] Yeah.

[492] Right.

[493] Because, I mean, I knew I was poor in the Bronx.

[494] Yeah.

[495] But they're not really like, but that was, but that was also in a scale of growing up in a sort of, you know, working class, lower, you know, lower.

[496] low income like low income to like to middle class yeah to like middle class area and then going there it's like holy shit yeah it is funny when you're a kid you're largely unaware of where your immediate environment ranking nationally or statewide or whatever yeah so that so that was like a huge shock and it affected my confidence level because I I thought that that just feeling poor is bad yeah yeah when you're a kid that's like it felt bad around other poor people yeah so imagine around rich people it was just like it was completely like oh and like how it affected me for the first couple of years was sort of like I thought that just because those kids were rich not that they were white right just because they were rich that they had to be smarter than me because why wouldn't you be right because if you're rich your family don't have to to worry about paying bills.

[497] Your family have to worry about a place to stay, whatever.

[498] You have plenty of food to eat.

[499] You can go to the best schools.

[500] So why the fuck are you getting these?

[501] Well, and we're conditioned to believe that being rich is a product of kind of elevated intelligence, whether it's through ingenuity or management or whatever.

[502] You do, you associate, you link those things.

[503] You don't think of a dumbass as being a self -made millionaire.

[504] Right, right.

[505] They're kind of inextricably linked.

[506] Right.

[507] So it fucked with me because I was just like, uh, even though I still got good grades.

[508] In fact, it didn't outwardly affect my performance, right?

[509] But inwardly, I was just like, I don't, I can't even.

[510] And I think there was a couple of things that happened, but mainly it was that like, I finally realized that if the dumbest kid in school was also the richest kid in school.

[511] Mm -hmm.

[512] Yeah.

[513] Well, what the fuck is my problem then?

[514] Right.

[515] And then once, did you actually realize that there or after you left?

[516] No, no, no, no, there.

[517] Because, like, because I have all these realizations that I can't remember if I actually realize them then or I did.

[518] No, I'm very clear.

[519] I remembered it then because like once once that clicked, then it was like, yeah.

[520] Like I was high honors, not just honors, you know?

[521] And and I realized that at the right fucking time, which is like at the end of my sophomore year.

[522] So somewhere around my sophomore year going into my junior year, which is like the most important for college.

[523] But once I realized that.

[524] I got this.

[525] Yeah.

[526] So it made it.

[527] But going back to the race element, there was definitely shit where.

[528] Yeah.

[529] So if I'm imagining being you, and I guess the closest I can come to it is being semi -recognizable from TV, right?

[530] So I'll be in a scenario where there's 15 people.

[531] And I'm having this battle in my head that I feel like everyone's staring at me. I'm pretty certain of it.

[532] And then another part of my brain goes, you're being an egomaniac.

[533] No one in here is thinking about you.

[534] And then I go, no, that guy's definitely taking a picture of me. That's some proof.

[535] And it's just back and forth if I'm a megalomaniac or I'm actually kind of.

[536] I am detecting like everyone here is fucking thinking about me. It's very uncomfortable.

[537] And so I have to imagine being one black girl in a class of 25 people.

[538] I feel like I would, even if I was wrong, be thinking, God, they must all be thinking about the fact I'm here.

[539] Not so much.

[540] I mean, I think that like my, again, my confidence, my outward, my confidence level was shaky.

[541] Yeah.

[542] Because of this feeling like I wasn't as good as because they.

[543] had more means, right?

[544] So I tend not to really raise my hand in class very much or whatever, but I wasn't really tripping on them tripping on me. Oh, okay.

[545] Well, by the way, that can go both ways because I also put a lot of energy into trying to be different in my class.

[546] I had a mohawk and then I had green hair and then I dressed different.

[547] Okay.

[548] So I did do that.

[549] I did do that.

[550] Yeah.

[551] So I dug it, you know, I was obviously seeking that, which is weird, because I've always been trying to do that.

[552] Well, I, I did that on level of like, at my school, you had to play a sport, right?

[553] And before I got there, I ran track.

[554] I played basketball.

[555] But when I got to the school, I didn't know there was fucking all these other sports like this, what the fuck is cross country?

[556] Right, right, right.

[557] Soccer.

[558] I never seen soccer before.

[559] Yeah.

[560] Until I went there.

[561] Yeah.

[562] Or like hockey.

[563] Yeah.

[564] Or squash.

[565] What the fuck is squash.

[566] What the fuck is.

[567] Yeah.

[568] But I actually played.

[569] I tried to play every sport.

[570] And for me, because...

[571] Did you play basketball?

[572] Or do you go, I'm not going to play the thing that expect me to play?

[573] Okay.

[574] So that's what I'm getting at is that like, I didn't run track until my senior year.

[575] I didn't, I played basketball one season.

[576] But basically, I was determined to play every other fucking sport.

[577] Yeah.

[578] Then the one that.

[579] I'm not going to sing and dance for you.

[580] Right.

[581] Even though like, well, okay, there is some type, something to be said about basketball and whatever, but at the end of the day.

[582] That is what I played, right?

[583] Going in there.

[584] So I had this little chip on my shoulder.

[585] Like, I'm going to, I'm going to show them that like, I'm the best swimmer in this state.

[586] I actually did definitely did not do that.

[587] I should have did, but it's like, I'm going to show them that like, we play, we play hockey.

[588] We play squash.

[589] I'm going to bust these white girls ass.

[590] Like that I was like, I was like, yeah, I'm going to prove to them that I can play any sport I want.

[591] That's kind of fun.

[592] And then I finally ran track.

[593] And then like, I did pretty good.

[594] You were better.

[595] I did pretty.

[596] It was the best.

[597] And my coaches were like, why did you wait so long?

[598] bag of emotions to like shine and then be kind of bummed your shine.

[599] Exactly.

[600] And like sandbag.

[601] And then so and that was a boarding school.

[602] So you're there or what, nine months a year or something?

[603] Yeah, pretty much.

[604] And then you would come back to the Bronx and what was that transition back there like?

[605] To me was pretty much the same.

[606] I mean, I think I had more confidence.

[607] I had more confidence in that like.

[608] Like, not that I thought I was different, but whatever I was, nerd, whatever, like, it was okay.

[609] Right.

[610] You know, and also the weird thing is that, you know, I had always felt really, like, insecure about what I looked like.

[611] Right.

[612] Physically, right?

[613] I think that's a human condition.

[614] Right?

[615] Yeah.

[616] And then, but when I went to boarding school, the fact that I was skinny was actually what they were all going for.

[617] Yeah.

[618] Yeah.

[619] I didn't under, which was just so confusing to me because I grew up in completely different culture where that wasn't the ideal aesthetic, right?

[620] So I go to the school where they're like, oh my God, your body's amazing.

[621] I'm like, I'd never heard that before.

[622] Not that I should be hearing that at 13.

[623] Right.

[624] But my point is that like I'd never, I'd never been that girl.

[625] So it oddly kind of gave me confidence to be what you were.

[626] What I was, right?

[627] But you can still get caught up in, I mean, I didn't have eating disorder, but to sort of, to be caught up in that aesthetic.

[628] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[629] You know, but I needed to go that way in order to feel comfortable about myself.

[630] But I didn't really understand, like I couldn't understand.

[631] I didn't know what eating disorders were until I got to school.

[632] And I'm not making, I mean, it's a serious condition.

[633] I had no idea what that was.

[634] Yeah.

[635] And I didn't understand it when I was there because I was just like, I don't understand.

[636] Why do you?

[637] Well, there's all these weird things that pop up once people have.

[638] a lot of money.

[639] Like if food scarce, then the notion of choosing not to eat it is preposterous.

[640] And then, and I think, I feel like there's a lot of these kind of realizations.

[641] When people have the luxury of not worrying about X, Y, and Z, they start having other concerns.

[642] So I do think it's just interesting that you're not finding people choosing not to eat in a lot of places on planet Earth where food is scarce.

[643] It's kind of crazy.

[644] What is the, and it's sort of like, what is the, I mean, at the time, I think things could possibly be different now, but I think at the time, it was definitely a predominantly, like, white, I don't know which economic class, but I would assume upper middle class.

[645] To me, at the time, it seemed that way.

[646] And, um, and, um, because also when you think about, um, where is that coming from?

[647] Is it coming just from like aspiring to a certain body type, which is Eurocentric, which is white, which is like, you know, skinny, blonde, whatever, right?

[648] Possibly.

[649] I don't know the...

[650] Well, I think it also evolves over the decades.

[651] Like, now when you watch movies, almost everyone's got a great ass.

[652] And then I'll catch a movie like on from the 70s or 80s.

[653] And like the pinup girls, like, or you know, whatever, the height of the most, the sexiest women out there, no, zero ass.

[654] Just no one even considered that they might need to work out their legs or their ass.

[655] Right.

[656] It's just all about big boobs.

[657] Right.

[658] Like in the 70s, 80s.

[659] So that aesthetic changes like decade to decade.

[660] True.

[661] But the white aesthetic is pretty consistent.

[662] Oh, okay.

[663] Over.

[664] Oh, I believe you.

[665] still pretty consistent.

[666] But anyway, so I don't know the psychological, like, underpinnings of, of eating disorders because it is a real thing, right?

[667] And I don't think, I think it does cross cultural lines.

[668] But I'm just going from my experience when I was there.

[669] Now, there might have been eating disorders on the other side of people who eat too much.

[670] That's an eating disorder as well, right?

[671] Sure.

[672] But no one was striving for the thin aesthetic.

[673] Right.

[674] I came from.

[675] So the other place, it was, they were.

[676] And so I fit in so that made me more comfortable.

[677] But then like, you know, it's a slippery slope.

[678] So I guess it could do one of, well, it could do a few things.

[679] But I imagine it could do one outcome would be you're at this white place and you feel like, oh my God, I'm crushing on this.

[680] And then you go home and you go, oh, wait, I'm not.

[681] And then you go, oh, all these things are mental constructs.

[682] These are all like, nothing's real.

[683] So this neighborhood has this aesthetic and then this one has this.

[684] So really there isn't.

[685] aesthetic it's just kind of cultural which could be liberating right or you an outcome could be you feel out of place at both places or even third the best outcome would maybe be who I'm unique in both these places it's all it's all the above actually I mean I think that like now I can say I'm unique in all these places I think at the time it was both of those other things it was sort of like going back and forth between sort of like oh okay this is all bullshit or whatever yeah um to like uh because you know I think you still so a kid you won't want to fit in, you know, right?

[686] So it's like, um, again, that's what I was just saying.

[687] So we're processing all that stuff with a fully developed frontal load that, you know, an older person has.

[688] You know, it's impossible to remember exactly how you're computing all this shit.

[689] Because your brain doesn't even work that way anymore, right?

[690] Right.

[691] Yeah.

[692] But then you, you go from there and you get into Yale.

[693] I did.

[694] Yeah.

[695] And, um, you go to Yale.

[696] I do go to Yale.

[697] Oh, wait, I want to know one thing before then.

[698] Mm -hmm.

[699] Were you dating?

[700] In high school?

[701] Yeah.

[702] When was your first boyfriend that you can remember?

[703] My freshman year.

[704] Freshman year?

[705] Yeah.

[706] At Westminster.

[707] White dude or black dude?

[708] Black dude.

[709] Black dude.

[710] Okay.

[711] And when's the first?

[712] Because you told me a great story, but this was when you were in Yale, I think.

[713] When was the first time you dated a white guy?

[714] In high school.

[715] In high school.

[716] Freshman year and a half?

[717] Freshman.

[718] Junior year or something.

[719] grade 9 .2 Something like that.

[720] And did that trigger any, like, did you go through a whole other phase of like evaluating yourself based on that?

[721] Evaluating myself?

[722] Yeah.

[723] Or it was just fine.

[724] It was honky door.

[725] You met a guy you liked and that was it.

[726] It was simple.

[727] Yeah.

[728] I mean, I guess like I wanted to be attractive to.

[729] Dude, I just don't really care of him.

[730] Yeah, yeah.

[731] I'm up here.

[732] Yeah, that's another thing we share in comment.

[733] Anyone who can give me approval?

[734] Like, I take all commerce.

[735] Yeah, I'm like a dog.

[736] Thank you.

[737] Wait, so, wait, so, wait, do you have another question about dating?

[738] Yeah, I mean, I have a million questions about dating some pervert, but continue.

[739] Well, I was going to say about Yale and kind of time.

[740] Because you dated a dude from Michigan when you're at, yes, yes.

[741] And you would go back to Detroit area.

[742] And grandma wasn't.

[743] No, it wasn't.

[744] grandma, it was like, oh, worse, like mom.

[745] It was on, it, uh, it was, uh, it was, uh, it was rough.

[746] I guess I should have started this conversation by saying that.

[747] Joy and I were on parenthood for six years.

[748] We're playing an interracial couple.

[749] And yet in six years, there was only really a single episode that talked about that.

[750] The fact that I was right, you were black.

[751] Yeah.

[752] And I, I do not.

[753] fault the show for this.

[754] I think it was an attempt to be post -racial, which like eight years ago seemed like what you should do.

[755] Like, oh, this should just be normal.

[756] This doesn't need to be the topic that they go through all the time, which is fine, whatever.

[757] Again, I'm not critical of it.

[758] But what's fascinating is as soon as they'd yell cut, all you and I talk about is black and white.

[759] And all we talk about is black and white for six years straight.

[760] We don't ever tire of the conversation.

[761] We both find it endlessly fascinating.

[762] And it is endlessly fascinating to me because I wouldn't have fucking majored in anthropology if I wasn't fascinated by like cultures and how we're different and how we're the same and what's the overlap and all this shit.

[763] So we never stopped talking about it.

[764] We're still talking about it.

[765] And we will die talking about it.

[766] We will die talking about it.

[767] And we both, as I recall when I talked to you after seeing Get Out, you and I both love the opening of that movie, right?

[768] And I could have watched, I mean, the movie's perfect.

[769] Perfect.

[770] I started watching it again.

[771] But I also could have watched a whole movie that was just that opening act of them talking about that stuff.

[772] I find, and I think when you date each other, too, there's like yet another layer because when you're in love with someone, all these fears come out, like, will I be enough for this person?

[773] Am I attractive enough for this?

[774] All these things.

[775] So now that just like pours gas on all these other issues.

[776] So it's endlessly fascinating to me. But when, so I would assume, and you tell me, so you become like a master code switcher at this point right you can that's a really good i mean i i i think that damn near every black person in america is a master coach switch you have to be yeah i mean in in and in just the even the most mundane situation i mean like yeah yeah we're we all have to well and i think because again all the a lot of these issues that everyone talks about appear to be black white or they appear to be this or that or even saying codes i appreciate you right okay but even say i'm i'm i'm i'm sober and in AA people go, my alcohol is, my alcoholism.

[777] And I always go, well, it's really just human nature, right?

[778] Or human condition.

[779] Similarly, so code switching, yes, obviously, much more dramatically you have to do if you're black and you live in the U .S. Or gay.

[780] Or gay.

[781] Or, but me, like I went to UCLA.

[782] I go home all my friends, you know, many of them are in jail, some of them are missing teeth.

[783] I code switch.

[784] I go back there.

[785] I like, I talk different.

[786] I'm different.

[787] I want to be more blue collar.

[788] I want to be more masculine, more, all these things.

[789] And I do that.

[790] And then I'll run into some fucking executive who I want a job from.

[791] And all of a sudden, I'm like, I'm a Harvard graduate.

[792] You know, so I'm doing it too.

[793] It's definitely, it's more obvious, I think, on the outside.

[794] And we even, you and I even had this experience.

[795] So you and I met before we ever did parenthood together, we had met a couple times, like, out in public.

[796] And I just always liked you.

[797] And I feel like you and I had a similar.

[798] acknowledgement of oh isn't this crazy we're now like I can see and you like they say another sailor oh he sees another sailor at seeing and I think you and I were both in places where I was like how the fuck did I get into this place and they do say real recognized real or sort of like impostors so we had met a couple times and I and I just was immediately drawn to you and then we started working together and I will say I we shot the pilot but that was really brief and then we came to do the series and I do remember you and I'm going to use the wrong words here but all of a sudden you got blacker with me like I saw a side of joy that was black the only adjective I can say is blacker which is wrong but I'm just being honest and then I had to tell myself like oh of course like joy's from the Bronx this is where she's from this is her too but for me it was an adjustment and then I thought oh I guess this is maybe a compliment like you You trust me to be that other side of you too.

[799] How do you make that decision whether you're going to let someone in your circle into like yet another layer?

[800] Is it conscious or not?

[801] I think sometimes it's conscious.

[802] I mean.

[803] Because I too let you into a layer.

[804] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[805] I have a professional layer.

[806] And then I have like, I'm going to say shit that if someone read in a transcript, I'm fucked.

[807] Right.

[808] But I'm going to trust you and I'm going to talk how I really want to talk to you.

[809] I mean, I think, like, as you get older, I mean, you know, use this question and you figure out who, you know, I'm not going to roll up to a, I'm not going to talk to one of these studio heads the way I talk to you.

[810] Right.

[811] Unless you go and run the studio, which you very well could.

[812] And then in that case, I'm like, motherfucker.

[813] With my movie at.

[814] Or my three picture deal.

[815] We're my three picture deal.

[816] So you, you, I'm not interested in Yale because who gives a fuck.

[817] But you then...

[818] Wait, I do want to say one thing about you.

[819] Please tell me. Because, I mean, I was there for two years, but whatever.

[820] When I was at born and born school.

[821] Well, can I just ask one question?

[822] How pumped are you when you get a letter that says you were accepted?

[823] That's why this is why I was so fucking pumped because I knew I was going to school there.

[824] I knew that.

[825] I knew it.

[826] Uh -huh.

[827] I knew it.

[828] In fact, I knew it so strongly that I was only going to, I only wanted to apply.

[829] I mean, wow, I don't think about the shit that I used to, anyway.

[830] Anyway, I only wanted to apply to Yale and Brad.

[831] No backup for you.

[832] I was like, I'm like Yale of Brown.

[833] My college was like, you can't just apply to two schools and you can't just apply to two Ivy League schools.

[834] I was like, but I'm going to get in.

[835] You can say that.

[836] I did.

[837] I got into everywhere.

[838] I got an, I applied.

[839] But the others, I mean, I needed to apply to other schools because he was like, I cannot.

[840] Do you have a strong admission letter?

[841] Do you remember it?

[842] No. I don't remember.

[843] I'm like, you have the right.

[844] I'm going to write.

[845] I tell myself, I only got into UCLA as a. my admission letter.

[846] I think that I got into Yale because I was a well -rounded, I was a well -rounded student, even though my test score, my standardized were low on the low side.

[847] There was a dude.

[848] I'm glad you about that because there was a dude in school who had applied to Yale.

[849] He was in like an AP classes and he was on da -da -da -da.

[850] And he didn't get in.

[851] And so he never said anything to me, but I heard how she only got in because she's like, no, I got in because you're fucking boring.

[852] And then this, I don't really know him, though.

[853] But I did know someone, a woman, a young teenage girl who I was friends with, friendly enough, you know?

[854] Mm -hmm.

[855] And I got into, like, one of my safety schools was one of her reach schools.

[856] He's white, very well off.

[857] Yeah.

[858] And she didn't get into that school, but I did.

[859] Right.

[860] And she was like, you didn't even want to even go to that school.

[861] Like, you only got in because you're black.

[862] And I was like, here's.

[863] a thing.

[864] I got in.

[865] I was like, I got in because my grades are better than yours.

[866] Well, right.

[867] That's great.

[868] So, but this is.

[869] And actually, when it comes to black, I'm not competing against you.

[870] So, um, yeah.

[871] It's, this is something that comes up all the time when people argue about affirmative action, right?

[872] Because there are people will say, uh, and I've heard black professors say this, uh, who are against it, which is very few, I suppose, um, that yes.

[873] Oh, so you'll get in and everyone will go, oh, you just, got in because you're black and that's the wrong way to get in or whatever which to me is preposterous because like no getting in's the fucking goal not what people are saying to you and what about what about those kids who get in because their fucking dad by legacy yeah yeah yeah you know that's affirmative action as well oh yeah yeah you know or the fact that ugliest variety right or the fact that you're a woman yeah and so like i so i remember those two instances like in terms of anything like related to or racist or anything related to race that that I encountered at that school those were two of the biggest moment I mean and that's pretty good considering they heard or because there's what you said which is fine if you're a fighter well it was how did it feel it felt I mean it felt incredibly dismissive uh -huh right um well did someone's literally taking away your accomplishment with one sentence I can get the dude that I don't know saying that shit but the woman that I do know you saying that shit and we're supposed to be cool but now I realize we ain't that cool because at the end of the day you still looking at me like I'm a what?

[874] So fuck you an American Indian she's looking at you like you're a Cherokee Yeah right She's like this girl's 1 % Cherokee You only got in because you're 1 % Cherokee Listen get in where you fit in Fuck you So Anyway so that was that was my Yeah Yeah Boy I don't know how I would because that didn't happen to me other than like yeah that didn't happen to me i i'm dyslexic so i took this like six week testing phase in college so that i could not have spelling count basically that was the reward if you were labeled dyslexic and uh and so um i had people jokingly say that to me but they really didn't do anything it's not even comparable you're gonna because you get to take two hours on the test and you're whatever yeah but that no that's not even comparable.

[875] But so you, how do you, what were you majoring at Yale or what were you going to major in economics?

[876] I thought I was going to major in economics.

[877] Okay.

[878] Thank God that didn't happen.

[879] PhD and getting played.

[880] Right.

[881] How did you get into modeling from Yale?

[882] I was at a party.

[883] I went to a party with a friend of Yale in the city.

[884] There were fashion people there.

[885] Somebody was like, oh, wow.

[886] And you go to Yale?

[887] Uh -huh.

[888] And then, yeah.

[889] And then you had kind of, how long did that go on?

[890] Where you were modeling professionally.

[891] Because you were like in Europe all the time.

[892] You have crazy stories about being on a boat and sand and shit like that.

[893] Oh, yeah.

[894] I'm from like, see, I dropped out of Yale in 94.

[895] Was that a hard decision?

[896] No. It wasn't.

[897] No. I mean, it will, I shouldn't say, well, I didn't make it like immediate.

[898] But like I definitely, it was sort of like, okay, it was hard in the sense that it was a hard decision, but I still made it.

[899] Yeah.

[900] In a sense that like most people that I knew were like, this is the dumbest thing you could possibly do.

[901] Yeah.

[902] But maybe do you think maybe you're, you had set the mental target or.

[903] goal as getting into Yale had you had the mental target of I want to be a Yale graduate no I didn't have I didn't have the band with like maybe the big accomplishment no I didn't have the bandwidth it's not even it wasn't even a conscious thing of like I want I my high school was harder than anything of everything oh really yeah yeah yeah okay definitely um I mean I know of course that I didn't end up staying there long whatever but in terms of like oh I should say this that it was such an intensive intense academic environment that I was burnt out by the time I got to Yale.

[904] Right.

[905] And, you know, it's funny because one of the things that people would say at school is like, the only A you need from Yale is the A in Yale.

[906] Uh -huh.

[907] I'm just saying that sounds cool.

[908] But, yeah.

[909] That's how Stanford is, right?

[910] It's basically like everyone that gets into Stanford was getting a 4 .0.

[911] Like if you got in, you then went there and got a 4 .5.

[912] So they went to pass foul because it was kind of pointless.

[913] Yeah, see, if I had gone to Brown, I would have probably done pass -fail.

[914] Oh, you can choose there.

[915] Yeah, I think, like, you can actually do, you can, your entire thing can be, I think back then, I'm not sure now.

[916] But, yeah, no, by the time I got there, I was burnt out.

[917] And then just sort of like, life took all these different changes and turns and all this other shit where it's like, I couldn't wait to get the fuck out of there.

[918] Yeah.

[919] So modeling came at the right time.

[920] Yeah.

[921] And while everyone, the majority of people that I knew and cared about.

[922] and whose opinions I cared about told me I was making a huge mistake.

[923] Yeah, that's hard.

[924] And then I regret.

[925] And I mean, when I was like, now, I'm like, oh, that was, that was pretty risky because I was basically making a decision based off of, like, blind faith and gut.

[926] And the fact that, like, I wasn't happy, so I got to do something else.

[927] Yeah.

[928] And that's not a luxury.

[929] That's not something that someone who grew up poor.

[930] Yeah, you didn't have a three -year -old kid and we're trying to.

[931] No, I don't.

[932] Yeah.

[933] Well, I don't have a trust fund.

[934] Yeah.

[935] I don't have parents.

[936] Right.

[937] I have parents.

[938] You know what I mean?

[939] I don't have anyone to fall back on.

[940] The only thing I could fall back on was me. So I was making a decision that people who are much more financially secure me. Like you can be risky when you got a fucking bank account.

[941] Oh, yeah.

[942] You know what I can't go on for two hours about how they talk about NCAA athletes.

[943] Like I can't believe he left early.

[944] They should, you know, like when they leave early, like, are you fucking kidding me?

[945] They're like a family to feed.

[946] They're concerned.

[947] Yeah.

[948] Like, so, you know, making decision based off of, um, you're all you got.

[949] Yeah.

[950] Um, and you had an opportunity to make some money.

[951] So you started making money.

[952] Mm -hmm.

[953] Good money?

[954] Um, it was better than, I mean, $1 ,500 a month was better than Zit was making before.

[955] Yeah.

[956] And it's all relative.

[957] Exactly.

[958] Yeah.

[959] I mean, at the time.

[960] Yeah.

[961] Um, I wasn't working a lot as a model, but I was, I was building, you know, and I was working.

[962] I made $16 ,000 for the entire season of.

[963] of punked.

[964] But that was twice as much as I had ever made in my life.

[965] So I thought I was in sitting pretty.

[966] Exactly.

[967] I probably made about the same.

[968] But that was way better than, you know.

[969] And you're traveling a lot?

[970] Yeah, starting to.

[971] And you be, you befriend other models.

[972] Yes.

[973] Yeah.

[974] And what impact does that have on your self -esteem?

[975] Do you, because I, if it were me, I could feel like it could just as easily make it worse or better.

[976] It was both.

[977] It felt great to be considered beautiful.

[978] Yeah.

[979] And I'm not, and I don't, I'm not saying that that's a great thing.

[980] I'm just saying at the time.

[981] Who gives a fun?

[982] This is how you felt about it at the time, right?

[983] Now I'm like, I don't need to be told that.

[984] But the time.

[985] But again, that's a luxury.

[986] That can be all someone has.

[987] I'm not judgmental of that.

[988] This is true.

[989] But I'm, but I, but to just be clear in terms of like, I know that that's not, that's not your value.

[990] I needed that validation that I don't need the validation now.

[991] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[992] But at the time.

[993] At the time, I needed that.

[994] Right.

[995] Yeah.

[996] So do we considered beautiful or beautiful enough to be a model was a big deal.

[997] Yeah.

[998] To me. But then there are people obviously above you on this ladder of success.

[999] Yeah.

[1000] And then so that I can assume that you also feel shittier because these people are above you.

[1001] Well, I think I mean, there's always there's always a hierarchy.

[1002] Right.

[1003] Even in our business right now, there's like, hey, let's be lit.

[1004] I don't even want to know what list we on.

[1005] Right.

[1006] Yeah.

[1007] I don't.

[1008] Who cares?

[1009] We don't even, we're not on the list.

[1010] I'm the kind of where I pay my bills.

[1011] Exactly.

[1012] Um, so yeah, there's always that and you know, everyone wants to be the coolest, you know, kid in the room or whatever.

[1013] But I think like, you're right when I said, it's both things.

[1014] Like, partially it helped my confidence level, right?

[1015] Yeah.

[1016] I'm a model.

[1017] Yeah.

[1018] Yeah.

[1019] But then I feel side, I felt I was still insecure.

[1020] I was still insecure about like what I looked like and like, what's, what's the aesthetic?

[1021] I didn't really have a vibe.

[1022] You know, I think like what was cool about models now is that like, you know, just sort of like, what's your, you know, you can have a vibe.

[1023] They stake a little claim on some look.

[1024] I wasn't, I didn't care about like fashion necessarily.

[1025] I didn't care about it.

[1026] I wasn't, you know, into photography.

[1027] You know, I don't know anything about that.

[1028] All I knew was like, I'm cute, not to make some money off of that.

[1029] Yeah.

[1030] That's all I knew.

[1031] Did you feel weird?

[1032] Did you do a runway ever?

[1033] I did.

[1034] Did you feel weird as fuck?

[1035] Yeah, I was never very good at runway.

[1036] I didn't do very much.

[1037] I mean, I did some cool shows, but I was always so terrified.

[1038] Yeah.

[1039] And I could never get over it.

[1040] Just, I mean, there's.

[1041] so many things I'd be happy to do in public.

[1042] I mean, the list is so big before walking down a stretch of runway.

[1043] The idea for me, the idea.

[1044] I would feel so self -conscious about how my body's moving.

[1045] In theory, it's half of learning how to act is literally what you do with your hands.

[1046] No one talks about it.

[1047] Like, I've taken acting classes.

[1048] They don't tell you, what the fuck do you do with your hands in a scene?

[1049] As soon as they yell action when you're new, you're like, what do I do with these big distracting hands?

[1050] Should I put them in my pocket?

[1051] Should I cross my arms?

[1052] I remember you also saying, which I passed this on to someone else because I thought it was like the best piece of advice.

[1053] You always gave really great advice, especially when it came to like acting, was that you said that acting was a confidence game.

[1054] Do you remember saying that to me?

[1055] No, no. But I like it.

[1056] It was like two months ago.

[1057] Oh.

[1058] Well, I do remember saying that a lot in that what directing I respond to, which is like if you make me feel confident, I'm just 20 times better.

[1059] Uh -huh.

[1060] You know, but if I'm feeling like I can't do this thing and you're unhappy and I'm not doing the, then we're in bad shape.

[1061] So is great advice.

[1062] But other people, I know weird people, not to name drop, but Channing Tatum, I've been going to the motorcycle track with him.

[1063] And he's so fucking good, so quick.

[1064] And I'm so angry because he's fast as shit.

[1065] But he's a dude and he was telling me, he played football, he wrestled, he did all these things where people yell at you the whole time and tell you you're a piece of shit.

[1066] And that works for him.

[1067] Wow.

[1068] And so, like, he right away went to, like, five motorcycle riding schools and he loves getting taught.

[1069] Whatever.

[1070] He and I are just completely different.

[1071] I aspired to be like that, but that's not how I. You should be on beer grills, too.

[1072] You know, he was on beer grills.

[1073] Yeah, he did like a backflip out of the helicopter.

[1074] You should totally do that.

[1075] Yeah, I don't know.

[1076] Marshawn, um, was Marshawn Lynch?

[1077] I don't know.

[1078] Football player?

[1079] He did it?

[1080] Was he?

[1081] It was, did you see that one?

[1082] It was the best.

[1083] Because why?

[1084] Why?

[1085] Was he scared?

[1086] Because he's like, he's beast mode, but he's scared, but he's real, but he's like, I'm about to put these hands on.

[1087] Like, he was like, it was amazing.

[1088] That's all you want to see.

[1089] You want to see someone be the opposite of what you expect.

[1090] So if you like a screech is on from Saved by the Bell, you want to see him like kill a buck with his bare hands and feel dress it in five seconds.

[1091] And then you want to see Mike Tyson like crying because it's raining or something.

[1092] I mean, I don't ever want to.

[1093] We share, he's our favorite person, right?

[1094] But you should totally be on that show.

[1095] I'll do it.

[1096] Confidence game.

[1097] Yeah.

[1098] So you go from modeling and then you start acting.

[1099] How old are you?

[1100] 26.

[1101] Probably.

[1102] Okay.

[1103] Antoine Fisher is the first big thing.

[1104] And how do you get that?

[1105] I audition.

[1106] Well, I met with, because I had done like this MTV movie with Beyonce.

[1107] Okay.

[1108] The queen?

[1109] The queen or King Bee.

[1110] King Bay, called Carmen, like the hip hopper.

[1111] So the, like the, like the, based off of the opera Carmen, but it's like the hip hop version.

[1112] Okay.

[1113] I don't know even know.

[1114] I don't know what the opera is that it's based off, but that's all right.

[1115] It's worthy of basing.

[1116] And so that was at the top of 2001.

[1117] And then I was, um, I played most deaf's girlfriend who got, and I got killed like, I think before the opening credits of.

[1118] of that movie Showtime with Robert De Niro and Eddie Murphy.

[1119] Like, I don't even think the opening, like, I think it was like during the opening credits.

[1120] I like, I like, I didn't last that long.

[1121] Cold opening.

[1122] Right, cold open, cold open.

[1123] And so I was, I met.

[1124] Were you pumped to be in a scene with most deaf?

[1125] Yeah, well, I met him because he was also in Carmen too.

[1126] Oh, oh, wow.

[1127] But, so I was going, I was taking the rounds with my agent.

[1128] I was doing like, what is it, generals or whatever.

[1129] Yeah, general meetings.

[1130] And I was on the phone.

[1131] Talk about the time to code switch.

[1132] Okay.

[1133] Yeah.

[1134] I was on the phone and I had a curling eye on my hand and it slipped and it burnt me minutes before I was supposed to go out and get it.

[1135] So, I mean, I had a, I did a pretty good job of getting rid of the scar.

[1136] But, I mean, I had a full on face burn situation.

[1137] Yeah.

[1138] So I rolled into the meeting.

[1139] with like a pack of ice on my face or it might have been peas or something like that and they were like whoa and i was like okay i didn't want to see i didn't want to not come right but i'm here and so they gave me the script for i think they gave me the script did they give me the script for antoine fisher or they told me about like denzo washington's doing this i'm like never would have thought that i would have been in the running for it really but um when it was time for auditions i got i was able to go in i got the appointment and um and then I got a callback.

[1140] Yeah.

[1141] That's exciting.

[1142] Yeah.

[1143] And then you did Antoine Fisher.

[1144] Yeah.

[1145] And now you've done this kind of, um, fancy for lack of a better word, movie.

[1146] You're in, you're in like a fancy movie.

[1147] Mm -hmm.

[1148] So then now a lot of things start opening up.

[1149] Yeah.

[1150] Am I right in that?

[1151] no. Is that what comes up?

[1152] No, a lot of things, which is what usually happens, right?

[1153] Like you kind of get, you got, you kind of, you kind of, yeah, weird little things.

[1154] So I was unpunked.

[1155] And then I got to be in without a paddle.

[1156] I'm not quite positive how I got that.

[1157] But doors open for you.

[1158] But Mike Judge, who I had done some episodes of King of the Hill, but once Mike Judge put me in idiocy, now other people who love Mike Judge were like, oh.

[1159] So then Favro put me in Zathura.

[1160] And that's, I think, primarily based on that he dug Mike Judge.

[1161] Yeah.

[1162] Well, fuck if I, yeah.

[1163] So it's weird how it all.

[1164] Yeah.

[1165] Doors open.

[1166] And so, yeah, some doors definitely opened.

[1167] Yeah.

[1168] And so you start becoming recognizable.

[1169] You're in honey.

[1170] I think that's the first thing I knew you in is honey.

[1171] That was the next year.

[1172] Yeah.

[1173] And now we're starting to meet other famous people.

[1174] This is roughly around the same time for both of us, right?

[1175] 2002, three, four, five.

[1176] And what we both share in common is that we both slept with a lot of celebrities.

[1177] Oh, my God.

[1178] When we had an opportunity to.

[1179] Better not say no fucking name.

[1180] I don't say that.

[1181] No, no, no. I would never say a single name.

[1182] But you and I have talked a lot about the fact that we, have done that when given the opportunity young and I can only speak for myself in that that that's an interesting whole journey for me one is I was just horny and that's awesome well yeah you're young you're horny and you've maybe seen them in something and you already thought they were attractive in that well it's like you have access I mean it's access right like like for instance a friend of mine um won an Oscar we're not going to say his name right I won an Oscar recently.

[1183] Okay.

[1184] And I'm like...

[1185] Well, you can't see recently because there's only a...

[1186] Okay, well, my friend, okay, fine.

[1187] My friend won an Oscar.

[1188] And I'm like, dude, this is great.

[1189] I mean, aside from the like career opportunities that are open.

[1190] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1191] I was like, but this is like the best dating thing.

[1192] Like, you can ever won.

[1193] Like, now you just have...

[1194] And it's not to be creepy.

[1195] I'm like, but your whole access is just like, you have different access now.

[1196] And there's nothing wrong with that.

[1197] No. The Chris Rock joke is, men are only as faithful as their options.

[1198] Oh.

[1199] Which is a dangerous thought.

[1200] But I'm just curious, again, because I think you and I share a lot of things in common.

[1201] And for me, there was just, again, I'm horny.

[1202] I've seen them before.

[1203] That's exciting.

[1204] This is very exciting.

[1205] But what was really going on upon closer examination is I, too, never liked how I looked.

[1206] I thought it was funny.

[1207] I was really confident that I was funny.

[1208] and I could dance.

[1209] And those two things got me into a lot of beds I had no business being into.

[1210] And I've been doing this since junior high, which is, oh man, that girl's out of my league.

[1211] If I can, if she likes me, it'll prove to me that maybe I'm not as unattractive as I think I am.

[1212] Because that person can pick anyone and they pick me. And so I must be better than I think I am, right?

[1213] And so this is a myth I believed in for 30 plus years until I actually was.

[1214] woke up in a relationship with someone who I would have thought I had no business ever getting, saw them in movies for years as a kid, and sad for me discovered, I don't feel any different about myself.

[1215] It has zero impact on how I actually feel about myself, which is such a fucking bummer.

[1216] And it took me, again, I'm weirdly grateful for the opportunity to have been able to prove this to myself.

[1217] I got to be with someone that I thought for sure would solve this for me. It would definitely prove that I'm an attractive human being.

[1218] And it didn't.

[1219] I felt the exact same fucking way when I went to brush my teeth in the morning.

[1220] And yeah, I'm just curious if for you, of course, you were horny and young too.

[1221] But do you think any of that was going on?

[1222] Yeah.

[1223] Yeah.

[1224] I mean, I never really thought of it that way, but it does make sense.

[1225] I mean, I think like, I mean, similar to like modeling, I needed that validation to know that I looked, I was cute.

[1226] Yeah, yeah.

[1227] Or something.

[1228] And I think that like, so that at the, at my core.

[1229] By the way, you have a much better excuse for it than I do.

[1230] I just was, I don't know why I felt that way.

[1231] I'm six foot two white with blue eyes.

[1232] The fucking, I hit the lottery, you know, like.

[1233] White boy day.

[1234] Yeah, exactly.

[1235] White boy day for me all day every day.

[1236] And then I still feel that way.

[1237] Yeah.

[1238] You at least have the excuse where you were in a place that was either all white or you were in a black community where you didn't fit the ideal.

[1239] Right.

[1240] But at the core of it, it was sort of this sense of inadequacy.

[1241] Right.

[1242] And so we look for validation wherever we can get it.

[1243] So whether it be for me it was like, okay, I'm validated by the fact that I'm in the beauty industry or whatever or I'm validated that this guy thinks I'm cute.

[1244] You know.

[1245] Well, I was getting it secondhand.

[1246] from you.

[1247] A couple of your folks, I was like, God damn, joy, I tip my hat to you.

[1248] Because you, you know, what I respect about you is there was, there was a level of sophistication to who you were hooking up with too.

[1249] All right, right, right, right.

[1250] Artists and geniuses.

[1251] Oh, my God.

[1252] Like, you would have banged Einstein, right?

[1253] Totally.

[1254] Yeah, yeah.

[1255] See, and I love that about you.

[1256] Yeah, yeah.

[1257] In fact, we used to play this game.

[1258] My boyfriend in college was Einstein.

[1259] basically he was an inorganic biochemist I don't even know what that is but it was like that sounds sexy he didn't even find out what that was oh okay let's do it yeah but you do you you do I remember and this is just a compliment this is the only name we'll say and you didn't sleep with this person you did not sleep with this person but you just said you said out of the blue one day you're like you know if I had to pick from that whole crew who I would sleep with it'd be Seth Rogan and I was like you I love you like you know what I'm saying you have a you have a real you have a you have a real you have a you have a you have a real you have a you have a you have a you have a real you have a you have a curated aesthetic versus who was it franco yeah yeah and franco's a fucking babe we both agree he's a babe total babe but then you went to this other place where what the experience is going to be like with set and i just really i just believe it's a much richer experience yeah for reasons you'd have to check on the website i might enumerate on the website but again it's those picks that make you so wonderful well you know i i i like to you know i i like to keep people guessing.

[1260] Yeah.

[1261] I would never, I would never feel confident in predicting what you were going to pick on any given thing, whether it was what movie you like.

[1262] Wow.

[1263] Cart.

[1264] Yeah.

[1265] That's a good quality.

[1266] So then another thing that you and I both shared again in our 20s.

[1267] Do you know South Franken?

[1268] Yeah.

[1269] No, I don't.

[1270] I'm Twitter.

[1271] We're friends and I've met him five times.

[1272] I thought for sure he didn't like me, but then he tweeted me and then I thought maybe he did.

[1273] I still play this game in my head of who likes me and who doesn't like me. It has less impact now, but I still go through the steps.

[1274] It's like muscle memory at this point.

[1275] I was going through it the other day and I was like, why does it?

[1276] What a waste of time.

[1277] What a waste of fucking time?

[1278] No one cares.

[1279] What are you talking about?

[1280] No one's thinking about you, but you.

[1281] And what I have at least come to find out, and this will come up when we talk about kids, is I have figured out that nothing from the outside changes how I feel on the inside.

[1282] It is truly, it's your own, it's your own journey.

[1283] Until you give your self -approval, you're fucked.

[1284] You just, you can't make enough money.

[1285] You can't, you can't win enough awards.

[1286] You can't fuck enough people.

[1287] It has zero effect on your own self -esteem.

[1288] You have to like, you have to identify some esteemable acts and do those fucking acts.

[1289] That's how you get self -esteem.

[1290] So you and I both like drugs.

[1291] But unlike me, you're not an addict.

[1292] Or by my estimation, you're not an addict, what I would call an addict.

[1293] I've abused.

[1294] But you've abused, which I love.

[1295] My favorite type of person, you know my best friend, Nate.

[1296] Nate was this guy all through his 20s that he could do, he'd do coke with me. But he'd go to bed at five and I'd stay up another day.

[1297] But I always applaud.

[1298] I'm more interested in the dude who actually can go berserk and then just isn't an act.

[1299] That's kind of the dream scenario for me because I still want to get fucked up.

[1300] I just don't want to do it seven days a week and not show up for shit.

[1301] If I have to pick, I'm not picking someone who doesn't want to do any of it.

[1302] And no one's got time anymore.

[1303] No one's got time for a cold.

[1304] A cold?

[1305] My allergies.

[1306] I just think about like the amount of time wasted.

[1307] I mean, listen, you have fun, whatever, whatever.

[1308] Some of my best memories.

[1309] I don't regret it.

[1310] But the amount of time, so much time wasted of like recovering or whatever.

[1311] And it's like, I don't even got the fucking time, man. But it's funny because I feel like when you're young or at least when I was younger, you had all the time in the world.

[1312] Oh, yeah.

[1313] You didn't really have to me anywhere.

[1314] You have no time.

[1315] I mean, and I'm saying that as like, I was a working, I worked all, I mean, I worked a lot as a model.

[1316] I wasn't like, I got a job.

[1317] I mean, once I hit my stride.

[1318] Yeah.

[1319] Which fortunately for me happened relatively soon.

[1320] I was working all the time.

[1321] You might not have seen me and shit, but I was working a lot.

[1322] But in your 20s, you can sleep four hours and work.

[1323] You cannot do that in your 40s.

[1324] And also too, I like I could sleep or not sleep and work.

[1325] Yeah.

[1326] Because all I got to do is not look fucked up.

[1327] Right.

[1328] Right.

[1329] Right.

[1330] I didn't have to talk.

[1331] I couldn't do that.

[1332] I don't have to talk.

[1333] I don't because no one cares what you say.

[1334] So like, you know, I'm not there to talk.

[1335] I'm there to fucking stand there.

[1336] Rock the clothes and then like whatever.

[1337] So I mean, there were some rough times.

[1338] It's a great job for someone who likes drugs.

[1339] Right.

[1340] And then eventually we'll catch out with your ass.

[1341] But yeah.

[1342] But it's like, you used to have all the time, all the time in the world.

[1343] And now there's not enough time.

[1344] I can't even imagine the fraction of the shit from back.

[1345] in the day because I'm like, there's no time.

[1346] I got no time.

[1347] Yeah.

[1348] But not unlike fucking people.

[1349] I think there's a parallel as well with drugs, which is for me, for years, I thought, oh, I just like how cocaine feels.

[1350] I like how ecstasy feels.

[1351] I like how being drunk feels.

[1352] I now realize what I really liked about those things is how I didn't feel.

[1353] The real appeal of them was I didn't feel how I felt when I was sober.

[1354] So I would have liked any of those feelings.

[1355] Like they're all different highs, but I liked all those highs.

[1356] The only how I didn't like was weed per se because it actually made me feel even more how I didn't want to feel.

[1357] Gotcha.

[1358] Which is just genetics, I think, right?

[1359] Because you respond to weed differently than I do.

[1360] I love, I'm a Hoover with cocaine, whatever.

[1361] But, yeah.

[1362] Yeah, figuring out like, oh, I just, what I liked was the relief from my head, which is very busy.

[1363] It's too busy.

[1364] And then a very loud voice in that head is you're a piece of shit and you'll never succeed and everyone thinks your crap and you're crap, you know.

[1365] Right.

[1366] Do you think any of the reason?

[1367] Because look, some people like drugs and some don't.

[1368] You know, even if they try them, they're like, I don't know.

[1369] And my opinion on those people is that their normal state of being is probably pleasant enough that it's not relief for them.

[1370] Do you think at all any of that was relief?

[1371] Um, I mean, I liked drugs.

[1372] I liked them.

[1373] I'd like, um, I mean, also too was sort of like the, the scene and the social sort of inter, I mean, I'd like that kind of thing.

[1374] Um, it definitely made me feel cool.

[1375] Yeah.

[1376] Because I was always terribly uncool.

[1377] So I was always looking for something to be cool.

[1378] Yes.

[1379] Well, it immediately puts you on the same page as everyone else you're doing drugs with.

[1380] Yeah.

[1381] So you go from like, you're looking at all the ways that you're different from.

[1382] this group of people you're with or how you don't fit in or whatever.

[1383] And then you start doing lines of Coke.

[1384] And now you all have one fucking goal.

[1385] Keep doing those lines.

[1386] Right, right, right.

[1387] Now we're identical.

[1388] Right.

[1389] We just want to keep this shit coming into our nose.

[1390] Which is nice.

[1391] Everyone's priorities get real specific.

[1392] And you're like, fuck.

[1393] And then it's like, well, close the stage.

[1394] But yeah, I think that like, I can't say that my drug use was not, um, influenced by my lack of, you know, sort of self -esteem, you know, like, that didn't have issues underlying.

[1395] Yeah.

[1396] Right.

[1397] But I think that for the most part, when it went to, to, to frame it in a way of like what I felt like not high.

[1398] I felt, I mean, I think I felt, I was, I didn't feel like I was escape.

[1399] I was running away from anything.

[1400] Oh, okay.

[1401] Right.

[1402] So you, you were generally.

[1403] I think, I think mine was like partying gone too fucking far.

[1404] Right.

[1405] But you can still do that too.

[1406] Yeah, yeah.

[1407] Yeah.

[1408] Look, a lot of.

[1409] people do it and they're healthy, healthy and have great self -esteem and whatever.

[1410] That wasn't my scenario.

[1411] Yeah, mine was like, well, you can still take fun too far.

[1412] Like, there's too much, you can have too much fun.

[1413] Yeah.

[1414] Like, you really can.

[1415] And you could die from too much fun.

[1416] Yeah.

[1417] We know people.

[1418] Right?

[1419] I know a lot of people.

[1420] Yeah.

[1421] Me too.

[1422] This is a compliment.

[1423] This is not a judgment.

[1424] You have kind of a, you have a, again, this is the wrong word, but a curated lifestyle in that.

[1425] you you have like a bohemian vibe so when you said like it was a part of the I can see that being like oh this is a component of this cool vibe I have you know or this as my friend calls it you live a chosen life uh -huh right I choose like I've chosen curate is the yeah yeah you're choosing shit out of a pile yeah I've I've created this life from myself but you've always had a specific style like a clothing style you have had an aesthetic that's I've had this It's a touch bohemian.

[1426] You touch bohemian with a little something, something.

[1427] A dash of this, dash of this, a little sprinkle of this, a little dash of that.

[1428] Yeah.

[1429] A little peppering of this.

[1430] In the years that we spent a lot of time together, like whatever that was, seven years or something, you were processing a ton of mom stuff, right?

[1431] That seemed to be the period where you really kind of tackled all that and you did a lot of therapy about that.

[1432] And so is it possible that maybe you were a little more bum than you were.

[1433] realized you were in your 20s because that was all sitting there right oh no for sure for sure I mean like what all those things are underlying affecting this is a thing I have to I have to imagine for me as I started having success I ended up weirdly becoming more resentful at my dad this is all so fucked up but for me I felt like I wanted that male in my life who I respected my whole life, to then pat me on the back and say, great job, son.

[1434] You worked hard and I'm so proud of you.

[1435] But because my dad at times, not always, lovely man, was kind of using my success to get his own attention.

[1436] And I didn't respect some of his decisions.

[1437] So the pat on the back didn't feel like what I wanted it to feel like.

[1438] I have to imagine it's, you had to add some of that where you've done all this stuff.

[1439] It's really amazing.

[1440] And then you don't have this relationship with your mom is who you really want to hear like, oh my God, I'm so proud of what the woman you've become.

[1441] Right.

[1442] And even like your situation with your dad, even if she did say that, I'm not going to believe you.

[1443] Because of what.

[1444] They can't win.

[1445] I've now come to find out they just can't win.

[1446] But at the same time, it's like while we can, while I've learned to have to truly forgive her, to truly honestly forgive her for the things that she did and to have compassion for her, and some empathy.

[1447] It doesn't negate.

[1448] And I realized that, like, I at times was crueller than I needed to be.

[1449] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[1450] But it doesn't negate the shit that she did or didn't do.

[1451] Legitimate shit.

[1452] That made it hard for me at the time of being young woman or whatever to look past because, like, that was impossible shit to look.

[1453] Yeah.

[1454] Right.

[1455] And I didn't have the tools to even try and figure that out.

[1456] Yeah.

[1457] You know, I didn't really learn the tools until it was.

[1458] Too late.

[1459] Yeah, well, you know, it's interesting because I shouldn't say too late, but until much later on.

[1460] Yeah.

[1461] It's really hard to recognize that life is fucking messy and your parents are a part of this messy life.

[1462] And especially when now, now that we're older and you go back and you go, well, Jesus Christ, I'm furious that my dad for a decision he made when he was 24 years old with two kids.

[1463] Like when I was 24, I bet I would have worse.

[1464] Yes.

[1465] Like, what could you expect?

[1466] from a 15 year old.

[1467] I wouldn't let a 15 year old watch my kids.

[1468] Much less have kids and then make great decisions.

[1469] Right, right.

[1470] And you, it's so hard to break out of your first person perspective.

[1471] I think that's why parenting is so hard.

[1472] I mean, like, that's what people ask me about, I'm like, I'm very clear.

[1473] I don't want to fucking even enter into that shit, man. I'm good.

[1474] Like more power to anybody who, and I hope that people, when you do have kids, that you take that shit seriously and you work on your shit so you don't ruin your kids.

[1475] Yeah.

[1476] But even still, even with best intentions.

[1477] Oh, you're going to fuck up.

[1478] You're going to fuck up because you have to because you're human.

[1479] Yeah.

[1480] But that's a, but that's like, that's a job that you should be a, it should be a conscious, like, decision.

[1481] It should be your number one job.

[1482] It's your number one job.

[1483] Yeah, yeah.

[1484] I mean, yeah, I think so.

[1485] Again, I have, I have the luxury.

[1486] But there are definitely people who should not have kids.

[1487] Yeah, probably.

[1488] Definitely people who should not have.

[1489] I don't know if David Duke reproduced, but I wish he hadn't.

[1490] So, over the year.

[1491] years, I love to argue, as you know.

[1492] I love to do it.

[1493] I'd say, I could class it up and say I love to debate, but I love to argue.

[1494] You love to argue.

[1495] I love to argue.

[1496] And I got to say that you, you more than any other person has dramatically won some long -term debates.

[1497] Oh, I know one.

[1498] I know one that I've won.

[1499] There's a few.

[1500] There's a few.

[1501] And it's interesting because, well, I appreciate you because it's wonderful to have someone in your life that proves you wrong often and you've done that a few times in some landmark cases.

[1502] And you're also being enough to come back with like, you know what?

[1503] Yeah, it's never been in the moment.

[1504] It's always like I think about it for a couple days.

[1505] And that's okay.

[1506] Yeah, and I hear other people like repeating my own opinion to me and I go, oh, that does smell.

[1507] That's kind of shitty.

[1508] Or just you're trapped in your own perspective, which is almost impossible not to do right.

[1509] Right.

[1510] So one of the long -term debates we had was about Chris Brown.

[1511] Because I was so irate about Chris Brown.

[1512] I wanted to find him and fight him.

[1513] I couldn't say enough bad shit about Chris Brown.

[1514] And you pointed out that the reaction, it was lopsided.

[1515] Right.

[1516] You are obviously not condoning any domestic abuse.

[1517] I don't give a fuck about him.

[1518] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1519] But I said, this guy's a fucking piece of shit, blah, blah, blah.

[1520] and you're like, yeah, he's a piece of shit, but he's no bigger a piece of shit than the countless white dudes who've been caught beating their wives.

[1521] Or doing other type of shit and they get like shows and movies and riches.

[1522] Yes.

[1523] And then I tried to say, well, I think it's a lopsided reaction because we all already love Rihanna.

[1524] Like for me, I love Rihanna and to see her face afterwards sent me into like a fury, right?

[1525] I love her too.

[1526] But then you pointed out, And these are just public knowledge cases.

[1527] This is an inside.

[1528] Oh, God.

[1529] Don't even blow up my spot right.

[1530] Did I say something crazy?

[1531] You didn't say anything crazy.

[1532] These are like, these are known like Charlie Sheen's been arrested.

[1533] Oh, okay.

[1534] Yeah, yeah.

[1535] Right, one or two people.

[1536] And then Brolin, right, has been arrested.

[1537] Apparently, you know, Ozzy Osie Oswald back in a day.

[1538] Oh, yeah.

[1539] Ozzyz weren't beat up Sharon.

[1540] And now we're, you know, we're talking about domestic violence, right?

[1541] But now we see that there's a whole other, there was a whole other lots of shit.

[1542] going on of of of of of of white dudes behaving badly although now we're seeing that it's not just white dudes obviously but that was the men in general men in general have poison in their body it's called testosterone so yeah oh here we're gonna I feel like we might get into one now no no no that's right but yeah you pointed out that they were like um well when I said Rihanna I'm like well no we already love Rihanna and you were like well Josh Brulham was he was married to Diane Lang yeah is that who it is yeah and we're like like you love her right and I'm like yeah that's cherry right in the outsiders yeah I love her like huh and that's what that's weird and when I really like molded over for days at a time I was like huh I don't if I'm being honest with myself when I picture Josh Bowen he's an actor I love I don't see him the way I saw Chris Brown and when I picture Charlie Sheen I go oh that's that's one fucked up guy oh Ozzy yeah yeah I'm Ozzie's biting heads off of bats.

[1543] It's a whole persona.

[1544] But no, he beat up Sharon, who I love, personally I love.

[1545] And then she's been honest about that.

[1546] And you're right, man. I really, it's way easier for me to see Chris Brown as an actual, like, bad person.

[1547] Whereas I'll give everyone this spectrum.

[1548] I'll go like, oh, yeah, he, you know, so -and -so does too many drugs.

[1549] But they do all this other stuff.

[1550] Which, by the way, I believe is the right perspective.

[1551] in general.

[1552] Just people aren't fucking good or bad.

[1553] Exactly.

[1554] They're not evil or saints.

[1555] We got something in a sort of binary way because like bad people do good things, good people do bad things and then everything in between.

[1556] Absolutely.

[1557] And if I can go off on a tangent, I think what's crazy is we are getting into this world of binary opposition, right?

[1558] Where it's good or they're evil.

[1559] And then what we're going to do is if someone does something bad, we're going to lose everything great that they do.

[1560] Yeah.

[1561] So Martin Luther King, he had orgies.

[1562] They were recorded by the FBI.

[1563] Were they really?

[1564] He had affairs.

[1565] Well, they miced a room at his hotel.

[1566] I don't know about that.

[1567] Well, we'll fact check.

[1568] Yeah, yeah.

[1569] But he was unfaithful to say this dude like Pussy.

[1570] He was unfaithful to Coretta.

[1571] We're going to stop right there.

[1572] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1573] Generally like Pussy, would we rob ourselves of the civil rights movement to punish him?

[1574] You know what I'm saying?

[1575] Or JFK, who was fucking White House staffers in the hotel pool.

[1576] do we deny ourselves JFK it's just all very by the way I'm not saying yes or no all I'm saying is wow this is a tricky situation where we're talking about throwing the baby out with the bathwater a lot of gray there's so much gray there's more gray than there is black or white yeah definitely and it's very hard for us to come up with a criteria there's like a thin sliver black there's a thin silver white and the rest is just shades of gray like and there's a lot of gray you can have charcoal gray and it gives us anxiety because it's hard to come up with a framework by which we're going to evaluate all these scenarios and then administer some kind of punishment.

[1577] And that, I think just that alone is too daunting for people.

[1578] Yeah.

[1579] So it's just almost out of laziness that we have to go good or bad, good or bad.

[1580] Yeah.

[1581] And, you know, it's hard fucking work, but those distinctions just have to be made.

[1582] Well, I mean, going back to our parents, for instance, right?

[1583] Like for so long, I saw my mother's being a monster.

[1584] Yeah.

[1585] I'm going off of, I'm just going off of what I saw and my experience.

[1586] Which, by the way, she was only with you, what, 10 % of her life?

[1587] So you're also seeing 10 % of your mom.

[1588] She wasn't with you 90 % of the day.

[1589] Right, right.

[1590] But like, I'm going off experience and what I see and what I hear.

[1591] And so based on that, it's fair to assume why I would think that she was a monster or she was a bitch or whatever, whatever, right?

[1592] Yeah.

[1593] But when I got older and started to sort of see all that, like, okay, well, she was that way because of also say so she was 15 but how old was your dad that's so relevant this is what you just wrote about he was not 15 he was not a teenager 30s I don't know the exact age he was he was he was a married man with children okay yeah he was put it into that when you think about that scenario of like a fucking dude with kids and a wife knocking up a 15 year old my mother was basically trapped in trauma for her whole her whole life but I did not know that.

[1594] Yeah, So it's like when I got older.

[1595] Even if you knew it, it's not to say that.

[1596] Well, even when I found out because of where I still didn't have the tools to deal with her.

[1597] And, you know, so it still didn't really, it mattered, but it didn't really.

[1598] I still wasn't able to cope with, with her.

[1599] So, but as I got older and learn the tools, right?

[1600] Then I started to see, okay, yes, she did.

[1601] Da -da -da -da -da -da -da -da.

[1602] But she did that because, so there, like it wasn't, She wasn't just evil for evil sake.

[1603] Yeah, yeah.

[1604] I could have easily have, you know, so that's when I started to really embrace the sort of grayness of things.

[1605] Also, you know what it is?

[1606] And I think a lot of people have a hard time doing this is they have a hard time distinguishing between an explanation and an excuse.

[1607] So like when Tiger Woods went on TV and said I had all these affairs or whatever and I'm a sex addict, people said oh that's a fucking excuse and I was like no hold on he's not it's not an excuse he's just explaining to you what's happening right you know that's my takeaway from that whole scenario but likewise with your parents I know that when I heard the explanation of why my dad was the way he was I was hearing an excuse and I was going yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah exactly you still got to take care of me exactly I agree I agree to do all this shit I agree but now years later I'm like Oh, my God.

[1608] It's just an explanation.

[1609] No, that's a really good point.

[1610] I don't need to own up to this or I'm not sorry.

[1611] Yeah.

[1612] That's not what it's saying.

[1613] It's just going, oh, you know, just so you know, here's how I got to this point.

[1614] I feel terrible and I own it.

[1615] And here's how I got here.

[1616] If you're interested and I am interested in why, how you got there.

[1617] But you got a, yeah, you got to have a good, a good spot in your heart.

[1618] You got to write that down.

[1619] Okay.

[1620] I'm going to jot it down right now.

[1621] But the Chris Brown one was was a good one.

[1622] which I totally was wrong about.

[1623] What was the other one?

[1624] Well, the other one was.

[1625] And I, leading up to this, I was trying to recollect my actual argument because my argument is going to sound so shitty right now because this is all I really remember about it.

[1626] But the year in which there was tons of outrage that there weren't more black nominated folks for the Academy Awards.

[1627] Here was my take.

[1628] And let me just try to get it out before you point out how shit, what a bad theory this is.

[1629] I think I remember what is.

[1630] Here was my argument.

[1631] you can't black community I'm addressing everyone in the black community you can't be angry that there's no Oscar nominated black directors, writers, actors films because you don't you can't just be mad that they're not nominated if you're not supporting the type of movies and projects that get nominated so in that year you had concussion which was fucking brilliant and it made $5 And then you had a Medea movie that made a bazillion dollars.

[1632] And I was saying, well, if you're going to just go to the Medea movies, they're not going to make the concussion movies.

[1633] That's just, that's the mechanics of, well, hold on.

[1634] You're going to, you're going to, concussion is not necessarily like.

[1635] It's not.

[1636] But he was one of the main complaints of why he didn't get nominated.

[1637] That was, that was part of, yeah, regardless, he's definitely in that conversation.

[1638] Right, right.

[1639] So my point was, you can't not support those type of movies and be mad that they're not getting made.

[1640] and then mad that their people in them are not getting nominated.

[1641] Like you can only blame other people so much for what's now happening way downstream.

[1642] The award is so downstream.

[1643] There was already a movie made.

[1644] There was a movie agreement.

[1645] See, I thought your point was something else though.

[1646] No, but you had another point too.

[1647] What was the, do you remember a point that I didn't remember?

[1648] Your point was like, well.

[1649] No, no, no, no. Because I don't remember anything you just said.

[1650] Oh, you don't?

[1651] No. And that doesn't make sense.

[1652] But.

[1653] Well, no, because I'll know I told it to you because you had the best.

[1654] knockout punch to that whole thing, which I hadn't even thought of is you go, white people ain't going to these movies that are nominated either.

[1655] And I was like, oh, knockout punch.

[1656] That's true.

[1657] None of those movies that were nominated.

[1658] That was my response.

[1659] But I thought your, I thought your other point was that.

[1660] Black people should just never be nominated for you.

[1661] No, it was something about like, about like, well, you know, this movie in the market and like the audience and like these movies, like kind of these movies perform better or something like that.

[1662] And I thought my, I was like, yeah.

[1663] Well, it's mostly just blaming.

[1664] Ain't nobody going to see the fucking King's speech?

[1665] Right.

[1666] Well, that one they did.

[1667] But so many.

[1668] A lot of white people didn't go see that.

[1669] They didn't go see.

[1670] Wait, no, moonlight is.

[1671] That's black.

[1672] Yeah, but you know what I'm saying?

[1673] There's always.

[1674] There's a lot of white movies that nobody goes.

[1675] Absolutely.

[1676] Because they're not made to make money.

[1677] They're made for that reason of sort of prestige and that kind of thing.

[1678] And if they make money, great.

[1679] I mean, they will eventually make money.

[1680] But like.

[1681] Let's just even be more honest.

[1682] they're all made with the hope by the guy who or woman who bets on that movie, that the star power will take it out of the genre and it will make money.

[1683] So it is a leap of faith.

[1684] They actually do believe, oh, we're going to cast Brad Pitt and Babel.

[1685] So it will make money.

[1686] Even though we're going to make Babel, yeah, no one's going to see Babel, but we put Brad Pitt in it, then they will.

[1687] Whereas that's a trickier bet with Denzel Washington.

[1688] He's a bad example because white folks go see his movies like crazy.

[1689] But you know what I'm saying.

[1690] Well, I mean, well, I think that whole idea of sort of who's, who means something, who doesn't mean, sort of, because you can still put a, that's why the whole, I mean, I think there's certain people, there's not as many people that put people in the seats like there used to be.

[1691] Oh, not at all, not at all.

[1692] So, like, that whole idea of like, oh, well, this person doesn't mean anything.

[1693] That person means something like, you can put that white star on some shit and people still ain't going to go fucking see that shit.

[1694] You might just put somebody in it.

[1695] Weirdly, Denzel is one of maybe the only people that still, people go see that fucking movie for the most part.

[1696] It doesn't seem to matter.

[1697] Dwayne Johnson?

[1698] No, but you put Dwayne Johnson in a movie.

[1699] where he's not kicking someone's ass at some point?

[1700] I don't think.

[1701] I mean, I think that he's actually, I mean, he's, I think that he's, like, grossing.

[1702] He's pretty indestructible.

[1703] I think he's kind of, I don't think you could put him in a drama.

[1704] Oh.

[1705] You know, where he's got cancer.

[1706] I don't know.

[1707] I mean, first of all, I'd be.

[1708] I don't want him to be in a drama.

[1709] It doesn't be hard for him to shave weight for that role.

[1710] But I think, I think, like, at the end of the day, I think that the core of that is basically what we're saying is that, like, the fucking criteria for shit is way different for black people than it is for white people.

[1711] Like, white people are going to just like, okay, we're going to make this like bullshit -ass movie and nobody's going to save it.

[1712] And then like us, we got to jump through who's well.

[1713] Well, my critique was.

[1714] It doesn't sell overseas.

[1715] You're just bullshit ain't selling overseas either, but she made it.

[1716] Like, come on.

[1717] Yeah.

[1718] So again, you really, really won that.

[1719] I don't think you ever made the point you thought I was making.

[1720] What is the point you think I was making?

[1721] That I thought it was more about it.

[1722] For some reason, I thought you meant more like international or sort of like people going to see or like movies that, movies before.

[1723] Well, what I can tell you.

[1724] Because my people do show up.

[1725] I don't think that, and I try not to, I'm trying not to talk about movies as black movies, as white movies, trying to get away from that, even though that's what the industry like sees it as, but like, black people will go show up for some shit.

[1726] Women will go show up for some shit.

[1727] Make some shit that people want to see and they will show up.

[1728] Yes.

[1729] But so, yes.

[1730] But what's unfair about that is.

[1731] is the people that the movies that people show up to see are generally not the movies that are nominated.

[1732] Right.

[1733] And that's, and that's regardless of what it's black, white or whatever.

[1734] Like, that's just like, that's what it is.

[1735] But to your point, the white movies still get made.

[1736] Oh, yeah.

[1737] And I mean, and it is hard to make a movie regardless, right?

[1738] It's impossible.

[1739] No matter even if you are white.

[1740] Yes.

[1741] But it's easier.

[1742] Well, and that's, and then you and I have talked about this.

[1743] And this is, I feel like a good time to bring this up is this term white privilege I first and foremost completely understand and believe in.

[1744] Thank God.

[1745] Thank you.

[1746] Remember we went and saw Talib Quilly.

[1747] Are you going to have him on your show?

[1748] I hope to.

[1749] You better ask him.

[1750] That's your buddy.

[1751] You better get him on here.

[1752] Remember we, I found out all this buddies call him Quall at the show and now I just want to call him Quall.

[1753] You guys are friends now.

[1754] He, when we went and saw him on stage, which I thought was cool, is he goes, well, first of all, let me tell you my privilege.

[1755] I'm a man. That's a big win for me. I was born in America.

[1756] That's a huge win for me, right?

[1757] And he kind of goes through it, which I thought was really cool.

[1758] But the reason I think that the term white privilege, why it's so easy to want to fight back from that, if you're white, is nobody's life feels privileged.

[1759] No one feels like their life hasn't been a struggle.

[1760] So I am born on a dirt road, dyslexic, all these things.

[1761] Like to me, it has felt like a struggle.

[1762] So it's hard to exist as a human being, not this, but, but the humans, your race, it does, it does.

[1763] It does.

[1764] Because being a black person who grew up on a dirt road, don't, don't road and dyslexus, is even worse.

[1765] It's a way different because they don't have that saint, that level of privilege.

[1766] Absolutely.

[1767] But I do believe if you're a white woman in a trailer right now with five kids in Tennessee, and someone's telling you that you're a white privilege, right.

[1768] I can see where you go, fuck that.

[1769] what privilege this is a shitty existence where's my you know yeah yeah it is true i'm not denying there there's huge advantages when every system in the country is run by white people there's no denying that but it's just a tricky term i think it's a it can be a triggering term because we all kind of feel like life's fucking hard and it's a struggle right but it's not as hard of a struggle you know what i'm saying i almost wish it was like i wish the term was less shitty you know what I'm saying like yeah you you benefit from from less shitty yeah well I mean I see your point in that and I can say yes if someone who um is um a white woman with with a bunch of kids low income yeah is she going to be like how how am I if this is privileged but but but what you know let's look at the word you know but let's look at it in a way that's like you know it's not like what necessarily comes right into your pocket like you're not like walking oh yeah I'm privileged because I can your privilege to me is you're born with a trust fund Which is like, you're sad.

[1770] Right.

[1771] Well, see, you see, we have to start to think of it in a more nuanced way, right?

[1772] Which is why I'm critical of the word.

[1773] I think there's a better word for this.

[1774] What is a very true evaluation of America, I feel like there's a better word.

[1775] And there could be.

[1776] Yeah.

[1777] I think that for lack of a better word, that's where we are, right?

[1778] And I think that like.

[1779] And by the way, from your perspective, it is straight privilege.

[1780] But again, going to what Talib was saying.

[1781] Because he went down like, he's like, so he's able body.

[1782] That's a privilege.

[1783] Yeah.

[1784] Right.

[1785] He's a man. He's a heterosexual man. Talented, motherfucker.

[1786] He's talented.

[1787] He grew up in a, so he's recognizing.

[1788] His parents are professors.

[1789] Yeah.

[1790] So he's recognized.

[1791] So he's educating.

[1792] So he's recognizing the privileges and how.

[1793] That doesn't mean that like he had, so he does have a, um, an advantage.

[1794] Sure.

[1795] When you look at those factors, right?

[1796] Um, and so they don't make your phone ring.

[1797] No, but it's what it is.

[1798] Right.

[1799] So like for me, for myself, um, I'm privileged that, you know, I've benefited from being light -skinned.

[1800] That's a privilege, right?

[1801] That, that, like, that's not something that I'm like, oh, yeah, I got that privilege.

[1802] I'm not trying to wear that privilege on my fucking thing.

[1803] But that's what I mean, I'm aware that, like, to be within a racist system or white system, like, that has been, that has had currency in some way.

[1804] And I want to explore that.

[1805] So you're aware of that.

[1806] I'm aware of that.

[1807] Right.

[1808] But how much, how often are you when you're like, you're writing yourself narrative.

[1809] This is my life.

[1810] I came from here.

[1811] I ended up here.

[1812] I did these things.

[1813] I did that thing.

[1814] How much are you going?

[1815] Well, and I had a, I had a little advantage in that I was light skin.

[1816] Is that actually part of your thinking when you're telling your own story?

[1817] You know what?

[1818] Yes, it has to be.

[1819] It is.

[1820] Yes.

[1821] Because as a conscious decision, right?

[1822] But it requires an awareness of the fact that like I exist not just not, I'm here, not just because of talent and my work ethic.

[1823] There's other things that played into it.

[1824] The way that white look for you for instance like it's not you're not you're here because you're talented you're funny with all these things right and then then the thing that kind of helps you over the edge is if you're a white dude white boy day you're a heterosexual man your able body these are the privileges that you and it's not being like oh that doesn't make you're racist it doesn't make you homophore to acknowledge that you've had certain advantages that push you over the edge where there's a lot of people who don't have that yeah so it's like by you having those those privileges um well that's what we've we've you've you know we've enjoyed it I don't even be like oh I'm enjoying my privilege but it's like these it's it's helped us yes well it's you should be aware of that it is now something I think about when I'm kind of getting circular in an argument right and and I'm not finding my my my theory is finding purchase uh one of the cases was in we're not going to use names but um a sexual harassment case that's currently out there about a dude, and I said to you, you know, if this happened to me, it wouldn't bother me. Right.

[1825] Right.

[1826] Who I wouldn't give a shit.

[1827] But then I remember, I'm six, three, I'm white.

[1828] I don't regularly feel powerless.

[1829] It's not a normal feeling for me to feel like this system is against me. Right.

[1830] So I, of course, I don't feel, I can laugh things off because I'm not prone to feeling powerless.

[1831] And that's important for me to remember.

[1832] And it's fucking hard to remember because you're looking out your own window.

[1833] And that's okay because like this is not going to be, this is not, we can't like neatly unpack all these things.

[1834] It's going to get messy.

[1835] And it's like, yeah, there is probably a better word for, but it's what it is, it's like it's good for people to recognize that we all have, not all of us, but many of us or some of us have certain advantages and privileges and acknowledging those things.

[1836] So again, the poor white woman with with, with, with, with, children, you know, with kids living in a trailer, um, you know, she's, she's still white at the end of the day.

[1837] So it's like, so, so, so again, so again, that that's different from a black woman with five children.

[1838] That's another Chris Rock joke.

[1839] You know what I'm saying?

[1840] Yeah.

[1841] But the dentist.

[1842] No, uh, well, that's a really great one.

[1843] Yeah.

[1844] But like so.

[1845] No, but the janitor inside of Madison Square Garden.

[1846] You remember that one?

[1847] He had a stand -up routine.

[1848] He's like, there's a white janitor inside here of Madison Square Gardens that would not trade places with me and I'm rich.

[1849] He's like, I'm going to see how this plays out being white.

[1850] So it's like, it's not about like who's, um, whose pain is worse, whatever, but is recognizing even if you are not benefiting because like that problem is not the fact that like white privilege doesn't work out for her.

[1851] It's like, she's a victim of a capitalist system more so than anything.

[1852] So it's recognizing that even if you are not, um, reaping the rewards of your privilege.

[1853] like in a tangible way that is putting money in your pocket because that's really what we're all trying to get down to right that you still benefit from that by your very existence and it's not accusing anybody of anything and so we just have to kind of broaden our awareness on what that means well and then sadly it's all it's there's so many layers like what you end up doing is you're just getting further and further upstream so it's like I've seen it with Bell and I where a few years ago I was making more in movies than she was making in movies but based on really nothing and so we were talking about that and she's like maybe they're paying you more because you're a man and I said well but I also walk away from offers I negotiate harder than you do which is a very male thing to do right so part of it is yes they're just going to they're going to try to pay her as little as humanly possible so some of it's incumbent on her to take a harder line and be able to walk away from shit.

[1854] But that's a very, that's a very male -female thing.

[1855] And it is unfortunate.

[1856] Then I go even further upstream and I go, it's not fair that this world's constructed in a way where she would have to act more like me to get equal treatment and pay.

[1857] So it's like, I keep going backwards, right?

[1858] So it's on you, you got to demand more.

[1859] And then I go, well, so the flip side of that that is that like, then that's putting the onus on the victims or that's putting the onus on the least advantage to advocate for them.

[1860] Now, my mind.

[1861] you, yes, there are certain things that we, um, we do have to be better advocates for ourselves in general, right?

[1862] Yeah, it's humans.

[1863] Um, but it takes the, it takes the responsibility off of the powers that be.

[1864] You know what I'm saying?

[1865] So it's like while you have to be the best advocate, also systematically, the system itself needs to change.

[1866] So if you can be your best advocate, but sometimes you're going to have to take less because that's just what it is or whatever, you can decide if you want to walk away or not, whatever.

[1867] But it's like, I would get more.

[1868] like mad at the system.

[1869] The fact that she has to like go that route.

[1870] There's not a more equitable.

[1871] It's complicated because you have to start by going they're going to try to pay all of us the least amount possible.

[1872] So that's just.

[1873] Oh, and especially black.

[1874] I mean, people of color.

[1875] And I'm glad that's coming up into the conversation because that was that was like a talk about a fucking like well known secret, at least amongst us.

[1876] Well, you know, we were getting paid less than.

[1877] Yeah.

[1878] Well, what happens a lot, I think.

[1879] white people with the same or less credits than we were.

[1880] Yes.

[1881] And I'm a victim of this.

[1882] I'm not a victim of this.

[1883] I willingly do this myself, which is you go, oh, well, Obama was elected.

[1884] So I have an example of black folks succeeding in a manner that now I don't have to think about it.

[1885] And then what's been well known for years is that some of the biggest movie stars have been black for the last 30 years and they've gotten the biggest paychecks.

[1886] Eddie Murphy, Denzel, all these people.

[1887] so you just go, oh, they're paying black folks the same because the ones that are getting the most noise are these outrageous paychecks.

[1888] Right.

[1889] So I'm actually not thinking about what Joy Bryant's making on parenthood versus what Lauren Graham's making or anyone else is making.

[1890] Or just even then breaking it down just gender -wise what this actress over here is making versus what Angelina Jolie just because like this woman is making this amount of money or that black person is making out of money.

[1891] Oh, or they're good.

[1892] All right.

[1893] Because again, that's the 1 % right?

[1894] Yes.

[1895] You're hearing the exception, not the rule.

[1896] Yeah.

[1897] Because the exception makes a headline.

[1898] So it's all I'm really aware of.

[1899] Well, I remember having a conversation with the actor friend of mine like over five years ago.

[1900] We're talking about, you know, the black rate, which I won't use the word that we was using.

[1901] Just because, I mean, I can't.

[1902] Well, you go as soon as the mic.

[1903] But we were talking about how we, neither one of us, while both of us, um, at that, up into that point had done some cool stuff and, you know, were known, visible enough.

[1904] neither one of us had the power to really come out and call that shit what it is.

[1905] You got a pass to get what you want.

[1906] Right.

[1907] So we didn't have the power to actually publicly express that there is a pay and equity going on between artists of color and white artists.

[1908] Right.

[1909] With sometimes the same or less credits.

[1910] Like hands down.

[1911] It's not even like an exaggeration.

[1912] It's not like, oh, I does it?

[1913] No. It's objective.

[1914] Yeah.

[1915] But like that person did not do as many things as I did.

[1916] why to fuck I'd I walk on the set making more than me. We all know why.

[1917] And so we were saying how it would take someone with a bigger name to really come out and say that.

[1918] Well, the people with a bigger name ain't making what we making.

[1919] Right.

[1920] And they're going to sound.

[1921] And listen, it's all relative, right?

[1922] You know, like we make a good living, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[1923] But like those people are not going to talk about that.

[1924] And we were doing good.

[1925] And there's people doing, I mean, we weren't doing bad.

[1926] But what we're getting as much as what our white counterparts, no, and of course there were people making way less than us, right, for the same thing.

[1927] Now we flash forward years later where I think Viola Davis might have been the first person to really bring up the pay and equity amongst artists of color versus white, like the first one.

[1928] Uh -huh.

[1929] And now we can talk about it, right?

[1930] Because now we're also talking about, you know, the pay inequity as it applies to women.

[1931] Yeah.

[1932] We're talking about that now.

[1933] Which, again, is a much more complicated conversation than anyone is having.

[1934] what the pay i'd have to have bell here to explain to you about it because she got out in front of that and was really vocal about that but then it's a much deeper deeper deeper issue than just it's not black and white women are making less than men it's very complicated well it's all complicated yeah yeah yeah but there is no you're really uh currently or maybe every generation has felt like this there's really no road that is the middle right that is like there's issues on all sides of this.

[1935] Everyone, we really want there to be a good guy and a bad guy in all these debates.

[1936] And we want the bad guy to change.

[1937] But it all has to evolve.

[1938] Like everyone on all sides has to evolve.

[1939] Well, I think, I think that like they're definitely evolving.

[1940] There's different levels of consciousness that needs that need to happen.

[1941] That's why like all these conversations that we're having, even though sometimes it's like, you know, it gets messy or, you know, what is about racism or whatever?

[1942] It gets messy or sort of like, you know, The pendulum goes from one, you know, we're just trying to, we got to go through this phase and try to figure out like a way forward.

[1943] And until there's more, um, diversity in general in terms of behind the camera, in terms of like the people.

[1944] The system.

[1945] The system.

[1946] Whether it's like, that's gender, racial, whatever.

[1947] Yeah.

[1948] That's, then we're going to really start to see some change.

[1949] But like, it's hard.

[1950] And you actually send this to, remember you saying this, like, talking more like, like, well, who the fuck's going to.

[1951] give up their power.

[1952] There was a conversation that you and I had.

[1953] And it's like, yeah, no one's going to just, a lot of people aren't going to like willingly give up their power, right?

[1954] They have to be sort of held accountable or have their their feet held to the fire.

[1955] But the issue is that like it does take, well, yeah.

[1956] It does take white heterosexual dudes because since they control everything to and it takes people like you, like for instance, like you're a director.

[1957] Yeah.

[1958] So how can you, you're not going to run to the student, but like, you better hire him already.

[1959] But what you're going to do?

[1960] I'll have a couple fights.

[1961] You'll have some fights.

[1962] I have a lot of fights to have.

[1963] When I direct a movie, I have a lot of fights.

[1964] I have to fight for an editor.

[1965] I have to fight for a production designer.

[1966] I have to fight for my music budget.

[1967] I have to fight for all these things.

[1968] And then I got to fight for cast.

[1969] And so I maybe have in me eight fights to win.

[1970] And yes, if I've got to prioritize me selfishly, whether making the movie I wanted to make or an obligation to make.

[1971] by the way, my movie was super black, white, Hispanic.

[1972] Everything just by, I don't know, they didn't push.

[1973] But I'm not in front of the camera.

[1974] I'm talking about the entire scope.

[1975] Yeah, I think the only, what my production designer is Palestinian, but everyone else is too much white.

[1976] So I'm just saying that like all those complicated, all those things are true, but it's like it takes people who have some power at some particular time to make choices and to do things differently than before.

[1977] So that's making sure that your, your sets, because I'm not even, I ain't even talking about in front of the camera.

[1978] I'm just talking about, like, just the lead up to that.

[1979] It's to make sure that there's, there, that, that, that, that, that you, it's, but you telling the people who, who are, who are there to do what the fuck you tell them and do is to make sure that hiring practices of, from crew is like, it's not about 50, 50, no, it's about like, there's, there needs to be some parity.

[1980] There needs, in terms of gender, race.

[1981] Yeah.

[1982] You don't say, so that, like, you're, so that you're actually being, a part of the solution.

[1983] Well, by the way, you almost need to witness it, in my defense, you almost need to witness it to realize, because what you'll start thinking, or I start thinking is, and I think you and I debated this in the past, is it's interesting that everyone's concerned that there be, let's say black folks are 15 % of the population, I don't know what the number is, that they should at least be 15 % of the directors, right?

[1984] Well, no one's talking about making sure they're 15 % of craft service or 15 % of, electrical and I said oh it's crazy everyone wants to start at the very top but no one's even at the bottom rung to work their way up the chain and I think I was critical of that like why isn't anyone like no one's fighting to be a fucking gaffer uh they just want to go straight to I'm gonna fight to be a director well no no but people are people people are people I did that movie el camino Christmas yeah black director David talbert and by God there were a lot of black folks all of a sudden I saw on set and I was like oh there are more black people that do all those jobs I'm aware of.

[1985] Right, right.

[1986] Because I'm only on the sets I'm on.

[1987] Or in women, you know, so, yeah.

[1988] So, like, they're out there.

[1989] They need the opportunities to, to then rise up because I think about, like, the AD department, right?

[1990] Yeah.

[1991] Like, you come up, you hire more Black PAs and then you come, this isn't direct, you know, like, there's a chain, they work up the chain or, or electrical or transpo hair makeup.

[1992] Like, it needs to just be more.

[1993] reflective of what's going on, right?

[1994] And so everyone can do anyone with any amount of power.

[1995] Like, and we have to sort of assess when we're, you know, as creators, whatever, as we, as we sign up for job, okay, how much, what's my power dynamic?

[1996] Yeah.

[1997] I mean, you know, I want to say this is something that Bell and I often have debated at home.

[1998] It actually requires that you break out of the paradigm that there are a finite amount of resources.

[1999] See, this is what plagued the early monetization.

[2000] system in America, right?

[2001] When we had a gold standard, there was a finite amount of gold.

[2002] So what you end up doing is you keep revaluing the dollar against the gold, but you're dealing with a finite amount of something.

[2003] And so the economy actually can't expand into oblivion because we are locked into this finite concept of gold.

[2004] And it wasn't until the Civil War, when they started issuing money that wasn't locked to this finite amount, that the economy explodes.

[2005] And now you realize, oh, everyone can have a lot if we break.

[2006] this idea that there's this, we're all fighting over this tiny bit.

[2007] And so Bell will go, well, we can't pay that person this and then this person this because then, you know, I don't know how she always says it, but basically, and I'll say to her, no, everyone really, in theory, can be millionaires.

[2008] Like there is no limit.

[2009] It's just when we reassess how much shit there is for all of us.

[2010] Right.

[2011] You've got to break out of this notion that if I, if someone else comes up, I'm not going down.

[2012] Right.

[2013] Exactly.

[2014] Exactly.

[2015] Yeah.

[2016] I'm not given, so the goal isn't, the goal is for everyone to have white privilege.

[2017] Right.

[2018] Not for you to lose your white privilege, for everyone to have the same privilege as you.

[2019] Does that make sense?

[2020] Well, I mean, I wouldn't, I see what you're saying.

[2021] I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't phrase it as everyone have, because I don't, I mean, I'm saying, whatever, whatever opportunity is saying that I would want to have white privilege.

[2022] I feel uncomfortable with that.

[2023] But I see what you, whatever, whatever advantages you have.

[2024] It's for people to have some kind of advantage in life, right?

[2025] It should for everyone to have the advantage.

[2026] Not for me to have less.

[2027] I don't think the goal should be for me to have less opportunity.

[2028] I think the goal should be for everyone to have the exact same great opportunity that I have.

[2029] I think that is the American ideal is for everyone to have an opportunity and have the equal access.

[2030] It's just like people fucked it up along the way.

[2031] Yes.

[2032] But it's easy to think that, oh, and let's hash this up because I'm saying.

[2033] In order for somebody to come up, I got to, I got to be.

[2034] No, I mean, that's that's the problem I think with like.

[2035] Yeah, you're right.

[2036] When I hear that, I go, the goal shouldn't be for me to give something up.

[2037] The goal should be to give everybody this great thing I have.

[2038] Right.

[2039] That's what, yeah.

[2040] Yeah.

[2041] But it's, it requires a total shift in thinking.

[2042] Yes.

[2043] And to not feel threatened that like that, that just because there's people with, you know, who are looking for opportunity that means like, listen, the end of the day, you going and get some jobs and you're not going to get some jobs.

[2044] Yeah.

[2045] That ain't got shit to do with nothing.

[2046] Yeah.

[2047] Because that's just a way that the ball, that it goes.

[2048] But you should not have an unfair advantage to getting those jobs and then be mad when other people want to come around and get that job because you've enjoyed that advantage.

[2049] That's not, that's not cool.

[2050] So I think that's where for me, like when I look at just talking about this business, right?

[2051] And I look at, you know, people like anybody that has any type of power, especially if you're white.

[2052] okay and especially if you're a male I feel like there are things that you can do that um will fucking like give a fucking middle finger to the system and really start to make things that more equitable you can't shoulder everything and it's not to be like oh you have to have this quote no but it's sort of like you know for instance like you know working on a show where it's about um women right and there's a lot of women on set but there's only a handful of women of color problem.

[2053] You know what I'm saying?

[2054] But like that's a problem.

[2055] Well, and let's say this.

[2056] This is why this is a very hard problem to tackle because all these people are needed.

[2057] But the people who are currently in power also should be writing their story, which is tricky.

[2058] I should write my story.

[2059] You know what I'm saying?

[2060] Let's just start with the very first rule of writing and storytelling is tell what you know.

[2061] Tell your story.

[2062] So it is a, it is a trap in a cycle that's very hard to break because currently the people who have the ability to get something made are telling their story, which is normal.

[2063] And their story isn't female or their story isn't black or their story isn't Hispanic.

[2064] It's their stories.

[2065] That's cool.

[2066] Yeah, but do you see what I'm saying is what we need is more of those stories.

[2067] We need more black stories.

[2068] We need more female stories.

[2069] We need all these things.

[2070] But even on, but even, but the thing is even on a story that is told from a white perspective.

[2071] Like Tarantino is doing the black, movies, which is ironic.

[2072] No, no, my point is this.

[2073] It's not so much about the storytelling per se.

[2074] Because, like, you're telling a story from a white perspective, a white straight male perspective.

[2075] That's okay.

[2076] I'm talking about behind the scenes, you don't need all the gaffirs being white.

[2077] I'm sorry, you don't need transfer all being white.

[2078] That's not, what does that fucking get to do with your story?

[2079] No, no, I'm talking about, I'm talking about the above the line.

[2080] Yeah, I mean, but go with it.

[2081] It needs to, it's like the problem.

[2082] of a lack of inclusiveness is a pervasive problem throughout the entire industry.

[2083] So we were talking about, yeah, everyone's talking about directors.

[2084] What about black gap?

[2085] I'm talking about gaffers.

[2086] I'm talking about that because I can step on a job.

[2087] I agree.

[2088] I can step on a job where, we're like.

[2089] And that is up to me if I make a movie again, which is like I got to go out of my way, which I should.

[2090] I got to go out of my way to go like, are there any black electrician options I can interview?

[2091] You know, like, but it does require.

[2092] some consciousness on my part.

[2093] Exactly.

[2094] Exactly.

[2095] And it will require until is a part of that like, like you're, you know, that's a part of your shit.

[2096] Like this is what I want.

[2097] I mean, like, look at Averdivorene.

[2098] And it's a band.

[2099] Averdina Vernet is a great example of, you know, of course, they've done studies that show that like when women are at, you know, in positions of leadership, there are going to be more women there, right?

[2100] So she happens, she's a woman.

[2101] She's going to have more, you know, gender parity.

[2102] She's also a black woman.

[2103] So it's going to have more diversity.

[2104] It's going to have more diversity, racial or ethnic diversity.

[2105] It's like, but we have to make a commitment.

[2106] And that's not just, you know, it's all of us, right?

[2107] So it's like, especially if you have that power.

[2108] So it's like, it just takes a little bit more effort to be like to consider outside of what we, you know, okay, cool, you know, let's just make sure that for gender, racial, ethnic, whatever, like that we have a, as diverse team.

[2109] as possible.

[2110] What's it?

[2111] Yeah.

[2112] And it's got to be a conscious decision.

[2113] It's not.

[2114] Yeah, it has to be until it until it's not.

[2115] Until it's not.

[2116] Like nothing's going to change until people do that.

[2117] Yeah.

[2118] And if there's not that many black directors, well, who the fuck going to do it?

[2119] Right.

[2120] Right.

[2121] Yeah.

[2122] So, you know.

[2123] Let's just talk really quick before we go about one of our less important debates on race.

[2124] what which is when you purchase an automobile oh no come on man you purchase an automobile and you sign up you make a down payment and then you're required to make a monthly right your car note I don't care what you say car note is called car note so one of the many things that joy and I discovered over six years your house note your house no we were talking you know I grew up around Detroit and I was down in Detroit a lot.

[2125] And so I was privy to a lot of fun black cloakwheels and one of them being car note.

[2126] And I said to Joy, you know, not a single white person in America knows what the fuck car note is.

[2127] And she's like, no, that's not true.

[2128] And then you ask every white person on parenthood.

[2129] And they were like, huh?

[2130] What's a car note?

[2131] Like something you leave on the hood if you park in the wrong spots.

[2132] And then I have some black friends who were like, nah, it's car.

[2133] Yeah.

[2134] And then one friend was like, yeah, but you know who grew up in Connecticut, like a rural connect she's like they didn't say but i'm like so yeah it's it's it's still up in the yeah i mean yeah okay yeah i know i still know i mean at least like when you come back it sounds so much better than a car payment car note it sounds a bit more civilized so when you tell other black folks like you know white people call it car payment at least it makes sense right you're like it's a car payment when i when i try to explain what would be car note car note what is the note part what is that even i'm telling you it's a more sophisticated way.

[2135] It's an elevated way.

[2136] It's bad.

[2137] It's an elevated way.

[2138] Well, I just want to publicly thank you for always having these debates we've had over the years and feeling like in my soul that my intentions were good and my heart was pure and always being patient and letting me come to.

[2139] And by the way, I don't agree with joy on a lot of these things.

[2140] There's some I haven't come around to, which is good and healthy and I love it.

[2141] Right.

[2142] And you don't have to.

[2143] And you know, listen, there's discussion and then we sit, we kind of, hmm, okay.

[2144] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[2145] You know, listen, if like a year from now, you're like, you know what?

[2146] You was right about card note.

[2147] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[2148] But can I say, you know, I think a lot of this is, is what your self -esteem level is in how you feel as a person that you don't always feel attacked and defensive, you know?

[2149] So you have admirable self -esteem.

[2150] I've always been attracted to that part of you.

[2151] Yeah, I think you're like, you know what lane you're in and you you have your thing you design clothes you play the drums you write you know you know the things that you want to do that fill up the well right and as we both said we both are in a great position that we can do these things that fill up the well inside and so I'm lucky as hell I have a lot of great stuff in my life um if I'm wrong about this debate my self -esteem's not hinged on that right and that's a really right privileged place to be right And, you know, I wish for everybody, really what I wish is that everyone had that.

[2152] That would be nice.

[2153] Because then we could all hear this shit and not get defensive and not feel like we're under attack or we owe some of psychology.

[2154] We can't really change anything if we don't have these discussions.

[2155] Right.

[2156] And.

[2157] And it's a luxury to have them.

[2158] You know what I'm saying?

[2159] It is.

[2160] But they're also.

[2161] It's like, but it's like it's vital that it's necessary that we have this.

[2162] Yeah, I don't mean that it's a luxury to have the conversation.

[2163] I want to correct myself.

[2164] it's a luxury to be in a position where you can hear all sides and you're not you're not scratching for your life to keep your head above water like that's nice the fact that i get to think about whether i'm eating organic food or not organic food or you know what i'm saying like what a luxury the first half of my life i'm just thinking about like i need 2 ,000 calories that was really white of you yeah i need 2 ,000 calories 7 -11 has two hot dogs for 129 i'm doing that for first 25 years years I'm alive.

[2165] Oh my God.

[2166] And now I'm like, wait, do I feel different when I eat better stuff?

[2167] Oh, I do.

[2168] What a fucking luxury I have.

[2169] But I love you so much.

[2170] I love you too.

[2171] You're everything I hoped you'd be.

[2172] And I feel so blessed that you and I got to be married for six years.

[2173] I love you.

[2174] My TV boo.

[2175] It's my TV.

[2176] Come back.

[2177] I will.

[2178] Bye now.

[2179] Stay tuned if you'd like to hear my good friend and producer Monica Padman point out the many errors in the podcast you just heard.

[2180] What's up, guys?

[2181] It's your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season.

[2182] And let me tell you, it's too good.

[2183] And I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest, okay?

[2184] Every episode, I bring on a friend and have a real conversation.

[2185] And I don't mean just friends.

[2186] I mean the likes of Amy Polar, Kell Mitchell, Vivica Fox.

[2187] The list goes on.

[2188] So follow, watch, and listen to Baby.

[2189] This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast.

[2190] This is a good one.

[2191] This is a good one.

[2192] Yeah, I would imagine this would be good.

[2193] Monica Padman, welcome.

[2194] You're here, once again, to point out the many errors I made in my previous conversation with Joy Bryant.

[2195] Yes.

[2196] Were there many?

[2197] There were.

[2198] Okay.

[2199] Some.

[2200] Okay.

[2201] Not many.

[2202] Not as many as I would have expected for that conversation.

[2203] Yes, because it got dangerous at many intervals.

[2204] Were you scared for me a couple times?

[2205] I was scared for myself a couple times.

[2206] Well, yeah, sure.

[2207] And I'm always here for you.

[2208] And I cross the line a couple times too, probably.

[2209] No, I don't think you're, you were honest.

[2210] Okay.

[2211] Okay.

[2212] You said that Jeffrey Dahmer grew up thinking his mom was a sister.

[2213] But it was Ted Bundy.

[2214] Ted Bundy.

[2215] Okay, great.

[2216] Ted Bundy is the.

[2217] And again, not to get granular, but I do believe I said someone like.

[2218] Yes.

[2219] Okay, great.

[2220] You said Jeffrey Dahmer and then he said, well, if someone like that.

[2221] One of those serial killers.

[2222] And then I said that our good friend from a few good men was a serial killer.

[2223] And he's not the actor.

[2224] Oh, Jack Nicholson.

[2225] Yeah, Jack Nicholson.

[2226] Yeah.

[2227] No, no, no. You didn't say it was a serial killer.

[2228] Did you say it was a serial killer?

[2229] Yeah, I said he was a serial killer.

[2230] She said that he also thought his mom was a sister.

[2231] And that's also true.

[2232] Oh, that's true.

[2233] He thought his mom was his sister.

[2234] He thought.

[2235] See, you need that kind of.

[2236] shit in your background to be a good actor.

[2237] Yeah, you need some stuff.

[2238] It makes me worried, but I have some stuff.

[2239] Okay.

[2240] So there, oh, okay, so you brought up the government cheese and the government pork.

[2241] And you said you didn't know the brand, but the brand is lakeside foods that makes the government pork.

[2242] And you are right, because I found a big picture of it.

[2243] With an outline of a pig.

[2244] Yeah, it has a, it's like more of like a silhouette.

[2245] It's colored in, black pig.

[2246] Yeah.

[2247] I'm so glad that you confirm that because that is certainly something that I was 11 when I would look at that can.

[2248] Yeah.

[2249] That I could have largely imagined that.

[2250] It really stamped in your brain because you were very accurate.

[2251] Yeah, it's gross.

[2252] It's a huge can too.

[2253] And it doesn't have a paper around it.

[2254] It's just aluminum and ink.

[2255] Yep.

[2256] And it's labeled pork with juices.

[2257] Oh, Jennifer.

[2258] Oh, boy.

[2259] I bet a lot of people just extract.

[2260] those juices and made like a soup like a pork juice based.

[2261] I don't think they made a soup.

[2262] They just drank it and called it the soup made.

[2263] Okay.

[2264] So then you have a discussion about Whalen Jennings considering himself a Native American.

[2265] Yeah.

[2266] And he, I don't think he's just appropriating that because he spent a lot of time with the Navajo Indians and he would make Gregor stops.

[2267] And he would.

[2268] make regular stops on the reservation and he spent a lot of time with him.

[2269] So I think they probably just gave him that name and designated him that.

[2270] So he maybe had no genealogical claim to it.

[2271] It was just an affinity for the culture.

[2272] Yeah.

[2273] Well, he does sing in that song, America, All my brothers are red black and white, yellow too.

[2274] And the red man is right to expect a little from you.

[2275] Promise and then follow through America.

[2276] He's calling on America to follow through on their promise to the red man. His words, not mine.

[2277] I know.

[2278] I'm glad they're not your words because that sounded racist.

[2279] I guess he could because they were best friends.

[2280] And it's the 70s.

[2281] And I'm sure it was the best thing you could say at that time.

[2282] Yeah.

[2283] And he was trying to be helpful.

[2284] He was trying to.

[2285] His heart was pure.

[2286] Yeah.

[2287] I think he went, I read his autobiography.

[2288] And again, I'm just getting myself into more hot water because I'm going to miss remember this.

[2289] But I do think in his biography, when he quit cocaine, he went to the desert in his motorhome with a ton of cocaine and stayed out there and did it all, and then quit cold turkey.

[2290] And I think he might have been on a reservation when he was in his motor home quitting Coke.

[2291] Oh, yeah.

[2292] That makes sense.

[2293] They really embraced him.

[2294] Yeah.

[2295] Okay.

[2296] So then you guys have a discussion about eating disorders and different races.

[2297] And anorexia, because that's what you were talking about specifically.

[2298] Okay, I'm sorry.

[2299] Eating disorders in general are of similar rates.

[2300] They appear at similar rates in all races.

[2301] Yeah, okay.

[2302] All ethnicities, even though the common misconception is it's white, straight, young white peeps.

[2303] Yeah.

[2304] Okay.

[2305] And actually bulimia is more common in the African American.

[2306] It is.

[2307] Yeah, which is sort of goes against, your point.

[2308] Yeah.

[2309] But yeah, it is.

[2310] Interesting.

[2311] Where did you find that tidbit?

[2312] I found it on national eating disorders .org.

[2313] Okay, we trust them.

[2314] Yeah, it's an org.

[2315] It's a dot org.

[2316] Yeah, okay.

[2317] I trust an org.

[2318] I trust all orgs.

[2319] Okay.

[2320] Stanford is not all pass fail.

[2321] It's not.

[2322] Some classes are past fail.

[2323] Oh, really?

[2324] Like what?

[2325] The GE, the block of your core classes.

[2326] No, it said, it says all courses for meeting university requirements, including general education requirements, must be taken for a letter grade.

[2327] Oh, and maybe your majors pass fail?

[2328] Most departments limit or do not accept CR and C. That's pass fail.

[2329] Notation for courses for credit within the major requirement.

[2330] Okay.

[2331] So really, not very many at all probably are.

[2332] Okay.

[2333] It's weird, I think that.

[2334] Maybe at some point, but it didn't say anything about that.

[2335] But on the current Stanford website, that's what it is.

[2336] David Duke has two children.

[2337] You said you didn't know if he had any children, and I just wanted to clarify that he has two children, two girls.

[2338] Oh, bummer.

[2339] And how are they, are they, have they distanced themselves from dad or have they embraced dad?

[2340] I didn't look into them very deeply, but they're there.

[2341] They're there.

[2342] They're with us.

[2343] Yeah.

[2344] They're probably in a dilemma.

[2345] You know?

[2346] I'm sure.

[2347] If they're millennials, I didn't check their age.

[2348] This is one of the many things Chris and I debate all the time, which is I understand familial piety.

[2349] I understand sticking by a flawed parent.

[2350] I kind of understand it.

[2351] I understand it.

[2352] And we debate what we'd do if our child was a serial killer.

[2353] And I'm like, I'd hide her.

[2354] I would take her somewhere and hide her.

[2355] I would not turn her in.

[2356] And we differ on that.

[2357] Yeah.

[2358] Yeah.

[2359] It's a hot button topic.

[2360] I think she would hide her.

[2361] I know.

[2362] I think she might say that she wouldn't, but would do it.

[2363] Knowing her.

[2364] Well, it depends on how much damage she was doing and if she was going to keep doing it.

[2365] Yes.

[2366] She wouldn't allow her to keep murdering for sport.

[2367] No, no, no, no. Nor would I, nor would I. But I would get her out of the country and hide her.

[2368] But what if she was like, I really, I need to do it.

[2369] I would let her, I'd let her hunt a deer barehanded or something.

[2370] Okay, then I wanted to clarify because this came up.

[2371] Martin Luther King did have an orgy.

[2372] That was recorded by the FBI, correct?

[2373] Or CIA?

[2374] Yeah.

[2375] It was just, it was released in an FBI document that had like allegations of his sexual misconduct that they, they declassified, I guess, when they were trying to figure out stuff about the JFK assassination.

[2376] Right.

[2377] I want to say it was like five years ago, I remember seeing that in the news.

[2378] According to the thing I was reading, the Trump administration released this FBI document.

[2379] Of course.

[2380] Of course they did.

[2381] It really made sense when I read it.

[2382] All right.

[2383] Yeah.

[2384] They had an orgy.

[2385] He had an orgy.

[2386] He would have orgies at like workshops.

[2387] Oh, okay.

[2388] Like spiritual workshops?

[2389] Yeah.

[2390] That's great.

[2391] Yeah.

[2392] And then you said, are you.

[2393] You didn't know how many, how, what the percentage of the African American population exists in this country.

[2394] And it's 12 .3.

[2395] Ah, 12 .3.

[2396] Great.

[2397] That's all.

[2398] That's all?

[2399] Yeah.

[2400] You did pretty good.

[2401] Oh, okay.

[2402] I was, as I said, I was a little nervous.

[2403] I would end up out on a limb.

[2404] What did you?

[2405] What were you nervous about?

[2406] Well, because I can easily, and when I'm debating race with somebody, you're of Indian descent.

[2407] Your father's from India, your mother.

[2408] Also, oh, and she was three, yeah.

[2409] And we're talking or we're debating.

[2410] I will regularly get super self -conscious, like, oh, oh, I went too far.

[2411] Because I'm always on the verge of going too far.

[2412] And then I could see myself going, oh, fuck, I just went too far.

[2413] That's mildly racist.

[2414] And then now I'm going to try to get out of this, extricate myself with some bogus fact.

[2415] bogus claim.

[2416] You know, I could see where that would have happened.

[2417] You know, I feel like that's a pattern I maybe have been in the past.

[2418] You don't think you would just say, oh, sorry.

[2419] Well, I have done that as well.

[2420] But depending on what my heart rate is and what part of my brain is working and online, sometimes I will get embarrassed.

[2421] And then if I'm embarrassed, I'll get maybe defensive.

[2422] That's normal.

[2423] That's human.

[2424] I'm trying to, you know, this is a risk you run if you want to wait into some choppy water.

[2425] These are probably topics.

[2426] A lot of white people don't want to talk about.

[2427] Why people are vice versa.

[2428] Yeah.

[2429] It is a little scary.

[2430] But you have to.

[2431] Yeah, you got to do that.

[2432] So good job.

[2433] Thank you.

[2434] Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondry app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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[2436] Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondry .com slash survey.

[2437] We've all been there.

[2438] Turning to the internet to self -diagnose our inexplicable pains, debilitating body aches, sudden fevers, and strange rashes.

[2439] Though our minds tend to spiral to worst -case scenarios, it's usually nothing, but for an unlucky few, these unsuspecting symptoms can start the clock ticking on a terrifying medical mystery.

[2440] Like the unexplainable death of a retired firefighter, whose body was found at home by his son, except it looked like he had been cremated.

[2441] or the time when an entire town started jumping from buildings and seeing tigers on their ceilings.

[2442] Hey listeners, it's Mr. Ballin here, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast.

[2443] It's called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries.

[2444] Each terrifying true story will be sure to keep you up at night.

[2445] Follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts.

[2446] Prime members can listen early and ad -free on Amazon Music.