Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Arsenio Hall On Capturing Culture, Breaking Boundaries, Life's Lessons + More

Transcript

INTERVIEW: Arsenio Hall On Capturing Culture, Breaking Boundaries, Life's Lessons + More · The Breakfast Club

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Every day. I waiting go click yours up the Breakfast Club.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm finish for y'all done it morning.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: Everybody's the DJ n V Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne, the gud
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: we are the breakfast Club.
• 0:13
  Speaker 3: Lon la Ros is here with us as well.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: Now we got a special guest, a legend icon and
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: og a legend in this game, Ladies and gentlemen, a
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: city of Hall.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Yes, sir, how are you feeling?
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: I'm feeling great.
• 0:30
  Speaker 4: I'm thanking God for the day that Charlemagne called me,
• 0:34
  Speaker 4: because I wouldn't have done this without the voice of
• 0:37
  Speaker 4: respect on the other end of the phone. I mean,
• 0:38
  Speaker 4: I'm seventy years old, could have written a book many times,
• 0:41
  Speaker 4: but that's adult work.
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: It's a really hard thing to do. And he talked
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: me into it. And I'm so glad I did for
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: my son and for my legacy.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Man, I'm so glad you did too, because I want
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: to talk about your legacy today. Man. You know, I
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: always say that I got four entertainment icons, right, Jay Z,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Clarence Avon, P. D. Green, and Arsineo Hall. And I
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: feel like people don't truly understand the risk you took
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: to put black culture at the forefront at a time
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: when nobody was putting black culture at the forefront.
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was hard.
• 1:19
  Speaker 4: I was coming along at a time when you go
• 1:22
  Speaker 4: to Paramount and say, let's book Bobby Brown the first
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: Friday night because people won't have to work on Saturday,
• 1:29
  Speaker 4: and really showing what show this is? He has this song,
• 1:32
  Speaker 4: don't be cruel in my prerogative, Let's let him break
• 1:34
  Speaker 4: one at the top and one at the bottle. Oh,
• 1:36
  Speaker 4: Johnny Carson only does three minutes of a song at
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: the end of the show. And I'm like, but I'm
• 1:41
  Speaker 4: not fucking Johnny. I'm not Johnny Carson.
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: So let's try this. But what was crazier is one
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: of the ladies in the room said, and why would
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: we give a model that much time?
• 1:53
  Speaker 4: And I didn't realize that there was a Bobby Brown
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: in the modeling world. Yeah, so I didn't know her.
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: And I realized My battle is that they have no
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: idea what I'm about to do. You know, you say,
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: Michael Bivens called me and he got these four dudes
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: they're called boys to men, and or Doctor Drake called
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: me and this kid, Calvin, he wants him to come
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: on and do this thing.
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: And this is how you know.
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: I was not him to it, but he wants to freestyle.
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: You'll just give him a beat and he'll just come
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: out of his head with whatever is in the environment.
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: And when his album is ready, then you can have
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: him on to do one, two, three, and the four
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: with Dre, you know. And I'm like, okay, we call
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: Snoop and he doesn't want to do the show, and
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: like why he says, you know, he's talking about the
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: streets of Long Beach.
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: I have respect and I don't want to, you know,
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: I don't want to lose the respect of the streets
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: to do this late night television type stuff, you know.
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: To go to the studio and uh talk him into it.
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: This is a guy who Snoop Dog is more popular
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: than last see now popular and did not want to
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: be on television.
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: But I'll never forget he walked in the door with
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: a blue hockey jersey, remember, and we gave him a beat.
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: And I don't think we'd.
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: Ever seen freestyle on television, you know, but those kinds
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: of things I wanted to. I saw a little kid
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: on a tape do an Elvis impression, and I tell paramount.
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: I want to put this kid on. They say, well,
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: you need tune in numbers names. If you put Prince,
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: you get a tune in number. You can put it
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: in TV guy two weeks ahead of time. That was
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: a game back then. And if you put some unknown
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: you know, this is not star Search. You can't put
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: an unknown kid on until you maybe in the fifth year.
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: And so I would put people on in a monologue,
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: and I created this little spot where put people on,
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: but the kid was Bruno Monomore and.
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: Stuff like that.
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: They didn't want Eddie Griffin because he's too edgy. So
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: during the monologue, I said, oh, Eddie Griffin. Because Aunt
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: Sullivan used to point in the audience when I was
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: a kid, there's Diana Rosh then of us Rash, you know.
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: And so I'm like, Eddie Griffin, what's something Hey come
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: in for a minute and it's not on the booking sheet, Paramount,
• 4:26
  Speaker 4: don't know what's gonna happen.
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: Now.
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: That one backfired on me because Eddie Griffin did Michael
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: Jackson's Norton cocaine. He does and you know, because he
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: used to be a dancer, so he does that, you know,
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: he does all this little step and the lawyers had
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: a hard time that next day at Paramount because basically
• 4:45
  Speaker 4: he had done a routine on television about Michael Jackson's
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: Norton cocaine and then dancing.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Really it was hilarious. Yeah, you know, we'll never have
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: that kind of monoculture again when everybody is tuned in
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: watching one thing at once, because I remember all old moments.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: We had no DVRs back now on Man, you couldn't
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: go back and watch it on YouTube.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: You had you had to, you had, you had to
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: turn it on before we go back to because I
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: like to go back to the beginning so people understand
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: the story.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: That's why you bought the book.
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: But that's why you're in this business.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: But you know what, one thing I've noticed, I've watched
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: a lot of your interviews in the last week or
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: so to mine, when I look at your face, I
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: see a light that comes on like it's almost either.
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: A surprise light, like I'm surprised.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: They really fuck with me, like you, like you look
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: amazed when these guys like like I'm thinking of myself,
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: I say no, no, no, he's the motherfucking And then
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: another thing that popped in my head is I know
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: you were retired. Maybe he's ready for that comeback, because
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: it's just the feeling, the energy. When I watch you
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: come out and just the light and you're pointing at
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: people and you're pointing at the bed.
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: I'm like, God, damn it, bring on senior back.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: What so what is going through your mind when you
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: are doing these press runs and you're doing TV. What's
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: going through a senior's mind?
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: The light you saw, I mean that was the light
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: of a fan, the l of a kid from Cleveland
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: who did a talk show in his basement and I
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: had a little record player. I put the record player on.
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: There was a Temptation's Greatest Hits album. I'd play get Ready,
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: I'd come out, I do a magic trick, I'd do
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: a joke after taking the needle off the record, and
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: I would entertain the kids in my neighborhood with this
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: talk show. So you see a guy who's dreamed it
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: all his life and can't believe that I've dreamed it
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: into existence. My mother used to say, if you get
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: good grades, you can go to Detroit and watch the
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: Motown Review with your cousins.
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: For five dollars.
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: You could see Stevie wonder you could see the Temptations
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: and they give you two pips, well sometimes for five
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: hours what you want and that kind of stuff, and
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: you grow up and then you tour with the Temptations.
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: When they had to stand on the top touring, James
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: wrote them that track. Then one day Michael Bivens calls
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: you and says, hey, I got four guys that idolized
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: the Temptations. They're from Philly called Boys to Men. But
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: their album's not ready yet, and when it's ready, I
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: want to come. I say, oh, I got an idea.
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: If they love the Temptations, I got the Temptations on Thursday,
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: let them come and blend in with the Temptations and
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: you can imagine a paramount every night. It was a
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: nightmare because they wanted less black. Now I got fifteen
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: niggas man. But my thing was like, I'd rather do
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: six years my way than twenty years Johnny's way. And
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: Johnny dug the show because I wasn't trying to be him.
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: There was never a competition. I was looking for friends
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: of the show. I remember Alan King, a legendary old comic,
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: called me and he says, your show put out an
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: offer to me, and I just want you to know
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: I love what you're doing, but I'm a Johnny guy.
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: And that's when it hit me. You got to get
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: your guys. And so that's when I started trying to
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: go for the audience that didn't have a talk show.
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: And that made it work, you know, cause I had
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: been the Ed McMahon figure on a thing called Thick
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: of the Night, you know where I was, oh in Thick,
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: and so I got to watch it go on and
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: I got to learn from Alan's experience. Don't try to
• 8:19
  Speaker 4: be Johnny. Try to come up with an alternative. By
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: the way, when I was working for Alan Thick, there
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: was a little boy I brought Johnny Gill on Alan
• 8:28
  Speaker 4: Thick show. I met Johnny Gill in Cleveland with Gerald LeVert.
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: I bring Johnny Gill on the show and he gets numbers,
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: and that let me know, Hey, it's not that black
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: people don't get numbers, it's that we ain't trying it.
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: He came on with Stacy Lattisaw and they did perfect combination.
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: On the side, there's a little white boy with a
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: cub's cap on. It's Alan Thick's son who always surfaced
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: when there was R and B on the show and
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: that was Robin Thick. That's another example of how we
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: know who we are, we know who we want to be,
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: and that kid then knew he was the white Marvin Gay.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: Is this book is your memoir closure for you? Or
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: is it correction?
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: A lot of correction?
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: I don't know if I Yeah, a little closure too,
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: because I loved putting that letter of resignation. A lot
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: of people barbershop journalists would say, well, you know, one
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: night he snuck fair Con in there. The amount didn't
• 9:27
  Speaker 4: know about it, you know, and interview fair Con and
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: you know, when the fact is paramount has to green
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: like that, they have to approve that. And so all
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: the barbershop journalism you get.
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: Because basically studios.
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: People think studios are above the fray and the bullshit,
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: and what they don't understand is.
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: That studios just like a relationship. You have a breakup with.
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: Somebody and then you hear that he said I left
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: her because I was sick of her bush and he's like, no, no.
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: No, that nigga's lying. And unfortunately business is like that too.
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: They want to position it sexy their way, and they said, well,
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: we'll come over Tuesday and we'll talk about crafting a
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: release to the press.
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: Of what we're going to do from here on. And
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: then Monday some shit.
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: Come out and you're like, you motherfuckers, you know, but
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: I get to correct those kinds of things, and yeah,
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: and have closure to.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: Because I said, you actually quit the show, and I
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: remember when you first told me that. In my mind,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, really and when I.
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: Heard when I heard that that that little thing, that
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: that dental tongular thing.
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: You did, I had my woman going to garage and
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: I said, you got to find that let letter and
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: she found.
• 10:48
  Speaker 5: It because there were so many people that believed that
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: though that that you didn't quit the show. If you
• 10:53
  Speaker 5: had never written this book, how would you have ever
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: like try to clear it up any other place? Like
• 10:57
  Speaker 5: was that something that was sitting with you for a while.
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And I had a lawyer say, why do you care?
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: Look at your bank account? Why do you care? And
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: I'm like, because.
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: Truth matters, And I mean, forget television. We as a people,
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: uh a Puerto Rican gentleman also, uh.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: We're talking about if.
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: We as a people have to be careful not to
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: let truth be buried mine is insignificant. How about the
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: history of our people in the way it's being changed,
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: buried and hidden from future children.
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: Truth is important.
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: It's important when it's on y'all side, So let it
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: be important for us to by.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: The way, either way, you left his gangster walking away
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: because hey, man, I want to do my black stuff.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: If it ain't working for y'all, it ain't gonna work
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: for me. I'm out. Or yeah, I bought a farra
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: con on. Yeah, that way it works.
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, you get a free bean path for
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: that second. Brothers be very very supportive of you. But
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: you know, here's the deal, here's how you can understand it.
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: At the end of the day. Entertainment is cool.
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: But Quincy used to tell me the word business is
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: larger than the word show. And my ratings and my
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: income were attached. The higher the number, the more money
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: I get. When Letterman gets CBS, because I'm in syndication now,
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: I'm on bullshit stations most places, but my CBS stations
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: helped me succeed. When Letterman comes into the game and
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: all my CBS stations leave at the end of their term,
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: I'm like, what am I going to do now, and
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: so basically, and the money goes down, and now you're like, well,
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: I have to look at a movie every night and
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: read a Jackie Collins book. I'm like, I don't know
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: if it's worth it for a million a year, you know.
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: And the bottom line is I dashed when the money.
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: Also, I'm from Cleveland.
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: I grew up down the street from Jim Brown, and
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: I watched him leave on Top. I watched him start
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: doing movies when they still calling him to the locker room.
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: I always wanted to leave on Top. So the bottom
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: line when the money changed a little bit, and the
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: numbers change a little bit, and I didn't see a
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: future for syndication because I'm like, they're gonna put somebody
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: at ABC, I'm gonna lose those affiliates too. So eventually
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: there's a Kimmel and there's a Letterman. And the bottom
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: line is the money changed, Let's do something else. I've
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: gotten six years out of this. I've been on the
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: cover of Time magazine. I spent two years knowing I
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: was leaving and building a house on the beach. And
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: bottom line is I'm cool with how it all went down.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: I was always shocked that Foxes didn't get into the
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: late night game.
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: It's funny. I just sat with Conan O'Brien and he
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: told me a cool story. He says he was in
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: a lunch room a cafeteria at Fox and he says,
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: you were very nice to me. You won't remember me,
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: but I was getting coffee and you showed me where
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: other stuff was. What I didn't realize is while I
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: was taking over for Jones Rivers and doing the late
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: show because she eventually got fired, her husband killed himself.
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: You remember all that stuff. I'm doing the late show.
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: I'm doing the last eleven weeks of her contract. Before
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: I go to do Coming to America, Conan had been
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: hired to create a show to replace me. So while
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: I was there, they had decided that I wasn't the
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: guy wow, and they created a thing called the Wilton
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: North Report. I went and did Coming to America, and
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: Paramount was like, when we finished this, if you want
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: a talk show, let's try it in syndication. Now, something
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: in syndication will never work again other than Byron All
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: and no one's gonna ever be able to make syndication
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: money because the network's got it.
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: You know it.
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: When I came into it. CBS and ABC didn't want
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: to be in the late night game, so they bought
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: my show. You know, it was a perfect time. Life
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: is all about timing an effort.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: Now, you mentioned Coming to America, my favorite movie of all. Yes,
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: let's talk about that movie and how it came together
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: and who's decision made in here?
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: Any kind of beverage.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: That's memoirs out right.
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: Now, I really appreciate you.
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: When I walked in and saw the monitor this and
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: there was a shot from this way, so it was
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: the book with Lauren's beautiful eyes behind.
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: And I'm like, yes, I appreciate that. I thank you
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: because they'll see it and they'll buy it.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: Coming to America. How did that movie come about? And
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: what was the decision to play so many different characters
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: for both you and Eddie?
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: Wow, the decision for me to play characters was Eddie saying, yeah,
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: him too, that's cool, you.
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: Know, because he's the king, you know. But the movie,
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: the movie.
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: Was all hinged on the fact that America missed Eddie
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: doing characters. They wanted that again. And yeah, and I
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: remember his manager saying to me, they want Eddie to
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: do character so when you guys go to America, he'll
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: be some of the people that you meet. And I'm like,
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: that's really cool. Now, I'm just a straight out stand
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: up I'm not an impressionist and I'm not an actor.
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: I was honored when he asked me to also do
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: some characters, but that movie was supposed to be me
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: as you know, like.
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: A personal assistant or an undersized bodyguard coming to America
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: from Zamunda with Eddie. He saw me do stand up
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: and I did this bit about going to church in
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: Chicago and going to the South Side. So I do
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: this preacher character, and he's like, that's all it is, man.
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: You know, we do the prosthetics and you do that,
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: and you're a preacher, you know. And of course my
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: dad was a Baptist preacher, and so at any moment,
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: I'm ready to preach.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: I was loving another niggas I thought all you posted video.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: He was like, I'm walking like the preaching and coming
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: to America. But not because I'm pretending.
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: Life is crazy, Because you know, at one point you're
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: in your twenties and you're standing in front of a mirror. Jess,
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: you've been through. They stand in front of a mirror,
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: you're practicing a character. You're looking at how Red Fox walks,
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: and you're breaking it down. And then one day you
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: turned seventy and you realize, now that's my walk.
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: But if loving you is wrong, I don't want you.
• 17:29
  Speaker 5: I was going to coming to America. I've read somewhere.
• 17:31
  Speaker 5: I think it was one of an interviews. You did something.
• 17:33
  Speaker 5: It almost didn't happen though, a couple of times, at
• 17:35
  Speaker 5: first because of the pitch, and then there was an
• 17:37
  Speaker 5: issue with Eddie Murphy and somebody on set.
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, you know, they wanted him to do characters
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: and that made the treatment perfection.
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: And he decided different things I can do when we
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: come to America. And the other thing you reference is
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: he had a conflict with Landis, and Landis is a
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: brilliant director, and they work that out.
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: Thank God, Thank God, my business manager, Thanks God every
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: day for me.
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: Residuals not as crazy as one might think. Okay, you know,
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: but because you see it all the time on v
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: H one and.
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: On things owned by sky Dance, I guess it is.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: By the way, the checks Eddie get are probably what
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: you just described. You know, but the bottom line is
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: I was a lucky actor to be involved, and mine
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: sometimes will be thirteen cents.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: What did you think about this book? Did you let
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: any read it? Not yet?
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: Okay, okay, but when the And that's another bit of
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: advice you gave me, I think you said. Kevin Hart
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: also agreed with you that in this culture, in this
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: day and age, the book on tape, the audible book
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: is very, very important. And that's when I was like, well,
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: let me call you back, because I've talked to George
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: Lopez and different people who have done this. And to
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: sit every day for eight hours and keep it consistent
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: in front of the mic and read this book. I
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: mean I used to read to my son before bed,
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: but it was like good Night Moon, and the book
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: was like eight pages.
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: You have a and I just did my audio book Arsen.
• 19:20
  Speaker 6: I'm so glad that you said that, because they say
• 19:22
  Speaker 6: I can't read in here all the time, because the
• 19:24
  Speaker 6: first day I went to read my book only read
• 19:26
  Speaker 6: like seventy pages and five hours. But it's voice acting,
• 19:29
  Speaker 6: is not just reading like you're reading six Night Moon.
• 19:33
  Speaker 6: He's a goddamn.
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: He is lying.
• 19:37
  Speaker 6: But four pages and you were struggling, but it was
• 19:44
  Speaker 6: you know, it's a copath to memoirs, so on some
• 19:46
  Speaker 6: of the parts I had to be emotional. Then they
• 19:48
  Speaker 6: had to relive some of the stuff. And you know,
• 19:50
  Speaker 6: it's not just like regularly reading.
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you got to sit there.
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: I would sit there for eight hours a day, and
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: and you almost want to do it like when you
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: read to your kid. You want to have this intimate
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: moment with the audience on the other side of that
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: speaker and they think you're actually reading to them and
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: talking to them and telling them this story.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: So a lot of care and performance.
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: I saw Charlie Sheen talk about you know, I was
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: just going to read it, you know, and then I realized, well,
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: let me step up the actor part of and I
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: listened to an interview he did, and so I put
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: great care into it. And I'm glad you told me
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: how important it was, because I didn't want to do
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: that shit.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: Now you want to hear you Hall, like that voice
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: is very familiar to us.
• 20:30
  Speaker 5: I literally bought the audiobook just because I wanted to
• 20:32
  Speaker 5: hear how you went in and out of things.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because it's you and you nearly bought it. I'm
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: gonna send you one no.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Audiobook.
• 20:42
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean we had this book as well too,
• 20:43
  Speaker 5: but I went and bought the audiobook because I was like,
• 20:45
  Speaker 5: I want to hear him, like get into it, and
• 20:48
  Speaker 5: you know, like all the emotion and just hearing your
• 20:50
  Speaker 5: voice again just.
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: Was you know, you know, emotion.
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: It did take me back. There are interviews, not interviews.
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: There are parts of the book based on interviews on
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: the show. Meeting Sammy. You know, Sammy came in three
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: waves in my life. There was a night he invited
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: me to his house. Sammy used to have a gun collection.
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: He showed me all his guns, and I love guns.
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: My dad was a marksman and a former serviceman and
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: sam yes, yes, And so he had a theater in
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: his house and he would have movie night and he
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: invited us to movie nights. So you go see a
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: movie and it's surreal to knock at somebody's door.
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: And here, I'll get it, I'll tell you know. And
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: Sammy comes to the door.
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: And then I have him on the talk show later
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: and of course he has cancer, but he sings anyway.
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: And I don't want to give away everything, but that
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: story conjured up so many emotions because as a kid,
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: I watched Sammy, this versatile man, this person. You know,
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: people like Ali and Sammy was so important to me
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: to see these talented positive images. To see Ali doing
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: an interview after a fight comb his hands.
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: I'm so pretty gone, how I do it?
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: And and those people were so important to me.
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: So to have that moment at the end of his
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: life and him to say, I'm gonna sing for you, man,
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: because I would sing for Johnny and gets up and
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: goes over spontaneously and says, time after time. In d
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: and my band, young people start playing Cyndy Lapper's song
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: time after time and no, no, no, no, you know
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: it's a time after time.
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: I tell myself that. And and I realized how sick
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: he was weeks later when he started to transition from
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: this earth. And so so that was emotional.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: Had to be emotional too, right now, Oh yeah, man.
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: The Richard Pryor stuff emotional also because he's the first
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: person I learned from comedy was insignificant. I was gonna
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: get there one way or the other. It's a life
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: that Richard taught me about. And it's watching his life
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: near the end when you realize those lawyers and agents,
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: and a lot of hanger ons aren't around anymore when
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: you're sick, when they can't make money on you anymore.
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: And it taught me to find someone you love and
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: build your own bubble, because these people who get a
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: commission aren't going to be here when they can no
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: longer get a commission. And I remember near the end
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: of his life, I used to go visit him, and
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: there weren't a lot of people around like there were
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: in the early days at the comedy store.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: I could guess.
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: It's funny how those two things look alike.
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: Of fart and tears kind of manifested itself on your
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: face in the same way.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: I wanted to know about coming to America too. When
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: y'all shot that the see, Well, what were your thoughts
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: on it? Because it's so hard to top America, the
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: first original version. It feels like some things just shouldn't
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: be touched. What was your thoughts on that?
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: I need this check, No, no, but my thoughts on it, God,
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: it was it was going back to this wonderful time
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: in my life, you know, and and doing the characters
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: again and hanging with Ed. We didn't get to do
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: it here like the first one. The second one, Zamunda
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: is Atlanta. Here's what's interesting. Zamunda the Palace is Rick
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: Ross's house, and that was kind of interesting. But I
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: I enjoyed doing it, but I also knew that it
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: was like trying to write a better song than Thriller.
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: You know, it's very complicated. So winning has its traps too.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because it's a bar that can't be set again.
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know if for my life, I don't
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: know a higher bar than coming to America one.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: Did you feel like that when you came back with
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: your your talk show again? Yeah?
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: You know that was to do the talk show reboot
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: was an interesting time because I initially wanted to do
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: a show that was scripted about a guy trying to
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: get back in the game at a time because it
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: had changed. You know, when I was doing research in
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: the nineties, there was no cell phone, no Google, no search.
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: We had a file cabinet and so see if there's
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: an article on mel Gibson, I'm trying to find out
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: how old he is. You know, that was a different time.
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: So when I came back, I wanted to do a
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: scripted version of our Senior Hall. Coming back to television
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: and basically, you know, they say no to us a
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: lot because I don't know if that'll work, and then
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: they do hacks.
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: But because that's what it would.
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: It would have been black hacks, you know, and they
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: talked me into because people don't people on how he would.
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: They're not very imaginative. They go with what's worked before.
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: You know, if you have.
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: Different strokes. Gary Coleman and it's working, and Envy pitches
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: a show about him and his wife. You know, you know,
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: you pitch them something, they'll say.
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: We don't know because that's new to them. But what
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: they're looking for in that moment is another little black
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: man that don't grow, you know, and they you know,
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: because they know that works.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: So what do they do?
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: They find Webster and that's how this town works. They
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: want to be safe. No one wants to have I mean,
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: you can say no and not get fired to a pitch,
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: but if you say yes, it better work.
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: So executives try to keep it safe and.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: Nobody thinks about what Emmanuel Lewis and Gary Coleman did
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: from MIDGS talks about that.
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know, but tar Bridges wasn't to mention
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: not Todd. You mean you don't mean.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: Todd no, because he's said Gary Coban and to our
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: bridges Lewis, Oh, my man, my man, I'm sorry.
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: You know, they don't.
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: Basically, what they said is, let's let's just do the
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: talk show again like you. And unfortunately the reason I
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: left is the reason it can't work in syndication. Now
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: it's even harder because there's Kimmel and all these guys.
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: So you want me to compete against them on Channel
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: twenty nine in Phoenix, you know, and that's not gonna work,
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: and you don't have as much budget as the networks.
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: I remember I wanted to book Will Smith and they said, well,
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: Will Smith is not gonna do it. He's gonna do
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: Fallon and he can't do he can't do another show
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: after he does Fallon for two weeks, so there's some
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: kind of rule. But basically I couldn't even compete with
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: the offer because Fallon offered him the the opportunity to
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: ride into the Tonight show on.
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: A white horse. Wow.
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, gosh, my first time around, Prince wanted
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: a purple piano and it took a week for me
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: to get it approved.
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: You know, so, you know, budget wise, when I came
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: back and did.
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: The re you can't compete against Kimmel and Fallon and
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: James Corden was riding around in a car singing with famous,
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: I'm like, you know, I don't have that kind of budget, and.
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: You just can't do it. Now.
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: You can't do a syndicated show now. I snuck in
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: at a time when people didn't have product and I
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: could sell them mine. But now everyone, every network has product,
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: you know. And the reason I did syndication the first
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: time around is I knew a brother was never gonna
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: get the NBC, ABC or CBS job. But I was like,
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: I've been doing this in my basement since I was twelve.
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna get something that's right.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: And they said that.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: You know, at first, it was hard for you to
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: get guessed that you would actually have a security guard
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: call you and be like so and so saying.
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I would chase because thank goodness, the show was
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: on the paramount lot on a film lot, versus like
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: Colbert here is at the Ed Sullivan Theater right on
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: the street. I was on a film lot where you
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: could find out what was being shot on the lot,
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: and there was a dude at the gate who would
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: let me know when certain people arrived, and I could
• 29:20
  Speaker 4: be in front of Andy Garcia's trailer when he got
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: there and ask him to come on. You know, I
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: mean many guests would. I would actually get the Paramount
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: executives to let me come over and meet people. It's like,
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: I hear Harrison Ford's having a meeting. Can I just
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: come say hello? And you know, like me and Charlamagne
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: are in business on this book. Paramount was like, yeah,
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: but just don't don't act like we invited you.
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: Just pop by, mister Ford.
• 29:49
  Speaker 6: Yeah, your life is very eventful. You got so much
• 29:53
  Speaker 6: that you've done, you know what I mean? How could
• 29:55
  Speaker 6: you fit all of that into one book? What are
• 29:57
  Speaker 6: I know with some things that did not make the book?
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: Absolutely that? Oh man, Jess.
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: It was so hard because I looked at books to
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: find out what length they were. I looked at Barack
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: Obama's book, like, oh, that's big, but I know Barack Obamas,
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: so let me let me try to give him as
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: much as they can handle of this kid from Cleveland.
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: Barbara Streisand's book is huge.
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: I got a I got two great Barbara streisand stories
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: didn't put in the book.
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: I had to cut things down. I have a great
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: new Kids on the Block story where they flew from
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: Australia to come on the shop.
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: See, we didn't have Twitter. You couldn't go on Twitter
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: and say what you have to say. You had to
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: if there was some shit that jumped off you. Donnie
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: Wahlberg and the whole group flew back to America because
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: they were being accused of lip synci and Donnie was like, Arsenial,
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: We're gonna fly home.
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: They may not like how we sound, but it's us,
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: you know.
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: And the milli evenilly thing it happened, so they wanted
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: to come and defend themselves. I met Tommy Mottola in
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: an ivy and he had a cassette tape with Vision
• 31:02
  Speaker 4: of Love written on it, and he gave it to me,
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: and he was with this young lady, you know. I
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: joked with him, I said, who is at the star
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: of the Young and the breastless?
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: Who is She's fine?
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: You know?
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: And it was Mariah. And I called him the next morning.
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: I'm like, I couldn't believe that light that envy.
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: Talked about dog When you first hear Mariah Carey and
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: you realize she's not famous, and this ain't this ain't
• 31:26
  Speaker 4: what Johnny does, and you are going to be able
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: to present this woman to the world.
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: That light is shining while you sleep through your eyelids.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: So we might need to do like Charlie Murphy had
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: the True Hollywood Stories, you might need to do the
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: Arsenio Hall Truth. Put that out as a podcast or
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: something animated, or something animated would be really cool.
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: It would be really cool because then you can imagine
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: Bobby Brown performing my prerogative as an animated character.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: This use me for one of the voices.
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: I'm real good at voice acting. I hear you. I
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: did Ghostbusters when I was young.
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: I paid the rent as because the Winston Zmore character,
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: there's one black Ghostbuster.
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: It's like back in the day they hired comics voice
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: acting me and Dave Coolier.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: It was a comic and fool house.
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, so, you know I used to make my
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: living doing that kind of.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: Did you mind the spool when people used to spoofy?
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: I remember like the super long finger. Did you mind
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: the spoof from back then?
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: By the way, all that's in the book, ar Senio.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: The memoir, which is available everywhere you buy books.
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: Now, sir, you know, here's the deal.
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: First of all, if you're a comic, and I think
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: Jess would agree with this, if you're a comic, you
• 32:45
  Speaker 4: can't be sensitive to jokes about you. Most comics are sensitive, though, yeah,
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: I mean as humans, I think we're sensitive. But dude,
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: there's an upside in the downside to every punchline. It's
• 32:58
  Speaker 4: like I have extremely long fingers. But I remember as
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: a little boy, as the pastor's son, I'd be standing
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: next to my dad and old sisters in the church
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: would shake my hand and they would.
• 33:12
  Speaker 7: Hold on a little long and how you doing, baby,
• 33:16
  Speaker 7: And it's like, you say, these fingers are gonna have
• 33:19
  Speaker 7: an upside to you know, people are responding to these
• 33:22
  Speaker 7: long ass fingers.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: But the fingers the one thing? What about the ass pause?
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: Remember when about That's another book, But going to.
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: Yes, I have a predominant dairy air, and uh, you know,
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: a if you're gonna do jokes, you got to be
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: able to listen to jokes and and and sometimes say.
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: Well, first sometimes you just said it's funny, that's a
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: funny shit. Then other times, like Dana Carvey, it was
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: a sign of the times that I was going through.
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: This guy created a character at SNL called Carcinio, and
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: the essence of the sketch was that Johnny was gonna
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: get a high top fade and start wearing bright, double
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: breasted suits. And so for me, you can always flip
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: something into a positive.
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: Now they're making fun of me, but at the same time,
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: what they're really saying is Johnny's gonna have to find
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: a younger audience somehow, because that's what's up. And so
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: there's an up and a down to punchlines. But yeah,
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: you gotta be able to take it. You can't be
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: too sensitive. How you gonna be sensitive and then go
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: to the comedy store and do five minutes on Tiger Woods.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: That's true. You know when you talk about the Dana
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: Carvey right when you were at your peak, do you
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: think people were loving Arsenio Hall or the idea of
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: what you represented, the youthfulness, the hip hop, the black.
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: My ego won't let me think.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: That it was me.
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: I think it was what I was doing and what
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: it represented.
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: But you know, it's like when I talk about talking
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: Alan Thicke into putting on Johnny gill. My thing in
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: the meeting was I think it'll get numbers, why not
• 35:20
  Speaker 4: try it? Third guest, I'll tried it. And what I
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: loved that relates to that question is I was showing
• 35:27
  Speaker 4: that there was a value that you all haven't looked at.
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: You know, I know you think.
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: It won't get numbers, but that proved for thick of
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: the night in a syndicated situation, there are people checking
• 35:43
  Speaker 4: for black people. And being from Cleveland, when I met
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: Johnny and Gerald LeVert. Then Gerald calls me a certain
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: pointment that show was on the air, and he has
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: this track Casanova.
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: He plays over the.
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: Phone, can't send it to me on the link, plays
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: it on the phone. I'm like, that shit sound good
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: even through the telephone, you know. And he flies out
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: with his cousin and his brother and LeVert does Casanova
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: and that was the late show.
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: You know, Ll cool J.
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: That's another reason why I'm shocked that Fox didn't want
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: to do a show, because it was apparent there that
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: something was going on, that the viewing audience was fucking
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: with us, and because there are a few Llo cool.
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: J was a first rapper.
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: Llo COOLJ and Houdini first hip hop things I ever
• 36:33
  Speaker 4: did way back on the Late Show when.
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: I took over for Jones, Rivers and Ll got big numbers.
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: You know, and he did I'm Bad and Houdini did
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: the Freaks come out at Night and they did numbers.
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: But at that point, Paramount was sneaking around Fox coming
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: to my dressing room.
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: You know, you would think it was fans, but it
• 36:53
  Speaker 4: was guys that taking off their suits and put on
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: T shirts and come over to say, do this at Paramount.
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: If they don't get it, do this at Paramount because
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: they were seeing the numbers on a show where they
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: had fired the host and now they're getting these numbers.
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: You know, people watched me to see me talk to
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: Mike Tyson.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: That's right, man. There was a debate on the bag
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: Fuel podcast Lough the Bagfuel and they were happy. They
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: were saying, it's our senior hall hip hop, and I'm like,
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: not only was ar senior hall hip hop, Arsenio was
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: black culture from eighty nine to ninety four. I don't
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: even know if black culture in entertainment wise, and especially
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: hip hop could grow as much as it did without
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: the Arsenio Hall Show. What else would we have seen it?
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: To that level.
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: You know, we would have found a way, just like now.
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: The problem with a late night talk show is what
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: you all are doing in a for a cheaper budget.
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: Podcasts, radio shows.
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: It's like you can't do those giant shows anymore with
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: all that staff and a band and.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: The lights.
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: Now you put theo von in front of a fake plant,
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: you know, and it's really inexpensive to do. And so
• 38:07
  Speaker 4: that's what's happened to late night. You know, it's it's
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: hard to do it the other way.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: But I'm saying hip hop and black culture, Yeah, there
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: was no platform for that. Right from eighty nine to
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: ninety four. We ran it was our Sineo, your MTV raps,
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: and we all.
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: Grew up waking up on Saturday to watch that.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: Ralph McDaniels had the thing that was New York, Me
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: Daniels all around the country.
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: Soul trained was what I had. You know, even when
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: I saw a white person, it was so trained. I
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: remember seeing Elton John play a crylic clear piano and
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: do Benny and the Jets for Don Cornel.
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: Don wasn't crazy about hip hop, and neither was Oprah.
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: And that's a good point. That also was part of
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: the history of this. I saw a vacancy. I saw
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: a void.
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: And the best way to make money, whether you're creating
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: a product or scope and show business is to find
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: the void and fit into it.
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: You know what Lauren does? You know she saw a void.
• 39:12
  Speaker 4: You know, they need a competent black journalist to jump
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: into this infotainment Hollywood news, and she filled it, you know,
• 39:21
  Speaker 4: with with an accuracy and hard work effort that she
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: found herself.
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: A place.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: Accuracyacy.
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: Who taught you the business? You just knew so much
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: like the syndication, Like that's nothing that you can read about.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: So how did you learn and understand the business and depth.
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: Well, whether it's sitting to like I would if Don Cornelius,
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: if Don Cornelius would go to lunch with me, I
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: would take that lunch.
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: You know, I'll buy you know, he took me to
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: lunch one day.
• 39:58
  Speaker 4: I've sat with Quincy in front of a board and
• 40:01
  Speaker 4: listen to all the off the wall stuff before anybody
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: heard it. And he said, you're from Ohio, right, He said,
• 40:09
  Speaker 4: let me play this for you and put it up
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: on big reels, you know, And he played a song
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: called just Once. He said this kid is from Ohio
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: and it was James Ingram. I would sit and talk
• 40:19
  Speaker 4: to legends and try to learn everything I could, and
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: I would take jobs. We've all taken jobs just to
• 40:25
  Speaker 4: get education. We go to college and we pay to go.
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: So I would do things just to learn, like the
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: Thick of the Night job. It probably looked real corny
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: and me sitting next to Alan Thick.
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: And saying we'll be right back.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: I was that guy.
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: But I was learning syndication in Late Night and a
• 40:43
  Speaker 4: couple of the people in that show when it failed,
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: I hired them, you know. But I did everything I
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: could to learn any place I could go. Richard Pryor
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: invited me to the set of Jojo Dancer once, and
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: I wanted to be in the movie, but Richard said,
• 41:02
  Speaker 4: just stand around and learn because I'm going direct and
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: cool and go everywhere. You can do everything you can
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: because knowledge is keen.
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: Clarence Clarence Ava.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I can say a million times during this interview, but.
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: Wow, yeah, yeah. Other than Donnie Wahlburg, ain't nobody alive. Clarence.
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: He was the man. He was special.
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: And the thing about Clarence there was a stealth element
• 41:35
  Speaker 4: of his business where I wouldn't even know how something happened,
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: and later on they would say, well, Clarence got him
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: to talk to him and that's how it happened. I
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: love the way he did business. He wasn't messy and
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: he wasn't always there, but you knew it happened because
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: of him, you know, good day, good times.
• 41:57
  Speaker 5: I was going to ask, did you ever feel alone
• 41:59
  Speaker 5: in your fight? Like just story about n WA and
• 42:01
  Speaker 5: trying to push for that, and I don't know. I
• 42:04
  Speaker 5: guess with the Clarence Abot thing though you had the support,
• 42:07
  Speaker 5: but it just feels like you were always like fighting,
• 42:10
  Speaker 5: And I wonder if you ever felt like internally more support.
• 42:13
  Speaker 5: Externally you had it was divided, but internally who was there?
• 42:18
  Speaker 5: And did you feel lonely?
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: And you know it was hard, even the situation where
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: the queer nation came after me. First of all, you
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: fight hard when you know you're right.
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And the bottom line is to say I don't
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: I'm homophobic and I don't put on enough gay guess
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: that's bullshit. And we're at a time when everybody ain't
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: gonna tell you that gay. Ellen would come on.
• 42:41
  Speaker 4: And do jokes and Rosie would come on and do jokes,
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: but they weren't gonna talk about their dates with women.
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: They would probably make their dating bit about a man.
• 42:52
  Speaker 4: Everybody on my staff was gay except me. That's an exaggeration,
• 42:57
  Speaker 4: but but the bottom line is it was a time
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: when you just didn't know who was gay and they
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: were in a trap of you know, there were people
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: who were gay and they knew if I say I'm
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: gay and women, no, I'm not singing to them, it
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: could ruin my career.
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: Thank god times have changed and people can be themselves
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: and still survive. But yeah, there were some very lonely times.
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: And when you when you have this battle with the
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: queer nation and no one defends you and say, oh
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: no that's wrong about him, you know, you feel alone
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: or the nw A situation. I had to wait, and
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: that's a patience was the lesson there because at first
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: they fought me, you can't do NWA and I was
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: mad because eventually the group broke up and I had
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: to do Dre and ice Cube and Easy separately. And
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: that's what God meant for it to be, I guess,
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: but initially I wanted to do n w A and
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: Paramount I wasn't big enough, successful enough yet to say
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: I'm doing it, you know, and later I was. But
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: what you have to go through is you're fighting for
• 44:14
  Speaker 4: n w A and then you hear a track where
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: ice Cube is rhyming your name with the word bi
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: centennial and dogging you, and you're like, fuck does brother, No,
• 44:25
  Speaker 4: I'm in here fighting for him. But sometimes because I
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: couldn't get them on the show, then oh yeah, yeah,
• 44:31
  Speaker 4: because he wanted me to get them on to do
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: fuck the Police, and I wanted to get them on,
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: but Paramount didn't wasn't ready yet, you know, and and
• 44:43
  Speaker 4: and down the road, I got to call more shots.
• 44:47
  Speaker 4: And in life, that's the way it is. The more
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: successful you get, then you get to take some chances
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: and do what you want to do. But initially you
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: gotta do what Paramount says, do call between a rock
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: and a hard places off.
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: I was gonna ask chance, did you try it?
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: I didn't work.
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: Chances. I took that that didn't work well. Paramount was right.
• 45:13
  Speaker 4: About what they were saying. If you want to maybe
• 45:18
  Speaker 4: be in the position to be considered the king when
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: Johnny leaves, do this show. So when Johnny Leaves. People know,
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: you know, the show I was doing. I could have
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: been a lot more successful and made a lot more
• 45:33
  Speaker 4: money if I was a little more commercial and if
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: I listened.
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: A little more. But I was hard hitded and I
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: had a love for hip hop and black music. And
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: my thing was, I've said this many times.
• 45:48
  Speaker 4: I did the show I loved, and I knew that
• 45:51
  Speaker 4: I needed to do more Steve and Edie, you know,
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: but I wanted to get Q tip sitting in with
• 45:58
  Speaker 4: the posse. And the bottom line is, I wouldn't change
• 46:02
  Speaker 4: a thing. I loved being in that position and being
• 46:06
  Speaker 4: that guy. And unfortunately they were right. If I wanted
• 46:12
  Speaker 4: bigger numbers. You know, you can get a huge number
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: if you do share. But I wanted Tony Braxton.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: But the problem with that is there's no reward for that.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: Ain't no reward for being real, right like, So you
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: do all of that, but then when the rent do
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: you know, with everybody that loves you, when they see
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: you and experience, boy, you'd be keeping it really kept
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: the real LATTINEO.
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you just That's why when you look in the
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: mirror and you're happy and satisfied with who you are.
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: That has to be your that has to be your
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: barometer of success, failure and happiness. I was loving what
• 46:50
  Speaker 4: I was doing. Two Bobby Brown numbers that night made
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: me happy.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: That's a jewel, old man. And that's the thing. Like
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: even with you and Eddie, right, I always felt like
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: y'all never let fame confuse your sense of self worth,
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Like in regardless of how
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: famous y'all were, y'all, y'all didn't run into the cameras.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: You know, y'all, y'all, y'all coming in out the spotlight
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: when y'all want to, And it feels like y'all know
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: exactly who y'all are, regardless of if all of this
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: goes away tomorrow.
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I think sometimes if you have that,
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: you have to thank God and thank your parents because
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: that's usually based on your foundation and how you're raised,
• 47:33
  Speaker 4: how you're taught, and maybe, like I talked about seeing
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: certain heroes when you're young and how they carry themselves.
• 47:42
  Speaker 4: You know, before we had the term cancel culture, we
• 47:46
  Speaker 4: all remember Sammy Davis Junior hugging Richard Nixon, right, and
• 47:51
  Speaker 4: you're like, oh, okay, so you learn about pr marketing
• 47:57
  Speaker 4: and positioning and things like that. I was a student
• 48:00
  Speaker 4: of show business. You know, if you want to play basketball,
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: you're watching somebody crossover in the science of putting your
• 48:08
  Speaker 4: weight here and shifting it back this way. And you know,
• 48:12
  Speaker 4: if you're Chris Mullen, you go to the ghetto and
• 48:15
  Speaker 4: play basketball where the best star. All my life, I've
• 48:18
  Speaker 4: wanted this, and I've watched the people who were successful
• 48:21
  Speaker 4: at it and studied it so that one day I
• 48:25
  Speaker 4: could apply all those things.
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: I knew who I was.
• 48:27
  Speaker 4: I would go see Al Green because my mother loved
• 48:30
  Speaker 4: Al Green, and I would take her. But I was
• 48:33
  Speaker 4: there early when the house lights were still on and
• 48:36
  Speaker 4: everybody was filing in and there was a stand up
• 48:38
  Speaker 4: comic on the stage. Because I knew who I was,
• 48:42
  Speaker 4: and I was a magician as a kid, so I
• 48:45
  Speaker 4: had birds and doves. And when I go to a
• 48:48
  Speaker 4: bar mitzvah or birthday party to make money, I had
• 48:50
  Speaker 4: all this shit. My mother would have to rent a
• 48:52
  Speaker 4: station wagon to take me. I was a musician. I
• 48:55
  Speaker 4: was a drummer, so I had tom toms and cymbals.
• 48:59
  Speaker 4: That night, I watched Al Green and the stand up
• 49:02
  Speaker 4: open for him. The dude just walked out with a
• 49:04
  Speaker 4: juice little glass. He put it on the stool and
• 49:08
  Speaker 4: everything was from the neck up.
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: And I'm like, that's what I want to do.
• 49:13
  Speaker 4: And be careful what you say in your life, what
• 49:17
  Speaker 4: you manifest verbally, because my house burned down and I
• 49:21
  Speaker 4: lost the boxes, the doves, the symbols, the drums, and
• 49:24
  Speaker 4: then it was like I graduated and I'm like, I'm
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: gonna be a stand up because.
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: I have nothing else.
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: And by the way, in my junior year, I'm playing
• 49:33
  Speaker 4: ball every day after classes with Steve Harvey. So we're dreaming,
• 49:38
  Speaker 4: we're talking about it. And then Steve left Kent in
• 49:43
  Speaker 4: his junior year and we didn't have cell phones.
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: So I'm like, if you don't get Steve mama's number,
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: wh's Steve?
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 49:49
  Speaker 4: And he didn't come back, you know. But in our
• 49:52
  Speaker 4: junior year we did a lot of dreaming. We went
• 49:54
  Speaker 4: to see Franklin JII perform. We went to see Dick
• 49:57
  Speaker 4: Gregory perform. And that's my biggest message, dream because you
• 50:03
  Speaker 4: can manifest a dream into reality.
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: I know this. It's not a coincidence. It's not just me.
• 50:11
  Speaker 4: I was on the campus of Kent State with Steve Harvey.
• 50:13
  Speaker 4: We were dreaming and right now Steve is fine on Time.
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: Was there a moment where fame ever did confuse your
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: sense of self worth?
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: Like, how do you mean that?
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: Like when you was at your like the height of everything,
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: then you're all cultural everywhere, Like in just the cover
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: of Time magazine that did you walk into Paramont say
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: I need ten million dollars a season.
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: The bottom line is envy and I have to keep
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: reprising his thought about that light. Dude.
• 50:49
  Speaker 4: I was just always maybe God, maybe I have low
• 50:53
  Speaker 4: self esteem as a black man, but I was glad
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: to be in the game.
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: I was glad to have an opportunity. I felt blessed
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: every day.
• 51:00
  Speaker 4: I prayed before that screen flew every night because I
• 51:03
  Speaker 4: thanked God every night before when.
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: That motherfucker was holding the old ursineo and you.
• 51:09
  Speaker 4: See the silhouette behind that screen, that screen flew right
• 51:12
  Speaker 4: before you saw that silhouette light go on. I was
• 51:15
  Speaker 4: praying and thanking God for all these moments, for these
• 51:19
  Speaker 4: things because I'm a kid from Cleveland. The closest I
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: got to fame was my uncle used to run numbers
• 51:25
  Speaker 4: with Don King. That's the first time I saw Rose
• 51:27
  Speaker 4: Royce Don King was in town with Ali, and you know,
• 51:34
  Speaker 4: I was a dreamer and now I was living my dream.
• 51:37
  Speaker 4: So I was always grateful, and it sometimes can keep
• 51:40
  Speaker 4: you from becoming arrogant.
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: You know. Gratitude turns what we have into enough. So
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: that's what you had. You had extreme gratitude, so what
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: you had was enough.
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, when I got to Hollywood, man, I used to
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: I used to go to the supermarket.
• 51:56
  Speaker 4: And there's days when I would walk around the supermarket
• 51:58
  Speaker 4: and pretend to shop, putting stuff in my car. But
• 52:01
  Speaker 4: the stuff in the little baby part of the cart,
• 52:03
  Speaker 4: the little baby seat, I had stuff in there.
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: That stuff was what I was eating, you know.
• 52:09
  Speaker 4: So I was eating in the supermarket and pushing it around,
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: and when I got full, left the cart and run
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: out the store, or walk fast out the store. I
• 52:18
  Speaker 4: would go there on the I knew a day when
• 52:20
  Speaker 4: the Jimmy Dean's lady would cook sausages in a little
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: electric fryar and she put toothpicks in them on the plate.
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: I would go in there and talk to her and
• 52:30
  Speaker 4: eat ten sausages and make her laugh. And that was breakfast,
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: you know. So when things took off for me. I
• 52:39
  Speaker 4: was just grateful to have a meal.
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: What about that in your show?
• 52:45
  Speaker 6: In your show, right, has there ever been anybody that
• 52:48
  Speaker 6: would talk shit about you but then one come on
• 52:51
  Speaker 6: your show and you let it happen.
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: Once, yeah, at one time, but for the most part,
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: you know what, Oh, I forgot her name.
• 53:07
  Speaker 4: But it was somebody who you know now that I
• 53:13
  Speaker 4: think maybe there are jokes that weren't too much, but.
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: I forgot it. But she was a comic, another comedian. Yeah,
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: it was. It was a young comic and I was like, no,
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: not now, keep that same energy when you was calling
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: me the F word on stage, you know. But yeah, yeah,
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: which is rough on a black man, because you know,
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: you know that whole history.
• 53:45
  Speaker 4: I was one of those guys that would put the
• 53:47
  Speaker 4: business before my personal feelings.
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: I've had Spike Lee call me and uncle tom mm hmm.
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: But when it's time for Spike Lee to promote his ship,
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: I'm like, dude, I'm here, come on. You know.
• 54:02
  Speaker 4: As a matter of fact, Spike was mad at me
• 54:04
  Speaker 4: because I probably didn't give him the date. I think
• 54:06
  Speaker 4: he wanted a certain date and it sweeps and all
• 54:10
  Speaker 4: that date's taken That Friday night date, and he got
• 54:12
  Speaker 4: mad at me and you know, call me and Uncle Tom,
• 54:15
  Speaker 4: and it's like you would think that we would never speak.
• 54:18
  Speaker 4: But I walked up to him at a Laker game,
• 54:22
  Speaker 4: a Laker Knicks game, grabbed him, dude, come on.
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: Through some time next price.
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: I never understood that though, Like how could Spike Lee
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: called call Arsenio Hall on Uncle Tom, like like like
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: you was doing do the right thing every night? Way
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: he was fighting for black.
• 54:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, and you know he was, like I said,
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: he people, you make mistakes, you say stuff a lot
• 54:41
  Speaker 4: of times.
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: By the fact when I hugged him, we talked and
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: it was over.
• 54:48
  Speaker 4: You realize in the moment he said that because he
• 54:50
  Speaker 4: didn't get the date, he wanted to promote you know whatever,
• 54:55
  Speaker 4: the Muncle.
• 54:55
  Speaker 5: Tom is wrong, especially when you already had people that
• 54:59
  Speaker 5: were feeling like that about you. So for him to
• 55:01
  Speaker 5: echo it, it made it, you know, bigger.
• 55:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's probably why he went for that Achilles
• 55:07
  Speaker 4: heel or that spot you know in the world. But
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: I think sometimes to hold a grudge, you have to
• 55:14
  Speaker 4: keep that ugly thing with you.
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: Sometimes it's it's easier for you to let it. Gold guys.
• 55:22
  Speaker 5: Okay, wait, I was trying. I've been trying to get
• 55:24
  Speaker 5: this in. You got really personal just about like a
• 55:26
  Speaker 5: dating life as well too. In this book, you talk
• 55:29
  Speaker 5: about Pamela Anderson and Paula Abdul and what.
• 55:32
  Speaker 4: By the way, one of the reasons I wanted to
• 55:34
  Speaker 4: tell the Pamela Anderson story is because I don't know
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: if it's.
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: Changed, but the older comics that was that was the
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: kind of advice.
• 55:42
  Speaker 4: It's like, Yo, Johnny Witherspoon in this book, he stayed
• 55:46
  Speaker 4: away from white women, you know, and you're a young
• 55:48
  Speaker 4: kind You're like, okay, you know, because there were no
• 55:51
  Speaker 4: white women in my neighborhood and I didn't know why.
• 55:55
  Speaker 4: And of course the night I walked into the comedy
• 55:57
  Speaker 4: store with Pamela Anderson, Johnny Witherspoon looked at me and
• 56:00
  Speaker 4: did that tungular thing that you what I tell you,
• 56:05
  Speaker 4: you know, And just I wanted to take people through
• 56:09
  Speaker 4: that growth process of what the ogs told you and you're.
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: Talking about like.
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: That.
• 56:18
  Speaker 4: And had an argument because Tupac in an article said,
• 56:22
  Speaker 4: uh something about Quincy and our Sineo and some of
• 56:25
  Speaker 4: these brothers and these white women you see with white
• 56:27
  Speaker 4: you know, it's like back then that was a no
• 56:31
  Speaker 4: no to the older brothers who were talking to you,
• 56:34
  Speaker 4: and and they were trying to tell you, that's a
• 56:36
  Speaker 4: problem you know that you know, And and it was
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: some people in your demo will not like you if
• 56:43
  Speaker 4: they see you in Jet magazine with a playmate, you know,
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: So he was trying to protect me.
• 56:51
  Speaker 5: Was she the first white celebrity that you had dated
• 56:54
  Speaker 5: or that just the one that we know about now.
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: Before her? I and I think I talk about this
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: in the book.
• 57:00
  Speaker 4: I was at an ABC function and met Emma Sam's
• 57:05
  Speaker 4: who was about they were about to replace Luke and
• 57:08
  Speaker 4: Laura on the soap opera with Luke and Holly. And
• 57:12
  Speaker 4: I met her the day she got the role and
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: we went out for a minute.
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: And was that why it ended?
• 57:16
  Speaker 5: Because you in the book, but also just whenever you
• 57:19
  Speaker 5: have mentioned it, you always make it like it just
• 57:21
  Speaker 5: was like a quick thing. But what did it end
• 57:23
  Speaker 5: because you were like, all right, I can't do this
• 57:24
  Speaker 5: like career, Why is it not gonna.
• 57:26
  Speaker 4: Well, everything ended back then because I was young and
• 57:32
  Speaker 4: I was busy the woman in your life at that
• 57:37
  Speaker 4: time in your career. I don't know if it's like
• 57:38
  Speaker 4: this for everybody. But she's always going to be on
• 57:40
  Speaker 4: the be the chick on the side. You know, show
• 57:43
  Speaker 4: business has to be your woman, or you have to
• 57:47
  Speaker 4: be a man who's probably not doing the right thing
• 57:50
  Speaker 4: in your relationship because you I was on the road.
• 57:53
  Speaker 4: That's all that was important to me, So relationships weren't
• 57:56
  Speaker 4: gonna work.
• 57:59
  Speaker 3: Thank God. Actually, thank god.
• 58:02
  Speaker 4: My life worked out the way it did because my woman,
• 58:05
  Speaker 4: who I've been with for twenty years, I can't imagine
• 58:09
  Speaker 4: my life without her. That's the only thing that's important
• 58:16
  Speaker 4: to me. She's my best friend. The only reason I
• 58:19
  Speaker 4: want to get on a plane and go home is.
• 58:21
  Speaker 3: Because she's there, you know.
• 58:23
  Speaker 4: And to eventually become famous, get your paper, and find
• 58:29
  Speaker 4: a successful relationship of that nature. You're like, God knew
• 58:35
  Speaker 4: what he was doing, because you know, I could have
• 58:37
  Speaker 4: had somebody pregnant or been married, you know, when I
• 58:42
  Speaker 4: was a guest on MERV Griffin. You know that, and
• 58:46
  Speaker 4: I never would have been in the situation I'm in
• 58:48
  Speaker 4: now and I have an incredible woman in my life.
• 58:52
  Speaker 5: Now, I was just gonna say, you've always protected that.
• 58:54
  Speaker 5: Oh yeah, so, but and now you're talking more about it.
• 58:57
  Speaker 5: Is it just because of the book, or are you
• 58:59
  Speaker 5: at a place where you just want people to see
• 59:00
  Speaker 5: that love that you're asked.
• 59:02
  Speaker 4: Well, when Charlemagne and I talked, I knew that was
• 59:05
  Speaker 4: That's why I wanted to think think about it, you know,
• 59:07
  Speaker 4: because I've always been a very private person. I'm a
• 59:11
  Speaker 4: loner and I'm very private because i know the more
• 59:14
  Speaker 4: you give people, the more they have to hurt you with.
• 59:17
  Speaker 4: So I'm very private about my life and I knew
• 59:20
  Speaker 4: this book would make me talk about.
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: You know, I also protect the one I love. I don't.
• 59:29
  Speaker 4: I don't put my woman out there because you put
• 59:30
  Speaker 4: your woman out there, you put your child out there.
• 59:32
  Speaker 3: I remember as far.
• 59:34
  Speaker 4: Back as Kathy Lee Gifford and she put Cody out there,
• 59:39
  Speaker 4: and we do jokes about Cody.
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: We talk about Cody and everything that's ever gone on
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: in my life. I've learned something from it.
• 59:47
  Speaker 4: So I get to this point where I'm famous, and
• 59:49
  Speaker 4: I'm like, I'm not gonna give them the stuff they
• 59:51
  Speaker 4: can hurt me with.
• 59:51
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna give them show business. That's all I'm giving them.
• 59:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and if that because a lot of times there
• 59:57
  Speaker 4: are people famous for their personal life. We know people
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 4: we don't we don't know what their art is or
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 4: we don't. We haven't seen heard a record, but we're
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 4: talking about their girlfriend or their boyfriend. And uh, I've
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 4: always said, if show business ain't enough, if my performance
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 4: ain't enough, fuck y'all.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: I'm not giving y'all the personal stuff.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: I got two quick questions, where you go there? Writing
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: this book force you to confront any lies you might
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: have been telling yourself.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: Hmm, any lies that I might have been telling myself. No, because.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 4: Part of who I am is is dealing with dealing
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 4: with the fact that, you know, my ass is big,
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 4: my fingers along, and I'm from Cleveland. You know, I've
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 4: heard people call my hometown the mistake on the Lake.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 3: So yeah, So the bottom line is, I'm pretty real.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 4: I know it's it's weird, but it can help you
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 4: to look in the mirror and tell yourself the truth.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: First and last, what do you want people to unlearn
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: about you after reading this?
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: You know what.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 4: I'm not trying to educate or teach people anything. I
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 4: see the book as another form of entertainment. It's a
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 4: story that can motivate you. It's about a kid who
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 4: dreamed you can manifest success. I think, and like I
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 4: told you about Robin think. I think we know inside
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 4: if we look at our kids and we listen to them,
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 4: there's a dream in there and we can help them
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 4: make that dream come true.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 4: I remember one of my last images of Kobe Bryant
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 4: was him taking Gigi to a Connecticut game or something.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 4: I watched him seeing what she loved, seeing what she did,
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 4: and trying to nurture that and.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: Help with that. And that's what we always want to
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 3: do with our kids. And so I don't know.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 4: This book is just another project for me and and uh,
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 4: it's entertainment, you know in a sense, and sharing my
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 4: story and hopefully somebody will say, I'm not going to
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 4: give up, because the day you give up your blessing
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 4: might be tomorrow.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: It's definitely the real story of our senior Hall. It's
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: not just about it, you know, a guy with a
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: late night show man. Go get our Senio a memoir
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: available everywhere you buy books now, and just salute to you,
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: my brother.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 4: I don't even know how you got my number. We
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 4: had just come out of the pandemic and I didn't
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 4: know what you stand up. You go to clubs and
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 4: people were wearing masks and we were in the parking
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 4: lot of the venues performing and it was a depressing time.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 4: And I think you and I have the same lawyer.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 4: Maybe yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, I think so.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: I don't remember. I remember I was trying to get
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: you to do the podcast.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, yeah, so I was thinking that's how you
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 3: got my number.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: But probably I don't remember.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 3: Maybe on a bathroom wall somewhere, but I think.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: We exchanged numbers when I did your show, when you
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: when you brought the show back.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 3: Oh yes, yep, oh yeah, yeah. I forgot about the reboot.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 4: Yes, but thank you for the call because you gave
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 4: me something to do for a couple of years. Man,
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 4: it was a lot of fun, and I think I
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 4: did it well.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you did.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 3: No.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: This is one of the best entertainment memoirs I've ever
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: read in my life. That it said with no bias,
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: not just biased for publishing it, not biased because I
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: look at you as an inspiration. But this is actually
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: one of the best entertainment memoirs I ever read in
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: my life.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: You could I just add one more thing.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 4: When you talk about dreaming and teaching and what the
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 4: book does and all that kind of stuff. What you
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 4: just said is important. A black man saying to me
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 4: on the phone, I want to do this because I
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 4: want more black office. I want more books in the
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 4: hands of Nubian people. Of what you did calling me
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 4: was so important and to do it with you, because
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 4: that's what I told Nina, and that's what I told
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 4: my publicist. I gotta do it because he's trying to
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 4: do something and I believe in what he's trying to do.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 4: And I knew your history and your parents being educators,
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 4: and it was so it's so important for us. Sometimes
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 4: we don't work together, we will. We will work with
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 4: anybody but our own I don't know why. And then
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 4: you know, and there's a lot of that in us,
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 4: even when we don't say it. But I foxed with
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 4: this nigga and got a book.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: And you'll freed me a long time ago because I
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: you know, I used to want to do late night
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: television because of ur senior house. You know, you do
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: radio and you get a talk show and you think, like,
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: I gotta make it at the late night hosts. Got
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: to make it into the late night host And when
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: you was on press for coming to America too, somebody
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: asked you. They said, you know, who do you think
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: is like the closest to you in this generation? And
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: you said, I would say somebody like Charlamagne, but he
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: does radio and you watch it on YouTube, and you
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: know that's like where people go to get I guess
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: that's so called late night fixed. I remember you said that.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 3: I was like, yo, hey, that song. Everything must change.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 4: The business is that way too, that late night format
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 4: that Johnny created. He was the king, but for budget
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 4: reasons and for the advancement of technology. This shit has
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 4: to change. And what you're doing now when Tupac would
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 4: call me on the landline and say, I need to
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 4: come on the show Man because they trying to make
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 4: me take an age test before I do poetic justice.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 4: And I ain't gonna really fuck Janet, right, okay, So
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 4: why should I have to take an age test? And
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 4: back then, we didn't have the word twitter, we didn't
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 4: have that. It wasn't a bluebird, it was a blackbird.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 4: I was the guy you called and came in, talked
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 4: about your problems of the business, of what you were
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 4: going through, iced Tea coming on and explaining cop killer,
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 4: explaining you know, I'm not really killing cops, Arnold Schwarzen,
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 4: theyg ain't really determinator. This is a piece of art
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 4: trying to give a message. And so what I was
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 4: doing when I watch you, when I listen to you,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 4: I'm like, he's doing it. And the medium has come
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 4: to a different place. You know, there's no curtain, there's
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 4: no a mcman, there's no Doc Severnson. But what Charlamagne
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 4: is doing is what I did for this time, for
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 4: this culture. And look how it's evolved.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I mean it got the two ladies
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 3: now and of course envy.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: It was just free for me because it just teaches
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: you you don't always have to be chasing something. And
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: it goes back to gratitude. Gratitude turns what we have
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: into enough.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: Hello there you having sitio hall, ladies and gentlemen, thank
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: you so much for joining us. The memoir is out
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: right now and make sure you pick it up.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 3: And we appreciate you.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: O G so much.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 3: Thank you man, I appreciate y'all.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 4: Glad to finally meet the other three of the foursome
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 4: in person thing and the Porto Rican do.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 3: With the Boss Breakfast club is all Citior Halls.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: Hold up every day a week ago.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 3: Pake your glass up the breakfast club.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: You're finish. Y'all done,